Truly Madly Yours

Chapter Eight

Monday morning Delaney thought about advertising for a manicurist in the small daily newspaper, but she resisted the idea because the salon would be open for only seven months. She’d stayed awake last night thinking of ways to make a success out of the business, even though she would have it for only a short time. She wanted to feel proud of herself. She was going to end her secret hair war with Helen and stay as far away from Nick as humanly possible.

After Delaney opened the salon, she grabbed a poster of Claudia Schiffer, her perfect body squeezed into a lace Valentino, her golden hair curled and blowing artfully about her beautiful face. There was nothing like a glamorous poster to draw attention.

Delaney kicked off her shoes with the huge buckles and climbed up on the window bay. She’d just stuck the poster on the plate glass when the bell over the door rang. She glanced to her left and set the tape on the ledge. One of the Howell twins stood just inside the entrance gazing about the salon, her light brown hair held back from her pretty face by a wide red headband.

“Can I help you?” Delaney asked as she carefully climbed out of the window, wondering if this was the twin who had jumped on the back of Nick’s Harley last Saturday night. If she was, the woman had bigger problems than split ends.

Her blue eyes raked Delaney from head to toe, scrutinizing her green and black striped tights, green lederhosen, and black turtleneck. “Do you take walk-ins?” she asked.

Delaney was desperate for clients, desperate for anyone who didn’t qualify for a senior citizen discount, but she really didn’t care for the woman’s close examination, as if she were looking for faults. Delaney didn’t care if she lost this potential customer, and so she said, “Yes, but I charge twenty-five dollars.”

“Are you good?”

“I’m the best you’ll find around here.” Delaney shoved her feet into her shoes, a little surprised that the woman wasn’t already out the door, running down the street toward a ten-dollar haircut.

“That isn’t saying much. Helen sucks.”

Perhaps she’d rushed to judgment. “Well, I don’t suck,” she said simply. “In fact, I’m very good.”

The woman reached for the headband and pulled it from her hair. “I want the bottom trimmed and layered up to here,” she said, indicating her jaw-line. “No bangs.”

Delaney cocked her head to the side. The woman standing before her had a great jawline and nice high cheekbones. Her forehead was in proportion to the rest of her face. The cut she wanted would look good on her, but with her big blue eyes, Delaney knew something short and boyish would look stunning. “Come on back.”

“We met briefly at a party on the Fourth of July,” the twin said as she followed Delaney. “I’m Lanna Howell.”

Delaney stopped in front of a shampoo chair. “Yes, I recognized you.” Lanna sat and Delaney draped the woman’s shoulders in a silver shampoo cape and white fluffy towel. “You have a twin sister, right?” she asked, when what she really wanted to know was if this was the sister who’d glued herself to Nick the other night.

“Yeah, Lonna.”

“That’s right,” she said as she analyzed her client’s hair between her fingers and thumb. Then she adjusted the cape over the rear of the chair and carefully eased Lanna back until her neck rested comfortably in the dip of the shampoo sink. “What did you use to lighten your hair?” She grabbed the spray nozzle, then tested the water temperature with her hand.

“Sun-In and lemon juice.”

Delaney mentally rolled her eyes at the logic of some women who spent big bucks at the cosmetics counter, then went home and dumped a five-dollar bottle of peroxide on their heads.

With one hand she protected Lanna’s face, neck, and ears from the spray while the other saturated the hair with warm water. She used a mild shampoo and natural conditioner, and as she worked, the two women chatted idly about the weather and the beautiful colors of autumn. When she was finished, she wrapped Lanna’s head in a towel and led her to the salon chair.

“My sister said she saw you the other night in Hennesey’s,” Lanna stated as Delaney blotted the water from her hair.

Delaney glanced in the big wall mirror, studying Lanna’s reflection. So, she thought as grabbed her comb, it was the other twin who had been with Nick. “Yeah, I was there. They had a pretty good R &B band up from Boise.”

“That’s what I heard. I work in the restaurant at the microbrewery, so I couldn’t make it.”

As Delaney combed out the tangles and secured the hair into five sections with duckbill clamps, she purposely moved the subject away from Hennesey’s. She asked Lanna about her job, and the conversation turned to the big ice sculpture festival the town held every December. According to Lanna, the festival had turned into quite an event.

As a child, Delaney and been shy and introverted, but after years of attempting to put her clients at ease, she could shoot the bull with anyone about anything. She could moon over Brad Pitt as easily as she could commiserate over cramps. Stylists were a lot like bartenders and priests. Some people just seemed compelled to spill their guts and confess shocking details of their lives. Styling chair confessions were just one of the many things she missed about her life before she’d accepted the terms of Henry’s will. She also missed the competition and camaraderie between stylists and the juicy gossip that made Delaney’s life look tame in comparison.

“How well do you know Nick Allegrezza?”

Delaney’s hand stilled, and then she blunt cut a section of hair at the center of Lanna’s nape. “We grew up here in Truly at the same time.”

“But did you know him very well?”

She glanced into the mirror again, then back down at her hands, snipping a guideline from left to right. “I don’t think anyone really knows Nick. Why?”

“My friend Gail thinks she’s in love with him.”

“Then she has my sympathy.”

Lanna laughed. “You don’t care?”

“Of course not.” Even if she thought Nick was capable of loving any woman, he wasn’t her concern. “Why should I care?” she asked and removed the clip at the back of Lanna’s head and clamped it on the bib of her lederhosen.

“Gail told me all about Nick and you and what happened when you lived here.”

Delaney wasn’t all that surprised as she combed out tangles and cut the new section. “Which story did you hear?”

“The one where you had to leave town years ago to have Nick’s baby.”

Delaney felt as if she’d been hit in the stomach and her hands stilled again. She shouldn’t have asked. There had been several rumors churning the gossip mill of Truly when she’d left, but she’d never heard that one. Her mother had never mentioned it, but then she wouldn’t. Gwen didn’t like to talk about the real reason Delaney had left Truly. Her mother always referred to that time as “when you went away to school.” Delaney didn’t know why such old news should bother her now, but it did. “Really? That’s news to me,” she said, ducking her head and sliding strands of Lanna’s hair between her fingers. She laid the open scissor across her knuckle and cut a straight line. She couldn’t believe the town had thought she was pregnant. Well, actually, she guessed she could. She wondered if Lisa knew of the rumor-or Nick.

“I’m sorry.” Lanna broke into her thoughts. “I thought you knew about it. I guess I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth.”

Delaney glanced up. Lanna looked sincere, but Delaney didn’t know the woman so she wasn’t real sure. “It’s just a little shocking to hear I’ve had a baby when I’ve never been pregnant.” She let down another section and combed it free of tangles. “Especially with Nick. We don’t even like each other.”

“That will relieve Gail’s mind. Lonna’s too. The two of them are kind of competing for the same man.”

“I thought they were friends.”

“They are. If you go out with Nick, he lets you know right up front it’s not marriage he’s interested in. Lonna doesn’t really mind, but Gail’s trying to get in the house.”

“Get in the house? What do you mean?”

“Lonna says Nick never takes women to his house for sex. They go to motels or wherever. Gail thinks if she can get him to make love to her in his house, than she’ll get him to do other things too. Like buy her a big diamond and walk down the aisle.”

“Nick must have a huge motel bill.”

“Probably.” Lanna laughed.

“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Me? Maybe if I were the one going out with him, but I’m not. Me and my sister never date the same men.”

Delaney felt relieved, and she really didn’t know why she should care if Nick had kinky group sex with a pair of beautiful twins. “Well, doesn’t it bother your sister?”

“Not really. She’s not looking for a husband. Not like Gail. Gail thinks she’ll change his mind, but she won’t. When Lonna saw you and Nick dancing the other night, she wondered if you were another of his women.”

Delaney turned the chair and let down the last section. “Did you really come here to get your hair cut, or are you here to get information for your sister?”

“Both,” Lanna laughed. “But I liked your hair the first time I saw it.”

“Thank you. Have you ever thought of getting yours cut short?” she asked, again purposely changing the subject from Nick. “Really short, like Halle Berry in The Flintstones?”

“I don’t think I’d look good in short hair.”

“Believe me, you’d look awesome. You’ve got big eyes and the perfect shaped head. Mine’s kind of narrow so I need lots of volume.”

“I’d have to think about it for a really long time.”

Delaney put down her scissors and reached for a can of mousse. She wrapped the ends of Lanna’s hair around a large round brush and blew it dry. When she was finished, she handed her an oval mirror. “What do you think?” she asked, knowing full well that it looked damn good.

“I think,” Lanna answered slowly as she studied the back of her hair, “that I don’t need to drive the hundred and fifty miles to Boise just to get my hair cut anymore.”

After Lanna left, Delaney swept up the hair and rinsed the shampoo sink. She thought about the old rumor that had her leaving town ten years ago because she carried Nick’s child. She wondered what other gossip had circulated when she’d left town and been stuck in a dormitory at the University of Idaho. Maybe she would ask her mother tonight when she drove out there for dinner.

But she didn’t get the chance to ask. Max Harrison answered the door with a highball in his hand and a welcoming smile on his face.

“Gwen is in the kitchen doing something to the lamb,” he said as he shut the door behind her. “I hope you don’t mind that your mother invited me tonight.”

“Of course not.” The wonderful smells of her mother’s cooking filled Delaney’s head and made her mouth water. No one cooked a leg of lamb like Gwen, and the scents from the kitchen wrapped Delaney in warm memories of special occasions at the Shaw house, like Easters or her birthday when she’d been allowed to choose her favorite meal.

“How’s that salon of yours working out?” Max asked as he helped her out of her long wool coat, then hung it on the hall tree.

“Okay.” Lately, it seemed that Gwen was spending quite a bit of time with Max, and Delaney wondered what was going on between her mother and Henry’s estate lawyer. She just couldn’t picture her mother as any man’s lover. She was too uptight, and Delaney figured it couldn’t be anything but friendship. “You should come in and let me cut your hair.”

His quiet laughter made Delaney smile. “I just might do that,” he said as they walked toward the back of the house.

When they entered the kitchen, Gwen looked up from the bag of baby carrots she held in her hand. An almost imperceptible frown narrowed Gwen’s eyes a fraction, and Delaney knew something was wrong.

Shit! Someone was in trouble, and she doubted it was Max. “What’s the special occasion?”

“No special occasion. I wanted to make you your favorite.” Gwen looked at Max and told him, “Every birthday, Laney always requested my lamb. Other children would have wanted pizza or burgers, but not her.”

Maybe she wasn’t in trouble, but she pushed up a cheerful smile just in case. “How can I help you?”

“You can get the salad out of the refrigerator and dress it, please.”

Delaney did as she was asked, then carried the bowls into the dining room. The table was set with beautiful roses, beeswax candles, Royal Doulton, and fine damask. It looked like a special occasion to her. Which could mean two completely different things. That she should worry, or that she was worrying about nothing. Either her mother simply wanted to enjoy a nice meal, or she was covering for a crack in the facade.

Delaney knew within moments of sitting down that the latter was the case. There was something wrong with the perfect picture. The conversation during dinner was pleasant on the surface, but a current of tension hid just beneath. Max didn’t seem to notice, but Delaney felt it at the base of her skull. She felt it during the first course and while she ate her mother’s lamb with mint. She smiled and laughed and entertained Max with stories of all the places she’d lived. She knew how to keep up a good front, but by the time she helped carry the dinner plates to the kitchen, her headache had moved to her eyebrows. Maybe with Max there, she could make a quick escape before her head exploded. “Well,” she said as she set the plates next to the sink, “I hate to eat and run, but-”

“Max,” Gwen interrupted, “could you leave us girls alone for a few moments?”

Damn.

“Sure, I’ll go examine those contracts you wanted me to take a look at.”

“Thank you. I won’t be long.”

Gwen waited until she heard the doors of Henry’s office slide closed before she said, “I need to talk to you about your scandalous behavior.”

“What scandalous behavior?”

“Trudie Duran called me this afternoon to inform me that you and Tommy Markham were getting drunk together while his wife was out of town. According to Trudie, everyone at the Shop-n-Kart was talking about it.”

“Who’s Trudie Duran?” Delaney asked, her skull tightening.

“That doesn’t matter! Is it true?”

She folded her arms across her breasts and frowned. “No. I ran into Tommy at Hennesey’s the other night, and we talked for a little bit. Lisa was there most of the time.”

“Well, I’m relieved.” Gwen grabbed a roll of tinfoil and ripped off a long piece. “And then, if that weren’t bad enough, she told me her daughter Gina saw you kissing Nick Allegrezza out on the dance floor.” She calmly set the roll of foil on the counter. “I told her she must be mistaken, because I’m sure you would never do anything so stupid. Tell me she was mistaken.”

“Okay, she was mistaken.”

“Is that the truth?”

Delaney thought about her answer but knew sooner or later the lie would catch up to her. Besides, she wasn’t a little girl who had to fear punishment, and she wasn’t going to allow her mother to treat her like a kid. “No.”

“What where you thinking? My God, that boy and his whole entire family have meant nothing but trouble for us since the moment we arrived in this town. They are rude and jealous. Especially toward you, although Benita has certainly shown me her ugly side on more than one occasion. Have you forgotten what happened ten years ago? Have you forgotten what Nick did? What pain and humiliation he caused all of us?”

“It wasn’t all of us. It was me, and no, I haven’t forgotten. But you’re making a big deal out of absolutely nothing,” she assured her mother, but it hadn’t felt like nothing. “Nothing happened. It was so nothing, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it either.”

“Well, you better think about it. You know how the people of this town love to gossip, especially about us.”

Delaney silently agreed that most everyone in Truly loved to gossip-including Gwen-but she didn’t think the Shaws were singled out any more than others. Juicy gossip got attention, but as always, her mother overestimated her importance in the food chain. “Okay, I’ll think about it.” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her brows.

“I hope you do, and for goodness sake, stay away from Nick Allegrezza.”

Three million dollars, she told herself. I can do this for three million.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”

“It’s just a headache.” She took a deep breath and dropped her hands. “I have to go.”

“Are you sure? Can’t you just stay for tort? I bought it at the Bakery Basket over on Sixth.”

Delaney declined and started down the hall to Henry’s office. She bid Max good night, then grabbed her coat and shoved her arms into the sleeves.

Her mother pushed Delaney’s hands out of the way and buttoned it for her as if she were five again. “I love you, and I worry about you in that little apartment downtown.” Delaney opened her mouth to argue, but Gwen put a restraining finger to her lips. “I know you don’t want to move back here now, but I just want you to know that if you change your mind, I’d love to have you.”

Just when Delaney was convinced her mother was Mommy Dearest, the woman changed. It had always been that way. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Delaney said, hurrying out the door before things changed back again.

Gwen stared at the closed door and sighed. She didn’t understand Delaney. Not at all.

She didn’t understand why her daughter insisted on living in that horrid little apartment when she didn’t have to. She didn’t understand why someone who’d been given so much opportunity had rejected it all for the life of a wandering beautician. And she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed in her, too.

Henry had wanted to give Delaney everything, and she’d thrown it away. All she’d had to do was let him guide her, but Delaney had wanted her freedom. As far as Gwen was concerned, freedom was overrated. It didn’t feed you or your child, and it didn’t take away the fear that gripped your stomach in the middle of the night. Some women could take care of themselves just fine, but Gwen wasn’t one of those women. She needed and wanted a man to take care of her.

The first night she’d met Henry Shaw, she’d known he was just the man for her. Forceful and rich. She’d been shampooing wigs and styling hair on the heads of Las Vegas showgirls, and she’d hated it. After one of the shows, Henry had come to the dressing room of his latest girlfriend and he’d left with Gwen. He’d looked so handsome and so classy. A week later, she married him.

She’d loved Henry Shaw, but more than she’d ever loved him, she’d been grateful. With his help, she lived the life she’d always dreamed. With Henry, the hardest decision she ever had to make was what to serve for dinner and which club to join. Gwen turned and headed down the hall toward Henry’s office. Of course there’d been a tradeoff for all the privileges. Henry had wanted a legitimate child, and when she didn’t conceive, he blamed her. After years of trying, she’d finally convinced him to see a fertility specialist, and just as Gwen had suspected, Henry was virtually infertile. He had a very low sperm count, and of the few he did have, most of those were deformed and sluggish. The diagnosis had insulted and enraged Henry, and he’d wanted to make love all the time just to prove the doctors all wrong. He’d been so bullheaded and so sure he could conceive a child. Of course the doctors hadn’t been wrong. They’d had sex all the time, even when she hadn’t felt like it. But it had never been real bad, and the payback had been worth it. People looked up to her in the community, and she had a life filled with beautiful things.

And then a few years ago, he gave up on the idea of having a child with her. Nick had moved back to town and Henry turned his attention to the child he already had. Gwen didn’t like Nick. She didn’t like that whole family, but she had been grateful when Henry had finally turned his obsession toward his son.

When Gwen entered the room, she found Max standing behind Henry’s desk looking at a few documents sitting on the desk. He looked up and a smile creased the corners of his blue eyes. Silver was just beginning to turn the hair at his temples, and not for the first time lately, she wondered what it would be like to be touched by a man who was closer to her own age. A man as handsome as Max.

“Is Delaney gone?” he asked as he walked around the desk toward her.

“She just left. I worry about her. She’s so aimless, so irresponsible. I don’t think she’ll ever grow up.”

“Don’t worry. She’s a bright girl.”

“Yes, but she’s almost thirty. She’ll-”

Max brushed his index finger across her lips and cheek and silenced her words. “I don’t want to talk about Delaney. She’s a grown woman. You’ve done your job, now you need to step back and think about something else.”

Gwen’s gaze narrowed. Max didn’t know what he was talking about. Delaney needed her mother’s guidance. She’d lived like a gypsy much too long. “How can you say that? She’s my daughter. How can I possibly not think about her?”

“Think about me instead,” he said as he dipped his head and softly kissed her mouth.

At first, the lips pressed to hers felt foreign. She couldn’t even remember a time when a man other than Henry had kissed her. Max opened his mouth over hers, and she felt the first tentative stroke of his tongue. Pleasure swept across her flesh, and her heart seemed to triple its beat. She’d wanted to know what it felt like to be touched by Max, and now she knew. It felt better than she’d imagined.

On the way home from her mother’s, Delaney stopped at the Value Rite Drug for a bottle of Tylenol, a four-pack of toilet paper, and a packet of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. She threw in two boxes of tampons because they were on sale, then she stopped at the magazine rack. She picked up a slick publication that reeked of perfume and promised to reveal “The Secrets of Men.” She flipped through the pages and tossed it in the cart, planning to read it in the bathtub when she got home. In aisle four she threw in a scented candle, and when she headed down aisle five toward the checkout, she practically ran over Helen Markham.

Helen looked tired, and by the hate glaring from her eyes, she’d obviously heard the latest.

Delaney almost felt sorry for her. Helen’s life couldn’t be easy, and Delaney figured she had two choices: make her old enemy squirm, or let her off the hook. “I hope you don’t believe the gossip about me and Tommy,” she said. “It’s not true.”

“Stay away from my husband. He doesn’t want you coming on to him anymore.”

So much for trying to be nice. “I never came on to Tommy.”

“You’ve always been jealous of me. Always, and now you think you can take my husband, but it won’t work.”

“I don’t want your husband,” she said, excruciatingly aware of the two boxes of tampons in her cart, like one wouldn’t be enough.

“You’ve wanted him since we were in high school. You never could stand that he chose me.”

Delaney’s gaze swept the contents of Helen’s cart. A bottle of Robitusson, tweezers, a jumbo pack of Stay-free, and a box of Correctol. Delaney smiled, feeling a slight advantage. Feminine hygiene and laxative. “He only chose you because I wouldn’t sleep with him, and you know it. Everyone knew it then, and everyone knows it now. If you hadn’t acted like a Sealy Posturepedic, he wouldn’t have gone to bed with you.”

“You’re pathetic, Delaney Shaw. You always have been. Now you think you can come back, take away my husband and my business.”

“I told you I don’t want Tommy.” She pointed her finger at Helen and leaned forward. “But watch out because I am going to take your business.” Her smile conveyed a smugness she didn’t feel as she pushed her cart past Helen toward the front of the store. So much for ending the hair war. She was going to kick Helen’s butt.

Delaney’s hands shook as she set her purchases on the checkout counter. They were still shaking as she drove home and when she placed her key in the lock to her apartment door. She turned on the ten o’clock news for noise and dumped out her shopping bag on the counter in her kitchen. The day had started out okay, but had gone to hell in a hurry. First her mother, then Helen. Gossip about her was burning up the phone lines of Truly, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Her head pounded like it was going to explode, and she downed four Tylenols. This was Tommy’s fault-and Nick’s. She’d been minding her own business when both men had approached her. If they’d left her alone, tonight wouldn’t have happened. She wouldn’t have had to defend herself to her mother, and she’d wouldn’t have had it out with Helen in the Value Rite.

Delaney grabbed her magazine, then headed for the bathroom and filled the tub. As soon as she’d peeled to her skin, she sank into the warm water. A shudder worked its way up her spine, and she sighed. She tried to read, but her mind raced with ways to steal Helen’s business. She wondered if Tommy, the dog, had really told his wife that Delaney had “come on” to him, but she guessed it really didn’t matter.

The thoughts spinning in her head turned to Nick and the rumors. It was starting again. Ten years ago, the two of them had been a hot topic, apparently even after she’d left town. She didn’t want to be linked with Nick. She didn’t want to be viewed as one of his women. And she probably wouldn’t be if he hadn’t dragged her out on the dance floor and kissed her until she felt it clear to the soles of her feet. With very little effort, he’d made her heart race and her body tingle. She didn’t know why Nick of all men could turn her inside out with just a kiss, but she obviously wasn’t alone. There were Gail and Lonna Howell, and those were just two that she knew about.

She turned to an article in her magazine on pheromones and the powerful effect they had on the opposite sex. If what she read was true, Nick had more than his share. He was the pied piper of pheromones, and Delaney was just another susceptible rat.

She stayed in the tub until the water turned cold before she got out and dressed for bed in a flannel nightshirt and thick socks that reached her knees. She set her alarm for eight-thirty, then slid beneath her new thick duvet. She tried to clear her head of Nick and Tommy, Gwen and Helen, but after three hours of watching the digital clock tick off the minutes, she went to her medicine cabinet and looked for anything to help her sleep. All she had was a bottle of Nyquil she’d moved with her from Phoenix. She took a couple of slugs and finally drifted to sleep.

But she found no rest in her sleep. She dreamed of being stuck in Truly for life. Time stood still. The days refused to progress. The calendar was forever stuck on May thirty-first. There was no way out.

When Delaney woke, it was to a pounding in her head and the buzzing of her alarm clock. She felt relieved to be wakened from her nightmare. She hit the off button on her clock and closed her eyes. The pounding continued and she realized that it wasn’t in her head, but on her front door. Groggy from lack of sleep and the big slugs of Nyquil, she stumbled into the living room. With her socks around her ankles, she yanked open the door. Immediately she threw her arm up like a vampire, protecting her eyes from the morning sun burning her corneas. Through her squint and the haze clogging her vision, she watched a slow grin tilt Nick Allegrezza’s mouth. Cold air hit her face and nearly took her breath away. “What do you want?” she wheezed.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

He did that laughing at her thing again and she slammed the door. Nick was the very last person she wanted to see right now.

His laughter continued as he hollered out, “I need the key to the back door of your salon.”

“Why?”

“I thought you wanted the locks changed.”