A Husband of Her Own

“Forget it,” she told him. “I’m not out to get the best of you or anyone else. Just go down to the barbershop and buy yourself a haircut.” Her voice had gone flat. She cleared her throat and tried to put more inflection in it. “I’ll tell my father you stopped by and everything went fine, okay?”

He stared at her for a long moment without speaking. She lifted her chin and threw back her shoulders, praying he wouldn’t realize that her friends’ banter had stung. She was tired of being the bad guy, tired of being a laughingstock. But as long as she remained in Dundee, there was no escaping her reputation.

“Okay?” she repeated when he didn’t respond.

He started to move. She thought he was going to swing around and head right back out, onto the street. But he didn’t. He strode across the salon, doffed his hat and planted himself decisively in her chair.

“You’ve probably got a big day,” he said. “We’d better get busy.”

Rebecca blinked at him. She could’ve sworn he’d decided to stay for her sake, to silence the others. But that couldn’t be. That would take intuition and an unusual degree of sensitivity, and this was Josh Hill. The Testosterone King. The boy who wrote, “For a good time call anyone but Rebecca Wells,” on the bathroom wall at the A&W, starting a whole section of graffiti about her, none of which was very flattering. His staying probably had more to do with proving to everyone else in Hair And Now that they’d been foolish to bet against him—why would anyone do that? He was the great Josh Hill.

The others grumbled about being wrong but finally returned to minding their own business. Rebecca nodded in acknowledgement. “Fine. It shouldn’t take long.”

Spine so rigid she was surprised it didn’t creak when she moved, she draped her cape over his broad shoulders, covering his polo shirt and most of his blue jeans. As she fastened the collar, her fingers brushed his neck and he swiveled to look up at her.

She raised her hands to show him she held nothing sharp. “Just fastening the cape,” she said.

“I didn’t think you were going to stab me,” he grumbled.

“You jumped.” What else would make him react that way? She’d barely touched him. In any case, she wasn’t going to argue the point. She was too determined to get through this as quickly as possible.

“What would you like me to do for you?” she asked.

“Do for me?” he repeated as though the question somehow surprised him.

“To your hair.” Stepping on the lever, she lowered the chair as far as possible. She was tall, but he was several inches taller. She needed to accommodate his height. “What would you like me to do to your hair?”

“Just give it a trim.”

“Okay. You don’t want me to shampoo it, though, right?” She reached for her spray bottle. “We’ll be done much faster if we just wet the hair down and go from there.”

He leaned away from her. “Isn’t shampooing included in the price of a cut?”

Rebecca hesitated, spray bottle in hand. “Um, yes, it is, but…I’ll give you a discount. A good discount.”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll have the full treatment.”

“O-k-a-y. Sure.” She glanced from Katie to Mona to see if they’d done something to challenge him, thereby causing him to prolong the agony, but they seemed engaged with their own clients.

Setting the spray bottle on top of the rolling cart that held most of her supplies, she took a deep breath. She’d shampooed hundreds of people without a second thought. But she didn’t want to shampoo Josh. “Then…uh…you need to come back here with me.”

He stood and followed her past the short row of old-fashioned hairdryers, shelves of products and racks of hair magazines to the sinks at the very back of the salon. Waving him into a cushioned seat on her left, she levered the adjustable black vinyl chair so he could lie with his neck resting comfortably in the crook of the porcelain bowl.

Mostly decorated in pink, with a wide stripe to the wallpaper and a black canvas awning over the door, the salon was about as feminine a place as Rebecca could imagine. It smelled of bleach and acrylic and perm solution—a virtual self-improvement paradise into which few men ever ventured. Until recently, anyway. With the growing popularity of spiked, bleached hair among young boys, Rebecca’s male clientele had grown sharply.

But Josh looked out of place all the same. His body was too big for the chair, which had been designed twenty years earlier for women, and his well-scuffed boots and the slightly frayed hem of his jeans provided a notable contrast to the muumuus and cotton print dresses Rebecca generally saw sticking out from below her plastic cape. He smelled different, too. More…evocative. A blend of warm skin, leather and soap reminded her of that night a year ago last summer when she and Josh were dancing at the Honky Tonk. While they were swaying to the music, he’d put his hands possessively on the small of her back, drawing her closer, and then he’d kissed her neck just below the earlobe….

A shiver ran down Rebecca’s spine, and she quickly forced her mind back to the present. She didn’t want to think about that. That night was an exception, the only exception, to the way she normally felt about Josh. And it made her nervous again.

“Remember when you taped up that Playboy centerfold inside my locker our senior year?” he asked, out of nowhere.

His comment took Rebecca off guard. She didn’t know how to respond. If she said no, they’d both know she was lying. If she said yes, they’d be back on adversarial ground. “It was just a joke,” she said, mumbling slightly in hopes he wouldn’t pursue the conversation.

“Someone reported me to the principal before I even knew it was there and I got suspended for three days.”

She adjusted the water temperature. “Three days? That’s not so long.”

“It was during finals,” he added dryly.

She stretched her neck, hoping he wasn’t going to recount their other shared experiences. “Those were crazy days.”

He made a face. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want? An apology? It was years ago.”

“Thanks for the sincere remorse.”

Remorse. Rebecca was too apprehensive for remorse. The prospect of touching her childhood nemesis was causing an odd reaction in her body. She was trying to convince herself it was revulsion, but sweaty palms and a racing heart weren’t the most indicative symptoms.

Wetting his head, she poured shampoo into her palm and began to work it through his hair. She told herself to stick to the same routine she gave all her clients—a thorough ten-minute head massage, followed by a gentle raking of the scalp with her nails. She was a professional, after all, with a background in massage therapy, and he was paying for her services.

But somehow she couldn’t maintain any emotional distance. Having Josh right there, so accessible and pliable beneath her hands, changed the whole experience.

Feeling a stab of guilt for having such a strong reaction to him—in spite of her engagement—she cut the massage short and quickly rinsed his hair. Then she slapped on some conditioner, nearly spraying him in the face when she went into rinse mode again.

“What’d I do now?” he asked as she sat him up so fast she nearly gave him whiplash.

“Nothing,” she said, tossing a towel into his lap. “Why?”

He swiped at the water that was running down from his temples and dripping onto the cloak. “That was some shampoo. I’ve never seen anyone snap into fast-forward like that.”

She smiled to cover the craziness inside her. “Well, you know me.”

He raised his brows. “Somehow you always manage to surprise me.”

“YOU KNOW, IF WE TOOK a little more off the top, we’d make the most of the cowlick you’ve got right here,” Rebecca said.

Josh shifted his gaze from the look of expectation on her face to his own reflection. One of Rebecca’s hands held up a section of his hair, the other clutched a pair of scissors. “Are you setting me up?” he asked.

That cowlick had been a nightmare for him when he was a kid. His mother had waged her own personal war against it, usually armed with a jar of Dippity-do. Up until the time he was six or seven, she’d plastered his hair to his head, making him look more like a young executive than a first-grader. Fortunately it hadn’t taken him long to learn how to compensate for her efforts by visiting the bathroom before class and using the sink to rinse his hair. His bangs always stuck up once they dried, but he hadn’t minded that. What he’d minded was the perennial “wet look” and the way his mother had constantly licked her fingers and combed his hair down, even in public.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “It’s only hair. If I botch it too badly, you can always shave your head.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“Come on, don’t be a wimp. Bald is in. And I’m not going to mess up. I have my reputation to consider.”

“Your reputation is what frightens me.”

She sent him a pointed look, and he couldn’t help smiling. After the shampooing incident she’d calmed down a bit and seemed to be hitting her rhythm. But when it came to Rebecca, nothing was ever the way he thought it would be, so he had no idea how long the peace might last.

“Do what you think is best,” he told her, even though it went against his better judgment to give her so much freedom. Especially when he remembered the time she put gum in his hair while he and Randy were having a sleep-out in the yard.

He chuckled as the clippings from his hair fell all around him.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I was just thinking about that time you snuck over and—”

“Never mind.”

“Wait,” he said. “I was just going to see if you remembered putting gum—”

“No.”

Obviously she didn’t want to discuss the past, but that incident and several others, while horrific enough at the time, seemed pretty funny now. Couldn’t she see how immature and stupid they’d been? “Don’t want to take a walk down memory lane, huh?”

“Not with you.”

“Why not? You have to admit some of that stuff is funny.”

“Hilarious,” she grumbled. “Only no one seems to remember what you did.”

“What’d I do?” he asked.

“You know what you did. Quit playing the innocent.”

“At least I feel bad about my terrible behavior,” he replied.

“I’ll bet.”

She was right, of course. He didn’t feel any worse than she did. She’d pulled pranks on him; he’d pulled pranks on her. After so many years, there was no way to sort out blame—and the thought of even trying to do it bored him. He didn’t care anymore. So why didn’t they just forgive and forget? They were both adults, with separate lives to lead. Yet every time he passed Rebecca on the street or saw her somewhere like Jerry’s Diner, he got the feeling they had unfinished business between them.

Probably because of that night over a year ago—even though nothing had ultimately happened. He’d gotten Rebecca to go home with him. He’d even managed to remove her clothes, along with most of his own. Then his brother had come home and at the slamming of the front door, she’d suddenly scrambled to her feet, dressed, grabbed her purse and hurried off. He’d been two seconds away from the best sex of his life, so crazy for her he almost begged her to stay. Except he’d known it wouldn’t do him any good. It was as if she’d suddenly come out of a trance and realized who she was with. After that, she didn’t want him anywhere near her.

But his preoccupation with Rebecca was just an ego thing, he assured himself. Something to do with conquering her at last. She was the girl in school who thumbed her nose when he passed in the halls or booed when he threw a touchdown. He’d wanted to make her a believer. That was all. He’d only come today hoping to put all that behind them so they could finally achieve neutrality.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy with Rebecca. She held too much against him, even though he’d never set out to make a real enemy of her. For a few years when he was a kid, he’d thought it fun to torture girls by putting spiders in their hair or chasing them home from school with a craggy old stick he claimed to be one of his dead grandmother’s bones. But his grandmother hadn’t even died at that point. And Rebecca had never been intimidated by that kind of stuff, anyway. The one time he’d put a spider in her hair, all the other girls had screamed, but not her. She’d calmly scooped it up and set it gently on the ground. Later she’d dredged up a garter snake and slipped it down the back of his shirt when he wasn’t looking. He’d liked snakes, so that part was actually kind of cool. What wasn’t so cool was that a girl had beat him at his own game.

Still, he’d always liked Rebecca’s toughness. She was different from the other girls. More stubborn. More prideful. He’d never seen determination on a person’s face like he’d so often seen on hers—usually when they were competing in some way. He knew how badly she hated to lose, but she’d never let him see her cry. If he beat her at something, she’d jut out her chin and tell him he’d had a stroke of luck. Or she’d challenge him again. Sometimes he let her win just because he was tired of being goaded to give her another chance.

So, all in all, he supposed what had happened when they were young probably wasn’t so different from what happened to a lot of kids. In elementary school, boys occasionally pinched girls, pulled their hair, whatever. It was the “cooties” stage, and girls turned up their noses at boys, too. Rebecca just never forgave him as they grew older. There were times when he’d tried to seek her out, tried to win her over, but it made no difference at all.

He remembered one time in particular, right before his first game as starting quarterback for the varsity football team. He was only a junior and had yet to prove to the town that his dad, who was head coach, hadn’t put him in because of the family connection. The senior who’d been planning to start that year was furious about losing his position. So were his folks. They’d stirred up all kinds of trouble around town, which threatened his father’s job, and Josh knew the only way to silence the critics was to play the best game he’d ever played in his life. He was feeling the pressure of it all when he spotted Rebecca standing near the bleachers. He caught her eye, thinking if he could only get her to smile at him, just once, everything would be okay. But she’d cast him that “who gave you the right to breathe” look and turned away.

Fortunately, he’d thrown for over two hundred yards, including three touchdown passes, and they’d won the game. No thanks to Rebecca.

The other girls in town came around, though. In the second grade, he’d pulled Beth Paris’s ponytails countless times, yet she’d ended up asking him to take her to the Homecoming Dance when they were seniors. And she’d wanted to do a lot more than dance. Certainly no hard feelings there.

Forget about Rebecca, he told himself, growing cranky. It’d been twenty-four years since he’d met her, and he was just as confused by her now as he’d ever been. Men who thought women were complicated creatures didn’t know the half of it—unless they knew Rebecca Wells.

“You don’t like it?” she said, sounding for the first time in all those twenty-four years as though she wasn’t quite sure of herself.

“What are you talking about?”

“The expression on your face. You look like you’re ready to choke someone.”

He wondered what she’d say if he told her she was the one he was thinking about choking. She probably wouldn’t be surprised. If she wasn’t so engrossed in cutting his hair, she’d most likely be thinking about choking him, too. That was the way it was between them.

“Looks good,” he said, even though he couldn’t tell a whole lot while it was still wet. It just seemed shorter.

She set her scissors down on the vanity and retrieved her blow-dryer from a holster-like holder. “You’re lucky to have that cowlick,” she said. “It gives your hair some lift here, off the forehead, and adds a lot of body.”

“Yeah, well, you might mention that to my mother the next time you see her standing in line at the drugstore to buy Dippity-do,” he said. “Maybe I won’t get a jar for Christmas this year.”

“If I came within ten yards of your mother, she’d probably shoot me.”

“Now that you mention it, she is a little bitter,” he admitted. “I guess I’m stuck with the Dippity-Do.”

“If it depends on me, you are,” she said and switched on the blow-dryer. The resulting whir left Josh to his own thoughts again, but only for a few minutes. Soon Katie interrupted them by tapping Rebecca’s shoulder. “Your father’s here,” she hollered over the noise.

CHAPTER FOUR

“THERE YOU ARE, my boy,” Mayor Wells boomed, cutting across the salon.

Rebecca turned off the blow-dryer. Josh brushed the hair off his drape and stood to shake hands. “Good to see you, sir. You’re looking fit, as always.”

Dundee’s mayor tapped his rounding middle. “Ah, the weight catches up with you eventually. Be forewarned. But you don’t have to worry about that until you find someone to cook for you. When are you and that cute little Mary planning to tie the knot?”

He and Mary Thornton had been dating since Mary’s divorce was final six months ago. Glen, her ex, had taken off for the big city almost a year before that, and Mary and their nine-year-old son, Ricky, had moved back in with her parents. Word had it that Glen was too busy chasing skirts to be a very conscientious father. Whether Glen was chasing skirts or not, Josh knew Ricky never heard from him. So Mary was understandably a little anxious to provide her son with a new and improved role model.

Josh had no doubt he was the role model she had in mind, but he wasn’t entirely convinced he was going to let her lead him to the altar. He loved Ricky. Most of the time he liked him better than Mary. But he doubted the enjoyment he received from knowing her son was enough of a basis for marriage.

He opened his mouth to say that he and Mary had no plans, but Doyle’s attention had already shifted to Rebecca. “So you came through, huh?”

A certain strain around the mouth and eyes told Josh Rebecca wasn’t happy to see her father. “I told you I would,” she replied.

Doyle considered Josh’s hair. “Well, it’s not blue. That’s a good sign.”

Josh couldn’t help glancing in the mirror, even though he’d been watching the entire process. Rebecca had actually given him a good cut. Though she hadn’t quite finished, his hair was dry enough now that he could see what it was going to look like, and he was impressed. He’d been settling for the cut Ed down at the barbershop gave almost everyone who walked in, but she’d added a touch of style that was a welcome change.

“It’s definitely not blue,” he said, refusing to allow her too much credit.

“Did you stop by for a reason?” Rebecca asked her father.

The mayor smiled. “Just wanted to see how things were going down here.”

“Well, we haven’t killed each other yet, if that’s what you were worried about.”

Doyle turned just enough to exclude Rebecca from the conversation. “I hear you and your brother have yourselves another million-dollar stallion out at the ranch. That’s five now, isn’t it? Good for you. You’re making quite a name for yourself in the Quarterhorse business.”

“Things are going well, thanks,” Josh said.

“How’s the resort coming along?”

A chung indicated Rebecca had just shoved the blow-dryer back into its holder. In his peripheral vision, Josh saw her fold her arms, cock one leg and glower at her father. “I’m only an investor,” he said, “so I’m not involved in the day-to-day management. But it seems to be doing well under Conner’s hand.”

“Who would’ve thought that Armstrong fella could turn his life around and manage to pull off a project of this size? It’s sure gonna do the community some good. Yes, sir.” He shook his head. “Gives a father hope, doesn’t it?”

At this Rebecca rolled her eyes and although Josh caught the insult in what Doyle said, he pretended not to notice. Whatever was going on between father and daughter had nothing to do with him. He’d agreed to the truce. He’d done his part. After he paid for his haircut, he was off the hook until the anniversary party.

“By the way, Rebecca’s gettin’ married and moving to Nebraska in a few weeks,” Doyle went on. “Did she tell you?”

A coughing fit seized Rebecca. She quickly excused herself by mumbling something about needing a drink.

“I’ve heard a rumor to that effect,” Josh said as they both watched her march to the back of the salon and duck into a small room.

“I thought I’d never see the day,” Doyle confided.

“She’s an attractive woman,” Josh said, oddly defensive, although he couldn’t say why. He used to feel a little smug when people made derogatory comments about Rebecca. And considering the fact that she’d be out of his life soon, out of town completely, he really didn’t have a stake in whether or not her father appreciated her physical attributes or anything else.

“Oh, the problem isn’t her looks,” Doyle said. “Least not anymore.”

Though she’d been far too thin and lanky in high school, Rebecca had filled out since then. Josh didn’t think she’d ever be curvy, exactly—her breasts were high and small, her hips a little too narrow to be ideal. But he happened to like the way she was built.

He imagined her as he’d seen her last summer, lying on his bed with most of her clothes on the floor. Sure her breasts were small, but they were well-shaped and firm. And all the angles that had made her features appear exaggerated when she was young had evolved into…an arresting face, he decided, the perfect setting for her expressive eyes. Perhaps her top lip was a little too thin, but Josh couldn’t see how any man could hold that against her. Not when she kissed with such abandon. When her defenses were down, and she was looking up at him as she had that night, without the usual distrust and resentment, she was actually quite beautiful.

“It’s that temper of hers,” Doyle was saying. “Why would anyone want to put up with her?”

Josh could have added an “amen” to that. Poor sap probably didn’t know what he was getting into. But he wasn’t going to involve himself by stating an opinion. “What’s her fiancé like?” he asked, hoping to spin the conversation in a new direction so he wouldn’t have to comment on Rebecca’s suitability as a wife.

Doyle shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks—his nod to casual dress for the weekend—and jingled his change. “He’s not from around here. She met him on the damn Internet, not that I’m complaining. At least she’s got herself a man. Lord knows no one around here was willing to take her on. But I worry.” He jingled his change some more as he seemed to mull over his concerns. “He’s too mild-mannered for her, if you ask me.”

“But you like him?”

“I’ve only met him once. I don’t really know him. And I’m afraid she doesn’t, either. He certainly isn’t the type I would’ve expected her to choose.” Doyle leaned a little closer and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “He’s not much of a man, if you get my drift. He’s soft. A bookworm. Doesn’t look like he’s done a hard day’s work in his life. Once a few months go by, I have no doubt she’ll be leading him around by the nose.” He straightened. “And on top of everything else, he’s younger than she is.”

“He is? By how much?”

“Too much.”

Too much? What was that supposed to mean? Curiosity prompted Josh to ask, but he overrode the impulse. Now that he’d done the right thing in coming here, he just needed to bide his time until she got married and moved. Resolution at last.

“But we’re happy she’s finally found someone and is settling down,” Doyle went on. “Maybe she’ll get turned around yet, like that Armstrong fella.”

“You told me on the phone last night that she’d mellowed,” Josh pointed out.

The other man grinned. “Had to tell you something to get you down here. We’ve got that anniversary party coming up. Her poor mother couldn’t survive another embarrassing ordeal like the last one.”