“Changing. She was helping Louie and Nick work on their ice sculpture. When I picked her up from Larkspur Park, she wasn’t wearing a hat and her coat was unzipped. It’ll be a miracle if she isn’t sick tomorrow.”
“What is she changing into?”
“A nightgown we made. We were inspired by ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ ”
“How do you get along with Sophie now that you live with her?” Delaney asked as she gathered a handful of Lisa’s hair and divided it into three sections at the crown of her head.
“It’s a pretty big adjustment for both of us. I like her to eat at the kitchen table, and she’s been allowed to graze like a free-range chicken all of her life. Just little stuff like that. If she weren’t thirteen it might be easier.” Lisa looked in the mirror and adjusted the felt leaves around her neck. “Louie and I want a baby, but we think we should wait until Sophie gets used to having me around before we bring another child into the family.”
A baby. She used all her fingers as she braided and twisted Lisa’s hair down the back. Lisa and Louie were planning a family. Delaney didn’t even have a boyfriend, and when she thought of a man in her life, there was only one who entered her head-Nick. She thought about him a lot lately. Even while she slept. She’d had another bad dream the other night, only this time the days progressed and her car hadn’t disappeared. She’d been free to leave Truly, but the thought of never seeing Nick again tore at her heart. She didn’t know which was worse, living in the same town and ignoring him, or not living in the same town and not forcing herself to ignore him. She was confused and pathetic and thought maybe she should just give into the inevitable and buy a cat. “I suppose you heard about Marty Wheeler,” she said in an effort to divert her thoughts.
“Of course. I wonder what makes a man want to slip on a merry widow under his Santa suit. You know, those things are really uncomfortable.”
“Did you hear about the lace thong?” Delaney grabbed an elastic band and secured the end of the French rope. Then she tucked it under with a bobby pin.
Lisa stood and straightened her costume. “Go figure. Can you imagine the wedgie?”
“It hurts just to think about it.” She caught sight of Sophie standing a few feet away, trying not to look embarrassed and guilty in her long nightgown and the kerchief on her head. “Do you want me to braid your hair?” she asked the thirteen-year-old.
Sophie shook her head and looked away. “It’s almost our turn, Lisa.”
After Lisa left to take her stroll down the catwalk, Delaney rolled Neva Miller’s hair in an inverted pony tail, then gave her four daughters upside-down braids. Neva talked nonstop about her church, her husband Pastor Tim, and the Lord. Her mouth took on that born again, Jesus-loves-me-more-than-you smile, tempting Delaney to ask Neva if she remembered blowing the football team during halftime.
“You should come to our church tomorrow,” Neva said as she herded her girls toward the stage. “We meet from nine till noon.”
Delaney would rather burn in hell for eternity. She packed up her remaining supplies and went in search of her mother. She wouldn’t see Gwen until after the new year, and she wanted to say goodbye and wish her a nice trip. For years she’d spent the holidays with friends who took pity on her and invited her over for Christmas dinner. This year she’d be completely alone, and she realized as she hugged her mother and promised to look after Duke and Dolores that she really did want to spend Christmas at home like she used to. Especially now that Max was in the picture. The lawyer seemed to be able to distract her mother from criticizing everything in Delaney’s life.
Snow fell on her head as she loaded everything into Henry’s Cadillac. She didn’t have her gloves and her hands froze as she scraped windows. She was exhausted and her shoulders ached, and she hooked the corner behind her salon a little too fast. The Caddie slid sideways into the parking lot and finally stopped with the rear fender blocking the door to Allegrezza Construction. Delaney figured the brothers wouldn’t be working the next day, and she was too tired to care anyway. She changed into a nightshirt and crawled into bed. It seemed to her as if she hadn’t slept long before someone pounded on her door. She squinted at the clock on her bedside table as the pounding continued. It was nine-thirty Sunday morning, and she didn’t have to actually see Nick to know who stood on her porch beating down the door. She grabbed her red silk robe but didn’t bother to wash her face or brush her hair. She figured he deserved to be scared for waking her up so early on her day off.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” were the first words out of his mouth as he stormed into her apartment looking like the wrath of God.
“Me? I’m not the one pounding down your door like a lunatic.”
He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head to the side. “Do you plan to slide your way through town all winter, or just until you kill yourself?”
“Don’t tell me you’re worried.” She tied the silk belt securely around her waist, then walked past him toward the kitchen. “That might mean you actually care about me.”
He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and stopped her. “There are certain parts of your body I care about.”
She looked into his face, at his lips compressed into a straight line, the slash of his brow, and the desire raging in his eyes. He was angrier than she’d ever seen him, but he couldn’t hide wanting her. “If you want me, you know my terms. No other women.”
“Yeah, and we both know it would take me about two minutes to get you to change your mind.”
She’d learned months ago that if she argued he’d take it as a challenge just to prove her wrong. She wanted to believe she could resist temptation, but deep down she feared he’d have a minute and thirty seconds to spare. She twisted from his grasp and walked into the kitchen.
“Give me the keys to Henry’s car,” he called after her.
“Why?” She pulled the reservoir from her coffee maker and filled it with water. “What are you going to do, steal it?”
The slam of the front door answered her. She set the reservoir on the counter and walked into the living room. Her purse was dumped out on the coffee table and she had a feeling her keys were missing. She ran out onto her porch, and her feet sunk in snow at the edge of the first step. “Hey,” she called down to the top of his head, “what do you think you’re doing? Give me my keys back, you jerk!”
His laughter drifted up to her. “Come on down here and take ‘em.”
There were several good reasons she could think of to walk barefoot in the snow. A burning building, rat infestation, a slice of chocolate cheese cake, but Henry’s Cadillac wasn’t one of them.
Nick jumped into the silver car and fired it up. He scraped a portion of the windshield, and then he was gone. By the time he got back an hour later, Delaney was fully dressed and waiting for him at her front door.
“You’re lucky I didn’t call the sheriff,” she told him as he walked up the stairs toward her.
He took her hand and dropped the keys in her palm. His eyes were on the same level as hers, and his mouth inches from her lips. “Slow down.”
“Slow down before you kill yourself,” he said, then turned and headed back down the stairs.
Disappointment slowed her racing heart to a distressing thud. Over the side of the rail, she watched him walk into his office, then she moved to the Cadillac parked below. She peered through the windows at the cans of hair spray and gel she’d thrown in the back the night before. No dents. No dings. The car looked the same as it always had- except it now had four studded snow tires, so new they shone.
Monday morning started slowly enough that Delaney could hang Christmas lights on the little tree she’d bought for the reception area. It was only three feet tall, but it filled the salon with the scent of pine. By noon business had picked up and remained steady until she closed at five thirty. The judging for the ice sculptures would begin in Larkspur Park at six, and she hurried and changed into jeans, her beige cotton sweater with the American flag on the front, and her Doc Marten’s. She wasn’t so much interested in the ice sculptures as she was in finding a certain Basque man who’d changed the tires on Henry’s car yesterday.
By the time she arrived at Larkspur, the parking lot was nearly filled and the judging was under way. The sun had set and the park lights shone on the wonderland of towering crystal shapes. Delaney walked past a ten-foot Beauty and the Beast, a burly mountain man with his pack mule, and Puff the Magic Dragon. Exquisite detail had been given to each sculpture, bringing them to life in the black night and bright lights. She moved through the crowd past Dorothy and Toto, a huge duck, and a cow the size of a mini-van. The crisp air chilled her ears, and she shoved her bare hands into the pockets of her wool coat. She found the Allegrezza Construction entry at the far west end,
