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Brenda said that, did she? He wasn’t entirely sure he believed it. Should he check with her before he accepted CeCe’s invite?
His stomach knotted with excitement at the thought of seeing her again so soon. He already missed her. Her light lavender scent filled the cab of his truck, and he hoped it never went away.
“Is this that prank you were talking about before?”
“Maybe a little.” He could hear the mischief in her voice. “But it’s for her own good. Laney needs to get that stick out of her butt.”
“You’re a menace.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a little prank.”
“You sound like a Cooper brother right now—” He broke off as a stroke of brilliance struck. CeCe wasn’t the only one who could pull a prank.
“I’ll be there,” he said firmly. “I’ll bring some harvest ale from my buddy’s brewhouse.”
“Oh, you don’t have to bring anything except yourself. That’s more than enough.”
In other words, bring on the mountain man.
This was going to be fun.
At home, he went straight to the shower. Hot, long, and soapy. And a fucking relief when he fisted himself into a long, sharp orgasm. Eyes closed, images of Brenda’s nipples dancing on the back of his eyelids. The movement of her hand across her stomach, the shy glimmer of moisture between her thighs. Oh God.
After that, he made a quick phone call, then pulled on clean clothes and jumped back into his truck for the drive to Braddock.
To Sunny Lee, the stylist who’d come the closest to being able to cut his hair. She’d actually gotten her scissors within inches of his head before he’d torn off the plastic cape and fled her shop.
He found his favorite oldies station on the scratchy radio of his truck, and blasted it as loud as he could stand. Windows open, the road unfolding before him, Rolling Stones singing “let me introduce myself.” Yeah, baby. This was it. He was finally going to do it; it was time.
The music made him think of his father, who’d loved two bands, the Stones and Pink Floyd. “Just another brick in the wall,” he used to sing at the top of his lungs while he worked on his car in the front yard. The woman who lived next door used to hang over the fence and flirt with him.
Marshall Cooper had been a handsome man. He had a big charismatic smile that went from ear to ear. He never allowed facial hair to get in the way of blasting his good looks into the world. Galen couldn’t remember ever seeing him with so much as a mustache.
Did Galen look anything like his father? He didn’t entirely know anymore. It had been so long since he’d seen his own face.
Well, he’d find out soon enough.
Sunny Lee’s salon was called Hair Cuts, a straightforward name that he appreciated. It reflected her style, too. She was a Korean woman in her fifties who didn’t mince words. On his last unsuccessful appointment, she’d told him that at first she’d thought his hair was a wig.
“You’re back,” she said bluntly as he pushed through the door of her salon, which was located in the converted garage of her house. She was sweeping up the discarded hair from her last appointment. One reason he liked her shop was that she only had one chair, and therefore only one customer at a time. Another reason was that he found the faint trace of diesel fumes comforting.
“Surprised?”
“A little.” She shrugged. “With more warning, I would have prepared a tranquilizer dart, like for a rhino.”
“No need. I’m ready this time.”
“Are you sure?” She pulled a small flask from behind a jar of combs filled with blue antiseptic liquid. “You can have some of this.”
“It’s not the same thing you soak your combs in, is it?”
“No. Well, perhaps the chemical structure is not so different. But this is gin. It helps when I have difficult customers.”
“I suppose you’re including me in that category?’ He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook. “But I won’t give you any trouble this time.”
Shooting him a doubtful look, she took a swig from her flask. Almost immediately, her skin flushed. She offered it to him next. He decided he might as well bolster his courage in case he lost his nerve.
One bracing swallow later, he eased into her chair. “Maybe you should give me something to bite down on too. Isn’t that what they used to do during Wild West surgeries?”
