money she needed and was fighting off a visit home. There was a story there.
“Sure. Great…I know you do…. I worry about you, too.” She said the last as though she was teasing the caller, but her voice shook. “Gotta go,” she said brightly. “Tina wants to…um…talk. Bye. Give my love to the Lesser Worrywart…. Bye…. Bye…. I’m fine. Really.”
She whispered, “God,” as if to herself, so he knew she’d hung up. He slipped down the hall, not wanting her to know he’d listened in. In the kitchen, he looked for something to bring her, settling for a glass of water and the candy sack.
He found her sitting on the floor, braced against the side of the bed, legs out, staring down at her cell phone.
When she noticed him, she quickly brushed at her cheeks. Shit, she’d been crying.
“So, who was that?” he asked, pretending he hadn’t noticed the tears.
“My big brothers. Worrying about me, as usual.”
He sat beside her, legs parallel, and thrust the open sack at her direction.
“Thanks.” She smiled, pawed around inside the bag, tickling his palm through the plastic, then pulled out two red rectangles covered in sugar crystals. “The signature jellies. Try one.”
He took one from her, the brush of her skin giving him a tiny shock, like the tart fruit at the back of his throat a second later. “Good,” he said as he munched, placing the sack on the floor between them.
She stared at the jelly she’d bit into.
From here, he could easily catch her perfume, mixed with the light scent of clean sweat and whatever tropical stuff she used on her hair, which was straight and thick and brushed her neck, light brown with gold streaks. The freckles made her look youthful, but he figured she was twenty-five. At least five years younger than he was. Not that it mattered how old she was….
“You tell them what happened?” he asked her.
She turned, her hair swishing back, revealing her neck and the soft pulse at her throat. “Heck, no. They’d be doing the big-brothers-in-shining-armor bit. Our parents died when I was young, but my brothers think it’s their duty to carry me around piggyback as long as they can.”
“They’re just looking out for you.” He would do the same thing in their place.
“With handcuffs,” she said.
“That’s love.”
“That’s not trusting someone with her own life, her own decisions, and mistakes and—” She stopped, then forced a smile. “I bet if someone constantly told you what to do, you wouldn’t put up with it for a minute.”
“Depends on what she was wearing at the time.” He waggled his brow, trying to cheer her up with humor.
“Oh. Right.” She blushed, then laughed, a sexy sound in her rough Kirstie Alley voice. “What a mess I’ve made out of my great escape.” She huffed air through her bangs, which flew every which way. “If I’d just grabbed my purse I’d at least still have tuition money. The check’s been cashed. Washed and written over or forged. Happens all the time, the bank manager said.” She swallowed hard and pulled her feet close to her body, bracing her forehead on her knees, wrapping her arms around her shins.
“So what are you studying?” he said to keep her from sinking too low.
She turned her face to rest her cheek on her knees. “Psychology.”
That explained the steady stare—part curiosity, part support. Perfect for picking people’s brains apart. He shifted slightly away. “You want to be a shrink?”
“It’s not contagious.” She smiled slightly. “Counseling scares you?”
“Who wants to be under a microscope?”
“You’d be surprised. I was sort of the amateur therapist for the town. People got a cut, a style and free advice at Celia’s Cut ’n’ Curl.”
“So you worked over their hair and their lives. Sounds like pure hell.”
“Lots of people value neutral help sorting out their troubles.”
“I’d rather have bypass surgery.” Kelli had always quoted Dr. Phil or Dr. Laura or the latest pop psych book she’d inhaled. You’re repressing, blocking, deflecting. Hell, she’d made his quietness sound like a martial art. Now here he sat with Dr. Heidi in the making. His roommate. And she was looking him over again, trying to figure him out. Damn.
“So what’s wrong with being a hairdresser?” he said to distract her.
“Nothing. I’ll be doing hair part-time still. But if I want to be a therapist, I’ve got to do internships, get at least a master’s degree.” She lifted her head from her knees and looked at him more closely, eyes narrowed. Jeez, now she was reading his mind? He tried to clear any stray horny thoughts, just in case.
Then she reached for a strand of his hair and rubbed it between her finger and thumb. “You could use a hot oil treatment.”
“A what?”
Her lips had wrapped around those words like they were pure sex. She seemed to realize it. And liked it, judging by the way her fingers slowed on his hair and her next words were soft and low and deliberate. “For your hair…It’s dry…. The ends are…damaged. I’d be glad to…do it…for you.”
A couple of words dropped out in his head until he heard I’d be glad to do you. A charge shot through him like touching a live battery cable. Innocence was sexy, he realized. A million schoolgirl strip routines couldn’t be wrong.
“You have such nice texture.” Now her voice was huskier. She was flirting with him. Damn.
He imagined her fingers on his scalp, the snip-snip of her scissors near his ear, the tickle of hair sliding down his neck. Maybe he’d have his shirt off and it would cascade across his chest to his thighs like the brush of eyelashes. He pictured her lifting his chin, turning it to the angle she wanted, maybe with a little yank. He’d be eye level with those gentle mounds of breasts with their berry nipples that had tightened against her snug top as they talked.
“Men neglect their hair because it doesn’t seem masculine,” she continued, blinking her big eyes, sending waves of lust through him. “You like engines, right? Think of your hair as an engine. You want it all shiny and tuned up, don’t you?”
The woman was hitting on him. Great. Heidi was the kind of woman who saw sex as a first step to forever and the last thing he wanted after a hot night was to wake up to eyes like hers demanding wedding rings and babies and 401Ks. God, no.
“So, a hair tune-up, huh?” he said to joke her away. “I’ll think about it.”
She blinked. “Uh. Sure.” He’d made her feel foolish. He’d like to tell her she was plenty sexy, but he couldn’t figure out how to do so without screwing up the moment. He was off the hook. Leave it be.
“Well, I guess I’d better start earning my keep.” She shook her head, her hair swishing back and
