elaney took her telephone off the hook. She kept it off the hook until she left her apartment for work the next morning. She hoped that somehow the impossible had happened and Mrs. Vaughn hadn’t been able to see into the shop. Maybe she’d been lucky.

But when she unlocked the front door of her salon, Wannetta Van Damme was waiting and within seconds it became apparent Delaney’s luck had run out months ago. “Is this where it happened?” Wannetta asked as she hobbled in. The sound of her silver walker, chink-thump, chink-thump, filled the inside of the salon.

Delaney was a little afraid to ask the obvious, but she was too curious not to know. “What happened?” she asked and took the older woman’s coat. She hung it on a tree in the small reception area.

Wannetta pointed to the counter. “Is that where Laverne saw you and that Allegrezza boy... you know?”

A lump formed in Delaney’s throat. “What?”

“Hanky-panky,” whispered the older woman.

The lump fell to her stomach as she felt her brows rise to her hairline. “Hanky-panky?”

“Whoopie.”

“Whoopie?” Delaney pointed to the counter. “Right here?”

“That’s what Laverne told everyone last night at the bingo game over there at that church on Seventh, Jesus the Divine Savior.”

Delaney walked to a salon chair and sank into it. Her face grew hot and her ears began to ring. She’d known there would be gossip, but she’d had no idea how bad. “Bingo? Jesus the Divine Savior?” Her voice raised and got squeaky. “Oh, my God!” She should have known. Anything involving Nick had always been bad and she wished she could blame him completely. But she couldn’t. He hadn’t unbuttoned his own shirt. She’d done that.

Wannetta moved toward her, chink-thump, chink-thump. “Is it true?”

“No!”

“Oh.” Wannetta looked as disappointed as she sounded. “That youngest Basque boy is a looker. Even though he has a nasty reputation, I might find him hard to resist myself.”

Delaney put a palm to her forehead and took a deep breath. “He’s evil. Evil. Evil. Evil. You stay away from him, Wannetta, or you just might wake up and find yourself the subject of horrible rumors.” Her mother was going to kill her.

“Most mornings I’m just glad to wake up. And at my age, I don’t think I’d find those rumors too horrible,” she said as she moved toward the back of the salon. “Can you squeeze me in today?”

“What? You want your hair done?”

“Of course. I didn’t go to all the trouble of getting myself down here just to talk.”

Delaney rose and followed Mrs. Van Damme to the shampoo sink. She helped her into the chair then set her walker aside. “How many people were at the bingo game?” she asked fearing the answer.

“Oh, maybe sixty or so.”

Sixty. Then those sixty would tell sixty more and it would spread like a brushfire. “Maybe I should just kill myself,” she muttered. Death might be preferable to her mother’s reaction.

“Are you going to use that shampoo that smells so nice?”

“Yes.” Delaney draped Wannetta, then lowered her back toward the sink. She turned on the water and tested it on her wrist. She’d spent the previous day and night hiding in her apartment like a mole. She’d felt emotionally battered and bruised by what had happened with Nick. And so extremely embarrassed by her own abandon.

She wet Wannetta’s hair and cleaned it with Paul Mitchell. When she was finished with the conditioning, she helped her walk to the styling chair. “Same thing?” she asked.

“Yep. I stick to what works.”

“I remember.” As Delaney combed out the tangles, Nick’s parting words still echoed in her head. They’d been echoing in her head since he’d said them. To see if I could. He’d kissed her and touched her breasts, just to see if he could. He’d made her breasts tingle and her thighs burn just to see if he could. And she’d let him. Just like she’d let him ten years ago.

What was it about her? What personality defect did she possess that allowed Nick to slide past her defenses? During the long hours she’d spent contemplating that question, she’d come up with only one explanation other than loneliness. Her biological clock was ticking. It had to be. She couldn’t hear it ticking, but she was twenty-nine, not married, with no prospects in the immediate future. Maybe her body was a hormonal time bomb and she didn’t even know it.

“Leroy liked when I wore silky drawers,” Wannetta said, interrupting Delaney’s silent contemplations about ticking hormones. “He hated the cotton kind.”

Delaney snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She didn’t want to envision Wannetta in silky underwear.

“You should buy you some silky drawers.”

“You mean the kind that come up past your navel?” The kind that look like car seatcovers?

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Cause men like ‘em. Men like women to wear pretty things. If you get yourself some silky drawers, you can get yourself a husband.”

“No, thank you,” she said as she reached for the waving solution and snipped the top off. Even if she were interested in finding a husband in Truly, which was of course ludicrous, she was only going to be in town until June. “I don’t want a husband.” She thought of Nick and all the problems he’d caused since she’d been back. “And to tell you the truth,” she added, “I don’t think men are worth all the problems they cause. They are highly overrated.”

Wannetta grew silent as Delaney poured the solution on one side of her head, and just when Delaney began to worry that her client had fallen asleep with her eyes open, or worse, passed on, Wannetta opened her mouth and asked in a hushed voice, “Are you one of those lipstick lesbians? You can tell me. I won’t tell a soul.”

And the moon is made of green cheese, Delaney thought. If only she were a lesbian, she wouldn’t have found herself kissing Nick and her hands tearing at his shirt. She wouldn’t have found herself fascinated by his hairy chest. She met Wannetta’s gaze in the mirror and thought about telling her yes. A rumor like that might neutralize the rumor about herself and Nick. But her mother would freak even more. “No,” she finally sighed. “But it would probably make my life easier.”

Mrs. Van Damme’s finger waves took Delaney just under an hour. When she was finished, she watched the older woman write out a check, then she helped her with her coat.

“Thanks for coming in,” she said as she walked her to the door.

“Silky drawers,” Wannetta reminded her and slowly moved down the street.

Ten minutes after Mrs. Van Damme left, a woman came in with her three-year-old son. Delaney hadn’t given a child a cut since beauty school, but she hadn’t forgotten how. After the first snip, she wished she had. The little boy pulled at the small plastic cape she’d found in the storage room as if she were choking him. He writhed and fussed and continually yelled NO! at her. Cutting his hair turned into a wrestling match. She was sure if she could just tie him up and sit on him, she could get the job done in a hurry.

“Brandon’s such a good boy,” his mother cooed from the neighboring chair. “Mommy’s so proud.”

Incredulous, Delaney stared at the woman who’d decked herself out in Eddie Bauer and REI. The woman looked to be in her early to mid-forties, and reminded Delaney of a magazine article she’d read in the dentist office questioning the wisdom of older women producing children from old eggs.

“Does Brandon want a good-boy fruit snack?”

“No!” screeched the product of her old egg.

“Done,” Delaney said when she finished and threw her hands upward like a champion calf roper. She charged the lady fifteen dollars with the hope Brandon would plague Helen next time. She swept up the child’s white-blond curls, then flipped the Out to Lunch sign and walked to the corner deli for her usual, turkey on whole wheat. For several months she’d eaten her lunch at the deli and had gotten to know the owner, Bernard Dalton, on a first-name basis. Bernard was in his late thirties and a bachelor. He was short, balding, and looked like a man who enjoyed his own cooking. His face was always slightly pink, as if he were a little out of breath, and the shape of his dark mustache made him appear as if he always wore a smile.

The lunch rush was slowing as Delaney stepped into the restaurant. The shop smelled of ham, pasta, and chocolate chip cookies. Bernard looked up from the dessert case, but his gaze quickly slid away. His face turned several shades pinker than usual.

He’d heard. He’d heard the rumor and he obviously believed it.

She cast a glance about the deli, at the other customers staring at her, and she wondered how many had listened to the gossip. She suddenly felt naked and forced herself to walk to the front counter. “Hello, Bernard,” she said, keeping her voice even. “I’ll have a turkey on whole wheat like I usually have.”

“Diet Pepsi?” he asked, moving toward the meat case.

“Yes, please.” She kept her gaze pinned to the little “Extra Pennies” cup by the cash register. She wondered if the whole town believed she’d had sex with Nick in her front window. She heard hushed voices behind her and was afraid to turn around. She wondered if they were talking about her, or if she was just being paranoid.

Usually she took her sandwich to a small table by the window, but today she paid for her lunch and hurried back to her salon. Her stomach was in knots and she had to force herself to eat a portion of her meal.

Nick. This mess was his fault. Whenever she let her guard down around him, she always paid for it. Whenever he decided to charm her, she always lost her dignity, if not her clothes.

At a little after two, she had a client who needed her straight black hair trimmed, and at three-thirty Steve, the backhoe driver she’d met at Louie and Lisa’s Fourth of July party, walked into the salon bringing in a wisp of cool autumn with him. He wore a jean jacket with sheared sheep lining. His cheeks were pink and his eyes bright, and his smile told her he was glad to see her. Delaney was glad to see a friendly face. “I need a haircut,” he confessed.

With one quick glance, she took in the shaggy condition of his hair. “You sure do,” she said and motioned toward her booth. “Hang up your coat and come on back.”

“I want it short.” He followed her and pointed to a spot above his right ear. “This short. I wear a lot of ski hats in the winter.”

Delaney had something in mind that would look awesome on him, and she’d get to use her clippers, too. Something she’d been dying to do again for months now. His hair would have to be dry so she sat him in the salon chair. “I haven’t seen you around much,” she said as she combed out his golden tangles.

“We’ve been working a lot to get done before the first snow, but now things have slowed down.”

“What do you do in the winter for a job?” she asked, and fired up the clippers.

“Collect unemployment and ski,” he spoke over the steady buzz.

Unemployment and skiing would have appealed to her when she’d been twenty-two, also. “Sounds like fun,” she said, cutting up and away in an arching motion and leaving the hair longer at his crown.

“It is. We should ski together.”

She would have loved to, but the closest resort was outside Truly city limits. “I don’t ski,” she lied.

“Then what if I come and pick you up tonight? We could grab a bite to eat then drive down to Cascade for a movie.”

She couldn’t go to Cascade, either. “I can’t.”

“Tomorrow night?”

Delaney held the clipper aloft and looked in the mirror at him. His chin was on his chest and he looked up at her through eyes so big and blue she could drive a boat through them. Maybe he wasn’t too young. Maybe she should give him another chance. Then maybe she wouldn’t be so lonely and vulnerable to the pied piper of pheromones. “Dinner,” she said and resumed her cutting. “No movie. And we can only be friends.”

His smile was a combination of innocence and guile. “You might change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“What if I tried to change it for you?”

She laughed. “Only if you don’t get too obnoxious about it.”

“Deal. We’ll go slow.”

Before Steve left, she gave him her home telephone number. By four-thirty, she’d had four clients total and an appointment to do a foil weave for the next afternoon. The day hadn’t been all bad.

She was tired and looked forward to a long soak in the bathtub. With half an hour remaining before she could close, she kicked back in a salon chair with some of her hair braiding books for brides. Lisa’s wedding was less than a month away, and Delaney was looking forward to styling her friend’s hair.

The bell above the front door rang, and she looked up as Louie walked in. Deep red mottled his cheeks like he’d been outside all day, and his hands were stuck in the pockets of his blue canvas coat. A deep wrinkle furrowed his brow, and he didn’t look like he’d come to get his hair cut.

“What can I do for you, Louie?” She stood and walked behind the counter.

He quickly looked about the salon, then settled his dark gaze on her. “I wanted to talk to you before you closed for the day.”

“Okay.” She set down her braiding book and opened the cash register. She shoved money into a black Naugahyde bag, and when he didn’t speak right away, she looked up at him. “Shoot.”

“I want you to stay away from my brother.”

Delaney blinked twice and slowly zipped the money bag closed. “Oh,” was all she managed.

“In less than a year you’ll be gone, but Nick will still live here. He’ll have to run his business here, and he’ll have to live with all the gossip you two create.”

“I didn’t mean to create anything.”

“But you did.”

Delaney felt her cheeks grow hot. “Nick assured me he doesn’t care what people say about him.”

“Yeah, that’s Nick. He says a lot of things. Some of them he actually means, too.” Louie paused and scratched his nose. “Look, like I said, you’re leaving in under a year, but Nick will have to listen to the gossip about you after you’re gone. He’ll have to live it down—again.”

“Again?”

“The last time you left, there was some crazy stuff said about you and Nick. Stuff that hurt my mother, and I think Nick a little, too. Although he said he didn’t care except for the grief it caused my mother.”

“Do you mean the gossip about me having Nick’s baby?”

“Yes, but the part about the abortion was worse.”

Delaney blinked. “Abortion?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“No.” She looked down at her hands clutching the money bag. The old gossip hurt and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she cared what people thought of her.

“Well, someone must have seen you somewhere and noticed you weren’t pregnant. People said you had an abortion because the baby was Nick’s. Others thought maybe Henry had you get rid of it.”

Her gaze shot to his and an odd little ache settled next to her heart. She hadn’t been pregnant so she didn’t know why she cared at all. “I hadn’t heard that part.”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you? I always assumed that was probably why you never came back.”

“No one ever mentioned it.” But she wasn’t surprised. Delaney was silent for a moment before she asked, “Did anyone actually believe it?”

“Some.”

To imply she’d terminated a pregnancy because of Nick, or that Henry had forced an abortion was beyond insulting. Delaney believed in a woman’s right to choose, but she didn’t believe she could ever have an abortion herself. Certainly not because she no longer liked the father, and especially not because of anything Henry would have had to say about it. “What did Nick think?”

Louie’s dark eyes stared into hers before he answered, “He acted like he always does. Like he didn’t care, but he beat the hell out of Scooter Finley when Scooter was stupid enough to mention it in front of him.”

Nick would have known she wasn’t pregnant with his baby, and she was stunned that the rumor had bothered him at all, let alone bothered him enough to deck Scooter.

“And now you’re back and a whole new batch of rumors has begun. I don’t want my wedding to turn into another excuse for you and my brother to create more gossip.”

“I would never do that.”

“Good because I want Lisa to be the center of attention.”

“I think Nick and I are probably going to avoid each other for the rest of our lives.”

Louie dug in his coat pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “I hope so. Otherwise, you’ll just hurt each other again.”

Delaney didn’t ask him what he meant by that comment. She’d never hurt Nick. Impossible. In order for Nick to be hurt by anything, he’d have to have human feelings like everyone else, and he didn’t. He had a heart of stone.

After Louie left, Delaney locked up, then stood at the counter and studied several more books on braids for the upcoming wedding. She had some great ideas, but she couldn’t concentrate long enough to visualize the important details.

People said you had an abortion because the baby was Nick’s. Others thought maybe Henry had you get rid of it. Delaney put the books aside and turned out the lights. The old gossip was so mean-spirited with its insinuation that Nick’s own father had forced her to get an abortion because the baby was Nick’s. She wondered what kind of person would spread something so cruel, and she wondered if they ever felt remorse or ever bothered to apologize to Nick.

Delaney grabbed her coat and locked the salon behind her. Nick’s Jeep was parked next to her car in the small dark parking lot. He acted like he always does. Like he didn‘t care.

She tried not to wonder if he’d really been hurt as much as Louie had implied. She tried not to care. After the way he’d treated her the day before, she hated him.

She got as far as the stairs before she turned and walked to the back of his office. She knocked three times before the door swung open, and Nick stood there looking more intimidating than ever in a black thermal crew. He shifted his weight to one foot and tilted his head to the side. Surprise lifted one of his brows, but he didn’t say anything.

Now that he stood before her, with the light from his office spilling into the parking lot, Delaney wasn’t sure why she’d knocked. After what had happened yesterday, she really wasn’t sure what to say, either. “I heard something, and I wondered if—” She stopped and took a deep breath. Her nerves felt jumpy and her stomach queasy, like she’d consumed a triple shot German chocolate latte with an espresso chaser. She clasped her hands and looked at her thumbs. She didn’t know where to begin. “Someone told me about something horrible, and... I wondered if you’d...”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I’ve heard all about it several times today. In fact, Frank Stuart chased me down at a job site this morning to ask me if I’d broken the terms of Henry’s will. He might ask you about it, too.”

She looked up. “What?”

“You were right. Mrs. Vaughn told everyone, and apparently she added a few juicy details of her own.”

“Oh.” She felt her cheeks burn and stepped a little to the left, out of the light. “I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t ever want to talk about what happened yesterday.”

He leaned one shoulder against the door jam and looked at her through the night shadows. “Then why are you here?”

“I don’t really know, but I heard about an old rumor today, and I wanted to ask you about it.”

“What’s that?”

“Supposedly, I was pregnant when I left ten years ago.”

“But we both know that was impossible, don’t we? Unless of course you weren’t really a virgin.”

She took another step backward, deeper into the dark lot. “I heard a rumor that I had an abortion because you were the father of the baby.” She watched him straighten, and suddenly she knew why she’d knocked on his door. “I’m sorry, Nick.”

“It happened a long time ago.”

“I know, but I heard it for the first time today.” She walked to the bottom of the stairs and put a hand on the rail. “You want everyone to think nothing can touch you, but I think that rumor hurt more than you’ll ever admit. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have hit Scooter Finely.”

Nick rocked back on his heels and stuck his hands in his front pockets. “Scooter’s an asshole, and he pissed me off.”

She sighed and looked across her shoulder at him. “I just want you to know I wouldn’t have had an abortion, that’s all.”

“Why do you think I care what people say about me?”

“Maybe you don’t, but no matter how I feel about you, or how you feel about me, that was a really cruel thing for someone to say. I guess I just wanted you to know that I know it was mean and someone should say they’re sorry.” She dug in her coat pocket for her keys and started up the stairs. “Forget it.” Louie had been wrong. Nick acted like he didn’t care because he really didn’t.

“Delaney.”

“What?” She stuck her key in the lock, then paused with her hand on the doorknob.

“I lied to you yesterday.” She looked over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see him.

“When?”

“When I said you could have been anyone. I would know you with my eyes closed.” His deep voice carried across the darkness more intimate than a whisper when he added, “I would know you, Delaney.” Then the squeak of hinges followed by the click of a dead bolt and Delaney knew he was gone.

She leaned over the railing, but the door was closed like Nick had never been there. His words were swallowed in the night like he’d never spoken them.

Once inside her apartment, Delaney kicked off her shoes and popped a Lean Cuisine into the microwave. She turned on the television and tried to watch the local news, but she had a difficult time concentrating on the weather report. Her mind kept returning to her conversation with Nick. She kept remembering what he’d said about knowing her with his eyes closed, and she reminded herself that Nick was far more dangerous when he was nice.

She took her dinner out of the microwave and wondered if Frank Stuart would really want to talk to her about the latest rumor. Just like ten years ago, the town was whispering about her again. Whispering about her and Nick and “hanky-panky” on the counter in her salon. But unlike ten years ago, she couldn’t run from it. She couldn’t escape.

Before she’d agreed to the terms of Henry’s will, she’d moved all over the place. She’d always had the freedom to pick up and move when the mood struck. She’d always been in control of her life. She’d always had a goal. Now everything was hazy and confused and out of control. And Nick Allegrezza was smack in the middle of it all. He was one of the biggest reasons her life was so messed up.

Delaney stood and walked into her bedroom. She wished she could blame everything on Nick. She wished she could hate him completely, but for some reason she couldn’t hate Nick. He’d made her more angry than anyone in her life, but she’d never been able to really hate him. Her life would be so much easier if she could.

When she fell asleep that night, she had another dream that quickly turned into a nightmare. She dreamed it was June and she’d fulfilled the terms of Henry’s will. She was finally able to leave Truly.

She was free and buzzing with pleasure. The sun poured all over her, bathing her in a light so bright she could hardly see. She was finally warm and wore a killer pair of purple platforms. Life just didn’t get much better.

Max was in her dream, and he handed her one of those big checks like she’d won The Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. She shoved it in the passenger seat of her Miata and jumped in the car. With the three million dollars beside her, she headed out of town feeling as if a mammoth weight had been lifted from her spirit, and the closer she drove to the Truly city limits, the lighter she felt.

She drove toward the city limits for what seemed like hours, and just when freedom was less than a mile away, her Miata turned into a Matchbox car, leaving her on the side of the road with her big check tucked under one arm. Delaney looked at the tiny car by the toe of her right purple platform and shrugged as if that sort of thing happened all the time. She stuck the car into her pocket so it wouldn’t get stolen and continued toward the city limits. But no matter how long or how fast she walked, the Leaving Truly sign remained barely visible in the distance. She began to run, leaning to one side to counterbalance the weight of her three-million-dollar check. The check grew increasingly burdensome, but she refused to leave it behind. She ran until her sides ached and she could move no further. The city limits remained in the distance, and Delaney knew without a doubt, she was stuck in Truly forever.

She sat straight up in bed. A silent scream on her lips. She was sweaty and her breathing choppy.

She’d just had the worst nightmare of her life.