The Girl Most Likely To... Read online

  Subtle was not his middle name.

  Dana worked her way to her feet. She made her way back to the storage room at a pace even elderly Olivia Hawkins, one of her regular customers, could beat. It was as though the fall had knocked more than Dana’s breath from her. It had taken her heart, too.

  Once she stripped out of her dye-and-soap-covered jeans and shirt, she scrubbed her hands and face. Dana checked the bruises already blossoming on her elbows, then dressed in the spare change of clothes she always kept in the salon. Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten around to switching to winter wear, so she was stuck with a pair of white shorts and a skimpy black sleeveless top.

  She hauled out the bucket and mop, plus all the rags she could get her hands on. She was about to start cleaning when those guiding spirits finally made their presence known. It struck her that she should call someone…maybe even the police. And before she mopped up the evidence, obviously.

  “Dana Devine, world’s densest victim,” she muttered.

  The phone was in the front of the salon, through the minefield of soap and rust brown, red and purple ooze. Dana kept to the perimeter, though it was still far from easy going. When she reached the phone, she lifted the handset and dialed 9-1-1. The woman on the other end got the facts from her and told her that someone was on the way.

  Dana stood in the front room, looked at the way Mike had messed with her life once again, and felt the numbness that had taken over her soul give way to icy anger.

  Ah, being mad felt good; being mad felt cleansing. Mike the weasel deserved to be in jail, and the sooner, the better.

  COVERING FOR ROB meant at least Cal had a car. This was Cal’s only uplifting thought as he drove the miles from his daily loop through Sandy Bend’s countryside to the location of the call he’d just taken. A call that summoned him to the last place on earth he was prepared to be—up close and personal with Dana Devine.

  He pulled in front of the salon, got out of the cruiser and reminded himself that he was a professional. Damn crying shame, too, he admitted as he made his way down the snow-covered steps to the basement entry of Dana’s salon.

  Cal looked at the frou-frou flowers on the entryway walls and winced. This place had suited Dana better when it had been the Hair Dungeon, before she and Hallie became joined at the hip, and his sister had painted all the girly flowers and ivy on the walls. Not that Dana wasn’t feminine; she just wasn’t flowery. She was more of a fire and seduction sort of woman. The kind that should scare the hair right off any reasonable man. Stupid him for not having been scared on Friday night. And even more stupid was his bizarre sense of anticipation—hunger, even—at the thought of seeing her again.

  He tugged on the front door, but it was locked. Even though he could see Dana through the glass side panel, he pounded on the door’s shiny, forest-green surface. It felt good to use up some of his frustration on the door, though he still had plenty to spare.

  He looked through the side panel again and that incipient frustration grew. Why was she dressed for a summer picnic, with a couple of inches of skin exposed between the top and shorts? Skin that he knew all too well was hot and supple but had an alluringly innocent taste of peaches. He tried to focus his gaze elsewhere, but couldn’t. Dana hadn’t moved from her spot next to the reception desk.

  “Would you let me in?” he called.

  She shook her head emphatically no. “Go around.”

  “Just let me in.”

  “Too slick…go around back.”

  Slick? He’d been told he was dealing with a B and E. Shock rippled through him as he realized he still hadn’t looked anywhere but at Dana. Years of training had been obliterated by the sight of one sexy blonde.

  Muttering to himself about getting a grip and being a professional, Cal trudged up the front steps, around the corner and to the back door of the new space Hallie had told him Dana had rented.

  He noted the glacier of ice that had built up just outside the entry. Strange. The door swung open. Dana stood on the other side.

  He dragged his gaze past the hot little outfit to note that she was barefoot. In her left hand was a towel soggy with something that looked like muck and rust and even slimier stuff.

  “How many people are in the police department?” she asked in a flat voice.

  “Six.”

  “How about calling one of them?”

  True, he’d rather be scrubbing the station floor with a toothbrush than be here, but it really bugged him to know he was unwelcome. Then again, what had he expected?

  “This was my call. I took it and you’re stuck with me. Now you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “When I got here about half an hour ago, the back door was wide open and someone had flooded the place.”

  A mix of annoyance and alarm shot through him. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So you just walked right in?”

  “Trust me, the person who did this isn’t the sticking-around type.”

  Better and better. “Just how do you know that?”

  She motioned him into the building. As he followed her down a hallway with half-painted walls, she said over her shoulder, “Because Mike did it.”

  “Mike?”

  They stepped through what was obviously a recently cut entry into her original salon space. “Henderson—my ex-husband? And no one is worse at sticking around than Mike.”

  Cal looked at the brownish liquid slowly seeping its way behind a short row of hair washing sinks. The place was a total mess. “Why do you say it was Mike?”

  “We had a disagreement here in the salon before I left for Chi—” She stopped abruptly.

  “Left for where?” he asked, still more focused on the evidence littering the place than what she was saying. This damage looked like the work of a pack of bored kids.

  “For Chicago.”

  “Oh,” he said, wishing he’d never asked. “Right.”

  They spent an uncomfortable moment, and he was no more willing to meet her eyes than she was his. His gaze wandered to a photo on the wall—the nude of Dana—then skittered away. He tried to think of something—anything—than the feel of her beneath him on Friday night. And early Saturday morning…

  He swallowed hard and forced himself to look at her. This time, her eyes locked with his. Cal felt an unsettling sense of having been deprived of something special and rare. He reminded himself that their time at the Almont had been about nothing but sex, and that it was in the past. That was the way an almost police chief needed it to be, and Dana wanted it to be. So what if they had shared the most incredible sex he’d ever experienced? So what if he felt a reluctant attraction to this woman, though she didn’t seem to feel even a sense of basic social politeness toward him? So damn what? Ah well, if nothing else, in Chicago he’d learned the price of throwing away caution.

  “Aren’t you going to take fingerprints or something?”

  The tremor to her voice was so slight Cal thought he might have imagined it. Except she had her arms wrapped about her midsection, and she looked so lost that the sight was nearly enough to melt the ice he’d built around his heart.

  “Mitch will be here in a few minutes,” he said in his best “just the facts, ma’am” tone. He needed to keep a professional distance. “So, what was the disagreement about?”

  She shrugged. “The usual. He wanted money. I didn’t give him any, and he got even. Are you going to arrest him?” she more demanded than asked.

  He fought back the smile he felt forming. He knew Dana well enough to be sure she’d remove it for him if he let it show. “If I went around arresting men on the basis of their ex-wives’ claims, I’d have half of town in jail.”

  “So you’re saying that I made this up? Or that I did this to frame him?”

  “Look, just start at the beginning and tell me what you saw.”

  She recited her story with a clarity that left him impressed. He needed to ask for additional details only a few times. Then she finished up with, �
�It’s Mike. I’d bet my last dollar. That is, if I didn’t have to spend it to replace all of the hair products he destroyed.”

  Cal looked up from his notes. “Have you called your insurance agent?”

  “I know better than to wake Missy Guyer before noon.”

  She had a good point. She was also on target in wondering about her ex. Still, even a town as small as Sandy Bend held its share of suspects.

  “Is anyone else angry at you? Have you had to fire anyone lately? Or had any trouble with the guys doing the renovation work?”

  “I haven’t fired anyone, and when I can, I work right along with the guys, so we get along fine.”

  A woman who could swing a hammer and sing the blues as if she’d been born in the twenties instead of the seventies? The thought was downright mind-boggling.

  She spurred him back to the matter at hand. “Cal, I’m telling you it was Mike.”

  “I appreciate the guidance, but let’s not stop at Mike. How about any mishaps with a customer?”

  He could almost see her hackles rise. “Mishaps? I’m a professional. Of course I’ve had customers who haven’t been perfectly happy, at first. I’ve worked out ninety-nine percent of the problems, and the rest make a career of being dissatisfied.” She shook her head. “All of them would worry too much about chipping a nail to do this.”

  Okay… That narrowed down the field to what he suspected was going to be an even more sensitive subject. “Any men? Current boyfriends?”

  “Men besides Mike?” she asked. She began to say something more, then stuttered to a stop. It was all Cal could do not to take a cautionary step backward as the full implication of what he’d asked began to register.

  “Current boyfriends?” she echoed, her color rising in dangerous flags over her cheekbones. “Do you think that I’d have been with you in Chicago if I had a boyfriend?”

  “I have to ask the question.”

  “So who do you think I’m dating? The town baseball team?” She stalked closer. “Here’s a newsflash for you, Chief. There has been no man in my life since Mike and I split up. Not one in over a year. Except you, that is. Much as it kills me, I guess I’m going to have to count Friday night, aren’t I?”

  Cal could feel a muscle at his jaw twitch as he fought to keep his expression impassive. Her jab shouldn’t hurt, but it did.

  “I’m just doing my job,” he replied, since any direct answer to her question would be the modern-day equivalent of impaling himself on his own sword.

  “Yes, you’re doing your job,” she said, “with a total lack of tact and sensitivity. But since you’ve raised the question, let’s play it out. You’ve slept with me, so that makes you a guy with a motive.” With a sweep of her arm, she gestured around the salon. “Is this your payback, Cal? You left Chicago plenty mad.”

  Cal turned when he heard somebody behind him cough. Mitch stood framed in the entryway to the new spa area. “Ready when you are.”

  The gleam of interest in Mitch’s eyes told Cal how long he’d been there. Cal ignored his brother and focused on Dana.

  “Look, Dana, Mitch and I are going to take some photos. An investigator from the county sheriff’s office should be here soon, too.”

  She threw up her hands. “Whatever,” she said angrily and stalked down the hallway where Mitch still stood.

  “So…you and Dana?” Mitch asked after Dana had disappeared.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Mitch’s answering grin ground on Cal’s nerves. He could remember a day when he’d been as easygoing as Mitch. It hadn’t been all that long ago, he supposed. Not that the past—including that night with Dana, which they clearly both regretted—mattered now.

  “Get to work,” he barked at his brother.

  “Yes, sir,” Mitch answered in a voice as dry as the dunes north of Sandy Bend.

  Cal blew out a weary breath. He should have gone to his lodge. Or barred himself in the barn. And he never, ever should have given in to temptation with Dana Devine.

  5

  AT EIGHT-THIRTY Tuesday morning, Dana sat across the desk from Ted Hughes, Esq. Ted had handled the incorporation of her business and the dissolution of her marriage with finesse and a hefty bill. Whether he could keep a roof over her head remained to be seen.

  She took a nervous swallow of her coffee and watched as Ted read through the notice Mr. Vandervoort had sent her. Watery gray daylight sifted through the office’s front blinds.

  “Give it to me straight,” she asked when Ted was through reading. “Can he do this?”

  Ted slid the papers back across the polished walnut desk. “You’re the poster child for poor legal decisions, you know that?”

  She’d known Ted forever, so she was willing to take a few blunt truths from him. “That bad, huh?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “You never signed a lease, Dana. If you had, we’d have some basis to fight him. But as it stands, you pay your rent monthly, so all he needs to give you is one month’s notice.”

  “Any good news?”

  Her lawyer grinned. “I won’t bill you for the bad news.”

  It could be worse, Dana thought, then gave a wry shake of her head. The way things were going, she might as well have that chiseled on her tombstone: It Could Be Worse.

  She stood and extended her hand. “You’re the best, Ted. I appreciate the break.”

  She was no sooner back on the sidewalk than her “it could be worse” philosophy was put to the supreme test. Mike, her ex, lurked at the corner. Dana debated turning back and taking the long way to the salon, but refused to give Mike that kind of power over her.

  “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night, huh?” she said as he approached.

  He looked skyward, then gave her his patented charming smile. “What do you mean? It’s daytime.”

  “Never mind.”

  He settled a hand on her arm. Dana drew away. She looked at him with as much objectivity as she could muster. Mike was a handsome guy, in a slick sort of way. He was tall with perfectly cut golden hair, and teeth he’d—well, actually she’d—paid a ton of money to get veneered to a blinding Hollywood white. The money was supposed to have been a loan. After that, she’d learned to be a lot more specific about the terms of repayment.

  Still, she could see why she’d fallen so hard for him, and why other women did with such nauseating frequency. But on a subjective level, she knew that if the Almighty had equipped Mike as He should have, the man would have a forked tongue and scales, because he was a big-time belly-crawler.

  “What do you want, Mike?”

  “Why should I want anything? Can’t a guy be concerned about his ex-wife?”

  She supposed some guy, somewhere, might be. But Mike? “Why start now?”

  “Dana, I hate to see you this bitter. I was just wondering why you were visiting Ted. Is it the trouble you had at the salon?”

  “How would you know about that?”

  She noted the way his eyes flickered away from hers before he said, “Around here, all it takes is stopping for a cup of coffee.”

  A point she’d have to concede, especially since more than one concerned citizen had pressed his nose to the front door of the salon yesterday, when she’d been scrubbing and bleaching, then scrubbing some more. She’d ignored everyone, as well as the persistent ringing of the telephone, preferring to suffer alone.

  “So, come on, what’s up with the visit to Ted?” Mike prodded. “Anything I can do to help? I warned you it was going to be tough going into business on your own.”

  Yes, he’d warned her when he’d asked for a share of the salon…not that he was willing to put up any cash for his percentage. He just figured he was owed it because he’d “given her a start,” as he’d put it. The truth was a whole lot uglier. Dana couldn’t stop the rush of anger bearing down on her.

  “You want to help me? Like you did when you cheated on me with Suzanne Costanza, whose best asset is her bank balance? Or maybe like the
time you cleared out my savings so we had to move back from Chicago in the first place? You’ve helped me enough, thanks.”

  He rambled on in his salesman’s patter, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Let me buy you breakfast—scrambled eggs and hash browns, your favorites. I’ve got a new deal in the works, and I want to tell you about it. I think it could be a big break for us.”

  He lifted his hand to her face. She knew he was going to run his finger down the bridge of her nose as he used to. Once, she’d found the gesture endearing. No more, though. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist in a no-nonsense grip.

  “Don’t you get it? There is no us. We’re divorced. Whatever new deal you have cooking doesn’t interest me. You’re no more a part of my life than that lamppost over there. Now, I’m having a really crummy day, and if you want to survive with your liver intact, you’d better cross to the other side of the street.” She released his hand.

  He patted the top of her head. “That PMS is still getting you down, huh?”

  If she followed through on her threat of liver removal, would the act be considered justifiable homicide? Regrettably, Dana had her doubts. Still, she’d get the cheap thrill of having Cal frisk her before she began her life behind bars. The thought held a certain twisted appeal.

  Based on the way Mike’s eyes widened as he took in her expression, he must have realized his liver was in true peril. He checked his watch. “Gotta run.”

  If she weren’t wearing suede snow boots that actually hated snow, Dana would have seen just how fast she could make Mike sprint. As he hustled in the opposite direction, she picked up her pace to Devine Secrets.

  “It could be worse,” she murmured. This time, she could almost see some truth in the statement. She could still be married to Mike.

  The closer Dana got to the salon, the more her optimism kicked into gear. Each Tuesday—the start of her workweek—was the beginning of something fresh and exciting. On a Tuesday, she could even face a visit by Cal Brewer.

  By the time Dana reached the back door of the salon, Trish, her facial and cosmetics expert, stood outside, stamping her feet and tucking her hands under her arms to avoid frostbite.