AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With the hot towel bundled to retain heat, she walked to the chair and met his eyes in the mirror. “Short for Virginia, but everybody calls me Ginny.”
Silence. She unfurled the steaming towel and held the corners by her fingertips to let it cool. “This is where you say, ‘Nice to meet you Ginny, I’m…state your name here.’”
The corner of his mouth tipped up in the slightest of smiles. “Shaun.”
“Lovely to meet you. Got a last name, Shaun?” She used the foot pedal to lower the chair a few inches, and then tipped it back slightly.
“It’s a mouthful.” Her attention drifted to his mouth, and in her mind she heard him add, like everything about me. Instead, he said, “Just call me Shaun.”
She puffed out a breath and pressed her lips together to calm the suddenly hyperactive nerve endings there. “All righty then. Lean your head back…perfect,” she said when he did as she asked. She draped the towel over his face. “Let me know if this is too hot.”
An indistinct murmur served as his reply. She took it as a no, and pulled a clean cape from a lower workstation drawer. A practiced flick of her wrists unfurled it over him. She secured it behind his neck, and then got busy whipping shave cream into a thick lather with her brush. When that was done, she used her palms to pat the towel against his cheeks for another moment, and then removed it and tossed it into the bin beneath the rolling cart parked next to her workstation. She eyed him in the mirror and brought her hands up to test his whiskers. Probably several days of growth, but not enough to warrant trimming with scissors first. Foam and a good, sharp razor would do the job.
Using the wide, badger fur shaving brush, she painted his throat, jaw, chin and cheeks with a layer of lather while considering conversation starters. Bluelick’s most mysterious new face sat in her chair. She didn’t intend to waste a golden opportunity to get the scoop on him. “Are you in town for business or pleasure?”
“Some of both.”
She put the brush and bowl on the counter and opened a drawer. “What kind of business?” The shiny silver shield of her straight razor winked from the neatly arranged selection of grooming tools. She took it out and pushed the drawer closed with her hip, and then stepped behind him again. His eyes latched onto the razor and stayed there as she opened it. She wouldn’t say he looked nervous, but he looked…cautious.
“Serious blade.”
“Five-eighths inch, full hollow, carbon steel straight razor. You’ll get a close shave.”
“And then some,” he muttered under his breath. To her he said, “You’ve done this before, right?”
Now she resisted the temptation to grin. “Please. I’m a licensed professional. Sit back. Relax. You’re in good hands.” She leaned in, tipped his chin up and placed the blade against his throat. Because the position put her mouth close to his ear, she modulated her voice and repeated her question. “What kind of business brings you to Bluelick?”
Her eyes found his in the mirror. He waited until she’d swept the blade from his Adam’s apple to his chin before responding. “The boring kind. Nothing worth talking about.”
Man, this guy was a tough nut. She cleaned the razor and positioned it for another pass. “You sell yourself short, Shaun. Bluelick’s a small town. A new face creates a big stir around these parts.” The next pass revealed another swath of smo
oth, sun-bronzed skin. Apparently a scruffy jaw wasn’t his normal look.
His mouth twisted into the phantom smile again. “Has the rumor mill been grinding away on me?”
She found herself returning the smile. He knew a thing or two about small towns. “Hell, yes. You’re the biggest mystery to hit Bluelick since someone set fire to a bag of dog poop and left it on Mr. Cranston’s porch. Theories abound,” she added as she cleared another path along his throat.
“I’m glad to know I rate right up there with dog crap. Let’s hear them.”
“Well, I can’t claim to know every single one.”
“You sell yourself short, Virginia,” he drawled. “I’ll bet you hear everything. Something tells me people open up to you.”
“Ginny,” she automatically corrected, though aside from her name, he’d gotten everything else right. People did tend to open up to her. But the same bout of self-improvement that had inspired her currently inconvenient sex hiatus had given rise to her vow to stop spreading gossip. She couldn’t necessarily help hearing things—she did own a beauty shop, after all—but she could resist the temptation to pass the stories along. No more talking behind people’s backs. Then again, did it count as talking behind a person’s back if the person she was talking to happened to be the subject of the rumor? Seemed like a legitimate loophole. Plus, she really wanted to know his story.
“I’ll give you the top three,” she said, working the razor over his jaw. A strong, masculine jaw. She tamped down on a wicked impulse to run her lips along the chiseled angle. “So long as you tell me if any of them are close to the truth.”
He waited until she lifted the razor off his skin, and then slowly nodded, never breaking eye contact. For one wild moment she imagined he’d read her dirty mind and given her the go-ahead to put her mouth on him, but then reason kicked in.
“Okay. Um…” She rifled through her mental files for the most plausible backstory while sliding the razor along his cheek. “You’re running from a checkered past, lying low in our backwater town while searching for redemption.”
A low, rusty laugh rumbled up from his chest.
“Not so much?” she guessed.
“What else have you got?”
“Let’s see.” She finished his other cheek and came around front to shave his upper lip. “Some say you’re one of those off-the-grid, lone-wolf types, bunkered in a cabin outside of town.”
