Nick took a long drink. They both knew why she put up with him.


Delaney felt Steve’s strong masculine arm encircle her waist and pull her against his side. Red, white, and blue exploded in the black night, showering the lake with fiery sparks as Delaney tested the feeling of Steve’s embrace. She decided she liked it. She liked the contact and the warmth. She felt alive again.

She glanced to the left and watched Nick bury the bottom half of a pipe in the sand. A few minutes earlier, she’d gotten a real good look at the fireworks “Uncle Nick” had brought his niece. There wasn’t so much as one legal sparkler in the sack.

A cascade of gold illuminated his profile for a few brief seconds, and she looked away. She wasn’t going to avoid him anymore. She wasn’t going to limit where she went because she didn’t want to run into him. And she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her time in Truly like she had the past month. She had a plan. Her mother wasn’t going to like it, but Delaney didn’t care.

And she had a wedding to look forward to in November, too. Lisa had approached her again about being in her wedding and Delaney had gladly said yes. She remembered the many times she and Lisa had pinned dishtowels in their hair and pretended to walk down the aisle. They’d speculated over who would marry first. They’d hoped for a big double wedding. Neither of them would have believed they would remain single until the ripe old age of twenty-nine.

Twenty-nine. As far as she could tell, she was the only one of her school friends who wasn’t at least engaged. In February she would turn thirty. A thirty-year-old woman with no home of her own and no man in her life. The home she wasn’t worried about. With three million she could buy a home. But the man. It wasn’t that she needed a man in her life. She didn’t, but it would have been nice to have one around sometimes. She hadn’t had a boyfriend for a while and she missed the intimacy.

Her gaze was drawn again to the dark silhouette of the man lighting rockets from a pipe near the water’s edge. He turned at the waist and looked over his shoulder in her direction. A funny little tickle settled in the pit of her stomach, and she quickly glanced up into the night sky.

The town sent up a finale so spectacular it lit the lake like dawn and caught the canopy of Colonel Mansfield’s pontoon boat on fire. The people loved it and showed their appreciation by setting off their own bombs from beaches and balconies. Happy Dragons, Cobras, and Mighty Rebels burst in fiery showers of sparks. Legal fireworks like Whistling Pete’s, modified to screech and take flight, buzzed the night sky.

Delaney had forgotten what pyromaniacs the people of Truly were. A shrieking missile whizzed past her head and exploded in a red shower on Louie’s deck.

Welcome to Idaho. Land of potatoes and pyros.

Chapter Five

The Miata’s door handle dug into Delaney’s behind as Steve pressed into her front. She placed her hands on his chest and ended the kiss.

“Come home with me,” he whispered above her ear.

Delaney pulled back just far enough to look into the dark shadows of his face. She wished she could use him. She wished she was tempted. She wished he wasn’t so young and that his age didn’t matter, but it did. “I can’t.” He was handsome, had pecs of steel, and seemed genuinely nice. She felt like a cradle robber.

“My roommate is out of town.”

A roommate. Of course he had a roommate. He was twenty-two. He probably lived on canned chili and Budweiser. When she’d been twenty-two, a well-rounded meal consisted mostly of corn chips, salsa, and sangria. She’d been living in Vegas, working at Circus Circus, not even concerned with the rest of her life. “I never go home with men I’ve just met,” she told him and pushed until he took a step backward.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.

Delaney shook her head and opened her car’s door. “You’re a nice guy, but I’m not interested in seeing anyone right now.”

As she drove away, she looked into her rearview mirror at Steve’s retreating back. At first she’d been flattered by the attention he’d paid her, but as the night had progressed, she’d become more uneasy. A lot of maturing happened in seven years. Matching furniture became as important as a killer stereo, and somewhere along the way, the phrase “party till you puke” lost its appeal. But even if she’d been seriously tempted to use Steve’s body for her own pleasure, Nick had ruined it for her. He ruined it by just being at the party. She was much too aware of him, and there was just too much history between them for her to ignore him completely. Even when she did manage to forget him for a few moments, she’d suddenly feel his gaze, like hot irresistible tractor beams pulling at her. But when she’d looked at him, he was never looking back.

Delaney turned up the long driveway and pressed the garage door opener on the dash. And even if Nick hadn’t been there, and Steve hadn’t been young, she doubted she would have gone home with him. She was twenty-nine, lived with her mother, and was too paranoid to enjoy a one-nighter.

After she parked next to Henry and Gwen’s matching Cadillacs, she headed into the house through the door off the kitchen. A bug light and several citronella candles cast a dim glow on the porch out back, illuminating Gwen and the back of a man’s head. It wasn’t until Delaney walked outside that she recognized Henry’s lawyer, Max Harrison. She hadn’t seen Max since the day he’d read Henry’s will. She was surprised to see him now.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, standing as she approached. “How do you like living in Truly again?”

It sucks, she thought as she sat in a wrought-iron chair across the matching table from her mother. “It takes some getting used to.”

“Did you enjoy your party?” Gwen asked.

“Yes,” she answered truthfully. She’d met some nice people, and despite Nick Allegrezza, she’d enjoyed herself.

“Your mother was just telling me you’ve been busy training Henry’s dogs.” Max took his seat once again, and his smile seemed genuine. “Maybe you’ve found a new career.”

“Actually, I like my old career,” she said. Ever since her conversation with Louie, she’d been thinking about the vacant building downtown. She hadn’t wanted to discuss her ideas with her mother until she was sure she could pull it off, but the person she needed to talk to most just happened to be sitting across the table, and her mother would find out sooner or later anyway. “Who owns the building next to Allegrezza Construction?” she asked Max. “It’s a thin two-story with a hair salon on the bottom floor.”

“I believe Henry left that block of property at First and Main to you. Why?”

“I want to reopen the salon.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” her mother said. “There are a lot of other things you can do.”

Delaney ignored her. “How do I go about doing it?”

“To get started, you’ll need a small business loan. The previous owner is dead, so you’ll need to contact the attorney representing her heirs to determine the value of the salon,” he began. When he was finished half an hour later, Delaney knew exactly what she had to do. First thing Monday, she’d pay a visit to the bank holding her money in trust and apply for a loan. As far as she could see, there was only one drawback to her plan. The salon was located next to Nick’s construction company. “Can I raise the rent on the building next door?” Maybe she could force him out.

“Not until the current lease expires.”

“When is that?”

“Another year I believe.”

“Damn.”

“Please don’t swear,” her mother admonished while she reached across the table and placed her hand on top of Delaney’s. “If you want to open a little business, why don’t you think about a gift shop?”

“I don’t want to open a gift shop.”

“You could open up in time to sell Christmas Spode.”

“I don’t want to sell Spode.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

“Then you do it. I’m a hairstylist, and I want to reopen the salon downtown.”

Gwen sat back in her chair. “You’re just doing this to spite me.”

She wasn’t, but she’d lived with her mother long enough to know that if she argued, she’d end up looking childish. Sometimes talking to Gwen was like wrestling with flypaper. The more you fought to get free, the more you got stuck.


It took Delaney a little over three months to secure her loan and get the salon ready to open for business. While she waited, she did an unscientific study of the downtown business district, with emphasis on the number of customers who walked into Helen’s Hair Hut. With legal pad and pen in hand, she parked in alleys and spied on her childhood nemesis, Helen Markham. When Lisa wasn’t working or busy with wedding plans, Delaney had her report any activity she might notice as well. Delaney charted demographic statistics and visually gathered bad perm versus good perm data. She even went so far as concocting a phony English accent in case Helen recognized her when she called to ask what her competition charged for a color retouch. But it wasn’t until she found herself digging through Helen’s Dumpster one night to check out what kinds of cheap products Helen used that several thoughts struck her at the same time. As she’d stood there, up to her thighs in garbage, her foot sinking into a container of spoiled cottage cheese, she realized she’d gone a little overboard with her investigation. She also realized that the success of the salon had as much to do with fulfilling a dream as it did with kicking Helen to-the curb. She’d been away for ten years, only to come back and fall into the same patterns. However, this time she wasn’t going to lose anything to Helen.