“But you went out to get me flowers,” Alix said, softening. “That was very nice of you.”
He turned left off the wide road and into the parking area of some little shops. One was Hair Concern, another was a computer store. “I don’t know how long this will take. If you want to go home I’ll run in and tell Trish that I can’t make it right now. Or you could visit the other shops.”
Alix got out of the truck. “I’ll go in with you and you can introduce me. I’ll need a hairdresser while I’m here.”
“I thought you were leaving tomorrow,” he said as he walked around the truck.
“So were you. Changed your mind?”
“Now that I know you aren’t going to ask me for my wisdom, maybe I will stay.”
“If I meet Jared Montgomery that’s the first thing I’m going to ask him, but Mr. Kingsley just seems to go fishing and …” She looked up at him. “What else do you do?”
“I don’t know. It’s been years since I had any time off. All winter I went back and forth to New York and even now I have one project that my partner is on my case to do.” They had stepped up onto a little porch and Jared was holding the door open for her.
Alix had to clamp her teeth down on the sides of her tongue to keep from asking what project he needed to work on. But a deal was a deal and she wasn’t going to break it.
The salon was large and well lit. Jared introduced Alix to Tricia, who was small, trim, and quite pretty.
“I don’t want him shaved,” Alix said, then turned red. “Sorry for being so bossy.”
“I’m not allowed to anyway,” Trish said and explained that she didn’t have a barber’s license so she couldn’t shave Jared. For a few minutes the two women discussed what to do with his mess of hair and beard while he sat in the chair in silence. When they had it settled, Alix sat down in the empty chair in the next booth.
It turned out that Trish seemed to have read every novel published in the last ten years. She and Alix kept up a steady stream of conversation while Trish trimmed, washed, and cut Jared’s hair. If he so much as said a word, neither woman noticed.
When Trish finished, the two women stood side by side to inspect her work.
Jared looked at least ten years younger, and the beard and long hair suited him very well. His whiskers were perfectly trimmed around his strong jawline and his hair reached down the back of his neck. There were gray patches in his beard and hair, but on him they looked good.
Alix wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but he looked even better now than he did a couple of years ago when she and Izzy heard him speak. Alix couldn’t help looking over his head in the mirror at his lower lip.
“Is it all right?” Jared asked, looking at Alix in the mirror.
“Yes,” she said and turned away.
At the register, Jared paid, they said goodbye, then left.
“Grocery?” Jared asked.
She opened the truck door. “I’m beginning to feel guilty taking up your time. Maybe you could take me to a car rental agency and I could get a vehicle.”
“If you’re going to be here for a whole year maybe we should buy you a used car. I have a friend who has a VW for sale.”
“I think I’ll wait on buying a car. When Mom gets here she’ll probably do something. What does she drive when she’s here?”
“Nothing,” Jared said. “She walks to town to eat. There’s a grocery a few blocks down and she gets fruit there. She and Aunt Addy went out to lunch often, but then most of the time your mother was here, she worked.”
“Oh, yes. Plotting her novels,” Alix said.
Reading my family’s journals and making notes, Jared thought. One year Victoria sneaked in a portable copy machine. She’d used it only in the privacy of her bedroom, but his grandfather, Caleb, told Aunt Addy about it and there’d been a huge fight. Victoria had accused Addy of spying on her.
When Jared was told of it, he’d laid into his grandfather for doing the spying. “Do you sneak around and watch her dress and undress?!” Jared had meant his words to be a put-down, but Caleb had grinned and said, “Oh, yes. But only for Victoria,” then he’d disappeared.
It didn’t matter how Addy knew, Victoria was told to get rid of the copier or leave. Reluctantly, she handed it over to Addy. Last time Jared looked, it was still in a cabinet in the second parlor.
“Yes, plotting,” Jared said at last. “Would you like to go to the grocery or not?”
“I could use a few things.”