Midnight Madness. Karen Kendall

hand at the small of her back.

      His touch was casually intimate, for someone who’d just met her. Though she thought he was nuts, her body didn’t agree. Marly leaped forward as if burned and grabbed the plate of eggs. She held it in front of her like a shield and dodged around the serving cart. “Thanks.”

      “Can’t have you all shaky when you’re snipping the gubernatorial locks, eh?” He grinned. “Gubernatorial—isn’t that the weirdest word? Sounds like all things relating to a goober.”

      Marly laughed in spite of herself.

      “Now, my family and friends know the truth—I am one, but do we need to advertise the fact?”

      He didn’t look at all like a goober. He looked like blue-blooded sin in half of a thousand-dollar suit. And he was crazy. Obviously. Because he insisted on returning to their earlier topic of conversation.

      “Now that I’ve found you, Marly Fine, I’m going to have to insist that we get to know each other. Are you free for dinner?”

      Marly set down the omelet once again. “No, Governor, I’m not. We run a salon, which is open until midnight.”

      “You work a sixteen-hour day?”

      “Sometimes. Usually I work a twelve-hour one. I go in at noon. Miami is half-Latin, and Latins like to keep late hours.”

      “Hmm. I’m asleep by eleven. This could be tough to work out….” He stuck another bite of waffle into his mouth.

      Her sense of outrage rose. “Governor Hammersmith, while I am certainly, um, flattered by your interest, there is nothing to work out. I have a very full life and—”

      “You married?”

      “What? No.”

      “Engaged?”

      “No, but—”

      “Boyfriend?”

      She hesitated a split second too long.

      “Then we can work something out.”

      “Governor, maybe I don’t want to work something out!”

      “I’ve been told I’m passably handsome. I floss regularly and use mouthwash. I can even be charming, when I want to be.” He cocked his head to one side and licked a bit of whipped cream out of the corner of his mouth. “What’s not to like?”

      Marly closed her eyes. Then she opened them and took a deep breath. “Women don’t say no to you very often, do they?”

      He looked a little sheepish. Then he shook his head.

      “In fact, I’ll offer a guess that not many people say no to you.”

      Hammersmith stuck the last bite of waffle into his mouth and chewed pensively. Then he shook his head again.

      “Well,” Marly said brightly. “We all encounter new experiences, don’t we? Now give me that—” she took the plate from his hand and set it on the cart “—and come sit down in that rolling chair again so I can do my job.”

      He blinked at her, then went and sat down. She unfolded the salon drape and threw it around him, covering him from the neck down. Thank God I don’t have to look at that chest any longer.

      Then she handed him a mirror. “Now, you like a side part on the left, correct?”

      He nodded.

      “And it looks like…are you having these strands near your temples colored gray?”

      “Yes. They decided I looked more statesman-like with a little silver around the edges.”

      Marly pursed her lips. “I don’t have anything with me to do color. All I can do today is a cut.”

      “Isn’t that a shame. Guess you’ll have to see me again, won’t you?” His lips twitched.

      “You know,” said Marly severely, “if you were anyone but the governor, and if you were even a smidgen uglier, I wouldn’t put up with you.”

      “Even though you’re curious?”

      “Who said I was curious?”

      “Your eyes, your voice, your body language. The fact that you’re still here and haven’t run screaming out the door—even though you think I’m crazy.”

      She glared at him. “I don’t think you’re nuts. I know you’re nuts.”

      “We’ll see about that. History often repeats itself.”

      Again, a shiver spiraled around her spine before dispersing into hundreds of tiny ions of unease. Marly dug her spray bottle of water out of her nylon bag and depressed the nozzle several times, soaking the man’s head.

      “I guess that’s one way of telling me I’m all wet,” said The Hammer. “But by the way, if we’re going to ride into the sunset together one day, you should call me Jack.”

      3

      RIDE INTO THE SUNSET together?

      “So you see,” Marly said later to her business partner Alejandro, “the guy is off his gubernatorial rocker!”

      They stood on the salon side of After Hours, on the zebra floor cloth and in front of a tangerine wall. The spa was funky and colorful, with Italian glass lamps, walls of all colors and a distressed concrete floor painted to look like the ocean. Every time she looked at it, Marly felt a mixture of pride and horror: she had painted it, crawling around on her hands and knees to do every lovely little blue-green swirl. Ugh. She had, in fact, driven the design of the whole place, since she’d studied art during her three years of college and had a knack for interior design.

      Alejandro stretched his six-foot-four, muscular frame. A yawn overwhelmed his classically handsome face. He rubbed the day-old bristle on his square chin and sipped at a beer, his treat for passing his business school exams and squaring the books. “Oh, I don’t know, mi corazón. If I didn’t think of you as a sister, I might fall into instant love with you.”

      “Be serious!”

      “I am.” He rubbed absently at an uncharacteristic stain on his elegant linen pants.

      Shrieks of drunken feminine laughter rolled over them, coming from the pedicure stations in the back. Marly lifted an eyebrow. “Let me guess, the Fabulous Four are here? Aren’t they early?”

      The Fabulous Four was a group of women in their forties who booked their appointments together each week and got blind drunk on After Hours’ wine. At first Marly had thought it was cute. But after an entire year, it was getting a little out of hand. The Fab Four took over the place and got so loud and raunchy that sometimes other clients complained.

      “They’re all going on a cruise together tomorrow,” Alejandro explained. “So they moved their pedicures—and happy hour—back to lunchtime.”

      “Did they fight over you, honey?” Alejandro was often in demand for hand and foot treatments, as much as he hated to give them.

      “No—when I found out they were coming, I deliberately crossed myself off the book for that time slot.” He grinned. “Now, tell me more about the governor.”

      Marly frowned. “He’s feeding me lines, and I’m not going to fall for them. How many times a week do you think he tells the story of his great-great-grandfather and the mail-order bride?”

      “I’ll go to bed with him,” her coworker and fellow stylist, Nicky, said with a leer. “He’s hot…for a Republican. Yeow, baby! I’d leave nothing on the guv but one of those royal-blue neckties….”

      Marly shook her head at him. “I don’t think he’s bent your way, Nicky-doll. And I didn’t get the feeling he’d care much for orange spandex, either.”

      “Oh,