“I was thinking about having my hair done.”
Lena looked at it critically. “Good decision, and I’ve got some time. My first client just canceled—got food poisoning and is in the hospital.”
“Oh my God.”
Lena shrugged. “No worries, she’s evil to the bone, so she’ll make it. Evil always does.”
When Quinn just stared at her in horror, Lena smiled. “I’m kidding. It’s my mom, she’s not evil to the bone. Just halfway. And my next client isn’t due for a while, so lucky you.”
Oh boy. “How is this lucky me when you hate me?”
“Lucky because I’m the best,” Lena said. “And I don’t hate you. What I hate are men in flip-flops, slow drivers, and humidity. You, I just intensely dislike.”
Quinn blinked.
“Look,” Lena said, “you gotta know by now that not everyone’s going to like you. Not everyone likes chocolate ice cream even though it’s fucking delicious. What do you want done to your hair?”
“I need to impress someone.”
“Mick isn’t impressed by hair.”
“Good to know,” Quinn said dryly. “But I meant my sister. I need to somehow look cool and approachable.”
“You mean not like the sort of woman who stalks people in trees and then falls out of them?”
Quinn sighed. “Yeah.”
“That would take more time than I have, but I’ll work around it. Sit. Your color makes you look pale. You need highlights, just a few foils.”
“Uh—”
“Trust me.”
“Can I trust you?” Quinn asked.
“Definitely not. So, would you say you’re a go-with-the-flow kind of woman?”
Sure. She was totally a go-with-the-flow kind of person. As long as that flow was detail oriented, went according to plan, and had its own color-coded itinerary. “No.”
“Hmm,” Lena said, already working, getting out supplies. She was blessedly quiet for a few minutes. Then she said, out of the blue, “I liked Carolyn.”
The abrupt change of topic startled Quinn.
“I’m pretty sure she’s sitting on a cloud watching over everyone—like she did from down here,” Lena said.
Quinn met her gaze, surprised by the unexpected warmth in Lena’s. “She helped people?”
“Everyone,” Lena said. “She’s definitely up north, if you know what I mean.” She smiled. “Not me though. When I die, I’m going to slam into hell, take off my bra, sit on Satan’s lap, and say, ‘Hi, honey, I’m home, what’s the Wi-Fi password?’”
An hour and a half later Lena turned Quinn to face the mirror.
Quinn looked and barely squelched a startled scream. “Blue?” she managed to squeak out.
“Just a few streaks. You wanted to look cool and this is definitely that. And actually . . .” Lena artfully played with Quinn’s hair. “Blue’s a great color on you. I should’ve gone for obnoxious orange, but I was torn between my reputation for great hair and my need to make you look unappealing to Mick.”
Quinn gaped at her. “I could complain to the owner here, you know that, right?”
“Go for it. You’re speaking to her.”
Quinn blinked at Lena and then stared at herself some more. There weren’t many streaks of blue, a very select few actually, professionally placed and . . . damn. It totally made her complexion pop.
“You’re welcome. That’ll be eighty bucks.”
Quinn paid her and started to head out, stopping to turn back. “Mick told me you and he were high school sweethearts.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Did he also tell you that I let him slip through my fingers once and I don’t intend to do it again?” Lena asked.
“I thought you were with the bartender.”
“Boomer?” Lena shrugged.
“Maybe he’s your soul mate,” Quinn said hopefully.
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure my soul mate is carbs. And anyway, me and Boomer are taking a break. The thing you should know is that I was Mick’s first. And I intend to be his last.”
Chapter 11
I want to be cuddled. But I also want to be left the hell alone. Being crazy is hard.
—from “The Mixed-Up Files of Tilly Adams’s Journal”
Quinn knew she was early when she parked at Carolyn’s property, but she’d wanted to check it out. She felt she needed to do this for Tilly’s sake, who was now left with a wanderlust father who’d apparently never expressed interest in either of his two daughters, a closed-for-now café, and a not-so-slightly rundown house.
Clearly money had been a problem, and Quinn thought of the café’s lost revenue. Not good. She walked around the back of the house and found . . . good God.
Chickens, all of them staring at her with beady black eyes and squawking in disapproval.
No one had told her there were chickens.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
MOM:
Honey, did you get enough food for breakfast? Remember you get cranky if you don’t eat.
Quinn pointed at the chickens. “Hear that? I get cranky if I don’t eat. Don’t test me.” Then she texted her mom back, crossed her fingers, and lied through her teeth that she was eating super healthy.
MOM:
You never could lie very well . . .
Quinn rolled her eyes but also smiled. Love was a funny thing. You could get mad, hold a grudge, let it fester even, and then with one little sentence, forget all the bad for all the good.
The sound of voices brought Quinn to the front of the café. Three old guys stood there listening to a short, curvy woman with a booming voice and a German accent—which reminded her of Marcel.
The woman had a key, which she put into the lock to let herself in.
“Excuse me,” Quinn called out.
The woman turned and sized up Quinn, and smiled. “Knew I’d see you sooner or later.”
Quinn swiveled her head to look behind her, but nope, no one was there. “Me? You know who I am?”
“Quinn Weller,” the woman said. “You’re from L.A., which is proved by those blue streaks you’ve got in your hair.”
Quinn lifted a hand and touched the strands in question with a grimace.
“I also know that you climbed a tree and then fell out of it and landed in the ER.”
“Okay,” Quinn said in her defense, “I was stung by a bee and I’m allergic. Or I wouldn’t have fallen out of the tree.”
“My point is that you must have known you’re allergic, yes? It’s bee season. Yet you tried to help soothe Tilly anyway.” She paused. “That told me all I need to know about you. You’re Carolyn’s daughter. You were the one in the bar kissing Mick Hennessey last night.”
Quinn blinked, stunned on so many levels. “How do you know all that?”
“Because I know everything.”
“Well, your sources are off,” Quinn said. “I wasn’t kissing Mick Hennessey.” At the B&B, yes. Bar, no.
The woman shrugged. “If I was skinny and looked like you, I’d kiss him too. As for me . . .” She nodded to the café. “I work here.”
“Hasn’t the café been closed since Carolyn’s death?”
“Yes, but I came to check on the perishables and make sure everything is okay. I’d reopen, but I have no authority to do so.”
“Do it anyway, Greta!” one of the old guys standing around said.