Undercover Engagement by Samanthe Beck
Chapter Sixteen
Eden sat in one of the two client chairs at Mane on Main salon, flipping through a Southern Bride magazine and waiting for Ginny to finish up with her previous customer. In the reflection of the mirror in front of her, she had a good view of the bright, welcoming salon, with generous front windows where light poured in, exposed brick walls, and lofty ceilings. Against that engaging blank canvas, Ginny herself added energy and color, and, in today’s case, her customer added even more. The woman stood at the reception desk, wearing black biker boots, black-and-white-striped thigh-highs, a tiny red, plaid pleated skirt, and a black tank top with PlayHard bedazzled across the front in red rhinestones. Eden recognized her as the Friday-night entertainment at Rawley’s, except now a swath of ombre blue shot through her long, blond curls, starting almost turquoise at the roots and darkening to indigo by the ends. The woman smiled and turned her head back and forth, admiring Ginny’s handiwork as Ginny ran her credit card. “Girl, you’re a genius at hair.”
The redhead laughed. “Can I add that to my titles? Wife, mayor, genius at hair?”
“You not only can, you should.” Her armload of skinny silver bracelets jangled musically as she signed her receipt and handed it back. “But check your priorities. I say it’s genius at hair, wife, mayor.”
“Ha. Shaun and my constituents might beg to differ, but I’m glad you like the color. It plays up your eyes.”
To be friendly—and because it was true—Eden was going to chime in with an “It does,” but before she could, the woman said, “Thanks. I hope West likes it.”
And it hit her. This was Roxy Goodhart, West Donovan’s girlfriend. Officer West Donovan of the Bluelick PD. Her coworker, though she’d met him only once. Roxy, like Ginny, was someone she’d no doubt interact with when she was on the other side of this assignment.
Holding her tongue for now seemed less complicated in the long run. She’d just as soon meet most people later, as Officer Eden Brixton, rather than have half the town thinking she was one thing and then later learning the truth. Many might feel betrayed by the deception, even if it was perpetrated for the greater good of the entire community. People like Junior and Lou Ann, for example, might not be so happy to share a table with her at Rawley’s. The rest of the women’s conversation faded to background noise as an unaccountable loneliness swept over her. Bluelick was her new home, but she couldn’t make any real connections yet. Only phony ones, with the exception of Shaun, Ginny…and Swain. Was that why she’d gone from barely tolerating him to sleeping with him in record time? Absently, she rubbed the heel of her hand over the center of her chest, where something cold and sharp had developed a habit of sticking at random moments.
Not just sleeping with him, she silently acknowledged. That physical event could be attributed to anything—a moment of madness or weakness or just plain horniness. Sex, no matter how great, didn’t account for how much she enjoyed him even when they weren’t going at each other like participants in an X-rated Olympics. It didn’t account for how much fun she had with him—even arguing with him. It sure as hell didn’t account for the way her insides did a little leap when he walked into a room. It didn’t account for how connected she felt to him.
You let him in. Or you let down your guard, and he snuck in.
But how much of their connection was phony, just like their engagement?
Ginny’s approach wrested her away from the pointless musings. She didn’t know the answers to the questions, and she wasn’t sure she wanted them, anyway.
“Hey, Eden. Sorry I ran over a bit.”
“No problem.” She put the magazine on the workstation and faced the smiling proprietress in the mirror as the redhead draped a cape over her. “Was that Roxy?”
“Yes.” Her smile wavered. “Pardon my poor manners. I’m so used to everyone knowing everyone around here. I should have introduced you.”
“No,” Eden rushed to reassure her. They could speak freely in the empty salon. “Honestly, I appreciate the oversight. I guess I’m hoping to fly under most peoples’ radar until…after.”
Ginny nodded while assessing Eden’s hair, fluffing her hands through the length. Compassionate green eyes met hers in the mirror. “Are you worried about the fallout, once the investigation ends?”
She shouldn’t be. She had a job to do. A job she felt strongly about, with a purpose she believed in. But still… “Fooling criminals is one thing. Fooling innocent people who simply want to be friendly to a newcomer is something else entirely. I don’t want to start off on a false foot with someone wherever I can avoid it. People like Junior and Lou Ann have been nothing but nice. I’m sure they’re going to feel really used when everything comes to light.”
The other woman laughed. “Buy ’em a round. They’ll get over it. Trust me. I’ve known them both all my life.” She selected a wide-toothed comb and began running it through Eden’s hair. “I’m not saying when the news breaks, you won’t be the subject of some stares and whispers, but not of the mean sort. We’re not a crime hotbed by any stretch, but Bluelick’s had its battles with lawlessness over the years. I think most people will be fascinated and appreciative that the County Sheriff’s Department and the Bluelick Police Department were able to run a successful covert investigation right under their noses.”
“I hope so. I still have to live and work in this town when it’s all over. Still wish to, anyway.” She huffed out a breath, impatient with herself. “Poor me. I don’t want to be the kid in the cafeteria who nobody will sit with.”
Ginny put the comb down and rested her hands along Eden’s shoulders. “Shaun and I will sit with you, sugar. The rest of the department will sit with you. Lots of other people, too, once the hubbub dies down. Have a little faith.”
She dredged up a smile. “I’ll try.” But just how far did her faith extend? Will Swain still want to sit with you when work no longer requires it of him? How fine was the line between faith and delusion?
“It’s gonna work out.” She picked up the comb and resumed smoothing Eden’s hair. Frowning slightly, she said, “I didn’t think about it before, but I guess it’s lonely for you right now, not being able to really get to know people or let them get to know the real you.”
Bingo, thought Eden. You’re lonely. Swain’s lonely. You’re living in a bubble. Things will feel different once it pops.
You hope.
“A little,” she conceded. “It’s not like I’m isolated or anything, but…no offense to ladies of leisure…I don’t usually spend my days sitting around the house, or my evenings in a bar participating in conversations targeted to a couple guys with whom I have very little in common. And now I sound like I’m complaining about the job.” Complaining to your boss’s wife about your job. “Which I’m not. Sorry.”
Ginny shrugged off the apology. “Please. I built this salon into a legit business with my bare hands, and I love my work, but Shaun still gets an earful some evenings. The chemicals, the hours on my feet, the client who won’t take my advice on color or cut but then cries in my chair when she’s unhappy with the result, so I have to spend yet another hour on my feet fixing the disaster she demanded at no additional charge. Every job has downsides.” She winked at Eden. “And everybody needs to vent about them sometimes. So”—Ginny lifted her hair and let it fall as it would—“your layers look great, and the highlights are holding up well, if I do say so myself. What are we going to do today?”
“I don’t know,” Eden admitted. “I’m supposed to circulate around town and throw money at myself like some kind of Real Housewives wannabe so Swain sounds credible whenever he whines to Kenny and Dobie about my spending. I didn’t know where to start, except here.”
“You’ve come to the right place. We’ll make you look like a million bucks—at no charge, as I consider this my civic duty. How about a blowout and a mani-pedi? Then go across the street to Sassy Shoes and pick yourself up a pair of sandals to show off the pedi. You’ll be all set to hit ladies’ night at Rawley’s this evening and let that gorgeous partner of yours drop more of his hard-earned money on you.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
She followed Ginny to the wash station at the back of the salon and happily submitted to a shampoo complete with scalp massage. Tension drained from her body. The woman had talent.
“Speaking of your gorgeous partner, how’s that working out?”
“Uh…”
“Shaun mentioned Swain wouldn’t have been your first choice.”
The day in the commander’s office seemed like eons ago. She winced at the memory. “I think that went double for him, but…it’s fine now.” A strong urge to confide more overtook her. Not only was Ginny Buchanan already under the covers as far as the op went, she was astute, open, and kind. And also, at the moment, the closest thing Eden had to a real girlfriend. Still, the Buchanan part of her name shouldn’t be ignored.
“Fine?” Ginny began rinsing. “Lou Ann was in my chair earlier today, and she mentioned you and Swain just about burned Rawley’s down the other night, with all the heat going on between the two of you.”
Eyes closed, Eden prayed Ginny attributed any red in her face to the hot water. “That was for show.”
“Ah.” Ginny turned off the tap, squeezed water from Eden’s hair, and wrapped a towel around her head. “I hope it’s no hardship putting on a show like that with him. He is easy on the eyes, but if he’s not respectful when it’s just the two of you—”
“Oh, no.” She stood and followed Ginny back to the chair, anxious to reassure the woman. “He’s completely trustworthy.” He would argue the opposite, but he was when it came to this. “He hasn’t crossed any lines.” None after that first night. None she hadn’t willingly redrawn, at any rate. Unsure of how to respond honestly but appropriately, she shut her mouth and sat.
“You know, this chair is kind of like a confessional.” Ginny removed the towel, picked up the comb, and began working it through Eden’s hair. “Sometimes a girl just needs to unload. I know how to keep those matters to myself. Even when I go home to Shaun and vent about my day, what’s said in the confessional stays in the confessional. So, speak the truth, Officer Brixton. Are you tapping that fine young sheriff you’re shacked with?”
Eden laughed. “Mayor Buchanan, I am tapping him like a keg.”
Ginny held out a fist, and Eden bumped it. “Atta girl. How does he like your hair? Up or down? Or is he the kind that likes it up, but loose, so he can”—she mimed hands running through her flame-colored locks—“take it down himself?”
“That’s a very interesting question. To be honest, I don’t really know.” But now she wanted to.
Ginny’s smile would put the Mona Lisa to shame. “What’s say we find out?”
Sixty minutes later, Eden left the salon with red toenails that popped nicely against her wooden-heeled black-and-white floral slides, pearly pink fingernails, and a casual updo that left curls framing her face and a controlled cascade from a bundle at the back of her head. Hell, even she couldn’t believe how sexy it looked. She definitely couldn’t wait to see Swain’s reaction. She walked to the corner, prepared to cross the street to the shoe store Ginny had recommended, and took another peek at herself in the corner shop window.
A month ago, she wouldn’t have recognized the woman with the tousled hair, curve-hugging white halter top, and thigh-skimming, black-cuffed shorts. Overtly sexy just wasn’t the way she presented herself. Now she did it without batting an eyelash. What did that make her? Well, a good cop, in this case. And the fact that she actually enjoyed it a little? That made her human, she supposed. Exercising one’s power to attract attention and admiration on a purely physical level was still an exercise of power. She never wanted to make it her primary power, but she no longer felt like it diminished any attention or admiration she earned through hard work, intelligence, or persistence.
As she stared at her reflection in the window, movement behind her caught her eye—across the street, where two women on the sidewalk talked and two little girls twirled around an old-fashioned wrought iron streetlamp, a toddler stepped off the curb, into the street.
Concerned, Eden whirled to see the little towhead take several unsteady steps into the crosswalk, chasing a blue squishy ball that had gotten away from her. Air brakes honked, drawing her eyes up the street. A Budweiser truck tried to drop from thirty-five miles per hour to zero in less than one hundred feet.
She didn’t call out—that would endanger more people. She kicked off her sandals and bolted. Come on, Eden. You can run a hundred meters in fourteen seconds. That’s what you’ve got.
The little one was running, too—unaware but running toward her. And the truck driver was standing on the pedal so hard the tires locked and screeched. Somebody screamed. The smell of burning rubber singed her nostrils. A soft grunt burst from her lungs as she caught the toddler, pivoted, and flung her arm out in a wholly instinctive and completely useless attempt to hold back the slowing truck.
Hot metal connected with the heel of her hand. The impact shimmered through her arm and sent her hurtling to the asphalt. She landed on her side, the little one snug in her arm and protected by her body. She rolled into a ball, closed her eyes, and clutched the child tight in the hopes that…what? Her puny skeleton could protect the little kid from being flattened by a ten-ton bulk of rolling metal?
When she was still breathing five seconds later, she slowly turned to find herself under the shelter of a bumper, with two huge tires mere inches from her. She had time to let out a shuddering exhale before many hands pulled her out and up. A panicked woman wrested the kid from her arms, crying, “Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you,” over and over. Somehow, she got her feet planted on the pavement, but her legs refused to move. A middle-aged man she recognized from the hardware store put an arm around her waist and guided her to the sidewalk. Then Ginny—small, fierce Ginny who was a fraction of her size—wrapped her arm around her from the other side.
“Eden, honey. Can you walk?”
“I’m walking.” Her reply sounded far away. Her body felt numb. The air had thickened to fog. “I can walk. Are those…my shoes?” Ginny held a pair of sandals in her free hand. “I can take them.” At least she thought she could, if her hands would stop shaking.
“I’ll hold on to them.” Ginny looked past her to the man holding her other side. “Ed, we’re gonna walk her straight to Ellie’s office.”
“Yes’m.”
Someone—the screaming woman—approached, clinging tight to the toddler, and tried to talk through tears. Ginny cut her off. “Belinda, honey, I know. Truly, I do. But now’s not the time. Take your girls home and hug the stuffing out of them. Gratitude can wait. We need to let Ellie look at Ms. Eden.”
Hot little prickles of sensation began burning through the numbness. Her knee, her hip, and oh—she sucked in a breath—her wrist. Her wrist was on fire. Despite all that heat, shivers ran up her spine and rattled her back teeth together. “The baby…” She turned to Ginny. “Is the baby okay?”
“She’s fine, honey. Not a scratch. Possibly a diaper change, but that’s about it.”
Me, too, Eden thought, then let herself float up the granite steps of one of downtown Bluelick’s historic brownstones and into the blissfully cool lobby of the medical offices of Dr. Elenora Swann-Longfoot.
Ginny greeted a tall, stunning blonde bearing a striking resemblance to the crying mother with a simple, “Hey, Mel.”
The woman took over Ed’s side of things. “Belinda just called. We’ll take her to exam room one. Ellie’s already there.”
“I’m okay.” Her voice sounded better. Closer. Encouraged, she tried again. “I’m okay. I can walk on my own.”
“No need,” the blonde said and steered her into a small, tidy exam room. “We’re here.”
They deposited her on a paper-covered table, and a pretty, petite, dark-haired woman with huge brown eyes stepped into her view.
“Eden, meet Ellie Longfoot, one of my oldest friends. Ellie, meet Eden Braxton, one of my newest friends.”
“Nice to meet you, Eden,” Ellie said, clearly evaluating her pupil reaction, breathing, and overall responsiveness. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I…uh…I got hit by a beer truck.”