Uncle Turo, suspected felon.
“After all,” Brittany said, “starting Tuesday, I’ll be doing pin curls and petal teases.”
“I wanted a dye job,” the broom lady said in the tone of the misunderstood.
“You can cut my hair for ten bucks,” Joe said gruffly. He could barely afford that.
“Joe makes it sound as if you should pay him for the privilege, Brittany.” The woman sitting in the walker chuckled. Behind her glasses her eyes were starting to look like something you’d see in a fun-house mirror.
Or maybe that was because Joe’s eye was twitching again.
Phil tossed his scissors back in a drawer. “Outmaneuvered by my own kin.”
Joe might have breathed easier if not for the realization that Brittany was as wily as Uncle Turo.
“I’m going to Martin’s to play checkers.” The man walked with an uneven gait as shaky as his hands. Somehow he managed to hold the door open for Sam to come inside.
Brit’s fingers were still working their thirty-five-dollar haircut magic on Joe’s mane, making him wish he had thirty-five dollars to spare on a regular basis.
“I’m Agnes.” The diminutive older woman came closer to get a better look at what Brittany was doing to Joe’s hair. “Are you the only Messina opening up the garage?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He and his brothers had inherited the garage and house when his father overdosed, but they’d done nothing with it beyond paying taxes. He’d bought out his brothers with every penny in the bank the FBI hadn’t seized.
The thin, regal woman with the broom swept closer. She looked like a grandmother of one of his classmates. The woman who volunteered every year to help with the class play as long as it was a musical. And her name was...Rose.
“No Mrs. Messina?” Rose asked. She never seemed to stop moving.
“She’s dead, ma’am.”
Sam sank into a chair beneath the mermaid, glancing at a stack of magazines on a low table. She didn’t react to the statement that her mother was dead. She’d spent half her life without a mother. Almost all her life without a caring grandparent. And now, no Uncle Turo.
If Sam didn’t react, Brittany certainly did. Her fingers stopped exploring the texture of his hair, making Joe remember how everyone in Harmony Valley was in everyone else’s business.
“You know...” Joe slid forward in the chair, away from Brittany’s magical touch. “The haircut can wait.”
Brittany’s fingers brushed over his shoulder. “The town bad boy could use a haircut to look respectable.”
He agreed. Why did she have to be right? It was going to take another decade for the older residents to forget what he’d done. “For ten dollars.” Not a question. Not negotiable.
Unfazed, Brittany drew her ponytail over her shoulders, revealing a purple streak amid the rich brown. Coveralls and colored nails? Shop tools and beauty techniques? She was a tangle of contradictions he had no intention of unraveling. “I’d trim your hair for the grille.”
The verdict was in. Brittany was more like Uncle Turo than a Lambridge. “I don’t barter.” Especially when he wasn’t sure who owned the car.
The woman in the walker scooted forward. “Are you talking about a barbecue grill?” He recognized her now. Mildred Parsons. He used to cut her lawn every summer. That is, until Uncle Turo came to town. “Every man needs a barbecue.”
“Dad doesn’t grill. He uses the microwave and a Crock-Pot.” Sam giggled like a girl! “Brittany wants a car bumper from the field near our repair shop.”
“Whatever for?” For once, Rose stopped moving.
“I incorporate old bike and car parts into art.” Brit gestured to the mermaid riding the bicycle on the wall. “Things people no longer want can be made into something everyone can enjoy.”
Joe looked at the sculpture more carefully, finally recognizing the bike for what it once had been—an early motorbike, probably from around 1920. It had rims, but it was missing tires and an engine.
“That motorcycle was worth a lot of money.” Before it’d had all that curling aluminum welded to it, it’d been worth more than a new roof for the garage. What Brittany had done to that antique was blasphemous to a motorcyclist. To him. In fact, to anyone who revered the past, and wanted to restore and protect it. Uncle Turo may not have a good moral compass when it came to the law, but he revered the art of a good machine.
“It’s still worth a lot of money,” Brittany said crisply, spritzing Joe’s hair with water.
Two of the old ladies went to stand beneath Brittany’s creation, admiring it. After a moment, Sam joined them.
“I’d like to upcycle the BMW grille.” Brit began snipping Joe’s hair in back. “A contractor in Malibu hired me to create a driveway gate with a vintage automobile look. The grille would be perfect cut in half. When the gate is closed, it’ll look like a car is coming out at you.”
“Cool,” Sam, the traitor, said. She was young and susceptible to bad influences.
The anger he’d wadded into his chest for the past few weeks tried to break free. He couldn’t save Athena. He couldn’t save Uncle Turo. But he could definitely save his daughter and that car. “I won’t let you ruin it. I won’t let you put a grille on a gate with your arts and crafts glue gun.”
“I’d weld it.” Brittany fixed him with a hot stare that could have welded Joe to his seat. “I’d use a blowtorch. Same as I did with my mermaid, Keira.”
She’d given her creation a name. Sam would find that fascinating. Next thing you know, Sam might find picking junk on someone else’s property without permission fascinating, permissible even. Joe’s need to keep his daughter grounded had him lashing out. “Girls who cut hair and paint their nails don’t use blowtorches.”
Caught in the cross fire, the three old ladies fell silent, watching their exchange with interest.
“That’s a little sexist.” Brittany sounded unruffled. She continued to fluff his hair. But the heat remained in her gaze.
Despite a healthy dose of self-loathing—what kind of dad said things like that in front of his daughter?—Joe leaned into Brittany’s touch. It was a dare. A stupid dare. But he’d spent weeks keeping his emotions in check. It wasn’t fair that this woman—this trespassing thief—undid the links anchoring his equilibrium.
Brittany didn’t back down. She held his gaze in the mirror. And then she firmly tried to tilt his head into his chest. “Look down.”
“No,” he rasped, holding his head up.
“It’s okay to be scared, Dad.” Sam misread Joe. She came to stand next to him and found his hand beneath the drape. “He doesn’t get his hair cut often.”
A riot of feelings burned their way through his chest and churned through his stomach. He was a bad dad. He should be protecting his daughter, not the other way around. He should have realized sooner what was going on at Turo’s garage. He should have known the money he’d been earning the past few years from Turo was too good to be legal.
“Don’t cut off much,” Sam said to Brittany, still holding his hand, still too trusting. “My dad’s never had short hair.”
“I’m not shearing him like a sheep.” Brittany snipped away, her touch less than gentle. “I’m just giving it shape.”
“No,” Joe protested, sounding less like a man resentful of the corner he’d been trapped in. “I want it short and respectable.”
“I’m not sure you’ll ever pull off respectable.” Brittany’s chin nearly touched his crown as she