The Brush-Off: A Hair-Raising Mystery - By Laura Bradley Page 0,2
me, or so I thought. She grabbed my arms instead, trying to save her husband’s hair as my body continued its date with the floor. My body stopped in midair, and the excruciating tightening of my back prevented me from feeling anything in my shoulder when the telltale pop announced the sickening moment it dislocated.
Frantically, muttering a combination of curses and prayers, Trudy freed my hands as I collapsed onto the floor in a heap of misery.
Mario was crying. I felt a wave of comfort at his sympathy until I saw him patting the tangle of his silky jet-black hair and realized he was crying over the mess his coif was in, not the mess my body was in. Trudy jumped into his lap. They snuggled and nuzzled, and she sprinkled his face with kisses as I battled against the wave of nausea that threatened to dirty my just-polished oak floor.
“What do we have here?” asked a familiar voice with a smooth Mexican-American accent flavored with just a hint of affected aristocratic nasal. “If I’d known you were into this kind of thing, I could have sent you some more business, Reyn.”
Head on the floor, I looked upside-down at the underside of the chin of the king of the beauty salons in San Antonio.
“You missed a spot shaving this morning,” I croaked.
Ricardo threw his head back and laughed deep, low and toe-curling. It was his sensual signature and, I was convinced, the main reason he’d parlayed a mini beauty empire in our burgeoning South Texas city. It sure as hell wasn’t because he could do hair. I’d always thought all his clients resembled teased Pekinese when they emerged from his enclave.
Not that I’d ever tell him that. His business acumen was unsurpassed, as was his power in certain circles, the styling salon circle being one of them. We’d once had a comfortable boss-and-employee relationship, one in which we argued but retained a mutual respect and a certain chemistry. After I went out on my own, the relationship evolved into a friendship that was contentious but close. Still, I knew he could and would blackball me in an instant if he wanted to. I valued honesty more than was probably good for me, and I wasn’t always tactful, but occasionally I recognized when diplomatic skills were required. Now was one of those times, I told myself.
“She’s not so bad off if she can use that rapier tongue of hers,” Ricardo said in an aside to Trudy and Mario.
“My tongue’s not what’s hurt,” I muttered, still surly.
“And what is, pobrecita?” Ricardo paused for dramatic effect. “Besides Mario’s hair.”
I sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and was briefly grateful that I was disabled. It kept me from unwisely wiping that smug grin off Ricardo’s unnaturally beautiful face.
“She hurt her arm,” Trudy put in generously. She said it without looking at me, as she was still in Mario’s lap, fussing over his hair.
“My shoulder, actually,” I corrected, feeling my blood begin to boil at the injustice of it all. I was doing my dumb friend’s dorky husband a favor, which only got me into excruciating pain and was still the butt of every joke. Where was the justice in life? “I think it’s dislocated.”
Ricardo’s brilliant grin—upside-down—made me dizzy. Why was he happy about my painful predicament?
“You’re in luck, my dear Reyn. I can fix that for you.”
Before I could get the “Sure you can” out, he’d reached down, scooped me up with deceptively slender arms, and done something indescribably painful in a bear hug that left me suddenly relocated. My ligaments protested mightily, but I was able to move my right arm. I wouldn’t have to cancel tomorrow’s appointments after all. Then the muscles in my back barked, and I was in pain again. A different pain, admittedly, but pain all the same. When you start cataloging the differences between throbbing aches and stabbing aches, you’re in trouble, period.
Mario and Trudy looked at Ricardo in amazed and undisguised admiration. “Where’d you learn how to do that?” Trudy asked.
“Ah.” Ricardo waved one manicured hand at the pair. “I used to be a paramedic. In another life.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I’d let this doofus talk me into anything, his wife being my best friend notwithstanding. Trudy flushed to match her lips and nails—raspberry red with embarrassment; it felt nice to pass some of that around. It was also nice to know that while love had made