Marrying The Single Dad. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ A GIRL.” Joe kept his voice down, but that didn’t stop his eye from twitching. “What’s wrong with you people? Brittany was wearing coveralls this morning and I didn’t mistake her for a man.” Granted, Brittany filled out her clothes differently than his daughter did.

      The barbershop had fallen silent. Uncomfortably, painfully silent. And he guessed it wasn’t because Phil was trying to remember if Joe was the Messina who’d taken his ex-wife’s car for a joyride.

      Joe refused to turn and look at Sam, unwilling to validate their perception. Lung-deflating doubt—that he wasn’t a good father for a girl—tried to suffocate him.

      “Hard to tell gender nowadays,” Phil said, interrupting Joe’s panic attack. He flung a plastic drape over Joe’s lap. It smelled musty and unused, kind of like the garage apartment’s shower curtain. “If she’s a girl, you might want to buy a pair of pink coveralls.” He fumbled with the drape snap at Joe’s neck. “Which Messina are you?”

      “The only Messina in your chair,” Brittany said, moving behind Joe so she was visible to him in the mirror. She widened her eyes and waggled her eyebrows at Joe in some kind of undecipherable car-part-thief code. “Anyone can wear pink or coveralls nowadays, Grandpa.”

      Grandpa? The Lambridges were among the most upright, uptight citizens in town. Was Brittany a beautician with an innocent hobby? A woman willing to pay for car parts like a law-abiding Lambridge? Or was she cut from the same cloth as Uncle Turo? The kind of person who cut corners. The kind of person Joe couldn’t afford to have in his life anymore.

      “It’s common to mistake gender at that age. There’s no bumps or curves or whiskers to go on.” Phil’s hands fumbled in a drawer for something. “Plus there hasn’t been a Messina girl in town. Ever.”

      “That’s not exactly hard science, Grandpa.” Brittany gave Joe an I can’t believe you don’t understand me look.

      “You still haven’t told me.” Phil picked up a pair of scissors with hands that shook. A lot. “Which Messina are you?”

      “I’m Joe.” Finally, possibly too late, he’d cracked Brittany’s code. Her brown gaze reflected his worry about scissors and unsteady hands. Joe shifted in the chair and moved his gaze in the mirror to the antique bicycle on the wall behind him, the one ridden by a playfully curved, brightly painted, aluminum mermaid. It was nothing he’d expect to find in a barbershop. But then again, he’d expected a barber with a reassuring hand. “Hey, Phil...um...are you okay?”

      “He’s quick, that boy.” The woman sitting in the walker chuckled. “Took me another five minutes in that chair before I panicked.”

      “I’m fine,” Phil said cheerfully, as if he hadn’t heard Mildred. “Never better.”

      “Your hands...” Joe met Brittany’s gaze again. He’d never admit it, but his gaze might have been pleading.

      Brittany laid a hand on Phil’s forearm. “How about I give Shaggy Joe a trim?”

      “You?” Joe choked out. What did this wrench-wielding woman know about cutting hair? Maybe Joe should take his chances with Phil.

      “Yes, me. I’m licensed to trim.” Brittany gestured to a framed certificate on the wall.

      If Brit was a beautician, her appearance shouted thirty-five-dollar haircut. She may have worn coveralls earlier, like Sam’s, and her dark brown hair was mostly hidden under a cap, like Sam’s. But that’s where the similarities ended. Phil’s granddaughter had rhinestones on her baseball cap, sparkling threads in her thin pink sweater and in her black leggings.

      Truthfully, he didn’t mind the leggings. Brittany had a nice pair of legs. But he did mind the salon-like sparkle if it meant he’d pay more for a simple haircut.

      “The man sat in my chair.” Phil raised his scissors like they were the torch held by the Statue of Liberty. Unlike Lady Liberty, Phil’s hand wavered, bringing Joe back to his original dilemma.

      “Phil, I...uh... I’m Joe, the bad Messina you remember.” In truth, Joe’s two older brothers had probably raised more hell than Joe, but a man had to bail when sharp objects were near arteries. “I’m the one who took Leona’s car for a joyride.”

      “Joe, Joe, Joe.” Phil tsked, lowering his unsteady hand. “Leona said she’d given you permission.”

      Only after Uncle Turo had talked to her.

      “Don’t be nervous,” Phil said. “I used to cut your hair all the time when you were a kid. And I don’t hold grudges.”

      “True,” the old woman in the walker said, leaning forward and peering at Joe through bottle-thick lenses.

      Joe caught Brittany’s gaze in the mirror once more.

      “Don’t look at me.” Brittany held up her hands. “I tried to save you.”

      “My hands have been like this for years,” Phil said, a twinge of annoyance in his voice.

      “True,” the rail-thin senior by the window said, pounding the bristles of her broom on the floor.

      Phil stared at his scissors. His wrinkled features maintained a tentative hold on defiance. “And I haven’t cut a client yet.”

      “Also true,” said the short old woman with the boyish haircut.

      As if to prove a point, snip-snip went Phil’s scissors in the air. Except Phil nearly poked Joe’s eye out with the sharp blades.

      “The operative word being yet,” said the lady with the broom. “Don’t young people film disasters nowadays? Who has a camera?”

      Joe eased forward in his chair, the words I’ve changed my mind forming on his lips.

      “Let me do this one, Grandpa.” Unexpectedly, Brittany ran her fingers through Joe’s hair.

      Joe stopped thinking about leaving.

      Brittany’s fingernails skimmed across Joe’s scalp, lifting his hair and letting it fall back down. Her touch was mesmerizing.

      The last person to mesmerize Joe was 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.

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