Stef Ann Holm by Lucy Back (best fantasy books to read .txt) 📕

rigid, the spunk back in her posture. “I told you, you’re suffering from Goldilocks Syndrome. You just can’t keep trying out man after man for size, hoping you’ll get one to fit right.”

“Don’t tell me size doesn’t matter.” Jacquie parallel parked the sports car into a spot on the street.

“My Wally was a good-size man in that department and I had no complaints. That’s not what I’m talking about.” Spin put a hand to her chest, hammered back a burp of gas. “Take a breather on the men, Jacquie. If you keep doing things your way, you’ll end up with some asshole because you aren’t being picky.”

“I am picky!”

“Not with Max Beck you weren’t.”

“But he was there, and he was good-looking.”

“Humph! Good-looking is only as good as looking at a dead tree if there’s nobody nesting in the branches.”

Spin tried to undo her seat belt restraint, but she didn’t have the dexterity to push the button in hard enough. Smiling, Jacquie did it for her. Spin smiled back, her lipstick a little crooked. Her eyes looked large behind the lenses of her rhinestone glasses.

“Go to the Timberline spa and get the works,” Spin suggested. “It’ll get rid of some of the tension.”

“I know what would get rid of my tension.”

Spin laughed, her eyes merry. “You’re a bad girl, Jacquie. I like you. My great-nephew, Morris, he’d like you, too.”

As Jacquie got out of the car she thought, as desperate as she was, even a geek named Morris sounded good. If there were such a thing as a testosterone detox patch, she could have cut out men without upping her cigarette habit to a full pack a day versus the half pack she’d smoked when she’d been dating Drew.

Spin had been on her case to quit. Jacquie couldn’t give up men and nicotine at the same time. That just wasn’t possible.

She helped Spin to the sidewalk and they walked past several shops.

“Hold on, Spin. I’ll get the door.” With a tug, Jacquie swung open the door to the Shear Class Beauty Salon. “If the damn thing closes on you, you’re going to bust your arm.”

Inside the busy hair salon, the odor of perms, bleach and ammonia came at them in a strong wave. But the douse of cold AC was worth the stink.

July had slapped Red Duck like a bitch, hot and unrelenting. Nobody could recall it ever being so god-awful sweltering this early in the year.

Tomorrow was the big Fourth of July picnic at Overlook Dam. Big Eddy’s picnic grounds would be overrun with kids, parents, lawn games, and when the sun set around 9:40 p.m., fireworks would be let off.

“Spin, are you sure you want a set and style? Why don’t you try something a little different this time?” Jacquie settled her butt onto the vacant vinyl chair next to where Spin sat with her beautician. “Why don’t you give her a dye job? I’m thinking red.”

“I’m not going red. I like my silver.”

“But silver’s just so boring.”

“I don’t want to look like Lucille Ball in my casket.”

The whole casket thing was a moot point, since Spin was dead set about being cremated.

When Spin talked like that about herself, Jacquie didn’t like it. She supposed it was healthy to accept one’s fate…but still. The thought of losing Spin…

“Well, maybe you could go blue,” Jacquie said thoughtfully, in an attempt to get a rise out of Spin and get her mind away from funeral arrangements.

“Screw that,” Spin snipped, gazing at her tired reflection. “I’m not going to be any blue-haired old lady.”

As Spin got her hair done in its usual fashion, Jacquie settled back and read Cosmo.

The humming cone dryers warmed part of the long room with hot air, and the ink from a fresh shipment of People magazines permeated the smells of hair products.

Gazing from her magazine over to Spin, who sat with her eyes closed while getting a helmetlike dose of hair spray, Jacquie wondered what she’d be like if she lived to one hundred and three.

Chances were, if she kept smoking, she’d die at fifty.

Shit on a stick. Maybe she should give up her cigarettes.

When Spin was finished, Jacquie walked her to the door. She was unsteady on her feet from having sat for so long, and she tucked a hand into the crook of Jacquie’s arm.

“I got it,” a man’s voice said, and the door was pulled open.

Jacquie’s mood lifted from gloom to boom as her eyes fastened on the UPS driver. He wasn’t the regular. This guy was about six foot two, brown eyes and brown hair all wrapped up in a nice brown uniform—quite a package.

“Hey,” she said, thrusting out her meager breasts and standing taller. “Thanks so much.”

“No problem.” His smile was white, his tan appealing.

Spin passed through the door, gave Jacquie a quirk of her brow, saying, brassy as tacks, “When we get home, dear, don’t forget to take your antibiotics for that little problem you have.”

The door was let go and the UPS guy headed straight into the salon without a backward glance.

Jacquie stood on the sidewalk and put her hands on her hips after slapping a strand of hair from her eyes. “I cannot believe you just said that. How totally embarrassing is that?”

“Very embarrassing.”

Digging inside her purse, Jacquie found her Virginia Slims and got a cigarette. She stroked her lighter to life. So much for being worried about dying at fifty.

She helped Spin into the Jaguar, the smell of tobacco and hair spray overpowering the scent of the leather upholstery. Cranking the AC, she cracked the window and pulled away from the curb.

The two sat with electric hostility sizzling between them.

Spin wanted to shake Jacquie and make her realize she was an attractive and intelligent businesswoman all by herself. She had to be okay with being alone before she got involved with another man. If a woman wasn’t happy in her own skin, she could never be happy as part of a couple. She’d depend too much on the