Page 14 of Five Alarm Kiss

Skye rolled her eyes.

“It’s true,” Laurel confessed with a smirk, “but I never said it.”

“Ah-ha! I knew it!” Skye pointed the paint brush at Laurel to emphasize her point.

Some dye took flight, leaping from the brush to splat on Laurel’s cheek. “Hey!”

“Oh, shit!” Skye smeared the drops away with her thumb and wiped it on her apron. “Sorry. But just think how much better the next one will be.”

“The next one what?” Laurel asked, knowing exactly what Skye was implying. “You’re going to throw dye at me again?”

“If you keep acting dense, I am.” Skye held up the paintbrush as a warning. “You’ve got to track him down and kiss him again. It would be a travesty not to.”

“Are you crazy? I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because, I can’t.”

“Oh, you’re right. Great reason. What was I thinking?”

Laurel swiped a finger across the paint brush and dabbed some dye on Skye’s nose.

Skye narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to finish fixing your hair, or…” She gestured toward the door.

“Yes,” Laurel conceded with a frown.

“Okay, then.” Skye wiped off her nose, then resumed painting on the hair dye. “Now tell me the real reason you don’t want to kiss him again.”

“I never said I didn’t want to kiss him again,” Laurel confessed. “No one in their right mind wouldn’t want to kiss him again, but there’s no way it’ll happen.”

“Why not? And don’t say because you’re scared. That’s a shit excuse.”

“Fine. Aside from the fact I don’t know who he is or where he lives, I’ll give you a good reason. Agreatreason. I vomited on his shoes. Good enough reason for you?”

“Okay, teensy turn off, but?—”

“Teensy?That’s like saying the Grand Canyon is a little crack in the sidewalk.I. Vomited. On. His. Shoes!How much worse could it be?”

Chapter Four

Laurel touched the barrette behind her left ear, making sure it was properly secured. She’d pinned the front piece of hair that normally framed the left side of her face underneath the rest of her hair. Pulling some locks from the back forward, she tried to cover up that section even more. Unfortunately, she wasn’t allowed to wear a hat in the classroom… due to the rule of her own making: no wearing hats in class. Period. If she didn’t allow her kids to wear them, she couldn’t wear one herself.

I’m going to kill Skye.

Her best friend had worked her salon magic and restored Laurel’s hair back to its natural mahogany brown, save for one glaringly awful streak of?—

“Blue!”

Little Sally Peterman was pointing directly at the piece of hair Laurel had so painstakingly been trying to hide.

“Miss Shepherd, your hair’s blue! Pretty!”

Doing her best not to outwardly cringe, Laurel forced a smile. “Thank you, Sally.” She self-consciously pulled more hair forward. “It’s almost time for class to start, so you’d better hurry and sit at your desk.”

The child looked up at her with a huge smile on her cherub face. “You look like a fairy princess,” she said, before skipping away.

Princess.

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