Page 49 of Heating Up (Nugget)
“Hi. I’m Darla.” She shook Aidan’s hand and reached out to stroke Dana’s hair. “You need a moisturizing treatment.”
Dana combed her fingers through the spot on her head Darla had just touched. “I do?”
Aidan tightened his arm around Dana protectively. After being with Sue all those years, he knew how catty women could be.
“You’ve got gorgeous hair, but with the dry weather . . . come into the barber shop and I’ll fix you up. Maybe a little trim too.”
“She did mine yesterday,” Harlee said.
“Okay,” Dana agreed.
He gave her a quick squeeze, and it didn’t go beyond his notice that the other two women exchanged glances.
“You should come in too,” Darla said and ran her fingers through Aidan’s hair. She was an oddball, that one. “Nice and thick. I could thin it a little. So how are you liking Nugget?”
“I like it.” He backed away a foot or two. “You live here long?”
“My father did. But I grew up in Sacramento with my mom. I only moved here permanently two winters ago.” She gazed around the yard at the lanterns. “Looks so festive, right?”
“Dana did that,” Aidan said.
Sloane caught sight of them standing together and came over to greet Harlee and Darla. “You guys made it.” Both women hugged Aidan’s sister. He didn’t realize she had so many friends here.
“Is that Hutch over there?” Darla said, squinting at the group assembled near the grill.
“Yeah, you know him?”
“I cut half the guys’ hair at Cal Fire. Hutch comes in occasionally but mostly uses a place in Glory Junction and probably pays twice the price. Everything in that town is a rip-off.”
“So, Dana, there’s a rumor going around that a big corporation is buying the Rosser place,” Harlee said. “I’d love to get something in theTribabout it. You know anything?”
“It’s not even close to being a done deal,” Dana said, and Harlee’s eyes grew round with excitement.
“There’s actually some truth to it? I assumed it was bogus, like most of the rumors in this town. How do you know about it? Are you representing the buyer?”
“I can’t really talk about it. Sorry.”
“Can you talk about it when it’s a done deal?” Harlee asked.
“I don’t think so. But you’ll figure it out.”
“Whoa, you make it sound big. Are the buyers planning to build a resort or something?”
Sloane and Darla seemed just as curious as Harlee and started peppering Dana with more questions. Evidently, this passed as big news in Nugget. He really needed to get back to the grill to relieve Brady, but he didn’t want to leave Dana to fend for herself against the nosy vultures. But Dana surprised him by laughing at her interrogators.
“Guys, I can’t tell you anything.” She mimed locking her lips closed with a key. “If it goes through, you’ll know soon enough.”
“Do you make a lot of money selling real estate?” Darla asked, effectively changing the subject. Aidan wondered if the hairdresser wasn’t as dizzy as she looked.
“I do all right,” Dana replied. “The problem is, you can have long dry spells where you don’t sell anything. Recently, the market has been pretty good, though.”
“What’s the most expensive place you’ve ever sold?” Harlee asked.
“When I worked in Tahoe, I once sold a house for two million dollars.”
“Holy crap,” Darla said. “How much did you get of that?”
Even to Aidan, who was an investigator, it was a pretty ballsy question. But Dana didn’t appear to mind, telling them a standard agent’s commission. He watched her tell a story about the ugliest house she’d ever sold, and by the time he slipped away to man the barbecue she positively glowed.
