“How about another clue?” Natalie said, her huge blue eyes gleaming with amusement. The salon owner was a walking advertisement for her business with her short, layered hairdo that danced just this side of edgy. Natalie had sported hair down to her waist until a year ago. The day of her fortieth birthday, she had announced that she was too old for long hair and cut it all off, much to Alice’s shock. Although, honestly, Natalie looked amazing in the new style.
Alice sighed. “Remember the problem I had with your books?”
“The piddling little three-dollar thing that I don’t give a toot about?”
“Well, I give a toot because it’s not right.”
“I know, sweetie, and that’s why you’re such a great bookkeeper.” Natalie spread Alice’s hair over her shoulders. “Are you sure I can’t take a little more off and give it some layers? With your natural waves it would look stunning.”
“No, just neaten up the ends, please.” Alice had a strange relationship with her hair. It was almost like her mother’s: thick and glossy with a perfect ripple of waves that Alice did nothing to create. However, her mother’s hair was honey blonde with streaks of gold, while Alice’s was mousey brown. Of course.
Alice kept it long because she could braid it or pull it back in a ponytail to look professional. But at night, she slept with it loose and spread over her pillow, despite the tangles she had to unravel in the morning. That’s how the heroes in her beloved Regency romance novels arranged their heroines’ hair before they made love to them. Somehow having the hair of a Regency heroine made it seem easier to fantasize that something like that would happen to Alice.
Her dreams made up for her lack of luck in the real world of dating. Or maybe they contributed to it.
“Earth to Alice,” Natalie said, trimming just the tips of Alice’s long locks with an air of frustrated resignation. “Are you going to tell me who Derek Killion is? That’s a strong name, by the way. Sort of like one of your dukes.”
Alice threw the hair stylist an astonished glance. Natalie knew about Alice’s secret reading addiction, but it still seemed like she was peering into Alice’s mind. Of course, she did that a lot.
Their friendship began the day Natalie intervened in a particularly unpleasant encounter between Alice and her mother, Gabrielle, who also patronized the Mane Attraction. Gabrielle didn’t approve of Alice’s lack of interest in being fashionable, so her mother was pressuring her to cut her long hair into a more contemporary style. Natalie told Gabrielle in no uncertain terms that Alice’s hair was beautiful, the style suited her perfectly, and that Gabrielle should shut up and mind her own business.
Amazingly, Gabrielle had shut up.
When Alice had thanked the salon owner after her mother left, Natalie looked her in the eye. “You have to set firm boundaries with a person like Gabrielle. Otherwise they will destroy you.”
It turned out that Natalie spoke from hard-won experience and Alice had valued her advice ever since.
“Derek is far from a duke,” Alice said. “He’s a partner in a big-time consulting firm who’s going to help me figure out what’s wrong with your books. For free.”
Natalie’s well-groomed eyebrows rose in two graceful arches. “For free?”
Alice explained her impulsive submission to KRG’s Small Business Initiative. “He was in a big rush to get off the phone and I was sure he’d pawn me off on some staff member. Which would have been fine because they do all the actual work. But now he wants to come to my office at ten a.m. on Saturday.”
Natalie frowned. “You’re going to be alone in your house with a man you’ve never met before? I’m not sure I like that.”
“Too bad you’re so busy on Saturdays or I’d ask you to stop by to chaperone me,” Alice said with a grin. She would love to see Natalie’s face when she met the gorgeous Derek Killion. But she didn’t want to worry her friend. “Trust me, there’s nothing to be concerned about. Derek Killion wouldn’t give me the time of day if I hadn’t filled out that form.”
“I’m going to call you between clients on Saturday, though. If you don’t answer, I’ll send over Gino.” Gino was only male hairdresser at Natalie’s salon. He was also a gym rat with muscles that turned his black T-shirt and jeans into works of art. The ladies at the salon had nearly risen up in protest when he got engaged two months before.
“Not a problem. It will make me sound important to get a phone call on the weekend,” Alice said. “My side of the conversation is going to sound like your business will fall to pieces without my immediate intervention.”
Natalie laughed and turned on the blow-dryer.
At ten o’clock sharp, Derek walked up three steps to the small porch of Alice Thurber’s town house, which evidently doubled as her office. Two pots filled with red geraniums splashed color against the gray brick facade. An ornate brass door knocker gleamed against glossy forest-green paint. Ms. Thurber kept her place nicely maintained.
Guilt sent a pulse of pain through his already aching temples. Even though he’d spent the entire limo ride out to Cofferwood working on the Argon project, he didn’t have time to spare for a minor bookkeeping problem, no matter how much he wanted to solve it. He should have let Leland and Tully handle this, as they’d wanted to.
But neither he nor an associate he’d enlisted to give the numbers a first look had been able to find any errors in Ms. Thurber’s work. Except for the inexplicable discrepancy between what she had added up and what the bank statement showed. Now not only was he hooked on the intriguing puzzle but his pride was involved. If KRG couldn’t solve a small-town bookkeeper’s problem, he shouldn’t be handling foreign-currency hedging for Argon International.
So he was going old school by looking at the hard copy—possibly down to the level of reams of receipts—where he was sure the issue would become obvious. Then he could return to his office with a clear conscience and a sense of satisfaction.
As he rang the doorbell, he was considering another possible strategy for Argon. When the door swung open a few seconds later, he was startled to find a striking young woman eyeing him with a wary expression.
“I’m Derek Killion,” he managed to say as he took in a luxuriant mass of hair spilling over one of her shoulders and huge velvet-brown eyes behind fashionable wire-rim glasses. He’d been too rushed to look at the background information Barbara had gathered on the bookkeeper, so he’d been envisioning an older woman with a bun and bifocals, probably based on her rather prim, old-fashioned first name.
“I’m Alice Thurber,” she said as she extended her hand. “I appreciate your interest in my little problem. I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting an in-person visit from a founding partner.”
Derek refocused, taking her hand and finding her grip firm and warm. “I wasn’t expecting to come either. I thought the problem would be easier to solve.” He realized how that sounded and offered a rueful smile to go with it. “My pride is smarting.”
However, it was too late. Alice’s elegantly full lips pressed together in a stern line.
“Come in,” she said, her tone somewhat frosty. She stepped back to invite him into her foyer, a small space containing a half-round table of varnished walnut and a portrait of a woman in elaborate Victorian attire whom he felt he should recognize.