Only Skin Deep Read Online Free Page A

staid life by sleeping in the nude.
    When she awoke from fitful sleep the next morning, she blamed her state of undress for an erotic dream about a man with thick blond hair and smoky-gray eyes the color of fog lifting from the Tetons….
    That those eyes were just as impassable in real life as those mighty mountain peaks made no difference to the wanton creature in her dreams who did a whole lot more than simply brush her lips against his.
    Lauren was not the type to count on her dreams as being anything more than wishful thinking. Still, when she called her friend Suzanne a little while later and confided that she was ready for a makeover, it was Travis she thought about making herself over for.
    â€œIt’s about time!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Dust off your credit card, and I’ll be right over.”
    The last of her girlfriends to get married, Suzanne Venice was not one to make light of Lauren’s desire to make a new start for herself. A freethinker and true veteran of the working population, she was of the belief that a woman couldn’t know what she really wanted in life until she reached thirty. Eager and ready to help, shearrived on Lauren’s doorstep less than an hour later with a stack of fashion magazines. A young woman wearing a leather halter top and a denim miniskirt accompanied her.
    Suzanne made the appropriate introductions.
    â€œThis is my niece Claire who’s visiting for a few days. She just finished cosmetology school. I told her you were ready for something new and different.”
    Such a proclamation would have left a weaker woman trembling. Lauren’s experience with beauticians was limited to Mrs. Castone who had been cutting her hair since she was in high school—as well as just about every blue-haired woman’s in town. This left a goodly population of females in Pinedale looking much too much alike and sending the trendier among them elsewhere for a more modern do.
    Claire’s look was definitely modern. Spiked out in all directions, her blond hair reminded Lauren of a porcupine. That it actually looked becoming on the neophyte hairdresser was of some comfort. While Suzanne flipped through a stack of fashion magazines, Claire studied Lauren’s face and hair with the intensity of a doctor performing her first surgery.
    â€œDo ya trust me?” she asked, popping a wad of gum.
    Lauren nodded dumbly and crossed her fingers behind her back as Claire positioned her in a chair in the middle of the kitchen and took a pair of scissors in hand.
    â€œNot too short please,” she implored, squeezing her eyes shut.
    Her hair might not be the height of fashion, but Lauren was just a smidgeon vain about her thick tresses. A half an hour later, she opened her eyes to see the floor covered with piles of glossy dark locks. She almost screamed when she ran a hand along the back of her naked neck.
    â€œIt’s fabulous!” Suzanne assured her.
    Lauren felt her throat close around a knot of regret. She knew her friend would be equally complimentary if her niece had given her a GI buzz. Claire held a mirror up to her face.
    â€œWell, what d’ya think?”
    Lauren wasn’t quite sure what to think. It was much shorter than she really wanted. Layered in the back for lift and tapered in the front to frame her heart-shaped face, the style did bring out the russet highlights of her hair. Longish bangs added femininity to a cut that few women could carry off without seeming somewhat mannish. It gave Lauren a pixie quality that made her look much younger and more stylish.
    â€œI can show you how to spike it like mine if you want,” Claire told her.
    Lauren swallowed hard at the thought. Until this very moment she hadn’t realized how much she had actually been hiding behind her long hair and conservative clothing.
    â€œI like it just the way it is,” she announced, surprised to actually mean it.
    Smiling broadly, Suzanne rubbed her