Only Skin Deep

And liberation called for a celebration. Alone in the house for the first time since she could remember, Lauren staged her first conscious act of rebellion against her boring, 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.

“It’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, she arrived 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.

“This 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.

“Do 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.

“Not 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.

“It’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.

“Well, 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.

“I 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.

“I like it just the way it is,” she announced, surprised to actually mean it.

Smiling broadly, Suzanne rubbed her hands together in glee. “Now to bring out those gorgeous eyes of yours.”

She pulled a small paper sack from her voluminous handbag and spilled its contents on the kitchen table. An assortment of cosmetics tantalized the eye. Lauren found them utterly daunting. For fear of looking as clownish as some of the girls in her high school classes, she generally limited her makeup selections to a layer of pale pink lipstick and a touch of mascara in a demure shade of brown to the tips of her eyelashes.

Today she gave herself over to her friend, gladly accepting Suzanne’s help. Lauren committed herself to taking good mental notes. Gray eyeliner, a tasteful combination of taupe and teal eye shadow and an application of darker mascara did indeed bring out Lauren’s eyes as promised. A dusting of blush also brought out a set of high cheekbones and a shocking mauve emphasized the fullness of a pair of lips that broke into a hesitant smile when Lauren surveyed the total effect of her makeover. The pixie in her mirror suddenly looked very grown-up.

She scarcely recognized herself.

“Now it’s time to go clothes shopping,” Suzanne announced.

Although the look on her friend’s face reminded Lauren too much of Dr. Frankenstein for her liking, she was nevertheless grateful for the offer. Claire refused to take a penny for the haircut, saying that she would appreciate a positive word-of-mouth recommendation.

“I’ll let you buy me a beer before I leave town though,” she added as an afterthought as she gathered up her belongings and headed back to her aunt’s house.

“It’s a deal,” Lauren promised.

All gratitude aside, she wasn’t too terribly disappointed to hear that Claire would be unable to accompany them on their shopping expedition. If what Claire was wearing at the moment was any indication, she probably did most of her shopping at a hip, urban out-fitters. As cute as the butterfly on the younger woman’s right shoulder might be, Lauren didn’t much care for the idea of being dragged into a tattoo parlor, either.

Suzanne wouldn’t hear of patronizing any of the local clothing shops and insisted they drive to the trendy tourist town of Jackson Hole where boutiques proudly displayed one-of-a-kind designs for a clientele of movie stars and local millionaires. When Lauren expressed her concern about the cost of such a venture, her friend promptly put things into perspective.

“Chic doesn’t come cheap. Besides, you don’t have to buy out any one store. Just a few dynamite outfits will be well worth the investment. Hopefully the next time we go shopping it’ll be for a wedding dress.”

That promise was enough to convince Lauren to go for it. Having saved most of her salary by living at home for so long, she felt entitled to a frivolous spending spree. A couple of hours later she placed a stack of purchases on the counter of a place aptly named Diva’s Digs. Only the thought of building a new life with a man who loved and appreciated her kept Lauren from complaining when the salesclerk rang up her purchases: an outrageously expensive pair of designer jeans, a brown checked sundress that made her feel rather like a debutante, a variety of leek tops, some classic tapered pants, matching shoes. And one timeless little black dress.

By the time they rolled back into town well after dark, Lauren felt like a movie star herself—a rather nervous movie star wondering when her leading man was going to make an appearance in her latest script….

As promised, Travis arrived bright and early Monday morning to take Lauren to his grandfather’s old cabin to see if she was even slightly interested in renting it. Claiming that she would be doing him a favor by simply keeping the mice at bay, he had already offered it to her for free, but she wouldn’t so much as think of staying there without paying something. Travis supposed she didn’t want anyon

e thinking that she was a “kept” woman or something equally archaic.

The thought brought a smile to his lips as he sauntered up the well-tended walk to Lauren’s front door. He couldn’t imagine anyone believing the conservative Ms. Hewett capable of such debauchery. After the wedding reception last Thursday, Travis had spent a little time thinking about that spontaneous kiss Lauren had given him. He’d finally come to the conclusion that he had greatly overestimated its impact. It was easy enough to blame his reaction on the fact that he had deprived himself of female company for too long. Having been taken by surprise, his testosterone had simply kicked into overdrive. He wouldn’t let himself be so easily ambushed today.

When Lauren met him at the door, he couldn’t have been more startled than had she greeted him wearing absolutely nothing at all. Mouth open, he stared at her in confusion.

“What did you do different?” he blurted out with uncharacteristic lack of tact.

He wondered if she’d booked an appointment on one of those extreme makeover television shows. Surely a pair of pants couldn’t make such an amazing change. The smile she gave him was nothing short of dazzling and made him feel somehow taller simply for having shown up on her doorstep.

“I cut my hair,” she said simply enough. “Do you like it?”

“As a rule, I don’t like short hair on women,” he admitted honestly enough.

Nevertheless, Travis certainly found hers a tremendous improvement. He was struck by an urge to run his fingers though it and see if it really was as soft and shiny as it looked. Watching the corners of her lips turn from a smile to a frown, he realized too late that he had hurt her feelings. He hadn’t meant to. His mother had raised him better than to insult a lady, and he hastened to remedy his blunder.

“It looks nice on you, though. In fact you look great.”

Glad he didn’t have to lie, he wondered if a haircut and new clothes could really transform this shy wallflower into a blossoming Cinderella. Finding no fairy godmother hovering in the near vicinity, Travis reminded himself that he was the last person in the world to question what a woman did to herself. His ex-wife had made it clear that any decision involving her own body was entirely the woman’s prerogative.

Including whether or not she wanted to carry his baby….

Jaclyn wasn’t one to strap herself to an endless pile of dirty diapers, or run after some ungrateful “rug rat.” Never mind the fact that she’d claimed to be on birth control when she wasn’t. Or that she’d used her pregnancy to force a proposal out of him in the first place. Or that she’d ultimately terminated it without his consent.

Travis had never felt so helpless in his whole life. Nor so angry.

Or hurt.

The memory of that tragic day swamped him. To this day, he had to turn away whenever he saw a father and son playing catch in the park. Or a dad teaching his “little princess” how to ride a bike. Or a happy young couple playing peek-a-boo with an infant. Sucked in by dark waters passing under the bridge of time, Travis tried to shake off his murky thoughts while waiting for Lauren to lock her front door behind her.