Beauty Shop Tales

Beauty Shop Tales
Nancy Robards Thompson

Avril Carson had to try.Because the hairdresser-turned-actress (turned hairdresser) had left little Sago Beach, Florida, with her whole life in front of her and the man she'd loved by her side. Now she'd come back, with his ashes in an urn, and not even the chance of a child in her future. But she had a sneaking suspicion there was one in her late husband's not too-distant past…And as for romance– well, those days were behind her. Or were they? For Max Wright was pursuing her with a vengeance that made her feel things she thought she'd never feel again. Maybe it was time to practice some beauty shop magic on herself…

Beauty Shop Tales

Nancy Robards Thompson

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

This book is dedicated to the midwives of this story—

Kathleen O’Brien, Ann Bair, Lori Harris,

Terry Backhus and Teresa Elliott Brown.

And to Larri Mattison, who kept nudging me

to write a book set in a salon.

Special thanks to Tammy Strickland and Pam and

Bill LaBud for educating me on leukemia.

Love and appreciation to my critique partners

Catherine Kean and Elizabeth Grainger.

As always, Michael and Jen—Je vous aime beaucoup.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

The Garden of Proserpine

Here, where the world is quiet,

Here, where all trouble seems

Dead winds and spent waves riot

In doubtful dreams of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

For reaping folk and sowing,

For harvest-time and mowing,

A sleepy world of streams.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne

Today, as I fly out of LAX, probably for the last time, the souvenirs I’m taking with me are two truths I gleaned doing hair in the Hollywood movie industry: 1) appearance is everything; and 2) reality, that eternal shape-shifter, is the biggest illusion of all.