Skin Deep

Then she started the Mustang and pulled away, not even giving him the little wave she normally did.

Michael rubbed his chin, then started walking toward his SUV. Why did he feel as though Kyra had just broken some sort of unspoken code between them? And why did he both dread and celebrate the possibility?

2

OKAY, something definitely was not right.

The following evening, Michael wove his SUV through rush-hour traffic, heat rising in waves from the sizzling asphalt, thick black storm clouds gathering on the horizon. He slammed on the brakes to avoid ramming a car that had cut him off from the front and prayed the guy riding his bumper wouldn’t hit him from behind.

Michael blew out a long breath. Wrangling with traffic was not helping his dark mood.

He’d had an odd sensation in his gut ever since he’d watched Kyra drive off from the bookstore. And that feeling had only gained momentum since then. He’d gotten her answering machine when he’d called to check on her last night. And every time he’d ducked into her office throughout the day, she’d had her nose stuck in that book. She’d still refused to let him see it. And the paper bag she’d taped to the cover only lent a more mysterious quality to the hardback. Then when he’d stopped by her office to see if she wanted to go for a cup of coffee after work, he’d discovered she’d left an hour earlier.

What in the hell was the matter with her? Was she upset with him? She didn’t seem to be. In fact, she didn’t seem to be all that upset about Craig Holsom and their breakup, either. Which was odder still. It usually took her a good long week of moping, mock depression, and marathon eating to get over a breakup, even if the relationship itself had only lasted the same amount of time.

He just didn’t get it.

An exit ramp emerged to his right, a new shopping complex beckoning him from beyond. He swerved to get off the crowded highway. Maybe he’d given up too easily last night. Maybe she’d needed him. Maybe he’d read the signals wrong and she’d spent the night washing her pillow with tears.

The thought made his jaw clench. Craig Holsom, and the dozen or so that had come before him, didn’t deserve an hour of Kyra’s company, much less a single one of her tears.

A pint of Ben & Jerry’s. That should get Kyra to open up to him. Tell him what was going on. He quickly stopped by a nearby store, made the purchase, then pointed the SUV in the direction of her apartment complex. Within twenty minutes he stood on the second-floor landing, knocking on her door.

“Kyra?” he called through the old, neon-pink-painted door.

No response.

He grimaced. Her Mustang was parked at the curb, so he knew she had to be home. “I know you’re in there, so you might as well open up.”

Of course, there was the possibility that she’d already replaced Holsom with the next jerk on her list. The thought bothered him more than it should have. Far more.

He cursed under his breath and knocked again.

“Do you mind! Some people are trying to watch Wheel of Fortune! Keep it down up there!” the landlady who lived a floor below bellowed up the stairs. “This ain’t no bordello.”

Not that you could tell by her language, Michael thought. He stared down the winding stairwell right into Mrs. Kaminsky’s too-thin, aging face. He always found it hard to believe that such a window-shattering voice could come from such a small package. “Sorry, Mrs. K., I’ll try to be more quiet.”

“You do that!” she yelled, nearly blowing back his hair.

Michael grimaced and stepped up to Kyra’s apartment door. Why Kyra put up with the old battle-ax was beyond him. Strangely, she seemed to like the landlady’s interference. Perhaps because she’d had such little parental involvement for so much of her life.

“Kyra?” he said more quietly, curving his hand around the doorknob. It turned easily. Figures she’d leave her door unlocked. Then again, he couldn’t imagine any thief with the guts to get past Mrs. Kaminsky.

He pushed open the door and peered around the colorfully decorated interior of the apartment. The old place was nice. With large, airy rooms and polished pale wood floors, the one-bedroom apartment almost made putting up with the curmudgeonly old landlady worth it. Almost. If Michael were Kyra, he’d have moved out a long time ago.

“Kyra?” He softly closed the door behind him, eyeing a line of discarded clothes littering the floor. He frowned and picked up the skirt she’d been wearing earlier. Kyra was fastidiously neat. It wasn’t like her to just leave her clothes lying around…He picked up each item as he went, then peered into the empty bedroom. Where was she? His gaze focused on a small, empty box sitting just outside the closed bathroom door. Dropping the skirt, he picked up the box and knocked on the door.

“Kyra, are you in there?”

A small squeal told him that she was. He turned the box around. Hair dye? He grimaced. What in the hell was she doing in there?

The lock clicked on the door and he stepped back, expecting her to come out. He quickly discovered that she hadn’t been unlocking the door, but rather locking it, as if afraid he would come in.

“Kyra, what the hell is going on?” he asked through the thick wood.

“Go away,” she said.

Michael leaned against the doorjamb and sighed. “You’re upset with me. That’s it, isn’t it? The reason why you didn’t want to go out to eat with me last night, why you barely talked to me today.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

He looked at where he still held the ice cream in his other hand and considered putting it in the freezer. “If I said something to make you angry with me, I apologize.”

“No need to apologize.”

“I see. Is that because there isn’t anything to apologize for? Or are you saying I shouldn’t waste my time because what I said or did was completely unforgivable?”

A soft giggle filtered through the wood. He stared at the door, wondering just what was so funny.

“Kyra, come on out here and talk to me. I’m not into talking to doors.”

Silence.

Uh-oh. This was worse than he thought. And he was at a loss as to what to do next.

Not once in the past four years had he seen Kyra angry. In fact, he hadn’t a clue what it looked like. Would she giggle if she was upset? He wouldn’t discount the possibility.

Well, there had been that time when they were in a mall parking lot and a woman had dumped a kitten out of her car mere feet from a busy intersection. Kyra had rescued the scrap of fur—the feline in question that even now lazily considered Michael from his perch on top of the silent television—and given the woman what-for. He’d almost forgotten about the incident because it was so uncharacteristic for Kyra to lose her cool about anything. You wanted to cut in line? No problem. It probably meant you were in more of a hurry than she was. Heck, you might even have a wife in labor waiting in the car who wouldn’t go to the hospital until you got her that case of beer. You honked your horn at her and she would wave at you, thinking the gesture a greeting rather than a rebuke.

Michael sighed and closed his eyes. There was no telling exactly what was going through Kyra’s mind.

Suddenly the door opened inward, taking away Michael’s leaning support and nearly toppling him to the floor.

“Give a guy some warning, why don’t you,” he mumbled, fighting to straighten himself.

Only once he was standing, he realized that the open door wasn’t the only thing to knock him off balance. Kyra’s appearance absolutely floored him.

“SO?” KYRA ASKED, barely able to conceal her excitement as she forced herself to stand completely still in front of Michael. “What do you think?”

He stumbled backward a couple of steps, his mouth moving, although no sounds came out.

“I know. Something, isn’t it? I hardly recognized myself in the mirror just now.”

And she hardly had. Who knew what a difference two little hours could make in someone’s life? Kyra reached up to pluck at her newly cropped hair, still feeling light-headed by the absence of the weight of her long tresses. But she hadn’t stopped at the short, sassily styled ’do. Oh, no. On the way home from the salon she’d decided she’d wanted to change the color, as well, and picked up one of those home dye kits. She’d always been curious about the saying that blondes had more fun. She wanted to find out for herself if it was true.

Then, of course, there was her new wardrobe. Having to replace the things the cleaner had lost anyway, she’d gone shopping with the check they’d issued to cover the loss. But she’d stayed well away from the places where she usually bought her clothes. Instead she’d ventured into the trendy little shops in Ybor City and taken the advice of the salesgirls. The outfit she had on now was her favorite—a hot-pink stretchy tank top with a tight little mock-leopard-skin leather skirt.

True, so maybe she’d felt as if she was in little more than her underwear and wondering where the rest of her clothes were when she’d first tried the racy outfit on. But the more minutes that had ticked by, the more comfortable she’d felt. Not only in her new duds, but in her skin, period. And the new clothes helped her make one very important discovery—she had breasts! Sure, she’d always known she’d had them, had them. She just hadn’t realized how round and smooth and sexy they were. Which was plausible because they were usually hidden under three layers of clothing and an unattractive slingshot of a bra.