Peggy remembered a time when hot men had made her nervous. But that was so long ago, before she’d learned that they were all schmucks. The butterflies she’d felt in her stomach? Puh-lease. It was just hunger: she wanted her dinner.
“Nice to see you again, Troy.” Peg held out her hand to him. See? It wasn’t shaking the tiniest bit.
Troy had been inspecting the display of erotic lipsticks with a raised brow, paying special attention to Whip Me Cream.
He turned to greet her and she felt dwarfed by his sheer size: not all height, but breadth, too. Somehow, with the reception counter between them, he hadn’t seemed quite this big yesterday.
He wrapped huge, warm fingers around hers and clasped gently. “Hi.” He gestured with his head toward the lipsticks. “Interesting products you got there.” He wore a knowing grin.
She felt a jolt at the contact, and a flush started at her neck, as if she were a teenager. “They’re great. The next Smashbox or Hard Candy, but more fun.”
His amusement faded to puzzlement.
“Never mind. Girl stuff.” She smiled. “My name is Peggy, and I’ll be doing your sea salt scrub this evening. Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Beer? Sparkling water?”
“Bottled water would be great,” he said, releasing her hand.
She nodded in approval. He cared about his body. Peg was torn about the alcohol policy in the spa. On the one hand, it brought them clients and helped them keep the fun, partylike atmosphere at night. On the other, alcohol didn’t really have much to do with total mind-body-spirit fitness. It muddled the mind, slowed the body and wasn’t great for the spirit, either, after the initial high.
However, alcohol had been great for business. Simply amazing how a drink or two loosened up wallets and led to further treatments. A regular pedicure became a spa pedicure; a simple facial led to the purchase of two hundred dollars’ worth of products, and so on.
“Just follow me.” She led Troy to the treatment room and showed him the table, though he seemed to be looking at everything in the room but that. He was intense about it, too.
It was almost as if he were some kind of corporate spy, checking out their premises so that he could set up a competing business. She didn’t know what to think.
“Have you ever had a sea salt scrub before?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No, can’t say as I have. Why is there a drain in the floor here?”
“This used to be the only wet room we had,” Peggy explained. “So we had what’s called a Vichy shower mounted over the treatment table. But now we have four wet rooms surrounding central locker rooms over there—” she pointed to a set of double doors “—so the showers are centralized. When we’re done here, you’ll just walk into the men’s area, find an unoccupied shower and rinse off.”
He nodded.
“Through the doors and to the right, there’s a set of teak shelves where you’ll find folded spa robes and clean towels. Here’s a locker key—” Peggy handed it to him “—so you can store your things securely.
“Go ahead and take a quick shower just to get your skin moist, and then come on back in here. You can hang your robe on the back of the door. Then just lie down on your stomach and cover yourself with the folded sheet at the foot of the table. Do you have any questions?”
“So when did you make all these improvements to the place?” Troy asked casually.
“Recently. Just last year, when Alejandro relocated what was his mother’s salon and expanded into a day spa, too. I came onboard as the manager and massage therapist only about three months ago.”
“Alejandro is your…?”
“Business partner and a childhood friend.”
“Oh, so you grew up in Miami?”
“No, I grew up mostly back East. But we lived here for a few years. Alejandro’s been here all his life, though, and we’ve always kept in touch.” Peg moved toward the door. “I’m going to get your water now, okay? Go ahead and make yourself comfortable and I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
She exited and tried not to think about Troy Barrington unbuttoning his shirt, unbuckling his belt, stepping out of his jeans. Tried not to think about the expanse of muscle that would greet her when she walked back through the door. She was a professional, after all.
Peggy walked to the kitchenette and got one of the spa’s tall, apple-green plastic cups from a cabinet, added a few ice cubes to it and began to fill it with bottled water from the fridge. She caught sight of herself in the steel microwave door and as usual hated her freckled, pug nose. Not the kind of schnoz that got a man fantasizing.
“Hey!” she said aloud. “I don’t want men fantasizing. Mind, body, spirit. No guys.”
“What’s that, hon?” Marly Fine, the spa’s hairstylist and muralist, walked up behind her and dumped out the remnants of her green tea. Her glossy black hair hung in a loose French braid down her back and she’d eaten off all her lip gloss, along with part of her lip liner, too. Despite this, Marly was true to her last name: fine. Tall and willowy and ethereal, with deep blue-green eyes and unfairly olive skin.
“Mind, body, spirit. Impulse control. Balance in all things,” said Peggy, feeling like the Pillsbury Doughboy in a red wig beside her. She needed to get her butt running again, instead of just coaching kids to do it from the sidelines. But no matter how much she ran or starved, her legs would always be short and thick compared to Marly’s.
“Right, mind, body, spirit.” The hairstylist batted Peg’s ponytail playfully. “I hear you have a hottie under your sheet right now.”
“Is Shirlie still panting out there?”
“Yes.” Marly’s expression was amused. “And she swears she’s seen the guy before, in the news or on TV or something. What does he do?”
Peg shrugged. “Beats me. All I’ve done is ask him what he wants to drink and point him toward the men’s locker room.”
“Well, once you’ve got him kneaded to jelly under your magic hands, try to figure out the mystery. She’s going to drive me crazy.” Marly got another tea bag out of a canister and stuck her mug, full of water, into the microwave.
Peggy liked green tea, too, but preferred it cold, straight from the refrigerator. “Okay. So what’s your evening look like?”
“I’m doing highlights on Candy Moss right now. She’s had two glasses of wine and is giggling for no apparent reason under the dryer. Then a couple of updos for some gala in Coconut Grove. And last a simple cut and blow-dry. I should be able to leave early tonight.”
“Lucky you.”
“That reminds me, though—would you be able to wax a client’s eyebrows after you’re done with the hottie?”
“Sylvia can’t do it?” Sylvia was their aesthetician.
“She can, but this woman doesn’t like her—she over-plucked her last time.”
“Oh, okay. Sure.” Peg headed for the exit. “Good luck with Candy after glass of wine number three, okay?” They really weren’t supposed to give the customers more than two drinks, but sometimes it was hard to cut them off.
Marly laughed. “Thanks.”
Peggy headed down the hallway and knocked on the treatment room door.
“Come in,” Troy said. He was lying facedown on the table, with the sheet draped over his lower half.
Peggy swallowed hard at the sight of his broad, smooth, tanned back and powerful biceps