More water splashed, sloppier this time. He gurgled on the stream that found his mouth and turned his head to spit it into the muddled washbasin. He gave Imogen a warning look, but she was unaffected. As per usual.
“Should you really be pretending that I’m the one affected by our close proximity?” she asked.
He shifted in his seat, suddenly overcome with the need to puff out his chest with masculine pride. He’d always enjoyed female attention, but the adrenaline coursing through him was new, different. Apparently, he preened under Imogen’s attention. “So you are looking.”
“Hmm,” she said, moving out of sight. He twisted his neck to follow her movement. Didn’t she have a wittier response to his taunt? Why was she smelling the bottled hair tincture?
“Is everything all right?”
She set the hair tincture down. “One more wash should do it. Lie back.”
She soaped up her hands and scrubbed his head so vigorously his neck rattled on the edge of the washbasin like a vaudeville tambourine. He braced both hands on the chair arms and shouted, “Enough, woman! I apologize already.”
“I hear you,” she said in a distracted voice. “We’re almost done.”
She rinsed his hair, pulled him to a seated position, and rubbed a towel over his head. “What in the…?” she mumbled, then scrubbed once more before taking a few steps backward.
“What in the what?”
She didn’t answer, just stared at his hair with a mixture of astonishment and barely suppressed amusement. His stomach sank even as his voice rose an octave. “What in the what, Genie?”
Both hands covered her mouth, but peals of laughter burst through.
“Mirror. Now.” A second later, he was staring into a pearl-encrusted hand mirror. “Dear God in heaven.”
His hair had not turned chestnut brown, as promised by the bottle. It was purple.
“The chemicals must have oxidized,” Imogen said between snorts.
“I look like an eggplant.” He lowered the mirror and gaped at her in disbelief. “Is this payback for the time I put a rubber snake in your wardrobe?”
“You swore that wasn’t you!”
“Of course it was me.”
She swatted his arm. “Then, yes, this is payback.”
He raised the mirror and took another look. One wet, purple lock of hair curled over his forehead. “Jesus, I’m hideous. How am I supposed to go into town looking like this? If you thought a redheaded scoundrel would be easy to spot, this is infinitely worse.”
She swiped a pair of scissors from the tabletop beside her. “I could cut it.”
“You stay away.” He held up a hand to ward her off. “Let me think.”
But instead of searching for a solution, he found himself marveling, again, at how enjoyable it was to be around Imogen—mishaps and all. What if this botched hair dyeing was an excuse to stay with her for a little while longer?
“I promise I didn’t do it on purpose. ”
He lifted his head at her tone, which had gone thin with worry. “I know. That’s not actually what I was thinking about.”
“Then what?”
“Truthfully, delaying my return a few days won’t ruin my sale, and it might give the dye a chance to fade. Besides, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and it’s been a long time since we spent the holidays together.”
“You’re saying…”
“I would like to stay.” He watched her carefully, prepared to take back his words if she showed even the slightest hesitation.
The quick flash of joy before she managed, poorly, to wrestle her features under control was all the answer he needed.
