Read Online Open Season by Linda Howard - Free Book Online Page A

department store in Chattanooga or Huntsville, and let them do my makeup.”
    “Actually,” said Aunt Jo, “we thought of someone right here in Hillsboro.”
    “Here?” Puzzled, Daisy tried to think of anyone in Hillsboro who even remotely qualified as a beauty consultant. “Who? Has someone new moved into town?”
    “Well, no.” Aunt Jo cleared her throat. “We thought Todd Lawrence would do nicely.”
    “Todd Lawrence?” Daisy gaped at them. “Aunt Jo, just because a man’s gay doesn’t mean he qualifies as a beauty consultant Besides, I don’t know if Todd is ‘out.’ I’d hate to upset him by asking, if he isn’t” Todd Lawrence was several years older than she, at least in his early forties, and a very dignified, reserved man. He had left Hillsboro when he was in his early twenties and, according to his doting widowed mother, did quite well for himself on Broadway, but since she never had any newspaper clippings or articles to show mentioning his name, everyone thought it was probably a mother’s fond bias that led her to think he was so successful. Todd had returned to Hillsboro some fifteen years later, to take care of his mother during her last year of life, and since her death had lived quietly and alone in the old Victorian house on the edge of town.
    “Oh, he’s ‘out,’ ” Evelyn replied. “For goodness’ sake, he opened an antique and decorator store in Huntsville. And how many straight men know what color mauve is? At Easter, Todd told me how good I look in mauve; remember, that’s what color my dress was this year? And he said it in front of several people. So he’s out.”
    “I don’t know,” Aunt Jo said doubtfully. “Mauve isn’t really a good test. What if a man’s wife has hadhim looking at paint chips? He might know what mauve is. Now,
puce
would be a real test. Ask Todd about puce.”
    “I’m not asking him about puce!”
    “Well, other than asking him outright if he’s out, I don’t see how else you’re going to do it.”
    Daisy rubbed her forehead. “We’re getting off track. Even if Todd is gay—”
    “He is,” both sisters said confidently.
    “Okay, he is. That still doesn’t mean he knows anything about makeup!”
    “He was on Broadway, of course he knows about makeup. Everyone in the shows wears makeup, gay or not. Besides, I’ve already called him,” Evelyn said.
    Daisy groaned.
    “Now, don’t take on,” her mother admonished. “He was as nice as he could be, and said of course he’d help you. Just give him a call when you’re ready.”
    “I can’t do it,” Daisy said, shaking her head.
    “Take another look in the mirror,” Aunt Jo suggested.
    Reluctantly Daisy turned her head to look in the mirror over the gas log fireplace. What she saw made her wince, and she surrendered without even another twinge of conscience. “I’ll call him in the morning.”
    “Do it now,” Evelyn urged.

FIVE
    D aisy’s insides jittered nonstop. Setting up an appointment with Todd Lawrence had been nerve-racking, even though he was just as nice as her mother had said. Not only was she still worried he was offended—though if he was, he hid it very well—but there was something so
humiliating
about having to ask for help in something as simple as applying a little bit of makeup. What had she done wrong? She knew she wasn’t stupid, but was she so basically inept at this sort of thing that she was doomed to failure from the start? She could hear the jokes now: Daisy Minor get a husband? Hah-hah; she can’t even put on mascara.
    And did she really want a man who couldn’t see the real her, just as she was, but who needed a layer of gloss before he even noticed her?
    Well, yes. She’d tried the “real her” way and gainedexactly nothing. Zippo. If she had to gloss herself in order to get what she wanted—namely, a family—then she would gloss as brightly as needed.
    Her new awareness of how dowdy she was almost paralyzed her as she was getting