Free Kristen Blooming by Jenny Penn Page B

she pulled into Gwen’s drive. She brought her car to a stop and pulled up the hand brake before turning to pin Kristen with a pointed look. “And who better to give that to than a man who makes you lose your head?”
    “I just don’t understand.” Kristen really didn’t. “The deputy is not my type.”
    “You have a type?” Cybil lifted a brow, clearly doubting that Kristen did. “I don’t mean to offend you, honey, but you don’t seem to know what you like. After all, you keep letting your cousin pick your clothes.”
    Cybil had a point. One that bothered Kristen as she finally said her farewells and headed into the house. It was time. Time for her to get her sewing machine out and start looking online. She might not have money for a new wardrobe, but Kristen had the talents to make one out of her old clothes.

Chapter 7
     
    By the time Gwen got home that night, Kristen had already decided what her new style was going to be ⎯ retro. She’d spent a good part of the afternoon on the Internet, purposefully avoiding thinking about both her near drowning and the passionate embrace that followed. The two were impossible to ignore, though, and her thoughts led her to a shocking realization.
    She wasn’t really living. Kristen was only existing.
    Sure, she had plans and dreams, but for some strange reason, she seemed to be waiting for life to happen. Well, no more. She hadn’t moved out of her parents’ house and gotten a job because she needed somebody tell her what to do. That included everything, including how to dress.
    So, with renewed determination, she began pulling out her clothes and figuring out how to alter them so they were more modern but yet still in the stylish fashion of decades gone by. She worked late into the night until she was just too tired to continue on. By the time she went to sleep, it was well after midnight, and Gwen still hadn’t come home, leaving Kristen lying in bed exhausted but too unnerved to pass out until she heard her cousin finally stumble in through the front door.
    By noon the next day, Gwen still hadn’t appeared from her room, and Kristen had grown tired of waiting for her to wake up so she could ask her cousin for a ride. Instead, she called Cybil, who immediately agreed to take Kristen down to Dothan to see if she could get a haircut.
    More than that, Cybil knew just the place to go and offered to shell out for the facials and pedicures that came with the new, more sophisticate hairstyle Kristen had selected the previous evening. The length didn’t shorten by much, but this time she got layers and highlights, red ones, the same color they painted her toenails. Her mother would have been so scandalized.
    That was just why Kristen didn’t mention the idea of going to her normal hairstylist, Mrs. Hankon. Not only was she as old as the moon, but she was also the biggest gossip and would have told Kristen’s mother everything. Then the questions would have come, along with a full-on panic attack, no doubt, and Kristen didn’t want her mother to worry.
    Though, it was her who worried when she got back and Gwen’s bedroom door was still shut, the house quiet. Too quiet. It was nearly evening, and Kristen had a sick feeling something was wrong. She creeped down the hall to press an ear to Gwen’s door but couldn’t catch a hint of sound.
    That left her worried. Of course, she could be overreacting. She didn’t know, and she didn’t dare knock or enter. Instead, Kristen went back down to the dining room, where her sewing was set up. She hadn’t even made it through her first seam before Gwen came stumbling in, grumbling about all the racket.
    “What are you up to?” Gwen scowled as she shuffled into the room dressed in a pair of men’s boxers and a tank. “Sewing? What the hell are you ⎯ oh God. What is this ?”
    Gwen held up one of the dresses Kristen had already finished altering so that it now cinched in better at the waist. She’d also removed the