Excerpt of Midnight Madness by Karen Kendall

CUTTING THE GOVERNOR'S hair is no different from

cutting any other man's — it's just that if I slip with the scissors, the result could be on national television.

Marly Fine sat awkwardly in the stretch limo, her black nylon bag balanced on her lap. Outside the windows, LeJeune was a parking lot. The heavy Miami traffic crawled alongside the long white car; people on their way to work just like she was. Heat shimmered up off the pavement, mixing with exhaust fumes and humidity and general impatience. The combination steamed the outside of almost every automobile's windows while the occupants hid in their air conditioning.

In a lime-green Beetle on the left, a college girl munched on a cereal bar and bobbed her head to the radio. To the right, a black Volvo eased forward, its driver a heavy-set Latino businessman reading the Herald. Behind him, a well- endowed platinum blonde in a silver Mercedes applied her brakes and half a tube of mascara at the same time.

Marly's palms sweated and she resisted the urge to wipe them on her long cotton gypsy skirt. Examining her blue toenail polish, she wondered again if she should have changed it to pink last night.

No! She got annoyed at herself for even thinking it. I am who I am. If the Gov doesn't like blue polish or sequined rubber flip-flops, then that's his problem. I'm only there to cut his hair.

John Hammersmith, aka The Hammer, might be Florida's JFK reincarnated, but that didn't mean she had to wear a pillbox hat, pumps and a suit to meet the man.

"Temperature comfortable, miss?" asked the chauffeur, whose name was Mike. The poor guy actually wore livery — complete with cap — in this heat.

Marly started to nod, but her teeth were almost chattering. "Actually, Mike, can we warm it up a little back here?"

"Sure thing."

"Thanks." She wore double tank tops over her gypsy skirt, but they did little to keep her warm in the blasting air conditioning.

Marly hugged her bag as if it were a teddy bear and told herself she wasn't nervous. Hadn't Shore magazine named her as one of the top five hairstylists in the Miami area? Wasn't she having to turn away clients now, or pass them on to Nicky, her flamboyant coworker? In fact, she could have referred The Hammer to Nicky, except that she was afraid of the consequences.

All they needed at After Hours Salon and Day Spa was a very public lawsuit against one of their employ-ees — for groping The Hammer's...uh, hammer. And it was an all-too- likely scenario: not only did Nicky wear tight orange spandex, but he waxed eloquent on the horrors of underwear and the beauties of copping a good feel.

She and Mike exchanged chitchat as the limo purred along in the sweltering heat, bringing her ever closer to the hair follicles of Florida's forty-fourth fearless leader. A man whose politics made her cringe, and who awoke deep feelings of resentment within her. He had the same slick demeanor of old Patrick Compton, the state representative from her hometown.

The Pattywhacker, they'd called him. He'd won office on promises of honor and sincerity and devotion. Funny how all those had gone out the window when he'd hooked up with the big boys in the House.

Didn't people ever learn? Now the good citizens of Florida had fallen for this young turk with the conservative agenda and soulful blue power ties that matched his wide- set eyes. The guy had charm in spades, plenty of hair and the big white teeth necessary for the perfect photo op. He'd promised to restore order, morality and conscience to Florida — as if the last two could be legislated.

Marly's mouth twisted and she leaned her head back, resting it against the fat braid of dark hair that hung to midspine. The plush leather seat hugged her body, and she wished suddenly that her dad was here beside her, taking a ride in a fancy limo. She'd have to tell him all about it when she visited.

The temperature inside the car had just warmed when they pulled up under the curved portico of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, where the chauffeur got out and opened her door. Marly slid over on the seat, gave him her hand and stuck first one foot and then the other out the door and onto the pavement. Her silver toe ring flashed in the sun, as did all the sequins sewn onto her rubber flipflops.

Mike murmured something to a bellman, who produced a cell phone and led her inside while he hit a number on speed dial. He nodded at her. "Miss Turlington, the governor's assistant, will be down for you momentarily."

Marly nodded, slung her bag over her left shoulder and put a hand up to her braid, just to make sure her hair wasn't working its way out of its confines. She licked her suddenly dry lips and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

She moved her attention to a massive floral arrangement in the center of a table in the lobby, discovering upon close inspection that the flowers were rubber and plastic. She'd begun wondering how, exactly, a factory created these things and how many cancer-causing fumes the workers inhaled during the process, when a no-nonsense older woman in a gray suit approached her from the elevators.

Maria Turlington introduced herself with a gaze as cool and dry as the hand she proffered, and fixated for half a second longer than was polite on Marly's blue toenails. "If you'll follow me, Miss Fine, the governor will see you now."

Ms. Turlington reminded Marly strongly of someone, and as she got into the elevator behind her she tried to think of who it was. Her hair was short and graying, and she had a figure like a broomstick. The gray suit was relieved only by single pearls in her ears and an old-fashioned circle pin on her lapel. She looked as if she lived on tea and cucumber sandwiches or something as equally bland and proper. And the woman's shoes were positively hideous. Though they were good quality leather, they were squat penny loafers elevated only about an inch by a chunky square heel, and Ms. Turlington wore them with suntan- colored panty hose.

Marly decided that anyone who still wore suntan-colored panty hose could suck on her blue toenails.

The elevator stopped at the top of the building and the two of them exited, passing a couple of plainclothed bodyguards. One of them took a look into Marly's bag before letting them into the governor's suite.

She shrugged as he pulled out three pairs of long, wicked- looking scissors and an electric shaver. "Tools of the trade." She couldn't very well cut The Hammer's hair without them, could she?

But maybe she should write in to Alias and suggest an episode where Sydney Bristow assassinated a bad guy by pretending to be a hairstylist. Who knew? Maybe they'd already done one.

The bodyguard frowned at the scissors and her, and exchanged a glance with Ms. Turlington, as if to ask whether she'd vetted Marly's background. Ms. T. nodded, and he let them go. Great, the FBI has a file on my finesse with long layers. They know about the woman whose hair I turned purple back in beauty school, and they've looked into the dangers of me giving Hammersmith a mullet with neon-green hair extensions....

They knocked and then entered an elegant suite dotted with arrangements of flowers that had once actually grown somewhere.At one end of the room, near a window overlooking the ocean, was a desk and a rolling leather chair, turned away from them. Resting against the back of the chair was a head covered by unruly, dark curly hair.

"I need you to modify that paragraph in the Orlando speech," Hammersmith said into a cell phone. "I am not saying that. Yeah. Thanks, Ricky. Gotta go." The governor spun around in the chair and stood, his eyes riveting on Marly's face.

The last thing she'd expected was for the man to be half- naked! His chest was broad, exceptionally well-defined and lightly furred in the morning sunlight.

She felt her pleasant expression freeze in surprise and her tongue instantly absorb all the saliva in her mouth. That was what those white button-downs and blue silk ties covered? She'd imagined a doughy, career politician's torso, well-padded with complacency and pork — not this ripped expanse of hard muscle and tanned, very masculine flesh.

"Governor Hammersmith, may I present Miss Fine?" said his assistant. "And," she added with asperity, "may I get you your undershirt, sir?" She said the word sir as if she meant "small, naughty boy."

Marly bit back a smile. Suddenly she knew who Ms. Turlington reminded her of: Miss Hathaway from the old "Beverly Hillbillies" show.

"Miss Fine," said The Hammer, striding forward and taking her hand, "this is a definite pleasure." He looked deep into her eyes and blinded her with a potent smile.

God help me, thought Marly. He's twenty times more magnetic in person than he is on television. She had to avert her gaze or start babbling incoherently. So she dropped her gaze to his chest again.

"Thank you for coming all the way over here just to cut my hair."

Nipples. I'm staring at the governor's nipples. There's something deeply wrong with this scenario. "Um, you're welcome. Thank you for asking me."

Hammersmith seemed just as taken with her chest as she was with his, truth be told. She could almost feel his eyes searching for the bra straps that weren't there under her double tank tops. She could almost feel his gaze spanning her waist, too, and evaluating the length of her legs under the gypsy skirt. She resisted the urge to wiggle her toes as he looked at those.

"I've never seen blue toenail polish," he said.

He had to be kidding. What century did he live in?

"It's the same color as your eyes." She forced a smile to her lips. "I think that's a compliment...."

He nodded. "What do you call that color of blue? Royal? Cerulean?"

"Rebel," she said with a self-conscious shrug.

"That's what the manufacturer calls it, anyway."

"Rebel," he repeated, his eyes scanning every curve of her again. "I like it."

Ms. Hathaway — uh, Turlington — bustled back in with a plain white T-shirt and handed it to Hammer-smith with a meaningful glance. He nodded his thanks at her and dropped it on the desk. Then he sat next to it and gestured Marly toward the rolling chair.

Ms. Turlington's lips thinned in disapproval and she resembled nothing so much as a skinny, bad-tempered owl in pearl earrings.

"Was there something you needed, Maria?" the governor asked innocently.