one’s natural self—never to change.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #8

Are you sure you wanna do this, honey? You’re a hot blonde.”

Brynn met the eyes of the hairdresser in the mirror. Her usual guy was out, and her regularly scheduled appointment wasn’t for another week and a half, but Brynn hadn’t wanted to wait. She was done waiting.

The old Brynn would have been freaked out by the orange-haired hipster holding a pair of scissors behind her head. The new Brynn wanted to bring it on.

Well, the new Brynn who’d had a glass and a half of Chardonnay for courage at lunch prior to entering the salon.

“I’m sure,” Brynn said with a reassuring smile. “It’s just time for a change, ya know?”

The girl gave a bored shrug. “Your hair, your life.”

Damn straight. It’s my life. It’s time to start living it.

Brynn had been giving herself these types of pep talks all day, every day in the week since James had walked out the door. One day to wallow. One day to be mad. One day to flip through her life list in an effort to get back on track…

One day to stash her precious life–road map on the top shelf in her closet for retirement. Temporary retirement. She wasn’t giving up on her plan altogether. She still knew what she wanted long-term. But maybe in order to get there, she needed to let go. For the short term.

“All right, then, if you’re sure…”

“I am.”

The hairdresser shrugged and went to work.

Brynn had come prepared. After the shampoo process, she dug into a pile of trashy magazines and didn’t look up once. Not to see the hair fall away. Not to see it darken in color. If her peripheral vision caught big chunks falling to the floor, she refused to let her brain absorb it.

“All right, hon, take a look.”

Brynn took a deep breath, letting her eyes finish reading an article that she wasn’t really absorbing.

Then she looked up.

She looked…different.

“So what do you think?” Orange Hair asked. “I think the dark really brings out your eyes.”

Brynn nodded, turning her head from side to side. The girl was right. Brynn had never thought much about her eyes before. They were a light, ordinary blue. But with the dark brown hair, they looked piercing and sort of dangerous.

Or maybe she just wanted them to look dangerous.

Either way, the look was precisely what she’d wanted. She felt a surge of satisfaction. Meow.

“I like it,” Brynn said reverently, running a hand over the shortness. She’d expected to miss the comforting length that had been there her entire life. Instead, the choppy, shoulder-length cut felt light and freeing.

“The grow-out’s going to be a pain,” the woman said, taking a long sip of her water. “You’ll need to come in every few weeks unless you’re okay with blonde roots.”

But Brynn was barely listening, too busy staring at her own reflection. She had to give the girl credit, the look was exactly what she’d envisioned and hadn’t known how to convey.

Brynn hadn’t asked for it, but the girl had added some lighter brown streaks in the otherwise chocolate-colored look, and added several layers around the face. She’d also resisted the urge to go too short, so the longest layers brushed against Brynn’s collarbone. It was edgy without being sloppy. Dark without being gothic. Modern without being trendy.

“I wish I had a longer name so I could go with a nickname for a little while,” Brynn said to no one in particular. “You know, like go with a secret identify for a few days.”

“How about Bee?”

Brynn winced. So okay, maybe no on the name change.

But there were plenty of other things she could tweak. And she planned to start…

Now.

After paying for her new look and leaving a hefty tip, she hit up the next stop on her vacation-from-life plan. No not a plan. No more plans.

The receptionist at Brynn’s office looked up in surprise as she strode in the door. “Hey, Dr. Dalton. I thought you were out this week?”

“Oh, I am,” Brynn said with a bright smile. And I’m about to be out a lot longer than that. “When Dr. Wee is free, could you tell her I’m in?”

“I like the hair!” Erika called after her as Brynn headed to her office.

Brynn dropped her purse onto the chair and stood for a moment with her hands on her hips, taking in the perfectly tidy desk, the alphabetized journals on the shelves, the neat row of fake plants she’d set along the window because they looked more uniform than real plants.

“It looks like a robot lives here,” Brynn announced to the emptiness.

She reached out and moved her stapler a few inches so it wasn’t neatly in line with the pen holder and the paper clip dispenser. She promptly moved it back. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready for that. Brynn reached out again. Moved it a half inch forward.

There. That was okay. Baby steps.

“Rearranging?”

Brynn glanced up toward the voice and saw a very curious-looking Susan standing in the doorway.

“Sue, we need to talk.”

Susan entered and, closing the door, looked as unruffled and unperturbed as ever. It was how Brynn had always thought of herself. At least until her thirty-first birthday had brought it all crashing down around her, turning her into a high-strung, self-doubting train wreck.

“What’s with the hair?” Susan asked, settling into one of the chairs. “Midlife crisis?”

“God, I hope this isn’t the midpoint,” Brynn said vehemently, tucking her hair behind her ear and liking that it didn’t stay there the way it used to.

She dropped into the other guest chair next to Susan rather than across from her on the other side. “Things have been okay here, right? Since I’ve been out.”

Susan arched an eyebrow and folded her hands in her lap. “You mean in the all of four days that you’ve been gone? Yeah, we’ve been just fine.”

“Dr. Anders is doing okay?”

“Yeah, Blake is great. He’s a little green, but conscientious…asks questions when he has them. And the patients love him. Especially the thirteen-year-old girls.”

“I bet,” Brynn said absently. Blake Anders had been doing a residency with them, but when Brynn had called in “sick” for the week, he’d been asked to take on more hours.

She only hoped that he’d be open to taking a lot more patients for the next few weeks.

“What’s going on, Brynn?”

Brynn took a deep breath, forcing herself to meet Susan’s eyes. “I think I need some time off.”

Susan didn’t flinch. “Longer than this week, you mean?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking more like…through the end of the month.”

“Okay, no problem. As long as you need.”

Brynn stared at her partner in exasperation. “You’re supposed to freak out. At least a little bit.”

Susan gave a small smile. “Oh, believe me, if I didn’t have Blake, I probably would. But honestly, we’ll handle it. You’ll be missed, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”

Brynn sucked in a breath. Just like that. It was so easy. She’d been half expecting—hoping—that Susan would protest. Maybe try to talk her out of it.

No going back now.

“Well, okay, then,” Brynn said. “I’ll make sure all of my patient notes are updated, of course. And I’ll contact them all personally to let them know I’ll be on leave. And you can call me anytime. And I’ll check in…”

Susan put a hand on her arm. “Brynn. We’ve got this. You take care of you.”

Brynn nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I will.”

“Look, I don’t mean to pry, and I understand you want privacy, but…”

“I’m okay, Susan,” Brynn said with a reassuring smile. On the outside, anyway. “There are no scary health issues or suicidal impulses, I just need some time, you know?”

“Totally. My sister had this total epiphany last year, and went on this three-month-long backpacking trip through Asia. When she came back, she gave up law and opened up her own organic bakery.”