Cinderella's Big Sky Groom (5 page)

Once she had the coat on, he put his hand at the small of her back, under the pretense of guiding her toward the door. But she didn't really need guiding. She knew damn well where the door was. He put his hand on her so that he could feel her, the softness, the womanflesh of her, under all the layers of clothing that protected her from him.

The hostess murmured, “Have a nice evening, Mr. Garrison,” as they passed the reservation podium.

He nodded. “Good night.”

They were out the door, standing on the street in the darkness with the icy Montana wind blowing down from the mountains, before he remembered that he'd yet to bring up the matter of Jennifer McCallum.

S
he turned to him, clutching her coat against the chilling fingers of the wind. “I wonder if you could drive me back to the school. I left my Blazer there.”

“Wait a minute.” He sounded every bit as offhand as he'd intended to. Not at all the way he felt, which was way too aroused. Too hungry—and not for filet mignon or truffle cake. For her.

He wanted to reach for her, right there. To yank her body against his, shove his hands into her moon-silvered hair—and finally taste that mouth that had teased him so thoroughly with throaty laughter and clever words. That mouth, which had taken cake straight from his own fork.

“Brr…” She hunched her shoulders down into her collar. “Wait for what?”

“We still haven't talked about my client.”

She started to speak, then saw the two cowboys
ambling toward them on the street. The men were dressed in regulation Whitehorn: worn jeans, battered boots, sweat-stained hats and shearling jackets. Lynn smiled at them, murmured two names in greeting.

The men stopped in their tracks. They stared at Lynn, mouths slightly agape. Ross would have laughed—if he hadn't wanted to kill both of them with his bare hands. He knew what they were thinking. He'd thought it himself. She looked good. Too damn good. Like something a man could start in with and never get enough of.

One of the cowboys gulped. “Uh,
Miss Taylor?
”

She laughed that throaty, maddening laugh. “Yes, Eddie, it's me.”

“Well. Uh. Hi, there.”

They both tipped their hats.

“Hello yourself,” she said. She asked the other one, whose name was Tom, how his sister was doing.

“Lindy's feelin' better now, Miss Taylor.”

“Well, I'm pleased to hear that. You tell her to take it easy. Pneumonia's nothing to fool with.”

“I will, Miss Taylor. I surely will. And you have yourself a nice day…I mean, night.”

“Thank you, Tom. Same to you.”

They both tipped their hats again, this time in Ross's general direction. He gave them a curt nod. And then—finally—they went on by.

She turned to him. “It always makes me smile. This is only my second year as a teacher at Whitehorn Elementary, but still, everyone in town, even the people I went to high school with, call me Miss Taylor.”

It didn't seem all that damn funny to him. Those
cowboys had better call her Miss Taylor, as far as Ross was concerned.

She was still smiling. “Tom and Eddie work the Birchley place. That's north of town, between the No Bull Ranch and the—”

“I know where the Birchley spread is.” He didn't, not really. And he also didn't need to hear another word about Tom and Eddie, who should learn not to stare at a woman as if they damn well had never seen one before.

She moved a step away from him. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” He fisted his hands at his sides—to keep them from reaching out and pulling her back. “Not a thing.” He dragged in a slow breath and ordered the bulge in his pants to subside.

“Are you
sure
you're all right?”

“I'm fine. And we really do still have to talk.”

“Well, I know, but—”

“We could stop by my house….” Once the suggestion was out, he could hardly believe he'd made it.

And apparently, neither could she. “Your house?” Her enchanting face showed both dismay—and excitement.

“It's not that far. You can have one last cup of coffee. Then I'll take you home.”

“I…” She hesitated. He knew with heart-stopping certainty that she would tell him no. But then relief hollowed him out as she finished, “I'll still need to get my Blazer.”

“Fine, then. I'll take you back to the school as soon as we're finished.” He glanced at his watch. Still early. Good. “It's only a little after seven.
You'll be home by eight-thirty—nine at the latest.” One more hour. Or two. No harm in that.

Yes, all right. It was playing with fire. But damn it, he hadn't felt like this in…

Come to think of it, maybe he'd never felt exactly like this in his life. And he'd been alone for too long now. Had he been lonely? All right, maybe he had. He'd thought he wanted it that way. But tonight, just for a little while, he only wanted this magic to continue.

Magic. Yes, that was the word. All the talk of fairy godmothers and spells had gotten to him.
She
had gotten to him, with those innocent blue eyes and that red dress, her tart tongue and that maddening perfume.

He knew himself. Knew that whatever this feeling was, it wouldn't last. But for right now, for an hour or so, he just didn't want to let her go.

Lynn's thoughts were moving along similar lines. She knew as well as Ross did that going to his house was taking this risky flirtation one step too far. But still…

It was her birthday. Her special, magical Cinderella birthday. Tonight, for the first time in her life, she was living a fairy tale. She was Cinderella at the ball, Sleeping Beauty awakened and ugly-duckling-turned-swan all rolled into one.

Don't let it end yet, she kept thinking. Not yet. Oh, not quite yet…

He put his hand at her back, as he'd done in the restaurant. She felt that touch through every fiber of her being. “Come on,” he said. “It's too cold to stand here on the street a minute longer. Let's go.”

 

The house was five miles northeast of town, perched on a rocky ledge that led down to Black Bear Lake. A soaring structure of rough-hewn spruce logs and tall, gleaming windows, it was surrounded by stately fir trees.

Ross led her inside, took her coat and purse and put them in the closet near the front door. Then he ushered her into a massive great room, where the floor-to-ceiling fireplace was made of big smooth stones—collected from the eastern slopes of the Rockies, he told her. There was a mantel of sorts, a heavy wooden shelf, built into the stones. And a big clock on the mantel. A clock that said it was 7:36.

Ross took a minute to open the fireplace insert and strike a match to the logs already laid over kindling within.

As she waited for him to light the fire, Lynn admired the room. Overhead, huge logs formed the spokes of a giant arching wheel. The furniture around her looked inviting. It was upholstered in deep brown leather and jewel-toned chenille. Out the big windows, through the lacy branches of the firs, she could see the darkly gleaming waters of the lake.

He offered coffee. “Or maybe you'd prefer brandy?”

She decided on the brandy. The very idea of it was just so lovely and decadent. She'd never been a woman who drank brandy. Until tonight.

At the far end of the room, and at a right angle to the fireplace, there was a long bar that divided the kitchen from the dining area. Ross went around behind the bar and took a bottle from a cabinet. From the rack overhead he removed two big balloon-
shaped glasses, the kind made just for sipping brandy.

Once he'd poured them each a glass, he gave her a tour. He led her first to his downstairs study with its own library of gold-tooled leather books, then through two bedrooms off the great room, each with its own private bath—and finally up the wide rough-hewn stairs and down a hall.

They glanced into two more bedrooms. Then came the master suite, which was almost as big as the great room downstairs and faced northwest.

Lynn followed him into the room, where rich-colored kilim rugs covered the hardwood floors. His bed was king-size, of heavy, dark wood. In the sitting area the leather chairs were deeply tufted, finished with nailhead trim. Western art and a few rare-looking Indian tapestries adorned the rough-textured walls. Right then, the huge windows showed only the stars and the shadowy forms of the Crazy Mountains in the distance. But in daylight, the view of blue sky and snow-capped mountains would be breathtaking.

She murmured, “Oh, Ross. It's just beautiful.”

He gave her his rueful smile and ran a forefinger along the surface of a mahogany table. “Dusty, though. My housekeeper is as useless as my secretary.” He didn't realize his mistake until the words were already out.

Just like that, the lovely mood fizzled and faded.

Ross's smile faded, too. He shook his head. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

Lynn felt as if a large hand had reached out and shaken her, jarring her cruelly from a sweet and impossible dream. What in the world was she doing
here, in a rich man's bedroom after dark, a glass of brandy in her hand?

She heard herself asking, “Is Trish…really all that bad?”

He didn't immediately reply, but from the grim set of his mouth she could guess what he was thinking. Finally he allowed, “She's only—what? Twenty-two? That's pretty young.”

She knew she should let it go at that. But somehow, she couldn't. “You didn't answer my question.”

His expression turned pained. “Look, I—” He paused, then admitted, “I'm sorry. I know you're loyal to your sister. But the simple fact is, she's not working out.”

It was much worse than that, though Ross didn't say so.

The real truth was, Trish Taylor was driving him right up the wall.

He probably should have known the girl was hopeless from the first. But then, he was accustomed to working in a major firm, where Personnel carefully screened applicants before he ever talked to them.

At first meeting, she'd seemed bright; she'd lacked experience, but he'd thought she would learn fast. And she was attractive. When he'd interviewed her, she'd worn a nice dark blue business suit; her looks, he'd decided, would be a real plus in terms of an office image. How could he have known that as soon as Trish Taylor had the job, she'd go back to the too-short denim skirts and the dangling Lily Mae Wheeler-type earrings she obviously preferred?

And her office skills?

She didn't have any. The girl had graduated from
business school in Bozeman. Her résumé had claimed she knew shorthand and typed sixty words a minute. Unfortunately, she couldn't seem to decipher her shorthand after she took it. And he'd seen her type.
He
could type faster, using only two fingers. She was always losing files—in her desktop computer and in the row of legal-sized file cabinets that lined the wall to the right of her work area.

Lynn was looking down into the amber depths of her brandy. “Maybe if you talked to her…?”

God, he did not want to discuss this with her.

But she wouldn't give it up—any more than she would look into his eyes right then. “Ross. Have you talked to her?”

“Yes. I have.”

He'd talked to Trish, all right. More than once. A week ago he'd finally told her frankly that she'd better concentrate harder on her work—or look for another job. It hadn't done any good.

Ross knew the main problem; he'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb
not
to know it. Trish Taylor had a flaming crush on him. Instead of doing her job, she spent her working hours gazing off into nowhere with dreamy eyes, blushing every time he asked her to bring him a file and scheming over new ways to get him chatting about his private life.

Secretary falls for boss. The oldest cliché in the book. Except the way the cliché usually went, the secretary actually knew how to type. And she also had the tact and grace never to let her feelings show unless she received some indication that they might be returned. Not so with Trish Taylor.

And Lynn still wasn't looking at him.

“Are you going to stare into that glass forever?”
he asked, trying for a light tone and not succeeding all that well.

Lynn made herself look into his eyes again.

This is totally inappropriate, she told herself. Inappropriate and unacceptable. I should not be standing here in this man's bedroom, sipping his brandy, while he tells me he's going to fire my sister any day now.

“I think we'd better go back downstairs.” She spun on her heel and headed for the hall.

“Lynn.”

She froze, but she didn't turn around.

He spoke to her back. “There is nothing at all between your sister and me. I'm her boss and she's my employee. And that's all.”

“It's none of my business.” She tried to start walking again.

And again he said, “Lynn.”

“What?” She whirled back to face him then, glaring.

“Do you believe me?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters.”

She lifted her chin, drew herself up to her full five foot eleven in heels. “Why?”

“I might not be the prince you're looking for, but I would never have brought you here if there was something going on between your sister and me.”

She kept glaring at him. She wanted so badly to be angry with him. But she wasn't, not really. At least, not any angrier than she was with herself. She drew a calming breath and let it out slowly. “You
shouldn't
have brought me here. And I shouldn't have come.”

What else could he say but “I know.”

“Then
why
did you bring me here?” She threw out the question as a desperate challenge.

He didn't answer, only looked at her with eyes that promised things she shouldn't let herself understand—shocking things, intimate things. Things she'd never done before. Things she probably never
would
do. Things that, if she ever
did
do, she wouldn't do with him.

Would she?

“Why?” she demanded again, to distract herself from the dangerous turn her own thoughts had taken. “Why did you bring me here?” She was hoping against hope that he would lie, say something tactful and easy, something to make everything right again, make everything safe.

Instead, he told the truth on a low husk of breath. “I brought you here because I couldn't bear to let you go.”

She stared at him. She felt hot all over, suddenly. Her heart pounded hard and hurtfully, so loud to her own ears she was sure he must hear it.