The Courting Cowboy

by Tara Janzen

  “My sleeve?”

  “I mean my sleeve.”

  “Of course.”

  “Yeah, like that. I’ll just—” Lord, she had pretty skin, and her lips were full and looked soft and sweet.

  Victoria didn’t care what he was just about to do, but if he didn’t do it quickly, she might faint. She was surrounded by him, and he was surprisingly warm, amazingly warm. Why, a woman could . . . Well, she didn’t know what, but it was bound to be scandalous, what a woman did with a man like Ty Garrett.

  “Mr. Garrett,” she said, not liking the flustered tremble in her voice but unable to rectify the situation. She needed to assert herself, and a flimsy command was better than none.

  “Yes?”

  “Please hurry.”

  Ty didn’t mistake her meaning for a minute. He didn’t have a lot of experience with women, but he knew something was happening between them, something physically charged, and it wasn’t all him. Her blush had spread like a soft pink mask across her face. Her eyes were mostly downcast, but they had flicked up more than once to meet his for an instant, and she’d wet her lips twice. Both times Ty had found himself moving closer to her. He’d swear she’d done the same. He’d almost given up on trying to shrug out of his jacket. It would be so easy to draw her near and kiss her.

  But they were standing in her open doorway, and Corey was in the truck, and it wasn’t as if they were having a real date, where mutual attraction had been established. Chaperoning a dance was more like public service than a romantic interlude. He was beginning to get ideas, though. Lots of ideas.

  Victoria had some ideas of her own, ideas reminiscent of her previous, unmentionable indiscretion, but without the safety net of a husband who could save her from herself this time. Last night she hadn’t been able to imagine what a woman did with a man like Ty Garrett, and now her imagination was running amok. He was so close, so broad in the shoulders. Her whole line of vision was taken up by his chest and the way the muscles moved in his arms; by the squared line of his jaw and the smooth, taut texture of his skin. She had to clench her free hand into a fist to keep from reaching up and touching him.

  “Mr. Garrett, please,” she pleaded.

  Please what? Ty wondered. Mr. Garrett, please kiss me? Mr. Garrett, please take me in your arms? Or Mr. Garrett, please get your sleeve button out of my hair?

  Ty played it safe and reasonable. He finished pulling his arm out of his coat, then slipped it off his other shoulder.

  “Why don’t you hold this while I try to get the button out of your hair?” he said, handing his coat to her.

  She crushed the black jacket to her breasts. Ty let himself notice for a moment before forcing himself to concentrate on the job at hand—which wasn’t the curves of white and orange material outlined against the dark cloth of his jacket.

  As carefully as possible he started working her hair free, but it didn’t take him more than a few seconds to realize there was nothing safe or reasonable about the task. He was bent over her neck, and she was overwhelming him with her scent, the softness of her skin against his fingers, and the feel of her hair in his hands.

  She started to tremble, and he had a powerful urge to kiss her lips, to invade her mouth with his tongue, and slide his hands down her back and over her hips.

  “What’s your name?” he asked instead, but only after clearing his throat to make sure the words came out sounding normal.

  “My name?” Startled brown eyes met his, but they weren’t plain brown, he noticed. Her eyes were soft with rims of gold and moss-green sparks.

  “Yes, your name,” he said patiently, and tried to smile. “I was thinking maybe we could get beyond the Mr. Garrett—Miss Willoughby stage.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes. Victoria Miranda Elizabeth Willoughby.” She recited it from top to bottom, like a child pulled in front of a schoolmaster.

  “Victoria.” He tried the name out. “That’s real pretty.”

  Their eyes met over her shoulder.

  “My name is Ty.”

  “I remember.”

  He nodded slowly, and his gaze drifted down to her mouth. Her lips parted. Ty took a deep breath.

  “I like Miranda too,” he said.

  “It’s a moon in the Milky Way.”

  He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her so badly, he didn’t dare do it.

  “Mr. Garrett?” she said, her voice so soft he wouldn’t have heard her if he’d been any farther away.

  “Call me Ty, please.”

  “Ty,” she agreed, her lashes lowering. A new infusion of color pinkened her cheeks. “I think my hair is free now. Thank you.”

  Ty looked at his hands. Strands of her silky hair were draped across his fingers where he’d been playing with it. The sleeve of his jacket had slipped over her shoulder and was lying against her bosom.

  “Maybe we should get going,” she suggested, offering him his jacket.

  “Yeah. Maybe we should.” Five more minutes of putting on Miss Victoria Willoughby’s coat and he wouldn’t be in any shape to chaperone anybody.

  When they stepped off the porch, Corey jumped out of the truck and held the door open. He had a big smile for his science teacher, but when she turned to climb into the pickup, he gave his dad a pointed, questioning look.

  Ty lifted his eyebrows and shrugged. He was as surprised as his son by what had happened in her doorway. He hadn’t planned to get tangled up in her hair or to get close enough to get in trouble, even imaginary trouble. The real surprise, though, waited for him at the dance.

  Corey held him back at the doors to the gym, letting Miss Willoughby go on alone to relieve Glen Frazer. Ty looked down at his son and the small, strong hand the boy was resting on his sleeve. Though Corey’s golden hair and the shape of his mouth were purely maternal, the gray eyes looking up at him and the boy’s straight dark eyebrows were a perfect match for his own.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Dad, I know you don’t get out much,” Corey began, his gaze shifting from his dad’s face to the floor. “But you’ve got it all backward. You’re not supposed to kiss them at first.”

  “Them?” Ty asked after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

  “Women,” Corey explained, glancing up and giving his dad a little grin. “I just thought you should know you’re doing it wrong.”

  Had he been that obvious? Ty wondered. And how could he have been doing anything wrong when he’d been trying hard not to do anything at all? And since when did his son know anything about kissing women?

  “You’re supposed to wait until the end of the date,” Corey continued, “until you take them home, and that’s only if they give you a signal.”

  “A signal?”

  “Yeah, a signal.” His son went on to enlighten him. “Lacey says it’s kind of tricky, the signal. She says it takes a lot of experience to know when you’re getting one, and well, you don’t get out much, Dad. I don’t think you gave Miss Willoughby enough time to give you a signal.”

  “Oh.” Ty knew it had been a long while since he’d had a date, or anything resembling a date. He had a son to care for and a ranch to run. But he still thought he was in a better position to know about “signals” than a twelve-year-old boy who got his information secondhand from a seventy-year-old woman who hadn’t had a date since the Great Depression.

  “Maybe if you dance with her a couple of times and don’t step on her or anything, she’ll give you a signal,” Corey suggested. “It’s worth a try. She’s awful pretty.”

  Ty glanced down at his son. “I thought you said she looked like an owl.”

  “Owls are pretty, Dad.” It was an irrefutable statement of fact.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think Miss Willoughby will be giving out any signals that we need to be worrying about,” he said, hoping to put an end to the discussion.

  The worried look coming over his son’s face made him doubt his success. He could see Corey was thinking, and thinking hard, taking the whol
e situation more seriously than Ty would have thought possible.

  “Maybe if you get her some punch when she’s thirsty and don’t spill it on her,” Corey said, his face brightening. “And if you’re real nice, and if you talk to her about science and stuff. She really likes science and you know all about it from helping with my homework.” He stopped the flood of words and gave Ty a hopeful look. “You’re real nice, Dad. I know she’d like you if you’d just help her along a little bit.”

  And having Miss Willoughby like him, it seemed, was very important to his son. Ty couldn’t have been more surprised if the roof had fallen in.

  “Just think about it, Dad, and if you need some more advice, we could call Lacey.” With that Corey left to go find his friends.

  “Uh, thanks.” Ty didn’t think he needed Lacey’s advice, and he was a little annoyed that Corey thought he did. He couldn’t be that outdated, could he?

  He searched the dance floor until his gaze fell upon the science teacher with the pretty skin and kissable mouth. She was standing next to the refreshment table. Glen Frazer was shaking her hand and getting ready to leave. The kids were milling around the snacks, the boys pushing and pounding each other the way they always did, and the girls huddling and holding on to each other the way they always did.

  Her dress was awful, even from a distance, but he remembered the gold and green in her eyes, and how her hair had felt silky and soft in his hands. He remembered the shy blush on her cheeks and the way she’d trembled when his fingers had brushed against her neck. Those were signals, all right, powerful signals guaranteed to get a man’s attention. But what did Corey see when he looked at Victoria Willoughby?

  More than a science teacher, that much was obvious. Maybe another friend like Lacey, except younger. Maybe a sort of scholastic mentor.

  No, he decided. Corey was only twelve years old, a little young to be worrying about college.

  Maybe a mother.

  He let out a heavy breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. It was natural for the boy to want a mother. But Miss Willoughby?

  She turned then and caught him staring. Her hand went to her throat and her eyes widened behind her big, round glasses. Ty didn’t back off. He kept looking, wondering if it was all men or just him who unnerved her so easily.

  Suddenly he hoped it was just him, because she had completely unnerved him back at her house. Truth be told, he’d very much like her to do it again

  Three

  Victoria returned her attention to Mr. Frazer, but she knew Ty Garrett was still looking at her. She felt the heat of his gaze warming the back of her neck. The man was unbelievably effective at unsettling her. She’d hardly had a calm breath since he’d called. But they were at the dance now, and they both had duties that should preclude any more intimate encounters.

  Intimate. The word crossed her mind, and her face flushed. She was being ridiculous. Having a button tangled up in one’s hair was not an intimate encounter. Kissing and . . . other things were intimate, but not buttons.

  Kissing. The color rose higher in her cheeks. He’d almost kissed her. Goodness knows why. She’d never been one to inspire impromptu kissing. Charles hadn’t cared for it much, impromptu or otherwise. The only other occasion in her life when she’d been kissed had to do with her unmentionable indiscretion. Charles, of course, had mentioned it at length for a month of Sundays until he’d been quite sure she’d gotten such foolishness out of her system. She had, luckily so, because there was no one left to lecture her, no father, no husband. She was on her own with Ty Garrett—another disturbing thought.

  “Victoria?”

  She jumped at the sound of his voice and whirled around.

  “Mr. Garrett?” she managed to answer.

  “Ty,” he reminded her.

  “Of course. Ty.” She wondered how a man could be so circumspect, so nice and friendly, and so damnably upsetting at the same time.

  “The first dance is starting, and it’s customary for the chaperones to lead off,” he said, smiling down at her.

  “Oh?” Victoria thought maybe she needed some fresh air. She retrieved a tissue from her dress pocket, then didn’t know what to do with it. A warm, dry tissue wasn’t going to save her. Embarrassed, she shoved it back into her pocket.

  “I made sure the disc jockey didn’t try anything funny,” he went on. “I don’t think either one of us is up to rap or heavy metal.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Charlie Simpson, the eighth-grade audiovisual aide,” he explained. “I made sure he’d start the dance with a nice, slow song.”

  Impossibly dangerous, she thought.

  “I can’t dance,” she said.

  “Then a slow song is perfect. You don’t have to dance. We’ll just shuffle around for a few minutes.”

  Victoria lifted one eyebrow. In one respect, at least, he was like every other man she’d ever known: He had all the answers. While making him no less dangerous, it did make him seem more familiar.

  With a show of spirit rather than submission, she yielded to Talbot custom and Ty Garrett’s arms.

  A spattering of applause greeted their move to the center of the gymnasium. Boys hooted and girls giggled. Victoria blushed. Ty turned her into the dance.

  After wading through yards of material, his hand found the small of her back. He’d never felt cloth so light and soft. It moved under his hand like water, unresisting yet vibrant. The dress must be silk, he thought. He filled his hand with orange flowers and let them slide free. Silk. It brought sensual images to mind, of sheets and heat, of lingerie and bare skin, and of him crushing her to him and burying his face in the soft, wonderful curve of her neck.

  “Mr. Garrett,” she exclaimed softly.

  “Excuse me,” he said, his voice rougher than usual. He lightened his hold a degree, but not much more than that. He hadn’t meant to crush her to him, but neither could he convince himself of the need to retreat. He liked her close. He liked holding her hand in his. He liked the way her dress brushed against his thighs.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Garr—Ty?” Someone had once told Victoria that that question was a surefire conversation starter, and she desperately thought she and Mr. Garrett needed the addition of conversation to their dance, which was very slow indeed.

  “I was born and raised on the Sky Canyon Ranch.”

  “How interesting,” she said. “And where is the Sky Canyon Ranch?”

  “About three miles due east of town. My parents are gone now, so Corey and I have the place to ourselves.”

  “You’ve never lived anywhere else?” She tilted her head back and gave him a quizzical look.

  “Nope. The ranch has been in the family for four generations. My great-great-grandfather started raising horses and cattle in Texas after the Civil War to get away from the carpetbaggers. We were Rebels,” he said, grinning down at her.

  She wasn’t surprised.

  “Then my great-grandfather got a hankering to see Colorado, and he trailed the herd north. We’ve been on the grassland ever since. The size and shape of the ranch has changed quite a few times, depending on drought and the price of cattle, or the price of land.”

  “Remarkable,” she said, meaning it.

  “How about you? Where are you from?”

  “Everywhere and nowhere. I’ve been on every continent and in dozens of countries, but I can’t truly call any of the places I’ve been ‘home.’ I never stayed anywhere long enough.”

  “Not even when you were in school?” A hint of surprise colored his voice.

  “Oh, most definitely not. My education was more portable than I was.”

  “I heard you have a bunch of degrees,” he said, making the statement close to a question.

  Unexpectedly, she laughed. “Ah, yes, my degrees.” She didn’t sound nearly as impressed as the school board member who had told him all about them.

  “I heard Oxford. Isn’t that in England?”

  “Yes, it is, and nice
ly endowed by the Willoughbys.”

  Ty hesitated to ask the question her information and her polite sarcasm brought to mind, but he did anyway. “Did your husband buy you a degree?”

  “Goodness no!” She looked up at him, truly shocked. “One cannot buy a degree from Oxford.” She paused for a moment, then added in an offhand manner, “But one can have certain inadequacies overlooked in light of certain strengths, if one has enough money and power behind them.”

  “Your husband was rich?”

  “Quite,” she said, then wished she hadn’t. To the best of her ability, she tried not to drag her personal problems into her professional relationships, and Ty Garrett was a professional acquaintance. She hadn’t told the school board or the administration about her battle with the Willoughby estate. There was certainly no reason to tell a young rancher who probably wouldn’t understand the legal and moral intricacies of dealing with powerful, greedy progeny. She barely understood them herself.

  She hazarded a quick glance at him. He caught her gaze and smiled. Her lashes immediately lowered to a less disturbing angle. Fortunately, he didn’t seem inclined to press for the details of her husband’s wealth and her near-penniless condition. He seemed content just to dance, and maybe he was right. Conversation hadn’t been such a good idea after all. With very little effort, it had become quite personal.

  On the other hand, conversation of any kind was preferable to having nothing to think about except their proximity. For a moment she’d forgotten they were touching, but with silence came awareness—sharp, clear, and uncomfortable in a way she was sure she shouldn’t like.

  Most notable was the consistency of his body. He was hard everywhere they touched. She’d never known anyone as strong or fit. His chest was an unrelenting wall against which her breasts were pressed. His arm claimed her waist like an iron band of possession, confident and unbreakable.

  She’d never felt the power of flexed muscles the way Ty’s muscles moved under his shirt and kept her within his arms. She’d never felt a broad, straight shoulder like the one under her hand. Held in his arms, feeling his strength, she couldn’t help but wonder what he would look like without his shirt. Would he look like Michelangelo’s David, the only naked young man she’d seen? Or would he look warmer, even more sensual because he was alive?