Cinderella's Big Sky Groom

by Christine Rimmer

  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.

  Get out, her wiser self insisted. Get out of here. Now.

  She backed away another step, enough to clear the doorway, so she was standing in the hall next to a narrow mahogany table with curving claw-footed legs.

  “Lynn.”

  She froze again.

  And he asked the question she didn’t want to hear. “Why did you agree to come here with me?”

  “I…”

  “I answered you. Now answer me. Why?”

  Her mouth worked, but no words came out. She watch
ed him, unable, somehow, to break the hold of his eyes and get out of there. He started walking toward her, eating up the space between them with slow, deliberate strides.

  Go, move, turn, run! her good sense shouted in her ear. But something else—a vivid longing that pulsed through her in heated, needful waves—held her there until he reached her.

  He took her glass, set it on the claw-footed table. He set his own glass down there, too. Then he cupped her chin in both of his big, fine hands.

  “Why did you come here?” he demanded, so softly this time. The feel of his hands on her skin was pure heaven. His breath touched her upturned face, melted something inside her.

  “I…”

  “Yes?” Urgent. He sounded urgent. Her own body seemed to answer that urgency with an erotic insistence all its own.

  “Tell me.” He brushed his lips across hers. Oh, that felt lovely. She wished he’d do it again.

  Maybe he would if she confessed the truth. “I didn’t want the night to end.” Her voice was a throaty whisper. “It was wrong of me. So foolish…”

  “But you came here anyway.”

  “Yes. Because it’s my birthday. And it’s all been like magic. And I didn’t want it to be over, I didn’t want midnight to strike.”

  “But it will.” His eyes looked sad now, sad and knowing. “Midnight does that,” he whispered. “It always comes. Eventually.” He ran his hands down her throat, an encompassing caress that made her heart stutter in her chest.

  Then he took her shoulders, gently and resolutely. “Do you want me to take you home now?”

  “No.” The word got out before she could stop it. And then once it was out, she accepted the fact that it was only the truth.

  A smile played on his lips for a moment and was gone. “Then what do you want?”

  “I want…” She gulped, then made herself tell him. “First, I want to know for certain. Is there any hope, any hope at all that you and Trish might—”

  He shook his head before she could finish. “I meant what I said. Your sister is my secretary. That’s all.”

  She believed him. She’d known it all along, really. But it seemed terribly important that she make absolutely sure.

  “What else?” he prompted, running his hands down her arms and back up again, a slow, warm caress that wreaked havoc on her thought processes.

  She managed to whisper, “If we…” and then felt her face flushing hot and red. Oh, she could not go on.

  “If we what?”

  “If I…” She gulped again. She’d never been a liar, but right now she was thinking of the lies she might tell, thinking that yes, Lily Mae Wheeler had seen them drinking champagne at the State Street Grill, but that no one knew she had actually come to his house with him. That it was still early yet.

  True, Trish lived with her in the family home that Lynn’s father had left to Lynn in his will. Since Lynn always came home early, Trish would definitely notice if she suddenly returned very late.

  But if she didn’t stay too late…

  And if she got Danielle to cover for her, to say…

  Oh, sweet Lord, what was she doing?

  It was wrong, terribly wrong, what she was letting herself imagine. And she would have to face hell, from her sister and her community—or tell an ugly string of lies—to get away with it.

  And where would it go, anyway, if she did get away with it?

  She had seen the coldness in his eyes when he talked of that law firm in Denver. She knew about his divorce, that it had not been a friendly one.

  There was something…hard about him. Something closed in. She’d broken through that hardness tonight, with the help of a red dress and the strange, heady power her new look had given her.

  But a woman would have a big job for herself, getting through his defenses on any long-lasting basis. What made her dare to imagine that she would be the one to accomplish such a feat?

  Underneath the temporary glamour, she was still the same woman she’d always been: plain, reserved Lynn Taylor. The kindergarten teacher, born to be addressed as “Miss.” A woman at whom men like this one never looked twice.

  Tomorrow she’d put on her regular clothes and her flat shoes. With the help of the diagram and the makeup samples Kim had given her, she might try to recreate some semblance of the magic. But it wouldn’t be the same.

  And his defenses would go back up.

  No, spending the night with him—making love with him, because that’s what they’d be doing—was impossible. She was a teacher, for heaven’s sake. There were certain moral standards that the people of Whitehorn rightfully expected her to uphold. When and if she ever did make love with a man, she planned to be married to him first. She couldn’t just fall into bed with someone she’d met face-to-face only that afternoon.

  Lynn could hardly believe she kept letting herself consider it, kept thinking how much she wanted it, wanted him to kiss her—a real, deep, all-consuming kiss. Wanted his fine hands caressing her, all over her body. Wanted—

  She heard a chiming sound, faint but still discernible, coming from downstairs. The clock on the mantel. Announcing the hour.

  It was eight o’clock.

  Chapter Five

  Just as Lynn was about to step back from him, Ross dropped his hands away and stepped back himself.

  Something deep inside her cried out in hungry bewilderment at the loss of his touch, at the sudden absence of his body, which had been so deliciously, temptingly close.

  She resolutely ignored that silent cry.

  He said, “I’m sorry. This is foolish, just as you said.”

  “Yes.” She made her head bob up and down to show how much she agreed with him. “We’d better go downstairs.”

  “And talk a little about my client,” he continued for her.

  “And then you can take me to the school.”

  He picked up her brandy and handed it to her. Then he took his own. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Ross shrugged out of his jacket when they got downstairs. He tossed it over a chair and they sat in front of the fire, on either end of one of those comfortable chenille sofas.

  “Now,” she said in a businesslike tone. “What do you want to know about Jenny?”

  “I want background, that’s all. Just tell me about her. What you know of her history, what you’ve observed from contact with her.”

  “Truthfully, Ross, I’m sure I don’t have anything to say that you haven’t already heard.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.”

  So she shared what she knew.

  Jennifer McCallum, natural daughter of Jeremiah Kincaid and Mary March, adopted child of Jessica and Sterling McCallum, had been through a lot in her five years of life. At first she was a mystery baby, found abandoned on the steps of the Kincaid ranch house. And then an evil woman intent on stealing her birthright had kidnapped her. Fortunately, Jenny had been rescued unharmed and the kidnapper had been caught. Then, at the age of three, Jenny was stricken with leukemia. For a time, they’d all believed she would die. But her long-lost half brother, Wayne Kincaid, had stepped forward, a perfect match for the bone marrow transplant that had saved Jenny’s life.

  “Now,” Lynn told Ross, “her health is stabilized—which I’m sure her doctor has told you.”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I understood.”

  “She’s doing very well in school, which I think I already mentioned.”

  “You did, that’s true.” He laughed. He seemed…totally relaxed now. And she felt relaxed, too. Those dangerous moments upstairs seemed long ago and far away, as if they had happened between two other people.

  “What else?” he prompted.

  She thought for a moment. “Well, socially, she’s a dream. Friendly and outgoing. You wouldn’t believe to talk to her that she’s ever been treated with anything but gentleness and love.”

  “You’re saying she makes friends easily?”

  “That’s an understatement. You must have
heard what they call her. The darling of Whitehorn. It may sound corny, but it’s the truth. She is just that.”

  “And she and Sara Mitchell…?”

  “As Sara told you, the two are best friends.” Lynn chuckled. “They spend every moment they can together. And they won’t stop trading their personal belongings. Snack boxes and art supply cases, sweaters and hair clips. You name it. At first I tried to keep the trading under control. But since neither Danielle nor the McCallums seem bothered by it, I’ve gotten so I just let it go. It pleases them so. And in the end, everything equals out. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself….”

  His gaze scanned her face. “The two of them, Sara and Jennifer, they’re your favorites, aren’t they?”

  Was her preference that obvious? She tried to look stern. “A good teacher doesn’t play favorites.”

  “Still, deep in your heart, you feel something special for them.”

  After what had transpired upstairs, she wasn’t sure if she should be telling this particular man about anything that came from “deep in her heart.”

  But then again, they’d pulled themselves back from the brink, hadn’t they? They had a tacit understanding now. She would give him the information he sought—and then he would drive her to her car.

  It was only Jenny and Sara they were discussing now. Nothing risky. Nothing really personal.

  She wanted to shuck off her pretty shoes, to get a little more comfortable. And why not? She’d just slide them back on when it was time to go.

  She pushed the shoes off, tucked her legs up to the side and teasingly warned, “You have to promise never to tell a soul.”

  He set down his brandy glass on the coffee table and raised his right hand, palm out. “You have my solemn word. Now confess. Are they your favorites?”

  She let out a big, playful sigh. “Yes, I’m afraid that they are.”

  “Why?”