“Why not? They’re both adorable. They love school. They’re so…happy with the world. So interested in everything. So curious. And so verbal.” She made a show of rolling her eyes. “Boy. Is Sara ever verbal.”
“But there’s more to it than that.”
She lifted one shoulder in a hint of a shrug. “No, I don’t think so. And anyway, isn’t that enough?”
“Come on. They’re blond and blue-eyed, bright and talkative. Just like you.”
“Like me?” She frowned. “No, they—”
He cut in before she could finish. “They remind you of yourself at that age, don’t they?”
A scoffing sound escaped her. “Of myself? Haven’t you looked at them? They’re beautiful little girls.”
“You’re beautiful, too.” He said the words bluntly. Flatly. A statement of fact.
“Well, tonight…I mean, I guess I’m different tonight. Not my real self.”
“Are you different? Really?”
“Of course I am. You saw me this afternoon. Before my birthday appointment with Gracie and Kim.”
“Yes,” he said. “I saw you. Before.”
She didn’t like his tone. Not at all. It seemed to say a lot more than his words did. She stated unequivocally, “I was never like Sara and Jenny.”
And then she found herself wondering, Or was I?
When I was five. And my mother was still alive?
Was I like Sara and Jenny then? Talkative and friendly, sure that the world and everything in it was mine to enjoy and explore?
It was hard to remember. And maybe the truth was she didn’t want to remember. It made her too sad to go back to those happy times.
Her mother had died when she was eight. That was when she first started to put on weight, after her mother died. It had been such a tough time. Not only had she lost her mother, but somehow it felt as if her father had gone away from her, too. Horace Taylor was lonely, just like Lynn was. He missed her mother so much.
And then he had met Jewel Hollis when Jewel hired on as a clerk at the family hardware store. Jewel had two daughters and her husband had left her.
When Horace had married Jewel, he’d adopted Trish and Arlene. They were all going to be a family, he had said. He and Jewel and their three daughters, Arlene and Lynn and Trish. He had said that family was important, one of the most important things in life, more precious even than diamonds or gold.
Lynn had believed him. And from then on, her father hadn’t seemed quite so lonely anymore. And Lynn had wanted them all to be happy.
She’d learned quickly that happiness in her new family could be achieved by doing what her stepmother wanted. By being the kind of daughter Jewel needed. Jewel already had two petite, pretty, popular girls. She needed someone she could count on. A dependable one.
Lynn had become that. The dependable one. Not popular or pretty, too tall and too plump. But reliable. Someone who helped Jewel with the meals and the dishes, someone willing to pick up after Arlene and Trish. Arlene and Trish, after all, didn’t really have time for chores. Schoolwork was harder for them than it was for Lynn. And they wanted to spend their spare time with their friends.
“I’ll bet you were pretty,” Ross said. “When you were in kindergarten. I’ll bet you were good in school and that you laughed and that sometimes your teacher had to ask you to quiet down.”
Lynn smiled to herself, thinking of Sara, giggling so gaily—and promising to “zipper” her lip. “Maybe,” she allowed. “But it was a long time ago—and how did we get off on this subject, anyway?”
“It was a natural progression—from your favorite students, to why they’re your favorites.”
“But we weren’t even supposed to be talking about me.”
“I was curious, that’s all.”
“Well. Is your curiosity satisfied?”
“As much as it’s likely to be.”
What did that mean? She felt it would be wiser not to ask. “Is there any more you need to know about Jenny?”
“No, I think you’ve about covered it. I wonder if you could write me up a brief report of what you’ve just told me? Only a page or two. To put in her file?”
“Sure. I’ll get it to you in a day or two. Will that do?”
“That will be fine.”
She glanced at the big clock on the fireplace mantel. As she did, a single chime rang out. Eight-thirty. She untucked her legs. “I should go.”
He said nothing.
She bent down to pull on her shoes. When she straightened to a sitting position again, he was staring at her. She read the look in his eyes. And answered it as if he had actually spoken. “Ross. It is getting late.”
“Eight-thirty isn’t late.”
“I won’t be home until nine, at least. And it’s a school night.”
“So what? Live dangerously.”
Live dangerously. She wished he hadn’t said that. All at once those moments upstairs didn’t seem long ago at all. They came back to her vividly, stealing her breath: the two of them, standing by that claw-footed table, his hands cradling her chin, his lips brushing, only once, so sweetly, against her own.
She ordered such thoughts away. “I think I’ve lived dangerously enough for one night.”
He answered in a low voice, “No, you haven’t. You’ve flirted with danger. And that’s all.”
“That’s more than enough, I think,” she told him tartly. “It’s certainly more than I should have done.”
“But less than you wanted to do.”
Another sharp remark rose to her lips. She held it back.
Her silence seemed to anger him. “What? Say it.” His eyes were very dark. She saw heat in them. The heat of desire. Her body responded instantly, going weak. Pliant. Yearning toward him…
“I have to go.” She said it firmly. In a tone any one of her young students would have recognized. The tone that said she would not be pushed one inch further.
Ross got the message. “All right.” He watched her through unreadable eyes as she stood.
“I’ll just get my coat and my—”
He silenced her by rising himself, a swift, fierce movement, one that frightened and excited her at the same time.
“Don’t—” she said, and that was all.
He reached out, caught her hand and pulled her close. “One kiss,” he said.
His heat and strength surrounded her. She put her hands on his chest to push him away—and felt his heart beating under her palm. “Your heart,” she heard herself whisper. “I can feel it….”
He said her name, so softly. “Lynn…”
In his eyes she saw promises. Promises she knew he didn’t think he was making. Promises he probably wasn’t making. Promises she only thought she saw. Because she dreamed the bright, hopeful dreams of the plain girl, the overweight, unpopular girl, the hardworking, quiet, dependable one…
She said flatly, “You know very well it won’t just be one kiss.”
“Do it anyway.”
She stiffened her arms a little, to keep him at bay. “Don’t you…dare me, Ross. Not about this. This isn’t a bite of truffle cake we’re talking about now.”
His arms tightened around her. “Isn’t it?”
“No, it is not.”
His eyes seemed to reach down inside her, to grab hold of her in all her most private and forbidden places. He muttered, “Maybe you need to be dared. Maybe there’s a woman inside you that you need to let out.”
“That’s my choice to make. Not yours to make for me.”
Those words stopped him. “You’re right,” he said. “Get your things. We’ll go.” He released her and stepped away.
And all she wanted was for him to grab her close once more.
Oh, what was the matter with her? She was a plainspoken, direct person. She never said one thing and meant something else altogether.
Or at least, she never had until tonight.
“Go on,” he said more gently. “Get your coat.”
It was a long walk to that front closet. But she made it. She had the closet door open and was staring at her plain brown coat hanging there when the truth hit her.
She shut the closet door.
She heard his footsteps, coming closer. And then he was there, at her back. She could feel him, feel the very maleness of him. So close. Too close…
“Lynn.” His voice was so tender, a caress of sound in her ear.
Her legs felt weak, her whole body trembled. She still had her hand on the knob.
She leaned into it, resting her forehead against the door. “I…don’t want to go.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, really. She closed her eyes, pressed her head harder against the ungiving wood, let out a ragged breath. “Isn’t that crazy?”
She waited. Still he said nothing.
And she couldn’t bear to face him, not yet. Not until she’d thoroughly confessed her own foolishness. She whispered, “It’s all wrong. And I’m scared. I’ve never…done anything like this before. I hardly know you. And I’m a teacher. A teacher is expected to behave a certain way. But…” She couldn’t go on.
After a minute he took her arm. She stiffened in self-defense against his touch, against the real kindness in it that seemed to her to verge on something like pity.
She had liked it better when he dared her, she really, truly had.
He made a soothing sound. “Come on. Look at me.”
Reluctantly she let go of the doorknob and turned. His hand slid down to clasp with hers. “Look at me. And listen. Are you listening?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“I’m a damn good lawyer,” he said.
She stifled a laugh, a laugh that felt a little too much like a sob. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you.”
“I…all right.”
“I’m a damn good lawyer. But the truth is, I’m not a very good man.”
She had an instant and rather powerful urge to argue with him—and he knew it.
With the hand that wasn’t holding hers, he touched a finger to her lips. “Shh. Listen. I’m not a very good man. But you’re one hell of a woman. And not just because of an appointment at the Whitehorn Salon and a pretty new dress. You’ve got heart and you’ve got guts. A sense of humor—and a damn sharp tongue. You’re going to do fine. You’re going to find yourself that prince you’re looking for.”
“But I—”
“Shh. Wait. Listen.”
She pressed her lips together, nodded.
“That prince is not me. That prince was never me. Do you understand?”
She should have nodded again then. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Deep in her most secret heart, she simply did not believe him.
You are my prince, her heart cried—at the same time as she called herself ten thousand kinds of fool.
He said, “All I want from you, and I admit, I want it pretty damn bad, is one night. I’m not looking for anything more than that. I’m no good for anything more than that. And you…I don’t think you realize yet all that you are. But you will. As time goes on. And you’ll be glad you never gave yourself away to someone like me.” He paused, giving her a chance, she knew, to say something at last.
But she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She only looked at him, all the reasons she had to leave now scrolling through her mind.
All the reasons that just didn’t stack up against a night of magic. Against a lifetime of being the good girl, of saying and doing the right thing. Of wearing flat shoes and brown skirts, of having all the cowboys she’d gone to school with call her “Miss,” defining her utterly with that single syllable: Miss. An old maid at twenty-four.
He had said it himself: Maybe there’s a woman inside you that you need to let out.
Didn’t he realize? That woman was out. She had been lured out, by her dear friend Danielle, by the tender ministrations of Gracie and Kim. By a silver-threaded red dress and two-inch red heels.
And by him. By Ross Garrison. By candlelight, over champagne and filet mignon, in a single bite of truffle cake delivered to her on the tip of his own fork.
That woman was out. And Lynn Taylor did not intend to hide her away again.
Not yet, anyway. Not until the night was over.
Not until she’d done all the forbidden things that the dependable one could never let herself do. Not until she’d squeezed every last drop of beauty and wonder out of all the moments until…when? Midnight. Yes. Of course. Midnight. She would stay until the clock struck twelve.
“Let’s get that coat,” he said, releasing her hand and reaching for the closet door.
She backed up, blocking the door. “One night?” she asked. “That’s all, right?”
He closed his eyes, shook his head. “Lynn. I’m trying to do the right thing here, damn it.”
She put her hand on the knob so he couldn’t grab it. “One night,” she said again. “Tonight.”
He made a low, impatient and very put-upon sound. “Stop this.”
“No. Sorry. I’m not going to stop. I assume you have…whatever single men are supposed to have. So that their lady friends don’t end up in trouble.”
He let out a harsh rush of air—like a man who’d been punched in the stomach. “You are not saying this.”
“Yes, I am. Just tell me. Can you make sure that I don’t get pregnant?”
He swore.
“Well, can you?”
“Damn it, yes. But—”
She put up a hand—the one that wasn’t keeping him from opening the closet door and taking out her boring brown coat. “Listen, please. It’s my turn to talk. And what I’m trying to tell you is that I want this one night as much—no, more. Definitely more than you do. I want you to—” she had to pause, to swallow, but then she did get the words out “—make love to me.”
He swore again.
She hurried on before he could say more. “I want you to make love to me. I want you to show me…what it can be like. Because, you see, I really don’t know. I want you to give me this one night, since that’s all you say you’re capable of. And then when it’s over, I want you to keep your mouth shut about it. Do you think you can do that?”
“I don’t believe you’re saying this.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“Damn it, Lynn. It’s not right.”
She clucked her tongue. “Listen to yourself. You sound like the good man you just told me you weren’t.”
“I am not a good man.” He spoke through clenched teeth.
“If you say so. But you do want to make love with me?”
“What I want isn’t the point.”
“It’s not?” Boldly she let her gaze travel downward, over his autumn-gold sweater and his fine leather belt. She could see the hard ridge that tented the fabric of his slacks—and she knew her biology, even lacking as she was in firsthand experience. She could see very clearly that her proposal had interested him.
He let out another low sound, this one more like a groan than anything else, and he muttered, “I should have had sense enough to keep my damn jacket on.”
She looked into his face again—and her cool pose fell away. “I mean this,” she said honestly. “I do want this. So much. And I give you my word, I won’t ask you for anything more. After tonight, if we meet on the street, I promise to smile politely, say hello…and walk on by.”
His eyes bored into her. “Walk on by?”
“Yes. Do you believe me?”
“Hell.” It was all Ross could think of to say. He did believe her. And he should have been content. It was only everything he wanted, wasn’t it? One night with her—and nothing more? Their little secret that neither would ever be so foolish as to share with anyone else.
She said very seriously, “I hope you believe me. Because I’m telling the truth.”
A silence fell. A weighty one. She looked at him and he looked at her. The ai
r seemed almost too thick for breathing.
Finally she asked in a thready voice, “Is this the part where I have to start begging?”
There was less than a foot between their bodies. He eliminated that distance, reaching for her as she reached for him.
He pulled her close, muttered into her hair, “Are you sure?”
She nodded against his shoulder, all doubts banished by the mere feel of his body pressed to hers, by the way his arms held her, contradicting utterly what he’d told her he wanted—one night and no more. Those arms really felt as if they’d never let her go.
“I’m sure,” she whispered, not letting herself think of the lies she would have to tell, or of who she was: Jewel Hollis Taylor’s dependable stepdaughter who would never, ever do such a shocking, wild thing.
Tonight. For this one night. She was someone else. Tonight, dependable Lynn Taylor didn’t exist.
Tonight she was Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. Ugly duckling turned swan.
And more.
Tonight she was…the lady in red.
She was the woman she’d seen in the mirror at the Whitehorn Salon. The woman who took her chances when they came along. The woman who dared to live dangerously. The woman who boldly said what she wanted and then went after it.
Tonight, just for this one night, a fairy-tale princess had nothing on her.
Chapter Six
He kissed her, right there in the front hall, pressing her up against the closet door. At first tenderly, gently, as if he feared hurting her.
And then she felt his tongue, questing for entry, at the seam of her closed lips. Slowly, only a little reluctantly, she opened for him. His tongue slipped inside.
Oh, my!
She could hardly believe it. A man’s tongue, Ross Garrison’s tongue, was inside her mouth.
And she…why, she liked it. It felt…slick and rough at the same time. And it was stroking her, caressing her, tasting faintly of brandy, of coffee and chocolate….
She opened her mouth a little more. And she moaned.
An answering sound, very male and very hungry, came from deep in his chest. She could feel that sound. It made her shiver, made her breasts ache with a pleasant heaviness as it rumbled right through them, seeming to find its way straight to her heart.
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