Cinderella's Big Sky Groom

It wasn’t nothing, and Lynn knew it. She could see the truth in Lily Mae’s over-made-up eyes. The sweet-hearted gossip knew that Trish was after Ross. How could she not know? Who other than Lily Mae would Trish have been pumping for information about the new lawyer in town?

“Really, hon. It was nothing at all,” Lily Mae repeated. “Sometimes I do run on, and that is a plain fact.” Then she chuckled. “And now I am going to leave you. I’ve a dear friend in town from Billings for the night. She’s in the Ladies right now. I’ll tell you what, I won’t even interrupt you again to introduce her, because I can see that the two of you want to be alone.”

Lynn opened her mouth to protest that remark, but Ross caught her eye before she spoke. She read his look: What’s the point?

She had to agree with him. Lily Mae Wheeler would think what she wanted to think. And anything Lynn said to her would only give her an excuse to stay and chat longer.

“Enjoy those filets,” said Lily Mae. “Don’t they just turn right to butter inside your mouth?”

“Yes,” Lynn agreed. “They’re delicious.”

With a last jingling wave, Lily Mae trotted off.

Ross watched her go. After a moment, he said, “You’ll be relieved to know the hostess is leading her to a table in the far corner, behind a pillar. She won’t be flashing all those capped teeth and shaking her bracelets at us through the rest of the meal, after all.”

Lynn felt she had to speak up on Lily Mae’s behalf. “She has a good heart.”

Ross shook his head. “But we’ll be an ‘item’ by tomorrow. When she gets to her regular table at the Hip Hop and starts spreading the news.”

And what will Trish say when she hears?

Lynn decided not to think about that. It would work out. She’d explain to her sister that they’d needed to talk about Jenny. Which was the truth.

Ross picked up his fork again. “It doesn’t matter, does it, what Lily Mae Wheeler thinks or says? We know the real situation, after all. And it’s not as if we’ve been caught doing anything but enjoying a meal together.”

Their eyes met. She sighed. “You’re right. There’ll be a little talk. And then, when we don’t see each other again, the talk will die down.”

“Right.” He said the word very low. And then, for several nerve-racking seconds, he said nothing more, only looked at her, making her pulse pound too fast and her face feel overly warm.

At last he shrugged. “Being talked about is the price you pay for living in a town like Whitehorn, where everyone knows everyone else’s business.”

“Exactly.” Carefully she cut a bite of meat and slipped the delicious morsel between her lips.

Ross watched her. He liked watching her. Liked it way too much.

Yes. Too much. Those were the operative words here. He liked watching her too much, was enjoying himself too much.

He should call a halt right now.

This was not going to go anywhere. Lynn Taylor might seem a temptress tonight, but he knew damn well that she was an innocent at heart.

She didn’t want what he wanted, which was to sit here for another hour or so and look at her some more. To listen to her slightly throaty voice, to catch an occasional whiff of that enticing perfume she wore.

Then, when they’d lingered over the meal for much longer than they should have, he wanted to take her home. To his bed. Where he would enjoy her all the more.

Until the night was over. At which time, he would want her to go back to her own life and leave him to his.

And she would want…what? He couldn’t say for sure. But hadn’t she just as much as told him she was looking for a prince?

Ross Garrison was no prince. And nothing was going to happen between him and Lynn Taylor.

Looked at from just about any angle, seducing her would be a fool’s move.

He’d seen the way Danielle Mitchell treated her. And those two hairdressers, too. Even Lily Mae Wheeler. Everyone in Whitehorn loved Lynn Taylor. They all seemed to feel protective toward her.

He had a practice to build here. And seducing the town innocent was not going to help him create trust with potential clients.

He should eat his steak, ask his few questions about his young client, pay the check and take the woman back to her car.

Unfortunately, though, for some insane reason, he couldn’t bear to let her go. Not quite yet.

She glanced up from her meal and asked softly, “You do like it here in Whitehorn, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do.”

“You said you were raised in Billings?”

“Right.”

“Why didn’t you move back there, when you were…ready for a change?”

“I have no family there anymore. My folks have been dead for several years now.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“One of each. But we’re not close. And they’ve moved away, too. My sister lives in Salt Lake City. And my brother’s in Southern California now. Works for some electronics firm, I think.”

She picked up her water glass. Her champagne flute was empty. He checked the bottle—empty, too. “I’ll order another one.”

“No.” She drank, set the water glass down. “Better not.” He upended the bottle in its bucket of ice as she started to slide her napkin in at the side of her plate.

He could see the end of the evening in those eyes of hers.

“Dessert,” he said. “You have to have dessert.”

“Oh.” Her eyelashes fluttered down, then lifted again. “No more. Really.” A busman appeared and whisked their plates away.

Ross waited for him to leave before coaxing, “It is your birthday, after all. And they have something really special here. Dark chocolate truffle cake. It’s my own personal weakness, I have to admit.”

“Truffle cake.” She considered. And she did it charmingly, tipping her head to the side, touching the tip of her tongue to the corner of her lip for an instant, as if she could actually taste a bit of chocolate there.

What would it feel like, to touch his own tongue to those lips of hers? Good, he imagined. Very, very good…

She drew in a breath. “No. I’m not hungry anymore. Not hungry at all.”

He should have just let it go at that. But he didn’t. “So what? It’s chocolate. Eat it for…the pleasure of it. And because it’s your birthday.”

She stared at him. Awareness, and of much more than the temptation of chocolate, seemed to weave itself around them like a net of silk—or like the silver threads in that dress of hers, subtle, but so damn seductive.