Cinderella's Big Sky Groom

by Christine Rimmer

  Only better. A hundred times better. Everything was…enhanced. Made brighter. As if she had somehow been fuzzy before. A picture out of focus, now brought stunningly clear.

  So very clear. Her skin glowed. Her hair shone. Her eyes were bigger, brighter, bluer than blue.

  And the rest of her…

  She couldn’t believe it.

  She turned, looked over her shoulder. The rear view was perfect, too. The red sweater dress clung lovingly to every newly slimmed-down curve, and the silver threads, woven so subtly through the cashmere, gleamed like tiny diamonds—or maybe a sprinkling of starlight—from the downy wool.

  And the shoes. Why, the shoes didn’t make her look too tall at all. She was tall. Why not make the most of it?

  “Is that really me?” she heard herself whisper, turning and facing her reflection again.

  “It’s you!” crowed Sara. “Miss Taylor, it’s really, really you! You’re just like Cinderella, all ready for the ball.”

  Lynn couldn’t help but agree. All those fairy-godmother jokes aside, she honestly did feel as if someone had cast a spell over her.

  “This is…just magic.” A wistful laugh escaped her. “Now all I need is for my prince to show up.”

  Lynn had barely finished speaking when the bell over the street door gave a jangle and Ross Garrison entered the salon.

  Chapter Three

  Ross Garrison was not a man who gaped.

  But it took all the considerable self-control he possessed not to gawk like an idiot when he walked into the Whitehorn Salon and caught sight of Jennifer McCallum’s teacher for the second time that day.

  It couldn’t be the same woman.

  But it was the same woman.

  Amazing.

  Not that she hadn’t possessed a certain wholesome, shyly dignified appeal before.

  But now…

  Now she was downright tempting.

  Whoever had fixed her hair had worked wonders. Before, it had been a little longer, hadn’t it? And a sort of brownish-blond color. Now it just brushed her shoulders and seemed shot with moonbeams. And those blue eyes. He’d thought them rather attractive before. He’d been struck by the way she had looked at him—with a careful reserve and with challenge, as well.

  But now, enhanced as those eyes were with subtle shadows, they could take a man down to drowning.

  He wanted to look away.

  But he couldn’t.

  And Lynn couldn’t look away, either.

  Was this some dream she’d stumbled into? A heady, intoxicating dream, where suddenly a man like Ross Garrison stared at her—at her, plain, dependable Miss Taylor—as if she had captivated him?

  Looking twice, that was what he was doing. Looking twice at her.

  And maybe it was foolish of her. Foolish and shallow and silly.

  But she liked the way he looked at her. She felt all fizzy and sparkling. Like a bottle of champagne with the cork just popped. And so…powerful, suddenly. In a purely female way.

  Twenty-four years old today, she thought. And as of today, her entire experience with the opposite sex had consisted of awkward dates in college with boys as shy as she’d always been. But at that marvelous, special moment, Lynn Taylor was a siren. Her beauty could sink ships. Ross Garrison’s stunned, frankly admiring stare told her so.

  Speak up, damn it, Ross said to himself. All right. The kindergarten teacher has gotten to you. But you’re no tongue-tied cowhand.

  In his most self-assured tone, he broke the silence that had descended on the women at his entrance. “It’s five o’clock, Ms. Taylor.”

  The little girl, Sara, grabbed her mother’s hand and gave it a tug. “I thought you said he was a lawyer.”

  “Shh, honey, not now…”

  “But we don’t need a lawyer right now, Mommy. We need a prince.”

  All the women laughed at that—except the schoolteacher, whose glowing face turned a sweet, flustered pink. One of the two women Ross didn’t know, probably the hairdresser, muttered under her breath, “I’d say he’ll have to do,” which caused another flurry of chuckles.

  Danielle told her daughter, “I think you’d better go on back to your coloring books.”

  “But—”

  “Go on now, Sara.”

  “Oh, all right.” The little girl went over to a table in the corner and sat down.

  Once the child was out of the way, all the women turned and looked at Ross again. He felt thoroughly outnumbered. And this wasn’t a place where a man would feel all that comfortable, anyway. Maybe it was the excess of dried flower arrangements. There seemed to be one on the corner of every table, and they hung in wreaths and swags on the walls. Lace curtains draped the windows. The place smelled of women, too: perfume and powder, shampoo—and under everything, the harsh ammonialike scent of hair dyes and permanent waving solutions. He had no intention of interviewing Lynn Taylor there.

  Dinner, he decided right then. He’d take her to dinner. At that new restaurant on State Street. Over a leisurely meal he could get past the hostility he’d sensed in her during their first meeting at the school. He’d get her to open up to him, get her really talking about the child he’d been hired to represent.

  Oh, come on, Garrison, taunted a cynical voice in the back of his mind. This is a fifteen-minute interview and a request for a short written report. You can do that over coffee at the Hip Hop Café across the street.

  Ross tuned out that cynical voice. He gave the gorgeous blonde in the red dress his easiest, most casual smile. “Are you ready to go?”

  Lynn hesitated. But not at the idea of leaving with him. Somehow, her reluctance to meet with him had faded away. She was thinking that she ought to change back into her regular clothes.

  But no. She just couldn’t bear to do that. Not right yet. Perhaps silver-threaded cashmere and two-inch red heels were unsuitable attire for a brief meeting with Jenny’s new lawyer. But right then, Lynn didn’t care.

  She was keeping the dress on and the magic going. None of it was real, anyway. It was a dream she’d stepped into, a spell woven by the skilled hands of Gracie and Kim. She wanted to hold on to the magic. Just for a little while…

  “You go on,” Danielle was saying. “I’ll bring you your other clothes tomorrow when I pick Sara up after school.”

  Gracie and Kim chorused their encouragement.

  “Yes, you go ahead….”

  “You go on, now….”

  Danielle marched to the door and lifted Lynn’s coat off the coatrack. “Here.” She handed it to the lawyer, who obligingly held it open for Lynn to put on.

  What else could she do?

  She approached him, slid her arms into the sleeves and pulled it around herself, overly conscious of the light brush of his hands as he settled the garment onto her shoulders, thinking foolishly that even in heels she wasn’t quite as tall as he was.

  Danielle held out her purse. She took it. Ross Garrison opened the door again. He waited for Lynn to go through ahead of him.

  And then she and the lawyer were standing on Center Street, side by side. A cold wind was blowing down from the Crazy Mountains north of town. Lynn shivered a little and wrapped her coat more closely around herself.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Starved.” And she was. She’d skipped lunch altogether. Forgotten all about it. But now that he had mentioned it, she was ready to eat. The Hip Hop was just across the street and two doors down. It was a charming little place, where everyone in town felt at home. She started toward it.

  But Ross caught her elbow. “Come on. My Mercedes is just over there.”

  She didn’t argue. His touch had distracted her, sending a sweet, zinging thrill along her nerves, making her shiver again—but this time not because of the wind.

  He led her down the street about a hundred feet and then helped her into that Mercedes he’d mentioned, which was actually an SUV, of all things. She hadn’t known that you could get a sports-utility version of a Mercede
s, but there she was, sitting in the lovely leather seats, running her hand along the gleaming woodwork on her passenger-side door.

  “It’s not far, but we might as well drive,” he said as the engine purred to life.

  Ross took her to the State Street Grill, Whitehorn’s newest and nicest restaurant, which had opened just last summer. There were hardly any other diners so early on a weekday evening, but he asked for a quiet corner table nonetheless.

  And it was a lovely corner, shadowy and private. In the center of their table a single rose emerged, velvety-red, from a crystal vase. A pair of tall white candles flanked that rose. The waiter lighted them when he brought the wine list.

  Ross studied the list and then glanced up at Lynn. “Any preferences?”

  “I’m not much of a wine drinker, as a rule.”

  He was smiling—almost. “But you’ll make an exception this once, won’t you?”

  Not wise, she chided herself silently. A glass of wine is the last thing you need right now….

  But what she said was, “Well, to tell you the truth, it is my birthday.”

  That almost-smile deepened. “Seriously?”

  She nodded.

  And he said, “Then we’ll have champagne.” The waiter hovered at his elbow. Ross turned to him and said the name of something French.

  A few minutes later, he was lifting a flute glass full of the golden, bubbly stuff. “To you, Ms. Lynn Taylor. Happy birthday.” She held up her own glass until it met his with a bright-sounding clink.

  The fizzy wine shimmered down her throat and made a warm glow in her stomach. They took a minute to order—appetizers, salads and the main course. Then the waiter disappeared.

  Ross leaned toward her across the table. “So tell me…”

  She set her glass on the snowy cloth, made a low, questioning sound.

  “This new look of yours…”

  She was not a woman prone to teasing, but right then, teasing seemed to come to her as naturally as breathing. She raised one newly reshaped eyebrow. “New look?”

  He chuckled. “What? You didn’t think I’d noticed?”

  She confessed with a small laugh, “I noticed. That you noticed…”

  “Good. We’re clear on that much.”

  “Yes, I suppose we are.”

  “Then what brought on this change?”

  She sipped again, felt that lovely fizziness slide down her throat. “It’s my birthday present from Danielle. And Gracie and Kim, too.”

  “Gracie and Kim. They would be the other two women, in the salon?”

  “Yes. The owner and her daughter.”

  “And what did the little girl mean, with that remark about the prince?”

  Funny, she’d felt her cheeks flame back in the shop when Sara had announced so bluntly, “We need a prince.” But she didn’t feel the least embarrassed now.

  She told him. Simply and directly. About how Danielle had called her early that morning with birthday greetings and instructions to be ready after class, to bring her new red dress and red high-heeled shoes. “She wouldn’t tell me then what the surprise was going to be. She only said, ‘Just call me your fairy godmother.”’

  “As in Cinderella?”

  “That’s right. It got to be kind of a joke. Me as Cinderella. And Danielle and Gracie and Kim as my fairy godmothers, waving a magic wand over me. Then, once they’d worked their magic, I said that all I needed was a prince.”

  “Then I showed up.” The candlelight gleamed, two spots of soft gold, in his dark eyes.

  “Um-hmm. Right on time.”

  “But not a prince.” He put on a look of great regret. “Only a lawyer…”

  Lynn picked up her flute again. “Sometimes a girl has to make do with whomever shows up.”

  “Whomever,” he repeated. “You just proved you’re still a schoolteacher, after all.”

  She sipped. “Yes. And I’m warning you…”

  “Don’t tell me. At midnight, you turn into a pumpkin.”

  “Much worse. At midnight, I give you a pop quiz.”

  “I see.”

  “Then I make you recite your ABCs.”

  “And then?”

  She considered. “Times tables. Yes. Right up through ten times ten. And from there, I’ll want to see how you do at conjugating verbs.”

  “It sounds terrifying.”

  “It would be. But luckily for you, we’ll have said good-night long before then.”

  “Yes. Luckily for me…”

  They shared a long look. A much too intimate look.

  Lynn reminded herself that they were only here to talk about Jenny.

  But then, before she could say anything to get them going on the topic of her student, their appetizers appeared.

  He asked her where she went to college.

  “Montana State,” she replied. “Major in education, minor in English. How about you?”

  He said he’d gone to Princeton on a scholarship. “I was miserable there. Didn’t know anybody. They’d all come from Ivy League prep schools. To them, I was just a cowboy, manure still on my boots, fresh out of high school in Billings.”

  “But you stuck it out.”

  “Damn right. Then I went on to law school in Colorado.”

  “And got your law degree when you were—what?”

  “I took the bar exam when I was twenty-four.”

  “That’s pretty young, isn’t it?”

  “I knew what I wanted. To make it and make it big. I hired on with Turow, Travis and Lindstrom, a major Denver law firm, right away.”

  Trish, who spent her lunch hours at the Hip Hop collecting every tidbit she could on Ross Garrison, had mentioned that he’d come from Denver. “And then?”

  His eyes turned cold. “I worked my way up the food chain.”

  “At Turow, Travis and—?”

  “Lindstrom. Right. I advanced there with alarming rapidity. I was twenty-eight when I made partner. It was an unheard-of accomplishment.” The irony in his tone matched the chill in his eyes, making it seem that the “accomplishment” he spoke of was actually nothing of the kind.

  Lynn had the strangest urge—to reach across the table. To lay her hand over his. To say something gentle and understanding, something that would bring warmth to his eyes.

  She kept her hands to herself. And he finished, “I stayed with the firm until a little over a year ago, when I decided it was time for a change.”

  Time for a change, she thought, and knew there was more to it than that. Trish had mentioned a divorce. A broken heart Trish intended to mend…

  Lynn studied him across the table, admitting to herself that, beyond this foolish and dangerous game of flirtation she was playing with him, she had started to like him, to respond to him on some deeper level—which she knew she shouldn’t allow herself to do.

  He was too rich. And too sophisticated. And even though he seemed to have zero romantic interest in Trish, her sister had set her sights on him. Trish would never consider Lynn any kind of competition. But still, there would be nothing but trouble in the family if Trish thought Lynn had dared to make a play for him.

  And yet, here she was in this fancy restaurant, drinking champagne with him. And flirting. Showing off her smart mouth, as Jewel always used to say whenever her usually self-effacing stepdaughter had the bad judgment to let that particular side of herself shine through.

  They should talk about Jenny.

  And they would, of course. Very soon. But really, there was no great hurry. She raised her glass to her lips and sipped more champagne.

  A few minutes later, the main course arrived. Filet mignon. Fork-tender. It literally melted in her mouth.

  She’d just swallowed the first scrumptious bite when Ross warned in a whisper, “Don’t look now, but I think—yes. She’s spotted us.”

  “Who?”

  “Lily Mae Wheeler. She’s headed our way. I’ll give you a little free legal advice.”

  “What?”

&
nbsp; “Don’t tell her anything, unless you want the whole town to know.”

  Lynn had no time to reply. Lily Mae was upon them. “My Lord, Lynn Taylor! Honey, I hardly did recognize you.” Lynn smiled gamely up at Whitehorn’s most notorious gossip. “You look sweet as a heifer in a field of new clover. I love your hair.” Copper bracelets jangling, Lily Mae patted her own teased and heavily sprayed coiffure, which was auburn at the moment. “Maybe I should try blond again. What do you think?”

  “I do like the auburn,” Lynn said judiciously.

  Lily Mae left off patting her hair and patted Lynn’s shoulder instead. “Sweet, sweet girl. You always say just the right thing.” False eyelashes batted Ross’s way. “And hello, Mr. Garrison. How are you this brisk October evening?”

  “I’m just fine, Mrs. Wheeler.”

  “Enjoying that beautiful new house of yours?”

  “I am. Very much.”

  “It’s up along Route 17, isn’t it? On Black Bear Lake.”

  “Yes.”

  “I confess, Winona Cobbs has told me all about it. She has to drive by there to get into town.” Winona Cobbs lived in a trailer out at the end of Route 17. She ran her own peculiar enterprise there known as the Stop ’n Swap. She kept bees and was considered by many to possess psychic powers. She was also almost as big a gossip as Lily Mae.

  Lily Mae forged on. “And I heard you’ve been hired by the Kincaid estate.”

  “That’s right,” Ross said.

  Lily Mae clucked her tongue. “Wasn’t that just a terrible shame—about Wendell? There are many who don’t believe it now, but once, Wendell Hargrove was an honorable man. It was after his dear wife, Alice, died that the trouble started. He just couldn’t cope with the loss. He developed that gambling problem. And then he—well, I suppose you know all of this.”

  “I’ve heard the facts, yes.”

  “And now you’re representing our Jenny.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You do a good job for her, now.”

  “I will, Mrs. Wheeler. I promise you.”

  Lily Mae turned on Lynn again. “Hon, I mean it. Your face. Your hair. That gorgeous dress. I do truly love to see a woman make the most of what she’s got. And when that woman is you, well, all I can say is, it is about time.”