Besides, being seen with the most notorious bachelor in the county could only promote the fact that Lauren Hewett was putting herself back on the market.
The last thing Travis Banks wanted to do was dance with the woman who had just ruined his best shirt. He’d planned on making an appearance and hanging around only long enough to toast the wedding couple before making a quick getaway. Weddings in general made him uneasy. At the present he was surrounded by so many female biological clocks ticking in synch that they almost drowned out the band.
Not that bookish Lauren Hewett struck him as the pushy sort. Just the opposite in fact. Even back in high school, she had been so painfully shy that none of the guys paid her much attention. Travis thought he remembered hearing that she’d been traumatized by the death of her father and afterward devoted herself to her mother to the exclusion of developing a life of her own.
There was something rather touching in the way she had so self-consciously accepted that silly bouquet earlier that challenged his sense of chivalry. Even the hardest-hearted rogue would be moved to save a damsel in distress from Marsh’s boat-size two left feet and endless self-aggrandizing. Dancing with Henry’s new step-daughter was the least Travis could do in the way of helping her feel more at ease on what he assumed had to be a difficult day for her.
“I’d be delighted,” he lied.
He prayed that the band would strike up a lively number. The way his luck was running, he figured that the two of them, covered in sticky punch, would dry together like glue during an agonizingly long waltz. Whatever the band played, he hoped Lauren didn’t expect him to make polite small talk. A man far more comfortable in the solitude of the open range than in formal affairs requiring a suit and tie, Travis found an old worn pair of jeans and work boots suited him better. Had he not so much genuine respect for his father’s old business partner and longtime friend Henry Aberdeen, he would have done his usual routine with the wedding invitation he’d received: tossed it in the trash and sent an expensive gift in lieu of attending.
His worst fears were realized when the band commenced to play a good old-fashioned, belt-buckle-polishing slow dance. A minute later Travis discovered that his partner actually had a lovely figure beneath all those filmy layers of fabric. Despite the fact that Lauren went out of her way to hide that from the rest of the world, he couldn’t help but notice when his body reacted of its own volition to the soft, womanly curves pressed against him. Her body fit his so perfectly that it didn’t take any stretch of the imagination to envision dancing horizontally with her.
It was a nice change to dance with someone who didn’t feel like a stick in his arms. He’d never had any luck trying to convince Jaclyn—or any other woman for that matter—that most men really didn’t buy into that dying heroin addict look that graced so many magazines. Full-figured women were never out of fashion in his book. Mentally clothing Lauren in the same white dress that Marilynn Monroe immortalized while standing over a city vent left him feeling suddenly more aroused than he’d like anyone to notice.
Rather than putting a respectable distance between them on the dance floor, Travis was drawn even closer by the scent of her perfume. In a room filled with an overwhelming assortment of fragrances ranging from cloying to girlish, Lauren smelled so good that it was all he could do to keep from burying his nose in the nape of her neck and indulging himself like a bee sampling the choicest flower.
Studying her up close, Travis discovered she had very nice features: wide-set eyes the color of emeralds, good cheekbones, silky dark hair pulled a little too severely away from a heart-shaped face and a generous mouth that curved up appealingly when she smiled. She just didn’t accentuate those features the way other women—like his ex-wife Jaclyn—did spending hours making themselves presentable to the world. The fact that Lauren didn’t appear to be that kind of high-maintenance woman was admirable in its own way.
Then again, Travis was paying Jaclyn an obscene amount of alimony each month and he had never given Lauren Hewett a second glance before today.
“I feel awful about ruining your shirt. You have to allow me to pay for your dry cleaning bill,” she offered.
Travis protested that the offer was unnecessary, but she refused to accept no for an answer.
“Really, I insist. There’s only one problem….”
Travis found the way she worried her lower lip between her teeth oddly mesmerizing. And unbelievably sexy. Feeling a stab of awareness in his belly, he stared at her hard as she continued in a halting voice.
“I’d tell you to mail me the bill, but I don’t know where I’m going to be. All I know is that I won’t be here much longer….”
Travis noticed Fenton out of the corner of his eye. He was waiting his turn at the edge of the dance floor, eager to take up where he’d left off before hurling his dance partner into another man’s arms. Strangely enough, Travis wasn’t nearly as ready to give up Lauren as he thought he would be at the beginning of the song. He steered her in the opposite direction.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” she blurted out, looking almost claustrophobic.
Travis wondered how much champagne Lauren had consumed over the course of the afternoon.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
“And tired,” she admitted, “of my life in general.”
Once again Travis found himself staring into a pair of wide, hypnotic eyes and asking almost against his own free will, “I don’t suppose there’s anything I could do to help?”
Lauren hiccupped daintily.
“You could always marry me and put an end to this misery.”
Travis stumbled. All of a sudden he understood exactly why poor old Marsh had fallen over his own feet and baptized Travis with punch. To date, it was the quickest proposal he’d ever received from a woman he barely knew.
His reaction caused Lauren to blush a furious shade of pink. Nervous laughter intended to underscore the fact that she had only been joking cracked beneath the strain of her explanation.
“Don’t worry, I’m only teasing,” she told him. “Short of committing to anything so drastic, you could always help me find a place to stay. Under the circumstances, I really don’t want to stay in this house any longer, but the only rentals available in town look like they should be condemned.”
Her eyes glistened with the hint of tears, chipping away at the wall Travis had worked so hard to erect around his heart. Feeling her tremble in his arms, he cursed his insensitivity. Clearly, Lauren wasn’t nearly as accomplished at hiding her feelings as other women. She wore them right there on her puffy bridesmaid sleeves for everybody to see. He imagined that she was feeling particularly vulnerable today.
In fact, the last time Travis had seen such a defenseless creature, he’d been looking at it from behind the barrel of his Colt .45. And even though that pesky raccoon was destroying his mother’s garden, he hadn’t the heart to put it away. To add insult to injury, the darned thing was so happy to have continuing free reign of the backyard, it had practically adopted Travis as its master.
A warning signal exploded inside his head. Bells, lights and whistles all at the same time. Travis was a man who worked hard at keeping a wide emotional distance between himself and the opposite sex. Ever since his divorce, he tended to categorize the entire female gender as cold, calculating and manipulative. Somehow, it was hard to paint this plainspoken English teacher with the same broad strokes as the woman who had pulverized his pride and his wallet four and a half years ago.
Just because Lauren didn’t strike him as either a gold digger or the kind of woman who would cheat on a man just for kicks, he hesitated to get involved with any woman who might easily mistake his kindness as something more. Especially someone who made him feel as though she intended to correct his grammar while attempting to waltz him down the aisle toward a waiting preacher.
Catching himself wondering how Lauren might look with her hair freed from that constraining bun, he fought the urge to undo the p
ins and run his fingers though her dark tresses. When she dropped her head against his shoulder and leaned against him for an instant, he was instantly transformed from a reluctant dance partner into her willing protector. Feeling the warmth of her breath against the crisp open collar of his shirt, he held her close as the final strains of the waltz faded away. When she looked up from the top of his shoes, he noticed that her eyelashes were suspiciously wet. Something hard inside his chest rolled over.
Setting aside his own paranoia for the moment, Travis did what any gentleman with a vacant mouse-infested cabin on his property would do. He rushed in for the rescue without thinking of the consequences of his actions.
“I actually might be able to temporarily solve your housing problem,” he said, tipping her head up with the calloused pad of his thumb and falling once again into the verdant fields of those green eyes. “But I can assure you that I’m the last person in the world to help anybody find a husband.”
Two
No one was more surprised when Lauren threw her arms around Travis’s neck and kissed him in front of all the invited guests than apparently Lauren, herself.
Except maybe for Travis.
One minute he was doing his best to describe the modest little cabin next to his own house on the homestead that his grandfather staked out back when the government was eager to give away land to any hardy soul who could survive even one brutal Wyoming winter on it. And the next he was on the receiving end of a kiss that knocked him right out of his cowboy boots.
Had there been a single disinterested observer in the room, he or she might have dismissed the gesture as one of overwhelming gratitude mixed with too much champagne punch. In all actuality, Lauren did little more than press her mouth against Travis’s for an instant before drawing away and turning an enchanting shade of pink.
Indeed, it was no open-mouth, long, drawn-out Hollywood kiss that left Travis wanting so much more. He never imagined that a brief sampling of those surprisingly sweet lips could destroy all his illusions about the prudish Ms. Hewett. She tasted of champagne and wild temptation. Behind that unadorned, bookish exterior lay a promise of passion. And the unexpected thought that she might be wearing something seductive under all that fabric was as intriguing to Travis as the kiss itself.
Dissatisfied with such a chaste peck, he was tempted to ravage her mouth with the kind of kiss that would let her know beyond all doubt that he was not a man to be toyed with. He wondered if the timid little mouse would run back to the safety of her hole. Or would such an inappropriate public display transform her into a virtual wild cat—and him into her eager prey?
Travis stood in the middle of the dance floor looking at Lauren as if he were seeing her for the very first time. It was his own startled reaction to her kiss, more than the act itself, that shook him to the very core of his being—a being who had obviously denied himself the pleasure of a woman’s companionship for too long. Not that he could think of anyone else who had such a peculiar effect on him. All of a sudden Travis was feeling so hot that he wouldn’t have been surprised if Fenton rushed over to put him out with another dousing of punch.
“When can I see it?”
For a moment Travis thought Lauren was actually making an indecent inquiry before realizing that she was just asking about the cabin that he said she could stay in until something better came along. A glance around the Victorian style living room of Barbara Aberdeen’s house made him doubt whether the Spartan accommodations he had to offer would suit her sheltered daughter.
“Don’t feel like you have to commit to anything until you’ve seen it,” he warned her.
“All I ask is that it has indoor plumbing.”
Lauren’s hopeful smile reached a pair of eyes shining with excitement. Travis didn’t want her laboring under any delusions.
“It was fitted with modern appliances a few years back, but I can’t vouch for how clean it is. There’s probably a layer of dust an inch thick coating everything.”
“I’m no stranger to a mop and a dust rag,” she assured him.
“The mice have set up housekeeping before you….”
Lauren didn’t so much as flinch.
“I’ll get a cat.”
The least likely candidate in the entire world had just offered her an opportunity on a silver platter and she wasn’t about to look that particular gift horse in the mouth. That she was mentally mixing her metaphors wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the fact that her hormones were mucking up her common sense. She could only assume that Travis Banks was no more attracted to her than she herself was to Fenton Marsh.
Still, for a moment there, when she had so impetuously pressed her lips against his, she imagined feeling his heart leap against hers. With eyes half-closed she could almost hear the rhythm of his heart beating. The thought that she just might have shocked the local playboy put a silly grin on her face. Lauren had a mind to shock the entire community before she was done transforming herself from a caterpillar to a butterfly.
“When would you like me to pick you up so I can show you around the place?” Travis asked.
It pleased Lauren immensely that the young “lady” who had spoken so disparagingly about her earlier in the day happened to overhear that question. When Sylvia Porter’s mouth flew open, Lauren was reminded of some luckless onlooker standing near enough to a slot machine that had just hit the jackpot to salivate over the money spilling onto the floor. She wondered if the silly goose would actually associate what sounded like a request for a date to the fact that Lauren had caught the bouquet she had so badly coveted.
Lauren wasn’t nearly so superstitious herself. But she was ready to make some major changes in her life that required a leap of faith.
“Whatever time works best for you. Since school let out for summer just last week, I can be ready any time,” she told Travis, doing her best to sound breezy.
“I’ll be out of town for the rest of the weekend, but I can pick you up here first thing Monday morning,” he replied.
It was perfect. That would give Lauren enough time to see the wedding couple off and catch her breath before starting to pack her own bags. Unless the cabin was an absolute hovel, she wanted to move in as soon as possible. The nicest wedding gift she could think of giving her mother was her privacy when she returned from her honeymoon cruise.
“It’s a date,” she said, just loud enough for Sylvia to overhear.
Though Lauren was exhausted after driving her mother and Henry to the airport then returning home to clean up after the gala reception, her brain was too busy making plans to let her fall asleep easily that night. Standing before her closet, she studied her wardrobe with a critical eye. It seemed everything she owned was a tasteful blend of blue, black or beige. As much as she loved and admired her mother, shopping with her over the years had clearly limited Lauren’s sense of adventure. All too often, she came home from a sale dressed like a much older woman.
Deciding there was no time like summer to reinvent herself without the added worry of what her students and colleagues might think, Lauren began piling stacks of her most matronly items to give to Good Will. The first article to go was a perfectly serviceable, lace-around-the-high-collar nightgown that her aunt Hattie had given her for Christmas. She might not be ready for a pink feather boa just yet, but she secretly longed for a satin negligee and matching robe to replace her old flannel one. Someday. For now she’d settle for getting rid of the unimpressive outfits populating her life. Soon, the pile included sedate cardigans, demure blouses, conservative skirts and well-below-the-knee dresses. The purge left just a few basics hanging on her closet but she felt more liberated than ever before.
And liberation called for a celebration. Alone in the house for the first time since she could remember, Lauren staged her first conscious act of rebellion against her boring, staid life by sleeping in the nude.
When she awoke from fitful sleep the next morning, she blamed her state of undress for an erotic dream about a man wi
th thick blond hair and smoky-gray eyes the color of fog lifting from the Tetons….
That those eyes were just as impassable in real life as those mighty mountain peaks made no difference to the wanton creature in her dreams who did a whole lot more than simply brush her lips against his.
Lauren was not the type to count on her dreams as being anything more than wishful thinking. Still, when she called her friend Suzanne a little while later and confided that she was ready for a makeover, it was Travis she thought about making herself over for.
“It’s about time!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Dust off your credit card, and I’ll be right over.”
The last of her girlfriends to get married, Suzanne Venice was not one to make light of Lauren’s desire to make a new start for herself. A freethinker and true veteran of the working population, she was of the belief that a woman couldn’t know what she really wanted in life until she reached thirty. Eager and ready to help, she arrived on Lauren’s doorstep less than an hour later with a stack of fashion magazines. A young woman wearing a leather halter top and a denim miniskirt accompanied her.
Suzanne made the appropriate introductions.
“This is my niece Claire who’s visiting for a few days. She just finished cosmetology school. I told her you were ready for something new and different.”
Such a proclamation would have left a weaker woman trembling. Lauren’s experience with beauticians was limited to Mrs. Castone who had been cutting her hair since she was in high school—as well as just about every blue-haired woman’s in town. This left a goodly population of females in Pinedale looking much too much alike and sending the trendier among them elsewhere for a more modern do.
Claire’s look was definitely modern. Spiked out in all directions, her blond hair reminded Lauren of a porcupine. That it actually looked becoming on the neophyte hairdresser was of some comfort. While Suzanne flipped through a stack of fashion magazines, Claire studied Lauren’s face and hair with the intensity of a doctor performing her first surgery.
Only Skin Deep Page 2