by Lori Wilde
“Better make it two, lady. Takes some looking to find what you want in there.”
She agreed and was glad of it when she hurried out two hours later with purchases that strained her credit card but buoyed up her self-esteem. She could still dress herself, thank you very much, Your Highness.
The rain stopped for a while in the late afternoon but began again while Leigh dressed for the evening in her new duds. She’d settled for a little dress with a ruffle that left lots of leg showing between the hem and her rhinestone boots. She hoped the clear sparkly stones wouldn’t fall out, but she loved them because they complemented the dangly earrings she’d worn to the ball.
She teased her straight strands until she had big hair and topped the dress with a white vest stamped with cattle brands. She’d never worn a cowboy hat before, but she punched the white felt a few times to give it a used look. She’d passed up the rhinestone sunglasses and now regretted it.
She couldn’t wait to see Max’s reaction to her getup.
“Buster, you’ve bitten off more than you can handle this time,” she said in her best John Wayne imitation.
She was standing in a cloud of hairspray when he knocked. With a last pat on her stiff hair, she put on the hat and ambled to the door in the surprisingly comfortable boots.
“Howdy, stranger,” she said, owing more to Mae West than John Wayne.
He really looked like a stranger—and a heart-stopping one at that. His plaid flannel shirt and fringed suede jacket were classics of the Old West, but his jeans were stone-washed and designer-sleek, hugging his thighs and leaving no gender doubts. The cuffs were outside his tooled leather boots and, ever the gentleman, he had hat in hand.
“What a waste,” he said with a whistle.
“I beg your pardon! I bought these clothes myself, so you don’t have to worry about waste. I happen to like them.”
“I happen to love them.” He stepped inside and closed the door. “Unfortunately, the street festival has been canceled. That’s what I meant by waste—I would love showing off my cowgirl-fiancée.”
“I thought maybe it would be moved inside.” She was surprised by the intensity of her disappointment. After all, it was only another social event, not an enchanted ball.
“No, we’re free for the evening.”
“Don’t feel you have to entertain me.”
“I’m entertained just by seeing you. You’re a chameleon—no matter what you wear, it’s perfect for you.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t used to his compliments. She hoped her made-up cheeks disguised her blush.
“We still have to eat,” he said, taking the glow off his compliment by suggesting he was there only because he was hungry. “What would you say to trying the hotel cuisine? It’s not a night to go looking for a restaurant. I thought we could order room service.”
“No.”
“Very well, there are several restaurants in the hotel that look promising. If you’d like to select one...”
“No, thank you.”
He kept his cool; she had to concede that. Or else he didn’t really care whether she joined him for dinner.
“You’re leaving me no choice but to dine alone. I took your comments about my bodyguards to heart. I’ve given both of them—Albert, too—a free evening.”
“You give up too easily.” She pretended to pout. “I didn’t dress up like a rodeo queen to hang around the Ali Baba Hotel.”
He smiled broadly, the high-magnitude glow on his face throwing off heat she could feel all the way to her rhinestone boots.
“You wouldn’t say no to some local color?” he asked. “Not if it means real barbecue sauce, the kind that burns your tongue and drips down your chin.”
“Ribs we yank apart with our hands?”
“Chicken we eat with our fingers.”
“Have you ever tried dancing in a row?” he asked.
“Line dancing! No, but I’ve never had boots before, either.” She grinned.
“Do you know a place?”
“Nope, but I know how to find one.”
“The concierge?”
“A cabdriver. That’s how I found a place to buy these.” She twirled with outstretched arms to give him the full effect of her outfit.
“I’m convinced.”
“I’m wearing my poncho. Do you want to get a raincoat?”
“With a hat like this, ma’am,” he said, plunking on his, “a man is his own umbrella.”
“Can we do this? Won’t you be recognized? It won’t be much fun if we can’t escape notice.”
“Leave it to me.” He ducked into the bathroom and ran water while she wondered what he was doing.
When he came out, his hair was slicked back and most of his shirt was unbuttoned. She longed to run her hands over the broad expanse of his chest.
“This may not fool everyone, but it will confuse enough people to let us make our getaway.”
He was good at sneaking out, she noted. They got off the elevator on the second floor, walked down, hurried out an exit in a wing of the hotel used for conferences, and caught a taxi just entering the long drive to the main entrance.
“James Bond couldn’t make a cleaner escape,” she teased. “Were you trained in evasion techniques, or is it a natural gift?”
“Trial and error.” He took off his damp hat and put it on the seat of the cab, making it necessary to sit closer to her.
“We want to line dance and eat barbecue,” Leigh told the driver who’d just made a probably illegal U-turn and was ready to reenter traffic. “But not a touristy place.”
The driver was young with greasy blond hair curling over the collar of his denim jacket. He worked a wad of bubble gum thoughtfully over the tip of his tongue.
“No place like that around here,” he said. “There’s about seventeen hotels in this square mile.” He waved his arm and changed lanes, followed by an irate honk from a semi.
“We’re good for a half hour of cab time. Is there a place in that range?”
“It doesn’t matter—” Max began, leaning forward like a man about to take charge.
She tugged on his sleeve and shook her head just enough to give him a warning.
“There’s Logan’s Saloon, but they get a rough crowd. Noisy place. Sometimes there’s some fighting.”
“Tourists?” Leigh asked.
“Naw, not in that neighborhood.”
“Where else—” Max began again, but she interrupted.
“Take us there.” She looked at Max to see if he really objected, but he grinned and shrugged, letting her know he was ready to follow her, at least this once.
“You got it.” The cabbie swerved across two lanes, jamming Leigh against the door and throwing Max practically on her lap.
“Sorry. Are you all right?” Max put space between them, but not much.
“Guess seat belts are called for.”
She reached down but could only find one strap.
“Here, let me.” He slid forward and dug a buckle out of the crevice between the seat and the back, then reached across her lap to take the one she was holding. He couldn’t make the ends meet.
“Either I’ve gained weight or those don’t go together,” she said, wondering if he could feel her breasts through the suede arm of his jacket.
“Sorry.”
He dipped into the crevice again, this time coming up with a tangle of belts and a candy bar wrapper.
“You’ve hit garbage. Forget it.”
“No, I believe in taking precautions.”
Was he talking about seat belts...or something else? The question made her nerves tingle.
He reached on either side of her, somehow managing to sort out the tangle behind her back, and brought two matching ends together dead center over her tummy. In the process he tickled her tailbone, checked out the circumference of her waist, and raised her skirt six inches. This was a side of the prince she hadn’t experienced.
“I’m well protected now,
thank you,” she said, removing his hand from her thigh.
Ordinarily she’d have no objection whatsoever to the location of his hand. In fact, she felt as malleable as kid’s clay.
She was quivering, and her mind was doing flip-flops, imagining those fingers on her skin, doing wonderful things in all the right places. But she wasn’t his to fondle. No way, Maximilian Augustus Frederick. It would be hard enough when this charade ended. She didn’t want her memory of the ball sullied by some meaningless groping in the back seat of a cab.
Meaningless for him, that is. That was the problem.
“Aren’t you going to wear a seat belt?” she asked him.
“No, it’s not necessary.” He was angry with himself, not her, and immediately regretted his harsh tone.
“You’re the one with the fate of a nation dependent on this cabbie’s driving skills,” she said in a haughty whisper.
He’d tried to fondle her like a schoolboy, and now she was scolding him like a nanny. The only way this relationship could sink lower was for him to reveal how he really felt about her—and have her use it in an article.
Words failed him. He grabbed two straps and clicked them together in his lap with a snort of disgust at himself.
“You did it again—harrumph.”
“I did?” He was wrong about sinking lower—now he felt ridiculous. Maybe, in spite of his attempts to be a caring considerate person, he was really only a royal bore.
He hadn’t been tormented by self-doubt like this since he’d started shaving. Was this the man Leigh saw, the one she wanted to expose in her magazine? Or was he exaggerating everything because he was overwhelmed by his feelings and plagued by doubts about hers? She was his Lorelei, a sultry siren he couldn’t resist even if it meant shipwreck and disaster as it had in the old legend.
Not only that, he was being melodramatic, a weakness inherited from his royal grandfather, God rest his soul. Usually Max suppressed this tendency, but here he was, in search of a fantasy of freedom—dressed as an American cowboy, master of his domain and free to love a woman of his own choosing. He almost told the driver to turn around, but if he changed his mind about the escapade, he’d lose this precious opportunity to be alone with Leigh.
“We’ll play a game,” she said. “If you harrumph one more time tonight, you have to pay a penalty.”
“What penalty?”
“That’s for me to decide.”
“Only if I transgress...”
“Of course.”
“Since my— What do you call it?”
“Harrumph.”
“Since my harrumph offends you, I’ll play your game. Will I be allowed to name my reward if I win?”
“I guess that’s only fair,” she said reluctantly.
“Until midnight then. Do you agree?”
“Until midnight.” She made it sound like a solemn pact. The cab deposited them in front of a sprawling log building with a gaudy neon sign on the roof: Logan’s Saloon. What he could see of the parking lot offered him a view of acres of pickup trucks.
When he opened the door, a blast of sound hit them like exhaust from a jet. He’d expected a country band; he wasn’t prepared for music amplified enough to make the walls vibrate. He nearly backed out, but he looked down at Leigh, her cheeks flushed with excitement and her lips turned upward in an enchanting smile. He’d follow this woman into a bear cave.
“How many?”
The hostess wore pink boots, a ruffled black skirt up to her panty line, and a stretchy halter top that didn’t flatter her huge breasts. She looked all of eighteen. He wanted to send her home to wash off the overdone makeup and put on decent clothes. He’d thought he was still young at thirty-two, but maybe he was turning into his father. But not tonight.
“Just two,” he replied.
The girl led them to a high table with a round shiny black top and two stools placed across from each other.
“I guess we perch here,” Leigh said, stepping on a chair rung to wriggle onto the seat.
He climbed up, too, and leaned forward, elbows on the table. The light was dim, but her eyes were like pools in a dense forest, deep and mysterious with sparkling green glints. He was drowning in those depths. He reached out, took her hand, and brought it slowly to his lips.
This was the prince who’d held her in his arms at the ball. He gently touched her fingers with his mouth, parting them, caressing with his lips.
“I’m glad you came out with me,” he said—or at least that was what she thought he said. The music was ear-shattering. If they were going to communicate, they’d need sign language or a pad of paper.
He solved the problem by moving his stool next to hers, sitting so close he could speak directly into her ear. His words tickled—or so she told herself, not ready to admit that the wonderful tingling sensation radiating down her throat and making her breasts throb was part of his magic.
He ordered wine without consulting her and got a carafe of bitter red stuff that puckered her mouth.
“Terrible,” he said, rolling a sip over his tongue like a man testing a good vintage.
“Vile.”
“I’ll send it back.”
“No.” She held out the juice glass that came with it and clinked it against his. “We’ll get used to the taste.”
He gave her a choice on the menu. They ordered the house special for two: chicken and ribs with all the fries they could eat. It came with sauce so tangy the wine started to taste mellow. The waitress tied paper bibs on them, and they were grease-spattered and spotted with bright-red sauce by the time they finished.
Then they danced. Max was born with wings on his feet. He stood watching on the sidelines for all of two minutes, then pulled her out to join the bobbing, ducking, prancing, hooting crowd. She tried to follow and got out of step and out of line, but he took her fingers in his, holding them up, and his natural grace seemed to flow through her.
They didn’t stop until the band took a break and the place was oddly silent—for all of thirty seconds. Then recorded music started wailing through overhead speakers, and the slow dancers stampeded the floor.
There were old folks and young in all sizes, shapes, and degrees of skill. Over Max’s shoulders she saw lip-to-lip dancing, necking set to music, and a skinny cowboy who seemed to be dancing with two women, switching back and forth between them in rhythm to a plaintive song about infidelity. A portly couple danced with the grace of ballerinas, and a wizened old lady with pure-white hair was leading a gawky young man around the floor with audible instructions.
It wasn’t the Silver and Gold Ball, but Leigh was enjoying herself more than she could have imagined.
“I love this,” she said.
“I love you,” he said.
At least that was what she thought he said. She couldn’t ask him to repeat it. Maybe she’d only imagined it. Maybe the words came from the sound system. That was probably it. She must have heard the words from the male vocalist, whose accent was as foreign to her as Max’s.
He was holding her so close their knees were bumping and their thighs rubbing. What he was thinking about her probably had nothing to do with love and a whole lot to do with lust.
She was dancing with a prince, and she envied every woman who swirled past who could go home with a man she loved.
But she’d have to say goodbye forever to Max, and she didn’t know if she could live without this wonderful, beautiful man who was holding her so close she could feel the pounding of his heart, hear the echo of her own pulse.
She was breathless, her thoughts jumbled. And then he kissed her.
No big deal. People were kissing all over the place, stealing little pecks, doing calisthenics with their lips, exchanging romantic caresses with their mouths. It was probably catching: monkey see, monkey do.
Max did. They stopped in the middle of a crowd of enthusiastic dancers, making people flow around them like stream water diverted by a big boulder, and he really kissed her. He made her
lips pulsate and sent shock waves to her groin.
He filled her mouth with his tongue and did indescribable things that made her melt. She clung to him and tried to kiss him back, but he overpowered her; this was his kiss. The longer it went on, the longer she wanted it to last.
Something changed. She opened her eyes to find them virtually alone on the dance floor.
“Max.” She pushed him, gently and reluctantly, and heard the snickers and the outright laughter.
The music had stopped, and they hadn’t.
“Way to go, fella!”
“Hey, I’ll take one, too, cowboy!”
Leigh wanted to sink through the floor. Max put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her once more, this time for the crowd. He got applause; she got whistles. Or maybe it was the other way around. They walked off the floor and doubled over in laughter. Finally, he hoisted her onto the stool by their table and gave her a congratulatory hug.
“You handled that like a queen,” he said. “Will you forgive me?”
“I’ll give it some thought.” But all she could think was: Is he as shell-shocked as I am?
He ordered white wine that had the bouquet of cider vinegar, and they toasted everything from the Dallas Cowboys to the inventor of the high-heeled boot.
“To the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, raising his squat little glass and not waiting for her to click hers against it.
Were they tipsy? The cabdriver must have thought so when, much later, he drove them back to the hotel. But he was all smiles when Max handed him a fifty-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.
“You’re too extravagant!” she chided as they hurried into the hotel. “A couple of dollars would have been plenty.”
“You’re too frugal. I told you to charge a few clothes to your room, and you bought your own.”
“I can buy my own clothes.”
“You certainly can. I love what you’re wearing.”
There was that word again: love. She didn’t want to hear that he loved her cowgirl skirt or her rhinestone boots, but there was no way to ask if he’d really said, “I love you,” earlier in the evening.
“Did Albert buy those jeans for you?” she asked.