all right. It was playing with fire. But damn it, he hadn’t felt like this in…
Come to think of it, maybe he’d never felt exactly like this in his life. And he’d been alone for too long now. Had he been lonely? All right, maybe he had. He’d thought he wanted it that way. But tonight, just for a little while, he only wanted this magic to continue.
Magic. Yes, that was the word. All the talk of fairy godmothers and spells had gotten to him. She had gotten to him, with those innocent blue eyes and that red dress, her tart tongue and that maddening perfume.
He knew himself. Knew that whatever this feeling was, it wouldn’t last. But for right now, for an hour or so, he just didn’t want to let her go.
Lynn’s thoughts were moving along similar lines. She knew as well as Ross did that going to his house was taking this risky flirtation one step too far. But still…
It was her birthday. Her special, magical Cinderella birthday. Tonight, for the first time in her life, she was living a fairy tale. She was Cinderella at the ball, Sleeping Beauty awakened and ugly-duckling-turned-swan all rolled into one.
Don’t let it end yet, she kept thinking. Not yet. Oh, not quite yet…
He put his hand at her back, as he’d done in the restaurant. She felt that touch through every fiber of her being. “Come on,” he said. “It’s too cold to stand here on the street a minute longer. Let’s go.”
The house was five miles northeast of town, perched on a rocky ledge that led down to Black Bear Lake. A soaring structure of rough-hewn spruce logs and tall, gleaming windows, it was surrounded by stately fir trees.
Ross led her inside, took her coat and purse and put them in the closet near the front door. Then he ushered her into a massive great room, where the floor-to-ceiling fireplace was made of big smooth stones—collected from the eastern slopes of the Rockies, he told her. There was a mantel of sorts, a heavy wooden shelf, built into the stones. And a big clock on the mantel. A clock that said it was 7:36.
Ross took a minute to open the fireplace insert and strike a match to the logs already laid over kindling within.
As she waited for him to light the fire, Lynn admired the room. Overhead, huge logs formed the spokes of a giant arching wheel. The furniture around her looked inviting. It was upholstered in deep brown leather and jewel-toned chenille. Out the big windows, through the lacy branches of the firs, she could see the darkly gleaming waters of the lake.
He offered coffee. “Or maybe you’d prefer brandy?”
She decided on the brandy. The very idea of it was just so lovely and decadent. She’d never been a woman who drank brandy. Until tonight.
At the far end of the room, and at a right angle to the fireplace, there was a long bar that divided the kitchen from the dining area. Ross went around behind the bar and took a bottle from a cabinet. From the rack overhead he removed two big balloon-shaped glasses, the kind made just for sipping brandy.
Once he’d poured them each a glass, he gave her a tour. He led her first to his downstairs study with its own library of gold-tooled leather books, then through two bedrooms off the great room, each with its own private bath—and finally up the wide rough-hewn stairs and down a hall.
They glanced into two more bedrooms. Then came the master suite, which was almost as big as the great room downstairs and faced northwest.
Lynn followed him into the room, where rich-colored kilim rugs covered the hardwood floors. His bed was king-size, of heavy, dark wood. In the sitting area the leather chairs were deeply tufted, finished with nailhead trim. Western art and a few rare-looking Indian tapestries adorned the rough-textured walls. Right then, the huge windows showed only the stars and the shadowy forms of the Crazy Mountains in the distance. But in daylight, the view of blue sky and snow-capped mountains would be breathtaking.
She murmured, “Oh, Ross. It’s just beautiful.”
He gave her his rueful smile and ran a forefinger along the surface of a mahogany table. “Dusty, though. My housekeeper is as useless as my secretary.” He didn’t realize his mistake until the words were already out.
Just like that, the lovely mood fizzled and faded.
Ross’s smile faded, too. He shook his head. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
Lynn felt as if a large hand had reached out and shaken her, jarring her cruelly from a sweet and impossible dream. What in the world was she doing here, in a rich man’s bedroom after dark, a glass of brandy in her hand?
She heard herself asking, “Is Trish…really all that bad?”
He didn’t immediately reply, but from the grim set of his mouth she could guess what he was thinking. Finally he allowed, “She’s only—what? Twenty-two? That’s pretty young.”
She knew she should let it go at that. But somehow, she couldn’t. “You didn’t answer my question.”
His expression turned pained. “Look, I—” He paused, then admitted, “I’m sorry. I know you’re loyal to your sister. But the simple fact is, she’s not working out.”
It was much worse than that, though Ross didn’t say so.
The real truth was, Trish Taylor was driving him right up the wall.
He probably should have known the girl was hopeless from the first. But then, he was accustomed to working in a major firm, where Personnel carefully screened applicants before he ever talked to them.
At first meeting, she’d seemed bright; she’d lacked experience, but he’d thought she would learn fast. And she was attractive. When he’d interviewed her, she’d worn a nice dark blue business suit; her looks, he’d decided, would be a real plus in terms of an office image. How could he have known that as soon as Trish Taylor had the job, she’d go back to the too-short denim skirts and the dangling Lily Mae Wheeler-type earrings she obviously preferred?
And her office skills?
She didn’t have any. The girl had graduated from business school in Bozeman. Her résumé had claimed she knew shorthand and typed sixty words a minute. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to decipher her shorthand after she took it. And he’d seen her type. He could type faster, using only two fingers. She was always losing files—in her desktop computer and in the row of legal-sized file cabinets that lined the wall to the right of her work area.
Lynn was looking down into the amber depths of her brandy. “Maybe if you talked to her…?”
God, he did not want to discuss this with her.
But she wouldn’t give it up—any more than she would look into his eyes right then. “Ross. Have you talked to her?”
“Yes. I have.”
He’d talked to Trish, all right. More than once. A week ago he’d finally told her frankly that she’d better concentrate harder on her work—or look for another job. It hadn’t done any good.
Ross knew the main problem; he’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to know it. Trish Taylor had a flaming crush on him. Instead of doing her job, she spent her working hours gazing off into nowhere with dreamy eyes, blushing every
