Cassie Walker had something else. Something all her own…
No, she didn’t have the exaggerated cheekbones and sunken cheeks that were the prerequisites of the models he’d met in his travels, but she did have high cheekbones. It was just that they were more like little red apples. Little red apples that made her look healthy and full of life.
She also didn’t have the surgically precise nose or the forehead that would absorb a photographer’s light and cast it back just right. But what she did have was a smooth, flawless complexion and a nose that was small and pert and gave her a sort of air of mischief.
What Cassie Walker had was freshness. And what seemed to him like an inner sunshine that came through a face that was so pretty, so sweet, it just made him want to smile every time he thought about it, every time he pictured her in his head. It made him want to smile the way she smiled. With lips that were just curvy enough, just full enough, just luscious enough, without being overly anything.
And those dimples that appeared when she did smile? He was a sucker for those. They definitely put her over the top.
The dimples and her eyes.
She had great eyes. Turquoise, but more green than blue. Only unlike the stone, her eyes weren’t an opaque turquoise. They were luminous and glimmering and had a transparent quality to them.
She wasn’t statuesque, either. She was actually on the small side—not more than two or three inches over five feet, he thought. Tiny, almost, compared to the women he was used to. But tight and just round enough where it counted.
He’d liked her. That was the bottom line to it all, and he knew it. That was why he hadn’t been able to avoid thoughts like those he was having about her at that moment.
And it wasn’t only her looks or her body. She had a touch of attitude that had given him a charge, too. Despite the fact that the attitude had come through when she’d alluded to not being thrilled with the gig the dean had obviously thrust upon her at the last minute.
Attitude and spunk. In a package that might not fit into the category of fashion model, but that defined the word adorable for him.
And if that package were gift wrapped? It would have been gift wrapped in gingham.
Gingham that he might like to take some time to slowly, leisurely, tear away…
“Did you hear that, Joshua?”
The sound of his name brought Joshua out of his fantasy and forced him to pay attention to his sister and the two cowboys again.
“No, sorry, I didn’t,” he answered Alyssa’s question, hoping whatever it was he’d been supposed to hear had been said quietly enough to make it possible that it hadn’t reached him.
“They said would you make sure when we leave that the motorcycle doesn’t tear up the pasture,” Alyssa repeated.
“Sure,” he agreed. “No problem.”
Satisfied, the cowboys said goodbye to them both then and when Alyssa stepped back, they turned the horses and sauntered off the way they’d come.
“Why do I have the feeling there are horseback riding lessons in your future?” Joshua joked as his sister rejoined him on the blanket, glad to have her company to hopefully distract him from all those thoughts of Cassie Walker.
Alyssa’s sunny face erupted into a very pleased grin. “Horseback riding lessons,” she mused. “That might be a good idea. Now that I’m in Montana. This is the Wild West, after all.”
“Pace yourself, Lyssa. Don’t forget you’re new to this femme fatale stuff.”
Alyssa only smiled.
“You are new to it, aren’t you?” Joshua probed, wondering suddenly if this was just the first he was seeing of something that had been going on for a while.
“Whatever you say,” his sister finally responded as if humoring him. “But don’t you forget that I haven’t been locked away in a convent—even if that was how you saw boarding school. It was still in the heart of the French Riviera and there was some fraternizing with other, coed schools and the locals in town. You visited only when you could get away and that left me with a lot of time to fill….”
Joshua grimaced as if he were hearing more than he wanted to hear. “Leave me my illusions,” he begged.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“Okay. Then we should probably be heading back soon so you can change for that meet-and-greet tonight,” Alyssa said then.
“Mmm. It’s just so nice and peaceful and quiet out here.”
“And with fabulous scenery,” she said, glancing at the cowboys retreating into the distance.
“Illusions. Remember my illusions,” Joshua reminded her.
Alyssa laughed, obviously enjoying the misery she was causing him. But she went back to the safer subject just the same. “You’re sure you want to do the meet-and-greet alone tonight?”
“Yeah, to test the waters,” Joshua confirmed. “So far you’ve made it under the radar on your own, but it’s tougher for me since I get splashed around the tabloids more. Before too many people connect us, let’s make sure there isn’t any initial recognition that might blow it for you.”
“I haven’t even had a single you-know-who-you-look-like here.”
“Which is great. That’s just what we want. Hopefully I’ll get by the same way and maybe we’ll be home free.”
“I hate for you to have to go alone tonight, though,” Alyssa said.
“I won’t be alone. I’ll be with your adviser. She’s been assigned to me by the powers that be who want donations. You know how that goes—I’m sure she has orders not to leave my side.”
The idea of Cassie Walker’s company pleased him more than he wanted it to. More than it should have, given the fact that it would be against her will. Which, admittedly, was a downer. And yet he was still happy to be going into the evening knowing he would get to see her again.
Then, because he couldn’t stop himself and this seemed like a way of doing it without raising undue suspicion, he said, “So, tell me about her.”
“Her? Cassie?”
“Yeah.”
Alyssa frowned slightly at him. “I can’t tell you anything about her because I don’t know anything about her. She’s been nice. Like I said before, she got me out of that chemistry class I hated when the instructor wouldn’t sign my drop form. She talked to him for me and persuaded him to do it after all. But beyond that—”
“Do you at least know if she’s married? Or single? Or engaged? Or involved with someone?”
Alyssa reared back slightly and took a closer look at him.
Joshua knew he was no good at fooling her, but he had his fingers
