to head home dressed as she was. Besides, she hadn’t taken that selfie, and she wanted Gram to see her all dolled up, with her hair and makeup done.
She could hardly wait to see the look on her grandmother’s face.
But it wasn’t just Gram who’d get a gander at Amber after GiGi and her magic makeup box had their way with her. When she arrived at the ranch, she found a couple of unexpected vehicles parked in the yard. The first was Elmer’s green machine, which she supposed shouldn’t have been all that surprising. She couldn’t say the same for the other one, though, which was Quinn Drummond’s pickup, the one Jensen had been using.
Evidently the handsome Brit had decided to stop by unannounced, which was fine with Amber. But from the look on Jensen’s face, the surprise was really on him.
While looking in the mirror of the Grange Hall restroom, she’d wondered what he would think if he was to see her in the saloon-girl getup. But in all her imagining, she hadn’t been able to envision his actual expression when she climbed out of her truck dressed in red satin, her hair pulled up in that fancy twist GiGi had coiffed, her face painted, her shoulders bare and her breasts ready to burst out of the neckline.
And poor Jensen looked a bit stunned, to say the least. You’d think he didn’t know whether he was afoot or on horseback.
When Amber climbed out of the ranch pickup dressed like she’d just stepped off the back lot of a Wild West movie set, she could have knocked Jensen over with a feather boa—if she’d been wearing one. And that seemed to be the only thing missing.
She smiled as she closed the driver’s door. “Cat got your tongue?”
Apparently, more than his tongue was missing. His brain had been nabbed along with it.
“What’s the matter?” A grin tickled her lips. “You’re looking at me as though you think I’ve been out on the town, throwing down whiskey shots and dancing on the bar of every beer joint in the county. Haven’t you ever seen a saloon-girl costume before?”
Yes, but she’d caught him completely off guard, and he’d be darned if he knew what to say.
“Have you been driving around town dressed like that?” he asked, hating the jealousy that found its way into his voice.
At that, her grin faded. “No, I just came back from the Grange Hall.”
“What, pray tell, were you doing out in public dressed like that?”
She crossed her arms, which thrust her breasts upward—and nearly out of the outfit completely. “Is this some kind of inquisition?”
“No, I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to be. It’s just that...” He scanned the length of her, from the upswept hair and—blimey. Had her eyes always been so large, her lashes so thick? And those cherry-red lips...
His imagination, along with his hormones, was running amok. And while he’d never considered himself a jealous man, he didn’t like the idea of her running around town so...so exposed.
“Did you stop by for a reason?”
Actually, he had. He’d noticed a breach in paparazzi security at the ranch and thought he’d slip away to see her in person, to ask if she’d like to ride into Vicker’s Corners to spend some time together. He hadn’t given the details much thought yet, but he wouldn’t be opposed to taking her for an ice cream cone and some window-shopping or some other perfectly simple and innocent venture.
He’d been going stir-crazy inside his sister’s house, and if he had to look at Quinn and Amelia gushing all over each other anymore, he’d take a polo mallet to the first camera lens he might encounter upon his escape. Luckily, though, he hadn’t had to take extreme measures to slip away.
But seeing Amber dressed like one of the vixens of the Wild West, he was no longer thinking of ice cream or considering a date that would end up being either simple or innocent.
“I came by to see you,” he admitted. “Just to talk, or to maybe whisk you away for a bit. But seeing you dressed like that—stunning and beautiful... Well, you’ve just shot my original plan all to hell. And now I’d like to whisk you away all right. But to live out a cowboy’s romantic fantasy.”
She glanced down at the dress, and his gaze followed, continuing down her shapely legs. Damn. It had to be the most grievous of sins to keep limbs like that covered in denim.
“The folks down at Cowboy Country USA were looking for a local girl to be in their ad campaign. They also...” She paused, glanced at her bare feet, which made him wonder what shoes she’d been sporting earlier. “Well, they had some other coals in the fire, which is what Larry Byerly had been talking to me about the other night at the Hollows Cantina. So Gram stitched up this costume for me, and I met him and another fellow at the Grange Hall earlier. It was all fun and games on my part. Sort of. I probably should have changed before I came home, but—”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
They stood like that for a moment, in the waning light of dusk—the beautiful saloon girl and the...
What? Who was he, really? A British royal—or a polished, stuffed toff?
Right this minute, though, it seemed that the only answer that really mattered was the one Amber could give him. And as the silence enveloped them, the layers of his facade—some gold, perhaps most gilded, but all of them carefully erected over the years or maybe even the centuries—seemed to slowly peel away.
The sounds and scents of the Texas ranch in the evening set an interesting stage for an intriguing fantasy that was building by the minute. And in spite of his social standing, his upbringing and his better judgment—which he couldn’t seem to fall back upon—a question rolled out of his mouth. “Is there someplace where we can be alone?”
Amber gazed at him with soulful eyes, and as she did, something passed between them—although he’d be damned if he knew what it was, since he’d never experienced the like.
“Gram and Elmer are in the house,” she said, “but there is somewhere close by where we can talk in private, although it’s not suitable for royalty.”
“I’m not royalty. I’m just...Jensen.”
And tonight, that’s exactly who he was.
Amber took his hand and led him to the barn. Once inside, she turned on the light. “There’s no one around to see us in here—other than the horses. And I can assure you that they won’t gossip or take photo ops.”
“That’s a relief.” He led her over to a hay bale, and they took a seat. But once they did, things turned awkward.
When he’d mentioned getting her alone, he hadn’t meant to sit and talk. And doing any more than that in a barn...well, it just didn’t need contemplating.
He had no idea what to say, other than how utterly beautiful she was—and how just looking at her gave him an out-of-body experience. Bloody hell, it was an out-of-this-century experience, as well.
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