Only Skin Deep (3 page)

By the time they rolled back into town well after dark, Lauren felt like a movie star herself—a rather nervous movie star wondering when her leading man was going to make an appearance in her latest script….

 

As promised, Travis arrived bright and early Monday morning to take Lauren to his grandfather's old cabin to see if she was even slightly interested in renting it. Claiming that she would be doing him a favor by simply keeping the mice at bay, he had already offered it to her for free, but she wouldn't so much as think of staying there without paying something. Travis supposed she didn't want anyon
e thinking that she was a “kept” woman or something equally archaic.

The thought brought a smile to his lips as he sauntered up the well-tended walk to Lauren's front door. He couldn't imagine anyone believing the conservative Ms. Hewett capable of such debauchery. After the wedding reception last Thursday, Travis had spent a little time thinking about that spontaneous kiss Lauren had given him. He'd finally come to the conclusion that he had greatly overestimated its impact. It was easy enough to blame his reaction on the fact that he had deprived himself of female company for too long. Having been taken by surprise, his testosterone had simply kicked into overdrive. He wouldn't let himself be so easily ambushed today.

When Lauren met him at the door, he couldn't have
been more startled than had she greeted him wearing absolutely nothing at all. Mouth open, he stared at her in confusion.

“What did you do different?” he blurted out with uncharacteristic lack of tact.

He wondered if she'd booked an appointment on one of those extreme makeover television shows. Surely a pair of pants couldn't make such an amazing change. The smile she gave him was nothing short of dazzling and made him feel somehow taller simply for having shown up on her doorstep.

“I cut my hair,” she said simply enough. “Do you like it?”

“As a rule, I don't like short hair on women,” he admitted honestly enough.

Nevertheless, Travis certainly found hers a tremendous improvement. He was struck by an urge to run his fingers though it and see if it really was as soft and shiny as it looked. Watching the corners of her lips turn from a smile to a frown, he realized too late that he had hurt her feelings. He hadn't meant to. His mother had raised him better than to insult a lady, and he hastened to remedy his blunder.

“It looks nice on you, though. In fact you look great.”

Glad he didn't have to lie, he wondered if a haircut and new clothes could really transform this shy wallflower into a blossoming Cinderella. Finding no fairy godmother hovering in the near vicinity, Travis reminded himself that he was the last person in the world to question what a woman did to herself. His ex-wife had
made it clear that any decision involving her own body was entirely the woman's prerogative.

Including whether or not she wanted to carry his baby….

Jaclyn wasn't one to strap herself to an endless pile of dirty diapers, or run after some ungrateful “rug rat.” Never mind the fact that she'd claimed to be on birth control when she wasn't. Or that she'd used her pregnancy to force a proposal out of him in the first place. Or that she'd ultimately terminated it without his consent.

Travis had never felt so helpless in his whole life. Nor so angry.

Or hurt.

The memory of that tragic day swamped him. To this day, he had to turn away whenever he saw a father and son playing catch in the park. Or a dad teaching his “little princess” how to ride a bike. Or a happy young couple playing peek-a-boo with an infant. Sucked in by dark waters passing under the bridge of time, Travis tried to shake off his murky thoughts while waiting for Lauren to lock her front door behind her.

“Not many people around here bother with that,” he observed.

“I know, but nowadays you have to be careful about who you trust.”

Travis couldn't agree with her more. Reminding himself that sometimes monsters wore pretty, deceptive faces, he redoubled his efforts to give his heart the same consideration Lauren gave her mother's house. Such conscientiousness boded well for her reliability as a
renter, but considering the isolation of his cabin, he assured her that such wariness would be completely un-warranted “out in the boonies.”

A gentle breeze carried the delicate scent of her jasmine perfume as they walked to his pickup. Opening the passenger door of his one-ton dually for her, Travis realized it was a fragrance that could get under a man's skin. He hadn't been able to get it out of his mind since the reception, and right now it was making him itchy from the inside out.

Standing just under five foot five inches in her stocking feet, Lauren needed a stepladder to climb into the truck. Seeing as he didn't carry one around with him, Travis offered to help her up into the cab. He was glad she didn't object when he put his hands on either side of her waist and gave her a little boost. And relieved that she didn't slap him when they lingered there a moment longer than they should have.

Their gazes collided. Travis lost himself in a pair of eyes the color of aspen leaves at the first sign of spring. There was no softer color on the face of the earth. The air in his lungs got stuck there as he forgot to breathe.

Just the other day on the dance floor he'd had to fight his way through all those filmy layers of chiffon just to even find her waist. Today Lauren wasn't bothering to hide her mouthwatering physical attributes. A crop top the color of pale lemon meringue was tucked enticingly into a pair of slacks. There was nothing particularly sexy about the pants that Travis could see—other than
the way they hugged her hips made him want to peel them off of her.

Whoa! This is no frivolous little swinger looking for a good time. This is a woman who's made no bones about the fact that she's looking to settle down. Hell, I'm not so sure she was joking earlier when she asked you to marry her. And you, cowboy, are about as eager to tie that knot again as somebody standing on the gallows….

With that solemn reproof in mind, Travis purposely worked at keeping the conversation light as they traveled the five miles out of town to the Half Moon Ranch. Nestled into the base of the mountains and dissected by a picturesque river, it had been in the Banks family for generations and meant everything to Travis. That land was as much a part of him as the marrow in his bones.

Against his lawyer's advice, Travis maintained that Jaclyn was welcome to anything she wanted in the divorce—except the ranch itself. A woman devoid of sentimentality or an appreciation of nature, Jaclyn had wanted to subdivide the property the instant she calculated its value by an investor's standard. She simply couldn't understand why anyone would endure the long hours and physical labor necessary to keep such a massive operation going when a killing could be made by selling it off. It hadn't taken her long to discover that the life of a rancher's wife was not the one of luxury that she'd expected. And to abandon it as quickly as she had her vows.

The scent of Lauren's perfume, with its own subtle, flirtatious voice, filled any lapses in the conversation
and kept him from traveling too far down old roads. Lauren seemed so excited about the prospect of having her own place that she was oblivious to the effect she was having on him. Travis was glad he'd paid someone to come over on the weekend to straighten the place up. He didn't care whether Lauren actually rented it or not, but he didn't want her mocking that which held a special place in his heart. The times he had spent with his grandfather in that old cabin were among his best childhood memories.

He didn't need to worry. Lauren fell in love with it the moment she set eyes on it.

“It's perfect!” she exclaimed as if seeing the Taj Mahal instead of the humble little cabin that his ex-wife considered an eye sore.

Sentimental value, and a certain measure of spite, had kept Travis from complying with Jaclyn's repeated requests to tear it down. There was no denying that the place was a fixer-upper, but that only seemed to endear it to Lauren all the more. As she bubbled over with ideas on how to dress up the windows and what kind of furniture would be coziest in front of the rock fireplace, Travis couldn't help but grin at her enthusiasm.

She turned her back to gaze out the window at the Bridger Wilderness in a moment of reverie. The pristine peaks in the background had nothing on the silhouette with which she presented him. It was surprisingly hard to keep his arms from encircling her curvaceous figure and sharing the view with her.

“This window is the focal point of the living room,
don't you think? Would you mind if I pounded a few nails in the walls? If I promise to use only small ones?”

Travis knew how much it would have pleased Grandpa to see someone appreciate the place enough to pay it any kind of loving touch. Only a few hardy perennials that Grandma Banks had planted years ago still bloomed in a neglected window box. He wondered if Lauren would bother to pluck the weeds that were choking them out.

“Pound away,” he said, fighting to keep his imagination from leading him to thoughts of undressing this woman right there on the old horsehair couch against the wall.

Lauren's eyes shone as she thanked him, promising to keep the integrity of the place intact when considering a decorating scheme.

Travis didn't think there was any way she could hurt the place. After all, those thick, old logs had weathered the years without giving up an ounce of character.

“You're welcome to keep any of the furniture here. If you're sure you want to move in, I'll haul anything you don't want to the dump. It's been so long since anyone lived here, I can't even guess what your electric bill will be. As little square footage as there is, it can't be much.”

Not one to quibble over the price of answered prayers, Lauren brushed off his concerns with yet another blinding smile. The wink she gave him was so unexpectedly playful that it caught Travis off guard and left him wondering if he hadn't, in fact, imagined it.

“Don't worry about that. Hopefully, I'll be out of here by the time winter rolls around since I only plan on being here until I'm married.”

A
s odd a look as Travis gave her, Lauren might as well have told him that she was catching a ride on the next spaceship to Mars. That he was so taken aback by her announcement was insulting. For the first time all day, she stiffened in his presence. She may not measure up to the supermodel types with whom he was rumored to cavort, but over the past few days she had come to the conclusion that a man could do worse than be seen around town with her.

“I didn't even know you were engaged,” Travis stammered.

Lauren waved her hand as if dismissing something inconsequential.

“I'm not. Yet.”

A firm believer in the force of language, she subscribed to the concept that a person's words shaped her future. That is, if she were to ask God for help and accepted what came about as a natural consequence of that prayer, Lauren liked to think that everything she needed would come to her at the perfect time. With her mother firmly entrenched in a new life, Lauren was ready to ask a generous universe to bestow upon her the man of her dreams. Whoever was sent to her didn't have to be particularly good-looking or have lots of money. She just wanted to finish out the rest of her days with a gentle and kind man who loved children and appreciated a good woman. Too bad if Travis Banks was above such humble dreams.

“Don't worry,” she said dryly, hoping to wipe the stricken look from his face with the same flirtatious sense of humor that had seemed to work earlier. “I can't say that I've met the lucky man yet. But I believe the secret of success is a good set of plans.”

Looking relieved to hear that he wasn't presently in the crosshairs of her sights, he assumed the air of an amused Southerner as he drawled, “Why, Ms. Hewett, are you telling me that you are planning to entertain gentlemen callers on the property?”

Without missing a beat, Lauren batted her eyelashes at him in gross exaggeration. But the tone she employed was thoroughly modern. “That is exactly what I'm telling you. Do you have a problem with that?”

Her directness was disconcerting. Travis was surprised to feel a slight sense of relief to hear that she
wasn't engaged yet. Since he seriously doubted that a woman of Lauren's sterling reputation was going to be throwing wild parties any time soon, he had no qualms about handing the key over to her—other than the fact that he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind ever since she'd laid that harmless little kiss on him a couple of days ago.

“Of course not,” he assured her with a wink of his own. “You can turn the place into a playgirl mansion for all I care.”

 

Ignoring the blunt edge of his verbal irony, Lauren held out her hand to accept the key he offered. Freedom glinted off its brassy surface. Five miles out of town may not be enough to keep the local gossipmongers quiet, but it should be far enough away to give her a sense of privacy and autonomy.

Her own place! What a sweet refrain those words were to a woman striking out on her own for the very first time. A world that only a few short days ago seemed parochial and plodding in its predictability suddenly sparkled with endless possibilities like so many diamonds glittering against a jeweler's black velvet display cloth.

Lauren was quiet on the ride back to town, her mind too preoccupied with decorating plans to notice the way Travis kept casting surreptitious glances her way. He had certainly made himself clear enough on the matter of his precious bachelor status for her to disregard him as a potential suitor. Aside from the fact that he reacted the way a skittish colt did around a man with a heavy
saddle whenever the subject of marriage came up, Travis Banks wasn't exactly what Lauren would consider good husband material.

Just because he'd always had the power to turn her insides to mush whenever she looked at him didn't mean she couldn't separate rational thought from foolish fantasy. For one thing, he carried too much baggage from an apparently painful past relationship. For another, he was too handsome and sure of himself for his own good. Still insecure about her own appearance, Lauren didn't like the thought of having to compete with the rest of womankind for a man's attention. She liked even less the possibility of marrying someone who might very well cheat on her the minute someone prettier threw herself in his way. Lastly, a real cowboy like Travis would probably care more for his livestock than he did for any woman.

That settled in her mind, she turned to him as a confidant.

“Would you mind telling me where the best place in town is to pick up single men?”

Travis swerved to miss a jackrabbit.

“You mean other than church or the local Laundromat?” he asked.

Lauren rolled her eyes.

“I mean like a bar.”

From his reaction, one would think she was inquiring about a male escort service. Lauren refused to look away. If anyone would know the answer to that question surely it was the most eligible single man in these
parts. After that jab about turning his grandpa's cabin into the playgirl mansion, she saw no reason why he shouldn't be completely forthright with her.

“The Alibi,” he said grudgingly. “If all you're looking for is a one-night stand, that is.”

She wasn't, but since Lauren was long past the age of having a coming out party, she could think of no better way to announce her intentions to the world than circulating in the most happening spots. In a small community, when one got stereotyped as a stick in the mud as far back as high school, drastic measures were required. And just because she might let a friendly guy buy her a drink certainly didn't mean she had to go to bed with him. Marriage, not gratuitous sex, was her ultimate goal—although she sincerely hoped a good deal of the latter was thrown in with the former.

“There's a church social scheduled for this weekend if you're interested,” Travis suggested.

Lauren's pulse leaped at the thought that he might actually be asking her to accompany him, but his overly nonchalant tone convinced her that she was mistaken. An unexpected wave of disappointment washed over her. Having allowed him to step all over her pride since before he'd even known she existed, she vowed not to let it happen. Besides, she'd been to enough staid church socials to know that the only eligible men in attendance were either horny teenagers or widowers collecting Social Security. Determined to shed her heavy cloak of invisibility once and for all, she tipped her chin defiantly up.

“I'm really not.”

A more experienced woman might have been better able to read the frustration in Travis's face. As it was, Lauren simply tuned him out by turning her head to stare out the window and proceeded to shade her eyes against a future so bright it threatened to burn her if she wasn't careful.

 

Travis was duly impressed with his tenant's industriousness. Lauren took him up on his offer to take a load of old furniture that she didn't want to the dump. By the time he returned she was in the process of polishing the old hardwood floors until they gleamed. With a gingham kerchief holding her hair away from her face, she looked the picture of domestic industry. On her hands and knees, she presented an enticing view that put the most indecent thoughts into his head. He struggled to find his voice.

When he cleared his throat to announce himself, Lauren's hand flew to her hair as though in embarrassment at being found in such a disheveled state. Travis hoped she thought that was the reason why he turned down her offer of a homemade lunch rather than discover the real reason he was in such a hurry to flee. Lacing his hands nonchalantly over the bulge in his jeans, he backed out the front door with all the grace of a teenage boy ill at ease with his sexuality.

The following day, he watched from the safety of his own front porch as she replaced all the old, faded curtains with a feminine, although not overly fussy, print.
When the furniture store dropped off a new couch and bed, Travis couldn't help but notice how long the deliverymen lingered on the porch sipping the fresh squeezed lemonade Lauren offered them. For some perverse reason, Travis took pleasure in the fact that one man's hair was thinning and he sported a paunch. However, he found himself scowling when he caught the younger of the two rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal an impressive set of biceps as he helped her open a window that was stuck—a simple task that Travis himself would have been more than happy to have done for her if she had only thought to ask him.

From the relatively short distance separating their places, he could see the warmth of Lauren's smile as she refilled the guy's glass not once, but twice. Travis couldn't get over how different she was looking these days. It wasn't just her new haircut and an artful application of makeup that made a man take notice, either. There was a new bounce in her step, a waggle in her wiggle that Travis hadn't remembered seeing before.

Watching her stretch those long legs of hers out to their full length in a pair of shorts as she attempted to hang a porch glider from the overhang the very next day didn't do anything to make him feel any less a voyeur. If Lauren Hewett ever discovered the effect her body could have on a man, she just might be dangerous. For the life of him, Travis didn't know why he'd even mentioned such an infamous spot as the Alibi to her earlier. Ever since bringing it up, he'd been praying she would just forget it and opt for the church social instead. He
hoped Lauren was too caught up in the process of redecorating that old cabin to have enough energy left over to get herself into too much trouble.

He figured wrong.

 

Lauren checked her reflection in the mirror one last time before dabbing perfume behind each earlobe and heading for town. She was so apprehensive about going into a bar alone that she'd called on Suzanne for moral support. Unfortunately, her makeover buddy had been forced to decline due to a previous engagement, but she most graciously offered to send her niece in her place. They met up in the parking lot outside the bar shortly after nine o'clock.

Wearing the exact same outfit she'd had on when she'd cut Lauren's hair, Claire was undaunted by the sight of the usual crew at The Alibi. In fact, she seemed inordinately pleased by the loud whistles and “yee-haws” that accompanied their arrival. That an equal number of motorcycles and pickups filled the lot was enough to put the local police force on alert. A patrol car parked out front did nothing to deter a multitude of lonely cowboys and oil field workers from crowding into the smoke-filled bar with loving on their minds and paychecks burning holes in their pockets.

A bouncer sporting a tattoo of a skull and crossbones across an arm as big as a cottonwood branch admitted Lauren and Claire with a smile that showed off his gold tooth. In her chic sundress, Lauren looked as out of place in the honky-tonk as he might at a high tea. Sur
veying her from head to toe in an overtly masculine gesture, he gave her a look as if to ask if she were lost.

“There's no cover charge,” he said. “It's ladies' night tonight.”

It was definitely a misnomer for the clientele that frequented The Alibi. Men outnumbered the women by a goodly five-to-one margin.

“I like the odds,” Claire said, putting a hand to the middle of Lauren's back and pushing her inside.

Once they were in the bar, Claire grabbed the closest chair and lit up a cigarette.

As tempted as Lauren was to ask her to extinguish it, she didn't want to insult her companion. The bar was so smoky that such a request would be like trying to keep the chlorine in one half of a swimming pool with a fishing net. Blinking, she gave her eyes time to adjust to the dimness of the room and strained to hear Claire over the deafening roar of a band that was clearly more into volume than producing a quality sound.

“Tequila!” the crowd shouted along with the refrain of the song that the band was in the midst of playing.

Lauren began tapping her foot in time with the music. The place was packed. Unable to catch the barmaid's attention on her own, she was surprised when a young lady wearing an apron longer than her skirt sauntered over to their table with two tall drinks.

“From a couple of admirers,” she said, setting them down.

The drinks were so strong that Lauren thought the bartender must have forgotten to put any soda in hers.
Accustomed as she was to being invisible, she didn't quite know how to react to all the attention suddenly being directed her way. Men were straining their necks to get a better look.

Claire was more than willing to help her enjoy the moment.

“Drink up,” she said, clinking their glasses together and giving the eye to a couple of good-looking hustlers chalking up their cue sticks at a nearby pool table. “Tequila!”

 

“The woman has the common sense of a goose,” Travis muttered under his breath. Perched on a bar stool, he had a slightly elevated view of all the comings and goings in the shabby bar. He reminded himself that he'd stopped by just for a quick drink, not to check up on his renter's whereabouts. Definitely not. It wasn't exactly like he'd followed her to The Alibi shortly after watching her leave from his living room window. He'd simply had a hankering to go to town right about that same time.

Damn, but Lauren looked sexy in that soft, flared dress with the ridiculously wide belt that emphasized her trim waist. Matching shoes and handbag were wasted upon the other men leering at her from surrounding tables. A smart guy would simply leave her to her own match-making devises, however poorly thought out they were.

Despite a word of warning to himself that he wasn't anyone's keeper, his adrenaline kicked in along with his protective instincts as he overheard a suggestive remark about his naive tenant from someone walking past. Re
minding himself that it hadn't been intended for him to hear, he unclenched his fist and took a sip of beer. The sooner he got her out of here the better. If Lauren wasn't of a mind to leave just yet, he'd just park himself at her table and scare off the more menacing sorts until she was ready to go.