Читать книгу Only Skin Deep - Cathleen Galitz, Cathleen Galitz - Страница 10

As 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.