Читать книгу Amber By Night - Sharon Sala - Страница 9

The back alley between Fourth Street and Beauregard Boulevard was not the best place in Tulip, Georgia to break down, but worn u-joints were not a model of consideration. And, considering the fact that it was nearly sundown and the only thing stirring in Tulip at this time of evening was air, Tyler Savage was in a bit of a fix.

He lay flat on his back beneath his pickup truck, cursing the fading light and his bad luck all in the same disgusted breath. And, because he was so focused on finding and stopping the flow of oil dripping from somewhere up above his head, he didn’t hear the sound of running footsteps coming down the alley until they were almost upon him.

Instinctively, he turned to look and got a fairly good view of a woman running down the alley. From where he was lying, he couldn’t see much above her neck, but he got a real good look at the gray sweatsuit she was wearing. It was nondescript, but that was where ordinary ended. She had exceedingly long legs, a trim figure and a bosom that was bouncing enticingly as she ran.

Out of appreciation…and partly out of habit…he whistled and then grinned when she broke her stride. But before he could drag himself out from beneath the truck and procure an introduction, a large dollop of oil took the opportunity to fall. It landed directly on the bridge of Tyler’s nose before splattering equally in both directions and blinding him to everything but the quick sting of oil filming across his vision.

“Son of a…”

He grabbed for a rag, but not in time to stop the damage. With another muttered curse, he came out from under the truck, wiping at his eyes with the rag and both hands. By the time he could see, she was nowhere in sight. In disgust, he kicked a rear tire with the toe of his boot and started walking in the direction of Raymond Earl Showalter’s house. Raymond Earl owned the only garage in town and, in his single days, had been a good running buddy of Tyler’s.

As Tyler walked, he kept trying to think who in the world that woman could have been. To his knowledge, none of the females in Tulip were much prone to physical fitness to prolong their youthful appearances. They seemed more inclined to the old southern way of life of getting married while they were still in the bud. It was only after several years of wedded bliss and all the babies they intended to bear, that a goodly portion of them saw it as their just due to bloom to full figure. And to the ladies’ credit, none of the husbands Tyler knew seemed upset with the deal.

So, if he hadn’t imagined what he’d just seen, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t lost his instincts for the opposite sex, there was a new girl in town. But who in the world was she?

While Tyler was eliciting Raymond Earl’s aid, Amelia Beauchamp was hunkered down in the front seat of Raelene Stringer’s old car and praying for all she was worth as Raelene sped out of town.

The near-confrontation in the alley had been a close call, Amelia’s first since starting her charade. The fact that she’d almost been caught wasn’t nearly as frightening as who’d nearly caught her.

Tyler Savage, of all people! Her heart was still pounding as she finally straightened up in the seat and began putting on her makeup and fixing her hair. She yanked down the sun visor and then grimaced. You sissy, she thought, and then relaxed as her hands flew about a task that was now familiar. The fact that her heart was racing and her eyes were glitter bright was entirely due to that man. Tyler Dean Savage was Tulip’s resident rake. That he was also single and constantly on the make did nothing to help her equilibrium.

Amelia had had a thing for Tyler Savage for more years than she cared to remember. Unfortunately, Tyler wouldn’t have given Amelia the time of day. She glared at herself in the mirror and sighed. But Amber…that was another story. If only, she thought, she dared be one and the same.

The grandfather clock standing guard in the darkened hallway struck an accusing two o’clock, in the morning, that is—as Amelia Beauchamp crept back into the house where she lived, shut and locked the front door and then breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Another night of secrets was behind her, and with only six hours of promised sleep beckoning her to her bed, she slipped quietly up the staircase and into her room, taking care not to step on the third step from the top. It squeaked.

The beautiful face staring back at her in the mirror over her dresser would have shocked her aunts. They would not have recognized their Amelia. She leaned forward, frowning at her reflection as she slipped dangling ruby earrings from her ears. With weariness in every movement, she brushed her rich, brown hair into a smooth, orderly fashion and coiled it into one long loose braid. Jabbing her finger into a jar of cold cream, she swiped the thick lotion roughly across her mouth and eyelids. Red lipstick and gold-flecked eye shadow came off on a handful of tissues which she then flushed down the toilet. There could be no lingering reminders of Amber in this house. This is where Amelia lived.

As she stepped out of her sweatsuit and stuffed it in the back of her closet, an owl hooted softly outside her bedroom window, the only witness to Amelia’s deceit. Grabbing a nightgown from a hook on the door, she slipped it on, savoring the familiarity of this fabric as opposed to the shiny red satin that she’d worn on the job.

No sooner had her head touched the pillow than her eyes closed. Aware that she sighed, it was the last thing she heard until morning when Aunt Wilhemina’s voice echoed loudly up the staircase.

“Ahmeelya! It’s past time to get up. You’ll be late for work.”

Amelia groaned and rolled out of bed. It was her own fault that she felt like hell, but if her plan worked, it would be worth it.

When she’d first come to live with her great-aunts, Wilhemina and Rosemary Beauchamp, she’d been a skinny, too-tall nine-year-old and they, the only living relatives that could be found after her missionary parents were killed in a Mexican earthquake.

Amelia had been used to living rather freely from country to country—from custom to custom. The culture shock she experienced when she came to live with two old-maid aunts was similar to the shock they received when she arrived. But the Beauchamps were nothing if not proper, and what was right was right. Kin was kin. Here she was. Stay she must. So they began to mold her into a smaller, younger replica of themselves and thus began the starching of Amelia Ann.

Yet in spite of their persistence, she managed to retain most of her own personality during elementary and secondary schools. She even managed to exhibit some independence during her college years in nearby Savannah. She’d kept a fairly normal social life during that time, which had even resulted in one serious suitor who’d lasted clear up to the time she introduced him to the aunts. After that, things were never the same between them.

Amelia supposed that he’d looked into the future, seen the responsibilities of not only a wife but two elderly females to look after, and bolted. She’d been mildly devastated at the time, but it had passed sooner than she would have liked. Her suitor had absconded with love, her trust in men and her virginity. It took the heart right out of her independence.

She was unaware that with the passing of time, she’d begun dressing like her aunts, acting like them and even had a future mapped out by them. And time had done her another rare favor. Her broken heart had completely healed and her trust in men in general was normal. The only thing that could never be returned was her virginity. In some small measure, she was glad. She would hate to die an old maid—and a virgin.

It was the realization of that same passing time that had prompted her secret rebellion. Amelia could see herself, twenty, thirty, even forty years down the road—in this same house—in the same town—wearing the same style of clothing—and alone. Always alone! She loved her aunts dearly, but she had no intention of ending up like them. She wanted adventure and excitement. She wanted to be able to get out of Tulip should the mood arise.

That’s why she needed the new car. On a librarian’s salary, such things were impossible. As far as the Beauchamp sisters were concerned, their old, blue Chrysler sufficed. Amelia had other ideas. She could not see the world in a 1970 Chrysler.

Aware that Aunt Witty would be shouting her name a second time if she did not hurry, she headed for the bathroom. In no time she was dressed, having chosen a sedate shirtwaist dress from her closet and ignoring the fact that beige was not her best color.

Last night’s face that she’d worn with secret delight, the one that had laughed and teased and dared to be different, was gone along with the flowing, chestnut mane of hair. In its place was staid propriety.

She brushed her hair a vigorous one hundred strokes then slid her fingers deftly through the nearly unmanageable length and soon had it wound into a thick brown crown. The only thing that adorned her face was a slathering of moisturizer and a hint of the palest, pink lipstick. She slid dark, owl-rimmed glasses over the bridge of her nose and sighed as she headed down the stairs. It was time for Miss Amelia to begin her day as librarian of Tulip, Georgia.

“Sit, girl,” Wilhemina ordered, as she laid a warmed plate at Amelia’s place and pushed a platter of fluffy biscuits in her direction.

With full intent of only having juice, Amelia pushed her plate aside. “No thanks, Aunt Witty. I’m not really hungry.”

Wilhemina Beauchamp raised an eyebrow. It was enough to persuade Amelia to reposition her plate and sit. As she reached for a biscuit, she grinned at Aunt Rosie who was dawdling over her second cup of coffee and staring blankly out of the drawing room window at the butterflies kissing the tops of the blue bachelor buttons in the garden below.

“Morning, Aunt Rosie,” she said, as she chewed.

Rosemary blinked at the intrusion into her daydreams and them smiled when she noticed her niece had come to breakfast.

Wilhemina gave Amelia’s dress and hair the once-over and then reprimanded her niece for bad manners. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she said.

“Do hush, Willy!” Rosemary muttered, patting her beloved niece on the arm as she pushed the jar of homemade peach conserve toward Amelia. “For once, let the girl eat in peace.”

“If I’ve told you once in the last eighty-odd years, I’ve told you dozens of time, my name is not Willy.”

Rosemary’s lower lip jutted. “But Amelia calls you…”

“I know what she calls me,” Wilhemina said. “When she was small, my name was such a mouthful that I allowed her to shorten it. And it’s your own fault, you know. She always thought you were calling me Witty, not Willy. Now, it’s simply too late to change. Habit is a hard thing to break.”

Amelia had had enough, both of biscuits and bickering. She pushed back her chair and blew a kiss in their general direction.

“See you all this evening,” she called, and then she was gone. Tulip Public Library was waiting.

A tiny spark of excitement kept bubbling through her thoughts as she drove to the library. She was taking the first steps toward changing her future. She didn’t look at the fact that going to work as a hostess in a nightclub was not a step, it was a leap. To her, the most difficult thing about the job was putting on that little bit of red nothing three nights a week. It left little to the imagination and too much to the human eye. But the money she was saving was enough incentive to get past the embarrassment.

She hummed to herself as she drove out of the residential area and onto Main Street. A short distance away she turned into the lot and parked beneath twin magnolias marking the spot where Cuspus Albert Marquiside had held off a band of marauding Yankees during The War.

Sometime during the 1920s the Marquiside family had insisted on a brass marker to commemorate their illustrious ancestor’s bravery. The marker had long since turned a sickly shade of green and the family name had all but died out. Rumor had it that they’d gone north during the Great Depression of the thirties, but no one in Tulip would believe it. After all, a true southerner would rather starve to death than go live with Yankees.

Amelia grabbed her purse and her lunch and gave Cuspus Albert’s marker a friendly pat as she walked by. It was time for the day to begin.

Tyler Savage turned off Main Street and headed down Magnolia Avenue toward the post office. His suntanned hands were strong and sure as he gripped the steering wheel of his pickup truck. Thanks to Raymond Earl’s timely assistance, he was now back in business and mentally calculating the amount of fertilizer he needed to pick up when he was forced to brake sharply and then stop.

Ignoring the fact that she’d just jaywalked in the middle of a through street, Effie Dettenberg scurried in front of Tyler’s truck, glaring back only after reaching the safety of the curb. Well aware of his “bad boy” reputation and what some of the more staid members of Tulip’s society thought of him, he grinned and winked, then waved as he drove away, unaware that someone other than Effie was also watching him.

Amelia stacked the books that she’d just removed from the book drop and tried not to stare at the man behind the wheel. She knew it wasn’t proper, but Tyler Dean Savage required more than a casual glance, and she was still thanking her luck that she’d escaped last night undetected.

Still, he was six-plus feet of the most desirable hunk of man to ever come out of Tulip, Georgia. Straight black hair that was as unruly as his reputation; blue eyes that were constantly smiling, even when that sexy mouth was not. From the time she’d been old enough to notice, Tyler Savage and his bad-boy image had never been far from her dreams.

She sighed. Why are all the good-looking ones such rakes? But there was no one to answer her question, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Men like Tyler Savage didn’t notice women like Amelia Beauchamp.

She picked up the books, shifting them to a more comfortable position, and smiled at Effie Dettenberg as she gained safe footing on the sidewalk.

“Morning, Miss Effie, you’re out early.”

Effie plastered one wrinkled, bony hand across her shapeless breasts in high dismay as if she’d barely escaped the wrath of hell. “Did you see him?”

“See who, Miss Effie?”

“That Savage boy! He nearly ran me down! People like him shouldn’t be allowed to roam at will.” She cast a watery eye toward the disappearing brake lights of the red-and-white pickup truck and pursed her lips.

Amelia tried not to smile. In her opinion, that boy, who was over thirty years old, was well into prime manhood.

“Now, Miss Effie, I saw him slow down, and you know it.”

Effie Dettenberg sniffed loudly. “Well! He still shouldn’t be allowed out with his reputation and all.” She lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder, just to make sure she wasn’t being overheard. “You know what they say about those Savages!”

Amelia tried to ignore the lurch her heart took, but it was useless. Whatever they had to say about Tyler Savage was always of interest to her. “No ma’am, I can’t say as I do.”

Effie’s voice was just above a whisper. “They say that his people were smugglers. And…” she took a deep breath and readjusted her gold-rimmed eyeglasses on the bridge of her beaky nose “…they also say that those same smugglers cohorted with Indians. That accounts for that devil-black hair and those sharp cheekbones. That’s what they say.”

Amelia hid a smile behind her armful of books. “But Miss Effie, that was nearly two hundred years ago. He can’t be blamed for whatever his ancestors may or may not have done. Surely you have more Christian forgiveness in your soul than to hold that against him?”

Effie fiddled with her handbag and stared back down the street, half expecting that man to come swooping down upon them and carry them away into the swamps. Effie Dettenberg had a vivid imagination.

“Well, maybe not,” she muttered. “But there’s no denying that he’s a rounder. You mark my words, Amelia Beauchamp, stay away from men like him. He’s trouble with a capital T.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Amelia said and ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach. Unfortunately for her, he posed no threat. “Come inside the library, Miss Effie. I’ve just received one of those craft books that you like. It had the most darling crocheted shawl on the cover.”

That changed the subject and got Effie off the streets, but it was another thing altogether to get Tyler off Amelia’s mind.

The clock chimed six times in succession as Amelia fidgeted with her fork. She had less than three hours to get the aunts into bed and catch her ride to the nightclub with Raelene Stringer. Thoughtlessly scraping at the streak of chocolate left on her dessert plate, she winced as it screeched loudly into the silence of the room. The aunts would have a fit if they knew she was not only working in the same establishment with Tulip’s “loose woman,” but that she was riding back and forth to work with her, as well.

Wilhemina frowned. “Amelia, don’t scrape your plate! Surely I’ve taught you better manners than that!”

“Yes, ma’am,” she muttered, and sighed as her fork clattered against the Spode.

A frown wrinkled the tissue-thin skin on Rosemary’s forehead. “Oh pooh, Willy, you fuss too much. It’s not good for the digestion. I read where people actually got ulcers from unpleasant meals.”

Wilhemina gasped. “My meals are never unpleasant!”

“I didn’t say your cooking was…I simply meant that sometimes you can be…”

Amelia interrupted, anxious that a sisterly squabble not break out now and slow down their evening ritual. She was on a tight enough schedule as it was. “Never mind, you two.”

The sisters glared at each other as Amelia jumped to her feet and began gathering the dirty china from the table. “I’ll do dishes. Why don’t you retire to the parlor and turn on the television. It’s nearly time for your favorite show.”

Rosemary’s rosebud mouth puckered with anticipation, wrinkling the faded blush of her complexion. She clapped her hands and patted her Gibson-girl hairdo back into a semblance of order. “Goody! I just love the ‘Wheel.’ Maybe someday I’ll go to California and be on the show. That Pat Sajak has the nicest smile. He reminds me of…”

Wilhemina frowned. “Don’t be absurd! That show is next to gambling and we don’t gamble. And…” She fixed her younger sister with a pointed stare. “California is a long way off. We’d have to fly…and we don’t fly.”

“Of course we don’t,” Rosemary muttered, as she exited the dining room. “Only birds fly. I swear, Willy. I think you’re getting senile. I read the other day where…”

Her sister’s jaw jutted dangerously. “I’m not senile…and you read too much.”

Amelia sighed. Casting another nervous glance at the clock, she began stacking dishes with a vengeance as the sisters disappeared into the living room.

A couple of hours later, she was fidgeting in her chair and trying not to watch the clock, wondering if they were ever going to go into their rooms. To her relief, Aunt Witty appeared at the head of the stairs wearing a bathrobe wrapped around her tall, spare frame like a faded blue pencil with wrinkles. A long gray braid hung over her shoulder and down across her flat chest, nearly lost in the garment’s loose folds.

“Amelia, aren’t you coming up?” she called down. “It’s nearly eight-thirty.”

The aunts were firm believers in the early to bed, early to rise philosophy and never veered from their routine. Amelia bit her lower lip. She hated lying, but she hated being afoot worse. She was going to buy that new car or know the reason why.

“No, Aunt Witty, not yet. I want to finish this book first. I’m at a really good part and don’t want to stop.”

Wilhemina frowned. She didn’t have to look to know that Amelia was probably reading another romance. They were her favorites.

“You’ve got to quit reading that trash. It will only confuse you. I recommend Little Women. It was always a favorite of mine and quite wholesome, you know.”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that.”

Aunt Witty’s door went shut just as Amelia looked up at the clock. She had less than thirty minutes to meet Raelene Stringer.

With a sigh, she marked her place and tucked the book down between the cushions, then dashed to the downstairs closet. She pulled out a small overnight bag and a pair of running shoes. Everything she needed for her job was inside. With one last glance up the darkened stairwell, she turned out the lights and quietly locked the front door behind her.

The streets were nearly empty. Amelia breathed a constant prayer that she would not have to explain her strange mode of dress and behavior, and headed for the corner two blocks over.

The dark gray sweatsuit she was wearing blended into the evening shadows as she jogged to her destination. It was Thursday night and nearly time for Amber Champion to clock in at The Old South outside of Savannah. To her everlasting appreciation, Raelene was waiting for her at the corner of Fifth Street and Delaney.

She giggled as Amelia slid into the passenger seat. “Ooowee, honey, I didn’t think you were coming,” then she turned on the headlights and put the car in gear. The engine rattled and knocked, a sure sign of something in need of repair.

Once Amelia had gotten the job at The Old South, her excitement had fizzled when she’d realized that getting to work was going to be a problem. Bus service between Tulip and Savannah was sporadic.

Raelene had taken one look at the tall, leggy woman coming out of the boss’s office and nearly swallowed her gum. The town librarian had been the last person she would have expected to walk into a place like The Old South.

The club was a hopping nightspot. Many of the men had a way of assuming that just because a woman worked at a place like this, that she was available for more than serving drinks. Of course, Raelene never minded their assumptions. She met some of her favorite men this way. But she recognized Amelia. And she’d never let on when Amelia had been introduced to her as Amber Champion. She simply cocked an eyebrow, shifted her chewing gum to the other side of her jaw, and offered Amber a ride. That a friendship of sorts had formed still surprised them both.

Amelia winced as the car belched smoke before smoothing out into its regular gait. Just what she needed. If Raelene’s car blew up on Tulip’s main street, it would be all over. She was supposed to be safely inside the house immersed in a book of romance.

To her relief, the car seemed to settle, and it was time for Amber to make her appearance. She pulled down the sun visor, adjusting the small mirror on the back, and then began sorting through her bag for makeup and trading eyeglasses for contact lenses.

Raelene eyed Amelia’s chestnut curls enviously. “Girl, I don’t know why you hide your pretty face behind those glasses. I tried to get my hair that color once and it came out as brassy as that bedstead in the display window at Murphy’s Furniture. And those eyes of yours! Lord have mercy, you oughta wear contact lenses all the time. Not everyone has eyes like yours. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who had blue-green eyes.”

“My daddy did,” Amelia said, pausing for a moment to let Raelene maneuver across the old bridge outside of town. It was difficult enough to put on makeup between bumps in the road. That planked bridge was impossible. “And I wear glasses because they are easier. Aunt Witty says they make me look professional.”

Raelene rolled her eyes. “Shoot, they just hide those pretty eyes and add about ten years to your age is all. If you have to wear them, you oughta get you some real stylish ones. I saw a picture…”

Amelia smiled and let Raelene talk. It didn’t matter what she said because Raelene didn’t expect an answer. Before she knew it, they had arrived.

Cars were already beginning to fill the parking lot. It would be a busy night. “We’re here,” Raelene said, as she turned off the highway.

Amelia began stuffing things back into her bag and gave her hair one last fluff. “We’d better hurry. Tony will have a fit if we’re late tonight.”

They jumped out of the car on the run.

“So, Tyler, what do you think? If you contract next year’s peanut crop to me, you’re bound to come out ahead. Regardless of how the price fluctuates at harvest, you’re guaranteed a substantial profit.”

Tyler grinned. Seth Hastings was a whiz at the commodity markets. And the fact that his father owned one of the larger mills in the area didn’t hurt his standing, either.

“Yes, Seth, I suppose I might make a real killing, unless my crop fails and I have to go somewhere and buy someone else’s whole damned harvest just to fulfill my contract to you.”

Seth Hastings looked over his steepled fingertips to the man sitting on the other side of his desk. “Now, Tyler, you know that’s not going to happen. You’re one of the best farmers in the state. You haven’t had a failed crop since you started wearing pants with zippers.”

“I’ve come too damned close too many times to take anything for granted and you know it,” Tyler argued. And then he leaned back in his chair and cocked one long leg across his knee. “But, I’m going to take a chance. I’ve got a hunch about the government pay base this year and it doesn’t feel good. If we don’t get someone in office up in Washington that understands farmers and makes some changes in the agriculture program, we’re all going to be out on our ears and that’s a fact.”

“All right.” Seth grinned and clapped his hands. “This calls for a celebration! And I know just the place. Ever been to The Old South?”

Tyler glanced down at his watch, calculating the time he knew that they’d spend at some club against the time he had to drive home to his farm outside of Tulip, and decided that he deserved a break.

“No, but I have a feeling I’m about to be taken there.”

“Like Sherman took Atlanta,” Seth said.

Tyler grinned. “You better not say that too loud around here.”

Seth laughed. “Come on reb, let’s go have us a party.”

“Lead on, Yankee,” Tyler retorted. “I’m due some R and R.”

Amelia glowed beneath the subdued lighting like a fire-cracker on the Fourth of July. Her tall, shapely body was neatly encased in shiny red satin and spandex. Lorna, the lifeguard at Tulip’s public swimming pool had a suit just like it, only it didn’t sport a black net bustle that bounced back and forth as she walked and her legs weren’t nearly as long or encased in black fishnet hose like “Amber’s”.

Trying to ignore the slick touch of a man’s hands on the back of her thigh as she scooted between the tables of customers, she looked down and glared. “I’ll be right with you, sir.”

He leered back. “I’ll be waiting.”

Stifling the urge to dump her tray of drinks in his lap, she continued to the next table.

Seth looked up and then whistled softly as he and Tyler were being seated in a darkened corner of the club. “Ooowee.”

Tyler followed his friend’s gaze and started to laugh when he saw the woman in red…her long, long legs…and that damned bobbing bustle…and forgot to take his next breath. He watched her neatly take command of an unruly situation, take a patron’s order and dodge grasping hands without misplacing that smile on her face.

To his dismay, the room began to sway, and he grabbed hold of the table to settle his world. It would be hell if he fell on his face before he ever learned her name. He went from interest to lust so quickly he caught himself shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He hadn’t been this hard this fast since his sixteenth birthday when Kissy Beth Syler had skinny-dipped in front of him just for kicks. And then he grinned to himself, remembering that she wasn’t the only one who’d gotten her kicks that day. He’d had a soft spot for farm ponds ever since. It was a memorable way to celebrate one’s arrival into manhood.

“That’s one fine-looking lady,” Seth murmured.

Tyler’s eyes narrowed. Fine didn’t begin to describe his opinion.

And then Seth’s grin widened as he nudged Tyler’s leg beneath the table with the toe of his shoe. “Hey great, she’s coming this way. It looks like we lucked out tonight, my friend. We’re sitting at one of her tables.”

“What’ll you gentlemen have?”

Amelia stood with pen poised above paper, staring at a point just to the left of the men’s shoulders. She never actually looked them in the eye. It was her way of retaining what she considered anonymity. But she need not have bothered. She was as far removed from Amelia Beauchamp’s persona as diamonds were from coal.

The man with his back to the wall mumbled something totally unintelligible, forcing Amelia to look up. Her heart thumped wildly as sweat broke out on the back of her neck.

Their gazes locked. Tyler looked up into eyes so green they looked wet and then he blinked. No, maybe they were blue. He could swear he saw sky. He watched her turn pale beneath the layer of makeup she was wearing. A glimpse of pearly white teeth slipped down across her lower lip and Tyler frowned as he watched the pressure increasing. If she wanted her lip bit, he’d be glad to oblige.

Amelia groaned. Oh my God. I knew that this might happen! Now what in the world am I going to do? If he goes back to Tulip and tells, I’m ruined! Why him? And why now?

Here he was, the man of her dreams sitting less than a foot away, and she had to fight the urge to run. At this point, the band swung into a loud jazzy number that made hearing nearly impossible. She leaned forward.

“Excuse me, sir, but I didn’t hear your order. What did you say you wanted?”

As she leaned, both men got a better than average look at a tightly encased bust threatening to spill from strapless red spandex.

The room took another tilt as Tyler realized he had the strangest urge to lay this woman down beneath their table and peel that red stuff off of her a little bit at a… To his dismay, he verbalized his thoughts.

“Want? I want you!” Oh, good God. What did I say? “Uh…I mean, I want you to excuse me. Seth, you order. I’ve got to…I need to…where’s the…?”

Amelia breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t recognize her. “First door on your left down the hall,” she said, and then waited to get their order as Tyler strode away from the table.

Tyler leaned over the sink, splashing his face with cool water, although it wasn’t the part of his anatomy that needed cooling off. He stared blankly at the water droplets running down his face and absently blotted them with a handful of paper towels.

“What in hell just happened to me?”

But his reflection didn’t answer. From the looks of it, his reflection was just as scared as he was. This didn’t look good, but that woman surely did. He tossed the towels into the trash and headed out the door.

Seth shoved a tall glass of cola in front of Tyler. “Are you all right? I didn’t think you needed anything alcoholic. You looked like you were getting sick.”

He shrugged, unwilling to admit how she’d rattled him. “I’m okay. I don’t know what…”

Something lacy and black caught the corner of his eye. Perfume wafted across his nostrils. Even in this din, even through the smoke, he smelled her coming.

Amelia walked up behind him and set a small dish of peanuts on the table to go with their drinks.

When her arm came across his line of vision, he jumped as if he’d been shot.

Already nervous at being in such close proximity to a walking disaster, Amelia leaned down once more, shouting to be heard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Tyler stared, once again lost in those blue-green eyes and that cloud of chestnut curls drifting around her face. If she bit her lip again he was in serious trouble.

“That’s all right, miss…?” Seth Hastings waited with a smile on his face, expecting her to fill in the blanks with her name. She obliged.

“My name is Amber,” she answered. “Will there be anything else?”

Her name is Amber! Tyler grabbed her arm. “Yes.”

She waited, and then waited some more as his fingers tightened around her wrist. She began to panic again. What if he was beginning to…? And then he shouted in her ear.

“Bring me some nuts.”

Seth’s grin widened perceptibly, which did not help Tyler’s unraveling composure.

Amelia looked at him as if he’d grown horns and carefully pushed the dish toward him that she’d just placed on the table.

He looked down at the salty, brown nuts and reluctantly let go of her wrist.

“Oh…uh, thanks.”

Seth rolled his eyes. This was getting better by the minute.

“Will there be anything else?” Amelia asked. She was almost afraid to wait for the answer.

“If there is, we’ll yell,” Seth said. “And thanks…Amber. You’re a doll.”

Tyler frowned. He didn’t think he liked the fact that Seth just paid the woman a compliment. He grabbed his cola and downed it in one gulp, watching that bobbing bustle over the rim of his glass as Amber walked away.

Seth grinned. “Old girlfriend?”

“I wish,” Tyler muttered, and then grinned back at his friend’s owlish leer. “Just shut the hell up, Seth. I haven’t signed that contract yet. If you keep this up, I still may not.”

Seth pursed his lips into a comical expression of propriety and calmly lifted the bowl of nuts from the table.

“Here you go, Tyler, have a peanut.”