Читать книгу Celebrity Bachelor - Victoria Pade - Страница 8

“Umm, cowboys are coming.”

It was late Monday afternoon and Joshua was lying on a blanket he and his sister had spread under a tree in order to have a picnic in the shade. A tree that he’d thought was in the middle of nowhere when they’d pulled the motorcycle off the road a few hours earlier.

His eyes were closed, his hands were under his head and he’d been dozing while Alyssa read her biology textbook. But Alyssa’s voice snapped him from the brink of sleep and he opened his eyes to find that two men were approaching them on horseback. Complete with the boots and hats to prove his sister wasn’t exaggerating when she’d identified them as cowboys.

Joshua sat up, blinked to clear his eyes and then stood.

The two horsemen guided their mounts to within a few feet of the blanket and came to a stop.

“Hi,” Joshua greeted.

“You know you’re on private property?” one of the men asked without answering Joshua’s hello.

“No, sorry, I didn’t know. It wasn’t fenced off or posted. We were just out for the afternoon, having a picnic. We’ll get going, if we’re trespassing.”

“You’re trespassing, but so long as you’re not squattin’ you can stay a while. Just make sure you pick up after yourself.”

“Absolutely,” Joshua assured them.

Both cowboys were not much older than Alyssa and might not have been as accommodating had she not been there. But Joshua recognized the interest in the glances both men were tossing in her direction.

Apparently Alyssa hadn’t missed it, either. Or the fact that the cowboys were handsome cusses, because she set down her book and got to her feet, too.

“Can I pet your horses?” she asked.

Joshua could barely suppress a laugh at the change in her tone. That was definitely not how she talked to him. But now his eighteen-year-old sister was flirting. And it reminded him that she wasn’t a little girl anymore.

There was plenty of other evidence to prove that, as well. She was tall and slender, but had developed some cleavage he’d discovered her showing off underneath the tight tank top and overblouse she was wearing today. She’d also had her black hair cut into a style that was very short and edgy, and she was spiking it on top and in back—something much, much different from the long straight hair with bangs that had always made her look sweet and prim.

There was the addition of makeup, too. She wore a dark gray eye shadow, and a coal-black liner and mascara that caused her pale eyes to stand out much, much more. Plus she was wearing lipstick she hadn’t been using the last time he’d seen her, a month ago.

The stuffy headmistress at the all-girls boarding school she’d only recently graduated from wouldn’t have approved of the changes she’d made to become the college Alyssa. But Joshua reminded himself that he wasn’t her former stuffy headmistress. He was her brother. And he couldn’t deny that she was all grownup. Whether he liked it or not.

So instead of interfering with her playing coquette to the cowboys, he sat back on the blanket as Alyssa went to stand between the horses and their riders.

Joshua didn’t abdicate all his responsibilities or brotherly protectiveness, though. Rather than lie down or close his eyes again, he stretched his legs out in front of him, propped one ankle on top of the other, and crossed his arms over his chest, lounging against the tree trunk to keep watch on the proceedings.

His sister’s back was to him so only a word or two of what she said as she talked to the cowboys was clear to him. They were grinning down at her and answering her questions with as much coy teasing and flirting as Joshua figured his sister was dishing out. But it all seemed innocent enough and maybe because of that, his mind started wandering.

Well, maybe because of that and because the sight of one of the horses served to prompt his brain.

The horse on the right was a reddish-brown color. Almost the identical shade of Cassie Walker’s hair.

Russet—that was what the color was. The color of the horse and the color of the freshman adviser’s hair.

Cassie Walker had russet-brown hair. Really stunning russet-brown hair.

Hair so soft-looking, so shiny, that he’d kept trying to will the band that held it to break so he could know how long it was. How it looked when it was free. So he could see it fall around her face…

It had been such a kid-like thing to be wishing for. He couldn’t believe he was thinking about her again now—he hadn’t been able to think about much else since they’d met, and this wasn’t something he’d experienced in all of his adult life. Not even with Jennie. It was a useless waste of the thought process. Of brainpower. And yet there they were, as big as life—thoughts of Cassie Walker spinning around in his head, out of control. As out of control as he’d expect from some horny teenager.

Thoughts and images of her hair, her face, her body…

It wasn’t even a remarkable body or a strikingly beautiful face or more than pretty hair. It wasn’t as if she had the kind of beauty he encountered day in and day out in the form of fashion models and other amazingly beautiful women who were at his disposal or in hot pursuit of him.

But 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 crossed that she might not see through him this time.

No such luck.

His sister grinned ear to ear suddenly, made fists of her hands, raised them and did a little upper body dance, making circles with her fists as she sang, “You like her! You like her! You like her!”

Still hoping to put one over on her, he rolled his eyes. “Jeez, you can be obnoxious.”

Alyssa’s answer was more of the same torso dance to accompany the second chorus of “You like her! You like her! You like her!”

“I just want to know if I’m stepping on anyone’s toes by keeping her away from them. Husbands, boyfriends, fiancés tend to get bent out of shape if their women are having to hang out with me for the sake of work. And if that happens, significant others could take a closer look, realize who I am—and who you are—and wreck this whole thing.”

His sister didn’t buy it for a minute. Instead, she did the dance and the song for the third time.

“Okay, that’s getting really annoying,” Joshua informed her when she was finished.

“It’s true, though.”

Younger sisters could be such pains in the neck.

“I don’t even know her,” he insisted.

“You know she’s cute.”

“She’s just okay,” Joshua understated, playing it cool when that one word—cute—was enough to bring Cassie Walker’s image vividly to mind again. And that vivid image made a ripple of something that almost seemed like delight run through him.

“She’s nice, too,” Alyssa pointed out.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Suddenly Alyssa’s expression sobered considerably. “But Cassie’s kinda like Jennie. Only worse. At least Jennie was…I don’t know, not from Northbridge. But Northbridge is like really, really removed from the kind of stuff that happens around you.”

“Which is why we chose the school here.”

“And the people are all so…you know, regular. Normal—”

“I do know,” Joshua said, feeling a twinge of regret that he and his sister even had to have this conversation, that normal and regular had become novelties to them.

“You wouldn’t risk another Jennie mess, would you?” Alyssa asked as if it worried her that he might be considering it.

But he wasn’t. He wasn’t considering it at all. Which was why he absolutely would not act on this interest or attraction or whatever it was that Cassie Walker had set off in him.

“No. Of course I wouldn’t risk another Jennie mess.” Especially not when just the mention of that name was enough to make him feel guilty and angry and hurt and just plain rotten. “I told you when it happened that that was it for me. That I’d never do that to anyone else ever again.”

“You swore,” Alyssa reminded him, letting him know she was holding him to it.

Joshua understood. The entire ordeal had scarred Alyssa.

“Because I liked Jennie,” his sister added. “And I like Cassie even if I don’t really know her. I wouldn’t want—”

“Relax. It’s not going to happen. I just wondered what you knew about her so I could go in armed. Like if there’s someone special in her life, I’d encourage her to bring him along, make friends with him.”

That was a lie. Well, the excuse he was giving for wanting to know if there was someone special in Cassie Walker’s life was a lie. The rest—the determination not to let anything happen with Cassie Walker—was the truth. Joshua was nothing if not determined to make sure of that.

“It’ll be okay,” he assured his sister.

But Alyssa didn’t look convinced.

“It will,” he said more forcefully. “Believe me, after Jennie, I know better. I don’t want to go through that again and I sure as hell wouldn’t let you go through something like that again, either.”

Alyssa nodded, but she no longer looked as carefree and confident as she had earlier. Now she looked very, very young to him again.

“Hey,” he cajoled. “Have I ever let you down?”

That made her smile, if only slightly. “No,” she answered as if the question were ridiculous.

“And I’m not here to start now. So relax.”

She seemed to. Although not completely.

“I want you to be happy,” she said then. “It isn’t that I don’t. I want you to be with someone nice—like Cassie. Someone who would like you for you and be good to you. I just don’t—”

“I know,” Joshua cut her off once more. “And I’ll find someone nice and things will work out. But that isn’t what this trip or Northbridge are about. They’re about you and your going to college without any hassles. That’s all I’m paying attention to right now.”

Another lie since the image of Cassie Walker popped into his head yet again.

But still, he meant what he said. This trip and Northbridge were about his sister, about his sister’s finishing out her education like any other person her age. It wasn’t about his hooking up with anyone. Let alone with someone who had too many similarities to the second-to-the-biggest catastrophe that had hit his and Alyssa’s lives.

So pretty or not, spunky or not, even dimples or no dimples, Cassie Walker was—and would remain—nothing but the woman Northbridge College had appointed as his guide through Parents’ Week.

But if things were different, he thought as he and his sister finally decided to return to the small town, if things were different, things might be a whole lot different…