Kathryn Jensen - Mail-Order Cinderella

She remembered the finely drawn muscles visible in the backs of his hands as he’d laid them over hers. The corded line of his throat had risen above his crisp shirt collar. The rest of his body, she imagined, would be just as strong and lean and hard. Envisioning him without his clothes sent delicious chills through her. Her cheeks radiated heat as the plane began its descent.

“Get a grip,” Julie whispered to herself.

But in her heart, she knew that was impossible. She was being swept along on an exhilarating adventure, and she had no idea what to do except to let whatever might happen, happen.

This won’t last long, she reassured herself. You might as well enjoy yourself. Tyler or his parents would soon realize how terribly wrong she was for him. The Fortunes would pack her off to Houston by the end of the weekend, and that would be that.

But at least she’d have some pretty memories, if their evening at Van Gogh’s was a taste of what was in store for her. Maybe fate had intended Tyler as a gift to last her a lifetime? A taste of romance. A memory to make her simple existence bearable. Maybe she should stop being afraid and just accept the weekend for what it was, pure fantasy.

When Julie stepped off the plane, she looked around the lonely airstrip for Tyler, her heart pounding in her chest, but he wasn’t there. Instead, a short, middle-aged man wearing work clothes approached her. He smiled and held out a hand.

“Miss Parker? I’m Joe Dan White. I work for Mr. Fortune. He’s sent me to fetch you.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling vaguely disappointed. No expectations, she warned herself. If you have no dreams, you can’t feel cheated when they don’t come true.

They drove in a battered sport utility vehicle with a pile of blueprints bouncing on the seat between them. Joe Dan wasn’t a talkative man, but she didn’t mind the silence. If he’d asked her what she was doing in Pueblo, she couldn’t have given him an answer that made any sense.

Twenty minutes later, the truck stopped at a construction site beside a dusty silver trailer and Joe Dan jumped out of the cab. Julie hesitated before climbing down from the seat and took a moment to look around. Mountains rose on three sides, rough unforgiving crops of rock and scrub, but majestic in their own way.

“Mr. Fortune will be in the office over there,” Joe Dan said, nodding toward the trailer as he scooped the blueprints off the seat. “I have to drop these off with him. Come along, miss.”

It occurred to her that Tyler hadn’t explained who she was or why she was here. A second twinge of annoyance pinched at her. She set her shoulders and started toward the trailer.

But before Julie reached the metal steps, the door opened, and out stepped the man who had filled her mind for the past forty-eight hours. To her amazement, Tyler was even more striking in work clothes. Disturbingly so. His blue jeans molded smoothly around his lean hips and long legs. The top two pearl buttons of his western-style shirt were undone, and she could see a tuft of dark hair against a V of hard chest. Breathe, she told herself, feeling light-headed.

“How was your flight?” he asked, smiling down at her.

“Wonderful!” she blurted out. Suddenly, her annoyance with his lack of attention to her arrival seemed irrelevant. “The sky was so clear I was sure I could see California.”

Tyler combed the fingers of one hand through a healthy thatch of dark hair to move it off his forehead. He observed her conservative navy suit and pumps with concern.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“That outfit is going to pick up dust awful easy. I’d hoped to show you around town, a combination driving and walking tour. Did you bring anything more comfortable?”

Virtually all the clothes she owned were outfits suitable for the library, or for puttering around in her kitchen at home. Since she rarely went out socially, she didn’t need dress clothes or upscale casual wear.

“I do have a pair of flats with me and a pantsuit.”

“We’ll have to find you something more appropriate than that.”

She hoped he didn’t expect her to buy a new outfit for the weekend. She had only twenty dollars on her, in case of an emergency, and she didn’t want to blow her charge account any higher for clothing she wouldn’t be able to wear after the weekend.

“I need to speak to some of my men before I leave. You can wait in the office or come along.” He picked up a hard hat from a bench outside the trailer and offered it to her.

“I’d like to see the hospital,” she said quickly, accepting the brilliant-yellow shell and dropping it onto her head.

“Suit yourself.” He took a second hat for himself. “It will be difficult for you to imagine what the finished building will look like at this stage.”

But she could imagine it so very easily. As they walked past a huge billboard stating that this was the Fortune Memorial Children’s Hospital, she eyed the artist’s rendition of the completed structure. A fountain and trees were enclosed by a circular drive in front of a central tower. Off one end was a fenced playground, and to the rear an emergency entrance for ambulances. The highest point of the structure was fifteen floors and the whole of it rose out of the desert like an enormous flowering cactus.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” she murmured appreciatively.

“I sure hope so.” Tyler shook his head, thinking how far they’d come, yet how much further they had to go. “There are times I’ve worried it would never come together. But we’re getting there, slowly.”

“It must be wonderful, building a dream from the ground up. Making something out of nothing but hope.”

The pure enthusiasm in her voice forced Tyler to look at her. Julie’s eyes sparkled and her face glowed. That was how he felt on a good day. But those hadn’t come often enough since Mike Dodd’s death.

“My dad’s favorite part of putting up a new building is breaking ground,” Tyler murmured. “He says he feels something mystical when the first shovel of dirt is lifted. But I like this part—building the frame that shapes and supports the whole thing.” He pointed. “We intentionally move some parts along more quickly. We’re putting some glass into the lower floors of the west wing this week. It helps people visualize how it will turn out.”

She smiled up at him. “That’s nice, to think of folks that way.”

“We have practical reasons, too,” he said solemnly. “As important as this project is to the children of the region, we’ve had to fight to get it approved.”

And Tyler Fortune was clearly a fighter. She could see his determination and courage sketched in the strong slashes of cheek and jawbone and the firm line of his lips. Astride a pinto, a lance raised in one hand, reins in the other, he’d have been a warrior worthy of any opponent.

Which brought to mind the question of how she might hope to survive the partnership he proposed. He’d suggested a simple business relationship. That was what she’d envisioned, too. But that was before she’d met Tyler. The husband she had been looking for was a quiet, undemanding man whose personality matched hers. Tyler was used to getting his way, and he was anything but retiring.

On the other hand, if he was serious about his proposition, and if she didn’t take the risk now…she’d probably never have another chance at marriage or an honest-to-goodness adventure.

Tyler walked away from her to speak with several of his crew. Julie weighed her options while she pretended to study the sketch of the hospital. When he returned, nodding toward the trailer to indicate they could leave now, she stopped him with a timid touch on his forearm.

“What?”