Christine Rimmer - Cinderella's Big Sky Groom

“Shh, honey, not now…”

“But we don’t need a lawyer right now, Mommy. We need a prince.”

All the women laughed at that—except the schoolteacher, whose glowing face turned a sweet, flustered pink. One of the two women Ross didn’t know, probably the hairdresser, muttered under her breath, “I’d say he’ll have to do,” which caused another flurry of chuckles.

Danielle told her daughter, “I think you’d better go on back to your coloring books.”

“But—”

“Go on now, Sara.”

“Oh, all right.” The little girl went over to a table in the corner and sat down.

Once the child was out of the way, all the women turned and looked at Ross again. He felt thoroughly outnumbered. And this wasn’t a place where a man would feel all that comfortable, anyway. Maybe it was the excess of dried flower arrangements. There seemed to be one on the corner of every table, and they hung in wreaths and swags on the walls. Lace curtains draped the windows. The place smelled of women, too: perfume and powder, shampoo—and under everything, the harsh ammonialike scent of hair dyes and permanent waving solutions. He had no intention of interviewing Lynn Taylor there.

Dinner, he decided right then. He’d take her to dinner. At that new restaurant on State Street. Over a leisurely meal he could get past the hostility he’d sensed in her during their first meeting at the school. He’d get her to open up to him, get her really talking about the child he’d been hired to represent.

Oh, come on, Garrison, taunted a cynical voice in the back of his mind. This is a fifteen-minute interview and a request for a short written report. You can do that over coffee at the Hip Hop Café across the street.

Ross tuned out that cynical voice. He gave the gorgeous blonde in the red dress his easiest, most casual smile. “Are you ready to go?”

Lynn hesitated. But not at the idea of leaving with him. Somehow, her reluctance to meet with him had faded away. She was thinking that she ought to change back into her regular clothes.

But no. She just couldn’t bear to do that. Not right yet. Perhaps silver-threaded cashmere and two-inch red heels were unsuitable attire for a brief meeting with Jenny’s new lawyer. But right then, Lynn didn’t care.

She was keeping the dress on and the magic going. None of it was real, anyway. It was a dream she’d stepped into, a spell woven by the skilled hands of Gracie and Kim. She wanted to hold on to the magic. Just for a little while…

“You go on,” Danielle was saying. “I’ll bring you your other clothes tomorrow when I pick Sara up after school.”

Gracie and Kim chorused their encouragement.

“Yes, you go ahead….”

“You go on, now….”

Danielle marched to the door and lifted Lynn’s coat off the coatrack. “Here.” She handed it to the lawyer, who obligingly held it open for Lynn to put on.

What else could she do?

She approached him, slid her arms into the sleeves and pulled it around herself, overly conscious of the light brush of his hands as he settled the garment onto her shoulders, thinking foolishly that even in heels she wasn’t quite as tall as he was.

Danielle held out her purse. She took it. Ross Garrison opened the door again. He waited for Lynn to go through ahead of him.

And then she and the lawyer were standing on Center Street, side by side. A cold wind was blowing down from the Crazy Mountains north of town. Lynn shivered a little and wrapped her coat more closely around herself.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Starved.” And she was. She’d skipped lunch altogether. Forgotten all about it. But now that he had mentioned it, she was ready to eat. The Hip Hop was just across the street and two doors down. It was a charming little place, where everyone in town felt at home. She started toward it.

But Ross caught her elbow. “Come on. My Mercedes is just over there.”

She didn’t argue. His touch had distracted her, sending a sweet, zinging thrill along her nerves, making her shiver again—but this time not because of the wind.

He led her down the street about a hundred feet and then helped her into that Mercedes he’d mentioned, which was actually an SUV, of all things. She hadn’t known that you could get a sports-utility version of a Mercedes, but there she was, sitting in the lovely leather seats, running her hand along the gleaming woodwork on her passenger-side door.

“It’s not far, but we might as well drive,” he said as the engine purred to life.

Ross took her to the State Street Grill, Whitehorn’s newest and nicest restaurant, which had opened just last summer. There were hardly any other diners so early on a weekday evening, but he asked for a quiet corner table nonetheless.

And it was a lovely corner, shadowy and private. In the center of their table a single rose emerged, velvety-red, from a crystal vase. A pair of tall white candles flanked that rose. The waiter lighted them when he brought the wine list.

Ross studied the list and then glanced up at Lynn. “Any preferences?”

“I’m not much of a wine drinker, as a rule.”

He was smiling—almost. “But you’ll make an exception this once, won’t you?”

Not wise, she chided herself silently. A glass of wine is the last thing you need right now….

But what she said was, “Well, to tell you the truth, it is my birthday.”

That almost-smile deepened. “Seriously?”

She nodded.

And he said, “Then we’ll have champagne.” The waiter hovered at his elbow. Ross turned to him and said the name of something French.

A few minutes later, he was lifting a flute glass full of the golden, bubbly stuff. “To you, Ms. Lynn Taylor. Happy birthday.” She held up her own glass until it met his with a bright-sounding clink.

The fizzy wine shimmered down her throat and made a warm glow in her stomach. They took a minute to order—appetizers, salads and the main course. Then the waiter disappeared.

Ross leaned toward her across the table. “So tell me…”

She set her glass on the snowy cloth, made a low, questioning sound.

“This new look of yours…”

She was not a woman prone to teasing, but right then, teasing seemed to come to her as naturally as breathing. She raised one newly reshaped eyebrow. “New look?”

He chuckled. “What? You didn’t think I’d noticed?”

She confessed with a small laugh, “I noticed. That you noticed…”

“Good. We’re clear on that much.”

“Yes, I suppose we are.”

“Then what brought on this change?”

She sipped again, felt that lovely fizziness slide down her throat. “It’s my birthday present from Danielle. And Gracie and Kim, too.”

“Gracie and Kim. They would be the other two women, in the salon?”

“Yes. The owner and her daughter.”

“And what did the little girl mean, with that remark about the prince?”

Funny, she’d felt her cheeks flame back in the shop when Sara had announced so bluntly, “We need a prince.” But she didn’t feel the least embarrassed now.

She told him. Simply and directly. About how Danielle had called her early that morning with birthday greetings and instructions to be ready after class, to bring her new red dress and red high-heeled shoes. “She wouldn’t tell me then what the surprise was going to be. She only said, ‘Just call me your fairy godmother.”’

“As in Cinderella?”

“That’s right. It got to be kind of a joke. Me as Cinderella. And Danielle and Gracie and Kim as my fairy godmothers, waving a magic wand over me. Then, once they’d worked their magic, I said that all I needed was a prince.”

“Then I showed up.” The candlelight gleamed, two spots of soft gold, in his dark eyes.