Cathleen Galitz - Only Skin Deep

Often in front of their husbands.

Fenton’s return to the scene of the crime had been swift, however, his fumbling attempts to dab at the punch on Lauren’s dress only made matters worse. Blushing to think that she looked like a nursing mother leaking through the bodice of her dress, Lauren blinked back tears. Not a woman given to hysterics, she felt herself precariously close to a public meltdown guaranteed to ruin her mother’s special day.

“Anything I can do to help, Lauren?”

Realizing that Travis remembered her name was flattering in itself. Years ago, she’d assumed this golden Adonis had been too busy leading the league in touch-downs and flirting with cheerleaders to notice yet another adoring underclassman in the stands. Since high school, she wasn’t sure they even qualified as passing acquaintances. Dismissing the warning bells sounding inside her head, Lauren managed a wobbly smile.

“You could be kind enough to dance with me until I dry off and get myself pulled back together.”

It was a presumptuous request, but all of a sudden the very prim and proper Ms. Hewett didn’t give a fig about propriety and what others might think. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking to pretend the reason her friends had never tried fixing her up with Travis was because of his well-known aversion to marriage. Perhaps knowing his reputation as a heartbreaker, they wanted to protect her. It was more likely that they thought that he was out of her league. Nevertheless, having just committed herself to meeting as many potential suitors as possible, she saw nothing wrong with starting with the best-looking one first.

Besides, being seen with the most notorious bachelor in the county could only promote the fact that Lauren Hewett was putting herself back on the market.

The last thing Travis Banks wanted to do was dance with the woman who had just ruined his best shirt. He’d planned on making an appearance and hanging around only long enough to toast the wedding couple before making a quick getaway. Weddings in general made him uneasy. At the present he was surrounded by so many female biological clocks ticking in synch that they almost drowned out the band.

Not that bookish Lauren Hewett struck him as the pushy sort. Just the opposite in fact. Even back in high school, she had been so painfully shy that none of the guys paid her much attention. Travis thought he remembered hearing that she’d been traumatized by the death of her father and afterward devoted herself to her mother to the exclusion of developing a life of her own.

There was something rather touching in the way she had so self-consciously accepted that silly bouquet earlier that challenged his sense of chivalry. Even the hardest-hearted rogue would be moved to save a damsel in distress from Marsh’s boat-size two left feet and endless self-aggrandizing. Dancing with Henry’s new step-daughter was the least Travis could do in the way of helping her feel more at ease on what he assumed had to be a difficult day for her.

“I’d be delighted,” he lied.

He prayed that the band would strike up a lively number. The way his luck was running, he figured that the two of them, covered in sticky punch, would dry together like glue during an agonizingly long waltz. Whatever the band played, he hoped Lauren didn’t expect him to make polite small talk. A man far more comfortable in the solitude of the open range than in formal affairs requiring a suit and tie, Travis found an old worn pair of jeans and work boots suited him better. Had he not so much genuine respect for his father’s old business partner and longtime friend Henry Aberdeen, he would have done his usual routine with the wedding invitation he’d received: tossed it in the trash and sent an expensive gift in lieu of attending.

His worst fears were realized when the band commenced to play a good old-fashioned, belt-buckle-polishing slow dance. A minute later Travis discovered that his partner actually had a lovely figure beneath all those filmy layers of fabric. Despite the fact that Lauren went out of her way to hide that from the rest of the world, he couldn’t help but notice when his body reacted of its own volition to the soft, womanly curves pressed against him. Her body fit his so perfectly that it didn’t take any stretch of the imagination to envision dancing horizontally with her.

It was a nice change to dance with someone who didn’t feel like a stick in his arms. He’d never had any luck trying to convince Jaclyn—or any other woman for that matter—that most men really didn’t buy into that dying heroin addict look that graced so many magazines. Full-figured women were never out of fashion in his book. Mentally clothing Lauren in the same white dress that Marilynn Monroe immortalized while standing over a city vent left him feeling suddenly more aroused than he’d like anyone to notice.

Rather than putting a respectable distance between them on the dance floor, Travis was drawn even closer by the scent of her perfume. In a room filled with an overwhelming assortment of fragrances ranging from cloying to girlish, Lauren smelled so good that it was all he could do to keep from burying his nose in the nape of her neck and indulging himself like a bee sampling the choicest flower.

Studying her up close, Travis discovered she had very nice features: wide-set eyes the color of emeralds, good cheekbones, silky dark hair pulled a little too severely away from a heart-shaped face and a generous mouth that curved up appealingly when she smiled. She just didn’t accentuate those features the way other women—like his ex-wife Jaclyn—did spending hours making themselves presentable to the world. The fact that Lauren didn’t appear to be that kind of high-maintenance woman was admirable in its own way.

Then again, Travis was paying Jaclyn an obscene amount of alimony each month and he had never given Lauren Hewett a second glance before today.

“I feel awful about ruining your shirt. You have to allow me to pay for your dry cleaning bill,” she offered.

Travis protested that the offer was unnecessary, but she refused to accept no for an answer.

“Really, I insist. There’s only one problem….”

Travis found the way she worried her lower lip between her teeth oddly mesmerizing. And unbelievably sexy. Feeling a stab of awareness in his belly, he stared at her hard as she continued in a halting voice.

“I’d tell you to mail me the bill, but I don’t know where I’m going to be. All I know is that I won’t be here much longer….”

Travis noticed Fenton out of the corner of his eye. He was waiting his turn at the edge of the dance floor, eager to take up where he’d left off before hurling his dance partner into another man’s arms. Strangely enough, Travis wasn’t nearly as ready to give up Lauren as he thought he would be at the beginning of the song. He steered her in the opposite direction.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” she blurted out, looking almost claustrophobic.

Travis wondered how much champagne Lauren had consumed over the course of the afternoon.

“Are you sick?” he asked.

“And tired,” she admitted, “of my life in general.”

Once again Travis found himself staring into a pair of wide, hypnotic eyes and asking almost against his own free will, “I don’t suppose there’s anything I could do to help?”

Lauren hiccupped daintily.

“You could always marry me and put an end to this misery.”

Travis stumbled. All of a sudden he understood exactly why poor old Marsh had fallen over his own feet and baptized Travis with punch. To date, it was the quickest proposal he’d ever received from a woman he barely knew.

His reaction caused Lauren to blush a furious shade of pink. Nervous laughter intended to underscore the fact that she had only been joking cracked beneath the strain of her explanation.