“Because he was a cowboy?” Granny asked.
“Oh, no,” she said with a cheeky grin. “It was because he was short, bald, wore little round spectacles which looked like they’d come from the last century, and spoke with the highest-pitched, squeakiest voice I’ve ever heard in my life.”
The laughter in the room was deafening.
“Who was he?” Johnny asked curiously, then cleared his throat and continued, “I haven’t heard this part of the story before.”
Jenn chuckled, ostensibly about the story, but actually because of Johnny’s very truthful comment. Of course he hadn’t heard the story. He couldn’t have, since she was making it up on the spot.
“The bald man turned out to be a neighbor, just dropping in to say hi and return something he’d borrowed, I think.” She beamed at Johnny for her family’s benefit. “I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear another knock at the door and see this tall, good-looking cowboy strutting in as if he owned the world.”
Johnny ruffled his fingers through his thick, dark, curly locks. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “I cannot say how truly thankful I am at this moment for this full head of hair of mine.”
If the story were true, Jenn thought, it might even have happened that way, Johnny being a cowboy or not. He was incredibly handsome in his nice, clean Western clothes, though she did wonder momentarily what he might look like in a business suit, his curls tamed with a palm full of hair gel.
But, no. That wouldn’t be Johnny; and at the moment, Jenn wasn’t sure she’d change him if she could. He was as wild and free as the Wyoming range, and he most definitely looked that way.
Oddly, Jenn found she couldn’t complain.
She realized she’d abruptly dropped her story with her daydreaming when Johnny picked it up.
“I don’t know for sure how it was for Jenn that night,” he said, smiling softly down at her, “but for me, at least, the moment our eyes met, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was a goner.”
Her gaze met Johnny’s at that moment, as if their story had been true. His midnight-blue eyes were shimmering with amusement and just a touch of something else Jenn couldn’t quite identify. Then his mouth did that cute little twist and Jenn thought, if the circumstances she’d concocted were true, she might have been a goner, as well.
Even with her past. Even with her secrets.
Johnny was getting to her somehow, and she took a mental step backward, bolstering the defenses she’d relied on all her life.
She didn’t want to go there—to the past. And she wasn’t about to let Johnny, with his good looks and charming ways, take her there.
Johnny wondered why Jenn’s smile had turned so quickly to a frown, and he redoubled his efforts to make the light come back into her eyes.
That she had been hurt in the past, by someone or some circumstance, was a given. She was all bottled up inside. He could see it through her eyes even now, though her gaze had become distant.
The clatter of a fork against a fine china plate interrupted his thoughts. “Love at first sight,” exclaimed Auntie Myra. “It’s so romantic. Was it that way for you, too, Jenn?”
“Myra,” Granny snapped, “don’t push the young people. It’s their story. Let them say what they want to say.”
“Indeed,” Jenn’s mother agreed. “By all means, go on. We’re all anxious to hear the rest of the tale.”
Even Jenn’s father and grandfather nodded at that statement.
Jenn went from dark to light in a split second, startling Johnny more than he realized. Did lying come so easy to her? She definitely had a knack for storytelling, and she was a phenomenal actress, for her eyes now held warmth toward him.
It almost felt like love, not that he had any experience in that area. He’d never found a woman who instigated the bevy of emotions coursing through him. Whatever he was feeling, it disconcerted him until he could hardly think.
“Just like the love songs paint it, I’m afraid,” Jenn admitted with a wink. “Take a look at him,” she said, smiling up at him and brushing a stray lock of hair off his forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Who could resist him?”
Johnny swallowed hard. The simple touch of her fingers running through his hair made his heart jump into his chest, thudding so rapidly he thought everyone at the table might hear it.
Jenn was a beautiful woman. What man wouldn’t be attracted to those bouncy golden curls and bright blue eyes so full of life and intelligence?
But he was getting off-track, and fast.
He reminded himself mentally that her actions were for her family. Part of the ruse and nothing more. Her touch had seemed somehow intimate, yet he knew it was all for show.
It meant nothing. So why did he feel like it did?
“Our dinner together was a bit awkward, with us gawking at each other across the table,” Jenn said, punctuating her sentence with a laugh that, at least to Johnny’s ears, sounded forced. “I think Mark must have kicked Johnny underneath the table a couple of times to keep the conversation flowing.”
Johnny winced visibly, then gave a rueful grin.
“He walked me to my car afterwards,” Jenn said, as Johnny slid his arm around the back of her chair. “Talk about cliché.”
“He snuck a kiss!” Auntie Myra exclaimed, slamming both her palms down on the table in her excitement, making the silverware and glasses nearest to her dance. “How incredibly romantic!”
“He did no such thing,” Jenn protested, with a shake of her head.
Johnny winked at her, but he couldn’t help that a tiny bit of his male pride was bruised by her harsh statement. Due to the fast pace of his career and nonstop working obligations, he hadn’t dated much in the past few years, but did she really believe kissing him would be so terrible?
“He remarked on how pretty the stars were that evening, and then he asked if he could call me sometime.”
“Well, ya obviously gave him your number, didn’t ya?” teased Scotty.
Jenn scowled at her younger brother. “I didn’t have to,” she stated bluntly. “He’d already gotten it from Mark and Julie on the sly.”
Granny snickered behind her hand. “Quick thinking, young man.”
“Of course, Johnny was busy,” Jenn continued. “We spoke on the phone a few times—when he called, that is—the man never did give me his telephone number, no matter how many times I nagged him about it. Mostly we’ve gotten to know each other through e-mail.”
The statement shook Johnny like an earthquake. The way she described their meeting—that’s exactly how it would have happened, if it had happened, for he certainly couldn’t have given her his telephone number for where he really lived.
Unless he told her the truth about his identity. Unless she knew who he really was.
Maybe if things had been different…
He shook his head mentally. This was nothing but a charade. He needed to get his head back on his shoulders, and right quickly.
Auntie Myra held her hands to her cheeks. “This is so romantic. I think I may faint.”
“Oh, knock it off with the dramatics already, Myra,” Granny snipped.
His supper finished, Jenn’s grandfather pushed back his chair and stood. “Seems to me,” he said with a slow drawl, “that given the circumstances, we ought to be giving these two youngsters some alone time.”
Jenn’s eyes