Page 73 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
“I do now. Now I understand the responsibilities of this job. Whether I like it or not, I have to think about your best interests. If it’s any comfort to you, I’d rather think about my best interests instead of yours. Frankly, thinking about you first and always is mostly a pain in the… neck.”
Ty removed his hat with a flourish, bowed before his niece, then kissed the top of her head. “Here’s Senora Jaramillo now. We’ll see you in the morning.” When Graciela crossed her arms over her chest and spun around to present her back to him, he frowned at her a moment, then pressed his lips together and turned to greet Senora Jaramillo.
After a few minutes with Senora Jaramillo, Jenny took his arm and they stepped into the corridor. The instant the door shut behind them, they halted. “Put your ear against the wood and see if you can tell if she’s crying,” Jenny whispered.
Ty pressed his ear to the door. “They’re talking.”
“You’re positive that she isn’t crying?” She pressed her fingers together. “I can’t believe how rotten I feel about leaving her. Iknowshe’s deliberately trying to make us feel lousy. Iknowthis. But damn it, her tactic fricking works.”
Instantly, she wished she hadn’t cussed. Instinct insisted that cusswords didn’t sit well on the lips of a woman wearing apricot-colored satin and matching shawl and slippers. For the first time in her life, Jenny felt an urge to beg pardon for talking the way she had talked for most of her life.
Stepping away from the door, Ty framed her face between his palms and kissed her deeply and without haste, cutting off her dazed apology. When their lips parted, he gazed down into her wide eyes. “We are not going to talk about Graciela tonight, or the Barrancas cousins. We are not going to flog ourselves for leaving her. Tonight is ours. It belongs to us.”
Already her heart was slamming against the bones of her corset. “Where are we going,” she asked breathlessly, more for something to say than from any real curiosity. As long as she was with Ty, as long as he continued to look at her with that slow smolder lighting the back of his eyes, she didn’t care where they dined.
Dined. Well la-de-da. A length of satin, some ribbon and lace, and wasn’t she the grand lady? It would be wise to keep in mind that she had skinned buffalos, had washed other people’s dirty laundry, had driven a team of foul-smelling jacks. No apricot-colored satin was going to change who she was.
“Come with me,” Ty said, taking her gloved hand.
At the staircase landing, Jenny turned to descend, but he laughed softly and tugged her toward the stairs leading up. A question leaped into her eyes, and he smiled, and said, “You’ll see.”
When he stopped to fit a key into the door of a room on the top floor, Jenny burst out laughing. “You dog,” she said, pressing her gloved fingers beneath eyes damp with laughter. “For this I needed an expensive new gown? And a corset?”
But the room Ty led her into was not just another hotel room. Having never seen a suite before, Jenny gasped, and her gloved hands flew to her lips.
It was as if they had stepped into a small, opulent house. Through a doorway, she glimpsed an elegant four-poster, but they stood in a beautifully furnished living room.
Smiling, Ty took her arm and led her toward a circular stairway. “We’re diningal fresco.Do you know what that means?”
“I don’t have a fricking idea what that means,” she whispered, too awed to be irritated as she usually was when he used words she didn’t comprehend.
“It means in the fresh air, outside.”
The staircase circled up to a rooftop courtyard so lush and lovely it took Jenny’s breath away. What seemed like hundreds of potted plants created a tropical riot of shade and color, winding up trellises, trailing along the stone railings. Moving to the railing, Jenny peered down at the distant street to remind herself that she couldn’t be standing in a real garden.
Then she gazed out at a stunning view of the city bathed in sunset tones of russet and gold. Beyond the city stretched the desert rangelands, and in the distance she identified the dusky silhouette of the Sierras. Jenny had never been high enough to view such a panorama and the beauty of it stopped the breath in her throat. Floating above the city on a blossom-laden cloud, she decided if nothing else occurred tonight, this was already an unforgettable evening.
It wasn’t until she turned to breathlessly thank Ty for showing her the city from above that she noticed a linen-clad table, lit by candles and set with colorful Mexican crockery and gleaming silver.
“I… you… this is just . .”
Ty laughed, carefully observing her openmouthed wonder. Pleased that she was stammering, he nodded to someone behind the trellis, and the soft strumming of guitars filled her ears. Kicking back her train, Jenny spun in a swirl of satin and spotted three Mexican musicians positioned at a discreet distance from their table. They tipped wide-brimmed sombreros to her, bowed, then continued playing.
“Ty!” She wet her lips, feeling overwhelmed. “This is… astonishing. Wonderful.” Wringing her hands together, she gazed up at him. “When did you… It’s just so…” Words failed her.
Smiling, he offered his arm and she accepted it self-consciously, letting him lead her to the table and extend her chair. Caressing fingers brushed her bare shoulders when he removed her shawl and placed it on a bench with his hat, and she shivered lightly at his touch.
The moment he sat across from her, a waiter appeared out of the foliage and served wine in cut-crystal glasses that trapped the candlelight inside a dozen small surfaces.
“To you,” Ty said softly, touching his glass to hers.
“This is… I’ve never… I feel like I’ve been poleaxed,” Jenny whispered, glancing over her shoulder to see if the musicians could observe them through the roses climbing over the trellis. The waiter also appeared to have vanished, although she suspected he hadn’t really.
“Do you like it?”
“Oh my heavens, yes. It’s like…” But she couldn’t draw a comparison because nothing remotely like this courtyard or this evening had formed any part of her experience or imaginings. “Oh Ty,” she breathed, staring at him. “Thank you. I will remember this evening all the rest of my days.” A tiny frown marred the smoothness of her brow. “When I saw you opening the door to another hotel room, I thought…”
He moved his chair closer to hers, then reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. The heat of his mouth penetrated her glove, and she was thankful that she was seated. No man had even kissed her hand before, and she would have laughed herself sick if one had tried. But she wasn’t laughing now.
