Page 48 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

My Lord. She looked like a different person.

The powder muted her tan, her slicked-back hair exposed a broad, rather noble forehead, she decided, shyly pleased.

Tonight her eyes appeared as blue as a shining spring sky.

Caught up in a transformation she had never worked before, she plucked a rose petal from the flowers in the window box and rubbed it over her lips, leaning to the mirror to judge the effect.

With only minutes to spare before Ty and Graciela knocked, then opened the door, she carefully stepped into the apricot-colored satin gown and hooked the side closing, wishing for a full-length mirror so she could admire the poufs of pale green cascading down the back of the gown.

The pale green matched the swirls of delicate embroidery adorning the slim front of her skirt and repeated in a wide ribbon bow at her breast.

Staring down at herself, she imagined a newly emerged butterfly, a splendid creature heretofore hidden inside awaiting exactly the right moment and the right accessories to shine forth. Or maybe she merely looked like an elegantly gowned lady of the night. She didn’t know.

Ty and Graciela stopped in their tracks when they saw her.

“Jenny!” Graciela breathed, staring. “You look beautiful.”

Crimson circles flared on her cheeks as she raised her eyes to Ty, and she smoothed trembling fingers over her hips. Only when she noticed that his gaze smoldered with a fire no woman could fail to mistake did the tremor in her hands alter from uncertainty to pleasure. Still…

“Do I look like a whore?” she whispered, wondering if she should have avoided the powder and rose petal lips.

“You look… like a vision,” he murmured hoarsely. “That gown fits like a second skin, and the color is wonderful with your hair.”

Her throat warmed with a rush of delight. But he was a man; she couldn’t fully trust his response. Therefore, she turned an appeal to Graciela. “Is too much bosom hanging out?” Never in her life had she exposed this much flesh. When she glanced down, a mountain range of pale mounds met her gaze.

Graciela walked around her, giving a tug here, straightening a fold there.

“That’s the fashion,” she announced sagely, sounding as knowledgeable as an experienced shopkeeper.

When she had completed a full circle, she stood back and, eyes wide with disbelief and admiration, and she said softly, “Oh Jenny. You look so beautiful. You look like a princess.”

“Oh my. Well, thank you.” She cleared her throat, then darted a glance toward Ty, who hadn’t moved. He stood as if rooted to the floor by the sight of her.

“Jenny?” Graciela bit her lips in indecision, then nodded and touched the locket pin on her chest. “I… would you like to borrow my pin for tonight?”

The shy offer blindsided her. During the entire time they had traveled together, through all their travails, Graciela had worn the locket. Always. Day and night. It was her most prized possession, the only tangible memory of her mother.

Oh Lord. Jenny blinked hard and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat.

“I would be honored to wear your pin,” she murmured in a husky voice.

Sitting on the side of the bed, she waited while Graciela removed the locket from her chest then carefully pinned it to the bodice of Jenny’s gown.

They gazed at each other for a lengthy moment, then Graciela leaned forward and brushed a hasty kiss across Jenny’s cheek before she darted away to the window.

Openmouthed, Jenny lifted a hand to her cheek and stared. If nothing else happened tonight, already it had become an evening she would remember for the rest of her life. Graciela had kissed her.

“Well,” she said, dropping her head and blinking hard. Were there tears in her eyes? No, of course not. “Where is my fan and bag? And where is Senora Jaramillo?”

“I hear the good senora on the staircase,” Ty said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her. “My God, Jenny,” he said softly, his voice thick. “I wish you could see yourself. You look… amazing.”

Hot with pleasure, she stood and collected her fan and bag from the top of the bureau, and dropped an apricot satin shawl over her shoulders, feeling the pale green fringe brush the crook of her arms. To cover a sudden bout of nervousness, she focused on Graciela while she tugged on her gloves, but she was acutely aware that Ty watched each small movement she made.

“Mind what Senora Jaramillo tells you. Don’t play poker for real money, only matchsticks, and go to bed when the senora tells you to. I better not hear that you were smoking, cussing, or drinking up here.”

The kid didn’t smile. She was getting pissy again. “You didn’t used to care when I went to bed.”

“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. I know she’s deliberately trying to make us feel lousy. I know this. 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 dining al 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.