“Whoa.”

The single word rushed out before Ted could stop it. Laura was breathtaking. Her body was sheathed in something soft and blue-green that made him think of a waterfall or a mermaid. It left her arms and shoulders bare and showed off her breasts. Why hadn’t he noticed before that she had such amazing breasts? Her hair had been curled and piled up on her head in a style that made him want to pull the pins out one by one to watch it cascade down through his fingers and over her naked skin. But it was her face that had his heart and groin fighting for the blood racing through him.

She was gorgeous. And she was terrified. She wore make-up that brought out all of her strongest features, but her eyes didn’t need anything artificial to shine. Her body didn’t need the fancy dress either. In fact, it wasn’t her surface appearance that had knocked the wind out of him, it was her excited, anxious, expectant expression. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her senseless, and at the same time, he wanted to sit her down and talk her out of hyperventilating.

“Okay, I think the stunned silence has gone on long enough,” Calliope said, moving to the edge of the balcony to stand beside Laura. “Hi, Ted.”

“Hi.” Ted’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat, laughing at himself for being reduced to speechlessness, and tried again. “Hi Calliope, hi ladies.” He waved to the crew standing around Laura, then zeroed in on her. “Good evening, Laura. You look amazing.”

“Do I?” Her voice rose an octave.

“You absolutely do.” Everything about her was so charming, from her surprised blink to the way she gripped the balcony’s railing. “Why don’t you come down here so I can see the full picture.”

“Oh!” She flinched. “Right. Just a second.” She held up one finger, then lifted the hem of her skirt in a less than graceful move and rushed for the hallway behind the loft.

In the half-minute it took for Laura and the girls to come downstairs, Ted turned to Will and quirked his brow up with more than a little gloating.

Will chuckled and thumped Ted on the back. “You’re one lucky man,” he said. “Who would have guessed that Laura would clean up so well?”

Ted had to swallow his instinct to tell Will off for being rude. He and Laura were friends, after all, and he was probably just teasing. “I’m pretty sure I’m the luckiest man in town,” he answered with just enough serious to let Will know he’d only let the teasing go so far.

The ladies walked into the main room, Laura in the center, like a queen and her court. She looked even better at eye-level than she had from on high.

“Wow,” he said, walking forward to meet her. He offered her the bouquet he’d had Melody put together earlier. “You really do look amazing.”

Laura took the flowers, smelling them briefly, then meeting his eyes with a blush. “Do I really? This isn’t my dress, and it makes me look, I dunno, not like myself.”

“It makes you look gorgeous,” he argued.

“Yeah, exactly.”

Ted blinked at her, then shifted to stare at her with a look of mock disapproval. “You are beautiful, you know. Even if you don’t think so. It’s not the dress that impresses me.”

She started to giggle, but stopped before she could do more than breathe out and straightened. “You know what?” she began, the spunk he was used to seeing in her returning. “Tonight, I’m just going to accept that and not argue. Although I personally think that confidence has more to do with Mrs. Clutterbuck’s dress and the hard work my friends here put into dolling me up.”

Ted’s grin widened at the old-fashioned way she phrased it. He wanted to argue her into accepting how awesome she was every day, but it seemed like a safer bet to say, “Whatever the cause, I’m proud to show you off to the whole town as my date tonight.”

Laura’s momentarily confident smile slipped. “The whole town?” She swallowed and pressed her free hand to her chest.

Words weren’t going to put her at ease, so Ted laughed and moved to take her arm. “Well, we’re walking over to the Cattleman, so whoever sees us. But trust me, they’re going to like what they see.”

“I hope so,” she murmured. Before he could call her out for not appreciating herself, she turned to her friends-slash-prep-team. “Thanks guys.”

“Any time,” Sandy answered.

“Seriously, any time,” Calliope added. “As in, I want to see you two kids going out a whole lot more often after this.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” Ted said.

“Yeah, well, that’s because I haven’t had a chance to humiliate myself yet,” Laura told him, her eyes round. But there was enough humor there for him to brush off the self-esteem issues and switch to holding her hand instead of escorting her.

“Do you want to leave those flowers here?” Melody asked as they reached the hallway and their shoes. “You can come back and get them later. I just hate to think of roses and alstroemeria sitting out on a table without water all night.”

Laura laughed and walked the bouquet back to Melody. As nice as it would have been to see Laura carrying his flowers around, the fact that Melody’s worrying had broken Laura’s tension was a blessing.

With the flowers taken care of and shoes recovered from the hallway, they left the Clutterbucks’ and began a leisurely walk into the heart of town.

“I should have asked to borrow a better pair of shoes,” Laura said, glancing down at her feet as they peeked out from the flowing hem of her borrowed dress with each step. “These old loafers definitely don’t go.”

Ted made a show of lifting the hem of her skirt to get a look when they stopped to cross Main Street. “They look fine to me.”

He inched her skirt a little higher as a joke, but caught sight of a pattern of old, pink scars. His heart did an odd twist in his chest, but lucky for him, Laura realized he was teasing her and burst into a giggled, “Stop! People are watching us.”

A few Haskellians out walking did glance their way, but no one was staring. Ted let her skirt go and escorted her across the street. “If they are watching, then all they’ll see is two people who get along really well out to have a good time.”

“Is that what this is?” She arched a brow.

Ted treated her to a mysterious smile. He thought about the PSF-brand condom in his pocket. “Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see where the night takes us.”

He thought his line was pretty good, but when he glanced to her as they stepped up on the curb on the far side of the street, that odd combination of exhilaration and panic was back in her eyes.

“What’s that look for?” he asked as off-handedly as he could.

“Nothing,” she answered with a tight squeak. “I just don’t go out on dates very often. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or what you expect of me. I’m afraid I’ll do it wrong and embarrass you. And we don’t have a great track-record with food. Salsa on my dress? Ice cream dripping down my hands?”

Ted paused when they reached the steps leading up to the Cattleman Hotel’s porch. “Stop worrying,” he said, turning to face her. “Nothing you could possibly do would embarrass me or fail to meet expectations. I like you, Laura. I like you a lot. And all I want to do is hang out with you, eat some good food without spilling it—which I’m confident we can do—and make sure that you enjoy yourself.”

“All right. But if the night ends with chocolate mousse all over your tie, don’t blame me. I warned you.”

Ted fought the urge to laugh. Instead, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, like some kind of hero in a fairy story. Then, just to make her laugh, he said, “Chill out, princess. You don’t have to try to impress me. I was impressed the second I saw you in this…this….” He gestured to her dress, overcome with the urge to run his hands up and down the silky fabric and to feel the shape of her underneath.

“It’s called a dress,” she said with just enough sarcasm to widen his smile. “And it’s not mine.”

“Maybe we should get you one like this, then.” He pivoted to continue on, still holding the hand he’d kissed as they climbed the stairs to the hotel.

“It’s not really my style,” she argued.

“You’re right,” he agreed. That earned a surprised and anxious look from Laura. Ted shrugged. “Your style is more of a sexy pair of tight jeans covered in dino dust and a shirt that’s unbuttoned just enough. My favorite.”

He winked, then jumped ahead to hold the door for her, which put him in just the right position to catch her bright blush at his comment.

* * *

All Laura could think about as she sat across a cozy table from Ted in the Cattleman Hotel’s restaurant was that if their fossil really was two dinosaurs captured in a moment of mortal combat, they still probably had it easier than the struggle going on in her gut. Ted was being a perfect gentleman. They’d managed to keep the conversation going since they stepped out of the Clutterbucks’ apartment and into the wilds of Haskell together. The food was excellent, and she had managed not to spill anything on her borrowed dress—or stain it in any other ways.

But at the same time, the air crackled with anticipation, and Laura didn’t have the first idea of where to go with it. She figured she should be leaning in to him, batting her eyelashes, and oozing sex appeal, but she was well aware that her sex appeal was roughly level to that of a cat coughing up a hairball.

“And if we are able to expand our cattle operation,” Ted was in the middle of saying, “we might even be able to buy up part of the Albright ranch next door. Dad’s heard that Frank Albright is looking to retire, and last I heard, neither Guy nor Jimmy were interested in moving home to pick up where their dad leaves off.”

Ted practically glowed as he talked about the possibilities for his ranch and the life he was immersed in. Laura tried to give him her undivided attention as he talked about it. She also tried to rest her elbow on the table and pose in a provocative way, like Sandy would. But she accidentally knocked her fork off the table in the process.

“You okay there?” Ted asked, a chuckle in his voice, as she ducked to the side to retrieve it.”

“Yeah, I’m good. How often do people move away from Haskell and not come back?” she asked as she straightened. She put the fork back on the table, then rearranged all of her silverware, just to have something for her hands to do.

Ted leaned back in his chair. “These days? More often than not. In Dad’s generation, the guys stuck around more, but ever since the economy changed, it’s tough for a guy my age to find a steady job in this part of the state. Well, unless you happen to be an engineer or an astrophysicist.” He punctuated his comment with a warm, sly look.

Heat rushed to Laura’s face. There was no way she was going to let herself become the topic of dinner conversation again. Even though she knew Ted liked her stories of traveling the world. “So how come you stayed when other guys were leaving?”

“I couldn’t very well leave Mom and Dad to run the ranch on their own,” he answered without hesitation. “I started helping Dad with the day-to-day stuff on the ranch when I was barely old enough to ride a horse.” He fingered his napkin on the table, a brief frown passing over his features. “I never stopped to consider any other job, really.”

“And do you regret that?” Laura leaned forward—not with a sultry pout to snag his attention, but with genuine interest in what his life had been like.

Ted tilted his head to the side in consideration. “Not really,” he started slowly, and with a faint wince. His gaze drifted up to meet hers. “It never bothered me that I haven’t been anywhere until I met you.”

Laura inched away from the table, pressing her spine into the back of her chair. “Sorry,” she said, spirits sinking. “I didn’t mean to go ruining your life or anything.”

He burst into a laugh. “Princess, you didn’t ruin anything for me. You opened the world up.”

She overrode the swell of uncomfortable emotion that comment brought by pointing at him and saying, “Okay, what’s with this new ‘Princess’ thing?”

His grin widened. “What, you don’t think it suits you?”

“No,” she said on a breathy laugh.

“But that’s definitely a princess dress.” He nodded toward her plunging neckline.

Part of Laura wanted to cover her surprising cleavage with her napkin. Oddly enough, the rest of her kind of liked being looked at that way by Ted. “Funny, but I feel more like the ugly step-sister than Cinderella.”

Ted shook his head. “You’re too nice to be an ugly step-sister. And definitely too smart.”

“Okay, well, at the very least, I’m one of the woodland creatures who helped Cinderella get ready for the ball.”

Ted rolled his eyes. “You’re not.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I mean, I do have a tendency to hang out in holes, burrowing in the dirt.”

“Well, I would be sure, and I’ll prove it to you.”

He shifted in his seat, reaching into his blazer pocket. Eyes glittering with mischief, he brought out a small, velvet box and set it on the table.

“No!” Laura snapped, face burning hot. She glanced quickly around at the other diners. “Geez, Ted, it’s just one date. I’m not going to marry you based on one date.”

Ted laughed loud enough to draw more attention from the rest of the room. “It’s not a ring, goof-ball.”

“It’s not?” Of all things, she felt a pang of disappointment.

That disappointment vanished a second later when Ted cleared his throat and opened the box for her. A pair of gorgeous sapphire earrings sat on a little pillow inside the box. They glittered in the light as Laura picked up the box to get a closer look. Her mouth dropped open, and for the life of her, she couldn’t shut it. Holy heck in a handbasket.

“Ted,” she gulped. “What the heck is this?”

“They reminded me of your eyes,” he said.

“That is totally not what I meant.” She glanced up and pinned him with a stare.

“It’s a thank you gift,” he said, his smile as wide as she’d ever seen it.

“Thank you? For what? I haven’t done anything yet.” A bolt of worry hit her already trembling gut. What did he expect her to do? Something naughty between the sheets? She blinked, then considered that expensive earrings might just be enough to trick her conscience into throwing whatever virginal hang-ups she had out the window so she could bang the living daylights out of him.

She shook her head to banish that thought as soon as it came to her.

“You found the fossil,” Ted went on, blessedly unable to read minds. “Without you, I would have continued thinking it was just an old cow bone.”

Bone, Laura thought, and bit her tongue to keep from laughing.

“But these,” she said aloud, setting the jewelry box on the table. She let out a breath. “An ice cream cone would have been thanks enough.”

“Oh, there will be ice cream,” Ted said, his voice deep and suggestive. “There will be lots and lots of ice cream.”

She couldn’t help but giggle at his overdone charm. “They’re too expensive, Ted.”

He shook his head. “Not for someone who stands to make several million dollars selling a hunk of rock.”

He was trying to make a joke, but a snap of anxiety made her wince. “Nothing is a done deal yet. Dr. Ashford is only making an educated guess about the fossil’s worth. It would be a terrible idea to go spending that money before you actually have it.”

That sobered Ted up a bit, although Laura didn’t consider it much of a victory. It had taken a while, but she was convinced she’d finally screwed up their date.

Until Ted took a long, steadying breath. “You’re right,” he said. “I got carried away. But I saw those and I thought they’d look great on you, and, well, I just wanted to buy you something nice. Is that so wrong?”

She stopped herself from answering immediately with, “Yes.” Instead, she picked up the box and studied the earrings again. They really were pretty, like glittering teardrops.

“No, it’s not wrong,” she admitted at last. “You’re free to spend your money however you want to. But seriously.” She set the box back on the table. “I honestly would have been happy with ice cream.” It was all those other imaginary, sophisticated, experienced, sexy women who she pictured going out with Ted who would have appreciated fancy earrings, not her. Which definitely made her question whether she should be the one sitting across the table from him.

Then again…

Their waitress approached the table. “Can I get you two any dessert?”

Anything for a scrumptious dessert.

“Yes,” Ted answered right away. “Ice cream. We’d like some ice cream.” He grinned at Laura across the table like a kid about to steal a pie from a windowsill.

“With some form of chocolate, if that’s possible,” Laura added, catching his grin and letting herself smile.

The waitress also broke into a silly smile. “How about a chocolate avalanche brownie topped with vanilla ice cream.”

“Perfect,” Ted said.

Miraculously, brownies and ice cream made everything easier. Ted convinced her to put the earrings on, and really, there was nothing quite so decadent as eating a chocolate avalanche brownie while wearing sapphire earrings. It did more than the wine they’d had with dinner could to loosen her up. By the time she and Ted were strolling down Main Street, headed toward her apartment, Laura was almost willing to admit that she’d done the right thing in finally accepting Ted’s invitation.

Even when he reached out to hold her hand as they walked. He did it so subtly she almost didn’t notice. They were just walking along, talking about how many years it would be before Howie was able to test the Haskell I rocket and whether he would be able to get a permit to launch it in Wyoming or if he’d have to take it to Cape Canaveral, or even the Sriharikota facility in India, when bam, Ted’s hand was wrapped around hers.

“What did you do that for?” she asked, glancing down at their joined hands as they walked over the station bridge.

Ted grinned. “Do you like it?”

Yes, part of Laura shouted. Wait, do you? another part of her asked.

She continued to stare in silence until they were across the bridge and halfway to the first intersection on South Main Street.

“It’s not a trick question,” Ted said, his eyes alight with teasing.

“Are you sure about that?” She went along with the light mood.

“I am. And I notice you haven’t let go yet.” He nodded to their joined hands.

“Hmm. Yeah, I noticed that too,” she said.

She probably should have let go, but dammit, she didn’t want to. His callused, rancher hand felt really good wrapped around hers. He made her feel delicate, which everyone knew was as far from the truth as it was possible to get.

They walked on, and all too soon, they reached the side alley and the door to Laura’s apartment. Of all things, she was disappointed that the evening was over.

“Well,” she said as they stood in front of the door, doing nothing but holding hands and looking at each other. “I had a nice time tonight after all.”

He shook his head at her, the fondness in his eyes unmistakable. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, it was more than just fondness.

“After all the time it took me to get you to say yes, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She tilted her head to the side and thought about that for a minute.

“So….” Ted drew the single syllable out, glancing at her with hopeful eyes. “Can I come up?”

Laura winced inwardly. Was that standard dating protocol? Was she supposed to invite him upstairs so they could continue their conversation? It wasn’t that late, after all. Any woman with the right kind of experience would know what she was supposed to do at this point.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” she said, trying to play it cool, like she knew what she was doing. “I can make us some coffee or something.”

“Sounds delicious.”

There was something beyond delicious in his voice, something almost victorious. It sent shivers down Laura’s back, in spite of the fact that she had no clue what was going on. She was going to find out, though. She’d made it this far into the date without causing a disaster. The least she could do was stick with the program and find out how real dates were supposed to end.