He had an expression on his face that she’d never seen a man wear before. Taylor had certainly never looked at her like that. She didn’t understand his look but it was making her blush.
“I think the chocolate will…will come out easily,” she said hesitantly, for the man was gaping at her. He sat up, then slowly turned toward her, his eyes barely blinking as he looked at her.
“Amanda, you are beautiful,” he whispered.
“Beauty isn’t important. It is one’s mind that matters,” she said, then felt a little absurd to be standing there in her underwear and lecturing him. But she conquered her feeling. His looks might make her blush but he was a man who’d just slammed a cake in her face.
She turned on her heel away from him and went to the pond to try to wash the cake off her suit and out of her hair. The suit was easy, and she felt many pounds lighter when the cake stains blended with the brown twill of the suit. Her hair was another matter. She needed a mirror to see what needed washing.
“Allow me,” Hank said from behind her, making Amanda jump.
She didn’t trust him. “If I don’t agree with you, do I get the tapioca poured over my head?”
He knelt beside her and used his handkerchief to wash cake from her hair. “It wasn’t that you disagreed with me, it was—”
“Yes?” she asked. “What did make you do this despicable thing?”
He had his hand on her jaw and he stopped washing and looked down at her mouth, then moved his thumb along the curve of her lower lip.
Amanda’s heart began to beat faster. You shouldn’t allow him to do this, she thought, but she didn’t move. “Unions,” she whispered as he watched her mouth.
He looked back at her eyes and seemed to recover himself. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just parroting your father and that man you think you love.”
“Do love, Dr. Montgomery.”
He took his hands from her face and rinsed out the cloth. “You know nothing about love.”
She snatched the cloth from him. “You have no idea what I know about. I happen to know a great deal about love, as I have been in love with Taylor since I was fourteen. It is an abiding, enduring love.”
“I’ve seen the two of you together. He’s your teacher, not your lover. How many times has he told you you’re beautiful? How many times has he been so overcome with passion that you’ve had to shove him out of your room?”
“Taylor is a gentleman. Of course I’ve never had to shove him out of my room. I don’t want a man who is so…so…”
“Passionate?” Hank asked. “Here, let me do that.” He started to use the cloth to get the now-drying cake from her hair but it didn’t work. “It’s in there pretty good. Here, stretch out there, put your head on the rock and I’ll have
to rinse it.”
Amanda didn’t like the idea but she obeyed. Hank went to empty one of the glass food dishes and when he returned she was lying on the grass in the shade, her head on a rock, hair spread out around her. He groaned aloud, making her look up at him in surprise.
“I assure you that I can wash my own hair,” she said, starting to rise.
“No!” he said quickly. He filled the container with water, then knelt by her and poured water through her hair. There was part of him that didn’t believe what he was doing. In the past, if he’d found himself alone with a young woman who was wearing her underwear and silk stockings on long, beautiful legs, it would have been because he had removed her clothes to make love to her. But here he was, innocently washing her hair.
“What were we talking about?” he asked. Maybe talking would make him stop looking at her.
“You were insulting me, as usual,” she said, but there was no anger in her voice. She closed her eyes and felt his hands on her hair and head. This whole day had been awful, of course, an absolute waste of time. Dr. Montgomery hadn’t cared about the museum and had rudely let her know it. Then he’d yelled at her and hit her in the face with cake—really an awful day, but right now she didn’t want to be anywhere else but right here in the drowsy heat with the warm water pouring over her hair.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world when Dr. Montgomery kissed her. She didn’t open her eyes but just enjoyed the sensation of his warm lips on hers. She put her hand to the back of his head. Just the tip of his tongue touched hers and it was very sweet. She might have lain there forever if he hadn’t put his hand on her breast.
The sensation was so startling, her eyes flew open. She pushed him away and sat up, wet hair clinging to the shoulders of his shirt. “How dare you!” she gasped.
“Rather easily,” he said, grinning, “and with great pleasure. The same pleasure you felt, I might add.” “You attacked me!” she said, standing.
He grinned at her in such a knowing way that she looked away, her face red. “You have to take me home,” she said stiffly.
Hank stood. “Sure. We drive up with me shirtless, you in your underwear and my shirt and your hair wet.”
Amanda couldn’t even imagine what would happen if Taylor saw her like that. He would leave her, leave the ranch. She’d ruin her own life and her father would hate her for making Taylor leave. Sometimes Amanda thought her father liked Taylor more than he did his own daughter.