Amber By Night

Her sister’s jaw jutted dangerously. “I’m not senile…and you read too much.”

Amelia sighed. Casting another nervous glance at the clock, she began stacking dishes with a vengeance as the sisters disappeared into the living room.

A couple of hours later, she was fidgeting in her chair and trying not to watch the clock, wondering if they were ever going to go into their rooms. To her relief, Aunt Witty appeared at the head of the stairs wearing a bathrobe wrapped around her tall, spare frame like a faded blue pencil with wrinkles. A long gray braid hung over her shoulder and down across her flat chest, nearly lost in the garment’s loose folds.

“Amelia, aren’t you coming up?” she called down. “It’s nearly eight-thirty.”

The aunts were firm believers in the early to bed, early to rise philosophy and never veered from their routine. Amelia bit her lower lip. She hated lying, but she hated being afoot worse. She was going to buy that new car or know the reason why.

“No, Aunt Witty, not yet. I want to finish this book first. I’m at a really good part and don’t want to stop.”

Wilhemina frowned. She didn’t have to look to know that Amelia was probably reading another romance. They were her favorites.

“You’ve got to quit reading that trash. It will only confuse you. I recommend Little Women. It was always a favorite of mine and quite wholesome, you know.”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that.”

Aunt Witty’s door went shut just as Amelia looked up at the clock. She had less than thirty minutes to meet Raelene Stringer.

With a sigh, she marked her place and tucked the book down between the cushions, then dashed to the downstairs closet. She pulled out a small overnight bag and a pair of running shoes. Everything she needed for her job was inside. With one last glance up the darkened stairwell, she turned out the lights and quietly locked the front door behind her.

The streets were nearly empty. Amelia breathed a constant prayer that she would not have to explain her strange mode of dress and behavior, and headed for the corner two blocks over.

The dark gray sweatsuit she was wearing blended into the evening shadows as she jogged to her destination. It was Thursday night and nearly time for Amber Champion to clock in at The Old South outside of Savannah. To her everlasting appreciation, Raelene was waiting for her at the corner of Fifth Street and Delaney.

She giggled as Amelia slid into the passenger seat. “Ooowee, honey, I didn’t think you were coming,” then she turned on the headlights and put the car in gear. The engine rattled and knocked, a sure sign of something in need of repair.

Once Amelia had gotten the job at The Old South, her excitement had fizzled when she’d realized that getting to work was going to be a problem. Bus service between Tulip and Savannah was sporadic.

Raelene had taken one look at the tall, leggy woman coming out of the boss’s office and nearly swallowed her gum. The town librarian had been the last person she would have expected to walk into a place like The Old South.

The club was a hopping nightspot. Many of the men had a way of assuming that just because a woman worked at a place like this, that she was available for more than serving drinks. Of course, Raelene never minded their assumptions. She met some of her favorite men this way. But she recognized Amelia. And she’d never let on when Amelia had been introduced to her as Amber Champion. She simply cocked an eyebrow, shifted her chewing gum to the other side of her jaw, and offered Amber a ride. That a friendship of sorts had formed still surprised them both.

Amelia winced as the car belched smoke before smoothing out into its regular gait. Just what she needed. If Raelene’s car blew up on Tulip’s main street, it would be all over. She was supposed to be safely inside the house immersed in a book of romance.

To her relief, the car seemed to settle, and it was time for Amber to make her appearance. She pulled down the sun visor, adjusting the small mirror on the back, and then began sorting through her bag for makeup and trading eyeglasses for contact lenses.

Raelene eyed Amelia’s chestnut curls enviously. “Girl, I don’t know why you hide your pretty face behind those glasses. I tried to get my hair that color once and it came out as brassy as that bedstead in the display window at Murphy’s Furniture. And those eyes of yours! Lord have mercy, you oughta wear contact lenses all the time. Not everyone has eyes like yours. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who had blue-green eyes.”

“My daddy did,” Amelia said, pausing for a moment to let Raelene maneuver across the old bridge outside of town. It was difficult enough to put on makeup between bumps in the road. That planked bridge was impossible. “And I wear glasses because they are easier. Aunt Witty says they make me look professional.”

Raelene rolled her eyes. “Shoot, they just hide those pretty eyes and add about ten years to your age is all. If you have to wear them, you oughta get you some real stylish ones. I saw a picture…”

Amelia smiled and let Raelene talk. It didn’t matter what she said because Raelene didn’t expect an answer. Before she knew it, they had arrived.

Cars were already beginning to fill the parking lot. It would be a busy night. “We’re here,” Raelene said, as she turned off the highway.

Amelia began stuffing things back into her bag and gave her hair one last fluff. “We’d better hurry. Tony will have a fit if we’re late tonight.”

They jumped out of the car on the run.

“So, Tyler, what do you think? If you contract next year’s peanut crop to me, you’re bound to come out ahead. Regardless of how the price fluctuates at harvest, you’re guaranteed a substantial profit.”

Tyler grinned. Seth Hastings was a whiz at the commodity markets. And the fact that his father owned one of the larger mills in the area didn’t hurt his standing, either.

“Yes, Seth, I suppose I might make a real killing, unless my crop fails and I have to go somewhere and buy someone else’s whole damned harvest just to fulfill my contract to you.”

Seth Hastings looked over his steepled fingertips to the man sitting on the other side of his desk. “Now, Tyler, you know that’s not going to happen. You’re one of the best farmers in the state. You haven’t had a failed crop since you started wearing pants with zippers.”

“I’ve come too damned close too many times to take anything for granted and you know it,” Tyler argued. And then he leaned back in his chair and cocked one long leg across his knee. “But, I’m going to take a chance. I’ve got a hunch about the government pay base this year and it doesn’t feel good. If we don’t get someone in office up in Washington that understands farmers and makes some changes in the agriculture program, we’re all going to be out on our ears and that’s a fact.”

“All right.” Seth grinned and clapped his hands. “This calls for a celebration! And I know just the place. Ever been to The Old South?”

Tyler glanced down at his watch, calculating the time he knew that they’d spend at some club against the time he had to drive home to his farm outside of Tulip, and decided that he deserved a break.

“No, but I have a feeling I’m about to be taken there.”

“Like Sherman took Atlanta,” Seth said.

Tyler grinned. “You better not say that too loud around here.”

Seth laughed. “Come on reb, let’s go have us a party.”

“Lead on, Yankee,” Tyler retorted. “I’m due some R and R.”

Amelia glowed beneath the subdued lighting like a fire-cracker on the Fourth of July. Her tall, shapely body was neatly encased in shiny red satin and spandex. Lorna, the lifeguard at Tulip’s public swimming pool had a suit just like it, only it didn’t sport a black net bustle that bounced back and forth as she walked and her legs weren’t nearly as long or encased in black fishnet hose like “Amber’s”.

Trying to ignore the slick touch of a man’s hands on the back of her thigh as she scooted between the tables of customers, she looked down and glared. “I’ll be right with you, sir.”

He leered back. “I’ll be waiting.”

Stifling the urge to dump her tray of drinks in his lap, she continued to the next table.

Seth looked up and then whistled softly as he and Tyler were being seated in a darkened corner of the club. “Ooowee.”

Tyler followed his friend’s gaze and started to laugh when he saw the woman in red…her long, long legs…and that damned bobbing bustle…and forgot to take his next breath. He watched her neatly take command of an unruly situation, take a patron’s order and dodge grasping hands without misplacing that smile on her face.

To his dismay, the room began to sway, and he grabbed hold of the table to settle his world. It would be hell if he fell on his face before he ever learned her name. He went from interest to lust so quickly he caught himself shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He hadn’t been this hard this fast since his sixteenth birthday when Kissy Beth Syler had skinny-dipped in front of him just for kicks. And then he grinned to himself, remembering that she wasn’t the only one who’d gotten her kicks that day. He’d had a soft spot for farm ponds ever since. It was a memorable way to celebrate one’s arrival into manhood.

“That’s one fine-looking lady,” Seth murmured.

Tyler’s eyes narrowed. Fine didn’t begin to describe his opinion.

And then Seth’s grin widened as he nudged Tyler’s leg beneath the table with the toe of his shoe. “Hey great, she’s coming this way. It looks like we lucked out tonight, my friend. We’re sitting at one of her tables.”

“What’ll you gentlemen have?”

Amelia stood with pen poised above paper, staring at a point just to the left of the men’s shoulders. She never actually looked them in the eye. It was her way of retaining what she considered anonymity. But she need not have bothered. She was as far removed from Amelia Beauchamp’s persona as diamonds were from coal.

The man with his back to the wall mumbled something totally unintelligible, forcing Amelia to look up. Her heart thumped wildly as sweat broke out on the back of her neck.

Their gazes locked. Tyler looked up into eyes so green they looked wet and then he blinked. No, maybe they were blue. He could swear he saw sky. He watched her turn pale beneath the layer of makeup she was wearing. A glimpse of pearly white teeth slipped down across her lower lip and Tyler frowned as he watched the pressure increasing. If she wanted her lip bit, he’d be glad to oblige.

Amelia groaned. Oh my God. I knew that this might happen! Now what in the world am I going to do? If he goes back to Tulip and tells, I’m ruined! Why him? And why now?

Here he was, the man of her dreams sitting less than a foot away, and she had to fight the urge to run. At this point, the band swung into a loud jazzy number that made hearing nearly impossible. She leaned forward.

“Excuse me, sir, but I didn’t hear your order. What did you say you wanted?”

As she leaned, both men got a better than average look at a tightly encased bust threatening to spill from strapless red spandex.

The room took another tilt as Tyler realized he had the strangest urge to lay this woman down beneath their table and peel that red stuff off of her a little bit at a… To his dismay, he verbalized his thoughts.

“Want? I want you!” Oh, good God. What did I say? “Uh…I mean, I want you to excuse me. Seth, you order. I’ve got to…I need to…where’s the…?”

Amelia breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t recognize her. “First door on your left down the hall,” she said, and then waited to get their order as Tyler strode away from the table.

Tyler leaned over the sink, splashing his face with cool water, although it wasn’t the part of his anatomy that needed cooling off. He stared blankly at the water droplets running down his face and absently blotted them with a handful of paper towels.

“What in hell just happened to me?”

But his reflection didn’t answer. From the looks of it, his reflection was just as scared as he was. This didn’t look good, but that woman surely did. He tossed the towels into the trash and headed out the door.

Seth shoved a tall glass of cola in front of Tyler. “Are you all right? I didn’t think you needed anything alcoholic. You looked like you were getting sick.”

He shrugged, unwilling to admit how she’d rattled him. “I’m okay. I don’t know what…”

Something lacy and black caught the corner of his eye. Perfume wafted across his nostrils. Even in this din, even through the smoke, he smelled her coming.

Amelia walked up behind him and set a small dish of peanuts on the table to go with their drinks.

When her arm came across his line of vision, he jumped as if he’d been shot.

Already nervous at being in such close proximity to a walking disaster, Amelia leaned down once more, shouting to be heard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Tyler stared, once again lost in those blue-green eyes and that cloud of chestnut curls drifting around her face. If she bit her lip again he was in serious trouble.

“That’s all right, miss…?” Seth Hastings waited with a smile on his face, expecting her to fill in the blanks with her name. She obliged.

“My name is Amber,” she answered. “Will there be anything else?”

Her name is Amber! Tyler grabbed her arm. “Yes.”

She waited, and then waited some more as his fingers tightened around her wrist. She began to panic again. What if he was beginning to…? And then he shouted in her ear.

“Bring me some nuts.”

Seth’s grin widened perceptibly, which did not help Tyler’s unraveling composure.

Amelia looked at him as if he’d grown horns and carefully pushed the dish toward him that she’d just placed on the table.

He looked down at the salty, brown nuts and reluctantly let go of her wrist.

“Oh…uh, thanks.”

Seth rolled his eyes. This was getting better by the minute.

“Will there be anything else?” Amelia asked. She was almost afraid to wait for the answer.

“If there is, we’ll yell,” Seth said. “And thanks…Amber. You’re a doll.”

Tyler frowned. He didn’t think he liked the fact that Seth just paid the woman a compliment. He grabbed his cola and downed it in one gulp, watching that bobbing bustle over the rim of his glass as Amber walked away.

Seth grinned. “Old girlfriend?”

“I wish,” Tyler muttered, and then grinned back at his friend’s owlish leer. “Just shut the hell up, Seth. I haven’t signed that contract yet. If you keep this up, I still may not.”

Seth pursed his lips into a comical expression of propriety and calmly lifted the bowl of nuts from the table.

“Here you go, Tyler, have a peanut.”

Two

It was almost closing time, and without doubt, the evening had been the longest of Amelia’s life. The relief of knowing that Tyler Savage hadn’t recognized her had left her weak and shaken. It was her first close call since she’d started living a double life.

She fidgeted with the top of her suit as she gathered up her gear. With one last tug at its too-snug fit, she emptied her tips onto the bar and began to count. At least one good thing was coming out of this deceit. Her car fund was growing. At the other end of the bar, Raelene was performing a similar routine while employees began to clean up.

And then a voice in Amelia’s ear made her jump. Her suit slipped a notch as she whirled around. Openmouthed, she clutched her suit with one hand and a wad of bills with the other as Tyler Savage leaned forward and poked a dollar bill lightly into the crevasse between her breasts.

“You dropped this,” he explained, with an obliging grin.

Amelia gasped, and yanked it out with a flourish. “Thank you,” she muttered, and spun around, anxious that he not see her so closely, face-to-face.

“Amber…?”

Her heart skipped a beat as his deep, sexy drawl lingered in her ears.

“What?” she muttered, and began stuffing money into her bag. She had to get away from him and she had to do it now. This situation was making her nervous.

“Would you go out with me sometime? Maybe to dinner…a movie…or dancing, wherever you wanted. You name it.”

He waited anxiously for her answer, remembering the hour he’d spent after Seth had gone home just watching her wait tables. For some strange reason, she didn’t seem as if she was a stranger, although he knew for a fact that he’d never seen her before tonight.

While he waited for an answer, Amelia went into a panic.

Oh my Lord! He’s just asked me out on a date! What do I do? All these years he’s ignored my existence and now he decides to notice me? Now when I can’t do a darned thing about it? It’s not fair! And then it dawned on her that he hadn’t really asked her out, he’d asked Amber. It was a frustrating and sobering thought.

Of course, had Amelia been honest with herself, she would have admitted that her own personal appearance had nothing to do with Amber’s. As Amelia she’d done nothing to attract his, or any other man’s attention. It wasn’t entirely Tyler Savage’s fault that he didn’t know Amelia Beauchamp existed. But as Amber, she didn’t have to do anything to attract attention. Her pretty face and that shiny red suit were enough enticement for any man with the inclination.

“We don’t know each other,” she muttered, as she stuffed the last of her tips away. “I don’t think that a date would be proper.”

Tyler couldn’t believe what he’d heard. He’d expected any number of answers, but a concern about propriety had not been one of them. In his experience, propriety and barmaids had little in common.

He leaned forward, just shy of touching her again. “We’d get to know each other a whole lot better if you’d agree to go out with me.”

Amelia groaned. His voice was as compelling as the man himself. She closed her eyes and then shuddered. There was no way on God’s earth that she could go out with him. He might suspect, and if he did, she was ruined. With a dejected sigh, she looked up.

“Thanks all the same,” she said softly, “but I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

Tyler died in her eyes and was resurrected by the smile on her lips. Her mouth was moving. He knew it because he could feel her breath against his face, but focusing on her words was impossible. And then she started to walk away.

“Does this mean no?”

Another soft smile slid into place in spite of her intention to remain aloof. “It means just what I said, mister. It’s not a good idea.” In fact, you have no idea how dangerous it would be.

“My name is Tyler…Tyler Savage. And I’m real good at changing people’s minds.”

At that, he reached out and gently tucked a stray curl back in place that had been teasing at the corner of her eye.

Amelia held her breath as his finger stroked against her temple. She was afraid he wouldn’t stop with a touch and afraid that she wouldn’t have the guts to say no again.

Tyler ached to hold her. The lost, almost vulnerable look that kept appearing and disappearing on her face was nearly his undoing. As aloof as she seemed, he sensed insecurity and fear were the true reasons for her behavior.

“Okay, you win…this time. But I’ll be back, and I’ll need a better excuse than the one you used tonight. Okay?”

Amelia let out a pent-up sigh as she watched him walk away. “Well, I never,” she muttered, and then realized that was just what was wrong with her. Or at least she hadn’t for a long time. If she had…at least recently…she wouldn’t be so hesitant to take the man up on an offer she’d been praying would come.

“Ooh, honey,” Raelene muttered. “Why did you let that one get away? You know what they say about him, don’t you?”

“Him, who?” Amelia had to play it safe and pretend that they’d just met. It wouldn’t do to admit that she’d spent the better part of the past eight years of her life transposing Tyler’s face onto the heroes in her romance books.

Raelene stared. This woman floored her. She’d never understand what was going on inside that head. She knew good and well who Amber really was. She also knew that “Amber” had to know who Tyler Savage was. He’d lived in Tulip his entire life. Nevertheless, this wasn’t her game to play. So instead of arguing the issue, she shrugged and pointed.

“Him…Tyler Savage. He’s one hunk of man and if the stories about him are true, one hot lover, too.”

Amelia groaned and wished she was physically able to kick herself in the rear. It boggled the mind that she’d turned him and his reputation down. Her shoulders drooped as she stared at the empty doorway through which he’d disappeared.

“Oh, I’ve heard all of that, but so what if it’s true? He wouldn’t be interested in me.” For the first time since her and Raelene’s relationship had begun, Amelia as good as admitted she was a fraud. She met Raelene’s knowing gaze. “Not the real me, anyway.”

Raelene grinned. “There’s more to the real you than I think you’re willing to admit.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and her hips wiggled in unison as if they were somehow connected.

Amelia laughed at her friend’s honesty while being secretly disgusted with herself for not being as sincere. She was desperate to go out with Tyler despite the fact that he might recognize her. She also knew that it wasn’t fear of being recognized that kept her from accepting him. It was fear of what she’d lose if she did. He was the kind of man who took women’s hearts and then kept them.

Raelene patted her on the arm. “Come on, honey. Let’s call it a night.”

A short while later, a stray dog barked at Raelene’s car as it entered Tulip. It belched to a stop two blocks over from the Beauchamp residence.

Amelia winced. “Thanks for the ride, and I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Raelene yawned and then grinned wearily. “Honey, it’s already tomorrow.”

“How true,” Amelia said, and then bolted from the car, trading the sidewalks for the darker, less obvious alleyways, as she headed for home.

In no time, she’d entered the house, breathing a quiet sigh of relief as she locked the front door behind her. Once again, another night of deception had passed undetected.

Yet her conscience would not let her forget that tonight, for just a moment, she’d thought the charade was over. Because of it, a man whom she’d dreamed of for years had asked her out and she’d had to say no.

But, he didn’t ask me, Amelia fumed. He asked that damned Amber.

She didn’t even wonder about the futility of being envious of her own self. She was too frustrated and weary. And she thought she might be coming down with something. There was a strange ache hanging around her heart.

Tyler pulled a clump of peanuts from the ground, searching the underside of the leaves for signs of leaf spot. He pinched at the small, immature nuts hanging like little ornaments on the ends of the plant roots, checking constantly for nematodes as well as the size of the kernel inside the soft shell, hoping that he didn’t find more pops than nuts.

He’d paid to have the crops sprayed just last week and crop dusters didn’t come cheap. He looked up at the clear blue sky and the tufts of gathering cumulus clouds, shading his eyes beneath the brim of his cap and searching the far horizon for the impending signs of rain that the weatherman had promised earlier this morning.

He began to walk the rows, oblivious to the irrigation system in operation. His long legs moved in rhythm to the pulsing jets of water spraying his body and the crops. He was concerned with the tiny, dark green clumps of peanut plants aligning themselves in perfect unending order down the fields.

Beneath the soil, a bountiful harvest was growing, feeding itself from the rich nutrients in the Georgia loam. And yet for the first time in his life, he felt no satisfaction in the knowledge that he was standing on money in the ground. All he could think about was sundown. And a nightclub outside of Savannah called The Old South. And a woman called Amber.