Читать книгу The Texas Rancher's Vow - Cathy Gillen Thacker - Страница 14

Chapter Five

Matt wasn’t a guy who’d ever really been in touch with his emotional side. Probably had something to do with the toughness required of him as a kid, when he’d been dealing with his mom’s illness. All he knew for certain was that when it came time to feel something, he usually shut down, dealt with the practical aspect, and then moved on.

That attitude had served him well. Kept him from getting entangled. Until now. Jen made him want to stick around. At least long enough to kiss her again, find out if the chemistry was as potent as the first time they’d locked lips. To see if she felt as good pressed up against him.

Because if she did—if it hadn’t been his imagination—then they were both in a whole heck of a lot of trouble. The kind that could make their lives damn complicated….

Jen knew Matt was going to kiss her. Knew that if she had a lick of sense she would put a hand against his chest; shove him away. After all, it was imperative that she stick every barrier she could find between them.

Instead, she splayed her fingers across his hard pecs and sighed as he came even closer. Head tilted, eyes at half-mast, lips parting, she was already giving in.

And then it was too late. His mouth was on hers, and her fingers were curling into the fabric of his shirt as he took her to her own little corner of heaven and kept her there.

With a low murmur of acquiescence, she slid across the bench seat. Arms clasped around her, he tugged her closer, anchoring her hard against him. Together, they deepened the kiss, tongues tangling, thighs bumping, breaths meshing. He slanted his mouth over hers and took everything she had to give, and she demanded everything he had in return. He was more than happy to comply. One hand in her hair, the other brushing the swell of her breast, he kissed her deep and slow. Bringing forth all the emotions she never knew existed, the emotions that told her it wasn’t too late, for her to be wanted, loved, needed. Just like this. She could be so turned on that nothing mattered but this instant in time…. And that was when the cell phone rang.

Jarring them right back to reality.

The fantasy of the moment broken, Matt swore under his breath.

Knowing this was crazy, that they were way too different…and no good would come of it, Jen tensed and pulled away.

Feeling flustered, she shoved her hands through her hair then pressed a palm to her trembling lips. What was she thinking?

They were parked in front of the Triple B ranch house! The home of one of her patrons. They’d been kissing and groping and on the verge of recklessly doing more for heaven only knew how long!

It had felt like too short a time. And yet, judging by the thudding of her heart and the way the truck windows were steamed up, that kiss they had just shared had gone on for way, way too long.

She was jarred from her thoughts by the sound of his incessantly ringing phone.

Grimacing, Matt unhooked the device from his belt, punched a button on the lit screen and lifted it to his ear. “Yeah, Dad. No. Everything is fine. I found her. We were just waiting until the rain died down a minute before coming in.” He winced. “Yeah, I can see that it has. Be right there.”

Matt ended the call.

Jen hadn’t felt this embarrassed since she was a teenager. She summed up their predicament with one word. “Busted.” Then bit down on an oath.

Matt shrugged off her concern. “He’s not going to know.”

“Really.” Jen felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair. She slid her gaze from the implacable expression on his face to the front of his jeans.

This time Matt flushed, too.

Suddenly looking as sheepish as she felt, he adjusted his jeans. “Give me a minute.”

The front door opened. Emmett stepped out on the front porch. It was all Jen could do not to groan out loud.

“We don’t have a minute!” Jen muttered.

Emmett Briscoe might be Matt’s dad, but he was her client, so she took the lead.

She grabbed her handbag and the things she’d picked up in town, and vaulted from the truck. Fortunately, the rain had started to let up. “Sorry if you were worried about me.”

Matt rounded the front of the pickup and mounted the steps beside her.

To cover her embarrassment, Jen kept right on babbling. “My radiator quit working. I had to pull off the road…. There was no cell phone reception. Then the storm came, and there was lightning all over the field I was parked in….”

Matt stood beside her, hands braced on his waist. His expression as implacable as ever, he picked up where she left off, in an enviably calm tone. “Luckily, I found her and got her out of there.”

“We drove back here,” Jen continued, modestly holding her damp blouse away from her breasts. “And here we are.” Fighting to cover up what we just felt. Which was all-out passion and lust, and a compelling need to be closer, that had stunned both of them.

Emmett was studying her face. Then Matt’s. Then hers again.

“No need to pretend with me,” he said finally. “I don’t mind if you two feel a few sparks. In fact—” he grinned “—I’d like nothing more than to see my son get involved with a woman I know his mother would approve of.”

Matt cleared his throat and slanted Jen a protective look that was oddly thrilling. “Dad!”

“It’s true, son. Your mother—who I firmly believe is looking down at us from heaven—would love it if you were to marry an artist.”

Jen was so startled by the suggestion that she dropped everything in her hands. The bag from the drugstore split, and the necessary toiletries went all over the porch, along with most of the items in her handbag. “Marry!” she rasped. She knelt down to collect everything.

Matt waved off his father’s aid and hunkered down, too, his denim-clad knee brushing her bare one.

His glance slid to the hem of her skirt, which, thanks to the way she was positioned, hovered at midthigh.

Lazily, he picked up lipstick, perfume, van keys and her cell phone. Jen collected the hand cream and sunscreen.

“Obviously, Dad’s been hitting the whiskey,” Matt drawled.

Still in matchmaking mode, Emmett chuckled. “You only wish.”

“Then you should.” Finished, Matt stood and offered Jen a hand up. “Because you’re talking crazy,” he told his father.

Emmett shrugged off the observation, then turned and walked inside the house, his gait unusually slow. But he looked, Jen thought, absolutely sober.

He tossed a look at them over his shoulder as he headed through the living room to the bar. “Anyone care to join me?”

Jen shivered in the air-conditioning as she entered.

Matt looked at her, saw what she’d been trying to hide earlier. His manner matter-of-fact, he grabbed a soft cashmere throw off the leather sofa and draped it chivalrously over her shoulders.

Only the heat in his gaze told of his continuing awareness.

Jen knew exactly how he felt.

She wanted to kiss him again, too.

Matt headed toward his dad. “Whiskey sounds good,” he told him, then turned back to her. “Jen?”

Maybe a drink would help ease the pounding of her heart. She nodded. “Yes, please.”

Emmett got down three glasses and poured an inch of whiskey in each.

Matt brought Jen’s to her.

Outside, the storm intensified, lightning and thunder coming near once more.

Inside, silence fell, more awkward than ever.

Nervously, Jen jumped in to fill the void. “So your wife was a patron of the arts, I gather?” she asked Emmett.

The silence became poignant. The older man moved to study the photos of his late wife gracing the mantel. “She was an artist herself. Most of her paintings were western landscapes, although she did some of Matt and me, when he was a baby.”

Aware that she hadn’t noticed any paintings when she was touring the house, Jen asked, “Do you have any of her work here?”

Emmett returned to the bar and poured himself another two fingers of whiskey. “All her paintings are here.”

Matt slouched on the sofa. The worry on his face made Jen want to reassure him. “She never showed her work,” he interjected, looking a little heartbroken, too.

Jen understood. Grief was a hard thing to master. It came and went in waves, often at the most unexpected times.

Emmett sipped his drink slowly. “Margarite wasn’t interested in what the critics said.”

“Nor did she want to put a price on her art,” Matt murmured, setting his empty tumbler on his denim-clad thigh.

“I can understand that,” Jen replied, cupping her glass in her hands.

There was something about bringing someone else in to judge what you had done. It could change the way you felt about your art—when it shouldn’t. And Margarite hadn’t needed the money to live, the way Jen did.

Still, she knew that beautiful art was meant to be shared.

It was part of the legacy Margarite had left behind.

Something else her family could treasure.

Jen sent a hopeful glance in Emmett’s direction. “I’d like to see them.”

He assented with a nod. “Tomorrow morning,” he promised. “Now, if the two of you don’t mind, I’m going to call it a night.”

“Did I upset him?” Jen asked Matt, after his dad had ambled off, second glass of whiskey in hand.

Matt studied the bottom of his glass. “Talking about Mom always makes him sad. He misses her.”

The whiskey that warmed her inside also loosened her mountain of inhibitions, making Jen bold enough to sink down next to Matt, still clutching the ivory cashmere throw around her shoulders. “What about you? Do you miss her, too?”

He ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “I try not to think about it.”

The burn of the alcohol was nothing compared to the fire in his eyes, when he finally lifted his head.

Jen sighed. “That’s not an answer.”

Annoyance flickered across his face. Cocking his head, he studied her for a long moment. “Do you miss your dad?”

Jen shrugged, aware that the mixture of curiosity and pique between them seemed to go both ways. “I miss the good things,” she admitted finally, aware that her grief was a lot more complicated than his.

She swallowed around the sudden ache in her throat. “I don’t miss the intermittent chaos my dad’s alcoholism created in our lives.” She was glad that was gone.

Matt raised a brow and waited for her gaze to meet his. “That was honest.”

She compressed her lips. “It is what it is.” Once she had started accepting the bad with the good, and lowered her expectations accordingly, life had become a lot easier.

She wanted it to stay easy.

Unfortunately, there was nothing about Matt—except his propensity for kissing her like there was no tomorrow—that was anything near easy.

He was complicated.

Maybe the most complicated man she had ever met.

But, intuition told her, worth knowing. And knowing well.

A small smile curved his sexy mouth. His gaze roved over her mussed, rain-dampened hair. He looked at her as if he knew of her inner battle. “I like your candor.”

“When it’s about me.” Feeling a little empowered, and a lot feistier, Jen turned toward him, her blanket-draped knee brushing his thigh. “Not,” she stated bluntly, “when it’s about you.”

Matt chuckled and set both their glasses aside. Still grinning, he reached inside the throw to capture one of her hands. “That’s because you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

The warmth of his touch sent a thrill rippling through her. “Then tell me something I don’t know.” And need to know to understand you.

He shrugged. “I’ve never been in love.”

Jen couldn’t say she was surprised about that. Love would have left him vulnerable. “Me, either.”

“But you were married.”

He hadn’t shaved yet, and the stubble gave him a dark, sexy look. Memories of the way he had kissed her earlier sent a burning flame throughout her entire body. “I didn’t say I never thought I was in love. Of course, I thought I loved my ex, but as it turned out, what Dex and I felt for each other was merely lust.” Jen sighed, promising herself she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. “And lust, as everyone knows, doesn’t last.”

Something hot and sensual shimmered in his eyes. “It can last.”

For a moment, she let herself imagine what it would be like to make love with Matt. Not once, just to bank some flames and satisfy their curiosity, but many, many times…

“Has it for you?” she challenged, as if she hadn’t been thinking about that possibility at all.

He flashed her a crooked smile. “Well, no.”

“Me, either.” Jen sighed, knowing that when a fantasy about someone dissolved, so did the desire. And she wasn’t in the mood to have her heart and hopes crushed again. “So…”

He slid his eyes to the hollow of her throat, then her lips, then her eyes. “I think our passion is the kind that might not ever go away.”

She told herself the evening definitely would not end with her kissing him again. “Now that’s the whiskey talking.”

He dipped his head in a gallant bow and took her in his arms again. “Or the knowledge of what it is like to kiss you.”

Romantic notions bubbled up inside her, and she shivered.

He threw off the blanket and shifted her onto his lap.

“Matt…” she whispered.

“Hmm?” Eyelids lowered, he kissed his way down the side of her throat.

She splayed her hands across his chest. “This is no good.”

He tunneled one hand through her hair, then pressed his lips to hers. “It’s very good.”

Tingling, Jen averted her head. “For what we’re trying to do here.” Knowing she would be lost if he kissed her again, she buried her face in his shoulder.

Matt nuzzled her neck, finding the nerve endings just beneath her ear. He stroked a hand down her back, his hot callused palm easing beneath the hem of her blouse, above the waistband of her skirt, to caress her skin. “What are we trying to do?”

Jen quivered at his touch and drank in the fragrant, masculine scent of him.

Stay on track. Stay on track….

“We’re trying to make your dad happy,” she reminded him thickly. “Commemorate his life and his love for your mother. Help him feel good about all he has accomplished, and all he still has in front of him.”

The mention of his father had the desired affect. Matt dropped his hands, sat back. “You’re going to do that with your sculptures?”

Jen nodded. She could pretend all she wanted…but Matt was right about one thing. The desire she felt for him wasn’t ever going to go away.

But there was no reason he needed to know she felt that way.

She eased off his lap and turned the talk back to business. “I’m going to try.”

And while I’m at it, I’ll work a whole lot harder at protecting my heart.

* * *

“I HATE TO IMPOSE,” Jen told Emmett, when she encountered him having breakfast in the kitchen the next morning, “but is there someone who could give me a ride over to the Armstrong ranch to pick up my van? They can’t be happy to have it just sitting there in a field.”

“Matt’s already taken care of it.”

Jen did a double take. “What do you mean?”

“He called the auto service and had it towed into town to the repair shop.”

And how much was that going to cost? Could she even afford it?

“Don’t worry,” Emmett said, misinterpreting the reason behind her concern. “They’ll get it fixed up in no time.” His movements almost painfully slow, he gestured for her to sit down with him. “Help yourself to some breakfast. No eggs or bacon this morning—it’s Luz’s day off. But we’ve got pastries, juice and coffee.”

Jen surveyed the rancher. Something was definitely off. “You feeling okay this morning?” He looked a little pale, as if he hadn’t slept well, and his left hand was trembling slightly.

The day before, it had been his right.

He cupped both hands around his coffee mug. “I should have figured you’d notice.” He winked, jovial as ever. “I’m paying for my bad judgment. I know better than to have more than one whiskey in an evening.”

Jen had plenty of experience in that regard, with her dad. This did not look like any hangover she had ever seen. Both hands should have been trembling if Emmett was in his cups, not just one. Was it possible, she wondered, that something might be wrong with the otherwise healthy looking and virile man? Was that fact, rather than just ego, behind the wealthy cattleman’s drive to commemorate his life?

Emmett sat back in his chair. “I see you’re feeling fine this morning, however.”

Jen smiled. She had slept surprisingly well. And had woken up dreaming of kissing Matt….

Flushing, she poured herself some juice from the bottle on the table. “I’m anxious to get to work on the first sculpture.” Work always made her feel better. Maybe because it was a place for her to channel her emotions.

Emmett glanced at his watch. “I’ve got business meetings in San Angelo at ten, but I’ll have time to show you the studio Matt’s mother used to work in.”

Jen munched on a cinnamon roll. “You’re okay having me set up shop there?”

“It’ll be nice to have the space used again. I think you’re going to like the light in there.”

Emmett wasn’t kidding, Jen realized half an hour later, when they went up to the second floor loft in the wing of the house that the older gentleman now occupied.

The light was spectacular, the room large and airy.

It was also empty except for handsome built-in shelving and cabinetry along one wall, and a large wooden worktable located beneath the bank of windows.

Stunned, Jen turned to Emmett.

“She donated all her art supplies and easels to the local community college when she could no longer paint,” he explained. “We had her paintings displayed on the walls in here, but after she died it was just too painful to see them, so Matt and I wrapped everything up and put them in storage.”

“They should be hanging.”

Emmett squinted. “Just what I was thinking.” He rubbed his jaw with the hand that trembled. “Tell you what…I’ll bring some of Margarite’s favorite pieces up, later today.”

It turned out he was as good as his word.

Only it wasn’t Emmett who brought up the paintings some three hours later.

It was his son.