Читать книгу The Texas Rancher's Vow - Cathy Gillen Thacker - Страница 15

Chapter Six

Matt knew it was going to be tough seeing his mother’s work again, never mind have them in the studio where he’d had his last truly happy memories of his mother before she had been stricken with multiple sclerosis and confined to the lower floor of the ranch house.

It was rougher still walking in with the paintings, all still carefully wrapped, and seeing Jen in what had always been his mom’s arena.

Jen took it over, much as his mother had, her presence lending an air of tranquility to the large, sunny space.

In faded jeans, peacock-blue cowgirl boots and a sexy, formfitting white tank top, her hair swept up in a messy knot, she was so damn pretty she took his breath away.

And she was not glad to see him.

Not. At. All.

Because he’d kissed her and she had kissed him back? Or because their evening together had ended on a businesslike note, and they hadn’t gotten around to making out again?

Matt looked in her eyes. No clue. All he knew for certain was that she blamed him for something. Luckily for both of them, he was in no mood to wrangle.

All he wanted was escape. Escape from the feelings being around Jen conjured up, and the notion that with very little effort, the two of them could have something truly amazing.

“Dad texted me that you wanted the paintings,” he announced, planning to dump them and run before they were actually unwrapped.

When he did eventually look at the canvases again—and he would…at some point—he wanted to be alone.

“So.” Matt propped them carefully against the wall. “There you go.”

To his consternation, no sooner had he set them down than Jen was reaching for the tape holding the protective quilts over the oil canvases.

Reacting quickly, he left her to it and headed back out into the hall.

She followed. “That’s all?” She caught up with him in the long corridor outside the studio.

“Well…” Matt paused, not sure why she was so irked when he’d done as asked, the moment he got back to the ranch house, no less.

Again, their gazes held for a long moment, and as always, when she gave him her undivided attention, something flashed between them and his body tensed with need.

A little unsettled by the way he kept wanting her, Matt cleared his throat. “Obviously, there are more paintings in the climate-controlled storage room where we keep all the valuables. Twenty-five more pieces, to be exact.”

Jen kept staring at him.

He adjusted his posture slightly, to relieve the ache. Lowered his gaze from her face and encountered the soft, sexy swell of her breasts instead. Which to his frustration only made the situation worse. “But that was all I could easily carry at once,” Matt continued, with the poker face he’d perfected at a very early age.

Jen folded her arms in that way that really got his blood pumping. And she still looked ticked off.

“I’m not talking about art.” Her low voice dripped with resentment and she stepped nearer, with a drift of lilac perfume.

Deciding the farther they were from the studio, the better, Matt kept right on moving down the corridor, to the stairs. Sweaty and grimy from a morning spent outdoors in the summer heat, he wanted two things: a shower and release from the tension he’d felt ever since they’d kissed.

Well, the latter wasn’t going to happen. Not if either of them had any sense.

“Then what are you talking about?” he demanded.

“I want to know about my van!”

Matt paused outside his bedroom door. Of course that was what she wanted. “I took it to the best mechanic in town. Naturally, because the van is so old, he had to order the parts…but it’ll be ready in a couple of days.”

Jen’s face turned pink. “You okayed the work without even talking to me?”

Matt shrugged. “It’s not going to run unless you replace the radiator and the transmission.”

She sagged against the wall, hand over her heart. “The transmission!” she croaked.

Matt resisted the urge to prop her up with an arm about her waist. “Yeah.” He stood with his legs braced apart and continued offering moral support—from a distance. “That’s why we couldn’t get it started this morning.”

Jen raked both her hands through her hair, forgetting for a moment that she had it up in a clip. Her fingers got tangled. Frowning, she extricated them, then removed the clip. “Do you have any idea how much that is going to cost?”

Matt tracked the silky chestnut waves flowing about her shoulders. “Eight thousand dollars, give or take.”

“Eight thousand dollars!”

“For the amount of work he’s going to do, and the cost and difficulty tracking down the right parts, that’s a bargain, Jen.”

She moaned and bent over from the waist, as if trying not to be sick. “That’s not the point.” She groaned again.

Matt tried not to notice the way her neckline gaped, revealing lace and curves, and jutting nipples. Stifling a groan himself, he averted his gaze and moved past her into his bedroom. “Really.” He tossed the words over his shoulder. “Because I thought getting your only mode of transportation back in order was exactly the point.”

Jen followed him, closing the distance between them once again. “I don’t have that kind of money right now, Matt.”

Surprised to see her standing in the middle of his bedroom, he shrugged. “Then Dad will give you an advance on your commission.”

Jen lifted her chin, coming closer. “How do you know?”

Matt exhaled. “Because I know him, and if he didn’t…then I would.”

Those cornflower-blue eyes glittered angrily. “I don’t want your money, Matt.”

Now, that rankled. “You didn’t seem to have a problem taking my father’s.”

Jen threw up her hands. “For work as it is completed!” she sputtered. “Not for…”

“What?”

She regarded him with silent derision. “That’s what I’m wondering.”

It took him a second to follow. “Surely you don’t think I’m trying to buy my way into your bed?”

She shrugged and kept her gaze locked with his. “You said it. Maybe you think that’s a way to speed up what you’d clearly like to happen between us.”

Matt hadn’t been the only one who enjoyed their make-out session. He studied her brooding expression. “This isn’t about the money,” he asserted, stepping closer. He angled a thumb at his chest. “It’s because I did what had to be done, without calling you every step of the way and asking your opinion.”

Something in his words must have clicked, because he saw a flicker of acknowledgment in Jen’s eyes. “Calling me would have been nice.”

Matt had never been one to shift the blame for his mistakes, but in this instance, he knew he wasn’t at fault. Stupidly naive, maybe, to think his gallantry would be received in the spirit it was given. He pushed on. “It would have been a waste of time. Yours and mine. Because the end result would have been the same. You would have ordered the repairs and had them done here, by the person we told you was the best.” Matt sauntered closer and saw her eyes widen in sensual awareness. “And you know why?” he murmured.

Her lower lip thrust out petulantly. “Because I had no choice?”

He shook his head, his heart going out to her, because he knew what it felt like to want things to go one way, and have them constantly go another. “Because you love that van as much as I love my pickup.”

“I didn’t tell you that so you could use it against me,” she retorted, looking distraught.

Matt put his hands on her shoulders and held her there when she would have run away from what was happening between them. “Say that again?”

Turbulent emotion tautened her pretty features. “I don’t want you taking charge of my life.”

He watched her, unsure how to help. “That isn’t what I was doing.”

Her mouth curved resentfully as she accused in a low, trembling tone, “That is exactly what you were doing, Matt.” She tapped an emphatic rhythm against the center of his chest. “And. I. Don’t. Like. It.”

He caught her hand and held it over his heart, aware they were finally beginning to get somewhere.

Wanting her to open up even more, he asked, “What’s really going on here? Are we talking about me now?” Certain he had her full attention, he waited another beat. “Or someone else?”

Matt’s assumption was so on target, Jen couldn’t help it, she swore in frustration and anger and confusion.

He grinned, pleased his needling was affecting her. He cupped her chin in his hand and urged, “Use your words. The ones not affiliated with your opinion of me.”

Jen felt as if the situation had knocked the wind out of her. For the sake of her pride, she pretended that she wasn’t glad to see Matt. Wasn’t glad to have him trying to help her, even if everything he was doing and saying was wrong.

Her hands flattened against the front of his shirt. “What I am trying to tell you,” she said, “is that I have been down this road before.”

“With another take-charge guy. Your ex-husband, maybe?”

“Yes.” Feeling as if her knees could no longer support her, she moved toward the only available seating—his bed—and sank down on the edge of it. “When it started out, I thought he was just being thoughtful and considerate. I didn’t have any money. Dex did. He wanted life to be nice for me.”

Matt sat down facing her. “What’s wrong with that?”

Everything, as it happened.

Jen looked deep in his eyes and tried not to think about how he would look at her once he knew the whole truth. “By the time Dex and I divorced, I wasn’t making any decisions for myself,” she admitted miserably. “Everything was decided for me.”

Matt furrowed his brow. “He wanted you to conform to what he thought was appropriate? For the woman who was his wife?”

Jen wished it had been that simple. Or that she had been strong enough to stand up for herself and fight for what she wanted.

But she hadn’t been able to do it then. She’d been stuck in people-pleasing mode.

Embarrassed, she had to force herself to go on. “Dex wanted me to do whatever he thought was going to tick his parents off the most.” Restless, she stood again and began to pace. “See, they were really controlling. They put all kinds of pressure on him, and he rebelled by marrying me. An artist who was more concerned about the quality of clay I was buying than the other details of my life.”

Matt’s expression gentled as he began to understand.

“They liked a woman’s hair to be salon perfect at all times, so Dex insisted that I not do anything to it that wasn’t completely natural.” Jen paused next to the window and looked out at the rolling acreage of the ranch.

Bracing a shoulder against the frame, she turned back to Matt. “They ate haute cuisine, so he had us bring in food from the most lowbrow restaurants around for our dinner.”

Matt came to stand next to her. “You lived with them?”

Remembering, she felt her heart constrict. “Oh, yes. That was part of the plan. He kept saying he wanted to build a place for us.”

“And they were all for that?”

“No.” Jen massaged the tense muscles in her neck. “His folks liked having him under their thumb. They just wanted to get rid of me, and have him marry someone more suitable. Someone of their social standing and all that.”

Matt searched her face. “So what finally happened?”

Memories came as fast and devastating as the actual event. “They gave Dex what he wanted. Early access to his half-million-dollar trust fund. On one condition.”

“He divorce you.”

Jen nodded, stunned to this day by the cruelty of the event. “Yep.”

“And you were hurt.”

She raked a hand through her hair. “Relieved.” She looked into Matt’s eyes, swallowed, and forged on, “I knew by then that the marriage was going to end. I knew it had to end.” She shook her head in regret, wishing she had been stronger. Less needy. “But I didn’t want it to.”

“Because you loved him. Or thought you did.”

“Because I wanted it to be the opposite of my childhood,” she said emotionally. How naive she’d been! “I wanted it all to work out in the end. And in the meantime, I had a roof over my head, food to eat and a place to work on my sculpting. So I just kept going, kept trying, kept thinking that if only I was the perfect wife and the perfect daughter-in-law and the perfect rising artist, everything would work out. That his parents would come to accept me one day.” Jen drew a breath. “And in the meantime, I had Dex, who told me he loved me and that we would be happy when we were both able to make all our dreams come true. Mine was to make a living selling my art. And his was to start his own venture capital business.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. He’s very good at it. And he’s now very rich. His parents are very proud of him. I’m successful now, too. So everyone lived happily ever after.”

“Not quite.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Because you haven’t moved on—emotionally—from the mistake, any more than I’ve moved on from my elopement.”

A laugh bubbled up inside her. “And what would you have us do, Matt?”

“Jump back in.”

Jen shivered, and not from air-conditioning vent above her head. “That’s the best line I’ve ever heard.”

And also the most seductive.

He grinned. “It’s not a line.”

Pulse thudding, she absorbed the sight of him, jaw unshaved, hair tousled, body hard and sweaty beneath the half-open shirt. Her fingers itched to discover the texture of all that sleek, tanned, hair-roughened skin.

And he wanted her, too.

She could see it. Feel it. Completely identify with it.

“Matt…” Jen whispered. Why was he doing this? Making her realize how badly she still needed to belong.

And the way he looked at her whenever they were alone made her think she belonged with him.

He knew it, too….

His eyes were two dark pools. “Take a shower with me.”

Desire washed over her with an intensity she had never felt before.

He brushed a soft kiss to her temple before trailing more kisses across her cheek, her jaw. “Take a risk.” He settled a hand on her hip, dragged his fingers up her spine. “See where this can go.”

Goose bumps erupted on her skin. There was tenderness in his eyes and a smile that promised all sorts of wicked and wonderful things, if only she said the word.

Jen wanted passion in her life. She wanted—needed—to be loved.

What she didn’t want was to be disappointed and have her heart broken again.

And Matt Briscoe had the power to do that.

More than he knew.

She shook her head but couldn’t seem to make herself move away. So instead, she flattened her palms on his chest and closed her eyes. And felt the soft press of his lips on her forehead.

“We’re so different, you and I.” She gazed into his eyes. “I stopped trying to control everything a very long time ago.”

Matt met her gaze in challenge. “And now you try to control nothing.”

“Life is what it is.” She had work, friends, a home. It was enough. More than enough. “I accept that.”

“Then…” tugging her close, Matt held her against him and bent his head to hers “…accept this.”