The Texas Rancher's Vow. Cathy Thacker Gillen
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“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