The Texas Rancher's Vow. Cathy Thacker Gillen
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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