by Cindy Gerard
Man, the last time he’d been this hot for a woman had been in high school. Didn’t that just make him special.
After testing the repair, Matt rose to his feet and found himself chewing on memories of his marriage to Jena—a part of his past that should be reminder enough of why Helena Reichard wasn’t the woman for him.
He propped his arms over the top rail, looked out over the dry lot where the yearlings frisked in the morning sun. This was his life. This was what he wanted for a life.
He didn’t need to be out here working alongside his men. He didn’t need to work a damn day for the rest of his life if he didn’t want to. Between the oil leases, his stock investments and the portfolio of profitable businesses he’d bankrolled over the years, he’d increased the Walker coffers tenfold since he’d taken over from his father.
Despite his fortune, he was a simple man. He enjoyed simple pleasures. He liked the land, his horses and his association with the Cattleman’s Club. A woman like Helena was a complication he couldn’t afford.
Expression grim, he snagged his tools and headed for the tack house. Aside from his own reasons for keeping his distance, there were other things to consider besides his libido. Her, for instance.
She was still healing. Physically and emotionally, if his read on her was accurate. It had to be hell for her. Dealing with the pain. With the scarring. With physical limitations that might very well curtail, long-term, her prominent position in the international spotlight.
Though she would never admit to it, she was vulnerable right now. In so many ways. Beneath the confident, flirtatious exterior, the woman he’d whisked around the dance floor was a woman who, if caught unawares, was now quietly reflective. Oh, she said all the right things, but it was apparent that she had to work to keep a smile in place, dig deep for those snappy comebacks. No doubt her sense of desirability was also threatened.
If she only knew. If only he could tell her without making matters worse.
As bushed as he’d been, he’d lain awake half the night wanting her. Thinking about that kiss he’d almost stolen. Wishing he hadn’t backed away at the last minute. Wanting to show her just how desirable she was.
If he followed through on that wish, he wouldn’t exactly be playing to her needs, though, would he? He’d be building on his. That’s why he’d backed away. Hell. Whether she was willing to admit it or not, she was as defenseless as an orphan in the wild.
With her startlingly blue eyes, creamy white skin and silken fall of long blond hair, she looked about as fragile as a rose under the Texas sun. The last thing she needed was him taking advantage of her and leading her headlong into a love affair. And that’s all it could ever be between them. A sweet, hot affair.
But man, would it be sweet.
And damn, would it be hot.
And then, it would be over.
He tossed the tool bucket onto the workbench.
No. She didn’t need an affair and neither did he. And he definitely wasn’t looking for a relationship—even if he were, it wouldn’t be with a woman like her. A woman who shone brightest in the limelight and fed off the sparks of her own fire. He’d been down that road with Jena and he wasn’t about to run that route again.
Since the divorce seven years ago, he’d had his share of civilized, and by mutual agreement, temporary relationships. By choice, it had been a while since he’d been involved with anyone. A long while, he realized when he thought about it. Maybe that explained this physical tug he felt toward Helena. It had been a long dry spell.
Yeah. And maybe Milo Yungst and Garth Johannes, those two goons who were supposedly representatives of the Asterland government, were really here checking on the reason for the plane crash.
He couldn’t shake his bad feelings about them. Couldn’t throw the notion that there was more to them then met the eye—and none of it good.
The unknown threat against Helena alone ought to be enough to prompt him to get his head out of his pants and remember why she was here in the first place. She needed his protection, and until he had her firmly entrenched at the Hunts’—by tomorrow, he hoped—that’s the only role he had to play in her life. Once she was with Greg and Anna, then distance, at least, would take care of the immediate temptation of having her so near.
In the meantime, he was acting like a jerk. Just because he was having a problem didn’t mean he didn’t have some obligations. She was his guest. And he was proving to be a sorry excuse for a host.
He glanced out the tack-room window, looked toward the house then checked his watch. It was after 8:00 a.m. Surely she was awake by now. Hard telling how she and Lois were managing. If he were any kind of a man—any kind of a decent man—he’d make sure she wasn’t wanting for anything.
With a deep breath, he looked at the sky then set his mind to the task. He headed for the house. He could do this. He could be kind and considerate, and he could make sure she was comfortable. And he could keep his hands to himself in the process.
But then he walked into the kitchen. He saw her sitting at the breakfast nook. She was glassy-eyed, her smile braced up by breeding and manners as Lois served her tea and toast and more chatter than any mortal should be asked to endure. She looked dazed and a little frantic and a lot in need of rescuing.
When she spotted him, the relief in her eyes and the look she shot over Lois’s head was desperate and pleading. “Help me,” it said. “I’m in over my head here, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
In a heartbeat, the part of him that had shored up enough resistance to head-butt a tank folded like a pup tent in a stout wind. And right on cue, the white knight he’d never realized was such a part of him charged in to save the day—again.
“All set?” Matt asked as he rounded the golf cart and slipped behind the wheel.
Helena sat in the passenger seat, looking elegant and regal and delighted with the workings of the cherry-red electric cart.
“What ingenious transportation.”
“I bought this for Lois a few years ago. Saves her a lot of steps from their house to the main house. And the bright color has probably saved a lot of lives,” he added with a grin. “You can’t miss her coming at you. Frank calls it her little red mayhem mobile. The woman is hell on wheels.”
He slipped his foot from the brake to the accelerator and was about to pull away when she touched a hand to his arm. Now that the glazed look of panic Lois had put in her eyes had faded, he realized that she looked more rested today. The March wind lifted her long blond hair away from her face and added a heart-melting trace of pink to her cheeks.
Along with news that the press was still camped out near Casa Royale, one of Greg’s hands had delivered her luggage bright and early this morning. Her charcoal turtleneck sweater looked as soft as her skin and as warm as her eyes. Her slacks were black, the Italian leather slouch boot on her left foot sophisticated and tailored. Beneath her removable cast, the toes of her left foot were covered with a warm black stocking.
“Thank you for this. It’s lovely to get out in the fresh air.”
“Getting a little stifling in the house, was it?”
“Oh, I hope I didn’t give the wrong impression. Lois is wonderful. I don’t want you to think—”
“You don’t want me to think that you felt cornered?” he interrupted, feeling the need to tease that concern off her face. “Maybe a little caged in? How about smothered with kindness and questions and if I hadn’t walked into the kitchen when I had and gotten you out of there that you’d have curled into a fetal position and started screaming at the top of your lungs?”
Her blue eyes sparkled as she tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a smile of relief.
He angled her a crooked grin. “Well, don’t worry about it. Because I didn’t think that at all.”
She actually laughed then. The sound of it sang on the light breeze, mellow and sweet and in complete harmony with the sun-drenched morning. Even more pleasing was the spontaneity that had prompted her
laughter. Not since the night he’d met her had he seen that much life, witnessed that much unguarded delight dance in her eyes. He liked it. He liked her.
“She’s just so…so much,” she finally said, the warmth of her laughter still singing in her voice. “She’s truly delightful. And a kinder person I’ve yet to meet. But, oh, that energy. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone talk that long with that much exuberance and animation.”
“What she is, is exhausting,” he said with a fondness he couldn’t curb. “Just make sure I don’t pick up where she left off and tire you out too much. You get tired or cold, you let me know, okay, and we’ll head back to the house.”
Her smile was as soft as summer when she nodded and diverted her attention to the sites around her as he headed out of the house yard at a slow, easy speed. The expression on her face made her look young and carefree and, for the first time since he’d brought her to High Stakes, relaxed. It also relayed a confidence in him that he wasn’t sure he deserved.
Her faith in him reminded him that whatever it was that was going on between them wasn’t about him. It was about her. It was about how badly she needed to distance herself from her limitations and embrace the fact that life was still good. That, more than she needed him as a prospective lover, she needed him as a friend. Someone to show her the dawn when she had been living for two months near the dark.
Well, that was it then, wasn’t it? He glanced thoughtfully at her profile then back to the path. For as long as she was here, he would do everything in his power to be her friend. For a fact, he figured she was probably in need of one.
With that firmly in mind, he set out to be just that. A friend. Nothing more.
With cordial hospitality, he pointed out a compact dwelling bordered by a colorful cactus garden.
“We’ve offered to build Lois and Frank a new house several times,” he said as he slowed to a stop in front of the neatly kept grounds of an adobe ranch house, “but just like retiring, they won’t hear of it. Lois just says, ‘I took and raised my girls here, and when they think of coming home, it’s to this house. That’s enough to keep me here and them coming back.”’
When she asked, he told her about Lois’s two daughters who both lived in Galveston with their families and came back to see their folks for all major holidays and a few visits in between.
“Vince and Amy live here,” he said as they approached a smaller version of his own house. “Vince is my ranch manager—you’ll meet him later. He’s amazing with the horses and great with the men. Amy is the pretty young woman you met this morning at the main house. Lois would never admit it—and God forbid I ever point it out—but she’s getting a little old to be doing much housework. Amy very quietly makes sure what needs to be done gets done. Except in the kitchen. It’ll take a war to get Lois out of there.”
“I’d say you can be very thankful for that. The dinner she prepared last evening was wonderful.”
He angled her a look, grinned. “So, you like Tex-Mex, do you?”
“I’d like anything after two months of hospital food, but actually, yes. If it’s all like what Lois prepares, I do like it. It’s very…lively.”
“Lively. Now there’s a word. Just wait until you taste her chili.”
They exchanged a look then that echoed each other’s thoughts. Chances were Helena wouldn’t be around High Stakes long enough to sample Lois’s chili or any number of her special dishes.
He thought her smile was a little wistful when she looked toward the horizon. Or maybe he was reading in his own feelings. In a couple of days she’d be gone and that would be the end of that. In silence, he turned toward the barns, telling himself it would be for the best.
The wind had come up by midmorning, as Matt had told Helena it so often did. She hadn’t wanted to admit it—she’d been so taken with this intimate look at High Stakes, especially Matt’s new crop of colts and fillies in the foaling barn—but she was exhausted. Evidently, it had shown, because Matthew had insisted on taking her back to the house a little before noon.
They’d shared a quiet lunch on the veranda overlooking the gardens and the indoor pool. He was very careful to keep the conversation neutral and benign as he told her about his cutting horses, about his breeding program, the intricacies of the training, the rewards of competition.
She could have protested a little more, she supposed, when he’d insisted on carrying her up the stairs to her room afterwards. She could have, but he seemed so intent on playing the perfect host, she let it go. And when he’d left her by the bed with little more than a tip of his hat—fawn-colored today—and a, “Rest. I’ll see you at dinner,” she let that go, too.
He was, after all, merely fulfilling an obligation. He’d been clever, amusing, cordial, polite, informative—and distant. So distant and detached, that she’d felt the slightest bit of a chill despite the warm March sun.
His arms hadn’t been cold. Cradled against him, she’d felt warmth and strength and a sense of closeness that undercut the emotional distance he’d placed between them all morning.
Still, she understood what he was doing. Just as she understood the reason he hadn’t kissed her last night when he’d left her. He was, as kindly as possible, making it clear that there was nothing but circumstance that had drawn them together. It was just as well then, that there was probably nothing more than a scant twenty-four hours until those same circumstances would draw them apart.
Determined not to open herself up for another rejection, she decided to accept his ground rules. There would be no romance with Matthew Walker. And how could she blame him? It was a small step to cement truth in reality when she took a long, thorough look at herself in the full-length mirror after her bath.
The mirror that had always been kind to her was now brutally and painfully cruel. Even if Matthew had encouraged her, she understood that it would be a long time before she would be strong enough or brave enough to invite a man to her bed. It would take more trust than she was capable of garnering to believe that any man could overlook her scars and accept her as she was. Accept who she was—whoever that was, she thought grimly and limped to the bed.
Only because she was physically exhausted did she sleep. When she awoke, she dressed in soft champagne-colored silk that covered her arms and legs—and fought tears of frustration over the difficulty of a once simple and uneventful task.
With quiet dignity, she brushed her hair and applied a light touch of makeup. Then she made herself a promise.
“I will stop thinking about Matthew Walker as anything but what he is. A nice man who is being gracious and hospitable and who is merely fulfilling a commitment his good manners will not allow him to walk away from.”
With that, she slipped into her boot cast and a soft ballerina flat and limped slowly from the room.
She ignored the pain. To acknowledge it meant giving in to it and she wanted very badly to be finished with defeat. She wanted very badly for her injuries to stop ruling her life. And she wanted, very badly, to find the strength to make that happen.
When Helena found Matthew in the dining room, she ignored the erratic little scramble her heartbeat insisted on performing every time she saw him.
A bottle of wine in his hand, he looked up from a bleached pine sideboard, surprise in his eyes. “I was about to come for you.”
“Oh, I know what you were about to do.” She eased down onto the chair he pulled out for her and willed her heart to settle. “You were about to carry me down the stairs again when I can manage perfectly under my own steam.”
“You’re little more than a day out of the hospital,” he insisted. “There’s no point in pushing too hard.”
“There’s every point. I’ve put my life on hold long enough.”
He searched her face as he uncorked a bottle of merlot.
“I’m doing fine, Matthew. Really. If I need your assistance, I promise, I’ll ask for it.”
Not looking completely satisfied, he conceded with a n
od anyway, perceptive enough to realize that she wanted the subject closed. “Fair enough.”
He showed her the bottle.
“Thank you, yes.” She smiled and tried not to notice the ultra-masculine appeal of his hands, tanned, work-roughened, lightly dusted with short, sun-bleached hair.
That her own hand wasn’t noticeably shaking when she lifted the glass to her lips came as both surprise and relief. “This is wonderful. Lois knows her wines.”
He grinned and, despite her resolve not to let it, her tummy did that little somersault it was wont to do just at the look of him.
“Actually,” he said, oblivious to her reaction, “Lois is a teetotaler from way back. You can blame me if it doesn’t suit.”
She lifted a brow, this new facet of Matthew reconfirming that the man was definitely more complicated than he let on. “Are you a connoisseur, then?”
“Hardly. I invested in a little vineyard in southern California several years ago. I like to sample the results.”
“Ah. A man of many interests.”
He tilted his head, shrugged. “A businessman.”
“Who prefers the desert to the boardroom,” she said with open speculation. “How intriguing.”
“What can I say? I’m a true son of the desert.”
“A child of the West,” she concluded and waited for his reaction.
“I guess you could say it’s in the blood,” he admitted and pulling out a chair, sat at the table, at cross-corners to her.
The unplanned intimacy—just the two of them sitting together at his table, flirting over wine—reminded her, with a sharp little twist to her heart, of how much she would have liked to have been a long-term part of this lovely picture that was High Stakes and Matthew Walker.
“High Stakes,” she murmured, looking out the arched windows to the grounds beyond in an attempt to distance herself from the moment. “It’s an interesting name. Something tells me there’s also an interesting story behind it.”