Matt

by Lori Wilde

  Matt

  Texas Rascals, Volume 2

  Lori Wilde

  Published by Lori Wilde, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  MATT

  First edition. December 26, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Lori Wilde.

  ISBN: 978-1386436188

  Written by Lori Wilde.

  Also by Lori Wilde

  Texas Rascals

  Keegan

  Matt (Coming Soon)

  Nick (Coming Soon)

  Kurt (Coming Soon)

  Watch for more at Lori Wilde’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Also By Lori Wilde

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter E ight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

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  Further Reading: Keegan

  Also By Lori Wilde

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I hate to trouble you, Miss Savannah, but I’m afraid I’ve got more bad news.” Clement Olson stood in the doorway staring down at his dusty cowboy boots and clutching a battered, paint-stained baseball cap between gnarled, cal- lused fingers.

  “Clem, I don’t think I can handle another disaster right now,” Savannah Markum mumbled around a mouthful of straight pins. She glanced up from where she knelt on the kitchen floor, pinning the hem on her younger sister’s wedding dress. Ginger stood before her on a chair, arms outstretched, billows of white lace and satin draped over her petite frame. Savannah’s year-old son, Cody, toddled across the room, his chubby fingers wrapped around a plastic, drool-soaked squeak toy.

  Savannah plucked the pins from her mouth and stabbed them into a tomato-shaped pincushion. “Let me guess, the work truck finally called it quits.”

  “No, ma’am.” Clem shifted his weight, met her gaze. “I’m afraid it’s more serious than that.”

  What now? Between her overdue property taxes, an astronomical vet bill and a busted washing machine, finances loomed bleak as the West Texas landscape. Not to mention Ginger’s wedding expenses.

  A heavy strand of honey-colored hair broke free from her ponytail and flopped across her forehead. Irritated, Savannah brushed away the uncooperative lock and rose to her feet.

  “Clem?” His grim manner alarmed her. “What’s happened?”

  “Fourteen of the Gerts are missing.”

  “What?” The herd of purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle had been Gary’s pride and joy. She furrowed her brow. “Are you sure?”

  Clem winced, nodded. “I figure somebody stole ’em in the wee hours of the morning, Miss Savannah. I’m sorry I didn’t discover it sooner.”

  Savannah blew out her breath through puffed cheeks. No point in panicking yet. “Maybe there’s a break in the fence line and they’ve wandered out onto the road,” she said hopefully.

  Clem shook his gray head. “’Fraid not. Julio and 1 scouted the whole spread for two hours. Didn’t find a single downed fence, but we did find something I think you should see.”

  Savannah whispered a curse. When she’d promised Gary she would continue running the ranch as an investment in their son’s future, she hadn’t realized just how much responsibility she’d be assuming. Family, friends, neighbors, nearly everyone she knew had advised her to sell out. At the thought of her late husband, Savannah felt the old guilt swell inside her. She wouldn’t break her vow. She owed Gary that much.

  “Let’s go,” Savannah said, heading for the door.

  Cody let out a squeal of delight. She turned to see her son gleefully digging in a pot of ivy and shoveling a fistful of dirt into his mouth.

  “Could you catch him, Ginger?”

  “Can’t. I’m still pinned into my wedding dress.” Ginger lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug.

  Savannah sighed. She needed twenty hands and two heads. In one long-legged stride, she crossed the floor and reached down to pull her son onto her hip. “Shew,” she said, brushing the dirt from his tongue with her fingers. “Nasty dirt.”

  Cody grinned. The baby looked so much like his father it hurt. Conflicting emotions knotted Savannah’s chest.

  “We’ll be right back,” she told Ginger, then followed Clem outside with Cody clinging to her neck. She savored the solid feel of the baby pressed to her side.

  The elderly ranch hand led them to the battered old work truck and opened the door for her to climb inside. He pumped the starter, coaxed the ailing engine to life, drove a quarter mile down the bumpy rutted road and braked at the west pasture gate. They got out and walked through the high Johnson grass slapping at their shins.

  “The padlock’s been cut,” Clem said, pointing out the severed lock dangling from the rusty hasp.

  “Don’t touch it,” Savannah said. “Evidence for the sheriff.’ ’

  Clem grunted, tugged the baseball cap’s bill down on his forehead. “There’s more. See those tire tracks?”

  Savannah studied the fresh tracks rutted into the moist earth, where it had rained several days earlier. “Yes.”

  “Trailer tracks. Don’t belong to none of our vehicles. Weren’t there yesterday.”

  Clem’s evidence was pretty conclusive. “How did they get back this far without you or Julio hearing them?” Savannah asked. Cody squirmed in her arms, and she shifted him to the other hip.

  Clem shrugged. “We both had a little too much to drink last night. Slept pretty soundly.”

  Savannah caught her bottom lip between her teeth, gazed at the ten Santa Gertrudis left grazing in the field. Something wasn’t right. Who would steal her cattle?

  “What are you gonna do?” Clem asked.

  “The only thing I can do,” Savannah answered. “Call the sheriff.”

  DETECTIVE MATTHEW FORRESTER guided his brand-spanking- new, govemment-issue four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee down the graveled country road. His heart raced like a Palomino on steroids. What in the Sam Hill was wrong with him? He was going to the Circle B to investigate the report of stolen cattle. The fact that Savannah Markum owned the ranch would not affect his objectivity in any way.

  Liar.

  Who was he kidding?

  The idea of seeing her had him sweating.

  Despite what he’d told himself during the past five years, he hadn’t gotten over her. Not for a day. Not for an hour. Not for one minute. Savannah Prentiss Markum had ruined his life.

  But he would never, ever let her know that. He refused to give her that much power over him again.

  He turned into the Circle B’s driveway and killed the engine. For a moment, he sat there, hands on the wheel, the air inside the Jeep growing heated, heavy. Taking a breath required his complete concentration.

  Be cool as granite. You’re a professional, he coached himself. Not some head-over-heels school kid.

  Grabbing his notebook, Matt unlatched his seat belt and slid out of the vehicle. “Geronimo,” he mumbled and started up the front steps.

  Upon reaching the door, he paused, fist poised to knock, when he saw the baby. The toddler stood knee-high, his face pressed against the screened door. He looked up at Matt and grinned a big, toothless grin. Jolting pain stronger than any electrical current lambasted Matt’s heart.

  Savannah’s kid.

  Gary Markum’s kid.

  Die baby that should have been his.

  Staggered by emotion, Matt took a step backward. He knew' she’d had a baby, but he hadn’t expected to react like this. The local gossips had made it their duty to keep hi
m abreast of Savannah’s doings. He’d been informed when her mother had finally lost her battle to multiple sclerosis and when Gary Markum had succumbed to cancer. But even to himself, Matt refused to admit that Savannah’s widowed status had persuaded him to come back to Sweetwater. He’d returned because Patrick Jameson had offered him a job as county detective and for no other reason.

  The baby wriggled with excitement, then promptly fell onto his diapered bottom.

  “Cody?”

  Savannah’s voice wafted through the screen door, freezing Matt to the front porch. He wasn’t ready for this—seeing her up close and personal for the first time in over five years.

  “What are you doing, Cody Coo?” She stepped to the foyer, bent down to retrieve her child and stopped in midmotion. Straightening, she turned her head to meet his stare.

  Time hung suspended. The past and future did not exist. Only the present.

  Savannah was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her hair, the color of light brown sugar frosted with streaks of honey, feathered back from her oval face in attractive layers. Her hazel eyes, a tantalizing shade of golden green, rounded in surprise.

  She wore cutoff blue jeans and a white sleeveless blouse. Her feet were slippered in rubber thongs. He noticed that her once skinny figure had blossomed with childbearing, spreading out into delightful curves instead of the flat lines and planes of girlhood. Her wonderful vanilla scent enveloped him in a glove of warm, soft memories.

  “What are you doing here, Matt?” she asked at last. The sound of her rich, coffee-and-cream voice rocked his very soul. She seemed so cool, so calm, so detached.

  His throat narrowed, and he feared he couldn’t speak. Matt’s gaze fixed on her long slender arm. Scooping up the baby, she cradled him to her as if using the child as a buffer between them.

  “Sheriff Jameson sent me,” he explained. “I’m the new investigator for Nolan County.’ ’

  Savannah hesitated only a second before reaching over and unlatching the screen door. “Won’t you come in?” she said.

  Goodness gracious, Savannah thought, struggling valiantly to keep her face from reflecting her feelings. She had no idea Matt Forrester was back in town and working for the sheriff’s department. She felt dizzy, breathless. The man still held the astounding ability to affect her like no one else on earth, but she could never let him know that.

  She moved back as he crossed the threshold just inches from her grasp. She longed to reach out and touch him, to run her fingers over his tanned skin, to convince herself he was real. But she’d willingly relinquished any proprietary hold on him long ago.

  They stood in silence, each of them warily assessing the other.

  Matt’s shoulders had broadened, Savannah noted. His jaw had hardened, too, giving him a more authoritative air. Tiny lines etched his forehead and his eyes held a suspicious glint. He’d definitely changed, grown tougher, more rugged. He had a different aura about him—calculated, controlled, contained—less like TNT, more like cyanide.

  The thought jarred her.

  He wore snakeskin cowboy boots, a casual-cut gray sports jacket over a red plaid Western-style shirt. Matt had always looked good in red. The color complemented his jet black hair and straight white teeth.

  She caught herself studying his mouth and quickly jerked her gaze away. Helplessly, she remembered his passionate yet gentle kisses, the gruff sounds of his throaty laughter, the security of his sheltering arms. But this Matt differed from the young man of her memory. She sensed kissing him would not be the same. Time and circumstance had altered them both.

  “Tell me about your missing cattle,” he said in a completely businesslike fashion, as if they shared no collective memories.

  Does he have any lingering feelings for me at all? Savannah wondered, then immediately squelched the thought. It didn’t matter. Yesterday was gone forever.

  She nodded. “We believe they were stolen.”

  Cody reached for a strand of her hair, stuck it into his mouth. She disentangled herself from her baby’s soggy grasp.

  “Is this your son?”

  “Yes. His name is Cody.” Matt’s middle name.

  Did a fleeting glimpse of agony flash through Matt’s eyes or was it her imagination? Cody could have been their son. Would have been their son except for that one fateful night.

  Matt cleared his throat. “Good-looking boy.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ginger interrupted by trotting into the living room, swatches of fabric in her hand. “Vannah, should I go with the rose or mauve for the tablecloths?” She stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh,” she exclaimed, looking from Savannah to Matt and back again.

  “Hello, Ginger. Nice to see you again,” Matt greeted her politely.

  Ginger lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Matt’s here to investigate the stolen cattle,” Savannah explained. “He’s working for the sheriff’s department now.”

  “Well, I hope you catch whoever did it,” Ginger blurted. “Losing those Santa Gertrudis could send Savannah into bankruptcy.”

  Savannah shot her sister a dirty look. Too often Ginger spoke before she thought. The last thing Savannah wanted was for Matt Forrester to know about her dire financial straits. She couldn’t bear his pity.

  Matt pursed his lips in a pensive expression but said nothing.

  “Here, watch Cody.” Savannah handed the baby to her sister. “Come on.” She waved at Matt. “Let me show you the west pasture.’ ’

  Matt followed her though the farmhouse and out the back door. His eyes locked on her swaying backside. Sharp shards of pure sexual need jabbed his gut. Would he ever stop desiring this woman? And why would he even want her after the hell she’d put him through?

  She stopped, turned to face him. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the mesquite trees, highlighting her classic features in a rosy glow. He tried desperately to ignore the arousal growing inside him.

  “Let’s take my Jeep,” he said. They got inside and Matt maneuvered the vehicle across the pasture.

  “Just follow the path,” she directed. “Turn right at the fork. ”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Savannah lean forward, holding herself stiffly as if relaxing against the seat might make her more vulnerable somehow. She clutched her hands in her lap, stared straight ahead.

  He remembered a time when she would have been plastered against his side, her arm tucked through his as they drove, her head nestled on his shoulder, while her sly little tongue snaked out to burn hot kisses along his neck. Matt shivered at the thought.

  Other memories rushed through his mind—the possessive thirst they’d had for each other, the desperate need to be together, all ruined by Savannah’s self-doubts and irrational jealousy. He’d been unable to assuage her fears. Unable to prove his loyalty to her no matter how hard he tried.

  And then that fateful night, after the unfortunate incident in Kelly’s bar and their terrible fight when she’d caught him kissing Jackie Spencer. Matt winced. Savannah had never let him explain about that kiss. She’d simply turned on her heels and stalked out of his life.

  Lord knows he’d tried to talk to her, but she’d repeatedly shut the door in his face or slammed the phone down on him. After a while he stopped trying. A man had his pride. He’d refused to crawl, refused to beg, especially when he’d done nothing wrong.

  As usual, she’d jumped to conclusions, mistakenly assuming he was involved with another woman when he’d simply done a favor for a friend. The next thing he knew, she’d married Gary Markum.

  Matt still didn’t understand why. The old pain crested in his heart—sharp, raw, fresh as yesterday. He gripped the steering wheel and peered through the windshield at the narrow pasture road. He shouldn’t keep torturing himself like this. What was past was past. His purpose for being here had nothing to do with Savannah Markum and everything to do with the recent rash of cattle thefts in Nolan County.

  Concentrate, Forrester, he chided himsel
f. You’ve got a job to tend. Forget Savannah's cool vanilla scent and those firm, tanned legs stretched long across the floorboard. Overlook the husky tones of her deep velvet voice. Deny the smoky fires she kindles inside you. Or if you’ve got to think about her, remember the misery she caused.

  They jostled over a bump in the road and Matt felt the Jeep’s throbbing vibration clean through the seat.

  “Stop here,” she said.

  Relieved, Matt trod on the brakes. He wasted no time bailing out of the vehicle. Shaking his head to dispel his disturbing thoughts, he walked to the gate. Instinct and training kicked in immediately. Matt squatted, scanned the site.

  A damaged lock. Rutted tire marks. Heavy vehicle, trailer probably. A jumble of cattle hoofprints.

  Something red caught his eye. A plastic cocktail straw chewed up on the end. He sighed and ran a hand across his five o’clock shadow. There wasn’t much to go on.

  “I need a detailed description of the cattle,” he said.

  Savannah crossed her arms over her chest, tipped her head back and looked down her nose at him as she described the cattle.

  “Were they branded?”

  “Of course.” She pointed at the ten remaining Gerts clustered along the fence row. “A circle with a backward B.”

  “How much were they worth?”

  “About fifteen hundred apiece. Four thousand for the bull.”

  Matt nodded. “That’s felony larceny, but since they broke the padlock, and came at night, we might be able to get a burglary charge. Carries a stiffer sentence.” He got to his feet and dusted his fingertips together. “I want to interview your ranch hands. Who are they?”

  “I’ve only got two left—Clem Olson and Julio Diaz.”

  “I don’t know this Julio fella, is he new in town?” “Hired him about three months ago.”

  “What kind of references does he have?”

  Savannah shrugged.

  Matt stared at her, incredulous. “You didn’t check his references?”