A murmur of male voices sounded in the kitchen and Emily’s eyes lit up. “Hmm.” Looking happier than ever, she put down her handbag and headed that way, motioning for Jen to follow. “I think I know that voice!”
As they neared, Jen realized she knew one of the voices, too. Entering the kitchen, she saw the two men standing there and watched her plans to stay as far away from Matt Briscoe as possible evaporate.
“The problem is,” the tall cowboy with the golden-brown hair and eyes was saying as he cut large slices of berry pie, “we need more donors if we’re going to have a successful auction….”
“Maybe Jen can help!” Emily said. She kissed him, then turned to introduce her husband, Dylan Reeves, adding, “Jen is the bronze artist Matt’s dad hired.”
Dylan extended his palm, as warm and welcoming as his wife. “Nice to meet you, Jen.”
She shook his hand. “And you.” Although obviously financially well-off, Emily and Dylan were completely accepting of her in a way her ex-in-laws had never been.
Actually, Jen thought, pretty much everyone she’d met in Laramie County was nice. Although she was sure there must be a few sour apples. There always were.
Dylan offered Jen her choice of pie. They all looked absolutely delicious, but after a short and difficult deliberation she chose the chocolate cream. “I’d like to say I’m not going to put you on the spot, but it’s for such a good cause,” Dylan said, handing her a plate. “We’re trying to raise money for a boy’s ranch here in Laramie County, on a par with the one we already support in Libertyville.”
Emily put on a fresh pot of coffee. “Where Dylan spent time as a kid.” She accepted the pecan pie her husband handed her and added a dollop of vanilla ice cream.
All four of them pulled up stools at the stainless-steel worktable in the center of the kitchen. “I can honestly say my time there saved me,” Dylan confessed.
Matt settled in next to Jen. Dylan and Emily sat side by side, too, a fact that almost made it feel as if they were on a double date.
“Anyway,” Dylan continued, “to start a satellite program here is an expensive proposition. We need donors of goods we can sell, to pay for the construction of a bunkhouse and half a dozen more therapy horses, plus a resident counselor or two. Emily and I have already donated the land, so it’s going to be adjacent to our property.”
The project sounded really good. Jen knew from her own difficult childhood how important safe havens were.
Already on board, she asked, “What can I do to help?”
Emily smiled with the legendary McCabe generosity. “Whatever you want. You could donate a copy of an existing sculpture….”
“Something original would probably be better,” Jen suggested.
Matt’s shoulder brushed hers as he turned to her. “The Last Chance Ranch is known for the wild mustangs it rescues and turns into therapy horses.”
Jen mulled over options while she savored a bite of pie. “I could sculpt a mustang, maybe emblazon it with the Last Chance logo, and then, of course, have it bronzed. You could auction the original for as much money as you could get, and then sell copies at a lesser price thereafter.”
“That’s an incredible idea!” Emily beamed.
Dylan nodded. “You’d be doing a lot of good.”
“Why don’t you come out to the ranch now?” Emily gathered up the plates and slid them into the dishwasher. “Have dinner with us.” She began pouring coffee in take-out cups. “We can show you around and talk about it some more.” Emily slapped Matt on the back, her enthusiasm unabated. “We need your input, so you come, too, Matt!”
Suddenly, the unexpected meeting felt like even more of a double date.
Chapter Nine
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think something very special was going on between the two of you,” Emily teased Matt and Jen several hours later, as the four of them got up to do the dishes.
Jen flushed. She’d been trying not to give away her own interest, by avoiding touching, talking to or looking directly at Matt at every turn. He had shown no such compunction.
In fact, he couldn’t seem to stop gazing at her.
He’d sat next to her at dinner, the same way he had at the Daybreak Café in town. When she spoke, he listened as if she were delivering a keynote address at a conference he really, really wanted to attend. Despite her efforts to play it cool, Jen had soaked up everything Matt had said and done, too. Even his smallest gesture was now committed to memory.
Just as their lovemaking was.
“Pay no attention to her.” Dylan swatted his wife playfully with a dish towel and swaggered over to assist her. “Emily sees romance everywhere since we hooked up.”
She stopped loading the dishwasher and aimed a look at her husband. “You notice it, too. I know you do. So what’s up?” She turned to Matt, since Jen hadn’t responded. “Is there more to this story? Have you two been secretly dating or what?”
“Not dating,” Jen rushed to answer. Secretly kissing and making love, on the other hand…
She stifled a groan. She had to stop thinking like this. Stop fantasizing.
Matt slid her a long look and an even slower, sexier smile. “I want to date her, but she won’t say yes.”
A grinning Emily turned toward Jen. “Why not?”
“Probably had in mind lassoing herself someone much more handsome,” Dylan quipped.
Any more handsome, Jen thought, slanting Matt a look from beneath her lashes, and she’d perish from the sheer pleasure of it.
She cleared her throat and played along with Dylan’s attempt to get her off the hook. “Actually, I go for the short, stocky, in-touch-with-their-feminine-side type.”
Which they all knew was definitely not Matt.
“Hey, I know a thing or two about the softer side,” he declared, chuckling.
Emily cut in. “Knowing how to seduce a woman is not the same as understanding her.”
Matt had the first part down, all right. Jen was still reeling from their first and only bout of lovemaking.
What he didn’t seem to want to learn about was falling in love. And who knew if that would ever happen….
“So does he or doesn’t he know about the softer side?” Emily continued, still trying to figure out what, if anything, was going on.
Jen realized everyone was looking at her, waiting for her to comment. She kept her expression noncommittal, reminding herself she was just trying to get through the day. “I really couldn’t say.”
* * *
“A LITTLE HARSH ON ME, weren’t you?” Matt drawled after the two of them had said good-night and walked out to the driveway, where their vehicles were parked side by side.
Had he really expected her to admit to everyone she had a crush on him—a bad one? As he had.
And if that didn’t say everything about the differences between them…
Jen figured they might as well discuss this now, in a semipublic place, instead of the privacy of the ranch, where he could without too much difficulty convince her to let him have his way with her. She stopped midstep and pivoted to face him. “And why do you think that was?”
With a hand at her waist, he guided her away from the heat still emanating from the concrete driveway, and into the shade of a nearby tree.
Having gotten her where he wanted her, he let her go, then rested his palm on a leafy branch just above her head. “I don’t know.”
As always, when she was this close to him and he was looking at her that way, her knees felt a little wobbly.
Jen backed up until her spine rested against the trunk. The bark was rough, so she folded her hands behind her to wedge a little distance between the abrasive surface and the skin bared by her tank top. “Live dangerously, cowboy. Take a wild guess.”
“Hmm…” Matt rubbed his jaw and let his gaze drift over her above-the-knee floral cotton skirt, bare legs and bejeweled sandals, then move back to her lips. He offered another slow, sexy smile. “Maybe beca
use I mentioned the thing about you refusing to date me?”
There he went again, getting her to say exactly what was on her mind. “And kept looking at me all through dinner.”
He shrugged, unapologetic. Still enjoying the view. “You were seated across from me.”
She stared at him, holding his gaze and trying to outlast him. “You gave us away.”
Which kept her from being as in charge of the situation, and especially her feelings, as she would have liked.
His brows lowered in annoyance. “So what?” Apparently, he wanted to shout it to the rooftops. Which was a typical male response. The hunter always wanted to show off his prize.
“So,” she retorted, aware that he was making her feel all hot and bothered again, without half trying. Jen swallowed around the growing tightness in her throat. “I thought we agreed that no one was going to know about…you know…” She shifted restlessly against the trunk of the live oak.
Matt dropped his hand from the branch and came closer. “The fact I’m hot for you and you’re hot for me?” he queried in a low, gruff voice that was so sexy her knees wobbled all the more.
At the confident way he was stalking her, it was all she could do not to groan out loud. “Matt…”
“Jen…”
Suddenly, the distance between them was way too small. “I know you don’t care what people say about you.”
“So?” He shifted even closer, planting a palm on either side of her.
“Well, I do.” How was it she was actually enjoying the sensation of being trapped between him and the tree? Could it have anything to do with his incredibly hard, strong, masculine body? Or just that she liked having the responsibility for what happened taken away from her, just for a little while.
She regarded him speculatively. “I was labeled a gold digger once.” Keeping her gaze firmly locked on his eyes, and away from his talented lips, she paused to let her words sink in. “It wasn’t a fun experience.” Fun was slipping into a shower and sudsing Matt down. Fun was tumbling into bed with Matt.
Something flickered in his eyes. Something hard. But when he reached out to touch her face reassuringly, and spoke again, his voice was calm and gentle. “No one is going to say that about you.”
The arrogance of his assumption brought her out of fantasyland and right back into the not-so-pleasant present. “Maybe not in front of you…”
“Not at all,” he stated vehemently.
Jen let her gaze fall to his throat. She only wished life was that simple, that it didn’t matter what circumstances a person was born and raised in. “They said it about your father’s second, third and fourth wives, didn’t they?”
Matt shrugged, completely accepting of that. “It was true in those three cases.”
She planted a hand on his chest and pushed him out of her way. “Well, people are likely to think it’s true about me, too.”
He caught her arm before she could rush past, and swung her around so she was facing him and his back was to the tree. “You’re not exactly demanding a big diamond and rushing me into marriage.” He let his hand slide from her biceps to her waist.
Jen could have easily thrust it away. Instead, for reasons she really did not want to examine, she let his palm stay where it was. Maybe now was the time to reassure him.
“Nor will I.”
“I know you think you hide your emotions. You don’t. Whatever you’re thinking and feeling is clearly visible on your face.”
She went still as her heart squeezed. “What is my expression telling you now?”
He eyed her closely. “That you want me to kiss you.”
Jen drew a deep, bolstering breath, and then looked him in the face. “No, I don’t,” she fibbed.
He went still for one telling beat, then drew her all the way into his arms, fitting her torso to his. “Say that again in a minute,” he murmured huskily, still leaning against the tree. The corners of his mouth lifted. “And I’ll believe you.”
* * *
MATT KNEW HE WASN’T playing fair as he threaded his fingers through Jen’s silky hair, lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her long and deep. Trouble was, if he let her put them in the just-friends category, he sensed they’d never get out of it. And theirs was not an attraction he could let go unexplored, without regretting it for the rest of his life. Not when just looking at her turned his heart upside down. Not when holding her against him felt this right.
He’d never before wanted anyone the way he wanted Jen. Never wanted to feel this close. Not when she was making that soft, low sound in the back of her throat, the one that signaled approval and want and need, and conjured up an answering yearning deep inside him.
He slid one hand low on her spine, to the delectable small of her back, and the other to her neck. Her hands moved to his shoulders, gripping him hard and bringing him closer yet.
He liked the way she held him, liked the way she kissed. It didn’t matter that they were nowhere near a bed and had nothing even close to privacy; he kept right on kissing her. Heady with desire, he took everything she had to give, giving her everything he had in return, until she was straining against him…and they were quite literally rocking each other’s world.
Unfortunately, they were still standing in the Last Chance driveway.
In plain view of anyone who cared to look their way.
Reluctantly, Matt ended the kiss, lifted his head. Saw the sleepy look of desire and acquiescence in Jen’s gorgeous eyes. Noticed she still didn’t move far, just a fraction of an inch, and that her breathing was as fast and uneven as his own.
Satisfied—yet not—he continued to hold her gaze. Saw her wonder, contentment…and then confusion.
“The night’s still young,” he said, hoping to make things right, and have a chance to woo her. “We’ve still got time for a date.” A movie. Line dancing. Even coffee or an ice cream?
Jen shook her head, the barriers around her heart snapping right back into place. “I have work to do, Matt. A ton of it, as a matter of fact.”
Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to see her reach for the familiar and probably oft-used excuse. “That can’t wait till tomorrow?”
“Sorry, no.”
And she meant it, Matt realized, just as her phone rang. Saved by the bell?
Whereas he was drowning in disappointment. Wondering what tact to try next. Because one way or another, he wanted her to admit what he already felt—that they had something here, something real, something worth pursuing. All he had to do was get her to cooperate. Which she currently wasn’t even close to doing. Yes, she’d kiss him. She’d even let him make love to her. But she wouldn’t let him close.
Not in the way it counted.
Showing none of the frustration he felt, Jen averted her head, fumbled through her purse, for her smart phone, and answered the call.
“Cy, hi!” She listened intently, then tears sprang to her eyes. “Congratulations!” she said thickly. “I’m so glad everything went well…the baby’s healthy… Yes, yes! I’d love to talk to Celia!” Walking off, Jen headed for the car she’d borrowed, phone to her ear.
Leaving Matt to head for his pickup truck.
They drove back to the ranch the same way they’d left it. Alone.
* * *
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK seven days a week,” Emmett told Jen the following morning. “You’re entitled to take the weekend off.”
She realized that.
She also knew that allowing herself time to think about anything but her work was not a viable option.
Not when she was as obsessed with Matt as she was. Wanting…the impossible. Wanting to be able to fall in love with him. For him to fall in love with her.
Wanting all the things Cy and Celia had—marriage, children, a life together—to be possible for her, too.
And not just with anyone.
With Matt.
Even when she knew, realistically, how unlikely any of that was, she still wanted it.
Which was why she should stop thinking so far ahead, and stick to what worked for her. Taking life day by day. Worrying about herself and how she reacted to things. And not what everyone else—Matt and Emmett included—did or did not do.
“I usually work Saturdays. Sometimes Sunday, too, when I’m feeling inspired.”
Emmett looked at the paintings hanging on the wall next to the enlarged photos of Margarite and himself. He gestured broadly. “And all this inspires you.”
Jen nodded. “When I look at Margarite’s paintings, along with the photos of the two of you together, I get a sense of who she was. What a fairy-tale romance you had, and how much you and she loved each other.”
And I am so envious.
Emmett grinned fondly, recollecting. “It’s that apparent?”
“Oh, yes.” Jen rose and led him to the inspiration wall she’d set up.
She went through each photo, explaining the body language, pointing out he and his late wife always seemed to be touching each other, or standing with mirrored postures, or smiling and looking into each other’s eyes.
Belatedly, Jen realized the same could be said of her and Matt, whenever they were near each other. Lest Emmett realize the same thing, she changed the subject back to Margarite’s beautiful landscapes. “Did she ever show her paintings? Even informally?”
“No. She was never ready for that.”
“That’s such a shame. They’re so beautiful.”
“I think so, too,” Emmett said proudly.
“Have you ever considered loaning her work to a museum—the Amon Carter or the Sid Richardson, perhaps—that specializes in Western art?”
Emmett hesitated, a peculiar look on his face.
Jen sensed he was about to say something, but then footsteps sounded in the hall, and Matt walked in.
She hadn’t seen or talked to him since they had kissed last night, and for a moment Jen was captivated. He was dressed in the usual twill work shirt and faded jeans, a straw cowboy hat perfect for the summer heat slanted over his brow. His handsome face was flushed and his blue eyes alert. He hadn’t shaved, and the stubble on his jaw gave him a rakish look.
The Texas Rancher's Vow: The Texas Rancher's VowFound: One Baby Page 10