Galahad in Blue Jeans

by Sara Orwig

  “Now she’s good and awake again,” Vivian said.

  “She’ll go to sleep,” he said good-naturedly, and sat down to pull off his boots, stretching his long legs out before him. Mary Catherine promptly climbed into his lap again and he picked up another book to read.

  Vivian put Julia down in her crib, gathered the girls’ clothes and carried them to the laundry room to wash.

  Matt watched her go and then looked down at the book. Mary Catherine was a warm, soft bundle in his arms, trusting and sweet, and he had only loathing for any man who would yell at her.

  He turned a page and wished he could put his feelings into words to at least halfway thank Vivian for the phonics lessons. She had opened a new world to him, and already he could see endless possibilities.

  Vivian had changed his life forever in so many ways, yet it was impossible to tell her.

  When she returned, Matt was finishing the story.

  “Now, tell Matt good-night. It’s bedtime,” Vivian said to her daughter.

  He stood and leaned down to kiss Mary Catherine.

  “Goodnight,” she said. “I love you.”

  Vivian saw Matt’s chest expand as he drew in a deep breath. He brushed Mary Catherine’s hair from her face. “I love you, too, Mary Cat.”

  Satisfied with his answer, she smiled as she snuggled down in bed. He turned and looked into Vivian’s eyes and she experienced a sweeping sense of devastation. Mary Catherine already loved him. Vivian stared into his brown eyes. How much did she feel for him?

  He looked as shaken as she was by Mary Catherine’s declaration, staring at Vivian solemnly until she realized how the silence was stretching between them.

  “I’ll come out when she’s asleep,” she said quietly, moving around him to Mary Catherine.

  He left the room without a word and she sat on the side of the bed to take Mary Catherine’s hand.

  “Do you love Matt, too?” Mary Catherine asked solemnly, gazing up at Vivian.

  Vivian looked down into anxious blue eyes. “He’s very good to us,” she answered, mulling over Mary Catherine’s question and knowing that more and more, in spite of all caution, she was falling in love with him.

  Midmorning the next day when the phone rang, Vivian answered, “Whitewolf’s.”

  “Hi.” The voice was deep and familiar.

  Pleasantly surprised because she hadn’t expected Matt to call this morning, she smiled. “Hi. I thought you were working up here by the barn this morning. I didn’t think you’d call.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “Is this Lita?”

  Startled, she realized she wasn’t talking to Matt. “Sorry. I thought it was Matt. No, this is Vivian Ashland,” she said cautiously, thinking of the P.I. “You sounded like Matt.”

  “I reckon so. I’m his brother Jared. I wanted to leave a message for him.”

  “He said he would be at the barn. If you’d like, I can take the phone to him.”

  “Sure.”

  “Just a minute, let me tell Lita.”

  Vivian went to the den to tell Lita, who sat on the floor with Mary Catherine while Julia slept nearby.

  “Now I’m on my way. You live just outside Tulsa, right?” Vivian asked Jared while she walked outside to find Matt.

  “Yes, ma’am. You know about me, but I don’t know about you.”

  “Well, I’m Vivian Ashland and a friend of Matt’s.”

  “You live around there?”

  “As a matter of fact, no I don’t, except right now I’m staying here. I’m from Colorado. I hear you and your wife are expecting a baby.”

  “That’s right. In three more months.”

  “That’s really wonderful,” Vivian said. “You have a little girl, too.”

  “Right. Merry. You know a lot about me.”

  “Matt has told me about you and his family.”

  “Has he now?” Jared drawled.

  “Your voices are very much alike,” she said, looking in the open barn. She heard a clang and went around the barn to find Matt behind it with his head beneath the hood of a large, battered truck.

  “Here’s Matt. It was nice to talk to you, Jared.”

  “Thanks, Vivian. Nice to talk to you.”

  She held out the phone. Matt had shed his shirt and had his hair tied behind his head. He wiped grease off his hands and took the phone.

  “It’s Jared.” She started to turn away.

  “Wait,” Matt said as he raised the phone to his ear. She paused and looked around. The truck was beneath the shade of a tall cottonwood and it was still relatively cool for a summer morning. She moved a few yards away and stood beside the truck in the shade.

  “Vivian Ashland,” she heard Matt say. “She’s living here.”

  She gave Matt a look with arched brows, wondering what his brother must think with that kind of answer. She felt as if she was intruding and started to go, but Matt held up his finger to indicate he wouldn’t be long.

  “Yep. No, we just met a few weeks ago. She went into labor when she wrecked her car on my place and she had her baby here, so she’s staying awhile.” He winked at Vivian.

  How simple he made it sound. She could imagine his brother’s questions.

  “That’s right, born in my house.” There was another pause.

  Matt had one hand splayed on his hip, his booted foot propped on the bumper of the truck while he talked. He looked handsome, too appealing in spite of sweat and splotches of grease. She turned her back so she wouldn’t stare at him, touching the rough wood of the flatbed of the truck.

  “I did. Sure did. Want to ask Vivian?”

  She turned around, wondering what they were discussing.

  “Yeah, I still need it. Good. Thanks, Jared. How’s Faith? And Merry? Give them my love. Sure, Jared.”

  He punched the off button and set the phone on the truck and pulled on his T-shirt. “That’ll cover some of the grease,” he said, wiping his hands more thoroughly. “Well, you may meet brother Jared soon. That call has his curiosity running wild.”

  “Because I’m here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is what you get for never bringing a woman home before. That makes my staying here—which is perfectly logical and harmless—an event to stir everyone’s curiosity .”

  He approached her and put his hands on either side of her, leaning against the truck and hemming her in. As he leaned closer, her pulse jumped. She could feel the heat of his body, smell the mixture of aftershave and grease, and his dark eyes made her pulse race.

  “There,” he drawled, “you just admitted that your staying here is perfectly logical and harmless. I’m glad to hear you say what I’ve been telling you all along. You know, I don’t get to see you much during the day. This is a treat,” he said, his gaze traveling over her features as if he were memorizing them.

  “You just saw me a few hours ago at breakfast,” she said, and her words were breathless.

  He was looking at her mouth with that gleam of intention in his eyes that told her he would kiss her. “Matt, we said we’d not let things get out of hand,” she said, yet there wasn’t a note of firmness in her protest.

  “I’m not letting anything get out of hand,” he replied, sounding amused. His gaze met hers. “Think I’m going to throw you down here in the grass and take you?”

  “There’s a wildness in you that makes me uncertain what you’ll do.” Now her pulse raced wildly.

  “Scared?” he teased in a low, husky voice that would have never stirred fright in her.

  “I’m not scared of you. I couldn’t ever be,” she said with complete honesty.

  “That’s good, because you shouldn’t be.”

  “I’m scared of me,” she admitted quietly, and he inhaled, making his chest expand.

  “When you say things like that, do you expect me just to turn and walk away?”

  “I know I shouldn’t say things like that, but there’s something about you that causes me to fli
rt and confess and share and do things I don’t usually do.”

  “That’s good, Vivian,” he whispered solemnly. “I want the part of you that’s the deepest, innermost part. I don’t want you to hold back anything.”

  He leaned down to brush her throat with his lips, but it was his words that made her tremble. He kept his feelings all bottled up ninety percent of the time, but every once in a while he let them surface, and when he did, the effect on her was devastating.

  “Aah, Matt,” she said, sliding her arms around his neck. “You’re irresistible.”

  He wrapped his arms around her to kiss her, turning both of them so he could lean back against the truck and spread his legs, his hand going down to her bottom to pull her up against him. He kissed her hard and she returned his kisses, making his pulse pound. Her kisses heated him more than the hot sun climbing high above them, and Matt hoped desire was building in her just as it was in him.

  He raised his head because he knew she had to get back to the house. Her eyes held blue flames of desire. “You’re going to be mine, Vivian.”

  She put her fingers lightly on his lips. “I can’t be. I just can’t be. I’m not ready for that and you’ve told me over and over how you never wanted a serious relationship. Matt,” she said solemnly, taking her fingers from his mouth and trailing them along his jaw. Her gaze was as direct as his. “Any relationship I have will be more than serious. It’ll be forever. At this point in my life, I can’t and won’t enter into any relationship lightly. I rushed into marriage when I was young and what a mistake I made! I don’t ever want to make that mistake again. You’ve convinced me you don’t want anything serious.”

  “That’s a real pretty speech,” he drawled in that honeyed, rasping voice that was seductive all by itself. “But I’m telling you, Vivian, you’ll be mine.” He kissed her throat lightly, his breath and mouth warm against her, making her tingle while his words swirled and caused a clash of emotions.

  She framed his face with her hands, feeling a faint stubble and knowing that often now he shaved when he came in and cleaned up in the evening. He watched her while she stared back at him.

  “If that’s true—that I’ll be yours, then you better get ready for commitment, Matthew Whitewolf,” she said in earnest. “Because it won’t be any other way.”

  She turned and yanked up the phone and left him, striding away and knowing he was standing behind her, watching her. Her emotions were a roller coaster, riding high with his emphatic declaration that took her breath away and then sliding to the depths because she didn’t want to fall in love with him and leave here and have one more sorrow to pack along with her.

  She threw up her hands. You’ll be mine. “Do you know what that means, Mr. Whitewolf?” she snapped, talking to herself. “It means you’ll be involved, too. Did you ever stop to think that you might fall in love even if you didn’t plan to? That we should be careful because we’re wading into dangerous depths? The man has me talking to myself,” she muttered, glancing over her shoulder. He had come around the barn and was standing with his hands on his hips, immobile, watching her. Had he seen her throw up her hands? Could he possibly hear her? She reassured herself that he could not. She headed toward the house again.

  What were the depths of her feelings for Matt? Should she pack and go now, get out before she got more deeply involved with him? The question that haunted her at night now floated into her mind. Was it too late? Was she already in love with him?

  She knew that with each day, he was becoming more important to her. Desire and friendship were interwoven to such an extent there was no thinking of one without the other. Yet, love? She wasn’t in love. She would know if she were in love. She turned around to look at him again and they stood staring at each other across a hundred yards from the house to the barn. What ran through his mind? When she thought of his kisses, excitement streaked like lightning in her.

  As she stared at him, he touched his forehead with his finger and waved at her in a salute, and then turned to disappear around the barn.

  She rushed back to the house and took Julia from Lita, knowing the baby would get her mind off Matt.

  It was after three when Lita had nothing to do and said she would take Julia and Mary Catherine outside for a while. Vivian went in to work at her computer.

  First she retrieved her e-mail, looking at the screen and then glancing out the window, her thoughts on Matt.

  What do I feel for him? she wondered. He was very special to her. He had become her best friend so swiftly, so easily. She could tell him anything, yet again, she knew that was because of the shared intimacy of childbirth.

  She was mending, gaining back strength and energy—and along with it the desire Matt had awakened was becoming something to reckon with in her life. Each kiss now was more fiery and made her want so much more of him.

  She stared at the computer screen and tried to concentrate. Four new messages. She watched as the numbers counted down as each one was placed in the in-box. She scrolled through them to take them in order of importance, but the name on the second letter jumped out at her and her fingers froze on the keyboard. She stared at the name Douglas Sayles.

  Baker’s attorney had sent her a message. She pulled it up, read through it and knew that Baker Ashland was far from out of her life.

  Chapter 12

  Through supper that night Matt noticed that Vivian was quieter than usual and he wondered if it was because of their conversation by the barn this morning.

  He gave Mary Catherine her customary evening ride on Molasses and perched on the fence beside Vivian while Pete led Molasses around the corral. Matt held Julia in the crook of his arm, but with his other hand he rubbed Vivian’s shoulder.

  “This is the first chance we’ve had to be alone since this morning. What’s wrong?”

  She turned to look at him. “What makes you think anything is wrong?”

  “Tell me everything is fine.”

  “You’re right. I was going to tell you after I put the girls down. I got an e-mail letter from Baker’s lawyer today.”

  “The restraining order doesn’t apply to intermediaries?”

  “No. And he knows how to find me. I still have the same e-mail address. Even if I didn’t, Baker knows two of my clients, so he could have gotten a new address from them, anyway.”

  “Does he want you to come back?”

  “Yes. Baker is offering to put a quarter of a million dollars in my account if I’ll come back to Denver. He’ll do a huge ad campaign with my company and, in addition, get me two big clients. In other words, he would guarantee me and the girls a good.future.”

  Startled by the offer, Matt stared at her. “Baker’s worth that much?” he asked, thinking once again how different her world was from his. A quarter of a million dollars—that was so far beyond his scope. The farm was mortgaged, and he had some major equipment to pay for. He had bought a combine three years ago and it would take another two years to finish paying for it if he had good crops and the weather didn’t play havoc with the farm.

  A lead weight smashed his heart. The offer had to be tempting no matter what a bastard Baker Ashland was. She had two little girls to raise, and any single parent had double duty and a tough job. For the first time, Matt wondered how big Vivian’s business was. It might be far more successful than he had imagined.

  “You said he made you this offer if you would go back to Denver. Was it back to Denver or back to him?”

  “It was back to Denver. That would help him save face, soothe his ego, and if I went back, I’m sure he would claim that 1 was coming back for a reconciliation. I would be there in town, doing his business, seeing him constantly, and it would look like a reconciliation.”

  Matt dropped his hand from her shoulder and knew she was slipping away from him. She was so solemn, she must be giving thought to going back. How could she? A voice inside him screamed protests, but common sense told him that no one would easily turn down such an offer if she had
two little girls to think ahout.

  Matt looked down at Julia, who was peacefully sleeping, snuggled up against him. He didn’t want Vivian to return to Denver where Baker was or to take Mary Catherine and Julia back there. Yet what right did he have to argue with her and try to talk her out of it if she wanted to go? It was a fabulous offer, he had to admit, but that didn’t make him like it. His cold loathing and contempt for Baker Ashland escalated a notch.

  Every impulse in him wanted to urge her to turn down the proposition, but he knew he had nothing to give her in place of going. He couldn’t provide commitment; he couldn’t do one thing to increase her business or her income. He didn’t have one damned thing to offer her.

  Watching Mary Catherine happily riding Molasses and laughing with Pete, Matt thought about how terrified the little girl had been of him when she had first arrived. Did Vivian want to take her child back into that situation for any amount of business or money?

  “Don’t go,” he said harshly, knowing he should keep his mouth shut but unable to keep silent.

  Watching her, he caught the surprise on her face.

  “Matt, I wouldn’t think of going back,” she said.

  Relief was thick and overpowering, as if a rock had lifted off him. But then he thought about how solemn she had been, so something about Baker was worrying her. “If you’re not even considering going back, why are you so down?”

  She inhaled and his gaze drifted down over her profile. The late-evening sun slanted across the land and she was caught in its rays, highlighting the sheen of her hair, emphasizing her crystal-blue eyes. “Because if he wants me badly enough to give me that much money and make a giant offer, he isn’t going to give up easily when I tell him no.”

  “Oh, hell, is that what’s bothering you? You have a restraining order, and while you’re here I’ll keep him away.”

  “That’s only the next two weeks. I’m thinking about the rest of my life. He’ll come after me in Houston. If he wants me back this badly, he’s not going to give up when I say no. And for a man with the money and influence Baker has, a restraining order is a mere slap on the wrist.”