Matt looked at her expectantly. She smiled in spite of the nerves. Why was making a clean request so very scary? Probably because Matt Ransom was sitting there in such a stormy mood. “Here’s what I think will work,” she began. “While the house is being painted, and the carpets are being installed, we can take our trip. Donnie said she’d oversee things while we’re gone.”
“Corpus?” Matt asked with a nod of thanks as she passed him the sliced tomatoes. Warm water would help his knee. Maybe he’d soak in the hot tub later tonight. Maybe Perri would come in with him. The evening’s possibilities suddenly looked brighter.
“No, not Corpus Christi,” she replied. “What I’d really like is to go to San Francisco.” Perri smiled at the puzzled expression on his face. “I want to feel cold, Matt. I want a break from this heat. And I’d like to be in a city. You know, urban impact and all that. And I need to smell the ocean,” she added.
“There’s a little hotel in Chinatown with the most amazing domed rotunda in the lobby. Stained glass windows depict the settling of San Francisco,” she continued as she watched him build a sandwich. “It’s not at all fancy, but the management is very gracious. Of course, you may prefer something bigger and newer. That would be okay with me, too,” she added breathlessly. “I don’t care so much where we stay. But I’d like to visit San Francisco.”
“Okay,” Matt agreed easily. “You don’t have to sell me on it. That’s fine. Cool weather sounds good to me, too,” he said. “It would be a pleasant change not to have the wind dry the shirt on my back just as fast as I can sweat it out.” He would ignore the import of that word, “cold.” There was no reason to consider it significant. It had just been a bad dream, that was all.
Perri took a deep breath and sipped from her glass. “And on the way back, I’d like to stop in Tucson to see my grandmother and your grandfather.” She watched helplessly as he mentally distanced himself from her. “I called them,” she added. “Grandma Anne and Larry are staying put this summer and said ‘Come on.’ ”
It all came out in an awkward surge of words. “I’d really like to spend a day or two visiting,” Perri went on. “We don’t have to stay with them. We can stay elsewhere,” she added quickly. All the need, all the longing flew out of her like a runaway train down a straight line of track.
“No,” he said, carefully placing his sandwich back on his plate. It was too much. The bones in Matt’s face were set, frozen hard and unrelenting around that one word.
“Why not?” she asked. “I’d prefer to go now rather than travel later when I’m closer to term. They are, after all, our grandparents. They’re our family—”
“They’re not my family,” he interrupted bluntly. “They’re yours.” Matt sat perfectly still as the cold spread through him, freezing everything. Even time seemed locked in ice. “My father and my brother are my only family,” he declared as his vision turned inward. He could almost smell the destructive scent of misplaced pride riding on his words, but he couldn’t stop them.
Perri blinked in shock. She’d risked a great deal by simply making the request. She’d exposed a private longing to repair the rift between their families. And he’d willfully slammed her down. She couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t been included in his “family.” So much for how Matt always thought of her as “family and home.” He’d just made a lie out of his own words. And those words had given her such hope.
In a detached, absent manner Matt observed his own dulled wits. He was too sleep-deprived to know if he really meant what he was saying. It was all too much right now. But that didn’t stop him from making it worse. He rubbed his stubbled jaw. “Do you think you could maybe have a little patience, maybe slow down a little?” he asked, surprised to hear himself say such a thing.
“Patience?” she echoed carefully. If he hadn’t just hurt her feelings so badly, she would have laughed out loud. Matt Ransom didn’t know the meaning of the word.
“Look, I’m trying,” he declared. “Give me time.” The hurt in Perri was tangible. It was clear that his words were shattering to her. Guilt rose up like a cloud of dust and curled into defensiveness so quickly he didn’t even record its presence. He rode right over the knowledge that he was being unreasonable. “Don’t push me, okay? It’s too soon.”
Well, that did it. Her temper flared to life. “Too soon?” she repeated. “With the way you’ve pushed me right from the giddyap? You’ve demanded and demanded from me since the day the will was read,” she pointed out. “And I’ve taken it for the sake of peace. You’ve made changes in this house almost daily without including me in your decisions. But it’s too soon for you to make an adjustment?”
She was livid. Perri grabbed the ice pack she’d brought to the table as a tangible reminder to cool down. She never got this angry; it didn’t pay. But this time, she wouldn’t back off.
“This isn’t easy, dammit!” he erupted. “I have tried.”
“Yes,” she agreed, praying for patience. “It was sweet and thoughtful of you to bring me the roses, but that—”
“I have tried!” Matt repeated. “I sure as hell was not prepared for our having to get married to protect this place. Or for you to get pregnant. It’s tough enough for me to adjust to being married again,” he declared recklessly. “Real tough, especially since the marriage was to you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Matt wished them back.
There was a dangerous silence. “Tough for you to be married again to me,” she echoed with dangerous calm.
“You left!” he exploded, pounding his beer down so hard the silverware trembled. “You took the easy way out and ran!”
She had run from his mother’s poisonous lies, not from him; he knew that. To bring it up at this moment caused Leila’s presence to all but shimmer in the air. He could almost see her cold green eyes glitter with pleasure at his outburst.
“I took the easy way out?” she echoed. “How about the courage it took to leave Spirit Valley, Matt?” she demanded. “To leave my home in order to protect my mother’s reputation? How about what it took not to stay in a world where I was no longer wanted? It took everything I had to remain silent about what Leila was doing and let you peacefully get on with your life.”
Perri rose, deeply offended and not about to let him off the hook. Everything she had ever refrained from voicing came pouring forth. “Do you think it was easy not to fall apart when you got married so damn fast?” Her voice was low and raw. “Such speed was just a bit indecent, if you want my opinion. How do you think I felt when I learned someone else was having your baby?” she demanded, her voice breaking. “You think that was easy for a seventeen-year-old girl who loved you? You tossed me aside as if I meant nothing to you.
“Just because I learned to make a life of my own, acquiring some new skills while I was at it, you think that was easy? Easy, comfortable and safe, right?” Perri realized she still held the ice pack, squeezed so tightly in her hand it was ready to pop.
“You left, dammit!” Forgetting his throbbing knee, Matt sprang from the chair. Suddenly that was the most important thing in his world. It had shaped him and he had never examined what it had meant at the time.
“You let me go!” she answered. “You don’t know enough about what I’ve been through to tell me I took the easy road, Matt,” she said with quiet rage. “You never once asked what it was like for me. You never once expressed an interest in how I managed to go on. And while you talk about your struggle to adjust to being married again and a father,” she added, “try to remember that I’m not the one who held the gun to your head!” The ice pack miraculously landed in the kitchen sink instead of right between his sorry eyes.
Bewildered at his own volatile behavior, Matt thought before he spoke. He was unprepared to discover that there might be any fragile, compassionate places left in him. He had assumed for some time that he no longer harbored any feelings of love or tenderness. Matt’s anger turned inward as he rested an arm on the old refrigerato
r.
He just couldn’t face his grandfather. And he couldn’t explain why. Not yet. he understood that his intemperate position was Leila’s work. She had schooled him never to forgive long before the night he had broken up with Perri. But it hurt him too much to face the extent to which his mother had tainted his thinking for her own purposes. It was too soon for Matt to face his grandfather and Anne Marlowe Ransom. Waves of cold fury rolled over him. He waited, silent and stiff, for the right words to express his feelings. Matt waited a very long time. Nothing came to mind.
“Well,” Perri said finally. “I guess that makes it crystal clear. So much for your considering me a part of your family.” And so much for stating her own needs.
“Perri—”
She held up a palm to halt the discord. “Please. I don’t know how we got onto this. I just wanted to go to Tucson. But since we’re on it,” she continued, “I might as well admit that I made a huge mistake back then. I never defended myself. I walked away, and it changed my life. You changed my life,” she said, “and in a very real sense made me who I am today.”
“I made you into someone who has ‘taken’ my demands ‘for the sake of peace’?” he inquired sarcastically. “The poor little victim of all my decisions? The hot little broodmare of ‘dubious bloodlines’?” he asked, throwing her words back at her. “Unloved and knocked up? That’s the person I’ve made you today?” he demanded. Now was not a good time for her to touch his heart.
The fight had gone too far. All the pain and loss flooded into a heart that was breaking. “I’ve changed, Matt,” she declared firmly. “Not everyone can say that.” Perri fought through the deep sense of hurt. “I know I’m worth more than the treatment I received from you back then. And I’m worth more than this.”
Tears settled in as Perri accepted defeat. “Maybe it’s best for me to know right now that this is how you feel about it. You don’t consider me a part of your family,” she said.
Family. The realization slammed him. With the exception of Gannie, Matt had grown accustomed to excluding women from his mental picture of family. The silent discontent of his grandmother, mother and wife had made such an omission possible.
“What difference does it make anyway?” Perri added, when he didn’t even bother to dispute the statement. It pained her to say it, but the truth was right in front of her. “There’s nothing real about this marriage.”
“The baby is real,” Matt declared.
“The baby is mine,” Perri responded instantly. She was cold and lethal now.
Matt had her blocked at the counter in the next instant. A sudden, vicious alarm stirred him. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded softly.
She looked at him as if seeing the truth for the first time. The truth about him. “I mean that I’ll have a family when I have my baby,” she explained. “I’ll be part of my own family, Matt.”
Desperate, Matt played his ace. “You said you loved me,” he reminded her. “You wouldn’t have slept with me if you didn’t love me.”
“And you said nothing,” she responded calmly. Too calmly. “From my point of view, that says it all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Matt, you couldn’t tell me you loved me. You’ve made a point of never saying it,” she replied with such a matter-of-fact tone it sent chills skittering down his spine. “You can’t do it now. And you’ve made it clear. Sam and Whit are your family. I’m not included in that. Please don’t misunderstand,” she said rigidly. “I can admire your honesty. You’ve never been less than honest about it. You can’t love me.”
Well, she had him there. He felt her spirit withdraw as he stared into green and golden eyes filled with tears, courage and pain. He’d hurt her.
“I left once before even though I loved you, remember? So, I love you,” she said simply as she moved his arm out of her way. “And you want me for Gannie’s land and for the baby.” She turned to the table and began tidying up.
“You need me now for the baby,” she reminded him. “Without the land and without the child, I’m not valuable to you. Oh, you enjoy the sex, but I’m not someone you’re real enthused to have as family,” Perri said before she faced him again. “After all, my mother was a Marlowe. My ticket into a family with you is this child.” She paused to consider. “It may not matter,” she added
“Stop it!” he demanded. Matt knew there was more to his link with her than that. He just couldn’t seem to voice what it was. “You’re family. You are my wife,” he added, as if it meant something to him. He realized, belatedly, that it did.
“And you’ve counted all along on my long-standing love for you,” she answered. “You’ve never bothered to ask, never tried to win me over, whenever you’ve wanted your own way.”
She glanced around but refrained from any more busywork. “You’ve done just as you pleased,” she declared. “And why not? I love you and you know it You expect my devotion. You don’t have to want me for myself.”
This wasn’t going the way he had planned. Call her bluff, he figured. Buy some time until you can think straight.
“And do you really want me for myself, Perri?” he asked bitterly. “Because this is it. I’m not some love-struck kid anymore and never will be. Honey,” he said, caging her against the counter, “you’re lucky you ran when you did. You would have found yourself married at eighteen and terribly disillusioned. It seems to me you haven’t changed as much as you’d like to think you have.
“Not that it matters,” he went on, echoing her words. “None of that changes the fact that this is all the marriage you’ve got and are going to get from me. I raise horses and farm for a living,” Matt reminded her. “I don’t need a woman to get my heart broken. She’d just have to get in line.”
“Agreed,” Perri replied. “You don’t have the time or the heart.”
It suddenly dawned on Matt that he didn’t know many happy women, certainly not in his own family. Could he live with himself if he were the reason the life got drained from Perri?
“You aren’t a part of this world anymore, Perri” he told her coldly. “You’ve changed too much. You’ve been too far away, removed from Spirit for too long. You’d never fit into a family down here.” He registered her sharp intake of breath as she tried to turn away from him.
An unexamined longing flared just on the edge of his reason. Had he ever wanted to leave Spirit? He had never considered such a thing; never thought of it as an option for himself. Maybe that said something about deeply buried needs of his own. Needs that had remained frozen over, needs he only knew how to fulfill one way.
“You must want Gannie’s land even worse than I thought,” she replied in a hoarse, hurt voice.
“This is all we need between us,” he stated, locking her against the counter with his body. “This is what I need right now.” Matt cradled her neck in one broad hand and ravaged her mouth.
She couldn’t run. And Matt wasn’t going to let her pull away. One small part of her resisted, but the strong arms and strong will of the man holding her carried her deeply into his heat. And the feel and the scent of him seemed so right. In spite of everything, Matt’s strength and desire for her created a safe harbor for Perri’s own needs. The taste of him flooded through her and she melted into him. He abruptly moved one muscular thigh between her own.
His hand warmed her belly, then moved to the waist of her shorts and swiftly past her damp panties. Instantly she was hot and so very wet. The slow, involuntary grind of her hips made it evident the desire was not one-sided.
As she pressed his hips more closely to the source of her heat, Matt felt such a sense of exultation in his own intense need for her.
“This is real, here and now, hon,” he murmured as he rubbed his thumb over her jaw and into her mouth. Perri drew his thumb in deeply, licking and sucking delicately. “We both know I could have you this minute and you couldn’t stop me,” he whispered as Perri moaned, taking little bites of his thumb. “You’ll be staying ri
ght here. I’ll see to it. You’re not taking my baby away from Spirit.”
Nothing he could have said would have killed off the wild pleasure he had called forth so easily. Her body froze for a long moment before she pushed him away and quickly righted her clothing. “You’re wrong about my not being able to stop you, Matt,” Perri declared. “I’ve just never wanted to. Until now.” Her fingers trembled as she removed his locket.
Matt didn’t like himself very much at that moment. “Fine,” he said. “You have a right to want more from a marriage than I’m able to give.”
Didn’t she realize this was where she was supposed to say she loved him enough to stay? “When the terms of the will are fulfilled, I’ll start divorce proceedings immediately,” he said formally. He continued to kill them both with a reasonable tone. “Maybe you would consider giving me custody of the baby.” The words were out of his mouth before it registered what he had said.
Speechless with fury, for the longest time she stared at the necklace in her hand. Finally she spoke through a wall of inchoate rage. “If you think I would ever consider giving up my baby, you are truly out of your mind,” she assured him. “Just because I’ve bent to every blasted demand you’ve made since I got here, don’t even think that I would give you custody and fade away.” Finally she looked at him, her eyes like emerald fire.
“I want that child raised right here, Perri,” he persisted. “I’m not going to permit you to teach our child by example how to run. It goes against everything I believe in.”
“Married, or divorced, I’m staying, Matt,” she said defiantly. “I won’t be ‘taking the easy way out.’ You won’t be able to say that I ran. You’ve stated your priorities quite clearly. I understand.” Her voice sounded raw as she placed the locket on the counter.
“You have the beginnings of a family and you’re turning me loose. Turning us loose. Very well,” she said softly. “Start practicing what you’re going to tell our child when he or she is old enough. You will be the one to explain why Daddy lives down the road and on the other side of barbed wire.” Suddenly afraid that she sounded like the world’s most pathetic little victim, she turned, grabbed her purse and car keys and headed for the door.
The Bridal Promise Page 16
