Matt Caldwell: Texas Tycoon

by Diana Palmer

  “They’re not all bad,” he replied finally.

  “There’s only so much you can do with a shattered bone,” she said and then bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to tell him that.

  The question was in his eyes, on his lips, but it never made it past them. Just as he started to ask, Ed came out of his office and spotted him.

  “Matt! Welcome back,” he said, extending a hand. “I just had a call from Bill Payton. He wanted to know if you were coming to the banquet Saturday night. They’ve got a live band scheduled.”

  “Sure,” Matt said absently. “Tell him to reserve two tickets for me. Are you going?”

  “I thought I would. I’ll bring Leslie along.” He smiled at her. “It’s the annual Jacobsville Cattle-men’s Association banquet. We have speeches, but if you survive them, and the rubber chicken, you get to dance.”

  “Her leg isn’t going to let her do much dancing,” Matt said solemnly.

  Ed’s eyebrows lifted. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “She loves Latin dances.” He grinned at Leslie. “So does Matt here. You wouldn’t believe what he can do with a mambo or a rhumba, to say nothing of the tango. He dated a dance instructor for several months, and he’s a natural anyway.”

  Matt didn’t reply. He was watching the play of expressions on Leslie’s face and wondering about that leg. Maybe Ed knew the truth of it, and he could worm it out of him.

  “You can ride in with us,” Matt said absently. “I’ll hire Jack Bailey’s stretch limo and give your secretary a thrill.”

  “It’ll give me a thrill, too,” Ed assured him. “Thanks, Matt. I hate trying to find a parking space at the country club when there’s a party.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  One of the secretaries motioned to Matt that he had a phone call. He left and Ed departed right behind him for a meeting. Leslie wondered how she was going to endure an evening of dancing without ending up close to Matt Caldwell, who already resented her standoffish attitude. It would be an ordeal, she supposed, and wondered if she could develop a convenient headache on Saturday afternoon.

  Leslie only had one really nice dress that was appropriate to wear to the function at the country club. The gown was a long sheath of shimmery silver fabric, suspended from her creamy shoulders by two little spaghetti straps. With it, she wore a silver-andrhinestone clip in her short blond hair and neat little silver slippers with only a hint of a heel.

  Ed sighed at the picture she made when the limousine pulled up in front of the boardinghouse where she was staying. She met him on the porch, a small purse clenched in damp hands, all aflutter at the thought of her first evening out since she was seventeen. She was terribly nervous.

  “Is the dress okay?” she asked at once.

  Ed smiled, taking in her soft oval face with its faint blush of lipstick and rouge, which was the only makeup she ever wore. Her gray eyes had naturally thick black lashes, which never needed mascara.

  “You look fine,” he assured her.

  “You’re not bad in a tux yourself,” she murmured with a grin.

  “Don’t let Matt see how nervous you are,” he said as they approached the car. “Somebody phoned and set him off just as we left my house. Carolyn was almost in tears.”

  “Carolyn?” she asked.

  “His latest trophy girlfriend,” he murmured. “She’s from one of the best families in Houston, staying with her aunt so she’d be on hand for tonight’s festivities. She’s been relentlessly pursuing Matt for months. Some of us think she’s gaining ground.”

  “She’s beautiful, I guess?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. In a way, she reminds me of Franny.”

  Franny had been Ed’s fiancée, shot to death in a foiled bank robbery about the time Leslie had been catapulted into sordid fame. It had given them something in common that drew them together as friends.

  “That must be rough,” Leslie said sympathetically.

  He glanced at her curiously as they approached the car. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  She shrugged, tugging the small faux fur cape closer around her shoulders. “I was a late bloomer.” She swallowed hard. “What happened to me turned me right off men.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  He waited while the chauffeur, also wearing a tuxedo, opened the door of the black super-stretch limousine for them. Leslie climbed in, followed by Ed, and the door closed them in with Matt and the most beautiful blond woman Leslie had ever seen. The other woman was wearing a simple black sheath dress with a short skirt and enough diamonds to open a jewelry store. No point in asking if they were real, Leslie thought, considering the look of that dress and the very real sable coat wrapped around it.

  “You remember my cousin, Ed,” Matt drawled, lounging back in the leather seat across from Ed and Leslie. Small yellow lights made it possible for them to see each other in the incredibly spacious interior. “This is his secretary, Miss Murry. Carolyn Engles,” he added, nodding toward the woman at his side.

  Murmured acknowledgments followed his introduction. Leslie’s fascinated eyes went from the bar to the phones to the individual controls on the air-conditioning and heating systems. It was like a luxury apartment on wheels, she thought, and tried not to let her amusement show.

  “Haven’t you ever been in a limousine before?” Matt asked with a mocking smile.

  “Actually, no,” she replied with deliberate courtesy. “It’s quite a treat. Thank you.”

  He seemed disconcerted by her reply. He averted his head and studied Ed. His next words showed he’d forgotten her. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, I want you to pull back every penny of support we’re giving Marcus Boles. Nobody, and I mean nobody, involves me in a shady land deal like that!”

  “It amazes me that we didn’t see through him from the start,” Ed agreed. “The whole campaign was just a diversion, to give the real candidate someone to shoot down. He’ll look like a hero, and Boles will take the fall manfully. I understand he’s being handsomely paid for his disgrace. Presumably the cash is worth his reputation and social standing.”

  “He’s got land in South America. I hear he’s going over there to live. Just as well,” Matt added coldly. “If he’s lucky, he might make it to the airport tomorrow before I catch up with him.”

  The threat of violence lay over him like an invisible mantle. Leslie shivered. Of the four people in that car, she knew firsthand how vicious and brutal physical violence could be. Her memories were hazy, confused, but in the nightmares she had constantly, they were all too vivid.

  “Do calm down, darling,” Carolyn told Matt gently. “You’re upsetting Ms. Marley.”

  “Murry,” Ed corrected before Leslie could. “Strange, Carolyn, I don’t remember your memory being so poor.”

  Carolyn cleared her throat. “It’s a lovely night, at least,” she said, changing the subject. “No rain and a beautiful moon.”

  “So it is,” Ed drawled.

  Matt gave him a cool look, which Ed met with a vacant smile. Leslie was amused by the way Ed could look so innocent. She knew him far too well to be fooled.

  Matt, meanwhile, was drinking in the sight of Leslie in that formfitting dress that just matched her eyes. She had skin like marble, and he wondered if it was as soft to the touch as it seemed. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, but there was a quality about her that made him weak in the knees. He was driven to protect her, without knowing why he felt that way about a stranger. It irritated him as much as the phone call he’d fielded earlier.

  “Where are you from, Ms. Murbery?” Carolyn asked.

  “Miss Murry,” Leslie corrected, beating Ed to the punch. “I’m from a little town north of Houston.”

  “A true Texan,” Ed agreed with a grin in her direction.

  “What town?” Matt asked.

  “I’m sure you won’t have heard of it,” Leslie said confidently. “Our only claim to fame was a radio station in a building shaped like a ten-gallon hat. Very much
off the beaten path.”

  “Did your parents own a ranch?” he persisted.

  She shook her head. “My father was a crop duster.”

  “A what?” Carolyn asked with a blank face.

  “A pilot who sprays pesticides from the air in a small airplane,” Leslie replied. “He was killed…on the job.”

  “Pesticides,” Matt muttered darkly. “Just what the groundwater table needs to—”

  “Matt, can we forget politics for just one night?” Ed asked. “I’d like to enjoy my evening.”

  Matt gave him a measured glare with one eye narrowed menacingly. But he relaxed all at once and leaned back in his seat, to put a lazy arm around Carolyn and let her snuggle close to him. His dark eyes seemed to mock Leslie as if comparing her revulsion to Carolyn’s frank delight in his physical presence.

  She let him win this round with an amused smile. Once, she might have enjoyed his presence just as much as his date was reveling in now. But she had more reason than most to fear men.

  The country club, in its sprawling clubhouse on a man-made lake, was a beautiful building with graceful arches and fountains. It did Jacobsville proud. But, as Ed had intimated, there wasn’t a single parking spot available. Matt had the pager number of the driver and could summon the limousine whenever it was needed. He herded his charges out of the car and into the building, where the reception committee made them welcome.

  There was a live band, a very good one, playing assorted tunes, most of which resembled bossa nova rhythms. The only time that Leslie really felt alive was when she could close her eyes and listen to music; any sort of music—classical, opera, country-western or gospel. Music had been her escape as a child from a world too bitter sometimes to stomach. She couldn’t play an instrument, but she could dance. That was the one thing she and her mother had shared, a love of dancing. In fact, Marie had taught her every dance step she knew, and she knew a lot. Marie had taught dancing for a year or so and had shared her expertise with her daughter. How ironic it was that Leslie’s love of dance had been stifled forever by the events of her seventeenth year.

  “Fill a plate,” Ed coaxed, motioning her to the small china dishes on the buffet table. “You could use a little more meat on those bird bones.”

  She grinned at him. “I’m not skinny.”

  “Yes, you are,” he replied, and he wasn’t kidding. “Come on, forget your troubles and enjoy yourself. Tonight, there is no tomorrow. Eat, drink and be merry.”

  For tomorrow, you die, came the finish to that admonishing verse, she recalled darkly. But she didn’t say it. She put some cheese straws and finger sandwiches on a plate and opted for soda water instead of a drink.

  Ed found them two chairs on the rim of the dance floor, where they could hear the band and watch the dancing.

  The band had a lovely dark-haired singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice. She was playing a guitar and singing songs from the sixties, with a rhythm that made Leslie’s heart jump. The smile on her face, the sparkle in her gray eyes as she listened to the talented performer, made her come alive.

  From across the room, Matt noted the abrupt change in Leslie. She loved music. She loved dancing, too, he could tell. His strong fingers contracted around his own plate.

  “Shall we sit with the Devores, darling?” Carolyn asked, indicating a well-dressed couple on the opposite side of the ballroom.

  “I thought we’d stick with my cousin,” he said carelessly. “He’s not used to this sort of thing.”

  “He seems very much at home,” Carolyn corrected, reluctantly following in Matt’s wake. “It’s his date who looks out of place. Good heavens, she’s tapping her toe! How gauche!”

  “Weren’t you ever twenty-three?” he asked with a bite in his voice. “Or were you born so damned sophisticated that nothing touched you?”

  She actually gasped. Matt had never spoken to her that way.

  “Excuse me,” he said gruffly, having realized his mistake. “I’m still upset by Boles.”

  “So…so I noticed,” she stammered, and almost dropped her plate. This was a Matt Caldwell she’d never seen before. His usual smile and easygoing attitude were conspicuous for their absence tonight. Boles must really have upset him!

  Matt sat down on the other side of Leslie, his eyes darkening as he saw the life abruptly drain out of her. Her body tensed. Her fingers on her plate went white.

  “Here, Carolyn, trade places with me,” Matt said suddenly, and with a forced smile. “This chair’s too low for me.”

  “I don’t think mine’s much higher, darling, but I’ll do it,” Carolyn said in a docile tone.

  Leslie relaxed. She smiled shyly at the other woman and then turned her attention back to the woman on the stage.

  “Isn’t she marvelous?” Carolyn asked. “She’s from the Yucatán.”

  “Not only talented, but pretty as well,” Ed agreed. “I love that beat.”

  “Oh, so do I,” Leslie said breathlessly, nibbling a finger sandwich but with her whole attention on the band and the singer.

  Matt found himself watching her, amused and touched by her uninhibited joy in the music. It had occurred to him that not much affected her in the office. Here, she was unsure of herself and nervous. Perhaps she even felt out of place. But when the band was playing and the vocalist was singing, she was a different person. He got a glimpse of the way she had been, perhaps, before whatever blows of fate had made her so uneasy around him. He was intrigued by her, and not solely because she wounded his ego. She was a complex person.

  Ed noticed Matt’s steady gaze on Leslie, and he wanted to drag his cousin aside and tell him the whole miserable story. Matt was curious about Leslie, and he was a bulldozer when he wanted something. He’d run roughshod right over her to get his answers, and Leslie would retreat into the shell her experiences had built around her. She was just coming into the sunlight, and here was Matt driving her back into shadow. Why couldn’t Matt be content with Carolyn’s adoration? Most women flocked around him; Leslie didn’t. He was sure that was the main attraction she held for his cousin. But Matt, pursuing her interest, could set her back years. He had no idea what sort of damage he could do to her fragile emotions.

  The singer finished her song, and the audience applauded. She introduced the members of the band and the next number, a beautiful, rhythmic feast called “Brazil.” It was Leslie’s very favorite piece of music, and she could dance to it, despite her leg. She longed, ached, for someone to take her on the dance floor and let her show those stiff, inhibited people how to fly to that poignant rhythm!

  Watching her, Matt saw the hunger in her eyes. Ed couldn’t do those steps, but he could. Without a word, he handed Carolyn his empty plate and got to his feet.

  Before Leslie had a chance to hesitate or refuse outright, he pulled her gently out of her seat and onto the dance floor.

  His dark eyes met her shocked pale ones as he caught her waist in one lean, strong hand and took her left hand quite reverently into his right one.

  “I won’t make any sudden turns,” he assured her. He nodded once, curtly, to mark the rhythm.

  And then he did something remarkable.

  Leslie caught her breath as she recognized his ability. She forgot to be afraid of him. She forgot that she was nervous to be held by a man. She was caught up in the rhythm and the delight of having a partner who knew how to dance to perfection the intricate steps that accompanied the Latin beat.

  “You’re good,” Matt mused, smiling with genuine pleasure as they measured their quick steps to the rhythm.

  “So are you.” She smiled back.

  “If your leg gives you trouble, let me know and I’ll get you off the floor. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Then let’s go!”

  He moved her across the floor with the skill of a professional dancer and she followed him with such perfection that other dancers stopped and got out of the way, moving to the sidelines to watch what had become pure ent
ertainment.

  Matt and Leslie, enjoying the music and their own interpretation of it, were blind to the other guests, to the smiling members of the band, to everything except the glittering excitement of the dance. They moved as if they were bound by invisible strings, each to the other, with perfectly matching steps.

  As the music finally wound down, Matt drew her in close against his lean frame and tilted her down in an elegant, but painful, finish.

  The applause was thunderous. Matt drew Leslie upright again and noticed how pale and drawn her face was.

  “Too much too soon,” he murmured. “Come on. Off you go.”

  He didn’t move closer. Instead, he held out his arm and let her come to him, let her catch hold of it where the muscle was thickest. She clung with both hands, hating herself for doing something so incredibly stupid. But, oh, it had been fun! It was worth the pain.

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Matt eased her down into her chair again.

  “Do you have any aspirin in that tiny thing?” Matt asked, indicating the small string purse on her arm.

  She grimaced.

  “Of course not.” He turned, scanning the audience. “Back in a jiffy.”

  He moved off in the general direction of the punch bowl while Ed caught Leslie’s hand in his. “That was great,” he enthused. “Just great! I didn’t know you could dance like that.”

  “Neither did I,” she murmured shyly.

  “Quite an exhibition,” Carolyn agreed coolly. “But silly to do something so obviously painful. Now Matt will spend the rest of the night blaming himself and trying to find aspirin, I suppose.” She got up and marched off with her barely touched plate and Matt’s empty one.

  “Well, she’s in a snit,” Ed observed. “She can’t dance like that.”

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” Leslie murmured. “But it was so much fun, Ed! I felt alive, really alive!”

  “You looked it. Nice to see your eyes light up again.”

  She made a face at him. “I’ve spoiled Carolyn’s evening.”