Matt Caldwell: Texas Tycoon

by Diana Palmer

  “Gone?” Matt looked horrified. His face was like white stone.

  Ed frowned, hesitating. “She said it would spare you the trouble of firing her,” he began uneasily.

  Matt still hadn’t managed a coherent sentence. He ran his hand through his hair, disturbing its neat wave. He stuck his other hand into his pocket and went on staring at her desk as if he expected she might materialize out of thin air if he looked hard enough.

  He turned to Ed. He stared at him, almost as if he didn’t recognize him. “She’s gone. Gone where?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me,” he replied reluctantly.

  Matt’s eyes were black. He looked back at her desk and winced. He made a violent motion, pressed his lips together, and suddenly took a deep audible breath and with a furious scowl, he let out a barrage of nonstop curses that had even Ed gaping.

  “…and I did not say she could leave!” he finished at the end.

  Ed managed to meet those flashing eyes, but it wasn’t easy. Braver men than he had run for cover when the boss lost his temper. “Now, Matt…”

  “Don’t you ‘Now, Matt’ me, dammit!” he raged. His fists were clenched at his sides and he looked as if he really wanted to hit something. Or someone. Ed took two steps backward.

  Matt saw two of the secretaries standing frozen in the hall, as if they’d come running to find the source of the uproar and were now hoping against hope that it wouldn’t notice them.

  No such luck. “Get the hell back to work!” he shouted.

  They actually ran.

  Ed wanted to. “Matt,” he tried again.

  He was talking to thin air. Matt was down the hall and out the door before he could catch up. He did the only thing he could. He rushed back to his office to phone Leslie and warn her. He was so nervous that it took several tries and one wrong number to get her.

  “He’s on his way over there,” Ed told her the minute she picked up the phone. “Get out.”

  “No.”

  “Leslie, I’ve never seen him like this,” he pleaded. “You don’t understand. He isn’t himself.”

  “It’s all right, Ed,” she said calmly. “There’s nothing more he can do to me.”

  “Leslie…!” he groaned.

  The loud roar of an engine out front caught her attention. “Try not to worry,” she told Ed, and put the receiver down on an even louder exclamation.

  She got up, put her crutches in place and hobbled to open her door just as Matt started to knock on it. He paused there, his fist upraised, his eyes black in a face the color of rice.

  She stood aside to let him in, with no sense of self-preservation left. She was as far down as she could get already.

  He closed the door behind him with an ultracontrolled softness before he turned to look at her. She went back to her armchair and eased down into it, laying the crutches to one side. Her chin lifted and she just looked at him, resigned to more verbal abuse if not downright violence. She was already packed and almost beyond his reach. Let him do his worst.

  Now that he was here, he didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t thought past finding her. He leaned back against the door and folded his arms over his chest.

  She didn’t flinch or avert her eyes. She stared right at him. “There was no need to come here,” she said calmly. “You don’t have to run me out of town. I already have my ticket. I’m leaving on the bus first thing in the morning.” She lifted a hand. “Feel free to search if you think I’ve taken anything from the office.”

  He didn’t respond. His chest rose and fell rhythmically, if a little heavily.

  She smoothed her hand over the cast where it topped her kneecap. There was an itch and she couldn’t get to it. What a mundane thing to think about, she told herself, when she was confronted with a homicidal man.

  He was making her more nervous by the minute. She shifted in the chair, grimacing as the cast moved awkwardly and gave her a twinge of pain.

  “Why are you here?” she asked impatiently, her eyes flashing at him through her lenses. “What else do you want, an apology…?”

  “An apology? Dear God!”

  It sounded like a plea for salvation. He moved, for the first time, going slowly across the room to the chair a few feet away from hers, next to the window. He eased himself down into it and crossed his long legs. He was still scowling, watching, waiting.

  His eyes were appraising her now, not cutting into her or mocking her. They were dark and steady and turbulent.

  Her eyes were dull and lackluster as she averted her face. Her grip on the arm of the chair was painful. “You know, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  She felt as if her whole body contracted. She watched a bird fly past the window and wished that she could fly away from her problems. “In a way, it’s sort of a relief,” she said wearily. “I’m so tired…of running.”

  His face tautened. His mouth made a thin line as he stared at her. “You’ll never have to run again,” he said flatly. “There isn’t going to be any more harassment from that particular quarter.”

  She wasn’t sure she was hearing right. Her face turned back to his. It was hard to meet those searching eyes, but she did. He looked pale, worn.

  “Why aren’t you gloating?” she asked harshly. “You were right about me all along, weren’t you? I’m a little tramp who lures men in and teases them…!”

  “Don’t!” He actually flinched. He searched for words and couldn’t manage to find anything to say to her. His guilt was killing him. His conscience had him on a particularly nasty rack. He looked at her and saw years of torment and self-contempt, and he wanted to hit something.

  That expression was easily read in his dark eyes. She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes on the hatred she saw there.

  “Everybody had a different idea of why I did it,” she said evenly. “One of the bigger tabloids even interviewed a couple of psychiatrists who said I was getting even with my mother for my childhood. Another said it was latent nymphomania…”

  “Hell!”

  She felt dirty. She couldn’t look at him. “I thought I loved him,” she said, as if even after all the years, she still couldn’t believe it had happened. “I had no idea, none at all, what he was really like. He made fun of my body, he and his friends. They stretched me out like a human sacrifice and discussed…my…assets.” Her voice broke. He clenched his hand on the arm of the chair.

  Matt’s expression, had she seen it, would have silenced her. As it was, she was staring blankly out the window.

  “They decided Mike should go first,” she said in a husky, strained tone. “And then they drew cards to see which of the other three would go next. I prayed to die. But I couldn’t. Mike was laughing at the way I begged him not to do it. I struggled and he had the others hold me down while he…”

  A sound came from Matt’s tight throat that shocked her into looking at him. She’d never seen such horror in a man’s eyes.

  “My mother came in before he had time to—” she swallowed “—get started. She was so angry that she lost control entirely. She grabbed the pistol Mike kept in the table drawer by the front door and she shot him. The bullet went through him and into my leg,” she whispered, sickened by the memory. “I saw his face when the bullet hit him in the chest from behind. I actually saw the life drain out of him.” She closed her eyes. “She kept shooting until one of the men got the pistol away from her. They ran for their lives, and left us there, like that. A neighbor called an ambulance and the police. I remember that one of them got a blanket from the bedroom and wrapped me up in it. They were all…so kind,” she choked, tears filling her eyes. “So kind!”

  He put his face in his hands. He couldn’t bear what he was hearing. He remembered her face in his office when he’d laughed at her. He groaned harshly.

  “The tabloids made it look as if I’d invited what happened,” she said huskily. “I don’t know how a seventeen-year-old virgin can ask grown men to get high on dru
gs and treat her with no respect. I thought I loved Mike, but even so, I never did anything consciously to make him treat me that way.”

  Matt couldn’t look at her. Not yet. “People high on drugs don’t know what they’re doing, as a rule,” he said through his teeth.

  “That’s hard to believe,” she said.

  “It’s the same thing as a man drinking too much alcohol and having a blackout,” he said, finally lifting his head. He stared at her with dark, lifeless eyes. “Didn’t I tell you once that secrets are dangerous?”

  She nodded. She looked back out the window. “Mine was too sordid to share,” she said bitterly. “I can’t bear to be touched by men. By most men,” she qualified. “Ed knew all about me, so he never approached me, that way. But you,” she added quietly, “came at me like a bull in a pasture. You scared me to death. Aggression always reminds me of…of Mike.”

  He leaned forward with his head bowed. Even after what he’d learned in Houston already, he was unprepared for the full impact of what had been done to this vulnerable, fragile creature in front of him. He’d let hurt pride turn him into a predator. He’d approached her in ways that were guaranteed to bring back terrible memories of that incident in her past.

  “I wish I’d known,” he said heavily.

  “I don’t blame you,” she said simply. “You couldn’t have known.”

  His dark eyes came up glittering. “I could have,” he contradicted flatly. “It was right under my nose. The way you downplayed your figure, the way you backed off when I came too close, the way you…fainted—” he had to force the word out “—in my office when I pinned you to the wall.” He looked away. “I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to. I was paying you back,” he said on a bitter laugh, “for having the gall not to fall into my arms when I pursued you.”

  She’d never imagined that she could feel sorry for Matt Caldwell. But she did. He was a decent man. Surely it would be difficult for him to face the treatment he’d given her, now that he knew the truth.

  She smoothed her hands over her arms. It wasn’t cold in the room, but she was chilled.

  “You’ve never talked about it, have you?” he asked after a minute.

  “Only to Ed, right after it happened,” she replied. “He’s been the best friend in the world to me. When those people started talking about making a television movie of what had happened, I just panicked. They were all over Houston looking for me. Ed offered me a way out and I took it. I was so scared,” she whispered. “I thought I’d be safe here.”

  His fists clenched. “Safe.” He made a mockery of the very word.

  He got to his feet and moved to the window, avoiding her curious gaze.

  “That reporter,” she began hesitantly. “He told you about it when he was here, didn’t he?”

  He didn’t reply for a minute. “Yes,” he said finally. “He had clippings of the story.” She probably knew which ones, he thought miserably, of her being carried out on a stretcher with blood all over her. There was one of the dead man lying on the floor of the apartment, and one of her blond mother shocked and almost catatonic as policemen escorted her to the squad car.

  “I didn’t connect it when you told Ed you were going to Houston. I thought it was some cattle sale, just like you said,” she remarked.

  “The reporter ran, but he’d already said that he was working with some people in Hollywood trying to put together a television movie. He’d tried to talk to your mother, apparently, and after his visit, she had a heart attack. That didn’t even slow him down. He tracked you here and had plans to interview you.” He glanced at her. “He thought you’d be glad to cooperate for a percentage of the take.”

  She laughed hollowly.

  “Yes, I know,” he told her. “You’re not mercenary. That’s one of the few things I’ve learned about you since you’ve been here.”

  “At least you found one thing about me that you like,” she told him.

  His face closed up completely. “There are a lot of things I like about you, but I’ve had some pretty hard knocks from women in my life.”

  “Ed told me.”

  “It’s funny,” he said, but he didn’t look amused. “I’ve never been able to come to terms with my mother’s actions—until I met you. You’ve helped me a lot—and I’ve been acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw. I’ve mistreated you.”

  She searched his lean, hard face quietly. He was so handsome. Her heart jumped every time she met his eyes. “Why did you treat me that way?” she asked.

  He stuck his hand into his pocket. “I wanted you,” he said flatly.

  “Oh.”

  She wasn’t looking at him, but he saw her fingers curl into the arm of the chair. “I know. You probably aren’t capable of desire after what was done to you. Perhaps it’s poetic justice that my money and position won’t get me the one thing in the world I really want.”

  “I don’t think I could sleep with someone,” she agreed evenly. “Even the thought of it is…disgusting.”

  He could imagine that it was, and he cursed that man silently until he ran out of words.

  “You liked kissing me.”

  She nodded, surprised. “Yes, I did.”

  “And being touched,” he prompted, smiling gently at the memory of her reaction—astonishing now, considering her past.

  She studied her lap. A button on her dress was loose. She’d have to stitch it. She lifted her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I enjoyed that, too, at first.”

  His face hardened as he remembered what he’d said to her then. He turned away, his back rigid. He’d made so damned many mistakes with this woman that he didn’t know how he was going to make amends. There was probably no way to do it. But he could protect her from any more misery, and he was going to.

  He rammed his hands into his pockets and turned. “I went to see that reporter in Houston. I can promise you that he won’t be bothering you again, and there won’t be any more talk of a motion picture. I went to see your mother, too,” he added.

  She hadn’t expected that. She closed her eyes. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and bit it right through. The taste of blood steeled her as she waited for the explosion.

  “Don’t!”

  She opened her eyes with a jerk. His face was dark and lined, like the downwardly slanted brows above his black eyes. She pulled a tissue from the box on the table beside her and dabbed at the blood on her lip. It was such a beautiful color, she thought irrelevantly.

  “I didn’t realize how hard this was going to be,” he said, sitting down. His head bowed, he clasped his big hands between his splayed knees and stared at the floor. “There are a lot of things I want to tell you. I just can’t find the right words.”

  She didn’t speak. Her eyes were still on the blood-dotted tissue. She felt his dark eyes on her, searching, studying, assessing her.

  “If I’d…known about your past…” he tried again.

  Her head came up. Her eyes were as dead as stone. “You just didn’t like me. It’s all right. I didn’t like you, either. And you couldn’t have known. I came here to hide the past, not to talk about it. But I guess you were right about secrets. I’ll have to find another place to go, that’s all.”

  He cursed under his breath. “Don’t go! You’re safe in Jacobsville,” he continued, his voice growing stronger and more confident as he spoke. “There won’t be any more suspicious reporters, no more movie deals, no more persecution. I can make sure that nobody touches you as long as you’re here. I can’t…protect you anywhere else,” he added impatiently.

  Oh, that was just great, she thought furiously. Pity. Guilt. Shame. Now he was going to go to the opposite extreme. He was going to watch over her like a protective father wolf. Well, he could think again. She scooped up one of her crutches and slammed the tip on the floor. “I don’t need protection from you or anybody else. I’m leaving on the morning bus. And as for you, Mr. Caldwell, you can get out of here and leave me alone!” she raged at h
im.

  It was the first spark of resistance he’d seen in her since he arrived. The explosion lightened his mood. She wasn’t acting like a victim anymore. That was real independence in her tone, in the whole look of her. She was healing already with the retelling of that painful episode in her life.

  The hesitation in him was suddenly gone. So was the somber face. Both eyebrows went up and a faint light touched his black eyes. “Or what?”

  She hesitated. “What do you mean, or what?”

  “If I don’t get out, what do you plan to do?” he asked pleasantly.

  She thought about that for a minute. “Call Ed.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Karla’s bringing him coffee about now. Wouldn’t it be a shame to spoil his break?”

  She moved restlessly in the chair, still holding on to the crutch.

  He smiled slowly, for the first time since he’d arrived. “Nothing more to say? Have you run out of threats already?”

  Her eyes narrowed with bad temper. She didn’t know what to say, or what to do. This was completely unexpected.

  He studied the look of her in the pretty blue-patterned housedress she was wearing, barefoot. She was pretty, too. “I like that dress. I like your hair that color, too.”

  She looked at him as if she feared for his sanity. Something suddenly occurred to her. “If you didn’t come rushing over here to put me on the bus and see that I left town, why are you here?”

  He nodded slowly. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that.” He leaned forward, just as another car pulled up outside the house.

  “Ed,” she guessed.

  He grimaced. “I guess he rushed over to save you,” he said with resignation.

  She glared at him. “He was worried about me.”

  He went toward the door. “He wasn’t the only one,” he muttered, almost to himself. He opened the door before Ed could knock. “She’s all in one piece,” he assured his cousin, standing aside to let him into the room.

  Ed was worried, confused, and obviously puzzled when he saw that she wasn’t crying. “Are you all right?” he asked her.