Matt Caldwell: Texas Tycoon

by Diana Palmer

  His hand contracted on both of hers. “I’m going to be right with you every step of the way,” he said firmly. “Whatever happens, it won’t make any difference to me. I only want to try to make things easier for you.”

  “She might not want to see me,” she ventured.

  “She wants to,” he said grimly. “Very badly. She realizes that she might not have much time left.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I never realized she had heart trouble.”

  “She probably didn’t, until she started consuming massive quantities of drugs. The human body can only take so much abuse until it starts rebelling.” He glanced at her. “She’s all right for now. She just has to take it easy. But I still think we can do something for her.”

  “A new trial would put a lot of stress on her.”

  “It would,” he agreed. “But perhaps it isn’t the sort of stress that would be damaging. At the end of that road, God willing, she might get out on parole.”

  Leslie only nodded. The difficult part lay yet ahead of her; a reunion that she wasn’t even sure she wanted. But Matt seemed determined to bring it about.

  It was complicated to get into a prison, Leslie learned at once. There were all sorts of checkpoints and safety measures designed to protect visitors. Leslie shivered a little as they walked down the long hall to the room where visitors were allowed to see inmates. For her, the thought of losing her freedom was akin to fears of a lingering death. She wondered if it was that bad for her mother.

  There was a long row of chairs at little cubicles, separated from the prisoners’ side by thick glass. There was a small opening in the glass, which was covered with mesh wiring so that people could talk back and forth. Matt spoke to a guard and gestured Leslie toward one of the cubicles, settling her in the straight-backed chair there. Through the glass, she could see a closed door across the long room.

  As she watched, aware of Matt’s strong, warm hand on her shoulder, the door opened and a thin, drawn blond woman with very short hair was ushered into the room by a guard. She went forward to the cubicle where Leslie was sitting and lifted her eyes to the tense face through the glass. Her pale blue eyes were full of sadness and uncertainty. Her thin hands trembled.

  “Hello, Leslie,” she said slowly.

  Leslie just sat there for a moment with her heart beating half to death. The thin, drawn woman with the heavily lined face and dull blue eyes was only a shadow of the mother she remembered. Those thin hands were so wasted that the blue veins on their backs stood out prominently.

  Marie smiled with faint self-contempt. “I knew this would be a mistake,” she said huskily. “I’m so sorry…” She started to get up.

  “Wait,” Leslie croaked. She grimaced. She didn’t know what to say. The years had made this woman a stranger.

  Matt moved behind her, both hands on her shoulders now, supporting her, giving her strength.

  “Take your time,” he said gently. “It’s all right.”

  Marie gave a little start as she noticed that Matt was touching Leslie with some familiarity, and Leslie wasn’t stiff or protesting. Her eyes connected with his dark ones and he smiled.

  Marie smiled back hesitantly. It changed her lined, worn face and made her seem younger. She looked into her daughter’s eyes and her own softened. “I like your boss,” she said.

  Leslie smiled back. “I like him, too,” she confessed.

  There was a hesitation. “I don’t know where to start,” she began huskily. “I’ve rehearsed it and rehearsed it and I simply can’t find the words.” Her pale eyes searched Leslie’s face, as if she was trying to recall it from the past. She winced as she compared it with the terror-stricken face she’d seen that night so long ago. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, Leslie. My biggest one was putting my own needs ahead of everybody else’s. It was always what I wanted, what I needed. Even when I started doing drugs, all I thought about was what would make me happy.” She shook her head. “Selfishness carries a high price tag. I’m so sorry that you had to pay such a high price for mine. I couldn’t even bear to look at you at the trial, after the tabloids came out. I was so ashamed of what I’d subjected you to. I thought of you, all alone, trying to hold your head up with half the state knowing such intimate things about our lives…” She drew in a slow, unsteady breath and she seemed to slump. “I can’t even ask you to forgive me. But I did want to see you, even if it’s just this once, to tell you how much I regret it all.”

  The sight of her pinched face hurt Leslie, who hadn’t realized her mother even felt remorse. There had been no communication between them. She knew now that Matt had been telling the truth about her mother’s silence. Marie was too ashamed to face her, even now. It eased the wound a little. “I didn’t know about the drugs,” Leslie blurted out abruptly.

  Her tone brought Marie’s eyes up, and for the first time, there was hope in them. “I never used them around you,” she said gently. “But it started a long time ago, about the time your father…died.” The light in her eyes seemed to dim. “You blamed me for his death, and you were right. He couldn’t live up to being what I wanted him to be. He couldn’t give me the things I thought I deserved.” She looked down at the table in front of her. “He was a good, kind man. I should have appreciated him. It wasn’t until he died that I realized how much he meant to me. And it was too late.” She laughed hollowly. “From then on, everything went downhill. I didn’t care anymore, about myself or you, and I went onto harder drugs. That’s how I met Mike. I guess you figured out that he was my supplier.”

  “Matt did,” Leslie corrected.

  Marie lifted her eyes to look at Matt, who was still standing behind Leslie. “Don’t let them hurt her anymore,” she pleaded gently. “Don’t let that reporter make her run anymore. She’s had enough.”

  “So have you,” Leslie said unexpectedly, painfully touched by Marie’s concern. “Matt says…that he thinks his attorneys might be able to get you a new trial.”

  Marie started. Her eyes lit up, and then abruptly shifted. “No!” she said gruffly. “I have to pay for what I did.”

  “Yes,” Leslie said. “But what you did…” She hesitated. “What you did was out of shock and outrage, don’t you see? It wasn’t premeditated. I don’t know much about the law, but I do know that intent is everything. You didn’t plan to kill Mike.”

  The older woman’s sad eyes met Leslie’s through the glass. “That’s generous of you, Leslie,” she said quietly. “Very generous, considering the notoriety and grief I caused you.”

  “We’ve both paid a price,” she agreed.

  “You’re wearing a cast,” her mother said suddenly. “Why?”

  “I fell off a horse,” Leslie said and felt Matt’s hands contract on her shoulders, as if he was remembering why. She reached up and smoothed her hand over one of his. “It was a lucky fall, because Matt got an orthopedic surgeon to operate on my leg and put it right.”

  “Do you know how her leg was hurt?” the other woman asked Matt with a sad little smile.

  “Yes,” he replied. His voice sounded strained. The tender, caressing action of Leslie’s soft fingers on his hand was arousing him. It was the first time she’d touched him voluntarily, and his head was reeling.

  “That’s another thing I’ve had on my conscience for years,” the smaller woman told her daughter. “I’m glad you had the operation.”

  “I’m sorry for the position you’re in,” Leslie said with genuine sympathy. “I would have come to see you years ago, but I thought… I thought you hated me,” she added huskily, “for what happened to Mike.”

  “Oh, Leslie!” Marie put her face in her hands and her shoulders shook. She wept harshly, while her daughter sat staring at her uncomfortably. After a minute, she wiped the tears from her red, swollen eyes. “No, I didn’t hate you! I never blamed you!” Marie said brokenly. “How could I hate you for something that was never your fault? I wasn’t a good mother. I put you at risk the minute I started using drugs.
I failed you terribly. By letting Mike move in, I set you up for what he and his friends did to you. My poor baby,” she choked. “You were so very young, so innocent, and to have men treat you…that way—” She broke off. “That’s why I couldn’t ask you to come, why I couldn’t write or phone. I thought you hated me!”

  Leslie’s fingers clenched around Matt’s on her shoulder, drawing strength from his very presence. She knew she could never have faced this without him. “I didn’t hate you,” she said slowly. “I’m sorry we couldn’t talk to each other, at the trial. I…did blame you for Dad,” she confessed. “But I was so young when it happened, and you and I had never been particularly close. If we had…”

  “You can’t change what was,” her mother said with a wistful smile. “But it’s worth all this if you can forgive me.” Her long fingers moved restlessly on the receiver. Her pained eyes met Leslie’s. “It means everything if you can forgive me!”

  Leslie felt a lump in her throat as she looked at her mother and realized the change in her. “Of course I can.” She bit her lip. “Are you all right? Is your health all right?”

  “I have a weak heart, probably damaged by all the drugs I took,” Marie said without emphasis. “I take medicine for it, and I’m doing fine. I’ll be all right, Leslie.” She searched the younger woman’s eyes intently. “I hope you’re going to be all right, too, now that you aren’t being stalked by that reporter anymore. Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “I’m glad I did,” Leslie said, and meant it sincerely. “I’ll write, and I’ll come to see you when I can. Meanwhile, Matt’s lawyers may be able to do something for you. Let them try.”

  There was a hesitation while the other woman exchanged a worried look with Matt.

  Both his hands pressed on Leslie’s shoulders. “I’ll take care of her,” he told Marie, and knew that she understood what he was saying. Nobody would bother Leslie again, as long as there was a breath in his body. He had power and he would use it on her daughter’s behalf. She relaxed.

  “All right, then,” she replied. “Thank you for trying to help me, even if nothing comes of it.”

  Matt smiled at her. “Miracles happen every day,” he said, and he was looking at Leslie’s small hand caressing his.

  “You hold on to him,” the older woman told Leslie fervently. “If I’d had a man like that to care about me, I wouldn’t be in this mess today.”

  Leslie flushed. Her mother spoke as if she had a chance of holding on to Matt, and that was absurd. He might feel guilt and sympathy, even regret, but her mother seemed to be mistaking his concern for love. It wasn’t.

  Matt leaned close to Leslie and spoke. “It’s rather the other way around,” Matt said surprisingly, and he didn’t smile. “Women like Leslie don’t grow on trees.”

  Marie smiled broadly. “No, they don’t. She’s very special. Take care of yourself, Leslie. I… I do love you, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

  Leslie’s eyes stung with threatening tears. “I love you, too, Mama,” she said in a gruff, uneasy tone. She could barely speak for the emotion she felt.

  The other woman couldn’t speak at all. Her eyes were bright and her smile trembled. She only nodded. After one long look at her daughter, she got up and went to the door.

  Leslie sat there for a minute, watching until her mother was completely out of sight. Matt’s big hands contracted on her shoulders.

  “Let’s go, sweetheart,” he said gently, and pressed a handkerchief into her hands as he shepherded her out the door.

  That tenderness in him was a lethal weapon, she thought. It was almost painful to experience, especially when she knew that it wasn’t going to last. He was kind, and right now he was trying to make amends. But she’d better not go reading anything into his actions. She had to take one day at a time and just live for the present.

  She was quiet all the way to the parking lot. Matt smoked a cigar on the way, one hand in his pocket, his eyes narrow and introspective as he strode along beside Leslie until they reached the car. He pushed a button on his electronic controller and the locks popped up.

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” Leslie said at the passenger door, her eyes full of gratitude as they lifted to his. “I’m really glad I came, even if I didn’t want to at first.”

  He stayed her hand as she went to open the door and moved closer, so that she was standing between his long, muscular body and the door. His dark eyes searched hers intently.

  His gaze fell to her soft mouth and the intensity of the look parted her lips. Her pulse raced like mad. Her reaction to his closeness had always been intense, but she could almost feel his mouth on her body as she looked up at him. It was frightening to feel such wanton impulses.

  His eyes lifted and he saw that expression in her soft, dazed gray eyes. The muscles in his jaw moved and he seemed to be holding his breath.

  Around them, the parking lot was deserted. There was nothing audible except the sound of traffic and the frantic throb of Leslie’s pulse as she stared into Matt’s dark, glittery eyes.

  He moved a step closer, deliberately positioning his body so that one long, powerful leg brushed between her good leg and the bulky cast on the other one.

  “Matt?” she whispered shakily.

  His eyes narrowed. His free hand went to her face and spread against her flushed cheek. His thumb nudged at her chin, lifting it. His leg moved against her thighs and she gasped.

  There was arrogance not only in the way he touched her, but in the way he looked at her. She was completely vulnerable when he approached her like this, and he must surely know it, with his experience of women.

  “So many women put on an act,” he murmured conversationally. “They pretend to be standoffish, they tease, they provoke, they exaggerate their responses. With you, it’s all genuine. I can look at you and see everything you’re thinking. You don’t try to hide it or explain it. It’s all right there in the open.”

  Her lips parted. It was getting very hard to breathe. She didn’t know what to say.

  His head bent just a little, so that she could feel his breath on her mouth. “You can’t imagine the pleasure it gives me to see you like this. I feel ten feet tall.”

  “Why?” she whispered unsteadily.

  His mouth hovered over hers, lightly brushing, teasing. “Because every time I touch you, you offer yourself up like a virgin sacrifice. I remember the taste of your breasts in my mouth, the soft little cries that pulsed out of you when I pressed you down into the mattress under my body.” He moved against her, slowly and deliberately, letting her feel his instant response. “I want to take your clothes off and ease inside your body on crisp, white sheets…” he whispered as his hard mouth went down roughly on her soft lips.

  She made a husky little cry as she pictured what he was saying to her, pictured it, ached for it. Of all the outrageous, shocking things to say to a woman…!

  Her nails bit into his arms as she lifted herself against his arousal and pushed up at his mouth to tempt it into violence. The sudden whip of passion was unexpected, overwhelming. She moaned brokenly and her legs trembled.

  He groaned harshly. For a few seconds, his mouth devoured her own. He had to drag himself away from her, and when he did, his whole body seemed to vibrate. There was a flush high on his cheekbones, and his eyes glittered.

  She loved the expression on his face. She loved the tremor of the arms propped on either side of her head. Her chin lifted and her eyes grew misty with pleasure.

  “Do you like making me this way?” he asked gruffly.

  “Yes,” she said, something wild and impulsive rising in her like a quick tide. She looked at the pulse in his throat, the quick rhythmic movement of his shirt under the suit he was wearing. Her eyes dropped boldly down his body to the visible effect of passion on him.

  His intake of breath was audible as he watched her eyes linger on him, there. His whole body shook convulsively, as if with a fever.

  Her eyes went back
to his. It was intimate, to look at him this way. She could feel his passion, taste it.

  Her hands went to his chest and rested against his warm muscles through the shirt, feeling the soft cushion of hair under it. He wasn’t trying to stop her, and she remembered what he’d said to her in his office, that she was going to have to make all the running. Well, why not? She had to find out sooner or later what the limits of her capability were. Now seemed as good a time as any, despite their surroundings. Shyly, involuntarily, her nervous hands slid down to his belt and hesitated.

  His jaw clenched. He was helpless. Did she know? Her hands slowly moved over the belt and down barely an inch before they hesitated again. His heavy brows drew together in a ferocious scowl as he fought for control.

  He seemed to turn to stone. There was not a trace of emotion on his lean, hard face, but his eyes were glittering wildly.

  “Go ahead if you want to. But if you touch me there,” he said in a choked, harsh tone, “I will back you into this car, push your skirt up, and take you right here in the parking lot without a second’s hesitation. And I won’t give a damn if the entire staff of the prison comes out to watch!”

  Chapter Twelve

  The terse threat brought Leslie to her senses. She went scarlet as her hands jerked back from his body.

  “Oh, good Lord!” she said, horrified at what she’d been doing.

  Matt closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. It was damp with sweat and he shuddered with helpless reaction even as he laughed at her embarrassment.

  She could barely get her own breath, and her body felt swollen all over. “I’m sorry, Matt, I don’t know what got into me!”

  The raging desire she’d kindled was getting the best of him. He’d wanted her for such a long time. He hadn’t even thought of other women. “Leslie, I’m fairly vulnerable, and you’re starting something both of us know you can’t finish,” he added huskily.