by Jeanne Allan
For a moment she thought he intended to kiss her, but then he lowered her slowly to the ground, the tips of her breasts grazing his chest, his gaze locked on her face. His brown eyes looked as warm and sultry as his voice sounded. His ears were tucked close to his head, the tops hidden by waves of brown hair that tempted a woman to run her fingers through them. His bottom lip was surprisingly full for a man’s, and Charlotte wondered how it would feel pressed against her own lips. Immediately she understood why the second Mrs. Gannen had invited Matthew into her house six years ago. Muscles flexed beneath her fingers, and Charlotte realized she had a death grip on his upper arms. She dropped her hands and stepped back, praying her boneless legs would support her. Matthew released her waist and crossed his arms over his chest. The hint of amused triumph in his eyes put the stiffening back in her bones. The nerve of him, trying to control her through seduction. Obviously a skill he excelled in. Reaching up, Charlotte lightly traced one of the grooves beside Matthew’s mouth. “Will Tim’s mother be friendly, too?”
All expression vanished from his face. “Tim’s mother is dead.”
The air smelled of dust spiced with the acrid pungency of sage. A grasshopper buzzed loudly in the stricken silence. Taking a deep breath, Charlotte followed Matthew to the back of the truck. Dirt invaded her sandals, the fine grit settling between her toes, a pebble finding its way under the ball of her foot. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Why?” The tailgate of the pickup crashed down. “Hoping to sow a few seeds of marital discord to stave off boredom?”
Charlotte felt hot color stain her cheeks. The notion had occurred to her. He’d never believe she’d instantly discarded it. “I’m sorry Tim lost his mother,” she said stiffly.
He grabbed her two smaller bags. “Which brings us full circle. Leave Tim alone.”
Charlotte showed him her back. Halfway to the house, he passed her.
“I’m so glad you came.” A middle-aged woman stood on the porch beside Tim. Her smile was warm. “I apologize for not coming to the airport, but Matt had to pick up supplies at the feed store, and we wouldn’t all fit in the pickup.”
“I consider myself lucky Matthew needed supplies. I’m sure no one would have bothered to make an extra trip just for me.”
The woman’s smile momentarily faltered. “Timmy and I could hardly wait until you got here. We’ve been so anxious to meet you. Matt said you were pretty.”
“‘Sorta pretty,’ I believe he said.” Another time Charlotte would have felt badly betraying Tim by repeating his innocent remark, but now she was too beset by conflicting emotions to curb her impetuous speech. “Matthew obviously dislikes red hair—which I don’t have, my hair is strawberry-blond—as much as he dislikes ruffled petticoats and stylish shoes, but Matthew is such an arrogant, surly excuse for a human being, I doubt he likes much of anything.” Seeing the shock on the woman’s face, Charlotte was ashamed of her outburst and added lamely, “I’m Charlotte Darnelle.” As if she could be anyone else.
“I’m Helen Gannen,” the woman said weakly.
“I’m right, aren’t I, Grandma?” Tim looked at the woman. “Charlotte does look like she belongs on TV and her hair’s the same color as Penny.”
“Grandma?” Charlotte repeated. Too late she registered golden-brown eyes and chestnut brown hair streaked with gray.
“I beg your pardon,” Matthew said in a sarcastic voice as he appeared through the front door. “Charlotte, allow me to introduce Charlie’s second wife, Helen. Oh, and Charlotte, Helen is my mother. I may have neglected to mention that before.”
* * *
Several hours later Charlotte propelled the old porch swing into motion to the accompaniment of creaking chains. Stray breezes brought the soft lowing of cattle and their less pleasant aroma. The growing darkness and solitude gave her an opportunity to sort out the information she’d been bombarded with since her arrival at Durango. Matthew had disappeared after dinner, and Helen was upstairs reading to Tim. Charlotte smiled. The boy had used Charlotte’s visit to try to wangle a later bedtime. That he’d completely failed to sway his father didn’t surprise Charlotte. She slapped at an annoying insect. Tim and his father had lived here since Matthew’s wife had died when Tim was two. Helen watched over her grandson. The explanation had been lightly given, and Charlotte suspected there was more to the story, but Matthew’s marriage was none of her business. It was more intriguing that a woman as nice and sweet as Helen had married a hard, opinionated man like Charles Gannen after they’d lost their respective spouses. Helen must have been twenty years younger than the rancher. Her first husband obviously had left her poorly provided for. Helen was probably used to arrogant, obnoxious, hard-bitten men. Like her son.
“Aren’t you worried the night air might injure your delicate constitution or muss up your hair, cream puff?” The quiet, taunting question came out of the dark.
Charlotte tried to cover up her convulsive start by pushing the swing faster. “I’d be gratified by your concern for my health if I didn’t know it was motivated by a fear I might drop dead of consumption or something two days before my term of imprisonment is up.”
“Yeah, I’d hate to have gone to all the trouble of dragging you down here for nothing.” Matthew pushed her to one side and sat down on the swing. The chains creaked ominously. Catching her swift glance upward, he said dryly, “It’ll hold. You’re in no danger from the swing falling.”
“I’m sure you’ll keep me safe. If I were killed falling from a horse or gored to death by a cow, you’d lose.”
“Not if your two weeks were up. Your mom would inherit and she’d sell to me.”
“I can’t believe even you would say anything that cold-blooded.”
“Why not? You know I want the ranch.”
The flat statement was utterly convincing. Charlotte overcame an impulse to shiver and scoffed, “I guess anything can be believed of a man who’d lie about his own mother.”
“I didn’t lie about her.”
“You know very well I thought she was someone else.”
“Someone else like my live-in lover? I can’t help how your mind works. I may be a dumb cowboy, but I’m not so dumb I couldn’t guess you wouldn’t come within a hundred miles of Charlie’s place if you knew I wanted to buy it for my mother.”
A sneaking suspicion he could be right kept Charlotte from arguing that particular point. “Honesty is always the best policy,” she said virtuously.
“You might want to take that edict a little more to heart yourself, cream puff.”
Charlotte froze. “Meaning?”
“Meaning maybe you ought to examine why you were so dead set against coming down here. There’s no question that Charlie Gannen was your grandfather, and that he owed you for how badly he treated your mother and you. If he had left you nothing, I could understand your anger. What I don’t understand is why you’re so darned mad at him for leaving you everything.”
Charlotte gripped her fingers together in her lap. “You think he left me everything?” His failure to answer goaded her into further speech. “My mother wasn’t the official next of kin, so nobody notified her when Chick Gannen was killed. When his letters from Vietnam quit coming, she knew something was terribly wrong. He’d told her about his family in Durango, and she tracked down the phone number through the phone company. Charles Gannen answered the phone and told her his son was dead.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to hear over the phone.”
Charlotte pulled distractedly at her fingers. “By then Mother was sure she was pregnant so she told Charles Gannen. Not because she wanted anything, but because she knew Chick was an only child, and she thought the prospect of a grandchild might ease his parents’ grief. Aunt Faye said my mother turned white as a ghost and fell to the floor, her hands pressed against her stomach. Grandpa Darnelle grabbed the phone, and Charles Gannen repeated what he’d said to my mother. He called her a liar and a whore and accused her of having read about Chick’
s death and trying to pull a scam on a grieving family. He cursed her baby, if there was a baby and she wasn’t making that up, too, and said if he heard from her again, he’d set the authorities on her.”
Matthew laid a hand over Charlotte’s restless fingers. “Charlie had a hard time coping with Chick’s death.”
She resented his defense of the old man. “By the time I was born, Mother had convinced herself Charles Gannen said those things because of shock and grief. She made a copy of one of Chick’s letters where he talked about how they’d get married when he returned from Vietnam, and she sent it and a birth announcement to the Gannens. A lawyer returned them, along with a letter threatening everything from suing to having my mother declared unfit and me taken away from her. Not that they wanted me. I’d be given to some agency to be adopted out.” She gave a harsh laugh. “War stole the man my mother loved. His father tried to steal her honor and self-respect.”
“You have to understand how badly Charlie was hurt by what he saw as Chick’s betrayal. Connie Maywell, your father’s fiancée, was the daughter of the Gannens’ oldest friends.”
“I understand he was a mean and vindictive old man.”
After a long moment, Matthew said, “There was nothing Charlie wouldn’t do for a friend. To spare Connie, he never told the Maywells about you or your mother. Connie married and moved to California. Her parents are dead, or Charlie would never have played his trick with the will. Even after he changed it back, the risk of them learning about you would have been too great.”
“I hate that will,” Charlotte said fiercely. “I want to see the lawyer as soon as possible. I want to find out what my chances are of breaking the will.”
“They’re not very good. I went over that very thoroughly with Charlie’s attorney.”
“There must be something I can do. I hate dancing to Charles Gannen’s tune. I ought to stay one week and take all the photographs and gather all the information and soak up all the atmosphere my mother could ever want. And then leave.”
“What would that prove?” Matthew laid his arm along the back of the swing.
“It would prove, dead or alive, he can’t snap his fingers and have me come running.”
“If you’re talking revenge, the best revenge is you outlived him, and he had no other blood relative to leave his holdings to.” Matthew wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. “Why don’t you relax and enjoy your vacation, cream puff?”
“Don’t call me that.” Matthew’s hand was warm. She felt the calluses on his palm. Each movement of the swing sent the smell of his soap eddying through the air.
“Why not?” He trailed his fingers behind her ear. “Cream puffs are sweet and luscious-looking. Fancy pastries for special occasions. As a boy I could never decide if I wanted to nibble on one, take big bites or try to swallow the cream puff whole.” He tugged a curl from the top of her head and wound it around his finger. “What do you think, Charlotte?”
“I think cream puffs are fattening and high in cholesterol.” The sound of creaking chain was as mesmerizing as the black velvet sky studded with diamond stars. “They clog your arteries.”
Shifting position, Matthew brought up his other hand and rubbed his thumb slowly over her bottom lip. “Maybe clogged arteries aren’t such a bad way to go.” The swing slowed. “Are freckles fattening, too? Do you know you have one right here?” Matthew pressed his thumb below the corner of her mouth.
Charlotte struggled against words that flowed over her like silk. “It’s too dark out here to see freckles.” She knew because his face was in shadow, denying her any clue to his thoughts.
“I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a freckle there.” Matthew laughed softly. “Tim’s freckles taste like dirt and grape juice.” The swing stopped. “I’ll bet yours don’t.”
She felt his warm breath against her face, and then his lips were pulling at the edges of her mouth. “I don’t have freckles there,” she managed to say.
CHAPTER THREE
“I SAW one earlier,” Matthew muttered against her skin. “And one here and here—” he trailed his lips across her cheekbone “—and one here under your ear. Not one of them tastes like grape juice.” He ran his tongue down the side of her neck.
“I use peach facial cleanser,” she said prosaically. She hadn’t come to the ranch to play, and Matthew was hardly her type. He was, however, up to something. She decided to find out what.
He laughed softly. “I hope peach cleanser doesn’t remove freckles.” He slid his mouth over her shoulder. “The day we met I could see freckles through the thin material of your dress. I couldn’t help but wonder how far down they went.”
Heat from his mouth warmed her skin through her blouse. Tiny shivers danced down Charlotte’s spine as his fingers lightly probed her hair, sending curls tumbling to her shoulders. Her type or not, Matthew had an unsettling effect on her, his touch puddling her insides. He shifted and the swing moved, sliding her closer to him. His hip scalded her through her dress. It was time to stop. “I think—”
“Don’t think. Just—” his hands cradling her face, he tipped her head back “—this.”
Expecting a hard, demanding kiss, Charlotte was disarmed by the light feathering of his lips against hers. She melted into his embrace to be jolted by major volts of electricity as Matthew slid his tongue along her bottom lip. Jerking away, she scooted to the other end of the swing. Matthew said nothing. With shaking hands, Charlotte gathered up the hairpins he’d dropped in her lap. “In Denver you made it clear you found me as appealing as moldy bread. I can’t believe a week later you’re suddenly attracted to me. I suppose the kiss was because you felt sorry for poor, fatherless me after hearing my sad story.”
“You don’t need me feeling sorry for you, cream puff. You do a good job of that all by your lonesome. The kiss was no act of charity. It was just a kiss.”
“If I hadn’t stopped you, I hate to think how far you were willing to go.”
Matthew stretched out long legs. “That’s the difference between you and me. I kind of like thinking about it.”
“Did you also think I might be susceptible to the same excessive passions my mother was susceptible to? That because I’m illegitimate, I have no moral backbone?”
“Damn it, Charlotte, I didn’t think anything of the sort. It’s not freckles you have on your shoulder—it’s the world’s largest chip.”
The genuine astonishment in his voice acquitted him of that particular sin, but from the time she’d arrived, Matthew had snarled and barked like a rabid dog. Except when warning her away from his son. Then he’d used his masculinity in an attempt to manipulate her. What did he want from her now? Suddenly she heard her own voice saying she ought to leave before the two weeks were up. Matthew Thorneton thought he could seduce her into staying until he got what he wanted. And what he wanted wasn’t Charlotte Darnelle. He wanted the ranch. Of course he’d deny it if Charlotte had any intention of accusing him. Sometimes there were more effective ways of making people pay. “Never mind, Matthew.” She gave a little sniff. “It’s all right. With my parentage, I’m used to boys testing me. I admit I thought you were above...” She let her voice trail off pathetically.
“You read too much into what happened.”
“I guess I misunderstood what you meant when you said you wondered how far down my freckles went. Boys have been saying that to me since I was sixteen, but that’s no excuse for my jumping to conclusions.” She hung her head. “I should have known you were too mature to try to seduce me on a porch swing.”
“I thought we were mutually enjoying ourselves. I don’t remember you slapping my face.”
“Are you saying I led you on? That I’m a—a...” The tiny sob was an artistic masterpiece.
“Oh, hell,” he said roughly. “Don’t make so damned much of a simple kiss. If it bothered you so much, maybe we’d better stay out of each other’s way the rest of your visit.”
Charlotte swallowed a giggle
. So that was Matthew’s ploy. Unable to believe anyone would whistle away an inheritance, his worry wasn’t that she’d leave, but that she’d be a pest. Under normal circumstances, Matthew Thorneton not crossing her path for the entire two weeks of her enforced stay would have suited her just fine. Except, knowing it would suit him even better, she had no intention of hiding in her room. “No, Matthew, you were right. I made too much fuss over a little kiss. The next time a man kisses me, I won’t behave like a silly schoolgirl.” Squaring her shoulders, she added, “Now that we understand each other, Matthew, and I know I’m in no danger of being seduced by you, I’ll count on you showing me around tomorrow.”
“I’d rather walk barefoot into a den of rattlers.” His thin veneer of amiability had definitely cracked.
Charlotte grinned in the dark. It was time to remind Matthew Thorneton who had the upper hand. “If that’s the way you feel about it. Of course, if I’m not happy here, I probably won’t stay. And if that Maywell woman gets the ranch, well, you could hardly expect me to write a letter of recommendation for an uncooperative employee, could you?” She slipped out of the swing. “Good night, Matthew.”
“If Charlotte doesn’t get her way, Charlotte goes home? All right. You win.” He paused. “I hope you won’t regret it.”
“I appreciate your cooperation, Matthew. I may have to ask the lawyer about a bonus for you.”
The swing creaked loudly. “Don’t worry about a bonus for me, cream puff. I’ll make sure I get everything owed me.”
Charlotte ignored the soft menace in his voice. Matthew Thorneton might not like her, but he needed her, and he’d take very good care to insure she stayed for two weeks. “I’ll see you in the morning. We can make plans then.”
“In the country we get up early.”
“You forget I’m a working woman,” she gently chided him, moving toward the screen door. “I’m used to rising early.”
