Marry with your head, not your heart, his mother had said over and over, until it had become almost a mantra.
There was more of his mother in him than he thought, he decided ruefully. Fifty-fifty gene split? Yeah, there he had it. He was half his father who loved the farm and didn’t mind a little chaos occasionally, and half his mother who liked order and beauty and…
‘Hey, Matt, we’re just organising somewhere to sleep.’ Erin’s voice was chiding him gently, and her blue eyes were full of laughter. She could see exactly what he was thinking! Damn her!
‘Do you think we’ll all fit in with Cecil?’ William was asking anxiously, and somehow Matt tore his mind from where it definitely wanted to go and forced himself to think of sleeping arrangements.
And there were dangers there, too.
‘Of course we’ll fit,’ Erin said soundly. ‘We just have to persuade Cecil to move to the back of his stall.’
Hmm. Easier said than done.
The stalls weren’t huge, but they were all the space allocated to them which was why at most, one or two people were bedding down beside each animal. If Cecil lay width-ways at the back of the stall the thing was possible, but if he’d done that his rear would be against one wooden division and his nose would be pressed against the other. Cecil was nothing if not large!
So Cecil, being the sensible animal he was, was lying full length on the hay, his nose poking out onto the walkway so he could gaze his fill at the dancers. He was one sleepy bovine, and he looked as if his intentions to shift were at about nil.
‘I suppose if we all shoved,’ Erin said doubtfully and Matt grimaced.
‘Yep. You and a two-ton crane might do it.’
Which left two strips of hay three feet wide on either side of Cecil, stretching back the eight feet or so to the rear of the stall.
‘We can take a twin each and sleep on either side,’ Matt said slowly. But it wasn’t the arrangement his gut wanted-and he might have known it didn’t suit the twins either.
‘We want to sleep together.’ Of course.
‘You will be sleeping together,’ Matt told them without much hope of being heard. ‘Except instead of a pillow between you there’ll be Cecil.’
‘We can’t share Tigger. And Cecil’s as big as a mountain.’ Henry put a finger on his nose. ‘See? He’s up to here.’
Erin choked, and Matt frowned her down. Didn’t the woman realise there was no alternative?
Apparently she didn’t.
‘Of course you must sleep together,’ she told them. ‘You can’t cut Tigger in half. So, into the bathroom, into your pyjamas and then into these wonderful sleeping bags. Now!’ It was her command voice and the boys responded accordingly.
‘Okay.’ They hesitated just long enough for William to ask; ‘But where will you sleep?’
‘Matt and I will top and tail on the other side, of course,’ she said-as if the matter had never been in doubt.
‘Top and tail?’ Matt was frowning and she grinned.
‘Easy to see you haven’t slept in a family with eight children,’ she told him. ‘You fit two in a bed this way, and it minimises fights. It doesn’t stop them entirely-’ another grin ‘-but I’m sure we can fight quietly. You sleep with your head near Cecil’s head and I sleep with my head near Cecil’s butt. We’ll be cosy as two bugs in a rug. The only thing is…’ She looked down at her toes and grimaced.
‘Yes?’ he said resignedly. This woman was nuts. Nice, but definitely nuts!
‘After all that dancing and carting cattle around all day, maybe you’d better not take your boots off, Mr McKay. If there’s one thing I can’t bear sleeping with, it’s a man with stinking socks!’
Matt’s socks weren’t the problem.
There wasn’t room for Matt’s camp bed or Erin’s blowup mattress-not both-but the hay was thick and fresh. Matt hauled his sleeping bag up to his chin, tossed his pillow beside Cecil’s head and lay down. Erin did the same, lying in reverse, but nobly Matt had left her the side against the wood partition.
On the other side of Cecil, the twins snuggled in with plenty of room. Their noses barely reached Cecil’s neck, and their toes didn’t reach his rear end. Once assured Erin and Matt were settled for the night right on the other side of Cecil, they closed their eyes on their shared pillow, snuggled Tigger and were out for the count. Two exhausted but perfectly content children.
As Erin was content. Matt’s legs were distracting, and she was absurdly aware of the presence of his body so close to her, but this was a way of sleeping she’d been brought up with. She could cope.
‘Erin?’ It was a hoarse whisper and Matt’s toes nudged her shoulder to gain her attention. He had it!
‘Yep?’ She had to whisper back. The entire pavilion was settled to sleep now, and the lights had been turned low. Cattle and cattle carers alike were purposefully sleeping.
Not Matt. ‘Erin, Cecil’s chewing.’
She choked on a bubble of laughter. ‘He’s what?’
‘He’s chewing.’
She thought about that, and nodded into the dimness. ‘I wouldn’t worry. Cattle do.’
‘Not right in my ear, they don’t.’
‘Take away his feed, then.’ Honestly!
‘He’s not chewing his feed,’ Matt told her, and there was a trace of desperation in his whisper. ‘At a guess, he’s chewing yesterday’s feed, or even…’ His toes nudged her shoulder again as if to emphasise the awfulness of it. ‘By the smell of it, even the day before’s!’
‘Are you saying,’ Erin asked, trying not to laugh out loud, ‘that your champion bull has halitosis?’
‘If halitosis means breath that stinks like rancid garlic, then yes,’ Matt told her, forgetting to whisper and being shushed from about six different stalls for his pains. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. And he keeps trying to lick my face.’
‘He loves you.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘You want to swap sides so I’m against Cecil?’
‘All that means is that he’ll lean over your feet to lick my face.’
‘So…’
‘So I’m shifting!’ Matt was nothing if not a man of decision, and some decisions were easy. Cecil or Erin? Erin won every time. He rose, sleeping bag and all, hopped until his feet were with Erin’s and then flopped down again onto the straw.
Which meant that now his face was level with Cecil’s tail. And Erin’s nose.
There was no room for two pillows. They had to share.
Uh, oh… Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
The intimacy which had been building during the night had dispersed a little while putting the twins to bed and settling themselves. Now however it slammed back like a lightning bolt. Unconsciously Erin found herself hauling her sleeping bag zipper higher, right to her chin. As if that could protect her from what she was feeling…
‘Hey, I’m not into seduction mode here,’ Matt told her, seeing her movement and trying to make light of it. ‘It’s just if I have a choice of being kissed by you or by Cecil…’
Being kissed?
He’d meant to say licked!
No. That wasn’t right either. Hell, his whole body was going rigid with the strain of having her so close.
‘You prefer me to Cecil?’ Like Matt, Erin was trying desperately to keep things light. She chuckled and rolled over to face him-which was another mistake as she hadn’t realised how close he was. His nose was inches from hers. Major mistake!
‘You…’ Her voice cracked and it was only after a couple of desperate swallows that she made it work again. ‘You mean it? Matt, it’s the very sweetest thing to say, but I’m very sure you don’t mean it. One of the guys I was dancing with tonight told me what Cecil is worth. That’d make ten of me and then some.’
Maybe.
‘But only one of Charlotte,’ she teased gently. ‘She’s a lady who knows her worth.’
‘She is…special,’ Matt said grudgingly and trie
d like crazy to conjure up Charlotte’s image. The image refused to be conjured. All he could see was a smattering of freckles, one pert nose and gorgeous, laughing eyes. And lips that were so soft…
Hell!
‘She’s a lucky lady, too,’ Erin whispered warmly into the dark, seemingly unaware of the sensations he was feeling. ‘To be marrying you. You’re one fantastic guy, Matt McKay. To have given the twins today… It was just great.’
‘And it’ll stay great as long as Cecil doesn’t roll over and squash the pair of them.’
He must stop looking at her lips. He must!
‘As if he would,’ Erin said indignantly. ‘As well as expensive, he’s also intelligent.’
‘He is at that.’
And it was the truth. Matt’s pride in his bull was almost overwhelming. Cecil was the result of years and years of careful planning and selective breeding. Up until now, he’d been Matt’s pride and joy. He still was! But up until now, Cecil was the first thing he thought of when he woke in the morning, and his last thought as he slept at night.
And if he’d had to choose between Cecil and Charlotte, the choice would be obvious and absolute.
Cecil or Erin, though…
No! This was ridiculous. He liked a simple and ordered existence, he thought desperately. He wanted an existence where he farmed and Charlotte kept the house and his social life nicely ordered.
That was how he’d been raised, with his mother and father living together but in separate worlds, and that was the way he believed the world worked. As it would continue to work.
Except…there was this woman right before his nose!
But this woman came with complications, and they weren’t just minor hiccups. They were major. She came with a pair of troubled twins, and he just knew wherever Erin went it wouldn’t be just the twins that’d follow.
Get involved with Erin Douglas and he knew there’d be more kids, his and others, every lame duck in the district, every hard luck story…
And the boundaries between house and farm would cease to exist. He knew it. There’d be a riot of kids and dogs inside and out, and Erin herself wouldn’t know her place. She’d be out heaving hay or grooming cows or…or somewhere he couldn’t get away from her.
Like now. He was trapped two inches from her cute nose, and hell, all he wanted to do was kiss her.
‘Would you stop looking at me like a rabbit caught in a floodlight?’ she said suddenly, and there was no way he could escape the gentle mockery in her tone. Could she really know what he was thinking?
Apparently, yes. ‘Matt McKay, you are very, very cute, but you are an engaged person and I am not the least bit interested. I take the lust I’m looking at in your eyes right now as a compliment, I am exceedingly grateful for all you’ve done for me and the twins but I want nothing more from you than enough space to go to sleep. So you can stop looking at me like I’m going to lunge at your body any minute and you can go to sleep. Now!’
‘Hey, I’m not expecting anything!’
‘And neither am I,’ she said firmly. ‘So there’s nothing to stop either of us from sleeping.’ And without another word she rolled over and put her face to the wall.
He rolled over, too, which left his nose pressed against Cecil’s butt. The comparison to what he’d just been looking at was ridiculous.
And her butt was against his. There was simply no room for it not to be.
Sleep? Ha! All he could feel was her. All he could think of was her. She was so…
So right out of his league! In every single way he could think of.
As for Erin? She’d said she was going to sleep, but it wasn’t quite that easy. He was too darned close. Too darned male.
Too…too everything!
‘I am not interested in Matt McKay,’ she told herself fiercely. Not. Not. Not!
But he was the most gorgeous male she’d ever slept with in her life! That wasn’t saying much, she thought ruefully. Erin had always been so involved with her kids that men usually ran a mile, sensing that commitment with Erin meant commitment to a whole lot more.
But Matt was certainly gorgeous.
And he was so darned nice! He was so nice that she wanted to turn right over and…
‘That’s enough of that,’ she whispered into the dark. ‘Go to sleep!’
CHAPTER NINE
ERIN slept late. Late, that is, in cattle terms. It must have been three a.m. or later before she’d finally fallen into an uneasy slumber, she was dog tired and she was accustomed to noise. So maybe it wasn’t surprising that when she finally woke, the rest of the cattle pavilion was bustling.
As were Matt and the twins. Erin rolled sleepily over and found herself looking at ten legs. Four belonged to Cecil who was standing looking regally around as his minions worked over him. Four belonged to the twins, who, armed with a brush apiece, were intent on making Cecil look even more regal.
And two belonged to Matt.
‘Well, well. Sleepy-head’s finally decided to grace us with her consciousness. Good morning, Miss Douglas.’
‘Good…good morning.’ She brushed the sleep from her eyes and sat up, then gasped and hauled her sleeping bag up to her neck. She must have pulled the zipper down in her sleep, and her nightdress wasn’t exactly decent…
‘Have a coat,’ Matt said, and tossed a waterproof down to her, though by the glint in his eyes she knew he’d seen-and approved of what he’d seen. ‘Bathroom’s that-away, lady, but you’d better scuttle or you’ll miss breakfast.’
‘Breakfast?’ She was still befuddled by sleep and totally bewildered.
‘Pancakes at two o’clock,’ he told her, doing a sweeping circle of the pavilion until he was pointing to a barbecue at the far end. ‘Courtesy of the Country Women’s Association. But the dress code’s a bit rigid. Nightgowns with unfastened buttons don’t reach their standards.’
She gasped. Enough!
She clutched his waterproof to her while awkwardly escaping from her sleeping bag, then bolted, tinglingly aware that his eyes stayed on her until the door closed behind her.
It was a silly, happy, busy couple of hours before the Grand Parade.
Breakfast was delicious-steak and sausages for those with strong constitutions, but pancakes and honey for those with a bit more finesse. ‘Which is me,’ Erin declared, watching Matt chomp into his beef. ‘And in front of Cecil, too. Honestly, Matt, have you no sensitivity?’
‘If you think for one minute that Cecil will end up as beef steak…’
‘His cousins might.’
‘They’d have to be pretty inferior cousins.’
‘I don’t care. I’m sticking to pancakes. What about you, boys?’ And although the twins desperately wanted to be like Matt, honesty prevailed and pancakes won the day.
‘Weaklings,’ Matt declared but the boys looked up into his twinkling eyes and knew he was kidding them.
Honestly, Erin thought. For a man to get away with calling the twins weaklings-and for the twins to love it…
She could seriously fall for this man-if he wasn’t already spoken for. Or if he wasn’t rich. Or… If a million other things that weren’t going to happen!
Breakfast finished, the whole pavilion settled down to the serious business of making their animal the most magnificent. The animals left here now were all winners, but none looked as great as Cecil, Erin thought, but she knew she was biased. The four of them worked as a team, going way past the necessary preparations for a bull who’d already won champion of his class.
‘Do you think I should tie a big blue bow around his ears?’ she asked as she stood back and admired their handiwork. ‘And maybe a matching one on his tail?’
‘Over my dead body.’ Matt stood beside her and grinned. ‘I’ll have you know my bull’s a he-man and I want him to stay that way. His testosterone level would plummet at the first bow.’
‘And that would never do,’ she said mockingly. ‘A McKay male with suspect testosterone…’
&nbs
p; ‘We try to keep it above the run of the herd,’ Matt said smugly.
‘Brains or balls.’ Erin nodded sagely as she gazed at Cecil’s amazing appendages. ‘Yep, I can see the choice has been made here.’ Then, as Matt drew in his breath, she took a wise step away from him. ‘Come on, twins,’ she said, choking back laughter at the expression on Matt’s face. ‘There’s no way you can get Cecil more beautiful than he is right now. It’s time for Matt to take him out.’
‘Wait a bit.’ Matt had control of himself now-almost-and he was thinking. He was enjoying himself enormously, he thought, and the realisation was hitting home that his enjoyment was coming to an end.
It shouldn’t be. The Grand Parade here was the ultimate achievement. Already he’d had a steady stream of potential customers, national and international, pass by Cecil’s stall and assess for themselves his stud potential. In the parade, they’d be watching from the stands, making their final decision on which stud farm to choose.
Cecil moved magnificently. In the stalls he looked great, but out in the open he swayed with a majesty that had to be seen to be believed. For potential customers interested in Herefords there was now no choice, Matt knew, and he also knew his income for the next twelve months would skyrocket.
So, for Matt, the parade was the culmination of years of hard work. This was what he, his father and his grandfather had spent years achieving.
Why then, did he feel reluctant to take the rope attached to Cecil’s halter and tug the giant beast toward the parade ring?
Because this year showing Cecil and winning first prize wasn’t the highlight, he thought suddenly. It was working side by side with others; with this funny, warm and lovely woman and her two troubled charges.
This was pure novelty factor, he thought harshly, trying to bring himself back down to earth. He had no intention of working side by side with a woman. He worked alone. That was the way he’d been brought up. It was the order of things, now and forever…
‘Matt! Oh, darling, he’s wonderful!’
It was almost a relief to look up and see Charlotte bearing down on them-a Charlotte refreshed by a good night’s sleep in the hotel, and wearing her signature apparel of white on white. White slacks. White linen blouse with collar that just stood up the right amount. A white on white silk scarf, casually knotted. The very epitome of casual elegance in a wealthy farmer’s wife.
Adopted: Twins! Page 13
