Champagne Girl

by Diana Palmer

  “I suppose he is,” she had to admit. “Are you?”

  His mouth curled. “What do you think, honey?” he asked in a tone he’d never used with her before. It was like velvet. Soft. Honey smooth. Seductive.

  She stared down at him curiously. “You’re too old for drive-ins,” she said slowly.

  He shook his head. “We’ll take the pickup and I’ll buy you a pizza. It will rejuvenate me,” he added with a grin.

  “I can just see you at a drive-in,” she murmured. Her green eyes flirted with his dark ones. “Okay. But I won’t kiss you if you drink beer.”

  His eyebrows lifted and something flashed in his eyes. He laughed gently. “Okay.”

  She’d shocked herself with her impulsive remark, and now she felt embarrassed. As if Matt would want to kiss her! But her eyes fell to his hard mouth as if of their own accord, and she stared at his lips with unexpected curiosity. She looked up in time to see a wildness in his eyes. A shock of electric current linked them, making her want to dive down into his arms and kiss his hard, sexy mouth until the aching of her young body stopped. And that shocked her enough that she dragged her eyes away.

  “You did mean what you said, about letting me go to New York if I do a good job on your sale?” she persisted.

  He turned back toward his men. “I meant it.”

  “Matt—”

  “Hey, Charlie, bring the truck for this one!” he called to an old cowboy and he gestured toward a downed cow farther along the trail.

  She sighed in irritation. Well, that was that, he’d just forgotten that she was alive. That was his response to discussions he didn’t want. He just walked away from them. She glared at his back for a long moment before she suddenly wheeled her mount and started toward the ranch.

  Well, at least she had a chance to escape now. Her face burned as she remembered what she’d said to him about the drive-in. She’d probably shocked him with that silly remark about kissing him.

  She shifted in the saddle, thinking about going to a drive-in with Matt. Her body tingled with delight at the prospect. He’d never taken her anywhere alone. And probably he wasn’t going to now, either. He’d invite one of the family to go with them. And why would he take the pickup?

  Matt bothered her. He puzzled her. He was a cutup, a wild man—except when he was being Mr. Kincaid. She’d seen him do that. She’d watched him put down men who thought they could walk all over him because he seemed easygoing. There was a white-hot temper and a will like iron underneath his good humor.

  Worrying about things wasn’t going to help, she told herself. She’d do better to concentrate on how to promote the cattle sale. It was her only chance of escape from her family. And from Matt. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life waiting for him. She couldn’t live near him and watch him marry someone else—and he would eventually. The corporation would have to have an heir, and he was in control. Probably it would be some sophisticated socialite with holdings of her own. A merger more than a marriage.

  She leaned forward over the little mare’s mane and gave her her head as they went toward the barn.

  Chapter Three

  Jerry and Barrie were at supper that night. Jerry, like Hal and Matt, had dark eyes, but he alone of the three had sandy-blond hair and a receding hairline. He was taller than Hal, but not as tall as Matt. Barrie was redheaded and blue eyed and very petite and mischievous. Catherine had always adored her.

  As Annie waddled in with the salads, Catherine allowed Hal to seat her, and she noted his thoughtful glances. Matt hadn’t made an appearance yet, and Catherine found herself watching the doorway, waiting. She knew he was going out, that he wouldn’t be joining them for the evening meal, but she couldn’t help watching for him. Habits were hard to break. She looked down at her blue shirtwaist dress and imagined I Adore Matt written all over it with a felt-tip marker. That was vaguely amusing and she laughed.

  “That’s better,” Hal murmured. “You were looking solemn, little cousin.”

  “Who, me?” She gaped. “I’m never solemn.”

  “I know,” he returned.

  “Betty said you were trying to go to New York to work,” Jerry said, glancing at her. He smiled absently. “I knew you’d only come to grief.”

  “How?”

  “I know my brother. Matt keeps you on a short leash, doesn’t he?”

  Catherine glared at him. “I can do what I please. As it happens,” she said to save face, “Matt’s offered me a job. I’m organizing the foundation sale.”

  “Darling, how lovely!” Barrie exclaimed. “You’ll do a grand job.”

  “You and your cattle hang-up,” Jerry growled at her. “I can see you now, leading that prize bull of yours around, with the baby under one arm—when you ever decide to have a baby.”

  “Don’t be silly, my love,” Barrie murmured, peering up at him. “I’ll have the baby in one of those carry things they wear these days. He’ll learn the business from the ground up.” She elbowed her husband. “Anyway, what do you mean, ‘when I decide to have a baby’? How can I? You’re never at home. It takes two,” she added with a poisonous smile.

  Jerry cleared his throat and offered Betty the rolls.

  Catherine and Hal exchanged amused glances just as Matt walked in. It was obvious he’d changed for his date, because he was wearing a dark dinner jacket with a red tie. He looked so devastating that Catherine had to drop her eyes.

  “Hal, I’d like a word with you,” he said without preamble.

  Hal looked uncomfortable and made a face, but he got up and went with his stern older brother out into the hall. The door closed and everyone exchanged puzzled glances.

  “He didn’t move those cattle like Matt told him,” Barrie volunteered with a grimace. “At least four of them drowned.”

  So that was what Matt had been doing on the flats, Catherine thought suddenly, amazed that she hadn’t connected the mired cattle with Hal’s disobedience. Poor old Hal, she thought. Matt would eat him alive.

  “Will he ever grow up?” Jerry grumbled. “He plays at life.”

  “He’s very young, dear,” Betty intervened.

  Catherine was just about to rush to his defense, too, just as a loud voice broke the silence in the hall, followed by a thump and a hard thud. Catherine jumped to her feet and opened the door to find Hal just picking himself up from the floor. Matt was standing over him, unruffled, his face like stone, his eyes blazing with anger. He glanced at Catherine, and he was a stranger again, all authority and bristling masculinity. He laughed curtly.

  “Florence Nightingale to the rescue,” he chided. “Pick him up and pet him, if you like, but do it damned fast. He’s leaving for Houston. And if he doesn’t straighten out his priorities while he’s there,” he added with a cold glare at Hal, who was gingerly touching his jaw, “he can damned well stay in Houston.”

  “My God, it was only four head—” Hal began.

  “One head would have been one too many,” Matt replied.

  “Jerry and I have a stake in the corporation, too,” Hal shot back. “You’re not the whole show!”

  “I am until you can carry your share of the load,” Matt returned. “Grow up!”

  Hal got to his feet and glared at the taller man. “The iron man, aren’t you?” He laughed mirthlessly. “No chinks in your armor, no human weaknesses. Not even a weakness for a special woman.”

  “You’d better phone and see if you can get a flight out of here tonight,” Matt said, ignoring the little speech.

  Hal inclined his head. “Whatever you say, boss.” He fingered his jaw and glanced ruefully at Catherine. “Be sure to duck, cousin.”

  Catherine watched him turn toward the stairs. She started back toward the dining room, but Matt caught her arm.

  The light touch was indescribable. He came up behind her and was so close that she could hear his heavy breath as it sighed out over her hair. His fingers were steely through the soft jersey of her dress sleeve, and she couldn’t see
m to get her breath.

  Someone had closed the door to the dining room after she’d gone through it. Probably Jerry, she thought dazedly; he wasn’t one to eavesdrop.

  “Afraid of me?” he asked at her back.

  She turned and looked up at him with soft green eyes.

  “No. Not really. It’s just that you seem like a stranger sometimes, Matt.”

  “Hal has to learn responsibility,” he said.

  “I won’t argue that,” she replied. “But he won’t ever be you.”

  He sighed half-angrily. His dark eyes searched hers in the sudden stillness of the hall.

  “Don’t you have a date to rush off to?” she asked pointedly.

  “I have a social engagement,” he replied. He pulled out a gold cigarette case—the one she’d given him for Christmas last year—and casually lit a cigarette, as if he had all the time in the world.

  “Same difference,” she said.

  He shook his head, then lifted the cigarette to his smiling mouth. “It’s a formal dinner. And women weren’t included, except for the wives of the organizers.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanations, Matt.” She started toward the dining room, but he drew her back with the lightest pressure of his fingers.

  “No, I don’t,” he agreed. She stared at his red tie.

  His fingers moved to her throat and stroked its soft elegant line, and her mouth trembled. She looked up at him with her breath sticking in her throat.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded breathlessly. It was the first time he’d ever touched her like that, and it frightened her. All her wild dreams went into hiding at the reality. The uncontrolled pleasure she felt was unexpected.

  “Why not?” he murmured. “Bachelors are entitled to play a little, honey,” he said with a slow smile, and his fingers stroked over a larger area, edging under the neck of her dress and onto her shoulder.

  “Not with me, you don’t,” she said. She reached up to catch his fingers. “It’s not fair, Matt. Shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “Why not, when it’s the only way you can get the fish at all?”

  “Matt…”

  He looked down at her soft, full mouth, outlined carefully with a delicate lipstick. He moved closer, the hand that held the cigarette sliding around her waist to draw her body to the length of his.

  She couldn’t breathe at all now. She looked up into dark, secretive eyes and felt her body begin to throb. He’d held her before, of course, to comfort her when she cried and once to carry her over a rising stream bed. He’d even carried her to bed once when she was sick. But it had never been like this before, with his dark eyes hungry as they looked into hers and a nameless awareness between them that grew by the second.

  “Have you ever been kissed properly?” he asked in a deep, gruff whisper.

  Her lips parted under a rush of breath. “Of…course.”

  “I like it hard,” he whispered, bending his head. “I may be rough with you at first. Don’t be frightened.”

  “Matt!” Her voice sounded wild.

  His fingers tilted her chin, and there was a sensuality in his face that she’d never seen before. “What are you so nervous about?” he breathed against her lips.

  Her mouth felt the threat of his, and her hands clenched on his lapels as the images in her mind overwhelmed her. Her body was trembling, and he was so close to her that he had to feel it.

  “So hungry,” he whispered, threatening her mouth with his without ever coming close enough to take it. “Aching for me. And all it would take is another fraction of an inch, like this,” he whispered, moving his head down so that she could breathe the minty scent of him, “and I could have you, Kit.…”

  “Please,” she whimpered, stiffening as the words and his cologne and the warmth of his whipcord body all weakened her. “Matt, please, please…” She didn’t realize that she was reaching up, her cold and trembling hands at the nape of his neck, her body at fever pitch with wanting.

  “Oh, no.” He laughed softly. Both hands caught her by the waist. “Not yet.”

  Her eyes widened. She was shaking. Shaking! And he was smiling at her with such worldly amusement.…

  “Damn you,” she said under her breath, tears threatening.

  “I’m late already,” he said. “Go eat your dinner, honey. We’ll put everything on hold until tomorrow night. The movie,” he reminded her in a low whisper. “And I won’t drink beer.”

  “I won’t go!” She stared at him, eyes enormous in her face, her body shaking with what he’d aroused and not satisfied.

  “Yes you will.” He brushed back a strand of chestnut hair from her shoulder. His eyes held hers.

  She moved away from him, fighting for composure. “I won’t be just one in a line,” she said. “I won’t let you seduce me. You’re just after a new thrill. And I’m not going to be it,” she said firmly.

  He laughed deep in his throat, and his eyes were bright with amusement. “Coward,” he murmured dryly.

  She flushed, and almost ran back into the dining room. Catching herself, she slowly opened the door and left him standing in the hall.

  * * *

  Catherine didn’t hear another word that was said to her for the rest of the night. She smiled and talked automatically, and all the while she felt Matt’s hands, the sigh of his breath on her mouth. She ached all over with strange new hungers, feeling oddly restless and irritable. And in the morning she was going to have to pretend she felt nothing because Matt was astute and it would be suicide to let him see how she felt. If only she knew what kind of game he was playing! Would he really go that far? Would he tease her just to keep her under his thumb? She lay awake until the early hours, worrying about it, more determined than ever to break free before she fell victim to his dark, sensuous charm.

  Hal flew out sometime in the night and wasn’t at the breakfast table the next morning. Betty was, though. And Matt.

  He watched Catherine over his second cup of coffee, his eyes mocking as she fumbled her way through bacon and eggs.

  “Such a lovely day, after all that rain,” Betty was saying. “I think I’ll drive into Fort Worth and do some shopping. Catherine, can I pick up anything for you?”

  “No, thank you, Mama,” Catherine replied, trying to stop her renegade heart from running wild every time Matt looked in her direction. He was wearing a three-piece gray suit, and he looked debonair and worldly.

  She had on a simple short-sleeved green knit top and a skirt, and was worried that she might be overdressed for her first day on the job. “I didn’t know what to wear this morning,” she began hesitantly.

  “Angel and the other girls usually wear dresses or skirts,” Matt told her. “Jack, our sales manager, wears a suit. I alternate between suits and jeans, depending on my schedule. Today I have to fly down to San Antonio, so I’m a bit more formal. But we don’t have a dress code. You can wear jeans if you like.”

  “I’ll remember tomorrow. Do I get my own office?” she asked with a smile.

  “You can share mine, honey. I’ve got an extra desk.” He finished his coffee. “Ready?”

  “Yes. See you later, Mama,” she murmured, rising as Matt held her chair. She couldn’t help but be puzzled by his new polite behavior. Even Betty seemed to notice, but she only smiled.

  It felt strange riding beside Matt in his Lincoln. He glanced at her curiously; it wasn’t like her to be so silent, so subdued.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked gently as he pulled up in front of the ranch office.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly and gave him a flashing smile. “I was just thinking up ideas for the sale.”

  Fortunately, he took that at face value. He got out and opened her door, but he paused when she expected him to move, so that she cannoned into him.

  His hands, firm and strong, caught her shoulders and he was so close that she felt his breath in her hair. He smelled of spice and tobacco, and the muscular warmth of his body enveloped her from head to toe. She
couldn’t quite breathe, and she didn’t dare look up. Her heart was beating like mad.

  “You’ve avoided looking at me all morning,” he said quietly. “Is it because I tried to kiss you…or because I stopped too soon?”

  Her face burned in reaction. And still she couldn’t look up. Her lips parted on a rush of breath. “It’s…new.”

  “Yes.”

  “Matt…”

  “What?”

  “Just…Matt.” She lifted her face then, and her misty green eyes sought his. He seemed to stop breathing and just stared at her. He didn’t smile. His eyes searched, probed.

  “Don’t be afraid of me, Kit,” he said, his voice deep and slow and soft.

  “You’re a stranger.…”

  He shook his head. “No. You’re just looking at me in a different way.”

  “Why?” she asked, needing to know.

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “One day at a time, honey,” he said then. “Don’t ask questions until you want the answers. Let’s get to work.”

  He turned her and prodded her toward the big one-story building that housed an impressive computer setup. He had four young women working for him and two salesmen. Hal, when he was in town, had his own office, as well. It was a smoothly run operation. Thousands of dollars’ worth of cattle were bought and sold without a single head being moved physically. Matt even had cattle on videocassettes so he could show them to prospective buyers out of town. It was a wildly progressive kind of business, and Matt ran it with ease.

  He showed her into his private, carpeted office. The room looked like it belonged to Matt, all tough leather and earth colors and hardwood. There were two desks: his and a smaller one, where a computer and printer sat.

  “You know how to use this, don’t you?” he asked, smiling amusedly.

  She glared up at him. “Yes. I had one just like it at school.”

  His eyes dropped to her mouth, and she was glad there were other girls working here. It kept him from doing what she really wanted him to do.

  “If you have any problems with the computer, Angel can help you. She’s the brunette at the desk outside my office. She has the preliminary information on the sale, as well. Until I volunteered you, it was her job to get it together for the public relations people. Okay?”