The Texas Rancher's Vow: The Texas Rancher's VowFound: One Baby

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Matt rounded the front of the pickup and mounted the steps beside her.

  To cover her embarrassment, Jen kept right on babbling. “My radiator quit working. I had to pull off the road…. There was no cell phone reception. Then the storm came, and there was lightning all over the field I was parked in….”

  Matt stood beside her, hands braced on his waist. His expression as implacable as ever, he picked up where she left off, in an enviably calm tone. “Luckily, I found her and got her out of there.”

  “We drove back here,” Jen continued, modestly holding her damp blouse away from her breasts. “And here we are.” Fighting to cover up what we just felt. Which was all-out passion and lust, and a compelling need to be closer, that had stunned both of them.

  Emmett was studying her face. Then Matt’s. Then hers again.

  “No need to pretend with me,” he said finally. “I don’t mind if you two feel a few sparks. In fact—” he grinned “—I’d like nothing more than to see my son get involved with a woman I know his mother would approve of.”

  Matt cleared his throat and slanted Jen a protective look that was oddly thrilling. “Dad!”

  “It’s true, son. Your mother—who I firmly believe is looking down at us from heaven—would love it if you were to marry an artist.”

  Jen was so startled by the suggestion that she dropped everything in her hands. The bag from the drugstore split, and the necessary toiletries went all over the porch, along with most of the items in her handbag. “Marry!” she rasped. She knelt down to collect everything.

  Matt waved off his father’s aid and hunkered down, too, his denim-clad knee brushing her bare one.

  His glance slid to the hem of her skirt, which, thanks to the way she was positioned, hovered at midthigh.

  Lazily, he picked up lipstick, perfume, van keys and her cell phone. Jen collected the hand cream and sunscreen.

  “Obviously, Dad’s been hitting the whiskey,” Matt drawled.

  Still in matchmaking mode, Emmett chuckled. “You only wish.”

  “Then you should.” Finished, Matt stood and offered Jen a hand up. “Because you’re talking crazy,” he told his father.

  Emmett shrugged off the observation, then turned and walked inside the house, his gait unusually slow. But he looked, Jen thought, absolutely sober.

  He tossed a look at them over his shoulder as he headed through the living room to the bar. “Anyone care to join me?”

  Jen shivered in the air-conditioning as she entered.

  Matt looked at her, saw what she’d been trying to hide earlier. His manner matter-of-fact, he grabbed a soft cashmere throw off the leather sofa and draped it chivalrously over her shoulders.

  Only the heat in his gaze told of his continuing awareness.

  Jen knew exactly how he felt.

  She wanted to kiss him again, too.

  Matt headed toward his dad. “Whiskey sounds good,” he told him, then turned back to her. “Jen?”

  Maybe a drink would help ease the pounding of her heart. She nodded. “Yes, please.”

  Emmett got down three glasses and poured an inch of whiskey in each.

  Matt brought Jen’s to her.

  Outside, the storm intensified, lightning and thunder coming near once more.

  Inside, silence fell, more awkward than ever.

  Nervously, Jen jumped in to fill the void. “So your wife was a patron of the arts, I gather?” she asked Emmett.

  The silence became poignant. The older man moved to study the photos of his late wife gracing the mantel. “She was an artist herself. Most of her paintings were western landscapes, although she did some of Matt and me, when he was a baby.”

  Aware that she hadn’t noticed any paintings when she was touring the house, Jen asked, “Do you have any of her work here?”

  Emmett returned to the bar and poured himself another two fingers of whiskey. “All her paintings are here.”

  Matt slouched on the sofa. The worry on his face made Jen want to reassure him. “She never showed her work,” he interjected, looking a little heartbroken, too.

  Jen understood. Grief was a hard thing to master. It came and went in waves, often at the most unexpected times.

  Emmett sipped his drink slowly. “Margarite wasn’t interested in what the critics said.”

  “Nor did she want to put a price on her art,” Matt murmured, setting his empty tumbler on his denim-clad thigh.

  “I can understand that,” Jen replied, cupping her glass in her hands.

  There was something about bringing someone else in to judge what you had done. It could change the way you felt about your art—when it shouldn’t. And Margarite hadn’t needed the money to live, the way Jen did.

  Still, she knew that beautiful art was meant to be shared.

  It was part of the legacy Margarite had left behind.

  Something else her family could treasure.

  Jen sent a hopeful glance in Emmett’s direction. “I’d like to see them.”

  He assented with a nod. “Tomorrow morning,” he promised. “Now, if the two of you don’t mind, I’m going to call it a night.”

  “Did I upset him?” Jen asked Matt, after his dad had ambled off, second glass of whiskey in hand.

  Matt studied the bottom of his glass. “Talking about Mom always makes him sad. He misses her.”

  The whiskey that warmed her inside also loosened her mountain of inhibitions, making Jen bold enough to sink down next to Matt, still clutching the ivory cashmere throw around her shoulders. “What about you? Do you miss her, too?”

  He ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “I try not to think about it.”

  The burn of the alcohol was nothing compared to the fire in his eyes, when he finally lifted his head.

  Jen sighed. “That’s not an answer.”

  Annoyance flickered across his face. Cocking his head, he studied her for a long moment. “Do you miss your dad?”

  Jen shrugged, aware that the mixture of curiosity and pique between them seemed to go both ways. “I miss the good things,” she admitted finally, aware that her grief was a lot more complicated than his.

  She swallowed around the sudden ache in her throat. “I don’t miss the intermittent chaos my dad’s alcoholism created in our lives.” She was glad that was gone.

  Matt raised a brow and waited for her gaze to meet his. “That was honest.”

  She compressed her lips. “It is what it is.” Once she had started accepting the bad with the good, and lowered her expectations accordingly, life had become a lot easier.

  She wanted it to stay easy.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing about Matt—except his propensity for kissing her like there was no tomorrow—that was anything near easy.

  He was complicated.

  Maybe the most complicated man she had ever met.

  But, intuition told her, worth knowing. And knowing well.

  A small smile curved his sexy mouth. His gaze roved over her mussed, rain-dampened hair. He looked at her as if he knew of her inner battle. “I like your candor.”

  “When it’s about me.” Feeling a little empowered, and a lot feistier, Jen turned toward him, her blanket-draped knee brushing his thigh. “Not,” she stated bluntly, “when it’s about you.”

  Matt chuckled and set both their glasses aside. Still grinning, he reached inside the throw to capture one of her hands. “That’s because you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

  The warmth of his touch sent a thrill rippling through her. “Then tell me something I don’t know.” And need to know to understand you.

  He shrugged. “I’ve never been in love.”

  Jen couldn’t say she was surprised about that. Love would have left him vulnerable. “Me, either.”

  “But you were married.”

  He hadn’t shaved yet, and the stubble gave him a dark, sexy look. Memories of the way he had kissed her earlier sent a burning flame throughout her entire body. “I didn
’t say I never thought I was in love. Of course, I thought I loved my ex, but as it turned out, what Dex and I felt for each other was merely lust.” Jen sighed, promising herself she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. “And lust, as everyone knows, doesn’t last.”

  Something hot and sensual shimmered in his eyes. “It can last.”

  For a moment, she let herself imagine what it would be like to make love with Matt. Not once, just to bank some flames and satisfy their curiosity, but many, many times…

  “Has it for you?” she challenged, as if she hadn’t been thinking about that possibility at all.

  He flashed her a crooked smile. “Well, no.”

  “Me, either.” Jen sighed, knowing that when a fantasy about someone dissolved, so did the desire. And she wasn’t in the mood to have her heart and hopes crushed again. “So…”

  He slid his eyes to the hollow of her throat, then her lips, then her eyes. “I think our passion is the kind that might not ever go away.”

  She told herself the evening definitely would not end with her kissing him again. “Now that’s the whiskey talking.”

  He dipped his head in a gallant bow and took her in his arms again. “Or the knowledge of what it is like to kiss you.”

  Romantic notions bubbled up inside her, and she shivered.

  He threw off the blanket and shifted her onto his lap.

  “Matt…” she whispered.

  “Hmm?” Eyelids lowered, he kissed his way down the side of her throat.

  She splayed her hands across his chest. “This is no good.”

  He tunneled one hand through her hair, then pressed his lips to hers. “It’s very good.”

  Tingling, Jen averted her head. “For what we’re trying to do here.” Knowing she would be lost if he kissed her again, she buried her face in his shoulder.

  Matt nuzzled her neck, finding the nerve endings just beneath her ear. He stroked a hand down her back, his hot callused palm easing beneath the hem of her blouse, above the waistband of her skirt, to caress her skin. “What are we trying to do?”

  Jen quivered at his touch and drank in the fragrant, masculine scent of him.

  Stay on track. Stay on track….

  “We’re trying to make your dad happy,” she reminded him thickly. “Commemorate his life and his love for your mother. Help him feel good about all he has accomplished, and all he still has in front of him.”

  The mention of his father had the desired affect. Matt dropped his hands, sat back. “You’re going to do that with your sculptures?”

  Jen nodded. She could pretend all she wanted…but Matt was right about one thing. The desire she felt for him wasn’t ever going to go away.

  But there was no reason he needed to know she felt that way.

  She eased off his lap and turned the talk back to business. “I’m going to try.”

  And while I’m at it, I’ll work a whole lot harder at protecting my heart.

  * * *

  “I HATE TO IMPOSE,” Jen told Emmett, when she encountered him having breakfast in the kitchen the next morning, “but is there someone who could give me a ride over to the Armstrong ranch to pick up my van? They can’t be happy to have it just sitting there in a field.”

  “Matt’s already taken care of it.”

  Jen did a double take. “What do you mean?”

  “He called the auto service and had it towed into town to the repair shop.”

  And how much was that going to cost? Could she even afford it?

  “Don’t worry,” Emmett said, misinterpreting the reason behind her concern. “They’ll get it fixed up in no time.” His movements almost painfully slow, he gestured for her to sit down with him. “Help yourself to some breakfast. No eggs or bacon this morning—it’s Luz’s day off. But we’ve got pastries, juice and coffee.”

  Jen surveyed the rancher. Something was definitely off. “You feeling okay this morning?” He looked a little pale, as if he hadn’t slept well, and his left hand was trembling slightly.

  The day before, it had been his right.

  He cupped both hands around his coffee mug. “I should have figured you’d notice.” He winked, jovial as ever. “I’m paying for my bad judgment. I know better than to have more than one whiskey in an evening.”

  Jen had plenty of experience in that regard, with her dad. This did not look like any hangover she had ever seen. Both hands should have been trembling if Emmett was in his cups, not just one. Was it possible, she wondered, that something might be wrong with the otherwise healthy looking and virile man? Was that fact, rather than just ego, behind the wealthy cattleman’s drive to commemorate his life?

  Emmett sat back in his chair. “I see you’re feeling fine this morning, however.”

  Jen smiled. She had slept surprisingly well. And had woken up dreaming of kissing Matt….

  Flushing, she poured herself some juice from the bottle on the table. “I’m anxious to get to work on the first sculpture.” Work always made her feel better. Maybe because it was a place for her to channel her emotions.

  Emmett glanced at his watch. “I’ve got business meetings in San Angelo at ten, but I’ll have time to show you the studio Matt’s mother used to work in.”

  Jen munched on a cinnamon roll. “You’re okay having me set up shop there?”

  “It’ll be nice to have the space used again. I think you’re going to like the light in there.”

  Emmett wasn’t kidding, Jen realized half an hour later, when they went up to the second floor loft in the wing of the house that the older gentleman now occupied.

  The light was spectacular, the room large and airy.

  It was also empty except for handsome built-in shelving and cabinetry along one wall, and a large wooden worktable located beneath the bank of windows.

  Stunned, Jen turned to Emmett.

  “She donated all her art supplies and easels to the local community college when she could no longer paint,” he explained. “We had her paintings displayed on the walls in here, but after she died it was just too painful to see them, so Matt and I wrapped everything up and put them in storage.”

  “They should be hanging.”

  Emmett squinted. “Just what I was thinking.” He rubbed his jaw with the hand that trembled. “Tell you what…I’ll bring some of Margarite’s favorite pieces up, later today.”

  It turned out he was as good as his word.

  Only it wasn’t Emmett who brought up the paintings some three hours later.

  It was his son.

  Chapter Six

  Matt knew it was going to be tough seeing his mother’s work again, never mind have them in the studio where he’d had his last truly happy memories of his mother before she had been stricken with multiple sclerosis and confined to the lower floor of the ranch house.

  It was rougher still walking in with the paintings, all still carefully wrapped, and seeing Jen in what had always been his mom’s arena.

  Jen took it over, much as his mother had, her presence lending an air of tranquility to the large, sunny space.

  In faded jeans, peacock-blue cowgirl boots and a sexy, formfitting white tank top, her hair swept up in a messy knot, she was so damn pretty she took his breath away.

  And she was not glad to see him.

  Not. At. All.

  Because he’d kissed her and she had kissed him back? Or because their evening together had ended on a businesslike note, and they hadn’t gotten around to making out again?

  Matt looked in her eyes. No clue. All he knew for certain was that she blamed him for something. Luckily for both of them, he was in no mood to wrangle.

  All he wanted was escape. Escape from the feelings being around Jen conjured up, and the notion that with very little effort, the two of them could have something truly amazing.

  “Dad texted me that you wanted the paintings,” he announced, planning to dump them and run before they were actually unwrapped.

  When he did eventually look at the canvas
es again—and he would…at some point—he wanted to be alone.

  “So.” Matt propped them carefully against the wall. “There you go.”

  To his consternation, no sooner had he set them down than Jen was reaching for the tape holding the protective quilts over the oil canvases.

  Reacting quickly, he left her to it and headed back out into the hall.

  She followed. “That’s all?” She caught up with him in the long corridor outside the studio.

  “Well…” Matt paused, not sure why she was so irked when he’d done as asked, the moment he got back to the ranch house, no less.

  Again, their gazes held for a long moment, and as always, when she gave him her undivided attention, something flashed between them and his body tensed with need.

  A little unsettled by the way he kept wanting her, Matt cleared his throat. “Obviously, there are more paintings in the climate-controlled storage room where we keep all the valuables. Twenty-five more pieces, to be exact.”

  Jen kept staring at him.

  He adjusted his posture slightly, to relieve the ache. Lowered his gaze from her face and encountered the soft, sexy swell of her breasts instead. Which to his frustration only made the situation worse. “But that was all I could easily carry at once,” Matt continued, with the poker face he’d perfected at a very early age.

  Jen folded her arms in that way that really got his blood pumping. And she still looked ticked off.

  “I’m not talking about art.” Her low voice dripped with resentment and she stepped nearer, with a drift of lilac perfume.

  Deciding the farther they were from the studio, the better, Matt kept right on moving down the corridor, to the stairs. Sweaty and grimy from a morning spent outdoors in the summer heat, he wanted two things: a shower and release from the tension he’d felt ever since they’d kissed.

  Well, the latter wasn’t going to happen. Not if either of them had any sense.

  “Then what are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “I want to know about my van!”

  Matt paused outside his bedroom door. Of course that was what she wanted. “I took it to the best mechanic in town. Naturally, because the van is so old, he had to order the parts…but it’ll be ready in a couple of days.”