The Bridal Promise. Virginia Dove

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ had taken Perri here. He had told her he loved her and wanted to marry her right about where he was now parked. He slammed out of the car and looked around rather wildly at where be had just driven himself, in his own vehicle, by his own hand. “Just shoot me,” he muttered.

      She had tasted lightly of wine, he thought. It had only served to enhance the well-remembered taste of her. Matt wanted her. After all this time, and to the point of violence. The feelings of tenderness, laced with shots of fury had him off balance. If she had been appealing to him before, she was devastating now. His hands fisted as he could almost feel her hair brush through his fingers. Matt swore to himself.

      How could he explain to Perri that she was no longer the true source of his anger, but instead a painful reminder of his own dreadful mistakes? Pride made it all but impossible to acknowledge the need he now felt for the woman Perri had become without him. A woman he just knew was going to leave.

      Ransoms didn’t leave. They stayed. They remained anchored to the land; ever since 1891, when a spinster schoolteacher had taken in a half-breed foundling and raised him for her own.

      Miss Vienna Whitaker, obviously Southern and a lady to her fingertips, had named the baby Matthew Lawrence, after her beloved father. But for reasons unknown. Miss Vienna had given the child the last name of Ransom.

      The citizens of Spirit Valley could only speculate as to why she had chosen the name. Some thought it a good name. With no one in Indian Territory named Ransom, no one could be blamed for having fathered a half-Indian baby.

      Those citizens with a dictionary alongside the family Bible, had puzzled over what the ransom was for. If raising the child was the price of atonement, then what was the sin? And whose, exactly? Miss Vienna hadn’t seen fit to share her reasoning. She had quietly raised a fine son, who later became a much-respected member of the community.

      Like his father, Sam, Matt didn’t give much thought to the source of their need to take care of what his great-greatgrandfather had been given. Nor did he give any thought to his automatic mistrust for those who moved on. Its origins were as deeply engrained as the desire to maintain a well-respected position in the community. His folks had always stayed, spit in the dust and stuck it out.

      No, Ransoms didn’t leave, they were too busy. None had shirked the responsibility of family and land. None, that is, except for one. Matt’s grandfather, Lawrence Ransom, had done just that when he had run off with Anne Marlowe, the grandmother of Pern Stone.

      Since that time everything had changed. It certainly had stained Matt’s love for Perri. As soon as Matt had declared his intention to make Perri his wife, everything he had subsequently put his heart into had turned to dust. Even later on when his brother had drifted off, the unspoken assumption had been that somehow the wounds of the past had caused Whit to leave town as soon as he was able. But the violence and scandal their grandparents had launched was not Perri’s fault. It shamed him to think he couldn’t rise above that one fact. Matt noticed that it evoked interest to realize that he still could feel a sense of shame about anything.

      He wished he could muster up some feelings for the way he had treated Perri twelve years ago. But they were locked in ice. Matt had wanted to destroy her that night. He speculated now on just how close he had come to achieving his goaL

      Once Sam had stormed out of the house that night, Leila had laid it on thick about the old scandal. Then as if his grandparents hadn’t been reason enough, she had told him his father was keeping Janie Stone—Perri’s mother—as his mistress. Matt’s attempts to reason with her had only served to make his mother more lethal.

      Today, his own youthful arrogance and naiveté astounded him. He had foolishly assumed his parents’ objections would be due to Perri’s age; and he had been preparing his argument for some time along that line. He knew now that he had underestimated his mother as a fighter. But then, he had never gone up against anyone like her.

      The force of her rage had been terrifying. And underneath the emotions, what she had said had made some sense. His mother had made it plain that Perri Stone couldn’t possibly love a Ransom. After all, since Perri was aware of Sam’s involvement with Janie, then her eagerness to marry Matt had to be founded on a desire to exact some small degree of revenge on the Ransoms. If Perri had truly loved him, Leila had made it clear that Marlowe honor would have demanded Perri let Matt go.

      Looking back on it, his actions later that night had been due as much to the way Leila had aroused his emotions as to what she had actually said to him. He had left a sobbing Leila and gone for a much-needed drive to cool off. He hadn’t wanted to go directly to Gledhill and have it out with a seventeen-year-old girl who loved him. But by the time Matt did show up, he hadn’t been able to calm his fury over his mother’s accusations.

      He could still see Perri in the darkened living room, looking paralyzed with shame and fear. It only now occurred to him that he had never asked her what that was about. He’d never taken a moment to find out if something was wrong. He had just started in and said some appalling things to her.

      When she had denied his mother’s accusations about his dad and Janie, he had nearly lost it. He quite simply hadn’t believed her. After all, she had seemed to expect his indictment.

      “He hasn’t been seeing my mother,” Perri had all but screamed. “She’s not seeing anybody.”

      “Of course,” Matt had whispered, gently touching her cheek. She had such smooth skin. He had scared her with that gentle stroke. But still Perri had hung on to her lies. Just as his mother had predicted she would. “You’ve got good reason to think I’m stupid enough to believe you. Don’t you, baby?” he had asked softly. “You’ve gone all the way to convince me, haven’t you?”

      Matt winced when he thought of how he had roped the chain of the gold locket around one hand and grabbed her shoulder with the other. His fingers had dug in as he had pulled her to him. Perri’s eyes had dilated in shock at his savage behavior.

      He had given her the necklace as a symbol of their secret engagement, until the time was right for a ring and a formal announcement. That night, he had struggled not to rip it from her throat. The heavy snake chain had held, but he knew the contempt in his eyes had destroyed her where she stood. Still, Perri had said nothing. She hadn’t tried to defend herself, only her mother.

      “I’m real impressed,” he’d said. “You’re good, I’ll give you that.” He had roughly pushed her away and headed out the door. Matt’s last memory of Perri was a glimpse of her through the window, trying to rub away the red marks already forming on her throat.

      From that night on, his pride had focused on his role in maintaining a respected position in the community. He had set himself apart from his father and younger brother to see that scandal didn’t touch another generation of Ransoms.

      And it was more than his relationship with Perri that hadn’t survived that night. To this day, his relationship with his father was forever altered as well. They worked together and lived on the same property, but boundary lines had been drawn by Matt’s resulting sense of betrayal.

      Matt idly watched a very fat blue jay repeatedly dive-bomb a squirrel. That brought him back to the present. It dawned on him, as he looked around, that he’d never brought Cadie out here during their brief marriage. He’d never brought his wife to a place he considered so important, so much his. Never shared it with her. He couldn’t. This spot was forever associated with memories of Perri.

      He felt the fury drain away as he accepted that he wanted her. He wanted Perri with a single-mindedness of purpose that sooner or later would leave his heart on the line. He’d just have to СКАЧАТЬ