The Bridal Promise. Virginia Dove

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СКАЧАТЬ asked with just the right note of polite weariness. But it was a mistake to look him in the eye.

      Matt’s eyes. At first one didn’t notice the variance in color. They looked almost black, his Indian heritage plainly spelled out in bone structure, hair and eyes. A closer look revealed the presence of dark-green shards. The result yielded eyes that seemed to absorb the light. Eyes more aged than the man. Matt looked like he hadn’t truly smiled from the heart in a long time.

      “I saw the front door open and stopped to check,” he said, as if such a thing was obvious. It was. “You didn’t waste any time running back to collect what’s yours, did you?” Matt paused before saying softly, “Of course, it’s only a matter of time before you run somewhere else, isn’t it?”

      Well, there was no answer for that, under the circumstances.

      “Where’s the car?” he inquired. “The garage?”

      She nodded.

      “Did you get everything in before the rain started?”

      “You needn’t concern yourself.” Her answer was immediate and brisk.

      “Did you get everything in?” It was a demand, not a request for information.

      She shook her head, no Her eyes dropped to his hand, as she realized he had just undone the top two buttons of her jacket. Perri wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of trying to slap his hand away. If she lost her temper with him, she lost. It was that simple.

      “Very funny, Matt.” It simply amazed her that she could sound so damn bored while her pulse was scrambling like mad at his touch.

      “Just testing a theory I have about those buttons.” He looked so deceptively friendly as the nail of his index finger scraped lightly down from her collarbone to the third button, revealing skin the color of honey above the top of her lace camisole.

      Perri breathed in the scent of wind and sun, horses, hay and Matt: an all-too-familiar combination she had worked very hard to forget. It was, at this moment, impossible to forget anything about him, not when he touched her.

      Abruptly, he moved toward the back door. She felt the same sick, hollow sensation come over her that she bad felt the day she had learned he was marrying someone else.

      “You can button back up, for now. I’ll get the rest of your stuff.” He paused in the doorway. “And you can quit glaring at me, Stone. I’m just being neighborly. After all, we have to work together. I’m looking forward to it.”

      She missed him the second he walked out the door. Dear God, how was she ever going to work with this man? She rebuttoned her jacket and finally released the breath she’d been holding. Perri moved through the front door, to the comfort of the covered porch.

      The hail was beginning to play out, the small pellets clattering harmlessly off the roof. The brief storm that had passed in Gannie’s living room had caused far more damage than the current weather pattern.

      Perri stood there staring blindly at the honeysuckle as it took a beating from the storm. She reminded herself that she was twenty-nine years old now, not seventeen and helplessly in love with a twenty-four-year-old Matt Ransom. Those two individuals no longer existed and the ones who stood on the property today had a job to do.

      Surely. they were mature enough to get it done. They would work together because they had to, for something important to both of them. He was just playing with her, she reasoned, nothing more. Just testing her for a reaction. He had made it crystal clear he didn’t want her.

      She had seen him change overnight into a man who would enjoy toying with her if she challenged him. Standing toe-to-toe and balding it out might be satisfying; but a calm, dignified approach was the only safe road.

      Perri reminded herself that life had surely hardened Matt Ransom, that he had changed in ways she didn’t understand. But no matter what she had heard in the last twelve years, he couldn’t have changed that much. She wouldn’t believe it of him. Intuitively she knew he would never treat a lady with anything less than respect. And, after all, this was just business. Perri Stone excelled at “just business.”

      She shivered as chilling rain blew onto the porch. Still mentally reassuring herself, Perri moved back into the hall. The pressure had lessened enough with the storm’s passing for her to shut the door before she started up the stairs.

      As she reached the second floor, Matt caught up with her. She wordlessly turned toward the back bedrooms as he automatically moved with her suitcases to the front

      He halted in the doorway of “her” room; the room where he had taken her virginity, where he’d taken her heart. “I have a choice of rooms this time and I’ve decided I’d rather sleep in the back.” She spoke quietly, head high, back straight, as she moved down the hall toward the back bedroom overlooking the pecan trees.

      Matt stood immobile, just looking into the familiar bedroom. Finally he turned and followed her, his features a complete blank. “Don’t blame you,” he said shortly. “You’ve outgrown the little room.” Bringing in the suitcases, he set them down as she indicated. “You have an awful lot of stuff for somebody just passing through, haven’t you?” It was a challenge.

      “What makes you think I’m just passing through?” If she could find a way to slow down and stop answering him like she was a repeating rifle, she might get through this. “It will take some time to honor Gannie’s request, whatever the details turn out to be,” Perri said. “I’m here for a year at least, or something like that, right? That is, unless you’ve already heard the fine points of the will and have got it all figured out.”

      She turned and gazed out the window overlooking the backyard. “Have you, Matt?” she asked. “What are we supposed to do?” She didn’t like the way that last question softened her.

      “Do you care, Perri?” he countered. “Or do you just plan on going through the motions to fulfill the terms of the will? Gannie is gone. You’re free to run for good now,” he added savagely. Perri’s neck arched slightly as if someone had struck her between her shoulder blades.

      Matt crossed to the opposite set of windows, checking the storm’s progress from the east. “Whatever we do will affect the town for some time to come. That was Gannie’s plan, some sort of long-term project for improvement. Not something that can be neglected after a ‘respectable’ period of time.” He turned to face her. The air seemed highly charged around them and suddenly the back bedroom felt very crowded.

      “If you think you can get away with just going through the motions before you start looking to sell out and leave, you may as well know now that I’ll buy you out with pleasure,” he declared. “That would suit you, wouldn’t it, Per?” She felt him move up behind her. “Then you could go back to New York or move on to someplace new.”

      The small insult didn’t escape her. Apparently Matt figured that no home could ever mean enough to her to keep her from moving on.

      “I heard you didn’t even have a permanent job to give up in order to come down here,” he added. “You just ‘consult’ here and there for a bunch of different banks, right?”

      The green in Perri’s eyes blazed as she turned away from the window. “Let’s get this much out of the way, right now, Matt,” she said angrily. “I care deeply about Spirit Valley. It was my home. And Gannie was just about the most important person СКАЧАТЬ