The Texas Rancher's Vow. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ