Matt (The Cowboys) (28 page)

“What did you do,” she asked, “put your head under the pump?” His hair was still wet.

“Toby dunked me. He said it was faster.”

He obviously took Toby’s rough treatment as a sign of affection. It probably was. Men were peculiar like that.

“Your ears look fine to me,” she said. Then on impulse, she kissed him on top of his head.

Much to her shock, Orin threw his arms around her waist. “I’m glad you’re going to adopt me.”

“Hurry up, you big baby,” Toby called from the loft, “before I put corncobs in your bed.”

Orin held her tight for an extra couple of seconds, then let go and scrambled up the stairs to the loft. Ellen watched him disappear, bare feet sticking out of a nightshirt at least two sizes too large. It made him look even more like a little boy who desperately needed and wanted a mother.

The front door opened. “Everything’s fine at the barn,” Matt announced. “How about here?”

Ellen wiped a tear from her eye before turning around. “Toby and Orin are in bed. Noah and Tess are hiding. They’re waiting for you to find them.”

Matt came closer. His smiled faded as his gaze focused on her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve been crying.”

“They’re tears of happiness. And relief. I didn’t really believe I’d ever see this day.”

“Believe it,” he said. “Your children are safe.” But his expression said he didn’t believe she’d told him the real reason for her tears.

His gaze never wavered, never left her. She felt him stripping away the layers of her defense. “You’d better start looking for Noah and Tess.”

She turned away without waiting for his response. She didn’t trust him not to see right through to the center of her soul and know what she was thinking. Nothing was right anymore, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Too soon she found herself in bed, waiting for Matt to finish undressing in the dark.

She had never been a crybaby, not even when her cousin made her feel so unloved and unwanted. Certainly not after the Lowells’ accusations. But now it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears. Everything seemed impossible. She wanted to stay, but she couldn’t. She wanted to feel protected, but she wanted her independence. She wanted to be part of this family, but she couldn’t trust herself to any man. Matt didn’t love her. She didn’t love him. There was no solution.

The tears started, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

“This has been an eventful day,” Matt said. “I don’t think Toby and Orin will stop talking for a while yet. Even Noah and Tess were having a hard time getting to sleep.”

She felt the bed sag as he sat down, but she knew her voice wasn’t steady enough to answer him.

“You ought to thank Toby. He started talking to the judge on the way to see Noah’s horse. You know Toby; he’s liable to say anything. There were a couple of moments when I was ready to strangle him, but he may have been our strongest advocate, and he’s the one who doesn’t want to be adopted.”

“He does,” she managed to say. She coughed, pretending to clear her throat. “He just doesn’t want to admit it.”

Matt lay down in the bed and rolled over.

“I know.”

He hadn’t turned his back like he always did. He’d turned toward her.

“What is it you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing. We got exactly what we wanted. I’m the happiest woman in Texas.” Then she started sobbing like a baby. She was furious at herself for doing it, but she couldn’t stop.

Then something happened that caused her to stop crying as abruptly as she’d started.

Matt put his arm around her and moved closer.

He had never touched her like that, not even at their wedding, yet now he was holding her in his arms.

“You don’t want to leave, do you?” he asked.

“It’s not that.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. It just wasn’t the truth. “Tess and Noah think they’re going to stay here forever. Tess wants another kitten and Noah wants a dog. Then there’s Orin. Tonight he asked me to make sure he washed behind his ears. He even hugged me.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay here?”

Her heart skipped a beat. He did want her to stay. He did want her to be part of his family. But as soon as the feeling of happiness expanded inside her, it withered. He didn’t love her. She didn’t love him. That was no basis for a marriage. She might be pushed into a tight corner, but she knew the only thing that could cause her to give up her dream of independence, that would make her feel safe doing so, would be to fall hopelessly in love, and have the man feel the same way.

Until that changed, she couldn’t stay.

“I want to be independent and own my own shop. In a few months I’ll be able to do that, even buy my own house. It’s what I’ve always wanted.” It was. She’d dreamed of it for years. “But if I take Noah and Tess away, they’ll never forgive me. Tess might, but I know Noah never will. Boys never understand about hats.”

She didn’t know if she was making sense, but it was hard to think clearly when she was embarrassed, furious with herself for crying so hard tears ran down her cheeks. She’d never cried in front of a man.

“You could run your shop from here,” Matt suggested.

She turned on her side to face him. “I’d still have to act like your wife.”

“Is that so terrible?”

“Not altogether. Everybody in Bandera tells me how lucky I am to be married to you. I know you’re a wonderful man, but we don’t love each other. We want different things. It just wouldn’t work out; we’d both be miserable. I hate being dependent. I don’t want to owe anything to anybody.”

“That’s what I told Jake and Isabelle when I borrowed the money for this ranch, but I missed seeing something very important.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to receive love as well as give it. Otherwise it doesn’t work. I wouldn’t let Jake and Isabelle buy my ranch for me, but I did learn to let them give me furniture. I took back the things I didn’t like, but I kept the others. I think Isabelle figured that out.”

“That doesn’t apply to me. Nobody wants to give me love. Even the kids love you better than me.”

That sounded petty and jealous and she was ashamed the minute she said it, but it was true, and she felt better for having gotten it out.

They love us in ways that complement each other. And you’re wrong about people not wanting to love you. You just have to let them. You’ve got to stop closing yourself off.”

“You’ve got no room to talk. You’re so tightly wrapped up in a safe bundle nobody can get to you. I’m surprised Isabelle managed to get through.”

“It’s because I am closed off that I can see what I’ve missed. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. You’re a generous, warmhearted woman who deserves to be happy.”

“How, when you’re the only man I know who’s not disgusting, and I don’t love you? It would be even worse if I did find a good man. I’m already married.”

She didn’t know why she couldn’t control her tongue. It wasn’t his fault she was such a fool she could only love a hero who could vanquish all her foes. It was a foolish daydream, but it had sustained her through the difficult years of growing up. She still longed for her dream man who would swoop down and carry her away. If he ever appeared, she’d never give another thought to hats or independence.

In the midst of her tirade Matt started to pull his arm away. She stopped him. She wasn’t willing to give up the comfort of his touch.

“You will be happy one day, I’m sure of it,” he said. “Don’t worry about what will happen when you meet a man you can love. I’d never stand in your way.”

“I know that, and it makes me feel awful. It makes me feel like I’m using you.”

“We’re using each other. We both knew that from the start. It’s not a problem. You’ll fulfill your part of the bargain by staying here until the adoption is complete. I’ll fulfill mine by helping you set up your shop in San Antonio.”

“But the children will be so unhappy.”

“Maybe we’ll have a better idea what to do about that when the time comes,” he said after a pause. “In the meantime, be happy.”

How could she do that when she felt so miserable? She was a traitor to everybody—her kids, Orin, Matt, herself, even Toby. She couldn’t do what she needed to do without hurting all of them.

“Would you like to go on a picnic?” Matt asked.

“What?” The idea startled her.

“A picnic.”

“When?”

“Sunday, after church. The whole town will be there. We can go down to the river. We might even let the kids go for a swim.”

“They don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach them.”

“I don’t—”

“I’ll be very careful.”

He gave her a gentle squeeze. “I know you didn’t want to marry me, but I’m glad you did. The boys and I will be sorry to see you leave. Wear your new red dress to the picnic. Now go to sleep, and try not to worry. Everything will work out.”

Then he rolled up on his elbow and kissed her gently on the cheek. Before Ellen could recover from her shock, he’d pulled back to his side of the bed and turned away.

Ellen’s thoughts were in utter chaos. She wanted to go. She wanted to stay. She wished she could love him, but she didn’t. She wanted the kids to be happy, but she couldn’t give up her dream of her own shop.

Everything would be perfect if I loved Matt and he loved me,
she thought to herself. Why couldn’t that happen? It would fix everything.

But nothing in her life had ever worked out the way she hoped.

Matt woke to find Ellen sleeping up against him, their arms thrown across each other. Having gotten over his fear of being touched, he found he liked sleeping next to her, their limbs entangled. Though the times he’d touched her were few and were nearly all when she was asleep, he didn’t want to give up even that. He’d wanted this kind of comfort all his life, and he would only be able to enjoy it for a few more months.

He was a fool to torture himself with what he couldn’t have. He’d done everything he could to protect her and the kids, to fulfill his promise, and she hadn’t learned to love him. Learning he had been abused wouldn’t make her feel any different. He’d be lucky if she didn’t pack up and leave immediately. You couldn’t expect any woman to want to live with a man like that.

He didn’t expect it, but that didn’t stop him from wanting it anyway.

Ever since he was ten, he knew life would be different for him. Even without being an orphan, without getting into trouble, he would be different from other boys, from other men. Jake and Isabelle had changed a lot of that when they adopted him, but they couldn’t change everything. They couldn’t erase what had happened.

What had changed him forever.

He’d accepted that he was different, that all his emotions must remain locked tight inside him. He wasn’t empty. Fury filled him. Sometimes it welled up so hard and fast that it nearly overwhelmed him. He was full of needs, physical and emotional—to be loved, to be accepted. Most of all he needed to be able to tell the truth, share his burdens without fear of losing the love and acceptance necessary for his happiness.

He knew that would never happen.

So he had decided to concentrate on helping boys like himself, making sure their lives weren’t blighted by the things other people had done to them. He could help only a few, but he intended for them to leave his ranch healthy, happy, whole human beings. Then he’d been forced to marry Ellen in order to keep Orin, and everything had changed.

He was falling in love with her.

It didn’t matter that it was stupid. It didn’t matter that nothing could come of it. It didn’t matter that he could never tell her. It didn’t even matter that she didn’t love him. It was happening anyway. He’d tried to stop himself, but it hadn’t done any good.

At least a dozen times he’d told himself it was practically impossible not to fall in love with a woman like Ellen. She was warm, loving, and caring. She would do anything necessary to keep her kids. He was impressed by the way she’d adapted to living on the ranch, how readily she’d taken up her part of the work, even insisted he hand over more of it to her. She was almost always cheerful. When she wasn’t, she was honest. Orin liked her, and even Toby wasn’t so antagonistic anymore. She made him feel happy, more relaxed, more accepted.

He’d been physically attracted to her from the first. But in the past, even with women he liked and found attractive, contact had resulted in revulsion, not arousal.

But that had changed with Ellen. Several times before he’d awakened to find Ellen touching him in her sleep, his body aroused and hard. He was aroused again tonight, so much so that it was painful. He didn’t mind the pain. It meant he was alive. It meant someday he might have a normal life, enjoy what every other man took for granted, what he thought he’d been denied forever.

His arousal brushed against Ellen’s thigh. He pushed ever so slightly against her. It was dangerous, but the need within him was so urgent he couldn’t stop. He didn’t rub hard, not enough for her to notice. He was sure it wouldn’t wake her.

But instead of satisfying his need, it only stoked it. He wanted more. His arms lay across her chest just below her breasts. It was only natural that his thumb should gently massage her side, then her breast. It followed just as logically that other fingers would become involved, until his whole hand was pressed against her breast.