Authors: Francis Ray
Cutting the engine, he twisted in the seat toward her. “Which light came on?”
“Light?” Long, sooty lashes veiled her eyes.
Beneath his mustache sensual lips thinned in annoyance. “The red warning light in the dash.”
“Oh.” She twisted uneasily in her seat. She had known exactly what he had meant. Stalling wasn’t something she usually did, but she had never been up against anyone who inspired such conflicting emotions within her.
Matt could be as compelling as he was annoying. For the last five minutes he was definitely the latter. “It’s late. I’ll just have the car taken care of in the morning.”
He grunted. “The same way you took care of your sleeping arrangements?”
Bristling, she faced him. “I did the best I could with the money I had.”
“If you couldn’t afford a decent hotel, how are you going to get the car repaired?” he asked tightly.
“I’ll manage.” She resumed staring straight ahead. “I really thank you, but can we please just go.”
“Give me the key.”
Her head snapped around. Matt’s face was determined, inflexible. He wasn’t leaving until he checked her car. He held his hand out palm up. He wasn’t the type to wait long.
“What difference does it make?”
“Jackson Falls may be a small town, but we still have car thieves. Your Cadillac would be too good to resist if one of them came across it,” Matt explained impatiently. “You need your car to get home.”
She looked into his resolute face. It didn’t take a genius to decipher his words. He planned on her leaving soon and he wanted to make sure she had a way of doing so. He might have rescued her, but he still didn’t trust her.
For a short time at the motel she had dared to hope things might be different between them. Another regret to add to her growing list. Opening her purse, she located the keys and dropped them into Matt’s palm.
“Stay in the truck.”
Shannon knew it was useless to continue with the charade. So what if he yelled at her again. She could take more of his condemnation, couldn’t she? “It’s out of gas.”
Matt’s muscular body paused halfway out of the cab. He sat back in the seat and just looked at her for a long moment.
Shannon found herself fidgeting and instantly stilled the nervous motion. She was stronger than this. “I discovered I was almost broke when I went into the service station to buy gas. Finding someplace where money could be wired to me took precedence. Then by the time I realized I wasn’t going to be able to contact anyone, finding a safe place to stay seemed more important than the possibility of walking.”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “At least I thought it was safe.”
A flicker of something crossed his face so swiftly she
couldn’t read it in the dim cab. “You make a habit of running around on fumes?”
“Oh, no. In fact it’s just the opposite since I work at night,” she explained. “It’s just that everything has been so hectic here. I didn’t think about gas until it was too late.”
Straightening, Matt started the engine and pulled back on the highway. On the interstate, he pulled under one of the eight bays of a brightly lit gas station.
“Thank you. I’ll pay you back,” Shannon told him as he got out of the truck.
“You can count on it,” he promised harshly.
The door closed. Despite temperature in the upper seventies, Shannon shivered. She was safe and that was all that mattered. Matt’s poor opinion of her shouldn’t be important, yet somehow it was.
Octavia met Matt and Shannon at the front door of the ranch house with a nod of approval for Matt and a hug for Shannon. “You look tired, child. Go on up to your room and I’ll bring a tray.”
“Won’t climbing the stairs be difficult with your ‘arthritis’?” Matt asked.
“Nope,” Octavia answered with a sassy smile and headed for the kitchen. “It’s in remission.”
Matt’s grip on Shannon’s luggage tightened. He was afraid this might happen. Octavia had accepted Shannon as one of her charges, which meant no matter what Shannon did or said Octavia would staunchly stand by her. The woman didn’t give her friendship lightly, but once given it was irrevocable.
The moment Matt heard the words “child” and “her room,” he knew Shannon had gained an ally. Shannon had managed to work her magic on the housekeeper, just as she had on Wade, just as she had tried to do on Matt himself.
“She did it to you again, didn’t she?”
Matt glanced at Shannon. She was smiling. Again he
experienced the almost imperceptible softening. “Did what?” he finally asked.
Her smile wobbled. “Got to you somehow. You had the same expression on your face last night.”
“And that was?”
“A mixture of admiration and pique.”
Grunting, Matt started up the stairs. Her intelligent brown eyes saw too much. “Men don’t have pique. If we’re angry we show it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she mumbled.
Matt heard the softly spoken words and decided to ignore them. It was just as well that he was immune to her. He hadn’t realized it before, but he admired a spirited woman. Too bad she wasn’t honest as well.
Shannon stepped inside the room and experienced an unexpected sense of peace. The homey room filled with heavy maple furniture and scattered rugs on the hardwood floor was nothing like her own Italian decor, yet somehow it felt right. She felt right being here.
She turned with a smile. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Thank Octavia.” He closed the door and placed her luggage by the dresser. “She’s the one who called all the hotels until she found you.”
“But you came for me.” The breathlessness of her voice surprised and annoyed her. Matt might be one of the handsomest men she had ever met, but he was also one of the most unpredictable.
“I had my reasons.”
“Whatever they were, I’m grateful.” He looked stern, untouchable, The peace she had found began to fade. She knew the unbending man in front of her was responsible for that. His opinion of her mattered. She wanted the caring man to return and hold her one last time.
On impulse, she pressed a light kiss against his cheek. The sudden stillness of his body told her she had made a mistake. Eyes wide with apprehension and embarrassment, she took a step backward.
Something about Matt’s entire demeanor changed,
grew more calculated. Unsure of how to deal with this new aspect of an already unpredictable man, she decided to put more space between them. “I . . . er . . . good night.”
Matt matched her step for step, his avid gaze watching her every movement. “How grateful?”
His husky voice vibrated down her spine. It was at once a lure and a challenge. “I don’t understand.”
Matt took another step. The heat of their bodies mingled. Shannon’s lungs seemed to be fighting to suck enough air into them. And with each attempt her breasts came uncomfortably close to brushing against Matt’s shirtfront.
Her foot eased back and struck a low cedar chest at the foot of the bed. She was trapped.
“I think you do, Shannon.”
The sound of her name affected her almost as much as the pad of his thumb grazing across her lower lip. She had heard him say her name at the motel, but at the time she had been too frightened for it to register. Now she was too aware of him not to notice. Heat pooled in the center of her body. Desire made her legs weak.
“I think you understand very well. You need a place to stay and a man in your bed.” The long, lean fingers of his other hand trailed along the collar of her suit. “I can give you both.”
The blatant insult cleared the sensual haze from one heartbeat to the next. For a moment she was too surprised and too hurt to speak, and when she did it was barely above a shocked whisper. “You think I’d sleep with you for a place to stay?”
“We won’t be sleeping,” Matt told her bluntly. “You should have waited a little longer to tell me about your missing money and credit card.”
Understanding hit, and with it came the bitter knowledge of what kind of woman Matt thought she was, and despite that knowledge, even now she couldn’t keep her body from shivering from his touch. “Take your hand off me.”
“There’s no reason to keep—”
He was talking to air because Shannon had ducked beneath his arms and headed for her luggage. She reached them within seconds.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He stepped in front of her.
“Since I won’t pay your price, why should you care?”
Surprise at Shannon’s seemingly displaced anger made Matt’s brow arch. In spite of himself he watched in reluctant fascination as her flushed cheeks and jutted chin made her face even more striking. “It’s a little late to be playing the shocked innocent”
“I guess the same could be said of you playing the gentleman.” She gritted a false smile. “Looks like we both guessed wrong.”
“What did you expect?” he practically snarled. “You were all over me.”
“Tenderness,” she told him, her voice strained. “A hint of kindness. Foolish of me, wasn’t it.” Her chin lifted. “Please move.”
He didn’t budge. “So now I’m supposed to believe you’re going to walk twelve miles back to town and sleep in your car over a harmless pass.”
Shannon remained silent and stared at the door over his wide shoulders.
Her silence infuriated him. She was the one who had started this. “I don’t force women. There’s a lock on your door. Use it if you want, but I won’t beg you to stay.”
Placing her overnight case under her arm, she secured her hold on the larger suitcase and stepped around a grim-faced Matt. Opening the door, she started through it only to come to an abrupt halt. Octavia, a tray of food in her hands, blocked the way.
“Thanks, child.” The heavy woman frowned. “Why are you still holding your suitcase? Matt, where’s all that training your mother and I tried to give you? Take her things,” Octavia instructed as she placed the tray on the dresser.
Taking a step away from Matt’s outstretched hands, Shannon said, “I can’t stay.”
“Why?” the housekeeper asked, clearly puzzled.
Shannon glared at Matt. His jaw tight, he looked away. At least he wasn’t without some shame. Yet, there was no reason to embarrass Octavia. “I don’t have any money.”
“I knew there was a reason for you staying at that place,” Octavia said with conviction. “Don’t worry about a thing. You don’t need money to stay here. Besides, since Matt’s cattle have been grazing in
your
meadow, he’s the one who should be paying you.”
“Anytime Shannon wants to pay her share of the taxes on this place, I’ll be happy to pay her a grazing fee.” Matt stalked from the room and shut the door on the silent women.
After Matt’s late supper and a bath, sleep still eluded him. The letter on the nightstand from Wade wouldn’t let him. There was no way in hell his uncle or any of the Taggart men would have approved of the way he had treated Shannon.
No matter what she was, he shouldn’t have stooped to her level. He didn’t threaten women. He had no intention of making his suggestion a reality. He had just wanted her to know she couldn’t keep pushing her lush little body against his and not expect any consequences. He was an all too human male.
She evoked needs in him that made a mockery of common sense. He didn’t trust her, but for the first time since his divorce ten years ago, his mind and his body weren’t in complete accord in dealing with a woman. Shannon tested his control and tried his patience with every glance, every touch, every enticing sway of her shapely hips.
No matter what he thought of Shannon, his uncle had thought well enough of her to leave her his favorite place, the place of the Taggart original homestead. Matt’s anger had cooled down enough to realize there had been nothing
romantic between the two, but that still left a lot of questions. There was more to it than just Wade owing her.
Apparently Arthur Ferguson was privy to Shannon’s past and Matt was almost positive Octavia was, too. She wasn’t surprised by Wade’s will and what’s more, she had never taken to a woman the way she had to Shannon. He was flying blind on this one and making mistakes.
He couldn’t forget the hurt look on Shannon’s face when he made his crude suggestion. It was too much of a contrast with the aroused look of moments before. Somehow he had badly misjudged things. Anger at life assaulted him again for pitting him against a woman beautiful enough to make his body clench each time he looked at her and mysterious enough to doubt himself.
But she wasn’t taking his heritage. He’d help her get back on her feet and then she was leaving . . . after she signed over her claim to his land. Yet somehow he had to accomplish the first goal in such a way as to help him accomplish the second and most important objective.
The idea came out of nowhere. Shannon probably only thought of the monetary gain in owning part of a ranch, not the hard work it took to keep it in the black. Obviously she lived well above what her nursing salary provided.
It stood to reason someone else was paying the price for her expensive tastes. This time she was going to work for what she wanted. She was about to find out firsthand the back-breaking work it took to make the ranch run smoothly and return a profit.
Within a week, she’d be begging to go home. He had already broken his golden rule and bought her gas, he might as well give her enough money to get to St. Louis . . . after she signed over the meadow. Without another moment’s hesitation, he went to Shannon’s room and knocked.
Opening the door at her assent, he saw her sitting on the side of the bed, her back to him. “You needn’t have bothered coming for the tray, Octavia. You’ve done too
much already.” Rising, she turned toward him. The weak smile on her face froze, her body went rigid.
Matt accepted the accusations in her wary eyes and the bitter taste of self-disgust in his mouth as partly his due. The other part was hers. “Next time don’t send out signals unless you’re willing to back them up.”
Shannon flushed guiltily and glanced away. In the aftermath of their argument, she had time to think about what she had done and realize she shared a large part of the blame. Matt knew nothing about her except she was trying to take his heritage . . . not a very good character reference.