The Bridal Promise. Virginia Dove

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 in my world.” The tears in her throat almost caused her voice to fail. But not quite. Perri stubbornly willed herself to go on.

      “I owe her more than I can ever express. So don’t think you’ve got any right to chastise me for having left,” she went on. “I don’t feel I owe you any explanations for my way of life. But please, know this: I would have given anything to have stayed home.”

      Time seemed to stretch to the snapping point before he gave her a rueful half smile. Her heart broke as she saw she had been right. It never really reached his eyes.

      “You’re not the little girl you were the last time we stood in this house,” he said, shoving his hands into his back pockets. “Mistakes were made. I should never have touched you. I knew that, and I take full responsibility,” Matt declared. “I was robbing the cradle but I just couldn’t help myself.” He looked away from the woman she had become.

      “However, all that doesn’t change the fact that you left. You are no longer a part of this world,” Matt said coldly. “There are no bright lights here. There is nothing left for you but some stone markers in the cemetery.” The very idea served to make him angrier. He turned back to face her. “What is here in Spirit Valley that could possibly make you want to stay?”

      The look of pure longing she couldn’t completely disguise caused them both to blush. The unguarded moment increased his fury. Wanly, she started to move toward the door. Then Perri stopped, turning in frustration and maybe even some fear. Like that night twelve years ago, there was nowhere to run.

      “Let’s just find out right now, shall we,” Matt whispered as he moved across the room and reached for her. He held her jaw firmly in his hands, those long fingers biting lightly into the back of her neck. His palms burned her as they slowly moved down her shoulders to her arms, just before his fingers gently circled her wrists.

      “Do you taste the same now that you’re all grown up, darlin’?” he asked lightly. “I’ve been meaning to find out ever since you got back into town.” In seconds he had the answer for himself as he ruthlessly pulled her to him and his mouth took hers.

      Perri’s shocked intake of breath opened her mouth under his and Matt took full advantage of her surprise. His tongue probed decisively as he cuffed her wrists to the small of her back with one hand.

      The electrically charged air seemed to light a spark within her Perri had long assumed to have died. She tried desperately to breathe into her burning lungs. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had had a moment to think about it, or even if he hadn’t molded her firmly to him. She would have opened for him anyway. She hoped that realization could remain her secret, and not a part of the battering her pride was about to take.

      For Perri couldn’t completely stop herself