The Texas Rancher's Vow. Cathy Thacker Gillen

      She grabbed her handbag and the things she’d picked up in town, and vaulted from the truck. Fortunately, the rain had started to let up. “Sorry if you were worried about me.”

      Matt rounded the front of the pickup and mounted the steps beside her.

      To cover her embarrassment, Jen kept right on babbling. “My radiator quit working. I had to pull off the road…. There was no cell phone reception. Then the storm came, and there was lightning all over the field I was parked in….”

      Matt stood beside her, hands braced on his waist. His expression as implacable as ever, he picked up where she left off, in an enviably calm tone. “Luckily, I found her and got her out of there.”

      “We drove back here,” Jen continued, modestly holding her damp blouse away from her breasts. “And here we are.” Fighting to cover up what we just felt. Which was all-out passion and lust, and a compelling need to be closer, that had stunned both of them.

      Emmett was studying her face. Then Matt’s. Then hers again.

      “No need to pretend with me,” he said finally. “I don’t mind if you two feel a few sparks. In fact—” he grinned “—I’d like nothing more than to see my son get involved with a woman I know his mother would approve of.”

      Matt cleared his throat and slanted Jen a protective look that was oddly thrilling. “Dad!”

      “It’s true, son. Your mother—who I firmly believe is looking down at us from heaven—would love it if you were to marry an artist.”

      Jen was so startled by the suggestion that she dropped everything in her hands. The bag from the drugstore split, and the necessary toiletries went all over the porch, along with most of the items in her handbag. “Marry!” she rasped. She knelt down to collect everything.

      Matt waved off his father’s aid and hunkered down, too, his denim-clad knee brushing her bare one.

      His glance slid to the hem of her skirt, which, thanks to the way she was positioned, hovered at midthigh.

      Lazily, he picked up lipstick, perfume, van keys and her cell phone. Jen collected the hand cream and sunscreen.

      “Obviously, Dad’s been hitting the whiskey,” Matt drawled.

      Still in matchmaking mode, Emmett chuckled. “You only wish.”

      “Then you should.” Finished, Matt stood and offered Jen a hand up. “Because you’re talking crazy,” he told his father.

      Emmett shrugged off the observation, then turned and walked inside the house, his gait unusually slow. But he looked, Jen thought, absolutely sober.

      He tossed a look at them over his shoulder as he headed through the living room to the bar. “Anyone care to join me?”

      Jen shivered in the air-conditioning as she entered.

      Matt looked at her, saw what she’d been trying to hide earlier. His manner matter-of-fact, he grabbed a soft cashmere throw off the leather sofa and draped it chivalrously over her shoulders.

      Only the heat in his gaze told of his continuing awareness.

      Jen knew exactly how he felt.

      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