The Texas Rancher's Vow. Cathy Thacker Gillen

* *

      MATT SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that Jen wouldn’t let information that volatile go unexplored.

      Before he could decide how he was going to handle this, she lifted a hand. “Don’t worry, cowboy. You don’t have to tell me about your failed elopement.” She surveyed him with something like reproach.

      “I’m sure I could look it up. Or get someone else to tell me.” Still laying out photos, she waggled her eyebrows at him playfully. “Maybe even have you investigated.”

      Ouch.

      Although, Matt conceded, he may have had that coming.

      He exhaled. “You want the story?”

      Jen pushed back her chair. “Actually…I do.”

      He watched her sashay toward him, all feminine sass and confidence. He tore his eyes from her spectacular legs. “Why?”

      “Because it doesn’t fit with anything I know about you so far.” She bit her lower lip, then said, “You seem like the last person to impulsively tie the knot.”

      He leaned against one of the custom floor-to-ceiling bookcases. “Which maybe was the point,” he drawled.

      Jen walked around the table and rested her hands on top of a straight-backed chair.

      Aware that he could use some comfort—a fact that made him feel entirely too vulnerable—Matt confessed, “It was six months after my mom died. My dad was already planning to marry the novelist. It was too soon, and everyone knew that, but Dad wouldn’t listen to reason. So I decided to take a page from my future stepmother’s book—and bring a little more carefully scripted drama into our lives.”

      Jen’s brow lifted. “By eloping in Vegas with a female friend you barely knew?”

      Matt nodded. “I thought if I embarked in a hasty, ill-thought-out marriage before Dad went through with his own wedding, he would see how ludicrous it was.”

      Jen’s expression gentled. “He’d learn from your mistake.”

      Matt swallowed. “Yes. And I thought that Elanore—the girl I ran off with—understood that.”

      Jen walked around the table toward him. “She didn’t?”

      He grimaced. Thinking some fresh air might help, he strode toward the French doors that led to the courtyard, and stepped onto the beautifully landscaped stone patio that his mother had once loved.

      Darkness had fallen. There was a quarter moon and a sprinkling of stars overhead. “Apparently, she’d had a secret crush on me for a long time.” Matt passed one of the gas lanterns that illuminated the courtyard.

      Jen was right behind him. “When did you find out?”

      He sank down on one of the cushioned chaises. “When I passed on the opportunity to get drunk on champagne and really ‘show everyone’ by actually consummating our foolhardy marriage.”

      Looking stricken, Jen sat down sideways on the chaise next to him. “What happened next?”

      Matt folded his hands behind his head, savoring the warm night air. “We got on a plane back to Texas and broke the news to our folks.”

      And, oh, what a mess that had been.

      Jen clasped her hands around her knee. “What was their reaction?”

      “Dad saw it for what it was and refused to be manipulated.”

      Intrigued, Jen prodded, “And her parents?”

      Matt frowned. “Elanore’s parents knew how she had secretly felt about me all along, and were incensed. They accused me of leading her on, and insisted we not annul the marriage—that we needed to stop and think about what we were going to do next.”

      Jen’s eyes widened. “You explained to them what had happened? How it had all come about?”

      The unhappy memory still rankled. “They didn’t care. They had a brokenhearted daughter who wanted to stay married to me and give our union a real shot.”

      “Even though you didn’t love her and viewed her only as a friend.”

      Matt scoffed at the naivete of it all. “They felt that love could grow, given half a chance. What they didn’t want was for their daughter to be any more humiliated. To have her known as a willing accomplice to fraud was not a good thing, either.” He shrugged. “Her parents preferred for everyone to think we’d eloped in the heat of young love. Then if, over time, the marriage didn’t work out—and they desperately hoped it would—they could save face and say that we’d given it our best shot, but that the marriage had been too hasty, after all.”

      “How did you resolve it?”

      He grimaced. “The same way my father got out of his ill-conceived marriages—with a hunk of cash, and the opportunity to blame the whole debacle on me and my fickle heart.”

      Jen blinked. “And that worked?”

      He let out a low, regretful laugh. “Every sad story needs a villain. In ours, I was it.”

      “You didn’t mind.”

      Yes and no. “I was just glad to have my freedom. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck living a lie.” The way his father had eventually. Three times.

      “Hmm. Well.” Jen rose from the chaise in one graceful motion. She walked over to admire the roses. “I see why you mistrust women.”

      Not all, Matt thought. Just the ones who stood to benefit monetarily from their association with his family. Like it or not, that included Jen.

      “My point is—my dad is a lot more vulnerable than he looks. My mom’s death hit him hard. He went into a life crisis when she passed, and he’s never come out of it. I don’t want to see him hurt.”

      “I have no intention of hurting him,” Jen insisted.

      Famous last words, Matt thought, giving her a skeptical look. Just the process of taking out these old photos and repeatedly walking down memory lane was bound to open up every old wound. And then some.

      Jen glided closer, inundating him in a drift of her lilac perfume. “I’m not going to let him take advantage of me, or the situation.”

      More famous last words. He just hoped they were true.

      Matt sighed. “Just be warned. Dad has a way of getting what he wants from people, whether they want to give it over or not.”

      He left her to think about that.

      Chapter Four

      Later the following afternoon, Jen took stock. The day had been blissfully quiet. Matt had gone off with the cowboys before dawn to move cattle. Emmett had attended a breakfast meeting of the local cattlemen’s club, and had other business scheduled after that. So it had been just Jen and the housekeeper, Luz, in the Triple B ranch house for most of the day.

      Which of course had been for the best, Jen mused. No interruptions. No Matt barging in—or out—for hot kisses, or learning things about the lone Briscoe heir that she would rather not know.

      Like the fact they’d both lost a parent in their early twenties, then been betrayed by someone they had trusted.

      Not, Jen scolded herself firmly, that any of that mattered. She and Matt Briscoe were as different as night and day. And likely to stay that way, since he tried to control everything in his universe, and she tried to control nothing in hers…except her own reaction to things.

      “So what do you think?” she asked Emmett, when he stopped in to check on her progress.

      He looked at the twenty photos Jen had selected. All were displayed on the big library table. All had the potential to be turned into bronze sculptures.

      “This