Champagne Girl. Diana Palmer

that came his way. When she was in college, Catherine’s girlfriends had begged to come to the ranch, just for a glimpse of Matt.

      Catherine pursed her lips and studied Matt’s tall, muscular body as he started through the gate. He was devastating physically, all right. And he had Spanish eyes, very dark and sparkling, and a deeply tanned face that was sharp-featured and aristocratic. He was something else. She tingled with pride, just looking at him, although she was ready for a fight if it was going to take one to get out from under his thumb. Part of her knew that Matt would never be able to return her tempestuous feelings for him. And it was because of that, more than anything else, that she had to escape. It was devastating to be around Matt and watch him go out with other women all the time. He seemed to have a different one every month. All of them were experienced, sensual women. Nothing like poor little Kit, who had to hide her tears from him. It would have killed her if he’d known how she really felt—that all her outbursts of anger were just defensive tactics.

      “Tomorrow,” she whispered, and smiled. “Tomorrow we’ll have it out, big cousin.”

      She lay back and closed her eyes.

      * * *

      The next morning when Catherine came down for breakfast Hal was at the breakfast table with Betty, but Matt was already out the door and gone. Hal looked up, his brown eyes sparkling in a mischievous face. At twenty-three he was the youngest of the three brothers. He was shorter than Matt and not as muscular. Hal had a good brain, when he used it, and was a whiz with machinery. But he preferred the nightspots to the ranch and slipped away at every opportunity. He played at life, and Matt had threatened to throw him off the property because of his penchant for playing practical jokes. But he was loveable, for all his wicked ways, and Catherine had a soft spot for him. In her younger days, he’d been her staunchest ally in dodging Matt’s temper.

      “Hi, cousin!” he grinned. “How was the big city?”

      “Great!” She sat down and filled her plate. “I got a job!” She told him all about it, enjoying his amazed look as she talked.

      “Have you told Matt?” he asked after a minute, his gaze quietly curious.

      “I haven’t seen him yet.”

      Hal pursed his lips. “She doesn’t know?” he asked Betty.

      Catherine cocked her head at him. “Know what?” she asked hesitantly.

      “Matt found out where you really were. He’s stopped your allowance.”

      “Oh, Hal, why did you do that!” Betty groaned.

      Catherine’s eyes sparkled with passion as she threw down her napkin. “Stopped my allowance? He can’t! Those shares are mine!”

      “He can do what he likes until you’re twenty-five,” Hal said.

      “Where is he?” Catherine demanded.

      “Down on the flats, checking to make sure the cattle were all moved before the rains came,” Betty said reluctantly. “He told Hal to get them moved before he left for Houston.”

      Hal didn’t reply. He looked disturbed and reached for his coffee cup.

      Catherine didn’t notice. She was fuming. She needed that allowance to set herself up in New York. She wouldn’t have any money until her first paycheck. And Matt knew it!

      “I’ll shoot him,” she muttered.

      “Now, darling, don’t be hasty,” Betty said, trying to soothe her.

      But Catherine was already on her way upstairs to change into jodhpurs and boots.

       Chapter Two

      The sunlight was wonderful after the thundering flood of late-summer rain the night before, but Catherine wasn’t paying the least attention to the beauty of the wide open land and grazing cattle or the distant enormity of the feedlot. Her narrowed green eyes were flashing, and the set of her slender body in the saddle was as rigid as her perfect mouth.

      She shivered a little in the early-morning chill. Autumn was coming on. Already the hardwoods were beginning to get crisp leaves on them. She searched the horizon for Matt, but he was nowhere to be seen. She could have screamed. There were times when being part of the Kincaid clan was an absolute torment, and this was one of them. She had a great future in New York in public relations. Why couldn’t Matt let her go after it? Of course, he didn’t know about the New York job offer, but what he’d done would prevent her from going anywhere without his approval. It was always like that. She made plans and Matt fouled them up. He’d done it for years, and nobody had ever stood up to him. Except Catherine, of course.

      This time he wasn’t having it all his own way. The fact that he was the chief stockholder in the Kincaid Corporation was irrelevant. Even the fact that she was madly in love with him was irrelevant. He wasn’t going to get away with telling her how to live her life.

      She spotted movement down on the soggy river flats, where a few red-coated, white-faced Herefords were mired in mud, and she smiled coldly. She saw only a couple of his men, and that was just as well; she didn’t really want an audience.

      Her heartbeats quickened as she coaxed the little mare into a canter and felt the breeze tossing her straight thick dark hair in the wind. She looked good in her jodhpurs and in her neat little blue-checked shirt that left her brown arms bare, but it hadn’t been for Matthew’s sake that she’d dressed so neatly. Matthew wouldn’t notice if she did a Lady Godiva unless she scared his precious cattle. He was immune to women, she thought. Freedom was an obsession with Matt. He’d said often enough that the woman hadn’t been born who could get him in front of a minister.

      Catherine had thought about that. She’d thought about making love to Matt, about feeling his hard sensuous mouth on her own. She’d daydreamed for years about it, about marrying him and living on Comanche Flats forever. But she’d learned over the years to keep her deeper longings to herself. Matt helped by ignoring her occasional stray glance that lingered too long and the quickening of her breath when he came close. She’d dated at college and had brought some of the boys home. To Betty’s frank astonishment, Matt had given them a thorough grilling, every one, and he’d set the rules about when Catherine had to be in. It was another of the domineering traits she’d once taken for granted and now resented bitterly. Matt would never want her the way a man wanted a woman. But he had control of her life, and he liked that.

      At last she saw him. He was kneeling to examine a hoof of one of the cows. His dark hair was concealed by the wide brim of his hat, and he looked almost like one of the cowboys in his faded denims and chambray shirt and worn boots. But when he stood up, all comparison ended. Matt had the kind of physique that turned up once in a blue moon outside motion pictures. His broad shoulders rippled with muscle, and his lithe body had a sensual rhythm that held women’s eyes when he moved. He was long and lean and darkly tanned, and he had eyes so black that they looked like coal. His nose had been broken once or twice and looked it, and his mouth had a perpetual mocking twist that could put Catherine’s back up in seconds. His cheekbones were high, a legacy of a Comanche ancestor, and he looked as if he needed a shave even when he didn’t because the shadow of his beard was so dark. But he was immaculate for a cattleman. His nails were always trimmed and clean, and he had an arrogant, regal carriage that made Catherine think of the highlander who had come to Texas so many years ago to found the Kincaid line.

      The Kincaids had been a political power in this part of the state at one time. Catherine had learned that from listening to Matt’s mother talk about Jackson Kincaid, her first husband. She was proud of Matt’s lineage and never let him forget it. The Kincaid Corporation, the remnant of a small empire, was Matt’s legacy. Evelyn had given shares in it to Great-Uncle Henry, combining both families’ interests. But it was Matt who held the power, and nobody forgot it.

      Matt’s sharp ears caught the sound of her mount’s hooves, and he whirled gracefully. His