The Texas Rancher's Vow

Jen had plenty of experience in that regard, with her dad. This did not look like any hangover she had ever seen. Both hands should have been trembling if Emmett was in his cups, not just one. Was it possible, she wondered, that something might be wrong with the otherwise healthy looking and virile man? Was that fact, rather than just ego, behind the wealthy cattleman’s drive to commemorate his life?

Emmett sat back in his chair. “I see you’re feeling fine this morning, however.”

Jen smiled. She had slept surprisingly well. And had woken up dreaming of kissing Matt….

Flushing, she poured herself some juice from the bottle on the table. “I’m anxious to get to work on the first sculpture.” Work always made her feel better. Maybe because it was a place for her to channel her emotions.

Emmett glanced at his watch. “I’ve got business meetings in San Angelo at ten, but I’ll have time to show you the studio Matt’s mother used to work in.”

Jen munched on a cinnamon roll. “You’re okay having me set up shop there?”

“It’ll be nice to have the space used again. I think you’re going to like the light in there.”

Emmett wasn’t kidding, Jen realized half an hour later, when they went up to the second floor loft in the wing of the house that the older gentleman now occupied.

The light was spectacular, the room large and airy.

It was also empty except for handsome built-in shelving and cabinetry along one wall, and a large wooden worktable located beneath the bank of windows.

Stunned, Jen turned to Emmett.

“She donated all her art supplies and easels to the local community college when she could no longer paint,” he explained. “We had her paintings displayed on the walls in here, but after she died it was just too painful to see them, so Matt and I wrapped everything up and put them in storage.”

“They should be hanging.”

Emmett squinted. “Just what I was thinking.” He rubbed his jaw with the hand that trembled. “Tell you what…I’ll bring some of Margarite’s favorite pieces up, later today.”

It turned out he was as good as his word.

Only it wasn’t Emmett who brought up the paintings some three hours later.

It was his son.

Chapter Six

Matt knew it was going to be tough seeing his mother’s work again, never mind have them in the studio where he’d had his last truly happy memories of his mother before she had been stricken with multiple sclerosis and confined to the lower floor of the ranch house.

It was rougher still walking in with the paintings, all still carefully wrapped, and seeing Jen in what had always been his mom’s arena.

Jen took it over, much as his mother had, her presence lending an air of tranquility to the large, sunny space.

In faded jeans, peacock-blue cowgirl boots and a sexy, formfitting white tank top, her hair swept up in a messy knot, she was so damn pretty she took his breath away.

And she was not glad to see him.

Not. At. All.

Because he’d kissed her and she had kissed him back? Or because their evening together had ended on a businesslike note, and they hadn’t gotten around to making out again?

Matt looked in her eyes. No clue. All he knew for certain was that she blamed him for something. Luckily for both of them, he was in no mood to wrangle.

All he wanted was escape. Escape from the feelings being around Jen conjured up, and the notion that with very little effort, the two of them could have something truly amazing.

“Dad texted me that you wanted the paintings,” he announced, planning to dump them and run before they were actually unwrapped.

When he did eventually look at the canvases again—and he would…at some point—he wanted to be alone.

“So.” Matt propped them carefully against the wall. “There you go.”

To his consternation, no sooner had he set them down than Jen was reaching for the tape holding the protective quilts over the oil canvases.

Reacting quickly, he left her to it and headed back out into the hall.

She followed. “That’s all?” She caught up with him in the long corridor outside the studio.

“Well…” Matt paused, not sure why she was so irked when he’d done as asked, the moment he got back to the ranch house, no less.

Again, their gazes held for a long moment, and as always, when she gave him her undivided attention, something flashed between them and his body tensed with need.

A little unsettled by the way he kept wanting her, Matt cleared his throat. “Obviously, there are more paintings in the climate-controlled storage room where we keep all the valuables. Twenty-five more pieces, to be exact.”

Jen kept staring at him.

He adjusted his posture slightly, to relieve the ache. Lowered his gaze from her face and encountered the soft, sexy swell of her breasts instead. Which to his frustration only made the situation worse. “But that was all I could easily carry at once,” Matt continued, with the poker face he’d perfected at a very early age.

Jen folded her arms in that way that really got his blood pumping. And she still looked ticked off.

“I’m not talking about art.” Her low voice dripped with resentment and she stepped nearer, with a drift of lilac perfume.

Deciding the farther they were from the studio, the better, Matt kept right on moving down the corridor, to the stairs. Sweaty and grimy from a morning spent outdoors in the summer heat, he wanted two things: a shower and release from the tension he’d felt ever since they’d kissed.

Well, the latter wasn’t going to happen. Not if either of them had any sense.

“Then what are you talking about?” he demanded.

“I want to know about my van!”

Matt paused outside his bedroom door. Of course that was what she wanted. “I took it to the best mechanic in town. Naturally, because the van is so old, he had to order the parts…but it’ll be ready in a couple of days.”

Jen’s face turned pink. “You okayed the work without even talking to me?”

Matt shrugged. “It’s not going to run unless you replace the radiator and the transmission.”

She sagged against the wall, hand over her heart. “The transmission!” she croaked.

Matt resisted the urge to prop her up with an arm about her waist. “Yeah.” He stood with his legs braced apart and continued offering moral support—from a distance. “That’s why we couldn’t get it started this morning.”

Jen raked both her hands through her hair, forgetting for a moment that she had it up in a clip. Her fingers got tangled. Frowning, she extricated them, then removed the clip. “Do you have any idea how much that is going to cost?”