Champagne Girl

She forced her embarrassed eyes up, but he wasn’t teasing her. He looked faintly kind, for Matt.

“If you want to practice public relations, I’ll put you to work,” he said. “You can publicize my foundation sale month after next.”

“Matt, that’s not a job!”

“It’s a job,” he said firmly. “A lot of work goes into that annual sale, and a lot depends on its being a success. I usually hire an outside agency to handle it, but since you’re here, you can do it. I’ll even let you design the brochure.” He eyed her closely. “That’s a challenge, honey. Show me how capable you are, and I’ll make you a present of an apartment in New York and find you another job to boot. I’ve got some contacts of my own.”

She wavered. It was tempting. Very tempting. And if he hadn’t been trying to bend her to his will, she might have accepted his offer. But he was calling the shots, and if she made a success of the job, he’d probably find some way to make her keep working for him. She’d never get away.

So, he wanted his sale publicized, did he? She smiled faintly. Okay. She’d do it. And in such a way that he’d be more than delighted to send her on her way.

“Okay,” she agreed after a minute, her green eyes sparkling. “I’ll just take that dare.”

“I’ll start you off tomorrow morning. Be at the office eight-thirty sharp,” he replied. “Now you’d better get home and change into something a little more decent, or Betty will come after me with a shotgun.”

“I can just see you now, running for the border,” she returned dryly.

He smiled wickedly. “This far away?” he said with a chuckle. “Hell, no, I’d drive.” He pulled his hat low over his eyes. “Hadn’t you better go home and change?”

She knew when she was defeated. Green eyes glared up at him. “You’re just stifling me,” she ground out. “Smothering me! My gosh, you tie me to the house.

You grill every man I date. You won’t let me go to New York and find my own way in life—Matt, I’m a grown woman,” she said, trying to reason with him. “You’re an old bachelor…!”

His eyebrows lifted as he lit another cigarette. “Honey, I’m just thirty-one.”

“And someday you’ll be fifty-one and all alone, and what will you do then?” she asked haughtily.

He smiled slowly. “I guess I’ll start seducing kids your age.”

She opened her mouth, started to speak, thought better of it and closed her mouth with a snap.

“My, my, the fish aren’t biting today,” he said conversationally. Boldly, his dark eyes wandered slowly down the length of her slender body, assessing her; then suddenly they shot up to catch her eyes. She stared back, and the world narrowed to Matt’s face. Cows bellowed all around and cowboys whistled and called, moving them along, but she no longer noticed them. A wild tingling feeling raced through her body as she studied Matt. Never before had she looked at him so intently.

He touched the cigarette to his chiseled mouth, breaking the spell. “No comeback, Kit?” he murmured dryly.

She sighed. “I can’t fight you,” she muttered. “You just laugh at me.”

“It’s less dangerous than doing what I’d like,” he returned, his dark eyes sparkling.

“Try slinging me over your knee, cattle baron, and I’ll make you a legend in your own time with that brochure you want drawn up,” she threatened.

“No you won’t.” He threw down the cigarette and ground it out. “We’re buddies, remember?”

“We used to be. Then you started being so horrible to me,” she reminded him. She dusted off her stained jodhpurs. “God knows what I’ll tell Mama about the way I look,” she added, giving him a mischievous glance.

“Tell her you tried to seduce me,” he suggested with a wicked grin.

“That’ll be the day,” she said darkly, turning back toward her horse.

“Don’t you think you could?” he teased.

She mounted, feeling odd at the suggestion, and glanced down at him. “Actually,” she told him, “I don’t know how.”

“No experience?” he asked mockingly, but there was a serious note in his deep, drawling voice.

“I’ve been saving myself for you, didn’t you know?”

He laughed softly. “Have you?”

It was new and heady to flirt openly with Matt. She’d never done it before. She wrapped the reins gently around one hand and stilled the nervous little mare, patting her neck as she talked softly to her. Her amused eyes met Matt’s. “Better lock your door at night.”

His dark eyes twinkled with new lights. “I do. I’ve been terrified of you since you graduated from high school.”

“Have you really?” She grinned. “I did notice all the women you gathered around you to protect yourself from me.”

He didn’t smile. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“Your suitors have been conspicuous by their absence the past few months,” he remarked.

She lifted her shoulders. “Jack gave me up in the early summer,” she said. “He was afraid you’d kill him if he tried anything with me. He even said so.”

He looked toward the cowboys, who were starting to drive cattle through a nearby opening in the fence. “I’ve got work to do, honey.”

“Conference over.” She sighed. “You never talk to me.”

He looked up, and something in his black eyes made her nervous. “I may do that—sooner than you think, little Kit.” His gaze grew piercing, searching. “After all, you’re straining at the bonds for the first time. You’ll fly away if I’m not careful.”

“I’m not a bird, you know,” she said pleasantly.

“More of a tadpole,” he murmured.

“You call me a frog again, and I’ll tell Hal and Jerry,” she threatened.

“Tadpole, not frog. Go ahead and tell them,” he challenged, smiling. “Remember me, Kit? I’m the black sheep.”

“Some black sheep. You’re the one with the brains and the strong back,” she had to admit, softening as she looked down at him. His face was creased with harsh lines that neither of his brothers had. It was always Matt who’d had the lion’s share of the responsibility. Hal did what he pleased, and Jerry did what he could, but he didn’t have Matt’s business sense and was intelligent enough to admit it.

“Was I asking for a vote of confidence?” he asked with mock astonishment.

“You never would. But you’ve got mine,” she said with a soft smile.

He seemed to tauten at the softness in her voice. “Risky, Kit, looking at me that way,” he said with a faint smile. “I might go crazy right here.”

“You, go crazy over a woman?” she asked with a laugh. “That’ll be the day. Anyway, it would take someone with experience and pizzazz. I’m just your pesky stepcousin.”

“You’re a beauty, young Catherine,” he returned, and seemed to really mean it. She colored gently at the masculine appreciation in the look he gave her. “Quality, all the way.”

“You’re not bad yourself, cowboy,” she murmured demurely. “I have to go home and change. I thought I’d go see a movie later.”