Texas Rose (11 page)

She'd hoped…

Beth stopped dead as she turned to place her purse on the marble table.

Her note wasn't where she'd left it. Instead, it was on the floor. Beside the blouse she remembered that Rose had been wearing. Which was beside Matt's shirt.

A wide grin graced her lips.

Finally, Beth thought, closing her eyes. Hallelujah! She had begun to give up hope that those two would ever get together again.

Whistling the chorus from “Getting To Know You,” she bent and picked up the two shirts. Her tune changed to “We're Having a Heat Wave,” when she saw Rose's skirt. Picking it up and tucking it on top of the shirts, she felt that this showed real promise.

And then she spied Rose's underwear a short distance away. She began whistling “Love is Lovelier the Second Time Around.”

Humming, Beth scanned the area to see if she could find Matt's trousers or underwear. She didn't. No matter, she decided. They could have very easily been
shed in whichever bedroom they'd wound up in, Rose's or his.

Depositing the clothing she'd gathered on the back of a nearby armchair, Beth made a mental note to find a way to slip the garments into the appropriate rooms in the wee hours of the night.

No sense in embarrassing the lovebirds, she thought. She just wanted them nesting properly.

Or improperly as the case was, she corrected herself. The rectangular mirror in the hallway caught her wide grin and flashed it back at her.

For the evening, her work was done. Content, Beth went off to bed.

O
h, no, not now.

The frantic thought assaulted Rose just as the churning in her stomach rudely yanked her out of the land of misty dreams and warm contentment.

Please not now.
Not when he was here sleeping beside her.

Bunching the sheet beneath her hands, her knuckles all but white, Rose lay in bed, desperately trying to project her mind elsewhere. Or, if not her mind, then at least her stomach.

But the more she tried, the worse it became. Within two minutes of waking, she knew that if she didn't get out of bed and fast, she was going to throw up right here, right now.

That would have been a hell of a spectacle for Matt to wake up to.

Watching him carefully, Rose slid her feet out first. Matt didn't move.

Not wasting time on a sigh of relief, she got up quickly, then padded as silently as she could across the carpet. Rose grabbed the thin cotton robe she had thrown over the back of the footboard the other night.

She pressed her lips together, willing herself not to throw up until she got into the bathroom. Perspiration beaded on her brow and for a moment, it was touch and go, but she made it.

Once there, she shut the door as quietly and quickly as she could and jammed her arms through the sleeves of the robe. The thought occurred to her that if she died here, she didn't want to be found nude.

Rose barely got the robe on before she fell to her knees in front of the commode. Just in time.

This bout, she immediately realized with the first wave that hit, was going to be worse than the others.

She was right. This one felt as if her entire body was being turned inside out.

Tears came to her eyes and her throat felt like raw-hide. Each time she thought she was finished, there was more. And when there wasn't more, her insides still went through the motions until she thought she was just going to die there, clutching the sides of the white porcelain bowl and heaving.

It was a hell of a way to celebrate having a baby.

 

A light, early morning breeze quietly tiptoed into the bedroom, seeking shelter from the hot, humid day that was already forming. It gently skipped along Matt's barely covered torso, stirring him into a state of semiwakefulness.

With a sigh that went miles beyond mere contentment, Matt turned, his eyes still closed, and reached
for Rose. He wanted to gather her to him and to sustain this feeling drifting through him for as long as he possibly could. Last night had been perfect and he intended for it to be the first of many perfect evenings that they would spend together. Feuding families notwithstanding, there was no earthly reason why they couldn't find a way to work things out if they tried hard enough.

The next moment, his eyes opened to confirm what his senses already told him.

She wasn't there.

Disappointed, still a little dazed from sleep, Matt raised his head and looked around the room, wondering why she would slip out of bed without waking him.

When he saw the closed bathroom door, he had his answer.

Sitting back against the pillows, he laced his fingers together behind his head. He planned to be ready for her when Rose slipped back under the covers. Ready and waiting. Just remembering last night was getting him aroused.

The sight of her supple, soft body, the gleam of the sweat created between their two bodies…

The strange muffled noise caught his attention.

Sitting up, Matt listened intently. It was coming from the bathroom. If he didn't know better, he would have said that it sounded as if someone was being sick.

It
was.

Rose?

Worried, Matt swung his legs out of bed and got up quickly. The retching noise continued. Could she have gotten food poisoning last night?

He stopped beside the bathroom door for half a second to consider the thought.

He and Rose had had identical dinners last night, right down to the sparkling cider. He'd wanted something stronger, but when she told him she didn't feel like having wine, he'd gone along with her choice, determined to be in harmony with her all evening. Now that he thought about it, she hadn't had a drop of alcohol at any of the meals they'd had since he'd come to New York. He remembered her saying that she'd read that having a glass of wine at dinner was actually healthy for you. Why had she changed her mind?

And for that matter, he recalled, Rose had barely eaten her dinner. She'd toyed with it and had perhaps no more than a couple of bites. If there was food poisoning involved, he should have been the one to come down with it, not her.

But he didn't feel sick.

On the other hand, if that noise coming from the bathroom was any indication, Rose sounded utterly miserable. He wondered if he should go get Beth.

Doubling back to the bed, he picked up the trousers he'd shed last night. Foregoing any underwear for the
time being, Matt pulled his pants on and tugged the zipper up as he crossed back to the bathroom door.

He knocked lightly. Abruptly, the noise stopped. Matt leaned against the door. What was going on? “Rose, are you all right?”

Oh, God, Rose thought, he'd heard her.

Thoroughly miserable, Rose covered her mouth to hold back the squeal of distress.

“Fine,” she managed to call as she dragged herself up to her wobbly feet.

As quickly and quietly as she could, she turned on the water and then cupped her hands together beneath the faucet. Rose took a quick drink of the water that pooled into her joined palms. Swishing the water around, she spat it out again.

Her mouth felt terrible, as did the rest of her. But at least she'd stopped throwing up. For today.

He frowned. “You don't sound fine. Was it last night's dinner?”

“Yes.” She wiped her face, clutching at the excuse. “I guess so. I mean, well…” she couldn't force herself to elaborate. “Maybe.”

The next minute Matt opened the door. Beads of perspiration had plastered her hair to her forehead. Just like last night, he recalled. But last night she hadn't looked this miserable, despite the brave smile she was trying to put on now.

For a second he just stood there, not certain if he was encroaching on her space. He knew that when
ever he was sick, he just wanted to be left alone. But he couldn't just walk out on her.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shook her head. Slowly. Afraid of beginning the process all over again.

“No, not unless you'd like to throw up for me.” She flashed him as bright a smile as she could muster under the circumstances. “I'm okay now. Really.”

He touched her forehead to see if it was warm. It wasn't, but it was certainly damp. And her cheeks were flushed again.

Just the way they had been when she'd fainted last week.

The scene nagged at him. As did the question Sister Mary Katherine had asked him when she'd first seen Rose slumped in his arms at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Rose pulled her head back from his hand. “I'm all right,” she insisted.

And then she saw the look in his eyes. It was a strange look, as if he was seeing her for the first time. It made her uneasy and she debated pretending not to notice. But she couldn't just ignore the question in his eyes. She'd resolved to meet life head-on, and Matt was part of life.

“What?” she said.

Matt felt foolish asking, but he knew it wouldn't give him any peace until he put it to rest. Amid the uneasiness was an apprehensiveness, as well. What
she would say in reply could very well change his life.

Both their lives.

Matt forced the words out before he thought better of it. “Rose, are you pregnant?”

She went deathly pale. He'd asked the one question she'd feared ever since she'd seen him standing on her aunt's doorstep. She couldn't lie, but she couldn't tell him the truth, either.

She stalled. “What makes you ask something like that?”

Rose hadn't hotly denied his question. If she wasn't pregnant, she would have. He had his answer. It wasn't an answer he wanted or knew what to do with.

But she looks so thin,
his mind protested. He'd touched her, ran his hands all along her body last night. She didn't seem any different than she had back home, except perhaps to be even more amorous. She couldn't possibly be pregnant.

Could she?

“You are pregnant, aren't you?”

It wasn't in Rose to lie. Evade, yes, for dear life the way she had her father's questions, but not lie outright. She never had, to anyone, least of all to someone who meant so much to her. If her father had asked her if Matt Carson was the father of her baby, she would have had no choice but to say yes.

Just as she had no choice here.

But you lied to him when you told him you wanted
to go your own way,
a small voice inside her head insisted.
You didn't want to, you had to.
And that, she knew, had been her way out. Semantics.

There were no semantics to play with here. Only a direct question, a direct assumption.

Squaring her shoulders, Rose looked at Matt, the unwitting father of her baby. She was a soldier facing the enemy. “Yes, I am.”

Despite the fact that he thought he knew her answer, when she gave it, it hit him right in the gut like an exploding torpedo.

“Why didn't you say something?” he demanded, the numbness giving way to anger.

She didn't like the tone he was taking. He made it sound as if she owed him daily reports on her activities. “That's obvious,” she retorted. “Because I didn't want you to know.”

There was only one reason for that as far as he could see. And it hurt more than that time he'd been thrown from his horse and had cracked three ribs.

“Whose is it?” he asked heatedly.

Her eyes widened so much that they hurt. How
could
he? “What?”

He was so angry, he didn't hear the dangerous note in her voice. Didn't see anything but what he took to be his own betrayal. “I want to know, Rose. I have a right to know.” It took all he had for him not to grab her by her shoulders and shake her. “Who's the baby's father?”

Now he sounded just like her father. Except that her father hadn't all but blatantly accused her of being an unfaithful little whore. But that was exactly what Matt was saying to her.

She felt a flash of fury rise up in her breasts. “How dare you ask me that?”

“How dare I?” he thundered. “How dare I? I'll tell you how dare I. I ‘dare' because I'm the poor, dumb fool who came all the way out here to talk you into coming back with him.” The hurt was so bad it threatened to choke him completely. He couldn't think straight. “Because I'm the idiot who fell for a Wainwright when I should have known better.”

It was the final blow. She thought the feud was absurd, but no one, not even Matt, was going to throw rocks at her family.

“‘The idiot who fell for a Wainwright'?” she echoed. “You make it sound as if being a Wainwright is only second to having leprosy,” Rose shouted at him. “Is that how you feel?”

He knew he'd made a mistake, knew he should apologize, but he was too hurt, too stunned to make amends. “I don't know what the hell I feel anymore.”

“Well, I do. I feel angry. Damn angry that I wasted any time thinking about you, worrying about you—” Worrying about the way knowing that she was going to have his baby would affect him.

“Worrying about me?” He scowled at her. Now
what was she talking about? “Why the hell would you be worrying about me?”

She grasped the ends of her robe and tied them together. “Because I'm the idiot here, not you, that's why.” She wasn't about to explain anything to him, not when he took that tone with her, not when he thought what he thought. Marching out of the bathroom, she pointed toward her bedroom door. “Now get the hell out of here. I mean it. Now!”

He wasn't about to go anywhere, not until he found out what he needed to know. “Not before you tell me the name of the snake I'm supposed to kill for crawling into your bed and making love to my woman.”

Her mouth fell open. Now he was talking about her as if she were some kind of a possession, to be locked away with his precious rifles and the other inanimate objects that he collected.

“Your woman? Since when was I ever ‘your' woman? All you ever said was that what we had between us was casual, that it was just a fling.”

Those were the words that echoed in her head as she'd packed up to leave Mission Creek. You didn't burden a man who wanted no ties with the advent of a baby. Not unless you wanted to imprison both of you.

He snorted. “Well, you sure took me at my word, didn't you?”

Her chin shot up defiantly. “The word of a liar,” she jeered. “Yes, I guess I did at that.”

He wanted to take her and shake her. Wanted to press her to him and to demand to know why she was so bent on breaking his heart.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't make himself weak in her eyes and let her see that he still loved her even after she'd gone to someone else's bed.

The best thing would be if he just walked out of her room now and kept on walking. But he couldn't. Not while this fury raged through him.

Unable to help himself, Matt caught her by the shoulders, struggling not to give her at least one good shake. “Tell me who the bastard is and I'll cut his heart out and give it to you on a platter.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. For two cents she'd spit the answer at him. But she knew he'd given her the way out. If she still wanted it. If he believed that the baby belonged to someone else, he'd leave. They'd never see each other again and that would be the end of it. Just as she'd originally planned.

So why the hell did it hurt worse than if someone had just put a red-hot poker against her heart?

“You have no right to talk to me like that, no right to question me. Now get the hell out of my room!” she ordered. When he didn't move, she smacked the flat of her hand against his chest and pushed him through the door.