Texas Rose (13 page)

His impatience grew to almost unmanageable proportions. “Well, come on, aren't you going to open it?”

She recognized the box. Beth had shown it to her once. She'd offered to have the ring made over for her then, but Rose had declined.

“I don't have to open it. It's Aunt Beth's third engagement ring.” There were two rings ahead of that one. There was the ring from her first husband, and one from someone named Hal, who'd died before they could get married. “Why do you want me to look at Aunt Beth's third engagement ring?”

“I don't want you to look at it. I want you to wear it.”

That made it worse. “Why do you want me to wear Aunt Beth's third engagement ring?”

She made it sound like an open-ended series. “It's not Beth's. Technically, it's mine if I want it. She offered to give it to me.”

Rose knew where Matt was going with this and she didn't want him to get there. “Congratulations. I hope the two of you are very happy together. I wish you both the best of luck.”

“Damn it, Rose.” He realized he'd raised his voice
and people at the nearby table were staring at him. Matt lowered his tone, though it took effort to keep it under control. She exasperated him faster than anyone ever had. “I don't want to get engaged to your aunt Beth. I'm trying to get engaged to you.”

Damn it, he'd said it. Said what she'd wanted to hear. What she couldn't say yes to. “Then I suggest you get yourself another hobby, Matt, because this isn't going to happen.”

Why was she being so damn stubborn about this? He had every right to be angry at her, yet she was acting as if this was somehow all his fault. “Rose, the baby needs a last name.”

She pulled herself up. “It'll have a last name. It'll be a Wainwright.”

“It can also be a Carson.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. “Damn it, Rose, I'm trying to protect you.”

“Well, don't bother. I can protect myself.”

“Like you did about this baby.”

Hurt, angry, her eyes grew to small, angry slits. “That wasn't fair.”

He realized his mistake the moment he'd said the words. “I didn't mean that.”

“Didn't you?” Hurt, she had half a mind to hurl the ring, box and all at him, but it was Beth's, so she left it where it was. She blew out a breath. “I might have guessed you'd be a throwback.”

Now what was she talking about? he asked himself. “What do you mean by that?”

“This is the twenty-first century.” Not wanting to be the main floor show, Rose leaned over the table, her voice low, her anger barely suppressed. “Women have babies without husbands all the time. I'm not going to take your pity, or your guilt, or your inverted sense of what's right and wrong in this world. I can stand on my own without you or anyone else. Coming out here was proof of that.”

It had taken courage to temporarily sever ties with the people she had always turned to in times of stress and unhappiness. She'd opted to shield them—and this big dumb jerk in front of her, as well.

She had to be crazy, she decided. There was no other explanation for it.

“You've got Aunt Beth,” he pointed out. “That doesn't strike me as very independent.”

She was almost at the breaking point. “Are you deliberately trying to pick a fight with me?”

“No, I'm deliberately trying to get engaged to you.” He was asking her to marry him. What was so terrible about that? What was she so angry about? Didn't she realize what he was risking with this proposal? His family would be furious with him, yet he was risking their wrath for her. What more did the woman need? “Rose, I'm giving it my best shot.”

He made it sound like some kind of test he had to
pass, some nebulous contest as in the
Odyssey.
Rose had enough.

She got up from the table. “All right, you gave it your best shot. And you missed the target. By a hell of a country mile. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to get a cab and go to my co-dependent home.”

He had no idea what the hell she was babbling about, only that the streets were dangerous. “It's late.”

“Beauty and brains, too. You are a catch,” she said sarcastically. “For someone else, not me.”

He caught her hand as she turned away. “Why? Why not you? You made love with me last night.”

She flushed as a passing waiter glanced first at her, then at Matt and smiled his approval. “That didn't mean anything,” she said.

“It felt like it meant something,” Matt insisted.

It felt as if it had meant something to her, too, but she wasn't about to say that. It would give him too much leverage, and he had far too much as it was.

Abruptly pushing him away from her, she turned on her heel and hurried around the circumference of the wrought iron fence. Skirting a party of five that had picked this moment to come in, she made her way out the gate.

Quickly, she ran down the block. Suddenly drained, she looked around for a cab. She couldn't encourage Matt, couldn't let him do the honorable thing. Not just to give the baby a name. There had to be more
to it than that, more to make a good marriage that would be facing so many obstacles. The only way she was ever going to say yes to him would be if he told her he loved her. Really loved her. Because with love, all things were possible.

But he was doing the “honorable” thing. She'd heard him say so as much to Beth. The word love hadn't entered into the conversation and she wasn't about to commit her soul to a man who didn't love her.

Caught off guard by her sudden escape, Matt quickly dug into his pocket and peeled out several bills to cover the drinks. Tossing the money onto the table, he debated following Rose's path, but that would put him behind. He needed to catch her before she could get a cab.

“Excuse me,” he said to the person blocking his way. Physically moving the woman aside, Matt hopped over the fence.

Catching up to Rose in several strides, he grabbed her arm before she could get away again.

“What the hell's gotten into you?” he demanded.

She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “That's none of your business.”

A cab pulled up almost at their feet. The driver stuck out his head. “He bothering you, ma'am?”

Matt cut her off before she had a chance to say anything or to get into the cab without him. “No, it's
just a friendly misunderstanding. Thanks for asking, but no one's bothering her.”

But she was certainly bothering him, Matt thought, wrapping his hand around the ring box that was now back in his pocket.

S
he wanted to get away from him. Needed to get away from him.

Get away before she weakened and accepted the proposal for all the wrong reasons. Because there was part of her that was afraid to face having this baby alone. Because he
was
the baby's father and a baby should have his or her father close by. But most of all, because she didn't want to face each day of the rest of her life without him beside her.

But those were all cowardly reasons, driven by cowardly feelings, and she was a Wainwright. Wainwrights weren't cowards. She had her pride.

That and an enormous knot in her stomach.

Without warning, Rose suddenly yanked open the rear door of the cab and jumped in, slamming it behind her. She leaned forward in her seat.

“Fifty-ninth and Central Park West,” she told the driver. “Quick.”

“You got it.”

But before the driver could step on the gas and peel away from the sidewalk in true getaway style, Matt opened the door and got into the cab with her. The
driver's foot hit the brake again, rocking the vehicle. His Yankees cap pulled down low over his long, flowing gray hair, he twisted around in his seat.

He eyed Matt. “Lady, I ain't going anywhere unless you want me to.”

Rose looked accusingly at Matt. But she knew he'd only find another cab and follow her back to Beth's apartment. After all, his clothes were still there. But not for long.

With effort, she let her anger abate. “It's all right.”

“You sure?” the driver pressed. “He ain't holding a gun on you or nothing, is he?”

Matt was just about at the end of his patience, his temper threatening to erupt. “Look, fella, butt out. All I did was ask her to marry me.”

The driver had turned back to the road. Hands poised on the wheel, the cabbie glanced at Matt in the rearview mirror. “Well, maybe she doesn't want to marry you. You ever think of that?”

Rose sighed and shook her head, moving over as far against the opposite door as possible. She looked at Matt and did what she thought she'd never do. She lied. “I don't.”

The driver laughed under his breath. “Well, that settles it, don't it? No means no around here, buddy. You're outta luck.”

Matt didn't need this. For two cents, he thought angrily, he'd get out of the cab and walk back to Beth's. Or all the way home to Texas. But then he'd
be no better off than before and it would settle nothing.

Ignoring the annoying man in the front seat, Matt looked at her.

“Why not, Rose? You love me,” he insisted. “I know you love me.” He wasn't sure about many things in the world, but he was sure about that. The sun came up in the morning and Rose loved him. He could see it in her eyes, just like Beth had said. He could taste it in her kiss, feel it in the way she gave herself to him. In the way she took his heart.

“Hey, it's pretty clear that she doesn't,” the cabbie retorted.

“Will you shut up and just drive?” Matt ordered, sending a scathing look the driver's way before he turned to her again. “Rose?”

He was telling her he knew she loved him. How pathetic did that make her seem? Rose thought. He knew, and yet he still made no mention of his own feelings for her. That made it crystal clear just what his feelings were. Nonexistent, except for some cock-eyed notion about honor.

She shifted until her body was facing his. She looked like a warrior about to go into battle.

“Oh, you know I love you, do you? Well, maybe he's right—” she pointed to the driver “—maybe I don't. Maybe it was just what I said it was—nothing more than a passing fling that we got caught up in.”

Stopped at a red light, the driver craned his neck to look at them. “You tell 'im, girl.”

Matt glared at the driver, his silent warning clear, then he looked back at Rose. “I didn't think you were that kind of a girl.”

She was tired of being dictated to, tired of having other people think they knew what was best for her without asking. Even Aunt Beth was guilty of that. Indignant, she pulled herself up.

“Woman,” she corrected heatedly. “I'm not a girl. I'm a woman, Matt, and maybe you don't know me at all.”

Matt's mouth dropped open. He gestured toward the infuriating driver. “He just called you a girl and you didn't bite his head off.”

She was breathing hard, her anger at a fever pitch. She was struggling to hold back tears. “He's not the one making assumptions.”

The cab had stopped moving. “If anybody's interested, we're here,” the driver announced.

Reaching into her purse, Rose pulled out a ten and held it out to the driver as she started to exit.

Another emasculating maneuver on her part, Matt thought. The woman was full of them. “Oh, no, you don't. You're not paying for me. I rode in this cab and I'm paying for it.”

But Rose had already bolted, leaving the driver with the money.

The cabbie shook his head, looking at Matt with
something akin to pity in his eyes. “Mister, you've got a hell of a long way to go in figuring out what women want.” Obligingly, the driver allowed him to change the first ten-dollar bill with a second. As if that somehow made a difference in the scheme of things. “You gotta sweet talk 'em if you want to get anywhere.”

Now he was getting advice on his love life from a cabdriver who smelled of some strange exotic spice with every word he uttered. Matt wondered if he could sink any lower in this city.

“Thanks,” Matt snapped over his shoulder coldly, hurrying out of the cab and after Rose.

He caught up to her within the building just as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor.

“Here's your money.” He thrust the bill at her as an elderly couple got out of the elevator.

Rose nodded in greeting and entered the elevator. She jabbed the button for the twentieth floor, praying the doors would snap shut like a steel trap.

But Matt thrust his arm in and stopped the doors from closing. As they bounced back, he got in beside her.

For the moment, they were alone.

“Look, I've put up with insults and with a cabdriver who thinks he's Dear Abby. That's got to stand for something.” He bit back his exasperation. “Now why won't you marry me?”

Why wouldn't he just accept her answer and back
off? Why was he making this so hard for her? If he didn't stop badgering her, she was going to give in and that would be disastrous for all of them—her, him and the baby that was to be.

“For openers,” Rose retorted, “a marriage between a Carson and a Wainwright is doomed from the start, or have you forgotten that?”

“No, I haven't forgotten that, but I figure we'll handle it.” The elevator stopped on the tenth floor. A couple was about to get in, but he put out his hand, stopping them. He pressed the button for the doors to close again. “Sorry, folks, private car. Another one'll be right along.” He turned his attention back to Rose as if he'd never interrupted himself. “Just like we'll handle having this baby when he or she comes along.”

She felt her stomach lurching as they arrived on Beth's floor. Rose didn't know if it was the baby protesting, or if Matt had gotten her so agitated that her stomach was churning.

“You're not handling anything because you don't figure into this.” The doors opened and she stormed off the elevator without looking back.

Matt was right behind her. There was no way he was going to allow this argument to be over until he won. “The hell I don't.”

Incensed, Rose stabbed the key into the lock, turning it until the door opened. Matt wasn't backing off and she needed reinforcements.

“Aunt Beth,” she called loudly, looking around. “We're home.” Her heart sank. There was no answer. Wasn't that woman ever home, she thought in exasperation. “Aunt Beth!” But there was still nothing.

Matt looked at her triumphantly. He knew what she was up to. “Looks like she's not here to help you.”

“Help me?” Rose hated being transparent. “I don't need any help.” She turned away from him.

Matt jumped in front of her. “Then why are you always running away?”

That got to her, as he'd known it would.

“I am
not
running away.”

But he knew better. He indicated the apartment and what it represented. “What do you call this?”

Her eyes narrowed. Where did he get off challenging her this way? “Staying away from a crazy person. Can't you get it through your head? I never want to see you again.”

The words slammed into him with the strength of a depth charge. He stood his ground and took it, then looked at her. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes.” She couldn't bear the sadness she saw suddenly come into his eyes. “No.” At her wit's end, Rose threw up her hands and turned away again. “I don't know what I mean.”

That was all he needed to hear. Matt came up behind her, whispering against her hair. “You're too
confused to make up your own mind. Let me make it up for you.”

She twisted around to face him and found herself looking up into his eyes. Scant inches away from his lips. The fight suddenly leeched out of her. “Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“Yes.” His mouth was suddenly closer to her than her own thoughts. “I would.”

It was, she realized, the beginning of the end.

The next moment Matt was kissing her. Kissing her utterly senseless. The moment his mouth came down on hers, all the pent-up emotions, the barely contained fire she was feeling inside, ignited, exploding within her.

She realized how futile it was for her to keep Matt at arm's length when all she really wanted was to enfold him in those same arms.

It was a mess, a royal mess, and she had no idea how to straighten things out.

Even when she'd said the words to send him away, she knew she was lying, knew when Matt pressed her about it that she just couldn't maintain the lie, not even for his own good.

More than anything, she didn't want him to go. She wanted him to stay. To stay and be her hero, her knight in shining armor.

Her baby's father.

With a sigh that echoed of pure surrender, Rose wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back
for all she was worth, putting her soul into it, because her heart was already there.

Matt wanted to make love to her right here, in the foyer. But instead of undressing Rose the way he desperately yearned to, the way he had the first time they'd made love in Beth's apartment, Matt picked Rose up in his arms and started to walk down the hall.

Even as she settled into his arms, Rose looked at him, confused.

He couldn't resist pressing one kiss to her forehead. How had this happened? How had he lost his heart so completely when he wasn't looking?

“We don't know when Beth's coming back,” he pointed out, “and I don't want her surprising us.”

“Why?” Her mouth curved and he could swear she looked seductive and mischievous at the same time. “What are ‘us' going to be doing?”

He shouldered open the door to her bedroom, then, still holding her, closed it with his back.

“Exactly what we want to be doing.”

He set her down slowly, so that the length of her body slid along his, arousing him even more than he already was. Like a flash fire, desire flared in his veins.

“Baby, all I've thought about is making love with you. Night and day, day and night, looking at those silly paintings in the Metropolis—”

“Metropolitan Museum of Art,” she corrected, unable to hold back her grin.

“Whatever. Even when you led me through all those dinosaur bones,” he continued, “all I could think of was getting you alone and loving you.”

“You mean making love with me.”

He figured it was the librarian in her that caused Rose to correct him. But this time, she wasn't entirely right. “That, too.”

She cocked her head, looking at him. “What do you mean, ‘that, too'?”

He didn't want to talk, he wanted to make love with her. Until he couldn't drag a breath into his tired, used-up body.

“Woman, how many ways do you want me to spell it out to you?”

Now he had really lost her, although she knew what she wanted him to mean. But he probably didn't and Rose refused to allow herself to get carried away.

“The traditional way would be nice,” she coaxed. “With your mouth.”

He sighed, shaking his head. The woman required a great deal of patience. But in the long run, he knew she was worth it. Worth everything. “That's what I've been doing.”

He leaned forward to kiss her, but she put her fingers to his lips, stopping him. “I meant words.”

He backed off for a moment, his eyes searching her face. “Do you need them?”

She nodded her head solemnly. “Yes.” Maybe it was weak of her, but she did. She needed to hear them said, at least once. She could only go so far on faith, on supposition.

“Then you've got them,” he said with resignation. “I love you.” Having said them, he said them again. And more. “I love you so much that it hurts to breathe sometimes.” He caressed her face, cupped her cheek. Brought her mouth closer to his. “That it hurts to be in a room where you're not. That when I found out that you'd taken off, something inside of me felt like it was shriveling up and dying.” He swallowed, having surprised even himself with the feeling behind his words. Slowly he released a breath, then asked, “There, are you satisfied?”

The corners of her mouth dimpled. “Almost.”

“Almost?” he echoed. “Hell, woman, what's it going to take?”

On her toes, she wound her arms around his neck, her body tempting his. “Show me.”

Matt laughed. This was more like it.

“That's what I've been trying to do all along,” he said. Leaning over, he softly kissed her neck, sending such shock waves through her that she didn't realize he was undoing the knot at the back of her neck until the halter top sighed down to her waist.