Texas Rose (7 page)

The mention of food, any food, sounded gross. Rose pressed her lips together, sternly telling her stomach to stop lurching.

“Only if you want to see me juggle them.” Rose did her best to sound cheerful instead of ominously nauseated.

But Beth insisted, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

What was Beth doing? Rose thought in horror. Her aunt knew about her morning sickness.

“I never eat breakfast,” Rose told her adamantly. “It slows me down.”

“Can't have that,” Matt agreed.

He wanted Rose in the best frame of mind today. Day One of his plan to win her back. Matt took Rose's hand, but she twisted her fingers out of them.

“I'll be your guide, Matt,” she said, “but we need to set a few ground rules. Ground Rule Number One—no touching.”

After talking to Beth last night, he'd made up his mind that he was going to have to be extremely patient. “What if the bus is crowded?”

“We'll be taking cabs. You'll sit on your side, I'll sit on mine.” Rose heard him sigh and raised her eyes to his face. “It's the only way.”

Matt nodded his head, appearing resigned to the edict, convinced in his heart that he could make her forget about it quickly enough. The woman who'd kissed him on the terrace last night was not going to
be able to indefinitely maintain the barriers that were being reconstructed this morning.

“If that's the way it's gotta be, that's the way it's gotta be.”

Matt turned to retrieve his Stetson from the coffee table in the living room where he'd left it last night, and caught Beth's eye. He winked at her, and Beth smiled conspiratorially.

They were cooking up something, Rose thought. Well, two could play at this game. And she had more at stake than he did because she was playing for two.

Picking up her purse from the hall table, she looked at Matt. “Where do you want to go first?”

Busy studying the curve of her legs, he was temporarily brought up short.

“I suggested you take him to the top of the Empire State Building,” Beth interjected. “It's a fantastic view and that's where King Kong took Fay Wray.”

“On their last outing together, if I remember correctly,” Rose interjected. “They broke up right after that.”

Matt vaguely remembered seeing the original version as a little boy. He looked from one woman to the other. “I'm a little slow here. Am I being called a beast?”

Rose could feel a smile struggling to gain space on her lips, despite her resolve to remain aloof and distant. “I never said a word.”

Wedging herself between them, Beth threaded an
arm through each of theirs as she escorted them to the front door.

“And after that,” she continued, “you could go to an art museum. It's an exciting way to spend the afternoon,” she told Matt, “looking at all those paintings by artists who opted to live out their dreams through their choice of paint, putting their passion into their work.” She looked at Rose pointedly.

Rose met her head-on. “Are you trying to tell me something, Aunt Beth?”

Beth's face became a testimony to sheer innocence. “Only to enjoy every moment of life that you can. You'll never have this minute again.”

Rose slanted her eyes toward Matt. “There's something to be said for that.”

“If you're trying to hurt my feelings, I've got a tough hide.” Now that his mind was made up, she would have to do a lot better than that to make him back off and go home.

The comment broadened the playing field for the smile Rose was having no success at blocking. As she remembered it, his hide wasn't all that tough. It was hard, and strong, with contoured muscles he'd earned while putting in twelve-hour days in the saddle, but it definitely wasn't tough. Not to the touch.

Abruptly, she stopped and upbraided herself for letting her mind wander.

“Have fun, you two,” Beth said, all but pushing them out the door.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he whispered against Rose's ear as they walked out.

His breath wound its way into her senses as it caressed the delicate skin along her neck.

It was best all around if he hadn't a clue as to what she was thinking, Rose thought. Actually, it was best if she wasn't thinking at all.

They got into the elevator and as Matt reached out to push the button for the ground floor, his hand brushed her breast. Rose backed away as if he'd burned her.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking as if it had been a genuine accident on his part rather than anything he might have calculated.

She shrugged as if it was okay. But it wasn't.

It was hard not to remember everything she had felt for Matt while standing beside him in a small box swiftly making its way down twenty floors to the lobby.

Especially since she was still feeling it.

T
he moment they stepped onto the street, they were engulfed in a sea of people.

It wasn't difficult for Matt to imagine how a person could very easily be swept away. Scanning both sides of the street, he noted hordes of cars cluttering the roads and packs of people on corners either waiting for the lights to change or pushing their way across to the other side, fighting both pedestrians and vehicles trying to make turns.

He'd never seen so much life stuffed into such a small area—and that included corrals at branding time.

Because he was unaccustomed to the noise level, Matt leaned his head in closer to Rose.

“How many people did you say this city has?”

She shifted slightly, not wanting to be distracted by his breath along her skin. She was aware enough of him as it was.

“I didn't,” she pointed out. She looked around, debating her first step. “About eight million, I think.”

“Are they all out on the street right now?”

Last night when his plane had finally landed at
JFK, he'd been focused on finding Beth's apartment and had noticed very little of anything else. He'd made his way out of the terminal to find a fleet of cabs waiting for his selection and ultimate direction. Taking the first vehicle at the curb, Matt had given the driver Beth's address, which he'd obtained through no small pains, and been dropped off at her apartment building.

There could have been a flock of penguins dressed in eighteenth-century regalia standing in the lobby and he probably wouldn't have noticed them. Rehearsing what he'd say and trying to keep his feelings under wraps had left little space in his brain for noticing anything.

Now, however, the amount of teeming humanity that crowded the streets of New York at any one time was beginning to sink in.

“No,” Rose answered, straight-faced. “They're not all out now.”

And then she laughed, remembering her own first reaction to the city. Ten years old, she'd been dumb-struck by the wonder of it all. It had been summer then, too. But somehow the mugginess of it hadn't registered. It was the summer that Aunt Beth had returned to Mission Creek for a visit.

Before she'd left, she'd offered to take one of them to New York with her for a month. Susan had been too young and Justin had had no interest in the city.
She'd been the only one who'd been curious enough to volunteer.

It had been like a trip into wonderland. Beth had taken her to the theater, to the museums and the Village, ensuring she experienced all the culture that New York had to offer. She smiled at the memory.

“What?” Matt liked to watch the way her smile claimed all of her, like sunshine creeping over the darkened land at daybreak.

“I'm just remembering my first time here. There were so many different languages, so many different-looking people, I thought I'd been dropped in the middle of a foreign country. I guess it can be pretty overwhelming,” she agreed.

That's putting it mildly, he thought. His eyes narrowed as Matt looked in the distance. The block was sloped just enough for him to note a huge cluster of people shoving slowly forward along the sidewalk. “Is there some kind of parade today?”

She had no idea what he was talking about. “Not in the middle of July.”

“Then what's that?” He pointed toward the sidewalk crowd several streets away.

Rose could barely make out the subway entrance at the end of the block. “Just people going to work.”

“Oh.” It looked like the beginning of some kind of mass movement to him, but she knew better. “If you say so.”

Turning to look at the building they'd just exited, Matt took in the adjacent skyscrapers.

He shook his head. The only kind of skyscrapers he liked were mountain ranges. “Kind of dwarfs a man,” he muttered.

Rose looked up at the building and then at him. One side of her mouth curved slightly. “I'd imagine it takes more than a few buildings to dwarf you.”

Her comment, offered so casually, surprised him. He could feel a warmth spreading slowly within his chest. Maybe coming here hadn't been a fool's errand, after all. Maybe Beth was right, there was hope.

“Thanks.”

Rose shrugged, realizing her error too late. She had to be careful or he'd figure out that she was only pretending to not care about him. “Just calling it the way it is.”

If she felt that way, he didn't understand her behavior. “Then why—”

Way ahead of him, Rose put her finger to his lips before he could say anything further.

“Rule Number Two,” she announced. “The only way this is going to work is if we don't talk about certain things. Like the recent past.” Realizing she was far too close to his lips for her own comfort, Rose let her finger slip down. “Let's just enjoy the day, all right?”

Damn, did she know how much control he was exhibiting by not just sweeping her into his arms and
kissing her hard, right here, until they were both senseless? But somehow, he managed to keep up the charade.

“All right, but you just broke Rule Number One.” When she looked at him quizzically, Matt elaborated. “No touching, remember?”

She knew she was only encouraging him, but she couldn't seem to hold the amused smile back from her lips. “That rule was for you, not me.”

“Oh.” He pretended to think it over for a moment. “Doesn't seem very fair.”

“No,” she said more to herself than to him. “Lots of things aren't.”

But she couldn't dwell on that, couldn't dwell on the unfairness that separated her from him, that would ultimately separate their baby from him. With a surge of determination, she roused herself.

“All right, Aunt Beth said we should start with the Empire State Building. Let's get a cab. Although…” Her voice trailed off as she looked out on the street and saw myriad cars, all moving slowly, all honking. There were more than a smattering of cabs sprinkled through the mix. They weren't moving any faster than the rest of the traffic. “We might make better time if we just walk.”

Gauging the speed of the vehicles, Matt mused silently, they could probably make better time shuffling all the way. He hooked his arm through hers.

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

Her first instinct was to leave her arm just exactly where it was, pressed against his side as they began to weave their way through the sea of humanity. But self-preservation dictated that she had to disentangle herself if she was to maintain a shred of the boundaries she was trying to impose on both of them.

“Rule One,” she reminded Matt as she slipped her arm out.

He inclined his head, telling himself to be patient. Patience won a man everything.

“Rule Number One,” he murmured, letting his hand drop to his side.

Relieved, Rose flashed him a smile as she took the lead.

 

“Hell of a view,” Matt was forced to agree. They were standing on the outdoor observation deck on the eighty-fifth floor of the Empire State Building. He'd expected that there would be a breeze, relief from the insufferable heat that was plaguing the city, but the humidity was just as intense here as anywhere else. “If you like looking at other buildings.”

“It's even better if you look through one of these,” Rose said, pointing to one of the many silver telescopes placed equidistantly along the deck. “For a dollar you can get a close-up of a breathtaking view.”

“I'm looking at one now, and I didn't even have to pay anything.”

He had the prettiest tongue when he wanted to.
Rose could feel a blush bubbling within her veins a split second before it began to slowly slip over her.

She had to be a prize idiot, she thought, blushing at a compliment from Matt Carson. The man had seen her nude, for heaven's sake. Why was she blushing like some silly adolescent schoolgirl looking up at her very first crush?

But this was a new twist for him. Matt had never been that complimentary before, she recalled.

She kept her face forward, wishing there was some sort of cool breeze stirring instead of these waves of heat that were assaulting her.

“Has Aunt Beth been coaching you?” she asked nonchalantly.

He shook his head as if he and Beth hadn't had a little heart-to-heart close to midnight last night. “Only about where we should go in the city. Why?”

She lifted a single shoulder. “No reason. That just didn't sound like anything you'd say on your own, that's all.”

The hot wind stirred a few tendrils loose about her face. He lightly tucked in one strand, then, at her raised brow, backed away. He wondered how much longer he was going to have to endure this penance.

“Maybe I've learned a few things since you walked out on me.”

She hated the way that sounded, hated the way that made her seem. It was supposed to have been a mutual dissolution. “I didn't walk out on you.”

“Okay,” he said agreeably. “Run out, then.” Which, in his opinion, was more like the truth. She'd run out, all right. Run out wearing high heels that she'd figuratively used to stomp all over his heart.

She shifted over to a scant bit of shade from an overhang.

“I didn't do that, either,” she insisted firmly. “It was a mutual agreement.”

She had been very careful to make it seem as if he'd wanted it to be over, too, although she suspected in his case wounded pride had prompted it.

That was a load of horse manure, Matt thought, and she knew it. “For it to be mutual, both of us had to be of like mind. As I recall—”

She looked at him sharply. “Rule Number Two.”

Matt sighed. He was going to have to work at holding on to his temper. There wasn't anything to be gained by forcing the issue. Not yet.

“Right.”

Walking by her, he approached a telescope and dug into his pocket, looking for a dollar's worth of change. He dropped the coins in the slot. A clink announced that the shield from the viewfinder had been lifted. Bending over, he looked through it.

“There's a pigeon walking around on the roof down there,” he observed, then glanced up at Rose. She'd moved closer to him, he noticed. “Hardly seems worth it, paying a dollar to see a pigeon when
I could see them wandering through the garbage on the street for free.”

She inclined her head, as if seeing the merit in his argument. “But this is a pigeon as seen from the observation deck of the Empire State Building.” A smile entered her eyes as she regarded him. There were parts of him that were so like a boy, she thought. “It's all in your perspective.”

His eyes held hers for a moment. “Yes, I guess it is.”

Flustered, Rose stubbornly attributed the feeling more to a hormonal imbalance than what Matt was saying to her.

Or the way he was looking at her.

That, and the heat, which was becoming utterly unbearable. Though she knew it was useless, she began to fan herself with the information booklet Matt had picked up.

The light clothes she had on were sticking to her as if she'd bathed in honey. The sun was beating down unmercifully and at this height, it felt as if it was waging a personal vendetta against her. She looked at Matt.

“Maybe we'd better find something a little cooler to do.”

“Not possible,” he replied, backing away from the telescope. He looked down at her face. “Not while I'm anywhere near you.”

Damn, why did he have to say such nice things? It
was hard enough not to want him when he kept his mouth shut, but when he talked like that….

“Matt—”

He raised a brow. “Going to make up a new rule? Because I didn't break one or two. I didn't touch you and I didn't say anything about you leaving me.”

The look in his eyes raked across her heart. “Maybe this was a bad idea.” Turning on her heel, she began to march toward the exit and the elevators just beyond.

Moving quickly, Matt managed to get in front of her. He raised his hands as he did so.

“Look, Ma, no hands.” And then he sobered just a little. “Sorry, Rose, I'll behave.” He looked at her soulfully. “I promise.”

Rose sighed, knowing she was crazy for doing this. But she couldn't seem to help herself, not where Matt was concerned. He'd be gone again soon enough, she thought. One way or another.

“All right,” she conceded. “Let's go see St. Patrick's Cathedral.” He'd have to be on his best behavior there, she reasoned.

 

Because of near-traffic gridlock and the fact that she didn't relish the thought of going underground to the subways on a day like today, they walked from the Empire State Building on 34th Street to St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue and 50th Street.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't have been that much of a
walk for Rose. She'd done it lots of times handily. But she'd never been in the early stages of pregnancy before, and the merciless heat was working against her. It had rained a little in the middle of the night and rather than offer relief, it had added to the oppressive atmosphere, creating more humidity.

It was getting harder and harder for her to concentrate or even to place one foot in front of the other. Rose felt as if she'd walked into a fog.

On the way to the cathedral, she'd used the excuse of window-shopping to stop and subtly catch her breath, hoping that her heart would stop beating like a lost hummingbird searching for a perch.

By the time they arrived at the cathedral, she could have wept. It felt as if she'd reached sanctuary. The elegant edifice embraced her with its coolness, thanks to a powerful air-conditioning system. As she moved slowly through the main portion with its side altars, stained-glass and celebrated statues, she silently thanked God for the opportunity to regain her bearings.

Being inside the majestic church touched off a sadness within her. There'd been a time when she'd dreamed about getting married, about a big church wedding with all the trimmings. But time had slipped by and there had been no one who moved her heart.