Texas Rose Read online

  Unable to hold back for long, she moved faster and faster, wanting to embrace the final crescendo she knew was waiting for her. For them.

  She could feel the surge building, beginning in her loins and spreading out like rays of the sun to both ends of her body.

  And then it came, the final summit, the final explosion.

  The final descent.

  Her heart beating as wildly as if she were free-falling, she groaned with ecstasy. She was just barely aware of his hands on her buttocks, squeezing as he made the same plunge with her.

  The surge ricocheted through her, echoing madly until it finally began to fade away.

  Exhausted, unable to even elicit a proper breath, Rose fell against Matt’s damp chest, limp, spent and drained. She smiled, her mouth curving along his chest as she felt him gather her to him, holding her as if she was something elusive and precious.

  Damn but she loved him. If she were to die this moment, it would be all right. Because the moment was perfect.

  “Marry me, Rose,” she heard him whisper against the top of her head. “Marry me and I swear I’ll always be good to you. And I’ll adopt the baby,” he promised her, “and treat it as if it were my own.”

  The words echoed in her brain, fanning out to all parts of her. Compounding the guilt she was feeling.

  The secret refused to remain inside her any longer. Rose picked up her head and looked at him. Common sense battled with her desire to tell the truth.

  He had a right to know, she thought.

  As she continued looking at him, she offered up a prayer for the wisdom not to make a mistake. She hadn’t a clue as to whether her prayer was going to be answered.

  All she knew was that she couldn’t go on keeping this from Matt any longer. Her eyes locked with his.

  “It’s your baby.”

  Fourteen

  Matt looked at her. It felt as if everything inside of him had frozen. Everything outside of him, as well.

  “What did you say?”

  His eyes had grown dark, unreadable. Rose felt a twinge of anxiety. The sentence was harder for her to say the second time than the first.

  “It’s your baby.”

  He heard the words, but they just weren’t sinking in. It was as though they bounced off his mind like so many tiny beads.

  “You’re carrying my baby?” he asked incredulously.

  Time and again from her father Rose had heard that the best defense was an offense. Besides, it was high time she took insult with the implication of Matt’s words.

  “Of course it’s your baby,” she said strongly, moving off him to his side. “There’s never been anyone else but you. How could you think anything else?”

  Matt sat up, astounded, confused. As the numbness within him receded, a host of emotions poured out like rampaging barbarian hordes attacking and pillaging a defenseless village.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew?” he demanded.

  They’d already been all through this. “I didn’t tell you for the very reason I already said—because I didn’t want to see you skinned alive and have your hide nailed to the barn door the way my father threatened to do to whoever it was who got me pregnant,” she reminded him. “Believe me, he would have done a lot worse if he’d known it was a Carson.”

  Why was he making her explain this to him? Matt knew the circumstances as well as she did. This was why she’d held back when she’d first met him, to prevent something like this from happening.

  And here it was, happening anyway.

  “Our two families hate the sight of each other, Matt. And I have no intentions of letting you marry me so you can do the right thing and give the baby a name. I’m not some head of cattle you can just brand because it wandered into your corral, and neither is the baby. Don’t you see? I don’t want to be in a marriage that has to be, I want to be in a marriage that was meant to be.”

  There was the librarian coming out in her again, he thought, annoyance nibbling away at him. He wasn’t in the mood for word games. Rose was always playing with words. “What’s the difference?”

  “Happiness.”

  Dragging the sheet around her, she rose to her knees.

  His back to her, Matt bent to pick up his pants. Standing, he pulled them on. She placed her hand on his back to make him turn around.

  “You’re angry,” she said.

  He closed the snap at the top and tossed her a heated look from over his shoulder. “Damn right I’m angry.”

  Now it was her turn to be confused. She’d finally told him the truth, finally alleviated his fear that she’d been unfaithful to him. What more did he want?

  “Why?”

  He turned around to face her. “Because you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie.” She was very careful about that. “I just didn’t tell you the baby was yours. There’s a difference.”

  He blew out a breath, frustrated. “You’re playing games.”

  She didn’t believe in games, because games had winners and losers and she hated the idea of anyone losing.

  “No, I was trying to do the right thing for all of us.” And it hadn’t gotten her anywhere but miserable. “What kind of a marriage would we have if you felt you were forced into it?”

  He took hold of her shoulders. She felt so small, so frail, as if he could break her between his hands if he wasn’t careful.

  “Now you listen to me. Nobody’s ever forced me to do anything—except you when you forced me to break up with you. Looks like you’re the only one who can make me jump through hoops.”

  The sadness she saw in his eyes went straight to her gut, twisting a knife there. “That was never my intention.”

  He shrugged, releasing her. His anger abated, he sat down beside her on the bed.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what happened, though. But no more. I’m my own man—always have been, always will be.” He looked at her again, his voice growing in volume and confidence. “And I’m going to do what I want.”

  She nodded, her eyes never leaving his. “All right.”

  He smiled, confident that Rose knew what was coming next as well as he did. “And what I really want is to marry you.”

  Her heart leaped, thrilled that he was still adamant about it. This time the protest was only halfhearted. “But—”

  “No buts about it.” His eyes dipped down as he took in the way the sheet clung to her curves. “Unless it’s your sweet butt lying next to mine.”

  The hell with worrying about everything else and everybody else. Maybe it was time to concentrate on snatching a bit of happiness for herself. With Matt. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  Taking her hand in his, he raised it to his lips and kissed it. He looked at her from beneath hooded, sexy eyes. “Never more sure of anything in my life.”

  The tingle was traveling all through her, surging down to her toes and up along the roots of her hair. “It’s not going to be easy.”

  He shifted on the bed so that he could gather her to him.

  “Hell, I knew the minute I saw you it wasn’t going to be easy. The first time I had you in my arms, the earth stood still and everything else faded away. I kind of like it that way.” He pretended to get serious, although he felt far from serious. At the very least, he felt like crowing. “Now, are you going to say yes, or do I have to tie you up and kidnap you to a place where what you say won’t matter.”

  “You’d do that?”

  What she had to say would always matter to him, but for now he refrained from telling her that. What he did was open up his heart instead. “I’d do anything to have you in my life.”

  Her mouth curved. “They put people in jail for things like that these days.”

  She was referring to stalkers. What he felt didn’t come with a label. And her happiness always came before his own. If he felt that she was truly happier without him than with him, as much as it would hurt, he’d walk away and leave her. But that, too, he kept to himself. />
  “It’d be worth it. But just so you know, no place is going to hold me. Not if it means keeping me away from you.”

  This time she grinned. Broadly. “Then I guess I have no choice.”

  He shook his head. “Nope, none.” And then his eyes softened. “But it’d be nice to know that this was your choice.”

  “Would it matter?” She held her breath, waiting to hear his answer.

  He couldn’t do anything but tell her the truth. “It matters. Anything you think would matter.” He poured out his heart in hopes that it would make her understand. “The two weeks I spent apart from you were the two longest weeks of my life. They felt like two years. A man can’t endure that kind of thing on a regular basis.” He pulled her to him. “So what do you say?”

  She lifted her chin, answering his question with one of her own. “And you love me?”

  “I already told you that.”

  She moved her body against his seductively. “Tell me again,” she coaxed.

  He could feel his voice hitching. “I love you. Satisfied?”

  She sighed, threading her arms around his neck and sitting back on her heels. “Only if you tell me that every morning of every day we’re together.”

  His arm around her waist, Matt pulled her closer still. “You ask a hell of a lot, don’t you? Those are your terms?”

  She bobbed her head, the finality a given. “Those are my terms.”

  “Well, if I have no choice…you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Matt lightly touched his lips to hers, then slowly deepened the kiss until it was large enough for both of them to get lost in. As he wrapped his arms around Rose, he lightly tugged away the sheet she’d tucked around herself.

  She kissed him as if there was no tomorrow, had been no yesterday. As if there was nothing but the moment they were in, and it was both endless and fleeting, demanding that they make the most of it before it was gone.

  It took Matt several seconds to realize what was going on. Holding on to her arms, he wedged a small space between them, then looked at her face. Her cheeks were damp.

  “You’re crying.”

  “No, I’m not…” It was a normal response to deny what her father viewed as an expression of weakness. “Maybe just a little,” she allowed.

  “Why?” His eyes swept over her. “Are you hurt? Is something wrong?”

  Rose shook her head. “No, nothing’s wrong and for the first time since I realized I was pregnant, I don’t hurt.” It was a time for truth-telling. “I’m crying because I’m so happy.”

  That was completely beyond him. Tears were for pain. He merely shook his head. “I am never going to understand women.”

  “There aren’t going to be any women for you to understand, cowboy,” she warned Matt playfully. “Only me.”

  He was grinning as he lowered his mouth to hers. “Sounds good to me.”

  Rose gladly gave herself up to the feeling that seized her in its grasp. And to the only man she had ever loved.

  Exhausted beyond words, happier than he could recall ever being, Matt slowly shifted his weight until he was lying beside Rose. It amazed him that they’d actually wound up making love two more times. No doubt about it, the woman brought out a side to him he’d never even known existed.

  “You sure this won’t hurt the baby?”

  She couldn’t remember ever being this tired and this happy at the same time. The sensitivity he was displaying made her love him all the more.

  “I guarantee the baby’s smiling right now because its mommy is so happy.”

  “So I take it you haven’t changed your mind?” It had been several hours since he’d proposed and she’d accepted. When it came to Rose, he wasn’t about to take things for granted anymore.

  “No.” And then a thought occurred to her. She shifted her head toward him. “Have you?”

  “Not a chance.” He ran his fingers along her cheek. “The sooner the better.”

  Out of nowhere, excitement suddenly ricocheted through her. Rose raised herself up on her elbow to look at him. “Let’s go tell Aunt Beth.”

  Matt glanced over her head at the clock on the nightstand. “Rose, it’s seven o’clock in the morning. Your aunt doesn’t exactly keep regular hours. Let her sleep. We can tell her later.”

  Besides, he thought, his exhaustion was fading and he could feel desire stirring within him again. All he wanted to do was to stay in bed with Rose.

  But Rose was already sitting up and looking around for her clothes. She saw Matt’s pants lying on the floor instead.

  “Aunt Beth will want to know, trust me. She’s been singing your praises and telling me how wonderful you are ever since you got here.”

  Matt grinned, nodding. “The woman does have excellent taste, no arguing with that.”

  Rose laughed, throwing his pants at his head. “Yeah, well, don’t forget to get dressed. We don’t want to give Aunt Beth a heart attack.”

  He looked at Rose, surprised. “Heart attack?” Maybe she didn’t know her aunt as well as he thought she did. Until he’d come into her life, he knew Rose had been rather shy and sheltered. “Something tells me your aunt would take the sight of a naked man right in stride. I heard her talking about being in Woodstock during that big, blowout concert they had up there back in sixty-nine. Did you know she danced nude in the rain?”

  “No, but that doesn’t surprise me.” She’d seen pictures of her aunt when she’d been younger. Still very attractive, the woman had been drop-dead gorgeous in her twenties. “Nothing about Aunt Beth surprises me. She likes to live every second of life.” Rose debated getting completely dressed, then opted to just slip on her silk robe instead. She was too excited to wait any longer. “Ready?”

  Matt glanced back at the bed. “I can’t talk you out of this?”

  Grabbing his hand, she began to tug him out of bed. She shook her head in response to his question. “If I don’t tell someone, I’m going to explode and she’s the only one who’d be happy for us.”

  He sighed, resigned. Throwing the covers off with his free hand, he got out of bed and grabbed his pants. “Okay, then, give me a minute.”

  Rose tried not to stare at him as he got dressed, desire flaring up within her all over again. It felt as if she was never going to get her fill of Matt. She sincerely prayed that day would never come.

  She pretended to look at her watch, amusement dancing in her eyes. “I’ll give you thirty seconds.”

  He was ready in twenty-nine. Still barefoot, he took her hand and walked out of the room.

  “I still think this’ll keep until later.” They made the short trip from Rose’s bedroom to Beth’s. He nodded at the older woman’s door. “You do the honors.”

  The wide grin on her lips threatened to go from ear to ear and split her face in two as she knocked on Beth’s door. Her hand tightened on Matt’s.

  “Aunt Beth? I know it’s early, but I—we,” she amended, beaming at Matt, “have to talk to you.”

  There was the sound of shuffling and sudden movement behind the closed door. And then the thud. Rose and Matt exchanged glances.

  “Did she fall out of bed?” Matt whispered to Rose. And then he tugged slightly on her hand. “Maybe we should come back later.”

  But Rose was determined. “No, that’s okay. She’s got to be up now. Aunt Beth, it’s us, Rose and Matt. May we come in?”

  “Rose and Matt?” Deep and husky, Beth’s voice registered surprise from behind the door. There was more shuffling, and then she urged, “Come in, come in.”

  Excited, Rose opened the door, then stopped short as her mouth dropped open. Beth was not alone. In bed beside her was a hauntingly handsome young man Rose vaguely recognized as one of the acting students that her aunt taught. If she had to guess, she would have said that he was about thirty years old. Aunt Beth hadn’t seen thirty—other than her lover—in quite some time.

  Making herself more comfortable against her pillows, Beth tucked the sheet more secur
ely around her ample breasts.

  “Oh, don’t look so shocked, Rose. You’d think you were the parent and I was the child.” Her smile spread to take in Matt. “Remember, my dears, life is to be savored, every last bite.” She turned toward the young man beside her who looked incredibly at ease, given the situation. “I think you know Bryce.”

  “Your student,” Rose concluded, for the moment forgetting all about what had brought her into Beth’s room in the first place. She knew all the stories about Beth’s wild and so-called wicked youth, but she’d just assumed that it was all behind her. If she thought of Beth being in the company of men, she naturally assumed that they would be closer to her aunt’s age, not her own.

  Beth held up a finger. “Former student, actually. Bryce officially last took my class over a year ago.” She turned toward him. “Didn’t you, dear?”

  “But I saw him here the other night,” Rose protested. “With the others.”

  Beth waved away the protest and the worry line she saw forming across Rose’s forehead. No matter what she said, the girl was very much Archy’s daughter, Beth thought.

  “That’s unofficial. He graduated last June, but found that I had a profound influence on him.” Beth patted Bryce’s hand. “Wasn’t that the way you worded it, dear?”

  “Profound,” Bryce agreed. It was obvious that he thought of Beth as more than his match and was as comfortable with the arrangement as Rose was uncomfortable. He looked at Matt. “Your aunt’s the youngest woman I know.” Bryce’s look shifted to Rose. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” she murmured.

  Rose felt a laugh bubbling within her throat. Why shouldn’t Beth have someone in her life? From everything she’d learned about her aunt and seen firsthand since she’d arrived, Bryce probably had trouble keeping up with the woman.

  This was wonderful. Her life was finally in order. Matt was going to stick by her, not because he had to but because he wanted to. She’d finally found someone to love her and to love back, and it appeared that Beth had done the same, too.

  Like Queen Victoria holding court in her bedchamber, Beth made herself comfortable against the head-board. She smiled benevolently at the young couple in front of her.