Champagne Girl Read online

  “That is not an illusion,” Betty grumbled. She glanced at Matt and Catherine. “I’ll get the others.”

  “My God, are you selling tickets?” Matt growled at their retreating backs. He turned to Catherine. “What are you doing in my bed?”

  “Hal said you wanted to swap rooms with me, so you could watch over Barrie’s cattle,” she said, then cleared her throat when, cold sober, she realized how stupid that sounded. “I’ve been had.”

  “It looks that way, and guess who they’ll think has had you?” Matt returned sharply, his dark eyes going over her breasts, which were visible through the nearly transparent blue gown she was wearing. “My, my, Kit, do you always sleep like that?” he added in a seductive tone.

  “Stop gaping at me,” she muttered.

  “You like it, you little coward,” he returned. He reached up and brushed his fingers lightly over her breasts, watching her breath catch, her face mirror the shock of pleasure. He reached up and slid his fingers into her short hair. “Come down here.”

  “Matt—” she started to protest just as voices came closer again.

  “Oh, hell,” he growled, throwing himself flat on his back. “I feel like a museum exhibit.”

  Catherine’s eyes went over his long, hard-muscled body with smiling awe. “You look better than any painting I’ve ever seen,” she confessed, “even without a fig leaf.”

  “Kit!”

  She averted her face, stunned at her own remark. “Sorry.”

  The doorway suddenly filled with faces. “See?” Betty was telling the others. Barrie and Jerry stared. So did Hal. They all murmured and pointed and frowned.

  Matt groaned and pulled the cover over his face.

  “Stop that!” Catherine grumbled at him. “It’s all your fault, anyway. Why did you have to come sleep in here?”

  “It’s my damned bed!” Matt said gruffly from under the sheet.

  “That’s no excuse,” Catherine returned curtly. She glanced at the onlookers. “Hal did it!” she accused, pointing at him. “He told me Matt wanted to trade rooms.”

  “Me?” Hal burst out, gaping. “I never!”

  Catherine’s jaw fell. “You did, you liar! You came and knocked on my door and told me Matt wanted me to sleep in his room!”

  “I,” Hal replied, “am an innocent bystander, being falsely accused.”

  “I never thought I’d live to see Matt and Catherine in bed together,” Jerry remarked.

  “Same here,” Barrie replied.

  “Shocking.” Angel clicked her tongue, grinning wickedly. Angel!

  “How many people did you bring in with you, Mother!” Catherine asked in what she hoped was a calm tone, although her voice sounded two octaves higher than normal.

  “Well, just family, darling,” Betty defended herself. “And Angel, and Mr. Bealy, here—he’s come to see Matt about a bull.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Mr. Bealy, a middle-aged man, grinned, doffing his hat.

  “And Miss Harley, of course,” Betty added, introducing a lovely little old lady who occasionally visited Betty.

  “Nice to see you again, Catherine,” Miss Harley said with a smile.

  Catherine glanced from them to the mumbling lump beside her in bed. With a weary sigh, she lay down and pulled the cover over her head, too.

  “Nobody will believe the truth in this house,” she wailed.

  “What did I tell you?” Matt agreed, grinning at her under the sheet.

  “I’ll have breakfast when you two are hungry, dear,” Betty called gaily as the crowd went out. “No hurry.” The door closed.

  “My reputation is ruined,” Catherine wailed. “Hal lied!”

  Matt threw off the sheet. “Well, Kit, so much for New York.”

  “No! Now is the best time for me to go there!” she protested.

  He moved, arching over her, resting his weight on his arms. “No it isn’t, honey,” he murmured with a soft laugh. “Now is the best time for us to announce our engagement—before this sordid story gets spread all over southern Oklahoma and northern Texas.”

  “Engagement?” Her heart leaped wildly. “You’re not serious.”

  “Yes, I am.” He bent and brushed her mouth lazily with his. “You want me, Kit. And I want you. The rest will come naturally. We’ll get married and make babies and raise cattle.”

  Her pulse was going wild. “But—”

  His mouth opened on hers. His chest came down over her breasts, crushing them gently, his hands smoothing down her sides to her hips. Abruptly he turned on his side, jerking her body completely against his.

  She gasped, her eyes wide open in shock at the contact with his hard body, only the flimsy film of her gown between them.

  “Kit,” he breathed, his eyes dark as she’d never before seen them, a tremor in the arms that urged her even closer. “God, you’re so soft. Velvet and silk and magic in my arms.”

  “Matt, you don’t…have any clothes on,” she faltered.

  He searched her eyes. “We could take your gown off,” he whispered. “We could feel each other like this.”

  Her lips trembled. “No.”

  “You want to,” he whispered, leaning nearer to brush her eyes closed with his mouth. “Don’t you?”

  His hands were on her body, on the long line of her back, her hips, her upper thighs. She trembled, and he smiled against her forehead, nudging her body against his in a slow, torturous rhythm, letting her feel what she already knew, that he wanted her obsessively.

  “Oh…Matt…” Her voice broke as the sensations grew unmanageable. Her hands went to his chest, trembling as they pressed into thick hair and hard muscle.

  “Don’t stop there,” he whispered at her mouth. “Touch me. Learn my body, as I’m learning yours.”

  She started to protest, but he moved, guiding her hands, watching her face as she learned the most private things about him. Her eyes grew enormous, but she didn’t fight him.

  He smiled at her shocked fascination, laughing even as he trembled with pleasure. “Marry me, Kit,” he breathed, “and I’ll let you have me.”

  “Tease,” she returned, barely able to manage laughter herself.

  “Don’t you want me, honey?” He brushed his mouth lazily over hers, feeling it open and warm to his kisses. “Don’t you want to lie in my arms every night in the darkness and be warmed by my body in the chill of dawn?”

  “But, marriage…” she protested.

  “Say yes, Kit,” he murmured.

  “Not…not now,” she forced herself to say. “Not yet. I need time.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you five seconds.”

  “No! Time, Matt.”

  He lifted his head with a sigh, and his hands stilled. He studied her flushed face quietly, his hair mussed, his mouth swollen, his dark eyes intent and warm. “Okay. But until you make up your mind, honey, we’re engaged. I’m not throwing myself into that barracuda pack downstairs without protection.”

  She smiled at the phrasing. “Do you suppose Mother was charging admission?”

  “If she was, I want my cut.” Matt grinned. “Come on, get up, you seductive little thing, and let me get back to work.”

  “Who’s stopping you?” she teased.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I sure as hell don’t.” And it was then that she realized he’d given her a chance to get out of bed before he did. But it was too late because he was standing by the bed, magnificent in his nudity, smiling at the confused shock in her eyes as she stared at him helplessly.

  “This is a first,” he murmured. “Remember you said once that you’d been saving yourself for me?”

  She nodded, dazed.

  “Well, I figured I could save at least one first for you, so I always made love in the dark. I’ve never let another woman see me like this.”

  Her eyes lifted to his. “I’m glad,” she said in a stranger’s husky voice.

  “So am I. Now,” he added, winking at her, “get dressed before you
drive me to drink again.” He turned and started to dress himself as she unwound herself from the tangle of the sheet and got up.

  “Again?” She caught on as she reached the door and turned.

  He was just snapping his jeans. He grinned at her. “Hal got me drunk last night. I staggered in here half-blind and never noticed the bed was occupied. He did a job on both of us.”

  “Why, do you suppose?” she asked, puzzled. “Revenge?”

  He searched her eyes quietly. “No,” he replied after a minute. “I think he was trying to make amends.”

  “For what?”

  “Never mind, honey. We’ve got some music to face.” He let his eyes wander down her body, and he smiled wickedly. “Better wear something terribly unrevealing while we try to explain our way out of this.”

  “I’ve got a great idea,” she said. “I found you on a lily pad and kissed you—”

  “That’s been tried before, and I’ll bet the princess’s father didn’t fall for it any more than the family would.” He chuckled, reaching in his closet for a clean shirt. “Move, woman!”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” She curtsied and jerked away just in time to avoid his swinging palm.

  * * *

  When she’d dressed in a becoming wine pantsuit, she found him waiting in the hall for her, and her heart jumped at the sight of him in a brown patterned shirt and tight jeans. He always looked good, but after this morning she felt possessive about him. It would be insane to pretend that he really wanted to marry her, that this engagement was anything more than a ruse to keep the family from being upset about this morning’s revelation. But she wanted it to be real. She wanted to marry Matt and have his children. And even though she knew he didn’t love her, that he was still involved with Layne, perhaps if they were living together, she could make him love her. She’d work so hard at it!

  “Why the frown, baby?” he murmured as she came out of her room.

  “Just thinking,” she sidestepped, smiling up at him.

  He bent and kissed her softly. “Don’t think. Just let things happen.” He put an arm around her shoulders and led her down the stairs.

  All eyes turned toward them when they walked into the dining room.

  Matt stared back, cocking his dark head to one side. “Okay, it’s like this,” he began. “I was sitting on a lily pad, minding my own business, when—”

  “Cut that out,” Catherine grumbled. “You were the one who told me they’d never fall for it.”

  “In that case, Kit and I are engaged,” he told Betty. “Hal, go break out a bottle of champagne, and we’ll start a new breakfast tradition.”

  “You bet!” Hal chuckled, rising. “Congratulations!”

  Betty echoed that, hugging Catherine and then Matt. “I saw the way you two have been watching each other lately, and I had a feeling this announcement wouldn’t be far off.”

  “Mother, about last night—” Catherine began.

  “Now, now, no need to worry about it,” Betty said, patting her hand affectionately as she led her to the table. “You’re engaged, and these things happen.”

  There went Catherine’s fragile hope that Hal had confessed all. She sighed and smiled at Angel and Mr. Bealy and Jerry and Barrie as she sat down next to Matt at the table and received the mingled congratulations.

  “It’s been a long, hard, uphill battle,” Matt told them as he reached for his coffee cup. “But I won.”

  “I am not a conquest,” Catherine teased, and then remembered how they’d been found this morning, and she turned red.

  Matt laughed uproariously. “Liar,” he murmured.

  “Come down and look at my herd, Matt,” Barrie invited. “You and Catherine can cuddle in the backseat.”

  “You drive an MG Midget,” Catherine reminded her. “There is no backseat.”

  “Well, in that case, Matt, I’ll let Jerry drive us in the Oldsmobile.”

  “Okay,” Matt agreed. “Pick us up after church.”

  Catherine gaped at him. “You’re going to church with me?”

  “I do go occasionally,” he reminded her.

  “Once a year.”

  “So I’ll reform,” he promised. “After all, a man has to be responsible when he has a family.”

  “We don’t have one.”

  “We will have.” He grinned and stared at her until she dropped her eyes in embarrassment.

  Hal came back with champagne, which he opened and poured into delicate champagne glasses, then toasted the happy couple.

  * * *

  After church, which had been a really delicious event—Catherine had been so proud to have Matt beside her and Betty in the family pew—they rode over to see Barrie’s new Santa Gertrudis cattle.

  Matt stood at the fence beside Catherine, and his eyes widened as he stared. There were six heifers and a bull, and as he studied the bull closely, he burst out laughing.

  “He isn’t funny,” Barrie muttered. “What are you laughing at?”

  “My God, are you planning to breed him?” Matt asked.

  “Of course, that’s why I have six cows. I want lots of calves.” Barrie sighed, smiling dreamily, her red curls wafting on the breeze.

  “How much did you pay for that bull?”

  “Four hundred dollars,” she said.

  “Didn’t it occur to you,” he said gently, “that a purebred champion bull that age would bring at least fifty grand?”

  Barrie cocked her head, glancing from the bull to Matt. “Is something wrong with him, do you think?”

  Matt drew his straw hat low over his eyes. “No, as long as you only want him to pet.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s a steer,” Matt explained.

  “Yes, I know,” Barrie agreed blankly. “So what’s that got to do with breeding him?”

  Catherine had to bite her lip. Barrie did love cattle, but mostly as pictures in magazines. She had a lot to learn about technicalities.

  “Barrie,” Matt said quietly, “a steer is a bull that’s been fixed. Sterilized. Like a gelding horse. You can’t breed him. He’s hamburger beef, not stud material.”

  Barrie cleared her throat. She stared at Jerry, who was turning purple trying not to burst out laughing. “You!” she growled at him. “You knew that! You bought me this super bull, and all the time you knew he was a steer!”

  “Not my fault,” Jerry choked. “I thought you could look at him and tell.”

  “I’m so used to looking at beef cattle, I didn’t realize,” Barrie wailed. “Now what will I do?”

  “Well, we can have steaks every night.…” Jerry suggested.

  Barrie’s eyebrows shot up. “Eat Beauregard?”

  “Sure, with lots of steak sauce.”

  “Never!” She bit her lip. “Oh, poor old thing,” she murmured. “Poor old bull.”

  “Don’t break your heart over it,” Matt told her, smiling. “I know a man who runs purebred Santa Gertrudis. You can get a young bull for around a thousand and raise him up the way you want to. Okay?”

  “Oh, Matt, that would be lovely!”

  “A thousand dollars?” Jerry asked, all eyes.

  “Don’t you fuss, either,” Barrie challenged. “It’s your fault that we bought that silly bull anyway, and you’re not going to eat him, either. We’re going to put him in a pasture and let him grow old gracefully.”

  “I’ll grow old gracefully, trying to pay off your new bull.” Jerry sighed.

  “I slave over hot stoves, I break my back washing clothes and cleaning house…” Barrie began.

  Jerry turned with a sigh and walked away. She followed him, still raging.

  Catherine laughed softly. “Poor Barrie.”

  “She’ll learn,” he said. He put a comfortable arm around her and drew her close as he studied the heifers. “They aren’t bad,” he murmured. “Good conformation. Pity she bought them open though.”

  “Open?” She stared up at him.

  He searched her eyes
slowly. “An open heifer is one that hasn’t been bred.”

  “Oh.”

  His hand came up to her cheek and traced its softness. “I go hot all over when I think about babies,” he whispered. “You’ve got wide hips, Kit. You wouldn’t have a hard time.”

  Her heart shot up into her throat. “It’s too soon to be…to be thinking about that,” she said, her voice faltering.

  “I think about it all the time,” he said, bending to brush a tender kiss against her forehead. “I think about having you in my bed and loving you in the darkness.”

  “Matt!” Her cheeks burned, and she glanced toward Jerry and Barrie, who were oblivious to them, still arguing.

  “They can’t hear,” he breathed. He lifted his head and searched her eyes intently, unblinking. “Marry me, Kit.”

  Her legs felt like rubber. It was a terrible chance to take, a risk. But the thought of not marrying him was worse. He only wanted her, but she could change that. Somehow, she’d make him care.

  “All right,” she said softly.

  “No backing out,” he warned, his voice deep and low.

  “No backing out.”

  He bent and put his mouth tenderly to hers, warming it, cherishing it. He lifted his dark head. His hand pressed against her cheek, his fingers brushing back a stray wisp of chestnut hair from her mouth. “I’ll take care of you all my life,” he whispered.

  He looked and sounded solemn, and she wondered for one wild, sweet second if he really meant what he said. But suddenly he grinned, and the spell was broken.

  “Now that I’ve overcome your resistance, what kind of ring do you want?” he asked.

  She hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t want a diamond,” she said absently.

  “Okay. How about an emerald?”

  “I’ve never seen an emerald set as an engagement ring. It would be different, wouldn’t it?”

  “We could get a band to match,” he said. “Diamonds and emeralds in a wide band.”

  “I love it!”

  “We’ll go into town first thing tomorrow,” he promised.

  “But we can’t,” she moaned. “I have to take the ads to the newspaper.”

  “We’ll drop them off on the way,” he soothed. “Stop worrying.”