Hope stood at a window, cautiously moved aside a curtain just a little and looked outside. The sun was shining and steam was actually rising from the dark, dank earth in places. She would have loved to take a walk and feel the warm sunshine on her face and arms, but Matt had warned her adamantly to stay inside and out of sight.
The strange thing was that she hadn’t argued with him about it. Now she questioned her blind obedience, her acquiescence to something of which she had no understanding. Why should she stay inside and out of sight on such a beautiful day? Frowning, she pondered Matt’s making sure the front door was locked before he left, then telling her to keep the back door locked as well. And he’d said, “I have keys. Don’t open either door for anyone, under any circumstances.”
Again she’d agreed without debate or objection, and now she wondered about Matt’s peculiar concern and her own acceptance of it. Even though she had no basis for second-guessing her reactions to anything he might do or say, she couldn’t quite see herself as being a person who meekly accepted orders.
But behind all attempts to understand herself—and her benefactor—lay something dark and sinister, and when she let it develop within her, fear overwhelmed her and she dropped the curtain and moved away from the window. There was safety within the walls of this house, and she felt in her soul that until she regained her memory she would not feel safe anywhere else.
“Nor with anyone else,” she whispered tremulously. Matt had saved her life. Any doubt she might have once entertained on that score had vanished completely. But he’d also taken care of her since, and she felt bonded with him, connected in a way that was so precious to her troubled mind that she treasured it as her one and only possession.
She realized, however, that she was not a precious treasure to Matt. How could he think of her as anything but a burden he didn’t need? And hadn’t he let her know that first day that nothing about her moved him?
But haven’t there been moments when you lay in his arms and sensed something from him?
Hope contemplated that question for a while and decided that what she occasionally sensed in Matt was a streak of tenderness in an otherwise tough-as-rawhide man who probably was so accustomed to hiding his personal feelings from the world that no one ever saw beneath his granite exterior.
It was odd that he lived alone in this big house. Had he never been married? Was there no one important in his life at the present? Surely he had female friends.
The storm, you dolt. He couldn’t even phone a woman friend, let alone drive someplace and see her, and neither could she come to the ranch.
Feeling oddly deflated over a mental image of Matt with another woman, Hope sank into an overstuffed chair in the living room and put her head back. For some reason she began thinking of herself, and how she must look to Matt. How she would look to any man, for that matter. Almost immediately the most awful embarrassment began burning within her. She was wearing Matt’s clothes, which were umpteen sizes too big and cut off at the arms and legs so she could at least use her hands and not trip over her own feet.
On top of that her hair—although clean—was a bird’s nest, and her face was completely devoid of makeup. Could any woman look worse? My God, she thought with an audible groan. How could Matt stand the sight of her? Even without a memory and decent clothes, she could still fix her hair and add some color to her face with cosmetics. She couldn’t possibly be one of those careless women who didn’t give two hoots about her appearance.
And, doggone it, why weren’t there any women’s clothes in this house? Some miscellaneous blouse or sweater, anything at all left behind by a female guest? There had to be. Matt McCarlson was not a monk, after all, and he must have women visitors once in a while.
Hope bounded up from the chair. She was not going to sit and do nothing all day, not when she had a big house to search for feminine garb, a burning desire to fix her hair and look nice, and a knowledge of cooking that offered no explanation but she gratefully accepted.
At least she could stay busy until Matt returned later in the day.
The sun was so bright and the sky such a brilliant blue that Matt wore dark glasses to protect his eyes. On a day such as this, one could easily believe that a storm had not occurred in years. That is, one could believe if he kept his eyes heavenward and paid no mind to the flood-carried debris littering much of the ground. The creek and pond waters were receding rapidly, but the storm had caused an enormous mess.
Matt and Chuck were following the ranch’s main road—the one that led to the county road—on horseback, inspecting the washed-out spots and determining just what was needed to repair it. Matt’s expression was grim as worry roiled in his gut. He didn’t have the money to hire heavy equipment to come in and put the road in good order, which meant he and the men would have to do it with ranch equipment. Chuck knew Matt’s financial situation so he didn’t even hint that someone else could do the job faster and better than cowhands using a couple of field tractors with small blades. Actually, both men knew they’d all be wielding picks and shovels, and moving a lot of dirt in wheelbarrows. In truth, it was going to be backbreaking labor to get the road in shape again, but it must be done and the quicker the better.
“Wait a sec,” Matt said, and got down from the saddle. Chuck sat by and watched his boss walk to the right and pick something off a thorny bush.
Matt then returned to his horse, staring down at a ragged piece of dark fabric in his gloved hand. “What’cha got there?” Chuck asked.
“This piece of cloth was torn from the dress Hope was wearing when I found her.” Frowning speculatively, Matt continued to study the fabric. “How far are we from the county road, Chuck?”
“A little less than a mile, I’d say.”
“And we’re at least a mile from the house.” Matt raised his eyes to his foreman. “I think this proves she walked from the county road that night.” He then looked off in that direction and added in a lethally quiet voice, “Or ran.”
“You think someone was chasing her?”
“Could be,” Matt said after a brief hesitation. Slipping the scrap of cloth into his shirt pocket, he mounted his horse. “Let’s finish this job and get back to the ranch,” he said flatly, and nudged his horse to get moving. “Have you heard any comments among the men about Hope?”
“Not a word. They’ve wondered once or twice about you doing your own cooking, though,” Chuck said wryly.
“That’s not surprising. I don’t know, Chuck. Maybe it would be best if I told them about her. That way, everyone on the place could keep an eye on her, should she decide to leave the house, even though I told her to stay inside.”
“Matt, you must’ve phoned her family by now. What’re you worried about?”
Matt’s expression became even more tense than it had been. “I think she’s in very big trouble, Chuck. She didn’t run—or even walk—way out here during a bad storm without a serious reason. Someone was after her then, and he just might still be after her.”
Hope got very caught up in exploring Matt’s house. It had four bedrooms, three baths and enough space to accommodate a good-size family. She wondered about other homes as she opened cupboards, closets and drawers in every room. Did she have a house in Massachusetts? Surely she’d outgrown living with her mother.
She tensed at that progression of thoughts. One would think that she would at least remember her mother and where she, herself, lived. Frustrated anger suddenly assailed her, and she slammed a drawer shut in the laundry room that contained nothing but some old newspapers. Her march to the living room was rather militant. She’d searched every nook and cranny of every room, and she’d not found one single garment that could be construed as feminine. If Matt had female guests, they were very conscientious about not leaving anything behind.
After ten, fifteen minutes of pondering a house that was pleasant, comfortable and convenient but also very impersonal, Hope sighed and put it all out of her mind. So what if Matt lived alone and liked it? Was it any of her business if he had women guests or not? She’d have her shower, fix her hair and makeup and then once again tie Matt’s clothes on herself. What choice did she have? She should be grateful that he’d given her things she could cut off to fit better. At least she didn’t have to tie a blanket around herself.
Heading down the hall to the bathroom, Hope stopped suddenly. In the ceiling at the end of the hall was a rectangular door with a short rope hanging from one end of it. Was she looking at the door to an attic? Excitement broiled within her. Attics could be wonderful places, full of old things that told a family’s history, should one have the ability to read the signs.
Hope’s jaw dropped as she wondered how on earth she knew anything about attics. Was that instinct based on memory? Did her house have an attic? Her mother’s house? Somewhere, for whatever reason, she had spent time in an attic, or maybe more than one. She knew it for a fact, which was an incredibly satisfying sensation when she knew so few facts about anything.
Well, she must see Matt’s attic, she decided, she simply must. Hurrying to get something to stand on to reach the short rope, she returned with a sturdy wood chair. Situating it just so, she climbed up on it. Stretching herself, she reached for the rope and pulled. Hope’s eyes gleamed when she saw that further pulling would bring down a set of stairs.
But the chair had to be moved. Keeping a solid hold on the rope, she stepped down from the chair and then pushed it out of the way. The stairs came down quite smoothly, although some dust came down on Hope’s head, as well.
She sneezed and then laughed, and the sound of her own laughter startled her, making her realize that she had not laughed once since she’d awakened in this house. Matt must think she was an awful sourpuss, she thought, and eagerly climbed the stairs to peer into the room at the top. It was a large room, but only one end of it was used—and whatever it contained was covered with white sheets!
“What have we here?” Hope said softly, and then scrambled to the top of the stairs and walked directly to the sheets, that up close she could see were also dusty. Obviously this was not a place that Matt—or anyone else—visited often enough to keep the dust from settling.
Hope gingerly lifted the edge of one of the sheets and saw a gorgeous gold-and-ivory lacquered dresser. “It’s bedroom furniture,” she exclaimed, startled that the best furniture in the house would be secreted in the attic. Well, she had to see it all, that was all there was to it, and she carefully removed the rest of the sheets so the dust would not transfer itself to the furniture.
There were also a number of boxes, she discovered, sturdy cardboard cartons that just begged to be opened. But how nosy dared she be?
And then it hit her. This furniture was definitely feminine! She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. There might not be an important woman in Matt McCarlson’s life right now, but there had been, and he’d kept every possible memento of her, including the bed she’d slept in.
“Oh, God,” Hope whispered as she moved among the pieces of furniture and gently touched one here and another there. Matt’s keeping these things touched Hope deeply. He must have been very much in love with the woman who had used these things, so in love, in fact that he had not been able to part with one of her possessions.
Which raised the question as to what had happened to her. Where was she now? Why had she not taken her things with her? For some reason Hope felt that a great romance had once dwelled in this house, and then it had dwindled away for the woman. Matt had still adored her, but she’d no longer loved him and so she’d left him to live out his life alone, unloved and unwanted.
“How sad,” Hope whispered, feeling very emotional over the scenario she’d devised and seemed so reasonable. Poor Matt, she thought. He had loved and lost, and he really was a very nice man and didn’t deserve to live alone for the rest of his days.
Still, it was completely obvious from the layer of dust on the sheets that he hadn’t climbed those stairs in a very long time, so he certainly wasn’t crying himself to sleep every night. “He’s definitely not obsessed with the past,” Hope said under her breath. “Nor with the lady who used these things. I doubt that he’d care if I took a look at what’s in those boxes, and what might be in the dresser drawers and such.”
An hour later, Hope was breathless with excitement. The dressers and boxes were packed full of women’s clothing—fabulous things of every description and type. She would not get carried away, but surely Matt wouldn’t object if she took a few of these things to wear.
Hope picked out some washable pants, blouses, a cotton jacket—also washable—and some nightgowns and a robe. There were shoes, as well, and Hope added to her pile a pair of house slippers and some black loafers that looked as though they’d never been worn. Actually, everything looked as though it had been worn very little, but Hope decided that was probably because it was such an extensive wardrobe.
Carrying her load, she cautiously descended the steep stairs, then set down the clothes to raise the stairs again. She strained and tugged and tried every way she could think of to get those stairs back in place, but nothing worked. She simply wasn’t strong enough to lift that much weight, and while her own lack of strength upset her, a bigger concern was how Matt would react to seeing those stairs and knowing what a sneaky little snoop she’d been that day.
Still, that was a ridiculous worry when she’d be wearing his ladylove’s clothes, she thought, disgusted over the illogical way her mind worked these days. God forbid that logic and good sense wouldn’t return with her memory!
Sighing heavily, wondering if memory, logic or anything else would ever be hers again, Hope took the clothes from the attic to the laundry room.
“Come on in and meet her,” Matt said to Chuck when they got back that afternoon.
“Yes, okay. I’d like that. Thanks,” Chuck replied, and after taking care of their horses, they walked to the house and went inside.
“Matt, something really smells good in here,” Chuck said in an undertone.
“Sure does,” Matt agreed. “She must be cooking again.”
They walked into the kitchen, and there was Hope, dressed in pale yellow cotton slacks and a yellow-and-white striped blouse. Her hair was curled around her face, and she was wearing makeup. She was, without a doubt, the prettiest woman Matt had ever seen, and from the way Chuck was nervously rocking back and forth from one foot to the other, he was thinking the same thing.
The second that Hope saw Chuck, her pulse went wild. Cringing back against a counter, she held on to it for dear life.
“Hope LeClaire, meet Chuck Crawford, ranch foreman,” Matt said clearly, although he’d registered Hope’s instantaneous fear in the pit of his stomach and was sorry he’d brought Chuck in with him.
Chuck took off his hat and smiled warmly. He, too, had registered Hope’s reaction to seeing a stranger walking in with Matt, and it bothered him to be the cause of any discomfort for this beautiful, frightened lady.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said to her.
“Th-thank you,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Hope, Chuck’s as trustworthy as the tide,” Matt said. “There’s not a reason in the world to fear him.” He decided to get away from that topic entirely and he changed the subject. “What’re you cooking? It smells incredible.”
“It does, ma’am,” Chuck echoed.
“Uh, you’re probably smelling the meat…a cut of pork and one of beef, roasting together in the oven.”
Matt went over to the stove. “And what’s in these pans?”
“Potatoes in one, steaming vegetables in the other,” Hope said.
Looking at her again, Matt knitted his brow. The pants and blouse she was wearing were vaguely familiar. Not that there was anything unique in their style or color, but where on earth had she gotten them? A chill raced up his spine when he answered his own question. There was only one place she could have gotten those things. Anger rose within him and he glanced at Chuck. If he wasn’t here, he’d lambaste the hell out of Hope for daring to even go near the attic.
Or would he? Good Lord, what difference did it make if Hope or the entire population of Texas wanted to traipse through his attic? Matt’s anger disappeared as quickly as it had developed, and he said to Hope, “Is it all right if Chuck eats dinner with us?”
Hope gulped. “Uh, yes, of course,” she stammered.
But Chuck had his own ideas about where he should be eating his evening meal, and it sure wasn’t in this kitchen with a woman who was unquestionably scared to death of him, and with Matt, who wasn’t even close to his normal self in her presence.
“Thanks, but I’m going to eat with the men so I can talk to them about the road repairs.” He smiled at Hope. “Good night, ma’am.” To Matt he said, “See you in the morning.” Settling his hat on his head, Chuck left the house.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Matt said gruffly, and walked out of the kitchen with a distant, sour expression on his face that shook Hope so badly she didn’t even know if she should finish making dinner.
Plopping on a chair, she fretted and worried and didn’t care in the least that she finally looked nice. After all, it was pretty damned obvious that Matt hadn’t noticed.
Matt had pushed the stairs to the attic back in place and felt another strong urge to put Hope LeClaire in her place. She could have asked how he felt about her exploring his house before doing it, after all. Amnesia or not, she was apparently a spoiled-rotten woman who did any damned thing she pleased. She’d seen the rope, which had resulted in a discovery of the attic, and she probably hadn’t hesitated for even a moment to invade his privacy. If nothing else, it was damned rude and presumptuous of her.
Not that he cared about the clothes she’d obviously helped herself to. Hell’s bells, he’d truly forgotten they were up there with that fancy bedroom furniture of Trisha’s or he’d have given the whole darned wardrobe to Hope.
He returned to the kitchen thirty minutes later, freshly showered and shaved and wearing clean clothes—comfortable-looking old jeans, a red flannel shirt and a pair of sheepskin-lined house slippers without socks. His head of thick, chestnut hair was appealingly damp and disarrayed, as though all he’d done after his shampoo was run his fingers through it.
“Sit down,” Hope told him. “It’ll take only a minute to dish up.”
“How about you sitting down and letting me dish up?” Matt stared into her eyes and dared her to disagree. He wasn’t at all sure she should be doing so much cooking, or even if she should be on her feet all day long.
Hope swallowed nervously. He was royally ticked with her, and she was pretty sure that she knew why, too. She never should’ve so much as touched anything under those sheets. For that matter, she should not have snooped throughout his entire house and touched anything of his.
But her wearing the clothes she had on was really the definitive and most unforgivable sin of the many she’d committed that day. The yellow pants and striped blouse belonged to the woman he was probably still in love with, and seeing them on her—a stranger in his house, a troublesome, mindless burden that no man deserved to have descend upon him—undoubtedly turned his stomach.
“Fine,” she said in a near whisper and sat at the table. She was sure he’d be all thumbs with the pans and serving dishes, but he dished up the food as efficiently as she could have. Then he took his chair, picked up the bowl of mashed potatoes and held them across the table to her with an unreadable look that sent icy fingers up her spine, even if she couldn’t decipher it accurately.
“Thank you,” she murmured and took a small helping.
And that was how the entire meal went with the two of them passing dishes and saying thank you and otherwise ignoring the existence of the other. Throughout, Hope could feel the tension mounting in her system. She could barely get a bite down her throat, and she finally decided that she would rather have him yell at her than to maintain this abominable silence. She could almost hear him telling her to stay out of his attic, to get herself out of his ladylove’s clothes and to ask permission to use anything of his before taking it upon herself to step on his toes again, as she’d done today. In all fairness, she deserved every nasty remark he might think up.
When she could bear the tension no longer she said, “Would an apology help?”
Matt put down his fork. “You’re a remarkable cook. Dinner was incredible and I enjoyed it, but let’s get brutally honest here, okay? I’ve never thought apologies were much more than the means for certain self-centered types to have things their way.” He gestured with a wave of his hand and said coolly, “They do what they want, apologize for it later, after they’ve had their fun or satisfied their curiosity, or whatever it was that struck their fancy, regardless of anyone else’s rights or feelings.” His expression became hard. “An apology is just words, Hope, just a few little words.”
She stiffened. “Am I understanding you correctly? Are you refusing to let me apologize?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think it would accomplish?”
She was suddenly furious, and she got up and began carrying dishes from the table to the sink. “Forget the whole miserable subject,” she snapped. “Obviously I gave you a lot more credit than you deserve, Mr. McCarlson, but that’s just fine. It’s one mistake I won’t make again.” Back and forth she marched, and her final trip was to the table, which she wiped off with a damp cloth.
“Maybe not, but you’ll make others. We all do. Take those nightmares, for instance.”
Hope threw the dishcloth on top of the dirty dishes in the sink and then shrieked, “Do you think I keep having nightmares because I enjoy being scared out of my wits?”
“You didn’t let me finish.” Matt slowly got to his feet and then towered over her. He dropped his gaze to look into her eyes. “You can’t help having the nightmares, I know that. But yelling for me to come and comfort you every night is something you should try real hard to avoid.”
“That’s the mistake you think I’m going to keep on making? Think again!” After a frowning pause she added, “But I’m not sure I exactly get what you mean. Why is my calling out in the night such a terrible mistake to you?”
“Don’t you know? Don’t you really know?” Matt took two steps toward her, putting himself mere inches from her. His voice softened considerably. “Don’t you know what you’re doing to me night after night with your soft, warm skin and womanly scent?”
Hope’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?” she croaked.
“I’ll never be serious about a woman again, which is why so much togetherness for you and I is a mistake. Do you get it now? Did I speak clearly enough, or would you like me to explain the facts of life in anatomical detail?”
“Why are you talking to me like this?” She backed up a step and felt the edge of the table against the backs of her thighs.
He took another forward step, laid his hands on her shoulders, then dipped his head and placed his lips but a breath from hers. “Maybe a demonstration will be more effective than further explanation,” he whispered, and covered her mouth with his. He felt her gasp at just about the same moment his heart started pounding unmercifully hard.
When is a kiss not just a kiss?
When it brings you to your knees, you moron. Now you’ve started something, haven’t you?
Common sense be damned, he thought next. He was not going to push away a woman who was making sensuous little moaning noises deep in her throat and kissing him back as though she wanted to devour him.
Well, he wanted to devour her in the same passionate way, and he laid her back over the table and then followed her down. Her legs were apart and he nestled himself between them, creating a perfect fit, body to body, man to woman, and he kissed her mouth again and again, until they were both gasping for air.
Caressing her hair back from her feverish face, he stopped kissing her to look into her eyes. “Are we going for the next step?” he asked in a husky, ragged voice.
“Is it…entirely my decision?”
“Damned right it is. If you make it mine, I’ll take you right here on this table.”
She licked her lips. Her chest was heaving, and the racking desire in so many places of her body—strongest and most demanding between her legs—pleaded with her to leave everything to him. Make it his decision. Be brave. Don’t think about anything but the almost painful aches you’re feeling and the knowledge that he can soothe them away with sublime pleasure.
“Uh, exactly what is the next step?” she whispered.
He pulled the hem of her blouse from her pants and slid his hand up to her breast and under her bra. She saw him close his eyes when he cupped her naked breast, and then saw the raw pleasure on his handsome face when he toyed with her nipple and whispered, “Perfect…perfect.”
She could not deny him this; she could not deny herself what she was feeling. “It’s your decision,” she whispered huskily. “I give it to you…freely…eagerly. I want what you want. I’m on fire, and I—I don’t believe I’ve ever felt like this before.”
Matt looked into her eyes again. “You have, baby, you just don’t remember it.”
“Probably,” she whispered, and then closed her eyes so she could savor every delicious step of this incredible event to the fullest.
Matt studied her face for a few moments then put the few niggling doubts she’d just raised in him aside. She was not a kid, for crying out loud. Of course she’d made love before.