The Bridal Promise Read online

  Good thing it was a small wedding, and a fast one. Even if the stucco walls kept it cool, even if amber glass windows made the cherry-wood pews glow. The little building wasn’t airconditioned. But Perri had absolutely refused to marry him in their church in town. He hadn’t challenged her on it. Sam had married Leila in that church, and Matt had married Cadie there.

  Matt turned his thoughts back to the memory of Perri’s grim acceptance of his proposal. “I’m going shopping tomorrow for a wedding dress,” she’d said. “John will call you with the details of when and where you are to show up and say ‘I do.’ Try to have the cows fed and the horses watered so you can make it on time. And if you have any notion of bringing a date to the wedding,” she’d added dryly, “keep in mind it was Gannie who taught me how to shoot.” And so, here he stood, ready or not.

  A lean, middle-aged man walked around to open the car door for his passenger. Janie Stone gracefully got out of the car. Sam Ransom had insisted on driving to Oklahoma City to pick up the mother of the bride.

  Like Matt and John Deepwater, Sam had gotten out of his car in his best Stetson, suit and boots. Each of the men quietly conch manded, rather than demanded attention, in an individual manner that somehow coalesced into a statement of unity, adding quiet honor to the wedding taking place that day under a blue Oklahoma sky.

  Matt noted that Janie seemed cautious around Sam; determined to maintain stringent boundaries. He came to attention with the sudden realization that his father still loved Janie Marlowe Stone. He watched carefully as Sam took great care with Perri’s mother. And it was easy to see where Perri had gotten those legs.

  Matt smiled as he watched Perri and Donnie arrive and go to her. The three women turned toward the little church and picked their way gracefully across the gravel with an identical thoroughbred gait.

  She looks like spring; like new possibilities, Matt thought, suddenly on red alert. Perri looked so right to him. The plain, simple dress wasn’t showy, wasn’t tight and didn’t advertise that there was a rather spectacular body underneath.

  Deepwater seemed pensive as he watched Perri’s ascent up the steps. “I don’t recall her being filled out quite like that.” He looked at Matt. “Do you?” he asked.

  “Don’t make me have to hit you, John,” Matt said quietly to his best man. His eyes never left Perri. Lust hit him hard and unexpectedly.

  Deepwater made a stab at looking innocent.

  Thoughts of the night before had Matt smiling. He had gone over to Gledhill just to annoy her. Perri had been relaxing in the hot tub Gannie had installed on the glass-enclosed back porch. She had been in the nude. Of course he hadn’t bothered to knock before strolling in the back door.

  “You look relaxed,” he’d said. She had looked anything but. He had been greatly amused by the fact that she’d clutched a magazine to her breasts upon his entry. “What are you reading?” he had asked innocenty, “Bride Magazine?” That had caused a flash of annoyance in those pretty eyes.

  “A computer software magazine,” she’d replied, enunciating each word. “For systems and information technology professionals.” She had almost removed it from her breasts to show him.

  He had been quite pleased to see her so rattled. A devilish smile had reached his eyes. “Well, it looks real cute the way you’re holding it, Perri,” he’d said. “But it’s pretty useless as a cover-up. And I do like what I see.”

  Matt had flat-out grinned as he’d stood leaning over the edge of the tub, making no effort to disguise his interest. Finally, he had pulled something out of his shirt pocket and straightened up. “I’ll just leave this over here where it won’t get wet,” he had remarked casually, placing a small, gift-wrapped package on the table next to her.

  “What is it?” Perri had eyed the package suspiciously, her magazine wet and disintegrating. Matt had stalked back toward her, a predator thoroughly amused by the prey’s dilemma. He had leaned back over the edge of the tub. “A present for the bride,” he’d said as his hand moved like lightning to the back of her neck. He’d kissed her long and hard, holding her head between his big hands, his tongue demanding the warmth of her mouth.

  It hadn’t been nice. It hadn’t been gentle or sweet. It had been a voluptuous kiss that had made his impending intentions quite clear. Slowly he’d released her. “See you in church,” he’d called over his shoulder as he’d moseyed out the back door. He had headed for his own side of the fence before she’d gotten the chance to unwrap those earrings. Before she’d had time to notice that he’d been as stiff as a board.

  Matt knew he’d really pushed the envelope. He knew he didn’t care. He enjoyed ticking her off. She was going to complain the gift was too extravagant. It was. And the minute he had seen those earrings, he had known they were for Perri.

  But then, she was really going to have a fit when she saw the wedding ring. He laughed quietly to himself as he started up the church steps. After all, she’d said she wanted a band. A present for the bride and a second chance for the groom, he thought in spite of himself.

  “Okay, Johnnie,” Matt said. “Let’s get it done.”

  Perri walked back through the front door of Gledhill a married woman. She crossed the threshold alone. The groom had let her out at the door before garaging his car with nary a word.

  Neither bride nor groom had had much to say since the brief reception at the Ransoms’. The whole thing had left Perri subdued and silent. After all, never before had she set foot on Ransom land. Never, until her wedding day. Scandal and barbed wire had always separated her from Matt’s world.

  As Perri slowly climbed the stairs, her wedding ring caught her eye. Invisibly set, princess-cut diamonds accented the pearshaped emerald. A band. She had selected a plain, gold band. Obviously, this wasn’t the wedding ring she’d picked out.

  “No, it’s the one I picked out,” he had said with a devilish grin.

  Damn his hide. It was stunning. It matched the emerald and diamond earrings he had given her the night before. In the hot tub. It had taken everything she had not to slide facedown into the turbulent water after that kiss. Of course she had worn the earrings for the wedding.

  “The emeralds match the green lights in your eyes, if I’m not mistaken.” Matt had studied her in the softly glowing light of the spare little church. “You look beautiful, even more beautiful than usual, Mrs. Ransom,” he’d added.

  And now, he had let her cross the threshold alone in order to park his car. She could just spit. Perri closed the door to her bedroom and began to undress. This was as rough on Matt as it was on her, she reminded herself. She recalled the fury with which he had lashed out at her that night twelve years before. He’d clearly stated then that he wouldn’t shame his family by marrying the daughter of a Marlowe woman.

  And yet, now they were married. Now, they had a second chance. Or, maybe she was just being pathetically hopeful. This was, after all, an arranged marriage. Her thoughts scattered at the perfunctory knock. The door opened, abruptly returning her to the present.

  Well, unwrap this, he thought in shock. “That’s what you were wearing to get married in a church?” he demanded, moving toward her. “What are you trying to do? Kill me?”

  “Next time knock, and then wait for permission, will you?” she spluttered. Perri bad been so lost in her own thoughts, his footsteps on the stairs hadn’t registered.

  “Flowers for the bride,” he said unwrapping a box of longstemmed pink roses and selecting one still drawn into a bud. Matt slowly started toward her.

  Annoyed, flustered and three-quarters naked, she stood before him in thigh-high, lace-topped stockings, an ivory silk bra and matching thong. She clutched at her dress as he took his time looking her over. “It was too hot for a lot of underwear, okay?” she declared weakly. The look in his eyes only made her weaker.

  “Okay,” he replied as the rose drew a soft line down her arm. Her dress somehow melted out of her hands. He slowly stroked her bare stomach, studying her. He watch
ed her nipples tighten, mirroring the pink bud he held to her throat.

  Matt seemed intent on murdering her with tenderness, while memorizing every line and curve. Perri quivered at the gentle touch. It was all those hot, stolen moments together in the past that now led to such lazy sweetness. His tongue moved gradually past her lips as he carefully drew her into his arms. His big hands heated her flesh and her blood. Suddenly dropping the rose, Matt pulled her hips against his rigid flesh.

  She went pliant in his arms as his hand slid down to grip her thong, twisting the tiny scrap of material around his knuckles and pulling it taut. He held her tethered by the silk as he lightly bit her lips. All the while, Matt kept pulling so the thong rasped gently into her tender folds.

  Startled, Perri gasped at the sensation. It was almost too much. The moment had rapidly shifted from sweet to hot, with Matt in command. She melted as his hungry lips moved to her throat. He was getting too close.

  Perri couldn’t let him see how vulnerable she felt. If he got too close, she knew Matt would realise that she still loved him. She loved him and her heart ached for it. She couldn’t keep it sex instead of intimacy. She froze in his arms at the sudden understanding that it just wasn’t possible for her. He couldn’t help but feel her sudden alarm.

  Nothing else would have ended the moment more successfully. Matt knew her well; he’d pushed too hard. He reined in on the desire that all but consumed him. She had every right to expect him to take it slower than this.

  “I have to see to the stock. One of the mares a strain,” be said, squeezing the globes of her bottom. “We may be in for some weather by tonight. Don’t wait dinner for me,” he added. “I’ll be back when I get back.” For a moment he held her as if he had something more to say. Then, patting her hip, he moved toward the door.

  “Thank you for the roses, Matt,” Perri called softly after him. She took a deep breath as he closed the door, willing her heated blood to cool.

  She heard Matt walk toward the bedroom he had claimed for himself. What a useful skill running was, Perri realized with some bitterness. You were moving forward, so you didn’t have to look at how you were really moving away. Your focus was forward. You were taking an action that at least had the pretense of being positive.

  The kinesthetic approach, and the effort of running, took your mind off what you were moving away from. “Yeah, run along, Matt,” she whispered in the empty room. She was trembling.

  Second chances weren’t the only things you could avoid thinking about when you were running. Perri reminded herself. Not if you had something important enough to do.

  She dragged a hand through her hair. Where had all the anguish and regret come from? She took the time now to really examine the question. How much of it was because twelve years ago she had dragged her heart to Raleigh and kept going? The past was still there between them; a past engineered by Leila Ransom. There was no getting around it.

  The door slammed open.

  “How come you never got married?” Matt demanded. He had tried to leave it alone, to be a gentleman about it. Too bad. He was working hard to build something here, even though the memory of past events seemed to always shimmer on the edge of his vision. He had had to get away from her to pull himself together. Once when he’d parked the car, and now in order to change for his work.

  Neither one of them seemed at all skilled in bridging this gap. He noticed that Perri hadn’t moved during the time it had taken him to change into his work clothes. She seemed frozen and bewildered by the question. Too bad.

  “This marriage should have been mine for life, Mrs. Ransom,” he stated flatly, his eyes unreadable. When she didn’t reply he went on. “You’ll answer the question someday soon. You will give me that much before you’re on your way out of here,” he added.

  Matt turned away in disgust. Disgust at himself. At life and its consequences. And most especially, at his own blundering pride and his all-consuming hunger for a woman he shouldn’t want.

  He’s turned away again, she thought. On his way out the door. That did it. Fueled from its differing points of origin, Perri’s anger raged like fire on a prairie wind. Her fury over the events of twelve years ago finally joined with her distress over the fact that she still cared for him after all this time. Now it burst into white-hot flames in the present moment.

  She threw her wedding dress at his retreating back. The edge she felt was vicious. “Listen up, Ransom, and listen good,” she demanded. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying!” Perri remained rooted to one spot, as if proving her point. “And you’re going to need to deal with that. So you can stop telling me what I’m going to do,” she said in cold fury.

  “I let myself be pushed away without a fight once before, but that doesn’t mean you call all the shots,” she said furiously. “It doesn’t mean you can haul me back now just because you feel like it. Now that you need me for something other than sex,” she added.

  Matt stood silently with his despair. She bad never looked more beautiful. “And I’ll have what I need from you the minute the six months are up, won’t I?” he said bleakly. It wasn’t really a question.

  Some wedding day, Perri thought as she listened, yet again, to his boots on the stairs.

  Matt moved through the darkness toward Gledhill’s back porch, his pickup parked on Ransom land. Even when he reached the back door, he didn’t know what he was going to say to her. He understood Pern well enough to think she might still be in love with him; some at least He prayed she loved him enough to get them through this emotional storm.

  He was furious that he couldn’t just take what was so obviously his, due to his pride. And the past. To be matter-of-fact about it, he just didn’t see how he could live with Perri and not have her. He had no hope for a marriage in name only. Not when she looked at him the way she did. Not when he knew how she heated every time he got his hands on her. He passed silently through the kitchen.

  Just out of the shower, and no calmer for her efforts, Perri heard the now-familiar sound of boots on the stairs. “Matt.” The way she said it sounded like an oath. Racing into her room from the connecting bath, she barely had time to throw on a pair of silk pajama bottoms and work herself into her bra. She heard him move down the hall toward her bedroom as she grabbed for her pajama top. She didn’t attempt to button it. The knob was already turning.

  He opened the door and halted, considering her. His eyes raked over her, then rested on her tightening nipples. His lazy, perfunctory knock after the fact signaled that the niceties were not going to be observed.

  From the look of him, he had showered and changed clothes at Ransoms’. Whether he expected dinner or not she really couldn’t say. He certainly hadn’t called to let her know his plans. Perri took a deep breath. “Don’t you ever honor a closed door, Matt?” she demanded furiously.

  “No,” he said as he started slowly forward, considering her. “Not when my bride is behind it. Not on my wedding night. Not,” he whispered as he stopped in front of her, “when it’s you.”

  Matt didn’t stop to think. He took her in his arms before she could make up her mind whether or not to back off. His hands moved hungrily under her shirt, over the bare skin of her back as his kiss broke down her defenses. As he’d hoped, her anger transformed into hot, urgent desire. They bad both seen this moment coming.

  “If you’re going to say no, say it now,” he demanded.

  She couldn’t.

  He knew it. He played with her mouth for what seemed like forever. Teasing, openmouthed kisses left her breathless as he removed her pajama top and fancy bra in a heartbeat.

  Matt sucked in a breath as he noted the changes womanhood had brought about to her breasts. She was still small and beautifully formed. But she had ripened. His fingers reverently brushed the undersides of each plump little globe. He took his time to thoroughly explore her. She was damp from her shower and the scent of soap clung to her curves. Perri swayed into him with a moan.

  The silk
charmeuse bra had led him to assume she was wearing matching panties. His desire jolted up a level when his hands covered her bottom. She was wearing nothing underneath those soft, silky pants.

  She felt his surprise as work-roughened fingers snagged on the delicate silk. “You didn’t give me time,” she explained as her arms circled his waist. She kissed him as she pulled determinedly at his T-shirt. After working it over his head, her hungry mouth moved down to that gorgeous chest. Perri took in the scent of his skin as her tongue found his nipple.

  Matt returned the favor. He pulled her head back and let his mouth tantalize her breasts. His hand roamed down over her hips. He played with her navel, tickling and lightly slapping her with the ends of the drawstring holding up the pajamas that rode low on her hips. He then untied the little bow and slowly stripped her. Grabbing her shoulders, Matt abruptly turned her to the wall.

  Hitting the switch for the overhead light, he carefully braced her facing the wall of the darkened room. The light from the bath and the ball played over each side of her back and hips.

  Slowly, Matt filled his hands with her on a hoarse groan. The tension between them intensified. Her back burned as his chest pressed against her. Perri arched into him when the stubble of his beard rasped against the nape of her neck.

  Perri couldn’t stop the roll of her hips that brought her into contact with jeans pulled tight over his raised flesh. His thumbs toyed with her erect nipples, before he gently raked a thumbnail over each. She rolled her hips even harder and gasped at his touch.

  “You always did respond to that,” he said as he lightly pinched each heated crest. “I remember every little detail of you.” His teeth gently tugged on her earlobe. “Since you’ve been back, you’re all I can think about, all I can smell. I can already taste you again, darlin’,” he said in a low, urgent voice.