Kitabı oku: «That Man Matthews»

CHAPTER ONE

CODY MATTHEWS took one look at Merlita Soledad’s broad, dark features and immediately recognized trouble ahead.

His live-in Mexican housekeeper was normally a pleasant apple dumpling of a woman, a whirlwind of efficiency when it came to keeping the ranch house organized. She had a generous heart, a bone-crushing hug and an ancient recipe for the best darned chilies rellenos in south Texas. But when she was angry, she had a tendency to mangle the English language, and right now she was grinding it up like a steak in a blender.

“You try it, jefe,” she demanded, her arms planted across her chest, her nostrils flared wide. “You tell me how you like.”

“Lita, if I don’t leave soon, I’m gonna be late for the afternoon flight to Washington.” He tried to give the woman back the plate and fork she’d thrust into his hands when she’d invaded his study. “You know I love your cocoa cake. I’ll be home tomorrow night. Save a piece for me.”

“No,” Merlita said with a firm shake of her head. Her arms tightened, and he caught his first glimpse of the kitchen paring knife she held between her capable fingers. “You taste my cake. It’s important. You, too, Señor Walt.”

Cody didn’t think it wise to argue with a woman who held a knife. He glanced at his father. Walt Matthews cradled a similar plate of the sweet chocolate dessert, but from the crinkle bisecting his forehead, it was clear he didn’t have a clue what was bothering Merlita, either.

With an uncertain smile Cody settled back, hooking one leg over the side of his desk. If the woman was desperate for a compliment, he’d have no trouble giving it, and then he could be away from Luna D’Oro and off to the airport.

He stuck his fork into the wedge of chocolate and scooped a generous helping into his mouth. “Mmm…” he began. “Still my favorite dess…”

The words trailed away as he stopped chewing. Whoa! Sam Houston’s underwear, something was mighty wrong with this batch!

He cast a suspicious look at his plate. The cinnamon and chocolate couldn’t disguise the fact that the cake was just plain awful. He wanted to spit the mouthful in the trash can next to his desk. But Merlita’s dark eyes were throwing off sparks now, and he didn’t dare.

Again he looked to his father for help. Pa had taken a small bite from his own dish. Cody could see he was having trouble swallowing.

“It’s…uh…a little different from your usual, isn’t it?” Cody ventured.

“Sí.”

“Trying a new recipe?” his father asked when he finally appeared to get his tongue under control.

“No,” Merlita said, looking indignant. “Emperor Maximilian ate my great-great-great grandmother’s cake in the Spanish court of kings. I do not change her recipe. But how you like it?”

“Might be a tad overcooked,” Cody suggested, clearing his throat and wishing he had something to wash the taste out of his mouth. “Or maybe the mixing bowl didn’t get cleaned well enough. Some soap-suds—”

“Tu eres loco? I don’t cook in dirty bowls!” Merlita exclaimed in horrified tones. She waved away his words with a broad sweep of the hand that held the paring knife. “It’s the salt. Dos. Two cups.”

“Oh.” Cody and Walter exchanged looks. Neither of them had a clue what went into the making of Mexican cake. Or what to say now. Cody settled on evasion. “Seems like a lot of salt.”

“That’s because it should be sugar. Someone switches the labels on the jars in my cupboard. A funny joker with yellow hair.”

“Oh. I see.” Cody straightened, suddenly understanding. He set the plate down on the only exposed corner of his desktop. Sarah! He should have known. Wasn’t it always Sarah these days? “Lita, darlin’, I—”

“You promised, jefe,” Merlita reminded him, making her point with the tip of the knife. “No more, you say. You say you straighten her out but good. You are el jefe grande around here, but you are not a man of your word.”

“I did talk to her. But I’ll talk to her again—”

“You do more than talk now. This is times three she makes jokes on me. The rubber bug in my guacamole. The bubbling soap pouring out of my washing machine. I can take no more. Comprende? She does not stop? Via con dios, jefe. I go home to Mexico.” The woman’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “And I take my rellenos recipe with me.”

With a clatter of annoyance, the housekeeper scooped up the plates and forks and left the study. She muttered a litany of Spanish complaints all the way to the kitchen.

Cody turned back to his desk, searching through the mess of paperwork for his plane ticket. He smiled at his father, whose faded-blue gaze gleamed with knowing concern. “Don’t say it, Pa,” Cody warned. He didn’t have time right now for a lecture about things he already knew.

“I didn’t say a word,” Walt Matthews protested.

“No, but you’re thinking it.”

“It’s still a free country, ain’t it? Man’s got a right to think whatever he wants.” Leaning heavily on one of the metal crutches that helped him get around, Walt came slowly to join him at the desk. “But I’m not one to stick my nose in where it ain’t welcome.”

Cody looked up with a laugh. “Since when?”

“Fine. Just don’t come looking for me to cook when Merlita up and takes a bus back to Chihuahua.”

“Damn! Where the hell is that ticket?” Cody complained as he threw down an empty envelope. “Someday I’m going to get this desk organized. If I miss this flight, it will be tomorrow afternoon before I can get another one out.”

“That might not be such a bad thing. Give you a chance to talk to Sarah.”

“Pa—”

Walt cut him off with a forestalling hand. “None of my beeswax, I know.”

Cody sighed. Might as well give in. He wasn’t going to get away from Luna D’Oro today without discussing Sarah. “It’s just a little harmless fun, Pa. You remember what I was like as a kid, don’t you? Always trying to pull a fast one on you and Mom and the bunkhouse crew? Nothing Sarah’s done is malicious. In fact, you have to admit that some of her pranks are pretty clever for a twelve-year-old.”

“That isn’t what you said last week when you turned on the air conditioner in the Rover and five pounds of rice flew out the vents and nearly scared you off the road.”

“Surprised, not scared.”

“Same thing.”

Cody rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to argue. Especially when Walt was probably right. Sarah—his sweet, precious baby girl—had turned into a royal pain in the butt in the past couple of months. Mouthy. Disobedient. With enough practical jokes in her bag of tricks to torment the family every day for the next ten years. And he didn’t want to even think about what her final school report was going to look like this year.

He stopped looking for the plane ticket long enough to glance at the picture he kept on his desk. Sarah, of course. The candid shot taken last year at the ranch’s annual cookout.

Pa’s camera had caught her pressed up against Cody, all smiles and girlish delight, hugging him with every bit of the strength and love she had in her. Nothing in that pert little nose and dimpled grin looked even remotely defiant. Her pale sunlit hair was made for angels, not devils. If there was any hint of the stubborn, willful behavior they’d seen lately, it was in the slight clef in his daughter’s chin. She’d inherited it from her mother. It was pure Daphne.

“Here’s your ticket,” his father said, rescuing it from beneath a pile of handbills advertising everything from horse auctions in San Antonio to Stampede Days in Laredo. He handed Cody the folder, and then another right beneath it. “And take this with you on the plane, too. Try reading it this time.”

Cody slipped the plane ticket into the inside pocket of his buckskin jacket. He barely glanced at the flyer his father had shoved into his hand. He knew what the old man was up to.

The flyer contained information about a parenting conference that had taken place two weeks ago in Austin. Struggling to understand what was causing the change in Sarah’s behavior, the two Matthews men had planned to attend, but at the last minute the deal Cody had made for Williston property had looked as if it might fall through. Walt had been forced to go alone.

He’d come back full of excitement and ideas and the flyer—with one name circled on the workshop list. A Virginia teacher and educational therapist named Joan Paxton had conducted a seminar on how to deal with kids suffering from attention deficit disorder. The blurb about her in the brochure was full of the kinds of things Cody hated most—sweeping praise from pompous-sounding academics and vague promises about what her lecture could accomplish. But Pa kept pressing Cody to contact the woman, see if she could give him some one-on-one advice.

Only one thing wrong with that idea, Cody had said. Sarah did not have attention deficit disorder. The flyer had been relegated to the read-when-I-get-around-to-it pile on his desk.

“I’m telling you, son,” Walt interrupted Cody’s thoughts. “The woman had every person in the audience taking notes. She knows her stuff. And if you’d talk to her, she might help us figure out what’s eatin’ Sarah.”

Anxious to be gone, Cody was hardly listening now. Absently he asked, “Why would she be willing to talk to me in particular?”

“’Cause I asked her to.”

That grabbed Cody’s attention. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I went up to her after the workshop and told her how much I enjoyed her speech. We got to talking, and before I left she said she’d be happy to discuss Sarah’s problems with you.”

“How could you do that?” Cody asked. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, striving for patience. “Look, Pa. Sarah is my problem. I don’t want or need any stiff-necked, tight-assed schoolmarm telling me what’s wrong with my kid. I haven’t done such a bad job for twelve years that I need to call in reinforcements now.”

“I’m not saying you have. But what’s wrong with asking for a little help? And come to think of it, have you done anything about hiring a nanny yet?”

“I haven’t had time to call an agency.”

“You haven’t made time.”

Unfortunately that was true. Cody had stalled on that suggestion. The idea of hiring full-time live-in help to raise Sarah rubbed him the wrong way. Sarah was twelve, for God’s sake, not a baby who needed her diaper changed. Which was, by the way, the kind of thing Cody had done for her when she’d needed it. That and a lot of other things. Now, suddenly, he couldn’t handle his own daughter?

“You didn’t have help raising me after Mom died. I didn’t turn out so bad.”

His father shook his head. “No, but I shoulda worked harder on that ornery streak of yours.”

Cody grinned. “I got it from you, didn’t I?” He headed for the door. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll never make the plane. We’ll talk when I get back.”

“Son?” His father’s serious tone brought him up short. “Here’s something else you need to consider. How will you explain Sarah’s behavior to her other Grandpa, if he decides he wants to become part of her life?”

Cody felt his heart drop. He couldn’t admit it to his father, but that worry had been nibbling at him ever since Edward Ross had reentered their lives. So far, the Connecticut millionaire had kept a low profile, but if the old man ever decided to investigate the circumstances of his granddaughter’s birth…Cody shuddered at the thought.

“He won’t interfere in our lives, Pa,” Cody said in a determined voice, more to convince himself than his father. “He’s too busy hobnobbing with senators and movie stars. He doesn’t have time for twelve-year-old girls who only want to talk about horses and how soon they’ll get to wear makeup.”

“Don’t you believe it, son. What’s Edward Ross been doing with his time since he’s retired? His only child killed in a plane crash years ago. His wife dead, too. Then he finds out he has a grandchild—a girl who looks a heck of a lot like Daphne. You think he’s not gonna want to be a part of her life? A big part?”

The older man slipped one arm out of his metal crutch support and rubbed his hip absently. “You’re foolin’ yourself, son. Believe me, at that age, a man looks back on his life and starts thinking maybe he should have done things differently.”

Cody frowned, a little surprised by the remorseful tone in Walt’s voice. His father had few regrets about the way he’d lived his life. The accident that had robbed him of the full use of his legs was about the only thing he might want to change. How different everything might have been if he’d never climbed up on that bull.

“Pa?”

His father seemed to snap out of his reverie. He straightened, fixing Cody with a hard stare. “So maybe you’re right, and Edward Ross leaves us alone. That still takes me back to the point I’ve been trying to make. You know everything there is to know about raising cattle, Cody. Making land deals. Playing the stocks. But what do you really know about what goes on in a little girl’s head?”

“I know she doesn’t have attention deficit disorder, damn it.”

“Let’s be sure. I have the number for the private school where this gal teaches in Virginia. Alexandria’s not that far from D.C., is it? You could stay over. I’ll set it up for you.”

Cody glanced at his watch. Only way he’d make the plane now was if he ran into no traffic at all and sprinted through the airport like a long-distance runner. Conceding defeat, he sighed heavily and nodded. “All right. Make the call to her. And set up all the appointments for nannies you want. Call me tonight at the hotel and tell me where and when to show up.”

His father grinned. “You won’t be sorry.”

“I already am.”

“This woman’s sophisticated, intelligent. Did I mention her father was Alistair Paxton, the diplomat?”

“Ah, jeez, a blue blood. You know how I feel about that kind of woman.”

“You’re not fixing to make her your wife.”

“You know what I mean. Just the thought of being around another Daphne-type, even briefly, makes my gut ache.”

“All right,” Walt said hurriedly, apparently eager to shore up any damage his words might have done. “You don’t like her, you cut the conversation short and come on home. I’ll have a dozen nannies waiting for you, ready to be interviewed. One of them is bound to please you.”

“I can hardly wait,” Cody said without enthusiasm and rushed to his car.

PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE mentioned her resemblance to Daphne, Walter thought, as he waved the Rover away from Luna D’Oro’s front drive. But Cody was already riled up enough about being strong-armed into agreement, and he’d turn as prickly as a desert cactus if he thought he was being manipulated, as well.

Of course, everything else aside, meeting Joan Paxton would still be a good thing for Sarah. The woman was razor sharp when it came to kids. If Cody didn’t let his ego get in the way, she might be able to help him cope with Sarah. God knows, reprimands, incentives and being sent to her room hadn’t done any good with the girl lately.

Walt made his way slowly back to the rear of the house, where the hacienda’s courtyard portal offered peace and quiet and a great view of the setting Texas sun.

He was worrying for nothing. When Cody met Joan, he’d see reason. He just had to listen to her for a few minutes, give her half a chance. And he would, because she was a looker, and Cody had always had an eye for pretty blondes. The fact that she bore a passing resemblance to Daphne, Sarah’s mother, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, was it?

Walter frowned as he settled down on a chaise longue with a weary groan. Oh, well. Too late now.

Gently he lifted his legs onto the lounger. If he got his right hip to stop giving him fits in a few minutes, he’d call her, set up a time when she and his son could get together. It was short notice, but Walt still had a little of the old Matthews charm in him. He could make it happen. Could be that by this time the day after tomorrow, Cody would either have hated her on sight and come home, or he’d be convinced she’d hung the moon.

Even with that damned resemblance to Daphne, Walter was betting on the latter.

AW, HELL, I SHOULD HAVE known.

Cody picked Joan Paxton out the moment she walked through the crowded lobby of the Alexandria Hotel, and he knew right off she wasn’t going to have anything to say that he’d want to hear.

He’d been regretting the decision to meet the woman almost from the moment he’d agreed to it. When Walt had called him in his D.C. hotel room, the resentful, trapped feeling in his chest had gotten worse.

The Paxton woman would meet him at four in the afternoon in the hotel lobby, Walt had told him. Then—when he got home—there would be three interviews with prospective nannies waiting for him. From some ridiculous agency called Cultivated Kids, whose logo in the phone book, Pa had said, was a garden row of child-flowers, their faces beaming up toward the sun. As if Sarah was a crabgrass-clogged daisy who just needed a healthy dose of weed killer.

Damn Sam Houston’s whiskers! He didn’t need a gardener for Sarah. He didn’t need outside help with Sarah at all.

Truth be told, he liked her fine just the way she was. Bright. Imaginative. Sure, she was a handful. Had been from the moment she’d come wailing into his life without a single instruction manual. With Daphne horrified at the thought of being a mother, Cody had raised her almost single-handedly. He’d followed gut instinct and horse sense, and hell, she hadn’t turned out so bad.

A little rough around the edges, maybe. A little wild and unpredictable at times. But he liked those traits in her. They made her an individual. They made her funny and interesting and someone he could be proud to call his daughter. Sarah was going to turn out to be one hell of a woman, not some watered-down, homogenized prima donna who only cared about the latest fashions from Paris and how hard she’d have to work to find a rich man to marry.

From behind a planter he watched the Paxton woman make her way to the hotel front desk. Oh, yes, he knew her type well enough. Tall. Blond. Prissy. Spoiled rotten, no doubt, by that diplomat father of hers.

He didn’t know what it was about cool ice princesses that always got to him. But since Sarah’s birth he’d had two serious relationships with women, and both of them had been carbon copies of Daphne.

The last one had ended six months ago. All right, so maybe he was willing to consider dating again—it got lonely at the ranch, damn it—but he’d never give another tall, uppity blonde a second look. They were just too much trouble, he’d told Pa, and he’d meant it. Which was probably why Walt had deliberately neglected to mention that Joan Paxton was a Daphne look-alike.

The severe, dark suit she wore said she was all business and it accentuated her height. She wouldn’t have to lift her chin too high to meet his six-foot-three frame. She moved with stiff authority, like a general inspecting his troops, and her shoulders were thrown back as though she’d forgotten to take the coat hanger out of her jacket before she’d slipped it on. She looked like she’d forgotten how to smile, too, but he had to admit she had a nice, tight rear end that shifted prettily without being provocative.

Cody frowned as his insides twisted unpleasantly. Yep, she reminded him so much of Daphne that he had to resist the urge to check for his wallet.

Wearily he rubbed his hand over his face. It had been a long, tiring day. The boardroom fight with Williston’s lawyers had reduced his brain to mush. If he really was going to be faced with a bunch of Mary Poppins wannabes tomorrow, he needed to relax. Not try to make nice with an aristocratic intellectual who’d take one look at him and decide he’d done everything wrong the past twelve years.

He watched Joan Paxton ask directions. She’d punished her hair by twisting it up into one of those silly French things that all but destroyed any pretense of femininity, but she couldn’t hide the truth that her hair was one of her best features. The color of sunshine, tendrils that looked as fine and soft as a kitten’s ear surrounded a pretty, heart-shaped face.

She turned her head to follow the concierge’s pointing finger, and a few wisps of golden hair had the audacity to escape their French prison. Impatiently she lifted a manicured hand to smooth the disobedient curls back into place.

Glancing at her watch, she made a beeline for the hotel atrium where they were to meet in five minutes. He’d bet she’d never been late for an appointment in her life.

In another moment she had disappeared behind the jungle of plants and fake waterfalls that all fancy hotels insisted on cluttering up their lobbies with these days. But he could imagine her sitting there, glancing at her watch. Maybe tapping her foot.

Cody frowned again, then exhaled in disgust. What had Pa been thinking?

“No way in hell,” he muttered under his breath.

There were other people he could consult about Sarah’s behavior problems. Authorities of his own choosing. Not someone who would blame attention deficit disorder or him. Not someone who would probably suggest drugs that would turn his baby girl into a complacent little zombie with the personality of navel lint. No! No overbred blue blood was going to tell him how to raise his kid. And Cody was definitely not going to give said blue blood the opportunity to figure out that the Matthews household wasn’t exactly what it seemed to be.

Instead, he’d send a bellman to her with a message. Apologize for the inconvenience, cancel the meeting. Perhaps sometime in the future, he’d suggest. A vague-enough promise he never intended to keep.

There was still Pa to deal with. He was a stubborn old cuss. Once he’d wrung that promise out of Cody, he wouldn’t let up. There would be at least two more trips back here to D.C. to complete the Williston deal. Cody could hear Walt’s argument now. Surely one of those trips would allow him time to reschedule a meeting with Joan Paxton?

Of course, if he and the schoolmarm didn’t hit it off, he could say he’d given it his best shot.

He tipped his Stetson to the back of his head as an idea came to him. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t had time to change out of his comfortable buckskin jacket and jeans. Boots and western garb would suit this interview just fine. If he’d learned one thing from his father, it was how to make a Texas drawl and good-old-boy attitude work for him. In the corporate world, he’d used his rough frontier persona more than a few times to set those bean counters on their ears.

Joan Paxton would be easy to chase off.

A little snake-oil charm. A lot of Texas arrogance. Maybe he’d even shamble into his best aw-shucks, dumb-cowpoke routine, the one that never failed to get a cackling laugh out of Merlita. Miss Joan Paxton would hightail it home but quick and count herself lucky to get away.

Leaving him with no chance of another meeting.

Leaving him to find his own solution to Sarah’s wayward behavior.

He could spend the rest of the evening working out his frustrations in the hotel gym. Relax afterward in a hot whirlpool. Maybe he’d even stop by the hotel gift shop, see if he could find something to take back to Merlita. Just in case Sarah had been up to tricks again in his absence.

Striding toward the atrium, Cody’s lips curved into a satisfied smile.

Ten minutes.

Tops.