That Man Matthews

Joan wasn’t the skittish type. The husky, male voice coming from behind her and laced with amusement didn’t make her jump or suddenly swivel in her chair. It only annoyed her to realize that a total stranger was reading her notes over her shoulder. She turned her head slowly, prepared to make sure that a man with such odious manners would know just what she thought of him.

The first thing she saw was the belt buckle. Large, silver. It was a spectacle of male adornment that had been hammered and engraved by a craftsman’s loving hands. Unfortunately not by a craftsman with any sense of style or taste.

It depicted the head of a long-horned cow, or at least that’s what Joan thought it was. Behind the head was a wandering outline of the state of Texas. Or New York. Hard to tell.

Her eyes traveled upward, away from the snug jeans that delineated strong male thighs, past an elaborately stitched and fringed buckskin jacket. Her gaze stopped momentarily at the open neckline of a faded blue shirt. Fascinating. Not the shirt, but the glimpse of swirling midnight hair that covered a muscular chest. Thick and crisp and extremely touchable.

That interest unsettled her. Todd’s body was nicely muscled, but practically hairless. His torso had the pale, smooth perfection of a Greek statue. Until recently, she’d thought it the most magnificent body in the world. Until recently, she’d thought Todd the most perfect man.

She lifted her eyes to the stranger’s face. Sun-bronzed, with the hard features of a renegade, this man would never be called handsome. Rugged, maybe, but even that seemed too tame, too polite a term to describe him.

Suddenly Joan realized that her scrutiny hadn’t gone unnoticed. One inquiring brow rose with devilish interest, and he winked. She would have been embarrassed to be caught staring if she hadn’t felt that his breach of manners warranted an indignant look.

“So what do you think?” he asked with a grin. “About the swimsuit, I mean. You look like a gal who wouldn’t mind attracting a little attention. I know I’d give you a second glance.”

She wanted to tell him that as pickup lines went, he had the worst she’d ever heard, but it was probably better not to indulge in conversation with this man, no matter how attractive he was. “I’m really not interested in your opinion,” she said in the haughtiest tone she could manage, and then added with her most withering look, “or your attention.”

The stranger faked a wounded look at her rebuff. Then unexpectedly, he was shaking her hand as though her arm was a pump and he was bent on drawing water. “Howdy. You must be Joan Paxton. I’m Cody Matthews. Mind if I call you Jo-Jo?”

She barely registered the fact that this mannerless cretin was the man she’d planned to meet. She was stunned, but he had already flung himself into the chair opposite her before she found her voice. “Actually I’d prefer being called—”

“Sorry about the delay, Jo-Jo, but I didn’t think you’d mind waiting.” His dark brows rose again. “How ’bout a drink? I’m parched.” He threw back his head, spotted a waitress nearby and bellowed, “Hey, honey! We need some service over here.”

Oh, God. Was this Walter Matthews’s idea of a joke? How could this Neanderthal be that sweet old man’s son? The man she’d met at the seminar had been soft-spoken, asking her advice with an oldfashioned courtesy you seldom saw anymore. But this man…after a few minutes in his company, she’d be certifiable.

The waitress came to take their order. Cody Matthews tilted his hat to the back of his head with one finger and turned his appraisal of Joan into a leer. “What’s your pleasure, Jo-Jo?”

My pleasure would be for you to end this meeting and go away, she thought. And then the rest of that line of thinking faded as she got her first good look at his eyes. Remarkable. Startling robin’s-egg blue in that darkly tanned face. Beneath the hat, his hair was solidly black, silky and crisp-looking, if just a shade too long to please a fashion editor. She felt a moment’s regret that these two features should be wasted on a loud obnoxious moron like William Cody Matthews.

“Don’t keep this little gal waitin’, Jo-Jo.” He turned a hundred-watt grin on the waitress and patted her arm. “Time’s money, ain’t it, honey?”

The waitress had obviously been well-trained. She didn’t move a muscle. Joan was the one who bridled at such familiarity. It reminded her unpleasantly of the way Headmaster Mueller had begun his little games with her, finding those opportunities to touch and hug. “A glass of white wine, please,” she said quickly, ordering the first thing she could think of to give the poor woman a chance to escape.

Cody’s gut tightened. He should have guessed. Every woman in his life had loved wine. It was a drink to be sipped and fawned over, and personally, he had no patience for it. “Shoot,” he said with a dismissive shake of his head. “Wine’s no better than cow piss. Give me a double scotch. No rocks.”

The waitress hurried away and deliberately he leered after her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Paxton woman stiffen. Her complexion had gone the color of new milk, and he knew he’d made one hell of a first impression.

Kind of a shame to blow her out of the water like this, ’cause up close she didn’t look that much like Daphne, after all. Her nose was shorter and her eyes were nicer than Daph’s had been. A warm brown. But she had the attitude down pat. That regal distain that had been Daphne’s specialty and had eventually helped to kill their relationship.

“Mr. Matthews—”

“Call me Cody, gal. Mr. Matthews is my pa. ‘Course he doesn’t like that kind of formality any more than me. Reminds us too much of standing before the judge waiting to hear him pass sentence.” He made a loud snorting sound. “And we’ve both been that route often enough. How ’bout you? You ever been on the wrong side of the law?”

She looked honestly stymied by that question. It was a good five seconds before she formed an answer. “No, I can’t say that I have.”

“No, of course you haven’t. You’re a diplomat’s daughter, aren’t you? You probably went to some snotty private school and got taken everywhere in your father’s limousine and never once complained about having to put up with piano lessons.”

“Actually it was violin lessons.”

She was watching him closely now, as if he’d turned into a bug stuck on a pin. He lifted a speculative brow. “I’ll bet you never even jaywalk.”

Joan ducked her head to allow herself time to think. There was something about the look in his eyes, the way those words hissed out between his teeth, as though he begrudged them. She realized that for some reason he found her objectionable. It was odd, really, when he was the one who was clearly being outrageous. But she’d never been the type of woman to run away from a challenge. Surely, if she tried hard enough, she’d find something worth salvaging from this conversation.

She lifted her head to look at him sharply. “Mr. Matthews, perhaps we could discuss your daughter? Your father was very insistent that I make time to speak to you.”

He seemed to find her words extremely funny. His laughter was loud and hard, bouncing off the nearby waterfall and drawing the attention of several tables. “Of course he was. Pa knows what I like, and he really came through for me this time.”

“Perhaps we should limit ourselves to—”

“I figure I owe him big time for picking out such a looker.”

She blinked in surprise, not sure she’d heard correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

“If you come to my place in Texas to evaluate my kid, it doesn’t hurt that you won’t scare off the crows.”

“I see.”

He slid forward in his chair until their knees nearly touched. In a voice trimmed to conspiratorial tones, he said, “’Course, it gets kinda lonely at the ranch. You get finished sizing up Sarah, the two of us might work on a little…bunkhouse etiquette.” His finger touched her knee suggestively. The look in his eyes was glazed with self-assured passion. “You catch my meaning?”

“Yes. I believe I do.”

She stood, so abruptly that the chair wheeled back on its castors and bounced off the lip of the atrium reflecting pool.

Cody stared up at her, expecting her to haul off and slap him. Instead, he watched her indignation turn into exasperation. He had to give her credit. If she was alarmed by his aggression, she hid it well.

He rose slowly, not sure what to expect. Her eyes glittered; he could see anger in their dark, chocolate-colored depths, and a curious…disappointment. With him? That jarred Cody, yet at the same time, he was aware of his own faint, peculiar sense of relief.

She closed her appointment book with a firm snap. “Mr. Matthews, I don’t believe we can continue this discussion. I’m afraid this meeting has been a waste of time for both of us.”

He tried for bewilderment. “Did I say something wrong?”

“I don’t believe you’ve said anything right. Frankly, I find that strange, because your father struck me as sincerely concerned about your daughter’s welfare. And he thinks very highly of you. I understand that you graduated from Princeton at the top of your class. That you’ve been very successful in your business and running a ranch, as well.”

Her chin angled upward. The movement caused a few golden curls to escape along the nape of her neck. Cody found he had to resist the urge to nudge them back into place. He looked away only to meet up with Joan Paxton’s glare of smoldering dislike. She wasn’t finished with him yet.

“What I can’t understand,” she continued, “is why that sort of man would deliberately sabotage this meeting by behaving in a manner that can only be described as repugnant.” She fished a handful of dollars out of her purse, then slapped the bag back under one arm. “I believe your daughter could use my help. For her sake, I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’ve come to this meeting drunk.”

“Nope,” Cody protested. For good measure, he winked again. “But a few drinks for you probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea. You could stand to loosen up a little. You’re pretty uptight.”

She released a ragged strand of breath, and a moment later he saw color leap to her cheeks. For one frozen moment he felt guilty. There was a sour taste in his mouth, as if maybe he had been drinking. Let up, Matthews. You’ve gone too far now.

But Miss Joan Paxton had more starch in her spine than he expected. The subtle flex of her facial features, the flare of her nostrils—she was struggling for control and winning. Her guard was up now. Her determination transformed her eyes, making them seem lit by fire from within. All bristling anger and indignation, she was damned near beautiful, so attractive that it ignited a sharp thrill in Cody’s senses and almost made him forget just how much he didn’t want to have anything to do with someone like her.

“No, I don’t believe you have been drinking.” Those few syllables were no more than chipped slivers of ice. “I would say there’s only one other possibility.”

“And what’s that, Jo-Jo?”

“That your unfortunate daughter has a jackass for a father.” She tossed the bills on the table. “That should pay for my drink. I wish you luck, Mr. Matthews. I suspect you’re going to need it.”