Redemption (29 page)

God, Claire was unbuttoning his shirt!
He almost chortled with glee over the sudden victory that seemed his for the taking…except she was the one doing the taking.

She pressed her mouth to his chest, roaming, with little nibbles here and there…and then she found his mouth again. He satisfied her hunger, keeping her tongue busy while he slid his hands under her silk blouse and unhooked her bra.

And then those beautiful breasts were in his hands, filling his palms, and he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything.

Above him, she raised up to allow him better access, eyes closed, mouth trembling, inching toward his, as if she couldn’t decide if she were sated. He certainly wasn’t. He shifted. Lowering his mouth to her breast, he gave in to the urge to make her melt with his tongue.

She writhed in pleasure above him.

Heaven
. He had found it, here in his brother’s bed…in Claire’s arms.

And then a knock sounded on the portal of heaven, and the voice of his sister-in-law came through the door: “Matt? You guys hungry? You’ll want to get it while it’s hot.”

What an understatement!

He groaned as he felt Claire stiffen against him. She refused to meet his gaze as she scrambled off him, fumbling with her bra and grasping at buttons.

After he answered Mel, Matt lay with his hands tucked behind his head, silently observing her distress.

He loved the way she looked, flustered, her hair falling around her face, the apples of her cheeks stained with a pink glow.

He grinned. “If I clear my plate, do I get dessert?”

Shooting him a look, she clipped her hair, her wanton image dispelled—except for the lock of hair that refused to bend to her will. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned in a voice that held only a few residual tremors. “God knows, your sister-in-law already thinks I’m some kind of tramp.”

“No, she doesn’t. Mel knows everything. I told her…” He stopped. He had told Mel he was in love with Claire, that he wanted to marry her, but he didn’t think Claire wanted to hear that right now. “I told her the truth,” he said instead.

“That’s bad enough.”

“The fact that we have a child out of wedlock is hardly—” he began, but she cut him short.

“It’s the fact that I’ve got the nerve to show my face here, after keeping you in the dark for so long. It’s obvious the woman—your whole family—thinks you’re in need of protection. From women like me.”

She’d buttoned her shirt wrong. He reached over and moved her fingers, refastening the buttons. “My family, Claire, if you only knew…” He shook his head. “To them, I’m still the same kid who used to torture his sister’s Barbie dolls.”

“Well, I’m not a Barbie doll,” she said, illogically, and Matt resisted the urge to laugh.
God, he loved Claire Porter when she was flustered!

“Damn good thing,” he said, “Otherwise, I’d have painted you with fake blood, tied you up, and had GI Joe stage this rescue operation.”

“Ah,” she said, sliding her feet into her shoes. “Wasn’t that basically the script for
Jungle Fever
?”

He laughed. “Yeah, even as a kid I got off on playing the hero.” Then he sobered. “But it’s a hell of a lot easier when the bad guys aren’t after someone you love.”

Claire dropped her gaze. “We’d better go upstairs. Before Melinda sends reinforcements.”

Chapter Twenty

C
LAIRE
S
TOOD
I
N
T
HE
L
IVING
R
OOM
of Matt’s ranch house, gazing out the window at the snow-capped mountains that outlined the horizon. Matt’s ranch was larger than she had thought, stretching as far as she could see. Last night she hadn’t been able to appreciate the view of the ranch, or the house itself, but this morning she could admire the care someone had taken to create a luxurious yet cozy retreat.

A big stone fireplace stretched along one wall, the mantle filled with a selection of family photos, some of whom she recognized. The painting hanging above the fireplace was by Charles Russell, famed Montana cowboy artist, a fact Matt had told her with a touch of pride in his voice.

Comfortable leather sofas flanked a wide table, covered with an assortment of magazines and books on subjects ranging from ranching to film. The wide window showcased a view worthy of Hollywood. Claire could see why Matt often referred to Montana as “God’s backyard.”

“There’s a couple thousand acres,” he had told them when they reached his house last night. “Small, by Montana standards. But it suits my purposes.”

Claire glanced at him, wondering what it was about chambray that looked so incredibly sexy. “What exactly is that? You mentioned this was a working ranch—just what does that entail?”

“It entails a few hundred head of cattle, a couple ranch hands, half dozen horses, a couple rigs—”

“A couple what?”

He smiled. “Trucks. Four-wheel drives. Two-ton ponies,” he elaborated. “Every year we sell off a hundred or so steers. Though we do hang on to one or two—we keep ’em in the freezer,” he added, grinning as Claire winced.

There were some aspects of ranching, she had decided, that she didn’t want to know.

Through the window, a horse came into view, her son perched on the saddle. Tripper was having his first riding lesson. He must have risen at dawn, eager for the ride Matt had promised. Claire had been asleep, helped by the sleeping pills Melinda had handed her before they left last night. At first she had refused the offer, but Melinda, noticing how she jumped every time the phone rang, had insisted she needed a good night’s sleep.

It had helped. Now, as she sipped the coffee Matt had left for her, she could feel her battle gear slipping back into place. Last night’s weakness was a momentary aberration; this morning, the battle seemed definitely winnable and the world just a little brighter.

As Tripper and the horse slowly circled the corral, her heart warmed another degree.

Her city boy already seemed at home at his father’s ranch. He would be happy without her here for a few days, weeks even, until she had faced whatever needed to be faced. There was no better place to shield him. Matt had shown her the security system last night, assuring her it was guaranteed to keep out cattle rustlers as well as the paparazzi.

As Tripper turned the horse, he glanced up, catching sight of his mother. She returned his wave. When he motioned for her to join them, she smiled, then stuck her thumb up in agreement.

She headed upstairs to change. Hopefully the boots Matt’s sister-in-law had lent her would fit; if not, the opportunity would be worth ruining her Italian leather loafers.

She swallowed the lump that suddenly appeared in her throat. This might just be her last chance to enjoy her son’s company. Soon he would know the truth, and Claire knew it would be a long time before he forgave her.

Horse riding was one of those skills that was harder than it looked, Claire decided an hour later. Beside her, Matt chuckled when the horse refused to move at Claire’s sternly worded command.

“Forget it—and don’t bother sending a memo, either,” he added. “Horses respond to physical cues…a tug on the reins, a squeeze of the knees.”

He put a hand on her knee to illustrate, giving it a squeeze. Claire felt the heat through the denim, along with a stirring of last night’s lust that apparently was still simmering just under the surface. She swallowed, then noticed his gaze had landed on her knee. When he looked up, a wicked gleam lurked in his green eyes.

Suddenly the horse moved, and Claire was too busy hanging on to wonder at the direction of his thoughts. After a turn around the muddy corral, where their tracks were making short work of the layer of snow that had fallen the night before, she let herself relax. She just might get the hang of this after all.

“That’s good, Mom,” Tripper encouraged. “You’ve got a pretty good seat—doesn’t she, Matt?” Head tilted, he looked up at his father, obviously echoing the praise he had heard earlier.

Claire hid her grin; then, realizing her “seat” was going to ache tomorrow unless she cut the lesson short, she started to ask Matt to explain the proper way to dismount.

But she tensed at the sound of gravel crunching.

Matt placed a reassuring hand on the saddle. “It’s probably just Randy.”

But it wasn’t Randy. A few minutes later, Matt’s sister-in-law, Ben, and Hannah appeared, accompanied by an older woman. Matt’s mother, Claire realized, dismounting with Matt’s help.

She wanted to run and hide in the barn. Instead, she squared her shoulders and prepared to meet yet another member of Matt’s over-protective family. But she would willingly face the “firing squad” at point-blank range, as long as their protection extended to her son.

Later, inside, as they all sat around the pine table eating the muffins Mrs. Grayson had brought, Melinda gave Claire an apologetic look. “I couldn’t stop her,” she said with an undertone. “She would have come out on her own if I hadn’t brought her.” She glanced toward Tripper, who was refilling his milk glass at the refrigerator. “I figured the least I could do was bring Ben to provide a distraction.”

The strategy had worked. Busy entertaining his new friend, Tripper hadn’t even noticed the thorough examination Matt’s mother had given him over her cup of coffee.

Or the pointed glances she directed at Claire.

“How long did you all live in California?” she asked, and then before Claire could answer, she looked at Matt. “You’d think, living so close…”

“Ma, San Francisco isn’t exactly in the same neighborhood as LA.”

But Joyce just shrugged. “It’s all the same state, isn’t it?”

Matt gave Claire a dry look. “She thinks California is just one big drug den.”

Claire wiped her mouth delicately on a napkin. “These are delicious.”

“The blueberries came from Matt’s grandmother’s yard. I put them up last summer.”

Claire glanced at Matt. “Your grandmother is still alive?”

His mother answered for him. “Yes, but she’s in her nineties. She won’t live forever.” She gave Matt a sharp look, her meaning clear.

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Claire cleared her throat. “Matt tells me you direct the children’s choir at church. That must take up a lot of time.”

“Oh no, there’s just a few kids—and three of them are my grandchildren,” she told Claire with another pointed look, this time at the two boys who, from the looks of the kitchen, were preparing for a siege.

Claire seized the opportunity to redirect the line of questioning. “Tripper, where are you planning to take all that?”

He looked guilty, but Ben had an answer. “We’re going to the barn. We’re gonna make a fort in the hayloft.”

Mel spoke up, the voice of authority. “Go ahead, but remember we’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

True to her word, they didn’t overstay their welcome, and when they were gone, Claire slipped into Matt’s office, intending to phone her office. It was Saturday, and though no one would be there, she could still check her messages.

She had barely glanced at the room when Matt had shown it to her last night; now she took the opportunity to look around. Feed bills lay on the desk atop a pile of movie scripts. Along a shelf, a few anonymous videotapes were shoved among various awards and football trophies. Inside the glass-front bookcase were novels: Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, and the latest Jodi Picoult.

Claire was impressed. None of the articles she had read about Matt Grayson over the years mentioned his penchant for reading, but the bookcase bore a well-used look. A stereo cabinet contained a rack of CDs—again, an eclectic assortment: Kenny Chesney, The Killers, and several soundtracks.

The fax machine hummed behind her. She noticed it had been busy, and as the fresh page unrolled to the full tray, it fell to the table beside her. Claire picked it up and couldn’t help noticing it was from Matt’s publicist.

It was a copy of the statement Matt had released to the press. As Claire read it, an ache pierced her heart. Matt was trying to shield her. The statement implied that he had known of his son’s existence all along and had ignored it.

The next two pages that fell out of the fax were a wrap-up of yesterday’s coverage of the story. Though the publicist explained in her note that the aftermath wasn’t as bad as they had feared, the coverage of the story was still extensive. With
Jungle Fever
still in the top ten at the box office, any news involving Matt Grayson—especially the news that the single star was a father—was bound to titillate the public. Not only had the gossip rags, including those in Europe, picked up the story, but the cable programs devoted to Hollywood gossip had led with the news. It had even rated a mention on the
Today
show.

And posted on the unofficial Matt Grayson web site, maintained by fans, was a photo of Tripper: “The son Matt Grayson never told anyone about.”