Texas Rose (12 page)

Right into Aunt Beth.

Summoned by the sound of raised voices, Beth looked at the two with confusion and concern etched into her well-moisturized face.

“You two are so loud, St. Patrick's Cathedral just called and asked if we want a priest to come and perform an exorcism.” Beth looked from one angry face to the other. “What in heaven's name is going on here?”

“Ask him.” Rose jerked a thumb at Matt. “He seems to have all the answers.”

With that, Rose slammed the door on both of them and walked away.

The second the door closed, Beth saw Matt's shoulders lose their rigidity. Empathy flooded through her like Hurricane Andrew through Florida. She gave him an understanding smile.

“Would you like to come into the kitchen for a cup of coffee?”

He sighed. Matt shrugged carelessly, turning. “Sure. Could you lace it with some arsenic?”

“Now, now, it can't be as bad as all that—” And then she confided, “Although I have to admit it did sound pretty bad there for a minute.” She walked into the kitchen, flipping on the overhead cam lights. “Woke me from a sound sleep.”

“Sorry,” he apologized.

“No apology necessary. At least,” she amended, “not to me.”

She laid her hand on his shoulder and gently forced him down into a chair at the kitchen table.

“Stay,” she ordered humorously, then turned to the business at hand. Ada wasn't due in until almost ten, which coincidentally was around the time she got up in the morning. But coffee wasn't about to get itself. If she wanted it, she was going to have to find the coffee filters.

Selecting a set of cupboard doors, Beth began her quest. She hadn't a clue where most things in her kitchen were shelved.

“All right,” she said cheerfully as she continued her search. “Do you want to tell me what that shouting match back there was all about?”

Staring down at his hands, he said darkly, “I found out that Rose is pregnant.”

Beth halted her search for a second, glancing over her shoulder at Matt. “Oh.”

“You knew?” he asked, stunned. Did everyone know? The thought only succeeded in making him feel that much more of a fool.

She waved a vague hand, dismissing the fact. Not bothering to tell him that she'd read it in Rose's face within the first half hour of her arrival. Sooner, actually. “Anyone with eyes would know—” She looked at him again, then smiled benevolently. “Except maybe a man,” she amended.

Men were a whole different breed than women, she
thought. They didn't pick up on sensitive things such as this, at least not easily.

Matt didn't know if that was supposed to make him feel better or not and made no response. He was suddenly too miserable. How could Rose do this? How
could
she? he silently demanded.

“Here we are,” Beth announced, breaking into his thoughts. She held the filters up like a trophy. Placing the box on the counter, Beth turned toward the refrigerator. At least she knew where the coffee was kept. “All that shouting couldn't have been because you found out she was pregnant. How did you find out, by the way?”

Matt shrugged. What did it matter how he found out? The point was that Rose was pregnant. “Rose was in the bathroom, throwing up. I woke up and heard her.”

“That'll do it.” Beth nodded absently as she measured out what she hoped was the proper amount of coffee grinds. “What made you think she was pregnant in the first place? I mean, she could have just been sick, right?”

“She fainted last week in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The nun that came out to help us asked me if Rose was pregnant.”

Rose had failed to mention the fainting spell to her. Beth frowned.
That girl needs to be taking more prenatal vitamins,
she thought.

“I see. So now you know.” She poured water into
the coffeepot and deposited that in turn into the coffee machine. “Why were you shouting at her?”

A fresh surge of fury went through him. “Because it's not mine.”

Beth turned from the coffeemaker, stunned at his deduction. “Why wouldn't it be yours?”

He thought that was rather obvious. He'd come to his conclusion the only way he knew how. “She didn't tell me, so I thought…”

All Beth could do was shake her head. “Matt, Matt, Matt.” She ruffled his hair. “You know, for a bright young man, you can be awfully stupid. Even for a Carson.” He jerked his head up, indignant at the unexpected slam, only to see her smiling at him in satisfaction. “See? Doesn't feel very good when the arrow's piercing
your
hide, does it?” She saw that he was confused. “I came in on the argument when you made that remark about falling for a Wainwright.”

Embarrassed, ashamed for being caught and for saying it in the first place, he shrugged.

“Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. Just my temper getting the better of me. I thought she'd found someone else,” he explained helplessly. The thought had instantly eaten away at his stomach. “That maybe she was seeing the two of us all the time and found out she was pregnant with his baby.”

Beth sighed, setting down the two cups she'd taken from the cupboard. She held up one finger. “Number
one, my boy, Don't jump to conclusions so quickly.” She peered at him, trying to get at the truth without revealing anything she shouldn't. “Did Rose say there was another man?”

“No,” he said miserably. “But she didn't say there wasn't. Wouldn't she have denied it if there wasn't another man?”

The secret was Rose's to disclose, not hers. Her hands were tied. Or, in this case, her lips. It was going to be hard to maintain the peace and still convince Matt to stick around. Sometimes she thought she could just shake that girl.

She held up another finger. “Number two, never assume anything. Wait to be given evidence. And number three, even if there had been two of you and she found herself pregnant after being with each—and I'm not saying that there is or was another man—there'd be no way of telling whose the baby was until afterward when the tests were performed, now would there?”

Feeling both betrayed by Rose and angry at himself for losing his temper Matt dropped his head into his hands.

“I guess I'm just not thinking clearly,” he said.

“No, I guess you're not.” Realizing she'd forgotten one of the more important components in coffee-making, she quickly placed the coffeepot beneath the spout just in time. The black liquid began to flow.
Content, Beth turned to look at him. “So now what are you going to do next?”

Logically, he should leave. He knew that. But logic gave way to a sense of wanting to protect Rose. It shot his common sense all to hell.

“There's only one thing I can do next,” he told her. “I'm going to ask Rose to marry me. She can't come home as an unwed mother. I don't care how sophisticated the times are, there's still a stigma attached to an unwed mother where we come from. I can't let her go through that. Rose deserves better.”

Yes, Beth thought, she does. And she had a sneaking suspicion that her niece was about to get exactly what she deserved—as long as Rose wasn't too stubborn and messed it up.

“K
eep your nose out of it, unless you want to find yourself looking at a price tag that's too high for you to pay.”

As suddenly as it came, the voice disappeared. Judge Carl Bridges found himself listening to a dial tone droning in his ear. He realized that his hand was shaking visibly. They were getting to him.

He forced himself to replace the receiver. Early evening shadows were beginning to drift into his study. He stood alone in the encroaching darkness.

What did that make now, three calls? No, four. Four phone calls to his Mission Creek home with vaguely worded threats that no one but he could understand. He didn't have to ask what the “it” the gravelly voiced man on the other end of the line had been referring to. He knew.

He was being warned to stay clear of anything that had to do with the Texas mob. He supposed they thought that judges weren't immune to fear.

They were right.

It was obvious to him that someone had to have seen him visiting Isadora Mercado, Haley's mother,
in the hospital just before she was murdered. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman he had once loved, the woman he loved still, had not expired because of complications due to the beating she'd received at the hands of someone affiliated with the mob. She had been murdered in her bed. Smothered. As a warning to her husband Johnny. You never walked away from the mob. It wouldn't let you.

Carl was only glad that he'd managed to get word to Haley and to sneak her into the hospital room to see her mother before Isadora was killed.

But it was apparent now that his simple act of kindness had placed him in jeopardy. That went double for Haley.

He could only hope that the FBI continued to keep her safe.

Carl tried to tell himself that if the Texas mob meant to kill him, they would have done it by now. But he knew them, knew what they were like. Toying with their intended victims was typical of their ruthless sense of humor. He was the mouse to their cat. It was as simple as that.

He didn't know if going to the FBI with his suspicions about the phone calls would even get him anywhere, much less the protection he knew he needed. He doubted that even with a wiretap the calls could be traced. The mob was too smart for that.

Still, he was a judge and had some pull.

Maybe it was worth a call at that. What did he have to lose?

But when he reached for the receiver again, it wasn't to put in a call to the nearest FBI office, it was to set his life in long overdue order. His sense of mortality haunted him like a dark, uninvited guest. If he were to die tonight, within the next hour, matters between him and Dylan, his estranged son, would remain unresolved for all time.

The situation had to be rectified. He couldn't die with that on his conscience. Couldn't die without Dylan knowing that he'd forgiven him all the sins of his past.

Pressing numbers on the keypad Carl had thought he'd long since forgotten, he called Dylan's number at his home.

The phone rang five times. Carl debated hanging up before some answering machine picked up. After all this time, he didn't want his first contact with Dylan to be in the form of a disembodied voice on an answering machine.

Better that than nothing, Carl told himself fatalistically. The phone rang another two times.

“Hello?”

Carl gripped the receiver. It wasn't an answering machine. It was Dylan. He took a deep breath. “Hello, Dylan?”

“Yes?” There was a pause on the other end of the line. Recognition failed to set in. “Who is this?”

Part of Carl wanted to hang up, to postpone this awkward call. But he was stronger than that. “Dylan, this is your father.”

“Dad?” Dylan asked incredulously. The uncertainty in his voice indicated that he was trying to discern if this was some kind of a cruel joke.

Carl began to talk quickly, knowing if he didn't, it would never come out. He didn't want to give Dylan a chance to hang up. After all this time, his son had the right. The fault lay with him, not Dylan. He should have been more understanding, not so preoccupied about his image, about how it looked for a judge to have such a delinquent as a son.

But all that was in the past. Dylan had changed, reformed. Begun a new life. It was time to heal the scabs.

“Yes, it's me. Dylan, I don't remember what it was we argued about, what finally drove us apart, but I just want to say I'm sorry for my part. No,” he amended with feeling, “I'm sorry for all of it. And sorry that it's taken you away from me for all this time.”

There was silence on the other end. Silence that lasted so long, Carl wasn't sure if his son was still there.

And then he heard, “Dad, are you all right?”

There was concern in Dylan's voice. Carl felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

“Maybe I'm more all right now than I have been for a long time.”

Genuine concern clicked in. “Dad, do you want me to come and get you? Where are you?”

The questions amused Carl. Dylan had to be thinking that he was going senile. But the truth was, he was thinking more clearly now than he had been all along.

“I'm home, Dylan.”

Home. The word conjured up a plethora of memories for Dylan. Maybe, he thought as he began a dialogue with his father, it was time that home was more than just a memory, more than just a word. Maybe it was time to see it again for himself.

 

Matt couldn't shake off the feeling. He felt exactly like the feline in the title of the revival play to which Beth had given him and Rose tickets.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
That was him, all right. An antsy creature unable to find a foothold or a place to stand. That was him when it came to his dealing with Rose.

He could hear Beth's words echoing in his head when she'd given him the tickets after he'd told her that he was going to propose to Rose.

Find a good place to do it, a public place where she can't yell at you.
Although why a woman would yell at the man who had just pledged to give her his heart for all eternity was beyond him.

Hell, the whole gender of women was beyond him.
He didn't begin to pretend to understand any of them, least of all the woman who had lassoed his heart and then tied him up so tight, it would take steel bull cutters to set him free.

As they walked out of the Helen Hayes Theater, a mosquito buzzed around his head. Matt waved it away. The mosquito, he noticed, didn't want to have anything to do with Rose.

Rather than take the arm he'd offered her, Rose was walking alongside of him. He made the best of the situation, telling himself she'd come around.

“Did you like the play?” he asked, making conversation.

The question brought the first smile to her lips he'd seen all evening.

“I have always liked the play,” she told him, recalling when as a six-year-old she'd first watched Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor on a late-night television movie. “Almost as much as that mosquito seems to like you.”

He muttered under his breath, waving away a second one that circled around his head higher than the first.

“It's your sweet blood they're after.” Her grin grew wider. “Some people attract mosquitoes more than others. I guess there's no accounting for taste.”

“I notice they leave you alone,” he observed darkly.

“As long as I'm with you, I'm safe.” Rose laughed.

This had been a very enjoyable evening and she was feeling magnanimous. That Matt was still here considering what he thought about her surprised her. But she knew he had to be getting back to the ranch. It could only spare him for so long. Everything would all turn out for the best. In the interim, she could pretend that things were different. What was the harm? At most, they had a few days left.

“You're my own personal insect repellent,” she told him.

That didn't sound very romantic. They'd had a torrid night and then she'd cooled to him completely once he'd discovered her secret. She didn't seem to think that the news of her pregnancy should have affected him the way it did. Maybe he'd made too much of what he'd come to view as their relationship. Still, he couldn't just leave things this way.

He tried not to dwell on the fact that Rose still hadn't confirmed or denied the existence of another man. She'd just let things slide.

Maybe he should have, too. If only he wasn't so damnably drawn to her…

It had taken Aunt Beth's coaxing and finally coming up with tickets to this play before Rose deigned to say so much as a single word to him.

But she'd been worn down during the course of the day and he meant to keep working on her until she
agreed to what he had to say. After all, it was in her best interests. He'd meant what he'd said to Beth. A woman just didn't go back to a place like Mission Creek and have herself a baby, then expect nothing else to change. Beth knew that as well as he did, even if she'd been away from Mission Creek all these years.

It didn't matter that Rose was Archy Wainwright's daughter. That only meant that people wouldn't say anything to her face, or where she could hear them. But they'd talk behind her back and that was a fact.

The very thought made Matt's blood boil. No one had the right to say disparaging things about Rose. Not while he could draw breath and do something about it.

The ring box and its contents was burning a hole in his pocket. He'd borrowed the engagement ring from Beth to visually support the statement of his intentions that he was about to make. Beth's second husband had given it to her when they'd gotten engaged, but she'd offered it to Matt permanently. When he'd declined, Beth had sworn that the ring held no sentimental value to her. She'd only kept it because “the stinker didn't want me to.” After finding her husband of seven years in bed with a much younger woman, Beth had thought she'd earned not only the right to keep her jewelry after the divorce, but everything else she could get by hook or crook, as well.

He noted that Rose looked as if she was trying to locate a cab. It was too soon to go home, even if the hour was late.

“Would you like to get something to eat?”

Rose shook her head. “It's getting kind of late.” And she needed her sleep for the baby as well as for herself.

“Some coffee, then?” His mind scrambled as he searched for a way to keep her out. Beth's suggestion about proposing in a public place was beginning to take on the guise of very solid advice. “You could have tea,” he amended, suddenly remembering her condition.

His thoughtfulness got to her. Rose inclined her head.

“All right. There's a little coffee shop a block away. The Critic's Choice. It's where all the firstnighters congregate, waiting for the newspaper reviews to hit the streets.”

He couldn't think of a more excruciating way to earn a living. Just worried about what Rose would say to him had him nervous, what was it like to worry about what strangers said? Strangers who could make or break your career with a well-placed line.

Of course, there was no comparison if he examined what was at stake. On the one hand, it was just a play, a performance. On the other, he was looking at the rest of his life.

At the rest of
their
lives, he thought, slanting a glance at Rose.

There was something in his look that she couldn't read. “What?”

He wasn't about to tell her what he was thinking. That would only scare her off. “Just noticing how pretty you look tonight.”

Her hair was curling from the humidity, the light blue and white halter dress was beginning to stick to her even though she'd only just now been inside the air-conditioned theater. Humidity was descending rapidly.

She'd had better days—and nights. She shrugged off the compliment. “Must be the poor lighting,” she muttered.

He stopped to place his hand beneath her chin, as if to examine her face from several angles. But it was her eyes he wanted to see. Her eyes, which at times were the only clue he had as to what was going on inside her head.

This wasn't one of those times.

“The lighting's just fine, Rose.”

She didn't know why, but his assertion made her smile even more broadly.

 

The café had a lovely outdoor area that was surrounded by black wrought iron. Rose sat nursing her tall glass of herbal iced tea, watching the ice cubes
melt. The waitress was backing away after bringing Matt another cup of coffee. It was close to midnight.

“That's your third cup,” Rose noted. She set her glass back on the table. The condensation on the sides ran down to pool at the base of the glass where it met the table. “Is something wrong?”

Since he couldn't drink anything strong here, he was searching for a drop of courage in his coffee. He figured being wired might help him face her down until he got the answer that would do both of them the most amount of good.

“No, they just make great coffee.”

“The best,” she agreed. She'd come here on her first day in New York and had broken down to have a single cup of coffee herself. In deference to the new life she was carrying, she'd opted for a latte, heavy on the milk. The tea, she thought, playing with the straw, was almost as good. “But you have any more of that and we're going to have to tie a string to your ankle to keep you from flying away. I know how much caffeine is in that. You must be completely wired.”

“Not completely.” Matt set the cup down. No more coffee, no more excuses. It was time he got to the point of all this. “Rose, I want…I want…Oh, hell.” He'd never been good with words, any words, no matter what the occasion. His heart and lips just weren't connected that way. He'd never minded it,
until just now. “This says it all.” He placed the ring box on the table.

Rose's eyes narrowed. She stopped bobbing ice chips with her straw. But she made no move to pick up the box to pull it toward her.