JUSTIFIED DECEPTION Read online

  "And Daddy can hang it in his bedroom,' Annie said. "Do you think he'll like that?"

  "Of course. He'll like anything you make for him."

  While Ruth fetched the box with the food, Annie busied herself collecting more flowers.

  After sharing with Annie a picnic of cold fried chicken, tomato wedges, Edith"s special Kincaid Ranch potato salad, and freshly baked oatmeal cookies, Ruth felt satisfied and lazy. She stretched her arms, filled her nostrils with the fragrant aroma of pine, and laced her hands behind her head, quietly content. The horseback ride to the swimming hole had been pleasurable, the day was hot enough to truly enjoy the swim, and Annie had been a pure delight. Not once had they locked horns. Unlike her pigheaded, inflexible father.

  Ruth was still miffed about their angry exchange the previous day, though she felt some remorse over her comment about his men. Still, Matt had to understand the importance of teaching Annie modesty. But for now, Matt was out of sight, out of mind, and Annie was her focus. Mimicking Ruth, Annie lowered herself to the towel and rested back, hands behind her head, one leg cocked, a slight smile on her lips.

  Gazing up at the billowing clouds moving overhead, Ruth pointed, and said to Annie, “I see a fat bear eating an ice cream cone. What do you see?”

  Annie's mouth spread in a wide grin. “Daddy and I play this game too.” Pointing toward a different cloud formation, she said, “I see Lorinda sitting on a broom. I know it"s Lorinda because she"s got big boobs and she"s flying across the sky so all the men can see them.” She glanced at Ruth and added in a knowing voice, “Men like to look at women"s boobs, you know.” Ruth didn't even want to think about having this discussion with Matt, but knew she'd have to address the issue. The men absolutely could not continue the kind of talk they did around Annie. She gave a nervous little giggle, and said, “You can"t believe everything the men say about what they like in women. Most of time they"re just bragging the way men do. They say lots of silly things that just aren"t true.”

  “Like when they talk about wanting hot women with big tits?” Ruth looked at Annie, dumbfounded. “They say things like that around you?” She and Matt would definitely have this out.

  Annie shrugged. “They don't say those things around me, but I hear them talking when they don"t know I"m there. Sometimes I hide to hear what they say because they say funny things.”

  “Well, you shouldn"t be listening in on the men's private talk,” Ruth said, “It"s wrong, and it"s certainly not ladylike.”

  Annie rolled onto her side and reached for the etiquette book. "Can we read some more stuff about being a lady?"

  "Sure," Ruth said, relieved to be off the subject of hot women, and pleased with Annie's enthusiasm over her first etiquette lesson. She raised herself to a sitting position and adjusted the glasses she'd worn in anticipation of swimming, and Annie moved beside her and handed her the book. Ruth flipped the pages to the one marked with a maple leaf. "So, when a young lady sits down,” she continued where they"d left off, "she either holds her knees together or crosses one knee over the other, that is, if she's wearing a dress—"

  "I'm not gonna wear a dress again," Annie groused.

  "Why? Because of what Seth said?"

  "That, and what the guys were thinking."

  Ruth tucked a finger under Annie's narrow chin and said, "The truth is, Annie, men say many stupid things when confronted with a pretty girl."

  Annie's brows gathered in a contemplative frown, and after a moment, she said, "Daddy doesn't say stupid things."

  "You're right,” Ruth agreed. “He really thought you looked pretty in your dress. He even said so. You heard him."

  “I"m still not wearing the dress.”

  “Maybe you"ll change your mind later," Ruth said. "We"ll leave the dress hanging in your closet for now.”

  Annie flattened the maple leaf against her leg, looked at Ruth, and said, "Does Daddy tell you that you look pretty?"

  Ruth laughed lightly. "Why on earth would he do that?"

  Annie shrugged. "Because you look pretty in your bathing suit, just like Barbie. Wait"ll Daddy sees it."

  Ruth felt self-conscious wearing the scanty yellow suit, but she knew Annie was pleased that she'd bought the one she picked out. It was a small price to pay to win Annie's approval. "Your Daddy won't be seeing see me in it, or any other man for that matter,” she said. “I don"t make a practice of displaying myself in such a provocative way. I bought the suit, on a whim, to please a very special little girl.”

  Annie twirled the maple leaf between her fingers. “What does procative mean?”

  “The word's provocative," Ruth said, "and it means, well, that a woman uncovers certain parts of her body that should be covered, in order to get a man"s attention.” Eyebrows pinched in a frown, Annie looked at Ruth, and said, "Then why won't you let Daddy see you in your suit? He'd see that you really do have boobs. He'd like that."

  Ruth let out a short, nervous laugh. "Annie, my love, you know far too much for a six-year-old. Besides, you shouldn't be having thoughts like that." But the fact was, Ruth almost wanted Matt to see her in the suit, if only to make him eat his words about her being flatchested. A dangerous notion, she realized. The thought of Matt's eyes scanning her body made her chest feel tight and her stomach fluttery. Shifting her mind to less dangerous thoughts, she said, “Shall we go on with our etiquette lesson?”

  “Yes,” Annie said, enthusiastically. She shifted into a cross-legged sitting position. "Go to the part about the little forks."

  "Those are cocktail forks," Ruth said, thankful for the diversion. Of late, she'd been having far too many carnal thoughts about Matt. She paged through the book, and finding what she was searching for, pressed the pages open.

  Annie edged closer and looked down at the picture. "Maybe we should get Tanner a fork like that," she said. "He uses his knife to eat little fish that come in funny-shaped cans."

  Ruth looked down at Annie. "You mean sardines?"

  Annie peered up at her. "Yeah. They're gross and still have eyes." She wrinkled her nose in disgust... And Ruth's heart skipped a beat. In her mind flashed a little face, four years younger, when offered a tiny serving of squash, making the very same face. It wasn't the mannerism—

  most children wrinkled their noses about the same way—but the way the little scar gathered into a wavering line. "Beth?"

  Annie looked at her, puzzled.

  Ruth wasn't sure why she'd said the name, only that she'd been driven to do so, to get a response from Annie, who was, she was all but certain, truly Beth.

  "Why did you say that?" Annie asked.

  "I guess because you reminded me of a little girl I once knew," Ruth replied. "She looked like you too, and would be about your age now."

  "Her name was Beth?"

  Ruth nodded.

  "Where is she now?"

  "I don't know. She... moved away."

  In the distance came the thrum of hoof beats. Annie cupped her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, and cried, "It's Seth and Daddy, and Daddy"s riding Skeeter!"

  Ruth looked up to find two riders approaching fast, leaving behind a haze of dust. She started to rush for her clothes, but seeing how quickly the men were coming, decided against it.

  Displaying herself while reclining was one thing. Prancing in a bikini across the wide clearing to where her clothes lay was quite another. Hopefully, the men would get on with what they were about and be gone. The men reined in. Matt looked down at Annie and said, "Jeb's at the house and he brought the pups. If you head back right now you can take your pick. Seth will see you home." He swung his leg over Skeeter and hopped to the ground.

  "Yippee!” Annie yelped. She yanked her tee shirt on over her bathing suit, tugged on her jeans and pulled on her socks and boots. In one fluid motion she was on her horse, and moments later, she and Seth disappeared in a cloud of dust, leaving Matt staring down at Ruth. The gleam in his eyes told her he was very much aware of her scanty bathing suit, and she re
alized what a naive fool she'd been to believe he'd stay away.

  She looked up at him and said, "Seth could have come alone with Annie's horse to take her home, so I assume you're here for a reason."

  "You're right." He started toward her, an odd look in his eyes that she couldn"t interpret. All she knew was, the thought of being alone with a man who stirred her blood, while wearing next to nothing, had a decidedly unsettling effect on her.

  Standing over her with a look on his face that Ruth could only perceive as contrite, he said,

  "I wanted to square things away with you about last night."

  For a moment, Ruth was too taken aback to speak. Matt didn't seem a man who would admit he was wrong. But clearly, he'd come to apologize. But she'd have her say first. She owed it to him. "Before you start in, I want you to know that my comments about your men were uncalled for, and I apologize."

  "I've never regretted the day I hired any one of those boys,” Matt said. “They don't come any better.” For a few moments he remained standing while looking down at her, his gaze clearly taking in the skimpy suit that barely covered her. Then he squatted down. Hat clasped between his hands, eyes roaming over her, he said, “Now, about that bathing suit...."

  Ruth wanted to crawl into a huge sack, away from Matt's pointed stare. "I don"t usually wear suits like this,” she said in a nervous, almost giddy voice, “I just got it because Annie picked it out because it was like the one her Barbie wore and I wanted to please her and at the time it seemed the right thing to do and besides I never expected anyone except Annie to see me in it while wearing it and certainly not you or—“

  “Relax, honey. I"m not talking about the whistle and string you"re wearing, I"m talking about the fancy pants you bought me. I know you meant well, and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but it just doesn't work for me. When I swim, I also bathe, and after spending a long hard day in the saddle, the last thing I want coming between a cool, clear stream and what aches most is a bathing suit. Besides, a suit covers the parts of me that need bathing the most. If you were a man you'd know that when you're in the saddle all day with your parts rubbing—"

  "Stop," she said, raising a hand and cutting him short. "You don't need to go into detail.

  You've made your point."

  "Yeah, well, that's how it is." He tossed his hat aside and stretched out alongside her, propping his upper torso on one elbow. A smile played about his lips.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, wary of his casual, sprawled position.

  "Looking at you.”

  Her heart began to hammer. "I'd rather you didn't"

  "Why? Because it makes you as aware as I am, that you are a woman?"

  "Don't you have fences to mend or cattle to chase or something?"

  "The boys are taking care of that."

  She turned and looked in the direction of her clothes, deciding it would be far more embarrassing to march over there and get them while wearing no more than a whistle and a string, than to just stay put. Aware of the tight breathless feeling in her chest, she said, "I really wish you'd go and leave me be."

  "I want to talk to you."

  "About what?"

  "You." He snapped off a tall bare stem with a small cluster of tiny white flowers at its tip and trailed it up her arm. "I told you I wanted to know what makes you tick. I'm curious, and intrigued." The weed moved over the curve of her shoulder.

  "I'm afraid you'll be greatly disappointed because there's really not much tell. It's pretty much, what you see is what you get," she said, aware of the high-strung edge to her voice, the path of the tiny flowers having a decidedly unsettling effect on her.

  "What I see is a hell of a lot of woman, and every inch of her looks good to me." The flowers moved across the swell of her breasts exposed above the skimpy top, sending her nerves humming. She caught the light that flared in his eyes as they followed the path of the flowers.

  "Please don't do that," she said.

  He put the stem between his teeth, and chewed thoughtfully. "Was he your first love, this man you're still pining for?"

  Ruth looked at him with a start. She hadn't expected the conversation to lead to the fictitious lover. Still, she'd already begun weaving a web of deceit and she couldn't let it unravel now. She shrugged. "I suppose."

  He mulled that over for a moment, the wispy flowers moving up and down with his idle chewing. "It's said one never loves as deeply as the first love." He fixed his gaze on her and waited for her response.

  She shrugged. "I think every time one loves anything and loses it—a person, a pet, a prized possession—a little piece of the heart is torn out that can't be replaced."

  "So the question is," he said, while trailing a finger along her arm, "is it better to have a whole heart untouched by love, or a frayed one that's known rejection and is stronger for it?"

  Raising her eyes to meet his, Ruth said, "Life gives us little choice, it seems. But I have no intention of letting it happen again."

  "If life gives us little choice, how can you stop it?"

  Finding Matt's steady gaze unsettling, Ruth looked at the swimming hole and replied,

  "Because, this time I'm in control. And I assure you, it won't happen again."

  "Honey, if you were in control you wouldn't have broken eye contact to tell me you were in control." While brushing her knuckles back and forth with the tip of his finger he said, "You just don't want to concede that you're also a woman in need of love."

  She refused to look into his eyes, focusing instead on the broad expanse of his chest defined by his snug western-cut shirt. "That's fanciful nonsense. I don't need a man in my life to be contented," she said, wondering how those muscles would feel. It seemed to take little movement on his part to make them flex.

  "Maybe you don't need a man to be contented," he said, "but you do need one to be fulfilled.

  Every passionate woman does."

  Ruth's heart ached with a steady beat. He thought her passionate? The idea seemed strange and alien to her, a woman who had never lusted after a man in her life. But as she held his gaze, her breath grew shallow, her chest felt tight, and an urgency began building, until she became very much aware that she was a woman with a need, and he was a man who could fill that need.

  Beware, little fly. This web is sticky.

  Snatching herself from his mesmerizing gaze, she said, "And, miracle of miracles, you just happen to be the man who can release me from my pent-up passion. How very lucky I am that you happened along today."

  "Make light of it if you want," Matt said, "but you can't deny there's something drawing us together."

  "I can deny it, and I do. You have a knack for catching me off guard, just as you undoubtedly have with other women around here."

  Ruth saw Matt's face harden, then he said, in a candid voice, "From the day my wife walked out on me there have been no women.”

  The earnest way he"d said the words almost made Ruth believe it was true. Then she dismissed that thought, and said, "Lorinda, remember?"

  “Women like Lorinda belong to everyone,” Matt said. “But that"s not what I meant."

  “I know what you meant. But why haven't you remarried? I"d think you would if only to provide a mother for Annie."

  "Annie is precisely the reason I haven't married, and won't, at least not until she"s grown.

  She's been abandoned by two mothers already. I won't risk her losing a third."

  I did not abandon my child! You stole her from me! Ruth had to catch herself from saying.

  Still, she needed to learn more about the woman Matt believed had given birth to Annie. More importantly, she needed to know what Matt would do, should such a woman come back into their lives. "Do you know anything about Annie's biological mother?" she asked.

  Matt snapped the stalk between his fingers and tossed the flowers aside. "Enough to know that if she ever shows up she'll have hell to pay from me."

  Ruth licked her dry lips. "Don't you ever worry that she co
uld decide she wants Annie back and try to take her from you? There have been cases of mothers who've changed their minds actually getting their children back."

  His expression darkened. "It doesn't happen very often."

  "But, it does happen."

  "No one"s going to take Annie from me," he stated, firmly. "Brad specializes in child custody cases and he"s never lost one yet. But if it came down to my being forced to give up Annie, I'd pull the cleverest disappearing act in history. Annie and I could live well anywhere in the world."

  Ruth digested Matt's words. It was exactly what she'd do if the situation were reversed. Yet, she must tread carefully with her questions if she didn't want to raise Matt's suspicions. Trying to maintain an air of indifference, she said, "How would you manage financially?"

  Matt's response was quick and decisive. "I have money stashed away outside the U.S. It wouldn't be a problem. Any more questions?" His tone, and the look on his face, were clearly confrontational.

  "Well... no," she replied, toying with the strap of her bikini, wanting to redirect the conversation, and Matt's mind, to safer territory...

  Matt's eyes dropped to where her hand was, and he said, "Good. Let's swim."

  Ruth felt a sense of relief with the change of subject. Talking about Annie's biological mother made her nervous. But then, she realized, Matt had just broached a subject that made her just as edgy. Swimming with him. “Then I assume you"re wearing a bathing suit under your jeans?" Her eyes dropped, lingered for a moment on the blatant male bulge straining against his worn jeans, and shot back up to meet his heated gaze.

  Matt's mouth curved in an impious smile. "You already know the answer to that."

  Ruth pursed her lips. "If you intend to go skinny dipping in front of me, forget it."

  Matt's eyes roamed over her in a slow, thorough perusal, leaving her feeling tingly all over.

  "Not in front of you, sweetheart. With you."

  Heat rushed up Ruth's face. "You can't really believe I'd do such an outrageous thing!"