upset, but—”
“He told me! Just before he died!” Another wave of tears poured down Mattie’s cheeks.
Jared frowned. “He told you he never loved you?”
Mattie nodded, the hurt and humiliation throbbing in her chest. “He fell off the roof and was injured badly. He knew he was going to die. So he told me. He told me everything. How he followed another woman here to Stanford because he was in love with her. How he couldn’t have her because she was marrying someone else. How he married me because I had a restaurant, a good home, a good reputation, money.”
“Son of a…”
Mattie gulped, her strength draining away. She latched on to Jared’s arms, gazing up at him. “He just used me,” she whispered.
Mattie fell against him, sobbing, the pain too great to bear alone. She felt big arms close around her. She snuggled deeper against his hard chest.
With a sharp, ragged breath she lifted her head and gazed up at Jared. “I went by the bank today. My account was nearly empty. He’d taken my money, gambled it away, most likely. Lord knows he never worked a day since I married him. I had to use the last dollar I have in this world to bury him!”
She fell into racking sobs again and slumped against Jared’s chest. Gently, he stroked his fingers down her back, fearing Mattie was on the verge of all-out hysteria.
“You need the doctor,” he said. “He can—”
“No!” Mattie pulled away. “No, don’t get the doctor. Don’t get anyone. I don’t want people to know how stupid I was, how I let myself be swept off my feet by a man I hardly knew. Everyone said I shouldn’t marry him, but I wouldn’t listen. I believed that he loved me. I don’t want the whole town to know what a fool I was.”
Jared shook his head. “Mattie, you’re too upset. You need—”
“—to forget,” she said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “I need to forget.”
Jared froze as she gazed up at him. The look on her face sent a warm tremor through him.
“Make me forget,” she whispered.
Mattie came fully against him and rose on her toes, pressing her lips to his throat. “Please…make me forget.”
“Now, just a minute.” Jared caught her arms and tried to ease her away. “You’re not thinking clear.”
“I don’t want to think clear. I don’t want to think at all,” she said, and slid her palm across his chest.
He backed up, but she moved with him. “You don’t mean that.”
She meant it. With all her heart and soul she meant it. She ached deep inside. She wanted it to go away. She wanted to feel something different.
And who better to do that with than this stranger, who’d be gone in the morning?
Mattie circled her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. He pulled away.
“We were married for nearly a year, but he hadn’t touched me in months—months!” she said. “Please, I can’t lie alone in that bed tonight. I just can’t.”
Jared hesitated, studying her in the dim light.
“You can do it, can’t you?” she asked. “You can make me forget?”
“Damn right I can,” he said. “But that’s not the point.”
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked. “I’m not a married woman…not anymore.”
“I know, but—”
“I want this,” she whispered. “Don’t make me plead with you.”
“But…”
Mattie stepped away and held out her hand to him. “Please, just make me forget.”
He didn’t move, not for a long minute. Then, finally, Jared reached for her hand.
Chapter Two
Morning sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating what had to be the dressing table of the widow Mattie Ingram.
Jared, his eyes just opened, studied it as he lay curled on his side at the edge of the soft feather bed. Lace, doilies, fancy bottles, all belonging to the woman who at this very moment slept behind him…
He relaxed against the pillow, his body spent but humming with the contentment only a night with a woman can bring.
Make her forget, she’d said. He’d obliged her numerous times during the night, the last just before dawn. Now, still, he wanted to take her in his arms, do it all again—which didn’t make Jared feel particularly proud of himself.
Last night had been different. Standing in the kitchen, Mattie had looked alone and vulnerable. She’d needed somebody—him.
Jared had thought he could just hold her in his arms and comfort her, and she’d fall asleep. Once in her bedroom, though, Mattie had made it clear that wasn’t what she wanted from him.
True, he could have told her, flat out, “No.” But she was already feeling bad enough. Spurning her seemed cruel, making her beg intolerable.
Still, he’d tried to convince her otherwise, but she would have no part of it. Del might not have touched her in months, but Mattie knew what she was doing, and Jared had been on the trail too long to resist her considerable charms.
So he’d accommodated her. Given the widow what she’d asked for at her most vulnerable moment.
Why did that leave his gut churning this morning?
Jared didn’t rise from the bed, though he thought he should. Instead, he lay still, recalling the last time he’d awakened in bed with a respectable woman. His thoughts swept back, and when the memory came he played it over in his mind a few times, something he’d forbidden himself to do in years past. Surprisingly enough, it didn’t hurt so bad. Not now, not this morning.
Not with Mattie in the bed behind him.
In that instant, it all seemed surreal. Jared didn’t move, didn’t stir on the mattress, didn’t roll over to curl against her. If he did, would it all shatter? Would last night and this moment prove to be a dream? The dream that had crept into his sleep so often lately?
He remained where he was for a while longer, on the linens that smelled like Mattie, gazing at as much of her room as he could see—the lace, the figurines, the pictures on the walls. Their clothes scattered across the floor.
No, it hadn’t been a dream, he decided. None of it. Jared rolled over, anxious to have her in his arms again.
But the sheets were cold and the bed was empty.
Mattie was gone.
A
