Texas Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

empty glass—empty, like the way he felt. “But she fooled me.”
    â€œShe?”
    Matt nodded, hating this impotent way he felt. Where the hell was she? He leaned in over the counter, his voice low. The bartender was forced to lean forward to hear him.
    â€œShe’s gone. I can’t find her anywhere.”
    Haley thought back to the woman who had been in the Grill two days prior. With the same troubled look in her eyes. It didn’t take a genius to make the connection.
    â€œShe?” Daisy asked. “That wouldn’t be Rose Wainwright, now, would it?”
    Matt looked at her sharply, then glanced around to see if anyone had overheard. Not likely, not in this din. “How did you—?”
    Daisy’s mouth curved in a comforting smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to anyone. I know all about that family feud of yours. Big waste of time if you ask me. But no one’s asking me.”
    The hell with the feud, the hell with everything else except the woman who’d twisted his gut up so bad, it felt like a pretzel. “I’m asking you about Rose. Was she here? When? What did she say?”
    The bartender nodded. “Day before yesterday. And she said she was leaving.”
    â€œLeaving?” Then he was right, she had gone. “Where did she say she was going?”
    â€œNew York.”
    â€œâ€˜New York’?” he echoed.
    His first inclination was to say she had to be mistaken. New York wasn’t the kind of place someone like Rose would go. But then he remembered. She had an aunt who lived in Manhattan. Beth Wainwright, that was her name.
    Relief swept over him like a giant wave. Rose hadn’t just disappeared into thin air. He knew where she was. And he was going to get her back. Grateful for the help, Matt leaned over the counter, took holdof Daisy’s shoulders and kissed her soundly on the mouth.
    â€œThanks.”
    She pretended to fan herself. “Don’t mention it.” And then she winked. “Pleasant though that was, that doesn’t take the place of a tip, you know.”
    Standing up, Matt pulled a twenty out of his wallet and tossed it onto the counter. “Keep the change,” he told her. “And thanks.”
    For the first time in two days he knew where he was going.
    Â 
    The doorbell pealed incessantly, intruding into the mood that was enshrouding Rose.
    Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to shake loose of it. It hung about her like a coat of heavy iron malle. Her aunt had been nothing short of wonderful, insisting on taking her “fun” places, as she called them, and determined to make her smile. Rose tried her best not to show the older woman how deeply unhappy she was, but she had a feeling she wasn’t fooling her.
    She supposed that eventually the raging battle would die down to an occasional minor skirmish and Matt Carson would entirely cease to matter. In about a million years or so.
    â€œWould you get that, darling? I have my hands full of caviar,” Beth called from the kitchen.
    Rose didn’t even stop to ask. Her aunt’s eccentricities were becoming normal.
    Though she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, she couldn’t very well return Beth’s kindness with surliness.
    â€œOf course.”
    She supposed, she thought as she turned the lock and pulled on the doorknob, that she should welcome any distraction.
    Except this one.
    Rose’s mouth fell open.
    Matt Carson was standing in her aunt’s doorway.

Three
    M att’s was the last face Rose had expected to see in New York. For a split second she thought she was hallucinating. Her head and heart were so full of him that she thought she was just projecting his likeness onto someone else.
    But he was real.
    And he was here.
    It took several beats to get her flustered heart under control. She willed herself to remain calm. “What are you doing here?”
    The entire trip from