Matthew: The Circle Eight by Emma Lang Page B

glowing bright with a few pokes of a stick. When she turned to get another pail heated, she ran smack into Matt’s chest. He felt as hard as he had the two times she’d touched him before, and her traitorous body reacted with a jolt of pure pleasure.
    She stepped back and glanced around, eager to avoid his gaze and his touch. To her surprise, everyone else was gone, and he had apparently been left to clear the plates.
    “They don’t normally behave like that.” He set a stack of plates in the sink.
    “I don’t know if I believe that.” Hannah wanted to slap her hand across her mouth but it was the truth. “I mean, I think you are all painfully honest with each other.”
    He made a face but didn’t disagree with her. “They feel things deeply and this year has been more than hard.” He leaned against the sink. “Once we get the ranch expanded, solve some things and settle down a bit, things will be better.”
    She certainly hoped so or she would have a lot of trouble fitting in with them. “I didn’t know Catherine would ask for me, I mean, for her reading.”
    “She misses Mama.”
    Hannah knew he didn’t mean to say she was a substitute mother, but it sure felt that way. She pushed aside the silly notion that everything revolved around her. The Grahams had suffered a lot and she needed to stop thinking of herself.
    “I won’t ever be able to take your mother’s place, but I hope I can be part of this family.”
    He looked surprised. “You already are.”
    She shook her head. “No, I’m not, but I’m trying.” With that, she turned to the sink and busied herself filling another bucket. When she turned around a few minutes later, he was gone.
    At least the day was nearly over.
    Matt stood outside on the porch with Caleb at his side. The night air was cool on his skin, a much needed sensation after the supper that had turned into a fiasco.
    “That could have gone better,” Caleb said drily.
    “Thanks for helping out there, brother.”
    “Livy has a bee in her bonnet about your wife, Catherine is stuck to her like a cocklebur, and Eva seems to like her.” Caleb held up his hands. “I’m not getting in the middle of all that.”
    “I’m living in it. Knee deep in it.” No matter what Matt did, it was the wrong thing. “I need to get to Houston with her to sign those papers. If it ain’t raining, we’ll go on Monday. I don’t want to wait any longer.”
    “I don’t blame you. You want me to come?”
    “No, not this time. I need you here.” Matt figured the trip alone with Hannah might help fix things between them, too.
    The brothers went to the barn and checked the animals, making sure they were settled for the night. The darkness surrounded them as the night creatures began to sing. It was peaceful, at least temporarily. Caleb disappeared with Lorenzo, leaving Matt to return to the house alone.
    It was time to go to his new bedroom and his new wife. He took a deep breath and headed back into the house.
    The kitchen was empty, everything cleaned and put away. He walked down the hallway, feeling his heart thump with each step. The door was closed without any light shining beneath it. Matt took a deep breath and opened the door.
    In a splash of moonlight coming through the curtains, he could see she was curled up in a corner of the bed, only her hair visible above the quilt. Since it was barely nine o’clock, he didn’t know if she was truly sleeping or just avoiding him.
    Either way, he didn’t think he would be enjoying his marriage bed that night. As he began to undress, the reality of sleeping in this room hit him. The room wasn’t his and neither was the bed. The only thing in the room he could claim was currently hiding or sleeping under the covers.
    He closed his eyes and thought about how important it was to his family to expand the ranch, to do what his father had intended to do. Reminding himself this was just a room, and his parents were never going to use it again, didn’t