My Stubborn Heart

by Becky Wade

  “Matt?” Beverly asked. “Are you all right?”

  He realized he’d been standing motionless. He glanced at her. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He resumed his job of slicing the vegetables she’d placed on a cutting board before him.

  Ten days? His mind and heart reeled. Ten days.

  He could have finished his work at Chapel Bluff a week ago, but he didn’t want to be away from Kate, so he’d been inventing more work for himself and doing that work very slowly. If he hated to be away from her for an hour, how was he going to cope when she moved back to Dallas?

  He looked down at whatever he was chopping—What was it? A zucchini? Another kind of squash?—and realized that he’d rather move to Dallas than live apart from her. Or maybe she’d be willing to stay here in Redbud if he asked her to, if he helped her find a job she could love.

  The worry banding around his chest loosened a little.

  He’d need to be smart about it and pick his moment to talk with her and not frighten her by letting her see how much he cared. But maybe if he played it just right, he could convince her not to let him go.

  “You in the mood for a movie tonight?” Kate asked him a couple days later. Matt was working, and she was sitting on her customary bucket taking a break, drinking bottled water, and surreptitiously admiring him from every angle. “I could pick something up on my way over tonight.”

  “Sure.”

  “How about Pride and Prejudice?”

  “What’s that?” he asked warily. “It’s not one of those movies where they all wear old-fashioned clothes and walk around talking in British accents, is it?”

  “That’s exactly what it is.”

  Matt groaned.

  “It’s romantic! Maybe one of the most romantic stories ever.”

  He paused to study her. “What do you think is romantic?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. What’s romantic? To you.”

  She took some time to consider. “Okay,” she said when she had it.

  “If it’s an English guy,” he said, “wearing a top hat and tight pants, then you’re fresh out of luck.”

  Kate laughed. “No. There’s this couple who live in my neighborhood at home. They’re old. Really old. And I think the wife might have Alzheimer’s. They go on walks together every morning. I get the feeling that her husband buttons her into her coat, picks out her shoes, combs her hair. And then the whole time they’re walking, he’s supporting her, kind of holding her up.” She couldn’t help it, she got teary.

  Matt watched her with concentrated attention.

  “That’s romantic,” she said. “ ‘Till death do us part’ is romantic.”

  Silence and dust motes drifted between them. Matt unbuckled and set down his tool belt. “Come to my house with me.”

  “It’s one-thirty in the afternoon.”

  “Which means we can watch your movie and hang out together for the rest of the day.”

  “What about your work?”

  “Screw it.”

  “Gran will wonder where I’ve gone.”

  “Leave her a note.”

  She gaped at him for a surprised moment, then chuckled. “All right, let’s do it.”

  When they got outside, she headed toward her Explorer.

  “I can drive you home tonight, Kate,” he said. “I want to drive you home. Let me.”

  But she held firm and took her own car to the video store. As she steered from there through the now familiar streets toward Matt’s house, she called herself every kind of idiot.

  Here she was, in love with him. She. Loved. Him. And yet she kept holding like a life preserver to a couple of things: (a) she always drove herself to and from his house in her own car, and (b) she still occasionally turned down his invitations and stayed home in the evenings with Gran. As if either of those strategies could protect her heart now! And yet she continued to cling to them. She clung to them because she couldn’t shake the feeling that things weren’t going to end well for her and Matt. It had become a persistent, gnawing, unsettled ache that lived all day beneath her other thoughts and emotions.

  Things aren’t going to end well.

  She shoved the worry aside.

  Problem was, the more she shoved it aside, the more aware she became of its silent and ominous presence.

  The days she had left with Matt began to escape Kate’s reach like a smooth stone skating away from her down the glinting surface of a playground slide. She couldn’t stop or catch back her time with him, which filled her with helplessness.

  Just five days before she was to leave, she met Matt in town. They had dinner reservations, and any sane person would have gone straight to the restaurant on such a cold, snowy evening. But it hardly ever snowed in Dallas, and Kate loved walking through the falling flakes. So like a good sport, Matt had agreed to meet her early so that they could walk along Main Street together to window-shop and marvel at all the Christmas lights that had been strung on trees and along storefronts.

  She’d just locked her car door behind her when she spotted him, big, muscular, and darkly handsome, walking toward her through the snow. Carefully, she memorized the image: his long dark dress coat, his flashing eyes, the serious cast of his jaw.

  When he was a few feet away she noticed that he was carrying a coffee cup from Main Street Coffee. He extended it to her. “For you.”

  “Wow, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I don’t want you to get cold.”

  She took a sip. He’d ordered her a latte with extra whip and, she’d bet, chocolate sprinkles. “Exactly how I like it.”

  “I’m good, aren’t I?”

  “Very good.”

  The coffee was perfect, she thought. Just like him. And she almost burst into tears right then and there. To keep herself from doing so, she slid her arm through his and they set off down the street.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m worried about you breathing in this freezing air. That’s one of the things that can set off your asthma, right?”

  “Yes, but I have my inhaler.”

  He gave her a concerned look. “I don’t want it to come to that.”

  “It won’t.”

  “If I hear so much as a cough, Kate, we’re going to the restaurant.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it.”

  She hid a smile behind the guise of another sip of latte. It was nice—really, really nice—to have a manly tough guy fussing over you.

  They shared a leisurely and delicious dinner at the restaurant, then went to Matt’s house for dessert.

  Kate had discovered from Matt’s mom that Matt loved chocolate chip cookies. Plain ones, without nuts or oatmeal or any other imaginative ingredient. Kate had asked Elaine to write her recipe down, and Elaine had scribbled it off for her gladly, from memory.

  Kate, who almost never cooked, had followed the recipe religiously that afternoon. However, either Chapel Bluff’s ancient cookie sheet or its ancient oven hadn’t functioned quite right. The cookies had come out too brown on the bottom. They’d tasted okay enough, though, that she’d boldly announced to Matt earlier that she’d made dessert for him. Now that they were at his house and she was about to uncover her simple, oddly shaped cookies, she had to wonder what she’d been thinking.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got.” He rubbed his hands together.

  She peeled back the foil. “I made your mother’s chocolate chip cookies.”

  “You made these for me?” Matt looked genuinely pleased. “I love these.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  They both took one and ate, leaning against opposing granite countertops. “These are incredible,” he said. “The best ones I’ve ever tasted.”

  Kate let out a peal of laughter. “Liar. They’re too brown on the bottom, and they’re really cold from my car.”

  “The best ones ever,” he insisted.

  “Maybe we should microwave them.”

  “No, I like ’em j
ust the way they are.” He palmed two more.

  She could remember times, early in their acquaintance, when she’d thought him rude, indifferent, unkind. She’d been dead wrong. All that had been a shield. Underneath it, he was the opposite of every one of those things.

  “Before you and Beverly came I never ate dessert,” he said.

  “That’s pitiful, Matt.”

  “I guess I won’t be eating it after you leave, either.”

  “Well, we can’t have you missing out on dessert! I guess we’re going to have to stay.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Nah, you just like chocolate chip cookies. That’s all.” She picked up her second cookie, an embarrassingly deformed one, and took a bite.

  “Actually,” he said, “I’m serious.”

  She almost choked.

  His expression turned solemn, his attention steady and determined. He curled his hands around the edge of the granite on either side of his hips.

  Trying to look composed, she set aside her cookie, finished chewing, and swallowed.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he said.

  She only stared at him, tasting chocolate and hope.

  “I want this thing between us to continue,” he said. “I’m not ready to pack up your car and say good-bye to you.”

  Her pulse thrummed fast through her veins. “I . . . I have a job I have to go back to.”

  “I know. I’d never ask you to leave it unless you wanted to.”

  She chose her words cautiously. “Even if I wanted to leave it, I couldn’t. Not at the moment, anyway. I don’t have another job lined up.”

  “I could help you find one here, if you wanted to stay. Maybe an antique shop of your own. I could get you set up somewhere, buy all the furniture you’d need to get started.”

  She let out her breath in a soft, admiring whistle. He’d offered her something almost unbearably tempting. Except . . . What was she going to do? Accept capital from him, someone she hadn’t even had a define-the-relationship talk with? “That sounds amazing,” she said truthfully. “But I couldn’t accept money from you.”

  “A job then at one of the antiques places that are already here? Theresa’s, maybe? Or we could find you something completely different. Something where you could use your social work degree.”

  She couldn’t believe they were even having this discussion. She’d known he liked her, cared about her, but she’d thought he’d accepted the fact that she was moving home in a few days. She’d had no clue that he’d been thinking along these lines. That he was serious enough about her that he wanted her to remain in Redbud.

  “Or if you return to Dallas,” he continued, “and keep the job you have, I was thinking . . .”

  She waited, resisted the urge to bite her lip.

  “I don’t know.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I was just thinking that I could use a change of scenery. I wouldn’t mind moving down to Dallas, giving it a try.”

  He’s willing to move to Dallas? His offer was an over-the-moon miracle, something she’d only dreamed of, more than she’d dreamed of. She wanted to shriek and throw herself into his arms.

  Except that same sense of uneasiness that had been dogging her for days intensified right alongside her excitement. Matched enemies, wrestling inside her. “You have a house here,” she said.

  He shrugged. “I’ll hold on to the house.”

  “What . . . what kind of work would you do in Dallas?”

  “Same as here. They must have old houses there, too, right?”

  “They do.” She could see the vulnerability in the depths of his brown eyes. This was costing him, to put himself out here like this, and she didn’t want to hurt him. Not for the world. “What about your hockey?”

  “Hockey’s not a factor. I’ve been thinking about it like I told you I would, but it’s just not going to happen, Kate.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too much time has passed. It’s not the kind of thing you can just pick back up and put on again like an old coat.”

  “I know it won’t be easy. But I have—” she pursed her lips— “I just have this gut instinct that you can do it.”

  “Kate. Do you know how hard it is to get yourself to a level where you can compete in the NHL?”

  “No.”

  “Nearly impossible. I look back at my career and sometimes I can’t believe that I managed it.” She could see tension gathering across his shoulders, near the edges of his mouth. “I can’t get myself there again.”

  He was being practical, and she couldn’t blame him. He was also worried about failing, and she couldn’t blame him for that, either. To make it so big, to fall from grace, to attempt a comeback, and to blow it would be horrible. Worse than never trying to mount a comeback in the first place.

  Kate sighed. “I want to say one more thing about it, okay?”

  His forehead grooved. He looked away.

  “I don’t know anything about hockey, but I do know a little about you. And I think you still have the talent and the determination that you had before. Will you look at me?”

  Matt returned his attention to her.

  She put all her feeling into her words. “I believe that you can do this.”

  “Kate—”

  “Matt,” she said sincerely. “Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith.”

  They looked at each other searchingly. She could guess how hard this was for him. His belief and optimism had been battered by life. It would take tremendous courage to overcome that and try again.

  “About the other,” she said quietly. “About me staying in Redbud or you coming to Dallas . . .” She closed the distance between them. Lifting up one of his hands, she threaded her fingers with his. She kissed a knuckle. “Nothing in the world would make me happier. But I need time to consider it. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Kate knew she needed to hit her knees in prayer. But that night, after some more cookies, some kissing, some laughing, and some soft-spoken conversation while cuddling, her spinning mind would hardly settle enough to put toothpaste on her toothbrush, much less to pray.

  He wanted her to stay in Redbud! He was willing to move to Dallas! Those ecstatic revelations had tipped her world on its axis.

  First thing the next morning, she took a hot shower, dressed, and spent time reading her “Bible in a Year” passage. Then she knelt beside her bed, her hands laced tightly together on top of the quilt, her head bent. She felt equal parts hopeful and concerned. This had magnitude. This discussion with God would mark a turning point, and she knew it.

  She started her prayer with jumbled happy words of thanks and praise for Matt and their relationship. He was what she’d always, always wanted. She’d been asking God for the one all these years, and if Matt was him—and she was starting to think that he was!—then he’d been worth the wait, the heartache, the loneliness, the doubt. He was the answer to all of that. He was wonderful. He was way too good for her. He was, very simply, the deepest and dearest desire of her heart.

  She paused.

  No sense of rightness fell upon her. No assurance. Only odd, stilted silence.

  Disquiet wormed upward inside of her, expanding.

  She gathered all her nerve and made herself ask, Do you want our relationship to continue?

  Part of her struggled to hear God’s answer, and part of her struggled not to. She made herself clear her thoughts and listen.

  And into that still place came a certainty.

  No.

  No was His answer. He didn’t want their relationship to continue.

  Tears rushed instantly to her eyes. Oh, God. Please. I want this so much.

  She had the terrible feeling that not only was God saying no now, but that He’d been saying it for days, since their first kiss. Ice slid through her chest right down to her fingertips and toes. She began to tremble with fear and crushing sadness.

  Please let me have him. Please! I’ll do anything.

&nbs
p; No audible response came. She understood, however, His kind, loving, and yet unyielding answer.

  Still no.

  She rushed to her feet, pushing away from the bed as if it had burned her. Hurriedly and by rote, she went through the motions of putting on her makeup, brushing her hair. Unable to stand being trapped indoors, she told Gran she had errands to run, grabbed her jacket, and hurried to her car. She drove downtown. Not many people were out. The stores hadn’t opened yet. She got out and aimlessly walked the cold streets, her mind blank and dull.

  Walked. Walked.

  In the tumble of her thoughts, she explained to God how she felt about Matt. As if He didn’t already know. She went on and on about how good she thought they could be for each other. As if He didn’t already know. She pleaded with Him. As if He hadn’t already answered her.

  Her chest began to constrict. She honestly wasn’t sure if it was heartache or asthma. Just in case, she used her inhaler. Matt worried about her and would be furious if she had another attack.

  More aimless walking, more fruitless begging.

  At length, she stopped on a bridge that arched over a stream. Looking down into the passing water, she saw instead an image of Matt. He was decked out in his hockey uniform and gear. Skating breathtakingly fast across the ice, aiming and shooting the puck with deadly precision. The puck sailed into the goal, and she saw him lift his fists and grin with triumph.

  Tears slipped over her lashes. She took deep breaths, mopped away the wetness with her fingers.

  I can’t have him, can I? she asked God.

  Matt needed to play hockey again, and he’d never do it in Dallas. He’d never do it in Redbud, either, if he let himself continue with his current job, if he chose to replace hockey with her, if he settled.

  What had Matt’s mom said about him? That he was one of the world’s very best hockey players. One of the world’s very best. It was mind-blowing to even think about being that good at something. But Matt was. He was too extraordinary, too rare, too wildly gifted to be held back by his current job, by the little town of Redbud, or by her.