Between Heaven and Earth

by Michele Paige Holmes

  In return, Matt had told her all about Jenna and the life they’d shared. Standing here now, at Matt’s house, Cassie couldn’t help but think that a year ago, Matt and the boys would have been pulling up about this same time, in a different car, and with Jenna seated right beside him. What did his parents think about him bringing someone else home, not even a year later?

  What would his parents think of me? Will they understand our ‘just friends’ status? Or would Matt’s mom be appalled that he was keeping company with a married woman? Even worse, would his mom be as Cassie’s had become, always hinting at the possibility of more between them when such a thing was impossible?

  Light flooded the front of the house, and the door opened to a couple of people and a hum of noise behind them. Matt had pointed out the other cars in the driveway belonging to his sister and her family and to his brother’s family. That meant four additional adults and six kids in the house that Cassie had to meet on top of his parents.

  Twelve people. Cassie almost wished she could grab Matt’s hand for reassurance. Instead, she reached for Noah’s and held tight when he would have surged ahead with Austin and Asher. No reluctant adventurer here.

  “Give them a minute to greet their grandmother,” Cassie whispered. The noisy background remained, but only two people— Matt’s parents, she assumed— stood silhouetted in the porch light.

  “Okay.” Noah ceased pulling against her hold.

  After the boys had been properly smothered with kisses and enfolded in hugs by both their grandmother and grandfather, Matt made his way forward and embraced each of his parents.

  Cassie still hung back, taking in the pines surrounding the house and covering much of the weathered paint. The square porch, while not large, held a rocker, some planters, and several signs hanging at lopsided angles along the wall. Do you want to speak with the man in charge or the woman who knows what is going on? fit with Matt’s description of his mother and gave Cassie a fair idea of what Mrs. Kramer was like.

  Absolutely no soliciting unless you are selling Thin Mints, made Cassie smile, but the sign directly over the door gave her pause.

  Welcome friends. The rest of you, get the hell off my property.

  Cassie wondered what would happen if she didn’t qualify as a friend. Over the past few hours, she’d become almost comfortable with her decision to come, but that sign brought every hesitation she’d had and reason not to be here into sharp relief once more. What did Matt’s parents think about him bringing a married woman to visit? Could they possibly understand the friendship she and Matt shared? Probably not. Cassie wasn’t even sure she did half the time.

  I don’t belong here. Noah and I should have stayed at home, near Devon.

  “And who is this handsome young man?” Mrs. Kramer asked loudly as she stared down at Noah. She’d yet to make eye contact with Cassie, furthering her insecurities.

  “I’m Noah,” he announced proudly, pulling free from Cassie’s grasp. “It smells good here.”

  “Why thank you,” Mrs. Kramer said. “I like this young man, Matt.”

  Noah can stay at least. Maybe being his mom will earn me points.

  “Come on, Noah. Come see the toy room.” Taking Noah’s hand, Asher wiggled around his grandfather, and the boys disappeared into the house. This left only Matt and Cassie, standing awkwardly a few feet apart from each other.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Cassie.” Matt flashed her an encouraging smile. “Cassie, these are my parents, Maureen and Tom.” To his parents, he said, “I’ve invited Cassie and Noah to be our guests for the weekend.”

  “Oh, Matt.” Mrs. Kramer’s hands flew to her rounded cheeks. “You should have told us. Of course they’re welcome,” she said, as if Cassie wasn’t standing right there.

  “You didn’t tell them?” Cassie gave Matt a look that promised murder at the first opportunity, but before that, she needed to find a bus or something to get her and Noah home. Welcome, indeed. She’d never felt more unwelcome or awkward in her life.

  “Because it was spur of the moment, and I knew they wouldn’t mind.” Matt’s expression pled forgiveness for the second time today. “You don’t mind, do you?” Matt threw at his parents.

  “Of course not.” His dad stepped forward to stand beside his wife. “Maureen and I are glad to have you.” His smile was warm and welcoming, helping Cassie feel the tiniest bit better.

  “Cassie and Noah befriended us shortly after we moved to Auburn,” Matt hurried to explain. “Cassie coached Austin’s soccer team.”

  “Oh, so you’re a coach?” Mrs. Kramer asked, not at all disguising the oddity she found this to be.

  “Actually, no,” Cassie said. “That was just a volunteer position.”

  As if sensing she was on shaky ground, Matt stepped in to rescue her. “Cassie works at a—”

  “Tattoo parlor,” she blurted, just managing to keep a straight face at seeing Matt’s shocked one.

  “O-oh,” Mrs. Webb said, nodding her head, even as her eyes, full of questions, shifted to Matt’s.

  “Whatever you do, welcome.” His dad held a weathered hand out to her. Cassie shook it appreciatively, but she wasn’t quite ready to let Matt off so easily. He deserved to squirm, tricking her into coming when he hadn’t even asked his parents if it would be all right.

  “Matt and I met when he came in to get the Sacramento Kings logo tattooed on his calf.”

  His mother gasped. “Working for the enemy wasn’t enough, Matt? You had to go and defile your body like that? You’ll never be able to attend a Trail Blazers game again. What will our friends think? What were you thinking?”

  Cassie bit back laughter. “I did a really great job. Show them Matt.” She flipped her foot behind her, kicking him in the back of his leg.

  “Sure.” His smirk held a challenge as he turned around and lifted first one, then the other pant leg, revealing nothing but bare, unblemished skin.

  “Oh, that’s right.” Cassie smacked her forehead. “Got you confused with one of the team that came in with you. You got your tattoo elsewhere.” She rolled her eyes at Matt’s mom. “You’re probably not gonna want to see it.” Cassie patted her backside, suggesting the location of Matt’s imagined tattoo.

  “Matthew Kramer, I ought to take a spoon to your butt like I used to. I can’t believe this. Why would you do such a thing? I just— I swear. God must love stupid people; he made so many, my own son included.”

  Cassie smiled to herself, thinking Matt deserved every word of that reprimand. Maureen’s hands opened and closed at her sides, as if she wished to seal them around her son’s neck.

  “Now, honey.” Mr. Kramer placed a restraining hand on his wife’s arm. “Let’s go inside, and we can talk this over like nice, normal folks.”

  “Normal,” Maureen huffed. “With a grandson who wears an earring and a son with the traitor’s team on his rear? Only thing ‘normal’ around here is a setting on the dryer.”

  Cassie pressed her lips together to keep from laughing as she followed Matt’s parents into the house.

  “Kids are born wet, naked, and hungry, and things just get worse from there.” Maureen threw a look over her shoulder at Matt as she led them past what sounded like a room full of kids and into a kitchen papered with floral motif from the nineties. More signs with sayings like the ones on the porch hung from the walls and were propped on various-sized wood signs and tiles around the room. Be reasonable, do it MY WAY! There will be no crisis this week, my schedule is full, and I’m busy now; can I ignore you some other time? all contributed to the picture Matt had painted of his mom and what Cassie had observed of her so far. She had a feeling that opinionated and loud just scratched the surface.

  “Have a seat,” Mrs. Kramer ordered. Cassie obeyed, though she really felt like standing after the long drive. Matt, on the other hand, began unbuckling his belt.

  “What’re you doing son?” his dad asked.

  “Showing mom my supposed tattoo.”

  �
�I don’t care what you have down there. I don’t want to see it.” She fluttered the back of her hand at him dismissively. “Not even six months in California, and look what’s happened. At the drop of a hat you go and do something completely idiotic. Told you we shouldn’t have let him go, Tom.”

  “He’s thirty-four years old,” Matt’s dad reminded her. “A little past the age for grounding.” He winked at Cassie, cementing her first impression that he was a good guy.

  Like Matt. She ignored the unwelcome thought, feeling he deserved to have her angry with him a little longer.

  “Cassie, will you please tell them?” Matt ran his hand through his hair, a tell tale sign of frustration.

  “Tell them that you came to my apartment at six this morning, woke us up, and used Noah as a way to get me to come?” Her eyes narrowed as she remembered the way he’d manipulated the situation for his benefit. “Or did you want me to tell your parents that you failed to mention that they didn’t know that I was coming? In fact—” Cassie shifted in her chair to better face Matt’s parents. “Has Matt even mentioned me before?”

  “No,” Maureen said, fixing Matt with a look that made Cassie’s seem harmless. Growing up with a mom who could shoot daggers like that must have been a bit terrifying. Cassie felt the tiniest bit bad for him and thought she maybe understood why he hadn’t told his parents about her. Maybe.

  “I imagine he wanted us to meet you ourselves instead of hearing about you.” Tom jumped in, trying to salvage the situation once again. Cassie imagined that with a wife like Maureen, he had frequent practice at this sort of thing.

  “Isn’t that right, son?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Matt turned to Cassie, his eyes pleading.

  Maureen held her head in her hands as she rocked forward and back. “The Kings. The Kings. Forever on his a—”

  “Actually, I work at a school,” Cassie said. She was such a pushover. She ought to have made Matt suffer a lot longer. “I’m the principal’s secretary at the elementary school Austin attends.”

  “And she has helped Austin tremendously,” Matt said. “Cassie has a master’s in psychology and is going to be working in the field of child psychology soon. She’s going to make a great therapist and help a lot of children and their parents.”

  “So, there is no tattoo?” Mrs. Kramer looked from Matt to Cassie as both shook their heads.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie apologized. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was a bit put out with Matt for not telling you we were coming, so I’m afraid I saw an opportunity for revenge and took it.”

  Tom began to chuckle.

  “Revenge?” Maureen said. Her lips curled up, and she snorted. “Tattoo of the Kings— that’s a good one. Almost had the boy dropping his pants. I should have let him.” She slapped her knee and snorted again, then burst into full blown laughter.

  “What’s up, Mom?” A slightly scruffier version of Matt, sporting the same brand of jeans and an untucked flannel shirt, stepped into the kitchen. “Everything all right in here?”

  “Everything’s great.” Matt sounded a lot less tense than he had a minute earlier. “Cassie, this is my brother Mark. Mark, this is Cassie, Mom’s new best friend.”

  “I’ll say.” Maureen wiped her eyes as she pushed back from the table. “This girl’s the best thing since sliced bread. Anyone who can pull one over on me like that and set a good one on Matt is on my team for sure.” She ambled around the table and held a hand out to Cassie. “Come on, dear. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. You can have Matt’s old room. He can use an air mattress downstairs.”

  “I don’t mind using an air mattress,” Cassie said, as unwilling to put anyone out as she’d been wanting to discomfit Matt just a few minutes earlier.

  “Take the bedroom,” Matt said, his smile telling her all was forgiven on his part, at least. She reserved the right for additional revenge or payback at some future time. “The boys and I can sleep in the den.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” Cassie said to both Matt’s dad and brother, then followed his mother up the stairs, past pictures of Matt and his siblings when they were much younger. His mom still scared her a little, but already Cassie could see that if you got past her gruffness and onto her good side, this was a welcome place to be.

  Happy shouts rang from the downstairs play room, and Cassie imagined Noah already enjoying himself with Austin and Asher and their cousins. This place, and this family, had all the makings of what the Thanksgiving holiday should be. When Maureen turned at the top of the stairs, took her hand, and gave her a genuine welcome, Cassie was suddenly very grateful for Matt’s nefarious method that had convinced her to come.

  “He’s actually playing with his kids.” Matt’s sister, Megan, stood at the sliding glass doors, mouth agape as she looked out to the beach, where Matt and the boys were spending Thanksgiving morning flying kites— or attempting to, at least. From what Cassie had glimpsed, so far they hadn’t achieved a lot of air time.

  “I never would have believed Matt could embrace fatherhood so quickly.” Megan’s gaze slid to Cassie. “It’s obvious you’ve been a great influence on him.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Cassie glanced up from the cutting board and celery she was chopping. “He seemed like a pretty great dad already when we met him.” Cut your brother some slack. Matt had been right when he’d described his sister as bossy, nosy, too.

  “Well he wasn’t great before he left Oregon,” Megan said.

  You try being a single parent, Cassie thought. No one who hadn’t done it could ever really understand just how difficult it was in so many ways.

  “He wasn’t into his kids the way he is now,” Megan continued. “Matt was all about the NBA and his career. Has he told you what a big deal he was?”

  “He’s told me what a big mistake it was to be wrapped up in his job like that.” Cassie resumed chopping, wanting to get the task done so she could go out and play with the boys, too. She’d felt the need to offer to help Matt’s mom and wished Megan did, too, so they could all be done a lot sooner. Instead of spying on your brother, we could join him.

  “Matt has grown a lot this past year,” Maureen chimed in from the other side of the island where she was rolling out crusts for a couple of pies. She glanced at Cassie. “In a very tragic way, losing Jenna has been a blessing in disguise. It’s helped him see what really matters— loving his boys and others. I’m happy for him that he’s arrived at this place and found someone else so soon.”

  Uh oh. Cassie realized she needed to clarify that she wasn’t someone else in the sense Maureen was thinking. She slid the rest of the celery from the cutting board into the bowl for the stuffing then wiped her hands on a dishtowel.

  “Matt and I are just friends. I tend Austin and Asher on the evenings he works late, and in return Matt has fixed my car and disposal, things like that. We help each other out.”

  Megan’s snort sounded similar to her mother’s the night before, but Cassie didn’t take it as well.

  “That’s why you’re wearing that diamond?” Megan stared pointedly at Cassie’s left hand. “It’s okay to tell us. We won’t let on that we know before Matt shares the news with everyone at dinner. I mean, if he really wanted to keep it a secret, he’d have waited to propose until after you got here.”

  “It’s not like that between us.” Cassie gripped the edge of the counter as her mind scrambled for the best way to handle this situation and the two overbearing women.

  “Phew, it’s getting warm in here.” Maureen fanned a hand in front of her face.

  No kidding. The cool ocean air sounded even more appealing. It was all Cassie could do not to run out of the kitchen straight toward the beach.

  “Having hot flashes again, Mother?” Megan asked.

  “I don’t have hot flashes, I have power surges, and I’m having one now. Get that table set.” She pointed the rolling pin at Megan. “And leave our guest alone.”

  It was the perfect exi
t from the uncomfortable conversation, and Cassie should have been grateful, but all she could think of was that she had to fix this.

  “How come Laura isn’t helping?” Megan asked, sounding like a petulant twelve-year- old.

  “She’s nursing her baby. You want to give me another grandchild, you can get out of helping with dinner next Thanksgiving.” Maureen’s face softened as she looked over at Cassie. “I adore my grandbabies— should’ve skipped my own kids and gone straight for grandchildren. I really hope I’ll get some more, from Matt at least, since Megan here thinks two children are plenty.”

  “And you think I’m harassing our guest,” Megan huffed. “Cassie and Matt aren’t even married yet, and here you are suggesting they have more kids.”

  For as flushed as she knew her face must be, Cassie felt as if the rest of her had frozen with a rock lodged firmly in her throat. I would love to have a baby. Just not Matt’s. For a millisecond, she allowed herself to wonder what a child they created together might be like. Some combination of Noah, Austin, and Asher, only tinier, and maybe a girl. Powerful yearning swept over her, taking her off guard. The fantasy family in her imagination vanished. Devon. She needed to think of Devon, the fact that she was his wife, and her faith that he was going to get better.

  Matt’s mom was watching her closely, almost giving Cassie the impression that Maureen had seen the brief vision that had just completely thrown Cassie off balance.

  She hadn’t even considered that they might think her wedding ring was an engagement ring from Matt. Her gaze flickered to the foursome on the beach. She had to put a stop to this rumor before the boys or Matt heard of it and anyone got hurt.

  Cassie said a silent prayer for the right words as she looked from Megan to Maureen, then held her hand out. “This isn’t an engagement ring. It’s my wedding ring. I’m married.”

  The silence in the room was thick enough to slice with the knife she’d just been using. If the kitchen had been warm before, it was positively cooking now. Maureen’s hand fanned double time.