He looked out over the property. Why had he started building again? Why had he laid out framing for four bedrooms instead of one? If he intended to live here by himself, in some self-imposed exile from society, then why four bedrooms?
The reason was sitting quietly beside him. Katie had given him the first taste of hope he’d had in a long time. Katie was right. Until he dealt with that night, hope was a wasted emotion.
“Olivia was my date for the senior prom,” he began, letting the taste of long-bottled-up words roll off his tongue like a wine that had grown slightly bitter with age. “I didn’t know many girls. Believe it or not, I got tongue-tied every time I got around a pretty girl and hadn’t dated, even by my senior year.” He flicked a splinter of wood onto the floor. “She worked at the diner where my friends and I hung out. My buddies thought it would be funny to set us up, so they told her I didn’t have a date for the prom. It didn’t take long for her to change that.” He shook his head.
“I used to think she and I had a lot in common. A poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks and a wild rich boy who didn’t value money, just freedom. After we got married, I realized the only thing Olivia cared about was money and status. Me, I’ve never cared much about those things.”
She shook her head. “I can’t remember a time when I haven’t worried about money.”
“I’m not against money in general,” he said with a grin. He reached out, grabbed his soda off the nearby post and took a long gulp. “I’ve just never wanted the lifestyle my parents had. The country club memberships, the agonizing over china patterns. Spending your life chained to a desk. I’ve worked for enough to live on, pay my crew well and save for the future. Money hasn’t been my all-consuming goal, which ironically, seemed to make my business do better. When I worried more about the quality of the job than the cash we were making, customers respected me.”
“And for Olivia it was different?”
“Oh yeah. She thought that by marrying me, she’d be taken care of for the rest of her life. I made sure she was, even after the divorce. Money buys the only security she can count on.” He twirled the bottle in his palms.
“What happened at the prom?”
“It wasn’t what happened at the prom, it was what happened afterward. We had a great time. Olivia was every guy’s dream date—sexy, flirty, laughing. Ready to do just about anything. And I mean anything. After the prom, we were supposed to follow my friends up to the lake for a campout. But we didn’t make it.”
The wind picked up, flattening the grass in a wave across the meadow. A few birds squawked in protest at the gust and flapped away.
“We ended up in a hotel room instead.”
Matt looked at Katie, as if gauging her reaction to the statement. She shouldn’t have a reaction, she told herself. His relationship with Olivia had been eleven years ago, long before Katie had met him. On top of that, she had no claims on him, no right to be bothered by whatever had been or still was between Matt and Olivia.
But the thought of him and Olivia in bed together, did bother her. More than she wanted to admit.
“Olivia wanted me and made no secret of that the whole way to the hotel,” he continued. “I was young, stupid and desperate to lose my virginity. So I went.”
“And the rest is history,” she finished for him, not sure she wanted to hear any more details.
“Basically, yes.” He glanced at the bottle in his hands. “Four weeks later, she called me, said she was pregnant and I was the father. Like I said, I was young and stupid. I believed her.”
“And you did the right thing.”
He nodded. “We got married a week later, to prevent any scandal, you know.” Sarcasm laced his words. “My father was enraged that I could be so ‘irresponsible.”’
“Did you live with your folks after the wedding?”
Matt laughed, a short dry sound that was anything but merry. “No way. I got a job working on a construction crew and rented an apartment downtown. I wasn’t about to take a handout from my parents for a mistake I’d made and then hear about it until the day I died. I did it on my own.”
“And Olivia? How did she take it?”
“She hadn’t expected that I’d choose to struggle by on my own rather than take money from my father. She never stopped complaining, not from the minute I carried her over the threshold. So I worked two jobs, until I could afford this place.”
“To build her dream house.”
He was looking past her, at some nameless spot far across the skeleton of a room. “At the time, I thought it would be our dream house. The one we’d raise our family in.”
Matt’s gaze swept over the framework of the house, lingering on a corner that faced the meadow.
“What happened?”
He took a long, hard gulp of soda. Then another, draining the bottle. “Then the baby died and everything fell apart.” He spoke so softly, she had to strain to hear him.
“And you left town?”
“Basically.” He nodded. Again, she waited, sensing his need to tell the story in his own time. “When I woke up on my thirtieth birthday, I finally realized what I’d given up. I’d run from this place as fast as I could eleven years ago and stayed away because it was…easier. But that day, it hit me that the memories I’d left behind, the life I’d had, meant more to me than I wanted to admit.” He let out a rueful laugh. “I decided it was finally time to grow up and come home.”
“But what about your construction company?”
“That can come with me, too, in a way. I built it up from scratch in Pennsylvania and I can do it again here. The challenge will be fun.”
“Starting all over again takes a lot of courage.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t call myself courageous. Not at all.” He stared at the lush landscape. “I’m just a man who stopped drinking and saw his life a whole lot clearer when he decided to face it head-on instead of running from it.”
“But you gave up an awful lot, to come back to a town that’s always thought the worst of you.” Katie laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think you did the right thing.”
The right thing. He hadn’t done the right thing in so long, he wasn’t even sure he knew what that might be. He knew what the wrong thing was, though—choosing booze over responsibility. He’d lost his child, his wife and his life, all in one fell swoop. Then he’d turned his back on everyone and left, drowning his guilt alone.
He pushed himself to his feet and crossed to where the plywood floor ended. He teetered, balancing on the edge of the foundation. The wind gusted around him, as if trying to knock him down.
“Matt, tell me about the baby.” Katie had joined him on the edge and drawn one of his hands into both her own.
“He was beautiful,” Matt began, feeling each word before letting it escape. “Absolutely perfect. I was so happy when he was born. I handed out cigars to the entire staff on the maternity ward, even the candy stripers. My name was on his bassinet. Damn, that made me proud. I’d point him out to everyone that walked by the nursery: ‘That’s my son, that’s my boy.”’ He gestured in front of himself, the movement a mimic of the memory.
“Olivia wanted to name him after me,” he added, turning toward Katie. “Did you know Matthew means ‘gift of the Lord?’ That’s what he was, a precious gift that I had to give back much too soon.” Then his voice splintered with grief and he had to stop talking.
Despite all that had happened, despite the letter proving it was all a lie, Matt had never stopped thinking of little Matthew as his son. A nest of wasps stung at his heart whenever he said his son’s name. Would the pain ever stop?
Katie took a step closer, her warmth a buffer against the bite of the wind. “He must have made you very happy.”
“I can’t describe how that baby made me feel. It was like walking on clouds and touching the sun every time he smiled.” Matt shook his head, regained the composure that had momentarily slipped out of his grasp. “I know they say it’s j
ust gas at that age, but I thought he knew who I was.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“When we brought him home from the hospital, everything was fine at first. Olivia and I spent hours talking about his toes or his eyes or how much he’d eaten.” Matt rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “But then Olivia started spending every night out. As soon as I’d get home from work, she’d head out the door and leave me with the baby.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Not really. I didn’t mind taking care of my son. I used to go crazy while I was at work, missing him. I’m sure I drove the crew nuts, talking about him as if he were the first baby ever born in the world.”
“For you, he was.”
Matt glanced at her and nodded. “You’re right.”
Dark clouds pushed their way through the sky, casting the land in shadow. In the distance, the sound of a tractor droned an undertow of sound for the soft chirps of birds.
“Why didn’t Olivia stay home?”
“She didn’t know what to do when he cried. She’d get frustrated when she couldn’t comfort him or he wouldn’t sleep on schedule. I think she felt like a bad mother.”
“You two were young. No wonder it was difficult.”
“Olivia wouldn’t talk about it or accept any help. Her parents died when she was young, so my mom would come over and try to help her out. But Olivia wanted to do it on her own. And when she couldn’t, she’d get aggravated and walk out the door.
“My marriage was falling apart, bit by bit, and I couldn’t stop it.” He let out a breath. “When I married Olivia, I was committed to making it work—for the baby’s sake. And so was she, in the beginning. But the more inadequate she seemed to feel as a mother, the more unhappy she’d become. Then she’d leave.”
The wind whipped Katie’s hair around her face. “Where do you think she went?”
“I didn’t know at first. Later, I found out she was with another man. Jacob Cartland, a lawyer from the city. She’d known him before me and never really stopped seeing him. Whenever Olivia disappeared, she headed to his lake cabin. Cartland’s wife didn’t know a thing. She thought he hunted a lot.”
“Why cheat? I thought she cared about you.”
He snorted. “I’m not sure Olivia ever cared about me. Maybe she did. I don’t know. Cartland, though, was rich and extravagant. I found out later he gave her things, made her a lot of empty promises about a future. She told me once she would never be poor again. We fought constantly about money, about the apartment and how it reminded her of the home she’d left, about the brand of dish detergent we bought, for Pete’s sake. I tried to understand, but there was only so much I could do. We were on our own. We were young. Wealth was not an option. In the end, it didn’t matter how much money we had, it was never enough.” He glanced away. “Even our baby wasn’t enough to keep her home.”
“She was probably afraid it would all disappear one day and she’d be out on the street,” Katie said.
“Yeah, I guess. Olivia is a very insecure woman. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but when you get close, you can see a very scared person in there. A long time ago, I used to feel sorry for her,” he said. “Then I found out she’d used the baby to trick me into marriage, and I stopped feeling sorry for Olivia.” He let out a short, angry gust. “I stopped feeling anything for her.”
“How did you find out?”
He sank back onto the wood and closed his eyes. That night came flooding back, a deluge of memories that wouldn’t be held back any longer. They flooded his mind, seeping into the crevices, filling every corner. He wanted to dam up the relentless pictures, but he couldn’t. It was time to let them through, to deal with the past that had haunted his every move, every thought, for too long.
He swallowed, then began. “That night, Olivia went out. Again. I was fed up with her taking off and not telling me where she was going. So I went into her room—we were in separate beds by then—and started looking for some clue to where she was spending her nights. Because it certainly wasn’t with me.”
A light trickle of rain began, tapping softly against the wood. Matt went on, barely aware of the weather.
“I found a letter to her from Cartland. He loved her, wanted to be with her.” Matt let out a chuff of disgust.
He pressed his hands to his temples, forced himself to finish. “In the letter, he talked about how he’d offered her money for an abortion.” He shook his head. “I think about that sometimes, about how it would have been if she’d gone through with it, if we hadn’t met…if I’d never known my son.” He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the rush of tears threatening his eyes.
Despite what had happened that night, and despite all the years since, Matt was grateful he’d had those few months with his son to carry him through the sleepless nights and anguished days that came after his child was gone.
“The letter…there was more. I should have stopped reading then. I should have shredded the damned thing before—” Matt closed his eyes. The stark, sharp handwriting flashed in his memory, a slide show of destructive words. “Cartland,” he spat out, the word a curse, “the bastard, knew when Olivia got pregnant. Recounted that night in detail, in fact. And then, oh God, it all added up. The baby hadn’t been early,” Matt covered his eyes with his hands, but the image of the letter was a stubborn mule, “he hadn’t even been mine.”
“Oh, Matt.” Katie clapped a hand over her mouth.
“That…that was what damned near killed me.” His throat clogged with the hot sting of unshed tears. “I loved that baby, I loved him more than life,” Matt said, the words now coming in a strangled whisper, “he was my son, no matter whose DNA was in him. He was everything.”
The rain began to fall in earnest now, fat drops plopping onto the wood and grass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the wind whistling its accompaniment.
“And then he died. He…he was only three months old.” His voice broke, along with his control, and his tears mingled with the rain.
“Matt.” Katie reached for him, drawing him into her arms, pulling his head to her chest. He remained rigid for a second, then relaxed, sinking into the comfort of Katie.
The dam against his grief shattered. Matt didn’t try to hold it back. Not anymore. He needed to mourn the baby he’d lost, the hope, the promise that had all died in the back bedroom of a tiny walk-up apartment.
“I loved him so much,” he whispered hoarsely. “When I found him that night, he was so still, so quiet. On his stomach, not on his back. I hadn’t been able to bear his crying and just laid him down like that because he liked to sleep that way. Any other night, I would have gone in after he was asleep and rolled him back, just in case the blanket got caught under his chin or he…I was always worried. But that night…If I’d just checked on him one more time, maybe—” God, how he’d tortured himself with the what-ifs, the retracing of steps that could not be undone. “I picked him up, held him. But there was nothing. No breath, no sound. I tried CPR. I tried everything. But he, he…wouldn’t wake up. He was so blue, so cold. It was SIDS, the hospital said, like that explained everything. But it didn’t. It didn’t explain a damned thing.”
“Matt,” Katie whispered, cradling him, soothing him.
But the guilt and the anguish were ripping him apart, a shredder in his soul. He jerked away from Katie and got to his feet. “It was my fault, don’t you see? I didn’t watch him that night. I wasn’t there when my son died. I wasn’t there when he needed me…I was—” He tried to finish it, to let the last of the truth come out. But he couldn’t.
If he told Katie that he’d been a raving, bitter drunk, incapable of seeing anything but those horrible, devastating words, if he told her he’d been too focused on his own rage and betrayal to see anything at all, she’d be gone faster than he could take a breath.
“It wasn’t your fault, Matt, it was a tragedy. That’s all.” She went to his side, brought her face to his and laid a soft kiss on his li
ps. Again and again, she kissed him, offering solace, forgiveness.
Guilt clawed at him, but his own selfish need for Katie overrode it all. Just for tonight, he’d pretend he wasn’t the man he was and let that look remain in Katie’s eyes a little longer. Capture one more moment of perfection before it all went away again.
Talking about his son’s death was like losing him all over again. He couldn’t take losing Katie tonight, too.
“Katie. Oh God, Katie, I need you.” The rain sheeted down on them, plastering her hair against her face, mingling with his tears.
Chapter Eleven
Katie had never intended to fall in love with Matt Webster, but she had. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, there had been little chance of turning around and pretending he’d never happened. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her body and her heart around him. And oh, how Matt Webster needed someone to do that.
When the rain let loose, they dashed into the barn. Matt kicked the door shut, then stood there, shirt bonded to his chest, hair slick against his head. Vulnerability and uncertainty hovered around him.
She didn’t hesitate. She crossed to him, twined her fingers with his. “Matt, you’re a good man. What happened wasn’t—”
“Shh.” He shook his head, his eyes closed as if he couldn’t bear to hear her finish. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.”
His hands moved to her waist and tightened around her. Then he kissed her, claiming her mouth with a ferocity she’d never felt before. It was as primitive as the pounding storm outside. She was lost, like a sailboat buffeted by a tempest.
She’d come here to offer him comfort. But there was no comfort in this kiss. Only a powerful, electric connection of wanting. His hands roamed her back, traveled down and over her buttocks, shifting the silky material of her dress. Nerves tingled, screamed with desire at every juncture. The wet fabric was slippery, sensual.
Katie’s breathing ratcheted up, immediately coming hard, fast. She was blinded by the feelings that bombarded her, seeking only to know more. She explored the ridges and planes of his body through the thin, soaked fabric of his shirt, touching his chest, sliding down his back and then up to his shoulders, over the valleys and hard, tight muscles of Matt’s torso.
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