by Candis Terry
The cold air in the car shifted and Kate felt an icy breath on the back of her neck. She turned to find her mother perched at the edge of the seat, anxiously leaning forward. She looked into her mother’s face, at the regret in her eyes, and suddenly wished she could hug away her pain.
“I’m sorry too, Mom. I know you were worried and—”
Her mother lifted her hand. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I love you, daughter. Never doubt that.”
As Kate nodded, along with the tears came relief. Maybe they wouldn’t always get along, but her mother loved her. And that was something she hadn’t been sure of for a very long time. “Well, I guess I’d best get to painting those walls.” Kate gathered her things and opened the car door.
“Sweetheart? One more thing.”
Kate leaned back into the car. “What’s that?”
“I wish . . . you wouldn’t be so hard on Matt. He’s a good boy. Well, I guess he’s really not a boy any longer. And he really was there when your daddy and I needed him.”
There was that needed word again. Kate shrugged, shook her head. “He hasn’t been all that nice to me either.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean to be . . . difficult. He has . . .”
Issues was the word that jumped to Kate’s mind.
Her mother’s glow escalated to the point that Kate had to squint at the intensity. “. . . well, there’s something I never told you. Something I think you need to know.”
“Wow. Really?” Her mother had actually held something back? “Then please, don’t make me wait any longer.”
“If I tell you, I’ll be breaking a promise.”
“Who’s going to know?”
“Believe me, if you can’t keep this buttoned up, and I’m sure you won’t, it’s going to get messy.” Her mother looked skyward and mumbled “Oh Lord, forgive me for this.”
“Mom!”
“Fine. Just a few days before you left home, Matt asked your daddy and me for permission to marry you.”
The bag dropped from Kate’s hand as everything she thought she knew, thought she believed, imploded.
CHAPTER TWELVE
His second date with Emma had been a friggin’ disaster.
Matt flattened his palms against the tumbled tile and ducked his head beneath the shower. Hot water sluiced down his back and loosened his tight neck muscles.
He thought he’d prepared a nice evening. He’d made a nice fire in the fireplace. He’d rented two Hitchcock classics, opting to give Emma the choice on her preference. He’d bought two nice bottles of wine and lit candles all around the room. He’d done everything possible to assure that the date would go nicely.
Apparently nice and him didn’t belong in the same sentence.
The popcorn burned and stank up the house. The Junior Mints, sitting on the table near the fireplace, melted. And when Emma had told him she preferred hot chocolate to wine, he’d made her a cup. She’d burned her tongue, then spilled the hot liquid on her jeans, which seeped down to her skin and burned her there as well. The DVD player took a dump and they’d been left with nothing to do but sit and talk. There’d been no romance, no getting to know each other.
Halfway through their stilted conversation a dire realization hit Matt like a shovel to the face. He remembered standing in the dress shop and Kate asking, “How are you going to live with someone if you’re not in love with them?”
He grabbed the container of shampoo and turned it upside down over his head. Empty. Damn. He couldn’t force himself to love someone any more than he could wring a drop of shampoo from an empty bottle.
Love shouldn’t be so damned difficult.
It hadn’t always been. He recalled a long ago memory of lying next to Kate in the bed of his pickup on a chilly autumn night, much like the one outside. The sky had been clear with a million stars overhead. Her skin had been warm beneath the plaid blanket. And they’d talked for hours. Nonstop. About subjects that ranged from gossip that the man-eater Gretchen Wilkes was banging Lester Evans, their married mailman, to their favorite movies that year—hers had been Jerry Maguire, his had been Twister. There had never been a lull in the conversation that had been interspersed with kisses and laughter.
The memory seized him by the throat and sent an ache so deep into his heart he couldn’t breathe.
When he’d taken Emma home, he found himself relieved when she informed him she didn’t think they should see each other again. Emma Hart was an attractive, intelligent woman with a lot to offer a man. But he wasn’t in love with her. And he never would be. She deserved a man who would cherish her. He wasn’t that guy. He realized now that his search for a wife had never been about winning the election. He wanted marriage. He just didn’t want an empty marriage. He wanted to be in love with the woman he would make his wife and he wanted her to love him back. He just didn’t know if that would ever be possible. At least not while there was one specific woman he couldn’t seem to erase from his heart.
And right now, she’d locked herself up behind a papered bakery window doing God knew what. He snapped off the faucet.
Maybe he’d just go find out.
Surrounded by gallons of primer, paint, and painter’s cloths, Kate removed the bakery’s faded confection artwork from the walls with her phone headset stuffed in her ear.
“Holy shit. How’d you find out?” Kelly verified the truth from her end of the line in Chicago when Kate called for confirmation of her mother’s bombshell.
She could hardly tell Kelly their mother had spilled the beans. “I overheard someone at the market.”
“You swear you really never knew? Because there have been times during our visits when we’d do the whole gossip-in-our-jammies thing and you’ve eluded to—”
“What, are you deaf? Did you not just hear me say I didn’t know?” Kate said, scooting the pup and his two pink paws away from the obviously enticing tray of Strawberry Shake paint. For his own safety, she tucked him in the office and closed the door.
“I know, but I can’t believe you didn’t know. Everybody knew. He had a ring. Bought it right there at Happy Heart Jewelers, the same place you bought your class ring.”
“How the heck did everybody know?”
“Have you forgotten our mother had her own version of Morse Code?”
Kate sighed. “But I was only twenty. How could he believe I’d know how to be a wife? Or would even want to at that age?”
“Look, little sister, when has logic ever played into life when love’s involved? Haven’t you ever heard the terms crazy in love? Madly in love? Wildly in love? Love at first sight? Show me where reason fits in.”
It certainly hadn’t when she’d been in the first grade and big bad third-grader Matt Ryan had challenged her to a race on the monkey bars. He’d won, of course, and she’d been smitten by his strength and smile and those unique blue eyes. That he’d been an older man hadn’t hurt either.
But Matt hadn’t truly noticed her until her sophomore year in Mr. Dodson’s biology class. Sentenced to retake the class, Matt had laughed his muscular football-playing ass off when she’d passed out at the soles of his black Converse high tops the day they dissected frogs. She blamed the formaldehyde. He blamed her hot crush on him. A week later they were a couple. Matt had told her he’d fallen in love when she turned as green as the frog. A licensed psychologist might consider that slightly sick. Still, who was she to turn down the most gorgeous guy in school?
But love? Did any sixteen-year-old girl know what love meant?
Infatuation? Check.
Lust? Double check.
But love? The real melt-your-heart-can’t-live-without-him kind of love?
For years she’d sat one seat behind him in different classes, staring at his wide shoulders, watching the way his dark hair curled at the nape of his neck when it got too long. She’d been sure he thought she had some kind of asthma condition because she constantly leaned toward him and breathed deeply to catch a whiff of his sexy male
scent. Yeah, so maybe she was a little whacked. But to her, Matt Ryan smelled of clean mountain air, crisp leaves, and pine trees. To a teenage girl that was better than a gallon of Jovan Musk.
“Despite Mom and Dad telling him you’d received the scholarship, he was certain you’d run because you’d found out he wanted to marry you.”
Kate’s cheeks burned. A hollow ache settled next to her heart. “God, no wonder he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
Kate gave a cynical laugh. “Seriously? He told me to stay the hell out of his life.”
“Well, then he probably just dislikes you.”
He had plenty of reason to.
But what was it with him popping up everywhere? Grilling her dinner? Trapping her against walls and pressing his big body into hers? There were at least parts of him that didn’t hate her. Long, hard, swollen, throbbing parts. And what was up with him kissing her? Not once, like he might have been drunk off his ass and not have known what he was doing, but several times when he’d been stone-cold sober?
“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dislike my body though,” she accidentally said out loud.
“Yeah, well, you are pretty hot,” Kelly said with a chuckle. “And heaven knows those flannel PJs you wear are soooo sexy.”
“Shut up. You wear flannel too.”
“Doesn’t quite beat a warm body, does it?”
“Nope.” Kate sighed, honestly not remembering the last time a warm body had laid next to hers. With the exception of the puppy, of course. “I know we don’t agree on much, but I miss you, Kel.”
“Miss you too.”
“Promise we’ll get together more than once or twice a year.”
“I promise. So what are you going to do?” Kelly asked.
“About?”
“Duh. Your former almost fiancée?”
Kate leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor. Something spiraled inside her that she couldn’t identify, but it felt a whole lot like butterflies flapping inside her heart. She held out her hand and looked at her naked ring finger imagining a glittering diamond there—one she hadn’t bought for herself or rented for a client.
Her dreams may have never taken her down the path of June Cleaver or Carol Brady or even Lucy Ricardo. But something inside her heart knew that one day, at least, she’d like to have a man beside her who filled in all those empty places rambling around her life. Unfortunately for her, most men didn’t like to be put on hold.
“I’m not going to do anything, Kel. He’s got his life planned out and I’ve already got mine in motion. We’re on two different interstates. He told me to stay the hell out of his life. So I’m out.” Before the conversation could move in any more uncomfortable directions, she glanced up at the clock and said, “Hey, I’m sure you’ve got court early in the morning. I don’t want to keep you.”
“Kate? I know I’ve been too busy to call. But I promise I will get back there just as soon as this trial is over.”
It was that moment Kate realized she’d been so busy she hadn’t even noticed that neither of her siblings had checked in and updated her on their dad watch status. “Yeah, I know. So how is your big case going?” Kate asked.
“I can already hear the rope swinging.”
Kate heard the satisfaction in her sister’s voice. “Put an extra knot in it for me.”
“I will. In the meantime, do me a favor?”
She hardly had time to tie her shoes anymore and her sister wanted to pile on more? Was she trying to kill her? “Sure.”
“Promise me.”
“Does it have to do with dressing in clown clothes or jumping off Mt. Rushmore?”
Kelly laughed. “Not even close.”
“Tap dancing on top of the Grange in a tutu?”
“Where do you get these ideas?”
“I live in Hollywood.”
“No tap dancing,” Kelly confirmed.
“Fine.” Kate sighed. “I promise.”
“Give it a chance.”
The phone clicked in Kate’s ear. She didn’t have her silly sister super decoder ring handy, but this time she didn’t need it. Kelly hadn’t meant to say it, she’d meant to say him.
Her sister didn’t understand that Matt Ryan didn’t want a chance. He’d written her off with the bus ticket she’d bought to L.A.
Two hours later while Kate battled with the paint extension pole, she also struggled with the reality that once upon a time she’d broken Matt’s heart.
She hated guilt and that gnawing feeling it left in your stomach. Though she lived and worked in Fantasyland, she tried to be realistic and level-headed. Which is why she’d long ago made up her mind that her career left little to no time for a serious relationship. And she had to be equally honest that she could never be the kind of girl who followed in her mother’s house slippers. She didn’t even own any slippers. But during brief moments of insanity something about Matt Ryan made her want to at least try on a pair. Something about him made her think of marriage and babies and growing old beside him.
She looked up to the half-painted ceiling and groaned. Her brain, not to mention her arm muscles, were tired. She glanced at her watch. It was getting late, but still too early to call it quits for the day. She pushed the air from her lungs and stuck the roller in the tray of Irish Cream, lifted the pole over her head and was in mid-stroke when the back door creaked open. A gust of wind blew through the opening and a scatter of autumn leaves rustled in along with the man who’d been on her mind all night.
“What are you doing here, Hollywood?” He stood just inside the door, one hand tucked in the pocket of a brown duck Carhartt jacket, the other gripping the doorknob. Worn and frayed jeans encased his long legs and cupped his generous package like a gentle glove. His hair was windblown and slightly damp. His cheeks were flushed from the cold.
Her stomach twisted and she blinked, thinking he was just an illusion created from her overindulgent imagination. But when her eyes opened again, he was standing much closer. The scent of soap clung to him and Kate imagined him in the shower, wet and naked.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Just driving by. Saw the light on behind the paper covering the window. Cop instincts kicked in. I wanted to make sure no one was robbing the place.” Matt’s gaze darted around the room, then his eyes returned to hers. “What’s going on?”
“Painting. Or at least trying to.” She eyed the evil extension pole. “First, I have to find a way to finish the ceiling. When I look up for too long, I get dizzy.”
He took the pole from her hand, adjusted the knob and the tool extended another two feet. “The trick is not to stand directly under it,” he said, dipping the roller in the paint and demonstrating the proper technique.
“Oh. I guess I should have read the instructions first.”
He gave her half a smile that curled one side of his mouth. “What prompted this sudden . . . transformation?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I just looked around and everything seemed so old and faded. It’s my job to make people look their best. I figured I could do the same for the bakery. Since Dad went hunting, it seemed the perfect time for this place to get a facelift.”
His gaze stroked over her. “Did you ever think your dad might not want to change the bakery? That maybe the way it was decorated reminded him of your mother?”
Panic dove deep and Kate froze. “Oh my God. I never even considered—” Her palms went to her cheeks as she looked at the holes in the wall where the photo of her parents on their opening day thirty odd years ago had once been displayed. “Do you think he’ll hate it?” Or her, she worried.
Matt studied her and then glanced around the shop. “Because you did it, I’m pretty sure he’ll love it.”
“You swear?” Relief swept through her with the energy of an ocean wave.
He nodded. “I’m going to have to be careful.”
“About?”
“You. A
nd my ever-changing opinion. Between the dress shop, the bakery makeover, and all the extra favors you’re doing for people like offering to babysit for Ollie and Maggie, I might start thinking you’re nice.”
She laughed. “Heaven forbid.”
“So what exactly are you trying to accomplish at this late hour?” he asked, gripping the pole in his large hand.
She considered the almost impossible task she’d set for herself. “Tomorrow a new laminate floor and canned ceiling lights will be installed. I need to finish painting the ceiling and the walls tonight.”
“That’s a big order.” He looked at her as if she’d asked him to eat a bug. Then he handed her the pole.
She fully expected him to walk out of there as fast as his worn cowboy boots would carry him. And who would blame him? He’d already put in a full day behind the badge. But as he had a tendency to do these days, he surprised her by shrugging off his jacket and tossing it on the counter. He turned toward her, hand extended.
“Let’s get to work,” he said.
She stared at him. Or rather she stared at his wide, smooth chest and narrow waist hidden just beneath the soft, thin cotton of his light gray T-shirt. She remembered the tall lanky boy he’d been with muscles hard and tight beneath her fingertips. Now he was a grown man and she couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like beneath all that fabric.
“Hel-lo?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face.
“Uh—” Kate shook her head. “What?”
He chuckled. “I said we’d better get to work.”
She looked up into his eyes. “You’re going to help me?”
His shoulders lifted. “Why not?”
“It’s late. Don’t you have something better to do?”
He took the extension pole from her hands, turned his back to her, and dipped the roller into the paint tray. “Probably. So, if you don’t get over there and pick up that brush, I might change my mind.” He raised his arms and began to roll on the ceiling paint.
Mesmerized, Kate watched the play of muscles flex his back and arms. She studied the way those softly worn jeans cupped his perfect rear end and she sighed.
