Heard It Through the Grapevine

by Teresa Hill

  “I’m sure.” Five kids?

  “I hadn’t thought about that in years—how rocky things were when we found out,” Jim said. “But, I tell you, from the moment I held that little girl in my arms for the first time…she is one of the great joys of my life.”

  “I know.” And this man was about to entrust one of his greatest treasure to Matt, who was going to accept, feeling like the worst kind of impostor. She deserved so much better.

  “I remember the way she looked at you when we first brought you here, like we weren’t bringing you into the family. We were bringing you to her and her alone. She was so sure you belonged with us.”

  Matt remembered thinking they were all nuts, not just to trust him with their material things, but something as precious as their daughter? Not that he ever would have hurt her. But there were lots of bad-assed kids on the streets who would have.

  She’d latched onto him in a way he still didn’t understand, with a kind of faith and constancy that had been completely missing in his life to that point, and if he had to look back over his life and think about joy, she was it. Frustrating and funny and way too trusting for her own good, and a complete joy, at a time when he’d been doing his best to show nothing but his tough-guy side to the world.

  He probably owed her even more than he owed her parents.

  “Jim, I would do anything for her.” It was one of the truest things he’d ever said in his life. “I would give her anything in this world that’s within my power to give.”

  Cathie’s father nodded, looking satisfied. “That’s what I was waiting to hear, son. That’s the only way I’d give her to you, if I believed you felt that way about her.”

  Chapter Five

  Once he escaped from Jim’s study, no one let Matt near Cathie. She was being guarded by a half-dozen women, who started chattering like riled-up birds whenever he got close to the room where she was closeted with her mother and a favorite cousin of hers.

  Her brothers were all giving him hell about skipping out of the bachelor party, claiming he was henpecked already, then riding him about where he’d been all night. Teasing publicly, but each and every one of them had taken him aside and given him a stern warning that he’d better have been with his bride-to-be, soothing a case of last-minute jitters. Or else.

  All he wanted now was to talk to her, to make sure she was okay.

  That she’d still be walking down the aisle to him later that day.

  There were all sorts of emotions rumbling around inside of him, set off by her father’s words, images of Cathie as a girl, times when she’d been so stubborn, so determined to draw him into her world. Times when she’d pestered him mercilessly. When she’d been his champion to the whole, wide world, so sure he was so much smarter and so much better a person than he ever imagined he’d be.

  All of it ruined by her deciding she was in love with him at sixteen.

  She couldn’t be in love with him now. She was carrying another man’s child, and he knew her. She wouldn’t have climbed into bed with a man unless she believed she was in love with him, and she wasn’t the kind of person to think she could love two men at the same time.

  So she must have gotten over Matt long ago and fallen in love with this jerk. She was just in trouble, and Matt was trying to help her.

  That was it.

  Nothing to do with love at all.

  Hell, she might still be hung up on that scum who’d gotten her pregnant.

  And all that was happening today was nothing more than a charade to appease her family.

  “You look a little nervous, son.” Jim clapped a hand on Matt’s back as they stood in his office in the church, watching the clock roll down the last ten minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin.

  “I just want it done,” Matt said.

  Jim laughed. “I felt the same way myself when I married Mary.”

  “Cathie’s okay?”

  Jim nodded. “Mary managed not to say anything and mostly not to cry. So you just hang on. Another thirty minutes or so, and the nerve-racking part will be over. Then you can get started on the fun part of being married, and then the really hard part of staying married.”

  Matt just glared at him.

  Jim laughed again. “I was worried about you. You didn’t look nervous at all until this morning in my study. It looked like you didn’t have any idea what you were getting into.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying this, Jim.”

  “Could we make it Dad? Finally?”

  Matt had never called him that, despite repeated invitations.

  “There’s always been a place for you here, Matt. All you had to do was accept it. You marry my daughter, you automatically have a place in this family.”

  “So that means this time, if you need something from me, I’m family, and you’re going to take it,” Matt said.

  “You’re still upset about that?”

  “You’d been telling me I was family for years, and the first time I try to act like it, you turned me down.” He’d offered them money, a lot of it, when Jim had been in the hospital waiting for a heart transplant.

  “And you thought I was rejecting you and not the money, didn’t you?” Jim shook his head. “Sorry. I didn’t think of it that way. Not until later, after I’d already turned you down.”

  “I wanted to do it,” Matt said. “You needed it. I had it. It was one of the first things I’d actually wanted to do with all that money I made.”

  “And I should have let you. I think my pride was taking a beating, and I let it get the best of me. It was the first time in my life I was worried about being able to support my family. I wasn’t handling it well. You know something about pride, don’t you, son?”

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “Cathie’s still worried. Not about the money part, but about your health. Is everything okay?”

  Jim shrugged it off. “Things happen from time to time. Little blips here and there. They watch me pretty closely, run all sorts of tests, and Mary frets every time it happens. We try to spare the kids as much of that as we can. But my new heart’s fine right now, and I’m hoping to keep it that way. Especially now that I’m going to be a grandfather.”

  “There’s nothing you need?”

  “Not right now.” Jim hesitated. “I worry about what would happen to Mary, if anything happened to me. We got through the transplant, but it took just about everything we had set aside for our retirement. Not that I plan to ever retire. I love what I’m doing. Mary does, too. But still, if something happened to me, I worry about how she’d make it.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Matt said quietly. “At least, as long as she’s not as stubborn as you, when it comes to letting someone help her.”

  “Thank you, Matt. You’re a good man. You tell Mary, if the time ever comes, that we talked about you helping out that way. That it’s what I wanted her to do.”

  “Oh, she’ll love that. You won’t take anything from me, but you expect her to?”

  “She would have a thing or two to say about that. I guess I’ll just have to stick around and take care of her myself. Now, are you ready to get married?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Matt took his place at the front of the little church, Cathie’s father on one side of him and her brother, Jack, on the other. Her oldest brother, Brett, had the honor of walking her down the aisle, and the other two, not willing to be left out of the ceremony, had taken the only spots left—those of bridesmaids.

  “Can’t wait to see them fighting over the bouquet,” Jim said, as the two walked down the aisle in matching tuxedos.

  Matt stood there and told himself to breathe. He’d taken part in solving corporate espionage cases that had been easier than this, and why, he couldn’t understand.

  It was nothing. He’d told himself and her that often enough.

  And then Cathie appeared in the doorway at the back of the church, and he couldn’t see anything but her, as beautifu
l and grown up as he’d ever imagined her being.

  The dress was deceptively simple, a heavy white satin faded to cream, no lace at all. It caressed her breasts, held up at her shoulders by tiny bows, gathered tightly at her waist and then spread out into a billowing skirt that hung to her feet.

  Simple as could be.

  Her hair was piled up on her head, little curls dangling down here and there, diamond studs he’d left with Mary to give to her this morning as a wedding gift twinkling in her ears.

  “Takes your breath away, doesn’t she?” her father whispered.

  Her brother glanced over at Matt and laughed softly. Matt thought he might have swayed on his feet, which was ridiculous, but still, that’s what he thought happened.

  Music filled the church, and Cathie walked slowly toward him.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Any hope he’d ever had of thinking of her as a little girl was gone forever. The girl had clearly grown up.

  She looked heartbreakingly tentative as she let go of her brother’s arm and slipped her hand through the crook of Matt’s. Her hand rested on his arm, and he put his other hand on top of hers, to hold her there, in case she had any ideas of running away.

  Vaguely, thoughts of what she’d said last night—about his sex life or lack thereof once they were married—flitted through his head.

  He hadn’t thought it would be a problem. He traveled a lot. He could take care of things that way. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but that way, it would never touch her, never hurt her. It would just be a way of getting through, and that’s all they had to do—get through the time he’d promised her, the time he owed her.

  It seemed sordid now and completely unsatisfactory to ever think of treating her that way.

  Three years? What was he supposed to do for three years?

  She looked up at him questioningly, what might have been panic flitting through her eyes. He leaned down until his lips brushed the rim of her ear and said, “You are so beautiful.”

  She gave him a weak smile and mouthed, “Thank you. Don’t let go.”

  “I won’t.”

  The ceremony was mostly a blur. He was aware of her by his side and the light of the candles, rays of sunlight streaming through the stained glass, of speaking those vows that had so troubled her, and Cathie’s own trembling responses.

  And then Jim said Matt could kiss his bride.

  He took a breath, bracing himself, and then took her gently in his arms, like she was the most beautiful and fragile thing on earth and he was worried about breaking her, which he was.

  He settled her against him, and then took her face in one of his hands and tilted her head up to his. Her lips were soft and tentative beneath his, and a kind of hunger he’d have thought he’d trampled out long ago, leaped up inside of him at the first touch.

  He pulled back, gentling the kiss when every instinct in him said to go deeper, to take everything he could from her with just a kiss. It wasn’t going to be that way. This wasn’t about him. It was about her and what she needed, what he’d agreed to provide.

  But he could touch her every now and then, and it wasn’t often he’d have a formal invitation to do so. So he made the most of the moment, working his way slowly and completely along her soft, sweet lips, until she clung to him, and he forget everything about where they were and what they were supposed to be doing. Everything but the taste of her and the fresh, clean smell of her skin and the softness of her body pressed to his.

  Laughter erupted from somewhere in the back of the church, building as it moved through the congregation. Someone whooped and cheered, and Cathie’s father laughed.

  Matt finally came up for air, seeing the stunned look on her face for just an instant before one of her brothers swung her into his arms and kissed her. They lined up and passed her down the line, from one of their arms to another, while she cried and smiled and kissed them all.

  Matt watched her go. People were slapping him on the back and laughing and all talking at once, and he was still trying to figure out exactly what had happened.

  He couldn’t want her like that.

  It wasn’t any part of their agreement.

  “Don’t worry,” Cathie’s father told him. “They’ll bring her back.”

  “What?” Matt said.

  “You looked like you were about to go grab her and haul her back over here to you.” Jim laughed again, slapping him on the back. “Just try to be patient for another hour or two, okay, and then you can take her away. If you’re very, very fortunate, you’ll still be looking at her that way fifty years from now and thinking she’s just as beautiful to you then as she is today.”

  “Jim—”

  “I’m happy for you, Matt. Happy for you both. I can’t wait to see this baby.”

  Yes, the baby.

  The reason they were doing this whole thing.

  He had to remember that, had to keep his head and try to find a way not to let himself get too close to his wife.

  In every fantasy wedding Cathie had ever imagined, when she looked down the aisle of the church, the man standing at the end of it was always Matt.

  If she hadn’t been so nervous, it would have been easy to pretend this was just another one of those fantasies. She’d marry Matt, right here in her father’s little church in the mountains with her whole family looking on, and someday she’d have Matt’s babies, and he would love her.

  But she was nervous and sad and hopeful and feeling guilty about being pregnant with another man’s child, about standing here in her grandmother’s dress with all the faces of the people she loved beaming back at her as she stood at the back of the church, ready to make her way down the aisle.

  Matt was there, and he had the oddest look on his face. It was like he was willing her to come to him. Somehow, she found the courage to just keep walking. No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d never been able to get that far away from him. He held her heart with invisible strings, ones she’d never been able to sever, and there were moments when she thought she held his, battered and bruised as it was.

  She wondered if it was possible to will a man to love her, to draw him into her so completely that he could never get away, never run. So that there was nothing to do but stay and face his feelings honestly and openly. To find a way to trust her and to trust in love.

  She made it to Matt’s side and let everything else become a blur. He took her hand, told her she was beautiful and sounded like he meant it, something flaring in his eyes. The vows were a jumble of words, the images oddly hazy, as were the sensations.

  Until he kissed her.

  Really kissed her.

  She clung to him, melted into him. He looked as dazed as she felt when they finally came up for air. Vaguely, she heard the laughter and the teasing, felt tears rolling down her cheeks, and then someone drew her away to congratulate her.

  It seemed to go on forever, all the people so happy and ready to celebrate. Cathie went with the flow, smiling until her face hurt and trying not to cry. The day was such a jumble of emotions, no one thought a thing of it. Her mother cried. Her aunts cried. Her brothers and her father nearly cried, and she was trying hard not to even look at her groom, so handsome in his tuxedo, not a hair out of place, looking like a curious mix of her bad boy and a sexy stranger.

  What in the world was she going to do with him now?

  All too soon, Cathie found herself hustled upstairs to get dressed, so she and Matt could catch their plane. She barely managed not to say, “What plane?” Was it a story he’d concocted to get them out of here or were they really going somewhere?

  She felt dizzy, like she’d really had champagne, instead of pretended to sip it.

  Upstairs in her tiny bedroom, she stood staring at the bed. She’d woken this morning alone, with nothing but the memory of the feel of his arms around her, and the memory had helped her make it through the day.

  Now she was supposed to actually live with Matt.

  How was
that going to work?

  Was she going to try to win his heart? Did she have the courage?

  Cathie quickly packed the last of her things in her carry-on bag. Makeup, toiletries, the satin and lace shower presents. What else?

  She couldn’t think of anything. Nothing left to do but get out of her gown and get dressed. Cathie undid the ties at her shoulders and pressed an arm against her breasts to keep the bodice from falling down. The gown flared at the bustline, but fit tight along her rib cage, held there by tiny buttons up and down the left side of the dress, under her arm. She hadn’t even tried to button them herself when she’d gotten into the dress. Her hands had been shaking, and her mother had taken over the task.

  She twisted around as best she could, trying to get a good grip with her left hand, then her right, and that’s when she spotted the Box on the floor beneath her bed. She’d almost forgotten it.

  She’d stashed it there earlier, when her aunt Margaret had almost caught Cathie talking to it before the wedding, looking for some last-minute reassurance. She really had to stop talking to that thing. Cathie nudged it out from under the bed with her foot and picked it up. Looking down into her carry-on, she saw it was going to land amidst a pile of lingerie.

  The good girl in her winced.

  Sorry. She tucked it into the bag, right there against a hot-pink teddy that made most of her swimwear look modest. What had her cousin Jane been thinking? That Matt was one of the sexiest men on earth. At least, that’s what Jane had said. Cathie pulled the Box out of the pink fluffy thing, simply unable to stand having it there, and wrapped it up in virginal white satin instead. Better? Yes, that was better.

  She was a very good girl, after all. Always had been, at least.

  And now she got to live with Matt?

  A sudden attack of nerves had her looking down into her carry-on and whispering, If you’ve got any ideas…

  Right on cue, there was a knock on the door.

  Cathie whirled around staring from the door to the Box, afraid to say anything else to it. This was so weird. She called out, “Come in,” expecting her mother or her cousin, finding Matt instead. He’d ditched the tuxedo in favor of a severe black suit that had obviously been made just for him.