Belonging

by Samantha James

  Mrs. Johnson beamed. "The secret's in the crust— ice water and a little vinegar, just enough so that the flour and shortening hold together." If the older woman was capable of slyness, it was a sly glance indeed she sent Matt. "Plenty for all of you." She turned and started to walk away.

  "But you'll stay, too, won't you?" Angie called after her.

  "I've already eaten, dear," came the reply over her shoulder. "Send the girls over later. I've got another little treat for them."

  Angie stood speechless, still holding the pie.

  Matt wasn't sure which was funnier—-Mrs. Johnson's obvious ploy or Angie's reaction to it. "Not that I'm complaining," he said, barely containing his laughter, "but we seem to be the object of quite a few matchmaking efforts."

  "You noticed?" Angie commented tartly, but her eyes were sparkling. "Come on, let's take this inside."

  After they had deposited the food in the kitchen, she turned and smiled at Matt rather shyly. "Mrs. Johnson was right, you know. If we add a salad and some rolls, there'll be plenty for all of us." For a second she seemed to hesitate. "You're welcome to stay for dinner," she finally said. "It's the least I can do after everything you've done for me this afternoon."

  It was an offer made on the spur of the moment, an offer she suddenly wanted him to accept even though she wasn't sure she knew what she was getting into.

  Matt studied her for a moment. "I don't think so," he said slowly, then smiled. "I don't want to wear out my welcome, you see."

  She shook her head. "You haven't, Matt. At least not yet." When he again declined, she insisted, "Then take something home. The kids and I will never eat all of this." She pulled a plate from the cupboard and filled it with several crisp pieces of chicken and a generous wedge of pie.

  The merest hint of a smile played on his lips as he took the plate she offered. "You know what this means, don't you? Prince Charming will have to make another visit—this time to return a plate instead of a shoe."

  "I... I know." There was a strange breathless catch in her voice.

  Moving carefully, Matt set the plate aside and reached out to tuck a shining strand of gold back behind her ear. She tensed but didn't retreat as he half expected. When he felt her relax, he extended his fingers and slid them beneath the long braid that fell down her back.

  "That reminds me." His voice was whisper soft, the touch of his fingers almost caressing as he stroked the baby-fine hair that grew on her nape. "There's a small matter of a bet we made several days ago—"

  There was no need for him to go on. Angie felt herself flush, but the spark of humor she encountered in his warm, gray eyes reassured her.

  They were standing only inches apart, bound by fingers that seemed strangely reluctant to part. Slowly she moved to him directly. Charcoal lashes drifted closed as she wordlessly offered her lips.

  A low masculine laugh was the last thing on earth she expected.

  "You're supposed to kiss me," Matt reminded her when her eyes flew open.

  "Oh," she said in a small voice, then smiled.

  Matt caught his breath at the brilliance of that unexpected smile, a smile that seemed to make the afternoon sun burn brighter still.

  "Freely given, even more freely accepted, wasn't it?" she asked.

  This time it was he who nodded wordlessly.

  Angie's hand, so tenderly imprisoned within his, gently withdrew to join its mate on the broad landscape of his chest. Through the fabric of his shirt, the faint rasp of wiry hair teased her fingertips. Against her legs she could feel the hardness of his denim-clad thighs. Her heart began to thunder in her chest, and her

  senses were awash in a tingle of expectation. She slowly levered herself upward.

  His lips were hard but yielding, soft yet firm. She kissed them lightly, hesitantly, a touch like the wings of a butterfly. Yet even at the feather-light contact, she knew a moment of sublime pleasure. Her body stirred to life with feelings long denied... but not forgotten.

  Matt felt her draw back as if she'd been burned. But not before he saw the expression of confused wonder on her face.

  He had to fight the urge to pull her back into his arms and capture her mouth with his once more, to give in to the pent-up longing that burned inside. The brief taste she'd given him was tempting, so tempting. But he wanted her willing, and he wanted her trust. And he knew he had to have both before she would come to him.

  He could hardly believe how quickly this feeling inside had happened. The feeling was part pleasure yet part pain because Angie was still fighting it. He could only call it love.

  A lean finger at her chin tipped her face back to his. "One of these days," he said softly, "you're going to take a big step forward."

  "And?" Angie was mesmerized. She felt as if her deepest secrets were no longer her own... but his.

  "And I intend to be here when you do." His thumb discovered the tender curve of her mouth. "Because together we're going to get through this—-whatever it is that's holding you back."

  To Angie, his words sounded very much like a promise.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Together. It was a word Angie hadn't used in a long, long time. So long it felt alien to hear it on her lips, hear it still echoing in her mind on Monday night as she prepared for bed. Even a long soak in the bathtub hadn't cleared her thoughts.

  It was a word that frightened her. For in his own unique way, with his quiet insight, his gentleness, his warmth and his caring, Matt was the most frightening man she had ever known.

  Evan had betrayed her. He had violated their love. She couldn't willingly let any man have that kind of power over her again or open herself up for that kind of heartache. No, she wasn't ready for involvement with Matt. She couldn't afford to let herself grow close to him in any way.

  She couldn't stop herself, either.

  Gently. Oh, so gently, but with a thoroughness that alarmed her, he was invading every corner of her life. Her mind, her thoughts... her heart?

  And there wasn't a thing she could do about it because she was lonely—especially at night. She missed the closeness, the sharing, the comfort and security of a warm male body lying next to her.

  Angie couldn't fool herself any longer. She was a woman with a woman's needs, and her body was telling her that it had been too long since those needs had been met. It was as if that one brief kiss she'd shared with Matt had opened up a Pandora's box. Coaxing. Luring. Drawing out her most secret feminine desires.

  She had once been an intensely passionate woman, a woman who took immense pleasure in the physical intimacies of marriage. The secret fire of her womanhood had been dormant inside her for two years...but no more.

  She wanted Matt. She couldn't look at him, she couldn't talk to him, she couldn't even say his name without wondering how it would feel to lie naked next to him, with nothing between them, his hands touching her all over.

  Moaning softly, she tore off the towel wrapped around her head and sat down at the dressing table. "What am I going to do?" she thought half angrily, half desperately. Snatching up her brush, she began to work through the tangles in her still-damp hair, wincing as, in her frustration, she yanked her hair a little too hard.

  Matt knew something wasn't right when he called that night. She sounded tense, irritable, when she answered the phone.

  "Is something wrong?"

  The calm question only seemed to irritate her further. You know very well what's wrong, she wanted to cry. Why can't you leave me alone? I was coping so well until you came along. Instead, she snapped, "Nothing's wrong."

  Silence crackled over the wire. "Are you sure?" he asked after a long moment.

  There was such concern, such tender consideration in his voice that Angie closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Matt," she apologized in a low voice. "I'm fine.

  Really. It's just that... well, it's been a very long day. The council had a special meeting tonight."

  "On the city hall issue?"

  "Yes." Laying the hairbrush on the nigh
t table, she sat on the edge of the bed and began to massage the slight ache in the middle of her forehead. "Would you believe John Curtis brought in sketches of a new building? You should see it!" she said disgustedly. "It's all concrete and clutter. It would be as out of place in Westridge as the Empire State Building."

  Matt had trouble holding back a laugh. Sentimental Angie. Still, he knew how much this meant to her. "How did the vote go?"

  "Exactly the way I expected," she said glumly. "Split right down the middle. Fireworks before and after—and naturally Blair Andrews was there with her photographer in tow."

  "Something tells me I'll be in for a treat when I see the morning newspaper."

  "Undoubtedly." She echoed his dry tone. "I expect to be featured on the front page, nose-to-nose with John Curtis. Damn that man," she continued hotly. "He certainly isn't looking for a taste of humble pie, that much I do know!" She had expressed the same sentiment to Todd right after the meeting.

  "Really pushing for a new building, isn't he?" Matt murmured.

  "I'll say. I'm beginning to think this entire issue will still be unresolved by the time the next mayor takes office." She leaned against the headboard wearily, absently running her finger down the lapel of her robe. "I'm sorry, Matt. I really didn't mean to unload on you like this, but Anna Goodwin and I have talked till we're blue in the face trying to get Steve Jackson and

  Mike Matthews to see our point of view. And so far it hasn't done any good. If we end up with a new building instead of renovating, we'll never get a women's shelter. It's so.. .so frustrating!"

  Frustrating. It was a word he was rather familiar with himself, but he didn't say so. He knew he wasn't the only one who felt the invisible bond growing between them, yet she still held so much of herself apart from him.

  Hell! Who was he trying to kid? It was Angie's husband that still stood between them, and for the life of him, Matt didn't know what to do about it. Their relationship was in limbo, and he wasn't sure he dared trespass the perimeter that she had silently drawn. He sensed they were at a crucial point, but he was afraid if he pushed too hard, he would lose her.

  Yet he couldn't deny that she was far more comfortable with him than she'd been at first. They talked freely, easily, about everything except two things—their relationship and her husband. Angie clammed up whenever he attempted to veer in either direction.

  Maybe she wasn't living in the past, but she was holding on to the memory of her husband. She'd been married for ten years, he reminded himself grimly, and the marriage had produced two children. He couldn't expect her to forget about a man she'd loved all that time as if he were no more than a casual acquaintance. But he didn't expect it to take forever, either.

  With a mental sigh he picked up the threads of their conversation once more. "If things don't turn out the way you'd like, you might consider private funding to start a women's shelter," he said slowly. "A lot of them are funded by private donations."

  "And what happens when the donations stop coming in?" She shook her head. "No, I'd rather see a city- funded center. Then at least there would be some measure of stability." She mulled a second longer. "Though if worse comes to worst, that may be the only solution. It would be better than what we have now, or maybe I should say what we don't have."

  "That reminds me," Matt said thoughtfully. "Have you ever been in one?"

  Angie's heart lurched. Surely he didn't know! "N- no," she replied cautiously.

  "Would you like to visit one? I could probably arrange it. Sam was telling me just yesterday about a shelter near Seattle. In fact, I was thinking about asking you and the girls to a Mariners' home game on Saturday. Maybe the Crawfords would like to come, too. If you think Kim and Casey wouldn't mind going with me, you could tour the shelter and see how it operates while we're at the game. Unless you'd rather I came along, too?"

  "No. There's no need," she said quickly, perhaps too quickly. But when Matt said nothing, her heartbeat returned to normal. "That's a great idea," she murmured thoughtfully, then smiled. "Kim's never been to a major league game. I think she'd love it." It suddenly occurred to her that Kim might not feel comfortable being alone with Matt, but if Janice and Nancy were along, as well... "How about if I let you know tomorrow?"

  A warm feeling was flowing through Angie as she hung up the phone a few minutes later. But when she crawled into bed, the too-familiar feeling of loneliness assailed her. She closed her eyes against the yearning ache in her belly, an ache borne of images in the dark--sharp, sensual images of strong male hands lingering over her body, a long, muscled body poised above hers.

  Turning over, she clutched her pillow tightly against her breasts, her entire body now seized with a near-painful heat. A silent litany played over and over in her mind before she finally fell asleep a long time later. Together.

  If only she could believe...

  ***

  "Are we there yet?"

  It must have been the tenth time Kim had posed the question in the last hour. Angie's worries had been for nothing. Kim had expressed only the slightest reticence at going with Matt to the baseball stadium, but by this morning it was gone. She had been awake since six-thirty, anxiously waiting for Matt to pick them up shortly before lunch.

  "Almost," Angie assured her. Bill and Janice trailed several cars behind, and the freeway ribboned out ahead of them. She half turned in her seat to point out a large sign at the side of the road. "See? We're only ten miles from Seattle."

  "We were lucky to get such good seats," Matt remarked. When he'd called the stadium earlier in the week, a group of seven had exchanged their seats that day for a game later in the month. "At Wrigley Field box seats are usually impossible to get unless you buy them weeks ahead."

  "Box seats!" Casey sounded horrified. "I don't want to sit on boxes!"

  "You don't sit on a box, silly." Kim frowned at her little sister. "Box seats are closer to the field. Right, Matt?"

  "Right, Kim." Matt's lips quirked at Kim's self- important tone. Glancing over at Angie, he saw her fighting to hold back a smile, as well. She was wearing a lacy blouse with a high Victorian collar tucked into pleated slate-gray slacks. Her hair had been pulled back into its usual austere twist, and she appeared as calm and collected as ever. She kept toying with the strap of her purse, though, and he wondered if she was a little nervous about visiting the shelter.

  "By the way," he said casually in an attempt to get her mind off whatever was bothering her, "I saw Sam pick up Georgia after work last night. They seem to have something hot and heavy going. Any wedding bells in the offing?"

  "Not that I know of. Although I must admit the whole thing between those two came as something of a surprise. To tell you the truth, Sam is the first man she's gone out with in the four years I've known her."

  Matt raised an eyebrow. "Maybe she has and you just haven't known about it—" He stopped when Angie emphatically shook her head. "Don't tell me," he surmised dryly. "She's the spinsterish schoolteacher type."

  "Not exactly," she admitted. "Georgia—" She hesitated. "Georgia just hasn't had much use for men in her life."

  "I see." Matt's tone was grave, but his eyes held a faint light. "Condition of employment, was it?"

  She knew he was thinking of the night she'd told him she didn't want another man in her life, and she smiled self-consciously. "Georgia's mother died when she was very young," she began to explain. "She had to raise several younger brothers and sisters."

  "Where was her father?"

  Angie checked to make sure the two girls in the back seat weren't listening before she spoke again. "Her father left when she wasn't much older than ten. He simply went to work one day and never came back."

  Matt's fingers tightened around the steering wheel. It was the only visible sign that her words affected him. "So that's why she decided to steer clear of men?" he asked finally.

  "That might be part of it, but that's not all."

  "That's not all?" His surprise seemed genuine.
<
br />   "Unfortunately, no. Georgia had always wanted to go to college, but she didn't have the money. She's smart though, and she was able to get a good job with an accounting firm." Angie took a deep breath. She felt a bit uncomfortable telling Matt this. "It was the first time she'd ever really been out on her own, and she was relatively inexperienced when it came to men. And then—"

  "She fell in love with her boss," he guessed astutely.

  "Her married boss," she confirmed grimly. "She didn't know until it was too late. And even then he continued to string her along, promising that he would divorce his wife."

  "But he never did."

  "That's right."

  Matt shook his head. "So Georgia is a woman with a past," he mused dryly. "I'd never have guessed it." He chuckled as her eyes began to widen. "Oh, don't worry. I won't tell a soul. I can keep a secret as well as the next person."

  Angie detected no reproach, no reproof in his tone, but it did betray a hint of disappointment, and that affected her far more strongly. Angie's throat tightened oddly. Matt had paved the way for her to talk about Evan many times this past week. She knew, deep inside, that he would understand, yet she couldn't remember Evan without feeling hurt, and degraded, and ashamed. How could she ever bear to talk about it openly and honestly when it was so sordid and ugly? she thought on a panicky note. She had never even been able to tell Janice or Georgia of Evan's abuse.

  Her thoughts couldn't have chosen a worse path to follow. They had exited the freeway and were driving along a tree-lined boulevard. Matt turned off onto a side street and stopped the car. For a few seconds Angie stared at the two-story stone building before her, demons from the past chasing through her mind.

  "I won't go in with you." Matt spoke in a low voice and inclined his head toward the two children in the back seat.