She’d always been beautiful, his Caroline. But lying back against his forest-green comforter, her translucent skin glowing in the light angling in from the hall, her hair spilled all around and her breasts in his hands, she was more than beautiful. She was a birdsong to a man who had once been deaf. Michelangelo’s canvas to a man who had once been blind. She was a piece of him that had been missing.
She reached up. One by one she slipped the buttons of his dress shirt through their holes. White-hot lust streaked to his groin as he watched her nimble fingers move down his chest, button by button.
“We were meant for each other, Caroline,” he said when she pushed his shirt over his shoulders. “Made for each other.”
His hands closed on her breasts, but not hard. Those were Hailey’s domain, for now. He wouldn’t encroach on his daughter’s territory.
Instead he lowered himself to Caroline’s side. He curled himself around her, one leg thrown over her thighs and his erection nestled against her hip as he trailed one hand leisurely down the center of her body to her navel, pushing her dress down as he went. She lifted her hips and wriggled, and pulled the dress to her ankles. She kicked it to the floor. Panty hose soon followed, then she tugged on the tails of his shirt and tossed it to the end of the bed.
Matt found her mouth with his lips and he kissed her again, this time more insistently, more urgently. His need was pounding at him, driving him against her rhythmically in a prelude of what was to come. Her hands smoothed over his chest and lower, tickling, teasing, taunting. The muscles of his abdomen bunched and released, bunched again. He moved the leg that held hers pinned together so she could lift for him, open. His hand found her moist center as hers brushed his arousal on her way to his waistband. They both gasped.
“Matt,” she cried, bucking into his hand. “Oh, please…”
He pressed two fingers into her center and held them there in shock as she climaxed around him. Sweet heaven, Caroline had always been sensitive, responsive, but he’d hardly touched her. Yet there was no denying the force of her completion as she shivered and shook beside him. He watched her eyes glaze, her cheeks flush, in wonder. Then, before the last of her ripples was spent, the urge to drive her up to that peak again, with more than his hands this time, took him fast and hard. His need had claws, teeth and horns, and it drove him away from her, but only momentarily. He shed pants, boxers and socks and came back to her, on top of her. With his knee he nudged her legs apart and settled into the cradle of her hips.
His gaze fixed on hers. All the desperation, all the defeat of the last year built up inside him like steam in a teapot, urging him inside her, pushing him inexorably toward release.
He held himself back long enough to reach for the nightstand drawer, then stopped cold. The memory of Caroline’s face the last time they’d made love floated just beneath his eyelids. He’d reached for the nightstand drawer then, too, even though he knew how desperately she wanted to make a baby. He’d sheathed himself and come to her, only to look down at her face and find…tears.
Still, he hadn’t stopped. He’d cupped her face while he entered her, thinking if he could just make it good enough, she would feel better.
But he hadn’t been good enough.
He’d kissed away one tear only to have another fall while he drove himself to a pinnacle of pleasure. He spilled himself inside her, gave her what she wanted most from him, only to take it away and throw it in the trash.
He’d used her. Disappointed her.
And he’d never forgiven himself for it.
Caroline felt Matt’s hesitation, his uncertainty. When she lifted her head and opened her eyes, she realized what had made him pause. A cold wave of rejection knocked her back to the bed; he’d been reaching for the nightstand.
She shoved him back before he could say anything—make some excuse—and rolled away, her movements jerky because her brain couldn’t seem to issue the proper instructions to her muscles. Her mind and her body were at odds, her physical self still aroused, needy, wanting Matt closer, inside, while her consciousness rebelled at the idea.
Nothing had changed between them. She’d been a fool to think it could.
She fumbled with the bedspread, tugging it up, as if by covering her nakedness she could hide her emotional vulnerability, as well. He lifted his hips so she could pull the covers back. She supposed she should be grateful he’d allowed her some modesty at least, if not her dignity. But grateful wasn’t what she felt toward her husband at that moment. Fury exploded inside her like cannon shells. Hurt wailed like a wounded soldier and grief stalked the battlefield, silent as death.
She lay on her side, her knees drawn up. He rolled up behind her, and in her peripheral vision she saw his hand hover over her shoulder. “Don’t,” she said.
“Caro—”
“Just don’t.”
The hand withdrew, but the big body hovering close to her didn’t. “I don’t want to hurt you again,” he said after a minute.
“You don’t want to get me pregnant again.”
He pulled her over onto her back, where she had no choice but to look at him. “It’s too soon,” he said. “You just had a baby a few months ago. Your body’s not ready for another one.”
“How convenient for you,” she said, mocking him with the same words he’d used the night she told him about Hailey.
“Actually, it feels pretty damned inconvenient at the moment.” He’d pulled the sheet over himself, but no thin layer of cotton could hide the source of his inconvenience.
Biting back a scream, she swung her feet off the side of the bed, pulled the comforter around her like a toga and tried to march away. She didn’t get far, however. He was lying on the other end of the spread, and used it to pull her back toward him.
“Has your doctor even given you the green light to have sex yet?”
She yanked on the comforter to no avail. “The subject hasn’t come up.”
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“It’s not as if I’ve had any reason to ask,” she said. A nearly hysterical laugh burst out of her. “It’s probably better that this isn’t going to happen, anyway.”
His voice lowered to a growl. “Why is that?”
“A lot of reasons. Among them being the fact that we’re getting divorced.”
“It didn’t feel like we were getting divorced this afternoon.”
“No. It didn’t.” She raked her fingers through her hair, realized she was imitating one of his familiar gestures, and dropped her hand to her lap. “But nothing is settled between us. If anything, it’s more complicated than ever.”
Her legs weakening, she sat on the side of the bed. “I shouldn’t have come back here, Matt. It’s this place.” She looked around the room at the mahogany dresser she and Matt had bought at a flea market and refinished together, the exquisite gold brocade curtains they’d found at an estate sale. Even though they sold for well above the price he’d hoped to pay, he’d insisted on buying them just because they matched her eyes. “It brings back too many memories.”
Matt ran his hand down her arm, laced his fingers with hers on the bedspread. “Not all of them are bad, are they?”
“No, of course not. Not all.”
“We had something special between us once.” He paused and she could see how hard it was for him to say whatever it was he thinking. Still, she never expected the words that came out of his mouth next.
“Maybe we could again,” he said.
“No,” she blurted, crushing the seedling of hope inside her before it could take root. She knew from experience how devastating hope could be, if allowed to grow and bloom, when it withered and died, unfulfilled. Better never to sow it in the first place.
“Why not? You’re the one who’s been trying to pull me back into the land of the living. The one who said you wanted me to be a part of your life.”
“Hailey’s life,” she lied, fighting down a wave of pure panic. She wasn’t ready for this. “I was th
inking of visits during the summer and phone calls on Christmas morning and maybe a bicycle for her birthday, not—” She waved her hand over the bed.
“Sex?” he asked.
“Us,” she clarified. But she was thinking of slick flesh and tangled sheets and this unbearable coil of longing that had yet to unwind inside her. “It’s too late for us.”
“Who says?”
“You do. All the time.”
“I’ve been known to be wrong,” he said.
She dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, God. This is all happening too fast.”
“It’s gone on too long, if you ask me.”
Caroline’s heart thrummed like a six-string guitar. She didn’t know what to do next, what to say. It didn’t matter. Matt said everything for her. Said the words she’d longed to hear—and didn’t dare wish for—since she’d walked out of this house over a year ago.
“Come back to Port Kingston for good, Caroline. You and Hailey both. Stay with me.”
He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed her palm and made her heart flutter like a hummingbird’s wings.
“I’ll take care of you,” he murmured, his voice choked with emotion. “You’re my responsibility, you and Hailey. You’ve always been my responsibility.”
Responsibility. Caroline took the word like a knife in the back. She staggered under the blow. Matt caught her, but she shook him off, pulled away, her mind reeling. Responsibility. The word triggered so many old fears.
“Is that what we are to you, Matt? A responsibility?” Her face twisted so much that she had trouble continuing. “Is that what I’ve always been?”
She’d been so young when Matt came back from the army—and so alone. Her aunt, the last of Caroline’s relatives, had passed away the year before, and Caroline had been rambling around alone in Ginger’s old house ever since, struggling to keep the farm alive, complete her degree in early childhood education and put food on the table all at the same time. Matt had taken pity on her. Come to visit the poor orphan who once had a crush on him.
They’d ended up making love down by that old pond, and they’d ended up making a baby. Honorable to the bone, he’d married her.
Because she was his responsibility.
Over the years it became obvious that Matt loved his son. A boy couldn’t ask for a better dad. Caroline had come to believe that he loved her, too. She convinced herself that he hadn’t just married her out of a sense of duty.
Then Brad’s death and Matt’s subsequent withdrawal shook that belief to its core. She began to doubt that he had ever wanted her. Her logical mind had told her that she was wrong, that Matt loved her, but that he’d been deeply affected by his son’s death. So she waited, and hoped that one day Matt would turn to her in his grief, but that day never came. Instead he turned to his work. And she developed a desperate compulsion for another child.
She told herself she needed a baby for herself. She needed to be a mother. But somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if the idea of having another baby had really been for Matt all along. If she had another child, Matt might want her again. Might love her again.
Now she had Hailey, and only a few weeks after being told about his daughter, Matt claimed he wanted Caroline back. Unknowingly, he’d proven her worst fears true.
Matt had only married her all those years ago because he felt a duty toward his child. Now he was asking her to come back to him for the same reason.
Only she didn’t want to be his duty anymore.
Keeping her back to him so that he couldn’t see what it cost her to walk away, Caroline said, “A year ago, I was your responsibility, Matt. But I’ve worked hard to change that. I’ve created a life for myself and for Hailey. We have a home in Sweet Gum. A future. I won’t give that up to go back to being someone’s responsibility,” she said.
And then she walked out on him.
Again.
Chapter 11
Matt left the house early the next morning. Leaving a note on the refrigerator for Caroline, he piled Alf and himself into his Blazer and drove toward downtown Port Kingston. He told himself he had business to take care of before they headed back to Sweet Gum this afternoon, but in reality, he just needed some time to collect himself before being locked in a car with her for two and a half hours.
The twelve sleepless hours he’d had last night to collect himself hadn’t been enough. Twelve years might not be enough.
He’d asked her to share his home and his life again, and she’d all but kicked his teeth in. When he’d said she was his responsibility, it had only been his way of saying he loved her. A man took care of the ones he loved, didn’t he?
What was he supposed to do when the one he loved was determined to take care of herself?
And their child.
He was no closer to the answer when he turned onto Beaumont Street in Port Kingston’s deteriorating east side. He’d decided to take care of his more difficult tasks first this morning, and save the only fun expedition of the day for last, in the hopes it would put him in a better mood for the ride back to Sweet Gum. He didn’t hold out much hope that it would actually work, but it was worth a try.
He found Mrs. James Hampton, his first stop of the day, in a small yellow ranch with a squeaky gate out front. The brick facade was crumbling and the trim needed a coat of paint, but the yard looked neat and the rosebushes out front were flourishing.
Mrs. Hampton let him in when he knocked, which was a good sign. He wasn’t sure she would want to talk to him. He felt a need to talk to her, though. To see how she was doing.
If he saw that Mrs. Hampton and the kids were okay, maybe he could put James Hampton’s death behind him. Stop drawing parallels between that man’s life and his own.
As he followed Mrs. Hampton to the living room, he felt the quiet of the house settle into his bones. It was too quiet. Where were the children?
“How are you doing, Mrs. Hampton?”
She sat stiffly in a wing-backed chair with lace covers over the armrests. Sunlight from the window behind her slanted off her hollow cheeks. She seemed older by two decades than when he’d last seen her. “I’m getting by,” she said softly. “One day at a time.”
“That’s good.” He cleared his throat. “I just wanted you to know how sorry I was about—” Her ex-husband? Did she want to hear that Matt was sorry the man had died? A man who beat her? Threatened her children? “That we weren’t able to end the situation here without bloodshed.”
“I believe you said that the day it happened.”
“I wish there was something else I could have done.”
“You did what you had to do. He was going to take my babies.”
“I don’t believe he wanted to harm the children. He was just having a hard time letting go.”
“They was his babies, too.” She rocked forward and back almost imperceptibly in her chair. “Whatever else he was, he was a man who loved his children.”
Matt didn’t doubt that. In a way, the man had died for them.
“How are they doing? Is the counseling helping?” Before he’d left Port Kingston, Matt had asked Dr. Stone, the department psychologist, to call Mrs. Hampton. Dr. Stone had stressed to her how important it was for children to talk about traumatic events. He’d referred her to a child specialist, and offered to set up the appointments.
Matt had covered the cost.
“Jazzy seems to be doing some better. She likes that nice lady doctor.”
“Good.” He was glad for the little girl, but his stomach turned on what Mrs. Hampton hadn’t said. “How about James Junior?” he asked.
Her hands worried the lace edge of the doily on the arm of the chair. She seemed to shrink before his eyes. Shrivel. The rocking became more noticeable. “J.J. don’t understand what happened. Don’t want to understand. He’s run away. Took money he’d been saving for college out of the bank and headed west, according to the note he left.” Her dark eyes swam when she looked up at him, filled with a si
lent plea. “He has some friends in California. They promised to call if he shows up.”
Matt’s stomach pitched. So much for making peace with James Hampton’s death. He hadn’t just led a man to his death that day, he’d destroyed a family. “Have you notified the police?”
She nodded. “They took a report. Told me they’d call. But I ain’t heard nothing.”
Thousands of teenage runaways haunted the streets of every major city. Few were heard from again if they didn’t want to be found. It was too easy to disappear. The police were undermanned, overwhelmed. But still, Matt had to try… “I’ll make some phone calls. See if I can get them to put some priority on the case.”
Matt made his excuses and left after that. There was nothing else he could do here. Certainly no peace to be found, for him or the Hampton family, he thought as he got in the Blazer and drove north, away from the coast. The wispy fronds of beach grass and palm trees gave way to green pastures and majestic live oaks. Just before the county line, he turned onto a two-lane blacktop road and wound his way through a pecan grove toward a wrought-iron gate. It was a path he’d followed frequently the past two years—the only place he felt at home. Only today, he wasn’t alone in his special place. Caroline was waiting for him in the cemetery where their son’s cold body lay.
Caroline heard the smooth drone of a well-tuned engine behind her. When the vehicle stopped and a single car door thunked shut a few seconds later, she didn’t have to turn around to know it was Matt. Pushing off her knees, she rolled back to a squatting position and shoved the plastic spike on the bottom of the flower holder into the ground slightly off center of the headstone so that the red rosebuds wouldn’t block the name on the marker: Matthew Bradley Burkett.
She trailed her hand once over the letters engraved in the granite. “Goodbye, baby. Momma loves you.”
On her feet, she brushed off her hands and the seat of her pants, then bent over and picked up Hailey in her carrier before facing her husband. The sun at his back hid his face in silhouette, and yet one look at his slow, suspicious steps told her all she needed to know about his state of mind—injured, resentful, and determined not to let it show. When he took off his reflective glasses—cop shades—his green eyes were as hard as the granite markers in this garden of stone.
Keeping Caroline Page 14
