She had been nearly speechless. He didn’t seem to notice.
She hadn’t figured out yet whether she was more upset with him, or with herself.
He’d treated her once again as if she was nothing. Nobody who mattered. But maybe, Linnea couldn’t help thinking, I deserve it. What had she expected, that he’d beg for her opinion? He’d dismissed her because she had…abdicated.
Linnea made a face. Sulked was probably a better word.
But the dreadful thing was, the house and the upcoming move had erased all the gains she’d made in self-confidence. And she kept finding herself remembering all the years when he had ignored her.
The first time she met him was crystal-clear. He’d flown home to Seattle for Christmas that year. The moment she walked into the condo Finn and Tess were then renting, she’d seen the two men bristling at each other, although she never knew why.
“Linnea,” Tess had said, pride ringing in her voice, “come meet Matt.”
“Matt, this is Linnea,” Tess had said, and he’d turned quite deliberately away from Finn to look at her. His gaze had swept over her, just once, as if she wasn’t worth a second glance. Then he’d been pleasant, because that was his way, but not really friendly. Not then, and not later.
It shouldn’t still rankle. He’d said he was sorry, and she knew now how much he had already detested Finn. It was natural that he’d transferred some of those feelings to her.
The thing was, she realized today as she drove home from her mother’s, it did still bother her. Not only that memory, but ones of his later visits to Tess, when he’d be laughing with his sister or Hanna and not even seem to notice Linnea was there, too.
Could his feelings really have changed that much?
No, she thought, but he had made a commitment to her, and that mattered to him.
He’d started his new job in mid-January, and had discovered to his pleasure that one of his coworkers was another engineer with whom he’d worked several years back in Argentina.
“We stayed in touch for a while,” he had said, shrugging, “but it never lasts. That’s one trouble with an itinerant lifestyle.”
On one of the rare nights Hanna had spent with her grandparents, Linnea and Matt had had dinner with this Kevin Martin and his wife, Chloe. Chloe was pregnant with their first child, and Linnea had been shocked how jealous she was. Her devotion to Hanna was absolute, but she wanted more children.
Matt’s children.
He hadn’t commented on Chloe’s pregnancy and neither did Linnea, but their lovemaking that night was especially intense and passionate. She hadn’t asked Matt not to put on a condom—in fact, she’d recently started on birth control—but how tempted she’d been to whisper, “Why don’t we start a baby?”
She suspected he would have agreed. Even been delighted. It was the cascade of doubts that stopped her, doubts that grew even though those first weeks as Matt’s fiancée were glorious.
Last weekend she and Hanna had played tetherball at the school, and Linnea had thought in dismay, That’s me. I’m the ball.
She still didn’t entirely understand why she hadn’t left home for college and never come back. She knew people who barely sent Christmas cards to their parents. Why wasn’t she one of them?
Instead, she’d stayed tethered to family, as if she’d never believed she could live free of her mother’s strictures. She’d known she couldn’t measure up to Finn’s accomplishments, so she hadn’t tried.
That’s me, she thought again, swinging around and around in a circle because there weren’t any other choices. It was even more dizzying these days. After a few hours spent with Matt and Hanna, or an interlude in his arms, she would soar, certain that marrying him was the right thing to do, that she was happy even if her heart sometimes felt bruised. But when he was gone, she’d spin obsessively the other direction until she was wrapped so tight she could scarcely move. He would barely be out the door, and she’d feel a stab of pain at the knowledge that this was all pretence.
How much, she didn’t know. He did want her; she had to believe that. But wanting alone didn’t necessarily mean much. If he hadn’t had a girlfriend or lover while he was in Kuwait, it might have been a long time for him. He’d come home to Seattle, realized he was stuck, and knew almost no one. Except, of course, that she was so conveniently there, standing between him and the niece he loved. Now he had Hanna partly because he also had her, Linnea.
She wanted to think he liked her and truly did enjoy her company, but she couldn’t be sure about that, either. His experiences were so much wider than hers, his tales of his life abroad funny or breathtaking or horrific. She had never lived anywhere but Seattle. Her travels were all through the pages of books, her stories about demented dogs or peculiar library patrons. So she couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t sometimes bored with her and hiding it.
She supposed, in a nutshell, that was the problem. She wasn’t anything special. Matt wanted to marry her because he loved Hanna, and Hanna loved her, and maybe it had all gotten tangled up in his mind with his sense of loss. She still remembered his words. We feel like family. He missed having a family. To him, that was good and ample reason for them to get married.
She didn’t want to give him up because she had fallen madly in love with him and every moment they spent together was bittersweet bliss. But she also didn’t know if she could bear to marry him knowing he didn’t love her. Look what the knowledge had already done to her. Her hard-won confidence was in shreds.
What stung now would, she feared, become a sharper pain with time, especially if his kindness to her wore off. He’d try to veil his impatience and irritation. She knew he would, but she’d sense it anyway, and eventually they’d end up like her parents, with her slipping away from confrontation and him continually frustrated.
Or he would meet a woman he could love. Then what?
But I’d have months or years with him first. If one could wail inwardly, she did. I don’t want to go back to my life before Matt.
Her cell phone rang as she pulled into her driveway.
“Hey,” Matt said. “Are you at your parents’?”
“No, Mom and I started arguing, as always. I didn’t even get a chance to say hi to Dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
Darn it, he had every reason to dislike her parents right now, but he never took advantage of the openings she gave him to tell her what he thought about them, or to try to influence her against them. It was one of the many reasons she loved him.
“Well, it wasn’t anything new. How was racquetball?”
“I kicked Martin’s butt.” There was a smile in his voice. “Nothing new there, either.”
Linnea had to laugh. On impulse she said, “Are you doing anything?”
“No, if you’re free I thought we could get the agent to open the house for us so we could take another look. We can shop for furniture while we’re waiting for closing.”
Not anything she wanted to do right now. Instead, she said, “I was thinking maybe we could just take a walk. And, um, talk.”
“Why not do both?” he suggested.
Would looking again be so bad? What if she discovered that she could live in it? Linnea knew quite well that her reaction to the house had a whole lot to do with her mood the day they’d seen it. If she loved it, she might feel silly about all this brooding.
And if you don’t, a small voice in her head suggested, well, maybe that’s a sign.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LINNEA WAS STILL BATTLING panic when Matt picked her up. His kiss only quieted her doubts for a few minutes.
On the short drive to the house, he asked, “Did Hanna hear you and your mother arguing?”
Linnea shook her head. “Dad was pruning roses. Mom wouldn’t have said anything if she’d been there.”
That wasn’t true, of course. Mom loved Hanna, but she didn’t seem to have much discretion about what she said in front of her.
She’d said things in front
of Linnea, too. Linnea all too vividly remembered a time when she was a junior in high school and she was reading a mailing from Whitman College, one of the West Coast’s top liberal arts colleges. Finn had considered Whitman, she knew, but didn’t like the setting in the middle of eastern Washington wheat fields and vineyards. He’d wanted bigger, urban, more prestigious and had ended up going to Stanford. Linnea liked the idea of a small college in a small town rather than a city. This one had a pretty campus, old brick buildings covered with ivy and mature leafy trees lining walks and open grassy areas.
Coming home from work, her mother glanced over her shoulder at the brochure, snorted and said to Linnea’s father, who was puttering in the kitchen, “Paavo, please tell me you aren’t encouraging Linnea to look at private colleges. For goodness’ sakes, you know how out of her league she’d be.” Linnea remembered bowing her head so that her hair would hide the hot shame on her cheeks. She’d quietly put the brochure in the recycling bin and applied only to the University of Washington and Western Washington U.
Now Matt seemed to accept her answer although she felt his gaze on her averted face. After a minute he started talking about an e-mail he’d gotten from a friend in Kuwait and didn’t seem to notice how quiet she was.
The agent’s car was already in front of the house they were buying. Matt parked behind it and got out. Linnea sat unmoving for a moment, staring at the house. She wanted so much for this crushing sense of fear to loosen, to know that she’d been wrong and Matt right.
He opened the passenger door and she had no choice but to get out and join him on the sidewalk.
She was aware of him watching her closely as they went up the front steps and into the house, where the agent met them. She was polite enough to smile and say, “I’ll sit out on the porch while you two wander to your heart’s content.”
“Thank you,” Linnea said. She walked slowly through the downstairs, aware of Matt behind her, his hands shoved into his pockets, his gaze frequently resting on her face.
Long before she got to the kitchen, she knew already that she didn’t want to live here.
It doesn’t have to be a sign, she pleaded with herself.
Running her fingers over the black granite surface of the vast kitchen island, she murmured, “You could conduct an autopsy here.”
Even without meeting Matt’s eyes, she knew they’d darkened. “Is it the granite you don’t like? We can replace it.”
“It’s just so big,” she said again, helplessly. “Every room.”
“And that’s bad because…?”
Linnea bit her lip. “It’s not bad. Not for somebody who wants to entertain, or—” She couldn’t think of another reason. Have five children? Roller-skate in the living room?
He muttered an imprecation under his breath. “But you don’t want to have friends over, I take it.”
Friends, yes. A hundred casual acquaintances, no. Then, feeling dense, she realized that Matt might feel he would have to entertain. Or he might really want to, after ten years living in transient housing.
Why, oh, why, hadn’t they sat down in the first place and made a list of what they wanted and needed? They could have debated and argued then.
Because neither of them had suggested it, that was why. Maybe because both of them discounted the value of her opinions.
My fault, she mourned.
And it was. How was Matt supposed to know she was a fledgling at speaking up? So far, except for the one memorable confrontation with him, she’d reserved all her defiance for her mother.
And why was that?
Because I’ve stored up a lifetime of anger? She went very still. Or because Mom is safe and Matt isn’t?
“Let’s look at the rest,” she said. He nodded, and together they went upstairs and walked through those rooms, too. The silence grew into a presence that walked between them, kept them from touching. It got harder and harder to imagine what on earth she’d say, so she said nothing. The few glances she stole at Matt told her nothing. His expression was closed in. Not angry, not anything. She had no idea what her face showed.
The tour finally concluded with him thanking the agent cordially then unlocking the car.
Not until they were both in, seat belts buckled, did he look at her with narrowed eyes and say, “You’re in a mood today.”
Maybe she was. The quarrel with her mother hadn’t helped. “I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time picturing myself feeling at home here.”
His jaw muscles tensed. “You wanted to buy a house.”
“I think…it’s too much change,” she said awkwardly. “All at once.”
“For Hanna? She was excited.”
“She hasn’t said anything about the house since.” In fact, Linnea hadn’t been able to draw her out about the move. “I wonder whether it reminds Hanna of hers.” She stole a glance at Matt. “Finn and Tess’s, I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” That note of irritation made his voice crisper. “Their place was god-awful. Pretentious.”
Her lips formed the word huge, but she let it die unsaid. Her pulse was racing. She hated this tension between them, this sense she’d disappointed and annoyed him. The feeling was so terribly familiar.
He sat silent, as if waiting for her to comment. When she didn’t, he started the car, glanced in the rearview mirror and pulled away from the curb. After several blocks, he asked, “Do you still want to talk?”
She shook her head. “I might lie down for a bit before I pick up Hanna.” Her voice was a little higher than usual, breathless. Nothing he’d notice, she told herself, not the way he would have if she’d sounded sulky.
Matt’s face had gone back to being impassive. “All right.”
Fortunately the drive wasn’t long enough for the silence to become as thick again. When he pulled up in front of her house, Linnea said hurriedly, “I’m sorry, I know I’m being—” she tried to smile “—difficult. I suppose I’m not very adaptable. I should have told you that earlier. Um…you don’t need to walk me up.”
He was out of the car and around to the sidewalk almost before she’d unbuckled herself and opened her door. “Of course I will,” he said brusquely.
Heart still banging in her chest, she hurried to the porch and unlocked the door. She stepped inside and turned to face him.
“I wish you’d talk to me,” he said.
Linnea opened her mouth and nothing came out.
He let out a hard breath that might have been angry or frustrated or…She didn’t know. Then he crossed the threshold, too, and took her in his arms, pressing his cheek to the top of her head.
Her face briefly contorted and she pressed it to his chest, reassuringly solid.
Matt rocked on his feet, the subtlest of movements but comforting. “I’ve never done any of this before, Linnea,” he murmured to her hair. “You have to help me.”
Surprised, she pulled back a few inches, enough to tilt her head back and look at him. “Help you?” The words came out as a squeak.
He growled something under his breath and kissed her. Her knees seemed to turn to water the moment his lips touched hers, and the next thing she knew, she was holding on and kissing him back. Her physical response to him was instinctive, helpless.
He wrenched his mouth away long enough to shoulder the front door shut and mutter, “If it wasn’t for this…” before lifting her into his arms.
This? Linnea moaned, letting her head fall back to give him access to her throat. His teeth grazed it, and his tongue flicked out as if to taste her skin. Whatever he was doing sent heat flooding her senses.
Oh, she thought, in some distant part of her mind. Yes. This.
LYING IN HER BED, his arms around her, Matt stared at the ceiling.
For all that she was undeniably here, that she’d responded to his passion with her own, he wasn’t quite sure who it was he held.
Lately he’d have sworn Linnea was disappearing right before his eyes. It was the strangest damn thing. The wo
man who’d stood up to him with quivering defiance when he informed her that he’d be taking Hanna away from her, the one who’d been stunningly generous in victory, had been replaced by a different Linnea, one Matt was dismayed to recognize from all those years of their nodding acquaintance under Tess’s roof.
How the hell had he been so blind? he’d asked himself, more times than he wanted to count.
The answer, he was beginning to suspect, didn’t have anything to do with his eyesight or his character. Yeah, a gorgeous, shy woman had been right in front of him, but she seemed to have an exceptional talent for making something near ghostly of herself.
She’d been doing it almost from the moment she’d agreed to marry him. She was still beautiful; Matt still wanted her with a breathtaking urgency. But he’d swear she had leached herself of color, cheeks and eyes both, as if moonlight but never sunlight touched her. She had somehow killed much of her vivacity. And she’d quit expressing her opinions. Damn near any opinions, from where they’d eat when they went out to the larger questions of what house to buy, when the wedding should be held, what their future would look like.
She wasn’t like that with Hanna, of course, only him. So they still had good times, when the three of them were together, and she’d laugh and tease him and even flirt, a little. And when he could steal her away long enough to make love with her, the warmth would creep back into her cheeks, passion would heat her eyes to a brighter blue, and she would sigh and moan and cry out his name as if…Damn it, as if he was the only man in the world.
Then, afterward, she’d fall silent again, and withdraw into herself, leaving him with no idea what she was thinking.
If it weren’t for the lovemaking, he’d be sure he was losing her. As it was…he didn’t know. And he couldn’t get her to open up and tell him what was wrong.
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