Flamingo Diner (18 page)

Her expression hardened. “And you think you’re that person for me?”

“I know I am,” he said with confidence. “Because when push comes to shove, I will let you go.”

“How damned noble of you,” she said, a real bite in her voice.

“Not really,” he said, ignoring the note of bitterness and risking more disdain by adding, “Because I know you’ll come back. I’m counting on it.”

She wrapped a sheet around her and climbed from the bed, her posture as regal as a queen’s. “Don’t,” she said, dragging the sheet behind her as she strode into the bathroom.

“I’m right,” Matt murmured, mostly to himself after she’d slammed the door. “I have to be.”

“Of all the unmitigated gall,” Emma grumbled as the hot water sluiced over her body, stirring every nerve ending as if it were more of Matt’s deft touches. “One night of incredible passion doesn’t mean I’m his forever. What kind of man leaps to that conclusion in this day and age? Independent women can have sex every night of the week, if they want to. With a different man each night, for that matter.”

Not that she’d ever been one to do that, but Matt didn’t know that. For all he knew, she could be up in Washington sleeping with any male who caught her fancy and never giving any one of them a second thought. She sighed heavily. As if she’d ever do a thing like that. Who was she kidding? Not Matt, and certainly not herself.

Last night had been the start of something amazing, or it could be, if she’d allow it. Apparently she was at least willing to consider the possibility, because after she’d showered she didn’t dress or take off as she’d originally intended. She borrowed one of Matt’s shirts and wandered downstairs, lost in thought.

She was making coffee when the doorbell rang.
She tried to ignore it. This wasn’t her home and Matt might prefer that whoever it was not discover her wandering around downstairs half-dressed while he was still upstairs taking a shower. The scene left little to the imagination.

Still, it might be important, and it would serve him right if people started gossiping about the police chief. He was the one who’d have to live with it, not her. She would be gone from Winter Cove the very second she felt her family was back on its feet.

“Let ’em talk,” she muttered en route to the door.

Even though she figured the fallout was going to land on Matt, she took care to make sure that his shirt covered her adequately, before opening the door.

“Surprise!” Kim said, a grin spreading across her face as she surveyed Emma’s scanty attire. “I guess you decided to take my advice, huh?”

Emma stared at her friend in shock. “What are you doing here?”

Kim ignored her testy tone and stepped right past her, curiosity written all over her face. “You invited me, remember? I played on my boss’s sympathy, got an extra day off, if you can believe that, and here I am. So where is he? I can’t wait to meet the guy who’s finally managed to get you looking all tousled and sexy.”

Emma ignored the comment. “I thought your boss was a tyrant. I thought you were going to call and let me know when you could get away,” she protested. “You weren’t supposed to just show up, especially not here. You’ve caught me completely off guard.”

Kim laughed, obviously unrepentant. “Yes, I can see that. Otherwise you’d never be answering a man’s
front door dressed only in his shirt. Who were you expecting? Your mother, perhaps?”

“Heaven forbid,” Emma said fervently, wondering why that particular thought hadn’t even crossed her mind before she’d flung open the door.

“You say that as if you don’t think she knows where you are or what you’re up to. Who do you think sent me over here?” Kim inquired, barely containing her smile.

Emma sank down on the sofa and groaned. “I never called home last night.”

“Apparently Matt is considerably more considerate. He called.”

Emma groaned again. Things were going from bad to worse. Her mother would make way too much of this.

“Oh, stop worrying,” Kim admonished. “Your mother is pleased as punch. She thinks this means you’ll stick around Winter Cove a little longer.” Kim’s gaze searched hers. “Is that what it means?”

“If I have any say over it, it does,” Matt said, standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, his hair still damp from his shower.

He looked so impossibly sexy he took Emma’s breath away. Any woman who walked away from a man like that deserved to live out the rest of her life in lonely isolation.

“It doesn’t,” Emma said very firmly. She had to make him see that he was wrong about them, about the future, pretty much about everything except how good they were in bed together.

He gave her a peck on the lips, then said mildly, “We’ll see,” before walking over to grasp Kim’s hand and introduce himself.

“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” Kim demanded protectively.

“Not the way you mean,” he assured her, then turned his gaze on Emma. “But if she persists in ignoring all reason, I could be tempted to shake her.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “I’m going to get dressed,” she said, then thought better of leaving the two of them alone together. Kim was not above plotting with the enemy, if she considered it to be in Emma’s best interests. If only Emma had left after her shower, rather than deciding to stick around and have this out with Matt, she wouldn’t even be in this predicament right now. She would be safely back at home and Kim would be nowhere near the man who was trying to turn Emma’s world upside down. She scowled at them. “Then, again, maybe I’ll finish making coffee,” she said. “You two coming?”

Matt grinned at her, clearly perfectly aware of what she was up to. “Maybe Kim and I should stay in here and get to know each other. It seems to me we might have a lot in common.”

“You have nothing in common,” Emma declared fiercely. “Nothing!”

“We have you,” Kim noted, watching the byplay with obvious amusement.

“Like I said, a lot,” Matt said.

Emma gave up, crossed the room and sank onto the sofa. She realized her mistake at once. Matt’s shirt might cover her decently while she was standing, but seated, she was way too exposed. Matt couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from her very bare thighs. She frowned at him.

“Then compare notes to your heart’s content,” she
said airily. “I’ll be right here. I’ll be sure to correct you when you get it all wrong.”

“Spoilsport,” Kim accused. She winked at Matt. “We might as well go into the kitchen, if she’s going to listen to every word we say.”

Matt nodded. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“You can cook?” Kim asked, taking his arm and leaving the room without so much as a backward glance toward Emma, her supposed best friend.

“Not as well as Emma, but she has the day off,” he said. “Second day in a row. I think she’s getting the hang of it.”

“It’s about time,” Kim said, then added something in an undertone that Emma couldn’t hear as they disappeared from view.

Emma sat for a minute and seethed, then reluctantly followed them to protect her own interests.

Ever since her father’s death she’d been feeling as if her life were teetering on the edge of a precipice. A few days ago, she’d almost started to believe she was finally pulling back from the brink. Now, in just the past ten minutes, she was pretty sure Kim and Matt had reached some sort of pact to see to it that she leaped straight on over the edge.

R
osa would have given anything to have Sylvia’s comforting presence beside her as she attended her second group session at St. Luke’s. It wasn’t as easy this time. She was trying to respond to Anne’s gently probing questions as honestly as she could, but she felt exposed, her emotions raw.

“What kept you shut up in your room for weeks after Don died?” Anne asked.

“Grief,” Rosa said at once, then faltered under the psychologist’s steady gaze. “Okay, anger.”

“Dig deeper,” Anne coached. “Why were you so angry?”

“Because he left me,” Rosa said. “He vowed to be with me forever, through good times and bad, and then he abandoned all of us. He
chose
to leave us.”

Anna nodded. “That would make most people angry,” she agreed. “Everyone here understands that, right?”

The others nodded.

“Was there anything else that made you angry?” Anne asked.

Rosa faltered. Wasn’t her outrage at the abandonment enough? Wasn’t it justified? “I’m not sure what you mean.” she said, not quite meeting the psychologist’s steady gaze.

“If he committed suicide, what does that say about the relationship the two of you had?” Anne pressed.

The question ripped away the tender scab over her still raw wounds. “That I wasn’t enough for him,” she whispered. “That his children and I didn’t matter.”

“And?”

“Isn’t that enough?” she said furiously. “I spent my whole marriage being there for him. I was always the one he turned to, the one everyone around me turned to when there was a problem.” Her words were spilling out faster and faster, along with scalding tears. “But this time, when it mattered most, my own husband couldn’t turn to me. What does that tell you? It says all those years I spent with him were wasted, that I was useless.” As the words tumbled out, she felt her sense of self-worth disintegrating with them.

“No,” Anne said gently, but firmly, regarding Rosa with compassion. “It tells me he wasn’t himself, that he was lost and didn’t know how to find his way back. It was about him, Rosa. His feelings, not you.”

“No,” Rosa said, not ready to let herself off the hook. “It says I wasn’t capable of helping him.”

“Absolutely not,” Nancy said fiercely, interrupting the exchange. When Rosa whirled on her, she said more quietly, “Don’t you see? Anne’s exactly right. His suicide wasn’t about you at all. It was about him and whatever misguided idea he had that drove him to it. Until you can accept that, you won’t be able to move on. I know because for a long time I tried to take responsibility for my mom’s death. I thought if I’d been stronger, she wouldn’t have felt the need to save me from her suffering.”

The others nodded.

“I know how you feel,” Larry said.

“Because of how you see yourself, your husband’s death was a blow to your self-esteem, Rosa,” Anne explained. “You see yourself as a problem solver, don’t you?”

Rosa nodded, beginning to understand what they were trying to say. “So I’ve been trying to make this my failure, when it wasn’t at all,” she said slowly, feeling the first tiny whisper of relief. “It’s not my fault if I couldn’t solve Don’s problem, because he didn’t even share it with me.”

“Exactly,” Anne said. “And even if he had, in the end it would still have been his problem to solve, not yours. Maybe you could have fixed it together, maybe not, but the choice to die was his alone. We’re all accountable for our own actions.”

“So in my case, guilt and grief and anger got all twisted together with a major blow to my self-esteem, to the way I’ve always seen myself,” Rosa concluded.

“And none of that is wrong,” Anne reassured her. “Your emotions are what they are. It’s just important that you sort it out, grieve for your husband, express your hurt and anger, then move on with your life. This was one incident, Rosa. It was a terrible tragedy, but it doesn’t define your marriage and it certainly doesn’t define who you are.”

Rosa sighed heavily, feeling as if she’d been through a wringer. At the same time, an awful weight was slowly lifting from her shoulders. She’d always been so proud of her knack for helping others sort through their difficulties. When Don had died, it had made her question everything about herself as a woman, as a wife and as a friend. She’d gone into
seclusion, not so much because of what he’d done, but because of what his act said about her. It had shattered her understanding of who she was. She’d been afraid no one would ever turn to her again, that no one would ever trust her judgment because she hadn’t been able to help her own husband.

Rosa left the session feeling both drained and exhilarated, as she went to meet Helen, Jolie and Sylvia for an early dinner intended to celebrate her return to the real world.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Not only was she emerging from the darkness, but she had news about Emma to share, as well. If last night was any indication, Emma and Matt were getting a whole lot closer, which meant maybe Emma would stay right here in Winter Cove. If only Don had lived to see that, Rosa thought with a momentary twinge of sorrow. Maybe that would have been enough to make a difference. The bond between father and daughter had always been such a strong one.

Rosa walked into the Italian restaurant that Jolie had chosen because she had her eye on the owner, a recently divorced man who looked a lot like Dean Martin and who oozed Continental charm. Jolie actually stuttered when he kissed her hand. If Jolie had her way they would eat here every night of the week, which meant Rosa would gain twenty pounds from all that pasta. If it kept Jolie’s eyes sparkling, though, it was worth every ounce.

Rosa found the three woman already giggling from their glasses of red wine. They were almost finished with the first bottle by the time she joined them.

“I’m cutting you off now,” she said, laughing as she poured the remainder of the bottle into her own
glass. “I could hear you when I walked in the front door.”

“We’ve been toasting Jolie,” Helen explained. “Gianni asked her to have a drink with him later.”

“Really? I suggest you make it coffee,” Rosa teased as Jolie blushed becomingly. “Strong coffee.”

“You sound as if you’re in a good mood,” Helen observed. “How was your session?”

“I had a breakthrough,” Rosa confided and proceeded to tell her best friends all about it. She reached for Sylvia’s hand. “I owe it all to you. I would never have gone if you hadn’t pushed.”

“You would have come around on your own eventually,” Sylvia said. “But I’m really glad if this group has helped to speed up the process. We missed seeing you like this.”

“Amen,” Helen agreed. She lifted her glass. “Welcome back, Rosa.”

“Welcome back,” Sylvia and Jolie echoed.

Rosa felt her heart swell with emotion as she raised her own glass. “To good friends.”

Her marriage had meant the world to her, as did her children, but these women brought something special and irreplaceable into her life. She was just starting to understand how much their friendship mattered. That they hadn’t given up on her, even when she’d been pushing them away, spoke volumes about how deep the friendship ran.

“To best friends, always,” Helen chimed in.

“Through thick and thin,” Jolie added.

All three of them turned to Sylvia and were stunned to see her eyes brimming with tears.

“What?” Rosa demanded at once, the toast forgotten.

“I’m getting a divorce,” Sylvia whispered.

All of them stared at her in amazement, but it was Helen who finally spoke, her glass lifted in a toast. “About damned time.”

Sylvia laughed even as her tears fell. “It really is, isn’t it?”

Emma would have given anything to be able to avoid going back to her house with her best friend. Kim could see right through her, and she was obviously brimming with questions about the state of Emma’s relationship with Matt. Emma wasn’t sure she had any answers. If anything, last night’s incredible lovemaking had only confused things. Just as she had feared, the prospect of leaving town—going home, she thought determinedly—was no longer nearly as attractive as it had been.

“How about a walk around the lake before we go home?” Emma suggested once they’d finally left Matt’s after a breakfast that could have qualified as a late lunch. He’d offered to drop them off at the diner or the house, but Emma had declined, saying she needed the fresh air. But even after reaching her car, which had been left in the diner’s parking lot, she was still too restless to go home and face Kim’s barrage of questions.

“Are you hoping I’m so out of shape that I’ll be too breathless to ask you anything?” Kim inquired, giving her a knowing look.

“Hardly. I’m well aware of the amount of time you spend at the gym. I know you do more than ogle all the bare-chested men.”

Kim nodded. “As long as you’re not trying to put me off, a walk around the lake would be lovely.”

To Emma’s relief Kim kept silent as they made their way past picnickers lounging on the grass and children sailing miniature boats on the water. When she spotted an ice-cream vendor, she turned to Emma with an expression of pure delight on her face.

“How about a sundae? I’ll buy.”

Kim’s love of ice cream was second only to her love of men. “I’ll treat,” Emma said. “You’re my guest.”

“I got the distinct impression earlier that you weren’t especially happy about that,” Kim said after she’d placed their order with the vendor.

“Just with your timing,” Emma said.

“Because I caught you in a compromising position?” Kim teased. “Frankly, I was relieved. I was beginning to worry you were a saint or something.”

Kim took the strawberry sundae she’d ordered and handed the hot-fudge sundae to Emma.

“I’m hardly a saint,” Emma said, paying the vendor, then turning back to Kim. “Just a confused mortal.”

“Over here,” Kim commanded, leading the way to a bench in the shade. After they were seated and she’d rolled her eyes heavenward in pure rapture after her first taste of ice cream, she met Emma’s gaze. “Tell me about this confusion. What’s that about? Aren’t you crazy about the guy?”

Emma nodded slowly. “I think I might be falling in love with him.”

“Well, hallelujah!”

“No,” Emma said miserably. “How can I love him? I don’t want to stay here.”

“Then get him to move to D.C., if it’s that important to you. Judging from the way he looked at you,
he’d follow you to the moon and back without asking questions.”

“I can’t ask him to do that. He loves it here, as much as I love Washington. He’s found a place for himself as chief of police.”

“Then stay.”

“And do what?”

“Start your own antiques business,” Kim said readily, as if it were as simple as a snap of her fingers. “You get the career you love in the place he loves. Ta-da! Compromise. It’s a wonderful thing.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s as easy—or as complicated—as you want it to be,” Kim replied. “If I had a man as gorgeous and nice as Matt madly in love with me, I’d do anything necessary to make it work.”

Emma gazed into her friend’s wistful face and realized just how lucky she was to be facing this particular dilemma. “You’ll find your dream man,” she reassured Kim, then thought of how it had happened for her. “Or he’ll find you.”

“I know,” Kim said with forced gaiety. “I just wish he’d hurry the hell up. I don’t want to be too old to enjoy the fireworks.”

Emma thought of the way her parents had been together until recently. “I don’t think you ever get too old for that,” she said quietly. “My folks certainly didn’t.”

Kim’s expression sobered at once. “How is your mom? She seemed good to me, but I was only in the diner long enough to find out where you were.”

“She’s getting stronger every day, I think,” Emma said. “Coming back to work was a huge hurdle, but
now that she’s back, I think it’s going to be good for her.”

“And Andy?”

“He’s still trying to be the man of the family, taking on too much and being way too willing to give up his own life to help out. It took everything in me to persuade him he had to play football this season, especially since he’s still not all that happy with me.” She grinned. “But now that the girls are all hanging around practice, his interest in the game has been revitalized.”

“I can just imagine,” Kim said. “He’s a handsome kid. The girls must fall all over him.”

“All except for the one he really wants,” Emma said, thinking of his awkward attempts to even hold a conversation with Lauren Patterson. Even though she’d been paying more attention to him lately, he still got tongue-tied whenever he tried to respond. Lauren, thankfully, seemed to have enough self-confidence for both of them. Emma was reasonably certain the girl didn’t intend to give up.

“Good. Every man needs a challenging woman in his life,” Kim said. “What about Jeff? I know you’ve been worried about him.”

Emma frowned. “Wasn’t he at the diner this morning?”

Kim shook her head. “I didn’t see him. Andy was cooking and your mom was waiting tables.”

“Damn! I thought Matt had finally gotten through to him. If Matt finds out Jeff’s taken off again, there’s going to be trouble.”

“It’s not exactly Matt’s call, is it?” Kim asked.

“It is if Jeff is doing drugs, which is what we’ve all been afraid of. The signs are there, and Matt called
him on it once. I think that’s the only warning Jeff’s likely to get.”

“Do you honestly think Matt would arrest your brother?”

“He’s the police chief first,” Emma said. “Besides, the way he sees it, he’d be doing Jeff a favor by getting him away from that crowd he’s hanging with.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“I haven’t met anyone but his girlfriend and she’s a real piece of work. Maybe I’m wrong about her. Maybe I’m basing my impression on appearances, but everything tells me she’s not good for him. Even Mom and Andy think she’s a bad influence.”

“Let me get a look at her,” Kim said. “Being one myself, I’m very good at spotting females who are trouble.”

“If only Marisol were the same kind of trouble you claim to be,” Emma said with heartfelt sincerity, “I wouldn’t be so worried about my brother.”