My Stubborn Heart (13 page)

Tyler Of The Charm And Cute Surfer Hair had finished his official duties at Chapel Bluff, but stopped back by on Friday morning to ask Kate out.

Kate was upstairs, painstakingly cleaning the inside of a hope chest when he found her. The whole time he was leaning against the bedpost putting in a respectable amount of small talk, the whole time she was wiping down the chest and chatting back, she knew exactly what he was working up to. And she felt . . . fine about it.

Tyler was seriously appealing. But for whatever reason, she didn't have, in her heart of hearts, that mysterious something for him. That something that gave you goose bumps. That made your heart pound when the phone rang. That made you stare at the other person's lips. She liked to affectionately call that something
hormones.
Bummer of bummers, she didn't have hormones for Tyler.

Yet.

Hormones were usually either there from the beginning or not at all. But sometimes,
sometimes
, they came on gradually. So a single girl of any age and experience ought to know better than to turn down a date with an attractive guy strictly based on lack of hormones.

What they did have—she and Tyler—was great rapport. It would be a cinch to talk to him for hours. Isn't that how all the epic marriage-making romances of her friends had begun? With those four pivotal words?
We talked for hours.

“So, Kate,” he said with his dimpled smile. “I'd love to take you to dinner. Any chance I can convince you to go with me sometime?”

Attractiveness + Rapport = Affirmative Answer. “Sure. I'd like to.”

He looked surprised and pleased, though she was quite sure that 99.9 percent of the women he asked out agreed. “Great,” he said. “I'm going out of town tomorrow on this camping thing with friends and won't get back until Monday. How about Tuesday night?”

“Sounds good.”

———

Matt froze when he overheard Tyler and Kate talking. He'd been walking along the upstairs hallway on his way to the stairs when he'd heard their voices. Tyler was asking her out and she was accepting.

In utter silence, he leaned against the hallway wall. A bolt of possessiveness, the fiercest emotion he'd felt in years, stabbed through him.
Mine
, he thought, shocked by his own reaction. Kate was his.
His.

Wrong. Yet his instincts were screaming at him to do something, to intervene. He wanted Kate to himself. He wanted her to be . . . What?

What she'd been to him before. His friend.

Right, Matt. Then why do you care who she dates?

He held himself immobile, trying to get his feelings under control. His breath rasped tight in his throat.

He'd known since Monday morning that this would happen. He'd been prepared for it. Then Tyler had finished work at Chapel Bluff and left. Matt had been embarrassingly relieved, thinking that maybe he'd been wrong. That Tyler hadn't planned, after all, to take their flirting to the next level.

Silently, Matt forced his body away from the wall and down the hallway back in the direction he'd come so they wouldn't see him. He must be losing his mind, he thought, with a shaft of real fear. Because all he could think was
mine.

Mine!

“I'm sorry, Beverly. I can't stay.”

“You have to! It's Friday. It's poker night! Look, I'm making all your favorites.”

Kate arrived in the kitchen in time to see Matt poised near the back door and Gran positioned near the counter, pointing out all the food she had going.

“Lasagna,” Gran said. “I've been simmering the meat sauce all afternoon. Big salad. Bread—I'll have it crispy, the way you like it. And the pièce de résistance—cheesecake with a layer of chocolate ganache on top.” Gran smiled winningly at Matt. She looked so cute, wearing her apron, a wooden spoon clutched in one hand, and her white pixie hair.

Matt pursed his lips and shifted uncomfortably. He had on an old beige ball cap, frayed at the bill, and Kate's favorite plaid flannel in shades of green. Though the clothes were painfully familiar, the Matt of this week had made himself a stranger. He'd been especially surly today, worse than all the other days this week. Gran had taken Kate aside three times already to worry, fuss, and cluck over him in private.

“You have to stay,” Gran said, her confident expression beginning to waver. “We host poker night at Chapel Bluff just so you'll come.”

Kate tensed, waiting for Matt's answer. He hadn't joined them for dinner all week, but surely he'd relent tonight. He wouldn't disappoint Gran when she'd gone so far out of her way for him. Would he?

“I can't do the dinners anymore,” he said flatly. “Look, I . . . I don't want to impose on you.” He reached for his brown leather coat and started shoving his arms into it.

Gran watched him, her expression crestfallen and confused.

Kate's heart thudded dully. He was going to walk away.

“But we love having you,” Gran answered. “You're not an imposition.”

He stilled, his fingers on the doorknob, his gaze fixed on the floor. “I apologize.”

Gran tilted her head to the side, beseeching. “Matt.”

“You . . . you've been great. It's nothing to do with you. It's . . .” He shook his head, seeming frustrated with the inadequacy of his words. “Don't trouble with me. And please don't count on me for any more dinners. I just can't.”

He shouldered out the door and closed it behind him.

In the ominous quiet of the kitchen Kate could hear the sauce bubbling, the wall clock ticking.

She was suddenly, stunningly furious. With a growl of frustration, she went after him.

“Are you going to talk to him?” Gran asked anxiously.

“Among other things.”

“Be gentle, he's—”

But Kate was already out the door and striding hard after him. Gentle?
Gentle?
She was going to kill him.

He was almost to his truck, silhouetted against the gold air of approaching sunset. “What was that?” Kate called after him.

He kept walking.

She closed the distance between them, pulse throbbing hard, breath coming fast. “What was that back there?”

He gripped his truck's door handle. Turned to glare at her.

“Gran made that entire meal for you, and you don't have the courtesy to stay and eat it? Is that really too much to ask?”

“Like I said. I can't do the dinners anymore.”

“Why?” She planted her fists on her hips.

He held her gaze for a long, taut moment. “I just can't.”

“What? No more explanation than that?”

“Back off, Kate.”

His snapping dark eyes warned her to let it drop. But the anger in her rose to meet his warning, then surpass it recklessly. “You know what? No. I've tried backing off all week and it's not working. In fact, it only seems to be making things worse.”

With icy silence he opened the truck's door and moved to get in.

“Don't you dare get in that car,” Kate snarled. “Don't you dare.”

He angled his face downward, holding himself with unnatural stillness, as if trying to overpower his temper. She watched his chest rise and fall.

Kate wanted to shake him, hurt him, scream at him.
Come on
, she thought.
Come on!
Confront me. Fight with me!

Without sparing her so much as a glance, he slammed the truck door and set off across the meadow toward the forest.

She followed, behind and beside him. “Would you just tell me what's going on with you?” she demanded. “Could you do me that favor at least?”

He kept on as if he hadn't heard her question. A continual wall, shutting her out. She'd managed to bear five days of him shutting her out, and she might have been able to put up with more of his bull if it had been solely directed at herself. But Gran? Who'd only ever adored him? Just the thought of Gran's heartbroken expression back in the kitchen made her want to launch herself at his back and strangle him. “Do you think this is the best way to go about your grief, Matt? Forcing everyone away to protect yourself?”

She stopped, tired of keeping up with him. But he didn't slow, so she groaned and went after him again. “This recovery plan working out for you?” she called loudly.

“None of your business.”

She could tell that he was furious, and perversely, she was glad.

When they reached the line of trees that marked the woods, he finally slowed. He passed under the outermost branches of a wide elm, then stopped, covered in a blanket of shade. He presented her with his back and stared angrily away from her into the coming darkness of the forest.

Kate gauged him, moving to the side so she could see his profile, the way the muscles in his jaw were working, the tense line of his shoulders.

She looked down at her ballet flats and shifted her weight, causing the carpet of grass and pebbles to crunch underfoot. She waited for him to speak.

Nothing. Still no words.

The trees swished with the wind. She needed to calm down, to say the right thing. But what
was
the right thing to say to him? She had no idea. She could clearly sense the shield he'd put up between him and her, between him and the world. She could scream with the frustration of coming up against it again and again and again! “Does it make you feel better to keep people at arm's length?” she finally asked.

“Kate, just leave me alone.” He reached out and gripped a nearby branch so hard his fingers whitened. “Seriously, just go.”

She flinched and crossed her arms hard across her chest to protect herself. He couldn't stand her. He didn't want her anywhere near him. The shreds of pride she had left demanded that she turn and stomp back to the house. And yet . . .

“
Go
,” he said.

“No.” Her brows lowered with implacable determination. “Have your family and friends been content to leave it at that? Did they all run off when you told them to go?”

The defensive cast of his profile answered the question.

“Shame on them,” she whispered.

“Because they respected my privacy?” he asked with disbelief, looking across at her. His gaze seared her.

“Maybe they respected your privacy too much. I'm not going to be content with that.”

He dropped his hand from the tree branch and turned to face her fully. “Why are you even bothering with me, Kate?”

“Because up until Monday morning I thought we were friends. I liked our friendship. I liked you.”

“Past tense.”

“I don't know yet. I'm still deciding.”

He pulled off his cap and shoved his fingers through his dark hair once, then twice, leaving it in messy disarray.

“Look, here's the deal,” she said. “The way you've acted this week has been hard on me and Gran. I can't let you go on treating us like that when we don't deserve it.”

He frowned.

“You want to tell me what happened while we were in Philadelphia that made you pull away?”

“No.”

“Well, I'm not a mind reader, but since you're not talking I'm going to take a guess.”

A vertical groove formed between his brows.

“We left,” Kate said, “and during the time we were gone something happened that made you start wondering why you were wasting your time making friends with a grandmother and her annoying granddaughter from Dallas. I mean, we're only here temporarily. We're maybe more trouble than we're worth. And after what happened with your wife, you'd rather not get attached to anyone ever again. . . . How'm I doing?”

He held her gaze, silent.

“You know, Gran lost her spouse, too.” Kate bit her lower lip, an unexpected rush of emotion for her grandad cinching her throat. “My grandad was this wonderful, wonderful man. He was a pediatrician. Gran's mentioned him to you, right?”

He nodded.

“He was so sweet and scholarly. He always wore these”—she motioned vaguely toward her chest—“vests that buttoned down the front and tweed blazers with, you know, those oval patches on the elbows. He and Gran adored each other. They had such a good marriage. They'd been married fifty-four years when he died.”

He waited, listening.

“I guess I'm telling you about Grandad to remind you that you're not alone. That other people have suffered through the loss of a spouse. Some of them, like Gran, have still managed to find joy in their lives afterward.”

“Beverly's a better person than I am.”

“No, she's not. She's great, but so are you.”

He didn't reply.

“I think . . .” Kate started, lost her nerve, and started again. “I think that God has blessings He wants to give you but can't until you let Him.”

“I'm not going there with you. I'm not going to talk about
God
in all of this.”

“Okay.”

He worked the brim of his ball cap between his hands, bending it, then finally putting it on his head backward.

“What
can
you talk about with me?” she asked.

“Nothing more tonight. And that's the truth, so stop pushing.”

She opened her mouth to argue . . . then thought better of it.

“I'll go back to the house,” he said, “and eat dinner.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“But I'm not promising anything else.” He looked her dead in the eyes. “I need you to back off.”

“I . . .”

He was standing there, waiting for her to agree, but for the first time since she'd met him, she had no words. Her limbs suddenly felt heavy and cold. The temperature of the air whistled chill across her skin.

He blew out a frustrated breath, then motioned for her to go ahead of him back to the house. Kate started forward, and he followed silently behind her.

Now that her anger had deflated, she was slightly embarrassed by how she'd acted. Why did she have to be so blasted persistent? When she'd been growing up, her mom had often shaken her head at Kate's determination and murmured, “Like a dog with a bone.”

That's clearly how Matt viewed her, and why wouldn't he? Anyone with an ounce of dignity would have left him alone when he'd asked. But she hadn't been able to quit because she cared and because her instincts had told her that she needed to press. If she didn't, who else was going to? And if no one else was going to, then how was he ever going to open up to anyone again?

They walked on. The sun had bumped below the line of the horizon, casting palest pink against the undersides of the clouds. Kate could see by the cars parked in the distant driveway that everyone except Morty had already arrived.

When they entered through the kitchen, the seniors greeted their return with exactly what they didn't need—rabid curiosity.

“Matt can stay for dinner after all,” Kate told Gran.

“Excellent!”

Kate and Matt went to work setting the table, Kate's mind full of the things they'd just said to each other. When Morty arrived, it took her a few seconds to realize he was wearing the Tommy Bahama shirt.

The shirt's beige, peach, and ivory palm fronds scrolled down each side of his chest. The cut emphasized his broad shoulders, the peach looked terrific against his glinting silver hair, and the collared neck and short sleeves gave him a confident, casual air. He could have been someone's wealthy, distinguished, Hawaii-loving uncle.

The shirt had cost 120 dollars, a sum that must have struck Morty as exorbitant, even though he hadn't batted an eye when he'd reimbursed her.

Everyone buffeted Morty with compliments as soon as he walked in. Kate looked to Velma, who was assessing Morty from head to toe. At first it looked like Velma's verdict could go either way, but gradually her expression settled into lines of approval.

Kate and Morty had scored a potent hit in the game of Battleship for Velma's heart.

Over dinner, conversation and iced tea flowed easily around the Queen Anne dining table. Matt, sitting diagonally across from Kate, was subdued but managed to answer questions politely. When he begged off from poker after helping load the dishwasher, no one hassled him, least of all Kate.

From the kitchen window she watched him walk across the dark yard toward his truck. His posture and pace reminded her of a convict escaping from prison.

If she hadn't been surrounded by a roomful of observant eyes, she might have succumbed to peppermint taffies and tears. She'd said everything she could think to say to him outside under the big tree. He'd grudgingly agreed to eat Gran's dinner tonight. But beyond that, about all the stuff that really mattered, she couldn't help but feel she'd failed.