My Stubborn Heart (18 page)

“Oh, I didn't realize,” Peg said.

“What about you, Matt?” William asked. All the seniors moved their attention to him. “Do you have a DVD player at your house?”

A beat of hesitation, then, “I do.”

“Perfect,” Peg said. “If you don't want to stay for the slide show, you can both watch the movie there.”

This was mutiny, Kate realized suddenly. A setup, when Gran and Velma had both promised her not to attempt any matchmaking! The two of them were both looking at her innocently. Maybe too innocently. “Um . . .” she said, embarrassed.

“That would be fine,” Matt said. His voice sounded carefully neutral. Neither grudging nor pleased.

“It's all right, Matt,” Kate said. “We don't have to. We can just take the night off. Or . . . stay for the slide show.”

“I don't mind.”

“Good then!” Gran said. “That's settled.” She ushered them into the kitchen, filled a grocery sack with a frozen pizza supreme, a liter of chilled root beer, and a pint of vanilla ice cream. Before Kate could even get her thoughts in order, she and Matt were bundled into their jackets and walking through the drizzly night to his truck.

Kate stopped halfway. “Seriously, I don't want you to feel like you have to have me over.”

“I don't.”

“Just so you know, I didn't have anything to do with this plan.”

“I know you didn't, Kate.”

“Good, because it's really not my style to blindside you in front of a group of seniors.”

“They're sneaky.”

“Do you think all of them were in on it, or just Peg and William?”

“All.” He raised the bag of food as proof.

“Yeah, point taken.” The wind blew her hair across her face. She reached up to hold a section out of her eyes. “Do you need fifteen minutes to, you know, go home and put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, pick up socks, that kind of thing?”

His lips curved up a little on one side. “No. It's presentable enough.”

“Okay. I'll take my car so you don't have to drive me back later.” She walked to the barn, where she'd parked her Explorer.

This was
so
not how she'd wanted her first invitation to his house to go down. It wasn't exactly flattering to be foisted on him against his will by a group of meddling seventy-somethings.

Matt's house was wonderful. She could determine that right away, even peering at it through the damp, cloudy night. Whereas Chapel Bluff had been built in an open meadow, this house had been tucked into acres of densely wooded land without even a strip of lawn, which made it feel like a cabin.

Matt pulled his truck into one half of a double garage, and she parked on the driveway behind him. The porch light and the one light he'd left on inside revealed a craftsman-style bungalow painted in shades of olive, beige, and brown.

He met her on the brick front porch and let her inside. They made their way to the kitchen, with Matt flipping on lights as they went. He set the bag of groceries on a speckled beige granite countertop, then took their coats and hung them on hooks near the back door.

“Wow,” she said, taking it all in. “I love your house. Do you mind if I look around?”

“Go ahead.” He checked the back of the pizza and set the oven temp.

Clearly, he'd taken out walls, because now the foyer, living room, dining room, and kitchen were all one big space broken only by a kitchen counter and two thick wooden posts that looked like whole tree trunks with the bark stripped off. She made her way from the kitchen into the dining room and then the living room. It was a man's house. He'd painted all the walls a pale tan color. The wood on the floors, baseboards, window trim, and doors had all been lightly stained so that you could still clearly see the grain.

He'd picked mission-style furniture. Leather sofas mixed with dark wooden pieces. A couple of antiques, but mostly new. All of it masculine, clean-lined, and of excellent quality. There were no knickknacks and little art—just a few groups of framed black-and-white photographs of nature.

It might have seemed too spartan to be cozy, except for the sweat shirts thrown over the arm of a chair, the pair of Nikes on the rug, the jumble of newspapers on the kitchen table, and the big stack of mail next to two ball caps on the chest of drawers near the front door.

She glanced up and saw that he hadn't moved from where she'd left him in the kitchen. He was studying her intently.

“Did you renovate it yourself?” she asked.

“Yeah, I did.”

“How long did it take you?”

“A year.”

“I really like what you did.”

“Thanks.”

He gave her a tour of the rest of the house. The three bedrooms, including his, were all simply furnished with beds supported by sturdy wooden frames, bedside tables, and wall-mounted flat-screen TVs. The two bathrooms managed to be modern, classic, and deluxe at the same time. She doubted a square inch remained anywhere in the house that he hadn't worked on and improved.

“When was the house built?”

“1932.”

“And you lived here growing up?”

“I did. My parents bought it the year my older brother was born. When they were ready to sell it six years ago, I bought it from them.”

“Didn't want to let it out of the family?”

“No.”

They made their way back to the understated but expensive-looking kitchen. While they waited for the oven to preheat, they leaned against opposite kitchen counters, facing each other. “Gran mentioned that your parents moved to Florida.”

He nodded. “We used to go on vacations there every summer. They'd talked for a long time about moving there. After my brother and I left, they finally did it.”

“Do they come back often?”

“For visits. They'd like to come up more, but . . .” He shrugged, uncomfortable.

She could read what he wasn't saying. “But they're worried about you and the whole time they're here you feel like they're baby-sitting you?”

He considered her for a moment. “Something like that.”

“Are they coming for Thanksgiving or are you going there?”

“So far, neither.”

“Neither?”

“Neither.”

“Why?”

“What you just said. The baby-sitting thing.”

“Okay.” Kate folded her arms across her chest in a businesslike manner. “Let me help you sort this out.”

He waited, staring at her levelly.

“Which do you want to do least,” she asked, “travel to Florida or host your family here for Thanksgiving?”

“Travel to Florida.”

“Then you'll have it here. You need to call your parents and tell them they can come.”

Matt gave her a small smile. “I do, do I?”

“
Yes,
and if you had any sense you'd know that already. Who else will want to come?”

“My brother and his family.”

“Who live where?”

“Philadelphia.”

“Who else?” she prompted.

“My grandparents.”

“Who else?”

“My aunt's divorced. My mom will want to invite her and her daughter.”

“Then tell your mom they're all welcome.”

He winced.

“I mean, they won't expect you to do all the cooking or anything will they?”

“No.”

“Then invite them.”

“Kate,” he groaned.

“Look, you can blow off your family for most holidays, but not for Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

“Is that the rule?”

“That's the rule. You do it for their sake, no matter how difficult it is for you.”

He sighed.

“It's either that or Gran will force you to spend it with us at Velma's. You'll be stuck with Velma and all her loser sons for hours. Is that what you want?”

“Definitely not.”

She laughed. “I didn't think so.”

The oven beeped, letting them know it had preheated. Matt unwrapped the pizza, slid it in, and set the timer.

“You look like you've done that a few times,” Kate commented.

“More than a few.” He straightened and stuck his hands in his pockets, seeming uncertain. “Should we watch the movie?”

“Sure.”

As Kate followed him she caught sight of a five-by-seven photograph in a silver frame sitting on the bar-height counter between the kitchen and living room. The photograph had captured a black-and-white image of a gorgeous blonde wearing an elegant wedding gown and laughing with joy.

Unable to stop herself, Kate approached the picture and picked it up. Her heart slid slowly downward. She glanced at Matt. He was standing next to the DVD player, arrested, the DVD case open in one hand.

Kate returned her attention to the picture. “She was beautiful,” she said, and meant it.

Kate had been smart enough not to go hunting around on the Internet for pictures of Beth, knowing it would be painful to see how perfect she'd been. And, wow, it
was
painful to see a picture of her. She'd been absolutely dazzling. Five times as dazzling as Kate on her best day.

But there were other things in this photo that Kate hadn't expected to see. She'd imagined Beth as a sophisticated, cool, celebrity-type person. But looking out at her from this picture was someone very young. A girl with a lively face, gentle eyes, and an air of trusting vulnerability about her.

It twisted Kate's heart to think that this hopeful girl had died of cancer just a few years after this photo had been taken. Her future, her dreams, her life—all snatched from her tragically early.

Kate was no stranger to feeling jealous of Beth. But she was new to feeling compassion for her. She set the picture carefully back where it had been and settled on one end of the leather sofa.

Matt followed her cue and slid the DVD in without a word, picked up the remote, and turned on the TV. A hockey game came up.

He stilled, his attention honing in sharply on the game. He watched for what couldn't have been more than fifteen seconds—just long enough for Kate to understand a multitude about him, long enough for her to glimpse past all his walls to his heart and mind.

His expression turned grim, and he punched the button to flip the TV into DVD mode.

Wow, Kate thought. Beth and hockey, both in the span of a minute. Two ghosts. One gone. The other gone . . . but not irrevocably. Maybe he could have it back if he wanted it enough.

Based on what Kate had just seen in him, he wanted it. Even if he didn't know it yet.

When the timer went off, Matt paused the movie. He went to work slicing the pizza and setting it on plates. Kate handled her usual responsibility: drinks.

She located two tall glasses, then hesitated. “Are we supposed to drink the root beer floats with dinner or for dessert?”

He lifted his brows. “You're asking me?”

“I say we live a little and have them with the pizza.” She moved toward the freezer and hesitated again. “I haven't had one of these since I was like eight. Do you think ice or no ice?”

“Uh . . . no ice?” he guessed.

“Agreed.” She fixed the floats and they carried everything to the coffee table in front of the sofa. Without another word, they dug into the food and restarted the movie.

Kate had been working to create a mood of ease between them. But it hadn't been easy for days, and tonight was no exception. A living, breathing force existed between them lately. When he looked at her, he looked at her with an almost predatory gleam. It made her tense and fluttery inside.

Her survival plan for the next two hours was to focus on the movie and try to overlook the hard masculine length of him sitting just inches away.

———

Matt paid no attention to the movie because his full attention was one hundred percent attuned to Kate. He noticed every bite and sip she took, every shift in her position, every quiet laugh. The movie might as well have been in a foreign language. The food barely registered except that the drink was really sweet and frothy and the pizza was covered in lots of vegetables he didn't usually eat on pizza.