My Stubborn Heart (31 page)

On her way home from work the night of the big game, Kate ran over a squirrel.
Fitting
, she thought. The darned thing would have been fine if it had continued across the street at a sprint. But it had paused, swiveled, and tried to run back to where it had started. Instead, it had run directly under her Explorer's tire.

Not the greatest of omens.

Feeling bad about the squirrel and conflicted over Matt's return to fame, she let herself into her duplex. She changed into jeans and the Barons' jersey Matt had sent her, then microwaved and ate a single portion of Stouffer's lasagna for dinner. She settled herself and a quarter bag of peppermint taffies on her sofa in front of the television with time to spare before even the pregame show began.

Much later, when he finally skated onto the ice for warm-up, the sight of him literally took her breath away. She gazed at the TV screen, eyes wide. She'd seen him tersely answering questions this past week on news shows, but this was different. He was decked out in the full uniform, pads, skates, whirling across the ice, completely in his element. During the national anthem, they gave him a long close-up, and Kate's heart pounded nearly out of her chest.

For the next few hours she got up only once, for a furtive trip to the bathroom during a commercial break. Because of all the reading she'd done, she understood exactly what the commentators were talking about when they mentioned positions and strategy. She knew all the penalties and what they meant.

Matt skated the way his mother had described. He wasn't a bruiser out there, he was a surgeon. All focus, precision, and steely calm. Kate was completely in awe.

Several times, they cut to shots of Matt's family in the stands. His mother, father, brother, and sister-in-law were there, all of them grinning broadly and cheering wildly. He'd invited her to be there, too. And every time they showed his family, she wished she'd taken him up on his offer.

The station also treated her to frequent shots of Matt's female fans. Most had gorgeous faces, dangly earrings, long stylish hair, tight designer jeans, and jerseys branded with his number and
Jarreau
across the back. One foursome had even penned a poster that said
WE'RE MAD FOR
and then each one sported a letter spelling
M
-
A
-
T
-
T
across the fronts of their snug shirts.

She should have expected the women. Stupidly, though, she hadn't.

Before the game tonight, her worst fear had been that Matt wouldn't live up to the hype. So many of the experts had predicted that he wouldn't be as good as he'd once been. That he was older, that the years away would have eroded his abilities.

This performance was going to shut them all up. He wouldn't top his best performances, but he was going to come close enough. He scored two of the team's three goals, one in the waning minutes of the third period to edge ahead for the win. When the final buzzer sounded, Kate relaxed, unclenched her hands, and took some deep breaths. She hadn't realized until then how tense and nervous she'd been for him, how desperately she'd wanted him to succeed.

Reporters clamored to interview Matt in the tunnel that led to the locker rooms. Obliging them, he took off his helmet and paused to answer questions. His hair was fully wet with sweat, his face flushed, his eyes very dark. His pads made his shoulders look even more enormous than they were.

“How was it to be back out there tonight wearing a Barons' uniform?” the reporter asked.

“It was good, it felt really good,” he answered, slightly out of breath.

The reporter rattled off Matt's game stats. Matt inclined his head downward to listen. “You've got to be pleased with those numbers,” the reporter said.

“Yeah, I am. There's room for improvement, and I'll be working to get better. But this first game back, I just wanted to play solid so I could be an asset to the team.”

“You scored the game-winning goal with just two minutes forty seconds on the clock. How'd you manage it?”

“Barkov set me up with a great pass. I saw an opening and managed to angle it up into the top right corner of the goal.”

“Congratulations on your first game back, and thanks for talking with us.”

“Thank you.” Matt ducked out of the shot and disappeared.

Kate watched the rest of the post-game coverage and then clicked off the TV. She could still go to Gran's. There'd be people there for the next hour or two. If she went, she could at least have company, someone to talk to and laugh with. But honestly . . . she didn't have the energy.

She did her bedtime skin care and teeth care routine, then slipped on a tank top and pajama bottoms, which were baggier than they'd once been because she'd lost weight. She frowned. Skinny girls couldn't afford to lose weight! She didn't even want to think about what was happening with her cup size.

She toed off her pink UGGs, leaving them beside her bed in their usual spot, and nuzzled under the covers. She tried to read the latest nonfiction hockey book that she'd checked out from the library, but all she could see was Matt skating and all she could think was that he'd been hers for a little while. It seemed impossible, almost surreal, that he had been.

She set the book aside, turned off the light, and tried to consider sleep. Sleep hadn't come easily since she'd left Redbud.

The house wrapped her in overwhelming and stifling silence. So empty. So painfully, heavily quiet.

The phone rang, causing her to jolt with surprise. Squinting, she grabbed the handheld unit off her bedside table and read the digital letters on the tiny screen.

JARREAU, MATT.

“Oh my gosh!” She almost dropped the thing in her scramble to sit up, push the right button, and answer. “Hello?”

“Kate.”

“Matt,” she said. “Hi.” She'd just seen him on TV and now here he was, calling her—
her!
—tonight, when he must have a thousand people wanting his attention and time.

“Did you see the game?”

“Every second.” She turned on the bedside light, bathing the room with color. “You were amazing. You were really, really amazing. I was so nervous watching it that I probably shaved a year off my life, but it was worth it.”

“So you liked it?” She could hear the smile in his voice.

“I loved it!”

“All your studying help you know what was going on?”

“How did you know about my studying?”

“You mentioned it to me.”

“I did?”

He chuckled. “Yeah.”

“I knew exactly what was going on the whole time. I even understood that whole ‘icing' thing.”

“You'd be one of the few. Did I look like a dork in the interview afterward?”

He'd looked like a shoo-in for
People
magazine's World's Most Beautiful issue. “No, you did well. I was glad you didn't use a lot of sports clichés like most athletes.” She could hear voices drawing near on his end.

“Shoot,” he said. “I've got to go.”

“Okay. Good game.”

“Thanks. Talk tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“Good night, Kate.”

“Night, Matt.”

He clicked off and she was left holding a dial tone to her ear.

Without warning, her aloneness rushed back, surrounding and suffocating her. After thirty seconds of silence, she put the phone back on its stand, clicked off the light, and stretched out on her back, staring up into darkness.

Since leaving Redbud, there had been many, many times when she'd almost agreed to let him come and visit her. She'd been tempted by the possibility of seeing him almost more than she could bear. But every time she'd leaned over that cliff, God had whispered
no
and pulled her back.

Ultimately, she'd kept herself away from him for his own good, and his success tonight showed her clearly that she'd made the right decision. He'd succeeded without her as he never would have if she—and he—had stayed in Redbud.

His phone calls were no substitute for the real thing. For him in the flesh. But they were something. He'd gotten angry with her a few times when she'd shot down his requests to visit. Without his phone calls, those days had been the longest and most depressing of her life.

She'd completed the job God had set before her, and by all accounts ought to close the case file titled
Matt Jarreau
. But she
still
couldn't stop herself from clinging to their phone conversations. They were her final link to him. Matt had it all now, and in time he was going to move on, forget her, and fall for someone in his own league. Which was exactly what God had determined for him all along.

The thought of her future without him caused her stomach to clench with dread. She loved him. And she wasn't doing so well without him. And yet she knew to her toes that sooner or later she was going to have to find a way to let him go for good.

Matt stood in his hotel room, scowling at his cell phone. With a curse, he threw the thing. It beelined through the air, hit a wall, and thudded to the floor.

He'd just told Kate he was coming to see her, and she'd just told him no. For what felt like the five hundredth time.

He began to pace, his strides eating up the beige carpet. Forward. Back. Forward. Back. The curtains were drawn against the cold afternoon outside, but he could hear the wind sailing past the building, causing the brick and mortar and glass to shudder.

After his comeback game and another at home, he'd been traveling with the team for the last six days on a three-game stretch away. Five games back, now. Five games. It was time to admit that his egotistical hope that she'd warm to him once he'd returned to hockey had been shot to smithereens. Women were supposed to like professional athletes! That should have been something he could take to the bank. But this one redheaded Texan wasn't bending.

Kate, his Kate, with the ballerina's body and the hazel eyes, the trash-talking poker habit and an old woman's fondness for antiques . . . it didn't matter to her that he wasn't a small-town contractor anymore. That he'd become a professional hockey player again. It didn't matter because she didn't want him. Period. How much clearer could she make it? She didn't want him, and she'd made it plenty clear enough. And yet he'd have sworn,
he'd have sworn
, that she cared and cared deeply for him.

He didn't get it!

Their separation had made him absolutely certain of how he felt about her. Every hour had cemented her more firmly into his heart. His head was clear. His emotions fixed.

But hers?

He eyed the confines of the hotel room with contempt. He'd practically killed himself to get here. And she didn't want him.

Well, you know what? That wasn't going to fly.

On a wave of restlessness, he went to the closet and yanked out his duffel. Started stuffing his clothes into it. He was done. Done calling her. Done asking to see her.

Done.

Kate had an
Amazing Race
habit. For years she'd been watching the show on Sunday nights with her friend Brian. They had a standing date. She'd record the show. Around seven thirty he'd walk over from his house four doors down. They'd eat whatever snacks Kate happened to have on hand while they cheered for their favorite contestants and booed their least favorites.

There had been a time, a few years back, when Brian had had a small case of the hots for her. She'd fended him off. He had the kind of blond good looks that had probably made him the heartthrob of the first grade, but now just made him look overly young and freshly scrubbed. The fact that he was gainfully employed as an accountant and thoughtful and friendly had not been enough to convince her body to have hormones for him. So she was his friend, dating advisor, and
Amazing Race
–watching partner.

After the way her phone conversation with Matt had ended earlier in the day, Kate was in a funk and had tried to back out of watching the show tonight. No go. Brian had replied to her text saying that they
were
watching it, he
was
coming, and too bad for her if she didn't want to. So here she was on an ordinary Sunday night, eating Chex party mix with Brian, listening to an occasional clap of thunder from the spring storm rolling over them, and worrying about the nice sister team on the show who'd lost their lead.

Someone knocked on her door.

Kate frowned at Brian and he frowned back. “Expecting someone?” he asked.

“Nope.” She paused the show and brushed her hands off on her pants as she went to the door. She freed the lock and opened it—

Matt was standing on her porch.

A jolt of pure, undiluted energy struck through her, pebbling her skin, freezing her to the spot.

Her porch light illuminated one side of him, revealing his rain-spattered shoulders and damp hair. He was wearing a familiar pair of jeans and a thin dark-gray sweater with a shallow V at the throat. The sweater clung to him just enough to hint at the muscle beneath.

He . . . he was so much bigger than she remembered. So much more handsome. His eyes so much angrier.

Kate couldn't seem to get her mind to turn over.

Vaguely, she heard Brian behind her. “Kate?”

Matt stared at her, unmoving, unblinking.

“Kate?” Brian called, louder.

Matt's focus cut behind her to where Brian was sitting. His eyes narrowed.

“It's okay,” Kate said, half turning to Brian. “It's a friend of mine.”

Her attention swung back to Matt. She felt like she was going to have an asthma attack—chest tight, heart thundering, mouth cotton dry.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“Yes—yes, of course.” She moved out of the way to let him pass.

He turned to wave off a taxi idling at the curb, its headlights spearing through the dark and the rain. After picking up the duffel bag at his feet, he walked inside. The living room of the duplex seemed tiny with him in it, everything—including her bravery—shrinking in the face of his size and presence.

Brian pushed to his feet and the two men sized each other up while Kate stood between them. The silence lengthened, awkward, yet she was still so rattled that she didn't know what to say. Where was her inhaler?

Matt shifted his grip on his duffel.

“Here,” she said, motioning toward an empty stretch of floor. “You can set that down if you'd like.”

He did so, his movements tense.

Brian came forward. “I'm Brian Lufkin.”

“Matt Jarreau.” The two shook hands.

“The Matt Jarreau that plays for the Barons?” Brian asked, eyes rounding with surprise.

Matt nodded.

“Wow!” Brian grinned with amazement, glanced at Kate. “I didn't know the two of you knew each other.”

Kate flinched inwardly. She might be his dating advisor, but he wasn't hers. “Yeah,” she said lamely, “we met when I was up in Pennsylvania.”

“Very cool, very cool.” Brian gave Matt a brief clap on the shoulder. “I've been following your story on ESPN, caught most of your comeback game. Congratulations, man.”

“Thank you.” Matt moved his gaze to Kate. His eyes—oh, those eyes—sizzled with foreboding.

She cleared her throat. “Would you excuse us, Brian? I'm sorry about the show. . . . It's taped, though. So maybe tomorrow? Could we finish it tomorrow?”

Brian's face slackened with surprise. “Sure.” He scratched his head and gave her a long, inquiring look before finally moving for his coat. “Uh, no problem.” He paused on the threshold as he was leaving. “Nice to meet you, Matt. Good luck with the hockey.”

Matt dipped his chin.

“See you tomorrow, Kate.”

“Bye.”

Brian closed the door behind him, trapping Kate and Matt alone together. The only sound was the hum of central heat.

Matt was watching her like a tiger would a deer. “Who was that?”

“A friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't tell him about me?”

“No,” she said. “I didn't.” Avoiding his gaze, she glanced down at her hip-hugging beige corduroys, her chocolate brown boat-neck cotton shirt, and pink UGGs. Not what she'd have chosen if she'd known he was coming, but at least it was passable. Nervously, she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her sleeve.

He turned and strode to the window that overlooked the street. He stared out at the night and the storm, his hands jammed in his pockets.

Why was he here?
Why are you here?
she wanted to shriek. She'd talked to him just a few hours ago. He'd been in Chicago. She'd told him not to come. Yet here he was.

She hungrily catalogued all the details about him that she'd begun to forget. The straightness of his dark eyebrows. The way his hair curled just a little bit at the nape of his neck. His clean smell. The powerful line of his wide shoulders.

It was bliss, singing bliss, to see him again in person. But it was also like an excruciating punch to the gut. He'd probably come to break up with her to her face. They'd fought and he was honorable enough to tell her in person that they were through.

Except . . .

Except, really? Would he fly across the country for that? To break her heart at close range?

“Stormy here in Dallas,” he said.

“Yep.”

“Is it always this . . .” He shifted uncomfortably. “Stormy?”

“We get a lot of severe weather in the spring. It's just so flat. The fronts barrel over us.” She had to intentionally stop herself from babbling.

“How's Beverly?” He was still staring out the window.

“She's doing great.”

“And Velma?”

“I got a letter from her last week. She and Morty are taking his Cadillac to a classic car show soon. All the seniors are doing just fine.”

He nodded. “And your family? Are they well?”

“They are.”

There was a long silence. “And
your
family?” she asked, desperate.

“Fine.”

More silence. More humming of the heater.

Suddenly Matt groaned with frustration and raked his hands through his hair. He looked at her. Looked away. Looked back. “Here's the thing,” he said. “I'm sick of pretending I don't love you.”

All the air left her lungs on a wheeze.

“I'm beginning to feel like I felt when I was playing hockey after Beth died. Like the whole thing is stupid and pointless. I'm out there on the ice every day when all I really want—” his lips set in a hard line—“is you.”

She blinked at him, her throat clogging with emotion, moisture rushing to her eyes.

“You've told me over and over not to come see you,” he said, “and I know you don't want me. But I . . . I had to come. I thought maybe . . .”

“I do, actually.”

“Do what?”

“Want you.”

It was his turn to lose his words. She closed the distance between them. Slowly, reverently, she reached up and smoothed a lock of his hair into place.

He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm.

She smiled at him, her vision misty.

“Then why did you leave Redbud?” he asked.

“Because it was obvious to me that you were meant to return to hockey. I didn't think you would if I stayed.”

“Why wouldn't you let me visit you at least?”

“Same reason. I thought it would just prolong the inevitable and make everything more painful. I didn't want to hold you back.”

“Kate.”

“It worked,” she whispered. “Look at you now.”

“Yeah, look at me now. I'm a mess.”

“You're a superstar.”

“I'm a mess,” he insisted, “without you.” Fiercely, he hugged her to him, burying his face in the side of her neck. She could feel him shaking.

Joy opened like a rose inside of her. It grew and expanded, making her almost dizzy. A few tears slipped over her lashes. “I love you,” she said.

He pulled back to look at her face.

“I love you,” she repeated.

“Then why are you crying?”

“I'm happy.”

He rubbed the tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I love you, Kate.”

She gave him another wobbly, beaming smile. “I love you, Matt.”

“You'll let me stay or you'll come back with me?”

“You can't stay here. You play hockey in New York, and you're definitely
not
quitting.”

“Then you'll move to New York?”

“Yes.”

“And I can see you all the time?”

“Yes.”
So many yeses
, Kate thought. A thousand yeses wouldn't be enough.

“Thank God.” He kissed her, long and deep, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa, where he sat back into the cushions with her stretched across his lap, held in an iron grip. They stayed that way together for a long time, just drinking each other in, sharing breath and whispering kisses. He twined her hair between his fingers. She touched his face—couldn't stop touching his face.

Kate waited to feel guilty. She'd gone against God's will just now, accepting Matt. But strangely, in this soft space in time, there was no guilt. Only a soaring rightness that went on and on.

God?
she asked. She could sense His nearness, and yet she felt no shame or discomfort in what had just happened. Only this rich sense of overwhelming blessing. And God's pleasure.

She saw it then. The full perspective of the road she and Matt had taken together. The truth clicked into place. “Oh,” she breathed.

“Oh?” Matt asked.

“Oh,” she answered, and cuddled deeper into his embrace.

He chuckled. “You're beautiful to me,” he said.

She'd heard God say no back in Redbud.