Too Hot to Handle: A Loveswept Classic Romance (15 page)

“I was so uncertain of myself as a teenager,” he told her frankly. “I poured every ounce of my energy into studying and working. It was the only way I could survive.”

“I don’t understand, Matt. You told me you lived with a foster family. Didn’t you care about any of them?”

“No. I never let myself care. I didn’t want to be hurt ever again. I got used to being a stranger among strangers.”

She gathered her strength for a moment. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said softly. “I was in boarding schools during most of my childhood. And Father had a succession of housekeepers who tried to play mother to me, but never with much warmth.”

“Now we’re getting to what I want to talk about.” His eyes held hers steadily. “Your mother. I believe it’s time you explained about this mystery woman who seems to have marked your life so vividly.”

Callie gave him a tired nod. “I suppose that if I bolted and ran through the woods at this moment, you’d catch me and bring me back. There’s no escape.”

He arched one brow. “You’re right. That’s another reason I brought you here.”

Callie focused her gaze on a bright clump of jasmine. “My mother,” she said slowly, “lived the last half of her life in a high-priced nursing home. She couldn’t remember her own name, much less mine, and she spent her days coloring in cartoon books meant for children. Father ran a multimillion-dollar real estate business and traveled almost constantly. When I wasn’t away at school, I spent my time with Grandma and Gramps, in Sweet Valley. I kept coming there even after Grandma died.”

Matt took her hand and squeezed it gently. “Your mother came from a poor family and your father was wealthy?”

Callie nodded. “Father was driving through Sweet Valley. He stopped at John Henry’s service station, and there sat my mother, eighteen years old and the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, from what I’ve been told by John Henry. Grandma and Gramps had a produce stand in front of the station, and Mother was working it.”

Matt’s voice was soothing. “So the starry-eyed farm girl runs off with the slick city fellow, right?”

Callie looked at him and shrugged. “Corny, but true. Grandma and Grandpa despised my father, especially after they learned that he was already engaged to be married to a socialite in Atlanta.” She sighed. “But when he made good on his vow to marry my mother, they relented a little. And I’ve been told that Father was good to her, in his own way. She loved him, apparently. I was born less than a year after the wedding.”

“What went wrong with the marriage?”

Callie spread her hands in a gesture of futility. “Father came from old money. Very proper. He had a
master’s degree in business. And here was my fragile little mother, with her high-school education and her mountain ways, trying desperately to fit into his life. She tried too hard.”

Callie looked at Matt in despair. “He wanted her to be perfect. He was a damned Professor Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle, but there was no comedy in his version of the story. She’d do anything to be what he wanted.”

Matt’s voice was low. “What did she do?”

“It was so dumb, such a stupid, senseless thing.” Callie caught her lower lip between her teeth, determined not to cry.

“Tell me, love.” Matt slid his arms around her neck and brought her forehead against his. “Please.”

“She decided to make her face more beautiful with plastic surgery. And …”

“And what?” He touched his lips gently to her nose and pulled away, taking her hand in his once more.

“Something went wrong, Matt, some kind of oxygen malfunction, and she didn’t even know who she was after that. She died then as far as my father and I were concerned. It just took her body years to follow.”

Matt sighed painfully. “Oh, Caroline,” he whispered. “This explains so much about you.”

‘I couldn’t change my mother’s life, Matt, so I took on everyone else’s. I wanted to make the world a better place, so I poured all my energy into the needs of others.”

“What about your dad, Callie—didn’t he care about you?”

“He immersed himself in his business. If he missed
having a daughter, I never knew it. I guess that’s easy to do if you’re successful.”

“Maybe for some,” Matt admitted, “but not for me. If I ever have a child, that child will be the most important thing in my life.”

He talked more about his love for children. As she listened, Callie found herself comparing their pasts. Matt’s father had been a loving, kind man. Hers had been ruthless and self-centered. Both men had been wealthy and successful, but in very different ways. Was Matt more like his own father or like hers? Only time would tell.

“Now,” he said finally, and took a deep breath, “I want to tell you about Nancy Caulfield.”

“Nancy?”

“The woman I lived with until two years ago.”

“I see. What does that have to do with me? Was she one of your treasures worth keeping?” She felt a coldness descend on her. She didn’t like the way the conversation was going. His past hadn’t mattered to her before. She didn’t want it to matter now.

“No. At the time I thought she was. She was an attorney. We met during her last year in law school. She was very busy, and very broke. My work has always kept me on a tight schedule, and for the first time I’d found a woman who didn’t mind. From law school she was hired by one of Atlanta’s best firms, and started her climb to the top.

“When she reached the top and didn’t have to work as hard, she didn’t need me any longer. Between my work and my hobbies I wasn’t as interested in a social life as she was. Eventually she traded me in for a man who didn’t spend all his time in the office or in the past.”

“Why are you telling me all this, Matt?”

“Because,” he said softly, “I want you to know me, to know my history and what I’ve been through. Please, Callie, don’t lock me out of your life. You know that this isn’t just a casual weekend, for either of us.”

“No,” she admitted, feeling the lump in her throat threaten to close off her reply.

“I know now that I only picked Nancy because she was a safe bet after the disaster I called a marriage. Ambitious, on her way to the top of the legal world, she would never challenge me in the arena of feelings.” He smiled grimly. “You see, Caroline, you have ways of avoiding emotional intimacy, and so do I.”

“Matt, I don’t care about Nancy or any of the other women in your life. As you say, that’s in the past, and you know I’m firmly ensconced in the present.”

She said the words flippantly, giving him the reply he’d expected, knowing that the words were a lie. She didn’t want to think about Matt with another woman, even if it was in the past. Callie shook her head, trying to clear the confusion she felt. She kissed Matt’s cheeks, and nibbled her way toward his mouth.

“Let’s think about the present, Matt. Stop talking, please.”

He gently grasped her arms and held her away. “No, not yet, Callie, my love. We aren’t done yet. I need to know about Tyler.”

“Tyler?” she asked in surprise. “You already know about Tyler.”

“Yes, I know about the divorce. Tell me about the marriage. I want to know why you’ve avoided men since.”

“Oh. Why?”

This time he did move closer, taking her hand as if she were a small child who needed reassurance. “Because your marriage to Tyler is part of you, and I need to know. I want to know you. Please, I wish you’d just open up and let me see the real Callie.”

He was concerned, she realized. And his interest wasn’t sexual; it was the attention given by one close friend to another. She felt her tension begin to melt.

“I was a freshman in college when I met Tyler,” she murmured. “He was an art student. He was beautiful, Matt—dark, brooding, just what you’d expect an artist to look like. The exact opposite of my father, with his Ivy League education and Gucci shoes. But Tyler was poor. His family was living on welfare, and he had to work his way through school.”

“You loved him anyway.”

“Oh, yes. But I was a very young eighteen, Matt. I know now that what I loved was the romantic image of marrying an idealistic artist. Oh, we had some wild, wonderful times together. We’d stay up all night, finding solutions to the world’s problems, go roller-skating through downtown Atlanta’s deserted streets until dawn. We thought we were discovering life and all its passions.”

Matt winced. He knew he had to hear it all, but he didn’t want to think about Callie and another man. He wanted her to say Tyler hadn’t meant anything, that she hadn’t known what passion was until he’d come along.

“There was a time,” she went on stoically, “when I thought that all I ever wanted in the world was Tyler Winter. He was the exact opposite of the man my
mother had chosen, and I knew that with him life would be an adventure.”

“You had a good marriage.”

“At first. I’ve already told you about the traveling we did, and the causes we worked for. It was great, but there came a time when … we had to have money. And Tyler was magnanimous in doing the right thing. He did what he had to do to provide for me—”

Matt took her by the shoulders and pulled her against him as though he could absorb the pain he felt radiating from her. He wished he hadn’t started this, but they’d come too far to stop now.

“Tell me about it, Callie. Why did Tyler change? The man I met didn’t seem a bit like the Tyler you loved.”

Matt wasn’t going to make it easy for her. He was going to bring it all back, the hurt and the loss. She felt her insides revolt as she fought against dredging up the bitterness that she’d kept buried inside.

“I got pregnant, and I … I was very ill. The baby was born prematurely, and needed very expensive medical care. Tyler wouldn’t accept charity from my father, but he did accept a job. He gave up his art, cut his hair, and shaved the beard he’d always had. He got hooked on real estate.” She smiled tautly. “He changed. My Lord, he and Father became pals.”

Matt slid around behind her, pulling her into the circle of his body with her back against his chest, clasping his arms beneath her breasts so tightly that he felt her heart beating.

“And the baby?” Matt kept his voice very gentle.

“The baby died.”

“And the marriage?”

“It died, too, Matthew. By that time Tyler had discovered that he liked money. I can’t blame him. He’d never had any, so it was only natural that he’d appreciate it more than I did. So … he’s been very successful in real estate. He became the son my father never had. He became a Carmichael, and I left.”

“But he never got over you, did he? That’s why he keeps coming around.”

“Maybe, I don’t know. But I haven’t loved Tyler for a long time. He’s been more like a brother than an ex-husband.”

“And after you left him you became even more devoted to embracing every cause and every unfortunate soul in need.”

“I’ve been running from a lot of disappointment,” she told him. “It’s easy to hide in other people’s problems.”

“Oh, Callie.” Matt hugged her, and nuzzled his face in her hair until he found the side of her neck. “I know. I’ve been running too.” He kissed her ear. Then he turned her around so that they were facing each other. Matt held out his arms. “Run to me, Callie. Let me be a part of you.”

Callie snuggled deep in his arms. “For now,” she whispered, not allowing herself to think of longer. “For now—if you’re sure.”

“Oh, yes, Caroline Carmichael. I’m very sure.”

She nodded and tightened the grip of her arms around his waist. “I care for you, too, Matt, maybe more than I should. Heavens, how you’ve made me want to love you. I think you can do anything you set your mind to, and that scares me.”

“I’m not ruthless like your father, Callie. Don’t
make me into an ogre. This is new to me, and I don’t want to mess it up.” He loosened her grip and guided her back against the quilt, while he untied the knot she’d made in the tail of her loose shirt.

“Let me,” she insisted urgently.

“No. You just lie there and let me love you.”

“Oh, Matt,” she said softly, waiting, studying the loving expression on his face as he opened her shirt and lifted her slightly while he removed it. He placed his thumbs beneath the band of her shorts and peeled them down her legs.

“Ah, Callie, I knew you wouldn’t be wearing anything underneath.” He stood and removed his jeans, dropping them to the ground.

“Matt,” she exclaimed softly. “You aren’t wearing underwear either. I’m so pleased.”

“See what you’ve done to me. I’m not the same man I once was.”

“And I’m a different woman. Oh, Matt, you’ve been right about one thing all along.” She smiled gently. “It takes an understanding of the past to appreciate the present.”

Callie could barely contain her desire when he settled on his knees beside her. He studied her without touching her until she felt her body begin to tremble with the sweet agony of her need. At last she could understand the passion that must have driven her mother to risk everything to please the man she had married. Callie had never wanted anything so much as she wanted to please Matt.

The sun found Callie’s body, falling across her like a spotlight. Matt made a soft sound of appreciation. Her skin was the color of honey, touched with the blush of the warm rays that filtered through the
leaves of the trees above them. He reached for his jeans and retrieved the garnet pendant from the pocket.

“No,” she said immediately. “Matt, I can’t—”

“You must have known I was buying it for you.” He placed a finger over her lips to silence her. “Please.” His voice dropped. “Please.” He tried to joke. “Consider it a trial acceptance. Try it. If, in a week or two, you still feel funny about wearing it, give it back.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she said nothing. Matt drew his finger down her chin to her throat, then ran it lightly along the center of her chest. He placed the pendant there and fastened the delicate chain around her neck.

Between her breasts the red garnet pendant seemed to shimmer with the light and the soft warmth of the body it adorned.

“There,” he whispered. “You make the jewel glow.”

“Kiss,” she ordered hoarsely, and pointed to her mouth.

He forced himself to control his passion as he leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers. He let his lips begin to weave the spell of sweet magic that would join them to the special promise of this place.