Better for her to focus on the fact that she’d promised to finish his car and now wouldn’t be able to. She hoped he’d understand. As he approached, he caught her eye and gave her a quick smile, which, for some reason, she found inexplicably calming.
She pulled off her work gloves and walked toward Dani, and when she reached them, she leaned down and kissed the little girl on the cheek, careful not to smudge her.
“Be careful, Ariel. You know how Danielle hates dirt on her clothes,” Matilda scolded.
That wicked little streak that Ariel had never quite managed to stamp out urged her to smush her hand on Matilda’s cream linen pants just to prove a point, but she ignored the childish impulse and tried to remind herself of what was important. Dani needed to have a relationship with her grandparents, and it didn’t matter that putting up with Matilda’s meddling was the price.
“Did you have a nice day with Granny?” Ariel asked, ignoring Matilda but still alarmingly aware of Dr. Poole standing beside her.
“Yes. We baked cookies and then got to play tea,” Dani said.
Ariel bit back yet another groan. On the one hand, she’d rather go to church every Sunday for a year, something she’d never done and had no intention of ever doing, than play tea, so she was grateful Dani had someone to do that with. On the other, that explained why Dani was bouncing on her heels and seemed about to explode from excess energy. Matilda had pumped her full of tea loaded with sugar and cookies loaded with even more and then brought her here where Ariel had no hope of corralling her.
You’re grateful, remember? Grateful.
And she was, really. Dani’s visits with Matilda filled in the gaps when Ariel couldn’t get child care and gave her time to work a little more, and, on occasion, play. So she was grateful. She glanced down at Dani, who was spinning in circles with her arms above her head. Yes. Grateful.
“Well, I know how much you like tea and cookies,” Ariel said to Dani, who paid her no mind. Then to Matilda she said, “Would you mind hanging out for a few more minutes? I just need to finish this up, and I want someone to keep an eye on Dani.”
“I don’t ‘hang out’ anywhere, Ariel. And I have to leave. The Ladies’ Council has a meeting,” Matilda said. Then she finally acknowledged Matt’s presence with a suspicious, sidelong glance.
“Mrs. Mallick,” Poole said, nodding in the older woman’s direction.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Poole—” Ariel started.
“I think you know me well enough to call me Matt,” he said, to which Matilda raised an eyebrow.
Ariel huffed out a chuckle but quickly swallowed it. “Okay, Matt. I’ll need to finish this tomorrow. Is that okay?”
Ariel kept her gaze on him, but could feel Matilda’s disapproval. Knowing Matilda as she did, the other woman probably took her request as another sign of her failure, another tiny piece of proof that Ariel was no good.
“That’s fine, perfectly fine,” Matt said, sounding like he meant it.
He was a shrink, after all, so he couldn’t have missed the thick tension that seemed to swarm around every interaction with Matilda and was probably just being a nice guy, but Ariel didn’t care. She’d take what she could get if it meant having her mother-in-law out of her hair, even if only temporarily—which was all it ever was.
“Good-bye, Danielle,” Matilda said, scooping the child into a tight hug.
This was a reminder, one of the very few, as to why she put up with it. Matilda had her flaws, her many,
many
flaws, but her love of Dani could never be questioned.
“See you later, Granny,” Dani said. Then she started to drift toward the tire rack, and Ariel knew it was time to go.
“Mathias, Ariel,” Matilda said shortly, her fine manners and breeding not allowing her to leave without a good-bye, and then she got into her car and left.
“No, ma’am,” Ariel said as she reached for Dani’s arm. Then she looked at Matt. “Thank you.” Relief filled her voice. “Can I give you a ride home?” she asked.
“No need. It’s—”
“Nonsense! It’s the least I can do.”
A few minutes later, Dani strapped in her car seat and the pout on her face communicating her displeasure about that fact, Ariel pulled off with Matt in tow.
••••
The ride was short, too short, in Ariel’s estimation, and less than an hour later, Ariel was home getting ready to get Dani settled for the evening. Not an easy task when she was still bouncing off the walls, but Ariel managed to wrangle her long enough to take a quick shower and get something on for dinner.
But she was distracted today and it didn’t take her three guesses to figure out why.
She had no idea what had come over her today, or what on God’s green earth had made her so shamelessly flirt with Dr. Poole—Matt. The little hitch in her chest and smile that crossed her face at the thought of his name was a further indication of the trouble she was chasing. As a female mechanic, she’d had to fight for respect, and she knew that acting as she had today was the fastest way to blow it all.
And it didn’t matter they’d been alone. No, what mattered was that she’d violated one of her basic rules and acted unprofessionally, which she loathed.
The fact that Matilda had witnessed at least some of it only compounded the situation. Her disapproval was practically guaranteed, but Ariel tried not to feed into her notions too much. Playing Jezebel in coveralls was definitely not the way to go.
Still…
It had been nice. Matt had been nice. And he’d been very gracious about her having to leave before she’d fixed the car. Maybe she could think of a way to thank him.
Chapter Two
The next morning, Matt was surprised to see a visitor sitting on his front steps, but he probably shouldn’t have been.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, BB?” Matt said as he sat next to Blakely Bishop the way he had so many times before. She shifted to look at him, her face serious. One look at her expression and Matt knew that his hope that she’d somehow forgotten what today marked was futile.
“I thought you’d forgotten. I certainly try to,” he said.
“You can’t forget, and I won’t either.”
She put a hand on his knee and then looked at him with such sympathy and hurt, he wanted to turn away. That look, the sympathy in it, was as much a memento of what he’d lost as anything else, and he was suddenly exhausted and looking forward to today less than he had been before, and he hadn’t been looking forward to it at all.
“Have you been?” she asked.
“No. Car’s in the shop, so I thought I might skip this year.”
In truth, though unexpected, not having his car had proven a plus. There was no one he would call to accompany him on this task, and he told himself that without transportation there was no way he could go.
“Well, good thing I’m here,” she said, giving him a pat on the leg that was half-patronizing, half-consoling and one that drew a reluctant smile. Then she stood, looking down at him expectantly.
Quintessentially Blake, and annoying as hell. He didn’t need or want her pity or her pushiness, but she wouldn’t budge and he didn’t want to sit on his stoop all day. So Matt exhaled, then stood and followed her toward her car, wanting to resist, yet feeling compelled.
Every year he’d been home he’d done this, but the few moments that led up to the drive never got any easier. He opened the door and noticed the small bouquet on Blakely’s seat. She got in and then waited patiently, looking over at him. Lips pressed in a thin line, Matt grabbed the flowers, got in, and waited.
“This sucks, but I know you’ll regret it if you don’t go,” Blakely said as she pulled off.
“So you think you still know me?” Matt said, gripping the flowers so tight he thought the stems might snap.
He instantly regretted the words. Blakely was home, had been trying really hard to make up for the time they’d lost, and she didn’t deserve to be lashed out at.
“Yes,” she said, not giving any indication that his snide words had fazed her in the least. And to some extent it made sense. They’d been apart for years, but that core of friendship was still there. He knew and based on her actions, Blakely did as well.
They drove in stony silence.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked when, after what felt like an eternity, they reached their destination.
He shook his head. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Take all the time you need, Matt,” she said.
He nodded and then got out of the car. She’d been gone for almost three decades, and he still hadn’t fully recovered, so whether he stayed for two minutes or two hours wouldn’t make a difference. That was part of the reason he told himself he wasn’t coming this year. His mother was gone, long, long gone, and this ritual only served to remind him of what she’d missed, of what he’d missed, of the hole that her absence had created in his entire life, of how her loss had changed everything completely. Not something he really ever wanted to think about, but something that couldn’t be avoided, especially not today.
When he reached the graveside, he brushed a couple of leaves off the grave marker, let his fingers linger over her name. Helene. There had been years where hearing it, thinking of it, had almost brought him to tears, but this year, something was different. For the first time in a while, pain was not his first thought. Instead, he imagined he heard her voice as she laughed about how all the kids had teased her for having an old-lady name.
“What do you think, Matty?”
she’d ask.
He’d always just laugh, knowing that she was commiserating with him about his rather formal name, so he had no room to judge. Now, he lifted his mouth at the thought. He couldn’t help but wonder how different things would be now if she’d made it, but he quickly changed his mind’s direction. They would’ve been different, but there was no use in dwelling on it. She was never coming back and neither was the family that had died with her in spirit if not in body.
“Mathias,” his father said, the word broken over the tremor of tears that made his father’s voice waver.
A glance back revealed the tears that ran down the other man’s face, the heartbreak that had shrouded him for three decades. He straightened and reached out to grip his father’s shoulder. The touch only seemed to intensify the tears, and soon his father was openly weeping.
Matt was torn. He hated this, but he’d seen it too many times for it to have an effect, something he could admit but that made him ashamed. It felt like a betrayal, like he hadn’t loved her as much as he should have.
“Call me later, Dad,” Matt said.
His father nodded, and with one final squeeze of the man’s shoulder, Matt walked away.
“Drive,” he said before he had both feet inside the car. Reminding him why she’d been his best friend for years, Blakely complied.
He was stunned into silence, but that silence exploded into pure, brain-melting rage by the time they exited the cemetery.
“He looked pretty broken up,” she said.
“Doesn’t he always?” Matt replied.
Blake looked at him skeptically and then turned her eyes back to the road.
“What?” he said, pinning her with a stare.
“I thought you two had made peace.”
“We have, but he can be exhausting, and never more so than on this day.”
“It was hard on him,” she said.
Anger flared again, but Matt swallowed it down. “It was hard on both of us, something he never seemed to realize.”
“Have you tried to talk to him?”
“About that? No. What’s past is past, and I don’t think rehashing it will do anything.”
“Wait a second… You love to rehash. It’s like your purpose for being,” she said.
Matt chuckled, but the sound soon faded.
“Even I have my limits. I can’t make him move on, and I won’t suffer with him anymore. When and if he chooses to move on, I’ll support him, but doing it is on him.”
It sounded harsh, probably was harsh, but Matt meant it. He’d grown up in the shadow of his father’s grief, and he refused to go there again.
••••
“You want to come over for dinner? Cody’s home,” Blakely said a few minutes later as she dropped him off.
He shook his head. “I’d be bad company.”
Blakely nodded. “If you change your mind, you know where to find us,” she said.
He watched her retreating vehicle, thinking about what she’d said. Maybe he needed to do more, try harder. He knew his mom wouldn’t have wanted things to be this way, but even after all these years, he had no clue how to reach his father. And, he could admit, he resented the man. He’d been a little boy who needed his father, and while his dad may have loved him, he’d never been able to look past his own grief and actually raise him. On some level, Matt had always known it wasn’t his dad’s fault, and his own need to help others with similar issues had pushed him into psychology. But even with that knowledge, Matt still sometimes struggled to move past it all, and on days like today, he barely even tried.
That true but saddening thought in mind, Matt stared up at his house.
It was beautiful.