The Heart of the Matter

by Heather M Green

  The Heart of the Matter

  Other Books By Heather M. Green

  Matters of the Heart

  Love, Lily A Red Rock Romance Book 1

  My Best Friend A Red Rock Romance Book 2

  The Heart of the MatterA Sequel

  Heather M. Green

  Cover photo and design by Heather M. Green

  For Mom

  There really is a basement at the Alamo.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks again to my proofreaders- Paula Maddock, Amy Church, Shanda Richey, and Alaina and MauDee Thomson. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  And thanks to Jeff for your help in brainstorming the title.

  Prologue

  As I stood there getting lost in everything Sophie, I felt something shift. In me, in her, I didn't know. It wasn't anything tangible that I could put my finger on, but it terrified me anyway. I pulled back so abruptly that she would have fallen had I not kept my hands at her waist to hold her steady. We were both breathing hard, but she looked up at me in confusion. I felt that same confusion roiling inside me. I needed a minute, but didn't want to hurt her feelings. How could I not get close enough one second and then not far enough away to leave the fear behind in the next? I dropped my hands from her waist and bent to pick up the blanket that had fallen to the ground when I needed both hands to pull her ever closer. I reached up and turned my hat forward and looked around.

  "I forgot the water.” Even I wanted to hit my forehead. Who breaks off the greatest kiss of all time for water? Nothing to do now but go with it. I shoved the blanket at her. “I'm going to go grab a couple water bottles from the car. Don't stray too far," With that, I turned and hurried away. I quickly made my way to the car, my mind going a million miles a minute. I popped the trunk and rested my hands on either side, dropping my chin to my chest. With my eyes closed, I took a couple deep breaths to calm my racing heart and mind. I thought I could do this. Hoped I could.

  All the things that drew me to Sophie were the same things that forced me to push her away-- out of fear. But I was tired of being alone. I teased my dad that I was happy going home to Andy, but going home to just anyone wasn't actually coming home. I didn't need someone there just to fill space. I wanted the kind of home I'd caught a glimpse of when Sophie was in my arms. The home where she ran her fingers through my hair as we drove in the car somewhere or nowhere. The home where I constantly laughed at her zaniness. The home where everything in life seemed brighter and more manageable because I knew I'd be seeing her in a couple hours. The same home I'd tried but failed to achieve with Nicole.

  And that right there was the problem.

  Nicole showed me that it's not possible for my heart to find a home. It's better to keep it boarded up than to let someone take up occupancy only to tear through it with a sledge hammer, destroying every room. The pain would bulldoze over the top of me and leave me demolished.

  And Sophie wasn’t staying.

  This wasn’t her home.

  I couldn't do it again.

  "Hey."

  I jumped at her soft touch on my shoulder and the sound of her voice. I straightened quickly and barely missed hitting my head on the inside of the trunk.

  "Are you okay?" She peered closely at me, the blanket dangling from her hand at her side.

  "What? Oh, yeah. I'm good. But I'm actually not feeling the greatest. Do you care if we head back to my parents?" Her eyebrows rose in surprise and then furrowed in concern.

  "No. Sure. Let's go. I'm sorry. I didn't know you weren't feeling well. You should have said something sooner." She quickly folded the blanket and set it in the trunk. I grabbed two water bottles and shut the trunk. "Are you okay to drive," she asked over the top of the car as we walked around to our separate doors.

  "Yeah. It was probably too much cheese. Apparently, it doesn't just plug you up when you eat too much."

  She made an attempt to laugh at my lameness, but it fell flat. We both knew it wasn't the cheese. She sat silently with her hands folded in her lap the twenty minutes to my parents’ house. I wanted to say something to rid the car of the awkwardness that smothered us like a thick fog blanketing the ocean before an early morning sun rise, but I didn't know what I could say that wouldn't hurt her or reveal too much of the fear that had nearly paralyzed me back there.

  She was out of the car with a 'Thanks, James' thrown over her shoulder the second we pulled to a stop in the driveway. A humorless laugh escaped me, but she wasn't around to hear it.

  "Sure. Anytime I can rip myself from your lips with no explanation and follow it up with a bunch of lies to get as far away from you as possible, you just let me know." Water. Hah.

  I bypassed the house for my dad's shop in the back. I didn't care one way or the other if he was in the shop. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone either way.

  Chapter 1

  Sophie

  I walked through the entry of James’ parents house, past the great room, dining room, and kitchen to the stairs. His mother’s voice met me on the third step and I turned.

  "I didn't expect you back so soon,” Caroline said in surprise. “James made it sound like you'd be out pretty late."

  "He, uh, wasn't feeling well, so we cut it short." My throat was tight around the words.

  "Oh, dear. Do you think I should plan on him for dinner?"

  I was the last person she should ask about James’ plans. I managed a shrug. "I'm not sure. You could ask him." I turned to trudge up the stairs, intent on escaping to the guest room, when she stopped me again.

  "Are you feeling alright, Sophie? I hope he didn't give you whatever bug he has." She approached the stairs and placed her hand on the banister. Worry creased her brows.

  And it hit me again. The surrealness of being in my somewhat boyfriend, James,’ childhood home--eating chicken salad sandwiches and talking with his mother about old photographs like I had the right to be there.

  "I'll be fine. I think I just need to rest for a while. What time are you starting on dinner and I'll come down and help?"

  "Don't you worry about that,” Caroline said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I'll have James wake you when we’re ready to eat." She watched me for a moment more and then turned back toward the kitchen.

  "Thank you," I called belatedly to her retreating form before climbing the remaining stairs and closing the guest room door softly behind me.

  I sat on the fluffy twin bed and stared at the framed ocean scene across from me on the opposite wall.

  What had happened?

  My phone buzzed in my back pocket, simultaneously vibrating the mattress beneath me and alerting me that I had a new text. I reached for it and sighed when I saw Adri’s name. Did I want to get into this now? Who was I kidding? I’d rehash it mentally whether I talked to her or not. Might as well bend a listening ear and get an unbiased opinion. Unbiased. Except that my best friend, --clear down in San Antonio while I was nannying my brother’s boys on the brink of heaven along the Oregon coast-- loved me unconditionally and would stand behind me no matter what man she ran over in the process.

  “How are the in-laws?” Adri asked after the first ring. See? Unbiased. But only because she knew that’s the future I hoped for when it came to James.

  I laughed in surprise at the irony of her greeting. “In Laws couldn’t be farther from the truth.” And cruel in light of my current predicament.

  “What man takes a girl home to mom and dad without thinking, subconscious though it may be, about being in it for the long haul?”

  “The kind of man who doesn’t, especially subconsciously, know his own mind or heart.”

  “Cryptic,” she said with a mysterious voice. “Spill.”

&nb
sp; I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath, searching my heart and its ability to survive the embarrassing retelling before plunging in.

  “We were standing in my dream setting, surrounded by sand and sea. He was looking all irresistible while I secretly snapped pics of him with my phone like a stalker. Time stood still when he snuck a kiss.” I paused for dramatic effect. “And then tried to pull away.”

  “I would have been like, ‘Aww, heck no,’” Adri interrupted. “But what would Sophie have done?” She asked herself out loud and paused like she was considering.

  “You’ll be proud to know I did exactly that. I pulled him back and laid one on him.” Then I squirmed as embarrassment filled me at the memory of my boldness. Maybe he hadn’t wanted the kiss but was too polite to tell me. Maybe I had bad breath? Maybe he was having second thoughts about taking me to meet the parents? Maybe I was putting the cart before the horse, jumping the gun, counting my eggs before they hatched. That’s why I continued to beat myself up over the whole situation. All the maybe’s. Not to mention all the cliches.

  “Water,” I muttered.

  “Water? What?”

  “I swear he had been kissing me back,” I said, helpless. “Then suddenly, he jumped away as if I'd tazed him, saying something ridiculous about forgetting the water bottles in the car.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t know either. We’re in the middle of this pretty amazing kiss, when he goes for... water? Wasn't quite the response I'd imagined, you know? Something more along the lines of, "Sophie, I've searched for you all my life. Don't go back to Texas." Or, "Sophie, you're the only one I've ever loved. Stay with me forever. Share my bed and my heart," I finished dramatically. Then blew out a disgusted breath and rolled my eyes. Instead of pulling me closer, he had pushed me away- quite literally.

  What went wrong? I agonized inside.

  I don't remember falling asleep after I hung up with Adri, but the squeak of the guest room door and subsequent shaft of light shining across the room into my closed eyes alerted me to the fact that I had. I lay there, unmoving, as someone crept quietly into the room and perched on the edge of the bed. A warm, strong hand caressed my cheek. James. I wanted to turn away from him to prevent the painful twinge in my heart at the rightness of his touch, but the frontal lobe of my brain was apparently still snoring away. Stupid malfunctioning self-control.

  I turned my face into his palm, grazing it with my lips, as he whispered, “San Antonio, dinner's ready."

  My eyes blinked open and I squinted up at James against the brightness of the hall light. I offered him a tentative smile. He stood and smiled down at me. "It's one of your favorites." When I only yawned and stretched my arms above my head, he said, "I'm starving and my parents are waiting for us. Shake a leg, lazy bones."

  I rubbed both hands across my face, clearing out the remaining grogginess and asked, “How long have I been asleep?” Hours, judging by the darkness surrounding me. I pushed myself into a seated position and adjusted the comforter on my lap.

  James moved toward the door. "Almost two hours. Can’t handle our rigorous vacation schedule?” he teased. When I didn’t respond, he paused in the doorway. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

  My shoulders sagged under the weight of the knowledge that the distance between us was more than the few physical feet from my position on the bed to his broad shoulders filling the doorway. I spoke quickly before he could escape to the dining room. “Are we going to talk about it, or are you going to pretend it never happened and hope everything goes back to normal?" Whatever normal was. When he didn't immediately respond, my hand found a loose thread on the comforter and began to worry it. "What happened at the beach, James?" I tried again.

  He sighed and hung his head. "I'm sorry I pulled back so abruptly, Sophie." I choked back a snort at his understatement. "I love kissing you," he continued. Turning, he made his way back to me in three long strides. He crouched down in front of me on the floor next to the bed and reached for my hand. I hesitantly placed it in his. "The feelings you stir in me...they scare me.” And I could hear the fear in his voice. But whether from the feelings he claimed I stirred or from tossing said feelings out in front of me to snatch up and cultivate or discard as trivial, I didn’t know. Maybe both. “I think it's too much too soon." He squeezed my hand.

  What did that mean? I pulled my hand away. "Did I push things?" I asked, trying to understand. "I thought a kiss like that was usually mutual."

  He laughed and blew out a breath. "Believe me, it's mutual. I just freaked out for a minute. I'm sorry." He leaned forward and tilted his head to look up into my lowered face, offering his hand again to help me to my feet. "Are we good?"

  "Yeah.” Though I didn’t feel like we had resolved anything. His little bit of honesty had gone a long way in further confusing me. I had never been more unclear on where we stood. I rotated my hand in his and laced our fingers together. "We’re good. But I'm going to wait on you to give me the go ahead from now on so I don't stir any feelings." I was proud of myself for keeping the sarcasm buried as I repeated his words. He gave my hand a gentle tug and I followed him out into the hall.

  "Eat up ‘cause I have a cheese quiz for you after dinner," he told me with a grin as we descended the stairs to the dining room. I laughed, but in the back of my mind I wondered what had really happened at the beach. What was the underlying issue because I hadn’t instigated that kiss. He had.

  The cheese quiz, as James called it, involved a blindfold and cheese. The rules, made up as we went along, were simple. James blindfolded me and set a piece of cheese in my mouth. Using all of my recently acquired Tillamook Cheese Factory knowledge, I had to guess what type of cheese it was. One by one, I sampled all six types and guessed the name of each. When James cheered loudly at my four out of six score, his parents joined us at the kitchen counter and asked to join in. Two hours and six blocks of cheese later, I felt the cheese creeping back up. I had to admit, however, that I hadn't had such a fun evening in a long time. The four of us laughed so hard that I'm hoping it cancelled out all the calories we consumed with the cheese.

  Max groaned and stumbled from his chair in the breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen. "I need to go sleep this off," he declared, setting off another round of laughter. "You coming, honey?" He held out a hand to Caroline which she took and immediately traded for her arm around his waist. "Have a good night, you two," they called as they stumbled up the stairs, their laughter following them. "Behave."

  "Who knew you could get drunk off cheese," James muttered after we heard their bedroom door close.

  I laughed and then groaned. "Ugh. I better go to bed, too, or I won't make it to church in the morning."

  "I'll grab my sunglasses for you."

  "I may need a pot of black coffee," I joked and stood to clean up the evidence of our disgrace.

  James turned off the lights as we walked through each room to the stairs. A beam of moonlight filtered in through the curtained windows illuminating the first few stairs and casting them in a soft, peaceful glow. I stepped up onto the first stair only to have James stop me with a hand on my wrist. I turned to him, our faces now level, and looked questioningly into his eyes. "Thanks for coming with me this weekend, Sophie."

  I smiled. "Thanks for asking. I love your parents. They seem more like old friends, you know?"

  "I'm telling them you called them old," James teased.

  "Don't you dare. That's not what I meant."

  James laughed and continued looking into my eyes. When I saw them spark with desire, I wound my arms around James’ neck and pulled him in for a quick hug. I whispered good night as I turned and jogged up the stairs. When I was settled into my bed for the night, I listened for James' bedroom door. I never heard it.

  James

  I finally decided to give up the battle for sleep and admitted defeat when the first rays of dawn snuck in around the edges of the living room curtains. I dragged my quilt and my butt up the sta
irs to shower and shave before someone else got up and used all the hot water.

  Talk about your hangover, I thought wryly as I buttoned my white shirt and tied my tie. With the moonlight shining on Sophie last night, highlighting her soft curves, it took the greater portion of my self-control to let her jog up the stairs and not run after her and kiss her thoroughly before releasing her to her room for the night. I grudgingly thanked her for saving me from myself by fleeing to her room. How many mixed signals could I send her? Geez. I was drawn to her in a way I had never been drawn to a woman before. I growled in tired frustration and descended the stairs on tiptoe in an effort to not disturb her or my parents.

  "How'd you sleep?" my father's voice brought me up short as I entered the kitchen.

  "Wow, Dad. Trying to give me a heart attack?" I scowled in his direction when he chuckled. "Do you always sit in the dark, seeing nothing?" I asked and moved to the refrigerator for some fruits and veggies.

  "Sometimes sitting in the dark seeing nothing is the best way to see everything," came his annoyingly vague reply.

  "What does that even mean?" I huffed, searching the pantry for the juicer.

  "What do you think it means?"

  I rolled my eyes. I was so not in the mood for his riddles this morning.

  "Do you want a green smoothie?" I asked, emerging from the pantry, juicer in tow.

  "Heck no. That stuff will kill you."

  "How do you figure? It's fruits and vegetables."

  "And it tastes disgusting. I'll wait for your mother and eat oatmeal or something."

  "Suit yourself," I said with a shrug as I plugged the juicer in and began adding produce. "For the record, mine don't taste disgusting. Even Sophie likes them."

  "Yeah? Well, she's weird. Look at the company she keeps."

  "Hey! I'm your only son. Maybe you ought to think about treating me with a little more respect."