My Stubborn Heart

by Becky Wade

  “Uh-huh,” Kate said.

  “So clearly not him, but there is someone out there for you. I’m sure of it.”

  Matt had said the same thing to her recently. But the words just bounced off her, shoved back by a serious case of doubt.

  “What about Matt?” Theresa asked.

  “Matt?”

  Theresa shrugged. “He’s hotness. If you weren’t attracted to him you wouldn’t have a pulse.”

  Kate’s lips twitched. “I have a pulse.”

  “Well? Do you think he likes you?”

  “There are moments that last about a nanosecond when I think he might.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? I mean, I’d die of jealousy, but I’d manage.”

  “I don’t know. Ever since I met him, I’ve simply been trying to be his friend. Most of the time I think that if he’ll just let me be that, it’ll be a miracle.”

  “He’s hard to talk to, isn’t he? Really hard. Every time I’ve seen him at Chapel Bluff over the past few weeks I’ve tried. But he intimidates the crap out of me. Those eyes!”

  “I know,” Kate said sincerely.

  “Still.” Theresa tilted her head and studied Kate. “If you’re willing to put in the effort, he’d be worth it.”

  “As I said, if he’ll just let me be his friend it’ll be a miracle.”

  Something was fishy in Friday Night Poker Land.

  When Kate came downstairs on her way to the kitchen, she spotted the seniors in the living room clustered around a retro-looking slide projector.

  “Kate, you know anything about these?” Morty asked, gesturing to the projector.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “I still think it must be that the bulb’s burned out,” Velma said.

  Morty frowned, keeping his gaze averted from Velma, which meant they were still locked in their stalemate. “I don’t see how it could be the bulb,” Morty answered. “It was working at my place this afternoon.”

  They’d pointed the projector at an empty wall and elevated the front of it with a hardback book. Kate could see that the On switch had been hit and that they’d plugged the unit into the wall.

  “Oh, I know.” Kate went to the panel of light switches next to the front door. “You have to turn that outlet on from here.” Sure enough, she tripped the switch and the machine came whirring loudly to life, bright light shooting out the front of it.

  From the direction of the kitchen she heard the back door open and close.

  “Matt,” Gran called. “We’re in the front of the house.”

  Moments later, he appeared. His gaze sought out Kate first, locking on her for a split second that caused her nerves to sizzle. Then his attention skimmed to the others as he nodded in response to their welcomes. His hair shone with dampness. He wore cargo pants and a nubby brown sweater that fit close over the ridges of his shoulders and torso. The color of the sweater made his eyes glitter darkly.

  “We decided to do something different tonight,” Gran explained to Kate and Matt.

  “Got tired of you beating us at poker every week.” Morty gave Kate a roguish wink.

  “We thought it would be fun to have a little slide show,” Gran said. “We’re going to look at the slides Morty took at our twentieth high school reunion.”

  “And then I’m going to show the slides I took on my trip to Cairo in ’86,” Velma said. “Lots of sand.”

  Kate regarded them with bewilderment. Why hadn’t anyone told her about this torturous change in plan?

  “I thought I mentioned this to you.” Gran’s forehead creased.

  “No,” Kate said. “What about dinner?”

  “We’re taking a break from cooking,” Gran answered. “We’re having frozen pizzas and root beer floats. Isn’t that a hoot?” She clapped her hands together, big stone bracelets clicking.

  “Just in case you two aren’t interested in watching the slide show,” Peg said, “I brought a movie for you.” She took a DVD out of her Gucci purse and extended it to Kate.

  Kate took it. Notting Hill.

  “William and I like Julia Roberts,” Peg said.

  “Thank you,” Kate replied. “But we don’t have a DVD player in the house.” DVD players hadn’t even been a gleam in the eye of their inventor when the borrowed TV in her room had been manufactured.

  “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 pain
ted 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.

  On the drive over from Chapel Bluff, he hadn’t been sure how he’d feel about having Kate inside his house. He hardly ever had people here. But as he’d watched her make her way through these rooms that were so personal to him, it had hit him. The pleasure of it. Powerful, dangerous pleasure. It made him greedy. Like he wanted to lock the door behind her and not let her leave.

  Beth had never been to this house. His parents had sold it to him right around the time he and Beth started dating. He’d kept the house locked for the next few years, always meaning to drive Beth out to see it, always intending to do something about fixing the place up. But other things had been more urgent or interesting.

  He had no memories of Beth here, but already tonight he had dozens of Kate. She’d imprinted herself on his house, and he didn’t know how he was going to look at these rooms and not see her in them once she left.

  He ran a hand through his hair. He was really losing it. He’d lived in this house three years. Kate hadn’t even been here three hours. How could her being here such a short time change anything?

  It couldn’t. And yet it had. His house had always been familiar and quiet. But it hadn’t been warm until she’d come and brought warmth with her.

  The movie droned on and on. He sat next to her in the darkened room, his body locked down, his instincts pulling like a dog against a leash. As the minutes ticked by, an ache began inside of him that doubled and redoubled in size. He ached to touch her hair, just a piece of it. To reach for her hand like he had the other morning. To tell her he thought she was beautiful. It scared him that he might not be able to keep himself from doing or saying any of those things. Even though he knew, he knew, he’d regret them later.