by Julia London
“Bingo bashes?” he suggested.
“No!” she said, laughing (and oh, her eyes sparkled when she laughed).
Matt sobered a little, asked in all seriousness, “What about Tom’s campaign? I have to tell you, he is about to come unglued. Your big fund-raiser? The people calling don’t want to talk to anyone but you.” He smiled sheepishly. “I almost got lynched at the office. Everyone misses you, Rebecca. Tom wanted me to come out here and repair the damage, but it was too late.”
“Too late? Why?”
“Because I missed you ten times more than they did, and I had already gotten out my knee pads to make the crawl to Ruby Falls.”
Rebecca laughed, playfully shoved him. “I figured as much, silly. Tom’s left half a dozen messages on my machine.”
“Will you come back?” Matt asked.
Rebecca smiled thoughtfully, pulled wild rain lilies from the grass and made a pile. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I’ll have to think about it. You were right about me—”
“No. Rebecca, no—I was so wrong. I can’t even begin to say how wrong—”
“Matt,” she said, with a hand to his arm to silence him. “You were right. I never bothered to learn anything about Tom or the issues. I thought all that was boring. I just saw a chance to do things, maybe find a job, maybe make some friends. But I should never have used his campaign like that. I never should have signed up without asking a few questions and agreeing with what he was doing.”
“You aren’t the only one,” Matt grumbled, and told her how he had joined the race because they said he would make a great district attorney. “That thought had never once crossed my mind until that night, and there I was, lapping it up like ol’ Bean.”
“Yikes,” she said with a sympathetic smile.
It was amazing, Matt thought later that evening, when they had come back to the lake house and Rebecca was in the throes of preparing a gourmet meal, how easily his life story had come tumbling out of him today. He could honestly say he wasn’t the kind of guy to tout his accomplishments or talk about himself. But that wasn’t the half of it—as he talked, he heard himself say things that he had never really, consciously realized before now. For example, how it chafed him that his partner was in it solely for the money. “There are people out there who get used up, and they aren’t smart enough or sophisticated enough or old enough to fend for themselves.”
“There’s your reason to run for DA,” Rebecca observed, and Matt realized instantly that she was right. Not because he had connections, not because he could raise the money, and not because he looked good to voters. Because he’d always looked out for others, as far back as he could remember, beginning with the special-education student he had befriended in the sixth grade, and for whom he received a sound beating from a couple of his classmates when he stood up for the kid.
“You’re right,” he said, his voice full of awe.
Rebecca laughed, shoved a sautéed julienne carrot into his mouth. “Don’t look so astonished.”
He also told her about his family, heard the pride in his voice as he described them. His father, a retired judge, who had been his inspiration to go to law school. His mom, who was in her sixties now and at last free to do as she pleased—which was, apparently, to pester all her children about grandkids. His sister, Bella, his brothers, Mark and Danny, and the summers they had spent in and around Austin, swimming in the springs, watching the bats at night, and exploring old limestone caves.
Dinner was fun and relaxed, with an absolutely delicious salmon and asparagus (which Grayson deemed yucky). Afterward, Matt made a point of spending some one-on-one time with Grayson. Rebecca had told him that Grayson’s adaptation to his parents’ divorce had been rocky; that he was always angry when he came home from seeing Bud, and that he missed his nanny, Lucy, although Rebecca said that he was mentioning her less frequently now. Matt had noticed that when he and Grayson were together, he did not want to share Matt’s attention with anyone else, not even with Tater, his favorite dog. It was also obvious that in spite of how much Rebecca loved her son, Grayson craved a man’s attention.
But Matt also saw a stocky little kid with a great imagination (cool), a great sense of humor (bonus points), and a good throwing arm (which was really good news, because if Matt was going to be around, he had to have someone to play sports with). The kid was great. The only little thing that alarmed him was his room, and what Matt saw as his alarming, Mom-like leanings. Not one toy was out of place. His clothes were hung by color. In his dresser, his underwear was neatly folded and stacked.
“Gray, we can’t have this!” Matt exclaimed, shaking his head in disgust when Grayson obliged him by opening the sock drawer, and they were all lined up in little army formation, and, big surprise, color coordinated.
“What’s wrong?” Grayson asked, looking at his socks with genuine concern.
“Boys don’t line their socks up. Boys shove ‘em in there however they can get them, and when their mom gets mad, they say, ‘Sorry Mom!’ but just keep doing it.”
“Oh,” he said, his brow burrowed in serious concentration.
“Let’s do something about these socks right now!” Matt said, and stuck his hand in the drawer, messed them all up.
With a shout of laughter, Grayson did the same, then asked eagerly, “What about my underwear?”
Matt grinned. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
After the underwear, they rearranged his little closet (“Mom already did that,” Grayson said, which just proved there was something terribly wrong with the kid), and when they were done, Grayson asked him, “Are you going to spend the night again?”
Matt shoved a hand through his hair. “What do you think I should do?”
The kid fingered the hem of his shirt and stared at his feet before muttering, “I wish you’d stay forever.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit . . .
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Positive Affirmations of My Life:
1.Can now count myself among the sexually liberated. Did I really put up with Bud’s clumsiness all those years? Wondering if his lack of finesse might be part of larger issue – like maybe he’s a closet homosexual, which would really explain a lot.
2.Grayson is happier than I’ve seen him in a long time, adores Matt–didn’t even care that Bud blew off their weekend again. And he hasn’t fought with Taylor in more than two weeks! Yes!
3.Saved the best for last–I am happy, too, happier than I can ever remember being in my life, so happy that I don’t think I really need to do this shit anymore. Sayonara, you stupid Affirmation Journal for life! I am free!
It was true—Rebecca felt like a completely new woman. After years of numbness, and just going through the motions, it seemed like she had woken up one day in never-never land, where things actually were falling into place and she was, at last, her own person, warts and all.
She agreed, reluctantly, to finish out the fundraiser for Tom. She had balked at first—it seemed a little disingenuous to plan a fund-raiser for a candidate she really knew little about, but then again, it seemed much worse to promise to do it and then renege at this late date. And Tom was so frantic on the phone that she almost believed it was a life or death situation for him. She determined it would be worse for any chance at future employment to dump the project, and agreed to do it on three conditions: “I want to do it from my house.”
“I don’t care where you do it, just as long as you do it,” Tom insisted.
“And I need help.”
Tom had hemmed and hawed at that one, but in the end, Matt had come through with Harold, who had practically begged Matt to recommend him when Matt had casually mentioned it. He was, Rebecca quickly discovered, a godsend.
The third condition she kept to herself—but she had promised herself to learn about the campaign and the issues before she finished the gala, and toward that
end, had penciled in a series of candidate forums over the next month. By the time her killer fund-raiser came around, she was determined to be the most informed person on staff.
From that point forward, Rebecca put all her energies into her new sense of purpose and experiencing, no holds barred, the absolute, heart-stopping, all-consuming positively joyous process of falling in love.
Falling! As in, off a cliff, a nosedive right into the thick of it. Now it seemed so amusing that she could go from despising Matt half the time to adoring him all the time. She loved how he cared for Grayson and paid attention to him. She loved how he loved her dogs. How dedicated he was to his principles and his practice. And she was held in thrall by how the man could turn her into a quivering heap of raw flesh with a single touch.
“What in the hell is the matter with you?” Robin had demanded on the phone one afternoon when Rebecca called to invite her and Jake to her fund-raiser.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re all giggly and flighty. That’s so unlike you. It’s almost . . . Ohmigod. It’s that guy, isn’t it? That lawyer you couldn’t stand?”
Rebecca laughed. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? That’s all you’re going to say? Tell me, or I will drive down there and make you tell me.”
Robin had never been very subtle. So Rebecca confessed all.
Except, of course, how Matt had liberated her, had led her across new boundaries and had coaxed her to climb up to new horizons. Each time they were together (which was frequent, because frankly, she wanted it all the time, and that was definitely a new Rebecca), it seemed she was lifted higher and higher, freed at last from insecurity and secret despair.
And oh, what a willing and cheerful partner Matt made in her journey to find herself. The night she pulled out a Kama Sutra book, one of the myriad self-help and philosophical books Rachel had passed along. Matt laughed, put his hands over her eyes, made her flip through the pages, then choose one, sight unseen. Afterward, lying there half on, half off the bed, Matt had whispered the words that had made her heart shine as bright as the sun: “Baby, you’re gonna kill me!”
Yeah, well, she was certainly going to die trying.
And there were times, such as when she and Matt would sit on the back porch and watch Grayson and his new pal Taylor play with the dogs, that she wondered if she was kidding herself or if it was really possible to feel this way about another person, to be so totally in tune with another human being. She didn’t have the need to analyze it anymore, just the strong desire to feel it. This was, she recognized, the best time of her life.
Matt, too, was having those tender and shiny feelings of love, and just like Rebecca, he found them rather remarkable. He could honestly admit that he was glad he hadn’t missed this, being part of another person’s life. He never would have guessed it could be so pure and so fulfilling. When he thought about the meaningless flings he had had over the years, he even felt a little sorry for himself. What a dumb bastard he’d been.
But now Matt was so happy with the new twist of his life that he didn’t even mind when Ben made fun of him and Harold was beside himself every time Rebecca stopped by his office.
He didn’t mind that copies of Bride magazine were popping up at his mom’s house, and that on more than one occasion, when he walked into the room, his mother and Bella would suddenly stop talking and pretend that they weren’t planning a wedding. He supposed the thought had even crossed his bachelor’s mind. How could he not think about it? Rebecca was impossible not to love. Her presence was gold—bright and warm and soothing, particularly on those days he bombed in court. She knew instinctively what to do, how to bring peace to him again. He could see why her sisters relied so heavily on her.
He was surprised at how artistically talented she was. One day, she had dragged him out to the old barn to ask his opinion of whether or not it could be converted into a studio/office. That was when he had seen some of her paintings that she had stored there and he’d been stunned by them.
“Oh, those,” she said with a shrug. “I did those a long time ago, before Grayson.”
“You should definitely paint, Rebecca,” he had declared emphatically.
Rebecca had laughed that gentle-rain laugh, kissed him on the cheek, and walked out of the barn. And he knew—because that was the way it was between them now, that sixth sense of knowing another person well—that she would paint again, in her own good time.
Yep, ol’ Matt Parrish, former player and ladies’ man about town, was having a wonderfully new and exciting time in the company of Rebecca. He was discovering new things about himself, as well. Too bad this little epiphany he was having about love and life was not extending to work or Tom’s campaign.
Or perhaps he was experiencing the same sort of epiphany there, too, but without the positive light shining on it. For the first time since Matt and Ben had partnered up, he was seeing their firm differently. It was a slow dawning, happening over time, beginning with a talk he had with Rebecca, when he had said out loud for the first time what he’d known deep inside for a long while—that he and Ben were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to their business. Ben was Matt’s best friend, and this dawning reality was a hard one to own up to. Together, they had been through a lot of good and bad times, both personally and professionally. And all of a sudden, it was as if the heavens had opened up and shone a light right on the crux of the uneasiness buried in him—Matt knew he could not spend the rest of his life in a firm that was all about chasing the buck.
Where exactly that left him, he wasn’t entirely sure. He supposed he could begin a practice on his own, which wasn’t so appealing at this stage of his career. Or pursue the DA thing. But even that was beginning to look a little shaky, thanks to his exposure to Tom’s campaign.
Tom had calmed down quite a bit once Rebecca agreed to continue the fund-raiser, and now that the legislative session was over, they were heading into the critical late summer months of the race, and Tom was coming on like gangbusters. In fact, he had called Matt at the office one day and asked him to dig up some dirt on the Independent guy, Russ Erwin.
“Why?” Matt had asked. “He’s no threat to you.”
“We’re going negative, I told you,” Tom had snapped. “There’s got to be something in that fruitcake’s background to exploit.”
Biting back a more stinging retort, Matt had managed to calmly ask, “Did I hear you correctly? Did you just ask me to find something to exploit?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Why? Because you know how I feel about that, Tom. I spend my days representing people who have been exploited. I just don’t understand why this campaign can’t be about the issues, not what you can exploit. That leaves a bad taste in the mouth.”
“For God’s sake, Parrish, when are you going to climb down off that ivory soapbox and back off and let me run my own campaign?” Tom had shot back. That had worked, had definitely struck a nerve Matt had not known existed before Rebecca accused him of doing the same thing. Mowing everyone down, she had said.
“I’m not asking you to invent something,” Tom continued testily. “I’m just asking you to take a look.”
And Matt wondered why he was still supporting Tom Masters, and if he hadn’t perhaps exploited himself with the words district attorney dangling in front of him.
The moment he hung up the phone, Harold was at his door, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “What is it?” Matt had asked absently.
“Miss Lear to see you, Mr. Parrish,” he had intoned in his best professional voice.
Matt smiled broadly when he saw Rebecca standing in the waiting room, talking to Ben. By the look of things, he was going to have to roll Ben’s tongue up and stick it back in his mouth. But he could certainly understand his partner’s reaction—Rebecca was wearing a form-fitting pale yellow silk skirt that showed her fabulous legs to their fullest advantage, which, he couldn’t help noticing, were accentuated with the help of a pair of three-inc
h heels that made her almost as tall as Ben. Her black hair was pulled back in a sleek pony tail, and she had black, Jackie Onassis–type sunglasses on top of her head.
When Matt cleared his throat, she turned toward him, flashed a gorgeous, all white smile that made both Ben and Harold swoon. “Matt!” she exclaimed prettily, oblivious to her admirers. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Harold and I were just wrapping up a little meeting, and it’s the lunch hour, so I was hoping you might have a moment.”
“For you, I have all the time in the world,” he said. “Why don’t you come into my office before they drool all over you?” he suggested, motioning for her to come inside. Rebecca laughed, tapped Harold lightly on the arm with what looked like a rolled-up brochure as she walked by.
“Just like you, Parrish, taking all the fun out of everything,” Ben complained as Matt gave him a jaunty wave and shut the door.
Behind the closed door, Rebecca slipped into his arms and kissed him passionately.
“Hey,” he said, grinning like a lovesick pup, “what a great surprise. I didn’t know you and Harold were meeting.”
“Yep. I went to a candidate forum this morning and had some ideas, so I dropped by. I hope I’m not intruding on any lunch plans.”
“If you were, I’d dump them,” he said truthfully, thinking how much fun it would be to go the usual watering hole with her on his arm.
“Well,” she said, slipping from his arms and walking to the window that overlooked the capitol, “I am famished. I hope you don’t mind,” she said, closing the blinds, “if I have a little lunch on you?”
“Absolutely not. Where would you like to go?”
“Right here,” she said, pointing to his desk. Matt looked at his desk, then at her. She arched a dark brow, pointed to the desk again with the rolled-up brochure, and dropped her handbag on a chair. “Do you remember when you said we could explore all my fantasies?”