by Shirley Jump
Matt lifted Carolyn onto the edge of the dining room table, and slipped into the space between her legs, never breaking the kiss. She wrapped herself around him, grabbing at his shirt, untucking it and sliding her warm palms along his skin. He fumbled with the buttons on the front of her blouse, then parted the silky panels to reveal the lacy bra beneath. When his hand brushed against her breast, she gasped and arched against him.
He lowered his head, kissing down her neck, along the valley of her shoulder, then down her chest, along the top of her breast. She moaned, tangling her hands in his hair. “Matt…can we…bedroom…” Her words came between gasps.
“Hell, yes.” He scooped her up, then carried her down the hall to his room. He laid her on the bed, then stepped back.
The sun had begun to set, its light streaming through the window and washing Carolyn with a soft golden glow. He hadn’t realized how much he had craved this moment, craved having her right here, until he saw her spread across his queen-sized bed. “You are stunning, Carolyn. I just…I can’t stop staring at you.”
She smiled and beckoned him closer. “How about we save the staring for later? Right now…I just want you, Matt.”
Those few words flipped the switch in his brain to Full On. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor, then lay down on the bed beside her. His hands slid under her shirt, slipped it off, revealing a soft pink bra that was nearly translucent. He tugged one satiny strap off her shoulder, then the other. Carolyn drew in a deep breath of anticipation and her chest heaved.
Matt kissed a path along her cleavage, then continued the trail down the flat expanse of her belly, pausing only long enough to unbutton her jeans and slide them over her hips. They tumbled to the floor, landing in a heap with the rest of their clothes. He teased the edge of her matching panties, watching her eyes widen, her breath quicken, the anticipation fill her features.
“I don’t know…this slow tease is kind of nice. Maybe we should take our sweet time.” He grinned.
“Let’s do that next time. It’s been ten years, Matt. I don’t want to wait any more.” She unhooked her bra, then lifted her hips and kicked her panties off. She surged up, grabbed his boxer briefs and yanked them down and off. Then she kissed his shoulders, his chest, her hands urging him for more.
Oh, how he’d missed this. The way Carolyn responded, the way her hands felt on his body. In high school, their lovemaking had been amateur, fumbling, but now, with the passing of years and experience, every touch whispered of what was to come.
When he slid his hand between her legs and touched the warm wetness there, she arched and gasped his name. Her hand encircled him, sliding up and down and around while their kisses became hotter, more demanding. He kept stroking, knowing her body as well as he knew his own, the memory of what satisfied her coming back in a rush.
A moment later, she cried out and gasped his name, and Matt’s vow to be restrained shattered. He grabbed a condom out of his nightstand, tore open the package, slipped it on. He hesitated a moment. “Are you sure, Carolyn?”
She nodded. “I’ve wanted this since the first day I saw you again.”
He ran a hand down the side of her face. “And I have wanted you from the first day I met you. I never forgot you. Never forgot this.”
She reached up and cupped her hands behind his neck. “Then give me something to remember, Matt. Please.”
“Your wish is my command, Carolyn.” When he entered her, it was like coming home. She fit him perfectly, her rhythm matching his, their mouths dueling in a heated kiss that never broke.
When she climaxed, he was right there with her, the two of them wrapped in a mindless crest that swept away all thought, all time, everything for one long, sweet moment. It was better than when they were eighteen. Sweeter, deeper, more meaningful, and if Matt could have, he would have held on to that moment forever. When they were done, he curled her body against his, while his heart thudded and their rushed breath began to slow.
It had been hot, it had been sexy, and it had been a connection like none he’d ever felt. Every stroke, every touch, made him crave her more. Made him fall in love with her even more.
Fall in love?
He rested his chin on her head, inhaled the sweet fragrance of her perfume, and faced the one fact he had denied—
He’d never stopped loving Carolyn. And he didn’t think he ever would.
Even after she was gone, and this sweet, wonderful afternoon was nothing more than a memory.
Chapter Twelve
Carolyn lay in Matt’s arms and knew she was fooling herself.
She’d thought she could come here, have sex, and get him out of her system once and for all. But from the second he touched her, she’d felt that bond, the one that had been there from the very first day. A bond she had tried to ignore ever since she returned to Marietta.
And now, she was in his arms, her heart thudding in time with his, and she realized she had fallen for Matthew West all over again.
That was a complication she didn’t need. Not now. Not ever.
Carolyn sat up and began grabbing her clothes. She fastened her bra and threw her shirt over her head. The faster she got dressed, the more she could stop thinking about how much she wanted him to make love to her again. And again. “I…I should get home. I have a lot to do.”
“Before you leave town again.” His voice was flat, disappointed.
She glanced at him. “You say that like you’re surprised. You knew I was leaving again from the day I got here, Matt.”
“I thought maybe you might have changed your mind.” He sat up beside her, tugged on his pants and fastened them. The lazy, sated mood between them from earlier had evaporated. Everything was business-like, distant.
It was what she wanted, but for some reason, the shift hurt.
“I had a plan, Matt.” That was where she felt best, in the middle of structure. Once she got back to New York, back to her routine, it would all be better.
Except her routine was going to be different—everything was going to be different—because she had Emma. And because what had just happened between her and Matt had complicated the easy departure she thought she’d have.
“Plans aren’t set in stone. You can change them,” Matt said. “And maybe you should. Emma is happy here. You have been happy here for the last two weeks. And you can continue to be happy if you stay.”
She got to her feet and used the process of putting on her pants to avoid looking at him. Was she happy here? If she answered that question, it would change everything. Carolyn thought of the phone call from her boss, the chance to have everything she had worked so hard for. Being in charge of a high-end restaurant in Manhattan. The kind of place The New Yorker and The Times wrote about in their pages. The kind of place where she could leave a real stamp on the food landscape of a major city.
That would make her happy, Carolyn told herself. It was what she wanted, what she had slaved towards for so many hours, so many weekends, so many years. She’d sacrificed dates and time with friends and holidays with family, all to reach this level of her career. She couldn’t give that up now because it would be like saying all that time had been for nothing. “I have to go back to New York.”
Matt let out a gust. “Why? Why the hell do you keep insisting on that?”
She wheeled around. It was all so déjà vu, as if she was repeating the last day of high school all over again. “Because if I stay, what’s going to be different? How are things going to change, Matt?”
“What do you mean? Everything will be different. You’ll live in a small town, your family will—”
“I meant with you and me.”
He gave her a blank look. “Are you asking me to predict the future? I can’t do that, Carolyn. Nobody can.”
“You can if you look at the past. Isn’t that what all the experts say? The past predicts the future?” She didn’t want to go back to the girl she had been before she left Marietta. She had a ne
w, bright future waiting for her on the East Coast. That’s where she should keep her focus—on the road ahead, not the one she had already traveled.
“We’re not eighteen anymore, Carolyn,” Matt said. “The past doesn’t have to repeat itself.”
She ran a hand through her hair. Didn’t he understand? All she saw when she looked around this town was the very thing she’d been trying to escape ten years ago. Expectations that she could never live up to. Friendly neighbors and long-term memories and that look in their eyes that said she should do what all her friends from high school had done, and settle down in Marietta. A life she had never really fit into.
There’d been moments, with her grandfather, when she’d felt like she belonged, but once he was gone, it was as if she’d lost her rudder. “Where do you see this going, Matt? Best case scenario.”
“You mean if you stay in Marietta? Well, we’d date. And hopefully end up where we were heading before.”
“Married and living in a little house at the end of a cul de sac?” Carolyn shook her head. “The picture-perfect American family?”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“I’m not a picket fence kind of girl. I never was. I mean, I’m going to be a mom to Emma, but I’m not going to turn into some Stepford wife.” That had been Sandy’s area, where her sister felt most comfortable. Carolyn would be the best mother she could be, but she couldn’t see herself joining the PTA and organizing the school bake sale.
Couldn’t or wouldn’t? her mind whispered. What was so bad about that life anyway? It had made Sandy happy.
And if Carolyn got very, very quiet and honest with herself, she’d admit that a part of her had envied Sandy’s life. The joy in her voice, in her smile. Sandy had loved being a mom and told Carolyn a thousand times there was nothing better in the world.
Carolyn would go to work, hearing Sandy’s words ringing in her head, and she would create a new dessert or a savory dish, and tell herself that amazing the customers who came into the restaurant was what fulfilled her. She didn’t need the kids and the Volvo and the bake sales to feel satisfied with her life.
“Do you think that’s what I want? For you to play Mrs. Cleaver and vacuum the house every day in pearls?” Matt asked. “Or are you just using that as an excuse?”
“I have to go back. I have to—”
“Stick to what you know instead of taking a risk.” Matt closed the distance between them and took her hands in his. She tried to look away, but her gaze locked on his. “Do you think I wasn’t scared to get back together with you? It was a risk, a big risk.”
“Why were you scared?” The Matt she had known had never seemed scared of anything. He’d been—and still was—strong, smart, confident. The kind of guy a girl could rely on, if she was the kind who relied on anyone.
“I was scared because I knew you could break my heart all over again.” He cupped her jaw, and traced her bottom lip with his thumb. She wanted to lean into his touch, to get back into bed, to make this day last for a year. “You are the only woman in the world with that power. Because I’m still in love with you, Carolyn.”
The words made her heart race, her breath hitch. Still in love with her?
In that instant, she was eighteen again, standing in the parking lot of the high school, at the crossroads between the life she wanted and the life she was choosing to leave behind. Matt had been in love with her then and she—
“I need to go.” Carolyn shook her head and backed away from him, breaking the embrace, pushing away the clawing need to stay here with Matt. “I need to go.”
Before he could stop her, she hurried out of the room and out of his house. Out of Matt’s life one more time, before she wasn’t strong enough to take those steps.
Carolyn walked the streets of Marietta for a long time, bundled into her coat, her chin and mouth burrowed into the zipped collar, her hands deep in her pockets. When she was young, every inch of this town had felt suffocating. But after years of living in New York, the wide expanse of Montana felt oddly freeing.
She drew in a deep breath of fresh, crisp, cold air. The kind of air she’d never find in New York. The kind of air that talked of families around a hearth and birthday parties in the park.
There were people walking hand in hand through the park, a family building a snowman on their front lawn, and the scent of hot cocoa in the air. Marietta could have been a Norman Rockwell painting, all perfect and quaint.
It was the life her sister had loved. The life her sister had chosen to raise her child in. The kind of life that Emma deserved.
For the thousandth time, Carolyn turned over her choices in her mind. How was she going to make this work? How could she possibly work the necessary hours and still give Emma the best possible childhood?
Carolyn walked into her mom and dad’s house, and hung her coat in the front closet. From down the hall, she heard the sound of laughter and splashing. She rounded the corner, and found Emma in the bathtub, surrounded by floating toys and a foot-deep tower of bubbles, while Marilyn sat on the closed lid of the toilet and watched her granddaughter play.
It could have been a scene out of a movie. Carolyn’s heart broke a little. In less than forty-eight hours, she’d be on her way back to New York, and it would be a long time before Emma had this kind of moment with her grandmother again.
“Aunt Carolyn! I’m Santa!” Emma plastered some bubbles on her face, then giggled. The soapy foam popped and fizzled down Emma’s chin.
“You are indeed, Emma girl. What are you going to bring me for Christmas?”
Emma looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Ummm…a friend for Roscoe. Cuz he told me he’s gonna miss Harley when we go to your house, Aunt Carolyn. Is it gonna be very far away? Cuz I wanna see Harley and Grandma and Grandpa and Dr. Matt.”
Her mother looked at her, sadness in her eyes. Carolyn lowered herself into a cross-legged position on the tile floor. “Yes, Emma, it’s pretty far away. We can come visit, but we won’t get to see Harley or all those people very much.”
“How come? Why can’t we live here?”
“Because my job isn’t here, Emma. It’s in New York.” Every time she said the words, they pricked her heart like thorns.
Emma pouted. The soapy bubbles had dripped back into the tub. “But I wanna stay with Grandma and Grandpa and Harley and Dr. Matt. And Roscoe does too.”
Carolyn sighed. How was she going to explain all this to Emma? A little girl who had already lost so much—and was about to lose so much more? Instead, she picked up one of Emma’s toys that had fallen on the floor and dropped the floatable bear into the tub. “You missed this guy.”
“T’ank you.” Emma’s face dropped. She moved her hand listlessly through the soap.
“We’ll visit a lot,” Carolyn said, her voice bright and hopeful, even though she knew the promise was going to be impossible to keep. The first year as head chef would consume every spare second of Carolyn’s time. She’d be lucky to carve out enough free time to get one annual trip back to Marietta. Maybe her parents could come to New York for a while.
As for Matt and Harley—
That was a truth Carolyn would have to break later to Emma. Just saying the words, we won’t be seeing them again, caused Carolyn’s throat to close. Already, she ached to be back in Matt’s house, back in his arms.
I’m still in love with you, Carolyn.
Carolyn started to get to her feet. Maybe if she started packing, this deep ache in her chest would ease. “I’ll let you finish your bath, Em.” She turned to go.
“Aunt Carolyn? Can you stay with me? Please?”
Her mother gave Carolyn a smile. “I’d say that’s my cue to go.” Marilyn pressed a kiss to her granddaughter’s forehead. “Remember, Emma, the water stays in the tub.”
“’Kay, Grandma.” Emma grabbed her toys and started explaining them to Carolyn, talking about how the teddy bear was scared to swim but the turtle talked to him, and the fish got in trouble for sw
imming too fast…
Emma had an entire world going in the bathtub. Carolyn listened, asked a few questions, then sat back in surprise when Emma handed her a plastic whale and said, “Play toys with me, Aunt Carolyn.”
It was the first time Emma had asked Carolyn to do something as simple as play. At first, Carolyn was awkward, more than twenty years out of practice with the world of make-believe. But after a few minutes, she and Emma had an entire menagerie playing in the soap bubbles. They talked and laughed and made animal noises until the water grew cold and the bubbles had disappeared.
It was a memory, Carolyn realized. A bond.
A start.
Carolyn bundled Emma in a towel, rinsed the tub and toys, then set her niece on a stepstool and combed the tangles out of her hair. She watched her niece and herself in the bathroom mirror. In any other house, this would be an ordinary scene. Mom and daughter, finishing the daily ritual of a bath. She could see the resemblance between them, the way Emma had Carolyn’s eyes, the high cheekbones she’d shared with her sister.
“T’ank you, Aunt Carolyn.” Emma ran a hand down her smooth, damp hair. “I look pretty.”
“Yes, you do. I hope it didn’t hurt when I combed your hair.” Carolyn squeezed toothpaste onto Emma’s Hello Kitty toothbrush and held it out to her.
“Nope. It was just like when Mommy did it.” Emma’s face turned wistful in the mirror. “Can you tell me another story about my mommy?”
Carolyn put her hands on Emma’s shoulders. Their twin pairs of eyes met in the mirror. Both of them missing the woman who should have been here with the soap bubbles and the comb and the toothbrush. “How about I tell you two? Get your teeth brushed and your pajamas on and I’ll talk about your mom until you fall asleep.”
Emma took her toothbrush and grinned as she worked it around her teeth. When she was done, she hurried to her room, changed into Barbie-printed pajamas, and climbed into her bed. She shifted over to the far side. “I made room, Aunt Carolyn.”
Carolyn settled onto the space beside her niece. Emma curled into Carolyn’s arm and laid her still-damp head on Carolyn’s chest. The sweet scent of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo filled the air. Carolyn’s heart squeezed. This is what it’s like to be a mom, she thought. The simple moments, with toy menageries and the fresh, clean warmth after a bath.