The Heart of the Matter

by Muriel Jensen

  “You know. Guys.”

  They headed up the driveway side by side. “A lot of people think it’s safer to keep your feelings to yourself.”

  “Yeah. Then you don’t feel like a dufus if they don’t like you.”

  “The thing is, you do. It always hurts if you love somebody and they don’t love you back. So if you’re going to feel like a dufus, I think you may as well do it with guns blazing.”

  “Ah…what?”

  “You know. Laying it on the line. Telling them what’s in your heart so they don’t have to try to figure it out and maybe come up with the wrong answer. It takes guts to make your position clear, and you might get creamed for it. But you might not. And you have the satisfaction of knowing that in something as important as love—you gave it all you had.”

  Jason opened the front door for Adam, then stood there for a moment, rooted to the spot, as he heard the echoes of his own advice.

  “Yo, Dad,” Adam called from the middle of the living room. “I’m in.”

  Jason tossed the jackets at a chair and grinned at his son. “Do you mind keeping an eye on your brothers for an hour or so? Maybe two?”

  “No. But where are you going? To see Laura?”

  Matt and Eric, who were rooting through the things they’d brought in from the car, perked up and turned to him.

  “I am.” Jason looked from face to face. “But you have to understand that I did something very stupid and she’s really mad at me. I’m going to try to explain and get her to come back, but I was wrong. It was all my fault. And she might not come.”

  Matt looked puzzled. “You don’t go away when we do stupid stuff.”

  “Yeah, but adults don’t expect other adults to be stupid.”

  Eric shrugged. “You always tell us nobody’s perfect. That you just try to be as good as you can be.”

  Adam smiled widely at him over the box he still held. “And if she won’t come back, you’ve still got us.”

  Jason found the will to smile. He looked at each of his boys. “Sometimes I forget to tell you how much that means to me—how important you are to my life.”

  “We know, Dad.” Eric came to put an arm around him. “We were fine before Laura. It’s just that she made things even nicer. Like the flowers she put everywhere. I liked that.”

  “Yeah.” Matt hobbled over to hug his other side. “And the kitchen always smelled good.”

  “Yeah.” Adam shooed him away with one of the hands gripping the box. “Go. But if she won’t come back, will you see if she’ll give you that pumpkin chiffon pie recipe?”

  Laura looked up at the clock in her office. It was almost five. She’d made it through an entire day. Good. That was good.

  She’d thought about Jason and the boys a million times, but she’d carried on. Despite loneliness and longing, and pangs of guilt because she knew she’d been stupid and unreasonable, she’d met three patients, caught up on paperwork, and had taken a call from Julie Fuller, who formally rescheduled the food conference for the middle of October.

  In the middle of the morning, then again somewhere around three that afternoon, she’d toyed with the idea of returning Jason’s call, then she’d come to her senses.

  She couldn’t love him; she’d just proved that. Life had made her suspicious and mistrustful and generally a poor bet as a marriage partner. And she couldn’t possibly raise three boys when she held that kind of attitude.

  No. The break had been made. That was best for everyone. She would let it be.

  A knock on her door sent her heart jolting against her ribs. Had Jason given up on the telephone and come in person?

  “Yes?” she asked.

  The door opened and Barry walked in. “I tried to call you at home,” he said, making himself comfortable in the chair facing her desk, “because I thought you were still on vacation. Then someone said you were in today.”

  Bitterly disappointed, she opened a file on her desk and pretended to search through it, hoping to discourage any lengthy conversation. “Lots to do,” she said in a preoccupied tone. “Did you need something?”

  “Yes.” He waited for her to look up from the file. “I came to apologize for misplacing the information about the mix-up in Jason’s test.”

  “Mistakes happen,” she said, going back to the file. “Things get lost. Fortunately for us it wasn’t life or death.”

  He was silent until she looked up again. He looked into her eyes. “Wasn’t it?”

  To her complete horror, she burst into tears. She rested her elbows on her desk and put her face in her hands.

  “I’ve called New Hampshire and I’ve called here, and I can’t reach Jason,” he said quietly. “I figured something grim had happened. And I remember your tone when you called me yesterday morning. What is it? Did he blame you for keeping the information from him?”

  She pushed out of her chair and turned to the window, still sobbing. “He thought I knew and hadn’t told him because I didn’t want to lose him and the boys.” She snatched a tissue from a box on top of the file cabinet and put it to her mouth while more sobs erupted. Then she quieted and drew a ragged breath. “I think what bothered him most,” she went on in a strained voice, “was the thought that I’d used the boys for my own ends. The sad truth is that if I had known, I might have done just that because I never wanted to feel again what I feel now. Hollow. Empty. Only now it’s worse because I know what it’s like to have everything.”

  “So…he asked you to leave?” Barry asked.

  “No.” She told him about her decision to leave, their argument, and her inability, at least at that moment, to see it his way. “And…now it’s too late.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m sure,” she said, looking out at the rain on the window and people on the street hurrying by under umbrellas, rushing home to warm houses with lights shining inside. She sighed and leaned a shoulder against the molding. “It occurred to me this afternoon that he was very gracious about it when I apologized for accusing him of fooling around with two blondes when his sister and his niece were visiting. But I wasn’t able to respond in kind when he made his mistake. He’s probably just thinking that he’s had a narrow escape.”

  The office door closed and Laura turned, sniffing, thinking that Barry had probably gotten bored with her selfflagellation and left.

  But he remained in her chair. It was Jason who had closed the door and stood halfway between her desk and the door. He wore jeans, a Boston College sweatshirt and a very grim expression. His hair and the shoulders of his shirt were wet, and he’d brought the fragrance of rain in with him.

  Her heart began to thud as he came around the desk toward her. “If you want to know what I’m thinking,” he said, stopping a small distance from her, “ask me. Don’t presume to know, because it’s obvious from what I’ve heard that you don’t know me well enough to read my mind.”

  “I wasn’t trying to read your mind.” She straightened and crushed the tissue in her fist, trying to pull herself together. “I was just explaining to Barry…”

  “Barry doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Jason said. “If you want to explain what you’re feeling, you should do it to the man you made love to for forty-eight hours straight.”

  “Ah…” Barry stood. “Maybe I’ll leave you two to sort this…”

  Jason pointed a finger at him. “Stay right there. I’m going to need you to get by Security.”

  Barry sat down again but raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  Jason ignored him and concentrated on Laura. “Actually, you don’t have to explain because I heard it all. You’re sorry. I’m sorry. The boys are miserable. I don’t see why we can’t fix it.”

  She wanted to believe it could be that easy, but her life had proved otherwise. Men went away and stayed away. Or lost interest. Or changed their minds. “Then you heard it all but didn’t listen. The men in my life.”

  He closed his eyes and shifted his weight, obviousl
y grasping at the threads of his patience. “Left you. I know. But if you’ll recall, you’re the one who left me. And yet—” he spread both hands to indicate his presence “—I’m the one who came back to you. Doesn’t that prove something?”

  It did. But the notion that she shared a love that had survived a quarrel and her own irrational departure didn’t mean she could make it last forever.did it?

  She remembered that he’d compared her to Sergei who stuck his head out of the cage but never quite got the courage to walk out of it entirely, and thought that was precisely how she felt now.

  “It does, Jason,” she said, leaning toward him but afraid to touch him. “It proves that you’re great husband material. And you had a successful marriage that proves it. I’m the unknown quantity, and maybe if it was just you and me we were talking about, we could take the chance that as much as I love you, it would work out. But we have to think about the boys. They…”

  He grabbed her arm and she stopped abruptly, expecting that he intended to make some forceful point in their argument. But he simply pulled the lab coat off of her and tossed it onto her chair. Then he lifted her up into his arms.

  “Jason, what…?” She struggled, but he held firm.

  “Barry, will you get her purse?”

  Barry stood and frowned at him. “You’re going to rob her?”

  Jason gave him a pitying look. “Just get her purse and follow me.”

  Barry looked around, then spotted it on the floor behind her desk. He lifted it and winced. “Geez. Can I call for a gurney?”

  Jason stepped aside to let him open the door.

  “Jason, you are not carrying me out of this hospital,” Laura said, pushing against him.

  “You had your chance to walk out under your own power,” he said, smiling as everyone at the nurses’ station looked up in wide-eyed curiosity.

  Laura noticed over his shoulder that the nurses fell into line behind them. She put her hand to her face. “Jason, please…”

  “Just be still until we’re out of here.”

  He rounded a corner and an older man walking with his IV pole stopped to stare at them. Through her fingers, Laura saw that he joined the nurses.

  “Jason, this is kidnapping,” she said firmly. “While this was cute in Doris Day movies, it doesn’t play with today’s women. I could have you arrested.”

  “Well, here’s your chance,” he said. “Hey, Gordy.”

  Laura lowered her hand to find a local police officer standing in their path. He’d probably come in with an ER patient. But he did not look at all threatening. He was smiling. “Hey, Jase. What’s going on?”

  “I’m being kidnapped,” Laura said.

  The officer looked the three of them over, then frowned.

  Laura gave Jason a superior look, presuming he was about to face a reckoning.

  Her hopes were dashed when Gordy asked, “What’s with the purse, Barry? You’re not bringing it to our next game, are you? And I don’t think you’re supposed to wear a brown bag with black shoes.”

  Barry hit him with it. He pretended to fend it off.

  “Beat it,” Barry said. “We’re out of wheelchairs this afternoon, so we’re carrying this patient to her car.”

  Laura couldn’t believe it when the officer accepted that excuse and stepped aside.

  “Out of wheelchairs?” Jason scorned the fib as they passed the gift shop.

  “I’m sorry,” Barry grumbled. “I’m carrying a purse. I’m a little distracted at the moment. Will you speed it up and get us the hell out of here?”

  A young couple, two older ladies and a volunteer had wedged themselves into the gift shop door to watch them pass. Then they joined the parade behind the man with the IV pole.

  Laura dropped her head to Jason’s shoulder and covered her eyes.

  Barry opened the outer doors for Jason, and they stopped as rain fell in noisy sheets from the protective overhang.

  “Car keys are in my pocket,” Jason said to Barry. “I’m halfway down the row. Would you get it, please?”

  Barry groaned. “Great. Carrying a purse and reaching into your pocket. Your friendship is entirely too much trouble.”

  The keys in hand, Barry ran for the car, the purse tucked under his arm, the strap dangling.

  “Isn’t this Neanderthal approach a little out of character for you?” Laura asked Jason. She raised her head off his shoulder and frowned at the little crowd collected behind them in the lobby. They were all standing on the sensor so that the doors remained open. “We’ve gathered an audience.”

  “I’m not behaving out of character,” Jason replied, “because I’m changing my style. Irrational behavior requires a take-charge response. And I’m glad about the audience. This time when I ask you to marry me I’ll have witnesses so that you can’t back out.”

  A quiet little peace Laura had been searching for her whole life suddenly flowered inside her and took root. Suddenly she saw not the embarrassment of her situation but the thrill of it. This man loved her and was making a place for himself in her life for the duration.

  “But I’ve always liked your style,” she said softly.

  He bounced her once in his arms to firm his grip on her. He looked into her eyes, his own dark with love and regret. “I am sorry about yesterday,” he whispered.

  “So am I.” She punctuated her apology with a sound kiss. It made the anguish of the past twenty-eight hours disappear and wash away with the rain.

  Barry, drenched and grinning, dangled keys in front of their faces. “I suppose I’ll be expected to drive so that you can neck in the back seat all the way home.”

  “Would you?” Jason asked without looking away from Laura.

  “Lucky for you I was off the clock ten minutes ago. Ready?”

  “No yet.” Jason turned to face their audience. Seven faces watched them eagerly. “I’m asking you to witness this proposal,” he said, smiling at the group. “Are you paying attention?”

  They surged forward.

  Jason looked into Laura’s eyes, feeling a joy he’d been so sure he’d never know again. “Laura Price…ah, what’s your middle name?”

  She firmed her grip on him, so happy she was sure she’d float if he weren’t holding her. “Geneva,” she replied.

  “Laura Geneva Price, will you marry me?” he asked.

  “Yes!” she shouted, squeezing him tightly around the neck and kissing his jawline. “Yes, Jason…what’s your middle name?”

  “Lincoln,” he said in a strangled tone.

  “Nurse!” Barry called to the audience. “Oxygen, please.”

  The audience laughed and waited.

  “Yes, Jason Lincoln Warfield,” Laura said. “I will marry you.”

  “We’ll elope,” Jason said.

  Laura shook her head. “No, we won’t. We’ll let Patsy do it. And we’ll have lights in the window and a cat on the windowsill.” Her voice broke. “Okay?” she asked on a sob.

  He kissed it away. “Okay.” He grinned at the audience. “Thank you for your participation.”

  The nurses cheered, the ladies from the gift shop blew kisses, and the man held firmly to his IV pole and whistled.

  Barry held his coat over Jason while he put Laura in the car.

  “Sergei!” Laura said anxiously.

  “We’ll get him on the way,” Jason said. “Along with your clothes.”

  “I am getting dinner out of this?” Barry asked as he took his place behind the wheel.

  Jason and Laura didn’t hear him.

  He smiled fondly into the reflected image of love in his rearview mirror, then drove them home.

  Yes, that is my wedding photo heading the column this morning instead of my usual solitary mug. I am solitary no more. Meet Laura Price Warfield, nutritionist, aerobics instructor, outdoorswoman-and my bride. The three handsome boys you see beside us are my sons—our sons—whom you’ve often read about in these pages. In the fall, your local bookseller will carry my chroni
cle of how Laura and I met and battled the obstacles to come to this point. Meanwhile-I have the love and devotion of those you see in the photo, a dog at my feet, a rose in my pencil cup, a light in my window and a cat on the sill. Life doesn’t get any better than that.

  —“Warfield Wins”

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 978-14592-7409-9

  THE HEART OF THE MATTER

  Copyright © 1997 by Muriel Jensen

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books. 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S A, used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Printed in U.S.A.

  www.eHarlequin.com