by Corbit, Dana
“Twenty-one days exactly?” He gave her a knowing look.
“I’ve been keeping count, but not for the reason you’re thinking. It’s been three weeks since I had to start my life over.”
Because he appeared skeptical, she continued to emphasize her point. “I haven’t told anyone else this, but I was having some serious cold feet before I received that letter. I thought it was normal jitters, and everything would be fine as soon as the wedding rings were on.”
“Why didn’t you tell your mother or sisters that?”
“They didn’t ask.”
Matthew nodded, though they both knew he hadn’t asked, either. He collected the coffee carafe and poured each of them another cup. Haley wasn’t sure why, but he had just become her sounding board, someone who was concerned but not so entrenched in her life as to lose his objectivity.
“Even though you were questioning the marriage, would you still have gone ahead with it if Tom hadn’t canceled?”
“Probably.” How ridiculous that idea sounded to her now.
“Why?”
At his incredulous tone, Haley chuckled without humor.
“Pitiful, isn’t it? I thought I was finally doing something that my family could support. I was so convinced that they were pleased with my decision that I couldn’t even hear their warnings. Believe it or not, they haven’t always agreed with my decisions.”
“Really? I hadn’t heard.”
When she smiled this time, he smiled back, and she felt the connection only years could form. That was the thing about having longtime friends: they didn’t have to start with drawn-out introductions. He already knew many of the complexities of the Scott family, and she knew just as many about the Warrens.
“I don’t know about you, but I think Tom was a smart guy for sending you that letter,” he told her.
“That makes five people, if you include my mother, your mother and my sisters.”
“And you’ll make six, eventually.”
She shrugged as she twirled her spoon on the table. “So there you have it. If you don’t already pity me for getting dumped only days from the altar, then I have to earn pity points for being so willing to settle.”
“Why would I pity you? You put yourself out there. You took a risk—a misguided one, perhaps—but still a risk.”
“Just another of my erratic decisions.”
“Don’t say that,” he told her. “Taking a chance on love takes courage. Do you have any idea how many people aren’t brave enough to even try?”
“What some call brave, others might call foolish.”
“Definitely brave.” He must have read the shock on her face because he continued, “You were always brave. Even at fourteen.”
“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, I need to cover my head with a bag. I’m about to turn ten shades of red.”
“I am, but you don’t need the bag. We’re grown-ups now.” He paused as if trying to recall the memory she’d relived more times than she should have lately. “I was supposed to be so much older as a nineteen-year-old college sophomore. Streetwise. But I knew as much about male-female relationships as you did. Less.”
“Are you serious?” True to her prediction, her cheeks heated, but her eyes had to be wide now, too.
“Dumbfounded. That has to be the only word I can use to describe how I felt when you cornered me and…er…said what you said. You caught me off guard.”
For some reason, she felt relieved that he hadn’t repeated her young declaration of love now. They both knew what she’d said, and she didn’t need to hear it again. “You know me, spontaneous to a fault.”
“I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for what happened that day.”
“It was a long time ago,” she began, but curiosity made her pause. “Why are you sorry?”
“For treating you like a little girl when I told you I only thought of you as a friend. It was callous. I handled the whole situation badly and humiliated you.”
“Well, I was a little girl. It just took me some time to realize that.” She lifted her shoulder and lowered it.
She was no longer a child. Neither of them was. A couple of lifetimes had passed since that night: a failed marriage and a child on his side, a close call on a marriage that was likely doomed to failure on hers.
Their cups empty and the hour late, Matthew loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and saw her to the door.
As reluctant as she’d been, Haley was glad she’d shared with Matthew about her breakup. She still couldn’t believe they’d also spoken openly about the night she’d never talked about with anyone in the nine years since it happened. The past seemed to have less power over her when she didn’t hold the memories so close like secrets.
Matthew had even opened up a little about his marriage, something that had to be a rarity. At least she’d let him know she was willing to listen. Maybe it would be good for him to share, as well.
She had known Matthew in a variety of ways through the years: as the older boy who’d picked her up when she’d fallen off the swing, as the mature college student who had been embarrassed by her childish infatuation for him, even as the old friend of the family who didn’t quite approve of her. Tonight she’d felt differently with him than she’d ever felt before. He’d treated her as an equal…and a friend.
Thursday evening as she stood at the sink, Haley dropped a tiny yellow pill into the wide-mouth glass containing vinegar and watched while the water took on a bright, lemony hue. She set it next to glasses containing purple and orange dyes and started with the next color, which she imagined would be a bird-egg blue when it stopped fizzing.
At the stove, Matthew was just pulling off a pan containing a dozen hard-boiled eggs, ready for their transformation into edible Easter decorations. Haley moved her glasses down the counter and made room for him to cool the eggs by rinsing them in the sink.
“You about ready with those?” he asked as he turned on the faucet.
“Just a few more to do.”
“This is my first time to color Easter eggs,” Elizabeth announced.
“I’d heard that,” Haley said with a grin. The child had been broadcasting that fact on half hour intervals all day long. “This is pretty exciting, isn’t it?”
“She’s dying to start dyeing.” Matthew chuckled over his own joke.
His daughter looked at him with a blank stare that made him laugh even harder. Though Elizabeth hadn’t been impressed with her father’s rare attempt at humor, Haley couldn’t help smiling. This was a side of Matthew she’d never met before, a side she liked a lot.
How strange that she’d always thought she knew him so well, and yet lately it seemed as if she was meeting him for the first time.
With progress not happening as quickly as Elizabeth would have liked, she squeezed between the two adults and gripped the front rim of the sink, lifting up on her tiptoes so she could see over the edge. “Are they ever going to be ready?”
“Just a few more minutes, sweetie,” Haley told her. “The eggs still need to cool before you can use the wax crayon to make your designs on them.”
“It’s taking too long,” she whined.
Haley supposed it was. Oh, to be four again and have her only worry be an agonizing delay to color Easter eggs. She had to admit they’d made Elizabeth wait a long time for this exciting event. After Elizabeth had been forced to endure a whole day knowing they would color eggs that night, Matthew had insisted that they couldn’t start until after dinner.
Not that Haley could complain about dinner—Matthew’s lasagna could have given an Italian chef an inferiority complex—but were it up to her, she would have started dunking eggs the moment he walked in the door. It wasn’t up to her, though; this was a Warren family event. Haley just appreciated being included in an activity that brought back so many good memories of her own family.
“What are you smiling about?”
“I was thinking about my dad. I
’ve never known anyone who loved coloring eggs as much as he did. He always wanted to experiment with the new kits that came out each spring.”
“And here I was worried that you’d mess up the dyes or something.”
“Of course not. I know what I’m doing.” Picking up two of the glasses, she carried them to the table.
He grabbed two more glasses and followed her. “That’s a good thing because I don’t.”
Elizabeth scrambled into one of the chairs and settled on her knees. “Is it time yet, Daddy?”
“Almost,” he said.
His gaze met Haley’s as she glanced back over her shoulder. He lifted an eyebrow, seeming to ask her if she wanted to take the lead on the project. Was that why he had invited her to join them?
She chewed her lip. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. She hadn’t come tonight with her special activity bag to entertain Elizabeth. This was Matthew’s event with his child, and he deserved to get to be the hero in it.
She leaned close to him as she carried the remaining colors to the table. “Just wing it,” she whispered. “That’s what my dad did.”
Matthew nodded and then headed back to the sink where he placed the eggs into an empty carton. Haley’s admission that her dad hadn’t been perfect seemed to give him permission to enjoy the activity without grading himself.
“How did your dad end up in charge of that activity, anyway? Didn’t your mom handle the holidays? I know my mom’s Christmas celebrations are the stuff that legends are made of. Or maybe cautionary tales.”
Haley guessed there was a funny story behind that comment, but she didn’t ask this time. A certain four-year-old was counting on them to stick with the topic at hand. “Mom hated the mess that the eggs made, so dad took on the project every year and cleaned it up himself.”
“Your mom was right about that. It can get messy, but I’m certain Elizabeth will be careful. If we follow her example, we’ll be just fine.”
“Oh, I’ll be careful, Daddy.”
He returned to the table carrying the eggs, the wire tool used to lower eggs into the water mixtures and the cardboard stand where the colored eggs would dry.
Soon they were taking turns drawing stripes and dots on eggshells with the wax crayon. Matthew even played the artist when Elizabeth asked him to draw a big-eared mouse on one of them. What the mouse had to do with Easter, Haley wasn’t sure, but the child was insistent that she needed it.
After the preparation work on the first six eggs was complete, they began dunking them in the glasses of dye. Really, Matthew did all of the dunking, but he allowed Elizabeth to stir the colored water around once the egg was in it. Haley tried to remain an observer of the activity, present and engaged but not quite a part of the action.
“Can we do one with Jesus on the cross?” Instead of waiting for her father’s answer, Elizabeth turned to Haley and said importantly, “Easter is when Jesus came to life again after he died on the cross. It isn’t about the Easter Bunny.”
“Wow, that’s pretty big of you to already know that.” As usual, the precocious preschooler had amazed Haley, but she recognized the child hadn’t gained the knowledge in a vacuum. “Who taught you those important things?”
“Daddy and Grammy.”
“Well, it sounds like they’re very good teachers.” She caught Matthew’s gaze and smiled. He seemed pleased by her compliment. Maybe she’d been wrong in her assumptions about Matthew’s faith. Just because he experienced it differently didn’t mean he missed feeling joy in his faith. How could he not when he’d made such an effort to instill his beliefs in his child?
“Daddy, Miss Haley says it’s okay that we still play pretend about the Easter Bunny.”
Haley straightened in her seat, that sinking sense that she’d messed up again settling in her gut. Yes, she’d said something to that effect, but they were talking about Easter baskets. She wasn’t making any personal faith statement, but her words had come back to bite her, anyway. She braced her hand on the edge of the table and waited for another of Matthew’s criticisms.
But Matthew, who had grabbed another egg and was drawing on it with a wax crayon, only looked up casually. “Well, she’s right. Pretending is just for fun.”
Haley wished she could hide her face, which felt too warm not to be red. His approval warmed her heart in a way she couldn’t explain. It signaled not only that he thought she was doing a good job but that he understood just how important his daughter had become to her.
The remaining eggs, Elizabeth decided, didn’t need pictures on them at all. She dunked them in multiple colors instead. “Hey, Daddy. Can we use these for the Easter egg hunt at Grammy’s?”
“We could, but don’t you usually like the kind of eggs that Grammy hides better? You know the plastic kind with candy and little toys in them. It’s up to you.” He gave an exaggerated shrug.
The child appeared to ponder for a few seconds and then said, “We can have Grammy’s kind.”
He turned to Haley. “Mom always hosts Easter dinner, and she puts on an Easter egg hunt just for Elizabeth.”
“That’s cool,” Haley said when she turned to Elizabeth. “That means you get all the eggs.”
“Until there are other grandchildren, which, if you know my brothers, won’t be for a while.”
He was probably right, Haley decided. Dylan didn’t seem all that interested in dating right now, and Logan would have a hard time picking just one woman from his collection of dates. She didn’t know where Matthew stood on the issue, and it would be in her best interest not to ask. She shouldn’t start creating hearth-and-home fantasies about Matthew and her again.
Needing a distraction, Haley turned to Elizabeth. While the two adults had been talking, she was now carefully transporting eggs one by one from the drying box to their original carton.
Across the table, Matthew was studying his daughter. “Are you sad because you chose to have other kinds of eggs at Grammy’s?”
Elizabeth nodded, touching one of the colorful shells.
“Don’t worry. You may have both kinds of eggs there. We’ll keep these in the refrigerator until Sunday, and then after church we’ll put them in an Easter basket and take them to eat at Grammy’s.”
“Eat?” Her eyes went wide with shocked horror. “We can’t eat them.”
“Of course, we can, silly.” He reached over and tugged one of her braids. “That’s what you’re supposed to do with Easter eggs. Some kinds of art you just look at, but this kind of art you eat.”
Her eyes were already brimming with tears again, but she blinked them back. “Really?”
“Really.” He nodded for emphasis. “We’ll put them in the basket and make sure everybody gets to see all the pretty colors and decorations first.”
“Even Grammy and Grandma Trina and Uncle Dylan and Uncle Logan.”
Probably only them, Haley wanted to say, but she kept it to herself. Matthew had done such a great job with this activity. He’d had fun playing with his daughter, reaching out of his comfort zone to become an even better father. Haley was relieved for him that the evening hadn’t ended in a meltdown over their art project’s edible end.
“We’ll even take a picture if you want to,” Matthew told her. “Then we’ll let each person pick a favorite egg, and we’ll all eat them.”
“I get the cross one,” she announced.
“It’s yours.”
Elizabeth applauded with hands that were stained with dye. The matter of consumable art settled, Matthew sent his daughter upstairs to get her pajamas ready for her bath and to pick out the story they would read together afterward.
“I’ll get to this when I get back.” He indicated with a wide sweep the mess that remained in the kitchen.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get it.”
“I didn’t invite you here as a maid. You’re the guest. I’ll clean it up as soon as I’m done up there.”
“No, really. I can be done with it by the time—”
> Matthew crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at her until she stopped talking. “Okay, you may help. But could you at least wait until I get back so we can do it together?”
“Fine.”
“Oh, did your mom tell you that you’re invited to Easter dinner at my mom’s house?”
“Mom mentioned it. She also said it was too bad that Caroline and Jenna couldn’t make it back for Easter.”
“That’s too bad,” he said in a solemn voice, but he wore a hint of a smile.
“I think I should be offended on my sisters’ behalf.”
“Don’t be. Really.”
She gave a noncommittal shrug that probably was no more convincing than his disappointment that her sisters wouldn’t make it for Easter. He was probably no more relieved than she was that at least one Warren-Scott family dinner wouldn’t double as a matchmaking session.
Haley didn’t want to analyze why this mattered so much to her. She hadn’t even been one of the targets of their mothers’ efforts. The truth was it did matter.
She would have liked to think that her feelings were magnanimous: that she hated to see Matthew and Caroline so uncomfortable being thrown together. But to call Haley’s interest “selfless” would be more of a stretch than most rubber bands offered. If the two moms kept pressing, they just might get their way. Matthew and Caroline probably would think dinner and a movie was a small price to get the matchmakers off their backs for a while.
That was what Haley dreaded most. When Matthew went out with Caroline, he would discover that their mothers were right: she was great. He would see how amazing Caroline was and how much he had in common with her. Those were good things, right? She dreaded that moment, though, because when Matthew finally recognized Caroline’s amazing qualities, he would no longer see Haley at all.
Chapter Twelve
She’d waited for him. Matthew wasn’t sure why it pleased him so much that she hadn’t cleaned up without him, but it did. It couldn’t be that he enjoyed spending time with her and wanted to extend it for as long as he could. He preferred to think that he didn’t want to feel guilty for letting her clean up after him.