He waved a hand dismissively through the air, but he was cursing internally for the silly slip. “Isaac mentioned your age the other night.”
“He did?” She frowned. “How is he?”
“Pretty caught up in this case.”
“Any news?” She asked, lifting the sandwich to her lips and biting down on it with true pleasure.
“Not yet. They thought they had a pretty good lead in Nevada but it ended up being a hoax.”
“God, why do people do that? How excruciating.”
“Yeah, he’s cut up about it. He’s working just about around the clock.”
“That’s not good for him.”
“Maybe not,” Matt agreed. “But if that was your little girl, you’d want a cop like that on the case, wouldn’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she nodded enthusiastically. “I just hope she’s okay.”
“You were telling me what brought you to Haymarket Bay,” he remarked after a few minutes of contemplative silence had passed.
“Was I?”
“Let’s pretend you were,” he winked, and reached down for another square of lunch. His shirt gaped a little as he bent over, exposing an expanse of tanned chest and a sprinkling of fair hair. She gulped and looked away. To her chagrin, Matt moved to sit beside her, his bulky, firm frame dwarfing her with his strength and power.
“I told you, I wanted a sea change. Haymarket’s one of those places you can’t help but like. You know, I keep pretty much to myself, but I still must know a hundred people in the town. Everyone wants to help everyone. It’s a real community. I never had that growing up. Cities just aren’t so encompassing.”
“They can be,” he challenged.
“Maybe so, just not in my experience. What about you? Where do you live, when you’re not hanging out with the Berries?”
His frown showed that it wasn’t a straightforward question. “My apartment’s in Manhattan, but I haven’t been there much lately.” He had already promised the penthouse to Meghan. It felt like the least he could do.
“Why’s that?”
He frowned. “I just got back from Iraq a couple of months ago. I was stationed there on and off for a few years. I guess I’m weighing up my options now.”
The writer in her was curious. She wrote story after story about people who travelled to far off lands and undertook brave adventures. But she did it all from the safety of her nicely decorated home office. She looked at him earnestly, and leaned forward a little. “What was it like?”
“The war?”
She nodded.
Matt ran a palm over his stubbled chin. He thought of the noise. Of drones, of missiles, of screams. Of the heat, pervasive and dry, so hot that sweat was just a normal part of every day. Wet faces that the stirred up sand got stuck to. He thought of the blood. Clumped everywhere. Walls smeared in it. The children, with eyes so bleak that one look told you all you needed to know. They had no hope. No future. No identity.
The bugs. The sandflies and mosquitoes that had terrorised their battalion, wreaking havoc with any flesh they could find.
He shook his head. “What do you think it was like?”
“Scary?”
His laugh was grim. “Scary was surviving every day while your friends took bullets and got blown up. Scary was realising you were coming home again while you left brothers and sisters behind.” He closed his eyes. “Scary is seeing how life goes on. Like this. So beautiful and normal, but over there, kids are still slipping bombs under their school sweaters and taking out their teachers in morning lessons.” He blinked, apparently remembering himself. “Sorry, Willow. That’s probably not the answer you were looking for.”
She didn’t shy away from his haunted gaze. Her voice was a husk, when she was able to speak. “On the contrary, I was looking for the truth. I’m sorry you went through that. But grateful for you, too.”
He nodded. “I couldn’t sit back and not get involved.” He sat down beside her. “My dad was in the towers.”
She shifted a little, so that she could face him. “Did he… I mean… is he…”
“Dead? Yeah.” He wiped a hand across his brow and wondered, briefly, why he was telling this woman so much. He didn’t make a habit of spilling his guts to someone just because they had legs that went on forever.
Willow put a hand on his, drawing his attention to her face. Her sorrow was real. None of the coldness he’d come to expect from her was in evidence. In fact, the hint of tears moistened her eyes. “I’m so, so, sorry.”
He nodded gruffly, and pulled his hand away. “Thanks.”
She took the hint, and surreptitiously wiped her eyes. “So you signed up after that?”
“Yeah. Three tours and a bullet in my leg got me relieved from active service.”
She thought of the bullet. And his leg. And the strength that was evident in every step he took. “You sound sorry about that.”
Was he? “There’s a lot more to do yet. A lot of soldiers out there doing it. I feel like I’m letting them down by being here. Eating sandwiches with a beautiful woman, overlooking a stunning ocean.” He sighed, and put an arm along the back of the chair. Presumably, he was striving only for comfort, but the action brought his fingertips so close to her shoulder. If Willow shifted even slightly, they’d be touching. She made sure to stay perfectly still.
“And the bullet in your leg situation means you won’t go back?”
“That’s right. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to. Best I could hope for is administrative duty.”
“So what will you do?”
Matt’s frown was deep, as his eyes scanned the glistening ocean beyond them. “That, Willow, is a mystery.” His destiny had, in many ways, been marked long ago. The expectation that he would join the family business was felt by everyone. Everyone, that was, but him. What did he want with an airline? His interest in flying was limited to choppers in battle zones. He’d shied away from the air force. There was no way someone like Mattias McCain could fly under the radar for long. And now? With his father dead, and Matt’s military career at an end, the shiny Chairman position was his. If he dared to take it.
Willow leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees but angling her head to look back at him. “Come on. You must have some idea?”
He slipped his glance to her face, his pale blue eyes challenging hers. “The army was always my number one. When the towers went down, it became more of an imperative.” He shrugged. “And you, Willow?”
“Oh.” She blinked. She’d lived in Haymarket Bay for four years now, and everyone in town knew who she was and what she did. It was a rare novelty to meet someone who wasn’t familiar with the work of Willow St Clare. “Anna didn’t say?”
He shook his head slowly from side to side, the same bemused expression on his face that she’d seen when he’d been pondering how the heck to get into the Berries’ home.
“Right. I’m a writer.”
“A writer?”
She nodded.
“A writer of what?”
Willow hadn’t had to tell anyone about herself for so long that she felt self-conscious doing so now. “Um, have you heard of the Ancient Hero Quest?”
“Those books that are in all the airport shops?”
Her smile was just a hint on her lips. She focussed her gaze on the horizon again, and leaned back against the seat. His fingers brushed against her shoulder but she didn’t flinch away. “Yeah. They’re mainly for young adults.” She shrugged. “Mystery stories. Adventures. History lessons disguised as mystery.”
He laughed deeply. “That’s great. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“Writing must be interesting work.”
She nodded. “It’s not the writing. It’s… I mean, it’s the coolest job in the world.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “I get paid to indulge my imagination to its natural conclusion.” Her grin broadened. “I mean, I get so caught up in my characters’ quests that sometimes I don’t emer
ge from my home for days on end. It’s awesome.”
He nodded, completely knocked sideways by the way her sense of passion changed her features. It took over her face, making her glow and shine. He let his eyes drop lower, to her smiling lips, and felt a kick of awareness in his gut. “I’d love to read one,” he said, thinking as the words left his mouth how lame they sounded.
She grinned. “They’re more for teenagers, but sure.”
“Why write for teenagers?”
“You mean as opposed to people like you and me? Adults?”
“Yeah.”
“I just love fantasy.” She lifted her water and sipped it, then replaced the cup. “When I was growing up, I read all the old-fashioned mysteries. And I read some more modern titles too, but it was the older ones that really spoke to me. I guess I wanted to write the kinds of books I used to love. Books are amazing at any time, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “But especially so when your personality is still developing. I learned to be a mystery-hunter because of the books I read. If I can inspire that same journey in kids now, I’m honoured.”
Questions jostled for prime position in his brain. “You’re a mystery hunter?”
“Oh, yes.” She reached for another sandwich, and he was inexplicably relieved. Relieved and delighted that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“What kind of mysteries?”
“Oh, you know,” her cheeks were that beautiful pink again. He loved the way she blushed. It was so rare in the women he’d known in the past. So rare in Meghan, his estranged wife, who had been the epitome of calculated bitchiness. “Local history. Missing traders. Pirate ships.” She wriggled her eyebrows in a way that made him laugh. “Unsolved crimes. Poor Ike gets bored silly of my requesting old case files.”
Matt nodded, but he had a sinking feeling. A sinking feeling because he could no longer pretend that he was only feeling idle attraction to the girl next door. It was more than that. He was interested in her, and it would become a full-blown obsession if he didn’t take care.
“I bet he doesn’t,” Matt contradicted, a sense of uneasiness growing inside of him. He stood abruptly. “Anyways, I’d better get a move on. I promised these guys I’d paint the guest room as a kind of thanks for having me stay.”
Willow’s stomach lurched with unmistakable disappointment. “Oh, right.” She followed his lead and stood, but looked uncertainly towards her own home. “Do you, I mean… Do you want a hand with it?”
A hand? Hands were part of his problem. Matt jammed them into his pockets in an attempt to stop them from wanting to reach out for her. “Nah. You’ve got stories to write.” He reached down for the sandwiches at the same time she did. Their fingers connected on the edge of the plate, and he stifled an oath. “I’ve got this,” he said, far more sharply than he’d intended.
“Right.” Her frown was a flash in her face. Gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Thanks again for lunch.” She dipped her head forward and walked quickly towards the porch steps. She turned at the bottom, to say goodbye, but he’d already disappeared inside, leaving only the slamming door in his wake.
Yeah, she’d been right about him. Devilishly handsome, but just as confusing and dangerous as any guy she’d ever known. She strode towards her own home, her determination to ignore him made even stronger by the weirdly blunt end he’d put to their conversation.
He was no one to her. It didn’t matter to Willow if she never saw Mattias again. At least, that’s what she told herself.
CHAPTER THREE
His mother’s voice seemed to go on and on, but Matt was only half-listening. He reclined on the porch, but his eyes were trained on the house next door. The blinds were down and everything was quiet. But he knew Willow was in there.
He couldn’t say how or why, he just simply knew.
It was as if his body was some kind of divining rod to hers; he felt her presence like an actual element. In the same way some could detect water, his body seemed to be in a state of heightened awareness when she was around.
“Of course I’m listening, mother.”
He’d dreamed of her the night before. Her long dark hair had draped around her face, as she’d leaned over him, her arms long and slender, one on either side of his body, as she pressed her weight against him. He sighed ruefully. His divorce proceedings hadn’t technically begun, and he’d already forgotten his wife’s existence. Okay, he and Meghan had barely had a marriage, but what did it say about him that he was so easily to dismiss her as irrelevant?
He shifted his weight to his other elbow, and kicked an ankle over his knee. With true regret, he forced his brain to focus on the words his mother was barrelling down the phone.
“Yes, mother, I understand. When is the meeting?”
“Two weeks. You can’t put this decision off forever, Mattias. McCain Industries needs a chairperson, and you’re the only candidate.”
He ground his teeth together, trying to ignore the sense of inevitability that crushed against him like a wave. He grunted, and in that one sound, he perfectly conveyed his sentiments to his mother. She might have been a whole continent away, in her beachfront mansion in Maine, but she knew her son well enough to understand him even at that distance.
“It was your father’s dearest wish that you would follow in his footsteps one day,” Eleanor McCain pushed softly.
He shook his head with a wry smile. Leave it to his mother to play the one card he found it almost impossible to resist. “Yes, but he imagined my time as Chairperson would come well in my silver fox years. Not now. There’s so much more I want to do with my life.”
Eleanor sighed heavily. “What you want with your life, darling? None of us wanted this. Do you think I prepared for this? A life without your father?”
Matt closed his eyes, guilt searing through him. “Of course not, mom.”
He could hear her pull herself together, taking a fortifying breath as she composed herself. He knew her pale blue eyes would be shimmering with unshed tears, her long lashes webbed by moisture. “You’ve been allowed more latitude with your life than your father would have indulged,” she pointed out primly. “Marriage to that woman. A military career that put you in harm’s way, every day. You, our only son, and the only heir to the McCain Industries fortune.”
“Serving in the army was something I did for dad. For dad, and myself, and to honor his death.”
“There was no honor in his death,” she whispered stoically. “No honor, and no sense. The honor was in his life, and the best way to uphold it is to follow the footsteps he laid down for you.” She tsked down the phone. “You’ve been given enough extensions, Mattias. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold the board off any longer.”
He shook his head from side to side. The weight on his chest became gradually heavier, until he felt that his lungs might burst. “How can I spend my days in a boardroom?” He asked finally, wearily. It was the antithesis of how he would choose to spend his time.
“You will not always be behind a desk. You will have great scope to dictate your own movements. But McCain needs you at the helm, and it needs you now.”
“Why?” He demanded, sitting up straight as his spine tingled with an unspoken warning. Something in her tone, perhaps, had conveyed to him an urgency that she wasn’t relaying.
“It’s a question of timing, that’s all. The board is hunting for a replacement for you. I fear that if you don’t take up the seat now, you’ll lose the chance forever.”
“Good. Let them find someone. No doubt they’ll choose a candidate eminently more suitable than I am.”
“No one is more suited to this than you. It is your destiny. You have completed two degrees with this position in mind, and you have the company in your blood. Stop moping about that whore leaving you and get back to Manhattan.”
Mattias shook his head, his mother’s vitriolic assessment of his wife unsurprising and not completely unwarranted either. “My marriage breakdown lays squ
arely at my feet.”
“Bullshit,” Eleanor contradicted, her cultured accent lending the curse a degree of splendour. “While you were off fighting for a better world, she was operating a revolving door on your marital bed. She was a slut when you married her, and you should have known better.” Eleanor compressed her lips. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
That made two of them.
A dark shadow moved behind one of the blinds next door, and Mattias smiled.
Willow. She was in the kitchen, and from the way her shadow remained still, he’d guess she was making a coffee. She did that a lot. Usually, when the blind was up, she’d stare into space, her pretty face vacant as her complex mind whirled and spun through whatever she was contemplating.
“Shall I send the jet?” Eleanor persisted, her tone expectant.
“No.”
Before his mother could launch into yet another war of persuasion, he forestalled her. “I will come to Manhattan, mother. But in my own time.”
“Before the meeting?”
Mattias’s eyes drifted to Willow’s kitchen. He stared at the blinds, and wished they were raised, so that he could see her properly. “Yes.” It felt like he was agreeing to something far more sinister than attending a board meeting.
Maybe because he was.
Taking up the mantle of McCain Industries was his duty, and he’d always known it. Hank McCain had been proud of the business he’d inherited. “We’re not the idle rich, son. I’m not going to be the generation that rests on its laurels and loses the wealth. No, sir. I’m going to take what God and country gave me, and make it bigger and better than my granddaddy could have dreamt. Because that’s what we do, son. We take our opportunities and we line them with fucking gold.”
Mattias had been ten when his father had delivered the lecture, and he’d never forgotten it. Though Mattias had been a natural at football and gifted academically, he’d always been relaxed about his performance in both. What did he need good grades for? His future had been assured. Football scholarship? Leave those to the people most in need.
From that day forward, when Hank had turned the snowglobe of Matt’s life on its head, he’d seen things differently. He’d had ample opportunities handed to him on a platter, but that wasn’t enough. It was up to Matt to line them with gold. So he had. He’d excelled at sport; he’d aced his schooling. He’d been popular, hard working and determined to succeed.
Tempted by the Billionaire: A Hometown Hero Series Novel Page 3