Only today, her place beside Matt was a sham. A deception.
She’d asked Matt to talk to his family. To explain that there had been no reconciliation. She hadn’t come back to Port Kingston to stay, but had only wanted them to meet Hailey. Caroline had hoped they would welcome her daughter into their fold—she wanted Hailey to have roots, to know her great-grandfather and her aunt—but she had never expected they would think she’d come back for good. That she and Matt were—
She glanced at her husband in the seat next to her.
They had to tell them. Soon. Waiting would only make the telling that much harder. She could attest to that.
Matt had convinced her to wait, though. Neither of them wanted to spoil Paige’s day, or Grandpa’s enjoyment of it. So they’d agreed to wait at least until tomorrow, even if neither of them was happy with the pretense.
“Bravo, hier.” Here.
The sharp German command she’d often heard Matt use with the police dogs snapped her attention back to the ceremony. Only Matt hadn’t issued the command, Paige had, her voice delighted and clear. A moment later, row after row of guests turned their heads, tittering in laughter as the ring bearer—Paige’s K-9 partner, a German shepherd named Bravo—loped up the aisle all decked out in a stiff white collar and black bow tie. Around the dog’s neck hung a black velvet bag containing the wedding bands.
Rings were exchanged, lifetime promises made and sealed with a kiss, and then the minister closed his Bible.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the cleric said to the assemblage. “I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Marco Angelosi.” He glanced down at the dog sitting between the bride and groom. “And, ah…companion.”
The crowd laughed again and then swelled toward the exit. Caroline shuffled along with the flow, her emotions all in a tangle. She was terribly happy for Paige, but she was also happy it was over.
By the time she and Matt reached their car, though, she had to amend that statement. A dozen friends from inside the department and out had stopped Matt on his way through the gardens toward the parking area. They clapped their hand in his, congratulated him while their wives or mothers or girlfriends had air-kissed Caroline and oohed and ahhed over Hailey. By Monday morning, the whole Port Kingston police force would think that she and Matt were back together and he would have to go through the painful process of exposing his personal life for public inspection to convince them otherwise.
Again.
Nothing was over. At least not for Matt.
It was just beginning.
Matt stood next to his new brother-in-law at the reception. Overhead a spinning mirrored ball threw blips of light across the floor of the rented hall like confetti. Alyssa Townsend, who was the daughter of one of Matt’s canine officers, chased the jumping spots with a dark-haired boy named Micah that Matt thought belonged to Marco’s best man.
On the stage, a DJ played sappy wedding song after sappy wedding song, but nobody seemed to notice. The food was good, the wine was flowing and the company couldn’t be beat.
Across the room, Paige took Hailey out of Caroline’s arms—again—and settled the baby on her shoulder.
“You’ve got a big problem,” Matt said to Marco when his brother-in-law passed by.
Marco turned. “Huh?”
Matt nodded his head toward Paige. “She hasn’t let that baby go all evening.” He sipped his wine thoughtfully. “She’s gonna want one of those of her own.”
Marco smiled. “I’m hoping she wants lots of those.”
Matt frowned. “You are?”
“I’m not opposed.”
More than the mirrored ball overhead put that sparkle in Marco’s eye, Matt supposed.
Marco winked. “Behind every home run, there’s a lot of nights of batting practice, if you know what I mean.”
Matt’s frown morphed into a scowl. “Not necessarily,” he mumbled. Then he looked up. “Hey, that’s my sister you’re talking about.”
Marco laughed and set his wineglass on a passing busboy’s tray. “Tell you what. Since you’re so worried about your sister’s virtue, I’m going to leave her be with the kid for a while.” He grinned evilly at Matt. “And ask your wife to dance instead. She looks lonely over there.”
Matt was about make a jab at Marco—verbally or physically, he hadn’t quite decided—when he noticed that Caroline did look lonely. He imagined she must be feeling as out of sorts as him at the surreal events of the past few hours.
He should have known his family would assume he and Caroline were back together. What had he been thinking, walking into Grandpa’s house like that—holding her hand, for chrissake?
He should have set them straight right away.
But were they really so far off in their assumptions? There had been that kiss. He hadn’t imagined her response. Or his own. He’d thought he’d put a relationship with Caroline out of his mind for good. How was he to know his mind had forgotten to tell his body that it was over between them?
It was hard to believe that one brush against her had brought on such a strong reaction. He hadn’t been able to get close enough, touch enough. Nothing short of being inside her would have been enough. And therein lay his problem. A man wasn’t supposed to want a woman he’d just asked for a divorce.
Across the room, a friend of Grandpa’s from the senior citizen’s center relieved Paige of the baby, and Grandpa led Paige to the dance floor.
Matt groaned inwardly. He knew what was coming. In Grandpa’s mind, it just wasn’t a wedding without—
Yep. Before he even completed the thought, a German polka pounded out of the stereo system. The slow dancers in the center of the room looked mildly surprised, then shrugged in good nature, hooked arms and polkaed. Those who didn’t know the steps fell in behind those who did, and pretty soon, half the guests were marching and hopping around like a bunch of playground kids stomping out ant piles.
Matt watched bemusedly as Caroline tugged Marco through the steps. Apparently Italians didn’t polka.
Her cheeks were flushed with exertion. Her smile was wide and bright and her step lively. She really looked as if she was having fun.
His bemusement slowly faded, and something more wistful took its place. It was nice to see Caroline having fun. Nice to see how easily she fit in with friends and family. How easily she took part in their happiness.
For the past few years, Matt had slowly drawn apart from those who meant the most to him. It hadn’t been an intentional withdrawal. More a protective maneuver, like curling over on oneself after a punch in the gut.
Brad’s death had been one hell of a punch.
Now, seeing Paige and Marco’s happiness, Grandpa’s joy for them, Caroline joining them in laughter, Matt felt more isolated than ever. He realized he’d been standing on the sideline watching life, a spectator rather than a participant, like this for a long time.
Too damn long.
Paige and Grandpa skipped by. Grandpa spun her, and she twirled into Matt’s arms with a whoop.
“Dance with your sister,” Grandpa said, out of breath. “And let an old man get some rest.”
Paige looked up at him hopefully. Not so long ago he would have begged off. Handed his sister over to her new husband and hung in the shadows of the room, watching everyone else enjoy themselves.
Not today. Today he just might start living again, if he could remember how.
Holding Paige’s hand high, he bowed with a flourish. “It would be my honor.” Off they stomped, and to Matt’s surprise and delight, he found himself having fun.
And laughing.
The sound felt unfamiliar in his throat, but it was a genuine laugh. His first in a lot of days. Years.
He was almost sorry when the polka ended, but he didn’t have time to lament his loss. Just as the DJ spun a new CD, a slow, romantic ballad, Marco appeared and executed a perfect partner switch. Before Matt could object, Paige was gone, and Caroline was in his arms.
With finely dressed couples
swaying all around them, and the revolving mirrored ball throwing dimples of crystal light on the ceiling like a hundred shooting stars in the sky, they stared at each other. Caroline hardly seemed to be breathing, and then he realized he wasn’t, either. For a moment time slipped back to fifteen years ago, and he was at his own wedding reception, looking down into Caroline’s loving, happy, terrified eyes as he swept her into his arms for the bride and groom’s dance.
His heart ached with the memory of how beautiful she’d been that day. How beautiful she still was. How much he’d loved her.
How much he loved her still.
Just when he’d thought himself incapable of loving anything or anyone, he had to realize he loved her. Was that timing, or what?
He shuffled one foot forward, stiffly, guiding her along with him through the hand on the small of her back. She followed, her eyes questioning, her back as rigid as his. Then he moved another step, relaxing a fraction, and another. Gradually, Caroline relaxed, too, and when he turned at the corner of the dance floor, pulling her deeper into his embrace, she sighed, and leaned into his chest.
He lost track of the song. What music penetrated his murky thoughts sounded as though it was coming to him from under water. But he flowed with Caroline, hand to hand, hip to hip. They shifted left and right, forward and back, their bodies moving as one. Communicated through looks and touches and the way they breathed. Matt opened his heart and let himself feel it all.
He lost himself in her. So much so that, when she stopped moving, stopped following, he was surprised to find the music had ended and the other couples had already filed off the dance floor.
The party was over; it was time to take his wife home.
Caroline stood behind Matt, Hailey sleeping on her shoulder, while he keyed open the locks on the door. The door to the house they’d once shared together, along with another child. The house she hadn’t stepped foot in since the day, alone, terrified and pregnant, she’d left her husband.
They’d stopped by earlier to drop off Alf and give Matt a chance to change into suit and tie, but Caroline had waited in the car. She’d claimed she didn’t want to wake Hailey, who had fussed for most of the drive and only fallen asleep twenty miles outside of town. In reality, she’d just preferred to put off her own homecoming until later, when she’d have the night to deal with its aftereffects.
She took in a reinforcing breath as the front door opened. She told herself it was no big deal—just a house, like any other house, but her pulse still raced as she stepped over the threshold and the back of her neck turned prickly warm.
Inside, nothing much had changed. The gray-slate tile in the foyer still needed to be regrouted. The Victorian settee in the hallway still gleamed with the kind of shine only a hand polish can create. The clock on the mantel in the living room still ran ten minutes fast.
And the house was still too quiet.
“If you want to go upstairs and clean up…” Matt said. His words fairly echoed in the uncluttered expanse of a house too big for just one person. “I’ll get the crib out of the car and set it up.”
She nodded. On her way up the stairs, her wraithlike steps muffled by thick ivory carpet, she felt as though she wasn’t quite in her own body. As if she was just a shadow of someone she had once been. Passing a lifetime of memories hung on the wall in the upstairs hall—Matt’s police academy graduation portrait, a family shot they’d had done for Grandpa Paul one Christmas, Brad’s Little League team photo—her arms clasped more tightly around Hailey and she tried not to look. Not to remember.
But the second door on the right wouldn’t let her forget.
She opened the door, entered and sat on the twin bed inside, and inhaled a jagged breath. The toys were gone, as were the clothes. The closet door stood open, the well inside empty. But the Houston Astros pennant still hung over the child-size desk where Brad had done his homework every night. He’d been good at math, she remembered suddenly. Lousy at spelling.
She touched the pillow where his head had once lain, thinking of the thousand nights when she and Matt had come in late to pull up the covers and pick that pillow up off the floor where their son had tossed it in his restless sleep. Hailey was the same way. Anything in her reach while she was sleeping ended up on the floor.
She wished her little girl could have met her big brother. She would have adored him, Caroline was sure.
She had no idea how long she sat there, but it must have been quite a while, because the next thing she knew Matt stood next to her. She didn’t know how long he’d been watching her, but now that she’d seen him, his shadow weighed heavily on her in the dim light. He held out his hand without a word and led her from the room, his sea green eyes reflecting her own grief, but their mirrored surfaces not letting her see what was really inside him.
“I put up the crib in the guest room,” he said.
She followed him numbly, wishing he would say something else. Something besides the routine, the mundane, the factual. She wished he would talk about Brad. She wished they would talk about him together.
Why hadn’t they ever talked about it?
When she had Hailey settled with the pink blanket they’d brought from Sweet Gum, she turned, found him still watching her. Pushing past him, she pulled the door behind her, leaving it open a few inches so she could hear if Hailey cried. He backed away, started toward the stairs.
“Matt,” she whispered. He stopped. She caught up to him. The muscles in his arms banded tight when she turned him to face her. “I know this is awkward, being here together again…like this.”
His face was impassive. He didn’t move, didn’t blink.
“Maybe we should talk,” she finished. “Maybe it would help both of us.”
She waited for him to turn her down. To retreat to his study with a mug of coffee. Instead of retreating, he closed the gap between them. He was so close she could smell the wine on his breath. Feel his chest rise before hers.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Brad. Hailey.” Her voice squeaked as he leaned a bit closer. “Us?”
“No,” he breathed. With one hand, he opened the door to his left. The door to the master bedroom. With the other, he pulled her body flush with his. She felt his pulse race where her hand circled his wrist. She felt his arousal where their hips touched.
“Talking isn’t what you want from me tonight,” he finished.
Then he kissed her, and she knew he was right.
Chapter 10
Matt lifted his head and waited for Caroline’s response. Her palms rested on his chest. Not pushing away, but not clasping, either. Had he read her wrong? Had he not seen the same deep yearning swirling in her golden irises that he’d felt stirring in his gut all day?
Where his hands rested on either side of her waist, he could feel the uncertainty, the denial, cording inside her. Then she took a slow breath, and all the doubts melted away.
She raised her fingertips to toy with the unbuttoned collar of his dress shirt. A slow wind began to stir inside him. It picked up all his emotions, swirled them together, faster and faster until the pain, the grief, the loneliness became a blur. A cyclone headed for desire.
“I’ve missed you, Matt,” she said. Standing on her toes, she kissed the hollow of his throat. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Matt turned her face up, crushed his mouth on hers. He held her in place with a hand behind her head. As if she needed holding… She returned the kiss with as much vigor as it was offered. He adjusted the angle of the kiss so he could show her just how much he’d missed her, too. He slid his hands down her back, cupped her, arched and took her off her feet. Her shoes clunked softly on the floor beneath her.
Gasping for air, she turned her head, denying him her lips while she breathed, so he settled for her jaw, her ear, the pulse point pounding frantically beneath the surface of her neck. Balancing them both, he stumbled backward into the bedroom. Into the bed. Onto the bed, bringing her dow
n on top of him.
He stretched beneath her slight weight, his body lengthening to come in contact more fully with hers. Need poured through his fingers with each touch, each caress. He felt like a man awakening from a long sleep.
A man reborn.
She kissed him as he found the zipper on the back of the simple pink dress she’d worn to the wedding. The touch of her tongue to the corners of his mouth, the seam of his lips, then inside, jolted his heart, once cold and lifeless, into a sluggish beat. The feel of her swollen breasts flattened against his chest, the soft mound of her stomach pressing down on his erection, warmed his blood. Inflamed him.
The rasp of the zipper as he lowered it mingled with their harsh breaths. He pushed the dress over Caroline’s arms and tasted one creamy shoulder. She tasted like vanilla and honey, just the way she smelled. His senses were alive with her—her taste, her smell, the feel of her smooth skin. He needed to see her, too. More of her.
He kicked off his shoes. Then, securing Caroline to him by banding his arms around her waist, he rolled. Straddling her, he pinned her down with a knee on either side of her hips, and reared back to look at her. All of her.
Inch by inch he pulled down the front of her dress and the straps of her bra, savoring every bit of silken skin he exposed. His hands shaking with care, he unlatched the clasp between the plain white cups covering her breasts.
His hands—and his breath—stalled in anticipation. As if she knew what he wanted, she arched sinuously beneath him, pushing her full breasts into his hands. She lifted her own hands to the back of her head and fanned her thick, glossy hair across the pillow.
How many nights had he dreamed of her like this? But this wasn’t a dream, was it? He wouldn’t wake up in a cold bed, alone and aching.
No, this wasn’t a dream. She was real. Here. Beneath him.
He swept away her bra. The air in the room became thick, like molasses. It took great effort to move, to think. His chest burned, and he realized he needed oxygen. He lowered his head to the valley between her breasts, inhaled and let her sweetness flow through him.
Keeping Caroline Page 13