by M. Pierce
"I've got it," I snapped. I shot an acid look at Nate and he frowned. Ugh, I felt instantly penitent. These rich... arrogant... presumptuous... good-looking assholes! How could they be so infuriating and so pitiful at the same time?
Pity and fury: the same emotions I felt when I thought about Matt.
Matt, the man I was going to rescue.
It was the first weekend in October, which had given me about one week to mull over Nate's request. And I did pretend to mull, though my decision was made the moment I heard Matt was drinking.
I approached Pam about the time off. As usual when Pam didn't want to discuss something, she barely looked up from her computer.
"Yes, it's fine Hannah. I've already spoken with Nathaniel about it. I'll be in LA that weekend and Laura is in Chicago. We'll shut down the office."
"The thing is," I said, "I'm not sure how long I'll be gone. It might take longer than one weekend. I don't really know."
"Yes, it's fine. It's all fine, Hannah. Believe it or not, I can survive without you."
Pam glanced at me. Fuck, she probably thought I was fishing for a paid vacation, which I definitely was not. Thanks to Nate, I had five thousand extra dollars in my bank. I wondered if Pam knew about that. I wondered if Matt knew. Maybe it was Matt's money.
Ugh, these conspiracy theories had to stop.
"Great, okay. I'll... I'll email you if it looks like I'll be gone for more than a week, but I don't think that's going to happen."
"Fine. Sounds good Hannah."
Pam's tone and posture said I was dismissed. I lingered by her desk until she was forced to glare at me.
"Yes, Hannah?"
"Have you been in touch with Matt?"
I thought I saw something pass through Pam's expression, but it was gone before I could decipher it.
"Yes. He's still my author. We communicate from time to time."
"How is he?"
I closed my eyes; I didn't want to see Pam's withering glare.
That woman is a shark, Matt once told me, but Matt was a tiger and Nate was a hawk. They were all dangerous. They all lived in the rarefied air of the successful and, now more than ever, I felt like a child.
A child in the dark.
I kept wondering—how dare they? How dare Matt use me and lie to me? How dare Nate swoop in and bribe me into helping his brother? How dare Pam treat me with such cool indifference when I was going to save her bloody author?
God, but I was in love with Matt.
My heart quickened as I stood in Pam's office and felt the anger and heat of my love. I didn't need five thousand dollars to go to him. The money was an insult. And I wasn't doing Pam a favor by going to him. And he sure as fuck didn't deserve me going to him.
I was going to him because I loved him and because love is unstoppable.
"He's seen better days," Pam said quietly.
My eyes flickered open.
Pam wasn't glaring. Her expression had softened and she wore a small frown.
"He becomes someone else, Hannah. Someone I don't know. He's difficult to know as is, but—" She ran her fingers over the keyboard. Emotion made her restive. It did the same thing to Matt; it did the same thing to Nate. I felt triumphant in my simple ability to be human.
"But you tell me." Pam cleared her throat. "You go out there and you tell me how he is."
I blinked and nodded.
"I will," I said, "I promise."
I hurried out before the waterworks started. Pam needed me. So did Nate and Matt. Why couldn't they admit it?
I packed on Thursday after calling Nate and agreeing to his plan. He did a poor job of concealing his relief. I tried to return his money, but he shut me down. He told me to pack for cool weather. He told me he would give me a lift to the airport.
It wasn't until he picked me up that he told me we'd be traveling together. Asshole.
Our flight boarded forty minutes late.
Nate grinned as I stowed my backpack and gawked. I stretched out my legs.
"Is the legroom to your liking Miss Catalano?"
I blushed.
"I've never flown first class."
"Ah. It really is the only way to fly."
I glared out the pill-shaped window. Yeah, the only way to fly if you can afford it.
I wanted to chatter as we took off and hit waves of turbulence—I'm a nervous flyer—but I'd given Nate the cold shoulder one too many times. He closed his eyes and zoned out as the cabin rattled.
I studied his face.
Again I was struck by his resemblance to Matt. Nate's hair was black, though, and Matt's was the color of sand with brilliant highlights and darker shocks. I remembered the feel of those silky strands sliding through my fingers... while we kissed... while he went down on me.
Fuck.
I was not going to New York to leap into Matt's bed. I was going to New York to try to help him, and then to get on with my life.
When I thought Nate was dead asleep, I pulled out my copy of The Silver Cord.
I'd been rereading Matt's books over the last three months. Contained within his sentences, coded in his words, was the man I loved and all the secrets he'd kept from me. Reading the books was like hearing his voice. His wit, his sarcasm, his mercurial moods, and then his unusual, forlorn wisdom—it was all there.
On Friday morning I had telephoned Pam to ask if there were any new pages from The Surrogate. Jane Doe's writing arrived like clockwork on Thursdays, but we hadn't had an installment for two weeks. I was hoping for pages to read on the plane. There was nothing, though, and no explanation from Pam.
How annoying. The author was stalled on a scene I was dying to read, and dreading too. The sex scene.
Nate flipped over the cover of my book.
"Nate!"
I jumped, jerking it away.
"Sorry, I wanted to see what you were reading."
I shoved The Silver Cord into my backpack.
"Now you know." My face heated.
"Yes. That's one of my favorites of his."
I peeked at the immaculately dressed man beside me. I was flying comfortable in leggings and a teal tunic top. Nate was flying like a Wall Street executive in a gray suit and golden tie with an Eldredge knot so perfect that I wanted to stare at his throat.
When Nate wasn't annoying the hell out of me, he intrigued me. What did he do? I'd noticed his heavy wedding band. Did Sky men cheat on their wives, or just their girlfriends?
"Is it true?" I said. "That it's sort of... about your family?"
"Yes." Nate smiled at me. I frowned back at him. He had a way of smiling so warmly that my anger dissolved, and whenever he spoke to me he gave me all of his attention. It was unnerving. At present, he'd angled himself toward me and appeared oblivious to the several flight attendants ogling him. "I take it you read as much online?"
There was none of Matt's cynicism in his voice, just frank curiosity.
"Well, yeah. I... followed the news for a while."
"I can't blame you."
I thought about The Silver Cord while Nate watched me patiently.
"So you guys were very religious growing up?"
"Yes, very."
"I wouldn't have guessed it," I muttered. I slapped a hand over my mouth—fuck, I did not mean to say that—but Nate only laughed.
"Think about our namesakes—Matthew, Seth, Nathaniel. All Biblical. Our parents took us to church twice each Sunday. Our uncle, not so much."
"Your parents," I murmured.
"Yes. Their loss was very hard on Matt. He was young. Old enough to remember them, too young to really understand. I still don't think he understands. He feels pain like no one I have ever known, and always has. He's such an emotional creature."
I watched Nate, silently willing him to go on. After a moment, he did.
"I remember once we were on vacation in Maine and our father went into a cave, and he disappeared from view. Matt..." Nate smiled thinly. "He plopped himself down on the sand and crie
d so hard. He thought our father was gone. He was inconsolable, even when dad came out. All day these huge crocodile tears were standing in his eyes and I could see—" Nate gestured to his eyes. "—I could see that it meant something more to Matt, our father disappearing into the dark. It was more than fear. It was like a betrayal to him."
"Every small separation echoed a vaster goodbye," I said quietly. It was a line from The Silver Cord. My favorite line.
"Yes, exactly."
"Did he always want to be a writer?"
"Oh, I don't know. He would say no. He rarely talks about it, though I once heard him say that the only thing he hates more than writing is not writing." Nate chuckled. "After he left graduate school, I thought he would be a drunk for the rest of his short life. But he wrote—and the writing became his addiction."
Until now, I thought.
"Yeah, I see. Thank you."
"You're welcome, of course. Between the internet and The Silver Cord, it seems you know quite a bit about me and mine."
I ducked and pretended to be searching for something in my backpack. How awkward. It was one thing to snoop into Matt's life in the anonymous privacy of the net, and quite another to be sitting next to his brother and discussing my research.
"Yeah, I... I guess."
"Fair enough, Hannah. I know quite a bit about you and yours, too."
My stomach twisted. How much did Nate know? How much had Matt told him?
My panic must have been obvious, because Nate quickly added, "Matt spoke very well of you and your family."
I smiled tightly.
That conversation set the tone for the rest of the trip. Nate and I had reached an uneasy camaraderie and there we stayed, skirting the obvious awkwardness of our adventure.
I kept hoping Nate would volunteer his thoughts on why Matt was in such bad shape, but he didn't. Maybe he didn't know. Was it because of me? Was it because his cover was blown? Both? I didn't seriously think losing me could drive Matt into the ground.
Nate's car, a silver Cadillac sedan, was parked at Newark.
"I live near Trenton," he explained as we put our bags in the trunk. "There are small airports between here and Geneva, but I looked into tickets and they'd really give you the run around—down to Florida, back up to Philly, over to New York—and even then you'd need to do some driving. This is much better, and it gives us time to talk."
I clutched my backpack on my lap.
Time to talk. Awesome.
"I wouldn't mind doing some driving," I said, but as we moved through Newark in the growing dark, I became increasingly relieved it was Nate behind the wheel.
"Oh, you'll get to drive. We'll pick up your rental car when we get to Geneva."
I glanced at my phone. It was 7:00 p.m. Even if we made great time, we'd reach Geneva at midnight.
"I don't think rental places are open that late."
Nate shook his head. Thank god Nate was a more attentive driver than Matt. He drove aggressively, but he kept his hawkish eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel.
"I pulled a few strings, got the manager to open late for us. It's an emergency, after all."
I smirked and gazed out the window. So Nate bribed him, too. I remembered Matt trying to buy everything I laid my hands on. I had a distinct vision of Sky men plowing through life, snarling and slinging money at their problems.
By the time we reached Pennsylvania, it was too dark to see. Staring out the window, I could just make out rolling farmland and fences.
"Beautiful country," Nate told me. "Very fertile. Is this your first time out east?"
"Yeah. I grew up in Colorado."
"Well, I'm sorry you can't see more. Waking up to the Finger Lakes will be amazing, at least. It's more of the same between here and there—lots of farmland around New York State."
I nodded and smiled, though farmland didn't jive with my idea of New York.
My mind kept returning to Nate's words.
It's an emergency, after all.
Was I really the right person for this? What was I supposed to do?
We passed into New York and something changed in Nate. He sat forward as he drove. He glanced at me from time to time and began to chatter. Did I want to stop for food? No. Did I need a cup of coffee? No. Did I want the radio on, off? The heat? AC? He sped up.
"I've got you set up at Geneva on the Lake. You'll like it. I got you a suite. I'm sure you looked over the papers I gave you."
"Yeah, briefly..." I had also Googled the resort and then rapidly closed Firefox because I didn't want to think about how much Nate was spending on me. "You really didn't have to, I mean, it's so nice—"
"Oh, please. You're doing me a favor here Hannah. If anything's not to your liking, or if there are hitches, anything at all, you call me. I always have my phone. And of course..." He adjusted the rearview mirror. He ran his fingers through his thick hair and drummed the wheel. "Of course you might want to go see Matt right away."
I watched the night outside my window, hoping to conceal the fear on my face.
I had gotten used to Nate's calm persistent presence on the journey. Maybe I didn't want a travel companion at first, but suddenly the thought of being abandoned in New York terrified me. Abandoned with an unstable Matt, no less.
Our whirlwind romance aside, Matt and I barely knew one another.
We were strangers. Again. Still.
"Is—" I hesitated. "I mean, why—"
"Hm? If you're tired, by all means, get settled in your room, sleep. See him in the morning. I'm sure he's around. He's—"
"Have you gone to see him?" I blurted.
"Of course. Yes, of course." Nate smiled, but his smile was tight. "More than once. He's, you know... I'm his oldest brother. It's different. I come around and he feels like I'm babying him. It doesn't work." He laughed.
Nate's smile, his rambling, that anxious laugh—none of it was comforting.
I caught him looking at me.
"He's not dangerous, Hannah."
I felt so small. I hugged my backpack.
Not dangerous, that was easy for Nate to say. Matt hadn't blasted Nate's life apart.
"Is he suicidal?" I whispered.
"No! God, no." Nate's knuckles were white.
We drove the rest of the way to Geneva in silence. I wanted to ask Nate a million things—when did you last see him? how do you know he's not suicidal?—but my questions only seemed to make Nate tense, and his tension was feeding mine.
I had no idea whether I'd check into the hotel that night or go see Matt.
I was chickening out big time.
A friendly but tired-looking Enterprise employee walked me through the car pickup. Nate filled out the paperwork, asking for my signature here and there. Of course he booked me a Ford Escape and not a cheaper economy car.
The night air was freezing. Nate carried my suitcase to the car and we idled beside it, reviewing directions on my iPhone. He'd overburdened me with maps, advice, and contact information. I shivered as our conversation wound down.
Abruptly, Nate hugged me.
"Thank you, Hannah," he said, releasing me at once.
I studied my feet.
"I care about him," I said. "So much."
"I know. I know that now. He needs you."
"I know."
Hearing Nate say those words—he needs you—galvanized me. I was here for a purpose. I was here for the man I loved, not to hide in a swanky resort.
"I'll be in touch," I said. I squeezed Nate's shoulder and climbed into the car.
The resort was just minutes from the rental place; the cabin was just minutes from the resort, north of the tip of Seneca Lake.
I drove past Geneva on the Lake and got my bearings.
Within ten minutes, I was turning onto the gravel road that led out to Matt's Uncle's cabin. I drove slowly into total darkness. My tires crunched on the country road and my high beams illuminated slices of forest.
My palms were sweating on the whe
el.
Matt, my Matt. I hadn't seen him in so long. My eyes ached to see him, my hands to touch him. My whole heart reached out for him.
The driveway to the cabin amounted to two dirt ruts through wooded land. I stopped when my headlights glanced off a window. If Matt was asleep, I wanted to let him sleep.
I walked the rest of the way. The October night prickled along my arms.
Tall trees surrounded the cabin, which was a cozy midsized structure with a wrap-around porch. Chimes hung from the eaves and tolled quietly in the dark.
I brought up my hand to knock on the door, and then I tried the knob spontaneously. It turned in my grip.
My heart stuttered as I crept into the cabin. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I made out a kitchen table and counter littered with bottles, most of them empty.
A fly buzzed in the otherwise perfect quiet. Dishes slanted in piles from the sink and a sour odor pervaded the air.
Broken glass on the floor.
Ashtrays bristling with butts.
Clothes and papers strewn everywhere.
Something rustled. My eyes darted to the corner, where Laurence sat in his cage. He watched me with shining eyes. I tiptoed to him. He pressed his body close to me and I smiled, touching his fur through the bars.
"Hey there," I whispered. "It's okay now. You're okay."
A metallic click sounded at my back.
I spun.
I was looking at Matt.
I was looking at the muzzle of a gun.
CHAPTER 25
Matt
_____
HANNAH FROZE SO completely, it was like I had stopped time.
I froze, too. Even my hands were steady as I pointed the pistol at her head.
My god, I was hallucinating.
It couldn't be Hannah. And it was. The moonlight highlighted her lovely face. I caught a whiff of her sweet shampoo.
"M... M... Matt," she breathed. It was Hannah's voice in perfect replica, husky with halftones of fear.
She began to inch along the wall. I lowered my gun.
"You're not real," I said.
Hannah's dark eyes were pinned to the gun. I tapped the barrel against my thigh. Her nostrils flared.