Home To Family

“Thank you. Always nice to feel like hunted game.”

She gave him a look of mock severity, though inwardly she felt a stirring of annoyance with him again. His tendency to make assumptions regarding their relationship grated on her nerves and reminded her unpleasantly of her father’s possessive treatment of her mother.

He laughed and put his arm around her waist. “How soon can we get out of here? I want to go someplace private. I’ve yet to give you your Christmas present, you know?”

She hid a frown. There was no way she wanted to leave this party until the D’Angelo family made their appearance. Considering the hell Matt had been through last year, she felt it imperative that she see him again. See with her own eyes that he’d recovered.

“It may be a while,” she told Perry, hoping she sounded less irked than she felt. “Now that the clinic’s closed for the holidays, I don’t want to miss wishing some of our patients Merry Christmas.”

Perry looked sulky, but probably knew her well enough by now to guess that she couldn’t be talked out of staying. She snatched up a paper plate and began slipping finger foods onto it. Perry liked to eat, and the caterers had done such a wonderful job that everything looked inviting.

There was a slight swell of chatter near the front door as someone new arrived. Leslie watched as the D’Angelo clan entered, dispensing coats and jackets to the hired help and calling out Christmas greetings to friends nearby.

Leslie’s heart took a leap. For as long as she could remember she had thought them the handsomest family in the Lightning River area. As a teenager, she’d spent many nights in her narrow single bed wishing she could somehow be magically granted membership to their inner circle. With her mother weeping in her bedroom and her father passed out in the living room from too much drink, Leslie—through her friendship with Matt—had seen the D’Angelos as warmer, grander, more fun than any family she had ever come in contact with.

She was long beyond that kind of fantasizing now, but she couldn’t help thinking that they were still a force to be reckoned with. With the exception of Rafe, Matt’s younger brother who had left home to seek his own place in the world years ago, this family could weather any storm—together.

They’d certainly had to weather one last year with Matt.

Sam, the patriarch of the family, who had suffered a stroke a few years ago and was still confined to a wheelchair, led the way with his wife, Rose, at his side. Rose’s two Italian sisters, Renata and Sofia followed, looking almost like twins in straight skirts and bulky Christmas sweaters. Behind them stood Matt’s only sister, Adriana. She had on a swirling red dress that set off her hair in dramatic prettiness, and she laughed as Tessa, her niece, said something in her ear.

Behind them Leslie caught sight of a tall man in the doorway, a glimpse of shining dark hair. She felt a momentary constriction in her chest and realized she’d been holding her breath.

Matt. At last.

A moment later, she saw that it wasn’t Matt at all, but his older brother Nick, his arm around the waist of his wife, Kari, who looked surprisingly graceful and thin in spite of her advanced pregnancy.

In the last year, Leslie and Kari had become friends, and as the baby’s due date drew near, Kari had relied more and more on Leslie for advice, friendship, and occasionally—when her hormones got the best of her—a shoulder to cry on. She had married Nick after a whirlwind courtship last year and was thrilled about the baby, but scared to death.

For a handful of heartbeats after Kari entered the foyer, Leslie waited expectantly for Matt to follow. But suddenly the door swung closed, locking out the cold, night air. Clearly, no one else had come.

“Is that him?” Perry said close to her ear, indicating Nick, who was scanning the room for friendly faces. She caught a whiff of the bourbon he’d been drinking.

“No, that’s his older brother.”

As though sensing her disappointment, Perry caught her close suddenly and nuzzled her ear. “My sweet angel. Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

Leslie nailed on a soft smile, determined not to let her disappointment show. So Matt had not come after all. Not surprising, really.

The Matt D’Angelo she’d grown up with had always enjoyed being the center of attention—expected it, almost. But with the exception of the quick trip back he’d made last year for Kari and Nick’s wedding, he hadn’t come home very often. There were bound to be questions, and people here tonight would be filled with curiosity.

Rosa, his mother, had hinted that Matt seemed different now, and though Leslie hadn’t had the opportunity to question exactly what that meant, she could imagine how such a tragedy could change a person. How could it not?

The evening wore on. Leslie headed for the kitchen to make sure the catering company brought extra plates to the buffet table. She ran into Doc Hayward and Kari D’Angelo talking in the back hallway.

Doc, who looked younger than his sixty-six years in a bright red sweater that set off his white hair handsomely, motioned her over. “Leslie, you’re just who I’m looking for. Do you know if we have any more of that cream at the clinic? The one I prescribed for Kari last week.”

“I think so,” Leslie told him, then smiled at Kari. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone through an entire tube already.”

The woman grimaced. “I’ve lost it. I don’t seem to be able to keep track of anything lately.”

“That’s really not unusual,” Doc said. “You do have a lot on your mind right about now.”

“I’m driving Nick crazy. He’s posted sticky notes everywhere. I used to kid him about being overly structured, but these days, having his organized mind running interference is the only thing saving me from looking like an idiot.”

“You’re doing fine,” Doc said. He patted Kari’s shoulder, and Leslie thought that, with his kind smile and gentle, faded-blue eyes, the old man had a bedside manner that could make any patient feel safe. “Another two months and this will all be behind you.”

“It can’t come soon enough.”

“Any decisions on a name yet?”

“Not yet. And since we don’t want to know the baby’s sex, the names haven’t even been narrowed down to a boy or girl. Everyone in the family has an opinion.”

Leslie grinned. “With the D’Angelos, that’s no surprise.”

“It’s just a good thing I love them so much,” Kari said, taking a sip from her glass of ginger ale. “Last week I found a note pinned to the front door of the cabin that said, “Do you like Mercedes?” I spent ten minutes trying to figure out why Aunt Renata wanted my opinion about cars before she told me that was her latest suggestion if the baby was a girl.”

The three of them laughed.

Perry was suddenly at Leslie’s side. He draped a proprietary arm around her shoulder. “What’s so amusing?”

They filled him in, but it must have lost something in the translation because he looked as if he didn’t really understand. Obviously he didn’t see the humor in living in a large Italian clan that could make you feel like the single most beloved person in the world and drive you to distraction all at the same time.

It occurred to Leslie that she didn’t know much about what Perry’s own family life was like. Or even if he was close to them. Why had she never bothered to ask?

Conversation, light and inconsequential, continued to ebb and flow among the four of them for a few more minutes.

Then Perry said to Kari, “So where’s this brother-in-law of yours? The infamous Matt.”

Leslie felt her stomach lurch. With that one, bald question, the innocence and fun of the conversation evaporated. Yet a part of her felt no regret. It was an inquiry she’d been dying to make herself.

Kari’s smile wavered a bit, but she responded easily enough. “He called from Denver. His plane got in late, so he suggested we come without him.” She looked at Doc Hayward. “He’ll be sorry he missed you, Doc.”

It was Perry who answered with an impolite snort. “I suppose it’s easier to hide out for a while than deal with a bunch of nosy questions right off the bat.”

Leslie wondered if she was the only one who noticed Kari’s posture stiffen. “I’m not sure that’s what he’s doing,” the woman said. “I think he’s a lot like Nick and meets any problem head-on.”

“Still…” Perry went on. “I can’t say that I’d blame him very much if he chose not to come. Who wants to be a freak in the sideshow?”

Leslie frowned and cut a glance at Perry. He had his moments, but he was seldom rude. She knew he’d been drinking steadily through most of the evening—so had she, for that matter—but the comment was uncalled-for. She wondered just how many details of last year’s tragedy he’d picked up while circulating among Doc’s guests.

“Matt’s hardly a freak,” she heard herself say. She sounded ridiculously defensive and toned her attitude down a notch. “He’s always loved to be around people, and everyone in this house is his friend.”

“Doesn’t mean they won’t be curious as hell,” Perry said over the top of his glass. He raised a speculative brow toward Kari. “So what happened exactly? I heard he walked in on a robbery and got shot.”

Kari nodded. “A year ago. He was bringing his girlfriend up here to spend the holidays with the family. She was killed, and so were a couple of others at the diner where they stopped. Matt was shot twice. Once in the back, which I understand he’s recovered well from. The second came at close range and did considerable damage to his left hand. And since he’s a surgeon…”

“It’s been a year,” Perry remarked. “Surely he’s well on the way to recovery by now.”

Kari gave Perry a vague, distancing smile. “I’m sure he’s doing quite well.”

“Life is full of tough breaks,” Perry added. “If you can’t change things, then you need to stop cursing your bad luck and move on.”

Leslie looked at him sharply. He sounded so pompous that she wanted to drive the point of her high-heel into his instep. She felt his fingers tighten imperceptively along her shoulder. It occurred to her suddenly that he might be jealous of Matt. Ridiculous, of course. There was no reason to be.

Luckily, Kari seemed disinclined to take offense. Forming a smile that did not include her eyes, she said, “Speaking of moving on, will you excuse me? I really ought to say hello to some of the others.”

Before anyone could object, she slipped away.

Perry favored Leslie with a questioning glance. “Did I say something wrong?”

Leslie’s temper was too provoked to comment right away. Laughing lightly, Doc shook his head at Perry. “Young fellow, I’m not sure you said anything right.”

Perry’s arm still lay across her shoulders like a heavy bar. Slipping out from under it, she said, “I should check on things in the kitchen.”

She hated to strand Doc with Perry, but she had to get away from him right now. Why had she invited him to this party? He was bored and behaving as badly as a six-year-old dragged to the opera.

A waiter passed by with a tray of filled wineglasses. She scooped one up and would have made her way into the kitchen, but Althea Bendix, the police chief’s wife, pulled her into the front parlor, where a small circle of women were eagerly plotting a surprise baby shower for Kari D’Angelo.

With no children of her own, Leslie found it hard to get excited by talk of games that involved measuring the waist of the expectant mother and trying to guess how many jellybeans could fill a baby bottle. But she liked Kari, she liked these women, and she liked that she was a part of their world, that they considered her one of them.

It hadn’t always been that way. As a child, she’d quickly realized that even a place as small as Broken Yoke had a pecking order. Jagged, winding Lightning River bisected the town, and there was definitely a correct, acceptable side of it to call home, and one that some people preferred to pretend didn’t exist.

The trailer park Leslie had grown up in—Mobley’s Mobile Court—was a run-down eyesore that smelled of misery and failure. Town government considered it a constant source of embarrassment. Her parents, whose fights were loud and legendary, whose mailbox stayed stuffed with late notices printed in increasingly irate colors, had definitely been persona non grata in Broken Yoke. For a long while, Leslie had been sure she was, too.

Until the sixth grade. When Matt D’Angelo had come into her life. Saved her, really. From parents and teachers and the law, and sometimes even herself.

In those days she’d been lonely and disoriented most of the time. The fragile universe she’d managed to create for herself had always been in danger of toppling, but she’d been honestly convinced that no one knew that.

No one knew that quiet, sullen Leslie Meadows considered life to be missing some essential piece she couldn’t identify. That happiness seemed to get further and further away from her every day. And that she imagined her heart to be no more than an empty cave where fear and hopelessness dwelt year-round.

No one, that is, except Matt.

One of the women beside her nudged her arm. “Look,” she said. “It’s starting to snow.”

Leslie glanced out the nearest window. The temperature was supposed to drop drastically tonight, and a flurry of light flakes cascaded in the outside lights beyond the wrap-around porch. She listened to the conversation of the other women with half an ear, wishing she could be out there in the darkness, feeling the feathery touch of those snowflakes against her face.

Here, the laughter, the heady, perfumed atmosphere, the warmth generated by so many people made her feel restless and claustrophobic. She thought how clear and sharp the air outside must be right now. Every breath would be almost painful.

Years ago, on a moonlit night just like this one, she and Matt had sat snuggled against one another for warmth, catching snowflakes on their tongues as they watched an impromptu hockey game on Lightning Lake.

He’d been busy with sports all winter. Matt was the best skier on the school team, and he’d had little time for her as he concentrated on trimming his run times.

She’d missed him so much. How good it felt to have his familiar strength pressed against her, to hear his easy laughter and know that her closest friend had not forgotten her. It was the best feeling in the world, that connection with another human being.

Those hours on the lake had also seen a shift in the dynamic of their friendship. It had wandered into unexpected territory when warmth and closeness had led to a kiss. They’d barely skirted disaster that cold, January night. At the last minute they’d managed to pull back from going any further, laughing nervously with the unspoken knowledge of how close they’d come to ruining everything.

In all the years since then, they’d never spoken of that evening. Happily, the bond between them had remained strong and pure and immutable.

She glanced back out the window as she drained her wineglass. It was snowing a little harder now, soft and silent, and so inviting. Why did anyone stay inside when there was that kind of beauty to be enjoyed only steps away?

She knew that some of Doc’s guests would curse the sight of it as they left, complaining as they tugged on coats and scarves and made their slow, cautious way home. Perry would be one of them. He hated the drive back to Denver, even in good weather, and tonight the roads could be troublesome.

But she loved the snow. So did Matt. At least, he always had when they’d been kids.

Where was he right now?

Over the murmur of conversation, she heard a hard, harsh bark of amused laughter. It had to be Bob Gunderson, the president of Broken Yoke’s only bank. Everyone called Bob “Heimlich” because of his penchant for telling jokes that always ended with a laugh that sounded as though he was trying to expel something from his throat.

She caught sight of Perry standing by the fireplace, nodding as Heimlich finished his story. From the glazed look on Perry’s face, she suspected he was wishing himself anyplace else. Poor man. She supposed she ought to rescue him.

Except she didn’t want to go back to her place, toast the season, and open up some ridiculously lavish Christmas gift from him that would embarrass her. Perry wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t stingy, and he was sure to have gotten her something completely inappropriate given the status of their relationship.

In some ways he was so like Matt. Handsome. Generous. Confident. So energetic sometimes that he took her breath away. And goal-oriented. He lacked Matt’s easygoing ways, his charisma, that core of genuine compassion that had made a career in medicine almost a foregone conclusion.

But so what if Perry wasn’t Matt D’Angelo? she thought with sudden stubborn rebellion. Why should he have to be?

In spite of a little boorish behavior this evening, he was still one of the most attractive, interesting men she’d ever dated. She should take him home, open a bottle of her best wine and…see what developed.

Leaving would, of course, disappoint half the single women in this room tonight. Just like Matt, Perry attracted attention from females the way honey enticed bees.

Maybe it was a good thing Matt hadn’t shown up. Two such potent, available males at one party, and who knew what might happen? Over the years she’d watched so many women try to catch Matt’s attention, sometimes with embarrassing results.

Leslie cast one last, long glance around the room. Another few minutes of polite conversation and then she’d wander over to Perry. No point in staying, really. Somewhere along the way, the evening had lost its magic.

Why hadn’t Matt made a concerted effort to come tonight?

CHAPTER TWO

MATT D’ANGELO had been the only one on the flight from Chicago who wasn’t upset about their late arrival in Denver.

He’d always considered himself a patient guy, unflappable. That ability to focus and remain calm in the face of confusion and crisis had made him a star during his residency and brought him accolades in the operating room. But this new willingness to suffer delays due to the weather, the airlines, the traffic, and finally, the girl at the car-rental counter with the speed of a baffled snail—this was a pretty sure sign that he really hadn’t wanted to make this trip after all.

True, he’d been eager to get away, tired of coming under the microscope of the powers-that-be at the hospital, tired of getting pep talks from his occupational therapist. Most of all, tired of having to reassure well-meaning friends and associates that he really didn’t mind spending Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone.

Just tired.

So when his parents had pushed him to come home for a visit, he’d allowed himself to be talked into it.

Now he wished he’d said no. The family, as supportive as they’d always been, would probably smother him with their loving concern. His friends in Broken Yoke would be solicitous, but people who lived in a small town and who’d known you all your life, often assumed they had the perfect right to grill you. They’d be unable to control their curiosity. They’d feel obligated to give advice.

Or worse, they’d offer pity. He knew he’d hate that the most.

In this strange, different year he’d discovered that most people meant well. They wanted to help. But he’d spent months trying to pull a black curtain over that night in the diner. The idea of having to revisit any of it, having those memories ambush him in some new and terrible way, made his heart feel as tight as a closed fist.

He wished suddenly that he’d followed his friend Larry’s advice—gone to the Bahamas for the holidays, where he could have found a sure cure for the blues under the warm sun.

Instead, he was almost home, watching snow flurries pelt the windshield of his rental car as he took the exit off the interstate.

He passed the familiar, aged sign that welcomed visitors to Broken Yoke. The turn up the mountain road that led to Lightning River Lodge would be just ahead, winding and treacherous in the worst of winter, but still as familiar to Matt as the route he took to the hospital in Chicago every day.

Lightning River ran along the lip of the Arapaho National Forest and widened into a deep, cold, crystal-clear lake. His parents had built the lodge on some of the prettiest land along the Front Range. The views from every window of the resort—mountains, lake and aspen-covered forests—left guests awe-struck, and its proximity to ski slopes, river rapids and quaint, historic towns in the area brought them back time after time.

A few years ago, when his father had first been incapacitated by his stroke, Matt had considered moving back home. He hadn’t really wanted to. His career had been on the fast track as he began to make a name for himself in microsurgery, and he could see endless opportunities ahead.

For a while, his mother seemed to manage the family business just fine. Her sisters, Renata and Sofia, had come from Italy to help out. Matt’s younger sister Adriana had just finished college and was more than willing to pitch in until things returned to normal.

But things didn’t return to normal. His father’s medical bills were astronomical. Rainy summer days and little fresh powder on the slopes to entice skiers made the situation worse. Matt had begun to talk to Doc Hayward about returning home and going into practice with the older physician—something Matt had never, ever considered before.

Luckily, his older brother Nick came up with a solution to keep the family business afloat and solve his problems, too.

Nick, an army helicopter pilot who had recently divorced, was concerned about having a proper place to raise his daughter Tessa. Matt couldn’t help feeling relieved when Nick quit the army and came home to take over, building his own cabin only a short distance from the lodge.

The change seemed to have worked. The business was doing well. Nick had added a helicopter tour company, Angel Air, to the amenities they offered guests, and Adriana, an entrepreneur at heart, had finally talked Nick and their father into reopening the old stable where they’d kept horses as kids.

Matt had been glad to leave running the business in Nick’s capable hands. And as much as he loved this area, he had never envisioned returning to live here permanently.

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

He wove his way through Broken Yoke’s downtown, past all the old familiar haunts. He saw that nothing much had changed, although a few more of the buildings looked empty; some were even boarded up.

Glad for a legitimate excuse to stall, he had called the lodge from the airport, telling the family not to wait, to go to Doc’s party without him. It was already past ten. Most of Doc Hayward’s guests had probably come and gone by now. Maybe even the D’Angelos. Everyone knew that Doc—always a morning person—would have booked an early flight tomorrow.

So if Matt skipped the party entirely, would anyone really notice? Or care?

He felt the muscles along his jaw tighten. No more avoidance, D’Angelo. Not tonight. You know you want to see Doc before he goes.

He could catch the tail end of the party. Say a few quick hellos and be gone before most guests even noticed his arrival. He had to. If he didn’t get a handle on these subconscious and not-so-subconscious evasion tactics, they would develop their own momentum. And then where would he be?

Doc lived just off Main Street, and when Matt pulled in front of the house he was surprised to see how many cars were still in the drive and along the road. He had to park half a block away and walk back, trudging along the darkened blacktop that glistened wetly in the street lights. Snow, falling like a lacy curtain, obscured his vision and made him tuck his chin into the collar of his coat.

The Christmas lights Doc had put up outside twinkled a festive welcome.

Strange how the sight of those decorations could make his gut go cold.