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“More than half.” Liza scribbled some more. “Anything else?”
Matty spoke up. “Tell him I’ve never forgotten the way he came to my rescue one day, and now I’d like to return the favor.”
Liza frowned. “What?”
“Just tell him.”
“It’s your proposal, not mine.” Liza finished with a flourish. She reread the letter silently, then slipped it into its envelope, which she addressed with a bold scrawl. “Stamps?”
Matty was suddenly all too aware of how much champagne she had drunk. She watched Liza rise to rummage through the drawers again. “Liza, don’t waste stamps. We’ve gone far enough.”
“Of course we haven’t.” Liza gave a lopsided grin. “Damon Quinn’s not nearly good enough for you. Nobody is. But he’s a start.”
“We’re not mailing that letter….”
“Watch me.” Liza glued a row of stamps in the proximity of the right-hand corner of the envelope, then wove her way to the mail slot in the entry hall and stuck it halfway through. “There!”
Matty began to giggle again, and by the time Liza had rejoined them on the floor, all three women were laughing so hard they were gasping. They fell asleep that way, heads pillowed on cushions, bodies covered by worn afghans they’d thrown over each other, cuddled together like teenagers at a birthday sleepover.
Matty didn’t even bother retrieving the envelope before she fell asleep. The mail always arrived in late afternoon, as it had every day since her childhood. Damon Quinn would never see the letter that had been nothing more than a birthday salute from her best friends. He would never know that Felicity and Liza had used him to try to open her eyes to the world of possibilities that existed beyond the safe, familiar confines of Carrollton, Minnesota.
She fell asleep trying to visualize Damon’s face, and she was still sleeping soundly early the next morning when the mail carrier, following the map of his newly divided route, removed the letter addressed to Damon and stuck it in his pouch.
CHAPTER ONE (#u5cf4c690-8543-543a-a416-91eb5e912b1f)
Miami International was every bit as crowded and harried as Damon had expected it to be. His flight in from George Town had been uneventful, but as he’d neared Miami, he had asked himself again and again exactly what on earth he was doing. He had made some huge mistakes in his life. He had trusted the wrong people. He had looked at the world through a distorted eye, refusing to see that the ordinary events of everyday life were as important, as earthshaking, as anything he could discover in the laboratory. But never, at any time in his life, had he set out to unfairly use another human being.
Not until now.
An airline official in quasimilitary garb began to announce the arrival of another flight at the nearest gate, and Damon watched idly as people who had been lounging in the chrome-and-imitation-leather chairs began to stand expectantly. He didn’t join them. Matty Stewart’s flight had been rerouted due to a freak blizzard in the Midwest, and nobody seemed to know which alternate flight she had been switched to, because computers had succumbed, as well. She’d had no way to reach him, of course, so he had been forced to meet every potential flight, hoping that she was on board and, more important, that they would recognize each other if she was.
He was about to marry a woman who might pass right by him and never know she’d done it.
A trio of casually dressed young women, one with a baby slung over her shoulder, passed just in front of him to line up outside the roped-off exit. He wondered whom they were meeting, and if the baby had been lugged through the busy airport for a tender reunion or simply because baby-sitters cost too much money.
The first passengers stepped through the jetway, and Damon watched without getting to his feet. He counted four men in business suits, a middle-aged couple with three carryons apiece, a mother and father dragging a screaming blond-haired toddler between them. The parade of passengers continued as he ticked them off mentally. By the time he began to lose interest, the three young women had disappeared with three equally young men.
Unlike the last flight he’d met, there hadn’t even been any near misses on this one. The two unaccompanied women of the right age hadn’t begun to match Matty’s description or resemble the photo she’d sent him. One woman had been short and dark-haired, and the flurry of Spanish she’d uttered when she caught sight of a dark-haired young Romeo behind the rope had confirmed his opinion.
The other woman, a willowy blonde in a pale gold sweater and dark stretch pants, had seemed too self-possessed to match the voice he’d come to know so well. Matty had a sweet voice with an unmistakable flutelike waver that said everything about how unsure she was that she was doing the right thing by becoming his bride.
And how could he blame her? He was asking a total stranger to give up the next year of her life, perhaps much longer, to make his own life more convenient.
There was more to it than that, of course. Heidi’s future was at stake, too, a reality that eclipsed anyone’s convenience. And even though fatherhood was a relatively new experience for Damon, he had already learned that a father did anything for his child. Anything and everything and the entire spectrum in between. A father even begged a stranger to marry him if it meant that his daughter’s future would be safe and secure. And that was exactly what Damon had done.
The flight attendants strolled through the exit, chatting and pulling their black flight bags behind them. Damon glanced at his watch, then back at the gate. But obviously the plane was empty now and Matty was on a different flight. He consulted the list he’d been given at the ticket counter to check what he already knew. The next possibility didn’t arrive for two hours. He was stuck in the Miami airport waiting for a woman he was going to marry, a woman he didn’t know. And when and if she ever arrived, he probably wouldn’t even recognize her.
He was hit with such a wave of self-disgust that for a moment nothing else mattered. Then, as he leaned over to pick up the bouquet of pink and white carnations he had bought at an airport gift shop, he heard his name over the intercom.
“Would Mr. Damon Quinn please come to the airport information booth in front of…”
He listened intently to the entire message and wondered how many times it had been repeated before he had registered the words.
And what would he find when he arrived at the booth to get his message? That Matty had been seized with an attack of good sense and skipped the flight altogether? That something was wrong with Heidi back on Inspiration Cay and no one there knew what to do about it? That Gretchen’s parents had arrived on the island, warrant in hand, to take his daughter to a new home in Ohio?
All disasters. All possible. For a moment he couldn’t move; then, clutching the flowers in an iron grip, he went to find out which calamity had struck.
* * *
Matty tugged at her gold sweater and wished it were a few inches longer to completely hide her hips and rump. Liza had bought it as a going away gift, along with the black leggings, the butter-soft ankle boots and the long gold chain that hung between her breasts. Her suitcases were stuffed with clothes from her other friends, too. The Carrollton female staff had given her a shower unlike any she’d ever witnessed. Liza and Felicity had orchestrated it, first shepherding Matty to a salon to have her colors done, then to have her hair cut and streaked with subtle warm highlights. The shower had come one week later, and all the clothes had mysteriously matched the new colors she was supposed to wear. Soft golds and delicate greens, rust and camel, and a turquoise the color of the ocean that would surround her new home.
When she looked in the mirror now, the Matty peering back at her was altered. Short wisps of hair framed her face and tapered to her shoulders. Long light bangs brushed her eyebrows and emphasized the wide set of her eyes. The effect was pleasant and gave her a surge of confidence when she caught sight of herself. But she was still essentially the same, still the same plain Matty Stewart who was about to sell herself for the promise of adventure and warmth, and the presence of people in her life who might one day come to care about her.
“Miss Stewart?”
She turned to give the young man behind the information booth a wide smile. “He doesn’t seem to be coming, does he?”
“Would you like me to try again?”
“That would be terrific.”
She watched him lift the microphone and start his announcement again. She guessed he was no older than twenty-one, dark and tanned, with a salad bowl haircut she recognized from teenagers on the Carrollton pediatrics ward. Six other people had demanded his attention since she had asked for his help, but the young man still hadn’t forgotten her.
She was always surprised when she heard complaints about how rude people were to each other. True, she had run across difficult people at the hospital, but most of the time they were in pain or immersed in the worst throes of grief. She was drawn to people like that, the healer to the sufferer, and she discounted their rudeness as temporary and in some perverse way therapeutic. But in her experience most people were kind and helpful, willing to go the extra mile on the flimsiest evidence. Despite her work, despite some of the horrors the hospital had dealt with, she had never lost faith in her fellow human beings.
Which might explain why she was willing to marry a man she hadn’t seen in nearly a decade, a man who had probably never even seen her at all, not even when they had stood face-to-face.
“Matty?”
She had been gazing into the throngs hurrying toward gates or ticket counters, so the deep voice behind her left shoulder was a surprise. But she didn’t spin around. She took a deep breath, then another for good measure, before she turned.
For the first time in eight years she was face-to-face with Damon Quinn. And this time he couldn’t fail to see her.
“Damon.” She created a smile from the turmoil within her. “I wondered if we’d ever find each other.”
“I saw you get off the plane, but…” His voice trailed off.
She didn’t want to finish his sentence, but she did. “You didn’t recognize me. I’m not really surprised. There’s no reason why you should have.”
But she recognized him, both with her eyes and the distinctive fluttering inside her that had characterized every glimpse she’d ever had of him.
“You don’t look like your photograph.”
“The hair’s different. I know.” As she spoke, she did not have the self-control to resist examining him. Damon was older, but every bit as beautiful as she remembered. And beautiful was the right word, not because he was in the least bit feminine, but because handsome failed to drive right to the heart of the matter. He had the face of an angel, or at least a tormented poet, wide cheekbones, a rock-solid jaw and dark eyes that burned like smoldering coals, even when he was at his most casual. His black hair was too long, and it curled over his forehead, his nape and ears in a style that more than suited him. It defined him somehow, his perpetual distraction, his flouting of convention, his disdain for the inconsequential.
“More than your hair is different,” he said after he had studied her, too. “You’ve grown up.”
“Then you remember me?”
He smiled a little. “What’s it to be, Matty? Bare-bones truth? Or something a little gentler?”
“I’m totally incapable of telling a lie. And eight years ago you never took the time to try.”
Some internal scorecard seemed to register a point in her favor. “I remember you, but vaguely. And only now that you’re here.”
She was pleased somehow. She hadn’t expected that much. “I did grow up, but I haven’t changed a lot. Carrollton’s pretty much the same as it was when you left, and I’m afraid I am, too.”
“A woman who was too afraid of change wouldn’t find herself in this situation.”
She laughed lightly. “A woman who knew how to hold a few glasses of champagne wouldn’t have, either.”
His smile broadened, a flash of emotional lightning that transformed him into someone more approachable. “Right, the champagne. Soon to become my favorite drink, since it’s brought you here.”
Before she could respond, he took her elbow, as if to guide her through the crowd. “Did you get your luggage? You wouldn’t have had time for that, would you?”
She had been fine—Or nearly fine—until that moment, coasting along on excitement and curiosity. But now she was blindsided by an attack of nerves. “Damon, we’re…uh…not heading right out, are we? I mean the plane—”
“No. I had the good sense to book the last flight of the afternoon to George Town. We can’t take this any way that approaches normal, but I thought we could at least spend the afternoon getting to know each other before we go off to get married.”
“But we can’t get married right away. There’s the license.”
“That’s all a formality, but you’re right. You’ll still have a few days to decide once we’re there.”
“And so will you.”
He looked down at her from his six feet of solid masculinity. “I’m not going to change my mind. I know everything I need to know about you.”
His words weren’t surprising. She knew he had checked her background with a thoroughness usually reserved for top-level security clearances. And she knew why.
As Damon silently guided her through the crowds and toward baggage claim, she thought about everything that had transpired since she had awakened in horror on the morning after her birthday party to find that the letter Liza had penned to Damon was gone.
She remembered how panic had seized her, and she had awakened her friends to demand that they tell her exactly what they had done with the letter. Felicity had been as horrified as she was, but Liza had been philosophical. “He’ll see it was done in good fun,” she’d said. “He’ll have a good laugh and toss it right out.”
But Matty hadn’t been so easygoing about something that had, in its own excessive way, revealed too much of her heart. She had felt wounded and vulnerable, and she had sat down that night to write Damon a real letter apologizing and explaining. “It was my twenty-seventh birthday,” she’d written, “a time to look backward and forward. My friends and I were talking about what I wanted from life by the time I was thirty, then we started in on the first of too many bottles of champagne. I almost never drink, Damon. I shouldn’t have had so much that night. I’m afraid I acted like an idiot. Please forgive me, and if you remember me at all, please try not to include this with the rest of your memories.”
She had wished him the best of luck, sealed the envelope and driven it right down to the post office. Writing the letter had helped a little. At least Damon would know the first one had been a prank and a mistake. She had hated the fact that he would probably think she was immature and featherbrained, with too much time on her hands, but she had realized there was nothing more she could do.
His birthday card had arrived two weeks later, and his first telephone call a week after that. “I wasn’t advertising for a wife, and you weren’t really applying to be one,” he’d said, just minutes into the conversation. “But, Matty, I’m in a desperate situation here, and I don’t know where else to turn.”
And then he had proceeded to outline his dilemma.
“That looks like the right carousel up ahead.” Damon gestured to a baggage carousel that was slowly circulating, although by now there were only a few pieces left on it. “Point out which are yours when they come around and I’ll get them off.”
Matty glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was wearing dark slacks and an ivory dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck. His sports jacket was loose and casual, a natural open-weave fabric that seemed perfectly suited to tropical living.
“Your hands seem to be full, Damon.”
He looked down at the bouquet of carnations he had been choking since she’d first turned around to face him. Then he looked up at her and grinned. “They’re for you. I’d completely forgotten I had them.” He held them out.
“They’re lovely.” Actually, they might have been lovely once, but the white paper stapled around them was crumpled now from fingers that had gripped it too tightly, and Matty suspected the stems were mangled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I’m not as calm as I thought.”
“I’m sure if there was a handbook on mail-order marriages that would be on the first page. I guess our palms are supposed to sweat and our hearts are supposed to beat double time.”
“Is yours beating double time?”
“Triple.” She heard her voice waver. She had talked herself into coming here with a bravado she hadn’t even known she possessed. She had marched in to her supervisor at Carrollton Community Hospital to give her resignation, and she hadn’t even considered the immediate promise of a pay raise if she would just rethink her decision. Without a backward glance she had rented her house to Liza and Felicity and said her goodbyes.
And somewhere along that path she had used up all her stores of courage.
Damon took her hand. The gesture so surprised her that she froze. She knew her eyes gave her away. She excelled at warm good cheer, at encouragement and empathy, but right now she needed someone to give all those things back to her.
“Matty…” His voice was kind, even kinder than she remembered. “I’m not going to pressure you. I know I’m asking too much. Let’s just get to know each other today. One step at a time. Okay?”
“Damon, look at you. There have to be a dozen women who would have said yes to marrying you, women you know well, women you’re attracted to. I’m nearly a stranger. Why me?”
He had answered that question before, but he seemed to sense her need to watch his face as he explained once again. He linked his fingers with hers, and her heart skipped erratically.
“Not a dozen. But I do know some women who might have said yes. None of them could offer what I really need. The only question is whether you need Heidi and me enough to take this step. Do you?”
The answer was yes, of course. Perhaps there had been a thousand possibilities for her future, but somehow, after Damon reentered her life, she had only glimpsed two. She could continue at Carrollton Community taking care of other people’s beautiful babies, continue living in the house and town she had lived in all her life, continue wondering what the world was like outside that small frozen speck on the map. Or she could accept Damon’s astounding offer of marriage and motherhood and a new life on a distant tropical island.
In the end the choice had been easy, because the second possibility had come attached to Damon Quinn, a man she had once loved with unrestrained passion. And this gift of Damon in her life once more, even under these strange and unromantic circumstances, had been too tempting to reject.
“I’m here,” she said. She would not reveal more of her heart than that.
He seemed to think it was answer enough. “Let’s get your suitcases, then we’ll go somewhere for lunch.” He squeezed her hand before he dropped it. She felt absolutely alone when he was no longer touching her, but she lifted her chin and managed a smile.
* * *
Matty Stewart was not what Damon had expected. He had done his research, probing, in-depth research that should have distilled the essence of the woman. He knew how she had sacrificed a normal youth to care for her father. He knew that Frank Stewart’s illness had been long and difficult, an illness that had taken his strength and finally his mind, and that Matty had given him tender, unremitting care until his death two years ago.
And he knew that she was regarded by hospital supervisors and colleagues alike as one of the finest nurses ever to walk through Carrollton Community’s doors. If she had faults they tended toward the most admirable. She was too accepting of others’ faults, too giving, too undemanding. Everyone seemed to like and trust Matty, from the man-eating head nurse in maternity to the lowliest emergency-room clerk. They all went to Matty if something special needed to be done, and most of the time she was able to satisfy them.
Her personal life was just as flawless. To make ends meet she had shared her home with two of Carrollton’s most eligible women, and the three seemed to be close and loyal friends. The other two were well liked, but everyone seemed to think it was Matty who glued their friendship together. There were no hints of competition for men or prestige. At home, as at the hospital, Matty seemed determined to believe the best and give her best.
Knowing all that and more, Damon had expected someone subtly different from the woman who had been waiting at the information booth. First, he had been surprised to feel such an instant tug of attraction toward her. She wasn’t really pretty, not in any classical sense of the word, but she had a vibrant, natural smile and smoky hazel eyes that never looked away when she spoke. Her creamy skin was flawless, and her hair was fine and silky. Her best points were subtle but undeniable. She was not a woman a man might pick out in a crowd, but once exposed to her, she would nibble away at his concentration until she had his undivided attention.
Damon knew there was no man in Matty’s life. Caring for her father had made that impossible, and then there had been months of readjustment and, naturally, grief after his death. By the time fate had allowed her to seek a relationship, the pool of eligible men in Carrollton had been small. But now that he’d seen her, no excuses seemed good enough. Why hadn’t some man noticed her anyway? Had she been so busy taking care of everyone around her that no one had seen she could be more, much more, if she was just given the chance?
“All this sunlight!” Matty spread her hands as if to catch sunbeams to store away. “Damon, I’ve never seen light like this. It’s like liquid gold.”
“This will seem overcast compared to the island.” Damon watched Matty examine the restaurant where he had brought her to have lunch. He hadn’t chosen it carefully; in fact, he didn’t even remember its name. But he had been here before with Arthur Sable, the man who owned Inspiration Cay, and he had remembered that the food was good and the location close enough to the airport to make it easy to get back that afternoon.
Now he was glad he had thought of it. Wide windows looked out on a narrow blue inlet adorned with the requisite seagulls and palm trees. Light wood and tropical prints completed the statement indoors, where Latin rhythms competed with rattan-trimmed ceiling fans for dominance of the warm spring air.
Matty loved it. He hadn’t intended to impress her, but clearly he had. She seemed more relaxed here. She had even stopped toying with her iced-tea glass and the wedge of lime perched on its sugared rim. For the last few minutes she had even seemed to forget that the man sitting across from her was her husband-to-be.
