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Tess huffed impatiently. “Why didn’t she wait until morning to be tellin’ me? Nothing like giving a body notice.”
“We just found out a few hours ago.”
“Oh, well.” Tess’s frown turned into a grin. When she spoke again, her lyrical Irish accent became even more pronounced. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Never could figure out what that lad was up to. He hasn’t changed a jot. Sure and it’ll be lovely to have him home again.”
Delving under the sink for the basket with all her cleaning aids in it, Tess extracted it, hooked it over her arm, then grabbed her broom and headed out the door. As she passed into the hall, she continued a discourse on Matt’s virtues.
Honey didn’t hear what she said, nor did she care that Amanda’s housekeeper proclaimed Matt to be the greatest thing since bottled water, or that everyone else in the house took immense delight in his unexpected visit. Honey had her own opinion of Matthew Logan, and it didn’t come anywhere close to being charitable or delighted.
When she thought about the mess he’d left her to untangle, her anger began to rise to the top of her thoughts like cream in a milk bottle. The angrier she got, the less shaky she felt, so she gave her temper full rein, enjoying being back in control. By the time Emily walked through the door, Honey had summoned up a full head of steam. All of it aimed at Matt Logan.
MATT STEERED HIS BLACK pickup truck to the side of the road, right next to the sign that read Welcome to Bristol, New York, Population 3,000 & Growing. He grinned at the optimism of the town fathers. Unless things had changed drastically, Bristol had remained relatively the same size for over thirty years. With the exception of when the town fathers allocated funds for an occasional spring touch-up, the sign had also remained unchanged.
He took in the familiar mountain skyline, sighed contentedly, then did a quick check of the motorcycle tied down in the back of the truck. His hometown felt good, right, familiar. He planned on proving to all those naysayers that you could return to your roots, even if it meant doing battle with demons from the past. Maybe that bull had done him a favor when it gored his leg and forced him to take early retirement.
Memories crowded into the interior of the truck. For a long minute he just sat there, staring out the windshield at the town from which he’d fled. He hadn’t come back, not once, not even for Stan’s funeral a year ago or his father’s funeral two years before that.
He sincerely regretted not being there for his aunt when Stan had died, but coming would have meant seeing Honey again, and he hoped to avoid that for as long as possible. Besides, he’d been in Australia with the rodeo, and by the time he got back, it would have been all over. When he’d spoken to Aunt Amanda a few days ago, he’d expressed his regret, and she’d assured him that under the circumstances, she’d understood his absence. But it didn’t erase the guilt from his conscience. Stan had been his best friend, and despite what he’d done, and the fact that Matt hadn’t forgiven him, Matt should have made the effort to attend for his aunt’s sake.
His father’s funeral was a different matter. He’d stayed away intentionally. What good would it have done to be there? The old man wouldn’t have cared one way or the other. Matt’s existence had never been of any great importance to Kevin Logan during his life. Why would it be any different at his death?
Matt stirred restlessly, then stretched his right leg over the seat. The long ride straight through from Texas had cramped the muscle in his injured limb. As he gingerly massaged the cramped calf muscle, he recalled the doctor warning him that this would happen for a while. The ache finally eased.
A full moon, hanging like a large ripe lemon in the sky, turned the treetops behind Osgood’s Market to silver. Funny, but that moon never quite looked the same from anywhere else.
Suddenly anxious to once more become a part of the slow-paced, sleepy hamlet, Matt pulled back onto the road and steered his truck toward The Diner. He knew it would be the one place in town open at this hour, the one place that served the best cup of coffee and the biggest burgers in four counties. Once he’d filled his rumbling stomach, he’d head to Aunt Amanda’s and then, in the morning, he’d go to the town hall and pay up the overdue taxes on his father’s house.
No. Pushing the past out and moving in new memories, happy memories, meant starting to think of it as his house.
Jim, a fellow rodeo rider, had warned Matt that he would need to settle up with the past before he could start a future. Matt didn’t believe that. If he just concentrated on redecorating and stopped thinking about the unhappiness he’d known in that house, the memories would soon fade away. Besides, how do you settle up with a man who’s dead and buried?
“SO, WHAT DO YOU PLAN on doing?”
Honey avoided Emily’s gaze and her question. The silence in the kitchen grew louder. She occupied her hands by stirring her cold coffee. Her shield of anger had dissolved as quickly as it had materialized. Uncertainty had returned with a vengeance.
“Honey?”
She gave an abrupt shake of her head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I hate to be the one to point this out, but you don’t have a whole lot of time to decide.” Emily stopped Honey’s nervous movements by placing a hand on her arm. “He’ll be here in the morning.”
“I know that,” Honey snapped. Immediately contrite about her sharp tone, she flashed a weak smile at her sister. “I know,” she repeated more softly. The role of the one needing advice did not sit well with her.
She stood, walked to the sink, then poured out the cold coffee. Turning, she grabbed the coffeepot and refilled her cup. “What right does he have to come back here and intrude in my life?”
“The same right my husband had to come back. Like Kat, this was Matt’s home, the town where he grew up.”
Knowing her statement had been totally unreasonable, Honey refrained from replying. Slowly, she shifted her gaze from the dark liquid in her cup to her sister’s worried face. “Do you think he’ll notice—about Danny, I mean?”
“Unless he’s gone blind in the last seven years, I’d say the odds are very good that he’ll catch on. You better prepare for it.”
Honey nodded, unable to speak past the knot that Emily’s warning brought to her throat.
Emily glanced at Honey, then at her cup, then back to Honey. She played absently with the end of her long, brown braid. “There’s something that always bothered me, but you never wanted to talk about Matt, so I never asked. Why didn’t you tell him?”
Honey sighed, then took her seat across from Emily. She stole thinking time by carefully arranging the base of Danny’s superhero mug to fit inside a group of green gingham squares on the place mat. She smiled sadly. Even Danny had heroes, but in all her life, she could not ever recall having one herself. Shaking away the unusual wave of self-pity, she directed her thoughts to Emily’s question.
“Dad told me not to tell anyone. Said it would just make matters worse.” She rolled her eyes. “Not that they could have gotten much worse. I tried to tell Matt, anyway.” She plucked nervously at a loose thread in the place mat. “Problem was, no one in town knew where to find him. He’d just vanished.” She held her palms up and hunched her shoulders. “After a few years went by, I just felt it would be better not to disrupt anyone’s life. What was the sense?” She almost added, Would it have brought Matt home?, but thought better of it.
“What about Matt’s dad? Did you tell him?”
She shook her head. “Mr. Logan never took much of an interest in Matt.” She stared off into a mental world devoid of any memories of Matt and his dad interacting. “I never saw any sign of affection between them. Sometimes I got the feeling that Matt didn’t exist for his father. After Matt left, Mr. Logan became more unapproachable than ever. I went there a couple of times, but he wouldn’t answer the door, so I gave up. I sent him a letter, but since he never acknowledged it, I don’t even know if he read it.”
“What about Matt’s mother?” Emily shifted to a more comfortable position in her chair, then crossed her denim clad legs. “I was too young to remember her. Did she leave them or what?”
“She died suddenly when Matt was ten.” Honey sipped her coffee and made a face. Cold again. She set the cup down and pushed it away, then looked at her sister. “All this reminiscing is not solving my immediate problem, Em. How did you handle Kat showing up? I know you were so angry at him you wanted to beat him to within an inch of his life, then you ended up marrying him and having his twin daughters, but what did you—”
“Whoops. Wait a minute.” Emily held up her hand. “The circumstances were a bit different.”
“Sure, you wanted him to father your child so you could fulfill the conditions of a crazy old man’s will and keep your home.” Honey smiled for the first time that evening, then shook her head. “You never did anything simply. Leave it to you to go overboard and have twins. Dad would be very happy.”
At the mention of her twin daughters, a beautiful smile transformed Emily’s face. “Best bargain I ever made. I got a man I adore and two delightful children. And don’t forget Rose. My best friend turned out to be my mother-in-law. Not bad for a girl who was ready to hit the panic button when she found out about the codicil to Dad’s will.”
“Ready to hit it? To my recollection, you slammed your fist into it.”
Both women laughed. The laughter died slowly, but when it did, Honey still had not found a solution to her dilemma. How did she contend with Matt coming back into her life?
“So, what’s my answer?” she said, looking at Emily.
Emily checked her watch, then stood, slipped her purse strap over her shoulder and smiled weakly at Honey. “I don’t know that there is an answer, at least not one you can turn into a concrete plan. I’d say play it by ear. Go with your gut.” She started to turn toward the door, then paused. “Better yet, go with your heart.”
Honey frowned.
MATT STOOD ON THE FRONT porch of his aunt’s house. He glanced at his watch: 1:00 a.m. He should have left The Diner sooner, but he’d enjoyed talking with friends he hadn’t seen in years, remembering old times, rehashing the trouble he and his cousin Stan had gotten into as kids. He’d missed that while wandering from place to place. That friendliness, that familiarity was what he’d come home to recapture. Certainly that would chase the unhappy ghost from the corners of his house and his life.
He glanced at Amanda’s front door and reached for the knocker, then hesitated. He knew a dynamite blast wouldn’t wake Tess, but his aunt had always been a very light sleeper. He hated to wake her just to let him in. However, the one other place he could hope to find a soft bed for the night happened to be located in a motel thirty miles away. After driving for hours, he didn’t want to even think of getting on the road again. They’d find him in the morning wrapped around a pole somewhere, his injured leg swollen to the size of a small tree trunk.
He continued to stare at the door, trying to work through his problem, then an idea came to him. He stepped back to inspect the rose trellis on the side of the house. It had frequently provided him and Stan with late night access to Stan’s bedroom during their senior year in high school. Should he? He’d probably be arrested for breaking and entering and get thrown in the Bristol jail. Oh, hell, at least he’d have a warm bed to sleep in until he could make bail.
Quietly, he limped to the side of the house and grabbed the first set of slats on the trellis. Pulling himself up, he bounced experimentally, testing the strength of the makeshift ladder and his leg. He had gained a few pounds since his senior year and wasn’t sure that time hadn’t rotted out the trellis.
Though it creaked a bit and his leg throbbed slightly, he decided that both would support his weight for the short climb. Slowly, he inched his way up, cursing softly at the bite of an occasional thorn piercing his skin, then boosted himself over the balcony of Stan’s old room. The French doors stood open. Tess had no doubt been airing the room for his arrival.
NEXT DOOR, Amanda Logan had heard the telltale creak of the rose trellis, a noise she’d grown familiar with when Stan and Matt had used it as an emergency entrance after their twelve o’clock curfew had come and gone. She’d recognized her nephew’s voice cursing the rose thorns, just as he had years before. Just to make sure she wasn’t wrong about the identity of their midnight visitor, she slipped from her bed and, with the aid of her walker, shuffled to the window.
Just as she pushed the curtain aside, Matt launched himself over the balcony rail. For a moment, she waited for Stan to follow on Matt’s heels, as he would have years ago. Back then, she’d have stood here watching the two teenagers scale the balcony railing, all the while thinking they’d pulled the wool over her eyes.
But Stan didn’t appear. Stan never would appear again.
Tears threatened. Though a year had passed since Stan had been killed in his race car, the pain sometimes felt very raw, the emptiness overwhelming.
She shook the tears and the poignant memories away, then maneuvered herself back to the bed. No time now for sorrow. Now was the time for new memories, new adventures, new loves.
She lay back against the pillows, quietly picturing the scene in the next room.
Tomorrow, thanks to fate and her slight intervention, this dreary old house would bear witness to an old wrong being set right, and perhaps, in the process, a new beginning.
MATT STEPPED OVER the threshold of his cousin’s old room and stopped dead in his tracks.
There, spread out over the discarded bedcovers, lay a woman clad only in a T-shirt and bikini panties. One long, shapely leg stretched out across the white sheet. The other, bent at the knee, helped to expose a good portion of her naked bottom.
He crept closer, then moved to the side to allow the moonlight to bathe her supine body. He felt like a voyeur, but he couldn’t help himself. Something about her called out to him, something familiar. When he stood at the foot of the bed, he knew why.
Honey Kingston lay deep in sleep, her hand cupping her cheek, her glorious honey-blond hair splayed over the pillow in loose tangles.
Despite the shock of seeing the one woman he’d hoped to avoid, he had to admit that she still had the power to take his breath away—and to provoke that churning fear that had sent him running from her years earlier.
He could not recall ever seeing a woman who equaled Honey’s beauty, and he’d seen many on his travels. His stomach felt bottomless. His heart threatened to implode. Old emotions rushed forward. Emotions Matt had tried to kill in every way he could for over seven years. Emotions he’d been certain he had dealt with—until now.
As if it were yesterday, memories of her soft flesh sliding over his buffeted him. Almost unconsciously, he moved to the bedside. Something drove him, something he couldn’t seem to control. He touched her cheek with the pad of his thumb and ran it slowly and gently over her creamy skin. She moaned and stirred in her sleep. He pulled back, half from fear of waking her, but more from that old sensual magnetism that spelled trouble and gave life to that gut-wrenching need stirring deep within him.
Despite his fear, emotions he’d thought never to experience again where Honey was concerned ran rampant through him. His groin tightened. He wanted to climb into bed with her and kiss her to wakefulness, hear the little noises she used to make when he made love to her, feel his heartbeat join hers.
He jumped back as if scalded. He had to stop this—now. Damn her! What was there about this woman that stole his common sense, his shield of protection, his pride? Even if he could get past his base inclinations, the fact remained that she’d married his cousin before Matt’s trail dust had had time to settle. Pain sliced through him, as sharp and agonizing as it had when he’d first gotten word of her betrayal.
The clipping that announced the wedding had come in a plain white envelope with no return address. Only a postmark stamped Bristol, NY, and the date. He’d recognized the handwriting as his father’s, the only one who knew where he was. Matt still didn’t know why he’d contacted his father and sent him the post office box address. Maybe he’d hoped the old man would change. Maybe…
He whirled and headed for the door. He shouldn’t have come here. Could those naysayers he’d scoffed at known what they were talking about, after all? Perhaps you couldn’t come home again. Perhaps the ghosts of his childhood were much stronger than any human’s resolve to banish them. Perhaps he hadn’t gotten over Honey Kingston and, God help him, maybe he never would.
Chapter Two
Wide awake, Honey lay staring at the dark bedroom ceiling. Her heart beat a heavy rhythm in her chest. At first, when she’d heard the scuffle of footsteps on the balcony, she had feared an intruder had scaled the rose trellis. But when the shaft of moonlight illuminated Matt Logan’s face, she knew a totally different kind of fear, the kind that made her heart ache with bitter loss, even when she’d declared her heart empty.
Recalling how, when Matt had stood over her a few minutes earlier, she’d managed to remain stone still, she congratulated herself. Then she remembered suppressing a groan of pure passion when he touched her, and the trembling inside returned. Aftershocks, she told herself.
With her skin still tingling where he’d smoothed her cheek, and her insides tangled into knots of dread, it surprised her that she could be flippant. But flippancy helped her contend with the concentrated effort she had to exert to keep from touching the spot his fingers had caressed. Somehow, she felt that if she gave in on this one small urge concerning Matt Logan, she would cave in on the important stuff, too, and she couldn’t afford to.
She rolled to her side and stared into the darkness. Dear heavens, how would she get through the next few weeks and survive? How could she stand being in the same house with him, when she wanted to feed his carcass to the turkey buzzards that populated the woods behind Amanda’s house?
Impelled by her lack of anger at the man, she bolted upright. Had she totally lost her mind? One touch and she’d been charmed again. Why had fate deemed that she should have men in her life that only knew how to hurt? Other women had heroes. So far, all Honey had were the throwaways. Well, she swore for the thousandth time, Danny would not turn out to be one of them.
To reinforce her anger, she rattled off a mental laundry list of all the reasons she had to detest Matt Logan. Because of Matt, she’d had to stand alone against her father’s wrath. Because of Matt, she’d been too heartbroken to fight her father and had ended up enduring six years of hell as Stan Logan’s wife, just so Frank Kingston could hold his head up in town. Because of Matt, Jesse’s rage with their father had forced her half brother to storm from their house, and she’d lost another faux hero. Because of Matt, she’d had to struggle to raise her son as a decent human being, with values and a sense of responsibility. Because of Matt her heart lay dead in her chest.
And as if he hadn’t done enough to make her life miserable, Matt’s return to Bristol had aroused the memories of a self-centered, uncaring father who had run his family with a tyrannical hand.
She sniffed the air experimentally. At times like this, when the pain of what her father had done to her returned, raw and burning, she imagined she could smell cigarette smoke. Since no one in Amanda’s house smoked, Honey knew it wasn’t real, just her pain manifesting itself in her imagination. But even knowing it was not real, fear of opening her eyes and finding herself back in her father’s house and under his rule, seeped through her.
The smell brought with it other things: memories of the night she’d found her father sitting alone in a dark room, smoking, while his wife—her and Emily’s mother—lay in bed waiting. His silent presence had seemed to fill the big house. The red glow on the tip of his cigarette was the only visible sign that he was there in body, if not in mind.
For a long time Honey had stood there, just outside the door, wondering where his thoughts had taken him, willing him to allow her to reach beyond the icy barrier around his heart. When she couldn’t, she’d credited her failure to being less than adequate in his eyes. She’d cried herself to sleep that night and innumerable nights after.
It took years for her to understand that her father’s hell was of his own making. That neither she nor Emily nor their mother had caused it. But they’d all paid for it with his lack of understanding and his angry silences.
She recalled how alone she’d felt back then. When Jesse, her half brother, had come to live with them after his mother’s death, they’d hit it off quite well. They hadn’t been terribly close, just intuitive about each other’s needs. Honey had thought she’d finally found a champion, but she’d soon realized that the sullen child felt about as much at home in the Kingston house as she did. Then Jesse walked out in a rage, and another of her heroes donned the tarnished armor of a fallen knight.
But despite the disappointments she’d suffered in those around her—her father’s iron fist, Jesse’s self-absorption, Matt’s desertion, Stan’s immaturity—Honey had emerged a stronger person. She came to realize that she and she alone controlled her happiness, and that heroes existed only in movies and novels.
She shook away the memories and lay back against the pillows. Being a pragmatic person, she couldn’t go on fooling herself. She knew what had robbed her of a night’s sleep, and it wasn’t only the ghosts from her past. She’d learned to live with them long ago. Neither was it seeing Matt again. After years of practice, she’d become an expert at handling the residual feelings around Matt that surfaced from time to time.
Deep in her soul, she knew that her apprehension stemmed from more than the tiny spark of excitement that seemed to grow at the very idea of coming face-to-face with the man she’d once loved. The source of her growing fear generated far more serious consequences than merely meeting an old flame after seven years.
“MATT’S HERE, you know.”
At Amanda’s words Honey’s hands stilled. Carefully, before she dropped it, she placed the glass of water Amanda had used to take her morning medication on the night table. Should she tell Amanda she knew? That he’d been in her bedroom last night?
Amanda chuckled from her bed and saved Honey the trouble of coming to a decision. “I heard him crawling up the rose trellis last night, just as if he were back in high school.” She looked pointedly at Honey. “He came right through your room. Didn’t you hear him?”
As if she hadn’t heard the question, Honey quickly carried the pill bottles into the bathroom before Amanda detected the truth in her expression. She placed the bottles in the medicine cabinet, then leaned on the sink for support.
Lifting her face, she stared at her white complexion in the mirror. She had to stop this right now. Matt was here. Matt would be here for an indeterminate length of time. She had to pull herself together before she went downstairs and came face-to-face with him. She turned on the faucet, scooped up a handful of cold water and splashed it on her face. She could do this.
Determination in place, spine ramrod straight, she patted the water from her skin with one of Amanda’s fluffy towels, then returned to the bedroom. “Are you ready to get dressed for breakfast?”
Pulling the lilac, quilted coverlet higher on her body, Amanda shook her head. “I’m still a bit tired. I think I’ll be decadent this morning and steal a few more hours sleep. Six-thirty is an obscenely indecent hour to ask anyone to get out of bed.”
“But what about Matt?”
“I’m sure you can entertain him for me, dear. Just make my apologies and tell him I’ll see him at lunch.”
The idea of entertaining Matt in any way sent butterflies careening around Honey’s stomach, but concern for her mother-in-law helped her ignore them. Amanda was traditionally an early riser. Honey had never heard her complain about the early hour before. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Fine, just a bit tired.” Amanda waved her hand at Honey, then snuggled down and closed her eyes. “You go ahead. Danny will be up soon and wanting you to have breakfast with him.”
Danny!
Honey had totally forgotten that Danny would be going down for breakfast soon. She moved quickly to the doorway, turned off the light, then closed the door behind her. Hurrying down the hallway, she passed the spare room, noting the still-closed door. Thank goodness. Maybe Matt had decided to sleep in as well.
ENJOYING THE SILENCE of the early morning hours, Matt sipped his coffee and stared out the large dining room windows overlooking the vast expanse of lawn fronting his aunt’s house. A mangy orange cat wandered aimlessly across the grass. Matt wondered if the animal had a home or, like him, just wandered from house to house looking for the next meal. But that had changed for Matt as soon as he’d arrived at Aunt Amanda’s.
He had always felt at home here. When things had gotten beyond bearing at his house, Aunt Amanda had opened her arms to him and filled the void left by a mother who’d died when he was a small child and a father who found so much lacking in his small son. Matt had found love here with Amanda and Tess. Love and family and continuity. Things that had been painfully missing in his own home.
He smiled. Was it any wonder that when he decided to come home, he’d called Amanda? From all reports at The Diner last night, his father had done little to keep the place up after Matt left. It didn’t surprise him. His father had mourned the loss of his wife and Matt’s older brother deeply, and had waited many years for the release of death. For Kevin Logan, the house that should have been a home had become nothing more than a way station on that journey.
Matt shook off his dismal memories and instead turned his thoughts to the woman he’d found in bed last night, the woman who had married his cousin and best friend two weeks after Matt left town.
Like an old companion, he welcomed the familiar swell of anger inside him that inevitably came with the reminder of how quickly Honey had forgotten him. That alone confirmed that he’d done the right thing by leaving before she broke his heart. His anger cleansed him, burning away the ghosts of yesterday, making room for the promise of tomorrows that didn’t include his father or Honey Logan.
A sound from behind him stopped his musings.
