A Year of You (27 page)

Anger spiked through her, stalling the waves of sadness that rolled over her. “What, I can’t cry? Bite me!”

She grabbed her shoes off the floor and stalked into the living room. Every time she cried, he made some sort of stupid remark. She couldn’t express herself without him saying something about it! Dressed and ready, he emerged from the bedroom, adjusting his tie. Wordlessly, wisely, Mattie thought, he opened the front door for her.
The truck didn’t want to start. Another wave of irritation made Mattie fairly seethe. “Why don’t we just get a new truck? I know this damn thing means a lot to you, but it’s a piece of crap.”

“Can it, Mattie. I’m not getting a new truck until I absolutely have to.”


“That’s stupid, Brant.” Calling him Brant irritated him.


“Stop it, Matilyn.”

Hearing her name crumbled the walls her irritation had built up. Helpless against the fresh surge of tears, she buried her head in her arms on the dash.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “Forgive me, West.”
West sighed and patted her back. “Babe, it’s okay. You’re just...PMSing or something.”


She nodded and fumbled for the tissues stuffed behind the seat. “Yeah. But that’s not an excuse for being a dick.”


“Okay, okay. Peace. Truce. Let’s start over again.” He smiled at her, making her heart stop and her desire throb.
He leaned over and kissed. It started out as a little apology-kiss, but quickly turned into a deep, hands-in-pants make-out session. When the windows steamed up, she pushed him away, breathless.

“Let’s get this dinner over with.” She swatted his still-groping hands. He groaned and sat back in his seat. The truck started the next time he turned the key. He flashed her a cocky grin.

It made her want to cry again.
Who knew what the DNA tests were going to reveal? Ruth Ellen was just a little bit off her rocker. No telling what plot she’d concocted.

Twenty minutes later, West turned the truck down the private drive. Mattie took a deep breath and adjusted her too-tight bra. It pushed painfully at her breasts. She tried to adjust it, but it didn’t help ease the faint, constant ache that had plagued her for more than a week. She hurt bad enough to ban West from doing more than light petting. She knew the coming period was going to be one from Hell. The cramps she’d been having were different from the usual ones. These arced from her hip to her pubic bone, then faded. Rather than the dull agony she felt for a couple days that would go away after a couple of hours, these cramps gripped her sporadically, mostly when she stretched or moved too fast.

She shifted in her seat and pressed a fist into her lower belly until the pain went away. Yep. It was going to be one hell of a period.

***

West gripped Mattie’s elbow tightly as soon as they walked into the grand foyer of the McKendrick house. The smell of food was heavy, spicy. Mattie groaned and closed her eyes. She looked a little green.

“You all right?”


“Yeah. Felt sick for a second there. Still kind of do.”
He watched her, worried. She stepped ahead of him and gave Justine a kiss on the cheek. She did the same to her father.
Her father
.

It was getting harder and harder to separate her from the McKendrick family. It was too easy to just accept her as Elaine, reborn, renamed. Emeline emerged from the living room. She cast a doe-eyed glance at West, then politely kissed her sister’s cheek.

For just a second, West saw a similarity between the two women. Though Mattie’s cheeks were fuller, they had the same facial shape. The same chin, a similar nose. Emeline’s had been altered by surgery before she was even eighteen, and Mattie’s broken at least once, but there was a ghost of a reminder.

He blinked, and it was gone.

McKendrick led the way to the formal dining room. He sat at the head of the table. Justine on his left, Emeline on his right. Mattie was placed next to Emeline. He helped her with her chair. West went to his seat, at the opposite Mattie.

Mattie still looked green. She paled even further when the servers brought out the first course. West didn’t blame her. The formal dinners didn’t agree with him either.

“Brant,” McKendrick said, shattering the stillness, the stiffness, in the room.


“Yes, sir?”


“Explain to me why Mr. Parnell says you instructed him to check out my former employees, specifically one named Carmen?”


“Um.” West’s mouth went dry, and he gulped from his water goblet. He swiped away the cold trickle that ran down his chin. Mattie stared at him with wounded eyes. “Right after we got married, Ruth Ellen and Mattie both said some things that I thought were important.”

He looked right into Mattie’s eyes. “It was right after we got married.” She understood, but she still wasn’t happy about it.

It didn’t make it right, not by a long shot, and his stomach felt uneasy. She looked away from him, down at her salad. He saw her swallowing hard before she looked away.

McKendrick watched her, eyes sharp. “You were right. It was important.”

Mattie was about to cry.
Or puke. He wasn’t real sure which. Maybe both.
Well, whatever she did, it would be a welcome distraction from the tension.
Dinner dragged on and on. McKendrick posed a few more well-worded questions that revealed more of West’s early subterfuge. Mattie was starting to look so sick West wasn’t sure she would make it much longer. It was a stretch, but he managed to touch her foot with his.

When she glanced up, he raised his eyebrows. She smiled slightly and nodded, even though the look in her eyes was one of absolute misery. He fought back a huge smile. She wasn’t mad at him. What a relief. Her mood swings lately had been insane.

As dessert was served, McKendrick said, “I expect the DNA results next week, Matilyn. If there’s anything you need to tell us, now would be the time.”

Mattie sighed and shook her head. “I have nothing to say. Nothing to hide, Mr. McKendrick.”

Justine’s arm jerked suddenly. Crimson wine flew from the falling glass, staining the table cloth and soaking her shirt.

“You lie,” Justine growled.

Mattie stared down at the vivid stain, shocked. She touched it with the tips of her fingers and looked up, tears sparkling in her eyes. Enough was enough. He got up and circled the table. Pulling her chair out, he helped her stand. “Mr. McKendrick, thanks for your hospitality, but I think we’re going to be going.”

Mattie gasped and bolted out of the room. The door to the half-bath tucked under the stairs slammed shut.


“She’s not feeling real well,” he said, as startled as the rest of the family.

“Is she pregnant?” Emeline yelped, horrified. “Oh my God, West, you better not have gotten her pregnant! I will not raise her kid.”


“What the hell are you talking about?” he said, scowling.

“And no, she’s not pregnant.”


Emeline balked. “If she has a kid, and then leaves it with you, and me and you get back together, I’m not dealing with it.”


“That’s not even an issue, Emeline,” West said, shaking his head. “Me and you, it ain’t happening.”


Emeline burst into noisy dramatic sobs and fled the table. Justine grabbed McKendrick’s arm. “Put a stop to this now, James, or I will! I will not see my hard work ruined by that—that usurper.”
McKendrick pushed her away and met West’s gaze. He knows something, West thought. The light in the older man’s eyes was too bright, too intense. His gaze left West feeling unsettled and off- balance.

Something huge is going to happen. No, something huge has
already
happened.

Justine swept out of the room, regally. McKendrick sagged into his chair. West hadn’t ever seen that side of him before. Tired, he gestured for West to move further down the table.

“Tell me truthfully, Brant,” he said. “Who do you think Matilyn is?”

“I don’t know anymore,” West answered honestly. It had been a long time since he’d felt a kinship with the man he’d considered a second father through most of his childhood. “And...I’m starting to not care anymore, either.”

“Don’t get too attached,” the other man said simply. “I’ve learned some things that will hurt deeply.”

“Tell me,” West said. “I need to know. I’m as involved as you are.”

Sighing heavily, McKendrick shook his head. “Next Tuesday, there will be a meeting with the lawyers, you, and Matilyn. Everything will come to light. Things I’ve tried to keep secret for almost three decades.”

She’s not Elaine, resounded in West’s skull. Next week he’s going to tell me she’s not Elaine. “You’ve got the results already.”

The older man nodded, a slow, sad nod. “I…it’s not what I expected.”

“Is she Elaine?”

McKendrick looked up. On the far wall, a massive portrait of the family hung over the fireplace. McKendrick, Karen, baby Emeline, and a very young Elaine watched over the table. “Tuesday. Eleven A.M.”

“West.” He turned around at the sound of the weak, croaky voice. Mattie clung to the doorway, shaky and pale. “Can we go? Sorry, Mr. McKendrick, but I’m not feeling all that well.”

The man who might or might not be her father nodded his head silently, his eyes tracking Mattie from her feet to the top of her head.

West gave the man a meaningful glance and went to his wife’s side. He looped his arm around her waist. She leaned into him.

He closed his eyes as he kissed the top of her head. Her hair was soft against his lips, redolent of her lavender-vanilla shampoo.

In the truck, she stretched out on the seat and rested her head on his thigh. As he drove he played with her hair and decided he couldn’t care less who the DNA test results said she was.

She was his, and that was all that mattered.


***

“You sure you’re okay?” West asked, frowning down at Mattie as she puked into the toilet for the third time that morning. “This is the fourth day you’ve been like this.”

“Shut up for a minute,” she groaned. After one more heave, she flushed and forced herself to her feet and stumbled to the sink. Vigorously, she brushed her teeth and washed her face. “I’m fine, West. Jose’s wife said she had some nasty virus the other day, and I guess I just picked it up.”

“You sure?”

Irritated with his hovering, Mattie clamped her mouth shut on the antagonistic remarks that threatened to pop out. “Why are you so worked up? I just picked up a bug. You’re probably going to get it next.”

West still looked troubled. “Um, Em said something at the dinner the other night...”

Mattie pantomimed projectile puking at the mention of her sister’s name, accompanied by graphic sound effects.

Rolling his eyes, West sighed. “Seriously. It’s bugging the crap out of me.”


“All right, all right. West, what did she say?”

“She asked me if I got you pregnant.”
Mattie’s stomach went hot and cold at the same time. She laughed it off. “No way. West. We only did it a few times without a condom that one day, and it was at an okay time of the month.” Her mind zipped through the dates, trying to remember the last day of her period. She would have to look at a calendar to know for sure.

“Maybe we should buy one of those tests, just to be sure.”

“We’re fine, baby.” Mattie looped her arms around his neck. He hugged her tight. “I’m going to go crash on the couch. I feel like I ran a mile.”

The second West left for work, she took the calendar down again and sat at the kitchen table, red pen in hand. Day by day she crossed off the little squares, starting at September sixth. Every pen stroke made her sick to her stomach. Her period should have started already. She’d marked the wrong date, months back, corrected it, but gotten the marks confused.

She had miscounted the days. The first time they had sex would have been the perfect day to get pregnant.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. This is turning into the Lifetime Movie Channel feature from hell. Forced marriage of convenience, trust funds, and now, pregnancy?

Mattie bit her bottom lip hard enough to hurt. How would he take it if they turned out to be pregnant? West made her whole. Life with him was turbulent and wild and sometimes a little painful, but it was all she could ever want.

The lawyers were dragging their asses. McKendrick told her they still hadn’t gotten the results from the DNA tests. They lost the samples, had to find them, had to make sure they weren’t contaminated, yadda yadda yadda.

Mattie didn’t care. It meant more time with West. And more time to find Elaine. She’d visited with Ruth Ellen a couple of times, but the woman refused to say anything more than “Find my granddaughter.”

West didn’t seem to mind her tagging along whenever he went anywhere. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. They both enjoyed working together.

He’d really enjoyed taking her to the clothing outlet store before she’d begin to get sick. He was getting into the newlywed thing. His hands were on her constantly, touching, teasing, groping. Once they’d gotten into the store, he pulled her through the partitioned-off back half of the store, telling a clerk he was showing her where the bathroom was.

The way to the bathroom was a long, twisted walk through the unused space crowded with old sales fixtures and crates of stock, and down long hallways lit by flickering fluorescent lights. The bathroom itself was a sin upon all humanity, but it didn’t change the way it felt when West flipped the lock on the door and leaned her over the counter, taking her hard and fast. Gasping against the mirror from the near-pain and the incredible sensations tearing her body apart from the inside out, Mattie almost started crying.
He’s already part of me
.

That had been three days ago, and she still had a faint bruise across her lower belly from the edge of the counter. His violence made her feel weak and fluttery inside. The hurt made the sex so good, made her feel so alive! It made her feel so close to him, when she cried out from something he did and he would stop and comfort her, or when he would react to her biting or pinching too hard and she would be the one to kiss the pain away.

The tiny bruises from his fingertips or his mouth or his teeth bruises were a roadmap of his affections. Neither had said anything about love, but whatever was between them was strong enough to eclipse everything else.