Belonging (27 page)

"Things were better after that?''

She was quiet for a long time. "Yes and no,"
she finally admitted. "It didn't happen again for almost a year,
but by that time I knew I couldn't take it any longer. Evan was—"
her shoulders lifted helplessly "—impossible to live with. He still
hadn't found a job, and he was frustrated and angry—"

"And he took it out on you." Matt's jaw
tightened as he fought a wave of blinding rage. If Evan Hall had
been there before him, he had no doubt he'd have torn him apart
with a great deal of pleasure.

Angie leaned her head back against his
shoulder tiredly. "I don't know why I ever stayed with him as long
as I did. I suppose I was trying to hold my marriage together. But
the day came when I realized I just couldn't take it anymore. I
suggested that we separate—" a shudder shook her slender form
"—and that's when it happened again."

She turned in his arms and buried her face in
the warm hollow between his neck and shoulder. "That's when Kim
must have seen us," she whispered.

Trembling hands smoothed her hair. His voice
was as unsteady as hers. "You didn't stay with him after that, I
hope."

It took a moment before she could speak
again, "I didn't intend to. He went on a hunting trip a few days
after that, and..." Her voice faltered.

"That's when he was killed?"

She nodded. "I knew by then that a divorce
was the only answer, but I was afraid to tell him." She hesitated
uncertainly. She wanted him to know, and yet she didn't.

As if he sensed her need for encouragement,
he linked his fingers through hers, and let their twined hands rest
on his stomach. "Go on," he urged softly.

"While he was on his trip, I intended to take
the girls and move out of the house. Before I had a chance, I
learned he was dead."

Something in her tone made him tilt her face
to his. He laid a lean finger along the curve of her jaw and he
quickly scanned her face. "Good Lord." His eyes reflected both
astonishment and a swiftly restrained surge of anger. "You feel
guilty! How can you after what that bastard did to you?"

"I don't," she countered quickly, then just
as quickly muttered, "Oh, God, maybe I do. Not because I intended
to divorce him, but because I...when I found out he was dead, I
knew I didn't have to be afraid any more—afraid of what he would
say, what he might do to me. I felt relieved. I couldn't even cry
for him. All I could think was that there would be no more dread,
no more pain." Her eyes were dark with anguish but held a plea for
understanding as she gazed up at him. "What kind of person does
that make me? Am I as terrible—" her voice caught painfully "—as I
sometimes feel I am?"

Matt felt her heartache as if it were his
own. The hell she'd been through with Evan hadn't ended with his
death, he realized grimly. In some ways it had only just begun.

His hands dropped to her shoulders, his grip
light, reassuring. "God, no," he said with a depth of emotion he
couldn't quite control; nor did he want to. "That makes you
human--just as human as the rest of us."

For a long time he simply held her, savoring
their closeness. Finally he drew back slightly. "The other day," he
said gently, "I called you 'Angel' and you ran away. Did Evan call
you that?"

She silently nodded.

"Angie--" his fingers tightened on her
shoulders for an instant "--all this... it's why you don't like to
be touched, isn't it?"

It was a moment before she spoke. "You...you
noticed?"

His smile held no mirth. "It was one of the
first things I did notice about you." He paused. "Angie, he
didn't... he didn't do anything else, did he?"

He felt her stiffen beneath his hands. "Like
what?" she asked faintly.

Matt knew of no way to soften the words. The
question was wrenched from deep inside him. "He didn't rape you,
did he?"

He cursed himself roundly, knowing he was
handling this badly. But at the stunned expression he glimpsed in
her eyes, all that he felt suddenly rushed out.

"It wasn't only the fact that you don't like
to be touched because you let me touch you. But all along I've
sensed that you were holding back, that you were afraid of letting
yourself get close to me."

Angie inhaled sharply. "You want to know if
I... if I'm afraid to make love," she whispered.

There was a burning ache in Matt's throat.
"That bastard has taken so much from you," he said unevenly. "Has
he taken that, too?" At the stricken look on her face, he added
quickly. "It doesn't matter to me, Angie. It really doesn't. But
I... I'd like to know.''

Angie swallowed deeply. "I'm not afraid," she
denied in a low voice, then bit her lip. How could she explain
what she didn't really understand herself? With the tight rein she
had kept on her emotions, she had never let her dreams of Matt
carry her to the point of lovemaking.

And now she did. She was no innocent when it
came to the physical intimacies between a man and a woman. Loving
was easy. Wanting was easy. But it meant nothing unless those
feelings were returned in full measure.

Silence steeped the room. A dull ache settled
in her chest. "Maybe I am," she heard herself admit huskily. "Not
of the act itself, but..."

"But what?" A finger gently angled her face
to his.

Angie had to swallow repeatedly before she
could say anything. "Evan and I—we still slept together
after...after he hit me," she confided. She couldn't bring herself
to say they had made love—because they hadn't. "But not very often,
especially the last year. When we did, it wasn't the same. Maybe I
was still afraid of him. I'm not sure. I was always so glad when it
was over because I felt so... so cold and empty inside."

Matt closed his eyes. He understood her
deep-seated fear of rejection, but that she was afraid of being
unresponsive to him was just plain foolishness—and he told her
so.

She was thankful that the shadowy darkness in
the room hid her burning cheeks. She started to move away from him,
but Matt slid his arms around her and refused to let her go.

"You don't understand," she muttered,
suddenly anxious to have it out and over with. "Evan said I was
frigid. My God, the way he used to look at me!" She trembled. "He
said I was inadequate. Only half a woman. He said..."

She was babbling. She knew it, but somehow
she just couldn't stop. She was vaguely aware that Matt had turned
her in his arms, aware of callused fingertips grazing lightly over
each and every one of her features. But it wasn't until those
fingers exerted a gentle pressure on her mouth that her voice
trailed away.

"I don't care what that man said," he told
her when he saw that he had her attention. His eyes never faltered
from hers. "You're beautiful, Angie. Inside, outside, in every
possible way there is." A finger lifted her face, and he lowered
his until his lips rested just at the corner of hers. "You're more
woman than any man could ever want, Angie Hall." He kissed her
softly, sweetly, until he felt her tremulous response. "The only
woman I want," he whispered when their lips finally parted.

Once again she was stung by his sensitivity,
the heartfelt conviction in his voice. Wrapping her arms around his
neck, she clung to him with all her strength.

"Oh, Angie." Closing his eyes, he rested his
chin on her shining hair. His hand shook as he smoothed the
tendrils away from her temple. "I only wish you'd told me all this
long ago."

Deep inside, she realized she must have
thought he'd think less of her. She felt so very grateful that he
didn't.

"So do I," she whispered. Tipping her head
back, she smiled at him poignantly.

A sudden thought occurred to him. "Who else
knows Evan abused you?" he asked quietly.

Angie wanted to look away from him but found
she couldn't. She was dimly aware that her hands were trembling.
Somehow she managed to squeeze the words past the huge lump in her
throat. "No one."

Matt felt as if someone had wrapped a huge
band of steel around his chest. To think of Angie keeping all of
this bottled up inside all this time. He suddenly understood why
it was so important to her that a women's shelter be established in
Westridge.

The constriction tightened further when he
saw a diamond-bright teardrop suspended from her lashes. She made a
valiant effort to fight it, the muscles in her throat working
convulsively.

Matt could take it no longer. Her tortured
soul needed to be purified, cleansed. Only then could the healing
process begin. And he knew of only one way to do it.

He hauled her into his embrace, his arms both
tender and rough. "Cry, babe," he muttered into the golden cloud
of her hair. "Cry as much or as little as you want."

And she did. Warm, wet, salty tears of sorrow
for a love once cherished, a love now mourned because it was dead
and gone. Tears that slipped unheeded down her cheeks, tears that
poured from an endless well inside her. She cried until she was
exhausted, lying limply against a solid warmth that was the only
beacon of light in a shadowy sea of darkness.

When it was over, Matt carried her up to bed.
She had no strength left to protest as a voice softly commanded
that she raise her arms, lift her hips. Soft white silk slipped
down her body. But she was attuned only to an entirely different
set of sensations—gentle hands, all the more comforting because of
their very strength, a voice as feathery soft as down and a look so
tender and caring she felt warm and secure as she'd never felt
before.

The pins were removed from her hair, a brush
quickly pulled through the loosened strands. She was all ivory and
gold with her hair feathered over her shoulders, and her arms were
bare beneath the cap sleeves of the gown. The scooped neckline
offered tantalizing glimpses of the same smooth, honey- colored
skin, skin that gleamed invitingly beneath the sheer material.
Desire—sweet, warm and potent- surged hotly through Matt's
bloodstream. The feeling was so intense it bordered on pain.

Pain because he wanted to make love to her as
he had never wanted anything in his life. Pain because he ached to
sweep her into a world of sweet oblivion, a world where there was
no bitterness, no haunting reminders of the past... a world where
only the two of them existed.

But he knew he didn't dare. Rest was what she
needed right now... rest.

It took a moment before he was able to clamp
the brake on that dangerous train of thought.

"Better?" When he was finally able to speak,
he strived for a neutral tone, achieved it and then wondered how
the hell he'd managed. Confining his attention to his hands and
away from the lushly tempting curves of her body, he fluffed the
pillow under her head.

Angie nodded. Her eyes were fused to his, and
as he watched, a faint flush crept into her cheeks. He knew she was
thinking of the way he had just impersonally undressed her, and he
was both amused and touched by her reaction.

His own reaction changed to a far different
one when she made no move to draw the sheet up over her breasts.
This time he was the one who couldn't look away when she drew a
deep, quivering breath.

He straightened abruptly. "Good night, Angie.
I'll see you in the morning." He was astounded that he sounded so
normal, even more so when he reached the door without looking back
at her.

"Don't go."

It was a ribbon of sound, no more than a
wispy breath of air. Convinced he'd conjured it up from the depths
of his imagination, Matt's face tightened. Then he stopped and
slowly turned.

The air was charged with a brittle tension as
he stared at Angie. The heat reflected in their eyes melded,
breaching the distance between them. He scarcely breathed, afraid
she would disappear like misty beads of dew on a bright and
sun-kissed morning.

Then she was there before him, his sensuous
angel with the golden halo of hair. He heard the soft whisper of
her breath, smelled the musky, womanly scent of her.

A hand tentatively touched his chest. A
second later the other crept up to join it.

"Please, Matt. Don't leave me." Quivering
lips hovered temptingly, so temptingly, beneath his. "I...I need
you."

I need you. It was a promise, a prayer, a
plea... They were also the sweetest words he'd ever hoped to
hear.

Deep within a flicker of hope burned
brighter. But he couldn't touch her. Not yet. "I can't stay with
you, Angie," he said very quietly. "Because if I do—" his voice
reached an even lower pitch "—if I do, I don't know if I can stop
myself from making love to you."

He thought she might flinch from his
bluntness. But she didn't. She only continued to gaze up at him
with eyes so blue, so full of trust that he felt oddly humble,
strangely proud. And so filled with love he thought he might
burst.

"I know," Angie said with a brave little
smile. Very softly she added, "I thought you might say that."

His gaze roved over her delicate features.
Her cheeks were still flushed from the tears so recently shed, but
she had never looked more beautiful—or more vulnerable. He had to
be certain, absolutely sure that she was sure.

His pose was relaxed, but inside he was
trembling. "That doesn't scare you?" he asked, willing his voice to
be steady.

In a slow but deliberate move, he settled his
hands on her hips, aligning her body firmly against his. He heard
her catch her breath at the implicit evidence of his desire for
her, but she didn't move away. "Because if I touch you," he warned
softly, "I don't think I'll be able to stop. For both of us, babe,
make sure this is what you want."

Angie saw many things in his face as she
looked up at him. He was so strong, so masculine, a man who had
almost reached his limit but cared enough to give her one last
chance to change her mind. She saw a man who gave unselfishly,
without question.