Bound to Be His (The Archer Family Book 2) (4 page)

"I'm glad for the way it turned out. I couldn't really imagine them together at first, but now I can hardly picture them with anyone else. Love is funny that way. You know, you see these two people who seem like they'd never fit together. Who seem like they'd hate each other. Those are always the people who fall in love, you know?"

"I guess." Shay frowned. "Maybe."

She pulled into the driveway of the villa and then sidled from the car without another word.

Love wasn't something she wanted to talk about. Hell, it wasn't even something she wanted to think about.

Least of all with Matt Archer.

"It's nice. People who find love. Who start fresh," Matt said quietly.

Shay blinked and looked at him, reminded with a sudden sharp pang about his mother.
Her
new family.
Her
new beginning.

"I guess so. I'm not sure some people deserve it," Shay said.

Matt's thoughtful expression shifted into something more like pensiveness. "You don't think your mom deserves a fresh start?"

"Do you think yours does?" she asked. Not that she'd meant to. Lately it seemed like nothing turned out the way she meant it to. Still, there it was, hanging between them.

"I do," Matt said. "I really do. But I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you. And you did have the benefit of being raised with a mother, even if she was less than what you'd hoped for."

"Yeah," Shay hummed, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "People can really surprise you sometimes."

F
or the next few days
, Shay was nothing but anxious.

First were the wedding plans. Of course, being a maid of honor was never a piece of cake, but when it came to planning a wedding on an island and managing every single guest, it was practically a nightmare. Not only did she have to make sure Aunt Frieda and Uncle Joel stayed in separate (but equally nice) hotels, but she also had to take on all the business responsibilities Andy couldn't manage at the moment.

Then there was the matter of Andy herself. Lately she'd been so elusive that Shay had trouble finding her in the same room, let alone getting her cornered. Which, of course, she needed to do. Ever since her chat with Matt, she simply couldn't get the idea of the mysterious Archer mother out of her head. She needed to get Andy to spill her guts. Come clean.

Because then, Shay might just be able to tackle her biggest worry of all.

Matt.

It wasn't that his case was tricky. In fact, in the few days since their trip to the party store, he'd practically been a dream to work with. She'd heard him on the phone, charming reporters and joking around about his career-ending accident like it was just another part of his life. Which, she guessed, it was. It still baffled her, though, the ease with which he handled all the stresses of his life. When he'd spoken about his mother, he'd been so calm, so self-assured. It was almost like he was talking about someone other than himself. Something that couldn't hurt him.

Which, naturally, only made Shay all the more curious.

So, when Friday morning finally rolled around and Matt was on the phone with yet another journalist, Shay creeped into the kitchen and caught Andy unawares.

Well, Andy and Logan, that was.

The two were drinking their morning coffee and murmuring to each other in the way that newlyweds did. Like they were the only two people on the planet.

Shay cleared her throat, and they both started and then turned toward her.

"Morning," she said, and then fixed herself her own mug of joe. "You guys have plans today?"

"I've got to go do some press stuff," Logan said. "The old slave driver won't let me off because of my own wedding, if you can believe it."

"You should fire her," Shay said, and Andy glared at her playfully.

"Don't you dare," Andy said.

"She'd deserve it. I'm telling you, I've never had to work this hard in my life."

"And you still don't work half as hard as most people," Andy shot back.

Logan offered her a deadpan stare. "Anyway, since you do mention it, I've got to get to the gym. You know if Matt's around to join?"

Shay shook her head. "He's got his own press homework to do."

"The pair of you," Logan said. "Slave drivers." Still, he smiled and grabbed a small gym bag from the corner of the room. Swinging it over his shoulder, he said, "I'll be back." And then he disappeared through the sliding glass doors.

"You have big plans today?" Andy asked.

"Only if you do. I've missed you." A little twinge of guilt coiled through her at the words. It was true; she had missed Andy's company in the few days since she'd been on the island, but not as much as she might have hoped. Even with Andy so preoccupied by Logan and the wedding, Shay had found herself more than distracted enough to keep her busy. Then, of course, there was the fact that Matt kept her busy enough for two people on top of that.

"I'm glad to hear it," Andy said. "I've got wedding favors to make, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather have helping me."

Andy stood from the couch, stretched her arms over her head in a yawn, and started back toward the pantry. From one of the shelves, she pulled a crate of tiny wine bottles.

"Jeez, the booze." Shay blinked. She'd never seen so much alcohol in her life. And she had been in a sorority in college.

"Yeah, I went a little overboard. What can I say? I want to have a fun wedding." Andy plopped the crate down on the table. "We're just putting stickers over the labels. Nothing too complicated.”

Joining her at the table, Shay watched as Andy showed her what to do, and then followed suit as her friend worked on one bottle after the next, like an assembly line in her precision.

"So what else is going on?" Shay asked, ignoring the second pang of guilt. "I've barely seen you. How is Derrick?"

Andy grinned at the mention of her brother. "He's good old Derrick. I think he's having some trouble adjusting to life outside of combat, but other than that." Andy shrugged. "Same old Derrick."

Shay accidentally sighed, and then tried to disguise it as a yawn. Apparently getting Andy to come clean about her mother was going to be harder than she'd expected. Hell, for all Shay knew, Andy could have forgotten the whole thing by now. After all, she hardly ever spoke about her childhood except to mention all the wonderful things her father had done. It wasn't like discussing her mother would have been normal.

"How are the wedding guests doing?" Shay tried, her cheeks aching against the strain of her smile.

Andy sighed. "Good for the most part. I think everyone loves the island. I'm surprised by how many people came, really. I thought the wedding would mostly be the four of us." Andy sipped her coffee and then looked thoughtful for a moment. "It is odd, though. Seeing my mom and dad's families in one place. That's never really happened before that I can remember."

Shay's heart flipped over. "No?"

"No. I mean, my dad was always really good about making sure we got to know my mom's family. It's just..." Andy let out a long breath and then leaned over in the seat to glance down the hallway. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Can you keep a secret?"

"With the best of them," Shay breathed.

"Only one of my mom's relatives came. My aunt Judy. She's a very sweet old woman, and she was my gran's best friend when she was still alive."

"Okay." Shay nodded.

"So, Aunt Judy feels really strongly about something, and she's sort of giving me a hard time about it."

The beat of Shay's heart thundered in her ears. "What is it?"

"You promise you can—"

"Yes, yes," Shay cut her off.

Andy frowned. "Okay. Well, as it happens, my mother is on this island somewhere."

"What?" Shay did her best to feign surprise, but it was a high-school-play-worthy performance at best. Still, Andy didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah. She's got this whole new family. She's even got a new set of twins, if you can believe it."

"So what's the problem?" Shay asked.

"Aunt Judy wants me to invite my mother to the wedding. She says my gran would have wanted it and that it's a show of good faith."

"And you don't want her there?" Shay asked.

"It's not so much that." Andy sipped her coffee again and then stared down at the mug for a long moment. "I don't want my wedding to be a day about seeing her again."

"That's understandable," Shay said.

"I think so, too." Andy nodded. "But it's more than that. I don't think we should see her at all."

"And your brothers agree?"

Andy pursed her lips. "Derrick does. Sort of."

"And Matt?"

"Matt..." She sighed. "Matt doesn't know she's here."

"Why not?" Her heart was pounding along like a stallion’s gallop now. They were finally here. The answer to her question.

"I don't think it would be good for him."

"Why?"

Andy was silent for a minute and then picked up a new bottle and got back to work. "Did you ever have something happen in your life that sort of defined you from that moment on?"

Shay thought of her father's death. The somber funeral and her mother's blank staring face. Then all the boyfriends. The first wedding afterward. That first divorce.

"I think I can understand that," she said slowly, but then she pictured Matt's accident the way it had been on Sports Center. The gore of it. The devastation.

Suddenly, she thought she knew someone who might have an even better idea of that than she did.

"Well, when we graduated high school, Matt decided to drive Derrick and me out to Oregon. We used to do a lot of camping with our dad, so we didn't think it was any kind of big deal, but then we got there and he springs on us that we're actually there to find our mother."

"What?" Shay spluttered. She'd wondered, of course, about what Oregon had meant ever since that first time she'd heard it in the bushes, but she never would have dreamed, never would have imagined...

"Yeah."

"That took some stones."

"Big ones." Andy nodded.

"How did you guys react?"

"Well, I wasn't happy at first. I never really wanted to see her, you know? But I think Matt... you know, he had a year longer with her than I did. He had memories. He had unresolved issues. So, for his sake, I think we both went along with it."

"But how did he know to go to Oregon of all places?"

"He hired a private investigator, as it turns out." Andy shook her head. "He was determined. The PI found a marriage certificate in her name from Portland, so Matt was determined to find her."

"And did you?" she asked.

"Nope." Andy sipped her coffee again. "We spent weeks looking, of course. The address the PI had was an old one. The people didn't have a forwarding address. We thought we might have found the bakery where she worked one day, but Matt had seen pictures and he told us it wasn't her."

"Wow," Shay said.

"Yeah." Andy shook her head. "It was devastating for him, I think. Hard to get over. Like, for one shining moment, he could have had this one thing he always dreamed about, and then just as quickly, it was gone. How could I do that to him again? What if she says she'll come and doesn't show up? Or it could be even worse."

"Could it?"

"Yeah. I mean, what if she comes and she's a total letdown? What if after all these years of picturing who she might have been, she's nothing but a miserable phony?"

Shay considered for a moment. "But wouldn't you want the chance to find out for yourself? Wouldn't you want the chance to meet your siblings?"

Before Andy could answer, a door creaked open at the end of the hall and then Matt's footfall sounded against the tile.

"So, anyway, I told them that they had to remove the sleeves, and they were livid," Andy said, and then let out the fakest laugh Shay had ever heard. Still, she followed along, faking a grin as Matt trudged toward the coffee pot.

For the rest of the morning, she was forced to finish the favors while they made idle chit chat and gossiped about which publicist had done what to which celebrity. The normal hallmarks of their conversations, really. But deep underneath, she knew that Andy, like her, was stewing over what they'd discussed. Was wondering what the right thing to do really was. Was hoping she'd made the right choice.

But unlike Andy, Shay also had to worry about her place in all this. And, unlike Andy, she wasn't torn about the choice.

Matt had a right to know about his mother. He needed to have the chance to heal and to grow. He deserved to know that he might have more brothers and sisters.

But whether it was her place to tell him?

Well, that was less certain.

T
hat night
, Matt stared down at the text from his personal trainer and then chucked his phone onto his bedside table without responding.

It was a courtesy note—one of many he'd received in the last month—letting him know that the physical therapy part of his training would soon be coming to an end. Of course, to the trainer, this was always cause for saying things like "congratulations" and "new chapter," but hell if Matt saw it that way.

Once this training was over and he was a normal athlete again, there'd be nothing keeping him from majors but his own stupid drive. He wanted it, too. Wanted it even worse than he had the first time because now he knew what it was like to be a pro. What it was like to belong on a team and hear the crowd shouting his name. He missed it. Needed it.

But that didn't change the way his wrist felt.

He rolled it once, waiting to hear the tiny "click" that always sounded when he'd moved it full circle. It was like hearing his own heart break every time.

He picked up the phone again, hovered his thumb over the little digital keyboard, but stopped short when he heard the muffle of Shay's voice through the wall.

"Hey," she'd said.

No, it wasn't a muffle this time. It was clear. So clear that it felt like he was practically in the room with her.

He should probably leave. Go to the living room and let her have her conversation in private. But then... what if she was talking to someone about his career? He deserved to hear that kind of call, didn't he?

"No, no, I've been trying to get back to you," she said.

Then, with a slight twinge of exasperation, and she added, "I promise."

There was a long pause, and Matt moved from beneath his sheets in order to press his ear to the wall, tossing his phone onto the mattress, forgotten.

"No, it's nothing like that. You have to trust me."

Damn, did this woman only speak in vaguenesses? How was anyone supposed to get a good eavesdropping in?

"I'm sure he is."

He strained his ears. She said he. That could be him. Was probably—

"I never had a problem with Steven. I barely knew him."

Steven? Matt's gut twisted. Who the hell was Steven? Maybe some other client. Or maybe, just maybe, she was on the phone with a girlfriend, chatting about some one night stand or another.

It wasn't outside the realm of possibility, after all. Men flocked to Shay Meyers wherever she went, and with good reason. She was incredible from head to toe. The kind of woman who ate men up and spit them out without a second thought. A real ball buster.

"I think you're not being completely honest with me, either." A small pause and then, "No, I think you're lonesome. I know how you sound. I know how that goes—"

Apparently, the person cut her off, because Shay's voice stopped short. And then, "Mom, I'm not avoiding, I swear. I'm just really busy."

Mom. She was on the phone with her mom.