Just Joe (21 page)

Joe held Mattie carefully
against his chest, breathing in her silken scent. She felt so right in his
arms, he thought with a sigh. A part of him, and so small to hold so much of his
heart and soul. Mine, he determined fiercely, unconsciously tightening his
hold.
Mine.

But she was so silent.
Even during the peak of their climax she had only whispered his name. Now she
lay still, barely breathing against him. What if he had not pleased her when he
needed so much to please? What if all she had experienced in his arms was fear?
What if he had hurt her? She was so delicate, and he was a big man.

Finally, when the silence
became so oppressive that he could not stand it any longer, he spoke.
"Mattie?" he whispered carefully, his lips moving in gentle caress at
her temple. "Sweetheart?"

"I didn't know it
would be like that." Her voice was thin and distant, her tone
frighteningly blank. "How could I have known?"

Joe, in his fear, took the
words as a pained reproach. Mattie, awash in the aftereffects of a totally
unexpected ecstasy, was too dazed with remembered pleasure and satisfaction to
notice.

It had been perfect, she
thought incredulously. No, more than perfect. Joe had come into her body, as he
had already come into her heart, and somehow in doing so had driven away the
haunting fear of physical commitment. Joe had chased away all those years of
distancing herself from the world, she thought yearningly, with his hungry,
gentle possession.

Mattie could not speak,
overcome by the wave of joy he brought her. All her life she had spent alone,
empty, looking for a missing piece of her soul, and afraid to know where or
what it was. Now she knew that it was Joe. Joe in her arms, in her body, in her
mind and her heart and her soul. Finally she could feel and need.

The emotion overwhelmed
her. Tears slipped unconsciously from beneath her closed lids and trailed slowly
down her cheeks.

Joe froze, shards of
burning pain slashing at him viciously. Words that he had never planned and
never spoken clawed at his throat, and tumbled into her silky hair. He could
not meet her eyes, unable to witness the regret he knew must be mirrored there.

"Mattie, listen to
me," he began urgently, his tone intense.

Mattie sighed blissfully.

"If—if what
happened... if tonight didn't please you— There are other ways, Mattie."

"Other ways,"
Mattie echoed faithfully, barely listening.

"Other
positions," Joe clarified with an endearing awkwardness.
"Other...methods." His whole body was coiled with tension.

Mattie blinked, finally
coming to. "Other ways to make love?" she questioned blankly.
"What do you mean?"

A muffled sound, midway
between a sigh and a groan, escaped Joe. "You could... control the
lovemaking. You could be on top and pace it any way..."

"Other methods?"

"I don't have
to...possess you that way," Joe explained carefully, his eyes desperately
wary. "I don't have to be... inside of you."

Mattie tried to raise her
head to meet his eyes, but Joe would not allow it, his hand tangling in her
hair to hold her against his shoulder.

"How?" She had
no idea what he was so carefully not saying.

"I can use my
hands," Joe continued with an aching gentleness. "My lips... my
tongue."

"Inside of me?"
Mattie began to tremble at the thought.

"Anywhere. Anywhere
you want me," Joe told her quietly. "I asked Dr. Wright about it, and
he said that we should experiment. Anything that you feel comfortable with,
any—"

"You talked to Dr.
Wright about.. .making love to me?" Mattie was incredulous. "You
wanted me? How long have you wanted this?"

Joe tensed. Should he tell
her now? Would she be frightened at the depths of his love for her? A love she
still couldn't understand?

Drawing a careful breath,
he told her, "I've felt this way about you since we met. I wanted you in
that end zone, and I loved you at the park. But it's not only that,
Mattie," he rushed to explain. "It's so much more. The friendship
wasn't a lie. You are my best friend. I'm in love with you, but I also love
you. Do you understand the difference? Even if we could never have this—"
his hand smoothed along her shoulder to indicate what he meant "—I would
still want you, want to be with you."

"Joe—" Mattie's
voice was broken, and tears danced in her eyes.

"Is it okay? Do you
mind so much if I love you this way?" Joe's eyes pleaded for reassurance,
and Mattie gave him the only one she was capable of at that moment.

Rolling to face him, she
spread her body over his, holding his eyes intently. "Kiss me,
please," she whispered, her hands caressing either side of his neck.
"Show me this love again."

Joe needed no second
invitation. With a smothered groan of thankfulness, his lips closed on hers,
taking possession again to lead her into the timeless land of passion they had
found together.

The loving was different
now. Joe, no longer the acquiescent partner, explored Mattie's body as if it
were the last thing he would ever be allowed to do on this earth. He teased and
stroked and licked and nibbled. He touched and probed and possessed, bringing
Mattie to such a heightened state of arousal that she could only shiver beneath
his sensuous assault.

This time when they
reached their climax, Mattie did not whisper his name. She sighed it into his
mouth as he scorched himself into her heart.

A long time later Mattie
rose from the bed, leaving Joe still sleeping. She crossed to the door, then
turned, studying his form with eyes that were lost and frightened. With a sigh,
she left the room and drifted down the hallway. On her way down the main steps
and into the living room, where the beautiful pine Christmas tree with its
blinking lights and glittering ornaments beckoned, Mattie tried to deny the
ghost that drove her.

What she had shared with
Joe had been the most beautiful thing in her life. It had taken Joe to show her
that her body could be touched without causing pain or fear. He had released
her from her fear of sex. But the one thing Joe could not do was to take away
her fear of love.

She was so confused! All
of her life, Mattie had equated love with pain and degradation. Her foster
father's words were branded into her mind. Joe said he loved her. But it wasn't
the same. Joe's love was gentle and warm and slow. Marion Dumbronkowski loved
his wife. But their love was protective and expanded with each child they had.
Cole Baron loved Jassy. But their love was binding and uniting. What was Joe
offering her? What was love? Mattie felt everything good and warm and gentle in
her soul for Joe, but she could not label it love.

Would she ever be free of
her past? And could she go to Joe if she wasn't?

No, she determined sadly.
Joe deserved a woman, not a child afraid of the dark corners of her mind. A
child who tried to run from ghosts and could never quite outdistance them.

Mattie swallowed painfully
and closed her eyes against the blurring lights of the Christmas tree. She
would pack up her fears and her ghosts. She would take Rags with her and run
again. Pray God, it would be the last time.

When Joe woke up and found
Mattie gone, he almost went crazy. Leaping convulsively from the bed, he barely
took time to grab his jeans before he bolted out of the room.

"Mattie!" he
called her name from the top of the stairs and got no response. Hurtling down
the steps, he called again as loud as he could, but something deep and
frightened inside of him knew he would get no answer. "Mat-tie?"

He searched every inch of
the house, as if expecting to find her hiding in some corner. But she was gone
and she had taken Rags with her.

Grabbing the phone, he
punched out the Barons' number and waited impatiently for the line to be
answered. Cole was probably out on the ranch somewhere, and Jassy was
doubtlessly lost in one of her masterpieces. For the first time Joe wished his
friend's wife weren't so dedicated to her art that she didn't even hear the
phone ring. Why didn't somebody answer... ?

"Hello?" Jassy's
breathless tone finally interrupted his impatient thoughts.

"Jassy, it's Joe.
I—"

"Oh, hi Joe. I was
going to call you in a little while—"

Joe interrupted brusquely.
"Jassy, have you seen Mat-tie?" It was a long shot, but the Barons
were the only ones in the area Joe could think of who Mattie might go to.

"That's what I was
going to call you about," Jassy reproved gently, drawing a muffled curse
from Joe.

"Well?"

Jassy was silent for a
moment to let Joe know what she thought of his attitude then, hearing his harsh
breathing, relented. "She came over here very early this morning. One of
your boys dropped her off. She said that there was some kind of family
emergency and she had to go home."

"Oh God," Joe
muttered sickly into the silence.

"She said that you
were out on the ranch when the call came in and she couldn't get in touch with
you, so she hitched a ride to our house."

"Is she still
there?"

"No. Remember, last
night Cole mentioned that he had to fly into Dallas today. Mattie flew in with
him."

Joe was silent for so long
that Jassy became concerned. "Joe? You're not angry, are you? She said
that she really needed to go home."

"She really needed
me," Joe corrected wearily. "She just doesn't know it yet."

Jassy was not dumb.
"No family emergency?"

Joe sighed. "No
family. So it hardly seems likely, does it?"

"I'm sorry."
Jassy's words were sincere.

"Me, too."

"What are you going
to do?" Jassy asked after a small silence.

"Find her," Joe
answered simply. "Try to make it right again."

"Maybe she just needs
some time," Jassy suggested hesitantly.

Joe remembered what Cole
had told him about almost losing Jassy. He couldn't let Mattie leave him like
that, not because of what he had told her or done with her last night. He had
to bring her back to him, back to his friendship, if nothing else. And somehow,
he had to find a way for both of them to forget last night. Because he knew,
with an aching defeat, that last night was why she was running away again.

"Joe?" Jassy's
concerned voice prodded him back into the present.

"There are a lot of
things I can give her, Jassy," he told her tautly. "Distance isn't
one of them."

He hung up before Jassy
could think of an answer.

Ten

But
Mattie
got
her
distance—two
months
and
hundreds
of miles
of it. She was halfway to Port Arthur by the time Joe reached her cottage. She
went back to find her ghosts, to face them one last time.

For an entire week she
simply walked around the town, visiting all the mistily familiar places of her
childhood absorbing all the memories that assaulted her. On the eighth day she
went looking for Frank Bowers, the foster father whose memory haunted her. As
Joe had before her, she found that he had drowned five years ago.

Mattie felt nothing—no
elation, no regret. She was curiously numb as she realized that she would never
look into the man's eyes again, never confront him with what he had done to
her. What had she been planning to say to him anyway, she asked herself with despair.
He would have enjoyed knowing what he had done to her, to her life.

That thought brought
Mattie up short. What Frank Bowers had done to her had taken place in the space
of three years. And yet he had ruled her life, her thoughts, her emotions for
the ten years since she had last seen him.

The ghosts weren't here in
Port Arthur, she realized painfully. Here there were only streets and houses,
people from the past. The ghosts were inside of her. If that were true, if she
really did carry the ghosts within the darkest corners of her mind, then she
could eradicate them. She had to bring them into the light of perspective, to
deal with them, accept them and banish them. For Joe's sake and for her own.