My Stubborn Heart (23 page)

Kate had an acute case of bliss brought on by spa immersion.

The pedicurist had just exfoliated her legs from the knees down and then wrapped them in hot towels. Kate was reclining in her chair, eyes closed, listening to the spa's soft music. It sounded like rain and wind chimes.

She had to admit that she felt slightly guilty for taking Morty's spa gift certificates. He was retired and short on funds, after all. She probably
should
have been noble and humble and refused payment. She probably
should
have said something about how furthering the cause of love was reward enough.

But then she recalled in gory detail what she'd gone through to un-dye Morty's hair. Aw, to heck with guilt. She'd earned this.

She sighed, relaxed all her muscle groups, and wondered what Matt was doing. After that marathon vigil he'd kept in her hospital room, she'd expected to see him again the next day. Hour after hour at the hospital had passed. Without wanting to, she'd caught herself waiting for him, looking for him every time she heard footsteps in the hallway, every time someone knocked on her door. She'd been discharged around noon, and Gran had brought her home to Chapel Bluff where Matt should have been busy working. Instead the house had greeted them with emptiness. Gran told her that Matt had been there earlier but had left to make a Home Depot run. Kate had spent the remainder of the afternoon waiting for him to return and the remainder of the evening waiting for the phone to ring. He hadn't come back and he hadn't called.

As usual, she didn't know what to make of him or what to do about him. She wasn't sure if she should be thankful for the time at the hospital or miffed that he'd been avoiding her since. Or both. Or maybe she had the right to feel neither.

When Matt still hadn't returned to Chapel Bluff by ten thirty this morning, she'd decided that between her asthma attack, her hospital stay, and her frazzled emotional state over Matt's absence, she needed a trip to the spa.

And what a good idea
that
had been. Her thoughts drifted in delirious patterns. This was so relaxing. And she'd have such pretty toes when she left. There'd be plenty of time later to angst over the man with the heartbreaking brown eyes.

After her pedicure, Kate took herself and her novel out for a long, leisurely lunch. When she finally returned to Chapel Bluff that afternoon, she immediately spotted Matt's truck parked near the barn. The sight of it almost sent her straight into another red-alert asthma attack.

She sat in her car for a few minutes, lecturing herself about being calm, about how she was his friend, about how she was a grown woman and could easily handle this situation.

Gran had left a note for her on the kitchen table, saying that she and “the girls” had gone to a matinee.

Kate paused, listening. From the second floor, where she knew Matt would be working, she could hear nothing. She made her way up the stairs.

She'd worn her black flip-flops home from the spa. They made a faint slapping sound against her heels as she approached the bathroom. She'd chosen a glossy lollipop pink polish for her toes, which coordinated with the pale pink turtleneck she had on. Her jeans, she noticed, were still rolled up one tuck at the cuffs.

She reached the doorway to the bathroom. Usually she found Matt working and he'd continue working while they chatted. But today he was standing immobile at his full height, as if he'd stopped what he'd been doing the moment she'd entered the house and had been waiting for her to find him. And he was staring at her like a gladiator would stare at its mortal enemy—in a way that promised her he was about to take her apart limb by limb.

She'd had a greeting ready in her head, but it evaporated like a plume of steam. “Are you . . . mad at me?”

“You know, Kate, I am,” he said, voice tight. “I've been waiting for it to go away, but I don't think it's going anywhere.”

“Why?” she asked, stunned. “What did I do?”

“You nearly killed yourself.”

She fumbled around mentally, trying to understand. “My asthma attack?”

“You knew you shouldn't exercise out in the cold like that.”

“I . . . I checked the weather online before I left. They forecasted a high of sixty-two.”

“You went out early for your walk. It wasn't going to reach that for hours.”

Her lips opened, but no words came out.

“And where was your inhaler? You had it with you that other day when I saw you walking.”

“I just forgot it. It's . . . it's one of those things I usually take with me, but not every time. I'm almost always fine without it.”

“You obviously weren't fine without it this time.” The bigness of him and his emotion pushed against her like a storm cloud.

Her own irritation started to rise and grow to meet his, to push back. “Well, maybe you're perfect and never forget things, but I admit that I did this time, okay? I've already paid for my mistake physically, and when the hospital bill arrives I'm sure that I'll pay for it with my wallet, too. So maybe you can cut me some slack and spare me the lecture.”

His chest rose and fell with his angry breath.

“A little sympathy would be nice,” she said.

“Sympathy?” His features twisted in disbelief. “That's what you want from me? A little sympathy?”

“Yes!”

“Unfortunately, when I saw you in the hospital with a tube in your arm, my feelings went way deeper than sympathy.”

She struggled to think past the pulse pounding in her temples. “Is this why you were angry in the hospital? You were mad at me for what I'd done? I thought it was because you were back in a hospital again after what you'd gone through with your wife. I thought it was memories.”

“My memories didn't exactly put me in a better mood.”

“But mostly it was me?”

“Mostly it was you. Mostly it still
is
you. It makes me crazy,” he said, making a sharp gesture with his hands, “to think that you'd be—so careless.”

Her hands curled into fists. “What else do you want me to say, Matt? That I'm sorry? I'm sorry. How's that? Better?” She turned on her heel and took off down the hallway.

His footfalls pounded behind her. She sped toward the stairs, but he caught up, his hand wrapping around her upper arm. His strong fingers held her with careful pressure, staying her but not hurting her.

She turned toward him, and they were suddenly very close. Almost chest to chest.

“Why do you have the right to be so angry, exactly?” she asked.

“I don't.”

“Did I worry you? Is that it? If so, I am sorry for what I put you and Gran and the others through.”

He moved forward, even nearer. “What they feel for you and what I feel for you are nothing alike.”

She ought to step away. She was angry. Wasn't she? She had been two seconds ago. But her anger had scattered in the face of his glorious nearness.

They breathed together, their exhales and inhales fast. She gazed into his eyes, and he gazed back without shields. She saw vulnerability, frustration, desire.

“Promise me you'll be more careful with yourself,” he whispered roughly. His forehead came to rest against hers. “I don't want anything to happen to you.”

The words hit her with physical force, stabbing a direct hit to her heart.

He changed the angle of his head so that their lips were close. Closer. His hands brushed up the sides of her neck and tunneled into her hair, holding the back of her head. His mouth moved even closer, until it pressed against hers and he was kissing her.

Kate kissed him back, straining into him, arching up onto her tiptoes. Her arms came around his neck, grabbing fistfuls of shirt against his nape.

She adored him with that kiss, while her brain spun with the impossibility and magnitude of it, and her body reveled in the touch and feel of him.

He made a growling noise and his thumbs moved possessively against her jaw. He kissed her and kissed her and kissed her and she kissed him back, until she was forced to come up for air. She broke contact, tilting her face back. He stayed right where he was, watching her, his hands cradling her head.

Kate breathed unevenly, looking into his eyes.

She loved him.

She absolutely, no-going-back-now, one hundred percent loved him. She couldn't trust him to return her love. Wasn't sure God intended for her to love him at all. But she couldn't help it.

Kate released the handfuls of his shirt she'd been gripping, smoothed the fabric, then flattened her palms on his chest. Every molecule she had screamed at her to grab him close and beg him to kiss her until she couldn't breathe again. Instead, she forced herself to gently push him away.

He took a step back, his arms falling to his sides.

“I thought,” she said, swiping a lock of hair out of her eyes, “you said that we were just friends.”

“I want to be more than just your friend, Kate.”

The heater made its familiar
clunk
and
whir
as it roused to life. She could smell the subtly masculine scent of his soap.

“Do you feel the same way about me?” he asked. Doubt clouded his expression.

She almost laughed. She could hardly deny that she did after the way she'd just kissed him. “Yes. But . . .”

“But what?”

But it probably spells disaster for me because I love you.
She shrugged helplessly, unable to think of anything suitable to say. Her lips felt swollen from his kisses, and she couldn't seem to put two coherent thoughts together.

He reached for her hand. He gazed at it, kissed the inside of her palm, then threaded his fingers through hers and held firmly. His attention returned to her face.

She simply looked back at him. Silent.

They stayed that way as the seconds stretched.

“I have something I have to do,” he finally said.

She nodded.

“I'll be back.”

“All right.”

He gave her such a smoldering look of longing that her heart took up its pounding again. Before she could melt into a puddle, he walked away and down the stairs. From below, she heard the kitchen door close behind him, then his car's engine as he drove away.

Kate pressed both hands against the bottom half of her face. Oh. Heaven. Above.

She loved him.

She couldn't love him!

But she did.

Matt had a ghost to confront. Or, more accurately, a gigantic storage unit full of Beth's possessions to confront. After leaving Kate he drove straight for the place.

He'd never visited the storage facility that stored his old life. Not once. He'd arranged for the space over the phone, and he'd had their Manhattan apartment packed and transported by a moving company. Frequently over the years, though, he'd thought about all the things that were sitting in the dark, shut away, and waiting for him. He'd always known that he needed to sort through it all. Until now he'd never had the motivation to face it, so he'd avoided it.

After kissing Kate—

He probably shouldn't have done that. He'd managed to resist kissing her for weeks, and he certainly hadn't planned to kiss her today. But now that he had . . .

He couldn't make himself be sorry.

A dizzy kind of emotion—happiness?—was still buzzing through him. Man, he was rusty at happiness. It felt light, foreign, addictively good. Even the promise of future pain couldn't faze him at the moment. Like a junkie shooting cocaine, he knew what he felt for her was bad for him, but he couldn't make himself stop. If she let him, he'd kiss Kate every chance he got right up until she left.

He flipped on his blinker and exited the freeway. He'd never in his life felt such power in a kiss.

In the quiet moments that had followed it, though, the thought of this storage unit had slithered into his head. Of all things, he didn't want to think about this storage unit when he was with Kate. So here he was.

He steered his truck through the gates that surrounded the facility. Quickly, he checked the number on the key he'd stopped at home to retrieve. He located his unit and turned off the engine. It looked just like all the others. Brightly painted door. Industrial.

He exited the truck, wind raking him as he worked his key into the unit's lock. The clouds hung low, covering the sun and making the day cold and gray. He could hear only the muffled drone of the nearby freeway. As far as he could see, no other person had come out today to check on their belongings, which suited him fine.

The slotted door rose with a soft whine. Behind it, new-looking cardboard boxes filled the space. Toward the front they'd been stacked on top of one another. Further back, the boxes became larger, and further back still he could make out the shape of furniture, which had been wrapped with some kind of heavy plastic to protect it.

The moving company had done a tidy job. They'd left a pathway from the front to the rear. Each box had been secured with thick clear packing tape. And everywhere he looked block handwriting in permanent marker told him what the boxes held.

Resistance struck him with thudding force. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to open any of these boxes and look inside and remember. He only wanted to shut the door, get back in his truck, and drive.

Tamping down on the instinct, he walked the length of the space and back again, taking it all in. He didn't know where to begin. There were so many boxes. He stopped near the mouth of the unit and used one of his keys to slit the tape across the top of the nearest box. He lifted the flaps. Inside he saw Beth's clothes, precisely folded in stacks.

He remembered these shirts. Could picture her wearing them.

Grief hit him like a wave crashing. He stood frozen, chin down, memories of her cycling through his brain.

They don't smell like her
, he thought. He'd have thought they would. But this box and its contents smelled like everything else in the space, like cardboard and dust.

Without touching so much as a fingertip to even one shirt, he made himself move to the next box. More things from her closet. Scarves, gloves, hats.

He'd loved her. She'd been a wonderful, wonderful girl.

He wished for the thousandth time that he'd taken care of her better during the last months of her life. When she'd been diagnosed, he'd sat her down and they'd talked about the possibility of his giving up hockey so that he could be with her full time. He'd known—absolutely known—that stopping was the right thing to do. But when she'd refused to let him quit, when she'd urged him to continue playing, he'd let himself be persuaded. A small part of him had even been secretly relieved, a truth that shamed him to this day.

He'd brought up quitting a few more times with her over the coming months. Each time she'd grown agitated until she'd finally, earnestly, asked him to stop suggesting it.

Beth had preferred to deal with cancer by continuing on with life as if everything were normal. She'd been in denial, and he'd been in denial right along with her. It was only during that final month that it had really sunk in for him that she might not beat it. Dazed, he'd lived each day just going through the motions, and then—before he could grasp her to him tightly enough—she'd died.

He couldn't forgive himself for playing through her illness. For the past three years, guilt had dogged him mercilessly, kept him up at night, made him hate himself for the way he'd treated her. Regret was a bitter thing. Horribly bitter, because he couldn't go back and change a single thing that he'd done.

He opened a box that contained her jewelry. Then a box of her jeans.

He'd been a lousy husband to Beth in life, and he was being a lousy husband to her in death, too, because he was falling hard for someone else. His affections were moving on, when hers never would or could.

“I want you to go on with your life,”
Beth had said to him once, late at night in their bed. She'd turned on the lamp and grabbed his hand and looked at him with urgency.
“I want you to find someone, after me. Someone to love you.”
Her blue eyes had filled with tears.
“Someone you can love. I want you to have a family and to be happy. I need for you to promise me that you will. I can't face this if I'm having to worry about you every minute.”
He'd promised her, but only because it was what she'd wanted to hear. He hadn't had the slightest hope that he'd ever care about another woman.

“I'm sorry, Beth,” he whispered into the silence, meaning it with his whole heart, standing there alone in the storage unit. “I'm sorry.” The sorrow went deeper than tears. He'd never been able to cry, though he'd often wished he could.

Beth hadn't deserved what happened to her. He looked upward.
She didn't deserve this!

His only consolation had always been that Beth wasn't in any current pain. Despite his hostility toward God, he believed in heaven and he had no doubt at all that Beth was there.

Right?

This time a reply did come. He heard a steady voice deep inside himself speak for the first time in a long time.
She's with me now,
it assured him.
I've got her.

Amazingly, tears did come to him then, blurring his vision. “Good,” he managed to say. “Good, then.”

He locked his jaw and moved on, opening one box after another after another, cutting through all the items that belonged to his old life, to his dead wife. There was no running away anymore from what had happened to Beth and to him, no matter how fast his car.

He'd gone about a quarter of the way through the unit when he opened a box that contained some of his hockey memorabilia. Trophies, certificates, framed photos, jerseys. A sense of loss stung him, a fresh sadness layered on top of all the other sadnesses of this place.

Faced with the proof of his past accomplishments, he realized that he couldn't go on with this chore. Or maybe it wasn't that he couldn't. It was that he realized there was no point. He wasn't going to bring any of these things home with him. He didn't want any of them in his new life. Not a single item.

He dug his smartphone out of his pocket and started to search for local charities. He'd contact one of the agencies Beth had supported. He'd tell them they could have it all.

But as the first screen of results appeared, he reconsidered. Some of these boxes contained picture albums, childhood keepsakes, wedding china, and all kinds of other things that Beth's parents, or his own parents, might want. Before he gave it away, he needed to offer it to them.

He called his mom. He lucked out when she didn't answer and he was able to simply leave a message. Then he scrolled through his phone's contact list and found Beth's parents' number. He'd seldom spoken to them since Beth's death, but he got them on the line, explained the situation, and heard himself say that he'd fly down tomorrow and bring whatever they wanted with him. Beth's mother knew exactly which things she wanted and exactly the things Beth's siblings wanted, as if she'd made a mental list long ago and had only been waiting for him to ask.

Once he got off the phone with Beth's parents, he dialed the airlines and booked a trip to Georgia.

Lastly, he called Kate. She sounded like light to him. Just the tone of her voice eased him. He tried to tell her what he'd been doing and why he'd be gone tomorrow, but he knew he was screwing it up. “I need to take some of Beth's stuff . . . the stuff that her parents want to keep, down to them in Atlanta, and then I can get this storage area cleaned out.”

She didn't ask him why he'd raced away from her to visit a storage unit and open boxes of his dead wife's stuff. In a way, Kate already seemed to know why he'd done it. “Okay,” she said, and by the tone of her voice, he could tell it really was.

“Maybe I should talk to Beverly,” he said, “and ask her for the day off.”

“No, I'll talk to her. Listen, it's fine. Take as much time as you need. The work will still be waiting when you get back.”

“I'll just be gone tomorrow. I fly down in the morning and back tomorrow night.” He didn't say that he couldn't stand to be away from her for more than a day. “So I'll see you Thursday.”

“Sounds good.”

“I'll miss you.” It slipped out before he could stop it.

A split second of quiet, then, “I'll miss you, too.”

“I'll be back soon.”

“Safe travels.”

Beth had inherited her mother's beautiful blond looks and her father's soft and sentimental personality. Matt could remember the two of them talking about it, Beth chuckling over the way the genetics had filtered down. Looking across the coffee table at her parents now, Matt could easily see the evidence of it again. Looks from Mom. Personality straight from Dad.

The three of them sat in Beth's parents' classy living room, in their big classy house with the white columns, in their classy Atlanta neighborhood. Beth's mother, Anne, had a slim frame, stylishly cut short hair, and almond-shaped blue eyes. Her father looked exactly like what he was—a southern gentleman and a successful businessman half retired now so that he could play golf three times a week.

When Matt had spared a thought for them in the past few years, he'd always pictured them the way he'd last seen them the week of Beth's funeral—pale and devastated.

But they weren't that way anymore. They looked tan and healthy. They showed him pictures of the five grandchildren Beth's brother and sister had now given them. They talked about their vacation home in Costa Rica and their upcoming trip to Switzerland in the spring.

They brought up memories of Beth easily, as if they were used to talking about her. They went back over childhood stories about her he'd heard before. They talked about the pageants, Matt and Beth's wedding, and holidays he'd spent with their family. They reminisced about all her best qualities. And they reminisced about her weaknesses, too. How she'd burst into tears sometimes when she got too stressed. Her outright terror of flying on airplanes. Her anxiety over her weight even though her weight had always been perfect. It made Matt feel uncomfortable, but her parents smiled over those traits just as fondly as all the others.

Matt had never known Beth's father not to choke up with emotion at a family gathering, and their visit turned out to be no exception. Talking about Beth caused his eyes to fill with tears a few times, and he got emotional all over again when Matt stood up to leave. He embraced Matt in a bear hug. “We visit New York about once a year. Would it be all right if we made a side trip to Pennsylvania to see you next time?”

“Sure,” Matt said. The two men shook hands and then Anne walked him out to his rental car.

“Thank you,” she said, “for making the effort to bring Beth's things to us.”

“You're welcome.”

They stopped on the lawn next to the car. She wrapped her long light-blue sweater tight around herself and studied him.

“She was a great person,” Matt said. He'd been wanting all day to say that to her, at least.

“And you were a great husband to her.”

He winced a little. Right away, he could tell that she'd noticed his reaction. Unlike her husband, Anne had a very practical, steely, commonsense kind of personality and could be as observant as a hawk.