Young Revelations (Young Series) (3 page)

I wait for the telltale signs of Matthew following me, and then wait a little longer. I imagine Claire stalled him and demanded information, and I’m smirking at the thought that she’s probably giving him a dressing down for his outrageous behavior. After what feels like almost an hour, during which I begin to drift off, I hear the bedroom door open, a sigh, then the closing door before I feel the mattress dip as Matthew sits at the edge. He removes his watch and his wallet, then probably his socks and shoes before scooting onto the bed.

Without even looking I know he’s got his back pressed against the headboard, watching me.

“Samantha,” he says very softly, wisely not touching me.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I mumble at him through my pillow, not caring if he hears me or not. “This was supposed to be a nice night out and you ruined it with a fight over nothing.”

“Nothing?” he whispers incredulously. “Samantha, he was hitting on you, trying to buy you alcohol, ignoring your attempts to get him to leave you alone, then basically insinuated—”

“I know what he insinuated, Matt,” I tell him sharply. “I don’t need you repeating it.” Especially when it’s all I’ve been thinking about since I heard it and I’ve started wondering myself. “I understand you’re under a lot of stress right now, but you need to trust me enough to know I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize a relationship that I’ve wanted back for five fucking years. I’m yours. Nobody else’s. Like you told him, I’m carrying
your
child.”

I can almost see him rubbing his hands over his face. “I trust you,” he tells me softly, leaning as close to he as he dares before I tense. “I don’t trust other people. He could have been anybody.”

“Don’t. Matt, I’m not in the mood to hear you telling me anybody who tries to hit on me might be doing it because he’s part of some grand scheme to destroy you,” I say, moving the pillow away from my face so he can clearly hear my words. “You were an asshole tonight and you know it. Just leave me alone.”

He’s silent for several minutes as though he’s trying to figure out what to do next. I feel the mattress move, then his soft breath on my ear. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he breathes. “I love you.” He kisses my cheek once, then he’s gone and out the door.

––––-o––––-

When I make my way downstairs for breakfast the next morning after a very sleepless night, I immediately note the bundle of blankets and pillows on the end of the couch, and wonder if Matthew slept there. In the kitchen, he’s leaning against the counter sipping morosely from a coffee cup, but straightens instantly when he sees me, eyeing me with such concern that my knees nearly buckle. I drag my eyes from him to find Claire and Danny sitting at the table, both of them looking at me with sympathetic smiles. My lips curve in a semblance of a smile, but I otherwise ignore all three of them as I take a seat next to my son eating breakfast.

Breakfast is tense, especially with Tyler looking at me strangely as though he knows something’s wrong, but doesn’t know how to ask, while Claire jumps up to get me a plate. I manage to choke down a piece of toast, a couple slices of bacon, and half a glass of orange juice before the sight and smell of the scrambled eggs begins to turn my stomach. Rushing out of the room, I can faintly hear Matthew cursing and dropping his coffee cup on the counter to follow me, then Claire telling him to leave me be. As I empty what little food I managed to eat, I feel Claire’s hand gently rubbing my back and pulling my hair from my face.

“All done?” she asks softly when I rest my cheek against the toilet seat.

“God, I hope so,” I groan. “The morning sickness would kick in today…”

She laughs a little and helps me up, then into the shower. Twenty minutes later, I’m feeling much better, get myself dressed in the clothes Claire brought in for me, and return downstairs to find the house mostly empty.

“Where’s everyone?” I ask Claire when she hands me a bottle of water.

“The boys took the kids to the beach,” she responds. “Matt put up a fight,” she smirks at her pun; I glare at her, “but then told me to take you out for the day. I thought we could hit a spa or something. You deserve some pampering after last night.”

While a spa day isn’t normally my idea of fun, nor is it usually Claire’s, I agree immediately, thinking a massage might be just the thing to make me feel a little better. A car is out front waiting for us and we both roll our eyes, knowing Matthew has arranged for it. Inside is a selection of ridiculously expensive chocolates I craved when I was pregnant with Tyler and crackers, along with ginger ale for me, and champagne for Claire.

“My brother does know how to grovel,” she says appreciatively as she pops a chocolate into her mouth.

I roll my eyes, allowing myself a small smile. Chocolates don’t make up for last night, but they certainly don’t hurt anything. On our way to the day spa, Claire tells me that Matthew indeed slept on the couch last night, or at least he setup to sleep there; she’s not sure how much actual sleep got since when she came downstairs he was at the kitchen table with his laptop typing away. And of course she gave him a piece of her mind when she found out what happened last night, which she recalls for me.

“I would have punched the guy too, though…” she admits wryly as I roll my eyes. “But at the same time, I know you can handle yourself and that you’d never go for something like that. Matt overreacted, but when it comes to you, he doesn’t know the meaning of reasonable.”

“Still,” I say with a sigh.

Dropping the subject of Matthew for the moment, we pull up in front of the spa and are immediately greeted by a team of women who lead us inside for a morning of massages, mud baths, primping, then lunch, followed by more primping. Claire then drags me off to a clothing boutique where we spend two hours modeling dresses for each other, something neither of us is completely comfortable with, which makes it that much more enjoyable. By the time we leave, I’ve forgotten why I was angry to begin with. We expect the car to take us back to the house, but it makes a detour, delivering us at another fancy restaurant. Now I understand all the primping and I’m rolling my eyes at Matthew again. I’m pretty sure we did this last night and it ended in disaster.

Before I can protest, Claire is entwining our arms and leading me not into the restaurant, but around the side to the back. The deck is set out over the water and I find myself grudgingly smiling at the sight when Danny, the twins, Abby, and Tyler come into view. I would love to have been present to see Danny and Matthew getting the three little boys into those very cute suits, then Abby into the most adorable dress, all without any of them getting themselves dirty again. Danny and Matthew are both in suits as well; my heart skips a beat to find Matthew leaned against the deck railing in perfectly tailored clothes.

Just like this morning in the kitchen, he straightens up when he sees me, his expression the very definition of the contrite male. I glance at Claire and realize immediately this entire day was planned. She grins and winks before going to greet her husband and children, leaving me alone for Matthew to approach me.

“How was your day?” he asks, still keeping a safe distance from me.

“It was fine,” I say shortly, not quite ready to forgive him even after what he arranged for us today. “Thank you.”

He sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair, and shoots a glance back at the table where no one is paying us any attention. “I’m sorry about last night, Samantha,” he tells me quietly, his eyes pleading for forgiveness. “I wanted us to have a nice night out together and I totally blew it. I do love you and I do trust you, and I know you could have easily put that asshole in his place if I would have just let you. Please let me make it up to you.”

And now I’m realizing where Tyler inherited his puppy dog eyes look. I crack a smile at the thought, shuffling forward to close some of the distance between us. “Okay,” I say simply. “Give it your best shot.”

He gives me a beaming smile and places his hands on either side of my face, then presses his lips against mine in a kiss I know he didn’t intend to be too involved, but quickly turns heated. At least until we hear four tiny disgusted, protesting voices from the table. Matthew pulls away from me, shooting a glare at the kids. “Shall we continue this later?” he asks softly.

Attempting to hide my twitching lips, I nod and allow him to take my hand to lead me to the table where he pulls out a chair for me, then sits beside me. Just like last night, dinner is perfect. With my forgiving Matthew, my world is back on its axis and I can enjoy myself. During dessert, which seems to involve ridiculous amounts of ice cream for the kids and cake for the adults, I lean into the arm Matthew has extended on my chair behind me and he immediately pulls me closer until my head is resting on his shoulder. I could fall asleep like this…

“Look at that!”

Tyler’s excited voice brings me back to reality and I look out over the water to find several sailboats heading in our direction. “What are they doing?” I ask in wonder, watching them seemingly synchronize their movements until they’re in line.

“I don’t know,” Matthew murmurs, tugging on my hand as he stands. We walk to the railing for a better look and I feel Matthew’s arms wrap around my waist and his chin resting on my shoulder. Something about the scenario seems familiar, but I shake it off to watch the sailboats switch positions a few times, all without running into one another. The kids are all crowded around the corner of the deck opposite Matthew and me, while Claire and Danny stand nearby to keep them from trying to get into the water. I start to turn around and ask Matthew if he thinks this is some show the restaurant puts on as entertainment for the customers when the boat on the far left opens its sail.

When it’s open fully, I gasp, seeing something clearly printed across the white fabric. “SAMANTHA” My heart stops beating when the next one opens with one word written across it. “WILL” The arms around my waist tighten very briefly before the next sail is released. “YOU” The arms disappear completely. “MARRY” And I feel the tears streaming down my face with the last one. “ME?” My eyes sweep across all five sails and before I can process their meaning, I turn around and look down to find Matthew kneeling on the deck, a large, proud smile on his face as he holds a ring up to me.

“From the first second I laid eyes on you, I knew my life would never be the same and that I had to have you.” The tears come more quickly as I gasp, realizing he’s repeating the words he used the first time he proposed to me. “There truly are no words to describe what you mean to me. You made me what I am today, Samantha, and I have no idea how to thank you for that. I took you, our love, and our marriage for granted, and like the idiot I am, I made the biggest mistake of my life by letting you walk away from me. I learned from that mistake and it is not one I will ever make again. Having you back in my life has shown me just how much I need you and more than anything, I want us to grow old together watching our children. So this is the last time I will ever ask you this question: Samantha, will you be my wife?” His lips twitch up slightly and he rolls his eyes quickly. “Again.”

Gasping a laugh through my tears, I nod. “Yes,” I manage to answer, watching him side the ring onto my finger, then pushing to his feet as he pulls me against him in the most perfect kiss we’ve ever shared. It could be the situation, it could be the hormones, it could be that I’m happier than I’ve been in far too long, but once our kiss ends, I collapse against him and let out what seems to be five years worth of tears and frustrations while he holds me to his chest, murmuring comforting, soothing words.

Finally, I get my emotions under control and remember we’ve got an audience waiting to congratulate us. Tyler is the first one in my arms. “Why you crying, Mommy?” he asks, reaching up to wipe the tears still falling.

“I’m happy, Tyler,” I tell him. “Very happy.”

The next hour is spent letting everyone have a glance at the ring on my finger, which I still haven’t had time to really examine myself; besides my hand being pulled in all directions, my eyes keep finding Matthew’s and refuse to look away. As we finish our dessert, I realize just how much of the last couple days has been prearranged, though when I glare at him, Matthew quickly tells me the incident at the bar wasn’t part of the plans, but the spa day was.

As we’re leaving the restaurant, Matthew wraps an arm around my shoulder and I look up at him, smiling. “No fireworks?” I ask, trying to feign disappointment.

His eyes narrow briefly before an acute expression of mischief crossed with desire and promise appear in his eyes. “Wait until we get back to the house,” he whispers in my ear as he helps me into the car. “I’ll give you more fireworks than you can handle…”

Following yet another sleepless night, though this one for much better reasons, I wake up just as the bedroom door opens revealing Tyler entering, closely followed by Matthew carrying a tray of food. I grin sleepily at them.

“What’s this?” I ask, pushing myself up to rest my back against the headboard.

“We made you breakfast,” Tyler boasts, climbing onto the bed and crawling to sit next to me.

My grin widens as Matthew sets down the tray and I see the array of fruits and muffins and bacon and pancakes, and not an egg in sight. “Considering your reaction yesterday morning,” Matthew tells me as I scoot to the middle of the bed so he can sit on my other side, “I thought we’d forego the eggs until we figure out if they trigger the nausea.”

I reach up to kiss his cheek. “Very thoughtful, thank you.”

“Do you like it, Mom?” Tyler asks, pointing a finger at the pancakes that look as though someone tried to make them heart-shaped, but failed. They look more like kidneys… “I made those!”

Biting my tongue against a laugh, I nod, kissing my son’s forehead. “I love them, baby.” I see movement out of the corner of my eye and look over to shoot Matthew a glare as his fingers inch closer and closer to my bacon. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, trying and failing to sound cross.

Matthew only smirks, not bothering to pretend to steal my bacon anymore as he shoves a slice into his mouth. “Delivery tax,” he murmurs through a full mouth. Tyler laughs and reaches across me to take another piece of bacon, stuffing it into his mouth, making Matthew laugh.

“He was such a sweet boy,” I say wistfully, looking down at my son who is incredibly pleased with himself for his theft. “You just had to corrupt him, didn’t you?”

Scoffing, Matthew hands me a glass of orange juice. “He always had it in him. I just brought it to the surface,” he tells me proudly.

With a sigh, I try to maintain a stern façade; even though I can’t remember a time I was this happy. Everything is falling into place at this moment. Matthew and I are getting married again. Tyler has his father who he absolutely adores with every fiber of his being. I’m beginning to imagine what it will be like when the baby arrives and just the thought brings absolute bliss.

“What are you thinking about?”

I look up at Matthew who is watching me closely as I take a bite of Tyler’s kidney-heart-shaped pancake. “That I love you and that I feel like my life suddenly has meaning again,” I tell him honestly.

He smiles softly at me. “That’s exactly how I feel,” he says quietly, leaning in to kiss me briefly. I feel my eyes close as he pulls away, only to snap open again at the sound of crunching. Matthew stole another piece of bacon.

“You are such a jerk,” I tell him through my laughter, shoving his shoulder.

“Maybe,” he says thoughtfully, then grins. “But you love me.”

I roll my eyes, but smile, and with the help of my two boys, we demolish the food on the tray, laughing and teasing one another. As they take away the tray, Matthew dispatches me to the shower and tells me we’re all going to check out the children’s museum. Apparently Claire wants to pack as much sightseeing into our last remaining two days in Cape Cod as possible; I think she hopes the kids will all be so wiped out by the time we leave that they’ll sleep through the entire drive home. One would think it would be smarter to fly with four small children in tow, but considering recent events, we were all reluctant to take Matthew up on his half-hearted offer for us to use his company’s brand-new jet. Honestly, if I never have to look at another airplane in my life, I would be content.

When I join my family downstairs, Claire looks up and immediately smirks, probably knowing exactly what Matthew and I were up to last night. Despite her claims that she and Danny could hear us in their bedroom, I know that’s not the case, but it doesn’t take much to realize why Matthew and I are in such great moods and it’s only partly because of our engagement.

Though it takes us nearly an hour to actually get everybody in the car—Abby threw a bit of a tantrum because she couldn’t find her favorite shoes; Gabe and Olly kept arguing over which one of them would sit where; Tyler had apparently been given sugar for breakfast and decided it would be fun to run away every time we tried to get him into the van—everyone is in good spirits and excited for the day. I’m not contributing much to the conversation, preferring to soak up everything around me knowing that the moment we go home, reality is going to slap us in the face. Despite everything, I know Matthew is having the time of his life and Claire has told me more than once that she couldn’t remember the last time he smiled as much as he has this week, but our troubles won’t have sorted themselves out while we’ve been on vacation. There’s still the matter of figuring out who betrayed Matthew’s trust and tried to kill him; finding the woman who held Tyler and me hostage on that boat; hunting down Frank Marone to find out what, if any, involvement he might have had in what happened.

Then there is a possible indictment for Matthew to face. The moment he realized there might be a problem with the plane he was supposed to board, the one that crashed, he disappeared. There have been accusations that he knew what was going to happen to the plane and he kept quiet, resulting in the deaths of several people. He’s trying to play down the possible repercussions for my sake, but I know he’s worried about it. And the thought that he could be charged with negligible homicide is terrifying for me. He could go to prison. He could lose everything he’s worked so hard to gain. I could lose him all over again.

I’m trying to focus on the good things that are in front of us. A wedding. Preparing for a baby. Getting to know Matthew again. Letting him get to know Tyler and me again. Having the family I always wanted with him and he with me. I feel him playing with my finger and look down to see him smiling boyishly at the ring he put there last night. It really is gorgeous. I loved my original engagement ring, but even I have to admit this blows it out of the water. White gold band with a large squarish diamond and surrounded on both sides with more tiny diamonds. I’m not an expert on diamonds, but if I had to guess I’d say it totals nearly five carats and is beyond anything I could have ever dreamed of, and I think I’m managing to fall even deeper in love with Matthew for his ability to choose something so incredible for me.

“It’s very heavy,” I tell him flatly, trying to keep my face straight.

He raises an eyebrow at me and smirks. “Right,” he says sardonically. “Next time I’ll get a bread bag twist tie.”

I can’t hold back my laugh. “Thought you said this would be the last time?”

“Indeed I did,” he agrees, kissing the back of my hand. “But I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself with something so heavy on your finger.”

“Are you two done?”

We look up, startled, and find Claire turned around in her seat glaring at us. Rolling our eyes at one another, we settle back in our seats, snickering every time we sneak a kiss behind Claire’s back.

––––-o––––-

The children’s museum turns out to be more fun than I thought it would be and I’m glad Claire managed to talk us into this outing when I would have much preferred sending everyone else out and spending some very quality time with my fiancée. Judging by the looks she’s sending me, Samantha would have preferred the same thing. I remind myself repeatedly this is supposed to be a family vacation and if I had wanted to spend several hours behind a locked door with Samantha, I probably should have waited to propose until we were home. But I waited as long as I could, much longer than I wanted to wait, and my only reason for doing so was to make sure she wants what I want.

I keep thinking about how close I had been to blowing the entire thing after the incident at the bar. I’d gone out to answer a call from one of my contacts in the FBI, Marcus West. Marcus basically became my babysitter during the couple months that I was supposed to be dead and has taken on this entire situation, handling all the gritty details I haven’t been able to work on myself. He had called to tell me Frank Marone had been sighted in Pennsylvania early that night. Several people are tailing him and following every movement he makes to find out what he’s been up to since the plane went down. The news immediately put me on edge, especially after I recalled just how closely Samantha had worked with that bastard, even if it was only for a week or two. If she hadn’t discovered a file in Frank’s desk containing information about her and Tyler, she’d probably still be working with him—or at least until I managed to return and beat the shit out of him for some of his surveillance techniques. Among other things I’ve found out, Frank had a camera aimed downwards at Samantha’s desk and I can only imagine the views he received from that footage and what he might have done with it.

So when I returned to the bar and found some asshole flirting with Samantha despite her body language that suggested his advances were less than unwelcome, I lost my temper. Maybe I was projecting my anger with Frank onto this guy, but I knew in that moment I could commit murder to defend my girlfriend and unborn child. There was every possibility he was merely an innocent drunk trying to pick up a girl at the bar—he wouldn’t be the first and I would be lying if I said I’d never done it myself—but I couldn’t take that chance. I probably would have been willing to let it go and laugh it off later if he’d kept his mouth shut and hadn’t insinuated things about my relationship with Samantha.

The look on Samantha’s face after I punched the guy then started kicking him as hard as I could barely registered in my mind as fear. It wasn’t until we were out on the sidewalk and I heard myself saying horrendous things to her that I realized what I was doing. My cheek is still stinging slightly from her slap and I spent the entire ride back to the beach house believing I’d fucked up enough that I might have lost her for good. When I found her in the bedroom crying, I never hated myself more than I did in that moment. We weren’t supposed to be at odds with one another; I was supposed to be preparing to propose to her, my nerves heightened to the maximum level.

I don’t know if the spa day and shopping trip I arranged for Claire and Samantha played a part in her forgiving me and agreeing to marry me—I’d had that planned from the beginning—but it probably hadn’t hurt. And the engagement itself… I’m still pretty damn proud of that. My first proposal was incredibly creative and up until the moment I watched it happen, I wasn’t sure it would work at all. This proposal was just as creative and less stressful than the fireworks, but up until the moment she said yes, I wasn’t sure she would. It just goes to show her love for me is unconditional when she probably should have dumped me on the sidewalk outside that bar.

This time around with Samantha seems to be a little more hard-going than before. Tempers have been resting very close to the surface and while I know there is no lack of love between us, there are moments when I wonder whether something has been broken in our relationship that we won’t be able to repair. I’m determined to keep her in my life. She belongs with me just as I belong with her. No other woman has ever sparked such jealousy from me. I’ve never punched a guy in a bar for hitting on a girlfriend. I wonder if there’s a subconscious part of me that doesn’t trust her. She left me once; who’s to say she won’t do it again?

Immediately hating myself, I look up and find Samantha looking at me, smiling. That smile is enough to convince me I’m an idiot for even thinking so horribly of her. The first time I saw that smile—the one that suggests there is nobody else in the world who could possibly measure up to the person receiving it—I made it my mission in life to see it as often as possible. I’ve never seen her direct that smile to anybody else; it’s for me and me alone. When she’s giving me that smile, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she loves me and that our past will not repeat itself.

Giving her a smile of my own, I turn to watch Tyler running around with his cousins. There are multiple rooms in the museum and aside from the usual educational exhibits, there’s a castle setting, a pirate ship, and a giant tree house that Tyler seems to love. I file this information away for a later date. I’ve always wanted a tree house myself; maybe Tyler and I can build one next spring…

Around lunchtime, we manage to drag the kids from the museum down the street to a restaurant and discuss what to do next. Since today is our last here, Claire wants to make the most of it and spend it on the beach. Danny objects, since the sunburn he suffered our first day hasn’t healed yet. Samantha wants to check out some more of the sights—the lighthouses, a butterfly garden, and whatever else they can find. I’m perfectly content to just sit back and let them scheme. I’ve got what I want—Samantha and Tyler are having a great time and that’s what matters to me. Eventually we agree to visit a couple lighthouses, then head back to the house and grill out on the beach and end the night with a bonfire.

We settle the bill and I ignore Claire and Danny’s attempts to give me money, and head out to the car. While we’re loading the kids, I get a sense of being watched. As covertly as I can manage, I glance around us and it takes me a minute, but I find the source of the feeling. There is a black car several spots down and inside, an unfamiliar man is watching our every move. I try to play it off as paranoia, but the longer he watches, the more disconcerted I’m becoming. Having believed I could keep my family safe myself, I didn’t bring along any of my security team, much to their annoyance, but I suddenly wish I had.

“Matt? What’s wrong?”