Elizabeth Sinclair - A Question Of Love

He continued to stare at the door, trying to work through his problem, then an idea came to him. He stepped back to inspect the rose trellis on the side of the house. It had frequently provided him and Stan with late night access to Stan’s bedroom during their senior year in high school. Should he? He’d probably be arrested for breaking and entering and get thrown in the Bristol jail. Oh, hell, at least he’d have a warm bed to sleep in until he could make bail.

Quietly, he limped to the side of the house and grabbed the first set of slats on the trellis. Pulling himself up, he bounced experimentally, testing the strength of the makeshift ladder and his leg. He had gained a few pounds since his senior year and wasn’t sure that time hadn’t rotted out the trellis.

Though it creaked a bit and his leg throbbed slightly, he decided that both would support his weight for the short climb. Slowly, he inched his way up, cursing softly at the bite of an occasional thorn piercing his skin, then boosted himself over the balcony of Stan’s old room. The French doors stood open. Tess had no doubt been airing the room for his arrival.

NEXT DOOR, Amanda Logan had heard the telltale creak of the rose trellis, a noise she’d grown familiar with when Stan and Matt had used it as an emergency entrance after their twelve o’clock curfew had come and gone. She’d recognized her nephew’s voice cursing the rose thorns, just as he had years before. Just to make sure she wasn’t wrong about the identity of their midnight visitor, she slipped from her bed and, with the aid of her walker, shuffled to the window.

Just as she pushed the curtain aside, Matt launched himself over the balcony rail. For a moment, she waited for Stan to follow on Matt’s heels, as he would have years ago. Back then, she’d have stood here watching the two teenagers scale the balcony railing, all the while thinking they’d pulled the wool over her eyes.

But Stan didn’t appear. Stan never would appear again.

Tears threatened. Though a year had passed since Stan had been killed in his race car, the pain sometimes felt very raw, the emptiness overwhelming.

She shook the tears and the poignant memories away, then maneuvered herself back to the bed. No time now for sorrow. Now was the time for new memories, new adventures, new loves.

She lay back against the pillows, quietly picturing the scene in the next room.

Tomorrow, thanks to fate and her slight intervention, this dreary old house would bear witness to an old wrong being set right, and perhaps, in the process, a new beginning.

MATT STEPPED OVER the threshold of his cousin’s old room and stopped dead in his tracks.

There, spread out over the discarded bedcovers, lay a woman clad only in a T-shirt and bikini panties. One long, shapely leg stretched out across the white sheet. The other, bent at the knee, helped to expose a good portion of her naked bottom.

He crept closer, then moved to the side to allow the moonlight to bathe her supine body. He felt like a voyeur, but he couldn’t help himself. Something about her called out to him, something familiar. When he stood at the foot of the bed, he knew why.

Honey Kingston lay deep in sleep, her hand cupping her cheek, her glorious honey-blond hair splayed over the pillow in loose tangles.

Despite the shock of seeing the one woman he’d hoped to avoid, he had to admit that she still had the power to take his breath away—and to provoke that churning fear that had sent him running from her years earlier.

He could not recall ever seeing a woman who equaled Honey’s beauty, and he’d seen many on his travels. His stomach felt bottomless. His heart threatened to implode. Old emotions rushed forward. Emotions Matt had tried to kill in every way he could for over seven years. Emotions he’d been certain he had dealt with—until now.

As if it were yesterday, memories of her soft flesh sliding over his buffeted him. Almost unconsciously, he moved to the bedside. Something drove him, something he couldn’t seem to control. He touched her cheek with the pad of his thumb and ran it slowly and gently over her creamy skin. She moaned and stirred in her sleep. He pulled back, half from fear of waking her, but more from that old sensual magnetism that spelled trouble and gave life to that gut-wrenching need stirring deep within him.

Despite his fear, emotions he’d thought never to experience again where Honey was concerned ran rampant through him. His groin tightened. He wanted to climb into bed with her and kiss her to wakefulness, hear the little noises she used to make when he made love to her, feel his heartbeat join hers.

He jumped back as if scalded. He had to stop this—now. Damn her! What was there about this woman that stole his common sense, his shield of protection, his pride? Even if he could get past his base inclinations, the fact remained that she’d married his cousin before Matt’s trail dust had had time to settle. Pain sliced through him, as sharp and agonizing as it had when he’d first gotten word of her betrayal.

The clipping that announced the wedding had come in a plain white envelope with no return address. Only a postmark stamped Bristol, NY, and the date. He’d recognized the handwriting as his father’s, the only one who knew where he was. Matt still didn’t know why he’d contacted his father and sent him the post office box address. Maybe he’d hoped the old man would change. Maybe…

He whirled and headed for the door. He shouldn’t have come here. Could those naysayers he’d scoffed at known what they were talking about, after all? Perhaps you couldn’t come home again. Perhaps the ghosts of his childhood were much stronger than any human’s resolve to banish them. Perhaps he hadn’t gotten over Honey Kingston and, God help him, maybe he never would.

Wide awake, Honey lay staring at the dark bedroom ceiling. Her heart beat a heavy rhythm in her chest. At first, when she’d heard the scuffle of footsteps on the balcony, she had feared an intruder had scaled the rose trellis. But when the shaft of moonlight illuminated Matt Logan’s face, she knew a totally different kind of fear, the kind that made her heart ache with bitter loss, even when she’d declared her heart empty.

Recalling how, when Matt had stood over her a few minutes earlier, she’d managed to remain stone still, she congratulated herself. Then she remembered suppressing a groan of pure passion when he touched her, and the trembling inside returned. Aftershocks, she told herself.

With her skin still tingling where he’d smoothed her cheek, and her insides tangled into knots of dread, it surprised her that she could be flippant. But flippancy helped her contend with the concentrated effort she had to exert to keep from touching the spot his fingers had caressed. Somehow, she felt that if she gave in on this one small urge concerning Matt Logan, she would cave in on the important stuff, too, and she couldn’t afford to.

She rolled to her side and stared into the darkness. Dear heavens, how would she get through the next few weeks and survive? How could she stand being in the same house with him, when she wanted to feed his carcass to the turkey buzzards that populated the woods behind Amanda’s house?

Impelled by her lack of anger at the man, she bolted upright. Had she totally lost her mind? One touch and she’d been charmed again. Why had fate deemed that she should have men in her life that only knew how to hurt? Other women had heroes. So far, all Honey had were the throwaways. Well, she swore for the thousandth time, Danny would not turn out to be one of them.

To reinforce her anger, she rattled off a mental laundry list of all the reasons she had to detest Matt Logan. Because of Matt, she’d had to stand alone against her father’s wrath. Because of Matt, she’d been too heartbroken to fight her father and had ended up enduring six years of hell as Stan Logan’s wife, just so Frank Kingston could hold his head up in town. Because of Matt, Jesse’s rage with their father had forced her half brother to storm from their house, and she’d lost another faux hero. Because of Matt, she’d had to struggle to raise her son as a decent human being, with values and a sense of responsibility. Because of Matt her heart lay dead in her chest.