Grace Green - Twins Included

Apparently he was…but this evening he was out.

She’d stood at the front door for a good five minutes, ringing the bell, over and over again. Finally she’d given up.

But she hadn’t left.

On her long drive west, she’d had time to think. And she had made some decisions. One of those decisions was that she was going to stand up to him. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, the way he had when she was a teenager. Laurel House was his home…but it was also—legally—her home. And if he tried to throw her out, she would take him to court over it.

She opened the door and stepped inside.

Nothing had changed.

That was her first thought.

But after she’d taken a second look, she saw that some things had indeed changed. The appliances she remembered had been gold. The appliances she saw now were black. Gleaming black stove, dishwasher, fridge, microwave…

Yawning, she walked through the kitchen, out into the corridor and along to the foyer.

The doors to all the rooms were open, and she peeked in every one but they were all empty.

Yawning again, she turned away and ascended the stairs.

“Dad?” she called out as she reached the landing. Her voice echoed back. It had a hollow sound.

She checked his bedroom. He wasn’t there. But everything was just as she remembered it, even to the blue-and-white antique quilt with its log cabin design.

She moved on to her old room. She was surprised but pleased to see that here, too, nothing had changed.

And never had the bed seemed more inviting.

Shrugging off her slicker, she tossed it over a chair. She would lie down, she decided exhaustedly, and have a short nap. But she’d leave the door open to make sure that when her father came home, she would hear him.

She woke from a deep sleep to the sound of movement. The thud of heavy footsteps, someone going down the stairs.

She pushed herself up to a sitting position, and felt her fingers tremble as she brushed her long sleep-mussed hair back. Her father was home. And she had to go down and face him. It was a moment she’d dreaded.

She edged off the bed and crept to the door. And hesitated.

The courage she’d built up during her journey now threatened to desert her. Her father’s rages…they had always terrified her.

But she had to confront him sometime. And what was to be gained by putting it off?

Swallowing down her dread, she made her decision. And before she could change her mind, she walked out of her room, across the landing and then—forcing one foot after the other—she descended the stairs.

Matt had just gulped a mouthful of beer from his can when he heard a sound behind him.

Swiveling around, he spluttered when he saw the pale apparition standing unsteadily in the doorway—a wraithlike figure with long flaxen hair and a perfect oval face.

“What the…?” Wondering if he was dreaming, he stared incredulously. Then shaking his head vehemently, he tried to jar the vision from his head. But…when he looked again, it was still there. She was still there.

And she was staring at him as incredulously as if he, too, were a ghost. Her eyes were starkly wide, her full lips parted in dismay, her oval face as pale as the crumpled ecru suit that hung so loosely on her thin body.

“There must,” he said, “be some explanation for this. Tell me—” he attempted to inject some humor into his tone “—please tell me that you’re not the Phantom Lady of Laurel House!”

“What,” she asked in a voice as insubstantial as her appearance, “are you doing here?”

She was real. No doubt about it. Ghosts didn’t wear perfume and this one was wearing something that made him think of pink roses and summer kisses. Raising his beer can to his mouth again, he regarded her with great interest as he took another long swig.

Then wiping the froth from his lips, he set the can on the counter and settled his fists lightly on his hips.

“I’m here,” he said in an amused tone, “because this is my home.”

Her eyes, if that were possible, widened even further. “Since when?” One of her hands had crept to her throat and she was pulling her delicately fashioned platinum choker from her neck as if trying to keep it from strangling her.

Who the devil was she? And what did she want?

“Since when?” she demanded.

“Since I bought it.”

“You’ve bought it? Bought Laurel House? But you can’t have! What happened to—”

“The previous owner? Max Rossiter?” He shrugged. “He’d been ill for a long time and he passed away a couple of months ago—”

She made an odd sound, like the croak of a parched frog.

Intrigued by her reaction, he kept talking and watched her with fast-growing curiosity. “Shortly before that, he’d put the house up for sale—it’s only two miles out of town and it has the greatest view, so I bought it. It had been mortgaged to the hilt—the old guy had had a stroke several years back and he just couldn’t keep up with his extra expenses so in the end he was forced to sell…”

If she’d been pale before, she was ashen now. Alarmingly so.

He walked over to her. “You need to sit down.” He reached out a hand to take her arm in support, but she tried to twist away and his fingertips accidentally brushed her breasts before he cupped her elbow. “You look all in—”

She wrenched herself free and stumbled back. “Don’t touch me!” She glared at him. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

Stunned by her hostility, he stepped back, his palms up. “Whoa, hold on, lady. You’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not looking to ravish you.”

Her eyes had become icy cold, but her cheeks were fiery red. “If you were, Matthew Garvock, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Jolted more by the bitterness of her tone than the fact that she knew his name, he gaped at her. Had they met somewhere before? If so, he had no memory of it. He tried to see beyond the pale skin and the pale hair and the pale clothes, to the person vibrating with such blatant antagonism behind them.

And finally, just as he was about to give up, he recognized her.

“Good Lord.” He felt his heart tremble. “It’s Beth.” Emotion threatened to close his throat. “I can’t believe you’ve come back. After all this time.”

She had regained her composure. And she fixed him with a gaze so stony it tore him apart.

“Yes, it’s me, Matt. I’m back…and I’m here to stay. As to Laurel House being your ‘home’—”

At last he’d found his voice again. “You’re welcome to stay here, for as long as you want—”

Her laugh was harsh. “Oh, I plan to. You see, Matt, this is rightfully my home, despite what my father may have led you and his lawyer to believe—”

He was hardly listening to her. He could scarcely believe she’d come back after all these years. Thirteen years. Thirteen years during which he’d never managed to shake free of the racking guilt and the aching regrets—

“…so tomorrow,” she was saying, “I’ll go see Judd Anstruther, my father’s lawyer, and I’ll sort everything out.”

With an effort, he focused on what she was saying.

“Judd’s retired,” he said.

“Who took over his practice?”

“I did. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll be involved.” Agitatedly he raked a hand through his shower-damp hair. “Beth, we have to talk. About…what happened, thirteen years ago—”

“No.” Her throat rippled convulsively. “You have nothing to say to me that I would want to listen to. But I have two things to say to you. And I want you to listen, because I don’t want to say them twice. The first is, don’t call me Beth. I’m no longer that naive teenager, and I no longer go by that name. If you have to call me anything, call me Liz. Or Ms. Rossiter. Either will do and I answer to both…but in your case, I’d prefer the latter.”