Grace Green - Twins Included

He had slipped the pizza into the oven to keep it warm while he had his shower; now he noticed the steamy smell of pepperoni and grilled cheese, and he knew he would always associate that specific aroma with this specific moment.

“And the second thing?” he asked.

The faint lines bracketing her mouth deepened. “Don’t ever,” she said, “try to talk to me about the past.”

Uh-uh. No way. He wasn’t about to go along with that. “But I want to t—”

“You want to what? To say you’re sorry?”

“I want you to know that afterward I tried to—”

“Afterward?” Her mocking tone made him wince. “Matthew, I have absolutely no interest in what happened afterward.”

“But—”

She stopped him by slashing a hand between them. “But what?” she asked fiercely. “Do you have anything to say that can change what happened? Can you change the past?”

She had broken his heart when she’d disappeared out of his life. But he knew he must have broken her heart, too. And while he had deserved all the agony he’d suffered, she had not.

“No,” he said wearily. “No, I can’t.”

“Then please don’t try.” Her tone was crisp. “And please don’t ever bring up the subject again. I’ve put the past behind me. And you,” she said as she turned away, and started toward the door, “would be wise to do the same.”

He moved fast and got to the door before she did. Blocking her exit, he said, “Where are you going?”

“To bed.”

“I’m not budging from the house. I paid good money for it. And I have all the papers to prove it.”

As soon as he’d spoken, he felt like a heel. Now that he was close to her, he realized she was even more fragile than she’d seemed. Fragile and vulnerable.

And here he was, confronting her, in the way a school bully would challenge a weaker child. Remorse poured through him like bile.

“So what are we going to do now?” he asked gruffly. “It looks as if we’ve reached an impasse.”

Fragile and vulnerable she might be, and bone-tired by the looks of her, but she was one thing, he saw as she straightened her spine, that she hadn’t been as a teenager.

Liz Rossiter was a fighter.

She looked up at him, and in her beautiful khaki eyes he could have sworn he saw a spark of cynical humor.

“You’re bigger than I am,” she said, “and as I recall you were a champion amateur boxer, so I won’t even try to throw you out. At least, not bodily. But you’d better start looking for another place to stay, because I promise you, Matthew Garvock, I’m going to win back this house.”

“Is that,” he asked softly, “a declaration of war?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, in a tone that was equally soft—as soft as steel, he thought, sheathed in a velvet glove!— “a declaration of war is exactly what it is!”

LIZ slept badly.

Her father had been a difficult man to love but still her pillow had been drenched with the tears she had shed for him before she finally drifted off. Then her dreams had been racked by images of him in one of his rages, so that when she woke up in the morning, it was with a feeling of guilty relief that she would never have to face him again.

Later, as she stood under the hot spray of the shower, her thoughts slid inexorably to Matt.

She’d been stunned to find him in the kitchen—although of course she hadn’t at first recognized him. At some time during the thirteen years she’d been away, someone had—to put it politely!—rearranged his face.

The Matt she remembered had been attractive in a clean-cut way, his lean features symmetrically sculpted and his face unscarred despite his many bouts as an amateur boxer.

“Pretty Boy.” That’s what his university buddies had called him, and he’d accepted the nickname with good humor. But he’d confided to Liz that keeping his face unmarked was a point of honor with him. As a fifteen-year-old, he’d promised his concerned mother that if she gave him permission to join the school boxing club, he’d never hurt her by coming home with his face battered. He’d kept that promise.

At least while Liz knew him. But now…no one would ever call him Pretty Boy again. His hair was the same—black with copper highlights; his eyes still dark-lashed and the incredibly rich green of a glacial lake. But his nose had been broken and was markedly ridged; one cheekbone had been flattened; and his lower lip sported a thin, long scar.

He looked tough now, and he looked rugged.

And he still—heaven help her!—made her heart beat faster.

But he must never know it.

And he must never know that she’d lied when she said she never thought about the past. Now that she was pregnant again, she thought about it all the time. Thought about him, and the sweet love they had shared, and the child they had so passionately, yet so tenderly, created together.

Stepping out of the shower, she reached for a towel and swiped it over the mirror. She stared at herself, her reflection shimmering in the wet glass. It was no wonder, she mused ironically, that he hadn’t recognized her. She barely recognized herself, she looked so colorless. The girl he knew had been vibrant and pretty, with bouncy blond curls and a healthy pink glow in her cheeks.

She sighed as she blow-dried her hair. She and Matt had both changed. And they would never again be the same. They were different people now, with different lives.

And though Tradition was a small town, it was big enough for both of them. It would have to be, she decided resolutely, because she had no intention of leaving.

And once she’d ousted him from Laurel House, she would burrow in and make it her home. A warm and comfortable home, for herself and her new baby…the baby that was now the only important thing in her life.

“You, Ms. Rossiter, are one very careless driver!”

Seated alone at the kitchen table, Liz was startled by the sound of Matt’s voice as he came in through the back door. She jumped, and almost spilled her coffee.

Putting down the mug, she dropped her hands to her lap, and hoped she looked calmer than she felt. She wasn’t used to this new Matt—wasn’t used to the hard, craggy face, wasn’t used to the maturity of his bearing.

In the moments before he shut the door, a draft of morning air swept into the room, making her shiver. Or had she shivered because his powerful tanned body was so blatantly revealed in jogging shorts and a black tank top?

“Careless? Really?” She kept her tone casual. And not unfriendly. “Why would you think that?”

A wary expression flickered in his eyes, causing her nervousness to dissipate in a surge of satisfaction. Her amicable attitude had thrown him off balance…and she liked the feeling of control!

He scowled at her. “The Porsche parked out back is yours?”

She nodded, and quirked a quizzical eyebrow.

“Then you owe me.”

“For what?”

“For splashing mud over my suit,” he growled. “Last night, on Main Street—”

“Oh, that was you!”

“You knew you’d soaked me?” Indignation resonated in his husky voice. “But you didn’t stop to apologize?”

“Sorry. I knew I’d splashed somebody…and if I’d known it was a lawyer…” She chuckled. “So…sue me!”

His scowl deepened. Before he could say anything, she added contritely, “Look, I really am sorry. But truly I couldn’t help it. A cat darted in front of the car and I had to swerve to avoid it. If I’d had time to think,” she added, dead-pan, “I would of course have chosen to kill the cat rather than splatter your suit. I mean, let’s get our priorities straight here. What is it, by the way…just as a matter of interest? An Armani? A Canali?”