Twins Included

“But yesterday—”

“Yesterday I had to go to court with a client, but normally I wear jeans to the office.” He wiped a forearm over his brow, leaving a glaze of sweat. “So…did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” she fibbed. “I did. I’d been on the road for over a week and I was bushed. Besides, there’s nothing to beat sleeping in one’s own bed.”

A green-and-white striped hand towel dangled from a hook on the wall by the door. Reaching for it, he said in a teasing voice, “You think?”

She felt her cheeks grow warm. The last thing she wanted was to get in a conversation with this man about sleeping in any bed other than her own. “Yes.”

“Ah, well,” he drawled, “to each his…or her…own.” He rubbed the towel over his damp hair and then ran it over his neck and arms. Slinging it back on the hook, he glanced at the carafe of coffee she’d made earlier. “Can I have some of that?” Without waiting for an answer, he poured himself a mug, and pulling out the chair across from her, he sat down.

“So,” he said, “you’d been on the road for over a week. Where’d you come from?”

“New York.”

“Ah, a city gal. So, city gal, how about filling me in on what you’ve been doing the past thirteen years. That’s one expensive vehicle you’re running. You must either have a good job…or you married into money.”

“Neither,” she said. “I don’t have a job and I don’t have a husband.”

Silence swelled between them, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator. He was the first to speak.

“You’re on your own?”

She hesitated. Eventually he—and everybody else in Tradition—would learn that she was pregnant. But for the time being, she wanted to keep that secret to herself.

“Yes,” she said. Then, to divert him, she said, “I want to go and visit my father’s grave. Is he at Fairlawn?”

“No, they built a new cemetery ten years ago—it’s out past Miller’s Farm, take the second road on your left…or is it the third?” He scratched a hand through his tousled hair. “I know how to get there but—tell you what, I’ll drive you—”

“Thanks, I’d like to drive myself. I’ll buy a map.”

“You didn’t use to be so independent!”

He’d said it without thinking, but when he saw a shadow darken her eyes, he could have kicked himself. If she was independent now, it was because she’d had to be. When she’d most needed support, when she had most desperately needed support, she’d been let down by those she should have been able to depend on the most.

She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I am independent, Matt.” She spoke quietly. “And I cherish my independence. I’ve learned the hard way that the only person I can count on is myself.”

He stood, too, and fisting his hands by his sides, faced her steadily across the table. “You’re wrong, Beth. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just say the word.”

She looked at him, for the longest time. And then she said, with a twisted little half smile. “There is one thing you can do for me, Matt.”

“Sure.” His heart leaped in anticipation. “What?”

“Please,” she said, “don’t call me ‘Beth.’”

And without another word, she flicked back her long flaxen hair and stalked regally out of the kitchen.

Liz bought a recently published map of the area, in the London Drugs on Jefferson Street.

She asked the obliging clerk to mark the position of the new cemetery, and fifteen minutes after leaving the store, she was pulling the Porsche up in the carpark of the Greenvale Burial Grounds.

“Way to go, kid!”

“Thanks, Uncle Matt!”

“Well done, Stuart.” Molly Martin gave her breathless eight-year-old son a warm hug. “That was a great game and you were a star!”

“Where’s Iain?” Stuart whipped off his baseball cap and sent a searching look around for his younger brother.

“He’s gone to book us one of the picnic tables.” Matt popped open the can of lemonade he was holding, and gave it to the flushed youngster. “You ready for lunch?”

“Am I ever!”

“Then let’s get this show on the road.”

As the threesome made their way from the baseball field to the adjoining park, Stuart ran on ahead while Molly tucked her arm through Matt’s.

“Too bad you couldn’t have come to that movie with us last night,” she said. “You’d really have enjoyed it.”

“Yeah. But I didn’t get out of the office till after seven. I don’t remember when I was ever quite so busy.”

They stopped by Matt’s dusty black Taurus, which he’d left in the carpark adjacent to the street, and he hefted his picnic cooler from the trunk. Molly slammed the lid.

“I hope,” she said as they headed into the park, “that you took time to eat dinner.”

“I took home a pizza.”

“There’s lots of nourishment in a good pizza.”

“I guess.”

What he didn’t tell her was that he hadn’t eaten one crumb of the takeout pizza. By the time he and Beth—he and Liz!—had finished talking—had finished arguing!—the last thing on his mind had been food.

Frowning, he mulled over his present situation.

He knew he had to tell Molly that Max Rossiter’s daughter had turned up and had moved back into her old home.

His home, now.

Although she was, apparently, determined to battle him for it.

He hadn’t found quite the right moment to tell Molly of this new development; and he wasn’t sure he knew why he was so reluctant to bring it up.

“Hey, Mom, over here!” Iain waved to them from a picnic table. “Let’s get that cooler open, I’m starving!”

“Hold your horses, young man!” Matt placed the cooler on the table, and the two boys immediately set themselves to unlatching the lid.

Matt helped Molly to her seat, but as he sat down beside her, his eyes were on the two brown-haired boys kneeling on the bench at the other side of the table as they eagerly unpacked the food and set it out.

He’d made a point of spending as much time as he could with them after they lost their dad. And with Molly, too. Unknown to Molly, before Dave died he’d asked Matt to take care of her after he’d gone. And that promise, made to his longtime best friend, was sacred to Matt.

“You seem a bit distracted,” Molly said. “Is something wrong?”

“Sorry. My mind just wandered for a bit. Everything’s fine.” He made an effort to concentrate, and kept up his part in the conversation during their lunch.

After they were finished, they packed up, and the boys ran over to a set of swings by the nearby tennis courts.

He and Molly walked back to the car, and as he put the cooler in the trunk, she said,

“I’m going to pop over to the washrooms. Be right back.”

Matt strolled over to the swings. Leaning against one of the uprights, he smiled as he watched the boys fly high.

After a couple of minutes, they jumped off, and they all three walked back to the Taurus.

As the boys got in, Matt saw Molly come running toward him, the sun dancing in her brown hair.

She’d had it cut last week.

“Very short,” she’d told him that evening, over the phone. “For the summer!” And short it was. But it suited her dainty features, and emphasized her large hazel eyes.

She’d lost a lot of weight in the months following Dave’s death, but now he noticed how nicely she was filling out her T-shirt again, and how attractively her denim skirt lay over her trim hips.

When she came to a breathless stop beside him, he smiled. “You’ve put on a bit of weight. It suits you.”

“If I keep eating the way I’ve been doing lately, I’ll soon be ‘deliciously plump’ again!”

Matt laughed with her as they recalled the teasing words Dave had always used to describe his wife’s curves.

“Yeah,” he said. “Dave would be pleased.”

“You know, Matt, if someone had told me, just after Dave was killed, that one day I’d be laughing again, I wouldn’t have believed them. But now…”

“Yeah. Time heals. I guess it’s really true.”

She put a hand on his arm and looked up at him. “I don’t know if I’d have survived, if it hadn’t been for you.”

“It works both ways, sweetie. I’ve missed Dave, too.” He put an arm around her, and as he embraced her, he inhaled her floral scent, which was as familiar to him now as the feel of her soft body in his arms. He had comforted her—as she had comforted him—so many times…but never in any sexual way. Nor was there anything sexual in their embrace now.

“Come on, you guys!” Stuart said. “Iain’s gonna be late for his chess lesson!”

Once Matt had settled Molly in the car, he walked around to his own side, but before he opened his door, he heard a car idling in the street and got the feeling that someone was watching him.

He glanced across and saw that the vehicle with the idling engine was hovering at the far side of the road.

It was a midnight-blue Porsche. The driver was Liz.

Their eyes met. Her expression was startled.

And that was all he had time to see before she rammed her foot down on the accelerator and raced away.

Liz’s thoughts were in turmoil as she drove home.

She could have kicked herself for pausing at the park. She’d been passing by it and when she’d chanced to see Matt stroll from his car, alone, she had—on an impulse—slowed her own car down.

It had occurred to her that she might join him. She had some questions she wanted to ask him, about her father. Then he’d started chatting with a couple of boys who’d been playing on the swings.

She decided to wait till he was alone again, but all three walked over to his car. Then a woman ran up. It was immediately obvious that she was with Matt. And when Matt took her in his arms and held her close, it was just as obvious that they were in a relationship.

Knowing she should move on but unable to drag her gaze away, Liz had felt a heavy ache in her heart. She had assumed that Matt lived alone. Well, perhaps he lived alone…but he wasn’t unattached.

She herself wanted nothing to do with him…yet why did seeing him with someone else upset her so?

She’d been about to drive on when he’d spotted her.

Their eyes had locked, and even from the distance she had seen the surprise in his. What had he seen in hers? she wondered. She only hoped he hadn’t seen her distress.

It was going to be intolerable living at Laurel House with him. Even if he and the stranger weren’t actually cohabiting, she would surely be a frequent visitor.

And Liz knew she couldn’t bear to see them together. Just the sight of him with another woman in his arms had torn every old scar off her heart. And she knew, with a sinking feeling of despair, that even after all these years, Matt Garvock still had the power to hurt her.

He didn’t come home that night till well after nine.

Liz was upstairs in the small room which had been her study as a teenager. She’d spent the evening sorting old correspondence and school papers, tossing out most of it, saving only items that had special meaning for her. The task had kept her busy; had kept her from thinking about Matt, and she’d succeeded…till she tugged the faded liner from the bottom drawer and found a scrap of paper that had been tucked underneath.

On the scrap she saw the words she’d printed there the day she’d realized she was pregnant with Matt’s baby:

Beth Garvock

Mrs. Matthew Garvock

Mr. and Mrs. Matt Garvock

As she looked at the words now, a torrent of memories brought tears to her eyes. She’d been so naively trusting, so sure Matt would ask her to marry him…

Instead he’d let her down badly.

But his failure to stand by her hadn’t dimmed the joy and wonder she’d felt at the prospect of being a mother.

And this time around, her wonder and her joy were just as intense.

Sometimes, though, she worried in case anything went wrong with her pregnancy. And sometimes she felt totally overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a single mom.

But over and above her anxieties was an unwavering determination to be the best parent she could possibly be…in a way that her own father had never been for her. More than anything, a baby needed love. And she already loved this child more than words could express—

A light double tap on the door made her jump. Automatically she crushed the scrap of paper into a ball and threw it into the garbage pail where it got lost in a jumble of scribblers and Teen magazines and exam papers.

“Liz?” Matt’s voice was tired. “May I come in?”

She sat frozen, not answering, her heart thudding wildly.

“Liz?” This time his voice had a hard edge. “I need to talk to you. I’m coming in now.”

CHAPTER THREE

MATT pushed the door open.

And saw Liz scrambling up from her chair.

She stood facing him, leaning back against the edge of the desk. She seemed actually to be trying to press into it, as if desperate to get away from him.

“You can’t come bursting in here anytime you want,” she said. “Please respect my right to some privacy.”

“Liz.” He moved forward but stopped a few feet from her when he met the wall of hostility she’d erected between them. With a pleading gesture, he said, “I’m not your enemy. You seem to think of me as some kind of a threat—”

“You’re wrong, Matt. I don’t think of you at all.”

He sighed. This conversation was going nowhere. Or at least, it wasn’t going in the direction he wanted it to.

He started again. “All I wanted to ask was…did you find the cemetery?”

“Yes.”

“And your father’s grave?”

“Yes.”

“I know,” he said, “that you and your dad never got along…but still, it must have been tough.”

To his dismay, he saw a mist of tears in her eyes. Tears which she quickly blinked away.

“What was tough,” she said levelly, “was finding out from the caretaker that in the weeks before he died, my father was…incarcerated—for want of a better word!—in Blackwells Nursing Home.”

“Incarcerated…that’s kind of harsh, Liz.”

“Harsh? I don’t think so! That place, as I recall, was like something out of a Dickens’ novel. The only people who ended up at Blackwells were people who couldn’t afford anything better. So tell me, has it changed?” she demanded.

“No, it hasn’t.”

“I don’t understand how my father ended up there then. He had pots of money.”

“Most of it was apparently invested in the stock market and a few years after you left, he lost it. It was the news of that loss that brought on his stroke.”

She swallowed hard, and her voice shook a little as she asked, “How did he cope…after the stroke?”

He knew she was finding this conversation difficult, but there was no way he could make it any easier for her. The facts were the facts, and he wouldn’t be doing her any favors by sugarcoating them. If she didn’t hear them from him, she would hear them from someone else. “He had to have a round-the-clock attendant.”

“Where did he get the money for that?”

“It was a costly business and as I mentioned before, that’s why he eventually had to mortgage the house. In the end, just before he went into Blackwells, he had to put the place up for sale to pay his debts. The day before I put in my offer, he had another stroke. And then a few weeks later, he had his fatal heart attack…”

“How sad to end up like that. With no family around, and in a place like Blackwells. I should have come home years ago.” Liz hid her face in her hands and started to sob, muffled little sounds seeping out between her fingers.

He couldn’t bear to see her so distressed.

With a groan, he closed the space between them and drew her tenderly into his arms. “I knew this would be tough for you,” he murmured. “That’s why I wanted to drive you to the cemetery. But you didn’t want me around. You wanted no part of me.”

She felt so fragile he was afraid she might snap in his embrace. Like the most delicate of crystal. Anguish twisted his heart. She had once been his, and through a moment of stupidity and immaturity, he had lost her.

He looked down at her as she leaned against him, weeping gently.

And he felt a ray of hope.

She’d wasted no time last night in telling him she was independent, but…was she really so independent? She wasn’t fighting him now, was she? Maybe this was the time to press his case again. He so desperately wanted the opportunity to make amends.

“Liz, please let me help you,” he begged. “I’d do anything to—”

She jerked away from him, and with a little hiccuping sob, glared at him through eyes that shone with tears.

“I don’t need help.” She dashed a hand over her eyes. “And if I did, you’d be the last person in the world I’d turn to. I can handle this on my own!”

She was a fighter. Once again, the word came into his mind. Liz Rossiter was no longer the easily intimidated girl she’d been at seventeen; she was strong and she was determined.

And she didn’t need him in her life. He was going to have to accept that; but it wasn’t going to be easy.

“Just tell me one more thing,” she said. “About this house.”

“Anything.”

“My father was under great pressure to sell.”

“Yeah, he was—”

“So you got yourself a good deal? I mean, if he was under pressure—”

“I’m not sure what you’re implying, Liz.” But he knew damned well what she implying. She was implying that he had taken advantage of an old man’s desperate financial plight; whereas, in actual fact, he’d had to stretch himself to the limit to come up with the asking price.

“So tell me,” she said, with a careless shrug of one shoulder, “were you happy with the deal you made?”

He somehow managed to hide the anger he felt at her insinuating tone. “Happy?” He lifted one shoulder, mimicking her careless shrug. “I wouldn’t have used the word ‘happy.’ But I was certainly more than satisfied.”

“I’ll bet!” Her scorn was blatant. And it didn’t sit prettily on her face.

He wanted to wipe that contemptuous expression away, he burned to tell her exactly why he had bought Laurel House, but his pride wouldn’t let him.

And what did it matter anyway? He could never redeem himself, in her eyes, for the wrong he’d done her thirteen years ago. He could live with her believing he had screwed her father. He’d lived with worse.

“Okay.” He rubbed a hand wearily over his jaw. “I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

He left her standing there, and he didn’t look back.

Next day was sunny and very warm, and Liz decided to attend the eleven o’clock service at the Presbyterian Church.

But when she tried to start the car she found she had carelessly let it run out of gas.

Even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t!—she couldn’t have asked Matt for a drive as she’d heard him leave the house an hour before. So she took off at a brisk pace and walked the couple of miles into town.

By the time she got to the church, it was five after eleven. As she ran up the steps and across the deserted narthex, she could hear the congregation singing.

The music faded to an end as she pushed open the swing doors, and in the bustle of movement as everyone sat down, she slipped unnoticed into one of the back pews.

“Matt, will you pop down to the basement and pick up the boys from Sunday School?” Molly adjusted the brim of her straw hat as she looked up at Matt. They were standing in the narthex, jostled together by the jovial crowd making its way out to the street on this lovely sunny Sunday.

“You’re not coming down?”

“No, I need to dash home…the service was longer than usual and I want to check on the roast. Will you pick up the boys and take them to my place?”

“Sure, no problem. But Molly—”

“Mmm?” She was impatient as a horse at the starting gate. “What is it, Matt? I really must dash.”

“Okay, honey. Go ahead. But—” he rested his hand lightly on her shoulder “—I need to have a talk with you. Today.”

Her hazel eyes took on a luminous glow. “The boys have been invited over to Jamie’s after lunch. We’ll be on our own and we can talk privately.” She ran a hand down his striped silk tie. And let her fingertips linger for a moment. “Hurry home, Matt. I’ll be waiting.”

Liz walked along Fourth Avenue, the echo of her steps a rather lonely sound on the Sunday-quiet street.

She’d slipped away as the congregation sang the last hymn. She knew she’d have to face everyone eventually, but she’d decided to put it off till another day. She still felt drained after her visit to the cemetery; and her confrontation with Matt last night hadn’t helped.

Nor had it helped when he’d pulled her into his arms.

For a moment—only a moment though it had seemed like an eternity—she’d allowed herself the luxury of leaning on him. But when he’d offered, in that husky sexy voice, to help her, to do anything—

His words had jerked her back to reality as surely as if he’d slapped her face.

She could not depend on this man. And she must never forget it.

Picking up her step, she was almost at the corner of the block, when a sudden squeal of tires grabbed her attention. A white Honda Civic had braked in the road just ahead…and was backing up toward her.

When it stopped, she saw that the driver was a woman—a stranger wearing a floral dress, a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses that hid her eyes.

“Beth?” The car window was open, the woman’s tone high with astonishment. “Beth Rossiter? Is it really you?”

Liz frowned. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, walking over to the car. “I don’t—”

The stranger’s laugh gurgled out. “Oh, Beth. It’s me!” She whisked off her hat and her sunglasses and tossed them onto the passenger seat. “There, is that better?” She ruffled a hand through her short brown hair and poked her head out the window. “Recognize me now?”

It was Molly White. Liz felt a surge of delight. She and Molly had been buddies all the way up through school until they were fourteen, at which time Molly’s father—a policeman—had been transferred to Vancouver and the family had moved away. She and Molly had lost touch after that.

“Molly!” Leaning over, she brushed a kiss over her friend’s warm cheek, and smelled her light floral fragrance. “It’s wonderful to see you again. When did you come back to Tradition? And how have you been, what are you doing now?”

“It’s a long story and I’d love for us to get together and catch up on each other’s news but I don’t have time right now. I’m on my way home to rescue a roast from the oven. I’m making a special lunch for my crew.”

“Your crew?”

“I’m a widow, with two little boys. And—” Molly’s cheeks colored prettily “—there’s a man in my life—you wouldn’t know him, he was three years ahead of us in high school.” She didn’t wait for Liz to respond, but just barreled on. “Anyway, he and I have been seeing each other for a while now and we have an…understanding. And before very long, I expect—” She broke off with a vexed “Tsk!” And gushed on, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that! Matt—Matt Garvock, that’s his name—prob’ly wouldn’t want me to be talking about it. Not yet. You won’t say anything to a soul, will you?”

Liz hoped she didn’t look as numb as she felt. “No,” she somehow managed to say, “I won’t say a word.” Molly and Matt. Molly was the woman he’d been with in the park, though Liz hadn’t recognized her at the time.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it!” Molly set the Honda in motion again, and as she pulled away she called back merrily, “Give me a call, Beth, my number’s in the book. It’s under my married name…Martin. Molly Martin. We’ll have coffee together soon…and by then I should have some lovely news to share with you!”

Matt took off his suit jacket and slung it over one of the Adirondack chairs arranged on Molly’s front veranda. Then tugging open the top button of his dress shirt, he loosened the knot of his tie as he followed the boys into the house.

Iain and Stuart ran upstairs to change out of their best clothes, and Matt went looking for Molly.