Matthew's Choice

“Matthew...” Jessica stood at the sliding door with her back to him. She turned to face him. “I think we need to talk.”

He rose and went to her, taking her hands. “You’re right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your sister? I mean, I realize you may not be all that proud, her being on drugs and all, but you could’ve told me. Did you think it would change the way I feel about you?”

He wanted to say he didn’t know why he never mentioned Mariah to Jessica, but he did know. Just like he knew why he never mentioned anything else about his past, and it had nothing to do with Jessica. “I know you better than that. It’s like I said before. Mariah and I have grown so far apart, it’s almost like she wasn’t there. I didn’t even know about the kid.” He rubbed the locked muscles in the back of his neck.

“But family is important. I think you should go.”

Matt stiffened. Jessica didn’t have a clue what she was asking him to do. He wasn’t ready to go back to Cedar Grove, where everyone remembered him as the kid from Beaker Street. The kid who had said he’d own his own company by the time he turned thirty. Well, he was thirty and still working for someone else. It didn’t matter that he pulled in six figures a year—he wasn’t his own boss, and that’s what everyone would remember.

His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID.

“It’s Clint.” Allie was calling in the big guns. “I’m not going,” he said when he answered.

“Did you know her heart stopped? And she’s in a coma.”

Clint’s blunt words startled Matt. He sank onto the couch. “I...had no idea. How about the boy? Has he been found?”

“Yes, he was at the hospital. Do you want me to go with you? You know, so you won’t have to face this by yourself.”

Or to make sure Matt went. “No. You have responsibilities here.”

“You’re going then?”

Matt sucked in a breath of air through his nose and exhaled. A memory of Mariah standing between him and their drunken father surfaced. Mariah taking the beating. He closed his eyes. “Yes, I’m going.”

“I’ll text you Allie’s number so you can let her know,” Clint said.

“Is she worse?” Jessica asked after he hung up.

“She’s in a coma.”

Jessica crossed the room and sat beside him, squeezing his hand. “I’m going with you.”

“No!”

Jessica flinched.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bite your head off, but I don’t know how long I’ll be there.” No way was Jessica going to Cedar Grove. He could just see her in his mother’s tiny frame house. No amount of paint or chrome and fancy furniture would transform it into something other than the four-room, white-clapboard dump that it was. And even though it wouldn’t matter one way or the other to Jessica, he wasn’t quite ready to show her how he’d grown up. “Not this time. There’s the boy to consider, and I don’t even know if Mariah will make it.”

“Oh, Matthew.” She put her arms around him. “That’s all the more reason for me to go.”

He stilled. Jessica could be quite stubborn when she wanted to be. “Maybe next time.”

“But—”

A plaintive meow interrupted her. Matt had forgotten the kitten.

Jessica glanced toward his bedroom. “Where did you get that kitten? And what are you going to do with it?”

Good question. Jessica certainly couldn’t take it, because of her allergies, not even for the two days until the animal shelter opened. “Maybe Clint will take it.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Tell me about you and Allie. You two seem very close.”

“We grew up together, went to the same college.” His hometown wasn’t the only thing Matt wasn’t ready to tell Jessica about. “Sweetheart, I have a lot to do, and I need you to leave so I can do it. I’ll call you tonight after I see Mariah.”

She patted his cheek. “I could help you. You know, clear the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher...”

“Thanks, but you would be a distraction.”

“You mean, like this?” Jessica slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.

He leaned into the kiss...until the kitten intruded again with another insistent meow. He eased his lips away from hers and he turned her to face the door. “Yes, like that.”