A Question Of Love

She looked away. “Danny, you need to get your breakfast, sweetie. The school bus will be here in a few minutes. You don’t want to be late for school on the first day of rehearsal.”

Matt stood. “Rehearsal?”

“For my s-s-school play.” Danny explained. “M-M-Mom wants m-m-me to be in it, b-b-but I—”

“Don’t tell me you don’t want to.” Matt raised his eyebrows, as if in surprise. Before Honey could do it, Matt poured milk on the bowl of oat cereal dotted with tiny technicolor marshmallow stars and moons, then carried it to Danny’s place.

Danny lowered his gaze to the table. “The k-k-kids will l-l-laugh at me.”

Matt took his seat and centered his full attention on Danny. “Why would they do that?”

Honey couldn’t believe he’d asked such a question. Wasn’t it obvious Danny had a problem? Why underline it by making him explain? She stepped forward to intercede for her son.

“Because I t-t-talk funny.”

Frowning, Matt leaned back in his chair. “Do you? I hadn’t noticed. What’s funny about the way you talk?”

“That’s enough, Matt!” Honey couldn’t stand to see Danny put through this.

“It’s okay, M-M-Mom. I can tell h-h-him.”

For a moment, Honey hesitated. Then she saw Danny smile at Matt. He usually didn’t talk to strangers. This was a first. “If it’s okay with you. But you don’t have to explain to anyone,” she stated.

The boy glanced at her. “I kn-kn-know.” The empty spot left by the tooth he’d lost last week winked up at her. Then he looked back to Matt. “I stutter.”

Matt’s brows dipped deeper. “Hmm. You didn’t stutter just then. Are you sure you stutter?”

Danny laughed out loud. Honey hadn’t realized how long it had been since she’d heard her son’s unbridled laughter. He took a big spoonful of cereal and chewed. Milk dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. He caught it with his fist, then went back to eating his cereal.

“Use your napkin, Danny.” She handed him the white linen square.

“So, tell me about this play. What’s your part?”

Danny swallowed. “A t-t-tomato.”

As Danny expanded on his debut into the world of “Farmer Jones’s Vegetable Garden,” Matt listened raptly to every word.

Honey suddenly felt invisible. And she wasn’t at all sure she liked that feeling. In fact, she knew she didn’t.

Danny had just finished relating the play’s grand climax, describing how all the vegetables came on stage for their final bow, when a horn sounded out front.

“Danny, the bus is here. You can tell Uncle Matt more later.”

Jumping up, Danny grabbed his knapsack and turned back to Matt. “You’ll be h-h-here when I g-g-get home?”

“Right here,” Matt assured him, then smiled a smile that Honey hadn’t seen in over seven years.

Danny beamed from ear to ear, first at Matt, then at his mother. It was like looking at a smaller version of Matt. For the second time that morning, she needed the chair for stability.

Glad for an excuse to escape Matt and his smothering charm, she walked Danny to the door and down the front steps of the house. She leaned down and straightened his collar while offering her cheek for a goodbye kiss. With a sigh and rolling eyes, he obliged, leaving a milk smear on her skin. As she straightened and wiped it off, she noted Danny waving to the dining room windows. Turning, she found Matt, curtain pulled back, watching Danny climb aboard the yellow-and-black bus.

MATT NEVER TOOK HIS EYES off the bus as it moved down the driveway, the sound of exuberant children’s voices spilling from the open windows.

“My son.” The words slipped from his lips experimentally.

Suddenly, a gut-wrenching ache seized him. The pain nearly doubled him over. He’d missed six years of Danny’s life. She’d stolen it from him, and he could never, ever get it back. He curled his hands into fists and drove one against the window frame to still the agony that sliced through his chest and ate deep into his heart.

He wanted to go after Honey and demand to know why she’d never told him, but he was afraid of what he’d do. Instead, he took deep breaths until the ache eased and he could stand upright again. Through the curtain, he could see Honey, her back to him, her gazed centered on the spot where the bus carrying their son had last been visible through the line of red oaks bordering the drive.

How could a woman he remembered as being sweet and sensitive have done something so cruel? Then he recalled how, seven years ago, she’d professed to love him, then barely waited for him to clear the town line before she’d married his best friend and cousin. Sweet and sensitive hardly fit Honey Kingston.

His mouth set in a grim line of determination, Matt strode from the room, determined to learn the truth. His angry steps ate up the distance between him and the woman who had betrayed him, not once, but twice, and in the cruelest way possible.

Careful not to alarm her of his approach, he walked up behind her, then laid his hand on her shoulder. When she seemed to ignore him, he spun her to face him.

“Come inside. We need to talk…about our son.”

Chapter Three

Honey looked around Amanda’s large, Victorian living room. Almost two years ago, this room had held her sister, Emily, Honey’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, Kat, and all their wedding guests. Now the same room suddenly seemed much too small to hold just Honey, an irate Matt and all the unanswered questions hanging in the air about the small boy who’d just climbed on the school bus.

Honey glanced cautiously at Matt. Though she’d known that she’d have to deal with this issue from the moment Amanda had announced that Matt would be coming to live with them, she’d fought against it. Now she couldn’t sidestep it any longer. Oddly, the idea of finally letting go of her secrets almost came as a relief. She’d only held on to them to protect Danny and his grandmother from heartache.

Logically, despite the fact that Matt had walked out on her, he had not walked out on their son, since he had no knowledge of his existence. Although her personal opinion of Matt Logan wouldn’t win him any awards, deep down, she knew he would not have deserted Danny had he been given the choice. And Danny should not be deprived of his father’s love because she and Matt had their problems, problems that in no way involved Danny. However, even after she divulged all that Matt would demand he be told, there was one more stumbling block that she knew Matt wasn’t going to be happy about.

Whether she liked it or not, the time had come to do what she’d tried to do seven years ago, and whether or not Matt would believe she’d made that attempt remained to be seen.

Squaring her shoulders, she faced him. “What do you want to know?” Her voice quivered. Damn! She hadn’t wanted to let her apprehension show. She cleared her throat, hoping that he’d read the crack in her voice as physical, rather than emotional.

“Everything. Start at the beginning.” Matt stood just inside the closed door, waiting, one hand on the door frame above his head, the other thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, pulling the denim tight across the lower front of his body.

Tearing her gaze away from temptation, Honey took a deep breath and swallowed. The trembling in her legs made the need to sit apparent, but she stood, refusing to give him even that much of an edge. She cleared her throat. “You’re right. Danny is yours, not Stan’s.”

Matt cursed softly and covered the space separating them in three long strides. “I hardly needed that confirmed. I have school pictures of me that could easily have been taken of Danny. The kid’s a miniature of me. How long did you expect to keep me in the dark?”

“I didn’t expect any such thing.” She glared at him. This was hard enough without his sarcasm. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

Taking a seat on an overstuffed chair, Matt leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands tightly in front of him, as if by immobilizing them he could harness the anger tightening his shoulder muscles and blazing from his eyes. “Go on. I’m anxious to hear your excuses for keeping my son’s existence from me for almost seven years.”

Grateful for the support of a sturdy piece of furniture, she dropped onto the sofa. “You have no right to judge me on this, Matt. You walked out, not me. I would have told you, if you’d been here.”

Matt leaned back. He couldn’t fight her on that score. Neither could he tell her why he’d walked out. How could he tell her that he’d run like a frightened rabbit because his father thought him a poor excuse for a son, and that loving her scared the hell out of him? Even if he told her, what would it change? She hadn’t cared enough even to wait and see if he’d come back. She’d married Stan and cheated Matt out of his son.

The bottom line was that, unless he wanted to get into the whole thing about his father, something he’d never told anyone, he had no choice but to allow her to think what she would about him. But that didn’t explain why she’d never told him about Danny.

“Did you even try to find me, or did you just figure that you’d trick the first guy with heavy pockets who came along into marrying you, and let him think the kid was his?” Even as the words left his mouth, Matt could have kicked himself for giving his frustration a voice. He knew Honey well enough to know that, if he pushed too hard, she’d close up tighter than a clam.

Bolting to her feet, Honey glared at him. Her hands twisted together, as if she was putting forth a superhuman effort not to slap him. Her furious words confirmed it. “How dare you imply that I tricked Stan or that I married him for money?”

To his utter annoyance, her marriage to Stan infuriated Matt. Dangerous territory, but he couldn’t resist asking the question that had burned itself into his mind all those years ago. “So why did you marry him?”

Honey turned away. “That’s none of your business. We’re discussing Danny, not my reasons for marrying Stan.”

Matt strongly disagreed with her reasoning. The two were so tightly entwined that he couldn’t have pried them apart with a crowbar. But he let that go—for now. Insulting Honey wouldn’t encourage her to tell him about his son and why Matt had been robbed of the first six years of the boy’s life. As hard as it might be, he had to hold back his anger and let Honey talk.

Shaking his head, he stood. “Listen, we’re not going to accomplish anything with a war of accusations about things that can’t be changed.” He motioned to the sofa. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”

For a long moment, Honey glared mutinously at him. He didn’t blame her for not wanting to continue. His remarks had been far from civil, and if he’d been in her shoes, he’d have walked out. To her credit, she hadn’t, telling him without putting it into words that she wanted to get the air cleared as much as he did. “Please.”

She backed away from him and sat, acutely aware that he hadn’t apologized for his words. Let him believe what he would. Matt Logan’s opinion of her didn’t matter at all, she told herself, but her anger simmered beneath her surface calm.

Folding her hands in her lap, she looked at him. “I never tricked Stan into anything. He knew up front that Danny wasn’t his, but it never made a difference to him. He loved him just as much as if he had fathered him naturally.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you try to find me? I had a right to know I had a son.”

The edge in his voice acted on her conscience like a finely honed rapier. Honey smoothed the material on the arm of the sofa, trying to find the words to tell him that she had tried, that she’d asked everyone in town if they knew where he’d gone. But just the thought brought memories pouring back—painful, agonizing memories of drowning in the desperation of being absolutely alone, of having no one to turn to, nowhere to go. Maybe that was why she’d welcomed Stan’s friendship, and later, with her father goading her on, his proposal. Then again, maybe after Matt left, she just hadn’t cared enough about anything to fight either of them.

In the end, she settled for the simplest explanation. “I did try. But no one knew where you’d gone.”

He stood and loomed over her. “Not good enough. My father knew where to contact me, Honey. Why didn’t you just ask him?”

She felt the tiny fissure in her heart—the last evidence of her long healing process—split wide-open. If only Mr. Logan had answered the door. If only…

How could she explain? How did she tell Matt that his father had become a sick, sullen old man, a virtual hermit who’d shut himself away from her and the rest of the world? “I tried to speak to your father, but I didn’t think—”

“Didn’t think? You didn’t think what? That I’d want my own kid?” Matt strode across the room to the window and shoved back the lace curtain. His face in profile concealed the grim line of his mouth and the rage flashing in his eyes, but the stiffness in his broad shoulders broadcasted his feelings.

Matt saw nothing beyond the window. Instead his sight had turned inward, to the memory of a small boy standing outside the door waiting for his father’s notice. He saw a teenager proudly presenting a handmade tie rack to his father, and the man simply glancing at it and nodding. He saw a young adult offering his love to a lonely old man, hoping to fill the void left by the loss of a young wife and a son, and having that love brushed aside. He heard the words You’ll never be what your brother was echoing through his mind.

But Honey knew nothing of that, and Matt wasn’t about to tell her, not even to prove he wouldn’t have walked out on his son. He would have loved Danny with every fiber of his being—because he knew too well what it was like to be deprived of that love. Those very memories were the ghost he’d come home to exorcize, and talking about them would only grant them life. And granting them life would put him through the rigors of hell again, and he would never go back there, not even for Honey. Not even for Danny.

Slowly and methodically, as he’d trained himself to do for so long, he tucked the memories back into the far reaches of his mind, safely hidden from him and everyone else.

“So, where do we go from here? Do we tell Danny I’m his father?”

Honey sprang from the sofa. “No. No, we can’t tell him, at least not yet. Danny’s stutter is a manifestation of his grief over losing his…over losing Stan. Dr. Thomas says that any more emotional upheaval could make it a permanent condition. As long as we don’t push, he can overcome this.”

Although Matt understood what Danny was up against much better than she thought he did, he had hoped that he could claim his son. Considering Danny’s problem, Matt had no choice but to wait until the boy could emotionally withstand the news that he was his father.

“Dr. Thomas? Isn’t he the old GP who had an office on Main Street?”

She nodded.

“What does he know about this kind of problem?” Matt glanced at Honey.

“Enough that I have the utmost faith in his diagnosis.”

Matt disagreed, but kept his opinions to himself. They had other fish to fry. “How long will this take?”

She shifted her gaze away from his and began fussing with some flowers in a vase on a nearby table. “We don’t know. Maybe months, maybe years.”

“And in the meantime?”

She turned fully toward him. “In the meantime, we wait and try to keep him on an emotionally even keel.”

“Which means not telling him about me.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Matt stared at her for a long time. Something in her eyes caught his attention, something like pity. No, not pity. Compassion.

“Matt, I know this isn’t easy for you.”

Before he could respond, she turned away and headed for the door. With her hand on the knob, she stopped. “I wish…”

He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t. “What?”

She looked at him for another moment, shook her head, then left the room.

HONEY STOOD IN THE LARGE front hall, her back against the living room door. What had she wished? That those seven years had never happened, that she’d never met Matt Logan, that he could have been around for all those wonderful years of Danny growing up, that a bitter old man had reached out and opened the door for her? That Matt had loved her as much as she’d loved him?

She shook her thoughts away. She had no more power to alter the past than she’d had to make Matt stay all those years ago. The past had to remain as it was—unchanged. Right now, she had more important things to worry about. How would she tell Amanda that her beloved grandson was not really her grandson? Amanda had centered her world around Danny after Stan died. How would she take the news?

Honey had been right to dread Matt’s homecoming. Life had been so simple before his reappearance. He’d been here for less than a day and nothing was the same anymore.

She sighed, pushed herself away from the door, then started for the kitchen. The soft whirr of Amanda’s chair-lift stopped her. Waiting until the elderly woman reached the bottom of the stairs, Honey hurried to pull the wheelchair from its nook, then position it for her mother-in-law.

“Amanda, you should have called me to help you dress.”

“Why? So you could avoid the unavoidable?” Amanda levered herself out of the chair-lift and into the wheelchair. As she adjusted the throw over her legs, she studied Honey with a knowing look. “Come into the dining room and have a cup of coffee while I eat breakfast.”

Amanda’s wheelchair moved smoothly over the polished, wide pine boards. With a skill born of spending the last five years in the chair, Amanda maneuvered it through the double dining room doors to the spot left vacant at the table. Silently, Honey went about filling a plate for her mother-in-law from the chafing dishes on the sideboard. When she returned to Amanda’s side with her usual breakfast of fruit and toast, the older woman’s fingers closed around Honey’s free hand.

“Did you tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

“About Danny.”

Honey sighed. “I told him Danny’s stutter—”

“No, not that. Did you tell him Danny is his son?”

Only with concentrated effort did Honey manage to set the plate on the table and not drop it on the floor. Shock waves ebbed through her. She sat heavily in the chair that was, thank goodness, right behind her, and stared at Amanda. “How…”

Amanda chuckled, released Honey’s hand, then spread a napkin over her lap. “My dear, I’ve suspected for some time. The older the child got, the more he looked like Matt as a boy. I knew you’d been seeing Matt before he left town, and the rest was just a simple matter of deduction as to why my son had gone from best friend to groom in a very short period of time.”

Honey couldn’t believe her ears. She’d spent the last six years walking on eggs to make sure no one, especially Amanda, knew that Matt was Danny’s father. She’d been holding on to a secret that hadn’t been a secret at all.

“How many other people know?”

Amanda spread orange marmalade on her toast. “I’m sure no one but me and maybe Tess, although she hasn’t said anything one way or the other. As for anyone else, you can bet if they’d guessed, it would be all over town by now, and it isn’t. So it’s safe to say none of them picked up on the resemblance as being anything more than family genes. After all, I used to have black hair myself when I was younger.”

Honey was relieved that she hadn’t become the talk of the town and that the likelihood of anyone pointing out Danny’s heritage to him was slim. But it didn’t assuage the guilt she harbored because she hadn’t told Amanda. Not that she hadn’t wanted to tell her from the start. Stan had insisted that they keep it a secret from his mother. It had taken a few years for Honey to realize that his request had little do with concern for his mother’s feelings and a lot to do with his male ego.

“Why didn’t you tell Matt?” Honey asked.

Amanda sighed the sigh of a mother who had done everything she could to make her son happy, including turning a blind eye to a little boy’s true father. “Selfish reasons. Besides, it wasn’t my place to tell him about something I only suspected was true, even if I had known where to contact him. Was it?”

“I guess not. I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you, though. Stan never wanted you to know, and after he died, I didn’t see the point in telling you. You’d already gone through enough pain, and I didn’t want to have to tell you that you’d lost a grandson as well as a son.”

Laying her fork down, Amanda turned squarely to face Honey. “I will never lose my grandson. That child has his own special place in my heart. He’s as close to me as if Stan had fathered him.” Tears welled in her eyes.

Honey’s heart swelled. “That’s the one thing I can safely say that I think Matt and I would agree on. Danny will be your grandson as long as both of you want it that way.” She kissed Amanda’s cheek. “Thank you.”

“Posh!” Amanda waved her off. “Go see if Tess has made fresh coffee.”

Knowing Amanda hated sappy scenes, Honey headed for the kitchen, but not without wondering what she’d done to deserve such a wonderful woman in her life.

MATT RAN THE CLOTH over the shiny black fender of his motorcycle. Other than a sizable bank account, a game leg and this bike, he had little to show for his years on the rodeo circuit. But then, that seemed to be the pattern of his life—he’d had nothing to show for anything until today. Now he had Danny.

He stopped rubbing the fender and allowed his fantasies to take over. He pictured himself patiently teaching Danny to ride a horse, to pitch a baseball, to handle this bike. All the things that every father had ever dreamed of teaching his son—except Kevin Logan. Matt’s father had dreamed of nothing except the woman he’d lost to breast cancer, the son he’d lost in a plane crash, and how he could turn Matt into his brother, Jamie.

But Matt’s perfect visions of life as Danny’s dad contained a flaw he couldn’t seem to erase. In the background of every fantasy, Honey appeared, smiling, laughing, her love for both of them shining in her eyes.

He shook away the disquieting family pictures. Neither Honey nor any other woman could ever be a part of his life. Hadn’t he decided that when he left here? A woman in his life would mean he’d have to love her, and he would never surrender to that weakness again—for anyone. Never. Nor would he ever try to live up to someone else’s expectations, or leave himself open to the disappointment that would inevitably come to both of them.

He just wished he didn’t have to wait to hear Danny call him Dad. But he understood why Honey had asked him not to tell his son just yet. Matt knew all about stuttering. He’d stuttered himself after his mother died.

Thanks to a very special speech teacher, he’d managed to overcome it. Danny would, too. And Matt would help him all he could, whether Honey liked it or not.

FROM HER WHEELCHAIR, Amanda held Matt’s big hands and smiled up into his face. “Lord, how I’ve missed you, Matthew.”

He reminded her in many ways of Stan, with his large, broad-shouldered frame, in his strong hands and gentle grip. But in many ways, he was Stan’s opposite. She’d often thought of them as night and day. Stan’s shock of blond hair and sparkling blue eyes reminded her of sunshine and bright blue skies, while Matt’s dark good looks and brooding mouth had always brought to mind the night sky, where secrets could hide. Stan had always been quick to smile and tease, while Matt had been quiet and thoughtful.

Matt had grown into a fine young man. Stan had continued to be a boy, and his little-boy attitude had killed him…. At the thought, Amanda felt tears threaten. Shuffling the memories aside, she concentrated on the man who had been more to her than merely her brother-in-law’s son.

Part of the reason she’d been able to accept Danny as her grandson, even though she’d suspected differently, was because she’d always regarded Matt as her second son, loved him and wanted his happiness as much as she did Stan’s.