Chapter 8

 

"After you've finished with that, see what you can dig up on a girl called Heather Lloyd," Matt said to his assistant. "She's a juvenile. About sixteen. Social Services probably has a file on her. And check with Legal Aid. She's using one of their staffers to file for emancipated-minor status. I want a full report on her case as soon as you can manage it, without neglecting anything else, okay?"

"Okay." The young black woman nodded her understanding. When Matt Ryan said he wanted a full report as soon as possible, he meant yesterday, no matter how polite the request. "Anything else?"

"I want you to run a basic background check on a Carlisle Elliott. He's sixty-four. Used to own a nursery business someplace in Iowa. He sold it about six months ago and retired to live on a houseboat in Sausalito. Drives a red Corvette," Matt said with a bemused shake of his head. He rattled off the license-plate number.

"Priority?"

"The highest." He flashed a sheepish grin at her from across the desk. "My mother's planning to go out with him."

The young woman grinned back. "And you want to make sure his intentions are honorable?"

"Something like that."

The intercom on his desk sounded. "Mr. Gasparini's here to see you, Matt," the receptionist informed him. "Shall I send him up?"

"Yeah, tell him to come on up." He looked back at his assistant. "Is there anything else we need to cover right now, Gail?"

"Nothing that can't wait. For a few minutes, anyway." She pointed at his IN box. "The latest statements from our star witness—" she said the last two words disparagingly "—in the Delaney case are on top of that stack. She changed her story again."

"What does that make it? The third time?"

Gail nodded.

He picked the file up and handed it across the desk to her. "Give this back to Parker," he said. "Tell him to put the pressure on. See if a loss of immunity does anything for her memory. I don't want to see that again," he added, nodding at the file in her hand, "until it's been settled. I'm not taking this case to court with a witness who can't make up her mind about what she saw. Make sure Parker understands my position."

"Sure thing, Matt." She stood up as the door to his office opened. "Mr. Gasparini," she said, nodding pleasantly at Matt's campaign manager. "You're due back in court at two-fifteen," she said to Matt, the reminder as much for Matt's visitor as for her boss. She exited the office, pulling the door closed behind her.

Matt waved a hand toward the chair in front of his desk. "So what's on your mind, Harry?" he asked, as if he didn't already know.

"Susannah Bennington," Harry said bluntly, getting right to the point.

"My relationship with Susannah Bennington isn't up for discussion."

"Dammit, Matt. You're running for office. Your whole life is up for discussion."

Matt sighed, knowing it was true. "All right, what about Susannah?"

"You serious about her? Or was that little love fest in the coatroom just a bit of slap and tickle?" It was obvious from Harry's expression that he hoped it was the latter.

"Serious enough that I've asked her to marry me," Matt said.

"Jesus H. Christ! Marriage? You're giving me a heart attack here."

Matt raised an eyebrow. "Yeah," he said, amused, "that was pretty much her reaction, too."

"She turned you down?" The expression on Harry's face was one of renewed hope.

"She didn't mean it," Matt said, confident that her final answer would be yes. It had to be yes.

"You wanna be a little more specific here?"

"What specifics do you want, Harry? I asked her to marry me. She said no. I plan to keeping asking her until she says yes. Is that specific enough for you?"

"You wanna tell me why?"

"Why what?"

"Why her?"

Matt shrugged. "Hell, Harry, why does anybody want to marry anybody? I'm in love with her, that's why."

"It doesn't sound as if she's in love with you."

"Yes she is." Matt stated emphatically. If he knew anything about Susannah, he knew that. "She's just afraid she'll hurt my chances for a political career if she agrees to  marry me."

"She's right," Harry said earnestly. "She'll ruin you, Matt."

"Be careful, Harry," Matt warned softly. "You're talking about the woman I love."

"I'm only telling you the truth," Harry said. "Just like she obviously tried to tell you. The woman isn't right for you. She's got a record, for one thing."

"A record?" Matt said, diverted by that bit of information. Susannah hadn't mentioned anything about a record. "What kind of record?"

"Protest marches. Civil disobedience. That kind of thing. The woman's a bleeding-heart liberal." It was the worst thing Harry could say about anyone. "She was a rabble-rouser at Berkeley."

Matt hadn't known she'd gone to Berkeley—that most liberal of liberal colleges—but the information didn't surprise him.

"A rabble-rouser when she worked for the county," Harry continued. "Always stirring up trouble one way or another. Always bucking the system. Hell, she's got a hooker working for her over at that dating service of hers."

"Ex-hooker," Matt said, feeling obligated to defend Judy in Susannah's absence.

"And she's got some hard-case juvenile delinquent living with her."

Matt grinned. Heather Lloyd was a hard case, all right.

"It's not funny, Matt. This is your political career we're talking about here."

Matt shook his head. "This is my life we're talking about here," he corrected. "And if it looks like the two can't be reconciled—" he looked Harry straight in the eye "—then maybe it's time I reassessed my priorities."

Harry changed tactics. "All right, hold on. There's no need to make any hasty decisions here, Matt. Let me look into the situation a little more. See what I can do to dress her up for the press."

Matt shook his head. "Susannah doesn't need to be dressed up for anyone. She is who she is. I mean it, Harry," he warned. "I don't want her upset or made to feel uncomfortable. And if I hear that she has been..." He shrugged and spread his hands. "I know my father trusted you to run his campaign the way you thought it should be run. I trust you, too. But Susannah isn't part of my campaign. Leave her out of it."

"She's out of it," Harry assured him, backpedaling for all he was worth. "Totally. I won't mention her again."

"I'm glad we could agree on this," Matt said. "I'd hate to lose you as my manager." He stood up and walked around the desk, reaching for the suit jacket hanging on the back of his office door. "Come on, I'll walk you out." He slipped into the jacket. "I have to be in court in twenty minutes."

* * *

Matt sat perched on the edge of Susannah's desk, having basically the same conversation with her that he'd had with his campaign manager earlier that same day. The only difference was that it was much nicer arguing with Susannah. The view was better, for one thing. And he had something besides paperwork to keep his hands occupied.

"You're making mountains out of molehills," he said cajolingly, his hands clasped on either side of her waist as she stood in front of him. "Seeing problems where none exist."

"Yet," Susannah added stubbornly, refusing to be cajoled.

Matt laughed ruefully. "You're as bad as Harry." He removed one hand from her waist and lifted it to her chin, gently forcing her to meet his gaze. "What could possibly happen at a simple Fourth of July picnic?"

"Nothing. If it was just a simple picnic. But you and I both know it's not. It's a cleverly disguised campaign rally."

"It's a Fourth of July picnic in Golden Gate Park."

"Your campaign manager will be there, won't he? And Councilman Leeland? And lots of potential voters?"

"All right," Matt said, exasperated. He dropped his hand back to her waist, holding her so she couldn't move away. "You caught me. So it's a campaign rally. I'm going to make a speech, shake a few hands, maybe kiss a few babies, and I want you there with me." A crafty light entered his blue eyes. "Think of it as a golden opportunity," he suggested. "A chance to prove to me that you're right and I'm wrong."

She eyed him suspiciously.

"You say you won't fit into my world. I say you would." He waggled her back and forth with his hands at her waist. "This is your chance to show me."

She tilted her head, looking up at him from under her lashes with a considering light in her eyes. Maybe he had a point. Maybe—

The phone trilled, interrupting her train of thought. She glanced over at it, waiting for someone in the outer office to pick it up. When it rang a second time, Matt reached around behind him on the desk and picked up the receiver. He put it to her ear.

"The Personal Touch," she said, smiling into his eyes as she reached up to take the receiver into her own hand. "How may I help you?" The smile in her eyes vanished into a frown. "No," she said, annoyance plain in her voice. "You've got the wrong number." She reached around Matt and dropped the receiver into its cradle with a bang.

Matt raised an eyebrow.

"I swear," Susannah said in a tone of half-amused exasperation, "there must be a losers' convention in town this week. That's the third call like that today." She shook her head. "The jerk wanted, and I quote, 'a leggy redhead with big knockers,' unquote."

Matt couldn't help but grin at her indignation. "Maybe he didn't have the wrong number, after all," he said, unable to resist teasing her.

She eyed him warily.

He slid his hands up her torso to her breasts. "I don't think these quite qualify as 'knockers,'" he said consideringly, cupping his hands around her gentle curves. "But you've got the legs. And the hair is definitely red."

Susannah bit back a smile. "You're asking for it," she warned him.

"Uh-huh," he agreed, nodding eagerly. "Am I gonna get it?"

Unable to resist, she moved deeper into his embrace and offered her lips. He took them eagerly. Tenderly. Thoroughly. Long delicious minutes later, he broke the kiss, drawing back slightly to look into her eyes. "So," he said, fighting down the desire to lay her out on the desk and make mad, passionate love to her. "Are you going to go to the picnic with me? To test out our compatibility as a couple in public?"

"It'll be a real test?" she said. "No pulling punches? I can be completely myself?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"No safe little preppie outfit? No pretending I haven't got any opinions of my own?"

He nodded. "No being outrageous just for the sake of being outrageous, either," he said, adding a condition of his own.

"Okay. You're on."

* * *

Susannah had a hard time deciding what to wear to the Fourth of July picnic. The first outfit she put together was too drab and conservative, making her fear she was already compromising herself in an unconscious effort to fail her own test.

The second outfit she tried on went too far in the other direction, making her look like a refugee from Hollywood's version of a gypsy camp and, thus, violating Matt's stipulation against outrageousness simply for the sake of outrageousness. She took it off, throwing it across the bed on top of the first outfit.

Susannah eyed the resulting combination consideringly.

Perfect, she decided.

The cream-colored tunic sweater from the first outfit, the gauzy, multicolored, midcalf skirt from the second. She added a pair of flat, strappy sandals, large gold hoop earrings and a filmy blue scarf to hold her hair loosely at her nape.

It was definitely her.

* * *

"Do you even own a pair of jeans?" she said to Matt, glancing over at him as they walked, hand-in-hand, from the parked car to the picnic area. He was wearing pressed tan chinos—with a crease, for goodness' sake!—and a pale blue polo shirt that, admittedly, showed off an impressive chest and did wonderful things for his eyes. He'd left his sport jacket in the car at her suggestion.

"Did I criticize what you're wearing?" he asked mildly.

"I'm not criticizing. I'm just asking. Do you?"

"One pair. Maybe," he added. "I think I might have worn them to stain the deck last year."

Susannah shook her head. It was too bad, really, because he had the kind of compact little rear end that would look spectacular in a pair of tight-fitting 501s. "Did you want to criticize what I'm wearing?" she asked, suddenly realizing what he'd said.

He let his gaze sweep over her long, flowing skirt and cotton boat-necked sweater. He didn't quite understand why women were hiding their bodies in such loose, baggy clothes this season—especially when the woman in question had a body like Susannah's—but she looked fine to him. Lovely, in fact. He said as much. "Although I did wonder..." He let his voice trail off.

"What?" she demanded.

"Are you wearing anything under that outfit?"

She laughed and gave him an arch, sliding look out of the corners of her eyes. "Maybe, if you're a really good boy, I'll let you find out for yourself. Later," she said, silently resolving to remove her panties before that happened.

It would drive him crazy to think she'd gone all day without any underwear. Men are so easily distracted, she thought delightedly. All it took was some naked flesh, or even just the thought of it, and their fantasies were off and running.

* * *

The picnic was being held near Stow Lake, the largest in Golden Gate Park, and the activities of the day were already under way by the time Matt and Susannah arrived.

Several men were marking the lanes and finish line for the traditional races—sack, three-legged, wheelbarrow and egg-and-spoon—while a couple of harried-looking teenagers rode herd on a group of smaller children, apparently trying to keep them away from the irresistible lure of the lake until the organized games could get under way. Women were gathered around one of the picnic tables, laughing and talking as they set out containers of food and handed out soft drinks to thirsty children. A uniformed cook, hired by the campaign committee, manned the smoking grills.

The smell of charcoal fires and barbecuing meat mingled with the scents of new-mown grass, rhododendrons, and fresh air. A radio tuned to the play-by-play announcement of a big league baseball game competed with the blare of a golden-oldies station belting out sixties rock tunes.

A woman played a gentle game of catch with a toddler under a shade tree. Teenagers flirted over a spirited game of croquet. A group of grade-school boys and girls kicked a soccer ball around a circle. A blue Frisbee sailed through the air.

Another group of people were gathered around a picnic table set a little away from the rest of the picnickers, so that their conversation wasn't infringed upon by the noise and laughter going on around them. Susannah recognized them instantly. They were the movers-and-shakers, the bigwigs, the politicians.

"Don't they ever let up?" Susannah mumbled as Councilman Leeland separated himself from the group and came toward them.

She could tell, as he ambled over to greet them, that he'd finally realized who she was. Whether he'd recognized her on his own, or Harry Gasparini had clued him in, really didn't matter, she decided, and steeled herself for a confrontation.

"Glad you could make it," he said to Matt, reaching out to give him a hearty handshake. "And you, too, little lady," he said to Susannah, leaning forward as if to kiss her cheek. She stepped back and stuck out her hand instead, forcing him to treat her as an equal. It disconcerted him for a moment, but he recovered quickly, pumping her hand as heartily as he had Matt's.

Sexist old goat, she thought, glancing up at Matt to see how he'd reacted to her maneuver.

He grinned at her.

* * *

"What's wrong with a measly five-day waiting period to buy a gun?" Susannah said in exasperation, as she stood, half-surrounded by the men and women who were backing Matt's campaign. "A background check, might not keep criminals from getting all the guns they want, but it would keep people like John Hinckley or that man who shot up that McDonald's a few years ago from getting their hands on a weapon. Both those men had serious mental problems that would have come to light with a mandatory background check."

"And what about legitimate gun collectors and hunters?" Councilman Leeland demanded, obviously doing his best to remain calm. "What about a decent, God-fearing citizen who just might want a gun for protection?"

"Well, what about them?" Susannah said. "A five-day waiting period isn't going to cause them anything but a little inconvenience. And if they haven't got a criminal record or a history of mental-health problems, why should they care if someone checks a file and doesn't find anything?"

"Because it violates their constitutional rights, that's why," the councilman said. "Our constitution grants every citizen the right to bear arms."

"Actually," Matt said, deciding it was time to add his two cents' worth to the argument, "it grants a 'duly appointed militia' the right to bear arms. I seriously doubt our illustrious forefathers intended every Tom, Dick and Harry to run around the countryside, brandishing a Saturday night special or an assult weapon."

Both Councilman Leeland and Susannah looked at him with open astonishment, although for vastly different reasons.

"Why so surprised?" Matt said to Susannah. "I told you I believed in reasonable gun control."

"Well," the councilman huffed. "Well. I think I'm going to have to talk to Harry about this development."

* * *

Susannah half sat, half stood, with her hips braced back against the short end of a picnic bench, sated by both the picnic food and the political speeches that had followed the open-air feast. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, the heels of her hands resting lightly on the wooden table on either side of her as she watched Matt work the crowd.

He was good, she thought proudly, her eyes misting up a little as she watched him. His manner was easy and natural, assuming leadership without any off-putting arrogance. He stated his views in simple language and responded to a direct question with a direct answer. When asked, he pointed out his opponents' shortcomings without resorting to personal attacks of any kind. He made them laugh. He made them like him. He made them believe he would do his best. And do the right thing, while he was at it.

"He's something, isn't he?" said a voice at her shoulder.

"Yes, Mr. Gasparini," Susannah agreed without taking her admiring gaze from the man under discussion, "he is something, all right."

"He could be mayor of this town in a few years. Governor a few years after that. Hell, he could make it all the way to the White House if he put his mind to it."

Susannah turned her head to look at him. "Are you serious?"

"Serious as death and taxes," Harry told her. "Matt's got what it takes to go all the way. The brains, the looks, the record, the family background."

"The desire?" Susannah wondered out loud.

Harry waved her question away. "Public service is a tradition and an obligation in Matt's family," he informed her. "Both his father and grandfather were district court judges. His father made it all the way to the State Supreme Court. His mother's family has an even longer history. There've been Larsons in San Francisco politics since before the Gold Rush. Matt could outshine them all," Harry said. "And he will." He gave Susannah a sidelong glance. "If something, or somebody," he added ominously, "doesn't mess it up for him."

"Are you warning me off, Mr. Gasparini?"

Harry shrugged noncommittally. "Let's just: say I hope you don't change your mind about marrying him."

* * *

"Now, was that so bad?" Matt asked a few hours later as he and Susannah walked back to the car, hand-in-hand once again. The Fourth of July picnic was over, the sack races run, the campaign speeches made, the flesh pressed, the barbecued chicken and potato salad reduced to bones and smears of grease on a paper plate.

"It was kind of fun, actually," Susannah admitted, turning her head to smile up at him. "Especially watching you oh-so-diplomatically poke holes in some of Councilman Leeland's more asinine arguments."

"Which I wouldn't have had to do if you hadn't started those arguments in the first place."

"I didn't start them," Susannah said mildly. "I just sort of—" she grinned mischievously "—helped them along a little."

Matt grinned back at her. "Harry said you were a rabble-rouser."

"Harry did?" That figures, she thought. "When?"

"When you were tearing into that man about a woman's right to choose, I think. Or maybe it was when you were showing the Wong twins how to cheat at croquet."

"Smacking your opponent's ball into the bushes is not cheating," she said, letting go of his hand to punch him in the arm. "It's strategy. Those two little girls were being way too polite to win at croquet. Played correctly, croquet is all-out war."

"Rabble-rouser," he said, and reached for her hand again.

Then walked on quietly for a moment, companionably, more than content to be walking together through Golden Gate Park in the late afternoon sunshine, with a whole evening of togetherness still ahead of them. They'd been invited to join Carly Elliott on his Sausalito houseboat for a seafood dinner and a front-row seat to watch the fireworks. Matt's mother would be there, too. She and Carly had seen quite a bit of each other in the two weeks since the fundraiser at the Mark Hopkins.

"Harry thinks you could be president," Susannah said quietly, looking up at Matt from under her lashes to see how he reacted to her statement.

He seemed unconcerned. "President of what?"

"The United States."

Matt stopped in his tracks and looked down at her, stupefied. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. "You must have misunderstood him."

"Nope," Susannah said. "He said you could make it all the way to the White House if you wanted to."

"He was teasing you."

"'Serious as death and taxes,'" she quoted.

"Well, hell." Matt shook his head again. "I guess I'm going to have to sit down and talk to Harry about his plans for my political future," he said. "President is the last thing in the world I'd ever want to be."

"How about mayor of San Francisco, or governor of the great state of California?"

"Governor, huh?" Matt said consideringly. And then he shook his head, as if dismissing the idea, but Susannah was very much afraid she'd seen what might have been a gleam of interest in his eyes.

* * *

They left Matt's car in one of the public parking lots at Fisherman's Wharf and caught the ferry over to Sausalito. It docked right in the heart of the little upscale hillside community, letting them disembark less them three blocks from the boat slip Carly Elliott called home.

"I can't believe my mother's dating someone who lives on a houseboat," Matt groused as they strolled along Bridgeway Boulevard. "I mean, why a houseboat? It isn't as if he can't afford a decent place to live." From what he'd learned about him, Matt knew Carlisle Elliott was rich enough to buy several decent places to live. The little nursery business he'd sold before he left Iowa had been a chain of nurseries all through the Midwest. "He drives a red Corvette, too," Matt said. "Did I mention that?"

"I think you might have," Susannah said dryly. "Once or twice."

"He took her dancing last Friday at the Pier 23 Cafe." Friday night was mambo night at Pier 23. "And she said something about catching the midnight show at some club last Tuesday to listen to blues." He snorted. "I didn't even know she knew what the blues were. Yesterday they went kite flying at Ocean Beach." He shook his head morosely. "Kite flying! At their ages," he said, pretending a shock that, at its core, was only half-feigned.

"Lighten up," Susannah advised heartlessly as they stepped onto the wooden pier. "She's having fun. You wanted her to have fun, didn't you?"

Matt shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. Fun wasn't a word he ordinarily associated with his mother. Not the kind of fun, anyway, that had her riding around in a red Corvette and kept her out until all hours of the night. His mother was more dignified than that. More conservative. More... motherly.

Susannah nudged him with her elbow. "Smile," she said, lifting her hand to return the enthusiastic greeting being directed at them from the top deck of the houseboat docked at the very end of the pier.

"Welcome aboard," Carly called when they got within hollering distance. "Welcome aboard. It's unlocked," he said, pointing at the gate that separated the pier from his gangplank before he disappeared from view.

He reappeared a moment later on the lower deck, looking suntanned and windblown. His sockless feet were encased in a pair of white Topsiders and he wore a flowered Hawaiian print shirt tucked into the waistband of a pair of elegantly rumpled chinos. With his shock of thick, snow-white hair, wide smile and courtly manner, Susannah thought he looked like a retired movie star.

Matt thought he looked like an aging gigolo. "Millicent will be out in a minute," he told them, gallantly holding out his hand to assist Susannah as she stepped off the gangplank onto the deck. "She went inside to wash up," he explained. "We were doing a little gardening."

"Gardening?" Matt said as he politely extended his hand in greeting. "On a houseboat?"

"I grow herbs and roses in planters on the upper deck." His grip was solid by not crushing. "Your mother was helping me with some repotting."

"Matthew." Millicent hurried toward them, coming out of a door in the forward cabin. She held her hand out to her son, taking the one he extended to her in turn, and lifted her cheek for his kiss.

Her cheeks were flushed, Matt noticed, her skin warm beneath his lips. Her hair was caught up in a casual ponytail, held in place with a red silk scarf tied into a floppy bow. Her sweater was red, too, the vaguely nautical style accented with two narrow white stripes around the cuff of each sleeve and one outlining the modest V neck.

"And Susannah. How lovely to see you again, dear." She leaned over to kiss Susannah's cheek.

"Lovely to see you again, too," Susannah replied.

"Well, come along, both of you," Millicent said. "Everyone upstairs. Your timing couldn't be better," she told them, talking over her shoulder as she led the way up the narrow wooden staircase to the upper deck. "Carly just whipped up another pitcher of his famous margaritas not ten minutes ago." She looked past Matt and Susannah to smile at the debonair white-haired man who followed behind them. "Didn't you, Carly?"

"Millicent loves my margaritas," Carly said with a grin.

Margaritas? Matt thought. Another pitcher of margaritas? Since when had his mother started drinking anything other than Spanish sherry? And when had she started wearing such bright colors? And nail polish? When had she started painting her toe—

And then he saw the dirty handprint smeared across the back of his mother's otherwise immaculate white slacks. It was the kind of smear one might get by absently wiping one's dirty hand across the seat of one's pants. Except that his fastidiously groomed mother was never that careless with her clothes. And her hands weren't nearly that big.

* * *

A couple of hours later, after margaritas on the upper deck and a light supper of grilled swordfish and green salad, Matt folded his arms across his wide chest and leaned back against the kitchen counter, watching his mother slice into a cherry pie Carly Elliott had made for dessert.

"You've been seeing an awful lot of Elliott these past couple of weeks," he commented, trying to sound casual.

Millicent smiled to herself. "That was the idea, wasn't it?" she said lightly.

"The idea?"

"The idea behind hiring Susannah to find me a date."

Matt wondered why he was even surprised. "You knew?"

Millicent nodded complacently.

"How?"

His mother smiled mysteriously. "A mother always knows."

Matt pursed his lips and cocked an eyebrow at her.

"You made a special point of introducing me to three different men in one week," she said. "It made me wonder. And then someone—I forget who—happened to mention what Susannah really does for a living."

"Ah..."Matt nodded.

"Yes," Millicent agreed. She began putting slices of pie on individual plates. "Once I knew that, if wasn't very hard to put two and two together."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I might have, if it had gone on any longer." Her smile was impish. "Or if you'd introduced me to one more of those excruciatingly boring gentlemen." She opened a drawer for forks, unconsciously revealing her familiarity with Carlisle Elliott's kitchen. "But then Susannah came up with Carly...." She shrugged, saying more by what she didn't say.

"You like him a lot, don't you?"

"Yes," Millicent said. "I do." She looked up at her tall son. "I hope that doesn't upset you."

"He's very different from Dad."

"Yes."

"You're very different with him than you were with Dad."

Millicent sighed. "I loved your father very much, Matthew. I hope you know that."

Matt nodded. "I know."

"For thirty-seven years he was everything to me. Everything I was, everything I did, nearly every aspect of my life revolved around your father and his career. I'm not saying I resented it," she assured her son. "I don't want you to think that. It was the life I'd been raised for, trained for. It was what I wanted and expected when I married your father. But there's a price for building your life around someone else's dream, and when he died, I was totally lost. I felt cast adrift. For a long time it seemed as if I had no purpose anymore." She reached out and put her hand on her son's arm. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Matt covered her slender fingers with his and squeezed gently. He could feel her wedding ring pressing against his palm. "I think so."

"I was angry, too," she admitted. "Absolutely furious for a while. I blamed him for dying, for working himself to death, for never taking a vacation or letting up. For leaving me alone." She sighed. "But I got over that, too, and, after a while, when the worst of the grief passed, I started to think my purpose would be you and your career. But I was wrong." She squeezed his arm and let go. "I knew that even before you started trying to arrange those blind dates for me," she said with a smile.

"So, what you're saying is that Elliott gives purpose to your life now."

"No." Millicent looked mildly shocked. "Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying at all! I'm not looking for anyone to give purpose to my life. I've realized that I'm the only one who can do that. But Carly..." She shook her head and grinned. "Carly is a wonderful playmate."

"A playmate?" Matt said, trying not to sound shocked in turn.

"He's so free and open, so alive to new ideas and new experiences. When I'm with him, I'm a freer person, too. He's teaching me how to have fun," Millicent said, matter-of-factly, "to stop and smell the roses. I've never done that before."

"You're not serious about him, then?"

"Serious?" Millicent shrugged, then shook her head. "I don't know yet." She opened a cupboard and got out a tray. "It might turn into something lasting and, then again, it might not," she said. "For once in my life, I'm not worrying about it either way."

Matt was silent a moment, trying to absorb this new side of his mother, trying to see her as a vibrant, vital woman with needs. "You're being careful, aren't you?"

"Careful?" Millicent said absently, busy arranging the pie plates and cutlery on the tray.

"With, ah..." His wide shoulders lifted in an uncomfortable shrug. "Sex and everything?"

Millicent's head snapped around, her hand arrested in midmotion as she reached for the napkins. "Matthew Francis Larson Ryan, are you asking me if I'm sleeping with Carly?"

"No. No, of course not." Matt could feel a blush warming his cheeks. "I was just asking... that is..." God, how did I get myself into this conversation? "I hope you're being careful, that's all."

"If and when I decide to resume a sex life, you can rest assured I'll be very careful," Millicent said, feeling her own cheeks warm. She grabbed a handful of napkins out of the basket on the counter and began folding them. "You can also rest assured that I won't be talking to you about it. As for Carly and me, well, all I'll say about our relationship is what I've already said. Carly's good for me." She slanted a considering look at him out of the corner of her eye as she carefully placed the folded napkins on the dessert tray. "Probably in much the same way that Susannah is good for you," she said delicately, trying to elicit more information from her closemouthed son. "They both have a special gift for livening things up."

Matt gave her a look from under his brows, the previous subject suddenly all but forgotten. "I've asked her to marry me."

Millicent smiled. "I didn't realize it had gone that far already," she said, "but if she's what you want, then I'm happy for both of you."

He reached over and broke a piece of crust off one of the pieces of pie. "Even if she hurts my career?" he asked without looking at her. They both knew his question went deeper than that—that it wasn't just her approval of Susannah he was asking for.

"It's your career, Matthew. Your life. Your choice." She him a level look, rife with unspoken messages. "Don't let anyone or anything else make that choice for you."

* * *

Matt and Susannah stood on the upper deck of Carly Elliott's houseboat, shoulders touching, forearms resting on the polished wooden railing, watching the fireworks explode in the inky black sky over San Francisco Bay. Hand-held sparklers twinkled across the water like fairy lights and, every once in a while, someone shot off an unauthorized rocket or Catherine wheel from one of the other boats, sending up a whine and a burst of lights to compete with the official display.

Matt bent his head to whisper in Susannah's ear. "That's the way you make me feel inside," he said as a huge red-white-and-blue chrysanthemum-shaped star burst overhead.

Thrilled beyond words, Susannah turned her head to look at him. They stared at each other for a long moment, their bodies still, barely touching at shoulder and hip, their gazes locked and searching, wrapped in a fog of wonder and romance while the world celebrated all around them.

"I want to feel this way for the rest of my life, Susannah," he whispered, his gaze never leaving hers. "I want you to marry me."

"Oh, Matt." Tears of emotion welled up in her eyes. "Matt. You make me feel like fireworks, too. You make me feel like circuses and birthday parties and Christmas morning all rolled into one, but I—"

He put his fingertip over her lips, stopping her. "That's all I need to hear for now," he said. "We'll talk about the rest of it later."