BELTRAMO'S WAS the best restaurant in town: candlelight, linen cloths, a spectacular view of the gulf. It also had a suitably haughty maître d', who led Lisa to a table by the window. She sat and tried to enjoy the last of the sunset, the sky streaked in lavender rose against a silhouette of tall graceful palms. Then she turned to scan the door. What was keeping Patrick, anyway? After all, he'd arranged this romantic dinner for two. He'd darn well better not be late.
Even as she watched, the maître d' led a new arrival into the dining area…and straight toward Lisa. The new arrival was none other than Matt.
He stood before Lisa. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello.” All she could do was stare at him, and feel the quickening of her pulse…a dangerous rhythm. Ever since yesterday, when she'd learned about the tragedy that had befallen Matt, some protective layer of aloofness had been ripped away from her. For the first time she understood what had changed Matt from a cocky, self-assured boy into a grim, hard-edged man. She could imagine only too well the grief he had carried inside himself these past four or five years. The knowledge seemed to destroy all her defenses against him. Seeing into a man's heart, even when he didn't realize you could see…yes, that was dangerous.
Now, slowly, her gaze traveled over him. Tonight he wore dark trousers, a shirt of some soft, gray material and a dark tie. It was not summer wear, but the outfit suited Matt. His features were as unyielding as ever, cast in reserve. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. When had she ever known?
“We keep running into each other,” she said inadequately.
“I'm looking for Patrick. He asked me to meet him here tonight.”
“Patrick,” she echoed. Then she gave a brief, humorless laugh as she understood. “I'm afraid we've been had. I was supposed to meet Patrick here, too. He said he'd arranged a romantic dinner.
“He told me he wanted to discuss something with me. Said it was important.”
Trust Patrick to come up with such a scheme to throw Matt and Lisa together. She supposed she ought to have suspected. Patrick refused to leave this matter alone.
Lisa knew exactly what she ought to do—stand up and walk out of the restaurant. Walk away from Matt before it was too late. Instead, she gazed into his eyes, gazed deep and long. And every memory of the time they'd spent together—every touch, every caress—seemed to ignite in the darkening blue of Matt's eyes. That alone should have sent her running.
“I suppose you might as well sit down,” she said. “The table's reserved for us.”
He sat across from her, and candlelight flickered between them. “Patrick's come up with a new one,” Matt said. “Playing matchmaker for his girlfriend.”
Lisa shook her head. “Patrick doesn't want me to end up with you. He just wants to find out exactly how I feel about you, to the very last detail. He wants everything out in the open, where he can see what's going on.” She listened to the casual, even careless, tone of her own voice. How deceptive it was. Here she sat in a restaurant, surrounded by other people, yet Matt Connell's presence made her feel as if she were in a boat hurtling toward the rapids.
“Seems like Patrick should be joining us,” Matt said after a moment. “He'll want to observe us firsthand.”
“He doesn't need to. Tonight, when he sees me…he'll take a reading of my emotions, like always.” Lisa stopped, regretting that she'd said this much. She was already starting to feel disloyal to Patrick. She also realized that she had no appetite. When the waiter appeared, she told him she wasn't ready to order, and he went off again.
Matt didn't seem very interested in dinner, either. He'd turned his face to look out the window. Lisa studied his profile. From this angle, his features appeared even more rigid and harsh. She wondered how Matt survived the deaths in his family, how he coped every day. Had he been piloting the plane? That would make what had happened even more difficult to bear. Lisa could feel an admiration for people like her sister Megan or Matt who had endured tragedy, who lived with it but went on. Her instincts told her, however, that Matt would not welcome any admiration from her.
He looked at her again. She couldn't look away. And once more she saw the flare of desire in his eyes—the only emotion he did not try to keep hidden from her.
“Matt…no,” she whispered, hardly knowing that she spoke.
“It's between us, Lisa. It won't go away.” His own voice had dropped.
“I don't want it—”
“I want you.” He spoke the words calmly, matter-of-factly, as if they were inescapable…so why not face them.
“Well, you've already had me, haven't you, Matt?” Her voice shook. “You got what you wanted all those years ago—”
“I was wrong,” Matt said, almost gently. “And I know it. You were too young.”
How easy he made it sound, as if that had been the only problem. She'd been too young. If an eighteen-year-old boy wanted to have sex, he should at least know how to choose the right girl. He shouldn't pick the one so in love she'd do anything to make him stay.
Lisa couldn't look at Matt anymore, couldn't bear to remember the need that had so reduced her at sixteen—the need that threatened to reduce her now. She glanced around the restaurant, trying to focus on anything but Matt. That was when she saw her mother…having a candlelight dinner with the developer Palmer Boyce. And, to top it off, there was Lisa's father—across the restaurant, having what appeared to be his own romantic dinner with the lovely widow Babcock.
“I don't believe this,” Lisa said. “My mother and my father out on a date, but not with each other.”
Matt made no comment As he leaned back in his chair, the candlelight flickering across his face seemed to emphasize his austere expression. Lisa supposed he wasn't interested in the foibles of the Hardaway clan. Perhaps, when you'd lost your own family, everything else seemed insignificant in comparison. Much as Lisa had tried to distance herself from her sisters and her parents, it chilled her to imagine ever losing them. She needed to know they were all safe and well, even though she found it so difficult to be around them.
She glanced across the room, where her mother and father sat at their separate little tables. Lisa wished the place was not so fashionably underlighted. She couldn't read her parents' faces. All she could tell was that Helene's posture seemed too straight, and Merrick looked as if he was trying to appear too relaxed.
Lisa couldn't watch anymore. Neither could she sit here another minute, across from Matt. It didn't matter that she hadn't even ordered dinner yet. She pushed back her chair and stood.
“I'm leaving.”
If she thought she was going to escape Matt, she was mistaken. As she hurried from the restaurant and emerged into the night, he was right behind her.
“Good night,” she said, heading toward the car she'd borrowed from Amy again.
“Lisa.” Matt came up beside her.
She refused to look at him. “It's over between us. Everything—” Even as she said the words, she knew they were a lie. Matt didn't even bother to answer. He simply took her hand and led her away from the car…away from Gulfview Lane, and down onto the beach.
His fingers were warm and strong as they clasped hers. She didn't try to pull away. She went with him as if following the pulse of the tide—and her own pulse continued to beat in a slow, relentless rhythm. Danger, it warned…
“Where are we going?” she murmured. Again Matt didn't say anything, but already she knew the answer. A memory from fifteen years ago flamed to life. How could she ever forget the night Matt had led her to a certain stretch of beach far past any of the piers, a place that was very secluded and private. That was the night he had first made love to her, on the sand.
It's still not too late, a voice whispered inside Lisa. But the whisper faded, submerged in the sound of the .tide rushing onto the shore. And she walked with Matt, all the way down the beach, all the way to that private and secluded spot below the dunes.
“Remember, Lisa?” Matt's voice held a huskiness that sent a tremor through her. He released her hand, but only so he could kneel and begin untying the laces of his shoes. Like someone intoxicated by the moonlight, Lisa knelt, too, slipping off her sandals.
A few moments later Matt had his shoes and socks off, his pant cuffs rolled up. Lisa's sandals lay discarded in the sand, too. Together she and Matt waded into the surf, the water lapping over their ankles. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, this time her fingers sought his. They continued walking, hand in hand, the waves dancing at their feet The nighttime sky with its scattering of stars was like a richly embroidered cloth, a dark brocade that seemed to envelop Matt and Lisa. No one else was here to disturb their solitude.
They stopped walking, turned slowly to face each other. Then, without any thought or action of her own, Lisa was in Matt's arms, and he was kissing her. Need swept though her like a flash fire. She couldn't fight it, couldn't disobey it. Crushed against Matt, she gave herself up to him. Her lips opened breathlessly underneath his, and she felt as if she were melting into the warm night air. No— she was melting into him, just as she had all those years ago, recklessly leaving all reason and caution behind. She clung to him, as if she might fall should he let her go. And she was falling…tumbling through her own emotions, the heat of Matt's touch propelling her.
Together they sank onto the sand. Lisa paid no heed to the water soaking her skirt. She only pressed herself nearer to Matt, heard only the low groan that broke from him.
“Lisa…” His hands moved over the curve of her hips.
Still not too late… Now the voice inside her head seemed to mock her with its refrain. She knew she should pull back from Matt, get to her feet and run. But she stayed where she was, imprisoned by her own desire. When Matt fumbled with the buttons of her blouse, she helped him. Impatiently, almost frantically, she pulled open her shirt. Now only the flimsy cloth of her camisole remained between them. Fingers trembling, she lowered the straps over her shoulders, bent her head as if to hide herself from Matt.
Still not too late. Hadn't she made enough mistakes already, beginning with the first time she'd made love to him?
Gently Matt cupped her breasts, his hands warm upon her skin. A trembling went through Lisa, the need burning inside her, demanding fulfillment despite all warnings. Now she was the one who fumbled with Matt's buttons, yearning to feel her hands on his skin.
“Lisa…” Her name tore from him again. She pressed her hands against the muscles of his chest, felt the ridge of a scar underneath her fingers. And that was something new, something that belonged to the man, not the boy. A harsh reminder of that plane crash, perhaps…
Lisa raised her mouth to Matt's yet again, seeking, yearning more than ever. And Matt, even as he kissed her, tangled his legs with hers upon the sand. It seemed that what would happen next was as inevitable and relentless as the gulf tide. Lisa clung to Matt as he caressed her intimately. But the voice inside her head would not be silenced. Still not too late!
With a small moan of despair, Lisa pulled free of Matt.
THE NEXT MORNING Lisa sat in the reading room of the Hurricane Beach town library, attempting to read a newspaper. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, proclaiming another day of cloudless, carefree weather. But Lisa didn't feel carefree. She felt as if all the storm warnings were in effect, the tempest about to descend. Last night she'd almost made love to Matt Connell on the beach. Lisa felt the heated memory of those moments. Only a few more moments, and she would have made the same dreadful mistake all over again. Just as when she was sixteen, she would have had sex with Matt. Sex that would have left both her body and her heart unprotected.
She turned the pages of the newspaper in front of her, watching her hands slightly tremble. Gone was all the steadiness, the cool control she'd worked so hard to achieve these past fifteen years. It was almost as if even now she could feel Matt's fingers brush against her skin.
Lisa closed her eyes. She didn't know what had made her stop last night. Perhaps simply a vestige of common sense. She was no longer sixteen—she had learned from past mistakes. Or perhaps there was also another reason she'd stopped. Maybe she'd realized, in the deepest part of her soul, that making love to Matt was far too close to loving him.
She opened her eyes and sat up straight in her chair. No. She'd stopped loving Matt a long time ago. She wasn't close to loving him now. She couldn't be. Surely only physical need had propelled her—
Liar. The mocking voice in her head was back, taunting her. Perhaps common sense had saved her from making an irrevocable mistake. But it hadn't saved her from the hint of sadness in Patrick's eyes. Last night when she'd arrived back at the bed-andbreakfast with her skin flushed, her skirt still damp from the gulf waters, Patrick hadn't wanted any explanations. Although he had pushed her and Matt together, she knew he'd hoped for a much different outcome. He'd hoped Lisa would find out Matt Connell didn't mean a thing to her.
Lisa sighed. She wondered if it would be possible to salvage anything with Patrick…a safe, dependable man. She hadn't made love with him since arriving in Hurricane Beach. Now matters between them were even worse. What a mess she'd made of things!
She made a greater effort to concentrate on the task before her. Slowly she turned the pages of the newspaper, didn't find what she was looking for and moved on to the next. The Hurricane Beach Chronicle was the town's one small paper, published weekly. Lisa had requested all copies from four and five years ago. That meant she had quite a stack to go through.
She'd been at it for more than an hour when she finally found the article, in an issue dated almost exactly five years ago. It was on the front page, lower right-hand corner, captioned Tragedy for Local Residents. Lisa read quickly, almost furtively, as if she were intruding on Matt's private life and was in danger of being caught. When she was finished, she read the article again, more carefully this time, certain phrases sinking in more deeply:
The crash of a private plane in rural New Mexico yesterday has taken the life of Sharon Connell, 47, of Bradley Street, Hurricane Beach. Mrs. Connell's daughter Paige, 12, remains in critical condition in an Albuquerque, New Mexico, hospital. Also listed in critical condition is Mrs. Connell's nephew, Mathias, 28, of Albuquerque…. The accident claimed three additional members of the Connell family: Gerald and Debra, 53 and 52, parents of Mathias Connell, and their daughter Holly, 15, all of Albuquerque….
Lisa turned the newspaper over, as if that would somehow blot out the story. It struck her that journalists had a talent for presenting tragedy in such a dry, straightforward manner, listing names and ages and dates like so many statistics. The anguish of the survivors was rarely mentioned.
Lisa wanted to get up and leave the library, but she forced herself to remain where she was, scanning the next few papers. This time she found an article on the third page of a newspaper dated some three weeks after the plane crash. This article gave at least a hint of emotion.
Paige Connell of Hurricane Beach died at an Albuquerque, New Mexico, hospital early Tuesday morning as a result of injuries sustained in an airplane crash on July 16. Twelveyear-old Paige had been on vacation with her family when the private plane piloted by her uncle, Gerald Connell, went down in a storm near Socorro, New Mexico. Paige and her cousin, Mathias Connell, were the only survivors of the crash. Doctors at Saint Anne's Hospital in Albuquerque credit Mathias Connell's heroic efforts for keeping Paige alive after the accident Mathias carried his young cousin from the crash site to the town of Socorro, where both survivors were airlifted to Albuquerque. Unfortunately Paige's injuries were extensive. When she died Tuesday morning, her sister, Joanne, and grandmother, Beatrice, both of Hurricane Beach, were at her bedside….
Lisa closed this last newspaper. She felt more shaken than ever. It was true that now she knew additional details about the crash. Matt had not been the pilot, and obviously he had done everything possible to save his cousin. “Heroic efforts,” the newspaper had said. But somehow, she knew that Matt did not see himself as a hero. There was nothing about his demeanor that conveyed such an attitude. Just the opposite, in fact. Gone was the cocky teenager he'd once- been—the teenager who'd felt like he deserved everything.
Lisa propped her head in her hands, feeling strangely tired. She could blame it on the fact that she hadn't slept much last night, after her so-called dinner with Matt. But perhaps this weariness was also a result of the sympathy she felt for him.
Sympathy she knew he would never accept.