LISA STOOD in front of the Costas Family Bakery, wondering if she'd lost her mind entirely. Did she really plan to march in there and confront her exin-laws? Did she really think that getting things out in the open would do any good? Only a short while ago she'd gotten things out in the open with Matt. Where had that left her?
She pressed a hand to her throat, feeling the shock waves even now. She'd actually done it. She'd confided to Matt the secret that she'd guarded so profoundly all these years. But confession seemed to have granted her no peace, no absolution. It had only deepened the turmoil inside her. She'd seen the regret in Matt's eyes. But he couldn't do anything to change the past, and neither could she. Had sharing her burden with him been wise or incredibly foolish?
She didn't know the answer. She only knew that she was probably about to do something foolish all over again. She glanced two doors down the street, at Rêve Rags. The conversation she'd just had with Amy echoed in her mind. Once again Amy had vacillated about setting a wedding date, even though setting a date was exactly what Jon wanted. “I don't know anything about marriage,” she'd finally confessed to Lisa and Megan. “And lately I don't see any examples of it working…except in Jon's family. His parents, his aunt and uncle— they're the ones who've stuck together. So maybe they know something I don't. Maybe they're right to be worried about Jon and me!”
Suddenly Lisa found that she could no longer stand still in front of the bakery. The events of the past few hours seemed like a stack of dominoes tumbling down, one upon the other, only causing more dominoes to fall. With Matt Lisa had opened up more than she ever had in her life and now she seemed to be on a roll. Perhaps certain things just had to be said. Perhaps it was simply time.
Lisa pushed open the door of the bakery and went inside. It was a cheerful, homey place, bustling with activity. Coming from the back, Lisa could hear the voices of any number of Costas family members, a melodious combination of Greek and English. The spicy scent of cinnamon filled the air, along with the delicious smell of bread fresh from the oven.
The customers thinned out. Jon's mother put some pocket breads in a white paper sack. Jon's father rang up the purchase at the register, and then Jon's parents gazed at Lisa with matching expressions of discomfort. So far on this visit to Hurricane Beach, Lisa had managed to avoid the senior Costas. She suspected they'd been avoiding her, too.
“Hello,” she said at last
“Lisa, it is good to see you.” Jon's father, Demetri, sounded just a little too hearty in his greeting. Jon's mother, Leda, didn't say anything at all. She was an attractive woman, her graying hair swept back with the tortoiseshell combs she favored. But her face looked a bit careworn. Lisa knew the past several months hadn't been easy for Demetri and Leda Costas, what with their oldest son, Nick, dropping out of a drug rehabilitation program and walking away from everyone in his family. Then the trouble with their granddaughter, Kieran… No, it hadn't been an easy time for them.
“You wish to speak to Jon?” Leda asked in a suspicious tone. But then motherly pride took over. “Jon, he has his important new job, but still he comes here to the bakery—to us. Right now he is in the back, visiting his cousins. I will call him—”
“No,” Lisa said. “I want to speak to you and Demetri.” With this remark, Lisa was faced with stares and raised eyebrows.
“What can we do for you?” Jon's mother asked, her speech as formal as always with Lisa.
“It's about Amy,” Lisa said.
“Amy is well, I hope,” Demetri offered. He, too, sounded formal, although there'd been a time when he'd almost seemed to unbend around Lisa. Almost…but not quite.
“Amy's fine. Or rather—no, she's not.” Why was this so difficult? Lisa glanced at a display of sugary crescent cookies arranged invitingly behind one of the counters, but this didn't seem to help with her task. Being direct was her only option.
“Amy's upset because neither one of you seems happy about her engagement to Jon. But before, you treated her almost like family—”
“We always have possessed a high regard for Amy,” Leda said sternly. But Lisa wouldn't be deterred—not now. During her marriage to Jon, she'd allowed her mother-in-law to set the tone of their relationship: polite, superficial. Now that Leda was her ex-mother-in-law, maybe it was time for that to change.
“I think I know what the problem is,” Lisa said, plunging ahead. “It's not just that you'd prefer Jon to marry in the Greek community. You're concerned that he already married one Hardaway—and look how that ended up. Now here he is engaged to another Hardaway. You think it'll end up just the same.”
Demetri gave Lisa the briefest of smiles. “You are very—what is the word, Lisa? Astute…yes that is it.”
“Demetri,” his wife began, “we must not talk about this—”
“I believe Lisa is right. We must talk. We want Jon to be happy…that is all. And, yes, we worry about this new marriage. Much as we care for Amy…we do worry.”
Lisa felt grateful to her ex-father-in-law for being truthful, at least “Amy's nothing like me,” she said. “We're sisters, of course, but that's where the similarities end. Amy's optimistic, gregarious and levelheaded. Besides, she loves Jon…”
Neither Demetri nor Leda looked particularly pleased by this remark. But Lisa decided to push on, anyway.
“I'm not proud of myself,” she said quietly, “but it turns out I married Jon for all the wrong reasons. I was trying to escape the past…trying to escape Hurricane Beach. Jon was headed for New York, to be a stockbroker… We convinced ourselves that we were in love, when the truth is, we just both wanted a new life.”
This wasn't going well at all—Jon's parents were looking more and more perturbed. Lisa knew why. She'd brought up a fact that made the senior Costas unhappy: at one time, Jon had, indeed, wished to escape Hurricane Beach and the overwhelming influence of his family.
“But Jon came back,” Lisa said hastily. “He wants to build a life in Hurricane Beach, and so does Amy, of course. But it's more than that. It's the fact that Amy and Jon belong together—they're simply meant for each other. Don't you see? Haven't you noticed the way they look at each other?”
Demetri gave a rather wistful smile this time. “Perhaps,” he said somberly. “Perhaps not.”
“If you think back,” Lisa said earnestly, “you'll remember that Jon and I—we never shared that look. We couldn't share it because…” Lisa stopped herself, but the words she didn't speak nonetheless burned in her mind. I couldn't look at Jon that way because deep down I still loved Matt. And I still love him!
She hadn't admitted it to herself fully until now. Oh, yes, she still loved Matt…loved him with all her heart. Too bad loving him hurt so much.
It seemed that the torment she felt must be showing in her face, because Leda and Demetri were now gazing at her with expressions of concern. She struggled past the tightness in her throat.
“Anyway,” she said, “just think about it. Amy and I are two different people. Give her a chance.”
Then she fled the bakery.
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Jon drove Patrick and Lisa to the Tallahassee airport. It was time to return to Connecticut, regardless of the mess Lisa had made for herself in Florida. Look at what she'd done to Patrick—he seemed to have lost all his former satisfaction with his life. At the airport, he appeared unusually glum as he went to take care of the tickets. Patrick, being glum…that was just as bad as Amy losing her optimism. Amy no longer even seemed hopeful that an anniversary party would bring Helene and Merrick back together. Plans for the celebration were still very much up in the air. It was true that Megan would remain in Hurricane Beach at least a short while longer, but that didn't mean she and Amy would be able to resolve anything for the senior Hardaways. Lisa felt a stirring of guilt. She still believed it was useless to interfere in her parents' problems, but maybe she should have tried harder—for Amy's sake, if nothing else.
Now, with Patrick occupied at the ticket counter, Lisa ended up standing next to Jon. Being alone with her ex-husband—not a situation she liked. But he seemed to have something on his mind.
“I finally have a chance to thank you,” he said. “For what you did yesterday…for what you said to my parents.”
“I suppose it was too much to expect—that little escapade remaining private.”
“To tell you the truth, I heard every word,” Jon admitted. “I was in the back, but it's a small bakery. Everybody in the family listened in, I'm afraid. You didn't notice it getting awfully quiet back there?”
“No,” Lisa said. “I didn't notice. I was too busy making a fool of myself.”
Jon gave her a reassuring smile. “Thea Aurelia's still discussing it, the fact that people get a certain look in their eyes when they're in love.”
Lisa wished he wouldn't talk about it anymore. Because now she realized she'd never seen that look in Matt's eyes. Oh, she'd seen desire, but not the type of look Jon and Amy shared. Never that.
“You're very far away,” Jon said almost gently.
She glanced at him. “Yes…well…”
“Amy told me that you'd known Matt Connell, that there was something between you.”
Lisa grimaced. Apparently, couples in love kept absolutely no secrets from each other. But Jon was already going on.
“I knew Matt slightly, back when he used to spend summers here. I never connected the two of you.”
“There was no reason for you to make a connection,” Lisa said tiredly. “I kept it to myself. But what Matt and I had—it was over long before we married, Jon.”
“He was the past you were running away from.” Jon said it as a statement, not a question.
“I was a rotten wife, and I know it.”
“Lisa,” Jon said, still in that gentle voice. “In my own clumsy way, I'm trying to tell you that the divorce wasn't your fault. I was so busy trying to prove myself. I got too caught up in work, and all the rest of it.”
“I guess we both made mistakes in our marriage,” Lisa murmured.
“I guess we did. But we learned from each other, didn't we?”
She managed some of her old sarcasm. “Right, we learned we're damn well better as in-laws than we were as husband and wife.”
Jon gave her another of the charming Costas grins. “I'm not saying that my parents have come around, but you really did give them something to think about yesterday.”
“I'm glad, Jon—really, I am.”
“And Lisa,” he said, “I hope everything works out for you… the way you'd like.”
She wished she could have that very same hope, but she didn't. All she had was an ache of love that only seemed to deepen with each passing moment.
SPENDING TIME in Grandma Bea's attic was like being broiled alive. Matt could feel the sweat dripping down his neck and dampening his shirt. Bending low under the cramped ceiling, he dragged out a box from beneath the rafters. As usual, his muscles protested at any untoward movement, and as usual he ignored them. The heat itself wasn't quite so easy to ignore, pushing down on him like an oppressive blanket.
“Bea,” he said, “just tell me one thing. Why don't you believe in air-conditioning?”
His grandmother, in spite of her advanced years, had insisted that she was perfectly capable of kneeling on the dusty floorboards of the attic. She sifted her fingers through the contents of another box, holding up a photograph now and then.
“I thought for sure you'd figure it out by now, Mathias. Your grandfather spent all those years at the brass foundry, where it was as hot as blazes. Got so he was used to it. He couldn't take the change, coming from all that heat into a refrigerated room. It was bad for his constitution. So I kept the house warm for him…warm and welcoming.”
That was one way to put it, Matt supposed. And maybe that was love, the willingness to give up bodily comfort
“I know your grandpa's gone now,” Bea went on. “I could have put in air-conditioning—even thought about it. But somehow it just didn't seem right. This way, the house still feels like it's waiting for him.”
So maybe that was love, too, doing anything you could to keep the memory of the loved one alive. It wasn't an ability Matt himself had cultivated. He brought the last box out from underneath the rafters.
“That's all, Bea. I'll take everything downstairs for you.”
“I want to stay here.”
“You should be sitting in a chair. It would be a heck of a lot more comfortable—”
“Look at this one, Matt. Just look,” she interrupted. “It's your father and mother, before they were even married.” Her fingers shaking a little, Bea held up another photo. Matt barely glanced at it.
“Let me get you downstairs,” he said.
“No. I'll stay here. And I want you to look at these photographs. You need to look at them.” She sounded like the grandma of his childhood—stubborn, commanding, I'll-take-no-nonsense-fromyou-young-man.
Matt tried to stand up straight, but the ceiling was too low. He remained crouched over, watching his grandmother sift through those photographs as if she'd found a treasure chest of jewels. He didn't say anything for a long while. And then, “I can't do it, Bea.”
“Here's your sister when she was only a baby. Such a pretty child, Holly was. And so strongwilled. Just like you, Mathias. Always had to have her own way. Pretty soon. your parents would have started sending her for the summers, so I could straighten her out. Your mother was too indulgent, you know. Couldn't bear to discipline either one of you. I tried to set her straight, but what woman listens to her mother-in-law?”
Matt willed himself to block out the meaning of the words. He would just let them be a stream, washing over him without effect. If he concentrated hard enough, he could do that. His thoughts would be his own. But he wasn't entirely successful. Even though he blocked out what his grandmother was saying, other thoughts came to him. Images of Lisa Hardaway. Cool, beautiful, sophisticated Lisa, who had returned to Connecticut last week leaving him with the knowledge of how he had failed her all those years ago. Just as he'd failed his own family. His parents, his sister, his aunt and young cousin…
Would there be no escape for him, after all? No way to shut out the memories for good? Even Lisa forced him to remember. She was gone from Hurricane Beach, but her image seemed entwined with all the others. Those he had loved, and lost.
“Sharon, my little Sharon. She loved to swim. Do you remember, Mathias? Your aunt Sharon won that trophy in high school. I was so proud of her…” Bea's voice quavered. Matt came to place his hand on her shoulder.
“Don't look at these anymore,” he said. “I'll put them away.”
“No. I have to get organized. It's all in a jumble. I need some of those photo albums, where you paste everything in order. Have you seen them, Mathias? Do you know the kind I mean?”
“Yes. I've seen them… I know.”
“You have to get some of those albums for me. You have to help me with the photographs. Everything in order. I don't have much time left.”
“You have all the time in the world,” Matt told her. “Look, I'll put the boxes downstairs in a closet for you. And then you can go through them at your leisure.”
“No, Mathias.” Bea sounded almost desperate. “I have to make things just right. Your grandpa wouldn't want me to leave everything a mess…”
It had gone far enough. “Bea,” Matt said gently, “I think you should know something. I went to see your doctor the other day.”
“You did?” she asked suspiciously. At least now he seemed to have her full attention.
“I had a revealing conversation with him. Seems you haven't been to see him in more than a decade.”
“Mathias T. Connell, I cannot believe you would snoop into the private matters of your very own grandmother—”
“Save the indignation, Bea. Just tell me one thing. If you haven't been to see the doctor, what makes you think you're about to exit in grand style?”
“I have never been one to exaggerate, Mathias.”
“So maybe you should go to see the doctor,” he said. “Take care of whatever's wrong.”
Bea was her usual evasive self. “I want all these boxes downstairs, Matt. And not in a closet—put them in my bedroom.”
At this moment, she sounded full of spunk. Full of trouble, too. But Matt could still see the pastiness of her skin, the vacant look that could come into her eyes unexpectedly. And he felt that somehow he ought to get her to a doctor, anyway, just in case something really was wrong.
He also had to do something else. In spite of all the mistakes he'd made in the past—the ways he'd failed those closest to him—he had to start making amends. And he had to do it now.
BRENNAN HOUSE in Danfield, Connecticut, had once been the home of wealthy society matron Caroline Brennan. Built in Queen Anne style, with an extravagance of spindlework, gables and turrets, the house presided over a wide, maple-lined street as Caroline Brennan herself had once presided over Danfield society. At one time, the house had fallen into disrepair, but several years ago Lisa and her partner, Dena—a friend she'd met in graduate school—had pooled their resources, purchased the place and converted it into a haven where frightened young girls could seek refuge.
Lisa wanted everything about the house to be welcoming. To that purpose, her own first-story office looked remarkably like a Victorian sitting room—lace curtains, plump upholstered chairs, needlework on the walls. This was where Lisa interviewed potential residents of Brennan House, doing everything she could to make them feel safe and at home. But this afternoon she wondered if there was anything she could do to make seventeen-year-old Julie Douglas feel at home. Julie sat in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of Lisa's desk, eyes opened wide as if in shock, as if she saw a bus barreling down on her and didn't know how to get out of the way. Lisa had seen that look in girls' eyes before, usually right after they'd learned they were pregnant. But Julie was already quite visibly pregnant. Julie's mother sat beside her in another overstuffed chair, and she was the one doing all the talking.
“Julie can stay here until it's time to deliver the baby,” the woman was saying. “Then she'll come home and get down to the business of mothering. No law school in her future.”
Julie gave a sharp intake of breath, her head swiveling toward her mother. “But, Mom. You never said—”
“I'm saying it now. Did you actually think you could go to college with a baby? Did you really think I'd look after it? Not likely. Motherhood's a full-time job. You've made your bed, and now you'll lie in it.” Mrs. Douglas gave a thin smile.
Lisa studied Julie, trying to gauge the girl's reaction. She didn't look merely shocked. She looked stunned.
“I'd like to talk to Julie alone,” Lisa said.
Mrs. Douglas stared at her. “That won't be necessary. If you won't take her, then we'll find someplace else. And then she'll take responsibility for what she's done. She's going to be a mother!”
“Nonetheless, I would like to speak to Julie on my own.” Lisa had dealt with all kinds of parents, all kinds of teenagers. When she wanted something, she simply repeated her intentions calmly, unequivocally. It usually gave her results, and did so now. Mrs. Douglas treated her to a resentful glance, but finally stood.
“I'll be right outside. And we only have a few minutes. Like I said, if you won't take her, I'll find someplace else.”
Lisa understood the woman's meaning, and waited until she stalked out of the room. Mrs. Douglas, however, left the door purposefully ajar. Lisa went to close it, then came back to sit at her desk. She contemplated various alternatives for approaching the situation.
“Julie,” she said at last, “why don't you tell me about your plans for law school?”
Julie clasped both hands awkwardly over her stomach, as if trying to learn the shape of something foreign. “I don't know,” she mumbled, her face a study in misery. “I want—I wanted to be a lawyer. I thought about it…a lot. But I guess… everything's different now…”
Lisa knew how touchy this situation was. She had always tried not to interfere between teenagers and their parents, but rather to serve as an unbiased mediator. Problem was, she didn't feel very unbiased right now. Something about Julie got to her, something even beyond the expression of panic in the girl's eyes. Maybe it was the childlike softness of Julie's face—she seemed a very young seventeen. Her hair was parted exactly in the middle, falling past her shoulders in a single straight line; the simplicity of it made her seem younger still.
“Forget about everybody else for a moment,” Lisa said. “Just tell me how you feel. About the baby, and about your dream for law school.”
“I don't know about…the baby. I went out a couple of times, and then…then it just happened. And we didn't use anything.”
Lisa was the last person to judge anyone. She hadn't considered birth control when she was a sixteen-year-old. She hadn't thought about anything except keeping Matt Connell at her side. Certainly, she'd never thought about saying no to him.
“Do you still want to go to college?” she asked.
“Yeah…sure…I don't know,” Julie said, her face quivering as if she was trying very hard not to cry. “I mean, I guess I can't go anymore…” Her voice rose hesitantly at the end.
“You have to decide for yourself. You shouldn't rush into anything. You're facing some very serious decisions, and you need to think them over carefully.”
A peremptory knock came at the door. And, without waiting for a response, Mrs. Douglas came into the room again.
“We can go somewhere else,” she said almost belligerently. “Someone's bound to take her. There have to be plenty of places like this.”
Lisa wished that were the truth. “We have room for Julie here, if she'd like to stay with us.”
Julie gave a quick nod.
“It's not up to her,” said Julie's mother. Lisa decided the mother needed a shaking.
“My assistant can help you fill out the necessary forms—if Julie will be staying.”
Mrs. Douglas hesitated, then gave her own brusque nod. She went back out the door, and Julie followed obediently. The girl walked with a listless gait, as if losing her dreams had drained her of energy.
Lisa shuffled through the files on her desk. Each file represented a different girl, each unique, with hopes and fears and dreams of her own, but sharing a common predicament with every other girl at Brennan House. Sharing, in fact, a common predicament with the sixteen-year-old Lisa herself had once been. She didn't need her master's in psychology to tell her why she'd picked this line of work. Why she counseled the pregnant teenager, gave lectures at schools and youth groups, trying to stop mistakes before they happened. Did any of her work do any good? On days like this, she often wondered.
Her gaze strayed to the photograph propped on the corner of her desk. Faded with the passage of time, it showed Lisa and her sisters as kids, balancing together on a big inner tube. The three of them looked happy, carefree, just the way children should be. Lisa had often found this photo oddly comforting, a reminder of the happiness childhood had brought her…a reminder of the closeness she'd once shared with her sisters. But today it seemed to mock her, bringing to mind the events that had propelled her into the adult world before she was ready for it. Events that centered around Matt Connell.
Lisa tried to concentrate once more on the files before her, but her own problems kept intruding. Patrick, for one. He had devised a new tactic—he simply refused to believe that he and Lisa were no longer a couple. Lisa kept telling him it was finished, and he kept insisting it wasn't. “You'll get over the guy,” he'd told her only last night, a wounded expression on his face. “You'll get over Matt Connell, and you'll see we're meant to be together.”
Lisa almost succeeded in pushing these thoughts out of her head, but it seemed she was to have no peace today. Her partner, Dena, came bursting into the office.
“Lisa! You can't imagine! All our problems are solved!”
This was typical Dena, everything she said was punctuated by an exclamation point. With Dena, the smallest thing could be cause for excitement or despair. So, at this moment, Lisa scarcely paid any attention to her partner's enthusiasm.
“Right,” she murmured. “All our problems solved…”
As if she could scarcely contain herself, Dena gave a little pirouette and ended up in front of Lisa's desk.
“They are solved. All our money worries— gone. Kaput. Vanished!”
This did make Lisa glance up. “Dena, what are you talking about?”
Dena's eyes fairly sparkled. “I've been dying to tell you about it, and now at last I can. We have been rescued. Rescued, in fact, by a very generous donation.”
Lisa stood, examining her partner. “Dena, why all the mystery? Exactly what's going on here?”
“If you want to find out any more,” Dena said with a mischievous smile, “you'll just have to show up in the conference room.” With that, she disappeared to her own office.
Lisa, suspecting Dena had lost all her marbles, walked down the short hallway to the closed doors of the conference room. What on earth could be going on? There was only one way to find out She slid the doors open and stepped inside.
And there he was, facing her—the man she loved. Matt Connell.