STRANGE HOW CEMETERIES were usually places of such lush beauty, trees and grass softening the stark lines of the gravestones. Maybe all the greenery was a testament to hope, a stubborn assertion that life must continue. Matt didn't know. He just stood beside the vine-covered gate at Hurricane Beach's one small cemetery, and watched as his cousin Joanne knelt to put a fresh bunch of daisies and carnations on her mother's grave. She put another bunch on her sister's grave, then turned and spotted Matt.
“What are you doing here?” she asked resentfully.
“They're my family, too,” he answered in a quiet voice. “And I happen to know you come here every Sunday, Jo.”
“What of it?” She was as prickly as always, even here in this peaceful setting.
“Bea probably wouldn't mind a few flowers, even though you were both too pigheaded to see how alike you were.”
“You always do have a way with words,” Joanne muttered. She straightened and gazed across at Bea's headstone, placed neatly side by side with Grandpa Connell's.
“You loved her, too. Otherwise you wouldn't be so ticked off at her.”
“You don't know a damn thing about what I feel, Matt.”
“I know how much you miss them,” he said, trying hard to ignore his cousin's attitude. “Paige, and your mother. I miss them, too. Maybe it's something we share.”
Joanne sank back down beside her mother's grave, hands clenched. “I don't want to share anything with you.”
“Maybe you don't have a choice. I've been thinking about it a lot the last few days, Jo. The way you've seemed bound and determined to destroy your own life. Drinking too much, alienating everyone around you, finally trying to ruin the brassworks along with everything else… that's one way to grieve. I chose another—shutting myself off. But I have it on good authority that I ought to stop punishing myself. Because that's what I've been doing. Punishing myself for being the survivor…”
Joanne bent her head, as if to protect herself from his words. He expected another scathing remark from her, but instead her voice came in a jagged rise and fall.
“I was supposed to go on that trip with all of you. I only changed my mind at the last minute, just so I could be with a guy I thought I was in love with. So I stayed. I didn't go with my family…”
Matt understood at last. “Sounds like you've been punishing yourself, too,” he said. “For surviving.”
She stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “I should have died. Not Paige. Not my little sister.”
Matt took a step closer. “But you didn't die, Jo. You and I, we're the ones left, and we have to make the best of it. For their sake, we have to do it. So, here's what I think. For a while after the crash, you tried to go on just as before—you tried to keep everything together. But grief has a way of getting the upper hand sometimes. So eventually you went on self-destruct, and you tried to take the brassworks down with you. Maybe you just wanted to prove to Bea that you didn't deserve to be one of the survivors. Who knows. But you loved the brassworks when you were a kid, and I suspect you still love it, in spite of everything.”
She scowled at him. “Stop trying to tell me how I feel, Matt.”
“Here's the deal,” he went on inexorably. “We're going to start over. This is how it'll work from now on. You're going to handle the day-today running of the company. I'll be a silent partner. But I'll remain silent only if you stop alienating everybody, stop firing people who've been working for us their entire lives.”
“Hold on—”
Matt continued to ignore her. “No selling off of company property, not to Palmer Boyce, not to anyone. Start proving you're a good manager again, Jo. I know you have it in you—once you decide to start living instead of punishing. It can be done. I know…because I've decided to give myself a second chance.”
He couldn't tell if he was getting through to Joanne. She just stared at him, and more than ever he saw the similarities with Bea—the same intractable expression, the same belligerent set to the jaw.
“The bottom line is, Bea did leave you half the company.” He walked over to his grandmother's grave, and regarded the earth that still appeared fresh and dark, the grass not yet beginning to grow here. “Much as she carped and complained about you, Jo, she must have loved you underneath it all,” he murmured. “Why else split the ownership straight down the middle? And maybe she had a plan in mind, too. Maybe she figured that if the two of us had to go on wrangling over the brassworks, we finally would start acting like family.”
“That's only speculation,” Joanne said with ill grace. “She was a nasty old woman. And my fifty percent says I can fight you, Matt. I don't have to agree to your terms.”
“You have a couple of choices,” he said. “Fight me and I'll be at the brassworks every day, making your life miserable. Start living again, and I really will be a silent partner.”
“Damn you, Matt. I don't want this. I want to hate you…that's what I really want.” Her voice ended in a whisper.
“Sure, you can go on hating me. Or you can finally forgive me for being a survivor—just like you.”
She didn't say anything. She stayed where she was, kneeling among the graves for a very long while. Matt didn't speak, he just waited. And at last she stood again, facing him. Her expression was brittle.
“You really will be a silent partner?” she asked.
“As long as you keep up your part of the bargain, I'll keep up mine.”
Joanne hesitated, but then gave a brusque nod. “Deal.” She seemed ready to let it go at that, but Matt stuck out his hand.
“Let's shake on it.”
Joanne looked disgusted, but she did take his hand, and then, briefly, they shared an awkward hug. Then she turned away from him. “I did come here for some privacy,” she said pointedly. “See you later, Matt.”
He supposed he couldn't expect much more from her, at least for now. But they had a beginning, and that was enough.
Now Matt had to take a step toward one more new beginning…the most important beginning of all.
SOMEONE WAS KNOCKING at Lisa's front door— two low raps, one right after the other. The sound intruded vaguely. Lisa glanced at her wristwatch, surprised to see that it was almost seven-thirty. The evening had flown with blessed quickness. She'd engrossed herself in paperwork for a grant application. She hadn't touched a cent of Matt's money yet. Finances were getting pretty tight at Brennan House, but that was the way it had to be. She'd go on filling out grant applications, and look for other sources of funding as best she could. Anything so she wouldn't be dependent on Matt. Perhaps the man haunted her dreams, and every waking moment of her life, but that didn't mean she had to take his money.
Someone knocked at her front door again—those two quick raps. “I'm coming, I'm coming,” she muttered, pushing her chair back from her desk. It was probably only a salesman of some sort. Certainly no one else would come calling, these days Lisa had virtually no social life. She crossed her living room, went to the door and looked through the peephole.
There he stood on her porch…Matt Connell. She blinked, and looked again. No, there couldn't be any doubt. It was him. Suddenly Lisa felt the way she did just after a run—trying to catch her breath while her pulse raced and her body tingled.
She leaned against the doorjamb for a moment. And then, fingers trembling, she undid both locks and swung the door open.
“Hello, Matt,” she said, proud of the casual tone in her voice.
“Hello, Lisa,” he said. He was wearing jeans and one of his soft faded shirts, the kind you wanted to run your hands over. His dark hair was swept back from his forehead, as if the gulf breeze had just had its way with him. But Florida was a thousand miles away, give or take.
“It's a long drive,” she said, and then wondered why her heart couldn't stop this ridiculous thudding.
“This time I flew,” he said. “That old Stinson is a real pleasure in the air.”
“That's great,” she said. “I'm happy for you, Matt. I'm glad you restored your plane, and that you're flying again. That really is great. But I'd still like to know what you're doing here…on my doorstep.”
“I've just been a damn fool, Lisa. That's what I'm doing here. I love you!”
“Oh…well…” Her voice sounded strange… wobbly. “Could you…um, repeat that?”
“I love you.” His own voice was husky, his eyes darkening even as he gazed at her.
“In that case, I guess you'd better come in.” Because at last she saw it—that look in his eyes. The one she'd wanted to see for so long. The look of a man in love.
Only one second later, and she was in his arms, pressed close to him, her mouth hungrily seeking his. They kissed as if it were the first time. No, better than the first time. Lisa was no longer an awkward sixteen-year-old, Matt was no longer a cocky eighteen-year-old boy. They were a man and a woman who needed each other, and who weren't afraid to show it.
They showed it now, all right—with breathless murmurs of endearment, with one intoxicating kiss after another. At last they landed on the sofa, still tangled in each other's arms.
“Oh, Matt…I love you, too.” Lisa felt as if she had just laid down a heavy burden. If Matt weren't holding her, she might float right off the ground for joy.
“Lisa… I'm damn sorry for what I put you through.”
“You did take an awfully long time getting up here to Connecticut.”
Tenderly he smoothed the hair back from her face, his touch warm against her cheek. “I meant, all those years ago, when I left you. Expecting a baby…”
“It was pretty bad,” she admitted. “The worst part was wondering if I had somehow caused the miscarriage…”
“Our child,” he said, and she heard the sorrow in his voice. “Lisa, when you told me about it, at first all I could do was blame myself. All I could do was tell myself that it was one more way I'd failed, one more way I'd messed up. I'd left you all on your own, expecting a child. Thinking about it, I raked myself over the coals pretty thoroughly.”
She ran her hand over his well-worn shirt. The material was as soft as she'd imagined, but underneath she felt the strength of his muscles. Matt Connell…a strong man indeed, one who knew how to endure. But maybe it was time he learned about happiness, too. “I suspect you've punished yourself enough,” she murmured.
“That's just it. I got up there in that bush plane, surrounded by sky…and I figured a few things out. Such as the fact that I had a choice. I could go on blaming myself, telling myself that I didn't deserve you…or I could try to start over. Do it right this time.”
She traced a finger over one of his eyebrows. “I think we already have a good start.”
He framed her face with both hands and kissed her again. That was fine with her. As far as she was concerned, all the words had been said. But when it came to kissing, you couldn't have too much of that, not when the man of your dreams had come to you at last. But Matt, once a person of few words, seemed to have plenty more to say.
“Here's the thing, Lisa. Bea left me fifty percent of the brassworks, but Joanne's going to run the place. And that means I'm going to have some time on my hands. Lots of time.”
“I have a good idea,” she murmured, twining her hands around his neck, and bringing his lips close to hers again.
He gave her another lingering kiss, but then he went right on talking—making up for lost time, she supposed.
“Lisa, I spent too many years away from airplanes. That's what I've always loved—flying. And I have an idea I'd like to teach flying, too. I'd set up my own school, right here in Danfield, maybe.”
She heard the excitement in his voice, the enthusiasm. “Matt, it sounds wonderful. I'll be your first student. With you, maybe even I could learn to love flying—”
“More?”
“Lots more. Bea left her house in Hurricane Beach to me. I can't picture living there…it has too many memories for a new beginning, I guess. But it's a pretty big place—it could hold quite a few teenagers who need a temporary home.” He smiled somewhat wryly. “Of course, we'd have to get an air-conditioning system put in.”
She grinned. “You really do have big plans for us, don't you? It's a wonderful idea, Matt, but I don't know if I'm ready for Hurricane Beach again…not just yet, anyway. If we could just start here, in Danfield…it so happens there's a house on Highland Drive. It's been sitting empty for a little while, but I think that's where we should start our branching out. Brennan House Number Two.”
He gazed at her seriously. “You really will accept my help now?”
“The way I look at it, things have changed dramatically. You and I, we're going to be a team from now on. Share and share alike.”
That seemed all he needed to hear. But a shadow crossed his face for an instant. “Lisa, I wish I could share this moment with my family. I'll always miss them and I'll always regret that I couldn't save them.”
“And I'll always miss the chances you and I lost together…the child we lost But we have new chances now, Matt.”
“Lots of chances.” He tilted her face toward his, his eyes a smoky blue as he gazed at her. “Here's to the future.”
Warmth spread through her, a happiness entirely new. “Our future, my love.”