"Only two, Hunter?" Mattie asked. She looked up from her soup and wondered how she could ever have denied her feelings for this tender teddy-bear man.
"Only two what?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
"Candlelight becomes you, Mattie."
"Candlelight makes you look yummy gorgeous, Hunter, but you still didn't answer my question."
He smiled at her over the rim of his wineglass. "I think I'll start carrying candles in my pockets. Flattery will get you everywhere, princess."
"Hunter!"
He laughed, loving her impatience, loving her interest in him. "Yes. Only two."
"I'm jealous of them both. I hope they had baggy butts and bad breath and warts."
"Only warts."
She toyed with her soup, then finally gave up all pretense of eating. A waiter whisked it away when the spoon was barely out of her hand. She laughed.
"You were right about these waiters, Hunter. That one did almost fall into my soup."
"You know what I've missed most about you, Mattie?"
"My elegant body?"
"Your laughter." He reached across the table and stroked her long fingers. "Nobody in the world laughs like you, full-throated and uninhibited. I used to hear it in my dreams. I'd get out of bed and walk to the window to see if you were standing in Phillip's courtyard. Sometimes I'd imagine I heard it on the street, and I'd follow the sound.
He grinned. "I've chased more strange women down the street that way. Caught a few of them, too. Got me into a heap of trouble. One of them even hit me with her purse and called me a pervert."
Mattie loved it. She loved his humor, his confessions, his sincerity, his honesty. She loved knowing that he, too, had been holding onto a dream. She loved knowing that his lovers had been substitutes, attempts to blot out their summer romance. And she knew it was time for her own confession.
"You know what I've missed most about you, Hunter?"
"My prodigious part?"
They both burst into laughter. It was an old joke between them. Once they'd whiled away a sunny afternoon on the beach thinking of new and bizarre ways to describe each other. Two of their favorites had been her doorway to paradise and his prodigious part. They laughed so hard, they never even noticed the waiter bringing their salad.
"No," she finally said. "Your eyes. Everything you're thinking shows in those black eyes. I used to search other dark eyes, hoping I'd see that gleam of amber yours always had when you were feeling happy or passionate." She smiled. "I was hoping to find that look you have right now."
"Did you, Mattie?"
She ignored the question. "And your voice, Hunter. Sometimes when you speak I feel as if I've been caressed by velvet. In ten years, I could never forget that voice."
Hope soared in him. He held her hand tightly, not speaking, afraid of breaking the fragile trust he could sense growing between them. With the strength of his hand, he communicated his need and his love.
"I tried so hard to hate you," she continued. "And at first I did. But after all the rage had subsided, I knew that you were still a part of me. What we had together— the discovery of first love—could never be forgotten. And so I tried to replace you. I came close with the Russian prince."
She squeezed his hand and drew a deep breath. There was no turning back now. Whatever happened, she was committed to telling the truth. At least a part of it. She still couldn't bring herself to discuss what had happened ten years ago. It was best forgotten. He'd been young, and her mother . . . No, she decided. She just wouldn't think about it. The revenge she'd thought she wanted had somehow been changed to forgiveness. And it felt good. It felt so good that she didn't want to disturb it.
"Hunter?"
"What is it, Mattie?"
"Do you truly love me?"
"I love you more than I ever thought possible. All the things you are have wrapped around my heart and bound me forever. I loved you when you were eighteen, I love you now, and I’ll love you when you're ninety-five." He lifted her hand to his lips. "And I don't ever intend to let you go."
The touch of his lips branded her, and she was his.
"There was never anyone except you," she said quietly.
Hunter felt the shock of her words all the way down to his toes. His hand tightened on hers.
"Mattie?"
"Lord knows I tried. I wanted to fall in love again. And when that didn't work, I even tried to be casual and sophisticated and nonchalant about the whole thing." She laughed. "My reputation far exceeds my exploits. I've climbed out more windows and shinned down more trees than a cat burglar." Her green eyes sparkled at him over the untouched salad. "I love you, Hunter. I don't think I ever stopped."
"Aren’t you hungry, Mattie?"
"Only for you."
He pulled her up with one hand and reached into his pocket with the other. He tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table, then hastened her through the restaurant. He didn't even notice their waiter running along behind them, sputtering and red-faced and astonished.
The waiter caught up with them in the foyer. If it hadn't been such a high-class establishment, he probably would have shouted. But he had been well trained in circumspect behavior. "Sir," he said.
Hunter turned. "The money's on the table. Eat the lobster yourself. Call your girl and share it with her. This is a celebration. Compliments of Hunter Chadwick."
Hunter didn't let go of Mattie's hand even when they got into the car. He held on while he turned the key and still held on as he backed out of the parking space.
"Handy talent to have," he said, smiling at her. "Driving with one hand." They whizzed through the night, wrapped in a cocoon of love.
"Don't ever let go, Hunter," she said. The firm touch of his hand conveyed such strength, such purpose, such promise, that she wanted to feel it always, through her times of sunshine and through her times of darkness.
"I won't, Mattie."
"Even if I forget how much I love you, promise you won't ever let me go."
"I promise." He lifted her hand to his lips. "I don't intend to be away from you long enough for you to forget."
"Remember how it was the first time we loved?"
"Yes. You were scared."
"I was not. You were the one who had goose bumps."
"That's because of what your hands were doing to my prodigious part."
She laughed. "As I recall, you did a few wonderful things yourself."
"I plan to do even better this time around."
"If it's any better, Hunter, you can just cover my body with gardenias and tell everybody I've gone on to paradise."
"I plan to cover your body with more than gardenias." He guided her hand down his flat stomach and into his lap.
As her hand moved, the car swerved perilously near a ditch. Still using only one hand on the wheel, Hunter got them back on the road.
“Did anybody ever tell you that you're a wicked woman?"
The tires squealed as he turned into his driveway.
"Hurry and park the car," she said. "I plan to show you just how wicked I can be."
They ran together across the moonlit yard and into his dark apartment. He stopped inside the door and pulled her into his arms.
"Do you hear something, Mattie?"
She snuggled her head into the wonderful indentation just over his heart. And she knew contentment. "What?"
"I hear the bed. It's calling our names."
Her arms circled his neck as she looked up at him. "I've missed you, sweet teddy-bear man."
"And I've missed you, my beautiful summer jazz woman."
Their kiss was like coming home. It was summer sunshine and soft sea breezes and first love rediscovered. It was jazz and laughter and dreams remembered. And it was more, much, much more. It was love affirmed and promises renewed. It was trust and respect and forgiveness.
Hunter devoured her lips, trying to make up for ten years in one heady moment.
"Do you know how long I've waited for this?" he asked. "How often I've dreamed of this?" He pulled her so close, she felt as if their hearts meshed. "When I think of those wasted years!"
She tangled her hands in his hair. "Forget the empty years. Love me, Hunter."
He lifted her and carried her down the hallway to his bedroom. Even in the dark she could see the gleam in his eyes, that amber gleam that had followed her across an ocean and through a span of lonely years. She wanted to laugh and to cry. But most of all she wanted to be loved by this man.
He kicked the door shut behind them. For a moment he was still, holding her against his thundering heart.
"Forgive me, Mattie, for waiting so long."
He didn't need to say more. That simple statement encompassed all the stubbornness and false pride and guilt and misunderstanding that had separated them.
"I forgive you, Hunter."
She forgave him more than the waiting. She forgave the past, freeing herself to love again.
He let her slide down his body until her feet touched the floor. He still held her so close that his heartbeat felt like her own. They clung to each other in the moonlight, their eyes saying a thousand things.
Suddenly he moved. His hands unbuttoned and unzipped and unhooked. Their clothes fell in a tangled heap at their feet. He carried her to the bed and lowered her into the patch of moonlight that was spilling across the covers.
"You're a dream come true," he said.
She lifted her arms to him. "Lie with me. I'm real."
He knelt beside her, discovering her with his hands. His fingertips glided across her cheekbones, traced her lips, outlined her chin. "I remember your skin. Soft, so soft."
She pressed his hands to her face. "And I remember your hands, the gentleness, the strength. Your touch makes me feel safe, Hunter."
He lay down beside her, pulling her into his arms, smoothing her fire-and-sunshine hair. He rocked her against his body, feeling the way they fit together, custom-made for each other, loving how she responded to his touch, reveling in her long legs wrapping around his, trim and silken and parted.
"Always, 1 remembered how that felt," she whispered.
"Do you remember this, Mattie?" He kissed her in all her secret places. “And this?” He joined them with a tender certainty that was like coming home.
He was her first love, her only love. It had been ten years and it had been only yesterday. His touch was as familiar and cherished as a favorite childhood toy. And yet it was new. Exciting. And almost unbearably erotic.
The pattern of moonlight moved down the bed as Hunter and Mattie renewed their love. When it had settled around their feet, their cries of fulfillment shattered the stillness.
She lay slack across his chest, her hair covering his cheek, her legs tangled with his.
He kissed her damp forehead. "Delicious."
She caressed his face. "Remarkable."
"Stupendous."
"Yummy."
"Mind-boggling."
"Magic."
He laughed. "A Hunter Chadwick super-special."
She reached down and pinched his backside. "Has anybody ever told you that you're the most arrogant man in Texas?"
"But you love it, don't you, Mattie?"
"Yes." She nuzzled his neck. "I don't think we can ever make up for all those lost years."
He held her close. "We have the rest of our lives, Mattie."
She raised herself on her elbows and grinned down at him. "I was thinking more in terms of tonight."
"You were, were you?"
"Yes."
"I think I can manage that." He moved his hips, and the magic started all over again. It lasted until the first rosy blush of dawn began to pink the sky, and finally they slept.
o0o
When they woke up, it was raining. Fat droplets splatted against the windows and hammered on the roof. The sky, the lake, even the bedroom, had turned a gloomy gunmetal gray.
The gloom didn't daunt the lovers, though. Love was their sunshine. Hunter snuggled Mattie, spoon fashion, against his body. "How about a picnic on the beach?" he asked.
"In this rain? Are you crazy?"
"No. Just a little passionate."
"How little?"
He guided her hand. "That little."
"That's not little. That's shocking."
"Then, Mattie, I suggest you do something about it before it gets out of hand." And she did.
o0o
Much later Mattie was chin-deep in bubbles when Hunter banged on the bathroom door.
"Quick. Get your swimsuit. We're going to the beach."
"Is the sun shining?"
He opened the door and grinned at her. "Who needs sunshine when I'm around? Hurry, Mattie, or I'll be forced to get into the tub and burst a few of those bubbles."
She scooped up a handful of bubbles and blew them at him. "You're invited."
"Good Lord, woman. I'm a mere man, not Superman."
"Chicken."
He plunged through the door, stripping as he walked. "Never let it be said that Hunter Chadwick backed down from a challenge."
Bubbles spilled over the edge of the tub as he climbed into the water. Mattie wrapped her soapy arms around him and began nibbling his neck.
"Hmmm. Yummy," she said.
He laughed. "The wonderful thing about women too long deprived is their insatiability."
Her head snapped back. "Why, you—"
He stopped her words with his mouth. By the time they finally got out of the tub, all the bubbles had disappeared and the water had turned cold.
Hunter wrapped them in huge towels and carried Mattie back to the bedroom.
"Picnic-on-the-beach time, Mattie. Get into your swimsuit."
She glanced toward the window. "It's still raining, Hunter."
He set her on her feet and swatted her bottom. "No, it's not. The sun's shining, the waves are lapping against the shore, and the coconut trees are swaying."
"Coconut trees? In Dallas?" She put a hand on his brow. "Do you have a fever? I think lack of sleep has affected your brain."
"It affected parts of me, but not my brain. Put on your swimsuit." He unknotted her towel and dropped it to the floor. The amber light gleamed in his eyes as he raked her from head to toe. "On the other hand, we could forget about the coconuts." He dropped his towel.
"Look who was just talking about deprivation. Put on your swimsuit." She crossed the room and stepped into a swimsuit that was so sexy, it could have started a revolution. "Lead me to the coconut trees, Hunter."
He didn't move.
"Hunter?"
He lifted his gaze to her face. "If ten years can make you that much more beautiful, you'll be too much for a man to bear by the time you're forty-eight."
She walked over to him and looked deep into his remarkable black eyes. "Have I told you today how much I love you?"
"I never get tired of hearing it."
"I love you, Hunter Chadwick."
"Don't ever forget that, Mattie."
"I promise."
He lowered his head and took her lips. The kiss was as light as summer rain and as tender as the first daffodils of spring. When it was over, he put on his swimsuit and led her to the den.
Cardboard trees with crepe paper branches bent under their burden of real coconuts, attached with wire.
A giant sunlamp gleamed through a yellow umbrella. A small child's pail, filled with sand, stood on the floor beside two striped red and yellow towels. A wicker picnic hamper rested under the umbrella sun.
"The beach, princess."
"You did all this, Hunter?"
"Yes. Just for you."
"Why? We could have had a picnic in the kitchen."
"As I recall, some of our best conversations took place on the beach." He pulled her down onto the towels. "It's time to talk, Mattie."
"I'd rather just stay here forever, loving and laughing and forgetting. Especially forgetting."
"We have to face the truth. We've already partially bared our souls. Let's not stop now."
She picked up a handful of sand and let it drizzle through her fingers. "I've forgiven you for what happened. Isn't that enough?"
He wanted to explode. He wanted to bash his fist onto the floor and shout, "Nothing happened!" But if the last few days had taught him anything, they had taught him the damning effect of words spoken in haste. He reined in his impatience.
"A relationship must be built on trust," he said. "Complete trust." He took her hand out of the child's pail and wiped off the sand. "Look at me, Mattie." She lifted her eyes to his face. "Let's talk about what happened. Let's put the past to rest."
Her eyes widened. "I don't know why you'd want to talk about something that treacherous." His hand tightened on hers, and a small muscle twitched in his clenched jaw. "Please, Hunter!" She leaned her face against his shoulder. "I love you, and I've put the past behind by forgetting it. It's not important anymore. Can't you let it go at that?"
He held her fiercely against his chest. "I'll take you, Mattie, any way I can get you."
They clung together, afraid to let go, afraid that breaking the contact would sever the fragile trust that bound them. The rain assaulted the windows and a deepening gloom penetrated the room, but Hunter and Mattie sat under their false sun and held on to their false hopes. They talked of her extending her stay in Dallas long enough for a wedding. They talked of going back to Paris together, a combined honeymoon and settling of her affairs. They talked of making Dallas their permanent home and keeping her Paris apartment. They discussed how they would juggle two careers and a family. They both wanted children, lots of them.
But the niggling doubts Hunter's questions had raised, stayed in the back of their minds. Mattie wondered if a part of her would always mistrust him because of what had happened ten years ago, and Hunter wondered how he could accept her terms. He didn't like the idea of being forgiven for something he hadn't done. What was worse, he didn't even know what the hell she had hated him for.
Their initial joyous exuberance was missing as they finished the weekend at his condominium. Their laughter was restrained, and their lovemaking had a desperate edge to it, as if they were trying to store away something precious that might be snatched from them.
By the time they started back to Dallas, Mattie knew she'd eventually have to face the truth and that Hunter was determined to find it.
o0o
Uncle Mickey had spiffed himself up just to walk through the hedge to Phillip's house. He didn't try to fool himself. Ever since his talk with Hunter, he'd been thinking about Janet Cleary, about all the love they'd had, about all the lonesome years without her. He'd finally decided that it might not be too late, after all. If he was still spry enough to climb in and out of a toy box, surely he was spry enough to climb in and out of Janet's bed.
The thought made him quicken his step. He punched the bell, then straightened his tie. No need for Janet to see him looking rumpled.
The door swung open. "Let me take your umbrella," Janet said. Her manner was stiff, formal. "Mr. Houston's expecting you."
"He can wait. I want to talk to you."
"About what?" Only a small trembling of her lips betrayed Janet's turmoil.
"Us."
"That was over a long time ago."
Mickey took her hand and lifted it to his lips. "It was never over for me, Janet. I've been a fool to wait this long to tell you."
Janet patted her severe bun with her free hand. "Just look at me. I must be a fright, all starchy and dried-up and old." Her eyes were stricken. "I'm old, Mickey."
"You're beautiful." He touched her face. "And I still want you as much as I did twenty years ago. Have dinner with me tonight, Janet."
"I shouldn't."
"Why?"
"My life is ordered, Mickey. Dull, but pleasant. Having dinner with you won't change what I am—a wrinkled old woman who let life pass her by."
Mickey's eyes twinkled. "Don't you know I'm a wizard? I create kings and kingdoms. I make dragons that breathe fire and men that fly. Have dinner with me and I’ll make you young again. I’ll make both of us young again."
"Well..."
"Say yes. I'm getting older by the minute."
Janet Cleary laughed. It was a young laugh, gay and uninhibited, and surprising, coming from such a drawn, tired mouth. "Yes."
"Get ready to be fept off your sweet, woman. I’ll pick you up at seven."
They were both laughing as she escorted him to Phillip's study, then turned back to her duties.
o0o
"I hope that laughter means what I think it means," Phillip said to Mickey.
"It does. I'm taking Janet out."
"High time. Sit down. We have something serious to discuss. Damned serious."
"It must be, to call me away from my afternoon martoonie. And in this rain, to boot."
"Martini, hell." Phillip stood up and performed a series of karate kicks. "You'd do well to leave the martinis and work out with me. Did you see that form? That body control? That muscle tone?" He chuckled. "It might come in handy when you get Janet between the sheets."
Mickey laughed. "You're a horny old coot."
"That's right. Meddlesome, too." Phillip sat back down and propped his elbows on the arms of his chair. "Mattie called me from Hunter's condo. It seems that nephew of yours kidnapped her. She didn't sound too unhappy about it."
"My boy’s brilliant.”
"He came to see me not long ago. Asked if I knew why Mattie returned his ring ten years ago."
"He asked me the same thing."
"It got me to thinking. Yesterday after the matinee I suddenly remembered an envelope Victoria had given me that summer. She told me it contained pictures that we should keep from William. She knew I was aware of her tawdry affairs. She also knew I'd do anything to spare my son the shame. So I entered into a conspiracy with that witch. Put the envelope into the safe without ever looking inside. I didn't want to know what it contained—until yesterday." He handed Mickey a large manila envelope. "Take a look at that."
Mickey pulled three black-and-white glossy photographs from the envelope. Angry red patches mottled his face as he looked at the pictures. The first one showed Victoria stepping into a hot tub—Hunter's hot tub—and a tall, dark-haired man embracing her from behind. In the next picture she was sitting in the tub, her hands pinned behind her on the tiled rim, and the man was kissing her. Not just a man, but Hunter. Even though the pictures were fuzzy and taken from a distance, there was no mistaking that profile.
In the third picture, her torn swimsuit was in the foreground, and Hunter lay atop her in the tub. Again, his profile was plainly visible. Or was it Hunter's profile? Mickey wondered. He leaned down for a closer look. Something was not quite right. It was the hair. Even after a thorough brushing, Hunter's hair had never been that tame.
He tossed the pictures onto a marble-topped coffee table. 'That's not Hunter."
"You're sure?"
"Damned right! Number one, the hair's not right. Number two, Hunter would never do anything as despicable as seducing the mother of the woman he loved."
"Looks more like rape to me."
Mickey half rose from his chair. "We've been friends all these years and you say that about my nephew!"
"Sit down, Mickey. I didn't say I thought it was your nephew. At first I did. I went into such a rage that I kicked a two-thousand-dollar Chinese porcelain vase down the stairs. Broke it all to hell and back."
"I never did like that vase."
"Neither did I." Phillip picked up the pictures and stuffed them back into the envelope. "Then I got to thinking." He tapped the envelope. “This is out of character for Hunter—but exactly the kind of scheme that vicious woman would devise. She had the soul of a rattlesnake."
"I always felt sorry for her. It was sad to see a woman who had everything and didn't know it."
"Don't waste your sympathy. She was a slut. I never knew why William shut his eyes to the truth." Phillip gazed off into space. "Mattie's like her father in that way."
"When the truth is too hard to live with, people create fantasies."
Phillip shot his friend an appreciative look. "What are we going to do about these damned pictures?"
Mickey didn't hesitate. "Show Hunter. Obviously Victoria used them to break up her daughter's romance. Though I can't for the life of me imagine why."
"I can. Mattie was competition. She had youth and beauty—two things Victoria was losing."
"Hunter has to know. Otherwise he’ll spend the rest of his life paying for a crime he didn't commit."
"You're right. Take them." Phillip handed the envelope to Mickey. "I hope we're doing the right thing."
o0o
The pictures made Hunter sick with rage. He kicked a chair. It sailed across the room and smashed into the fireplace grate. "If she weren't dead already, I'd wring her neck."
Mickey watched silently as his nephew vented his anger.
"Ten years! Ten years wasted because of her." He swept his hand across his desk top, sending papers flying in every direction. "No wonder Mattie hated me."
Suddenly he slumped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. "Oh, God! Mattie! How cam I tell her?"
"You have to, Hunter." Uncle Mickey was the voice of sanity in the midst of madness. "If you gloss it over, pretend it never happened, it’ll fester between you and eventually destroy your love."
Hunter looked up. His face was haggard. "She says she's forgiven me."
"For what? You didn't do anything."
The blackness of despair was in Hunter's eyes as he pondered his dilemma. Mattie would be hurt again. She'd lived with the false knowledge of his guilt, and now she had to face the truth of her mother's guilt. No wonder she kept backing away from the past. Could he burn the pictures and forget about them? Could he and Mattie still have a good marriage? He knew the answer. No. His guilt was a lie, and a marriage based on a lie would never survive.
His hand clenched around the damning pictures as he stood up. "Pray that I can do this without losing Mattie."
Hunter didn't waste any time. He walked straight out of his house and through the hedge. A light was beaming down from the music room. He looked up. Mattie was silhouetted at the piano. He felt as if an iceberg were pressing against his heart.
"Let our love be strong enough to survive this," he said as he strode across the courtyard. Nobody heard except the crickets.
o0o
Phillip answered the door. His sharp old eyes didn't miss the lines of tension around Hunter's mouth, the envelope in his hand. "I'm sorry about all this, son. Maybe it would be best if we just put the pictures back in the safe and pretended I never took them out."
"No. The truth has to be told. The air has to be cleared between us once and for all."
Phillip nodded. "She's upstairs practicing. Be gentle."
"I will. I love her."
Hunter took the stairs two at a time. He heard her long before he reached the room. The music was bold and sultry and beautiful—like the woman who was playing it. He stood in the hallway for a moment, letting the music seep into his soul. Then he walked through the door and straight to Mattie.
"I could listen to your music forever," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. "And I plan to."
"Hunter!" She swiveled around and hugged him. "I didn't hear you come in." She made room for him on the piano bench. "I didn't expect to see you again until tomorrow. ML day."
"What's ML?"
"Marriage license." She laughed, and Hunter thought it was a sound that rivaled her music. "Don't tell me you've changed your mind."
He caught her against his chest in a desperate embrace. "Never. I never intend to let you go, Mattie."
She rubbed her cheek against his shirt. "Hmmm. You smell wonderful. Like summer wind." She popped open his top button and nibbled. "I think I’ll eat you."
Hunter wrestled with his control. He wanted to lower her to the floor and bury himself in her soft flesh in blissful forgetfulness. But the envelope in his hand was a vivid reminder of what he had to do. "Phillip's downstairs," he said.
"We’ll lock the door."
"Mattie."
Something in his voice made her look up. All the demons of hell seemed to be gazing out of his eyes. The taste of fear rose in her throat. She gripped his shoulders so hard, her fingernails bit into his flesh. Not now. Not when everything's going so well. Please, God, don't let anything else happen to us.
Time was suspended as they looked into each other's eyes. The minutes dragged by in raging silence. Everything was magnified. The lines around Hunter's mouth. The beads of sweat on Mattie’s upper lip. The pulse hammering in his throat. The whiteness of her knuckles.
She closed her eyes for an instant and drew in a long breath. She wouldn't let anything happen. Slowly she relaxed her grip. The toss of her head and the gay lilt of her voice camouflaged her fear.
"I'm not accustomed to being turned down. Don't tell me you're already tired of me."
"We have to talk." He stood up, lifting her with him, and moved toward the sofa.
For the first time Mattie noticed the envelope, Victoria's bold scrawl in red ink across the left-hand corner. She felt as if she were falling into a dark hole.
"No."
Her whisper ripped at Hunter's gut. Gently he pulled her down beside him. "I've seen the pictures, Mattie."
"How?" Her fingernails bit into his arm.
"They were in Phillip's safe. All these years, he thought he was protecting your father by keeping them. It wasn't until after my visit a while ago that he looked to see what they were."
She pounded his chest with her fists. "You had no right. No right!"
He caught her wrists. "I'm not the man in the pictures, Mattie."
A sob caught in her throat. "Damn you, Hunter. I had forgiven you."
He pulled her, stiff and unyielding, into his arms. "I wish there were an easy way to say this, Mattie. I wish I could spare you this hurt."
"Shut up." Her voice was muffled against his shirt. "I don't want to hear anymore."
"You have to, Mattie. We can't go into a marriage with this terrible misunderstanding between us." He gentled her with his hands, smoothing her hair, caressing her back. "I love you, Mattie. Well get through this together. Look at me."
She lifted her head. Her eyes were wide and frightened. And something else. She looked lost, as if she were a little girl who had suddenly been deprived of everything she held dear. He bit back a curse. She needed his strength, not his anger.
"I don't know what your mother told you. I don't want to know. But I did nothing wrong, Mattie. I was never alone with her. I never touched her."
"Stop it!" she screamed. "My mother loved me. She would never make up a thing like that."
"Of course she loved you. The pictures don't deny that. They are merely evidence of a warped mind, a sickness." He groped for the right words, hoping that instinct and love would guide him.
Mattie jerked herself free and stood up. "It's a lie. She didn't make it up. She wouldn't." White and shaking, she lifted her hand and smashed it into Hunter's face. "You raped her. And then you tried to blackmail her with those filthy pictures." She stormed across the room and picked up a vase. With all the strength of her rage, she hurled it across the room. It missed Hunter's head by a good three feet and shattered beside the sofa.
He was on his feet, striding toward her. "Mattie. Stop it. I won't let you do this to yourself."
"Get out! Get out! I never want to see you again as long as I live."
He caught her arm. "I'm not going to leave you like this."
"If you don't get your hands off me, I’ll make you sorry you ever heard the name Mattie Houston."
"Mattie. Don't do this to us."
"Us? Us!" Her voice was hoarse from shouting. "You destroyed us with those pictures!" She hauled against his iron grip. "Let me go."
"No, dammit."
Mattie was not Phillip Houston's granddaughter for nothing. Her leg shot out in a snap kick to the groin. As Hunter doubled over she ran to the sofa, grabbed the envelope, and flew out the door. By that time she was crying so hard, she could barely see.
"I hate you. I hate all of you." She ran down the hallway and into the blessed emptiness of her bedroom. She slammed and locked her door, then fell across the bed. Each sob was torn from the depths of a bruised and battered spirit. She thought she might never be whole again.
o0o
The noise of their battle had roused Phillip from his study. Grim-faced, he stood at the foot of the stairs and watched Mattie's flight to her bedroom.
"I knew there'd be the devil to pay for this," he muttered.
He waited for Hunter to come out of the music room. The minutes ticked by. Nothing happened. The silence made his skin crawl.
"Aunt Beulah's drawers. What's going on?"
He hurried up the stairs and banged on Mattie's door. "Mattie! Mattie!"
"Leave me alone, Papa."
He stood uncertainly in the hall, then marched into the music room. Hunter was still on the floor, groaning. And another two-thousand-dollar vase had been smashed, the twin to the one he'd broken earlier.
"Dammit, boy. What happened?"
"She kicked me." Hunter attempted to straighten up, and failed. "Where in the hell did she learn that?"
Phillip stifled a proud grin. "From me. I thought a little karate might come in handy. I see it did."
Hunter finally managed to sit up. He grimaced. "Couldn't you have taught her something else, like a nice kick in the shins?"
"She's got that killer's instinct. Just like me." He squatted beside Hunter and patted his arm. "Take it easy, boy. It'll be all right in a minute."
"I don't think I’ll ever be the same. She's probably ruined our family."
Phillip chuckled. "It'll feel that way for a while. What happened in here, anyway?"
"I told her the truth. She took it harder than I thought she would."
"Mattie's like William. He never wanted to face an unpleasant truth. But she's tougher than he was. More like her grandmother. And me. She’ll come around eventually. She's in her bedroom, having second thoughts right now, I’ll vow."
"It took her ten years to forgive me. I don't plan to wait another ten. I'm going to resolve this matter tonight, even if I have to break down her door to do it." He stood up with the intention of carrying out his plan, but he was shaky on his feet, and the pain in his groin commanded his full attention. "Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow."
"Good idea. Let her sleep on it. Things always look better in the broad light of day." Phillip spoke with more confidence than he felt. He knew his granddaughter. She was stubborn. He looked up at Hunter's ashen face. "You need an escort home, boy?"
"I’ll make it." Hunter walked slowly and painfully from the room.
After he'd gone, Phillip remained, trying to believe that everything would be all right. His rationale was that Hunter and Mattie loved each other too much to let another misunderstanding come between them. It made him feel better, but not a whole lot. He had the uneasy feeling that he and Mickey had meddled.
The broken pieces of the Chinese vase caught his eye. He walked over to them and gave one a vicious kick. "Never did like those damned vases, anyhow."