Rick Powell stormed into his younger brother’s corner office slightly more than two weeks later, on the second day of January.
“All right,” he said without preamble, slamming the office door and marching over to Matt’s paper-strewn desk. “I kept my mouth shut during the holidays because I figured you were getting all the hassle about your private life you could handle from other people. But it’s a brand new year and I’m through being considerate. So answer me this and answer it now. What the hell is going on between you and Annie?”
Matt finished downloading a file before he glanced up from his computer screen. “Nothing,” he said quietly.
“Oh, right.” The retort was scathingly sarcastic. “That’s why she ran off to Washington to visit Zoe and why you’ve been moping around Atlanta like somebody shot your favorite dog!”
Matt took a deep breath, held it for a few steadying seconds, then released it in a long, hissing sigh. “I didn’t say there’s never been anything between us,” he acknowledged in a carefully controlled voice. “You asked about the present.”
“I saw you together at Thanksgiving, little brother,” Rick countered, his tone intense, his features taut. “We could have incinerated a twenty-pound turkey with the heat you two were giving off!”
“Temperatures cool. Things change.”
His older sibling dismissed these assertions with a barnyard obscenity.
Matt averted his gaze. He’d seen this confrontation coming, of course. And although part of him had dreaded it, another part had recognized that he desperately needed to talk to someone. Unfortunately, the macho code of suffering in silence was damned hard to break.
Except with Annie. He’d spilled his guts to her more times than he could count during the past three decades. But she was off limits as a confidante now, in every possible sense.
“What does your wife have to say?” he asked after a few moments, forcing himself to meet his brother’s questioning eyes once again.
“Eden?” Rick pulled a face. “Not much.”
Matt lifted his brows, a sense of alarm prickling up his spine. The last thing he wanted to hear was that his brother and sister-in-law were having marital problems. “The two of you aren’t talking?”
“Not about you and Annie.” Rick grimaced a second time and raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know whether it’s because I’m your brother and she doesn’t want me to get caught in the emotional cross fire or whether she’s locked into some kind of all-men-are-slime mode and doesn’t want to discuss the situation with me on principle. Whatever the case, my wife and I are experiencing a temporary failure to communicate.”
There was a pause.
“I’m...sorry,” Matt finally said.
Rick gestured the expression of sympathy aside with a brusque wave as he stepped back and sat down in the chair in front of Matt’s desk.
“Forget it,” he replied. “Just fill me in on your version of what’s wrong. I figure Eden’s already had an earful directly from Annie—or secondhand from Zoe. When she finally decides to open up, which she eventually will, I want to be ready to defend you.”
Matt had to smile. “I appreciate the loyalty, big brother.”
“And I appreciate being appreciated. Now tell me what happened.”
Another pause. Then, “Did you and Annie develop some kind of trouble in bed?” Rick asked with sledgehammer directness.
“Wh-what?” Matt could barely get the question out. Of all the explanations his brother could have picked—trouble in bed?
“Look, I know sexual problems can be tough to talk about,” Rick forged on, seemingly oblivious to the shocked reaction his inquiry had provoked. “But I promise you, Matt, opening up helps. Remember a couple of years back when the fertility specialists were putting me through all those tests because Eden wasn’t getting pregnant? Do you think it was easy for me to tell you my sperm count came back way below average? Or that what few sperm I have apparently won’t move unless you poke ‘em with a cattle prod? Hell, no! The truth stuck in my craw. I was afraid you’d start thinking of me as less than a man if you knew. But once I finally found the guts to share—”
“Dammit, Rick!” Matt exploded. “Sex isn’t what split Annie and me up!”
The silence that followed this outburst wasn’t so much another pause in the conversation as a full-scale break.
“Uh, it wasn’t?” Rick eventually responded, easing back in his chair.
“No,” Matt said, his tone considerably more moderate than it had been. He swallowed hard, recalling his last encounter with Annie. The accusation of sexual blackmail he’d made echoed through his mind with cruel clarity. “At least, not the way you mean.”
“I don’t understand.”
Matt shifted uncomfortably, reluctant to reveal the ugliness that had prompted his caveat. “Let’s just say our love life was terrific as long as it lasted,” he declared, then shifted a second time as his memory skipped further back along the time line of his relationship with Annie. Again, memory goaded him into offering a qualification. “And...once I got over a few hang-ups.”
“Hang-ups?” Rick went after the word like a bird dog on point.
“I had some...difficulty dealing with Annie’s, uh, experience.”
“You brought up her past?”
Matt stiffened, stung by his older bother’s righteously outraged tone. Instinct told him to attack and he did. “Tell me you never had problems knowing there were men in Eden’s life before she met you,” he challenged. “Come on. Tell me!”
Rick remained silent for several seconds then exhaled on a heavy sigh. “I can’t,” he admitted ruefully.
“Then where the hell do you get off judging me?”
“Hey, just because I’ve occasionally acted like a jealous jerk doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to hope my kid bother will avoid the same behavior.”
Matt took a moment or two to digest this. “Oh,” he finally replied, wishing he’d tempered his previous reaction just a tad. He gestured. “Well...I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’ll survive.” Rick thrust his fingers back through hair again. “I gather you got over it.”
“Huh?”
“The jealous jerkiness.”
“Oh, yeah.” Matt nodded, remembering the morning-after episode in Annie’s kitchen. Including the interlude involving the front of her refrigerator. “We...talked it through.”
“So what about now? I mean, why can’t you two talk through whatever it is that’s got you going in opposite directions? If you can handle that old green-eyed monster—”
“Now is different, Rick.”
“How?”
Matt hesitated, then opted for the truth. He figured he was going to end up telling it sooner or later. He might as well spare himself the pain and strain of trying to avoid the inevitable. “She wants to get married.”
“Annie?”
Until that instant Matt had harbored a sneaking suspicion that his brother might be less ignorant about his breakup than he claimed. No more. The shock in Rick’s voice couldn’t have been feigned.
“Yes,” he flatly confirmed.
“Annie Martin—Ms. Single and Satisfied—wants to get married?”
“Yes,” he repeated.
“To...you?”
Matt went rigid. He glared, not trusting himself to respond.
“Sorry,” Rick apologized after several awkward seconds. He squirmed around in his chair, his eyes narrowing assessingly. “I, uh, take it you, uh, don’t? What to get married to Annie, that is.”
“It wouldn’t work,” Matt stated, sidestepping the question.
“Why not?”
“It just wouldn’t.”
His brother regarded him in frowning silence for what seemed like a very long time. A split second before Matt opened his mouth to demand to know exactly what it was he thought he was looking at, Rick spoke.
“Annie’s not Lisa, Matt,” he said quietly.
Something inside Matt snapped. “Don’t you think I realize that?” he countered harshly, slamming his suddenly fisted right hand down on his desk. “God Almighty! I could spend days—weeks!—listing the differences between them! But why should I? I don’t want Annie to be Lisa. I’ve never wanted her to be Lisa! Lisa is gone!”
“And you’re looking to replace her?”
“Yes!” Matt exclaimed furiously, then shook his head as he realized what he’d said. “I mean, no!” he contradicted, then shook his head again. “I mean—oh dammit to hell! I don’t know what I mean anymore!”
He slumped in his chair, his chin against his chest, his eyes half closed. At least thirty seconds ticked by.
“Look, Matt—”
He straightened at the sound of his name, lifting his gaze to meet Rick’s once again.
“No, you look,” he said determinedly, overriding his brother’s attempt to speak. “It’s no secret that I came pretty close to going over the edge after Lisa died. I...idealized...her. And our marriage. But lately—well, I’ve had to face up to the fact that things weren’t as perfect as I thought. That there were aspects to Lisa’s character I’d never considered. Didn’t even know about! Which isn’t to say she wasn’t a wonderful wife. Or that the years we had together weren’t damned good. It’s just that...that...”
“You’ve finally wised up to the reality that Lisa played you like a fiddle from day one.”
Matt stared, temporarily unable to speak. While he couldn’t dispute the fundamental accuracy of his brother’s summation, he shied instinctively from the bluntness of its phrasing.
“I’m not trying to smear her memory,” Rick added quickly. “Lisa was a terrific girl. And I know she made you very happy. Even so...she did have an uncanny knack for getting her own way.”
It took Matt nearly a minute to come to terms with the implications of his brother’s last statement. “Am I the only one who didn’t realize that?” he asked once he had.
“Does it matter?”
Matt considered. “No,” he replied slowly. “Not...really. But if everybody knew, why didn’t anyone say anything? Why didn’t you?”
“Because it was obvious you were happy with Lisa and she was happy with you.” The answer was quick and unequivocal. “If you knew how she operated and didn’t mind, who was I to stir things up? And if you didn’t know...well, why mess with emotional success?”
“Ignorance is bliss?”
“On occasion, yeah.” Rick’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “And a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart. Which brings me back to my initial question. What the hell is going on between you and Annie?”
“I’ve told you.”
“She wants to get married and you don’t.”
“It wouldn’t work.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Matt hesitated, searching for a way to articulate his reservations. “You knew Eden was the one for you from the very beginning, didn’t you?” he asked after a few moments.
“Yeah.” Rick nodded. “Pretty much.”
“And Dad knew about Mom right away, too. I mean, he proposed to her on the first date—right?”
Another nod, accompanied by a slight furrowing of the forehead. “According to family legend.”
“Well, I fell for Lisa as soon as I laid eyes on her. I mean, I didn’t even know her name. But it was like...like...”
“Getting struck by a bolt of lightning.” There was an odd edge to Rick’s voice.
“Exactly.”
“So?”
“So—” Matt spread his hands, palms up “—Annie Martin was a part of my life for more than thirty years before I even registered she was female!”
Rick’s brows veed together in a sudden frown. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Wait just a minute! Are you—jeez, Matt! Are you trying to tell me you decided you and Annie didn’t have what it takes for marriage because your feelings about her snuck up on you over time instead of smacking you between the eyeballs at the get-go?”
Matt opened his mouth to answer, then closed it without uttering a word as his mind replayed his brother’s question. How could a line of reasoning that had seemed indisputable be summarized to sound so...so stupid? he wondered.
“You don’t understand, he finally declared. Even to his own ears, the assertion sounded defensive.
“Then explain it to me.” The response was as swift as a ricochet.
“Rick—”
“Let’s forget the fact that you apparently were real slow on the uptake about Annie’s gender,” his brother cut in. “You think she’s a pretty special lady, don’t you?”
“She’s...one of a kind.”
“Unique.”
Matt’s throat knotted. He swallowed, hard, several times. “Yes.”
“Okay.” Rick leaned forward, his expression intent. “Answer me this, little brother. Why do you expect the feelings she inspires in you to be anything less?”
“Wh-what?”
“You said a while back you know Annie’s not another Lisa. That you don’t want her to be.”
“I don’t!” The words were from the heart. “I never did!”
“Fine. Then why are you stuck on the notion that unless the pattern of your relationship with her matches the pattern of the relationship you had with Lisa, it’s doomed to failure?”
Matt stared at his brother, stunned. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He very nearly couldn’t think.
Then something deep within him seemed to shift. He felt it to the marrow of his bones—to the chromosomal strands of his DNA. It was as though he was being remade in the profoundest of ways at the most basic of levels.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Oh...my God.”
“Love is a crapshoot, Matt,” Rick went on evenly. “Even with lightning bolts, there are no guarantees you’re going to get a happily-ever-after. Now, maybe you and Annie don’t have what it takes for two people to make it together, long term. Although based on what I saw at Thanksgiving, I’d bet the farm you do. Still, if you don’t give it a try, you’re never going to know. You didn’t have any control over losing Lisa. But when it comes to losing Annie—well, it’s your call.”
There was a long pause. The difference between it and the ones that had come before was indescribable.
“Do you know when she’s coming back from D.C.?” Matt asked at last, his voice not entirely steady.
Rick smiled and winked. “No. But I’m intimately acquainted with someone who can definitely find out.”
* * *
Annie returned to Atlanta in slightly better spirits than she’d left it. Although she knew she’d never feel good about her breakup with Matt, the two weeks she’d spent with Zoe had strengthened her conviction that she’d done the right thing. Yes, the cost of being true to herself had been a terrible one. But the price of self-betrayal would have been worse.
And yet...
She missed Matt. All the time. In every possible way.
“Keep the change,” she told the cabbie who’d brought her home from Hartsfield International Airport. There’d been times during the ride when she’d wondered whether the man might be related to Rudi from Rio Bravo. He’d started yakking the moment she’d gotten into his bright yellow taxi and he hadn’t stopped until he’d pulled up in front of her Buckhead condo. In addition to having an opinion on just about everything under the sun—and no apparent reluctance about expressing his point of view—the man seemed to possess the ability to speak and draw breath at the same time.
Not that she’d minded his nonstop chatter. In point of fact, she’d been grateful for it. Better to be distracted by someone’s babble than left alone with her own achingly lonely thoughts.
“You want a receipt?” the cabbie asked, riffling through the bills she’d just handed him.
“No, thanks.” Gathering her luggage, she prepared to exit the taxi. She was stopped by an imperative-sounding exclamation.
“Hey, wait!” the driver said. “Lemme give you my business card, okay? That way, the next time you need a cab, you can call the dispatcher and ask for me. You’re the kind of passenger I like. A real pleasure to talk with.”
Controlling the urge to suggest that his choice of preposition was a trifle off the mark, Annie accepted the small cardboard rectangle she was being offered.
“Thanks,” she said with a fleeting smile, then swung open the cab door and stepped out into the chilled air of a fastapproaching twilight.
She’d call her parents after she’d unpacked, she decided as she walked toward her front door. Although she’d pretty much soothed their upset over her abrupt departure for D.C., she knew a post-holiday demonstration of daughterly devotion couldn’t hurt. And once she’d spoken with them, she might take a few moments to phone Eden. Not to find out about Matt or anything like that. Oh, no. Simply to alert her friend that she was safely back at home. It was the least she could do, given the great interest Eden had shown in determining exactly when she intended to return.
She’d speculated about Eden’s inquiries about the specifics of her itinerary on the flight from Washington, wondering whether they might stem from something other than a friend’s natural curiosity about another friend’s travel plans. The possibility that Eden might have been asking on Matt’s behalf had badly unsettled her.
She’d done the best she could to dismiss the idea from her mind, telling herself over and over that Eden would never, ever, be a party to setting her up for an emotional ambush. Even so, once she’d deplaned she’d found herself very carefully scanning the crowd gathered at the arrival gate. And when she’d finally conceded to herself that there was no one on hand to welcome her back, she’d experienced an awful sense of—
“What the heck?” Annie exclaimed, coming to a halt. The luggage she was toting slipped from her grasp.
There was a large rectangular box propped against her front door. The box was imprinted with the logo of one of Atlanta’s most elegant dress shops. It was also banded with silver satin ribbon and embellished with a matching bow.
Tucked beneath the bow was a white envelope. The envelope bore her full name, lettered in bold but disciplined strokes of jet black ink.
Annie stared at the envelope for a long time before she finally leaned down and pulled it out from under the box. Her hand was trembling. Her heart was hammering. She felt a little dizzy.
She unsealed the envelope and folded back the flap. There appeared to be some kind of greeting card inside. After a moment, she slid it out.
On the front of the card was a black-and-white photograph of an urbanely smiling Fred Astaire. He was wearing a top hat and tails. He defined the word “sophisticated” better than any dictionary ever could.
She opened the card. Inside was a message written in the same distinctive hand that had penned her name on the envelope.
Aspiring Astaire sincerely seeks a second chance at a permanent partnership. R.S.V.P., seven o’clock this evening.
The note specified the address of the church where she and Matt had once taken dancing lessons. Intrigued, she read on.
Appropriate attire respectfully requested—and conveniently supplied.
Strangely, it was the last three words that did the most to undermine Annie’s control. Their teasing wit exemplified the bantering tone that she and her best buddy had used with each other for most of their lives.
“Matt,” she whispered, torn between hopeful laughter and heartfelt tears. “Oh, Matt...”
* * *
Matt glanced at the clock on the church basement wall for the tenth time in half as many minutes. The digital readout proclaimed the time to be 6:43 p.m.
What if she doesn’t come? he asked himself, giving the volume knob on his portable compact disc player a tweak. Dear God in Heaven. What if she doesn’t come?
“She will,” he said aloud. “She has to.”
But even as he uttered the words, he knew they weren’t true. Hannah Elaine Martin didn’t “have” to do anything. Particularly not where he was concerned.
Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his black dress trousers, Matt began pacing around the space in which he had chosen to make his plea to the woman he now knew he loved with the “ever-after” intensity he’d once thought had to be signalled by lightning bolts of emotion. The heels of his shoes clicked against the linoleum-covered floor with each step he took.
The curling tail of a crepe paper streamer stroked his cheek. He checked himself in midstride, assessing his surroundings with an escalating sense of dismay. The decorations—the streamers, the helium-filled balloons, the Oriental-style paper lanterns—had seemed like such a good idea earlier. Ditto, the made-for-dancing mood music the CD player was programmed to switch on at 7:00 p.m. straight up. To say nothing of the Astaire-evoking invitation he’d left at Annie’s condo and the tuxedo he’d subsequently donned. But now...
Matt checked the clock on the wall again. He grimaced. It was 6:54 p.m. Too late to alter the ambiance for what was likely to be the defining evening of his adult life.
Pivoting, he headed back toward the far end of the basement, away from the stairs that led down from the first floor.
He should have opted for the straightforward approach, he told himself, clenching and unclenching his hands. Forget this fantasy folderol! Why, oh, why, hadn’t he done what he’d done the night of the literacy reception? Directness had been the key back then. He’d simply marched up to Annie’s front door and said what had desperately needed to be—
“M-Matt?”
He froze, the faintly tremulous inquiry gutting him like a knife. After a moment he turned. His pulse was pounding. The probability that his legs would buckle beneath him seemed quite high.
Annie was standing, poised, about halfway down the stairs. She was clad in a simply styled dress of cream-colored silk and a matching feather boa. Dainty pearl drops trembled from her earlobes. A heart-shaped silver locket shone softly at the base of her throat. Her dark eyes were artfully shadowed, her generous mouth lightly glossed with color.
Matt had a speech prepared, of course. He’d rehearsed the words he wanted to say over and over again until they were engraved on his brain. He could have recited backward with perfect fluency.
But he didn’t. Recite the words backward, that is. Nor did he utter them in the order in which he’d practiced them so assiduously, either. Instead, Matthew Douglas Powell glanced at the wall clock one last time and observed in an nearly normal tone of voice, “Jeez, Annie. You’re five minutes early.”
* * *
To say that Hannah Elaine Martin had tried to anticipate the greeting she would receive from her estranged friend-cum-lover would be to understate the case. Speculation about what Matt might say to her—and about how she might respond—had dominated her thoughts ever since she’d finished reading his plea for a second chance. She’d thought that she’d considered every possible variation.
She’d thought wrong. Because as imaginative as some of the reunion scenarios she’d come up with had been, none of them had begun with Matt reproaching her about the timing of her arrival!
The remark should have offended her. But oddly enough, it did just the opposite. Something about the accusation—and Lord knew, Annie couldn’t begin to explain what it was—suffused her with an almost giddy sense of relief.
She felt...sassy, she realized. Sassy, saucy and full of spunk.
No. It was more than that, she amended as a pair of knees that had been as shaky as unset gelatin solidified. After many hellish weeks of feeling as though she’d been taken over by an alien entity—by some destructive, soul-draining force—she was herself again!
Matt obviously picked up on her transformation because the expression on his lean-featured face went from wary to wondering in the space of a few heartbeats. He approached the staircase slowly, seeming to drink her in with his eyes. Given that she was studying him with the same eager intensity, Annie couldn’t very well object to the scrutiny.
How long since she’d seen Matt in a tuxedo? she wondered, conscious that her cheeks were flushing and her stomach fluttering. Years, it had to be. And heavens, what she’d missed out on during that period! Because as attractive as her best buddy looked in snug-fitting jeans and other casual gear, he was downright devastating in the black-and-white severity of evening wear.
“Would you like me to leave and come back later?” she inquired throatily, fluffing the feather stole she had draped around her bare shoulders. Of all the items she’d found in the ribbon-bound box that had been deposited at her front door, the boa had been the one she’d been most dubious about. Yet she suddenly found herself handling the thing like...well, like she’d been taking lessons from Ginger Rogers!
Matt had come to a halt at the foot of the staircase. He extended his hands. “Since you’re already here...”
The urge to rush down the remaining steps and throw herself into his arms was very strong. But Annie controlled it. She completed her descent with a measured tread. Then, with equal deliberation and an open heart, she accepted everything the man she loved was offering.
Palms kissed. Fingers closed. An understanding of equals was achieved in an erotic, electrified silence.
After a time Annie began to look around. Her already tight throat tightened a little more as she noted the fanciful additions to the church basement’s normally Spartan decor. She blinked several times in rapid succession, then murmured, “You went to a lot of trouble.”
“And I’d go to a whole lot more.”
She met Matt’s eyes once again, finding both tenderness and truth in their smoke-and-sapphire depths. She felt her pulse accelerate. “How did you persuade the Reverend Wheeler to let you use the church?”
One corner of Matt’s mouth kicked up. “I talked with his wife. Don’t you remember? She was the one who gave the dancing lessons we took.”
“Oh.” Annie gave a breathless little laugh. “Yes.”
Matt began to slide his hands up her arms. “You look so...beautiful.”
“Credit the ‘appropriate attire,’” she suggested, quivering in response to his touch.
He disputed her demurral with a shake of his head. “When I saw it, the dress reminded me of the one you wore to the first class. But I have to admit it looks much more provocative right now than it did on the hanger.”
“Maybe—” Annie swallowed “—it’s the feather boa.”
“Much more likely—” Matt drew her to him, his voice dropping to a velvet whisper “—it’s you.”
And then he lowered his head and began to kiss her. Slowly. Savoringly. As though he had all the time in the world and intended to enjoy every second of it.
She kissed him back the same way. The taste of him flooded her tongue, as intoxicating as any wine. She angled her head, seeking to deepen the caress. Her hands came up to clasp the back of his head.
“Oh...” he groaned against her mouth.
“Oh...” she blissfully sighed.
Eventually they eased apart. They stood, his arms circling her waist, hers looped around his neck, gazing deep into each other’s eyes. Eventually, Matt spoke.
“I’ve always known you were one of a kind,” he said, stroking his thumbs against the base of her spine. “What I didn’t realize—until someone drummed it into my thick skull—is that you deserve to be loved in a one-of-a-kind way. And what I feel for you...what I want to spend the rest of my life sharing with you...” His thumbs stilled. He took a deep breath. “Hannah Elaine Martin, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Annie cried, her heart cartwheeling with an incandescent joy. “Oh, yes!”
And then, as if some invisible orchestra had just received its cue, there was music. A moment later Annie and Matt were dancing.
Cheek to cheek.
Heart to heart.
It was real-life magic...
“You still like to lead,” Matt observed with a wry chuckle when the song came to an end.
“Is that going to be a problem?” Annie countered, lifting her chin.
The man she loved—and who loved her in return—grinned. “Only if you try to do it all the time. As permanent partners, we have to take turns.”