swore softly. “I’m not one of your brothers.”
“I know.” She risked another glance in his direction. When she was a little girl, she’d look at him and think he was a wild thing she was going to tame. Like a pup who’d been kicked too many times, always waiting on someone to turn on him.
Cathie had followed him everywhere when he’d first come to live with her parents. She’d watched him with a kind of fascination as he warily watched her in return. She’d smile and he’d frown. She’d laugh and he’d put that same scowl on his face she’d seen tonight, the one that said she was getting to him.
Closing her eyes, she let herself remember, just a bit, her and Matt together. God, she thought breathlessly, how she’d missed that boy. Of course, God already knew. She’d certainly told him often enough, back in the days when she was trying to talk him into bringing Matt back to her. She hadn’t done that in years and fought the urge to pull out her Box and say very emphatically that he was not what she had in mind when she asked for help.
Still, she missed him so much, the lost boy who’d become her best friend. She’d seen more of him tonight than she had in years.
For just a moment, she let herself imagine a wild-eyed black knight coming to her rescue, making everything right somehow.
“What?” Matt growled, staring at her through midnight-colored eyes.
She shook her head and tried to smile, feeling hopelessly sentimental about a relationship she feared meant next to nothing to him. She, on the other hand, needed nothing more than the slightest touch of his fingertips to her cheek to know that she was every bit as attracted to the man as she’d once been to the boy. The awful part was that neither the boy nor the man had wanted her.
And now she feared she was in the same shape—no, worse—with another man she feared wouldn’t want her or her baby. Obviously, there was a pattern here she should probably figure out, so she didn’t keep repeating this same mistake.
“Cathie—”
“Sorry. I was just thinking. And wondering…why did you come here tonight?”
“I wasn’t going to,” he said. “Mary asked me to come by tomorrow, but I had a meeting tonight. When I got done, I wasn’t too far from here, and…I don’t know. Something just told me this might be a problem that shouldn’t wait. Why?”
She frowned. Something just told him?
“No reason,” she lied. No way she was explaining what she’d done to him.
“Cathie, why don’t you let me talk to this guy for you?”
Sure. He and Tim could compare notes. Why didn’t you want Cathie? Really? Me, either. She groaned, feeling sick suddenly and swayed on her feet.
“Easy.” Matt’s hand shot out to grab her. “I’ve got you. Need to sit?”
She nodded, letting herself lean on him as he steered her to the sofa.
“Better?” he asked once she was sitting.
“Yes. Thank you.” She had to get him out of here. Fast. He’d seen enough of this little drama that was her life. “And I appreciate the offer, about Tim, but I have to tell him myself. And my mother. My brothers. My father. They’re going to be so disappointed. Matt, I don’t think I’ve ever disappointed them. My father counsels teenagers at the community center on being responsible and careful. How is it going to look when his own daughter ends up pregnant and all alone? And to his congregation? I know some of them will give him grief over this. Plus his heart is…I don’t know. He hasn’t admitted it to me, but something’s going on. He was so sick before. We almost lost him. I don’t want him worrying over me, and for this, he’ll worry night and day.”
Utterly miserable, she stared up at Matt. He couldn’t have surprised her more when he sat down beside her and put his arm along the back of the sofa, motioning her closer. “C’mere, Cath.”
She hesitated, knowing she should not let herself get too close. But she needed him so badly right now. “Just for a minute?”
“Whatever it takes,” he said, his gaze steady and sure.
Cathie let herself lean against him a little, slipping progressively closer until her face was buried in the warm curve of his shoulder and his arms were clamped tightly around her. A long, deep shiver ran through her—her last-ditch effort at control. And then she was lost, just melting into the heat and the rock-solid strength of him.
With her face pressed against his neck, with every breath she took, she inhaled a bit more of the essence of him—something dark and dangerous and, after all these years, blessedly familiar. One of his hands stroked her hair tenderly. The other gently kneaded the knot of tension at the base of her spine. She gave up any hope of holding her tears in any longer. He pulled her closer and held on tighter, as if he might be able to hold her tightly enough to stop her body from trembling so badly.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.
She didn’t believe that, but it was nice to have him hold her this way. She stayed there for the longest time, feeling safe and not so very hopeless. When she lifted her head, she found his face only inches from hers.
Deep, blue eyes, so familiar and flecked with gold, stared down at her, his jaw set in a grim line. His hair was shorter than it had been as a teenager, but still as dark, and, if anything, his body was even leaner and more powerful. It was so easy to find herself caught up in that old familiar spell that was Matt.
His hand settled against the side of her face. Carefully, gently, he wiped the tears from her cheeks in a touch that was so sweet, so tender.
Just for a moment, something flared in his eyes. If he’d been any other man, she would have sworn he was about to kiss her—the way a man kisses a woman he desires. And then, as she watched, the look drained away. Every little spark simply disappeared.
Unnerved, Cathie pulled away. Because she wasn’t sure her legs could hold her, she didn’t even try to stand. Instead, she scrambled to the opposite end of the couch. Drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, she watched him as he watched her.
There were new lines of tension at the corners of those beautiful eyes of his, not even a hint of a smile on his lips. But she could say with absolute certainty that he was every bit as gorgeous at thirty as he had been at fifteen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-seven. Not that it mattered. He was simply being kind to her, and she was carrying another man’s child.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally.
“It’s all right,” he insisted. “Look, Cathie, there’s no place I have to be tonight. I could stay a while.”
“Thanks, but I have to make some decisions, and I have to talk to Tim.”
“All right.” Looking uncharacteristically uncertain, he stood up and headed for the door. “If you need anything…” he said roughly.
And then Cathie couldn’t even look him in the eye anymore. If she did, she’d take him up on his offer and ask him to stay. She felt like such a fool.
“I really don’t want to leave you like this,” Matt said, sounding
