told me not to tell anyone. Said it would just make matters worse.” She rolled her eyes. “Not that they could have gotten much worse. I tried to tell Matt, anyway.” She plucked nervously at a loose thread in the place mat. “Problem was, no one in town knew where to find him. He’d just vanished.” She held her palms up and hunched her shoulders. “After a few years went by, I just felt it would be better not to disrupt anyone’s life. What was the sense?” She almost added, Would it have brought Matt home?, but thought better of it.
“What about Matt’s dad? Did you tell him?”
She shook her head. “Mr. Logan never took much of an interest in Matt.” She stared off into a mental world devoid of any memories of Matt and his dad interacting. “I never saw any sign of affection between them. Sometimes I got the feeling that Matt didn’t exist for his father. After Matt left, Mr. Logan became more unapproachable than ever. I went there a couple of times, but he wouldn’t answer the door, so I gave up. I sent him a letter, but since he never acknowledged it, I don’t even know if he read it.”
“What about Matt’s mother?” Emily shifted to a more comfortable position in her chair, then crossed her denim clad legs. “I was too young to remember her. Did she leave them or what?”
“She died suddenly when Matt was ten.” Honey sipped her coffee and made a face. Cold again. She set the cup down and pushed it away, then looked at her sister. “All this reminiscing is not solving my immediate problem, Em. How did you handle Kat showing up? I know you were so angry at him you wanted to beat him to within an inch of his life, then you ended up marrying him and having his twin daughters, but what did you—”
“Whoops. Wait a minute.” Emily held up her hand. “The circumstances were a bit different.”
“Sure, you wanted him to father your child so you could fulfill the conditions of a crazy old man’s will and keep your home.” Honey smiled for the first time that evening, then shook her head. “You never did anything simply. Leave it to you to go overboard and have twins. Dad would be very happy.”
At the mention of her twin daughters, a beautiful smile transformed Emily’s face. “Best bargain I ever made. I got a man I adore and two delightful children. And don’t forget Rose. My best friend turned out to be my mother-in-law. Not bad for a girl who was ready to hit the panic button when she found out about the codicil to Dad’s will.”
“Ready to hit it? To my recollection, you slammed your fist into it.”
Both women laughed. The laughter died slowly, but when it did, Honey still had not found a solution to her dilemma. How did she contend with Matt coming back into her life?
“So, what’s my answer?” she said, looking at Emily.
Emily checked her watch, then stood, slipped her purse strap over her shoulder and smiled weakly at Honey. “I don’t know that there is an answer, at least not one you can turn into a concrete plan. I’d say play it by ear. Go with your gut.” She started to turn toward the door, then paused. “Better yet, go with your heart.”
Honey frowned.
MATT STOOD ON THE FRONT porch of his aunt’s house. He glanced at his watch: 1:00 a.m. He should have left The Diner sooner, but he’d enjoyed talking with friends he hadn’t seen in years, remembering old times, rehashing the trouble he and his cousin Stan had gotten into as kids. He’d missed that while wandering from place to place. That friendliness, that familiarity was what he’d come home to recapture. Certainly that would chase the unhappy ghost from the corners of his house and his life.
He glanced at Amanda’s front door and reached for the knocker, then hesitated. He knew a dynamite blast wouldn’t wake Tess, but his aunt had always been a very light sleeper. He hated to wake her just to let him in. However, the one other place he could hope to find a soft bed for the night happened to be located in a motel thirty miles away. After driving for hours, he didn’t want to even think of getting on the road again. They’d find him in the morning wrapped around a pole somewhere, his injured leg swollen to the size of a small tree trunk.
He continued to stare at the door, trying to work through his problem, then an idea came to him. He stepped back to inspect the rose trellis on the side of the house. It had frequently provided him and Stan with late night access to Stan’s bedroom during their senior year in high school. Should he? He’d probably be arrested for breaking and entering and get thrown in the Bristol jail. Oh, hell, at least he’d have a warm bed to sleep in until he could make bail.
Quietly, he limped to the side of the house and grabbed the first set of slats on the trellis. Pulling himself up, he bounced experimentally, testing the strength of the makeshift ladder and his leg. He had gained a few pounds since his senior year and wasn’t sure that time hadn’t rotted out the trellis.
Though it creaked a bit and his leg throbbed slightly, he decided that both would support his weight for the short climb. Slowly, he inched his way up, cursing softly at the bite of an occasional thorn piercing his skin, then boosted himself over the balcony of Stan’s old room. The French doors stood open. Tess had no doubt been airing the room for his arrival.
NEXT DOOR, Amanda Logan had heard the telltale creak of the rose trellis, a noise she’d grown familiar with when Stan and Matt had used it as an emergency entrance after their twelve o’clock curfew had come and gone. She’d recognized her nephew’s voice cursing the rose thorns, just as he had years before. Just to make sure she wasn’t wrong about the identity of their midnight visitor, she slipped from her bed and, with the aid of her walker, shuffled to the window.
Just as she pushed the curtain aside, Matt launched himself over the balcony rail. For a moment, she waited for Stan to follow on Matt’s heels, as he would have years ago. Back then, she’d have stood here watching the two teenagers scale the balcony railing, all the while thinking they’d pulled the wool over her eyes.
But Stan didn’t appear. Stan never would appear again.
Tears threatened. Though a year had passed since Stan had been killed in his race car, the pain sometimes felt very raw, the emptiness overwhelming.
She shook the tears and the poignant memories away, then maneuvered herself back to the bed. No time now for sorrow. Now was the time for new memories, new adventures, new loves.
She lay back against the pillows, quietly picturing the scene in the next room.
Tomorrow, thanks to fate and her slight intervention, this dreary old house would bear witness to an old wrong being set right, and perhaps, in the process, a new beginning.
MATT STEPPED OVER the threshold of his cousin’s old room and stopped dead in his tracks.
There, spread out over the discarded bedcovers, lay a woman clad only in a T-shirt and bikini panties. One long, shapely leg stretched out across the white sheet. The other, bent at the knee, helped to expose a good portion of her naked bottom.
He crept closer, then moved to the side to allow the moonlight to bathe her supine body. He felt like a voyeur, but he couldn’t help himself. Something about her called out to him, something familiar. When he stood at the foot of the bed, he knew why.
Honey Kingston lay deep in sleep, her hand cupping her cheek, her glorious honey-blond hair splayed over the pillow in loose tangles.
Despite the shock of seeing the one woman he’d hoped to avoid, he had to admit that she still had the power to take his breath away—and to provoke that churning fear that had sent him running from her years
