levelly, “was finding out from the caretaker that in the weeks before he died, my father was…incarcerated—for want of a better word!—in Blackwells Nursing Home.”
“Incarcerated…that’s kind of harsh, Liz.”
“Harsh? I don’t think so! That place, as I recall, was like something out of a Dickens’ novel. The only people who ended up at Blackwells were people who couldn’t afford anything better. So tell me, has it changed?” she demanded.
“No, it hasn’t.”
“I don’t understand how my father ended up there then. He had pots of money.”
“Most of it was apparently invested in the stock market and a few years after you left, he lost it. It was the news of that loss that brought on his stroke.”
She swallowed hard, and her voice shook a little as she asked, “How did he cope…after the stroke?”
He knew she was finding this conversation difficult, but there was no way he could make it any easier for her. The facts were the facts, and he wouldn’t be doing her any favors by sugarcoating them. If she didn’t hear them from him, she would hear them from someone else. “He had to have a round-the-clock attendant.”
“Where did he get the money for that?”
“It was a costly business and as I mentioned before, that’s why he eventually had to mortgage the house. In the end, just before he went into Blackwells, he had to put the place up for sale to pay his debts. The day before I put in my offer, he had another stroke. And then a few weeks later, he had his fatal heart attack…”
“How sad to end up like that. With no family around, and in a place like Blackwells. I should have come home years ago.” Liz hid her face in her hands and started to sob, muffled little sounds seeping out between her fingers.
He couldn’t bear to see her so distressed.
With a groan, he closed the space between them and drew her tenderly into his arms. “I knew this would be tough for you,” he murmured. “That’s why I wanted to drive you to the cemetery. But you didn’t want me around. You wanted no part of me.”
She felt so fragile he was afraid she might snap in his embrace. Like the most delicate of crystal. Anguish twisted his heart. She had once been his, and through a moment of stupidity and immaturity, he had lost her.
He looked down at her as she leaned against him, weeping gently.
And he felt a ray of hope.
She’d wasted no time last night in telling him she was independent, but…was she really so independent? She wasn’t fighting him now, was she? Maybe this was the time to press his case again. He so desperately wanted the opportunity to make amends.
“Liz, please let me help you,” he begged. “I’d do anything to—”
She jerked away from him, and with a little hiccuping sob, glared at him through eyes that shone with tears.
“I don’t need help.” She dashed a hand over her eyes. “And if I did, you’d be the last person in the world I’d turn to. I can handle this on my own!”
She was a fighter. Once again, the word came into his mind. Liz Rossiter was no longer the easily intimidated girl she’d been at seventeen; she was strong and she was determined.
And she didn’t need him in her life. He was going to have to accept that; but it wasn’t going to be easy.
“Just tell me one more thing,” she said. “About this house.”
“Anything.”
“My father was under great pressure to sell.”
“Yeah, he was—”
“So you got yourself a good deal? I mean, if he was under pressure—”
“I’m not sure what you’re implying, Liz.” But he knew damned well what she implying. She was implying that he had taken advantage of an old man’s desperate financial plight; whereas, in actual fact, he’d had to stretch himself to the limit to come up with the asking price.
“So tell me,” she said, with a careless shrug of one shoulder, “were you happy with the deal you made?”
He somehow managed to hide the anger he felt at her insinuating tone. “Happy?” He lifted one shoulder, mimicking her careless shrug. “I wouldn’t have used the word ‘happy.’ But I was certainly more than satisfied.”
“I’ll bet!” Her scorn was blatant. And it didn’t sit prettily on her face.
He wanted to wipe that contemptuous expression away, he burned to tell her exactly why he had bought Laurel House, but his pride wouldn’t let him.
And what did it matter anyway? He could never redeem himself, in her eyes, for the wrong he’d done her thirteen years ago. He could live with her believing he had screwed her father. He’d lived with worse.
“Okay.” He rubbed a hand wearily over his jaw. “I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.”
He left her standing there, and he didn’t look back.
Next day was sunny and very warm, and Liz decided to attend the eleven o’clock service at the Presbyterian Church.
But when she tried to start the car she found she had carelessly let it run out of gas.
Even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t!—she couldn’t have asked Matt for a drive as she’d heard him leave the house an hour before. So she took off at a brisk pace and walked the couple of miles into town.
By the time she got to the church, it was five after eleven. As she ran up the steps and across the deserted narthex, she could hear the congregation singing.
The music faded to an end as she pushed open the swing doors, and in the bustle of movement as everyone sat down, she slipped unnoticed into one of the back pews.
“Matt, will you pop down to the basement and pick up the boys from Sunday School?” Molly adjusted the brim of her straw hat as she looked up at Matt. They were standing in the narthex, jostled together by the jovial crowd making its way out to the street on this lovely sunny Sunday.
“You’re not coming down?”
“No, I need to dash home…the service was longer than usual and I want to check on the roast. Will you pick up the boys and take them to my place?”
“Sure, no problem. But Molly—”
“Mmm?” She was impatient as a horse at the starting gate. “What is it, Matt? I really must dash.”
“Okay, honey. Go ahead. But—” he rested his hand lightly on her shoulder “—I need to have a talk with you. Today.”
Her hazel eyes took on a luminous glow. “The boys have been invited over to Jamie’s after lunch. We’ll be on our own and we can talk privately.” She ran a hand down his striped silk tie. And let her fingertips linger
