Do you?”
The answer was yes, of course. Perhaps there had been a thousand possibilities for her future, but somehow, after Damon reentered her life, she had only glimpsed two. She could continue at Carrollton Community taking care of other people’s beautiful babies, continue living in the house and town she had lived in all her life, continue wondering what the world was like outside that small frozen speck on the map. Or she could accept Damon’s astounding offer of marriage and motherhood and a new life on a distant tropical island.
In the end the choice had been easy, because the second possibility had come attached to Damon Quinn, a man she had once loved with unrestrained passion. And this gift of Damon in her life once more, even under these strange and unromantic circumstances, had been too tempting to reject.
“I’m here,” she said. She would not reveal more of her heart than that.
He seemed to think it was answer enough. “Let’s get your suitcases, then we’ll go somewhere for lunch.” He squeezed her hand before he dropped it. She felt absolutely alone when he was no longer touching her, but she lifted her chin and managed a smile.
* * *
Matty Stewart was not what Damon had expected. He had done his research, probing, in-depth research that should have distilled the essence of the woman. He knew how she had sacrificed a normal youth to care for her father. He knew that Frank Stewart’s illness had been long and difficult, an illness that had taken his strength and finally his mind, and that Matty had given him tender, unremitting care until his death two years ago.
And he knew that she was regarded by hospital supervisors and colleagues alike as one of the finest nurses ever to walk through Carrollton Community’s doors. If she had faults they tended toward the most admirable. She was too accepting of others’ faults, too giving, too undemanding. Everyone seemed to like and trust Matty, from the man-eating head nurse in maternity to the lowliest emergency-room clerk. They all went to Matty if something special needed to be done, and most of the time she was able to satisfy them.
Her personal life was just as flawless. To make ends meet she had shared her home with two of Carrollton’s most eligible women, and the three seemed to be close and loyal friends. The other two were well liked, but everyone seemed to think it was Matty who glued their friendship together. There were no hints of competition for men or prestige. At home, as at the hospital, Matty seemed determined to believe the best and give her best.
Knowing all that and more, Damon had expected someone subtly different from the woman who had been waiting at the information booth. First, he had been surprised to feel such an instant tug of attraction toward her. She wasn’t really pretty, not in any classical sense of the word, but she had a vibrant, natural smile and smoky hazel eyes that never looked away when she spoke. Her creamy skin was flawless, and her hair was fine and silky. Her best points were subtle but undeniable. She was not a woman a man might pick out in a crowd, but once exposed to her, she would nibble away at his concentration until she had his undivided attention.
Damon knew there was no man in Matty’s life. Caring for her father had made that impossible, and then there had been months of readjustment and, naturally, grief after his death. By the time fate had allowed her to seek a relationship, the pool of eligible men in Carrollton had been small. But now that he’d seen her, no excuses seemed good enough. Why hadn’t some man noticed her anyway? Had she been so busy taking care of everyone around her that no one had seen she could be more, much more, if she was just given the chance?
“All this sunlight!” Matty spread her hands as if to catch sunbeams to store away. “Damon, I’ve never seen light like this. It’s like liquid gold.”
“This will seem overcast compared to the island.” Damon watched Matty examine the restaurant where he had brought her to have lunch. He hadn’t chosen it carefully; in fact, he didn’t even remember its name. But he had been here before with Arthur Sable, the man who owned Inspiration Cay, and he had remembered that the food was good and the location close enough to the airport to make it easy to get back that afternoon.
Now he was glad he had thought of it. Wide windows looked out on a narrow blue inlet adorned with the requisite seagulls and palm trees. Light wood and tropical prints completed the statement indoors, where Latin rhythms competed with rattan-trimmed ceiling fans for dominance of the warm spring air.
Matty loved it. He hadn’t intended to impress her, but clearly he had. She seemed more relaxed here. She had even stopped toying with her iced-tea glass and the wedge of lime perched on its sugared rim. For the last few minutes she had even seemed to forget that the man sitting across from her was her husband-to-be.
“Are those hibiscus blooming against the wall?” Matty pointed to her left.
He nodded. “And the purple flowers behind them are bougainvillea.”
“Paradise.”
“The last man to own Inspiration Cay spent a fortune on landscaping. It’s gone wild, but Arthur prefers to leave it that way.”
“Jungle appeals to me. Things that grow and thrive without restraint, abundant good health…”
“You’ve seen little enough of that, haven’t you?”
She seemed startled, whether at his insight or her own guileless revelations he didn’t know. “Not enough, I guess,” she admitted.
“Was that one of the reasons you said yes to this arrangement? Because you needed to be away from illness and suffering?”
“For a while, maybe.” She folded her hands. “I’m good at what I do, but it’s possible I need to do something else, something I might do even better.”
“So you need some time to think? To reconsider your life?”
“Does that bother you?”
“Absolutely not. It reassures me. I’m not sure I could go through with this if I thought I was the only one of us who was going to benefit.”
“Don’t forget Heidi.”
“I couldn’t possibly. She absorbs every waking minute. You’ll see, once we get to the island.”
“Damon, tell me the whole story. You’ve told me bits and pieces on the telephone, enough to get me here. But I need to know it all. How you feel about Heidi’s mother, why you didn’t marry her. How she feels about you and Heidi, too. Where and how I’ll fit in.”
And that was the other way that Matty didn’t fit with Damon’s picture of her. He had expected a woman so eager to please, so accommodating, that she wouldn’t ask pointed questions or show the wealth of insight that was a part of the real Matty Stewart. He found her perceptions unnerving at the same time that he found them refreshing. She did not suffer from self-absorption, but on the other hand, she was too intelligent not to recognize the problems that might affect her own happiness.
He tried to cull out the things in his past that didn’t matter and cut right to the things that did. “I met Gretchen in Washington, D.C. She had just ended a relationship with another man, and she was looking for someone to take up the slack. She’d be the first to tell you that. She was very clear about it to me.”
He paused as their server brought them steaming bowls of spicy black bean soup and garnished them with a splash of sherry and dollops of sour cream. He watched Matty lift her spoon and begin to eat. Her hands were unadorned, no rings, no
