Читать книгу The Honeymoon Proposal - Hannah Bernard - Страница 9

Five weeks later

SHE would have to see him again.

Joanna twined together curses in the most creative manner she could think of as she yanked the cordless phone off its stand and strode to the living room, to the security of the sofa, complete with an old scruffy blanket in case she needed additional comfort.

Seeing Matt again. The thought almost managed to nudge the burning worry about Grandma from her mind. Almost.

She sank into the sofa, and pulled her knees to her chest, clutching the phone in one hand. She reached for the ancient comforter lying across the back of the sofa and pulled it over her shoulders, huddling under it, suddenly feeling cold. A painful pounding in her temples had started as soon as her grandmother had made the request. She wasn’t surprised. If ever there was an occasion to get a migraine headache, this was it.

She stared at the phone in her hand, amazed that her fingers weren’t trembling. She would have to call Matt, and ask him to come over.

This was not a phone call she wanted to make. He was not a man she wanted to see again. Too much had happened, and after only five weeks the hurt and anger hadn’t even begun to fade.

But she had no choice. Grandma did want to see him. And he was her godson, her late husband’s nephew, probably her favorite person in the world.

Of course she would call him. There was no question. For Grandma, she would, even if her own personal preference was to replace that two-minute phone call with a whole afternoon of root canals. Or a casual stroll across hot coals. Or two full hours of public speaking. Or…

She gritted her teeth, realizing she was procrastinating.

She’d do it now. Right this minute while shock was still running her emotions, or courage would leap out the window into the early-evening dusk and never return. This wasn’t a big deal. It was absurd to find her heart racing in anticipation of hearing his voice again.

It was over. She was over him. “It’s over,” she muttered to herself, and it almost became the truth when she heard her own voice say the words. It was over.

She took a deep breath, and with eyes half-closed, made the call.

It was a melancholic—and annoying—discovery that she still knew his number by heart. Five long weeks had passed, but her fingers still punched the series of numbers as easily as they’d ever done. As easily as they’d done when this was the number she called just to hear his voice, when the warmth of him, the heat of his feelings for her, had seemed to reach her through the phone lines no matter what the distance was between them.

Now he was a stranger, the distance internal, emotional instead of geographical, but even more real. She needed to remember that, even as her mind recalled the way his voice used to alter the moment he heard hers, from the distracted, hurried voice of a busy businessman to the warm, loving one a man reserved for his woman.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the phone hard against her ear. It was over, she repeated to herself. Now he was nothing to her, just her grandmother’s godson, a friend of the family. That was all!

Still, she was just about to lose her nerve and end the call when he picked up the phone. The sound of his voice caused her heart to halt in her chest as truth grabbed her by the nose and forced her to face reality.

Over him? Hah!

Nope, she wasn’t over him.

Not even close.

She’d almost managed to convince herself she was, but that was because she hadn’t seen him, hadn’t heard from him. Grandma had his picture on the mantelpiece, between her pictures of Grandpa and of Jo herself, but Jo had managed to tilt it ever so slightly, so his laughing green eyes didn’t mock her every time she stepped into that room.

But now his voice was in her ear, and her entire system was going crazy.

His voice sounded the same. Brisk, slightly absent, hurried, impatient when he had to repeat the hello because she didn’t respond right away, her voice having tightened and her breath hitched. She cursed herself for letting him affect her that way. It had only been a few weeks, she reminded herself. Time would fix this. Broken hearts did heal. Didn’t they?

Maybe seeing him again now, seeing him as a stranger, not hers, would be the jolt she needed. Yes. Maybe.

It could happen, right?

“Matt…I…Matt…” she croaked, then bit her lip hard. That was not what she’d meant to say. She’d meant to be cool and distant and formal, call him Matthew instead of Matt, and inform him of the situation, detached and matter-of-fact.

She closed her eyes. Instead she’d whispered his name as a reverent mantra, just as she’d done when…

No. Those memories belonged in the compost section of her brain. She didn’t want to remember. She didn’t want to remember anything of their months together, especially not the warmth of his shoulder under her lips, the surprised smile he sent her when she kissed him unexpectedly, or those mornings at his apartment, the way he’d used the extra ten minutes the snooze button gave him to wrap his arms around her and hold on tightly, whispering into her ear that it would have to last him through the entire day with her all the way on the other side of the office.

Ouch. She yanked on the short hair at her temple to punish herself. That compost heap was active today.

Maybe she should just hang up, and hope he wouldn’t know who was calling. She could get someone else to phone Matt. Grandma still had enough strength to lift a phone after all, she could probably make the call herself.

Matt’s voice changed, grew louder, as if he’d gripped the phone and pressed it closer to his face. “Hello? Jo? Joanna? Is that you?”

Joanna grimaced as she mentally crossed hanging up anonymously off her list of options. He recognized her voice. She should have expected no less, but it was still a shock to hear her name on his lips, his tone surprised and incredulous.

Not angry, but slightly wary. It had been angry before. Not at first: then, there had been only surprise, annoyance and irritation, and a whole lot of brisk efficiency as he worked to smooth things over, to get her out of the way, to hush up the issue instead of coming to her rescue. The anger hadn’t come until she’d told him it was over, that she couldn’t keep seeing someone who didn’t trust her, someone who wouldn’t stand up and admit to their relationship even when it could clear her of a crime. If you believed in me, you would stand by me, she’d told him, the pain in her heart emerging as fury disguised in cold dismissal.

Of course, what she’d really meant was that if he’d loved her, he’d have stood by her, just as she’d kept silent about their involvement until he got back—for his sake. The CEO shouldn’t be involved with one of his employees, and she wouldn’t expose him without his agreement—even though it had cost her both her job and the friendships she’d forged there.

She hadn’t minded at the time, in the certainty that he’d clear things up when he got back. If he’d trusted her—if he’d loved her, he would have.

The point was moot, of course—he’d done neither.

But this wasn’t about them. This was about Grandma.

“Jo?” Matt repeated, his voice growing impatient. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

She clenched her hand around the phone and cleared her throat. “Yes. It’s me. Hello, Matthew. I’m calling because…It’s my grandmother. I’m at her house now, I’ve been staying a few days—well, almost two weeks. She hasn’t been well lately. She wants to see you. She says she…” She paused to swallow the lump in her throat, but nevertheless the words were nothing more than a croak, betraying the tears gathering in her eyes. “Matt—she’s probably just being overdramatic, you know what she’s like sometimes, but…she says she needs to see you before she dies.”

There was silence only for a second. “I’ll be there ASAP,” he said curtly, and hung up without a goodbye.

Left with a dial tone, Jo let her hand fall to her side and pried her fingers away from the phone. She took a deep breath, not knowing if she felt relief at having this over with or panic at knowing he was on his way. Snap out of it, she ordered herself and made her way toward the guest room where her grandmother was resting. Grandma had asked to see Matt. That was the only thing that mattered.

“Is he coming?” her grandmother asked, her blue eyes just as bright and alive now as they’d ever been. She was propped up on some pillows, looking tiny in the large canopy bed, a Walkman with an audio book lying on her lap, the headphones incongruous around her narrow neck. Crossword puzzle books were heaped on the nightstand. Grandma worked hard at keeping her mind active, and she succeeded.

Unfortunately, the body was no longer cooperating. Grandma, who always took pride in getting up early, looking her best at all times and keeping herself busy throughout the day, hadn’t felt well enough to get dressed in more than a robe and slippers for a couple of weeks now. Jo had arrived for a visit almost two weeks ago, and hadn’t left since, except to go to work.

“Yes, Grandma. He’s on his way,” Jo confirmed as she sat down in her usual spot at the foot of the bed. “He said he’d be here soon.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Of course, he might not be here until tomorrow. He hung up so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to ask him about his definition of ASAP.” She grimaced. “Nothing new there.”

Her grandmother smiled. “I know. He works too hard, Jo. You’ll have to change that. A man doesn’t always realize the importance of spending time with his woman. Not until it’s too late. Hasn’t it been a while since you saw him last yourself?”

“Matt’s very busy,” Jo evaded, forcing a smile to her face. “But he’s on his way. You know he always makes time for his favorite old crone.”

As expected, Grandma chortled at the old joke. “Well, I hate to bother him, but I need to see that boy.” Her eyes narrowed on Joanna’s face. “There are things we need to discuss. I need to talk to him about the way he intends to treat my granddaughter for the rest of his life. I have a few ground rules. Such as spending at least some of his weekends with his woman—something he hasn’t been doing recently, has he? You didn’t leave the house all weekend and he didn’t come to see you at all.”

Joanna looked down on the bedspread, trying to hide her expression. Her omission of truth was coming back to haunt her. She still hadn’t figured out how to wriggle out of this one. “Grandma, Matt’s been very busy recently. I accept that, just as he accepts it when I’m busy. That’s life. He doesn’t need ground rules. We’re both quite happy with the way things are.”

“I’m not leaving this world without discussing you with him. You two are spending your lives together, and I have some hints and tips. I lived thirty-seven years with your grandfather, you know.” She patted Joanna’s hand. “In fact, I have plenty of tips for you on how to tame bad-tempered men.”

“Matt isn’t bad-tempered,” Jo said, shocked to find a small smile pull at her lips. “He’s stubborn and always tends to think he’s right, but he doesn’t have a bad temper.”

“He has a strong control of his temper, but he also has strong emotions,” Grandma muttered. “A roaring lion when it comes to protecting his woman, just you wait and see.”

Protecting his woman. Jo’s smile faltered. That was one thing Matt hadn’t done, and the truth of it was a constant sting somewhere inside. Grandma was right—Matt would stop at nothing to protect his woman. It all went to show she’d never been his. Not in the way that really counted.

“The most important thing is always to make time for just the two of you,” Grandma whispered, as if sharing the deepest confidence. “Arrange baby-sitting, and make sure you have regular quality time together.”

“Baby-sitting?”

“I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, you probably want an engagement and a wedding before the babies—and I don’t disagree, but I don’t have much time to impart all my hard-earned wisdom, so there you are.”

“You have plenty of time,” Joanna said firmly, trying to keep her fear from showing. Her grandmother was convinced death was on the other side of each breath. The doctor just shrugged. At her age, anything was certainly possible, he’d said, but there was nothing immediately terminal in her condition. However, he had confided in Jo, in his experience, people often sensed these things.

And Grandma’s conviction was contagious. Even now, she just smiled indulgently at Joanna’s objection. “No, I don’t, girlie. I don’t mind, and I hope you don’t plan on spending too much time grieving for me. I’m sure the other side is more fun. I’ll hold a spot for you and Matt.”

“We still need you on this side, Grandma. Don’t even think about opening that door.”

“I’m not. Not until I’ve talked to my Matt. Is the house clean?”

Joanna felt her frown crumble into a reluctant smile. Sometimes her grandmother’s mind was very predictable. “Yes, Grandma. The house is clean. We have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Good. We don’t want Matt to think we’re slobs, do we?”

“He won’t.”

Her grandmother sighed, and laid her head back against the pillow. “I’m so useless these days,” she muttered. “I need a nap again. You’ll bring Matt here the minute he arrives, Joanna, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Joanna kissed her grandmother’s cheek and stood up. “You just ring the bell if you need anything.”

Grandma muttered something, already half asleep. Jo made sure the bell was within reach and tiptoed out of the room.

She was tired. Her grandmother wasn’t a lot of work. She could take care of her own basic needs, and only required Joanna to provide food and company, but her constant talk of dying was draining. And there wasn’t anyone else to help. Her mother and father were somewhere in Africa shooting one of their documentaries.

Joanna ambled into the kitchen and started cleaning up. Grandmother was probably worried that Matt might think she wasn’t perfect housewife material, she thought wryly. She was funny that way. With all her insistence that her only grandchild go to college and get a good education, she nevertheless expected her to choose a career as a wife and mother as soon as she found a husband.

She wished again she’d asked Matt when he was likely to be here. With his busy existence, ASAP could mean anything from minutes to weeks.

After making sure everything was up to her grandmother’s standard, Joanna hung around in the kitchen and living room, the two rooms facing the front of the house. She was hoping to catch Matt before he rang the doorbell and woke the old woman up. There were things he needed to know. She needed to talk to him before he talked to his godmother, explain why Grandma still didn’t know.

Long before she had realistically expected him, his car was stopping in the driveway, headlights beating their way through the rain. Joanna’s heart started pounding and she felt her palms dampen as she clenched her fists at her sides. He still had the same car. Of course, she should have expected it—it wasn’t much over a month since she’d sat in that car herself, but somehow she’d expected things to change as much as her life had changed.

She stood in the shadow of the curtains by the window and watched him step out of the car. He glanced up at her grandmother’s bedroom window as he slammed the door shut and strode toward the front door. He looked grim and tired.

Joanna opened the door, the darkness of the unlit foyer giving her some protection at least, and sent him a smile that was supposed to be cool and sophisticated, but somehow ended up wobbly and fake instead. Matt didn’t smile, and she found herself missing the grin he’d usually greeted her with. He nodded curtly as he entered the house, his eyes raking over her once from the top of her head to her toes and back up.

“Hello, Jo,” he said, unsmiling, and she stepped back, the shock of being so close to him again confusing her senses and making her head spin. The warmth of him almost seemed to reach out toward her and despite everything that had happened, the instinctive longing to step into his arms and feel them close around her was almost uncontrollable.

It was also hateful.

He hadn’t changed since she’d seen him last. The dark hair, now glinting with raindrops, was the same. The green of his eyes was still hypnotizing, even when filled with fatigue and wariness instead of love and humor.

Of course he hadn’t changed, she castigated herself. People didn’t change in just a few weeks. Not unless some life-altering event happened to them, something that took their life, their existence, and turned it upside down.

Obviously, no such thing had happened to him.

Matt switched on the light and stared at her, his expression changing from serious to astonished. “You’ve changed, Jo.” He took a deep breath and reached out toward her, only snatching his hand back when it was inches away from touching her hair. “What the hell did you do to your hair?”

He sounded furious. Joanna rubbed her temple self-consciously. Her hair was rather short now. In fact, Matt’s hair was probably longer. She’d gotten carried away. So had her hairdresser, taking her cry of “I just want it gone!” a bit too seriously.

Matt’s obsession with her hair was the reason she’d cut it, she knew that now that she was finally out of the denial stage…but leaving only a few inches had been a mistake. She looked like a shorn sheep.

She bit back the natural response: “It’s none of your business,” and tried for a cold smile and a neutral greeting instead. “Hi, Matthew. Good you could make it.”

Matt’s gaze was still on her hair, astonished and livid. He might not have loved her, but he had loved her hair. She straightened her back, suddenly very pleased with her new haircut.

His gaze slowly moved to her face again and his eyes narrowed as he shook his head. “You look like hell, Jo. You’re thinner, too. Haven’t you been eating?”

Was that guilt in his voice? Surprised guilt? Did he think she’d been pining away over him?

She’d ignore him. She’d ignore all personal comments he made and just focus on Grandma. “Thanks for coming, Matt,” she managed to say amicably. “Grandma will be happy to see you.”

Matt snapped out of his intense scrutiny of her and glanced toward the stairs. He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket, the anger finally fading from his eyes. “How is she?”

Jo shrugged. “She thinks she’s dying,” she said, disappointed to hear her voice break. “We don’t know. She hasn’t been getting out of bed much and she says she’s weak, but then she isn’t really sick either. She’s an old woman.” Breath left her in an involuntary sigh and she felt those nasty tears gather forces again. “The doctor says he sees no immediate problem, no reason to think she’s really dying…but she’s so sure that it’s impossible not to worry…”

Matt reached for her, compassion in his eyes, but she flinched away. “She needed to see you,” she said, gritting her teeth as she realized she’d wanted his touch. “That’s why I called. She asked for you.”

Matt headed for the stairs, without even removing his jacket. She grabbed his arm, the cool leather of his jacket familiar under her hand. “Wait. She’s asleep now. And she isn’t upstairs in her room, she’s been staying in the downstairs guest room.”

Matt paused and looked back. She released his arm. “She hasn’t been sleeping well lately, so it’s probably better if we let her sleep a bit. She has a bell, and will ring as soon as she needs anything.” She paused. “Unless you’re in a hurry to get back to work? If so, I suppose I could wake her up.”

Matt shook his head and shrugged off his jacket. He tossed it over a chair and looked around. “No. I’m fine. I told people I had a family emergency and wouldn’t be in for a while. I brought my laptop, so if you just have a kitchen chair and telephone line for me, I’ll be fine for a few days.”

A few days? She wouldn’t survive several days with him in the house. “Matt, you don’t have to stay. She just wanted to see you for a minute. She wants to talk to you about…”

Yes, Jo, a sarcastic voice whispered in her ear. What is it she wants to talk to Matt about?

Jo bit her lip. She had to tell Matt. She wasn’t sure how she was going to tell him, but he had to know before he talked to her grandmother.

“…some things. Well, anyway, there are plenty of kitchen chairs.” She led the way to the kitchen, where she had consumed untold gallons of coffee for the past couple of weeks. Somehow everything looked surreal with Matt at her side again. “Would you like some coffee? Or tea?” She knew he preferred coffee, knew how he liked his coffee, was familiar with the way he liked to stir it even though he never added sugar or cream, but they were strangers now. She was determined to keep it that way, to treat him like a stranger.

“Thanks. Coffee would be great.”

She poured him a cup, put milk and sugar on the table, even though she knew he used neither, and sat opposite him at the kitchen table. She’d expected anger in his eyes, real anger, not the momentary fury of shock over her vanished hair. There had certainly been enough anger last time they’d seen each other. But now there was none. Just wariness in the way he looked at her, as if he wasn’t sure what to expect. Somehow, the lack of anger was disappointing. He didn’t care anymore—if he ever had, if it had ever been more than infatuation. The old woman napping in the guest room was now all they shared.

“Why is she staying in the guest room?”

“She suggested it herself. Going up and down the stairs was getting to be difficult for her, and she likes to be able to come to the dining room to eat.”

Matt held his teaspoon between forefinger and middle finger and started work on creating a whirlpool in his mug. His eyes were steady on hers, too familiar and too alien, both at once. “Fill me in, Jo. What’s wrong with her?”

Joanna shrugged. “We’re not really sure what is wrong, except the big one: old age. I visit at least twice a month, and I started to notice about a month ago that she was a bit preoccupied and absent. I was worried, but her memory seemed to be functioning fine. But then for about two weeks now, she’s been feeling very weak, and she hasn’t wanted to get out of bed much. So I moved in for the time being. The doctor says he can’t find anything specifically wrong with her, but at her age…” Joanna bowed her head and warmed her hands on her own cup. She wasn’t ready to let Grandma go. Far from it. “We just don’t know. She thinks she’s dying. She’s quite sure she only has a few days left. I don’t know. At her age, people may sense these things. Be ready to go. The doctor says he’s seen that before.”

Matt put his elbows on the table and raked both hands through his hair as he stared into his coffee cup. “It’s been months, hasn’t it? I haven’t seen her for months…not since we’d just started—”

“She asks a lot about you,” Jo interrupted. “She keeps talking about you.”

“She does?”

“Yes…” Joanna clenched her fists on the table. Tell him! she screamed at herself, but somehow she couldn’t make herself do it. It was too complicated. She didn’t know how to explain her reasoning, how to make him understand how logical it had been at the time.

“Dammit,” he swore. “I should have been there. I should have come to see her more often.”

The soft jingle of the bell drifted into the kitchen, and before Joanna had even put down her mug, Matt was already out of the room.

“Matt! Wait. I need to tell you something…”

Too late. He had already vanished into her grandmother’s room. Joanna pushed herself away from the table and ran after him, cursing her own cowardice.

Too late. From here on, it was all about damage control.

When she entered the room, Matt was bent over her grandmother, his arms around her. Grandma’s beaming face was visible over his shoulder.

“Esther!” Matt said warmly. “It’s been too long. You know how I tend to let the office swallow me up until I forget everything. You shouldn’t let me get away with it.”

Grandma smiled, blue eyes sparkling at the sight of her godson, but she didn’t sit up, a depressing sign of her weakened state. “Until you forget everything? Not quite everything, I hope,” she said, looking at Joanna with a grin. Matt glanced back too, his smile absent and his expression puzzled.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Joanna said, all courage gone. It was too late even for damage control. She’d made a huge mistake. All she could do now was hope Matt caught on and didn’t say anything to upset Grandma. “Just call me if you need anything.”

“No, wait, Jo.” Her grandmother’s trembling hand reached out toward her. “Don’t go. I want you here as well. I need to talk to both of you.”

Joanna hesitated, then came to her grandmother’s side on the other side of the bed from Matt. She sat down on the edge of the bed. Matt pulled up a chair and sat down too, his hand in Esther’s.

“So, how are you, old crone?” he asked, squeezing her hand. “You were still beating me at chess last time I saw you. What are you doing in bed this time of the day? Someone steal all your dresses from the clothesline?”

Joanna watched her grandmother’s eyes brighten as the two of them began their usual banter. She should have called Matt sooner, she castigated herself. Grandma loved to see him, but didn’t want to bother him much, despite all her cracks about curing him of his workaholism.

Grandma looked between them, smiling. “I’m so happy to have both of you here, finally. You see, I don’t think it’ll be long until I get to find out what the afterlife is all about.” She shook her head when Matt started to protest. “Don’t. I’m old and I’m tired. I’ll be ready to go soon.” She took a wheezing breath. “I have a request for you. Both of you.”

“Anything,” Matt muttered. “You know that, Esther. All you have to do is beckon and we jump.”

Grandma’s face creased in laughter, and her eyes were shining as she looked at Matt. “Good.” She tightened her grip on their hands. “Because you see, I want you two to get married before I go.”