Was she going to marry the man who’d been so kind and so gentle with her, or the completely self-contained businessman who’d swear he didn’t need anyone?
She feared it would be the latter.
That was the one who showed up three weeks later to drive her to her parents’ house for the wedding. Matt, all slick and polished, as calm and sure of himself as ever, driving that pricey, steel-gray sports car of his.
She had so many doubts she thought she might drown in them.
Matt carried her bags to the car and opened the passenger side door for her. She stood by the car door, gazing back at the tired-looking, old house she’d called home for the brief time she’d been here, wondering where she’d be three years from now and if she had the courage to take this leap of faith.
“You can’t change your mind now,” Matt said softly.
“I know.” But a smart woman would still try to protect her heart.
Cathie got in the car, trying not to look back anymore. Matt knelt down in the open door of the car and said, “I won’t let you down, Cathie. I’ll do everything I promised.”
And her silly heart started thumping like crazy. There was that man again.
“I know you will,” she said.
But what if she asked him for more? What if she found the courage? Would it be like that awful time when she was sixteen and had thrown herself at him?
“You don’t look so sure, Cath.”
“Just nervous.”
“About seeing everyone? About making them believe this is real?”
“About everything,” she confessed, and thought he was going to take her in his arms again. That would be nice. Maybe she wouldn’t cry or forget to breathe, and then she could just enjoy the feeling of having his arms around her.
Nothing felt like being in Matt’s arms.
She dared a glance at his face. He might have turned to stone, right there hunkered down in the doorway of the car. Finally, he said, “It’s the right thing to do.”
That was the businessman talking. The one who drove a status symbol, probably lived in one, as well. Couldn’t she just have her teenage car thief back? She’d understood him so much better and known how to handle him.
“Just keep thinking about the baby,” he said.
“Okay.” That helped. “I’ll always be grateful to you for this.”
“And don’t thank me again,” he said, giving her a warning look.
She fell silent. He stood up, came around to the driver’s side of the car, and off they went. They made it out of the city and onto the interstate, heading west toward the mountains, before he said anything else.
“All we have to do is get through Christmas and the wedding. It’s three days. Then we can live our own lives,” he said. “Your parents will come to visit every now and then. Your brothers might show up from time to time, but that’s it. No one else is going to put this marriage under a microscope and try to analyze it or judge it. We get through these three days, and we have nothing to worry about.”
“You’re right. It’s just…it’s not going to be easy. They’ll expect certain things from us….”
They’d expect her to be in love with him. How hard would that be? All she’d have to do was drop her guard and let all those old feelings show through. But at the same time, she had other secrets to hold inside. The fact that she was pregnant. That the baby wasn’t Matt’s, and that her marriage was intended to be nothing but a sham.
How was she going to manage that?
“Cathie, we’re talking about your family at Christmas and on the day you get married. It’s going to be pure chaos. A dozen people dropping by to see you and your brothers and your parents. Everyone talking at once, pulling us in six different directions and probably not giving us a moment’s peace. It’s a perfect setup for us.”
“You’re right.” Maybe they could pull it off. And then they’d be married. Oh, boy.
“Try to relax.” Matt punched a few buttons, turning up the heat, bringing soft, soothing music from the CD player. He grabbed his overcoat from the back seat and put it over her. “Or maybe try to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long three days.”
So, he was going to take care of her? That would be nice. And familiar. When she was a little girl, pestering him shamelessly and leaving him wanting nothing more than to get away, he’d still been the first person to come running if she ever got into trouble or got hurt.
She was starting to worry that it wasn’t fair to him, to marry him letting him think this was going to be nothing but a sham when she wanted so much more. That was about as dishonest as a woman could get, wasn’t it?
Or was this the chance she’d always wanted with him? One for him to have all the things he so desperately needed. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever loved anyone in his whole life, and he wasn’t going to start now, not on his own. She doubted he was even looking for anything like love, and his life seemed so empty to her.
But it was his life, and he claimed to like it just fine.
Who was she to turn it upside down? Or to claim she wanted one thing from him, when she wanted something else completely?
“You’re worrying again,” he said.
“Sorry. Are you sure this is what you want to do?” There. She just said it.
“Cathie, the whole thing was my idea. I’m sure.”
“It may not turn out the way we planned,” she tried. “I mean, life would be so much simpler if things just worked out the way we expected them to.”
“What do you expect to happen, Cathie?”
“I don’t know. Things have a way of getting complicated.” She thought about saying she didn’t want to hurt him, but he’d think that was ridiculous. He was like the man of steel, couldn’t be hurt. The man without a heart. So her heart was the only one at risk, right?
She just didn’t know.
He took her cold hand in his warm one. “Cathie, just let me take care of things for a while, okay?”
“I’m trying to.” She closed her eyes, trying not to think too much about what was right and what was wrong, trying to just be grateful to him for giving her and her baby this chance.
She slept, waking when they were only five minutes from her home.
“Matt!” she complained.
“What? You wanted more time to be nervous?”
“No.”
He grinned. “That’s what you would have done, and you know it.”
She might have begged him to stop, told him it was all a big mistake, that they couldn’t go through with this. As it was, she didn’t have time to do anything. They pulled up to the house. Someone must have been watching for them, because people started spilling out. Everyone was talking at once. There were hugs and kisses and more tears. Matt got pulled one way, and she was dragged another.
Her mother and her aunts wanted to go over every detail of the wedding, until her head was spinning. Sprinkled into that conversation came questions about her and Matt, about how secretive they’d been and how despite that, no one was really surprised. Had she been that transparent in her feelings for him? She supposed she had and didn’t want to think of what everyone