All Night Long (18 page)

"Harry thinks you could be president," Susannah said quietly, looking up at Matt from under her lashes to see how he reacted to her statement.

He seemed unconcerned. "President of what?"

"The United States."

Matt stopped in his tracks and looked down at her, stupefied. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. "You must have misunderstood him."

"Nope," Susannah said. "He said you could make it all the way to the White House if you wanted to."

"He was teasing you."

"'Serious as death and taxes,'" she quoted.

"Well, hell." Matt shook his head again. "I guess I'm going to have to sit down and talk to Harry about his plans for my political future," he said. "President is the last thing in the world I'd ever want to be."

"How about mayor of San Francisco, or governor of the great state of California?"

"Governor, huh?" Matt said consideringly. And then he shook his head, as if dismissing the idea, but Susannah was very much afraid she'd seen what might have been a gleam of interest in his eyes.

* * *

They left Matt's car in one of the public parking lots at Fisherman's Wharf and caught the ferry over to Sausalito. It docked right in the heart of the little upscale hillside community, letting them disembark less them three blocks from the boat slip Carly Elliott called home.

"I can't believe my mother's dating someone who lives on a houseboat," Matt groused as they strolled along Bridgeway Boulevard. "I mean, why a houseboat? It isn't as if he can't afford a decent place to live." From what he'd learned about him, Matt knew Carlisle Elliott was rich enough to buy several decent places to live. The little nursery business he'd sold before he left Iowa had been a
chain
of nurseries all through the Midwest. "He drives a red Corvette, too," Matt said. "Did I mention that?"

"I think you might have," Susannah said dryly. "Once or twice."

"He took her dancing last Friday at the Pier 23 Cafe." Friday night was mambo night at Pier 23. "And she said something about catching the midnight show at some club last Tuesday to listen to blues." He snorted. "I didn't even know she knew what the blues were. Yesterday they went kite flying at Ocean Beach." He shook his head morosely. "Kite flying! At their ages," he said, pretending a shock that, at its core, was only half-feigned.

"Lighten up," Susannah advised heartlessly as they stepped onto the wooden pier. "She's having fun. You wanted her to have fun, didn't you?"

Matt shrugged and made a noncommittal noise.
Fun
wasn't a word he ordinarily associated with his mother. Not the kind of fun, anyway, that had her riding around in a red Corvette and kept her out until all hours of the night. His mother was more dignified than that. More conservative. More... motherly.

Susannah nudged him with her elbow. "Smile," she said, lifting her hand to return the enthusiastic greeting being directed at them from the top deck of the houseboat docked at the very end of the pier.

"Welcome aboard," Carly called when they got within hollering distance. "Welcome aboard. It's unlocked," he said, pointing at the gate that separated the pier from his gangplank before he disappeared from view.

He reappeared a moment later on the lower deck, looking suntanned and windblown. His sockless feet were encased in a pair of white Topsiders and he wore a flowered Hawaiian print shirt tucked into the waistband of a pair of elegantly rumpled chinos. With his shock of thick, snow-white hair, wide smile and courtly manner, Susannah thought he looked like a retired movie star.

Matt thought he looked like an aging gigolo. "Millicent will be out in a minute," he told them, gallantly holding out his hand to assist Susannah as she stepped off the gangplank onto the deck. "She went inside to wash up," he explained. "We were doing a little gardening."

"Gardening?" Matt said as he politely extended his hand in greeting. "On a houseboat?"

"I grow herbs and roses in planters on the upper deck." His grip was solid by not crushing. "Your mother was helping me with some repotting."

"Matthew." Millicent hurried toward them, coming out of a door in the forward cabin. She held her hand out to her son, taking the one he extended to her in turn, and lifted her cheek for his kiss.

Her cheeks were flushed, Matt noticed, her skin warm beneath his lips. Her hair was caught up in a casual ponytail, held in place with a red silk scarf tied into a floppy bow. Her sweater was red, too, the vaguely nautical style accented with two narrow white stripes around the cuff of each sleeve and one outlining the modest V neck.

"And Susannah. How lovely to see you again, dear." She leaned over to kiss Susannah's cheek.

"Lovely to see you again, too," Susannah replied.

"Well, come along, both of you," Millicent said. "Everyone upstairs. Your timing couldn't be better," she told them, talking over her shoulder as she led the way up the narrow wooden staircase to the upper deck. "Carly just whipped up another pitcher of his famous margaritas not ten minutes ago." She looked past Matt and Susannah to smile at the debonair white-haired man who followed behind them. "Didn't you, Carly?"

"Millicent loves my margaritas," Carly said with a grin.

Margaritas?
Matt thought.
Another
pitcher of margaritas? Since when had his mother started drinking anything other than Spanish sherry? And when had she started wearing such bright colors? And nail polish? When had she started painting her toe—

And then he saw the dirty handprint smeared across the back of his mother's otherwise immaculate white slacks. It was the kind of smear one might get by absently wiping one's dirty hand across the seat of one's pants. Except that his fastidiously groomed mother was never that careless with her clothes. And her hands weren't nearly that big.

* * *

A couple of hours later, after margaritas on the upper deck and a light supper of grilled swordfish and green salad, Matt folded his arms across his wide chest and leaned back against the kitchen counter, watching his mother slice into a cherry pie Carly Elliott had made for dessert.

"You've been seeing an awful lot of Elliott these past couple of weeks," he commented, trying to sound casual.

Millicent smiled to herself. "That was the idea, wasn't it?" she said lightly.

"The idea?"

"The idea behind hiring Susannah to find me a date."

Matt wondered why he was even surprised. "You knew?"

Millicent nodded complacently.

"How?"

His mother smiled mysteriously. "A mother always knows."

Matt pursed his lips and cocked an eyebrow at her.

"You made a special point of introducing me to three different men in one week," she said. "It made me wonder. And then someone—I forget who—happened to mention what Susannah really does for a living."

"Ah..."Matt nodded.

"Yes," Millicent agreed. She began putting slices of pie on individual plates. "Once I knew that, if wasn't very hard to put two and two together."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I might have, if it had gone on any longer." Her smile was impish. "Or if you'd introduced me to one more of those excruciatingly boring gentlemen." She opened a drawer for forks, unconsciously revealing her familiarity with Carlisle Elliott's kitchen. "But then Susannah came up with Carly...." She shrugged, saying more by what she didn't say.

"You like him a lot, don't you?"

"Yes," Millicent said. "I do." She looked up at her tall son. "I hope that doesn't upset you."

"He's very different from Dad."

"Yes."

"You're very different with him than you were with Dad."

Millicent sighed. "I loved your father very much, Matthew. I hope you know that."

Matt nodded. "I know."

"For thirty-seven years he was everything to me. Everything I was, everything I did, nearly every aspect of my life revolved around your father and his career. I'm not saying I resented it," she assured her son. "I don't want you to think that. It was the life I'd been raised for, trained for. It was what I wanted and expected when I married your father. But there's a price for building your life around someone else's dream, and when he died, I was totally lost. I felt cast adrift. For a long time it seemed as if I had no purpose anymore." She reached out and put her hand on her son's arm. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Matt covered her slender fingers with his and squeezed gently. He could feel her wedding ring pressing against his palm. "I think so."

"I was angry, too," she admitted. "Absolutely furious for a while. I blamed him for dying, for working himself to death, for never taking a vacation or letting up. For leaving me alone." She sighed. "But I got over that, too, and, after a while, when the worst of the grief passed, I started to think my purpose would be you and your career. But I was wrong." She squeezed his arm and let go. "I knew that even before you started trying to arrange those blind dates for me," she said with a smile.

"So, what you're saying is that Elliott gives purpose to your life now."

"No." Millicent looked mildly shocked. "Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying at all! I'm not looking for anyone to give purpose to my life. I've realized that I'm the only one who can do that. But Carly..." She shook her head and grinned. "Carly is a wonderful playmate."

"A playmate?" Matt said, trying not to sound shocked in turn.

"He's so free and open, so alive to new ideas and new experiences. When I'm with him, I'm a freer person, too. He's teaching me how to have fun," Millicent said, matter-of-factly, "to stop and smell the roses. I've never done that before."

"You're not serious about him, then?"

"Serious?" Millicent shrugged, then shook her head. "I don't know yet." She opened a cupboard and got out a tray. "It might turn into something lasting and, then again, it might not," she said. "For once in my life, I'm not worrying about it either way."

Matt was silent a moment, trying to absorb this new side of his mother, trying to see her as a vibrant, vital woman with needs. "You're being careful, aren't you?"

"Careful?" Millicent said absently, busy arranging the pie plates and cutlery on the tray.

"With, ah..." His wide shoulders lifted in an uncomfortable shrug. "Sex and everything?"

Millicent's head snapped around, her hand arrested in midmotion as she reached for the napkins. "Matthew Francis Larson Ryan, are you asking me if I'm sleeping with Carly?"

"No. No, of course not." Matt could feel a blush warming his cheeks. "I was just asking... that is..."
God, how did I get myself into this conversation? "I
hope you're being careful, that's all."

"If and when I decide to resume a sex life, you can rest assured I'll be very careful," Millicent said, feeling her own cheeks warm. She grabbed a handful of napkins out of the basket on the counter and began folding them. "You can also rest assured that I won't be talking to you about it. As for Carly and me, well, all I'll say about our relationship is what I've already said. Carly's good for me." She slanted a considering look at him out of the corner of her eye as she carefully placed the folded napkins on the dessert tray. "Probably in much the same way that Susannah is good for you," she said delicately, trying to elicit more information from her closemouthed son. "They both have a special gift for livening things up."

Matt gave her a look from under his brows, the previous subject suddenly all but forgotten. "I've asked her to marry me."

Millicent smiled. "I didn't realize it had gone that far already," she said, "but if she's what you want, then I'm happy for both of you."

He reached over and broke a piece of crust off one of the pieces of pie. "Even if she hurts my career?" he asked without looking at her. They both knew his question went deeper than that—that it wasn't just her approval of Susannah he was asking for.

"It's your career, Matthew. Your life. Your choice." She him a level look, rife with unspoken messages. "Don't let anyone or anything else make that choice for you."

* * *

Matt and Susannah stood on the upper deck of Carly Elliott's houseboat, shoulders touching, forearms resting on the polished wooden railing, watching the fireworks explode in the inky black sky over San Francisco Bay. Hand-held sparklers twinkled across the water like fairy lights and, every once in a while, someone shot off an unauthorized rocket or Catherine wheel from one of the other boats, sending up a whine and a burst of lights to compete with the official display.

Matt bent his head to whisper in Susannah's ear. "That's the way you make me feel inside," he said as a huge red-white-and-blue chrysanthemum-shaped star burst overhead.

Thrilled beyond words, Susannah turned her head to look at him. They stared at each other for a long moment, their bodies still, barely touching at shoulder and hip, their gazes locked and searching, wrapped in a fog of wonder and romance while the world celebrated all around them.

"I want to feel this way for the rest of my life, Susannah," he whispered, his gaze never leaving hers. "I want you to marry me."