An Unexpected Match (16 page)

 

His house was too quiet when Matthew came in through the garage entry fifteen minutes later. The silence mocked him as he crossed to the closet and hung his coat. The absence of the laughter, the chatter and the sheer volume he'd come to expect in his home felt like a hole that swallowed the space.

He started toward the stairs, seeking the comfort of watching his little girl sleep, but he stopped, remembering she wasn't home. Why hadn't he asked his mother to watch Elizabeth here instead of at her house so the child could sleep in her own bed? Now he would have to wake Elizabeth early at his mother's house so he could bring her home in time to meet Mrs. White. This meeting would be hard enough without Elizabeth already being in a sour mood.

Not the first time since he'd made that rash decision, he questioned the wisdom of springing his daughter's new
care provider on her. It wasn't really fair to bring Anna White in at such a disadvantage, but he hadn't really had a choice. After the conversation he'd shared with Haley tonight, he couldn't ask her to give two weeks' notice before quitting a job she didn't want to leave.

She wanted to stay. He just couldn't wrap his thoughts around that. Sure, she thought that was what she wanted, but how long would she continue to feel that way? How long before she found another project that interested her more?

She talked a good game; he had to give her that. She'd sounded so believable when she said that he and Elizabeth were her life. At least he understood that
she
really believed what she was saying.

He couldn't allow himself to trust her words, he decided, as he moved from room to room picking up the few toys and couch pillows that were out of place. He didn't want to see the changes Haley had made to his home and family in the month since she'd been back in Markston, either, but he couldn't escape them.

In the kitchen, the refrigerator door was decorated with the construction-paper Easter bunny and the abstract potato painting Elizabeth had made with Haley just last week. The living room was spotless now, but he could still picture the mess when he'd arrived home to see Haley and Elizabeth sprawled on the floor playing with dolls. He would never be able to look at the dining table again without having the urge to get a close shave.

She might have made her mark here, but he knew, no matter what she'd said, she would never stay. Just tonight she'd confirmed his suspicion when she said she would probably be leaving town. Always flighty, she'd admitted she didn't know what to do with her life now.

Didn't that justify his worries? He'd known she would leave eventually. He couldn't be wrong trying to protect his daughter from the pain of that. He couldn't be wrong to act first instead of waiting for that pain to come.

Finally giving up his pacing from room to room, Matthew went to his bedroom and climbed under the covers. But though he closed his eyes, he couldn't shut out the thoughts that convicted him rather than Haley in their face-off. He tried to focus on her admission that she was leaving, but other things she'd said began to nibble through the layers of his defenses.

I hoped you would need me forever.
When she'd first spoken those words that he recognized were about more than her job, Matthew had resisted them the best he could. He'd walked away. Now he could escape neither the words nor the accusation from the woman who'd invaded his world and carved a place for herself in it.

Just whom had he been protecting anyway? As much as he wanted to believe that he sought to shield his daughter, the truth hit even closer to home. His feelings for Haley were frightening and so different from those he'd ever felt for anyone, including his ex-wife. How could he act on those feelings and risk the overwhelming loss he would feel when she left?

Haley, on the other hand, seemed fearless as she took a risk and followed her heart. She challenged him to do the same, to trust even after people in his life had proven untrustworthy. As someone who'd been burned herself, Haley made taking that kind of risk look easy. It wasn't.

I hoped you would need me forever.
Now those words ate at him as he lay in the darkness of his room, his eyes focused on a ceiling hidden among the shadows. Had he made a mistake? Haley had warned him that if he didn't
learn to trust, he would end up alone someday, but “someday” had come sooner than he would have thought.

His fear of trusting already had cost him a lot over the last few years. Now it had cost him the woman who mattered more to him than he'd ever thought anyone could. How could he survive without Haley?

H
aley flipped through an endless series of infomercials and reality shows she hoped didn't reflect anyone's true reality as she lay back on the sofa, her slippered feet propped on the footstool. She thought she heard voices in the front hall, but she was too tired to go check for herself. Besides, her movie would be back on after the commercial break she was channel surfing to avoid, and she didn't want to miss any of the drama.

Would the Meg Ryan character, Annie, and Sam, the character Tom Hanks portrayed, end up together at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day? Of course, Haley already knew the answer to that question, but that was part of the appeal of watching old chick flicks again and again. The couples always ended up together in the end. Love always prevailed.

Unfortunately, it wasn't like that in the real world. And real-life heroines had no makeup artists on hand to touch up their faces after a crying jag. She could really use one of those—the makeup artist, not the crying jag. She was good on those already.

When the movie came back on, Annie was on the building's observation deck, waiting for a would-be date, who either she'd missed or wasn't coming. Was that what Haley was doing, waiting for Matthew to finally get his head on straight and figure out that she was the person for him, the one he could trust?

Haley crossed her arms over her chest in a huff. She was not doing
that
because if she were, she would look pitiful. Her heart might long for a future with Matthew, but she had to ignore its plea. Loving him wasn't enough. She wanted, and frankly, deserved more than a man who couldn't trust her.

She must not have heard them enter the room because suddenly her mother and Mrs. Warren were standing at the doorway of the tiny family room, staring at her. Mrs. Warren looked shocked, as if she'd never seen someone having a movie day on a sofa before.

Strangely, Haley was tempted to fluff some of the pillows she'd piled on either side of her to increase the comfort factor. She should have put away her tray after lunch instead of leaving her empty soup bowl and the waxed sleeve from a package of saltines resting on the floor next to the couch.

“You see what I mean?” Trina crossed her arms as she studied her daughter. “Just look at her.”

“I'm looking.”

For a few seconds, Haley stared back at them, but finally she couldn't take any more. “What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a person wearing sweats before?”

Mrs. Warren shrugged. “Well, she's not wearing pajamas, I guess.”

“Yes, she is. She slept in those last night. Those slippers,” Trina paused, pointing to her daughter's feet, “she's been wearing for the past four days.”

“Oh,” Amy said aloud, though her expression said “ew.”

Haley frowned at the two older women. “I'm right here, you know.”

“Yes, you are, dear,” Trina said. “And you've been
right here
every day this week.” She indicated the family room with a wide sweep of her hand.

“Where do you expect me to be? I don't have a job to go to. And I don't have anywhere else to live, either.” Haley reached for the remote and flicked off the TV, sending into darkness the image of Sam and Annie holding hands with the amazement of newfound love on their faces.

Trina planted her hands on her hips. “Well, I doubt sitting there will help you to right either of those situations.”

Amy elbowed Trina in the side, as if she didn't think her friend's usual
tough love
was working. She glanced at the television and then back at Haley. “Wasn't that
Sleepless in Seattle?
That's a good movie.”

“Not very realistic,” Haley murmured.

Amy nodded. “Probably not, but a lot of fun to watch.”

“Especially when you've got a case of the blues,” Trina said. “You have a case, and we've come to help you shake it off.”

At first, Amy frowned at her friend, probably over her bluntness, but then she stepped over to the sofa and looked into Haley's bowl with soup congealing on the sides. “She's still eating, anyway. That's a good sign.”

“She's been showering, which is a blessing, too.” Trina pinched her nose and winked. “And, yes, she is still eating but only comfort foods. She's depressed, all right.”

Haley held her hands up to stop the assault. “I'm not depressed. Don't you think I would recognize if I were de
pressed? And even if I did feel down in the dumps, wouldn't I have a good excuse? It's only been five weeks since my fiancé dumped me.”

Mrs. Warren grasped her chin between her thumb and forefinger in a thoughtful pose. “She has a point there.”

“That's true.”

At her mother's acceptance of the excuse, Haley calmed. It was too humiliating to admit that her blues had nothing to do with an ex-fiancé and everything to do with a man she'd had only one date with and would never have another.

“Strange, though.” Trina inserted one of the dramatic pauses her daughters had learned to be wary of before continuing. “You didn't become a resident of my davenport until the day after one date with the son of my dear friend here. That must have been some date.”

Haley stiffened. She couldn't be as transparent as that. “If you'll remember, I lost my job that night, too.”

“Point taken,” Trina said. “Still, I think I'm going to stick with my premise.”

“It's ‘curiouser and curiouser.'” Amy chuckled.

“Oh dear.” Haley gripped her head with both hands. “Now they're quoting
Alice in Wonderland.
If I promise to turn off my movies, throw on some jeans and eat a steak, will the two of you leave me alone?”

“As soon as you tell us the whole story about you and Matthew,” her mother told her. “For you to be as upset as you've been this week, there has to be more between you two than one date.”

A lump formed in Haley's throat. No, she wouldn't cry again. All week she'd kept her tears few and at least in private in those moments when she couldn't contain them. She didn't want to change that now.

“I don't know why either of you would think there would
be anything between us.” Haley hated hearing the rancor in her voice, but she couldn't help herself. “You'd never considered it a possibility before Matthew made his announcement.”

“You're right,” Trina said. “And now I'm not sure why. I guess it was hard for me to see my youngest as anything but a little girl, so I never thought of it.”

Amy raised both hands in an act of surrender. “I don't have an excuse, but then I've been banned from involvement in my son's love life, so I wouldn't trust my opinion.”

“Hmm, maybe you shouldn't be here at all,” Trina said to her friend.

“It's fine,” Haley heard herself admitting. “There's nothing between Matthew and me, at least anything that matters.”

“What would make it matter?” her mother asked her.

“Feelings would have to go two ways.”

Haley braced herself for the onslaught of prying questions, but to her surprise, the two women let the subject drop. The tension in the room diminished as the other women took their places on the sofa and recliner near Haley and the subject changed to Haley's plans for the future.

Instead of questioning her decision to return to college for her master's degree as rash, both women were encouraging. Her mother even offered to have Haley live at home while she commuted to Indiana University, making the plan a true possibility. She wasn't sure how she would be able to avoid Matthew while living in the same small town and attending the same small church, but she would handle that challenge when she faced it.

“You realize you'll have to put on real clothes and skip the slippers to go to class, don't you?” One side of Mrs. Warren's mouth lifted as she asked it.

“And you'll have to save your movie watching for the weekends…when your homework is finished,” Trina chimed.

“Thanks, you two.”

Though she was responding to their clever comments, Haley was thanking them for far more. They were right; she couldn't sit around feeling sorry for herself. She needed to get on with her life.

Though this wasn't the life she would have chosen or even the one that still filled her dreams, her subconscious would have free reign in her writing, and it did give her a reason to get up each morning. It was a far stretch from what she'd felt was her calling to help raise Elizabeth Warren, but with writing, she would be doing something she loved and living life on her own terms.

 

Matthew gripped Elizabeth's hand as he hurried down the steps from church that Sunday morning. If only he could escape his thoughts as easily. He'd expected it would be difficult standing at the lectern and seeing Haley out in the congregation, but he hadn't prepared himself for the painful ache in his heart.

He'd tried not to look at her, really tried, but his eyes seemed to have a mind of their own, searching her out so often that most of the membership had to notice. Conversely, Haley had kept her gaze averted and had purposely looked at her hymnal or the organist every time she accidentally glanced his way.

All this week he'd waited and prayed about it, giving his thoughts the time to settle and his reason the chance to return. He'd hoped to feel nothing when he saw her again, but what he did feel was certainty that he'd lost someone he should have known to cherish.

As they trudged down the steps, Elizabeth kept craning her neck to look over her shoulder. “I want to see Miss Haley.”

“She left already.” He'd been relieved when Haley hadn't been needed as a substitute teacher in his daughter's Sunday school class. He'd also appreciated it that Haley had left through one of the side doors rather than to go through the receiving line where he stood with Reverend Boggs. He didn't know what to say to her now.

She glanced out at the parking lot and then back at her father. “I want Miss Haley.”

“I'm sorry, Elizabeth.”

“My name is Lizzie.” Her comment would have sounded defensive if her little bottom lip hadn't started trembling. “Miss Haley calls me Lizzie.”

“I know, honey.” She'd been talking about it all week. Still, he couldn't bring himself to call her that, even though he no longer minded the nickname. It would be another reminder in a week where already there had been far too many.

Their car was one of the few remaining vehicles in the church parking lot. As he put Elizabeth in her booster seat, he glanced down in time to catch her wiping away a tear. He understood too well how she felt. He'd thought he was shielding Elizabeth's little heart, and his own, by trying to keep Haley Scott at a distance, but he realized now he was already too late.

Haley had come into their home and had shaken up their lives with her noise, her irreverence, her joie de vivre. Before Matthew had realized it, Haley had made a place for herself in their home and in both of their hearts. Their family had been changed because of her. It felt incomplete without her.

The thought should have terrified him, but he was sur
prised to find that it no longer did. Although he'd made a point of not allowing himself to need someone again, that decision hadn't made him happy. Just alone.

He didn't want to be alone anymore. More than that, he didn't want his precious child to grow up without knowing the love of a mother. He'd enjoyed a love like that all of his life, and yet he'd taken it for granted, focusing instead on those who'd failed him. Haley loved his daughter that way as well, the child of her heart if not her body, and yet he'd failed to recognize the blessing she was, as well.

That was before. Haley couldn't even bear to look at him now. He deserved no better than that, and she certainly deserved better than him. The other night had been full of possibilities and such promise in the kisses they'd shared, but the door that had been slowly opening now appeared tightly closed. It was too late, and he had no one to blame but himself.

Was there anything he could do to change it now? He didn't think so, but as he pulled out of the church parking lot, he turned not toward his house but toward an address a few streets over, the one he would always know as
home.
He needed to ask for some advice from the woman he'd just told to stay out of his love life.

 

“Surprise, Grammy!” Elizabeth threw herself into her grandmother's stomach as Amy Warren opened the front door.

“Oh,” Amy said, though the sound came out sounding more like
oomph.
“I wasn't expecting you. Did I invite you two to Sunday dinner and then forget about it? Because I have some chicken thawed and I can—”

Matthew kept shaking his head until she stopped. “No, you don't need to go to any fuss.”

“It's no fuss.”

He shook his head again. “That's not why we're here, though I'm sure Elizabeth would appreciate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if you have one to spare.”