Love and Other Surprises (22 page)

He didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe a few sticks of furniture here and there, a couple of goofy pictures on the wall, some artsy-schmartsy touches. He sure hadn’t expected the house to look like a warm, inviting, elegant home. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the owners had run out on an errand and would be back at any minute.

Matt strolled through the house, taking in the collection of porcelain pigs in the kitchen, the child’s wagon used as an end table in the playroom, the surprising, tasteful mix of antiques and new pieces in room after room.

It was beautiful, all right, with just a touch of whimsy and humor. Just like Ali.

Matt gave a low whistle as he finished his tour. The place was nothing short of spectacular— a regular showplace.

Which was, after all, what she’d set out to do.

The realization stopped him short, sharpening the dull ache he always felt when he thought about Ali into a wrenching pain. He sat on the stairs, his head in his hands, his heart at his feet.

He’d been a fool. An utter, stubborn fool. He’d completely misjudged her. His preconceptions had blinded him, preventing him from seeing what a bright, capable, creative woman she was.

Worse, he’d been a jerk. A first-class, stuffed-shirt, closed-minded jerk. He’d treated her like a child in need of supervision instead of an equal partner. He’d vastly underestimated her skills.

Vastly underestimated
her.
He swore under his breath, all of his anger at her fizzling like day-old soda pop.

Hell, she couldn’t help the fact that she’d lost a contact lens. And he
had
told her to handle the interiors, which gave her the right to hire anyone she pleased. And so what if she’d run an ad in the paper without discussing it with him? He’d been out of town. As half owner of the company, she’d had every right.

Why had he made such a big deal out of it? Was he looking for reasons to find fault with her?

Matt loosened his tie, his heart sagging under the weight of the answer.

Yes.
He’d been looking for something to discredit her, for anything to stem the growing tide of tenderness that welled up inside him whenever he saw her, whenever he thought of her. His anger had been nothing but a cardboard firewall, a flimsy attempt to protect himself from the torch he was carrying for her.

Now that he’d realized it, what the heck was he going to do about it?

He heard a noise on the first floor and jumped to his feet, hoping it was Ali. Feeling more alive than he had in days, he raced down the stairs and headed toward the sound. He rounded the corner, his heart pounding, and nearly bumped into a man in white painter’s overalls, crouching down and peering at a door jamb.

Derrick Atchison. A bitter taste filled Matt’s mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“Ali told me the movers scuffed the doorway when they brought in the furniture today, so I came back to touch it up.” Straightening, Derrick nervously wiped his hands on his white painter’s pants. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for giving me a chance on this job, Matt. It was mighty big of you— especially after everything that’s happened between us. My counselor at the alcohol treatment center told me I’m lucky to have friends like you and Ali. Not everyone gets a chance to start over so early in recovery, and I want you to know I’m grateful.” He stuck out his hand.

Derrick had gone to treatment?
Matt stared at his outstretched hand as the words sank in. A problem like alcoholism would explain his inability to keep a job, his erratic life-style, his lack of responsibility, his crude behavior.

And now he was trying to recover?

It all made sense now. That was why Ali had given him the painting contract—she was trying to help him get back on his feet.

Matt inwardly winced. She’d tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d ranted and raved and railed at her when her motivations had been kind and good-hearted and generous.

Matt shifted uneasily, feeling about two inches high. He had to find her. He didn’t know what he was going to say or do, but somehow he had to set things right. He only hoped he wasn’t too late.

He grasped Derrick’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “I’m glad you’re straightening out your life. Looks like you have a bright future ahead, judging from the job you did here.”

Derrick grinned broadly and pumped Matt’s hand. “Thanks.”

“Do you know where Ali is?”

“Last time I saw her, she was headed home.”

Matt started for the door. “Lock up when you leave—looks like a bad storm is coming.”

Derrick nodded. “Sure thing. I’m almost done.”

Matt strode purposefully back to his truck. The wind whipped the trees and scuttled the clouds across the sky as he yanked open the door of the company pickup and climbed inside. It was just like Ali to give someone another chance, he thought as he started the engine. One question reverberated in his mind as he guided the truck away from the curb. Would she give him another chance, too?

Black clouds boiled in the eastern sky as Matt drove to Ali’s house. This time of year in Oklahoma, clouds like that could be dangerous. Matt flipped on the truck radio and scanned the channels for a weather report.

“A tornado warning is in effect until nine o’clock this evening,” an announcer intoned. “Funnels have been sighted ten miles east of Hillsboro, moving in a westerly direction. Residents should be prepared to take shelter.”

Matt stepped on the gas, intent on reaching Ali. If anything happened to her…

The thought made his blood run cold. The first drops of rain splattered on his windshield as another thought struck him, this one with the force of a cyclone.

I love her.

Stunned, Matt stared at the road. Water beaded and ran on the glass, blurring his vision, and he absently switched on the wipers. Until this moment, he’d had no idea what he was going to do or say when he saw her. He’d been acting purely on impulse, an unheard of state of affairs for him. And now he knew why.

He loved her. Why hadn’t he realized it before now?

The swishing rubber blades seemed to clear his mind as well as the windshield. The truth stretched in front of him like the white lines on the road, stark and bright and laid out in a row.

All of his efforts to avoid her, to find fault with her, to be angry at her, were nothing more than feeble attempts to deny an undeniable truth.

He loved her. He rubbed his forehead, trying to puzzle out how such a thing could have happened without his knowledge, without his permission. He hadn’t planned to fall in love with anyone, much less with Ali. He had no intention of repeating the mistake he’d made with Elise.

The rain began to fall in earnest, thundering on the roof of the truck as Matt was struck with another jarring thought. Maybe the mistake he’d made with Elise wasn’t falling in love, wasn’t even getting married. Maybe the mistake was just picking the wrong woman.

The wipers sluiced back and forth, the glass growing cleaner and clearer. Ali was completely different from Elise, from any woman Matt had ever known. It stood to reason that a relationship with her would be different, too. She was warm and kind and giving, the type of woman who loved and accepted people, who gave them second chances, who knew how to make a house a home, who brightened a room just by walking into it.

Who’d brightened his
life
just by walking into it.

Matt squinted, as much in concentration as in an effort to see through the driving rain. Yes, she was unpredictable, and yes, confusion
did
seem to surround her like a cloud of perfume, but so did love and joy and a zest for life.

Matt’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. His life was sorely lacking in all those things. It might be well-ordered and predictable, but it was also sterile and cold and empty.

What was it Ali had said?
Things don’t always go according to plan, but that doesn’t mean they’re going wrong.

He pressed his foot to the accelerator, anxious to close the distance separating them. If he was ever going to have a chance at happiness, real happiness, this was it. One thing was for sure: life with Ali would never be boring.

The wail of a siren keened through the air and Matt rolled down his window to better hear it, ignoring the rain splattering his face. It wasn’t an approaching ambulance or a police car as he’d first thought; it was the town’s emergency warning system cautioning people to take shelter.

Alarm raced through him. He turned up the volume of the radio but got only static. The local station was off the air.

He peered up at the blackened sky, which seemed to be getting darker as he neared Ali’s home, and was gripped by a cold fear. He’d seen some bad storms in his thirty-one years, but he’d never seen anything like this.

His mouth set in a grim line, he drove as fast as he dared, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles ached.

He said a silent prayer as he turned into Ali’s subdivision, then felt his heart plummet to the floorboard as he saw the first house, roofless and battered. It was the Johnson place, one of the first homes he and Robert had built. Thank goodness the Johnsons had been transferred to Chicago and the house was vacant. Matt realized he should feel something at seeing his handiwork in such a state, should have some sense of loss, but all of his emotions were focused on the terrifying fact that a tornado had indeed passed this way.

Ali’s home was around the next curve. He gunned the engine, his mouth dry, his pulse pounding in his throat. He tried to tell himself that tornadoes were fickle, that they could hit a house and leave the one next to it standing, but what he saw confirmed his worst fears.

“Oh, God, no,” he whispered.

The house was leveled, a mangled mess of boards and shingles and pipes and wire. Three walls of one interior room were all that remained upright. The rest of the building was a chaotic heap, as if a giant hand had picked it up, crushed it like a potato chip and tossed it into the air.

Matt jerked the truck into “park” and jumped out before it had even stopped rolling.

“Ali!” he called. Despair weighted his chest. She could be lying injured or—God forbid!—dead under any of the piles of rubbish. Where should he even begin?

He stood in the downpour, wet to the skin, straining to see a clue or hear a sign, silently willing her to somehow beckon him.

“Ali!”

Was that a whimper he heard, or just the rain echoing off the wreckage? His head jerked in the direction he thought it came from and called again. “Ali! Where are you, honey?”

There it was again! It sounded like it was coming from the center of the ruins, near the area where the three walls still stood. A spark of hope lit Matt’s heart and propelled him into the wreckage.

His peripheral vision caught sight of something dangling above him. He glanced up to see wires trailing from a power line.

Careful—the electric lines are down.
The thought brought an impatient curse. He was forced to slow his steps, to cautiously pick his way through the rubble as if it were a mine field.

“Ali, honey, I’m coming. Tell me where you are,” he called.

An eerie wail drifted back to him, causing his adrenaline to surge. Matt sent a another silent petition to God and forged ahead, dreading what he might find, fearing he might get there too late.

He finally stepped over a large section of roof and into what had been her bathroom. He stared at the counter, where a wicker basket of potpourri, a perfume bottle and a crystal soap dish bizarrely stood in perfect order, the only testimony to the maelstrom they’d endured the tiny shards of broken mirror that covered them like prisms from a chandelier.

Turning, Matt saw the enormous tub—and inside it, a very wet, very frightened, black and white dog.

Flipper let out a mournful whine and tried to scramble up the slick marble.

“It was you making the noise,” Matt muttered, bending to scoop up the animal with one hand. He tucked the shivering little dog inside his shirt and fought a sickening wave of disappointment. “Where is she, boy?”

The little dog wriggled and tried to lick his face. Matt pushed him lower in his shirt. “If ever you needed to know a trick, this is it, boy,” Matt told the mutt grimly. He waded back to his truck, tossed the little dog on the seat and slammed the door.

Turning, Matt cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ali!” he bellowed. Only the wind and the rain responded.

Where the hell was she? If she’d run for cover, surely she would have taken the dog with her. He should have found them together.

Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t here after all. A glimmer of hope resuscitated in Matt’s soul.

Her car. I’ll look for her car.
Ali always parked in the garage.

Matt maneuvered toward the heap that had once been her garage and dug like crazy, channeling his anxiety into raw physical energy until he’d cleared away enough rubble to know that her car was not there.

Not here. She’s not here
. Matt felt a tremendous lightening, an enormous sense of relief—then his heart plunged again with his very next thought.

Then where the hell was she? He stood in the pelting rain, his mouth creased into a grim frown.

The Victorian Village. If Ali had known the storm was coming, he was certain she’d go there to keep an eye on the borrowed furnishings.

He bounded toward the truck, flung open the door and was greeted by a frantic Flipper, who did a back flip on the seat. “Hang on, fella,” Matt muttered as he screeched around the corner. “You’re in for a ride.”

Ali perched on the living room window seat inside the turreted house and stared out at the driving rain, watching it bend the branches of a tall oak. The downpour seemed to be letting up a little. Thank heavens the worst of the storm had bypassed the Victorian Village.

She hoped it had bypassed everyone she cared about, as well—Lauren, Justin, Hattie, Matt…

Matt. The thought of him stirred a familiar pang in her chest. She tried to block him from her thoughts, to steer her mind away from him, but his memory was as stubborn as the man himself, drawing her like a sore tooth draws the tongue.