Belonging (29 page)

Angie cringed at the mockery in his voice.
His reaction was understandable; he was hurt and angry, and he was
lashing out. "Please, Matt." She clutched the pillow she held even
more tightly, as if it would somehow ease the dyll ache in her
breast. "This isn't easy for me. Just... just let it go."

The pleading in her voice cut him to ribbons,
but there was a part of him that was furious with her for being so
blind, so stubborn. Had last night proved nothing to her? They had
been from hell to heaven, but it was a journey they had made
together.

It should have counted for something...
everything.

It was totally incomprehensible to Matt that
last night had done no more than bring them full circle.

He took a deep breath to control his seething
emotions, before he could speak. "Why are you doing this?" he
asked intently. "You know how I feel about you. Do you really
expect me to walk out the door and forget about you?" His eyes
never wavered from her face. Softly, deliberately, he said, "We
made love last night, Angie. Doesn't that mean anything to
you?"

Her eyes darkened with the pain he was
inflicting. "It was a mistake, Matt." But did she really believe
that? She didn't know. Dammit, she didn't know! And that
uncertainty was tearing her apart. Still, making love with Matt had
opened her eyes as nothing else could have. She loved him. She
wanted to give him everything. But her love was not so blind as it
had once been with Evan. And she was afraid. So very afraid of
trusting that deeply again.

"It was a mistake," she repeated, her voice
barely audible. In her heart she knew it was herself she was trying
to convince. "It should never have happened. I know I wanted
you...but I...I wasn't myself." She was making excuses; they both
knew it.

It didn't stop Matt from feeling he'd been
stabbed in the back. It was instinct, pure and simple, that made
him want to react with anger, to show her that no matter what she
said, her body wouldn't lie.

Yet somehow he damped down his own emotional
upheaval and reminded himself of the anguish she had suffered in
the last twenty-four hours... and what she had suffered with Evan
Hall.

She needed him. She needed him as much as he
needed her.

He moved slowly across the room until he was
standing directly in front of her. He ached with the need to gather
her close in his arms, but he sensed she would only turn away.

"I love you—" he began.

"Don't!" she cried sharply. "Don't say that
again!"

It was those three simple words that had
driven her from her bed and from the warm shelter of his arms. "I
love you," he'd whispered between slow, mindless thrusts while he'd
made love to her. She had listened with her heart and loved him
with all her soul, but now those words had shattered her world.

She felt herself coming apart inside, but
there was no stopping him. When she would have reached up to cover
her ears, Matt's hands came out and held hers firmly at her sides,
his grip unyielding but not hurtful.

"I love you," he continued quietly, as if
she'd never spoken. "I love you and I want to spend the rest of
my

life with you." He paused for the space of a
heartbeat. "I want you to marry me, Angie."

Angie couldn't look away from him. She could
have wept from the depth of emotion in his voice, the tenderness
in his eyes. Wrenching herself away from him, she jumped to her
feet and ran across to the doorway. She wrapped her arms around
herself, then slowly turned to face him.

Her lungs burned from the effort it took to
hold back her tears. Her heart felt as if it were raw and bleeding.
"I can't, Matt. Don't you see?"

"No. No, I don't." His eyes narrowed. "You
love me, Angie."

"I never said that!" she cried wildly. She
hated herself for the look of pain that flashed across his face,
but she forced herself to stand her ground.

Matt had only to remember the way she had
clung to him, her body arching beneath his, the sweet magic that
had claimed them both, a magic that only came from such tender
emotions as love.

It frustrated him deeply that yet again Angie
withheld herself from him. Before it had been her thoughts, her
feelings. And now? Now it was perhaps the most vital part of all,
that which he treasured most of all— her heart.

It was ironic that she refused to say the
words. But he decided this was not the time to force her to admit
something he already knew.

Instead, he softly urged, "Talk to me,,
Angie. Tell me why you won't marry me. Is it because of Evan?" He
saw her shiver slightly. His voice deepened to a rough whisper with
the emotion that suddenly churned through him. "I'd never hurt you,
Angie. Tell me you know that!"

His urgent plea wasn't lost on her. "I know
that, Matt," she said quietly, then hesitated. "It's just that one
failed marriage in a lifetime is enough. I'm not sure I'm willing
to try it again."

Matt had a hard time believing what he was
hearing. "You weren't the guilty party," he said curtly. "Evan
was. If your marriage failed, it was because of him, not you."

There was a long silence. "Maybe," she
finally agreed. "Maybe not." She took a deep breath, fighting for
poise. "Even if Evan hadn't—" she struggled over the word "—abused
me, I'm not sure our marriage would have lasted. For a long time I
put Evan's needs before my own, but once I started working again, I
realized that I had to please myself, as well." She gave a short,
bitter laugh. "This may be the twentieth century, but a lot of men
are jealous of the fact that women are invading their world."

Matt's jaw thrust forward. "And you think I'm
one of them? That I'm jealous of your career?"

She met his anger with a steady calm. "Not in
so many words. But can you deny that, when you first took the job
as police chief, you didn't resent you were working under a
woman?"

He cursed himself for the dull red flush he
knew was creeping up his neck. He had never dreamed she would throw
that back in his face like this. "You're twisting things and you
know it."

"I'm not sure that I do," she responded very
quietly.

"I won't admit any such thing," he stated
flatly. "I'll admit I was a little leery, but I certainly never
resented you. And I wouldn't have taken the damn job if I hadn't
thought that you were just as capable of doing your own!"

She emitted a weary sigh. "I'm not going to
argue with you, Matt. But even if you're right, there's Linda to
consider."

"Linda?" He looked totally baffled. "What the
hell does she have to do with this?"

"You told me that part of the trouble between
you two started when she went behind your back to her father." She
hesitated. The closed expression he wore warned her of his
reaction. "We're talking about male pride, Matt. You didn't like
being unable to buy her little things she wanted."

His eyes narrowed. If she was saying what he
thought she was... "And?"

"And Evan was like that, too."

The deathly silence that followed was somehow
more shattering than a bomb blast. Matt dragged a hand down his
face, wondering if this nightmare would never end. There was a
painfully hollow sensation in his chest. He had the awful feeling
he was about to lose Angie.

"You just said you knew I wasn't like him,"
he reminded her, his voice low and taut.

"I...I know," she whispered, turning her face
aside. Knowing she was responsible for the torment on Matt's face
cut into her like a knife.

It didn't make her decision any less
agonizing. For all that he was kind and sensitive, he was also a
demanding, strong-willed man. Any commitment between them would
be total. There would be no half measures for a man like Matt.

"You don't trust me, do you? You don't trust
me enough to believe that we could work it out." There was no anger
in his voice. Instead, he sounded incredibly weary.

Her gaze flickered back to him. He seemed to
have aged years in the space of a few short minutes. "I can't,
Matt." Her shoulders lifted helplessly. "And I'm not sure I'll ever
be able to." She saw him through a hazy blur of tears. "I never
meant to hurt you," she choked out. "Please believe me."

His eyes bored into hers, creating a brittle
tension that was almost unbearable for both of them. Time slipped
quietly by.

He could have said, "I'll be waiting for you
when you change your mind." But he knew, as she did, that she
wouldn't change her mind. Instead, he said, "I'll leave in the
morning."

His footsteps never faltered as he walked
quietly past her.

***

Angie didn't go in to the office on Monday.
She asked Georgia to cancel the council meeting. The vote would
have to wait. Instead, she spent the day at home, trying to recover
from the strain of the past weekend. So much had happened—the note,
finding out about Kim, and the agonizing scene with Matt—that for
the first time in her life, she wondered how on earth she would
cope with it all. But by drawing on some hidden reserve of unknown
strength she knew she would manage.

Facing Kim wasn't easy, but she tried to act
as normally as possible when she woke the girls that morning. She
briskly shooed Casey into the bathroom, then sat down on the edge
of the bed.

Kim was sitting up, her thin arms wrapped
around her knees. There was a pinched, worried expression on

her face that pulled on Angie's heartstrings,
but she forced a faint smile to her lips.

"Are you okay this morning?" she asked
softly.

Kim nodded, then spoke very hesitantly. "Are
you mad at me, Mommy? Because of what I did last night?"

Angie's response was swift and immediate. "Of
course not, sweetheart." She smoothed tumbled brown locks behind
Kim's ears. "Did you think I would be?"

There was a tiny frown etched between the
child's brows as she seemed to consider. "I...I guess not," she
said finally, then seemed to relax a little.

Angie studied her quietly for a few seconds.
The secret that she had held inside all this time couldn't be
allowed to fester anymore. Kim carried far too many emotional scars
already, and painful though it might be for both of them, they had
to discuss it openly and honestly.

"Kim." Her voice was very gentle as she
reached for one of Kim's hands and clasped it reassuringly between
both of hers. "Sweetheart, we need to talk. Why didn't you ever
tell me you saw--" she stumbled over the words "--saw your father
hit me?"

Kim's eyes filled with tears. She didn't say
anything for the longest time, and when she did, her mouth was
trembling. "He.. .he scared me, Mommy. And then later... later I
didn't like to think about it."

Knowing what Kim must have endured all this
time was like rubbing salt in an open wound. A hard knot swelled in
Angie's throat, and she hugged her daughter fiercely. "I'm sorry,
Kim." Her voice broke painfully. "Sorry you had to see it."

"It wasn't your fault, Mommy." Kim's voice
was muffled into her mother's breast. She clung to her tightly.
"Daddy was mad, he was always mad. And I don't know why, but—but he
didn't need to hurt you!" she lashed out fiercely.

Daddy was mad, he was always mad. In spite of
her tender age, Kim had known that something was wrong. And Angie
hadn't realized her daughter had been so perceptive. How could I
have been so blind! she agonized silently.

It took a moment for Angie to gather control.
"You're right, Kim," she told her quietly. "What he did was wrong.
But no matter what, I want you to know that you can talk to me
about anything." She tilted Kim's chin up gently and searched her
face. "Especially if it's something that scares you. Because
sometimes it helps just to talk about it with someone else." Her
smile was faint, but her daughter seemed reassured. She could tell
by the way Kim's expression began to lighten, as though a thin,
filmy curtain had just been lifted. "Okay, sweetheart?"

Kim nodded, and just then Casey emerged from
the bathroom. Angie's youngest wasted no time in engaging her
mother and sister in a rip-roaring pillow fight. By the time Angie
had the girls dressed and sitting at the breakfast table, Kim was
laughing and giggling almost as much as her sister.

Still, the next few days were far from easy.
"Why doesn't Matt come over anymore?" Casey asked one morning at
breakfast. She had scarcely touched her food.

Angie winced at the wounded look in her wide
blue eyes. Before she had a chance to respond, Casey spoke once
more. "First Spooky went away. Then Matt." Her bottom lip began to
tremble. "Don't they like us anymore, Mommy?"

Angie pulled her small body onto her lap. "Of
course they do, darling." She bit her lip, wondering how she could
explain. "Spooky... well, we just don't know where she is. And Matt
has been very busy lately."

"Looking for Spooky?" Casey stared up at
her.

Nodding slowly, she smothered a feeling of
guilt and quickly changed the subject. That Spooky might be dead
was something she hated to think about.

But Casey wasn't the only one who noticed
Matt's absence. Kim expressed disappointment over the loss of her
batting coach.

Their mother missed him, too—missed him
dreadfully. Going to work, knowing that Matt was in the same
building made it even harder. She wasn't sure if she was angry or
hurt at how easily he had accepted her decision.

The only contact she had with him was through
Georgia. He let her know they still hadn't discovered the identity
of the person who had sent the note, and he asked her to postpone
the council's vote on the city hall issue until the following
Monday rather than rescheduling it for later that week.

The whole business with the note had left her
uneasy and on edge, but as the week wore on and nothing else
happened, she began to breathe a little easier. And as she told
Todd Friday afternoon, the issue was beginning to look up. Steve
Jackson had mentioned to her only that morning that he would
probably vote in favor of the city hall renovations.