The Man Under The Mistletoe

Francie had stayed away as much as possible after their father’s and their brother’s deaths and Matt’s defection. She said the house was like a mausoleum and no amount of paint was going to change it.

Matt focused his attention on her as she replied, and now she pulled herself together. If he was going to be here for a couple of days, she had to find a way to cope.

MATT KNEW that gesture, that drawing up of her leggy height, the aligning of her shoulders, the tossing of her long dark hair and The Look. It was a superior angle of her chin, an imperious expression in her bright blue eyes. She was suppressing emotion in favor of appearing controlled. He hated that she could do that so well.

As she stood there, all graceful, slightly disheveled femininity, old anguish tightening her mouth, anger at him in every line of her body, he wanted to drop to his knees and scream his frustration to the world.

But he’d done that two years ago and it hadn’t moved her. And that had been a valuable lesson to him. As much as he loved her, as hard as it was to walk away from all they’d been to each other, she’d dug a hole for herself he wasn’t going to be able to pull her out of. He’d had to save himself, or he wouldn’t be around to try again to save her. And just before her father’s suicide, Matt had stumbled upon information about shady dealings on Hal’s part that could have hurt her further. He’d had to get away.

She looked as remote today as she had then, but he had to believe that the intervening year and a half had had some kind of effect on her.

“How’s the business doing?” he asked, looking for a topic that didn’t relate to family or their relationship. That was difficult. Everything had been so tightly bound together in those days.

“Oh, you know,” she said, dropping a pad of paper on what appeared to be a crystal bowl in a nest of tissue. “Sometimes really good, sometimes not so good. Mom’s convinced I’m going to be bankrupt by spring. But I think I just have to have faith in love and romance and the business it’s going to bring me.”

That remark hung between them like a foot of sizzling fuse. She shifted uncomfortably, obviously wishing she’d chosen her words more carefully. He was tempted to tell her it would have been good if she’d had a little faith in their love and its ability to heal, but instead he smiled politely again, extinguishing the fuse—at least for now.

“Where’s Mom?” he asked.

“She and Aunt Ginger are having dinner with Camille Malone tonight. You remember her?” At his nod, she went on. “They just left. Have you had dinner?”

“No, I haven’t. Is the Breakfast Barn still in business?”

“Yes. And it’s brisk.”

“Then I’ll put my bag upstairs and go get myself something to eat. Has Chase eaten?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Shall I take him with me?”

She nodded. “I’m sure he’d love that.”

He debated the wisdom of inviting her along. It would be foolish to think they could easily pick up the threads of their relationship as it had been before her brother died, before she’d found her father with a .30-caliber hole in his temple, and before the shock of that had caused her to lose their baby. Her rejection of his offer would hurt and pile up behind all the other times since then when he’d tried to touch her, hold her, make her turn to him, only to have her push him away.

But that was part of the reason he was here. He loved Francie like his own sister, and he’d come because she’d asked him. But this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for, a way to walk in under cover of some other mission and assess Rosie’s emotional situation and whether he could fit into her life again.

“Want to join us?” he asked intrepidly.

He saw the civility dissolve and the anger come forward in her eyes. “Now, what do you think?”

“I think a lot of time has passed,” he said reasonably, “and it’s time to look at things from a new perspective.”

“A lot of time has passed,” she agreed coolly, “but my perspective remains the same. I lost my brother, my father and our baby in the space of a week, and you…” The anger turned to pain for an instant, but she tossed her head, seeming to shake it off. Being angry at him was apparently more comfortable than hurting. “You left me.”

“You drove me away,” he corrected.

“I had lost…three of the most important people in my life!” Her voice rose. “Did you expect me to be the same perky little debutante you married?”

He had to focus on keeping his voice down. “Of course not. I just wanted you to remember that I was there to offer support, comfort, a way back. But you didn’t want to come back.” He remembered clearly the helplessness that he’d felt then, and that had lived with him ever since. “I know how much you loved Jay and your dad. And I loved our baby as much as you did and would have been happy to be the second most important person in your life. I’d have even dealt with being in line behind your father and Jay if you’d given me some sign you knew I was there.”

“You wanted…sex!” She whispered the last word like an accusation.

“I didn’t want sex,” he said, having a little difficulty keeping his voice calm. “I wanted to make love to you, to remind you that in spite of all the people you’d lost, we were still alive. And that was almost six months after…after that hellish week, and you hadn’t touched me or let me touch you in all that time. I was desperate to get through to you, to make sure you knew we could go on if you wanted to.”

Her response to that effort had made it clear she didn’t want to go on. He smiled grimly and added, “Instead, you slapped me, hard, and told me you never wanted to see me again. I didn’t leave you, Rosie. You sent me away.”

She looked puzzled, almost as though she couldn’t quite remember that.

Chase ran down the stairs, his skinny, lively little body cutting right through the tension. “Aren’t you coming up to unpack, Uncle Matt?” he asked breathlessly. “I put the lights on, and Grandma put towels and stuff for you in the bathroom.”

“Great.” Matt struggled to redirect his attention. He’d known that returning to Bloombury Landing would be hard. He had to pace himself and his emotions. And he was sure it wasn’t easy for Rosie, either. “Want to come to dinner with me, Chase?”

“Yeah!” Chase danced along beside him as he headed for the stairs. “Can Aunt Rosie come?”

“She…” He hesitated over an excuse.

“I have to fix something on Grandma’s suit for the wedding,” she said with a smile for the boy. When her gaze bounced off Matt, it revealed a complex mixture of resentment, suspicion and simple annoyance—a variation of The Look. “You go with Uncle Matt and have a good time.”

“Want us to bring something back for you?” Matt pushed, wanting her to know he wouldn’t be put off by her efforts to hold him completely at bay.

“No, thank you.” Her reply was icy as she picked up her notepad again and looked away.

“Okay.” He handed Chase his briefcase and picked up his brown leather bag. “You lead the way, sport. We’ll wash our hands and be off. Are chicken wings still your favorite?”

“Yeah! Only now I like the hot ones, just like you! And they don’t make me puke anymore!”

Matt followed him upstairs, remembering the time he and Rosie had been baby-sitting Chase and he’d allowed the boy to sample his buffalo wings. When he’d liked them, Matt had bought the boy his own order. Matt had insisted that it was the large banana shake that followed the wings that had made Chase sick most of the night, but Rosie had still blamed him.

Matt walked into Rosie’s old room with some trepidation. After they were married, they’d shared this room whenever they stayed over, and there were memories connected to it he was reluctant to explore.

But it was time. He’d tried not to think about her for the past eighteen months, and he’d been successful only a very small part of the time. So he’d pushed away all the good memories and let himself recall only how difficult those six months before he’d left had been. He’d remembered her as stiff and angry and inaccessible.

This room, though, brought back all the delicious times before that when what ultimately happened to them would have seemed unimaginable.

“Nobody stays here now,” Chase said, “but Grandma had all the windows open all day so it wouldn’t smell funny.”

In the old days, he remembered, Rosie’s fragrance had been everywhere. A friend who worked in a cosmetics company in Boston had developed a personal fragrance for her and had started, of course, with roses. She’d added a list of spices Matt could never quite remember, but the end product pinpointed her personality to perfection—a soft sweetness with a surprising bite.

Rosie must have been away from this room long enough that it no longer smelled of her, but her stamp lingered all the same. The walls were a terra cotta color, the woodwork a creamy beige. The bed, dresser and desk were light oak, and there were plants in colorful pots everywhere, standing on the hardwood floor, on surfaces, hanging near the curtainless bay window that looked out on to the lake.

A window seat was upholstered in a shell-and-sea-birds pattern in shades of white and gold, and matched a wallpaper border that ran around the room near the ceiling. They’d made love on that window seat one night when they’d stayed up late to watch a meteor shower.

“Grandma put some hangers in here for you.” Chase slid open one side of a wardrobe and pointed to the odd assortment of hangers on the rod. “Those fluffy ones are from her closet.” He pointed to a padded white silk hanger. “And the wooden ones are from my dad’s old closet.”

Matt, opening his suitcase on the bed, turned to the boy, wondering if it hurt him to think about his father. But Chase simply smiled and pointed to two plastic hangers. “Those are from my room.”

Chase had been only six at the time, and two years was probably like an eternity in the life of a child. He seemed remarkably well adjusted for a boy who’d endured such tragedy and was now growing up in the same house with Sonny.