An Unexpected Match (11 page)

H
aley glanced up when Matthew returned to the kitchen, and she gripped her mug of coffee to warm her hands. “How did it go?”

“She was out like a light.” He snapped his fingers. “Thanks for staying.”

“I like adult conversation as much as the next gal,” she said with a shrug.

He gestured toward the coffee machine. “I see you already made coffee.”

“I figured I'd make myself useful. It's decaf. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be up all night. I have enough trouble sleeping lately.”

His intense stare then made her feel uncomfortable. Just what had he seen when he'd looked so deeply?

With her fingertip, Haley traced the rose pattern on the side of her cup. “Nice dishes.”

“Wedding gifts. When your spouse takes off and leaves no forwarding address, you get to keep everything.”

“Oh, bonus,” she said without enthusiasm.

Finally, he took a sip of his coffee. “Hey, this is good. Really good.”

“Surprised?” she couldn't help asking.

“No. It's just that it's decaf and…” He let his words end abruptly as she sat grinning at him.

“Don't worry about it. I know my coffee's better than my cooking.”

“What are you talking about? The dinner you made was perfectly—”

“Lousy?”

“No, it was—”

“Terrible? Nauseating?”

Matthew frowned at her. “If you would stop interrupting me, I would have the chance to say that it was perfectly fine.”

“If you've been held hostage for six months and haven't eaten anything but rice and water.”

“I was thinking more of if you've had a crazy day at work, it was nice to come home to a cooked meal.”

Haley opened her mouth, but she couldn't think of a way to answer that.

He threw his hands wide. “Okay, I admit it. Yours wasn't the best dinner I've ever eaten, but I do appreciate the effort. I also appreciate that the house looks great, too. Thanks for that.”

“You noticed?”

“Of course I noticed. I'm a detail man. Well, I usually am.”

She studied him for a few seconds, his comment seeming odd. “Why do you say that?”

“I've been too caught up in my own child-care drama and schedules to even think about what a tough time you've been going through lately.”

“I'm okay.”

“I just thought that you might be ready to talk about what happened to someone besides your mother and sisters.”

Haley tilted her head to the side, his interest surprising her. “You mean to someone who isn't going to say I told you so?”

“They said that?”

“They did tell me so. All three of them. I wouldn't listen.”

“Well, it's in poor taste to point that out now.”

She couldn't help but smile at that. It was nice to have someone on her side, even if he probably wasn't serious. “You know my family. Nothing's off-limits.”

“So, what happened with…” he paused, as if straining his memory for a name.

“Tom. Your mom already told you the story, right?”

“I've only heard the highlights.”

“There's not much to tell. He's not an animal or anything. He just wrote that he didn't think we were right for each other.”

“You weren't if he could give up so easily.”

“I guess, but he could have timed the breakup better.”

Matthew took a long drink of his coffee before he spoke again. “There's never a good time for a breakup, but I'll tell you this. Any breakup before the wedding is better than one that comes after it.”

His words made her heart ache for him, a strange feeling since she'd spent much of her time lately feeling sorry for herself. “I'm sorry about your divorce.”

“That's ancient history,” he said with a shrug. “We were talking about you here.”

“Were we?”

He gave her an exaggerated frown. “I was trying. Now let me do this again. Do you think there's a chance for a reconciliation?”

His serious expression kept her from continuing the joke. “I don't think so. It's been twenty-one days since I received the letter, and he hasn't called. Not to return the boxes of clothes I'd already sent to his apartment or even to get the receipt for the wedding bands.”

“Twenty-one days exactly?” He gave her a knowing look.

“I've been keeping count, but not for the reason you're thinking. It's been three weeks since I had to start my life over.”

Because he appeared skeptical, she continued to emphasize her point. “I haven't told anyone else this, but I was having some serious cold feet before I received that letter. I thought it was normal jitters, and everything would be fine as soon as the wedding rings were on.”

“Why didn't you tell your mother or sisters that?”

“They didn't ask.”

Matthew nodded, though they both knew he hadn't asked, either. He collected the coffee carafe and poured each of them another cup. Haley wasn't sure why, but he had just become her sounding board, someone who was concerned but not so entrenched in her life as to lose his objectivity.

“Even though you were questioning the marriage, would you still have gone ahead with it if Tom hadn't canceled?”

“Probably.” How ridiculous that idea sounded to her now.

“Why?”

At his incredulous tone, Haley chuckled without humor.

“Pitiful, isn't it? I thought I was finally doing something that my family could support. I was so convinced that they were pleased with my decision that I couldn't even hear their warnings. Believe it or not, they haven't always agreed with my decisions.”

“Really? I hadn't heard.”

When she smiled this time, he smiled back, and she felt the connection only years could form. That was the thing about having longtime friends: they didn't have to start with drawn-out introductions. He already knew many of the complexities of the Scott family, and she knew just as many about the Warrens.

“I don't know about you, but I think Tom was a smart guy for sending you that letter,” he told her.

“That makes five people, if you include my mother, your mother and my sisters.”

“And you'll make six, eventually.”

She shrugged as she twirled her spoon on the table. “So there you have it. If you don't already pity me for getting dumped only days from the altar, then I have to earn pity points for being so willing to settle.”

“Why would I pity you? You put yourself out there. You took a risk—a misguided one, perhaps—but still a risk.”

“Just another of my erratic decisions.”

“Don't say that,” he told her. “Taking a chance on love takes courage. Do you have any idea how many people aren't brave enough to even try?”

“What some call brave, others might call foolish.”

“Definitely brave.” He must have read the shock on her face because he continued, “You were always brave. Even at fourteen.”

“If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, I need to cover my head with a bag. I'm about to turn ten shades of red.”

“I am, but you don't need the bag. We're grown-ups now.” He paused as if trying to recall the memory she'd relived more times than she should have lately. “I was supposed to be so much older as a nineteen-year-old
college sophomore. Streetwise. But I knew as much about male-female relationships as you did. Less.”

“Are you serious?” True to her prediction, her cheeks heated, but her eyes had to be wide now, too.

“Dumbfounded. That has to be the only word I can use to describe how I felt when you cornered me and…er…said what you said. You caught me off guard.”

For some reason, she felt relieved that he hadn't repeated her young declaration of love now. They both knew what she'd said, and she didn't need to hear it again. “You know me, spontaneous to a fault.”

“I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry for what happened that day.”

“It was a long time ago,” she began, but curiosity made her pause. “Why are you sorry?”

“For treating you like a little girl when I told you I only thought of you as a friend. It was callous. I handled the whole situation badly and humiliated you.”

“Well, I was a little girl. It just took me some time to realize that.” She lifted her shoulder and lowered it.

She was no longer a child. Neither of them was. A couple of lifetimes had passed since that night: a failed marriage and a child on his side, a close call on a marriage that was likely doomed to failure on hers.

Their cups empty and the hour late, Matthew loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and saw her to the door.

As reluctant as she'd been, Haley was glad she'd shared with Matthew about her breakup. She still couldn't believe they'd also spoken openly about the night she'd never talked about with anyone in the nine years since it happened. The past seemed to have less power over her when she didn't hold the memories so close like secrets.

Matthew had even opened up a little about his marriage,
something that had to be a rarity. At least she'd let him know she was willing to listen. Maybe it would be good for him to share, as well.

She had known Matthew in a variety of ways through the years: as the older boy who'd picked her up when she'd fallen off the swing, as the mature college student who had been embarrassed by her childish infatuation for him, even as the old friend of the family who didn't quite approve of her. Tonight she'd felt differently with him than she'd ever felt before. He'd treated her as an equal…and a friend.

 

Thursday evening as she stood at the sink, Haley dropped a tiny yellow pill into the wide-mouth glass containing vinegar and watched while the water took on a bright, lemony hue. She set it next to glasses containing purple and orange dyes and started with the next color, which she imagined would be a bird-egg blue when it stopped fizzing.

At the stove, Matthew was just pulling off a pan containing a dozen hard-boiled eggs, ready for their transformation into edible Easter decorations. Haley moved her glasses down the counter and made room for him to cool the eggs by rinsing them in the sink.

“You about ready with those?” he asked as he turned on the faucet.

“Just a few more to do.”

“This is my first time to color Easter eggs,” Elizabeth announced.

“I'd heard that,” Haley said with a grin. The child had been broadcasting that fact on half hour intervals all day long. “This is pretty exciting, isn't it?”

“She's dying to start dyeing.” Matthew chuckled over his own joke.

His daughter looked at him with a blank stare that made him laugh even harder. Though Elizabeth hadn't been impressed with her father's rare attempt at humor, Haley couldn't help smiling. This was a side of Matthew she'd never met before, a side she liked a lot.

How strange that she'd always thought she knew him so well, and yet lately it seemed as if she was meeting him for the first time.

With progress not happening as quickly as Elizabeth would have liked, she squeezed between the two adults and gripped the front rim of the sink, lifting up on her tiptoes so she could see over the edge. “Are they
ever
going to be ready?”

“Just a few more minutes, sweetie,” Haley told her. “The eggs still need to cool before you can use the wax crayon to make your designs on them.”

“It's taking too long,” she whined.

Haley supposed it was. Oh, to be four again and have her only worry be an agonizing delay to color Easter eggs. She had to admit they'd made Elizabeth wait a long time for this exciting event. After Elizabeth had been forced to endure a whole day knowing they would color eggs that night, Matthew had insisted that they couldn't start until after dinner.

Not that Haley could complain about dinner—Matthew's lasagna could have given an Italian chef an inferiority complex—but were it up to her, she would have started dunking eggs the moment he walked in the door. It wasn't up to her, though; this was a Warren family event. Haley just appreciated being included in an activity that brought back so many good memories of her own family.

“What are you smiling about?”

“I was thinking about my dad. I've never known anyone
who loved coloring eggs as much as he did. He always wanted to experiment with the new kits that came out each spring.”

“And here I was worried that you'd mess up the dyes or something.”

“Of course not. I know what I'm doing.” Picking up two of the glasses, she carried them to the table.

He grabbed two more glasses and followed her. “That's a good thing because I don't.”