Family Matters (14 page)

“We've got a great boss,” someone called out.

Applause broke out. She waited for it to die down. Her smile wavered as she saw Matt with his hands shoved in his pockets. He leaned against the entrance post as if ready for a quick getaway.

She swallowed hard and looked down at her clipboard, scanning a nonexistent report. “Carl has given all the rides an okay on the mechanical end of things,” she told them. The news had come as a very pleasant—and welcome—surprise to her. “They just need some greasing up and fine-tuning, and he said they should be ready to run.”

“So, it won't be that long before we're operational,” Albie said smugly.

Kerry held up a warning hand. “We have a way to go before we can say that. We'll need an official okay on the rides. Most of the rest of the repairs are cosmetic, but they'll still require a lot of work.” She paused and waited for heads to nod in understanding. “Any areas with curtains or awnings will need new ones. Basically, anything made of fabric is rotted
from age and will have to be replaced. So will the seats on all of the rides.”

“Speaking of fabric,” called out Alice, the volunteer from the Village's office, “what about costumes?”

Kerry frowned. She hadn't considered that. She looked down, making a note on her clipboard. Where they would get the money for all this, she didn't want to think about.

“Do we really need costumes?” she asked.

“Sure we do. The place wouldn't be the same without them.” Alice smiled broadly. “But don't worry, Kerry. I've got a lot of years and then some as a seamstress. I can whip up costumes, any theme you'd like, quicker than you can blink.”

“I hope your services come cheap,” Kerry said with a wry smile. “But we're still going to have to reach out for a lot of donations.”

From a distance, she could see Matt looking at her, his face carefully neutral. Her heart thumped hollowly. He didn't care about the financial problems.

She looked back at her volunteers. “Maybe we can barter with local businesses, get them to offer cash and products in exchange for advertising.”

“Well, you know I can take care of that job,” Uncle Bren said confidently. That
was
one thing he could manage with ease. He had the gift of gab, for sure. She nodded at him—and didn't dare look at Matt.

Fortunately, her suggestion had met with a flurry of responses, which demanded her attention. The shouts came so quickly she couldn't write fast enough.

“My grandson has a real estate office,” Carl told them. “He's always looking for promotional opportunities.”

“I was in advertising,” a small dark-haired woman said.
“I still know the manager at the copy shop. I'll get us a great discount on press releases and flyers.”

“My boy and his wife own the fabric store,” Albie said. “If they don't offer up some materials, I'll write them out of my will.”

Everyone laughed.

Everyone except Matt. He had shifted against the post, half turning his back to the crowd.

She sighed inwardly and raised her hand. “Hold up,” she begged. “How about, tonight you make lists of whatever ideas you come up with and turn them in to me tomorrow morning? I'll organize the suggestions, then we'll decide what we're going after and how we're going to get it.”

“Sounds good,” Carl said.

Others nodded.

“All right, then.” Kerry put down her clipboard. “Thanks, everyone. And thank you all again for the great job you're doing, today and every day.”

“No problem, Kerry,” Alice said. “We've got a vested interest in the place, too, you know.”

“More than that, we've got history.” Albie smiled. “Why, I met my Louise here. She was the prettiest gal in the whole place. She worked the ringtoss, and I spent half my paycheck on it just so's I could hang around her.”

“This pier's the best place in town for spoonin',” a silver-haired man added with a wink.

Knowing chuckles followed that remark. All of a sudden, the people around her had begun to look dreamy-eyed—and years younger.

“I worked here every summer during high school,” Carl said.

“Me, too,” said a frail-looking woman who had wielded a paintbrush with a vengeance that afternoon. “And it was funny, even after I got off work, I didn't want to leave.”

“This place is magical,” someone else said.

“Sure and y'know, it is,” Uncle Bren shouted. “That's why it's called Rainbow's End. All the magic happens here.”

He and Gran and Olivia Lawrence, standing on either side of him, sported a trio of grins.

All around, heads nodded and people murmured agreement.

She looked toward the entrance again. Matt was gone.

Her heart sank.

He didn't want the amusement park to succeed. He wanted it sold. And for good reason, she had to admit. She didn't like the thought, either, of any of the residents suffering financially because of what her uncle had done. What were the chances the residents could make a profit here?

But Uncle Bren and Gran were so excited about a potential success, she couldn't bear to see them hurt. And the volunteers seemed more than satisfied with their ownership of the park.

Restoring Rainbow's End had become a pot of gold for them all—a treasure trove of good memories. A way of re-discovering their youth.

How could she take that away from them? Why would she?

Maybe her family and their schemes weren't always as crazy as she had thought.

She looked around, seeing happiness and contentment tangible enough to display on canvas, and finally understood Uncle Bren
had
been on to a good thing, all along.

Suddenly, she realized she wanted the park to succeed, too.

But…

Helping her family would hurt Matt and his need to take care of his mother.

Helping Matt would hurt her family and all of these people for whom Rainbow's End meant so much.

There was no happy solution to this problem.

There was no answer at all.

Matt strode behind the game booths, trying to contain his irritation over this talk about the past and this magical place at the end of the rainbow. He blamed all the volunteers' misguided ideas on one man.

He'd already hired a detective to do a background check on Brendan MacBride. It was too late to cancel the job even if he wanted to.

And he didn't want to.

The money for the amusement park might have been accounted for, but MacBride still carried the responsibility for getting his mother and the others mixed up in a bad business deal. They could lose everything, thanks to him. He wasn't off the hook. Not by a long shot.

Especially not after Matt had found him at his mom's this morning.

His contact would have gathered the info Matt wanted by now. He leaned against the back of a booth, punched the detective's number into his cell phone and waited impatiently for an answer.

When he got one and said hello, Al responded promptly, “No arrests, no records, no complaints against him.”

Matt frowned.

“He came up in a few reports, mostly real estate and financial transactions.”

“Is that right?” Possibly something he could get a handle on there.

“Everything's legit, though,” Al added, dampening his enthusiasm. “His personal financial record's clean. He has no mortgage.”

“Credit rating?”

“Nothing doing with that, and he's got no major outstanding bills. He made some hefty purchases recently, but everything's been paid in full.”

Thanks to the Lakeside residents.

Matt had to unclench his jaw before he could speak again. “Okay, let me know if anything does turn up. Thanks.”

Stabbing the button to disconnect the call, he stared down at the water gently lapping against the pier. He couldn't see anything wrong with the pilings, didn't notice any damage to the wooden walkway in the area around him.

“Steady as they make them,” that structural engineer, Carl, had said.

Matt ground his teeth together again.

He'd dedicated his life to fighting for strangers. And now, when it came to his own mother, he was helpless against the situation. It angered him to think Brendan MacBride was going to get away with this.

But he wasn't, if Matt had any say in it.

The deal was done, the participants in agreement about the renovations. Instead, they ought to be enjoying their money or reaping the benefits of earned income, not risking their financial stability on this investment. Not working themselves to death doing the physical labor running an amusement park would demand. What they considered a fun venture could have serious ramifications. If anything on the pier would prove the inadvisability of this entire idea, he would find it.

He had to.

 

W
HEN THE LAST OF THE
volunteers had gone, Kerry, with J.J.'s help, finished straightening up inside the shed. As she snapped the padlock closed, a loud metallic crash sounded from somewhere close by. She started, then turned to J.J. “Well, I know it's not you. But what
was
that?”

He shook his head.

A thin, high scream filled the air. After a quick, wide-eyed glance at each other, they took off running.

To her shock, when they rounded the corner of the shed, Matt was far ahead of them.

“Matt,” she yelled. “Where?”

“Near the roller coaster,” he called over his shoulder.

He disappeared from view. She was no match for J.J.'s long legs, and he soon outdistanced her, too.

She raced along, straining to catch up, praying that no one had been hurt. When she made the turn around the last of the concession stands and came into full view of the roller coaster, she nearly crashed into J.J.

When she looked up, her legs almost went out from under her.

Colin was dangling, face out, from one of the highest points of the roller coaster's framework, his legs swinging wildly as he tried to find a foothold on the metal bars behind him. Only the thin material of his T-shirt—caught on some protrusion that yanked the shirt tightly beneath his arms—stopped him from falling to the pier far below.

“Oh, no,” she breathed.

Matt had already climbed halfway to the top of the structure.

Brody stood openmouthed staring up at Colin. She ran over to him and grabbed his shoulder. “What happened, Brody? What were you doing?”

He shrugged, scuffing his toe against the wooden plank beneath his foot. “Nothin'.”

“Brody!”

He glanced at her, his eyes suspiciously bright. “We were only playing, Ker. Colin wanted to see how far up he could get.”

He looked again at the roller coaster. She turned her eyes that way, too.

Matt climbed the metal frame hand over fist, moving faster than she thought possible, but he still had several yards to go to reach Colin.

A second later, Matt's foot slipped.

For a long moment he dangled as precariously as Colin, clinging on to the ride's framework only by his hands. Brody and J.J. cried out. Kerry swallowed a shriek and clutched Brody's shoulder so tightly she felt him cringe in pain.

Matt's feet scrabbled against the frame.

What felt like a lifetime later, he regained first one toehold, then another. Immediately, he continued his climb.

She loosened her grip and said a silent prayer.

Let Matt get to the top of the roller coaster in time. Let Colin's shirt hold tight. Let both of them make it safely back down to the ground.

And then she'd tear Colin to pieces!

“He's almost there,” J.J. murmured.

She reached out and gripped his shoulder, too, as if holding onto the boys would steady them all. Or maybe steady the wooden planks beneath them. A lot of good that would do if either Matt or Colin—

She wouldn't think about it.

“It's all right,” J.J. said in a hushed tone.

“Yeah?” Brody asked, his voice cracking. “You sure, J.J.?”

“Yeah. Mr. Lawrence's got him.”

She held her breath as Matt lifted Colin with one arm, high
enough to release pressure on the T-shirt and long enough for Colin to flip around and grab the roller coaster's frame.

She could see Matt struggling one-handed to free the T-shirt fabric from whatever piece of metal had snagged it.

Long moments later, the shirt fell loosely back into place on Colin, and Matt looked down to give them a reassuring wave.

She sagged, her legs almost buckling again, this time in relief. Brody and J.J. each wrapped an arm around her. She held on to them, too, her unblinking gaze on Matt and Colin. They still had a long way to go to get to the ground again.

When Matt's eyes met hers, she gave him a return wave and the most reassuring smile she could muster.

He started the descent first, keeping close to Colin.

She swallowed a gasp, not wanting to startle Brody or J.J. Matt was using himself as a shield, a safeguard, in case Colin fell.

Her eyes suddenly filled and flowed over. She was too overwhelmed even to let go of the boys to wipe her tears away.

A long while later, Matt and Colin finally touched their feet to the pier again.

Brody and J.J. rushed forward to punch Colin lightly on the arms and slap high-fives with Matt.

“Colin, you jerk,” Brody teased, “you weren't supposed to get caught like a fish on a hook.”

“What were you thinking, anyhow,” J.J. put in, “climbing way up there?”

“Don't even ask,” Colin said. “It was a stupid idea, all right?”

“Yeah, Colin. But,” Brody added in a stage whisper, “it was lots better than falling off the pier.”

Shaking her head, she moved toward them, then stumbled to a halt, unable to walk as emotions shuddered through her.
Relief that Colin and Matt had climbed down safely. Fear that, next time, Colin or Brody might not be lucky enough to have someone like Matt around when they pulled one of their stunts. And anger—a terrible, gut-wrenching rage—at the idea that yet another member of her family had done something so senseless. So crazy.

So dangerous that she might have lost Matt, too.

One sob escaped her before she ran to Colin. She would yell at him—oh, yes, she would yell at him and tell him what she thought of his insane idea and punish him for the rest of the summer. But not now.

Now, she only wanted to hold him. She did just that, wrapping her arms around him hard enough to make him struggle for breath.

To her surprise, he hugged her, too—for all of three seconds before rearing back and pulling himself away. But she'd felt him trembling and knew how frightened he'd been.

“You,” she said, her voice breaking. “Home. Now.”

Eyes downcast, he nodded.

The three boys moved ahead of her along the pier.

Taking a deep, shaky breath, she turned to Matt, who stood at her side. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Nothing to it,” he said softly. “With those kids, it's all in a day's work around here.” With one hand, he thumbed away the remnants of her tears. “Come on, it's over now.” He smiled wryly. “But we'd better keep up with them. I don't trust those two for a minute.”

She nodded. “You've got a point,” she admitted, and despite her effort to speak normally, her voice cracked again.

Walking along beside him, following the boys, she couldn't resist looking from the corner of her eye at Matt.

He was a good man. A wonderful man.

He was her hero.

But, of course, she'd known that all along.

 

M
ATT LOOKED AT THE
clock on the dashboard. Right on time to pick up his mom to take her to dinner.

He left the Jeep in the visitors' parking area and headed down the street to her apartment house, still thinking about the day behind him.

Kerry had made some valid points that morning, when he'd finally unloaded a lot of his frustration. Her reasoning had started him thinking in a different direction.

Then her brother had pulled that reckless stunt a short while ago, and she had looked at him as if he were some kind of superman—making her as crazy as the rest of her clan.

He was no hero.

He needed to get away from Kerry. But first, he had to come up with a way to get her out of his system.

When he climbed the stairs and walked down the hall, his mother's door opened. At first he thought she must have seen him from the window and come to greet him.

When he saw who stepped onto the front mat, he flipped his smile to a scowl.

MacBride.

The man slunk away in the opposite direction.

Matt would have followed, but his mom now stood in the doorway, waiting. He trailed her into the apartment.

“I see your friend made himself scarce again,” he said abruptly.

She took a seat on her favorite wing chair and nodded. “Can you blame him, Matthew? The way you act whenever he's around is appalling. Not to mention, sweetheart, it's rude.”

He frowned. “And he's the poster boy of politeness, Mom?”

“He can be.”

He didn't like her smile. He paced, wondering what he
could say to convince her that the man was a louse, and at the same time keep from hurting her feelings.

The hell with it. He couldn't come up with anything.

Maybe his memories were too fresh from the conversation with Kerry that morning. But he couldn't hold back. He stopped in front of her. “Mom, I just don't get it. Wasn't Dad walking out bad enough? Why would you want to hook up with another loser?”

“Matthew, I'm surprised at you! Brendan is not a loser—and he's nothing like your father.” Her lips tightened. She shook her head and sighed. “We need to talk.”

Great.
He'd gone from hero to…who knew what, in the space of an hour.

“First of all, about Brendan. You haven't given him much of a chance. He's a good man.”

The statement echoed Kerry's words to him:
you're a good man, Matt.
He shook the memory away.

She raised her chin. “And he's a good friend of mine, Matthew. I don't know if we're going to ‘hook up,' as you call it. We're taking things as they come, and they're working well. Except for you, sweetheart. Your attitude isn't helping any of us.”

“I'm only trying to keep him from taking advantage of you.”

“
I
only wish he would!” She giggled like a schoolgirl, and he stared at her. “Close your mouth, Matthew. I'm sorry, but that was an opening I couldn't resist.” She looked at him, suddenly serious again. “I know what you're doing. What you've always done. And I've always loved you for it. But, second of all…” She stopped.

Matt looked warily at her.
Now what?

“Matthew, please sit down. I have something to tell you.”

The worst was about to come. Slowly, he took a seat on her too-small couch.

She looked as put-together as usual, with her hair short and chic, her nails painted, her jewelry matching her outfit. A mom anyone would be proud of.

He thought for a moment of Kerry and her brothers, who no longer had a mother.

Across from him, his mother folded her hands in her lap, sighed and stared at him.

“This is worse than waiting through jury deliberation,” he told her. “Just let me have it.”

She smiled slightly. She'd always been proud of his becoming a lawyer.

“I'm not quite sure why I've never discussed this with you before,” she began. “I should have told you years ago.”

He suddenly realized she was talking past, not present. That was a relief. She hadn't known MacBride “years ago.”

Then what was she getting at?

She cleared her throat and tried again. “You were so young I suppose I thought you wouldn't have realized the difference either way. Or maybe I didn't want to burden you with knowledge you weren't old enough yet to handle. But your father didn't walk out on us.”