Hard Habit to Break (14 page)

Liz leaned back against his shoulder and nodded.

“Then you did your best for her.”

She flicked the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground and it disappeared under her sneakered foot as she extinguished it. “You’re probably right.
But Millie wants to stay on her farm. And I ought to be able to figure out how to help her do that. The solution is there, I just know it, but somehow I can’t see it!”

“Honey, stop torturing yourself,” he said, stroking her back to soothe her. “You know you can’t help everybody, so think of the ones you have helped, like Micah Davis—”

“You heard about that, eh?” she broke in with a genuinely amused chuckle.

He laughed. “You think you can throw a bull named Romeo at me and I’m not going to ask?” He became serious again. “You helped a man make a comeback with his livelihood when he thought he’d lose everything. People in this town are still talking about how much you helped him. I’m sure nobody expects Millie to try to run her farm by herself, and nobody expects you to run it for her. You advised her to
her
best interests, and that’s what’s important.”

Liz sighed, and he could easily hear that he had not convinced her.

“You were in a street gang?” she asked suddenly.

Matt couldn’t help grinning at the instant and unexpected change of subject. He’d almost forgotten he’d mentioned his childhood in his attempt to shame her into putting out the cigarette. While that hadn’t succeeded, at least Liz had momentarily forgotten Millie Jackson.

“I was just a dumb kid,” he said in dismissal, feeling a sudden reluctance to talk about a time long past and better forgotten. “I’d rather talk about you and—”

“Do you realize I don’t know anything about
you as a boy?” she asked, turning around until she was facing him.

Her hip curved naturally into his own, and her breasts pressed distractingly into his chest. But it was her mouth bare inches from his that made him forget what he was going to say. He bent his head—

Her elbow suddenly dug into his side.

“Ouch!”

“Serves you right.” She tried to sound cross. “We were talking about you.”

“Us,” he corrected her, sliding his hands underneath the sweater. His fingers automatically smoothed their way up her warm flesh to unsnap her bra. “You don’t need this.”

He received another elbow in his ribs for his efforts.

“Dammit Liz!” he exclaimed, rubbing his side.

“Talk,” she ordered as she resettled herself against him.

“I was just a dumb kid, that’s all. Can I kiss you now?” he asked, hoping she’d be satisfied with his short answer.

She wasn’t. “If you were just a dumb kid, then why don’t you tell me about it? Or maybe you have something to hide. Like a jail sentence. Good Lord! Did you kill someone in a gang fight?” she teased.

A chuckle escaped him. “You’ve got one hell of an imagination, honey. It was nothing like that. I just got in with a bad crowd until I wised up. The worst things I ever learned were to cut school, smoke, and how to hot-wire a car in under three minutes.”

Liz burst out laughing.

“Shh!” he hissed almost reluctantly as the sound seemed to boom in the night air. He loved the sound of her laughter, but someone might hear her, and he had no wish for her to be discovered in an embarrassing position with him. And if her small but fully-rounded breasts kept jiggling against his chest as they were doing at the moment, Liz would find herself in more than an embarrassing position. She’d find herself naked and underneath him.

To his relief and disappointment, her laughter subsided into a fit of giggles and she finally gasped out, “But I did that stuff, too, as a kid.”

“You stole cars for the chop shops?” he asked in disbelief, and immediately wished he’d never voiced the too revealing question.

Her jaw dropped in clear astonishment. “You stole cars with a gang!”

“I started several cars without keys,” he flatly admitted as his hands automatically dropped away from her. “And none of them were mine. Then I realized how stupid it was and got out, okay?”

She suddenly rose up on her knees and wound her arms around his shoulders.

“Oh, Matt,” she murmured as she pressed his head to her breast.

He mistook the concern in her tone for pity, and it infuriated him. He pushed her arms away and scrambled to his feet.

“You want to feel sorry for me, then fine! Here’s the whole story. I have no idea who my father was, and my mother dropped me on the welfare office doorstep when I was a baby. I had a foster
mother who was good to me, but she died when I was sixteen, and the next home wasn’t so good, so I ran away and lived on the streets, pushing myself into more and more trouble. It wasn’t long before I realized how stupid I’d been to take out my hurt on the world. I had no skills and no diploma other than the kind you get on the streets. And that’s where you stay if you don’t have anything else. So I bugged a modeling agency for a job because I thought the work was easy and because everyone called me ‘pretty boy.’ They finally gave me one. Now I live happily ever after in Smalltown, U.S.A., where I always wanted to belong. End of
Oliver Twist
, okay? I don’t want your pity, and I’m sorry as hell I even brought the subject up!”

Sleepless hours later in his lonely bed, Matt realized he’d never given Liz a chance to speak before he’d scrambled back through the hedge and into the house. And if she had spoken, he doubted he would have listened at the time. He’d been too angry—and afraid that he’d lost her respect. Logically he knew she’d already been upset about Millie Jackson having to sell her farm, so it was understandable that she’d have compassion for a boy headed for self-destruction. If their lives had been reversed, he’d probably feel the same for her. The past shouldn’t matter anymore. It hadn’t mattered for a long time. Maybe he’d subconsciously avoided telling her because of what had happened with her ex-husband. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was important to wipe away that moment of pity from Liz. Only how?

He discarded several sudden wild ideas, and as he did, he found the problem of Millie Jackson intruding on his consciousness. Liz had said the woman needed manpower and a constant cash flow to keep up her farm. He had moved to Hopewell because he’d always wanted to live in a place where the people cared about one another. Maybe it was time to show Liz he cared as much as she did, by helping Millie. If he did something to earn the town’s respect, it should be more than enough to wipe out his disreputable past.

Mulling over how good it would feel to have Liz back in his arms, he finally drifted off to sleep.

Backing her car out of her driveway and slowly cruising past Matt’s house, Liz frowned with worry when she saw that the living room drapes were still closed and the Corvette was still missing from the driveway.

“Seven days,” she muttered out loud, and pressed down heavily on the gas. The car lurched forward, and she instantly eased off the pedal, slowing to a normal speed.

Grimacing, she remembered how Matt had disappeared the morning after their argument. She hadn’t been able to get an apology in edgeways. It was all his fault that she had felt sorry for the teenage Matt. If he’d been a demanding male, all bellows and orders, she would have gladly called the police to check on the statute of limitations. But no, he had been tender and understanding with her, so naturally, when she’d heard about his deprived childhood, she’d felt an overwhelming
rush of love and sympathy. She’d never considered not expressing them.

And he’d rejected her.

More than that, he was gone.

She drove automatically as she wondered if he knew how proud she was of him for the tremendous odds he’d overcome to become successful and wealthy. No wonder he’d retired so young! He must have worked himself almost to death to attain the goals he had, and in so short a time. She’d always had a lovely family to support her during the bad times, but Matt had had nothing and no one.

Nothing and no one then, but now he had her.

At least he would, she silently vowed, if he ever came back from wherever it was he had gone.

And if he didn’t, she’d look for him no matter how long it took. Then she’d tell him the last thing she felt for him was pity, and that she loved him. And if he still refused to come back home, she’d drag him by his beard.

It was late afternoon when the bank’s doors opened unexpectedly. Liz glanced up sharply from the tellers’ daily receipts lying on her desk, realizing Georgina had forgotten to lock the front doors again after closing. She
should
have checked.…

All thought ceased, and she gasped in astonishment as Matt strolled inside with Millie Jackson.

“Oh, Liz, I’m so happy,” Millie blurted out as she rushed past the open gate of the wrought-iron divider separating the tellers’ area from the manager’s.

Liz’s astonishment doubled when Millie turned frankly admiring eyes to Matt, who had stopped
on the other side of the divider. He smiled charmingly at Millie, then turned to Liz.

She stared in confusion at the two of them. Matt was very pleased about something, and it obviously involved Millie. Of all the ways she had hoped for him to reappear, this was definitely not one of them.

“Matt has found a way for me to keep the farm without worrying about money and such,” Millie gushed. “And I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“What?” Liz finally managed to ask.

“Matt heard about my … ah … problem.” Millie giggled at her euphemism before continuing. “He’s arranged for a private foundation to lease the farm as a kind of vacation home for under-privileged children. The foundation will see to the daily running of the farm, since their whole idea is to provide the children with the stability of farm life, even if it’s only for a few weeks. And the children will learn how nature and humans depend on one another.”

As Millie gave a long speech on the virtues of country living, Liz’s mind was working away. Of course it would all sound wonderful to Millie. She’d do anything to keep her farm.

“Which foundation?” Liz interrupted in a cool tone while clasping her hands in front of her on the woodgrain Formica desktop.

“The Deerling Foundation,” Matt replied, his smile slowly fading.

And well it should, Liz thought, still a bit confused by the turn of events. But she knew she couldn’t find fault with the Deerling Foundation; it was a reputable one.

She turned to Millie. “Your intentions are wonderful, but I think you should consider this very carefully, Millie. It will be a big change for you, with the constant disruption of strangers coming and going all the time. While the farm will still be yours, you must realize also that there may come a time when the foundation might want to do something with the farm that you won’t like. And sometime in the future they might have to institute some cost-cutting measures and your farm might be one of them. Then what will you do?”

“Well …”

Matt spoke smoothly over Millie’s hesitation. “The foundation has guaranteed Millie the right to dissolve the project at any time she wishes within the first two years. After that they will lease the farm for ten years, while still giving her a
yearly
option to dissolve the project. As you can see, the foundation is well aware of
who
actually owns the farm. They are not concerned that the farm be a paying operation, but that the children have an environment to learn respect for themselves and others.”

Liz felt her cheeks heating, and she suppressed the embarrassment rising inside her. She firmly told herself that she was only pointing out a few of the project’s pitfalls to Millie. She was
not
feeling humiliated because she hadn’t come up with a way to help the woman and Matt had. Pride had nothing to do with it. Someone should remind Millie of potential trouble, that was all. She was simply that someone.

“I know it’s exactly what Luther would want me to do,” Millie said defensively, breaking into Liz’s
thoughts. “He always said he never wanted to sell, especially to these new farming conglomerates.”

“Nobody wants you to do that,” Liz hastily assured the woman. She swallowed back a lump of pride. “This really sounds like a wonderful project. I just didn’t want you to rush into anything without carefully considering all the facts first.” She swallowed back a second and much larger lump. “Mr. Callahan should be commended for finding another option for you.”

“Matt said I should think it over carefully, just like you did,” Millie admitted, smiling sheepishly. “And I am thinking carefully before I sign the papers. I guess I just got excited that I could keep the farm going without the worry. I really didn’t want to sell, you know.”

Liz gave the woman a polite smile. She refused even to look at Matt.

Millie went on. “You were so concerned for me that day I came in to see about the loans that I wanted you to be the first to know my good news.”

“Thank you, Millie. I’m very glad to hear it,” Liz answered with all the graciousness she could muster. She forced herself to turn toward Matt. “Congratulations, Mr. Callahan. This looks very promising for Millie, and I hope she and Deerling can work out a successful arrangement.”

Matt’s brows were drawn together in a puzzled frown as he stared at her. “Thanks. Millie? Would you mind waiting in the car for a few moments? Since I’m here I’d like to talk to Liz about my account, and then I’ll drive you home, okay?”

Millie nodded and said a cheery good-bye that Liz barely heard. She was too busy forming her
first question. The door to the bank swung close with a whoosh, signaling her battle charge.

“How could you?” Liz began, her brain scrambling to sort through all that had just happened.

“What? What?” Matt stuttered in astonishment. “What are you so angry about?”

“You,” she shouted as she shoved back her chair and jumped to her feet. “I worry myself half to death all week wondering where you are and whether you’re coming back. I don’t know what I did to upset you like that, and you never gave me a chance to apologize! Well, the hell I will, Matt Callahan! Not after what you just put me through.”