Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish (26 page)

“No trouble.” Miz Becky lowered Amy to the crib. The baby stirred, then slipped deeply into sleep, one hand curled against her cheek. “These things were our Jenny's when she was a baby. She was right excited to help us get them out for Amy. And Matt was the most at peace I've seen him since he got home.” She smoothed one hand along the crib railing. “That boy needs a little peace. If he gets it from helping your young ones, that's not such a big thing to ask, is it?”

Sarah blinked back tears, thinking of Matt's face when he'd talked about the children he'd heard crying for help after the bombing that killed his friend. Maybe this could be a step in his healing.

“No,” she said softly. “It's not a big thing to ask at all.”

They walked back to the porch.

Wanda had the children lined up on the step while she laid out the house rules for them with quiet authority. “Y'all listen when I call you, stay out of the front of the house and don't run through the flower beds or my daddy will get after you. He takes care of those flowers, and he's right proud of them. All right?”

Sarah half expected Andi to argue or Ethan to try and wheedle his way out of the rules, but all three nodded solemnly.

“That's fine, then.” Wanda flashed them a wide smile. “Let's have a game.”

The children followed her onto the lawn, and Matt rose, moving to her side. “See?” he said. “Plenty of room for them to play safely. That's the stable, beyond the garages, with the vegetable garden beyond that.”

“And that?” She pointed to the raw skeleton of a building rising behind the outbuildings.

Matt grimaced. “My father's latest project. He's putting up a few new houses on the lane behind the estate.”

“Don't you like the idea of neighbors that close?” Or was it something about his father's business that bothered him?

He shrugged. “Doesn't matter to me.” Implicit in it was that he'd soon be gone. “Well, Sarah?” He gave her a challenging look. “You find any flaws in our arrangements for the kids that would let you back out?”

He shouldn't be able to read her that easily. She felt a twinge of panic. How had she let him get so far into her life?

“No flaws.” She managed a smile. She could be gracious about this, after all.

“Then let's get back to work.”

He took her arm as he spoke, his hand warm against her skin, and her pulse jumped. Work—just the two of them in the office. Before, the children had always been nearby, forming a buffer by their presence. Now she and Matt were really going to be alone together.

 

“The worship is ended. Let the service begin.” Pastor Wells held up his hands in benediction, and the organ burst out in joyful music.

Sarah stood still in the pew for a moment, letting the peace she'd been seeking for the last several days seep into her. St. Andrew's Chapel—its minister and its people—had been a blessing to her since the day she arrived on the island. She loved it—loved the tiny wooden sanctuary that felt almost like a boat inside, loved the ancient stained-glass windows, loved Pastor Wells's sermons, always so filled with joy.

A fragment of guilt touched her. She had to admit that she hadn't listened as closely as she should have to the day's message. Matt had been seated three rows ahead of her. She'd forced herself not to look, but even when she'd had her gaze fixed on the pulpit, awareness of him hovered at the edge of her mind.

Stop it, she lectured herself sternly. She saw more than enough of Matt all week. They probably both needed a break from each other on Sunday, especially now that the children spent afternoons at the mansion. Hopefully by the time she picked the children up from the nursery and the junior church, he'd be gone.

When she emerged into the churchyard a few minutes later, people still clustered under the trees, chatting. Before she could head toward the car, Jason Sanders broke away from a nearby group and approached her. Tension skittered along her nerves. She hadn't talked to Sanders since the day he'd withdrawn his advertising.

“Good morning, Jason.” She hoped he wasn't planning to be difficult.

“Sarah, good to see you.” He beamed as if she were a long-lost relative. “How's everything at the paper?”

The children, apparently considering this a reprieve from going home, scurried off to chase each other around the sprawling branches of a live oak.

“Just fine.” She shifted Amy to the other arm. Sanders had to know his actions had put a dent in their budget, but she wasn't about to admit that.

He lifted an eyebrow, some of the joviality leaving his face. “Can't be easy for you, breaking in a new partner. Especially someone like Matt Caldwell.”

She felt her smile freeze on her face. “Matt's doing fine.”

“Still, can't be like working with Peter.” He sighed. “Terrible loss. I always liked Peter. It'd be a shame to see the paper change from his vision for it.”

Her lips felt stiff, but she managed to make them move. “Nothing has changed about the
Gazette.
” She glanced past him, seeing Matt approach. “Perhaps you'd like to talk with Matt about it.”

“Think I'll skip that pleasure.” He turned to move off, then glanced back at her. “I'd like to resume my advertising, Sarah. I surely would.”

“I hope you'll think about it.”

He nodded, then was gone before Matt reached her.

“What did he want?” Suspicion colored Matt's voice as he glared after Sanders.

“I'm not sure.” What had been the point of that little exchange? She didn't know, but she knew it made her uneasy.

Matt shook his head, as if dismissing Sanders. “Pastor Wells has something he'd like to talk with us about.”

Amy, hearing Matt's voice, made a lunge toward him. He caught her as if he'd been doing that all her life and carried her as they walked to the minister. “Tell Sarah what you were just telling me. She'll be interested.”

Was that his way of palming something off on her that he didn't want to do?

Pastor Wells tickled Amy's cheek. “I was asking Matt if he realized the two-hundredth birthday of the church is coming up this year.” He looked lovingly toward the frame building. “It's hard to believe, isn't it?”

“I hadn't realized. You must be planning a celebration.” Somehow she had the feeling they were going to be asked to do something.

“Yes, of course. And part of that celebration should be a recognition of the role St. Andrews has played in the island's history.”

She nodded cautiously, hoping that didn't mean he wanted her to write that history.

“So I thought the
Gazette
would run a series of articles.” He beamed, as if he were giving them a present. “I have boxes of historic material, and I know people would want to read about it.”

“I'm sure you're right, Pastor. That's exactly the sort of thing our readers love.” She glanced at Matt, daring him to argue. Certainly it wasn't the sort of article he loved.

But Matt nodded. “Great idea. Let me know when the material is ready, and I'll stop by to pick it up.”

“Wonderful.” Pastor Wells clapped his hands together, beaming. “I'll have it ready in a day or two.”

Someone else called his name then, and he moved off, still smiling.

“Admit it, Sarah.” Matt lowered his voice, standing close enough that none of the other parishioners gathered on the lawn could hear. “You thought I was going to turn the poor man down.”

Once again he seemed to be looking into her mind. “I was afraid you might not find the church's birthday celebration hard-hitting enough.”

“Even I know St. Andrews's bicentennial is important,” he said. “Besides, how involved can it be? You'll look though the material, find some way to present it so it's not as dry as dust—”

“Hold it right there. How did this suddenly get to be my job?”

“Human-interest stuff is more your forte than mine.”

“But this is your church, your town. You grew up here.” She thought of the Caldwell legend and the missing dolphin that still meant so much to all of them. “You know all the old stories. I'd say that makes it yours.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Okay, ours then. We'll work on it together. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

His smile faded as he glanced across the churchyard. “I have another story I want to pursue, as well. Something that will be more hard-hitting.”

She followed the direction of his gaze, and her heart sank. “You're tackling Jason Sanders again.”

Matt's expression hardened. “I got a tip that there's something shady about a deal he has going at the far end of the island. I intend to look into it.”

Reason told her that Sanders had already withdrawn his advertising. He couldn't do anything else to them. But a warning voice whispered in her mind that he wasn't a good enemy to make.

“Do you have to do this?” She knew before she asked the question what his answer would be.

“Of course. That's what a journalist does.” He looked surprised that she could even ask. “If I could break an important story…” He let that trail off.

But she seemed to know what he was thinking. If Matt broke an important story, he'd be proving that he had himself together again. That he was ready to leave.

He'd be gone and she'd be left to pick up the pieces.

I
f only she'd found some way to stop him. Sarah shook her head as she drove toward the Caldwell mansion to pick up the children the next afternoon. That was wishful thinking, and she knew it.

Matt wouldn't be deterred from the expedition he'd made to the county courthouse in Beaufort in search of information about Sanders's real-estate deals. She hadn't bothered to try. He was one of the most single-minded people she'd ever met. In that respect he reminded her of her father.

Duty, honor, country had been her father's motto. Unfortunately his only daughter had come in a poor second to that.

She tried to rationalize away the sense of worry that had been hanging over her since the day before, when Matt had made it clear he wasn't finished with Jason Sanders and his real-estate dealings. That concern wasn't caused only by her fear of making an influential enemy.

Matt was evading his own spiritual problems by concentrating on Sanders's possible misdeeds. She wasn't sure why she was so convinced of that, but she couldn't shake the feeling. Matt needed to heal. He needed to find peace, as Miz Becky had pointed out. He wouldn't do that by plunging headlong into a battle with someone he'd disliked since childhood.

She gripped the steering wheel.

Please, Lord. I'm not sure how to pray for Matt. I just know he has to turn to You, or he's never going to be at peace again. If I'm supposed to help him, please show me how to do it. I don't seem to be doing too well on my own.

She pulled between the twin pillars, shaded by century-old live oaks, that marked the circular drive of Twin Oaks, the Caldwell mansion. Matt's car pulled in just ahead of her. He'd gotten back from Beaufort then, with or without the information he'd gone after.

“Sarah.” He got out and closed the door, waiting for her to catch up with him. “I thought you'd probably left the office by now, so I didn't bother to stop there.”

“How did you make out at the courthouse?”

Matt lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“I'll have to, won't I?” She looked up at him, noting the lines of tension between his eyes. “If you're going to plunge the
Gazette
into controversy, I'd better know about it.”

He leaned against the car, apparently preferring to have this conversation in the driveway, where no one could hear. “Controversy sells papers.”

“Controversy also makes enemies.” She'd learned that the hard way the first year they'd owned the paper. “A small-town paper can't afford to have too many of those if it's going to stay in business.”

“That's a judgment call, isn't it?” He moved restlessly, his brow furrowed, and she could see that whatever peace he'd found a few days earlier had vanished now.

Guide me, Lord.

She could hear the children's voices from the back of the house, raised in play. All of her judgment of what to do had to be weighed in the balance of what was good for her children. That was what Matt didn't seem to understand.

“Why don't you tell me what you found out, and I'll tell you what I think?”

“No smoking gun, I'm afraid. But Sanders has been buying up a lot of small pieces of land down at the south end of the island, apparently for various private individuals.”

“That doesn't sound so dire.”

He frowned, drumming his fingers on the roof of the car. The sound played on her nerves. “Could be private home buyers, I suppose, but it seems odd that all his dealings lately have been in the same area.”

“Odd, but not illegal.” She suspected that logic wouldn't stop him.

“Worth looking into a little more deeply, I think.” He straightened, the movement taking him closer to her, and his tension seemed to leap the distance to dance along her skin.

“Sarah, I promise you I won't run anything unless I have proof, not just suspicion, of wrongdoing. Is that good enough for you?”

“I suppose it will have to be.”

He frowned at her for a moment, looking as if he wanted to say something more, but a clamor of voices from the back lawn made him swivel in that direction. “Maybe we'd better see what all the noise is about.”

She walked up the path beside him, hurrying a little. If her children were in trouble—

They rounded the corner of the house, and Sarah's heart sank. The picture in front of them was regrettably self-explanatory.

The gardener, Wanda's father, stood on one side of a trampled flower bed, ball cap pushed back on his gray hair, hands on his hips. Opposite him stood her two sons. Jeffrey's small face was a picture of guilt, while Ethan tried on a smile that was an echo of his father's. It didn't seem to be working on the gardener.

“Jeb, what's going on?” The sound of Matt's voice had the gardener turning to him.

“These two young rascals rampaged right through the marigold seedlings I just planted, that's what.”

“It wasn't us,” Ethan said quickly. “Honest, Mommy. It wasn't us.”

Ethan turned the smile on her, and an image formed in her mind. Peter had worn that same winsome smile when he was about to spin a story about why he hadn't paid a bill or was overdrawn at the bank.

No. She rejected the image, overwhelmed with guilt. Peter was beyond his faults. She shouldn't think such things about him.

“Ethan…” she began.

“It was me.” Andi scurried off the porch and ran to the gardener, tugging on his sleeve. “I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson. Really I am. I'll fix it.”

The old man's face softened as he looked down at her. “I don't think so, missy.”

“Those are Ethan and Jeffrey's footprints in the bed, Andi.” Matt spoke before she could say anything else. His voice was a gentle, reassuring rumble. He knelt by the soft earth and pointed to the telltale sneaker prints.

This just kept getting worse.

“I'm sorry.” Sarah hurried into speech. “I'm afraid this was a bad idea. I shouldn't have agreed to it.” She looked at the gardener, because she didn't want to look at Matt. “I hope you'll let me repair the damage before we leave.” And they wouldn't be coming back.

“Sarah, that's not necessary.” Matt stood and took a step toward her.

“I told you I didn't want to cause problems for your family. I think it best if we go back to the way things were.”

“The boys—” he began.

“The boys are my responsibility.”

Hers, and hers alone. No matter how tempting it was to share her burden, she never should have let Matt take on even a little piece of it.

 

Matt frowned, trying to understand the distress on Sarah's face. She looked so distraught that his heart twisted. He had to talk to her about this, had to try and understand what she was feeling. But maybe he'd better defuse the situation with Jeb and the kids first.

He knelt next to the boys so that he looked from one small face to the other. “Seems to me you forgot what Wanda told you about the flowers.”

They looked back at him, their blue eyes almost identical. For a moment he feared they wouldn't respond. Then Jeffrey's face crumpled. “I'm sorry.” His voice was so soft, Matt could hardly hear it, but it gave him a sense of triumph. That was the first time he could remember that Jeffrey hadn't relied on Ethan to talk for him.

“We forgot,” Ethan said quickly. He clutched Jeffrey's hand. “We didn't mean to do it. We're sorry.”

“Since you're sorry, you'll want to help Mr. Johnson replant the flowers, won't you?”

Ethan swallowed visibly, giving Jeb a quick sidelong glance, then nodded. “If he'll let us.”

Matt looked up at Jeb, knowing he could rely on the old man who'd been a fixture at Twin Oaks for as long as he could remember. “What do you say?”

Jeb shrugged, his face solemn but a twinkle lurking in his eyes. “Guess I can use a little help, all right.” He fixed a firm gaze on the boys. “You younguns come over here, and I'll show you what to do.”

Matt rose, taking Sarah's arm. “There,” he said softly. “All settled.”

“I don't think—”

“Leave it, Sarah.” He nudged her away from the flower bed and toward the porch. “They'll learn more planting flowers with Jeb than they will from a lecture.” He smiled. “Believe me, I speak from personal experience. Come and sit down, and leave it alone.”

He could feel the reluctance in her, but she let him lead her to the steps. The back porch had its own swing, an old wooden one that had hung in the same spot as long as he could remember. They sat down, and the chains creaked as he pushed the swing with one foot.

“Now,” he said gently, “let's talk about this nonsense. You're not going to back out on our arrangement because of one little hitch, are you?”

“I think it would be best.” She sounded stubborn, but there was something beyond stubbornness in her eyes, something that told him he'd have to push her for the truth.

“You remember the other day?” His hand brushed hers between them on the swing. “You told me I was overreacting when Amy got hurt.”

That brought the ghost of a smile to her strained face. “You were.”

“Well, now you are.” He felt her start to protest and gripped her hand. It felt small and capable in his grip. “You are, Sarah. The boys were careless, that's all. They'll learn something. End of story.”

She shook her head. “The children are my responsibility.”

“Sure they are. I'm not trying to take that away. I just don't want you to throw away a good thing because of one little problem. That would be overreacting, Sarah. Wouldn't it?”

“Maybe.” She sounded defensive, but at least she wasn't gathering up her kids and running for home. “I'm a single mother. That's natural enough.”

So it was. All of Sarah's energy and devotion went to her kids, and that was the way it should be.

“You've been here nearly five years. That's long enough to have friends who are willing to help.”

“Five years,” she repeated. “Longer than I've been anywhere. Peter was always on the move, looking for the next opportunity. But I'm still the only one responsible for my kids. No one else.”

He pushed the swing a time or two, wondering. “The other night I told you a lot more than I intended,” he said, watching the boys chatter to Jeb, their guilt apparently forgotten, as he showed them how to set out the young plants. “Seems as if you could open up to me in return.” He turned back to her, a challenge in his eyes.

She blinked. “I didn't mean to be rude. I just—” She stopped, took a breath. “No, I don't have any family. Peter and I were both only children. There's no one but me to take care of the children and provide for them. And since Peter didn't leave any insurance—”

“Wait a minute. Peter didn't leave any insurance?” He made it a question, hardly willing to believe he'd heard correctly.

She pulled her hand away from his, folding her arms defensively. “Well, naturally he never thought anything would happen to him.”

“That's a poor excuse for leaving his family unprotected.” Anger surged through him, and it showed in his voice.

It must have startled Sarah, too, because her gaze lifted, wounded and surprised, to his face. “I'm not sure that's any of your business.”

The business—he latched on to that, confused at the rush of emotions her revelation had brought on. “He at least had mortgage insurance on the property. I remember seeing that when we signed the agreement.”

She shook her head. “He canceled that. He said the premiums were too high.”

“Too—”

Maybe he'd better not say anything else, because if he did he'd probably say something Sarah wouldn't forgive. Fortunately he heard Amy's waking-up cry.

Sarah got up quickly, obviously eager to end this conversation. “I'd better see to the baby.” She whisked inside.

He shoved himself off the swing and took a couple of quick steps to the edge of the porch. The emotions that roiled inside him demanded action. A good long ride on the beach might help, but he could hardly go off at this point. Sarah would jump to the conclusion he was angry with her or the children.

“Look, Matt,” Ethan called to him from the flower bed, waving a muddy trowel. “We planted almost a whole row. Jeb says they'll have flowers soon.”

“Good job.” He managed a smile. But watching the two boys working so diligently in reparation, Andi giggling with Jenny on the low branch of the live oak, little Amy, just waking in the room behind him, Matt couldn't believe their father had left them with no support, no safety net, nothing. How could any man do that?

He recognized the emotions that raced through him like blood through his veins. Anger. Jealousy. He was furious with Peter Reed for leaving his family unprotected. And he was jealous. How could Sarah have loved someone who'd been so unworthy of her? If she loved him—