Paradise (57 page)

Patrick shot her a disgusted glance. "There's nothing complicated about it. It's very simple. You loved my son. He loved you. You made a baby together. You're married. You'll need some time together to find the feelings you used to have for each other. And you will. It's as simple as that."

Meredith almost laughed at his gross misstatement of the entire situation, and his brows shot up when he saw that she found his remarks humorous. "You'd better make up your mind about what you're going to do pretty fast," Patrick said, shamelessly trying to force her hand by implying Matt was considering remarrying, "because there's a girl who loves him plenty, and he just might decide to marry her."

She assumed he was referring to the girl whose picture was on Matt's desk, and her heart gave a funny little lurch as she stood up to leave. "The one in
Indiana
?" He hesitated then nodded, and she tossed a halfhearted smile in his direction as she picked up her purse. "Matt's been refusing to take my calls. I need to talk to him now, more than ever," she said in a voice that implored him for help.

"The farm is the perfect place to do it," Patrick announced, grinning as he abruptly arose. "You'll have plenty of time on the way there to think of the best way to tell him everything, and he'll have to listen. It'll take you only a couple hours to get there."

"What?" she blinked. "No, really. Absolutely not. Seeing Matt alone at the farm isn't a good idea at all."

"You think you need a chaperon?" he demanded incredulously.

"No," Meredith said half seriously. "I think we need a referee. I was hoping that you'd volunteer and that the three of us could meet here, when he gets back."

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he said urgently, "Meredith, go to the farm. You can say all the things you need to say to him right there. You'll never have a better chance," he cajoled her when she hesitated. "The farm's been sold. That's why Matt is there now; he's packing up our personal things. The phone's been disconnected, so you won't be interrupted. He can't get in his car and drive off because he had car trouble on the way there, and his car had to be towed into the shop. Joe's not supposed to pick him up until Monday morning." He saw her begin to waver and he joyously increased the pressure he was applying. "There's been eleven long years of hatred and hurt between the two of you, and you could put an end to it this very night! Tonight! Isn't that what you really want? I know how you must have felt when you thought Matt didn't care about you or the baby, but think how
he's
felt all these years! By
nine o'clock
tonight, all that misery could be behind both of you. You could be friends like you used to be." She looked ready to capitulate, yet she still hesitated, and Patrick guessed the reason. Slyly he added, "After you're done talking, you can go to the
Edmunton
Motel and stay there."

The more Meredith considered his arguments, the more she realized he was right. Without a phone at the farm, Matt couldn't call the police to have her arrested for trespassing; without a car he couldn't drive off and leave her. He would
have
to listen. She thought of how Matt must have felt—and must still feel—about that telegram he'd gotten, and suddenly she wanted desperately to do what Patrick had suggested, to put an end to all the ugliness between them right away and to part friends. "I'll have to stop at my apartment and pack an overnight case," she said.

He smiled down at her with such heartwarming tenderness and approval that a lump of emotion grew in her throat. "You make me proud, Meredith," he whispered, and she realized he knew that confronting an angry Matt was not going to be nearly so easy as he'd made it seem. "I guess I'd better go," she said, and then she rose up on her toes and pressed an impulsive kiss to his rough cheek. His arms went around her, enfolding her in a tight bear hug, and the affectionate gesture almost undid her. She could not remember the last time her own father had hugged her.

"Joe will drive you," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "It's started snowing, and the roads could get bad."

Meredith stepped back and shook her head. "I'd rather take my own car. I'm used to driving in the snow."

"I'd still feel better if Joe drove you," he persisted.

"I'll be fine," she countered emphatically. Meredith turned to leave, then she remembered she was supposed to have dinner with Lisa that night and attend a showing at an art gallery of Lisa's boyfriend's latest work. "May I use your phone?" she asked Patrick.

Lisa was more than disappointed, she was a little angry when Meredith canceled, and she demanded an explanation. When Meredith told her where she was going and why, Lisa was furious—at Philip Bancroft. "God,
Mer
, all these years, and you and Matt each thought the other ... and all because your bastard father—" She broke off in the midst of her disjointed tirade and said somberly, "Good luck tonight."

After Meredith left, Patrick was silent for a long moment, then he looked over his shoulder at Joe, who'd been eavesdropping in the kitchen doorway. "Well," he said with a beaming grin, "what do you think of my daughter-in-law?"

Joe shoved away from the kitchen doorframe and sauntered into the living room. "I think it would've been better if I'd taken her out to the farm, Patrick. That way, she wouldn't be able to leave, because
she
wouldn't have a car either."

Patrick chuckled. "She figured that out for herself. That's why she wouldn't let you drive her there."

"Matt's not
gonna
be happy to see her," Joe warned. "He's mad as hell at her. No, he's worse than mad. I've never seen him like he is now. I mentioned her name to him yesterday, and he gave me a look that chilled my blood. From some phone calls I heard in the car, he's thinking of
movin
' in on that department store of hers and taking it over. I've never seen anybody get under his skin like she can."

"I know that," Patrick softly agreed, his smile widening. "I also know she's the only one who ever has."

Joe studied Patrick's pleased expression, his brow furrowed. "You're hoping that after she tells Matt about what her father did and after Matt cools down, he might not let her leave the farm, aren't you?"

"I'm counting on it."

"Five dollars says you're wrong."

Patrick's face fell. "You're betting against it?"

"Well, normally I wouldn't. Normally I'd bet ten bucks, not five, that Matt would look at that beautiful face of hers, and see the way her eyes look when she cries, and then he'd take her straight to bed to try to make it up to her."

"Why don't you think he'll do that?"

"'Cause he's sick, that's why."

Patrick relaxed and grinned smugly. "He's not
that
sick."

"He's sick as a dog!" Joe persisted stubbornly. "He's had that flu all week, and he still went off to
New York
. When I picked him up at the airport yesterday, he coughed in the car and it made me shudder."

"Care to raise the bet to ten dollars?"

"You're on."

They sat back down to continue their checker game, but Joe hesitated. "Patrick, I'm calling the bet off. It's not fair for me to take your ten bucks. You haven't seen Matt hardly at all this week. I guarantee you, he's going to be too sick and too mad to want to keep her there."

"He may be that mad, but he won't be that sick."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I happen to know," Patrick said, feigning absorption in his next move on the checkerboard, "that Matt got a prescription from the doctor before he left for
Indiana
, and he took it with him. He called me from the car on the way to the farm and said he was feeling better."

"You're bluffing—your eye's twitching!"

"Care to raise the bet?"

When Meredith left her apartment with her overnight bag, it had merely been snowing, but by the time she drove across the
Indiana
line, the storm was becoming a blizzard. Sand trucks and snowplows were working the highway, their yellow lights swirling like beacons. A moving van passed her, throwing slush onto her windshield; two miles ahead, she passed the same moving van—jackknifed in a ditch, the driver standing outside it, talking to another trucker, who had already pulled off to help him.

According to the radio, the temperature was twenty-two degrees and dropping, with a total snowfall of twelve inches expected, but Meredith was only semi-aware of the treacherous weather. All her thoughts were concentrated on the past, and on her need to get to the farm and make Matt understand what had actually happened. When Patrick had insisted she go to the farm, she'd still been half numb with
the shock of her discoveries. Now that the shock had worn off, she felt a sense of urgency to make amends, to explain, that far surpassed Patrick's.

Even now, thinking of the way Matt must have felt when he got that telegram made her sick to her stomach. And still he had flown home to see her in the hospital— only to be refused admittance like some beggar without rights of any kind. He had never abandoned her or their baby. The knowledge filled her with sweetness and a consuming desperation to make him understand that she had not done away with their baby or barred him from her life.

Her headlights gleamed ominously on the highway ahead, and Meredith eased off the accelerator, her breath catching as the car slid onto the patch of ice, racing forward without traction, then grabbing on the snow-covered ground again. As soon as the BMW was under control, her thoughts returned to Matt. Now she understood the reason for the underlying enmity she'd sensed in him. She understood it all, including his furious parting remark in the car last week: "Cross me one more time, just once more, and you'll wish to God your mother had aborted
you!"

Given the incredible injustices done to him, Meredith could understand why he was retaliating in ways that had seemed so extraordinarily vicious. Considering everything he believed she'd done years before, it was amazing that he'd tried to be friendly at the opera and at lunch. In his place, Meredith wouldn't have been able to be civil, let alone friendly.

The thought struck her that Matt might have sent himself that telegram so that he could acquit himself to his father for abandoning Meredith, and, just as quickly, she discarded it. Matthew Farrell did as he damned well pleased and offered excuses to no one. He had gotten her pregnant, married her, and then confronted her father's wrath without concern or apology. He had built a business empire with nothing but sheer daring and strength of will. He wouldn't have cowered before his own father and sent himself a telegram. The telegram she'd received, telling her to get a divorce, had obviously been sent in bitter response to the obscene one he'd received. And even so, he'd flown home to try to see her before sending it....

Tears stung her eyes, and she accelerated without realizing it. She had to get to him, to talk to him, to make him understand. She needed his forgiveness and he needed hers, and she didn't think it was the least bit odd or in any way threatening to her future with Parker that she felt such piercing regret and aching tenderness for Matt now. Visions of how the future would be paraded across her mind: Next time, when Matt extended his hand, as he had at the opera, and smiled at her and said, "Hello, Meredith," she would smile at him and put her hand in his. Their friendship wouldn't have to be limited to chance social encounters either, they could be business friends too. Matt was a brilliant tactician and negotiator; in the future, she decided warmly, perhaps she might call him for advice occasionally. They'd meet for lunch and smile at each other; she'd tell him her problem, and he'd offer advice. Old friends were like that. The warmth within her built to a rosy glow.

The country roads were treacherous, but Meredith scarcely noticed. Her delightful imaginings of future friendly meetings with Matt had been obliterated by the reality that she had absolutely no proof to offer him that what she was going to tell him was the truth. He already knew how badly she wanted a quiet divorce. If she walked into the house and went straight to the point about the miscarriage, he'd undoubtedly think she'd invented the entire tale to play on his sympathy and get him to agree to the divorce. Worse, he'd bought the
Houston land she wanted for twenty million dollars, and he was holding Bancroft & Company in a ten-million-dollar financial vise by demanding thirty million for it. No doubt he'd assume her tale about the miscarriage was nothing but a desperate, transparent ploy to trick him into loosening the screws on that vise. Therefore, her only choice was to first smooth things over with him by telling him that his rezoning request would now go through. Once he understood that her father had agreed never to interfere with Matt again, then Matt would surely be as reasonable about the divorce as he'd tried to be at lunch—before he got that phone call. Then and only then—when he would know she had nothing more to gain—she could explain what really happened to their baby. He'd surely believe her at that point, because there'd be no reason to doubt her.

The wooden bridge across the creek on his property was covered in snow several inches deep. Meredith accelerated to prevent herself from bogging down, and held her breath. The BMW plowed across it, tires skidding, rear end slipping sideways, then it plunged ahead toward the front yard of the farmhouse. In the reflected light from the snow-covered fields and the moon overhead, the barren trees in the yard were eerie, distorted versions of what they had been that long-ago summer. Like forbidding skeletons, they cast twisted shadows on the white frame house, warning her away, and Meredith felt a shiver of foreboding as she cut the headlights and turned off the engine. A light shone dimly through a curtain in an upper window; Matt was here, and he was still awake. And he was going to be infuriated when he saw her.