Summer Kisses (66 page)

“Yeah. I noticed how competitive they are. I guess maybe that’s why I assumed they were twins.”

Or at least that excuse sounded logical.

She chuckled and set down her empty mug. “Everything is a race or a contest with them. But as much as they tease each other, they never fight. When one of them stumbles or struggles with something, the other one is right there helping him.”

The love in her voice when she talked about the boys made a warm feeling swell in Matt’s chest.

“Naturally, Lucy is thrilled to have Royce in school all day so she doesn’t have to rely on me as much. But personally, I miss them.” As Abby stood and stretched, her breasts thrust out at his eye level, and the hem of her shirt lifted a few inches. If going braless was part of the women’s rights movement, as far as he was concerned, those lush beauties should definitely be liberated.

He squashed the intense urge to press his lips to her stomach and dip his tongue into her navel. Tearing his gaze away, he rose to help clear the table. “So what’s the story with Royce?”

She opened the dishwasher and began loading it. “His dad has a gambling problem. Lucy works as a bank teller all day and is waiting tables in the evening to keep the mortgage company from foreclosing. I’ve tried to talk her into leaving Bill, but she won’t. If I didn’t take care of Royce....” She turned her back to Matt and gripped the counter.

Evidently she hated the idea of the kid being left on his own as much as he did. He couldn’t help but admire her. Not many neighbors would be so charitable.

“You’re a good woman to look after him.” He stepped toward her with the last of the plates, and she turned abruptly, placing her rose-scented hair directly under his nose. His tongue thickened in his mouth. Her lips parted, and she stared up at him, her green eyes blinking like two flashing traffic lights giving him the
go
signal.

Damn, he wanted to kiss her something fierce. He had to get out of there before he did something stupid. Besides, he still needed to find someplace to sleep. Of course, that was assuming he didn’t have another one of his nightmares, in which case, his temporary bed would become just a warm place to wait for morning.

“I’d like to help you finish cleaning up,” he murmured, “but I’d better hit the road before it’s totally dark.”

“Right.” The color in her cheeks deepened. She jerked her gaze away.

“Thanks a lot for dinner. It was delicious. I’ll see you at nine tomorrow.” Striding out the back door he picked up his duffel bag and swallowed hard. What the hell was he getting himself into? Abby was engaged to marry someone who had so much more to offer her than he could.

Before getting to know her, it’d seemed like a great idea to use his anonymity to explore whether they could rekindle anything between them. However, he hadn’t counted on liking her or wanting her so damn much.

Suddenly, the outcome of how his return would affect her and Tommy mattered a great deal.

Matt glanced over his shoulder at the silhouette of her house set against the last glimmer of twilight and fought the urge to march back inside and announce who he was. At least if he told her, he wouldn’t have to find someplace to sleep tonight. The stress of the day had left him dead on his feet.

As he ambled by Abby’s car in the driveway, he hesitated. Could he be that lucky?

He tried the Pontiac’s door and sent up a prayer of thanks when it opened. Why not? He’d bought the GTO for her. After crawling inside and closing it as quietly as possible, he curled up on the back seat, using his duffle bag as a pillow.

Things would’ve been much easier if he’d felt nothing on meeting Abby. Unfortunately, his intense visceral reaction had proven he owed it to himself and his son to see if what he felt was more than a simple case of the hots for a beautiful woman.

Yawning, he closed his eyes and recalled her flowery smell and the way her laughter made his heart flutter. Suppose he fell in love with her and then discovered she really wanted her dentist?

Matt couldn’t blame her. Compared to Robert, he didn’t have a single thing to recommend him as a husband. He finished in last place as just an unemployed vet with no car, no job, no money, and even more importantly—no memory. All he could offer Abby and his kid was himself.

Whoever the hell he was.

~*~

Matt stared at the mildewed cement floor, trying to nap with his eyes open. He hadn’t slept more than a few minutes in the three days since his capture, and they’d only fed him twice. Every time he’d dozed off the maggots had burned him on the arms with one of his cigarettes. Talk about aversion therapy. Abby would be happy to know he’d never touch another cigarette for the rest of his life.

At the rate things were going, it wouldn’t be a long one.

As he moved, he grimaced, barely able to draw a breath. Besides knocking out his front teeth, the bastards had definitely fractured a rib and broken his nose. In fact, it felt like they’d possibly cracked his right cheekbone along with his left brow.

Then again, what’d he expect after having his mug repeatedly slammed into the concrete floor?

Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back against the damp cement wall and the image of Abby’s beautiful face danced in front of him. He gingerly wiped the tears that spilled down his battered cheeks. In the past few days, he’d turned into a sniveling wuss.

To take his mind off his pain, he hummed Abby’s and his song,
In My Life
. The Beatles’ tune had been playing in the theater before the movie on their first date.

The door to his cell clanged like a hammer hitting an anvil, and three pairs of dusty boots appeared in his bleary range of sight. He glanced up at the two guards who’d beaten him earlier and their rat-faced commanding officer who scanned the oozing blisters on Matt’s arms. “Are you ready to talk yet?”

Matt glared at the rodent and rattled off his name, rank, and serial number for the ten thousandth time.

The man switched to tormenting him again. “You think Abby’s lover will make her feel wonderful like you?” The bastard’s malevolent smile turned smug. “Yes. I see the letter and can read English. Your little wife is eager. Soon she find another man to make her wiggle in the bed. She forget you.”

Somehow the little shit had sensed Matt’s greatest fear. He’d lost track of the number of girls he’d slept with while he was in college. None of them had ever responded to him with the trust and passion Abby had. She made him feel incredible.

“It not be you watching your baby take first step.”

Matt trembled, trying not to react and give the scum-bag cause to shoot him. He should’ve eaten Abby’s letter and picture. His only source of comfort had become their most effective weapon against him.

Compared to the bug-infested rice and muddy, stagnate water they’d been serving him, the stationary and photograph seemed downright appetizing. If he wasn’t certain the mother-fucker would blow his head off, he would request them for dessert.

“You forget her and life before you come here,” the man taunted. “You not going back. Your government think you dead.”

The true agony came from knowing the sadistic SOB spoke the truth. The helicopter’s explosion would’ve left serious doubt that Matt could’ve walked away, and the North Vietnamese soldier who’d broken Matt’s dog tag chain during their struggle had no doubt been cremated in his place.

“If you tell what we want to know, maybe we let you live.” The man fished Matt’s pack of cigarettes from one of the guard’s pockets and lit one. Matt broke into a sweat from the odor of tobacco smoke. The bastard barked some orders to the guards in Vietnamese and tossed the pack of smokes back to them on his way out of the cell.

Matt squeezed his eyes shut. If only he could forget about his life, they wouldn’t be able to torture him anymore. No matter how much it hurt to think about it, he loved Abby enough to want her to make a new life for herself and their child.

He held his head between his hands, trying to squeeze out the mental picture of his sweet wife responding to some other guy the way she had to him and all he would miss as his child grew up. He couldn’t bear the thought of another man holding Abby....or rocking his baby to sleep. If they forced him to think about it another moment, he’d go out of his mind.

It would’ve been better if he’d never met Abby.

Sobbing into his hands, he gasped. What if the news of his death made her lose their baby? God, please, no. He had to quit thinking about her dazzling smile and beautiful green eyes. If he could stop remembering everything that made his life good in the past, maybe his present wouldn’t seem so horrendous.

He had to block her out. Forget the pleasure and awe on Abby’s face when he made love to her. Put the sweet scent of her hair out of his mind. Tune out the sound of her laughter in his dreams.

He had to forget Abby ever existed.

Mac rapped on the back door and waved to her through its window before Abby had a chance to get dressed the next morning. Her cheeks radiated heat like two little blast furnaces. She tightened the sash on her skimpy black robe.

Two weeks after receiving the news of Matt’s crash, a package had arrived containing the silk lingerie set along with his last letter about how he couldn’t wait to see her in it.

Ever since, she’d imagined him looking at her with the same male appreciation that flickered in Mac’s eyes when she opened the door. His heavy-lidded gaze slid from the top of her tousled head, down the length of her naked legs, to the tips of her bare toes.

“Morning, Abby,” he rasped, “Am I too early?”

“N-no, you’re right on time. I’m running a little behind schedule.” She filled two bowls with steaming oatmeal, her hands trembling as if she had a palsy. Why was she so darn rattled? She wore a lot less than this to the beach.

Even though Mac had at least a decade on her and was missing twenty pounds, his underlying good looks turned her into a quivering mass of adolescent nerves. And that was without even smiling, which she’d yet to see him do. In hindsight, she couldn’t believe she’d ended up sharing so much with him last night. There’d been something about him that made her feel as if she were talking to an old friend.

“I’m sorry breakfast isn’t something more exciting, but I have to get to the library. I run a children’s story hour every other Saturday.” She set a basket of fruit on the table with a box of doughnuts. “If that isn’t enough, there’s bread for toast and peanut butter and jelly. You can help yourself to it.”

He slid into the seat he’d occupied at dinner the evening before. “As long as you don’t serve me rice,” he murmured, stopping to yawn, “I’m a happy man.”

“You don’t sound awake yet this morning, either.”

He rubbed the dark smudges under his eyes. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ll be okay as soon as I have a cup of that coffee I smell.”

While Mac and Tommy ate together, she hurried into the bedroom and dragged on a pair of navy slacks and a pale blue cotton sweater. By the time she returned to the kitchen, Mac and her son were involved in a deep discussion about dinosaurs.

The man seemed extremely well read and explained even the most complex aspects of the subject at a level her six-year-old could comprehend. It seemed Tommy had gotten the erroneous impression in school that there was only one of each variety of dinosaur.

“You have to think of them sort of the way you do birds,” Mac explained. “Parrots, crows, and chickens are all birds—just different types. Tyrannosaurus Rex wasn’t the animal’s personal name like Daffy and Donald are for your cartoon ducks. It’s just the title for that kind of dinosaur.”

“So if they was fish, Triceratops could be like a shark?” Tommy asked.

“Now you’ve got the idea. We’ll talk more about how animals are classified tonight.” Mac ruffled his hair and winked at Abby. “I guess I’d better get cracking if I’m gonna get anything done today.” He drained his mug and stood.

Abby poured a cup of coffee for herself. “If I don’t have what you need to do the job, give a holler.” She pointed toward the laundry room. “You can get to the garage through there.”

Tommy shoved his cereal bowl aside. “I’m gonna go help.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sweetie, let Mac do his job in peace.”

“It’s okay.” Mac held the door open for Tommy. “I don’t mind if he comes with me. I enjoy his company.”

A half-hour later, she stepped outside to leave, and Mac was already scraping the house as diligently as if it were his own. Tommy danced around the base of the stepladder, chattering like an excited magpie.

Shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, she gazed up at Mac. “I see you found everything. Tommy and I are going now. I’ll fix lunch as soon as I get back.”

“Take your time,” he called down to her. “I won’t starve.”

On the way to the library, Tommy jabbered about what Mac had taught him. He turned pensive a moment and then asked, “Mom, did my daddy know a lot about dinosaurs?”

A warm lump of grief clogged her throat like a glob of the oatmeal she’d made that morning. She glanced in the rearview mirror at her son’s face. She loved that he wanted to know about his father, but it ripped at her heart to talk about Matt.

“Your daddy knew a lot about everything, Tommy.”

“Did he know about baseball, too? Mac says he’s gonna teach me how to play.”

The man’s attention had only reminded Tommy that he didn’t have a father. “Sweetie, your dad was the smartest person I ever knew.” Her son certainly hadn’t gotten his brains from her.”

“Would my daddy have eaten my peas for me?”

She wiped the mist from her eyes and chuckled. “I don’t know. Your dad really hated peas, too.” Most likely, Matt would’ve insisted Tommy shouldn’t have to eat something he despised that much. But no way would she tell her son that.

“Did my dad like hot dogs?”

“Your dad loved hot dogs.”

“I bet Mac likes ‘em, too. Can we have ‘em for supper?”