Too Hot to Handle: A Loveswept Classic Romance (17 page)

Callie tried to hold back, to hold on to some thread of reason. She tightened her muscles and willed her body to remain stiff and unresponsive. She tried, but her body refused to comply with her directives. Her heart began to pound, and every nerve ending in her body began to vibrate with need. The very touch of the sheet beneath her back set off spasms of desire, and she could hold back no longer.

Rising to meet him, she abandoned herself to the torrential flood she felt roaring within, and in some distant part of her mind she heard her moans of need turn into cries of triumph as she was swept away in a shudder of pure ecstasy.

As Matt relaxed on top of her she hugged him tightly. He was right. He needed her. Nothing else mattered. She couldn’t lose this man. She’d learned to love the vulnerable little boy who’d worked nonstop to regain what his father had lost. In his own way he was as injured by his past as she was by hers. Somehow they’d work it out.

And then he pulled away, lifted himself from her body and her bed. Callie sought his gaze, ready to tell him that she had been wrong, ready until she
saw the look of bitterness and disgust etched in his stony face.

“I’m sorry, Callie. That was inexcusable of me. Maybe an occasional night of physical release is enough for you, but it’s not for me. I want marriage and children. I want you in my bed every night, and in every hour of my life. I want you in Atlanta.”

“That won’t work for me, Matthew.” She felt tears slide down her cheeks.

“Someday you may learn that love is enduring and encompassing. I want that enduring kind of love where two people grow together. It could have been very special between us, Callie. There’s nothing wrong with the old ideals of love and marriage. But you’re a free spirit, and I’ve learned to collect only that which withstands the test of time.”

Callie pulled a quilt across her naked body and silently watched him dress. When he finished he turned and looked at her, his eyes glittering “Good-bye, Matthew,” she whispered.

He started to say something, then stopped, unable to speak. “I love you,” he finally managed to say, and walked out.

Matt pitched Callie’s bag onto the porch. He touched his cheek and realized that tears were rolling down his face. He was crying. The last time he’d cried had been at the death of his father.

Oh, Lord, what had he done? He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Callie Carmichael was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he’d ruined their relationship.

“Your name’s Matt, isn’t it?”

The voice startled him. He’d forgotten that they weren’t alone. The woman standing in the shadows behind him was soft-spoken and hesitant.

“Yes. I’m afraid I didn’t remember that you were here, Miss …”

“Just Lacey.”

“Lacey. You’ll have to forgive our poor display of … whatever the hell it was.”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if I caused a problem between you and Callie. If I’d known, I’d never have come.”

“You didn’t cause the problem,” Matt admitted, “and if it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. This would have happened sooner or later, and I suppose it’s just as well that it happened now, before things went any further.”

“You’re in love with Callie?”

“I don’t suppose it matters if I tell you. Yes, I’m in love with her. From the first time I saw her standing here in the sunlight in her silly overall cut-offs I’ve been acting like some love-sick teenager.” He smiled bitterly. “She thought that John Henry had sent me to ‘court’ her. As it turned out, I haven’t been able to think of anything or anyone else.”

“But she’s very independent. Maybe you just need to give her some time.”

“No,” Matt said with finality. “Callie doesn’t want me or anything I represent, and I can’t change what I am, not even for her. Look after her, Lacey.”

“I will, Matt, and who knows, she may find out that life isn’t so good without love.”

Callie paced up and down the porch, stopping every few minutes to shade her eyes and peer off into the distance. The heat was unbearable. It seemed that August was determined to break all records for
high temperatures. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead and caught at the post holding up the roof.

Not only had the heat jumped off the thermometer, but it seemed to be affecting her strangely. She felt totally off balance. It was nothing but her body protesting the absence of Matt’s touch, she told herself as she turned and dropped into the rocker.

“Don’t you think it would help if you told me about Matt?” Lacey asked from her spot on the edge of the porch. She took a sewing needle out of the corner of her mouth and quit arranging pleats in the piece of satin she held. “I’ve been around here for six weeks, and I’m getting tired of watching you stare off down the driveway all the time, Callie.”

“What is there to talk about?” Callie knew she sounded peevish and short-tempered. “Sorry. I’m a beast,” she muttered.

“Yep, but I like you anyhow. I’m just worried. For the last six weeks I’ve watched you come totally unglued. You don’t sleep. You went down to join that protest group at City Hall and got there on the wrong day, and on top of that, you didn’t even remember to take your sign. You don’t eat, and what you do eat seems to come back up before you get it down.”

“You noticed that too? I’m sorry, kiddo. I didn’t know that I was quite so obvious.”

“Don’t you think it’s time you took yourself to the doctor? I think something is wrong.”

“You’re right, Lacey. Something is wrong. I thought things were bad when I left Tyler. But nothing, absolutely nothing, in my life has ever been this bad before. Everywhere I look I see Matt.” Callie put her head in her hands. “Oh, it doesn’t do any good to talk about it. Let’s change the subject.”

“Okay. John Henry stopped by while you were out walking in the woods. He just said to tell you that Tom Hicks’s chickens got some kind of virus. Looks like they’re all going to die.”

Callie looked at her in speechless horror. “Tom can’t afford a loss like that. He has a mortgage payment due soon.” She stood up quickly. “I’ve got to help, if I can.”

“What can we do, John Henry? Do I have enough money to do him any good?”

“Callie, he needs five thousand dollars.”

Callie thought for a long moment. “Tell Tom I’ll loan him the money.”

“But where are you gonna get that much?”

“I’ll get it, don’t worry.”

“Caroline, are you feeling all right? You look a little peaked.”

“I’m fine. It’s just the heat,” she murmured, blotting the perspiration on her forehead with the sleeve of her cotton shirt.

“Maybe, but don’t you think you ought to let me—”

“Now, look here, John Henry.” She shook a finger wearily at him. “The last thing I need is your brand of help. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with Matt.”

“Have you heard from him?” John Henry asked casually.

“Of course not. I don’t have a phone, and he’d know better than to call me if I did.”

“There’s such a thing as the United States mail. And you still have a car he wants. I kinda thought he might come back to make one more offer on Ruby.”

“If and when he comes here, John Henry, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk to him about me. I don’t want him to think I’ve been upset.”

“Sounds like you’re kinda expecting him back. Don’t seem like you’d be too sorry to see him, either,” he muttered under his breath. “By the way, what are you going to do with your convertible?”

“The same thing I’ve been doing,” she said, blowing a strand of hair off her forehead.

“Tell me, Callie, do you like your log cabin?”

“Of course I do. You know that I never want to live anywhere else.”

“And if I picked up that cabin and set it down in the middle of the Atlanta baseball stadium, would you suddenly hate it?”

“Hate it? Certainly not. I’d like the cabin no matter where it was.”

“Then I don’t see why that doesn’t apply to Matt.”

“But that’s different.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certainly I’m sure. Matt’s a man.”

“And you need a man. Reckon I’ll have to start looking again.”

“Looking? Oh, no, you don’t. I don’t want another procession of men through my yard. I don’t want a man, John Henry. If I wanted a man, I’d want”—she caught back a sob of despair—“I’d want Matt.”

“I’d give some serious thought to telling him that, Callie, my girl. Your grandfather wanted you to be happy. He never wanted you to let your mother’s mistakes ruin your life. Go home and think about it. I told you once, it’s not money and it’s not a place that makes people happy. It’s having somebody to love you.”

“And it’s not money or a place that makes people unhappy either. Oh, I wish I’d never seen Matthew Holland. Until he came I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, and never had to worry about tomorrow. Now”—her voice wavered—“I don’t care if there is a tomorrow. I don’t seem to be able to do anything except think about the past. I’m turning into Matt.”

“Maybe,” John Henry agreed, shifting the match stem he had clenched in his mouth, “and maybe Matt’s spending all his time thinking about what the future could be like if he had you. You two seemed to have swapped places.”

Phil Myers stuck his head in at the open door to Matt’s executive-office suite. Matt glanced up and saw an unusually large grin on his partner’s pudgy face.

“Hey, Holland,” Phil called. “A bunch of weirdos are staging a protest across the street. They don’t want Texamite to cut down the old oak trees that the garden clubs planted back in the thirties. A friend of mine called from WGST radio to let us in on the action. The police are about to come cart them off—the weirdos, not the oak trees, that is. Looks like fun. Want to grab a cup of coffee and come watch the sideshow?”

Matt stopped dictating a letter to Margaret, his secretary, and leaped to his feet. His heart pounded a tattoo against his eardrums.

“Weirdos,” he said urgently. “Callie.”

He raced out the office door and found a window that faced the street. Pressing both hands against
the cool glass, he peered down at the pitifully small group of protesters waving signs. Poor slobs, he thought sympathetically. They didn’t have a chance. He looked hard at the women until he saw one with a head of dark hair. From a distance he couldn’t be positive, but …

“Caroline,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re here.”

As Matt ran for the elevator, he passed Phil and Margaret.

“Didn’t know you loved oak trees so darned much,” Phil called jovially.

The air was muggy and oppressive. Matt cursed it as he dodged traffic to cross the street. His dear woman was out trying to save a bunch of ancient trees in this awful weather. He’d coax her inside the office, and then …

“Caroline!” he yelled as he ran up behind the dark-haired woman. Matt slid his arms around her waist and nuzzled his face in her thick hair.

“Help!” the stranger squealed. Then she twisted around and whacked him with a floppy piece of poster board.

Matt let go of the unfamiliar woman immediately, and stepped back, speechless. “I apologize,” he managed to tell her with brusque formality, and straightened his suit. He felt a blush combine with the heat to turn his face beet red.

The other protesters gathered around him. Suddenly he knew how Custer felt at the Little Big Horn.

“You’re from Texamite, aren’t you?” a tiny elderly woman said accusingly.

“Oh, no, ma’am, I’m—”

“Take that!”

Matt raised one arm just in time to ward off the
hard thump of her purse as it came toward his head. Police sirens wailed to a stop nearby, and blue uniforms were suddenly everywhere. The protesters dispersed, chanting and waving their signs. Matt sighed, and started back toward the street, feeling despondent. Where was Callie? She never missed this kind of protest. What was wrong with her?

Suddenly a burly hand clasped his arm. “Hold it there, bud,” an officer said with a growl. “Don’t try to sneak out on us.”

“But … but …” Matt began to protest. The officer shook his head and began reading him his rights.

Matt sighed. Then he calmly squinted up at the Holland Paint building and waved, hoping that Phil might see what was happening and come bail him out. As the officer led him away Matt realized how deeply Callie had affected his life. She got him into adventures even when she wasn’t around. Lord, he had to get her back somehow.

Pregnancy was the only reason Callie hadn’t attended the oak-tree protest.

She drove home slowly from Dr. Campbell’s office. She was distracted, and, thankfully, Ruby seemed to know the way home by herself.

“Surprise, surprise,” Callie said out loud. “I’m going to be a mommy.”

She’d just wanted to hear those words spoken. Now that she had, she admitted that Doc Campbell’s announcement hadn’t been a real shock. All she had to do was recall the last time she and Matt had made love, that careless, wild encounter right before he’d left. That was when it had happened.

Weeks earlier she’d begun to feel the evidence, the swimmy head, the nausea, the odd sensations her body sent out. At first, as she took her daily walks, she’d tried to reject the possibility that she was carrying Matt’s child.

But for the last few days she’d begun to feel a peculiar sense of contentment. In spite of the bouts of morning sickness, she’d walk around daydreaming, in such a fog of sensations that she couldn’t even remember where she’d been until she would come to and realize that she was cradling her stomach with her hands and staring off into the distance with a smile on her face. Lacey had begun to study her secretly, and she knew her observant friend wouldn’t be fooled for long.

She wasn’t.

They were sitting on the porch of the cabin, watching fireflies dance through the velvet darkness across the valley, when Lacey dived into the problem head on.

“So what do you plan to do?”

“Do?” Callie pretended not to understand.

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Tell who what?”

“Don’t pretend with me, Callie Carmichael. You’re pregnant. You and I both know it, and I get the feeling that you’re pleased as punch.”