For the Sake of Warwick Mountain (Harlequin Heartwarming) (9 page)

“How old were you?”

“Barely twenty-one, but I’d led a sheltered life on Warwick Mountain. In many ways, even after four years of college, I was totally naive.” She snuggled deeper into the corner of the sofa. “Unlike, I’m sure, the women you meet in Hollywood.”

“They may arrive naive,” Matt admitted, “but the social scene is a jungle. Hard to remain innocent among all that self-serving hedonism.”

“What about your own innocence?” she challenged, amazed by her boldness.

“Lost that when my mother died.” The pain in his expression spoke volumes. “I knew then the world was a cruel and dangerous place.” He shook his head and the hurt in his eyes cleared. “But that’s my story. I want to hear the rest of yours.”

“There’s not much else to tell. Grady sent me flowers. Took me to all the best restaurants. Invited himself up to my apartment. You can guess the rest. I was so bowled over by the attentiveness of Pinehurst’s most eligible bachelor, I forgot everything Granny had ever taught me. By spring break, I realized I was pregnant.”

“What did Grady think of that?” Matt asked.

“He was horrified. And horrid. Asked me if I was sure the baby was his.”

“Ouch,” Matt said with sympathy.

“His callous attitude destroyed the fantasy I’d created around him. Oh, he was handsome, wealthy and charming all right, but about as shallow as a saucer, and interested only in himself.”

“So he wouldn’t marry you?”

“He said he would, but he kept delaying setting a date.”

“You would have married a man you didn’t love?” Matt shot her a disbelieving look.

“He was the father of my unborn baby, and I believe every child needs a father.” As she spoke the words, she realized that Grady’s refusal to marry her had probably saved her from a living hell. And eventual divorce.

“One day,” she continued, “a week before the school term ended, his father came to my apartment. He offered me a check for a hundred thousand dollars if I’d leave town and keep my baby’s paternity a secret.”

“Is that why Emily doesn’t know who her father is?” Matt appeared shocked.

“We have a word in Warwick Mountain for women who take money for sex,” Becca said hotly, “and I’m not one of those. I tore Mr. Sadler’s check into tiny pieces and threw him out. As soon as school ended, I resigned my position and came home to have Emily.”

“And you never heard from Grady?”

“Not directly. I read in the Asheville paper when he married the daughter of a state senator. I’m sure wherever he is now, his daddy’s still buying his way out of trouble.”

“You’re lucky to be rid of him,” Matt said forcefully.

Becca sighed. “I know. I just wish I could rid myself of feeling like a fool.”

“Not a fool,” Matt said with a shake of his head. “Just human.”

She eyed him closely then, wondering if a woman had ever duped him as Grady had her, but she couldn’t imagine it. Matt seemed too savvy, too in control.

“Was it rough coming back here?” he asked.

“Granny was wonderful. She saw how miserable I was and never let an I-told-you-so slip, even if she thought it.”

“I was thinking more of the neighbors. They may be fine people, as you’ve insisted, but open-mindedness doesn’t seem one of their more prevalent virtues.” His voice held a strange note, and for the first time, she realized he’d apparently been more wounded than she’d realized by their ostracism.

“Oh, I caused a scandal, all right.” She allowed herself a rueful smile. “If it had been up to me, I’d have hidden in Granny’s house for the rest of my life and never shown my face. But Granny had other ideas.”

“Must have been hard for you.”

Becca nodded, remembering. “At first, but Granny was right. Better to face people and hold my head up than to act ashamed. When we went to church, people would ask when I was returning to Pinehurst to teach. ‘She’s not,’ Granny would say. ‘She’s staying here to have her baby.’”

Granny had stood like a ramrod and faced them down, Becca recalled proudly. “‘Didn’t know Becca was married,’ the bolder ones would comment. Granny would look them in the eye and say in her calm but firm way, ‘Becca’s a single mother. She’s going to need our help.’”

“I wish I could have met her,” Matt said. “She sounds like quite a woman.”

“She was. I really miss her. By the time Emily was born, thanks to Granny, most of the scandal—or at least any open sign of it—had died. So far, Emily’s been lucky. No one’s taunted her about not having a father.”

A puzzled frown creased Matt’s forehead. “If the local school board is so hung up on morality, how’d you convince them to hire you, considering the circumstances of Emily’s birth?”

“When Emily was a year old, Miss Carlisle, who’d been teaching here forever, had a stroke. I filled in as a substitute. The board liked my work, and offered me a permanent position.” She stifled the urge to yawn and glanced at her watch. “It’s past Emily’s bedtime. She’s probably fallen asleep at Aunt Delilah’s.”

“Want me to drive you?” Matt offered again.

Becca stood and said, “No, thanks. I’m fine. Really. But I have to hurry.”

She rushed through the building, out the door and down the stairs. Matt caught up with her when she reached her car. He grasped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I haven’t thanked you for bringing dinner.”

“No need—”

He dipped his head and kissed her, stopping her from saying more. The pressure of his lips at first was gentle, and he tasted deliciously of coffee and a masculine essence. Wrapping his arms around her, he drew her close. The excitement of his kiss scrambled her brain, short-circuited her reasoning, and she lifted her arms, twined them around his neck, and felt the jolt of his kiss all the way to her toes.

What was she doing?

Before she could react and pull away, he released her. Cupping her face in his hands, he gazed into her eyes, his own shining with a fierce brilliance in the moonlight.

“Grady Sadler,” he said through gritted teeth, “was an idiot.”

Before Becca could reply, Matt turned on his heel and strode up the stairs to the loading dock. He stopped there and called back to her. “I’ll pick you up day after tomorrow for our visit to Lydia. Maybe we can stop and see the McClains at the same time.”

Becca nodded, too shaken by the effects of his kiss to speak.

“Call me,” he said, “if you decide to get a dog. And don’t forget to lock your doors tonight.”

She nodded again. With legs trembling, she climbed into her car and drove away. In her rearview mirror, she could see Matt silhouetted by the light from the double doors, watching her leave.

She was halfway to Aunt Delilah’s, still shaken by his unexpected kiss and her reaction, before she realized she still wore Matt’s sweater.

CHAPTER NINE

M
ATT
MANHANDLED
A
sheet of drywall against the studs and held it in place with his shoulder while securing it with screws. He’d overslept this morning and was off to a late start, primarily because he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before.

Becca had kept him awake.

Not that she’d been there. Her absence had been the problem. He kept reliving that kiss, and his mind hadn’t been able to let her go.

Or his heart.

Never had a woman possessed him so totally as the wonderfully simple—or should he say simply wonderful—schoolteacher. He’d felt abandoned last night when she drove away, and his new living quarters, which had suited him to a T before, had suddenly seemed barren and lonely.

His brain felt fuzzy from lack of sleep, and if he’d been home in Malibu, he’d have taken a long swim in the cold Pacific to clear his mind.

Of course, if he were at home in Malibu, he wouldn’t have met the schoolmarm and he wouldn’t be having this problem.

The mountain air was affecting his reasoning. Why should Becca Warwick, beautiful as she was, he argued with himself, have a hold on him that none of Hollywood’s most glamorous women had managed?

Was it because he was lonely, a fish out of water in this isolated mountain village and she was a very attractive, friendly face?

That argument wouldn’t wash. She was polite, hospitable and appreciative of his willingness to treat patients in the village, but friendly? She obviously disapproved of him and his lifestyle. And he’d had to twist her arm to convince her to stay for dinner last night.

Then why had she opened up to him and shared the story of the most humiliating time of her life?

That answer was easy. The wine had gone to her head. Becca apparently wasn’t used to drinking. That fact gave him pause. He’d dated petite actresses who could imbibe all night, and still be bright-eyed and pert hours later.

Even though he was a doctor, for the first time he felt suddenly offended that these women had abused their bodies so flagrantly.

Matt stopped, holding a sheet of drywall in midair. He’d never thought that way before about the women he’d dated. Drug and alcohol abuse were the norm for the Hollywood social scene. That explained why meeting a woman like Becca was like a breath of fresh air.

Was he falling for a Goody Two-shoes?

Not a Goody Two-shoes, he realized with a jolt, but a woman who had self-respect.

So much self-respect that the first guy she’d dated got her pregnant?

Matt shook his head. So much self-respect that she tore up a hundred-thousand-dollar check, a bribe for her silence and a fortune for a woman like Becca, rather than let herself be bought off by a worthless scum and his father.

That self-respect was one of the main differences between Becca and the other women Matt had known. The others would have sold their souls for the right part, the trendiest look, the best connections. Becca’s values were as deeply rooted as Warwick Mountain itself.

So why should he expect a woman like her to have anything to do with Dr. Wonderful, stud to the stars?

Matt clenched his teeth in anger. He wasn’t the man the magazine had portrayed. Too close for comfort maybe, but he wasn’t as degenerate as the unrealistic picture the article had painted. Sure, he’d partied too hard, spent too much, passed his spare time in frivolous pursuits and enjoyed his freedom, but he’d never broken a woman’s heart. He’d never made promises he wouldn’t keep. Certainly never left a woman high, dry and pregnant like that slimeball Grady.

Was he trying to convince himself that he was worthy of a woman like Becca?

Matt wasn’t talking about
marrying
her. He just wanted to be her friend.

But he had been thinking of marriage—

A high-pitched squeaky voice behind him jolted Matt from his churning thoughts. “Whatcha doing, mister?”

Matt fumbled the drywall sheet back onto the sawhorses and turned toward the door. A small, slight figure, a child dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and well-worn sneakers with a Braves baseball cap pulled low on his face stood in the shadows.

“I’m hanging drywall,” Matt said.

“Why?”

“To make an office.”

“What kind of office?”

“A doctor’s office.” Although Matt wondered why he bothered, after what Becca had told him last night.

“Where’s the doctor?” the boy, who appeared to be around eight years old, asked.

“You’re looking at him.”

“Didn’t know doctors did work.”

“Some doctors have been known to break a sweat,” Matt said dryly.

“Are you the doctor who’s going to fix my face?”

Now the boy had Matt’s complete attention. “What’s wrong with your face?”

The boy stepped forward into the glare from the electrical lights Matt had suspended to illuminate his work area. He immediately noted the scarred and puckered skin of the boy’s right arm exposed by his short-sleeved T-shirt. The boy whipped off his ball cap, revealing a thick thatch of red hair that stood in unruly clumps where it hadn’t been matted by the cap’s band. Bright blue eyes confronted Matt, as if daring him to flinch at the boy’s appearance. Only Matt’s years of training allowed him to gaze dispassionately at the boy’s scars, which marred the right side of his face as completely as a wealth of freckles covered the left.

“Are you Jimmy Dickens?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Miss Warwick told me about you.”

At the mention of his teacher, the boy’s face softened into an expression of unmistakable puppy love. With a start, Matt realized he knew just how the kid felt.

Shaking off his feelings for Becca, Matt glanced behind the boy toward the door. “Are your parents with you?”

“Ma’s up at the church, meeting with the ladies’ society.”

“Does she know you’re here?” Matt asked.

Jimmy looked guilty. “She said I could buy gum at the Shop-N-Go.”

“How long is her meeting?” Matt asked.

“Till lunchtime.”

“I was about to have coffee. You want some milk and cookies? Then you can tell me what happened to your face.”

Jimmy hesitated, as if well aware he was violating his mother’s instructions.

“Tell you what,” Matt suggested. “I’ll bring them out to the loading dock, so you can watch for your mom, in case she gets out of her meeting early. That okay with you?”

Jimmy nodded, and Matt went into the back room. He filled a mug with coffee, loaded chocolate chip cookies from their package onto a plate and added a glass of milk. When he carried the snacks out front, Jimmy was sitting on the edge of the dock, swinging his legs over the side. Matt handed the boy the plate and sat beside him.

“So,” Matt said as casually as possible. “What happened to your face?”

Jimmy swigged his milk, leaving a white mustache above his upper lip. “Ma burned me.”

“How’d that happen?”

“It was an accident. Ma loves me. She wouldn’t have done it on purpose.”

“Of course not,” Matt agreed.

“Sometimes she cries when she looks at me.” Sadness etched the boy’s face. “She feels so bad at what she done.”

“Tell me about the accident.”

“It was two years ago when I was just a little kid. Ma was fixing to fry green tomatoes.” His sadness disappeared and his blue eyes brightened. “She makes the best fried green tomatoes in the county. Wins all the ribbons at the county fair.”

Matt sipped his coffee and prayed for patience. Apparently Jimmy would have to meander through his tale at his own pace.

“Ma had the lard heating in the frying pan, but the baby started crying. While she was checking on the baby, the lard caught fire. I hollered for Ma and asked her what to do. She came running, grabbed the burning pan with a pot holder and told me to open the back door.” Jimmy took a bite of cookie and chewed thoughtfully, as if remembering. “We was all afraid the house would catch fire.”

“But it didn’t?”

Jimmy shook his head. “It was my fault.”

“That the grease caught fire?”

“That Ma tripped. I shoulda stood behind the door, not in front of it. She stumbled over my foot and the burning grease sloshed all over me.”

Matt’s heart went out to the little boy. “That must have hurt.”

Jimmy nodded solemnly and swallowed a mouthful of cookie. “It hurt something powerful. My clothes caught fire, and Ma rolled me in the grass. Then she took me inside and coated my burns with butter. Said that would soothe them, but it didn’t.”

Matt suppressed a scowl. Apparently knowledge of the uselessness—and potential harm—of that old wives’ remedy hadn’t yet reached into the back roads of Warwick Mountain.

“When I couldn’t stop crying—” Jimmy hung his head with an embarrassed expression “—Ma called the County Fire and Rescue, and they sent the paramedics.”

“I would have cried, too,” Matt assured him, “if I’d been burned like that. Takes strong painkillers to numb that kind of pain.”

“The paramedics musta used them. They gave me a shot that knocked me out. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital in town.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “And it still hurt.”

Matt cursed silently. He’d seen the tiny hospital in town when he’d gone to buy supplies. Better than a walk-in clinic, but definitely not equipped to handle an emergency such as Jimmy’s.

Life sure wasn’t fair. If Jimmy had been living in Los Angeles or some other major city when he’d been burned, he’d have been instantly airlifted by helicopter to the nearest burn-trauma unit, where he would have received immediate specialized care. That treatment would not only have reduced his suffering, it would have lessened the amount of excessive scarring.

“Did they move you to a special burn unit?” Matt asked.

“A few days later.”

The boy’s answer confirmed Matt’s suspicions about the extent of his scarring.

“Guess you spent a lot of time at the burn unit,” Matt said.

Pain flitted across the boy’s face. “Months. But the folks was nice to me. They treated me good,” he added quickly.

“And when you came home? Did people here treat you well?”

Jimmy grinned, what would have been a beautiful sight if the right side of his face had responded as the left had. “The ladies brought me so many cakes and pies, we had to give some to the neighbors.”

“And the kids at school?” Matt asked gently.

The grin faded, replaced by such sadness Matt ached for the boy. “Some of ’em laughed at me. Called me names. All except Lizzie.”

Lizzie McClain, Matt thought with a clutch in his heart. That little sweetheart knew the agony of being taunted about her looks. She wasn’t about to inflict that misery on another.

“So...” Jimmy finished the last of his milk, hunched his shoulders, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You gonna fix my face?”

The hope shining in the boy’s eyes stabbed through Matt like a serrated blade. “That depends on a couple of things,” he said and watched the hope die in Jimmy’s eyes and his shoulders slump.

“Things like what?” Jimmy asked warily.

“I’ll need your parents’ permission to treat you, for starters.”

“That’s no problem. They want my face fixed. Ma, especially, so she won’t cry no more when she looks at me.”

Matt sighed. Apparently the boy hadn’t heard the Dr. Wonderful gossip. And he wasn’t about to explain that complex dilemma to an eight-year-old. “There may be a problem.” Matt chose his words carefully. “Your parents may not want me to treat you. They were expecting Dr. Peyseur.”

Jimmy nodded. “We met him last year. How come he didn’t come back?”

“He broke his wrist and couldn’t operate, so he sent me instead.”

Jimmy thought for a minute. “Ma and Pa liked Dr. Peyseur. If he says you’re okay, then that’ll be good enough for them.”

Remembering Becca’s reports of the community’s reservations about him, Matt doubted that. “Did Dr. Peyseur explain that fixing your face might take a long time? More than one operation over several years?”

“Yep, he sure did. That’s why I’m anxious to get started.” The boy’s clear gaze met Matt’s without flinching. “The sooner the better. Will you do it?”

“I’ll talk to your parents. We’ll leave the rest up to them.”

Jimmy nodded, apparently satisfied that all would be well. Matt didn’t have the heart to discourage him. Besides, he intended to use all his persuasive powers to convince Mr. And Mrs. Dickens to let him begin. His fingers itched to start reconstructing the right side of Jimmy’s face so it would be as appealing as the left. The boy was a good kid. He didn’t deserve the stigma of his scars.

“Now—” Matt picked up the empty plate and glass “—you’d better buy your gum and go back to the church before your mother starts to worry about you.”

Jimmy stood and flashed his endearing lopsided grin. “Thanks, Dr.—”

“Tyler.”

“Thanks, Dr. Tyler. I’ll see you soon.”

Jimmy jumped from the dock and headed across the street to the store, his happy whistle floating back to Matt on the morning stillness.

* * *

“Y
OU
OKAY
, M
AMA
?” Emily’s voice seemed to come at Becca from a distance. “Mama?”

Becca blinked, seeing for the first time the book she’d been staring at for the past hour without reading a word. As she sat on the front porch in the pool of morning sunlight, her thoughts had centered on Matt and the unforgettable kiss he’d given her last night.

“Can I?” Emily asked, making Becca realize she’d been so preoccupied, she had missed entirely what Emily had said.

“Can you what?”

“Have lunch with Lizzie. Her mama said it was okay.”

Becca started to protest that Emily spent too much time at the McClain house, then relented. Emily was Lizzie’s best playmate, after all. The only one who didn’t tease Lizzie about her cleft palate and strange speech. Becca had tried to instill in her daughter an acceptance of people as they were, and she was grateful that Emily gave Lizzie her unconditional friendship.

Besides, in the distracted mental state Becca was in, she might poison Emily unintentionally if she tried to feed her. “As long as it’s all right with Mrs. McClain. But remember your manners.”