Matt's Family

CHAPTER FOUR

MATT SWALLOWED HARD. “Kris, we’re married. We can take the risk.” His body begged him not to debate the issue very long.

With her face hidden in her hands, she shook her head. The gold of her hair picked up a glint of moonlight.

His skin was beginning to chill. “Why not?”

“This…isn’t a…good time for a baby.”

The truth didn’t soothe his frustration or his temper. “Just when will be a good time?”

“I—”

“What exactly is it we’re waiting for?” His voice was too loud in the dark, and out of his control. “Can you give me a hint about how to recognize when we get there?”

Kristin looked up, her eyes round and dark. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”

Matt muttered a rude word. He found his shirt on the floor and shrugged it on, then eased back onto the seat beside his wife.

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault I’m a jerk.” Slipping an arm around her shoulders, he turned her to sit next to him, then tipped her face up with a finger under her chin. “I just wanted you so much. For a minute there, I wasn’t thinking with my brain.”

The corners of her mouth tilted into a small smile. He breathed a sigh of relief. “You should put a pair of jeans on. It’s getting chilly.” He resolutely closed his eyes during the process. His system was still revved way too high to resist temptation.

“Done.” Kristin sat down again. “I guess we could start driving, try to find our way to Fredericksburg.”

Matt yawned and slouched down in the seat. “I vote we just get some sleep and wait for daybreak. Okay with you?”

She snuggled under his arm and rested her head on his chest. “That’s fine. I could probably sleep until noon.” She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, then set it lightly on his belly. In another minute, Kristin was asleep.

Matt dropped his head back and stared up at the ceiling of the van. He’d almost lost his temper—about sex, of all things. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t made love last night, or wouldn’t get another chance.

But… A small voice in his head insisted on being heard.But what would be the problem with having another baby? What is she afraid of?

He closed his eyes. Did Kris worry that he’d disappear again, leaving her with three children to care for on her own?

Or maybe the insomnia, the distraction, the sadness, was a hint that Kristin wasn’t sure she would stay.

No way should they create a child, only to get a divorce. Their lives were messy enough already.

A divorce. This was the first time he’d let the word into his mind. Did Kris want one?

Do I? he asked himself.

Kristin cuddled a little closer, and he tightened his arm. God, no. He didn’t want a divorce. This woman was all he’d thought about for five years. Every day he’d imagined her at home, at the grocery store, on the beach. He’d woven elaborate stories about Kristin’s days…and her nights. With him.

Reality had been different. The Kristin he came back to was not the one he left, and she wasn’t the woman of his fantasies. Four years later, he was still coping with the changes.

But Matt knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—give her up.

KRISTIN AWOKE the next morning with Matt’s kiss on her mouth. “Happy first anniversary, wife of mine.”

She smiled and stretched, without opening her eyes. “Mmm. Are we having breakfast in bed?”

He chuckled. “Sure. Just as soon as we see a fast-food drive-through.”

She raised one eyelid to look at him. “That means getting up, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a walk in the woods.”

“Oh.” She felt her face flush. “Me, too.”

“And then,” he said as they climbed stiffly out of the van, “we can work on finding breakfast and Fredericksburg.”

They reached their first important battlefield stop around 10 a.m. In the rain.

Matt stared up through the windshield at the heavy gray sky. “This is not what I planned. Is anything on this trip going to go right?”

Kristin didn’t have an answer, especially since she was the reason things hadn’t worked out last night. What a dumb move—forgetting her birth control. Even dumber, remembering at the wrong time and putting them both through the frustration of backing off.

And Matt was right. They could have taken the risk. The “worst” that might happen would be a baby. With Erin and Jenny getting so grown-up and independent, Kristin ached for another tiny person to hold. And how wonderful it would be to introduce Matt to the joys of babyhood. He’d missed more than half of Erin’s childhood.

“I really would like to walk around,” he said. “But you don’t have to come. I won’t take too long.”

She glanced at dripping trees and sodden grass, thought about sitting alone in the car with just her fears to keep her company, then unbuckled her seat belt. “I think I’ll walk, too. What’s a little rain?”

His grin warmed her inside. “Nothing at all. Let’s go!”

They left the van near the visitors’ center, got maps and brochures and started walking.

Matt obviously didn’t need to read the brochures.

“This is the bloodiest land in the country. More than a hundred thousand men died here during four major battles of the Civil War.”

Kristin gazed at him through the steady drizzle while he recalled for her the details of the war. His eyes had a faraway look, as if he’d stepped back in time to witness the very scene he described. She’d never known he had such passion for military history. They’d never had a chance to talk about it.

They’d never talked about a lot of things.

Ending his account, he stood silent for a moment, then glanced at her sideways with an embarrassed grin. “You should stop me when I get carried away. I could talk about this stuff forever.”

“No, it’s okay.” Kristin put her hand on his arm. “I don’t think I paid enough attention in history class. Tell me more.”

Matt closed her fingers inside his. “Woman, you’re in trouble now.”

The rain stopped before lunch, though the day remained cloudy and damp. Matt refused to talk about the war after they ate. He insisted that Kristin explore each of the unique shops in the town’s central historic district instead, an offer she was quite willing to accept. They got back into the car late in the afternoon with presents for the girls and a pair of antique silver candlesticks for their dining-room table to mark their first year together.

As the engine turned over, Kristin eased off her sneakers and rubbed her tired feet. “Where to now?”

Matt just smiled. “That’s an anniversary surprise. You’ll find out.” Nothing she said convinced him to explain further. But in just under two hours, he stopped the van at the curb of a wide thoroughfare in downtown Washington, D.C.

“The Willard Hotel,” Kristin read on the front of the imposing building. “Wow.”

“When I planned the trip, I thought we deserved at least one night of real class. Considering last night spent in the car, I’m sure of it!”

The next sixty minutes flew by in a whirl of activity. Kristin showered, fixed her hair and changed into the nice dress Matt had told her to bring. At eight o’clock, he escorted her into the marbled and gilded dining room of the Willard Hotel. They ate an elaborate meal on starched tablecloths and bone china place settings, shared a wonderful bottle of champagne in cut-crystal flutes, and indulged in the lightest possible conversation. Tonight, no controversy would be allowed.

The room spun pleasantly around Kristin’s head as they left their table. “I’m glad we don’t have to drive a car to get home.”

“Just the elevator.” Matt steered her down the hallway. “I think I can handle that.”

The lights in their room were dim and the bed turned down, with chocolates resting on the pillows. Kristin slipped off her high-heeled shoes. “This is really wonderful, Matt. I’ve never stayed anywhere so elegant. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He switched on the radio, and soft music floated into the room. “Would you like to dance?”

Kristin simply held out her arms.

At some point during the dreamy dance, Matt eased the zipper of her dress down and slipped his hand over the skin of her shoulder blades. A little while later she pushed off his jacket and loosened his tie. Soon his shirt was gone. The light dusting of hair on his chest tickled her cheek. Kristin pressed a kiss on his warm skin, heard and felt his sharp intake of breath. Arms wrapped around his waist, hands flat on his back, she pressed more kisses over his firm pecs, the muscled arch of his ribs. When he drew her close again, she could feel his arousal pressing against her belly. A dark shudder swept through her and she lifted her face to his.

Matt accepted the invitation with a kiss that claimed everything she wanted to give. In another moment they were tumbling onto the bed.

As he drew her dress away, Kristin surfaced briefly. “Do we have to stop this time?”

Matt grinned and reached over her to open the drawer in the bedside chest. She heard a metallic rustle as he dropped something on the top. “Only when we collapse,” he promised. Then he came back to her and swept them both away.

EARLY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Kristin leaned back against the broad trunk of a tree at the top of one of Arlington National Cemetery’s rolling hills. She was grateful for the shade—without cloud cover, the summer sun burned fiercely. “The only people buried here are soldiers?”

“And some family members, plus military nurses from the Spanish–American War to the present.” Matt stood with his feet planted wide and his hands in the pockets of his shorts, gazing toward the elegant facade of the Lee mansion, once home to the Confederate general himself.

“War costs so much.” Kristin murmured, taking in the panorama of rolling green hills striped with row after row of small white stones.

Matt came over to lean on the same tree. “Yeah, but sometimes it’s necessary.”

His words stirred her temper. “I would expect you to think so. You’re trained to believe in war.”

He rounded the trunk to stare at her, his eyebrows high with surprise. “I believe in protecting this country and the people who live here.”

“And how did your trip to Africa provide anyone in the U.S. with protection?” She shocked herself with the question, especially after yesterday’s confrontation.

Matt’s expression turned grim. He’d warned her to leave the subject of Africa alone. Maybe she should respect his privacy.

But those five years had changed them both so completely…. Kristin couldn’t just ignore what had happened. She wanted to know. “What did you actually accomplish?”

He opened his mouth and started to shake his head. She held up her hand. “I know you can’t give me specifics. I don’t have the right clearance.”

He squared his shoulders and his mouth hardened. “We completed our assignment. If we hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been captured.”

“Was that assignment worth five years of your life?” She was pushing them both toward an argument, yet she couldn’t seem to hold back.

Eyes narrowed, he held her gaze for a long moment, then turned away to look out across the Potomac River toward Washington. He didn’t say anything at all.

Kristin needed to know. “Well?”

Without turning to face her, he shrugged. “I don’t know. If I could have foreseen…” He didn’t finish.

“If you’d known you’d be captured, you wouldn’t have gone?”

He took a deep breath. “I had to go. That was my responsibility and my duty. But I would have been more…careful…with you.”

Kristin had to concentrate on his words to realize the full implications. And then she went cold. Even if he’d known that he would be gone for five years, he would have left. But he would have been “careful” with her. What did that mean! Careful not to get too involved with her? Careful not to have sex with her?

So there wouldn’t have been a baby…Erin. There would have been no reason to marry Luke. That meant Jenny wouldn’t have been born, either.

What in the world would her life have been without them?

“Well, that certainly clears things up.” Straightening away from the tree, she drove her shaking hands into her pockets. “Where do we go from here?”

“Kris—” He reached toward her.

But Kristin turned her back and started walking, toward the parking lot, she hoped. She needed a chance to consider Matt’s feelings about their child. Though he loved Erin, and wanted her to know him as her father, he obviously thought of her as a mistake. Or at least an error in judgment.

So was their marriage his attempt to take care of the problems he considered his responsibility? As soon as possible after his return, Kristin had told him that Erin was his child, and had promised their daughter would know that fact, one day. Not long afterward, Luke had moved into a house by himself, when the comfortable, careful marriage they’d built crumbled under the burden of Kristin’s guilt. At that point, Matt had obviously felt bound to take his brother’s place as father and husband. Less than a year after her divorce from Luke, he’d asked her to marry him.

So here was the understanding she had wanted to reach. Her marriage was based on great sex and a very dependable man’s sense of obligation. At least now she knew where they stood.

Matt caught up as she reached the road. He didn’t try to talk on the long hike back to the van. Kristin was very glad of that.

THEIR RIDE out to Manassas, Virginia, was just as quiet. In the visitors’ center, she studied exhibits of war memorabilia while Matt made a short tour of the battlefield area. They skipped the cemetery and the memorial to Confederate dead.

“I reserved a room at an inn in Boonesboro, Maryland.” Matt hoped to break the silence with something non-controversial. “From there we can get to Antietam and Gettysburg with short drives.”

Kristin didn’t turn away from the side window. “That’s nice.”

Not exactly encouraging. And he wasn’t sure why she was so angry. She knew his father, knew that the Army tradition went back in their family for generations. One of his great-grandfathers had died at Gettysburg. This trip was about family history as much as war itself.

Of course, for the Brennans the two were pretty much the same thing. Or had been, until Luke broke the mold, ditched college and joined the police force. Little brother was definitely not a chip off the old block.

Matt’s thoughts skidded to a stop. Was his career part of the problem? Did Kristin regret giving up her marriage to a man who stayed in town and came home every day? Sure, a cop faced dangerous situations all the time, but usually on his home ground. Not five thousand miles away in a foreign country so that you never even knew what happened to the body.

“Dad’s really pushing me to rejoin the unit,” he said, trying to explore the issue.

“I noticed.” She didn’t move, didn’t uncurl from her withdrawn position.

He would have to be more direct. “Maybe it’s time I made a decision—change careers or go back to the one I had. What do you think?”

Kristin sighed and turned back to the window. “We’ve had enough change, Matt. Let’s just leave things the way they are.”

He didn’t attempt to start another conversation for the rest of the drive.

BOONESBORO WAS a small town, mostly a cozy main street crossed by a few short lanes. The bed-and-breakfast inn—Chisholm’s Rest—overlooked the village from atop a hill. Matt stopped the van in the circular driveway.

“This looks nice,” Kristin said as they climbed the steps.

“I hope so.” Matt rang the bell. “A guy in the unit recommended it. He used to live in the area.”

She touched the petal of a bright red flower in the window box, but didn’t reply.

The door opened and a tall woman peered through the screen door. “’Afternoon, folks. What can I do for you?”

“I’m Matt Brennan and this is my wife, Kristin. We made a reservation.”

“Sure you did! Come right on in!” She pushed the door wide open. “I was wonderin’ if you’d get here afore suppertime.”

The hall of the house was dim and cool and smelled like roses. Kristin appreciated the gleam of dark woodwork and polished floors. “Your inn is lovely, Mrs….”

“Chisholm. Sadie Chisholm.” She put out a hand to Kristin, and then Matt. “M’husband’s George. He’s asleep right now, but he’ll be up in a little while. I was flxin’ him a snack. You folks hungry?”

Before they could say yes or no, Sadie swept them down the hallway into a bright white kitchen. “Sit down at the table. I got some iced tea, here, and just a few sandwiches.” She put a platter piled high with crustless triangles of bread and cheese in the center of the table. “And some cookies, when you’re finished.”

Kristin sipped from the tall glass of tea. A cold, sweet trickle soothed her throat and eased the headache behind her eyes. “This is wonderful, Mrs. Chisholm.”

“Sadie, honey. Everybody calls me Sadie. You folks come up from Washington today, is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Matt had already finished two sandwiches. He took another. “We’re going to Antietam tomorrow, then Gettysburg.”

Arms crossed over her ample bosom, Sadie nodded. “We get lots of folks wantin’ to see the battlefields. And when there’s one of them reenactments, you won’t find an empty bed this side of Philadelphia.”

“Sadie?” A man’s voice, lighter and thinner than hers, came from the hall. “Who in the world are you talkin’ to?”

“It’s the Brennans, George, come to stay.”

The man stepped into the kitchen and looked them over. He was as thin as his wife was plump, with iron-gray hair and bright blue eyes. “Pleased to meet you.” He shook hands with Matt and nodded at Kristin as he sat down across the table. “See you’ve got ’em fed already, Sadie.”

“Well, the poor things looked half-starved, standin’ out on the porch. Here’s your tea, George.” She rested a hand on his shoulder as she set the glass down. Observing the tenderness of a long-standing marriage, Kristin blinked against the sting of tears.

“Thanks, Mother.” He helped himself to four sandwiches and began to eat. In between bites he asked the same question about where they’d come from and where they were going. “Country gets real crowded when they have them reenactments around here. Hardly room to walk.”

Kristin couldn’t resist a glance at Matt, and found him hiding a smile, his blue eyes dancing.

George finished the tea and three more sandwiches, wiped his chin and stood up. “Let me get you folks’s bags to your room. I’ll move your car round to the back while I’m at it.”

Matt got to his feet. “That’s okay, Mr. Chisholm—just show me where to park. I’ll get the bags.”

“That’s George, young man. You just sit here with your pretty wife a while.” He started down the hallway. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

But Matt followed. “George, you really don’t have to—” The screen door slapped shut. “George!” The door opened and closed again.

Chuckling, Sadie wiped her hands on a towel. “Since that man of yours is well occupied, I’ll show you to your room and give you a chance to put your feet up while I make us some dinner.”

Kristin wasn’t sure she could eat anything else. “Can’t I help with dinner?”

“Nope.” Sadie led the way up the staircase. “All I got to do is set the chicken to frying and take out the biscuits.” Opening a door, she ushered Kristin inside. “You got time for a little nap while I do that.”

The room evoked another century, with lace curtains at the windows, rose-colored velvet on the armchairs and a crocheted canopy draped over the four-poster bed. Kristin stroked a finger over the mahogany dressing table. “This is beautiful, Sadie.”

“Glad you like it.” She turned back the blue-flowered quilt, fluffed the pillows and tucked the sheet more tightly. “This was my mother’s room, and her mother’s afore her.”

Sadie obviously did not plan to leave the room until Kristin laid down. Feeling suddenly sleepy, she decided to cooperate. The sheets were cool, and the light dimmed as Sadie pulled down the shades.

“There now. We’ll call you in plenty of time for supper. You rest easy—gotta take care of that baby you’re carrying.” She closed the door softly.