Summer Kisses (86 page)

“If you’re willing to trust me, then I guess I’ll have to prove myself worthy. What don’t you want Abby to know?”

Glancing behind him to make sure she hadn’t come outside, he lowered his voice. “I’m Matt Foster.”

Rob’s mouth dropped open. “No way. I’ve seen his picture.”

Matt told him the whole story from the minute he woke up in the dank cement cell until that very moment. “I didn’t believe it myself when I saw my induction photo, but my fingerprints match.”

“Damn. You could sell your story to some television network to turn it into the movie of the week.”

“If I don’t find a job soon, I may have to resort to that.”

Rob grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute. Yesterday, Abby got a phone call from someone asking for you.”

“Why didn’t she tell me about it?”

“No, you don’t understand. They asked for Matthew Foster.”

Matt pursed his mouth thoughtfully. “It might’ve been one of the employment agencies. Thanks for telling me.”

“No, thank you.” Rob slapped Matt’s back. “My ego feels better knowing you’re the same guy Abby wanted all those years ago.”

“Imagine what it does for mine.”

“I’m glad she’s got you back. She’ll be happy now.”

“Yeah. At first.” Matt shrugged one shoulder. “But for how long? Everything you said inside is true. I’m not looking forward to that fifty-foot nosedive. I’m not the same man I was when she knew me.”

Rob pursed his lips. “Well, if it doesn’t work out, let me know. Maybe after you take that plunge....”

“You’ll be the first one I’ll call.” Matt rubbed his arms. “It’s getting cold again. I thought I’d finally squeeze in some more painting today.”

Rob held up his wristwatch. “It’s almost three-thirty.”

Matt did a double take. Whoa. For two guys who were ready to beat the shit out of each other the day before, they’d spent an awfully long time talking.

~*~

For the twentieth time in two hours, Abby left her sewing machine and peeked out the front window to where Mac and Rob were chatting—if one could call it that. The way they kept glancing over their shoulders, it looked more like they were conspiring. What could two men who disliked each other so much possibly have to discuss for that long?

“Mom,” Tommy called from the piano, “can you help me?”

She wandered over and sat next to him on the bench. “What’s the problem, pumpkin?”

“I can’t remember the difference between the notes.”

“What difference? You mean which notes are which?”

“No, the timing. The whole notes and half notes and them.”

“Oh.” She put her finger to her chin and studied the page. “Well, let me see.”

The sheet music looked like Greek. Actually worse. Greek at least used letters. The notes seemed more like hieroglyphics. “Uhhh—hmmm. I think it has something to do with the little tails on them.”

He let out an exasperated huff. “I already
knooow
that.” Tommy waved his hand. “Forget it. You’re no good at this.”

Now they were even. He’d told her something
she
already knew. Feelings of inadequacy washed over her in a tidal wave, smashing her illusions. For the first time in her child’s life, she couldn’t provide the answers.

“Where’s my dad?” Tommy sighed. “He knows about them.”

Abby hated the effect the piano was having on her child. In honesty, she had to admit she actually felt a bit jealous. Mac could teach Tommy something about which she had absolutely no understanding and couldn’t even begin to share with him.

It seemed as if her son had spent every waking moment in front of the instrument since he’d discovered it. Royce had called for him twice this afternoon, and Abby had forced Tommy outdoors only to have him sneak back in twenty minutes later to continue playing.

Since Mac started teaching Tommy the fundamentals of playing two days before, her son hadn’t asked her to play a game, read a book, or do a single puzzle with him. He’d even stopped nagging her for snacks or to watch television.

It wasn’t just the time he spent at the piano she resented. Mac had Tommy picking out his own clothes, handling his own showers, and even helping to fix his breakfast. She felt completely superfluous in her son’s life.

At the sound of the back door closing, Tommy’s face brightened. “Good, here he comes. Dad!”

On the way to the kitchen, Abby passed Mac and muttered snidely, “I believe you’re being paged, Maestro.”

Mac sat with Tommy for an hour, reviewing the different notes her son had questioned her about. She heard words like treble and bass clef, staff, bar, and measure. She knew she’d learned those terms in junior high music class, but that’d been the period for passing notes and catching up on gossip.

She hovered at the edge of the room, trying to grasp what he was explaining from a distance. Without seeing what they were discussing, she only got half the picture.

Mac glanced up. “Did you want something, Sweetheart?”

She shook her head, and he turned back to Tommy, resuming their chat about tempo and meter. Abby continued watching her son happily bond with....

She didn’t know whom.

Tommy had adopted Mac as his dad, but the man had no connection to her. Acquaintance, boarder, friend, the house painter? They’d fallen into an ill-defined relationship without any particular label.

After giving Tommy a piece of sheet music to practice playing, Mac stood and rubbed his stomach. “Rob and I spent so much time talking I never ate lunch.”

“What was that little
tête-à-tête
all about? Yesterday you couldn’t stand being in the same room together, and today you’re like long lost friends.”

“We just stopped competing long enough to get to know each other. He’s actually a pretty great guy.”

“Do you think I would’ve agreed to marry him if he wasn’t?”

Mac ran his hand over his stomach again. “Did you and Tommy eat lunch?”

“No, Tommy just wanted some cheese and crackers.”

Her son stopped playing and turned around. “I’m hungry, too. Can we get pizza, Dad?”

Closing her eyes, she stifled her need to scream. Her son didn’t ask her for anything anymore.

Mac cocked an eyebrow. “What do you say? Do you want pizza?”

“Fine.”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s after four. Let’s make it an early supper.”

“I’ll go order a pie. The place I like doesn’t deliver, so you’ll have to take my car and pick it up. I still have some calls to make to cancel the wedding.”

No one had even gotten the invitations she’d mailed, so it made it doubly embarrassing to explain.

“Sure, I want to stop for something at the store anyway. I’ll leave now.”

What do you need? I might already have it.”

Mac stared into her eyes. “Maybe. But I can’t count on it.”

“What is it?” she asked, baffled by his amused expression.

“It’s a man thing, Sweetheart.”

~*~

Matt’s
man-thing
required a stop at the pharmacy. Ever since Abby told him she would’ve made love with him the night before, he’d been counting the seconds until the day’s end.

He selected a box of condoms, and halfway to the register did an about-face. He returned to the display and picked up a large economy pack instead. Buying a box that size might be optimistic, but it’d been a
long
time. And during the last three years of his captivity, he’d listened to Ben, a self-proclaimed connoisseur, ramble on ad nauseam about the art of sex. Matt never understood how his buddy could stand talking so much about something none of them thought they’d ever do again.

It was embarrassing how many nights he’d spent affirming he was still a fully functioning man and not the walking corpse Charlie had tried to make him. Now that he was home, he couldn’t wait to try a few of the techniques Ben had shared for prolonging and maximizing his partner’s pleasure.

Matt paid the cashier. Not only couldn’t he recall any specific women he’d been with, he also didn’t remember sex being so expensive. At this rate, his wallet would be empty in no time.

As he drove toward the exit of the parking lot, a police cruiser pulled behind him with its lights flashing.

Great. Now what’d he do?

Matt pulled over, rolled down the window, and waited. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he watched the policeman talking on his radio. Matt fished his wallet out of his back pocket, and a few moments later, another squad car pulled up behind the first one. Both officers got out of their vehicles, and the one in the lead unsnapped the restraint on his holster.

Whoa. They hadn’t stopped him for some ordinary traffic violation. These boys meant business.

Matt gasped for air, and a familiar constriction squeezed his chest.

The patrolman stopped just behind Matt’s doorjamb. “License, registration, and insurance card, sir.”

Reaching across the car, Matt rooted through the glove compartment. “I’m not sure the registration is in here, officer. This isn’t my car.”

“I know. That’s why I stopped you. Forget them for right now. Step out of the vehicle and let me see some ID.”

He got out of the car. When the cop glanced at Matt’s license, he ordered, “Turn around and put your hands on the vehicle where I can see them.”

While the man frisked him, Matt leaned against the fender and hyperventilated, breathing the heavy odor of cigarettes emanating from the man’s uniform. The patrolman pointed into the front seat of the car. “What’s in the bag?”

“Condoms,” Matt choked out.

The other officer standing at the rear of the car sputtered. “Condoms. That’s original.”

“What’d I do wrong?” Matt asked.

“Besides using a false identity? Not a thing,” the cop who had frisked Matt said. “As a rookie, I was George Larson’s partner. So I know his daughter Abby—
and her circumstances
. Matt Foster died in Vietnam years ago.”

The officer grabbed the back of Matt’s neck and everything grew hazy. “Don’t play games with me,” he snapped. “What’s your
real
name?”

In an instant, Matt was transported from the parking lot of the small strip mall in Redemption to a dark cement cell. The smell of mildew filled his nostrils.

The angry man’s grip tightened on his neck. “I asked you your name!”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Matt pleaded, gasping for air. “I don’t know. Please don’t shoot me.” He curled up into a tight ball on the ground, his arms over his head. “Please, don’t hurt me anymore.”

When the two men yanked him to his feet, his head spun and the blood pounded in his ears. Everything went black.

Matt gradually dragged his heavy eyelids up, feeling disoriented. He found himself lying on a stretcher beside an ambulance in handcuffs. Damn. He must have passed out.

He called to the policeman standing nearby. “Officer, I can explain if you’ll just listen.”

“That’d be nice.”

“Have you called Abby?”

“Not yet.”

“Look, would you wait and contact Dr. Katherine Grant at the VA hospital, first? She’ll vouch for who I am.”

He’d give his left nut to have a telephone right now. If they could put one using radio waves in a car, why didn’t some genius design a phone a person could carry in his pocket? As soon as he landed a job as an engineer, he was looking into it.

“Why don’t
you
just give us that information?” the cop asked.

 “Because you won’t believe me. I
am
Matt Foster. I’m not dead. Look, I know Abby’s dad drowned, trying to save a kid.”

“That’s true.” The officer’s voice cracked. “But it doesn’t prove a thing. It’s public record.”

The back-up cop shrugged. “What can it hurt, John?”

Matt heaved a long breath of relief. “Her number is in my wallet on an appointment card.”

An eternity passed before the ambulance crew gave up waiting for the first cop to return. They loaded Matt’s stretcher into the back of the rig. As they were about to close the door, the officer returned and stopped the vehicle from leaving. “I apologize for taking so long. Matt, I’m terribly sorry.”

The cop climbed into the ambulance and unlocked the cuffs. “I thought you were some nutcase trying to assume....” He chuckled. “Well, it sounds funny now, but I thought you were trying to impersonate yourself. Since you passed out, we’ll still run you over to the hospital to be checked out.”

“Okay, but do me a favor. If you have to call Abby, please refer to me as Mac McCartney. I’d prefer she doesn’t find out I’m her husband just yet.”

“
Huh
? How could she not know you’re her husband?”

“It’s a long story.”

“One I’d like to hear. I’ll see you at the hospital.” The cop held his hand out to shake Matt’s. “I’m John Gilbert.”

When Matt arrived at the hospital ten minutes later, they wheeled him into a curtained cubicle where the policeman, John, eventually joined him. Matt gave him a quick rundown of his situation and concluded saying, “So I think the gun and the smell of your cigarettes, combined with you asking my name and grabbing my neck, was too much.”

John shook his head in awe. “I’m sorry I roughed you up. I’m sure the doctor won’t hold you long.”

“Hey, “—Matt shrugged —“you were just doing your job.”

“I’d offer to stick around and take you home, but I’m still on duty.”

Great. How was he going to get back to the house? “If that’s the case, would you mind calling Dr. Robert Webber for me, and ask him to come pick me up? I don’t have his number but—”

“I have it. Rob’s my dentist. I’m the one who referred Abby to him when her dentist retired.”

“Thanks.” Matt shook his hand. “How do I get Abby’s car back?” He glanced at his watch. “I just went out to pick up a pizza. By now, she’s probably had an all points bulletin put out on the car, thinking I’ve stolen it.”

“No, I would’ve heard about that. More likely she’s checking the morgue. She’d give Frankenstein the benefit of the doubt.”

“True.” But her trusting, optimistic nature was one of the things Matt admired most about her.

John clapped his hand on his shoulder. “I’ll see her car gets returned. I’m sorry I put you through this.”