large, Victorian living room. Almost two years ago, this room had held her sister, Emily, Honey’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, Kat, and all their wedding guests. Now the same room suddenly seemed much too small to hold just Honey, an irate Matt and all the unanswered questions hanging in the air about the small boy who’d just climbed on the school bus.
Honey glanced cautiously at Matt. Though she’d known that she’d have to deal with this issue from the moment Amanda had announced that Matt would be coming to live with them, she’d fought against it. Now she couldn’t sidestep it any longer. Oddly, the idea of finally letting go of her secrets almost came as a relief. She’d only held on to them to protect Danny and his grandmother from heartache.
Logically, despite the fact that Matt had walked out on her, he had not walked out on their son, since he had no knowledge of his existence. Although her personal opinion of Matt Logan wouldn’t win him any awards, deep down, she knew he would not have deserted Danny had he been given the choice. And Danny should not be deprived of his father’s love because she and Matt had their problems, problems that in no way involved Danny. However, even after she divulged all that Matt would demand he be told, there was one more stumbling block that she knew Matt wasn’t going to be happy about.
Whether she liked it or not, the time had come to do what she’d tried to do seven years ago, and whether or not Matt would believe she’d made that attempt remained to be seen.
Squaring her shoulders, she faced him. “What do you want to know?” Her voice quivered. Damn! She hadn’t wanted to let her apprehension show. She cleared her throat, hoping that he’d read the crack in her voice as physical, rather than emotional.
“Everything. Start at the beginning.” Matt stood just inside the closed door, waiting, one hand on the door frame above his head, the other thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans, pulling the denim tight across the lower front of his body.
Tearing her gaze away from temptation, Honey took a deep breath and swallowed. The trembling in her legs made the need to sit apparent, but she stood, refusing to give him even that much of an edge. She cleared her throat. “You’re right. Danny is yours, not Stan’s.”
Matt cursed softly and covered the space separating them in three long strides. “I hardly needed that confirmed. I have school pictures of me that could easily have been taken of Danny. The kid’s a miniature of me. How long did you expect to keep me in the dark?”
“I didn’t expect any such thing.” She glared at him. This was hard enough without his sarcasm. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
Taking a seat on an overstuffed chair, Matt leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands tightly in front of him, as if by immobilizing them he could harness the anger tightening his shoulder muscles and blazing from his eyes. “Go on. I’m anxious to hear your excuses for keeping my son’s existence from me for almost seven years.”
Grateful for the support of a sturdy piece of furniture, she dropped onto the sofa. “You have no right to judge me on this, Matt. You walked out, not me. I would have told you, if you’d been here.”
Matt leaned back. He couldn’t fight her on that score. Neither could he tell her why he’d walked out. How could he tell her that he’d run like a frightened rabbit because his father thought him a poor excuse for a son, and that loving her scared the hell out of him? Even if he told her, what would it change? She hadn’t cared enough even to wait and see if he’d come back. She’d married Stan and cheated Matt out of his son.
The bottom line was that, unless he wanted to get into the whole thing about his father, something he’d never told anyone, he had no choice but to allow her to think what she would about him. But that didn’t explain why she’d never told him about Danny.
“Did you even try to find me, or did you just figure that you’d trick the first guy with heavy pockets who came along into marrying you, and let him think the kid was his?” Even as the words left his mouth, Matt could have kicked himself for giving his frustration a voice. He knew Honey well enough to know that, if he pushed too hard, she’d close up tighter than a clam.
Bolting to her feet, Honey glared at him. Her hands twisted together, as if she was putting forth a superhuman effort not to slap him. Her furious words confirmed it. “How dare you imply that I tricked Stan or that I married him for money?”
To his utter annoyance, her marriage to Stan infuriated Matt. Dangerous territory, but he couldn’t resist asking the question that had burned itself into his mind all those years ago. “So why did you marry him?”
Honey turned away. “That’s none of your business. We’re discussing Danny, not my reasons for marrying Stan.”
Matt strongly disagreed with her reasoning. The two were so tightly entwined that he couldn’t have pried them apart with a crowbar. But he let that go—for now. Insulting Honey wouldn’t encourage her to tell him about his son and why Matt had been robbed of the first six years of the boy’s life. As hard as it might be, he had to hold back his anger and let Honey talk.
Shaking his head, he stood. “Listen, we’re not going to accomplish anything with a war of accusations about things that can’t be changed.” He motioned to the sofa. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”
For a long moment, Honey glared mutinously at him. He didn’t blame her for not wanting to continue. His remarks had been far from civil, and if he’d been in her shoes, he’d have walked out. To her credit, she hadn’t, telling him without putting it into words that she wanted to get the air cleared as much as he did. “Please.”
She backed away from him and sat, acutely aware that he hadn’t apologized for his words. Let him believe what he would. Matt Logan’s opinion of her didn’t matter at all, she told herself, but her anger simmered beneath her surface calm.
Folding her hands in her lap, she looked at him. “I never tricked Stan into anything. He knew up front that Danny wasn’t his, but it never made a difference to him. He loved him just as much as if he had fathered him naturally.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you try to find me? I had a right to know I had a son.”
The edge in his voice acted on her conscience like a finely honed rapier. Honey smoothed the material on the arm of the sofa, trying to find the words to tell him that she had tried, that she’d asked everyone in town if they knew where he’d gone. But just the thought brought memories pouring back—painful, agonizing memories of drowning in the desperation of being absolutely alone, of having no one to turn to, nowhere to go. Maybe that was why she’d welcomed Stan’s friendship, and later, with her father goading her on, his proposal. Then again, maybe after Matt left, she just hadn’t cared enough about anything to fight either of them.
In the end, she settled for the simplest explanation. “I did try. But no one knew where you’d gone.”
He stood and loomed over her. “Not good enough. My father knew where to contact me, Honey. Why didn’t you just ask him?”
She felt the tiny fissure in her heart—the last evidence of her long healing process—split wide-open. If only Mr. Logan had answered the door. If only…
How could she explain? How did she tell Matt that his father had become a sick, sullen old man, a virtual hermit who’d shut himself away from her and the rest of the world? “I tried to speak to your father, but I didn’t think—”
“Didn’t think? You didn’t think what? That I’d want my own kid?” Matt strode across the room to the window and shoved back the lace curtain. His face in profile concealed the grim line of his mouth and the rage flashing in his eyes, but the stiffness in his broad shoulders broadcasted his feelings.
Matt saw nothing beyond the window. Instead his sight had turned inward, to the memory of a small boy standing outside the door waiting for his father’s notice. He saw a teenager proudly presenting a handmade tie rack to his father, and the man simply glancing at it and nodding. He saw a young adult offering his love to a lonely old man, hoping