Chapter 15—Another chapter of this cross-FF story is done. I hope you enjoy it, thanks for reading and thanks for the feedback!
C.J. stood in the living room of her cabin, staring at the man in front of her unsure of how to proceed next. She wanted to sit him down and tell him about her pregnancy but each time she felt the urge to do so, something still remained in her way.
Matt just looked at the woman in front of him and marveled at her beauty. Even the uncertainty he read in her face didn't change that in his mind. He wished she would trust him but he knew that he still needed to travel a bit further down the road before he could fully earn it. Still, she looked so lovely dressed in her wool dress which showed off her shapely form as it hugged it, and offered a glimpse of her long legs. She accentuated the dress with two hair clips which set her hair off of her face. Smiling at him, she shook her head.
"What are you looking at," she asked.
"That dress…"
"I bought it here," she said, "You like it?"
Matt nodded without speaking. She noticed him studying her, his brows still knit.
"There's something that's…"
"Different," she asked, "I don't think so. I'm the same woman you've always known."
Somehow he doubted that but nodded again, in satisfaction with her answer. He handed her the wine bottle. She looked at it for a moment while holding it in her hands.
"It'll go well with the venison," he said, "which smells great."
She walked into the kitchen to put the wine out and check on the meat and the potato dish.
"I wanted to make a salad," she said, "but fresh vegetables are scarce here this time of year."
"This is great," he said, "You must have been busy…"
She shook her head, chuckling.
"The venison just needed to be heated," she said, "Maggie brought it over the other night."
"Hollings told me that they do a lot of deer hunting in these parts," Matt said, "Reminded me of when I was growing up on the ranch."
Matt had bonded with his father and uncle on their hunting trips. C.J. hadn't gone with them even when invited, understanding that sometimes it was important for men to have their outings separate from the women in their lives. So she had stayed behind with Roy's wife Flo and the other hunting widows. She and Matt hadn't been anything but best friends at the time even as the other women teased her about whether or not they would ever get a clue and get together. She had laughed it off, saying that they were more than content to remain friends but she knew now that fear had been a driving force in keeping them from exploring that avenue. Trepidation that if they took their relationship to a different level, a more physical one, that if it didn't work out, it would ruin their tight friendship. Still, she would be lying if she said she hadn't been tempted. Sometimes when she and Matt had taken off on trips, or more often when they had planned to do so and fate threw a wrench in their business or vacation plans.
Like the day she had been set to go to Asia with Matt to meet Murray to broker a new business deal for Houston Enterprises. Two weeks together mixing business and pleasure in some exotic countries on their itinerary and maybe…but two hit men had crashed into her life at that point, intent on killing her. She had taken an ancient station wagon belonging to one of the ranch hands to pick up her luggage, her ears still stinging from Matt's casual joke about needing to hitch a horse trailer to it to accommodate her baggage. She would show him…she thought driving through the windy road to her place. Then two men, looking like Laurel and Hardy had shown up trying to kill her. She had seen them after she had fled the burning hulk of the car after having been forced off the road, fire one last final shot into the car's gas tank and said that took care of her and two of her sorority sisters as if they had been checking off some macabre party list.
Matt had shown up in time to take her to the hospital and then the two of them had to spend their time trying to solve the mystery of why those two men had been hired to kill her and a crew of her locally based sorority sisters. So any plans for going to the Far East and pushing the envelope of her relationship with Matt had to be put aside and she stashed her Victoria's Secret lingerie out of her suitcase and back in her closet.
Oh and then there had been the time that she and Matt had taken his Lear Jet to go check out a vacation resort in the Bahamas and were looking forward to a week of well…checking out a business investment. Right…actually she had planned to well, see what happened while the two of them spent a week relaxing on the beach surrounded by a gorgeous ocean which matched the color of the turquoise blue sky. Of course that hadn't happened because while en route with visions of her vacation drifting through her head, the plane had been hijacked by a vengeful terrorist who had blamed Matt for the arrest of his son, a professional assassin. So instead of nights spent dancing under a gorgeous moon nestled amid a carpet of stars, she had been held hostage by the terrorist while Matt tried to spring his son from jail by recanting his statement.
There were at least a half dozen times her attempts to try to inject some romance into their relationship had gone awry, so much so that she had given up, taking all these interruptions as proof that their relationship wasn't meant to be anything more but the comfortable friendship they had forged all these years.
C.J. had taken his coat and hung it up while Matt had tended to the venison. He knew from the tantalizing smell that it would be delicious, but not nearly as much so as the woman trying to make the evening perfect for him. He hid a smile, watching her moving around getting dishes out of the cupboard and some rather impressive looking crystal glasses out for the wine. She poured him a glass and handed it to him while she went to the refrigerator to pour herself some ginger ale. He raised his brow at her.
"My stomach's been a little queasy," she said, "I don't feel like wine tonight."
He shrugged but inside he wondered but they sat down at the table that she had set up nice and pretty for their dinner. She always looked beautiful no matter what she wore, he thought. He had long been attracted to his best friend but had behaved himself around her when she had made it clear to him that she didn't want to jeopardize their close friendship with the complications that came when men and women injected sex into the equation. Matt had never been convinced that if the two of them had decided to take their relationship in that direction that it necessarily spelled disaster. Life had always been filled with risks to take and he had never backed away from pushing the envelope in all areas of it…except this one with her.
Oh, there had been some close calls, like when they had been sitting on that grassy pasture next to his ranch house competing in a frog jumping contest. She had ensured that his beloved frog, Rupert would win by enticing the lovelorn amphibian with his female counterpart hidden inside a bag. When she had pulled her out and Matt had seen the pretty bow tied around the frog, he had nearly lost it right there. He had settled for stealing a kiss from his friend on some pretense that sounded as flimsy now as it had back then. He wondered if she had seen through it, even his attempts to hide it with a joke. If Bo and Lamar hadn't been there…well it's easy now to say what might or might not have happened between them.
And when she had handled his teasing over the luggage she had planned to bring to that business junket in the Far East a while back by launching a deft counter offensive, he had wondered if that business trip couldn't be different than those in the past. He had been planning on broaching that topic when they were on the airplane traveling overseas, but fate had stuck two professional hit men in their paths who had been intent on killing C.J. so she couldn't attend the wedding of her former sorority housemother. Of course, he couldn't allow that to happen and the both of them with some help had figured out who hired the hit men and why. They never did end up taking that trip and life had continued onward, their friendship still going strong. But he had wondered what had happened if they had gone on that trip and he had told her that he had wanted more than friendship. What would have happened?
Then there had been that time she had told him that she had loved him…while bleeding from a bullet wound in her shoulder. He had faced arrest for a crime he hadn't committed to get her to the hospital so that her life would be saved but he had never responded to the gauntlet she had laid down before him. Oh wait, yes he had by nearly marrying another woman before she left him at the altar about a year ago.
"Would you like some more potatoes," she asked.
He looked at her and saw that she held the serving bowl in her hands. He nodded and she handed it to him so he could scoop himself another serving of the delicious dish.
"Houston…"
He put the bowl back down.
"What?"
She looked down at her hands.
"How do you feel about thing now?"
He looked into her eyes which betrayed some wariness and knew he had to tread more cautiously than his heart wanted to do.
"I'm so happy to be here with you again," he said, "even if it's in the coldest spot on earth."
He wasn't cold now, because she had built a fire that he had helped build up into a wall of warmth by some wood he had brought into the house while she had put the finishing touches on the food.
"Me too," she said, "I missed you so much these months."
Guilt tugged at him again.
"I can never tell you how sorry I am about everything," he said, "but I'm going to make it up to you."
She listened to him, her heart melting once again at the earnestness of his voice.
"I know you want to," she said, "It's just…"
"That you have to trust that I'm not going to leave you," he said, "I promise you that I won't."
She sighed after she sipped at her ginger ale.
"I know that's what you want now…"
He reached for her hand and held it in both of his larger ones.
"I want that much longer than just now," he said, "I want a future with you in it."
She bit her lip.
"I want that too," she said, "but that night when I said I loved you…"
He remembered the softness in her eyes when she had spoken those words, the ones which had eluded him when she most needed to hear them.
"I told you I'd be back," he said, "when I should have told you that I loved you too."
Her heart swelled at that, but she wondered how he felt now months later. She needed to know that before she shared her news with him.
"Houston…"
He still held her hand.
"I met to tell you those words that night," he said, "Everything happened so fast."
She couldn't argue with that. One moment they had been the friends they had been since they were little kids, the next they had been wrapped up in each other before he gently pushed her on the bed. She had said the words herself before she could take them back and he had done what men of action often did, he showed her his feelings.
"I know," she said, "but I wouldn't take it back, would you?"
He shook his head, pushing his plate aside.
"Leaving you then was the hardest…"
She stood up and cleared the table of their plates. He moved to help her and she finally let him.
"You don't have to tell me that," she said, "I know…"
She looked at him while standing next to the sink, looking suddenly shy. Her cheeks were tinted pink as she reached for the wine bottle.
"Would you like another glass?"
He gently removed it from her hand and then reached for her. She didn't fight him but fell into his embrace as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her closer. She looked into his brown eyes lit up by eagerness mixed with uncertainty, such that it touched her deep inside. That a man of such action and definitive purpose would be suddenly unsure in her presence.
So she made the next move when she wrapped arms in return and pulled him closer until their lips met. Gently at first like petals touching her skin and then more hungrily. She closed her eyes at that and inhaled his cologne and his unique scent. He picked her up suddenly and she found herself against the kitchen counter. She ran her hands through his hair, caressing it as he moved his hands towards the back of her wool dress. She sighed softly as she heard and then felt him pull the zipper of her dress down, exposing her back. There, his fingers touched her skin. She threw her head back and then she remembered.
"Houston…"
He kept stroking her back with his fingers, fiddling with her bra strap. She had been about to tell him it clasped in the front when sanity returned quickly with a rush, stopping the words before she said them. Oblivious to the struggle going on in her mind, Matt continued. She reluctantly pushed him away. He looked at her in confusion, still breathing heavily.
"What is it?"
She looked up at him bringing her own breathing under control.
"I can't do this."
"You were doing this just fine," he pointed out.
She smiled but he saw a trace of sadness in her eyes.
"What's the matter," he pressed.
She looked at him and shook her head.
"Nothing," she said, "It's just that this is moving too fast for me…"
He nodded.
"Okay we can slow it down a bit," he said, "I don't want you to do anything you're not ready for."
She looked away, knowing that the truth was, she couldn't hop into bed with him until she told him the truth about her pregnancy and she just didn't know how to do that. No matter how eagerly her body had responded to his own. She reached up and stroked his face.
"It's not that I don't want to," she said, "It's just…"
"You don't need to explain yourself to me," he said, "I understand. Do you want me to leave?"
She shook her head.
"Come into the living room and sit with me by the fire," she said, "I think I can keep my hands off of you."
He raised a brow at her.
"Why is that so important," he said, "I know you and there must be a reason."
She didn't answer him but instead reached for his hand and he followed her to where they sat by the fire and on the couch, she felt naturally into his embrace and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth on her face and the feeling of the arms of the man she had loved her own life holding her close to him. Matt felt her body relax in his embrace and her breath became soft and as he stroked the hair off of her face, he wondered what she, what the entire town it seemed was hiding from him.