Chapter 20 of this X-FF story is up! Sorry it took so long but it was on another computer. I hope you enjoy it, thanks for reading and thanks for your feedback.
The first time that they had been married to each other, it had been purely for show. The marriage certificate had been ordered overnight from a graphic design company, the signatures faked, in order to fool the men that they had put them under surveillance. Matt remembered when he and Roy had decided that the only way to have a prayer of uncovering the secretive disk was if he pretended to be married so that he could be more quickly invited into the inner circle of one of the most exclusive business cliques in California. It didn't even matter who played the role of his wife, because she wouldn't necessarily be viewed as a player, just a piece of background scenery while the men did all the work. In this clique, women were definitely to be seen and not heard. Decorative pieces to be worn by their husbands while attending galas and weekend conferences and presumably to keep them entertained later behind closed doors. Matt and Roy along with Roy's old buddy in the FBI hadn't really planned that far ahead, in fact at first Matt's "wife" was set to be an experienced agent, who was pretty and fully trained in the job that would lie ahead of her if she took the mission.
But when C.J. had walked in the room during a planning session, she had immediately caught the eye of Hawk, their FBI contact. Matt had been approached to take the assignment himself because the FBI needed an actual nationally renowned businessman to play the role and Matt's Army background including his stint in military intelligence wouldn't hurt. But Hawk eyed C.J. to play the role of the nondescript wife, to be used as a prop in the operation because he had been attracted both by her beauty and her intellectual prowess. All Matt needed was a woman who looked good, who could blend into a world of masculine culture and fit in.
Of course Matt had vetoed Hawk's suggestion, because he knew the assignment would include plenty of danger especially if they faced risk of discovery. He didn't want to put C.J. in the line of fire if the mission fell apart in its middle. But as it turned out, when C.J. had gotten wind of the mission, she took matters into her own hands.
Now she had issued Matt another challenge and that was proving to her and perhaps to himself that he wouldn't leave again. Matt knew that was a promise he fully intended on keeping. Now to get her to believe in it and in him.
"She really does dig you," Shelli said, while putting out some salt and pepper shakers, "She's just a bit wigged out still over what happened. I mean who wouldn't be?"
Matt had been sorting through some business files but his mind had wandered again to what had been, the decisions which had led him and C.J. to this point. She had told him what she had wanted him from him and then had taken off to go work with Ed to leave him to think about it. And he had started to do that but had been instead drawn back to the when he and C.J. had begun working on that last case. After he had called Murray and had asked him to ship a case of her brand of pickles to Cicely and ignored Murray's questions why.
"I know that," he said, "She can be very determined about the things that are important to her."
And the people who fell in that category as well, Matt had learned. She certainly hadn't accepted no for an answer when she had volunteered to work on that latest undercover job, the one where she would play his wife. He had tried to talk her out of her, but truth be told, she had presented arguments, a series of deft volleys, to counter every excuse he had provided as to why she had to sit this assignment out. Her determination and quick thinking had sold her case to Hawk and between the two of them, they had finally persuaded Matt that C.J. would be a perfect addition to this assignment. As for danger, they would take an extra effort to keep both of them protected. Of course both Matt and C.J. had seen how well that had worked in reality when it all played out.
"But that clearly includes you," Shelli reasoned, "but when you're knocked up, something's triggered inside of you to put that new life first."
Matt understood that and he didn't want to do anything that would challenge any maternal instinct that she might have towards their baby. In truth, he wanted to protect and take care of them both without stepping on her toes but so far, that hadn't worked very well. She had accepted him back into her life but still, kept a very important part of her separate. One of the parts of her that Matt had fallen in love with so hard and so suddenly. At least that's what it had seemed like at the time when she had kissed him and one thing had led to another…but now that he'd had plenty of time to run events over in his mind like a movie, he realized they had started laying the foundation for what had finally exploded between them without realizing it.
"Yeah I want to find away to take care of both of them," he said.
She chuckled.
"Just don't be so obvious that's what you're doing," she said, "because this chick is smart and she's not one who likes people telling her what to do."
Matt couldn't argue with that.
"She's made that clear already," he said, "She's never been one to surrender control of her life and I'm not one to push her."
Shelli shrugged.
"This isn't about control," she said, "It's about love and life and what those things mean to both of you and then working out a way to find them together."
C.J. saw Ed's final cut of his movie and the beauty and simplicity of it had stunned her to silence. Though she wouldn't ever consider herself a movie expert, she did love sitting in the back of a great flick with some popcorn and being reeled into it. When she had been growing up in Texas, she had used a trip to the movie theater for other things and usually a guy had been involved, but over the years, she had found that going to movies was a great escape from the hectic nature of the outside world, and she looked forward to it. Now Matt, he loved actions flicks with plenty of screeching cars whipping around and chasing each other, not to mention shootouts. She, favored mysteries which were left to the viewer to unravel and thrillers which left her and everyone else on the edge of their seats. But having watched the unique flavor of how Ed viewed the town that had raised him, she had found herself a convert to his type of film making. She knew that many other people would watch his movie and be quickly drawn in by its magic. Now if she and Edward could just get Maurice to sign onto it and keep him from trying to make too many changes to it, to commercialize it just as he had been trying to do like to Cicely.
"It's beautiful Ed," she said, simply.
He nodded thoughtfully.
"I think the orchids worked well at the end."
She smiled.
"They provided a fitting closing scene, especially with the fade out," she said, "Maybe with some music in the background…"
He looked at her.
"Great thinking," he said, "I can't wait to start the sound editing and scoring it."
C.J. rubbed her eyes.
"Do you have anyone to help you who's into music?"
He nodded again.
"Dave's got some cousins who have an ensemble," he said, "They've already volunteered."
C.J smiled at that and how the people in this town always came together with their generosity in good times as well as the more difficult ones. Even for strangers who wandered in their midst like her, were brought into their fold. She felt her eyes sting at the memory of how she had arrived here several months ago, pregnant and believing that Matt had been taken from the both of them by that explosion. She had picked Cicely on a whim, but maybe there had been something prodding her in what turned out to be just the right direction and had quickly found a place to stay and not long after that, her work with Ed. It didn't pay much money but she hadn't really needed it having plenty through investments and savings. But working with the budding filmmaker had kept her mind focused on a creative venture and less on painful memories.
She saw how the town had embraced Matt, not even asking questions after he had reemerged from being "dead" but then she had realized the town folk here were used to odd occurrences and just accepted them as part of the fabric of their extended family. Their protectiveness towards her and her baby didn't keep them from accepting Matt into that fabric as well. Both she and Matt had grown up having been raised in a sense by a smaller town outside of Houston that consisted of ranchers, oil riggers and miners. Both of them had pretty much stayed out of trouble while growing up because they knew if anyone caught wind of it, then it would be reported back to their homes by the time they arrived back. Though that life had seemed somewhat restricted back then, she had learned to value it and wanted the same for her family. The sense that family was much larger than what existed between four walls and that people were always looking out for each other.
When she had sat in the floor of her bathroom and stared at the stick which told her in a clinical way that Matt and her had created life when they had come together that final night, she had never felt as alone as she had then. Joy and sorrow, both for what could still be and what should have been collided inside of her and it had been a while before she could stand up and face the world again. For weeks, she had hung onto every memory she had of the man she had loved, the outlines of his face, the hint of his favorite aftershave, the feeling of his fingers on her skin, all to keep him alive inside her heart. She felt if she forgot any of that, it would be like losing him to death twice. And she couldn't let that happen. But she had finally opened her eyes, caressed her abdomen where her baby lived and had felt a sudden resolve to continue trying to push through life for the both of them.
His return had jarred that life, threatening to break it into pieces again, not because she wasn't overjoyed to see him in front of her again. But because she had learned how fragile that life and the dreams it contained had proven to be. Her attraction to him had been as strong as it had been when they parted, but every time she had felt herself gravitate towards wrapping herself up in his solid embrace, she had held back. And she knew that doing so had hurt him, though he never would be one to push the issue.
"Life can be so scary some times," she had said mostly to herself.
Ed looked over at her again.
"Yeah it can be," he agreed, "and then it becomes so wonderful again, and you forget you were scared."
She looked at him with a start, and then realized that his words sounded simple but carried more than a grain of truth. After all, her rush of feelings for Matt inside that hotel room, her need for him to take their relationship out of its platonic stage. They had danced around those boundaries they put for years, flirted with them several times, but in a manner of minutes, those walls they had built to protect their feelings had come tumbling down. And while the fear of what they were doing had been fleeting, the rightness of how their bodies and hearts had come together so fast and furiously that night still remained with her.
Matt had decided that Shelli had been right, that the things that mattered were those that you pushed for no matter what, and he knew what he wanted in his life. And he knew that underneath her reservation, C.J. really wanted the same things. So he had to try to convince her of that without pushing her. Rubbing his forehead, he really thought that sometimes he had been clueless when it came to women. Now that's not something he would have been anything but loathe admitting just a year or so ago when he had really been a player. Quite a few beautiful and in some cases, famous women had been in and out of his life, and while he interrupted his social life with a serious relationship here, a fiancée there, none of his relationships had ever survived. Part of him argued with that, by reminding him that he had been helpless when one fiancée had been murdered, while the situation with Elizabeth had hit more at home that women even those who loved him passionately found it difficult to fit in his frenetic life where he could take off at a moment's notice to take on some case halfway around the globe, always with the caveat that he might not come back. But even considering all that, when C.J. and he had hooked up on that last assignment, it had shaken him to the core even as he had never felt more fulfilled.
He had lain there, feeling her embrace and the quietness of her breath as she had slipped away into her dreams. Reason had returned and had tried to chide him for breaking through the boundaries of their life-long friendship but it hadn't found a home, because the fact had been, he hadn't wanted to be anywhere else but in that bed in some forgotten motel with her. He had watched her sleep; her mouth still curled in a smile and had envisioned a future with them both in it. In it, he saw her marrying her for real in front of their family, promising to honor and cherish each other (if not obey) in front of everyone who they loved. Living and working together, and playing too, and he had imagined a future with her swollen with his child, and the both of them surrounded by the family he knew they would create together. But he knew that she would awaken soon and her reaction…he hadn't known what it would be in the harshness of the reality of their situation. Whatever they had shared had to wait until this assignment ended and then…if she had any doubts about how right it was for them to be together, he could think of a few different ways to sway them.
Matt sighed, thinking back to the night that had changed his life in more ways than one. About what he had shared with the woman he probably had been in love with more of his life than he hadn't and what he stood to lose if he couldn't convince her what they could share together, a life of adventure of course and passion too given their…obvious chemistry but also of…love.