“Ms. Lassiter,” he said, stopping directly in front of Angie.
She stood up, with Evan, Sage and Dylan flanking her in a protective half circle. “Yes?”
“I am sorry,” the doctor offered, his gaze shifting between the family members before coming back to Angie. “We did everything we could, but your father passed away.”
Angie swayed in Evan’s arms, Marlene cried out and even Colleen had tears streaming down her face. The Lassiter men, including Evan, were stoic but pain gleamed in their eyes.
Kayla was stunned. Shocked. J.D. had been ill, but to die like that? The night before his daughter’s wedding? To go so suddenly, so quickly. In one moment, everything had changed.
It was staggering to realize that life, so wonderful, so precious, could end in the blink of an eye. Kayla’s heart hurt for her friend and the rest of the Lassiters. Their world had just changed forever. But maybe it was a lesson, too. To not waste time. To be sure to tell the people you love while you still had the chance.
Now, she looked up into Matt’s green eyes and saw that he too had been hit hard by this news. But he only held her tighter, closer, as if he could somehow protect her from anything else that fate might throw at them.
* * *
A few days later, Kayla was still fielding phone calls from people wanting to know how Angie was dealing with her father’s death. She wanted to shout, How do you think she’s feeling? But she didn’t, because she knew that others felt just as helpless in the face of a tragedy as she did.
To make it worse, she hadn’t seen Matt since the night J.D. died. He’d spent the night, and in the darkness they’d held on to each other, each of them giving and taking comfort.
But just like nine months ago, in the morning he was gone. No word. No kiss goodbye. Nothing. She hadn’t heard from him since. For all she knew, he’d already left and gone back to L.A. At the thought, something inside her twisted in pain.
Why would he do that again? She’d actually tried to call him this time, but hadn’t reached him. Was he finally making it a clean break? But what about everything he’d said over the past couple of weeks? What about what they’d both felt? Was that nothing? Was she supposed to just ignore the pain and pick up the pieces of her life again? Pretend nothing had happened? Nothing had changed?
She was so confused and torn, Kayla hadn’t even gone in to work the past few days. She had stayed shut away in her house, reliving the night of J.D.’s death. Trying to come to terms with what she was feeling, thinking. Yet every thought circled back around to Matt. She didn’t know what to do about it. About him. Her feelings for him.
But she did know that she wouldn’t go through what she had before. She wouldn’t drown in misery and agony. If there was one thing J.D.’s death had taught her, it was that life was too short. It went too fast. And could end all too unexpectedly.
Life could change in a blink. End in a moment. As for those who were left behind, their lives could be rearranged, altered forever in the span of a single heartbeat.
When the doorbell rang, she set her coffee cup down on the kitchen table and walked to answer it. Finding Matt on her front porch sent her reeling.
“I thought you were gone,” she blurted.
He snorted. Pushing past her into the house, he grumbled, “You thought I would leave again? Without talking to you?”
“I haven’t seen you in days,” she countered, closing the door and following him into the living room. God, he looked good.
“I had some thinking to do.”
“And you had to do that away from me?”
“Yeah, this time, I did.” He looked at her and she felt his gaze on her as powerfully as she would have a touch. She’d missed him with a bone-deep ache that just seeing him again was already easing.
“Okay,” she said. “What was so important? What were you thinking about?”
“Really?” He shook his head. “You can ask me that? I was thinking about you, Kayla. Us.”
“Us?” Her heartbeat jumped and a flurry of nerves awakened in the pit of her stomach.
“Of course us.” He pushed one hand through his hair. “Ever since the night J.D. died, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about us. Hell, I put off the trip to California because I couldn’t leave without settling some things between us.”