The more Meredith considered his arguments, the more she realized he was right. Without a phone at the farm, Matt couldn't call the police to have her arrested for trespassing; without a car he couldn't drive off and leave her. He would have to listen. She thought of how Matt must have felt—and must still feel—about that telegram he'd gotten, and suddenly she wanted desperately to do what Patrick had suggested, to put an end to all the ugliness between them right away and to part friends. "I'll have to stop at my apartment and pack an overnight case," she said.

He smiled down at her with such heartwarming tenderness and approval that a lump of emotion grew in her throat. "You make me proud, Meredith," he whispered, and she realized he knew that confronting an angry Matt was not going to be nearly so easy as he'd made it seem. "I guess I'd better go," she said, and then she rose up on her toes and pressed an impulsive kiss to his rough cheek. His arms went around her, enfolding her in a tight bear hug, and the affectionate gesture almost undid her. She could not remember the last time her own father had hugged her.

"Joe will drive you," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "It's started snowing, and the roads could get bad."

Meredith stepped back and shook her head. "I'd rather take my own car. I'm used to driving in the snow."

"I'd still feel better if Joe drove you," he persisted.

"I'll be fine," she countered emphatically. Meredith turned to leave, then she remembered she was supposed to have dinner with Lisa that night and attend a showing at an art gallery of Lisa's boyfriend's latest work. "May I use your phone?" she asked Patrick.

Lisa was more than disappointed, she was a little angry when Meredith canceled, and she demanded an explanation. When Meredith told her where she was going and why, Lisa was furious—at Philip Bancroft. "God, Mer, all these years, and you and Matt each thought the other ... and all because your bastard father—" She broke off in the midst of her disjointed tirade and said somberly, "Good luck tonight."

After Meredith left, Patrick was silent for a long moment, then he looked over his shoulder at Joe, who'd been eavesdropping in the kitchen doorway. "Well," he said with a beaming grin, "what do you think of my daughter-in-law?"

Joe shoved away from the kitchen doorframe and sauntered into the living room. "I think it would've been better if I'd taken her out to the farm, Patrick. That way, she wouldn't be able to leave, because she wouldn't have a car either."

Patrick chuckled. "She figured that out for herself. That's why she wouldn't let you drive her there."

"Matt's not gonna be happy to see her," Joe warned. "He's mad as hell at her. No, he's worse than mad. I've never seen him like he is now. I mentioned her name to him yesterday, and he gave me a look that chilled my blood. From some phone calls I heard in the car, he's thinking of movin' in on that department store of hers and taking it over. I've never seen anybody get under his skin like she can."

"I know that," Patrick softly agreed, his smile widening. "I also know she's the only one who ever has."

Joe studied Patrick's pleased expression, his brow furrowed. "You're hoping that after she tells Matt about what her father did and after Matt cools down, he might not let her leave the farm, aren't you?"

"I'm counting on it."

"Five dollars says you're wrong."

Patrick's face fell. "You're betting against it?"

"Well, normally I wouldn't. Normally I'd bet ten bucks, not five, that Matt would look at that beautiful face of hers, and see the way her eyes look when she cries, and then he'd take her straight to bed to try to make it up to her."

"Why don't you think he'll do that?"

"'Cause he's sick, that's why."

Patrick relaxed and grinned smugly. "He's not that sick."

"He's sick as a dog!" Joe persisted stubbornly. "He's had that flu all week, and he still went off to New York. When I picked him up at the airport yesterday, he coughed in the car and it made me shudder."

"Care to raise the bet to ten dollars?"

"You're on."

They sat back down to continue their checker game, but Joe hesitated. "Patrick, I'm calling the bet off. It's not fair for me to take your ten bucks. You haven't seen Matt hardly at all this week. I guarantee you, he's going to be too sick and too mad to want to keep her there."

"He may be that mad, but he won't be that sick."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I happen to know," Patrick said, feigning absorption in his next move on the checkerboard, "that Matt got a prescription from the doctor before he left for Indiana, and he took it with him. He called me from the car on the way to the farm and said he was feeling better."

"You're bluffing—your eye's twitching!"

"Care to raise the bet?"

Chapter 34

When Meredith left her apartment with her overnight bag, it had merely been snowing, but by the time she drove across the Indiana line, the storm was becoming a blizzard. Sand trucks and snowplows were working the highway, their yellow lights swirling like beacons. A moving van passed her, throwing slush onto her windshield; two miles ahead, she passed the same moving van—jackknifed in a ditch, the driver standing outside it, talking to another trucker, who had already pulled off to help him.

According to the radio, the temperature was twenty-two degrees and dropping, with a total snowfall of twelve inches expected, but Meredith was only semi-aware of the treacherous weather. All her thoughts were concentrated on the past, and on her need to get to the farm and make Matt understand what had actually happened. When Patrick had insisted she go to the farm, she'd still been half numb with the shock of her discoveries. Now that the shock had worn off, she felt a sense of urgency to make amends, to explain, that far surpassed Patrick's.

Even now, thinking of the way Matt must have felt when he got that telegram made her sick to her stomach. And still he had flown home to see her in the hospital— only to be refused admittance like some beggar without rights of any kind. He had never abandoned her or their baby. The knowledge filled her with sweetness and a consuming desperation to make him understand that she had not done away with their baby or barred him from her life.

Her headlights gleamed ominously on the highway ahead, and Meredith eased off the accelerator, her breath catching as the car slid onto the patch of ice, racing forward without traction, then grabbing on the snow-covered ground again. As soon as the BMW was under control, her thoughts returned to Matt. Now she understood the reason for the underlying enmity she'd sensed in him. She understood it all, including his furious parting remark in the car last week: "Cross me one more time, just once more, and you'll wish to God your mother had aborted you!"