Authors: Amanda Carpenter
and his hold tightened.
'I thought the first time was bad enough, but if you're now feeling
anything like I am, you've just been pole- axed.' He stared at her
grimly. 'This doesn't change you and me. If you think it does, to hell
with talking to Joshua, I'm going to stay right here and kiss you until
you come to your senses.'
'And what are we?' she asked him, with a wistful smile. 'Enemies,
lovers, or just good friends?'
He stared at her. 'Don't go back to South Bend tomorrow. Stay here
with me.'
Her eyes fell to the opening of his white shirt, and she muttered, 'Oh
Matthew, I—I don't know.'
'Why not?' he asked. His hard hands were branding marks on her.
'You're not going back to a summer job. Why couldn't you stay?'
'But for how long?'
He shrugged, a careless movement that belied the cool, deep shadow
of thought moving at the back of his hazel eyes. 'A few days, a week,
a month. Hell, who knows, you might end up staying the whole
summer and liking it.'
Her face twisted. 'My things are in South Bend—my friends, clothes,
school, plans.'
He was harsh. 'All I know is that if you leave now, you'll spend all
your spare time making up reasons not to come back, and erecting
your barriers, and Chicago is too far away for me to be popping back
every weekend just to try to change your mind.'
'But,' she argued, fiddling with the top fastened button, 'maybe we
need time to think.'
'See what I mean?' he replied drily. 'There goes another barrier, and
you're not even out of my arms yet. We don't need more time alone,
we need it together, to explore one another in depth, to find out what
we enjoy about each other, and what we disapprove of, to make love
in the long warm evenings, and the dark cool of early morning.'
Her fingernail jerked and the button slipped free, and at the exposure
of yet more of the hair-sprinkled skin of his chest, she recalled the
pressure and excitement of his hard body pinning her to the floor.
Why was she hesitating? It was what she wanted. She leaned her
forehead against him.
'Please,' she whispered. 'Ask me in the morning. Don't ask me now.'
He sighed into her hair and his arms loosened. 'All right. Tell me
tomorrow. In the mean time, I'd better go find Joshua and have a talk
with him. Do you want to come out with me?'
She shook her head and said, muffled, 'I'll be out in a few minutes.'
He dropped a kiss on to the top of her forehead and straightened from
the settee. Already he was absent- minded, thinking ahead to other
things. 'Fine. Just don't talk yourself out of something that would be
good for the both of us.'
But what about the long run, Matt? she asked, but silently, as he left
and shut the door behind him. Never mind about tomorrow, or the
day after, or the week after that. What about a year from now? Who's
to say what would be good for us then? What about the rest of our
lives?
BOTH Matthew and Joshua were conspicuously absent when Sian
finally mustered up the energy to leave the study. She had brushed
her hair and touched up her make-up, so that the only evidence of
what had happened lingered in the over-bright glitter of her eyes and
the hectic flush staining the high curves of her cheekbones.
At first glance the party still seemed to be in full swing, but, with
used plates stacked in the kitchen sink, glasses littering the counter
and most of the people sitting and talking in the living-room instead
of dancing, it looked as though it might wind to a close very soon.
She checked" her wrist-watch and found to her shock that it was
already well past midnight. Jane came up and whispered in her ear,
'Lordy, where have you been? You missed the fireworks. Joshua just
came storming into the room, looking like a thunder-cloud, and Matt
came in soon after, stern and hard and cold as you please, and he took
Josh into the bedroom. They're in there now and it's ominously quiet,
don't you think?'
She pressed one hand against her hot cheek and closed her eyes,
confessing shakily, 'I didn't entirely miss the drama. Matt and I were
in the study, and Joshua came in and found us together.'
Jane's eyes were very wide. 'What were you doing?'
'Well, we weren't exactly discussing the weather!' she snapped in an
explosive release of tension, though she immediately regretted it.
'Look, I'm sorry. I'm just strung out.'
'No wonder.' Her friend studied her closely and with a great deal of
sympathy. 'Don't blame yourself Sian. None of this is your fault. You
never encouraged Joshua. Whatever he built up out of your
relationship with him was entirely in his own head, so try not to
worry. Matt will sort him out, you'll see.'
'I hope so,' she said, but there was a wild, hunted look in her eyes.
Immediately Jane put one arm around her shoulders and led her into
the relative privacy of the kitchen, where she sank against the
counter.
'Tell me,' urged Jane in a gentle voice.
Sian stared blankly at her feet. 'Matt's asked me to stay tomorrow
instead of going back to South Bend with the rest of you.'
'Is that all?'
'Is that all?' she echoed incredulously, her green eyes flashing up to
her friend's compassionate, but calm expression. 'Jane, the very
thought terrifies me! I love him so much it hurts, and I have no idea
what his intentions are, or how long it might last.'
'Then you must stay,' Jane said simply, reaching out to grasp her
hands. 'And love him for as long as you can.'
Her head shook from side to side, and her eyes filled with pools of
salted wetness that streaked
diamante
paths down her marble cheeks.
How could she explain this crisis of uncertainty? In just a week she
had travelled too far from what had been a corner-stone of belief in
her life, and to reach out for what she wanted now would be to deny
every best judgement she had always believed in. She wasn't a
gambler like her father. She was just a young woman who was
frightened to find that the understanding she had built her hopes and
dreams on had turned to shifting sand underneath her feet.
'Don't you see?' she said, almost begging. 'It's too soon. It happened
too quickly. I don't even know what he feels for me, beyond the
physical attraction. Maybe someone else might have the strength of
mind to take such a risk, but I don't know if I can.'
'Then come home,' said Jane and squeezed her cold hands. Then she
added with quiet, relentless wisdom, 'But if you do, you must be
prepared to let Matt go. Because some day, some time, he will find a
woman who can, for she will recognise how much courage it took for
him to risk opening up his heart and his life to her.'
Every strong emotion inside her rose up in nauseous rebellion at the
thought of Matthew living with, and loving, another woman, and she
flinched back as if she'd been slapped in the face. Through a roaring
in her ears, she heard her friend ask, 'Does the consideration of that,
if nothing else, give you an answer?'
She whispered through bloodless lips, 'Yes, I rather think it does. I'll
stay, if he'll still have me.'
'Oh, Sian.' Jane stepped close and hugged her tight. 'I couldn't wish
for you to find a better man, but I am going to miss you!' .
She put her arms around the other girl and laid her head on Jane's
shoulder, exclaiming, 'What's this? I might only be gone a few days.'
'Then again, you might not,' said Jane, who stepped back and wiped
her eyes. 'Which is only how it should be.'
Just imagining how it would be to wave goodbye to the others, then
find herself alone with Matt at last with all the private future
stretched before them, was enough to send her blood-pressure
soaring. She was beside herself with excitement, consumed with
dread. Would they be able to fill the empty space with light and
laughter? Or would all her new emotions collapse under the weight
of it? Would she discover after the first heated rush that she was
merely caught in the illusory spell of infatuation? And he—how
would he feel? Would he regret his invitation after a few brief days,
or might he also fall in love with her?
She knew then that she was doing the right thing, for all the questions
had assumed an imperative place in her mind, and there would be no
rest, no peace, no hope for her until they were answered.
When the two men emerged from Matt's bedroom at last, there was
no chance to find out how things stood between them, for Matt's
attention was claimed by the departure of his guests, and Joshua was
remarkably silent and subdued, and refused to meet her questioning
gaze.
She schooled herself to patience as best she could, but her concern
was growing into a deep, unsettled unease, for the shape of Matt's
mouth was a straight white line, and his eyes when they met hers
briefly were cold with a kind of bitten-back fury that was all the more
disturbing for the severe control he exerted over it.
The spectre of the scathing stranger she had confronted just a week
ago rose in her mind. With an inward shudder, she banished the
terrible ghost to the past where it belonged, for neither of them were
really the people who had enacted that scene. She had worn, albeit
unknowingly, the misshapen cloak of someone else's caricature of
her personality, and Matt had fleshed out since that time to become a
real, full-blooded person with strengths and vulnerabilities, and a
deep-bedded core of compassionate wisdom that made him so
extraordinary.
She marked time, going into the master bathroom to wash her face
and brush her teeth, denying for as long as possible the need to go to
Matt and discover what had caused that taut set of his mouth, or
scored the deep lines on either side of it. She wanted to hug him, and
stroke his tawny hair, and tell him that she was willing to stay for as
long as they both wished it.
She drew on her light wrap of summer cotton that came to mid-thigh,
and belted it at her slim waist as she walked back through the
bedroom, wished Jane goodnight, and went to the study.
The light was on. Matt sat on the high stool facing the drawing-table,
his back to the doorway. His hair looked ruffled, as if he had run his
hands repeatedly through it, and she ached to smooth it back from his
forehead.
She smiled involuntarily and stepped inside the room. 'Hello there,'
she said. 'I was just going to look for you.'
His head turned to one side. 'Funny,' he said flatly. 'I came in here
looking for you, but I half expected you to have made other sleeping
arrangements.'
The short, clipped voice, and the glimpse of the hard line of his jaw
made her hesitate. Why wouldn't he turn around? If he only smiled at
her, she would run to him with open arms, but this—she didn't know
how to react to.
'I don't understand,' she said quietly.
'You're always running away,' said Matthew, with a thin slicing edge
of sarcasm. 'You did it from the start. Even the first time we met,
when I gave you hell, you ran away.'
A frown creased her brow. 'But I'm not running now— you've got it
all wrong. I told Jane that I wasn't going back to South Bend with
them.'
'You're going to try to convince me that you want to stay?' he asked
harshly. 'That's taking it a bit far, even for you, isn't it?'
She didn't know what was going on, but her heart thudded hard in
apprehension, and she licked suddenly dry lips. 'Matt, look at me.'
He swivelled around and thrust off the stool, in a stunning upsurge of
movement, and the deep rage in his face was so far beyond what she
had feared that she fell back a step and stared, one hand creeping up
to cover the frantic beating at the base of her throat.
He asked fiercely, his lips drawn back, 'And just when was it you
were planning on telling me that you'd become engaged to Joshua—
early in the morning, just before you left? Were you saving it for
pillow talk? Damn you for a lying bitch!'
The bottom of her world seemed to drop away at the severity of his
accusation, and she swayed on her feet. God, oh God, how could she
have forgotten that little piece of mischief she and Joshua had cooked
up between them? She whispered on a shuddering breath, 'He told
you?'