Authors: Amanda Carpenter
cutting deliberation, 'I didn't tell him anything. This was between you
and me, and it wasn't any of his business. I did tell him that I still
considered you completely unsuitable for him. He does not have my
approval on any proposal of marriage; I'll do everything in my power
to keep it from happening, and from here on in he's on his own.'
After everything else he had just said, that was like a slap in the face.
Blank outrage had Sian's jaw dropping wide open, then it shut with a
snap that jarred her teeth and she said violently, 'Damn you, Matt
Severn, I'll tell you just what you can do with all your presumptuous
meddling -'
He was inexplicable. All traces of his former anger had quite
dissipated somewhere in the course of the conversation, and now he
laughed aloud, his hazel eyes twin windows to devilry. It silenced her
as nothing else could have. He took hold of her French braid and
tugged at it. Her head fell back as she stared up at him, stunned and
immobilised, as he brought his face down until they were nose to
nose, eye to perplexed, molten eye.
'Joshua,' said Matt with a white, keen smile, 'took it like a man. On
the other hand, you, I'm glad to say, are taking it just like a woman.'
My God! she thought gibberingly—it looked—it seemed—after all
he'd said and done, he wasn't about to try to
kiss
her...?
Matt's gaze lowered to the exposed line of her vulnerable throat, then
lowered further to roam along the lines of her vest top. He stopped
suddenly, masculine body frozen and breathing arrested, and the
oddest expression flickered across the hard lines of his face.
She watched him in frozen confusion, and unable to protest anything.
He bent, not to her lips, but to her arm. Surprise and a deep searing of
lightning sensation trembled through her. Her upper arm, slim, the
fragile creamy skin so prone to easy bruising, showed the clear
imprint of his hold on her from the day before.
Matthew's mouth stroked the marks, nibbling at her flesh, the hand
that was so offensive at the party now cupping the curve of her elbow
as gently as if it were an eggshell.
Her breathing was ragged, severely disrupted. Her jaw clenched. Her
mouth worked. Her head bowed over his angled shoulder; she could
not tear her eyes away from the incredible sight of him. She did not
know if she looked at him in tenderness, or in fury.
Just when she had wrested enough control from her shuddering mind
and body to blast him clear to California, he let go of her with his
face set and rigid, straightened, turned on his heel and left. The door
settled gently into place again, and she was alone.
Sian's hands crept to her heated face. She was burning up all over
from anger and excitement; she felt as if she were spinning like a top.
She tried to encompass the enormity of what had just happened, but
her turbulent, seething emotions were just too powerful to grapple
with and all her usual poise had flown clean out of the window so
long ago that it couldn't be recalled in a hurry.
That—that man. There wasn't anything awful enough, wide enough,
deep enough to describe how confounding, fluctuating, provoking,
exasperating he was. He left her floundering and stole away all her
sense of proportion. Once she had considered herself experienced,
but Matt was a mushroom cloud surpassing anything she could ever
have imagined.
Of just one thing she was certain. He had an innate talent for making
her angrier than she'd ever been before! Sian picked her bag up from
the floor and surrendered to the same insane impulse that had made
her chuck it to begin with. It smashed into the wall above the bed
where he had slept, then slid into a satisfyingly humble heap on to the
floor.
Well. That felt good. But it wasn't good enough.
Twenty minutes later, Sian came out of her bedroom with the canvas
bag in which she had packed her sun lotion, dark glasses, a clean
towel, comb and a small plastic pack filled with cleansing tissues.
Steven and Jane rode in Matt's Mercedes sports coupe while Sian
rode with Joshua, glad for the opportunity to have a long overdue talk
with him.
The sky was cloudless and it was steaming hot. Sian put on her
sunglasses and climbed into Joshua's car, and was quiet and
thoughtful during the first part of the forty-five-minute drive up to
Lake Michigan, very conscious of the sleek, purring red sports car
that shadowed Joshua's sedan.
Finally Joshua said, with a sideways glance and a tentative smile,
'Mad at me?'
'At you!' she exclaimed with a little laugh as she turned to him. 'Why
should I be mad at you?'
His expression eased somewhat, but he still looked anxious and
uncertain. 'For not having the courage to just come right out and ask
you to marry me. For going to my brother instead. Sian, you have to
understand. Matt's always been there for me. He's more like an uncle
than an older brother—so capable and assured and interested in what
I'm doing. I honestly didn't expect him to react the way he did.'
His eyes pleaded with her, and she stifled an impatient urge to grab
him by the shoulders and shake him. He looked so earnest and
handsome, tall and clean-limbed and graceful, but she just couldn't
see him in quite the same way as she had before the party, or that talk
with Matt in her bedroom.
Joshua was a beautiful golden boy. He admired the superficial
aspects of her life and had made her into some kind of plastic idol.
How dashing and exciting she must seem to him, with her exotic
experiences and cosmopolitan outlook on life! No wonder he was
infatuated, but where was the depth of perception and width of
understanding in that? Where was the meeting of equals, the consent
of kindred minds that saw and desired mutual goals in life?
She realised, then, that the kind of lasting relationship she wanted
was one that had to be built on maturity and steadfastness that would
produce the kind of stable, nurturing environment in which children
could be raised. Joshua couldn't provide that for her, and it would be
unfair to both of them to ever try to pretend otherwise. If she married
him, she would be a mother but never a wife.
'I do love you,' he said softly, and she sighed. There was that four-
letter word again, complicating things, scrambling the brains of
otherwise intelligent people and turning life into a comedy of
manners. Why couldn't everyone see what a mess it made of things,
and that everything was so much more simple if one stuck to the
gentle emotions like affection and respect?
'I love you too, darling,' she told him and gently touched his arm. 'But
I don't think it means the same thing to me as it does to you.'
His face fell. Oh, dear, he looked as if he'd just been denied a
particularly succulent ice-cream cone. She really must find some way
to stop comparing him to a child! He muttered, 'Does that mean that
there isn't any hope?'
'I think probably yes, it does,' she said quietly. 'I don't know how
things will work out in the future, but right now it doesn't look very
realistic. We've gone out together and had a good time, and we enjoy
each other's company, but that isn't enough to support the kind of
lifelong relationship you're proposing, is it?'
He looked out of his open window, brooding and unhappy but not,
she noticed wryly, heartbroken. She just sat back and waited, and,
after a few minutes, he stirred himself to say grimly, 'So Matt was
right after all.'
Her sharp indrawn breath whistled in her throat. Underneath all the
personality conflicts was an essential core of truth, and she replied
with stiff honesty, 'Much as it pains me to say so, yes. But, Joshua—
that doesn't mean he has to know it, does it?'
His head snapped around and he stared at her, before jerking his
attention back to the road, and a slow smile of pure enjoyment broke
the unhappiness that had darkened his youthful face. 'You really have
it in for him, don't you?'
'I'm no peacemaker,' she admitted, green eyes snapping. 'And he did
start it.'
'Talk about the warring Irish!' he chortled with joyous
mischievousness. 'Matt does tend to have a rather provoking
smugness whenever he's in the right. I'd say he deserves to be
knocked down a peg or two, just once in his life, So what do you
say—let's get engaged for a while to rub his nose in it.'
Sian brooded out of her window, black brows slanted.
He'd be absolutely livid when he found out. What perfect, sublime
revenge for the way he'd treated her! 'All right,' she grinned back
recklessly. 'You're on. But let me be the one to tell him. I want to
wait for just the right moment to drop the bombshell.'
Joshua frowned. 'Are you sure you know what you're doing? Matt
can be very forceful when he's roused.'
'Don't worry about that. I can handle him.'
Why, Sian Riley, said her father's lyrical voice at the back of her
head, 'tis a bigger liar you are than even I am. But she squelched the
ghost firmly, because whether she could handle Matt or not, she was
bound and determined to get him, just once and good. Regardless of
the consequences. Like Joshua said, he certainly deserved it and
she—she had a whole lot of bent pride that demanded payment.
Joshua pulled on to a side street and they cut through a quiet
neighbourhood until they reached the house of a friend of his where
they could leave the cars. The beach was about half a mile's walk
along a forest path that followed a stream through several wide picnic
clearings. As they climbed out and retrieved their bags from the car,
the red Mercedes slid up behind them.
Jane and Steven had glowing eyes and high colouring and looked as
though they had enjoyed themselves immensely. Matt wore an
indulgent smile, layered tawny hair whipped off his forehead. He
hadn't troubled to put on a shirt and the longest bottom strands lay
along the golden tanned skin at the base of his neck. Sian's eyes
moved all over him, from the amusement in his face to the expanse of
his broad muscled chest. She couldn't help herself.
He glanced at her, caught her looking at him and his lazy grin
widened. She stiffened before she could control it, then a deliberate
reminder of the mischief she had in store for him brought a
remarkably sweet smile to her lips. That took him aback, she saw
with deep satisfaction, and a wary look crept into those clever hazel
eyes. Her mood turned sunny.
The men carried the heavy coolers of food and drink while Jane and
Sian carried the bags, and after walking through the forest for several
minutes they came upon the dunes. The heat rising off the sand
brought a light sheen of sweat to Sian's face, and she mopped her
brow as she trudged behind Matt and Joshua. The closer they came to
the blue sparkling lake that seemed as immense to the eye as any
ocean, the more people they found.
'Whew!' said Jane, coming up beside her. The men had stopped and
were discussing the best place to settle. 'Everybody and their uncle
must be here.'
'And their brother,' added Sian in a dry undertone, at which the other
girl giggled.
Joshua was asking, of nobody in particular, 'Should we try to get
closer to the water?'
Matt said, one long, elegant hand shading his eyes, 'Why don't we try
for slightly higher ground? The sun's quite strong and we ought to try
to spread the blankets close to some shade if we can.'
He had sent a quick glance down Sian's body as he spoke, and,
though he hadn't specifically said so, she knew that he had made the
suggestion in deference to her pale creamy skin. The thoughtfulness
surprised her.
At last they chose a site on a rise about thirty feet up from the beach
by the water, the blankets spread half in the sunlight, half in the
shade of a nearby copse that also worked as an effective windscreen.
Then everybody settled into the business of some serious relaxation.
Jane rummaged in her large tote bag until she produced a black and
white soccer ball, which she bounced off Steven's head when his
back was turned. With a startled roar he leapt to his feet and she ran
off laughing.
Sian smiled as she watched their carefree antics. There were no