A Case For Trust (7 page)

‘Having trouble?'

Oh dear god, why wouldn't he simply leave her alone? It seemed the universe was conspiring against her and this wedding, and while Pippa was determined to keep her cool in front of the head of the Mason family, she could feel control of herself and her situation slipping from her trembling fingers. She dialled the taxi company one more time—still engaged—and choked back a sob before she fumbled through the contact list for the roadside assistance number.

With relief she heard her call answered, and conscious of Matt behind her, still loitering, listening in, tried with minimum words to convey maximum urgency. The radio operator was sympathetic, but couldn't work miracles: the earliest available mechanic was an hour away. With a deep breath and a murmured prayer, Pippa tried the taxi number again then flung her phone to the ground, covering her telltale face with her hand as the irrepressible beep-beep-beep of the busy signal echoed mournfully from the gutter where the phone had landed.

A tanned, long-fingered hand retrieved it and pressed the end button, stopping the torment, then tossed the phone casually to and from the other hand as those indigo eyes regarded Pippa's disconsolate figure.

‘Why don't you tell me what the problem is.'

Pippa shook her head stubbornly. ‘You're not going to help, and I don't have time to argue with you. I need to think.'

‘Try me.'

‘
Fine
. My car won't start, I can't get a mechanic, the taxi company's not answering, and if I don't get to Cleveland within the hour, two beautiful people are not going to get the wedding they've waited sixty years for.
Now
will you leave me alone?'

At last, at last, he was leaving. He'd turned back to the car and Pippa let go the breath she'd been holding with a sigh, picked up the briefcase she'd leaned by the fence and straightened to see him, his hand holding the Audi's passenger door open, looking expectantly at her. She felt very stupid, but the panic of the past few minutes had not yet cleared. What did he want? Had he said? The confusion must have been plastered all over her face, because he used a slow, even voice, like he was addressing a young child.

‘You said you were late. I'll take you to Cleveland. Get in the car.'

Oh no. No. She was not getting in that car with him again. True, as yet he was her only certain option for getting to the wedding, but after an hour in the car with him interrogating and berating her, she'd be in no fit state to conduct the ceremony anyway. He was drumming his fingers impatiently on the rim of the door, his dark eyes daring her to take up any more of his precious time. Their silent optical duel lasted an eternity—at least ten seconds—before with a slight shrug he slammed the passenger door closed and rounded the car to the driver's door. The finality of the slam woke Pippa from her frozen stillness; that was her last chance, about to drive off, and a berated interrogated celebrant was surely better than no celebrant at all.

‘Wait!' She hurried to the car, its low-throated hum sounding assuringly reliable, and Matt leaned across to open the passenger door for her. ‘Thank you,' she muttered, ‘I appreciate this.'

‘Address?'

She told him, and watched those long, capable fingers enter the details into the Audi's sat nav system before they gripped the gearstick and negotiated the car out of the driveway. The robotic, British tones that started up their clinical directions covered the early awkward silence, and Pippa began to relax into her seat and scan the Audi's luxurious surrounds.

The cockpit felt like she imagined a racing car felt; not cramped, exactly, but nevertheless very … cosy. She became aware of Matt's hands, moving competently between the leather-hugged steering wheel and the gearstick, occasionally brushing dangerously close to her knee, and had to remind herself to stop staring at the softly curling hairs that caught the light as his wrist flexed and straightened on the gearstick. Instead she turned her attention to the gadgetry on the dashboard, which was suitably intimidating in its complexity. If they hadn't been moving, she might have wondered if the engine was even running, so quiet and insulated was the interior. The soothing, mellow sax music from the sound system was crystal clear. Funny; she wouldn't have picked him for a jazz connoisseur. She'd have thought he'd be more a contemporary classical type. Arvo Pärt, perhaps, with all those screeching, sophisticated, relentless violins.

She felt disconcertingly close to the ground, and as they came to a stop at some traffic lights, looked up into the admiring eyes of the driver of the towering four-wheel drive beside them. He winked at her and she blushed, turned her head away, found another set of eyes regarding her from the opposite direction and was suddenly carefully examining her fingernails below Matt's impervious gaze.

‘Tell me about this wedding you're doing,' Matt ventured. ‘Or is that breaking your client confidentiality?'

Pippa inhaled deeply. It sounded like a neutral question; was he calling a truce?

‘The soon-to-be Mr and Mrs Jackson were childhood sweethearts,' she began. ‘They wanted to marry, but they were from different religions, and Lily's parents wouldn't hear of her marrying outside her own church. They planned to elope but were discovered, so her parents shipped her off to Perth to separate them. They each ended up marrying someone else, but they never forgot each other. She returned to Brisbane only a few months ago, after her husband died, and in one of those wonderful coincidences that never seem like coincidences at all, she ran into Patrick at the library. He was also widowed, and he carried her books for her and bought her a cup of tea, which turned into lunch, and they picked up as if they'd never been apart. They're the most delightful couple, both nearly eighty, and when you see them together you can't help but believe they're soulmates, that they were put on this earth to complete one another …'

Pippa stopped mid-thought; she'd suddenly remembered where she was, who she was talking to. She chanced a glance at Matt's face; caught the remains of a frown smoothing forcibly into his customary severe blankness. He said nothing, and the silence following the cessation of Pippa's voice seemed to her to bounce around the leather confines of the car.

‘Anyway,' she started again breathily, ‘they've waited a long time to be married, which was why I was so upset that I might not get there on time. I mean, of course, I'm always worried about being punctual, but it's extra important today …'

She trailed off again. She was gabbling. He'd think her even more of an idiot, if that were possible. Heavens, his stony silence was as uncomfortable as his impertinent questions. She deliberately focused on her breathing, on calming her agitated nerves, on the wedding ceremony ahead, and was startled when he finally spoke.

‘Why did they choose you?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘The old couple. How did they come to choose you? I'd have thought they might have wanted a more … mature … celebrant, somebody closer to their own age, their own experiences.'

Pippa shrugged. ‘Word of mouth. Patrick's granddaughter attended a wedding I did a couple of months ago. That's how I get most of my wedding business: word of mouth. My style isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I do get quite a few recommendations.'

‘You're good at what you do.' It wasn't a compliment, or not the way Matt said it. He made it sound like a simple statement of fact, but still, Pippa felt her cheeks flush with pleasure.

‘Thank you.'

‘It doesn't seem much like a career. Is it very lucrative?'

The pleasure faded as quickly as it had emerged; she bristled at his dismissive tone. ‘I don't do it as a career. I don't do it for money. I do it for pleasure, for the pleasure of helping people make their special day, their wedding day, beautiful and memorable, of making it the happiest day of their lives.'

‘Are you that hard-up for friends? That you have to muscle in on other people's weddings?'

‘I have friends! I have
a lot
of friends—'

Pippa bit back the retort, aware even before she saw his amused eyebrow just how like a petulant six-year-old she'd sounded. But it was an old and tender point. At school, and then at uni, she'd had no time for friends, no money for friendship outings, no happy home to bring them back to. Mostly, after class, she'd cut and run. And now her life was about building her business. She had no energy for Friday night drinks or Sunday barbecues, even if she'd still been receiving invitations.

‘And all these friends you have—none of them live close enough for you to call them when you couldn't get a taxi this morning?'

‘It didn't occur to me to ask them. Anyway, you offered.'

‘So I did. I may have been mistaken but it looked to me like you were all out of options.'

‘You
were
mistaken.' The twist of his mouth irked her. ‘Impossible though that might seem.'

‘Not impossible. Just unlikely. So if I hadn't offered you a lift, you'd have called a friend? My brother, perhaps?'

Here we go.
Pippa took a deep breath and let half of it out again before answering.

‘Look. I appreciate you driving me to this wedding, but I'm not,
not
going to engage with you in some pointless review of my career choices
or
my friends. And before you ask—' she'd seen his sharply indrawn breath and decided to cut him off at the pass—‘I'm
not
going to discuss Justin with you. Pick another topic to beat me up with.'

His acutely raised eyebrow made his face at once saturnine and ironic.

‘Fine. Tell me about your family.'

‘I don't have a family.'

That rated another speculative glance before he returned his eyes to the road.

‘No parents?'

‘Dead.'

‘What, both of them?'

‘My father was a drunk and my mother killed herself to escape him. He wasn't far behind her.'

‘No siblings?

‘Nope.'

‘I see.' And the self-satisfaction in his voice had Pippa spinning in her seat to confront him.

‘
What
do you see? Enlighten me. What does my lack of family add up to in your narrow, legalistic little mind?'

He shrugged carelessly, a long finger flicking the indicator switch equally carelessly before he changed lanes and finally answered. ‘You tell me. You're the psychologist.'

‘I'm not a psychologist. I told you. I studied psychology. I've never worked as a psychologist, nor claimed to be one.'

‘Another career going begging?'

She gave an impatient snort and turned her head to face out the window again.

‘It's a reasonable question, Philippa. Psychologist, marriage celebrant, landscape gardener slash business owner. You have to agree, it somewhat gives the impression of a person who can't settle to anything, who doesn't know what she wants.'

‘I know what I want.'

‘And what's that?'

‘I want you to stop the car.'

‘There's no need to get tetchy, I said I'd take you to the wedding and I'll take you.'

‘Then stop the car. We're here.'

Pippa's knees shook as she swung them out of the low-slung bucket seat after Matt had pulled up alongside the quiet little bayside chapel. Hunger, she told herself, realising she'd not eaten since Justin's scrambled eggs the night before. Hunger, plus anxiety about being late. Her tremors had nothing to do with the fact she'd just survived what felt like three long bouts in a verbal boxing ring with a master pugilist.

Her opponent had pulled her briefcase from the back seat and was heading with long muscular strides towards the church entrance. Pippa hurried after him, and nearly fell over him when he stopped abruptly in the doorway to the packed church.

Aware of the curious eyes of onlooking wedding guests, and the relief so clearly stamped across the face of the bridegroom as he shuffled down the aisle towards her, Pippa snatched the briefcase from Matt's hands and met his inscrutable gaze.

‘Thank you. I'm very grateful for the lift. Please don't wait; I'll get a taxi back. I don't want to interrupt your Saturday any more than I already have.'

He inclined his head, eyelids hooding his expression but then he pierced her with that severe laser gaze. ‘Very well. I'll see you later.'

Not if I see you first.

Chapter 5

Matt couldn't work her out. From the back corner of the chapel where he watched her produce another flawless wedding ceremony, he rocked on his heels and chafed at the inexplicable, irresistible pull that saw him hanging around to take her home, when by rights he should have been catching up on the backlog in his office, or tracking down Justin, or visiting his mother, or any of a dozen other things he had to do. Instead, here he was, following Pippa Lloyd's every move with eyes that lingered on her gently glowing face and hands that longed to tuck back one errant tendril that always seemed to escape her fiercely smooth hairstyle. He pushed the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth; felt again the raw sting where she'd bitten him; remembered what those soft, luscious lips had felt like for the brief time she'd kissed him back. Hard to reconcile that firebrand, the passionate hellcat he'd glimpsed for just a moment that morning, with the demure, calm and oh-so-professional Philippa who was now presenting Mr and Mrs Whoever-They-Were to their cheering families.

He could understand why Justin coveted her. She was gorgeous, in an effervescent if slightly flaky way. When he wasn't furious at her obstinacy, he liked how she wasn't intimidated by the Mason name or his threats. She had guts, he'd give her that much. And independence. Persistence. Look where she'd come from, and what she'd done with her life in spite of it. She'd obviously worked hard to get where she was. He couldn't really blame her for doing whatever she could to preserve and enhance that advantage. In her shoes, he'd probably do the same.