A Solitary Heart (5 page)

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