The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill (17 page)

Savannah nodded, tugging herself free from Margot’s gentle grip.

Today was fountain day. Tomorrow Matt would do the last of the flower planting and sometime tomorrow afternoon their new courtyard would be revealed.

And on Sunday, Matt would leave. Get in his car and drive away.

Monday was a mystery, a great gaping hole that was tearing her into pieces.

“I’m going to help Matt in the backyard.” She practically threw her mug into the sink, her untouched coffee sloshing over the cream ceramic.

Avoiding her grandmother’s eyes, she wished with her whole body and everything in her heart that she was back in bed with Matt, his arm a solid weight around her waist making everything as it was supposed to be.

K
ATIE AND
S
AVANNAH STOOD BACK
, shovels in hand, and considered fountain positioning while Matt struggled under the weight of the enormous, burlap-covered object.

“It would help if we knew what the fountain was,” Katie said. “If it’s a butterfly…”

Matt, arms straining, muscles burning, tried very hard not to snap at them to make up their damn minds. “It’s not a butterfly,” he grunted. “A unicorn?”

“Sorry.”

“Whatever it is,” Savannah said, “I think the center of the maze is perfect.”

Thank you,
he thought, letting the fountain rest on the earth.

“You like it there?” Katie asked. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Savannah tilted her head to the side. “I do.”

“You’ve got two choices, ladies,” Matt said. “The plumbing only works here or next to the house. Take your pick.”

Savannah and Katie shared a cryptic look, and now that his muscles weren’t about to snap he could appreciate what a remarkable moment this was.

This—not that he had any way to gauge it or prove it—seemed to be one of those moments families have. A mundane moment. An everyday kind of moment.

It made him want to go to a video place and argue about
movie rentals. Or what to have for dinner. Or where to go on vacation.

It felt so damn good he wanted to laugh. He wanted to haul these two girls into his arms and never let them go.

“Here,” Savannah said. “Absolutely.”

“Good?” Matt asked, arching his eyebrows at Katie.

“Yeah!” she said and Matt lifted the fountain out of the way so they could start digging the hole. He found the pipe extensions he needed and within a few hours they had a working fountain.

“Come on,” Katie whined, “show it to us.”

“Nope.” Matt patted the damp burlap. “I want it to be a surprise.”

Katie looked mulish and Savannah bumped her with her hip. “Won’t it be cool when he shows us everything tomorrow?” she asked. “When all the flowers are planted and the fountain is going, won’t that be the best?”

Katie shrugged.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked, thinking maybe he should relent on the whole unveiling thing. The kid had had a pretty rough couple of days. Maybe she could help plant or something.

“The best would be if you didn’t leave,” Katie said, blowing a hole right through his chest. He put his hand against the fountain as the earth wobbled slightly.

“Katie,” Savannah breathed. “Don’t—”

“Why do you have to go?” Katie asked, talking over her mother. “Why can’t you just stay?”

“He lives in St. Louis, honey,” Savannah said, looking tight and drawn. Paper-thin.

There was something in the air, something hot and worried. She was running blind, he could see it. And he wondered whether she was doing it so she wouldn’t get hurt, or to stop him from thinking he should stay.

He’d never know unless he acted.

This was his moment. Right here. Now.

“Savannah?” he said, reaching for her hand but she twisted away.

“What?” She turned to him, her eyes wild. He realized how scared she was, but he wasn’t sure what she was so scared of. “You can’t stay, can you?”

It was more of an accusation than a question.

“No,” he said and Savannah’s lips went white, her shoulders going rigid and tight as if taking a punch.

“See?” Her voice broke slightly as she turned to Katie. “He—”

“But I can come back,” he said, gripping her hand, turning her to face him, forcing her to look into his eyes. She was blank, carefully blank, as if showing some kind of emotion, some kind of fear or hope, would bring her to her knees. Suddenly, he was desperate to convince her, to shake off that terrible stillness so he could see something true. So he could see the real Savannah.

“I have a couple months’ work to finish up in St. Louis,” he continued. “But then, I can come back. I…” He glanced at Katie, who was staring at them slack-jawed. “I want to come back.”

Savannah’s face was still unreadable, but he felt her hands shake as she pulled them out of his, small tremors, cracks throughout her foundation. “We don’t have to talk about this right now.”

“Why not?”

Finally, something in her flashed, her eyes got hot. “Because we’ve known each other three weeks, Matt, and half that time you were lying to me. The other half you were killing yourself in my courtyard with guilt over the Elements accident and now, suddenly, you’re over it and ready to move here?”

That pissed him off, summing up the relationship that way so she could dismiss it.

“I’m not a child, Savannah. I know how I feel.”

“Really?” she asked, laughing slightly and her scorn stung, like nails across his skin. “I find that hard to believe.”

He stepped close. Her heat had lit his own fuse and he was suddenly pissed off that she doubted him.

“Are you so ready to throw away what we’ve got?” he asked.

“And what exactly do we have?”

His eyes narrowed, his muscles tightened. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t feel something, Savannah. You don’t let people close to you, I know that. And yet—” he spread his arms, painfully aware of his eight-year-old audience “—here I am.”

Her eyelids flinched. “I don’t understand why you’re so ready to throw away your life for a woman you’ve known less than a month.”

“I don’t think of it as throwing away my life. I can be an architect anywhere,” he said, “and St. Louis is no longer my home.”

“And the Manor is?” she asked, her eyes wide. “It’s that easy for you?”

“I’m not saying this is my home,” he snapped. “And I’m not saying that we should get married tomorrow. But I feel something here. Something real and—”

Savannah stepped away as if from a fire that was flaring out of control. “This isn’t the time or place,” she said, every wall, every defense and barrier in place. She was impenetrable. Unknowable.

Katie stood behind her, owl-eyed and Matt realized Savannah was right. They could talk later.

But, come hell or high water, they would talk.

S
AVANNAH, THE COWARD
didn’t come down for dinner. She didn’t come to play cards. Matt played Rachmaninoff again, pounding out the chords, throwing all of his anger into the stormy movements, trying to call her downstairs. Trying desperately to compel her to him.

She didn’t show.

But he could feel her upstairs in her room. A room, in all his sneaking around, he’d never gotten into and now, suddenly, it felt like a mystery. As if there were things hidden there that were far more important than jewels.

He imagined her bedroom, clean and uncluttered. Polished and lovely. Understated, like her.

And he wanted so badly to be in both of them.

“Matt,” Margot said, standing in the doorway. “Not that the music isn’t beautiful, but it’s a little…stirring for the middle of the night.”

He jerked his hands off the keys feeling wasted. Tomorrow could very well be his last day here and he couldn’t believe Savannah wasn’t going to talk to him.

“Go upstairs and get her,” Margot said.

“That easy, huh?” he asked, not believing it for a second.

“No.” Margot laughed. “Not that easy at all. Nothing about Savannah is, but it’s what makes her love all the better.”

“I know that,” he said. “I just don’t know how to convince her.”

Margot stepped into the room and sat in the wing chair, the moonlight pooling in her lap. “When she first came here, after her mother dropped her off,” Margot said, “she was like one of those cats you bring home from the humane society. She hid for about two weeks. For a few days I left out food. Then, once I discovered where she was hiding—in the closet behind all the coats—I opened
the door and sat outside in the hall. I didn’t say anything, I just sat there and read. Day after day, trying to let her know that I was here. That I was always going to be here.”

“What happened?” Matt whispered, feeling his heart break for that girl.

“One night, I felt a cold little body curled up next to mine in my bed.”

Matt took a deep ragged breath.

“She’s been left a lot,” Margot said. “Her mother, her brothers, Katie’s father.”

“I want to come back,” he said, defensively. “I want to be with her, but there are—”

Margot held up her hand. “I understand that,” she said. “You need to make
her
understand that.”

Matt stood. “I love her,” he said.

“That’s a start,” Margot answered and Matt took off for the stairs and Savannah’s room.

S
AVANNAH WAS STARING
at the ceiling.

She was one of those stupid women in movies after all, wasting so much time ceiling gazing. Ridiculous.

The only problem was she couldn’t seem to stop. Her body was so heavy, her head so full of Matt, there wasn’t room for anything else. All of her energy was concentrated on keeping a grip on her heart.

Suddenly, the door to her room pushed open and she sat up to find Matt, stormy and dark, in her doorway. His green eyes widened as he took in the room, the pillows and lace, the giant four-poster bed and the canopy.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped, pitching herself off the bed.

“I’m here for that talk,” he said, stepping inside, all long-legged grace and masculine energy. God, he was so attractive her body hurt with wanting him. “You know—”
he touched the edge of the canopy “—when I first got here I made a map of the house and I inspected every room looking for any clue of the gems.”

“And?”

“I never got in here.” His gaze leveled her. “You keep it locked.”

“That’s not a crime.”

“I thought you were hiding the gems.”

She laughed, on edge and nervous simply from his being here.

“But you’re hiding yourself, aren’t you? All this lace, these silly little details. It’s all you.”

“Architect, gardener and now psychologist?”

“Every night for the past four nights we’ve slept in the sleeping porch and you were going to let me leave tomorrow without ever showing me this.”

“My bed?” she asked, laughing because he was so right. He saw right through her and that grip she had on her heart was slipping. “Here it is.” She shifted sideways and flung out her arms. “I asked for a princess bed on the first Christmas I spent with Margot and she got me this monster, the most elaborate princess bed known to man.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Satisfied?”

His eyes flared and her body got hot. Damp.

“You should go,” she said, wishing her voice was stronger. “You’re leaving tomorrow—I really don’t understand why you want to draw this out.”

His body crowded hers, his chest touched her crossed arms and she had to turn her head or drown in his scent. God, she wished he’d just go. Just leave so she could—

“I love you,” he said.

And her heart slipped right out of her hands, shattering into a million little pieces.

“Savannah?” he said, tilting her face up, forcing her
to look at him. She couldn’t bear it—he was the brightest thing she’d ever seen and looking at him blinded her. Ruined her.

“I have to go,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck. “I have to fix some things I’ve let fall apart in the last six months. I’ve made promises—”

“I know.” She gasped, his breath making all the hair on her body stand up.

“But I will be back,” he said.

“Don’t.” She put her hand over his lips, so close to totally falling apart she couldn’t stand it. “Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep.”

He shook his head, his eyes hot. “I am not your mother,” he said, his voice shot with fire. “And I am neither of your brothers and I am sure as hell not Eric.” His hands gripped her arms. “Did you hear me? I love you.
You.
” He flung out his hand, indicating the lace and the bed. “I love this ridiculous room. I love you as the prison warden and the ice princess and the sexy librarian. I love you as a mother and a granddaughter. I love you for your perfect skin and beautiful face and your body that makes me crazy.” His hands cupped her head, his fingers pulling the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, the pain so sweet. “I love you for your giant brain.”

God, hope was so painful. It was as though her flesh was ice and it was breaking, cold and sharp.

“I love you for your daughter and all your contradictions and complications. But, most of all I love you for your fierce heart.”

She closed her eyes, overcome. Every gate had been stormed, every defense in ruins.

He started to pull at her clothes, unzipping zippers, undoing buttons and she let him. She would take his body, his sex and his love, she’d take it all because she really
didn’t believe that once he left he’d ever cross her threshold again. She would hoard those memories for all the lonely days ahead. “I want that fierce heart to love me back,” he said.

It does,
she thought but wasn’t foolish enough to say it.

“And I know,” he continued, kissing her collarbone as he undid her bra, her breasts spilling into his hands. “I know that you love me and I’ll be back so you can say it to me.”

She pressed her lips to his, sealing her mouth, preventing herself from saying all the things she shouldn’t.

H
OURS LATER
, the kitchen was dark and hushed as they sat side by side on the counter, sweat cooling on their bruised and sated bodies.

Matt had no clue what she was thinking. What was happening behind that still and lovely face.

He took another bite of his ham sandwich and wondered why love had to be so hard, why he felt the pull of her body and the push of her heart and why it all had to hurt so much.

His soul lay between them, a naked offering cold and shivering in all this silence.

“Okay,” she said, holding her uneaten sandwich in her lap. She picked at the crust.

“Okay, what?”

Her eyes were damp, tears and moonlight pooling in the corners. Her smile was shaky and nervous, but still the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. “Come back to me.”

It wasn’t love, but it was trust, and maybe that was better. From a woman like Savannah, maybe that was the key to her kingdom.