“Consider me uninterested and unimpressed. And stop manhandling me!”
She couldn’t have hurled a more effective charge to get her way. He already felt like a brute and a cad. Matthew dropped her arm at once.
Hannah started walking briskly along the pavement, not looking at him, not speaking, either. Matthew walked at her side, easily keeping pace with her.
“Go away,” she ordered at last. “Leave me alone.”
“Not until I see you safely to your car.”
“The streets of Clover are safe enough for me to walk alone. I don’t need your protection.”
Matthew drew a sharp breath. “Hannah, I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I took advantage of your—” he paused and swallowed painfully “—your innocence, and then I hurt you and didn’t—”
“You’ve booked yourself on quite a guilt trip, haven’t you?” Hannah cut in hotly. “Well, you can reroute yourself, Matthew. You didn’t do any of the things you’re so arrogantly claiming credit for. I went to bed with you because I wanted to. I’ll take full responsibility for my own actions, thank you. I’m not some simple airhead who can be lured into doing something that I don’t want to do.”
“Of course you’re not, but I—”
“Oh, shut up and get over yourself!”
Within him, fury and frustration soared to flash point. “You are the most hardheaded, maddening, impossible brat I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet! And if you think that I will continue to make allowances for your bad temper and continue to apologize for what happened tonight, lady, you are—”
“Apologize?” Hannah was stung. He was sorry he’d made love to her? She felt as if he’d stabbed her in the heart. For a moment, she feared she would burst into tears—a most horrifying prospect. She decided then and there that she would rather be caned than let Matthew Granger see her crying over him!
At that crucial moment, a couple turned the corner on the opposite side of the street. Hannah recognized them at once. It was Emma Wynn, who managed the bookstore on Clover Street, and the man Emma was currently dating, Kenneth Drake, the handsome golf pro at the country club.
Hannah rushed across the street to see them, grateful for their fortuitous appearance. They were a welcome refuge from Matthew Granger. The last thing she expected was for him to join them. But he did.
“Hello there.” Matthew’s voice sounded behind them.
Hannah whirled around to glare at him. “Stop following me!”
“I came over to say hello to my new friends,” Matthew countered. He recognized them from last night. If only he could remember their names.
Emma and Kenneth greeted Matthew warmly, much to Hannah’s annoyance. She was further aghast when Kenneth suggested that the four of them go somewhere for a drink.
And then an idea occurred to her. A very wicked idea, but she decided she was entirely justified. “Emma, have you ever heard of the author, Galen Eden?”
“Why, yes.” Emma smiled and nodded her head. “His books sell very well, both in hardcover and paperback. We have all his books at the shop. They make good vacation reading, I’m told.”
Matthew guessed where this was heading. “Hannah!” he growled in warning.
Hannah ignored him. “Well, I have a big surprise for you, Emma. Galen Eden is standing right here. You know him as Matthew Granger.”
Emma’s green eyes widened as she gaped at Matthew. “You’re Galen Eden?”
“He most certainly is Galen Eden, up close and in person,” Hannah answered for him. “Emma, wouldn’t it be cool if you could set up some kind of autographing session at the bookshop, featuring the acclaimed Galen Eden himself? I bet it would draw both locals and tourists.”
“God save us all from your salesmanship,” muttered Matthew.
Emma smiled uncertainly. “I certainly wouldn’t want to impose on Mr. Eden, uh, Mr. Granger.”
But Kenneth Drake didn’t seem to mind. “So you’re a writer, Hmm?” His voice was eager. “I have so many golf stories that people are always telling me I should write a book.”
Matthew stifled a sigh of resignation as Drake fired questions about the publishing business at him. There was black fire in his eyes when Hannah started purposely down the street.
“I have to run!” she called over her shoulder, leaving Matthew with a bemused Emma and an effusive Drake. “See y’all later.”
In the case of Matthew Granger much later, she promised herself as she fairly flew to her car, which was parked behind her shop. Preferably never!
* * *
“I never want to see that man again, Grandmother,” she told her grandmother when she arrived home. Her parents and Bay were out, and her grandmother was watching a futuristic action-adventure movie on the VCR. “Matthew Granger is a smooth operator who is—who isn’t—” She was horrified to hear her voice catch on a sob.
“My dear, what has happened?” Lydia Farley pushed the pause button on the remote control and the action on the screen froze. “This afternoon you were eager to assist him in his research, I’ve already set up a meeting with Alexandra Wyndham for tomorrow. She’s expecting the three of us for tea.”
“The three of us? You, me and Matthew?” Hannah sank down onto the sofa. “Oh, no!”
“Yes. She was most accommodating, rearranging her schedule to oblige us. This is one of those rare times that our relationship with Bay is actually useful to us. Since Alex hopes to foist her daughter onto him, she is quite eager to please the Farleys. If she only knew...” Lydia shrugged, her expression amused.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, Matthew Granger can make the visit alone, Grandmother! I refuse to speak to him again.”
“Oh dear, I sense a lover’s quarrel has occurred.”
Hannah flinched at the word ‘lover.’ What a fool she’d made of herself with her very first one! She’d spent her entire adult life waiting for Mr. Right; she’d suffered the slings and arrows of would-be lovers who had accused her of being finicky or frigid or pathologically vain because she’d turned down their advances. And to what avail?
Only to bamboozle herself into thinking she was in love with that coldhearted snake, Matthew Granger, who’d merely been looking for one wild night in the sack. Who’d felt so burdened by her virginity that he couldn’t even fake a kinder, gentler reaction to her inexperience. He couldn’t have made his displeasure with her any more obvious if he’d taken out an ad in the daily newspaper.
“Hannah Kaye, are you crying?”
“No!” Hannah used the back of her hand to roughly wipe away the few renegade tears that had escaped from her eyes. “As if I’d ever cry over any man, especially not an odious cheesehead like Matthew Granger!”
“An odious cheesehead?” her grandmother repeated. “He must have behaved dreadfully since our conversation this afternoon to have earned such an...unflattering epithet.” The action on the screen began again, and Lydia hit the pause button, once more freezing the frame. “Would you like to join me, dear? There is nothing like watching a handsome, bare-chested hero fell his enemies by the score to take one’s mind off one’s troubles.”
Hannah glanced at Lydia’s bare-chested hero on the screen and decided that Matthew was superior in every way. Women had undoubtedly been throwing themselves at him for years, and now she’d joined that hapless legion! She had gone to bed with him on their first date—if tonight could even be classified as a date. The reason he’d taken her to dinner was because he’d lost their bet! And then... Hannah cringed with shame. “Grandmother, please, I can’t go with you tomorrow.”
Her grandmother arched her brows, once the same dark color and shape as Hannah’s. “My dear, you must. It would be terribly rude to cancel on Alexandra after I practically demanded that she see us.” She wheeled herself over to the sofa where Hannah was curled up against the cushions. “Do you want to tell me what happened between you and this Matthew Granger?”
Hannah covered her hot cheeks with her hands. “I ma
de such a fool of myself tonight, Grandmother,” she whispered miserably.
“My dear child, this certainly isn’t the first time you’ve made a fool of yourself,” her grandmother said sympathetically, patting her arm. “Your brother is forever accusing you of making fools of the entire family. You’ve always laughed it off before. Why not this time?”
“Because this time it’s serious, Grandmother. This time it matters.”
“Because you’re in love with the man.” Her grandmother nodded her understanding. “I always knew that when you finally fell in love, it would be very fast and intense, as it was for your grandfather and me. That makes for some rough patches in the beginning because you don’t know each other well enough to avoid the inevitable misunderstandings that—”
“I am not in love with Matthew Granger, Grandmother!” Hannah interrupted, her face flaming with color.
“You are certainly not about to admit it, and why should you? You’re infuriated with the odious cheesehead.”
“Oh, Grandmother.” Hannah laughed a little, in spite of herself.
“Go to bed, dear. You need a good night’s sleep. You want to be in top form when you face Mr. Granger tomorrow.” Her grandmother smiled slyly. “If it’s any consolation to you, I’m certain that he’s spending a perfectly miserable night, recounting your quarrel and wondering how to proceed with you tomorrow.”
“I’m certain that he’s not.” Hannah stood and tossed back her long dark hair. “But frankly, Grandmother, I don’t care what kind of a night Matthew Granger has. As for tomorrow, I have no intention of saying a word to him. Since you insist that we go to the Wyndhams with him, you can consider him your guest and you can talk to him.”
Lydia Farley heaved a sigh. “You can be a bit of a brat at times, Hannah.”
“So I’ve been told.” Hannah leaned down and kissed the silky white hair on top of her grandmother’s head. “But you’ve always liked me anyway.”
* * *
Lydia Farley’s prediction of Matthew’s perfectly miserable night was entirely correct.
He recounted his every moment with Hannah—the excruciating pleasure of being buried deep inside her, her warmth and her passion, her sweet words of love ringing in his ears. And then, inevitably, came the aftermath in which he critically dissected everything he said, everything he didn’t say, and what he should have done and said. He imagined different endings to their tryst, all of them better than the way things had turned out.
He berated himself; he tried to defend himself. He didn’t sleep a wink until dawn, when he finally fell into a stuporous slumber, only to be awakened shortly thereafter by a cacophony of birds in the tree outside his window.
“Damn birds!” he muttered as he gulped his third cup of strong black coffee in Peg’s Diner. “Nobody could sleep through that racket. It was like a hundred boom boxes blasting chirps into my room.”
Peg, who had been extremely sympathetic to his first plight in the rain-drenched room, offered him no consolation this time. “The guests at the boardinghouse love those birds,” she reproved him sternly, her usual smile replaced by a look of reprimand. “Why, the Porter sisters told me this morning that they look forward every year to hearing what they call the ‘lovely concert at dawn.’”
Matthew scowled. “Well, this morning I was looking forward to a cat ending the recital. Aren’t there any hungry ones in the neighborhood?”
Katie, standing behind the counter nearby, laughed, but Peg fixed him with a severe look. Matthew took the hint. No cat jokes, at least not involving the precious avian chorus.
He was in no hurry to return to his room, so he hung out in the diner for a long time, eating a leisurely breakfast and eventually winning his way back into Peg’s good graces. She and Katie introduced him to some of the Clover natives who dropped by to eat and chat on this lazy, sunny Sunday morning.
He met the sheriff, Ford Maguire, and his sister, Lucy, Captain Wynn, Emma’s father, and Mike Flint, another charter-boat captain much younger than Wynn. Matthew was grilled about himself by red-haired Jeannie Potts, a twentysomething beautician who was a virtual mine of information about everything and everyone in Clover. She already knew he was Galen Eden and requested autographed copies of his books.
Matthew thought of the copies that Hannah had left behind when she’d fled his room, and another pang of remorse chilled him. To take his mind off her, he did a little grilling of his own, asking Jeannie about the Polks, not even bothering to cloak his interest. Jeannie didn’t seem to find his interrogatory style suspicious or odd; it was the way she herself conversed. She confirmed what he’d already been told about his birth father’s relatives. The Polks were trouble, always in it or causing it.
By noon, Matthew decided he had clocked enough time in the diner and headed outside to Clover Street. The shops were closed on Sundays, keeping the traditional hours rather than the seven-days-a-week commercial hours that were now the norm in the malls and other resort towns. He took a long walk through the town, passing Hannah’s shop, Yesterdays, and pausing to look in the window. A large wooden Victorian-style dollhouse, dating back to the turn of the century and priced in the four-figure range, was the centerpiece display.
Matthew smiled, remembering how yesterday Hannah had attempted to sell the dollhouse to her steady stream of customers, who had all proclaimed the price too steep. Even a supersaleswoman like her hit the occasional snag. Perhaps he should make another bet, this time focusing on whether or not she could sell the dollhouse. His chances of winning seemed higher than hers this time.
And then his smile faded. Hannah hated him; there would be no more lighthearted bets. He kept waiting for Katie to give him the message that his meeting with Alexandra Wyndham was canceled because the Farleys were unable to make it. But that message never came, and armed with directions to the Farley house from Katie, he drove his van there, half expecting to be ejected from the premises.
Instead, he was graciously ushered inside by a kind-faced, white-haired lady in a motorized wheelchair, who introduced herself as Lydia Farley, Hannah’s grandmother.
“Of course.” Matthew grinned, liking her on sight. “You’re the great friend of my grandparents.”
“Wonderful people,” Lydia enthused jovially. “My son and his wife are dreadfully disappointed they were unable to be here to meet you this afternoon, but they were already locked into other plans. They were eager to meet the grandson of my very rich, very prominent friends, the Grangers of Florida.”
Hannah joined them, slipping quietly into the wide vestibule and hoping that her entrance would go unnoticed. For a moment it did as Matthew chatted easily with her grandmother, who seemed bent on charming him.
Hannah let her eyes rove over him for that single, unobserved moment. He was wearing a light gray suit, and she resisted the urge to snidely ask if he’d removed the Luger from the pocket. She was not speaking to him at all, she reminded herself, and her silence precluded making snide remarks, however tempting. His snowy white shirt was starched and immaculate and highlighted his dark complexion. She’d never seen him dressed like this. He looked nothing like the sinister cat burglar she’d first imagined him to be.
He looked entirely respectable, a well-bred gentleman, a successful writer. He also looked devastatingly sexy, so masculine and virile that her senses filled and she nearly whimpered aloud at the fierce surge of desire and love that swept through her. She wanted him. Hannah was appalled by her body’s betrayal. And determined not to succumb to it all over again.
“Hello, Hannah.” Matthew met her gaze, and she immediately looked away.
“I’m ready to leave when you are, Grandmother,” she said, ignoring him.
“You look lovely, darling,” her grandmother said, smiling her approval. “Doesn’t she, Matthew?”
Matthew’s eyes roamed over her hungrily, his body already standing firmly at attention. She was wearing a loose oatmeal-colored dress that resembled a short-sleeved man’s jacket a
nd hung nearly to her knees. On anyone else, the color and style would be nondescript at best, but Hannah managed to look as alluring and sexy as she had in that eye-popping silver minidress she had been wearing on the night they’d met.
“Hannah always looks sensational. Her height tends to vary, however,” he added dryly. Her oatmeal-colored platform sandals were at least three inches high, making her shorter than the night they’d met but taller than yesterday.
She made no reply but shot him a haughty half smile.
“Hannah is sensitive about her height, Matthew dear,” Lydia informed him. “She thinks she should be tall and thin like her older sisters, whose figures, I am sorry to say, resemble telephone poles. I have told Hannah repeatedly that there is nothing wrong with being petite and curvy, but she doesn’t believe her old grandmother. Perhaps if you were to assure her?”
“Grandmother!” Hannah groaned. “I don’t need or want Matthew’s approval.”
“Nevertheless, you have it, sweetheart,” Matthew said sincerely.
Her grandmother beamed. Hannah scowled.
The trip to the Wyndhams was a trial that only Lydia enjoyed. She insisted that Matthew drive the three of them in her beloved ‘68 dove-gray Mercedes Pullman sedan, then sat in the long back seat with Hannah at her side. Matthew felt as if he were behind the wheel of an M-1 tank as he steered through the imposing gates of the grand Wyndham estate.
His nerves were frayed. Hannah hadn’t said one word during the ride, though her grandmother gamely kept the conversation going. Matthew did his best to respond correctly, but his thoughts were centered on Hannah, who was driving him mad by acting as if he didn’t exist.
The prospect of meeting his birth mother face-to-face was an additional strain. His birth certificate rested in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He was so conscious of the document, he felt as if it were burning its imprint through his clothes into his skin.
A uniformed servant greeted them at the door and ushered them into a sunny, plant-filled room that Matthew guessed was supposed to be informal, but was in reality, more formal than any living room he’d ever set foot in. Lydia was the only one at ease, smiling and chatting while Matthew and Hannah sat on opposite love seats silent and still as stones.
The Engagement Party Page 14
