The Engagement Party

by Barbara Boswell

  Alexandra covered her face with her hands, and tears spilled through her fingers. “You look like your father. You even sound like him. Jesse James Polk.” She cried harder. “I was crazy about him from the moment I met him. Oh, I can remember it so well. We were both at the Clover Train Station. I was fifteen and he was seventeen and he came up to me and started talking, as bold as you please.”

  The three of them walked slowly back inside the house. Alexandra continued her story through dinner, which was served on the screened terrace at the back of the house. Matthew listened dispassionately. It was almost exactly as he’d imagined—the rather unoriginal tale of two teenagers on fire with their forbidden love, too-early-and-no-precautions sex resulting in a pregnancy that panicked them both.

  “Jesse wanted me to run away with him,” Alexandra recalled dreamily, picking at her roast lamb. “He hated being a Polk, and he hated being looked down on as a failure before he even had a chance to make something of his life. He’d graduated from high school and planned to join the army. I could go along as his wife, he said.”

  “And you couldn’t see yourself as a sixteen-year-old army wife with a baby,” Matthew said dryly. He glanced around at the well-appointed terrace, the servants discreetly coming and going, the beautiful lush grounds of the estate stretching before him. “It would have been quite a switch in life-styles, to put it mildly.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered if I made the right choice,” Alexandra said tearfully. “Maybe I should have gone with Jesse. Maybe we would’ve been happy.”

  “Chances are it wouldn’t have worked,” Matthew consoled her. “Then my life would have been a disaster. I’m grateful that I was Galen and Eden Granger’s son, Alexandra. You made the right decision to give me up. But what about Jesse? Is he still in Clover? Have you seen him since—”

  “Jesse is dead,” Alexandra said, her voice taut and bitter. “When I was sent off to the maternity home in Florida—my parents told everyone I was in a Swiss boarding school—he enlisted in the army. It was during the Vietnam war and he was killed in action.”

  “When?” Matthew felt a peculiar pang of loss for the young father he had never known.

  “Jesse was killed near the end of his second tour of duty over there. He’d volunteered for both. It was a heroic death. The papers reported that he was awarded the Silver Star posthumously.” Tears welled in Alexandra’s eyes. “His name is on the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington and he’s buried in Arlington National Cemetery. I was glad about that. He wouldn’t have wanted to be in the Polk plot here in town.”

  “It’s so sad.” Justine sniffed, wiping her teary eyes with her napkin. “He sounds brave and smart. I wish he would have been my father, too.”

  “Did you ever see him again, Alexandra?” Matthew asked.

  “After...the birth, I was sent to that school in Switzerland and I didn’t return to Clover until I was ready for college. I saw Jesse only one more time, over Christmas break when I was twenty and in college and he was back on leave. I told him he had a son whom I’d given up for adoption.” Alexandra swallowed hard. “He was very angry with me, very cold. He told me I’d cheated him out of knowing his own son and that he would never forgive me for that. He said I was a self-centered, cowardly snob who was ruled by the opinion of others and he predicted that I would never be happy. Then he walked away. I never saw him again. He returned to Vietnam. He was only twenty-three years old when he died.”

  There was a somber silence.

  “Jesse Polk was right,” Justine said, finally breaking the silence. “You never have been happy, Mother.”

  “No.” Alexandra shook her head. “I haven’t.”

  “I used to think it was because I’m such a dud,” Justine said wearily. “I knew I wasn’t pretty or lively enough to be your daughter but I thought if I did everything you wanted, maybe you’d finally be happy. But it wasn’t me at all, was it?”

  “You’re not a dud, little sister,” Matthew said firmly. “But you’re going to start living your life the way you want to.” He reached over and took Alexandra’s hand, squeezing it hard. His black eyes were sharp and intense. “That means she transfers out of the college she hates into the one she wants to attend. That means she doesn’t get engaged to Bay Farley or anyone else until she’s ready to, which won’t be for a while. It also means she is going to dress the way she wants to, wear her hair the way she wants to, and stop atoning for the sins you think you committed by giving birth to me. From now on, if you try to control Justine, you’ll have to go through me, and I am not someone you’d care to tangle with. Do you understand, Alexandra?”

  Alexandra looked chastened. “I...might have been too controlling with Justine,” she conceded. “I worried constantly that she would be wild like I was, that she would repeat my mistakes. She’s always been withdrawn and quiet, but I was still afraid she might change at any minute.”

  “And your solution to these imagined problems was to marry her off to Bay Farley?” Matthew was openly scornful.

  “I fail to see what is so terrible about that,” Alexandra said defensively. “I don’t know why Justine doesn’t want to marry Bay. He’s from a respectable, socially prominent family and he’s attractive and charming and witty.”

  Matthew and Justine exchanged looks of patent disbelief.

  “Alexandra, instead of trying to set him up with your unwilling daughter, why don’t you take up with Bay yourself?” Matthew suggested sardonically. “Why worry about the affair causing a scandal? After all, what’s a twenty-year age difference to someone who gave birth to Jesse Polk’s illegitimate son?”

  “Apart from the insult to me, young man, don’t you dare disparage your father that way. He was a war hero, and he would’ve loved you.” Alexandra leaned over and slapped his cheek, the same one that Hannah had smacked. Then she pushed back her chair with such force that it overturned. Ignoring it, she stalked grandly from the terrace.

  “I admit I deserved that,” Matthew muttered, rubbing his battered cheek.

  “I think you might’ve deserved the slap from Hannah, too,” Justine said thoughtfully as she righted the chair. “At least, from her point of view. You said you haven’t told anybody that we’re sister and brother, Matthew. So as far as Hannah knows, you came to my house, met me, and then went off with me. And when we came back we were laughing as if we had some sort of naughty secret between us.”

  “Are you implying that she thought you and I had some sort of...tryst?” Matthew scowled, annoyed. “That’s ridiculous! Of all the stupid, paranoid, jealous—”

  “Her grandmother thought so, too,” Justine reminded him. “She called you a bounder and a disgrace. And an infectious agent, too, I believe.”

  “I intended to tell Hannah that you were my sister. She didn’t give me a chance to explain anything. You saw her, Justine. She refused to speak to me and then she whacked me across the face and took off. She thoroughly distrusts me. Who needs a woman like that?” He stabbed his fork into a piece of raspberry mousse pie, mashing it.

  “You’re probably right,” Justine agreed. “Who am I to give advice? I almost let myself get pushed into an engagement to that patronizing pill, Bay Farley! But Hannah is so different from him and from her prissy sisters and her parents, too. She’s lively and fun and she doesn’t let anybody push her around. My cousin—our cousin—Ridgley has a gigantic crush on her. He says that she must by dynamite in bed because she’s had a million boyfriends and—”

  “If I ever hear our cousin talk about her that way, I’ll deck him,” snarled Matthew. “Hannah doesn’t sleep around.”

  He ought to know. Last night he’d become her first lover. And he’d let her walk away from him without letting her know how much the experience had meant to him. How much she meant to him. He hadn’t let Hannah know much about him at all, he conceded, except for a few basic facts. But she’d made love with him anyway. She’d been engaged three times and hadn�
�t been to bed with any of her fiancés but she had given herself to him after knowing him only a day. He pondered that.

  “Maybe I’ve given her reason to distrust me,” he murmured. “First last night, now today.” He heaved a rueful groan. “I think I’ve made a mess of it, Justine.”

  “Then fix it!” Justine urged. “You can do it, Matthew. You made it possible for me to finally stand up to Mother, something I never thought I could do. You told me you could handle Hannah and work things out with her. Now prove it! You know you want to,” she added ingenuously. “Admit it!”

  Matthew did not admit it, but he allowed his sister to drive him over to the Farley residence, where he’d left his van. He was relieved to see it was still parked in their circular driveway. Hannah and her grandmother hadn’t had it towed and impounded in a spree of vengeful fury.

  Ten minutes later, he was walking along the Farleys’ plushly carpeted second-story hallway. His pass of admission had been his original birth certificate, which he had shown to Hannah’s grandmother. At first, she had eyed him like a cockroach that had surfaced in the soup, until he’d presented that shocking document, proclaiming him a Wyndham and a Polk and thus absolving him of his suspected sins on the basis of his mother’s proven ones.

  According to Lydia Farley, Hannah’s bedroom was the fourth door on the left. Matthew counted the doors, his pulse beginning to pound in anticipation. Lydia had said she feared that Hannah was crying in her room, “her heart badly bruised.” By him. The news filled him with both remorse and hope. He hadn’t wanted to make Hannah cry, but if she was crying over him, it meant that she cared about him. That he could kiss away her tears and comfort her...

  He didn’t want to knock and spoil the surprise of his appearance—or give her the chance to tell him to get lost. So Matthew boldly opened the door and glanced at the bed, on which he expected to see a sobbing Hannah curled up and weeping over him.

  She wasn’t there. She was on the floor, wearing a white tank top and bright red running shorts and doing push-ups, while “Build Me Up, Buttercup” played on her compact disc player. Her hair was pulled high into a ponytail, which bounced as she did. He watched her for a moment—until she must have sensed his presence and quickly jumped to her feet.

  “You!” Hannah exclaimed sharply. She did not look heart bruised, and she certainly did not seem pleased to see him.

  “Now I see why your punch packed such power,” drawled Matthew. “You work out.”

  “Get out of my house or I’ll have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

  “Sorry, Wonder Woman, the charge won’t stick. I was invited in and given directions to your room. By your grandmother, who thinks you’re up here crying over me,” he added.

  “If Grandmother said that, she was being sarcastic. If you believed her, you’re as stupid and gullible as you think I am.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid and gullible, Hannah.”

  “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here, about to spin some tale that I have no intention of hearing, let alone believing.”

  Matthew heaved an exasperated sigh and sank onto her bed. “Your grandmother warned me it wouldn’t be easy getting you to listen to me. It wasn’t easy getting her to listen to me. But when I told her the truth, she believed me. And she encouraged me to come up here to see you, Hannah.”

  “I can’t imagine what possible excuse you gave for your extended absence at the Wyndhams with—with poor, confused, pathetic Justine.” Hannah grabbed his wrists and tried to pull him off the bed. “Get up! Get out of here! What did you tell Grandmother anyway? That you were abducted by a UFO and held captive by aliens? She might’ve bought that one—she actually believes in UFOs—but I don’t!”

  Matthew didn’t budge, but his body was heating under her touch and her nearness, even though she was in the midst of a hostile attempt to dislodge him. “You’ll probably find the UFO-alien story more believable than the one I’m about to tell you.” He pulled his hands free and fished the birth certificate from his jacket pocket. “Read this,” he insisted. “It’s the real reason why I came to Clover.”

  “I don’t care why you came to Clover. I just want you to leave.”

  His hands snaked out and he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down onto his lap. “Just read it. If you would have had a little more time the night you searched my bag, you would have found it. I almost wish you had. It might’ve saved us a slew of misunderstandings along the way. You would’ve known from the start that I’m not a cat burglar or a jewel thief or a fortune-hunting rake.”

  Hannah’s hands trembled as she took the paper from him. She was excruciatingly aware of the powerful muscles of his thighs under her, of the strength of his arms as he kept her firmly on his lap. Hot, sensual memories of last night washed over her—memories of his arms and legs holding her, entangling her own limbs as he joined his body with hers.

  Heaven help her, she wanted it to happen again! What power he exerted over her, to make her feel this way! Aroused and alarmed, Hannah tried to master the sensual weakness sweeping through her. Fighting the need to surrender to him once again, she wriggled and struggled in an effort to break free. Matthew held her tighter, closer, and she felt the unmistakable evidence of his arousal pressing solidly against her.

  “Quit squirming and read, unless you want to end up on your back right here and now,” Matthew said gruffly.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, mister. Just because you got lucky last night doesn’t mean that—” She lapsed into stunned silence. Her eyes had just connected with the names on the document, which was a birth certificate issued thirty-two years ago by the state of Florida.

  The mother of the infant boy was Alexandra Wyndham. The father, Jesse Polk? A Wyndham and a Polk had mated and produced a child? From a Clover viewpoint, an alien abduction in a UFO did seem a bit more credible.

  Her jaw dropped. She read it again. “This—this doesn’t make any sense.” She turned her head and met Matthew’s deep dark gaze.

  “This is my birth certificate, Hannah. Alexandra and Jesse are my parents. I was adopted by the Grangers from the maternity home where Alexandra stayed until I was born.”

  She sat very still and listened as he told her about Galen and Eden Granger’s fatal car accident six months ago, when a pickup truck ran a stoplight at a busy intersection and plowed head-on into the Granger’s car. He told her about learning of his adoption for the first time, about the sleazy but effective private investigator who had unearthed the original birth certificate, which led him to Clover. He finished by describing his confrontation today with his birth mother, Alexandra Wyndham, and his instant rapport and alliance with his young half sister, Justine.

  “Justine is your sister,” Hannah breathed. She felt as if fireworks were going off in her head. If she closed her eyes, she could see them.

  “Yes.” He threaded his fingers through her ponytail and tugged, drawing her head back until it rested against the hollow of his shoulder. “You needed proof, so here it is. I’m not the gold-digging snake you accused me of being. But I don’t believe in holding a grudge, so I’m willing to accept your apology.”

  “I’m not going to apologize for what I thought or for hitting you, either!” Hannah was incensed. “You’re as much to blame as I am, maybe more! All the secrecy, all the lies and the half truths! You’ve been playing games with everybody, manipulating us like pieces on a chessboard. Or characters in one of your novels.”

  The pent-up tension of the day was taking its toll on her temper. She’d been confused and miserable since last night, and today’s debacle at the Wyndhams’ had only served to underscore how helpless and out of her depth she felt with Matthew. Hannah hated feeling this way. She had always prided herself on being able to hold her own with anybody—until Matthew laid that illusion to rest. A look, a touch, a few words from him, and she was totally disarmed.

  “Now you suddenly appear in my room with this piece of paper and expect me t
o—to what, Matthew?” Hannah fumed. “What do you expect me to do?” She jerked herself upright, but his fingers were still tangled in her hair, and he pulled her back against him.

  He arched his dark brows. “Maybe I expect you to prove that you’re not an evil-tempered, heartless shrew. Can you do that, little girl?”

  Quicker than a snake could strike, he pushed her back on the bed, lying down with her and anchoring her there by slipping one muscled thigh between her legs. She placed her hands on his chest, ostensibly to push him away, but ended up sliding them to his shoulders instead.

  Their gazes met and locked.

  “Probably the last thing in the world I want to do right now is fight with you,” Matthew said softly.

  “I can guess what you want to do.” Hannah made a valiant effort to be stern. But at this moment her anger and astonishment were dissolving like soap bubbles in the air.

  “Thank you for not launching a shocked harangue about the unlikely mating of a Wyndham and a Polk.” Matthew nuzzled her neck with eager lips. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Having met the Wyndham, I think I would’ve preferred the Polk.”

  A potent mixture of empathy and passion rendered her already-weakened defenses against him useless. “I can’t imagine going through what you have for the past six months,” she whispered. “The grief, the shock, the upheaval. It must have been a living hell, Matthew.”

  “There have been occasional respites. Even glimpses of heaven.” He kissed her throat, then took her lobe between his teeth and worried it gently. “Last night with you was one of them. Right now is another.”

  She clenched and unclenched her fingers against the muscles of his shoulders. He felt so strong, so warm. His clean male scent filled her nostrils, and she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes as a dizzying surge of desire rushed through her. “About last night,” she began shakily. “It wasn’t exactly...what either of us thought it would be.”