Katie came over to the booth. “You look blue,” she said quietly.
“I’m fine,” Hannah insisted. “Just wilted from the heat.”
Katie slid into the booth across from Hannah. There were only a few customers in the diner, and all were in the capable hands of Aunt Peg and the waitress. “Abby called this morning. Ben is out of town, and she wanted to know if you and I would like to go to the movies with her tonight.”
“Going to the movies with the girls on Friday night,” Hannah said glumly. She abandoned her pretense that nothing was wrong. Why pretend with Katie? “Just like in the sixth grade. Maybe we can go to the Sweet Shoppe for ice cream after the show. Goody.”
Katie hid a smile. “Does that mean you don’t want to come with Abby and me?”
“I’ll come.” Hannah sighed. “It’ll be better than dating myself, which I’ve been doing all week.”
“Dating yourself?” Katie was amused. “Does that mean you’re spending evenings alone?”
Hannah nodded morosely. “My grandmother currently has a livelier social life than I do. She’s been out almost every night this week.”
“The Porter sisters, who are in their seventies, certainly have a busier social life than me, too,” Katie commiserated. “Of course, most of my tenants do.”
“Including your tenant, Matthew Granger?” Hannah hated herself for asking about him but the words slipped out before she could stop herself. “That is, if he’s still in town.” She tried to sound insouciant but her heart clenched at the thought that he might’ve left Clover forever, that she would never see him again. It was a grim possibility that had haunted her all week long.
“Matthew is still in room 206,” Katie said. “I think he’s dating his laptop computer. He spends all evening up in his room, and his light is still on when I go to bed. I wonder if he’s working on a new novel.”
Hannah sat up straight and stiff. “Who cares?”
Katie cast her a curious glance, but she was too tactful to subject her downcast friend to a barrage of questions about her seemingly broken romance. “I read one of his books,” she said instead. “It was very good. I’m looking forward to reading the others.”
“I haven’t read anything he’s written.” Hannah glowered mutinously at the tabletop. “I hate to waste my time reading hack writers. Uh-oh!” Her eyes widened and she began to compulsively stir her iced tea. “It’s the hack himself. Katie, pretend we’re having a conversation!”
“That shouldn’t be too hard to do,” Katie said dryly. “I take it he’s headed this way?”
Hannah nodded and conjured up a merry peal of laughter. She had completely switched from the gloomy specter she’d been only moments before into the vivacious and vibrant young woman who was admired by the whole town. Katie stared at her, somewhat awed by the instant transformation.
“And then I told Sean that he has to go to the Strawberry Festival. He simply can’t miss it,” Hannah was saying to Katie when Matthew slipped into the booth beside her. At first, Hannah appeared not to notice that he was sitting next to her, then she turned to face him coolly. “This happens to be a private conversation.”
“About the Strawberry Festival?” Matthew grinned. “I hear it’s going to be struck by a blizzard this year.”
Katie looked puzzled. Hannah blushed scarlet. His blatant reference to their little joke on the night she had gone to his room with him, that momentous night when she had made love for the first time in her life, caught her completely off guard. He was very good at that, she thought crossly. Showing up when he was least expected and throwing her into a confusing conundrum.
“The acclaimed Clover Strawberry Festival is being held this Sunday, right?” Matthew said, an unholy gleam in his dark eyes. “Everybody in town says it’s an event not to be missed. Will you go with me, Hannah?”
“No,” Hannah replied coldly.
“What about tomorrow night?” he persisted. “Dinner at the restaurant of your choice?”
“No, thank you,” Hannah said in the same glacial tones.
“How about tonight then?” He encircled her wrist with his fingers.
“I’m busy,” she snapped.
“Abby and I will understand if you’d rather go out with Matthew tonight, Hannah,” Katie offered quickly.
Matthew laughed.
Hannah restrained herself from kicking Katie under the table and settled for yanking her wrist from Matthew’s grasp. “I’m not about to change my plans and dump my friends simply because a man shows up at the last minute,” Hannah said loftily, glaring at Matthew.
He was undaunted. “Not a man, baby. The man.”
“You’re arrogant enough to actually believe that, aren’t you?” Hannah seethed. She turned her full attention to Katie. “What time is the movie tonight, Katie? Do you want me to drive? I can pick Abby up first and then—”
“If there’s a group going to the movies tonight, I’d like to come, too,” Matthew interjected, also addressing Katie. “Is it all right with you if I invite myself along, Katie? I hope you don’t have any ironclad rules about the tenants not socializing with the landlady?”
“Not a single one,” Katie replied, her green eyes sparkling with laughter. “Abby said she would be glad to drive tonight, Hannah. She can pick up, uh, Matthew and me and then come out for you.”
“I hope you don’t intend to change your plans and dump your friends simply because a man is included at the last minute, Hannah,” Matthew taunted.
Hannah drank the rest of her tea in one long swallow. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she grated through her teeth.
* * *
Hannah was not surprised to be consigned to the back seat of Abby’s car with Matthew. She’d expected it. Unfortunately, it was a compact car, and the two of them were crowded together in the minuscule back seat, their bodies touching because there wasn’t enough space for them to sit far apart.
Abby played her CD at full volume and chatted with Katie in the front. For a few long minutes, silence reigned in the back. Hannah was the first to break it. She’d overreacted to Matthew’s presence in the diner this afternoon, she decided, and sitting here in sulky silence, pretending she wasn’t plastered up against him seemed ridiculous. He didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he was wearing a pleased little smile that set her teeth on edge.
How best to annoy him? Hannah considered the ways. Her chatty socialite airhead persona seemed a surefire hit, and she launched into it, watching gleefully as his jaw tightened and his smile grew more forced and finally disappeared altogether. By the time they reached the movie theater, he was the one sitting in sulky silence.
There was a line at the ticket booth, and Hannah and Matthew stood in it together. Somehow they’d become separated from Abby and Katie, who were a few feet ahead of them.
“Will you kindly drop your Scarlett-O’Hara-on-acid routine?” he said at last, scowling at her. “It’s migraine inducing.”
“You’re not having a good time?” Hannah smiled with satisfaction. “Ahh, too bad. But you’re the one who muscled in on our Girls’ Night Out.”
“How else was I supposed to see you?” he growled. “You shot down everything else I suggested for the entire weekend.”
She gaped at him. “Did you actually expect me to jump at the chance to go out with you just because you deigned to speak to me at the diner today? After not hearing a word from you for an entire week?”
The moment she uttered it, Hannah regretted her impulsive outburst. The vacuous flirt she was trying to play would never care so much.
“The phone works both ways, Hannah. You didn’t call me either.”
She laughed in disbelief. “You actually expected me to call you?”
“Well, yes, if you wanted to talk to me. Why not?”
Hannah held her head high. “I don’t call men, they call me. And I especially don’t call men who storm out of my house in a fit because I won’t hop into the back of a van for a one-night stand
!”
“Who said it would be only a one-night stand?” Matthew demanded testily.
“It was a natural assumption. You never gave me a reason to believe it would be anything more,” Hannah fired back. “For all I knew, you intended to go back to Florida the next day. You’ve never said how long you were planning to stay in Clover.”
“That’s because I don’t know.” His voice rose. “I still don’t. I’ll leave when I leave.”
They both became aware that the people in line around them were listening avidly and making no pretense to hide it. Hannah blushed and lapsed into silence. Inevitably, somebody would report this conversation to Jeannie Potts at the Beauty Boutique. By tomorrow night, it would be all over town.
“Could we skip this movie and go someplace to talk?” Matthew growled. “I realize that the concept of privacy doesn’t exist in Clover, but I don’t care to conduct my personal life in front of a live audience.”
“Well...” Hannah considered it.
“We’re leaving!” Matthew grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the line. “Katie, Abby, later!” he called to the two friends, who watched him drag Hannah off, their faces wreathed in knowing smiles.
They walked to the beach, not touching or talking. They both took off their shoes and left them on the wooden steps leading to the beach, then walked barefoot through the warm, dry sand to the ocean’s edge. Water lapped over their feet, and the wet sand oozed between their toes. The moon lit a brilliant pathway across the boundless expanse of ocean, which rippled with whitecaps.
“I met some of Jesse’s family,” Matthew said at last.
Hannah stopped and stared up at him. A gentle wave swirled around her ankles, then retreated out to sea. “Did you tell them who you were?”
He shook his head. “I told them I was researching a book on Vietnam vets and that I had heard of Jesse’s death and the medal he’d won. I was directed to one of his nieces, Sharolyn Polk. She’s about your age. Ever heard of her?”
Hannah shook her head. She’d gone to school with some of the Polks but couldn’t remember their first names, if she’d ever known them at all.
“According to Sharolyn, Jesse’s mother moved away from Clover and now lives in California. Nobody knows where his father is—he left town years ago and never bothered to keep in touch. Jesse’s younger brother was killed in a motorcycle accident a few years after Jesse’s death. His sister, Sharolyn’s mother, died in a house fire eight years ago.”
“How tragic! Jesse and his sister and brother all died violently and prematurely.”
“Not an uncommon way for a Polk to go, apparently,” Matthew said wryly. “According to Sharolyn, she and her sister are Jesse’s only nieces and the closest next of kin left in Clover. They each have three kids apiece.” He shrugged. “I ran into them. It seems a shame...” His voice trailed off. He started walking again, shoving his hands deep inside his pockets. “I saw the way they live, down there in ‘Polkville,’ and I appreciated the way I’d been raised and the people who raised me even more.”
Hannah wasn’t sure how to reply so she said nothing at all. They walked along the beach in a silence that grew less tense and more companionable.
“Sharolyn gave me Jesse’s Silver Star,” Matthew said after a while. “I guess I seemed so interested in it, that she offered it to me. ‘For the book,’ she said. I offered to pay her for it and she wouldn’t take any money. She could’ve demanded any sum and I would’ve paid it, just to have something of my father’s,” he added.
Hannah’s eyes misted. “She doesn’t sound so bad, Matthew.”
“She’s not. She and her sister have had a tough life. Both are divorced from bums who rarely come across with child support. I’m going to give them money regularly, Hannah. They’re my father’s nieces and they need it to raise their kids.”
“Are you going to tell them who you really are? That you’re their cousin?”
“Maybe, someday. As for now, I’ll concoct some tale about a fund for the nearest relatives of decorated Vietnam vets and let them believe the money is coming from there.”
Hannah smiled. “Your undercover stories are becoming much better, certainly more believable than that first one of yours.”
“It seems I’ve recovered from my imagination impairment.”
“I should hope so. Researching the area’s bugs for a textbook? That was truly pathetic.”
“You won’t let me forget that one, will you?” He reached out and hooked his arm around her waist, yanking her to his side. “Well, there are a few things I’m not going to let you forget, either. Such as this.”
He pulled her into his arms and took her mouth with his. Her lips parted on impact and his tongue slipped between them into the moist warmth of her mouth, stroking in suggestive simulation.
She’d fought all week to keep her newly awakened needs at bay, but the feel of Matthew’s body against hers and the hard possession of his mouth sent all the suppressed wild hunger sweeping hotly through her.
They clung together, kissing deeply, making up for all the time they’d been apart. Hannah moved sinuously in his arms, trying to get even closer, wanting more of him, all of him. She whimpered his name when his mouth left hers to nibble along the curve of her neck.
Her sweet sounds and yielding softness plunged Matthew deeper into sensual chaos. “I want you, baby,” he whispered huskily. His hand closed possessively over her breast. It was round and firm and fit his hand perfectly. The nipple was peaked and hard against his palm. Matthew sucked in his breath. “Hannah, I’ve missed you so.”
“No, you haven’t,” Hannah said sadly. “With you, it’s out of sight, out of mind. If I hadn’t been sitting in the booth when you came into the diner today, we wouldn’t be here right now. You haven’t given me a thought all week.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong,” Matthew heaved a sigh and abruptly, unexpectedly, dropped his arms, releasing her. “I’ve been wanting and waiting to be with you all week long. The truth is that I can’t stop thinking about you, Hannah. Every day, every night, I’ve wanted you with me.”
Hannah folded her arms across her chest. “I was just a phone call away, Matthew.”
“I was determined that the next move had to be yours. Of course, when I saw you in the diner this afternoon, that pledge was shot to hell. I came racing over and practically begged to tag along with you and your friends tonight.” He did not look pleased.
“It didn’t have to reach that point. If you’d have called me, we—”
“I hate wasting time talking on the phone.” Matthew grimaced. “It’s a necessary evil in business, I suppose, but otherwise...” He shrugged. “I don’t call women. They call me if they want to keep in touch. That’s the way it’s always been.”
“You’ve been very spoiled,” Hannah said, frowning her disapproval. “And now we’re at an impasse because I won’t chase after a man who only wants me for sex.”
“Would you chase after me if I wanted more than sex with you?”
“No. The man should pursue the woman. I learned that at my grandmother’s knee.”
“The man should pursue the woman until she traps him,” Matthew amended. “I believe the term for that convoluted process is courtship. Is that what you want, Hannah? An old-fashioned courtship?”
“You make it sound as appealing as a case of the flu. Courtship is supposed to be fun and exciting.”
“Well, I suppose that courting you would be infinitely preferable to being engaged to you. You probably treat your prospective suitors better than you treat your hapless fiancés. You certainly couldn’t treat them any worse.”
“You’ll never know because you’re too chicken to even try to court me!” She turned and started walking up the beach.
A gust of wind whipped the short skirt of her dress high around her thighs. Matthew gazed at her shapely bare legs and the enticing flash of snowy white bikini panties. He watched her push her skirt down and attempt to keep it th
ere, battling the wind as she walked.
He had no doubt that she would keep on walking and that she would stay away from him. She wouldn’t call him or arrange accidental meetings to see him. If he let her go, she would be gone. She’d proven her resolve this week, while he’d been waiting for her to weaken and come to him. She hadn’t, and he had been lonely and frustrated, wanting to be with her.
Hannah believed that he wanted her only for sex. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Of course he wanted her, but when he thought of her—which was constantly—sexual images were interspersed with so many others.
He liked being alone with her; he liked being in a crowd with her. She was good company—stimulating, funny and maddening by turn but always captivating. He could talk to her in a way he’d never been able to talk to a woman before.
And so much had occurred this past week to talk about. There were so many things he wanted to tell her. About his cousin, Sharolyn Polk, and her memories of her uncle Jesse, his birth father. About the lunches he’d had with Alexandra and Justine at the Wyndham estate, strange and stilted encounters, initiated by Alexandra herself. He also hadn’t told her that he had started his new book about the society-boy serial killer, and that it was going very well indeed.
He owed his creative resurgence to Hannah, Matthew acknowledged. It wasn’t until they’d met that he’d been able to break free from the grip of angry desolation. What writer could afford to let his own personal muse slip away from him?
Feeling governed by some primal force far stronger than him, Matthew broke into a run. Moments later, he reached Hannah’s side. “Nobody has ever called me chicken before.” He caught her hand in his. She didn’t pull it away but she didn’t clasp her fingers around his in a mutual grasp, either. “I’m taking it as a challenge—which you intended it to be, of course.”
“I intended it as an insult,” Hannah stated coolly.
Matthew laughed. “You give as good as you get, don’t you?”
“Always.”
“Are you brave enough to take me on as a suitor?” His dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. “I won’t be one of those saps who lets you walk all over him. If you think you can control me, think again, little girl.”
The Engagement Party Page 18
