‘They’ve arrivedâShiloh and his family, that is,’ Lisa informed her. ‘And Dallas brought the celebrant about a quarter of an hour ago. Talking about Dallas, he seems to be taking it all in his stride. Wasn’t he upset when he found out about you and Shiloh?’
Danni nodded. ‘I felt awful about it, butâwell, I never led Dallas to believe things could ever be serious between us.’
‘No, I know you didn’t. And I suppose I couldn’t see Dallas taking it any way other than calmly.’ Lisa grinned impishly at Danni. ‘Now Shiloh would have been different. He’d have slung you over his shoulder and carted you off, and that’s the truth.’
Danni tried hard to laugh with the other girl.
‘Shiloh looks gorgeous, too. Wait till you see him. Wow! You two make such a lovely couple.’ Lisa beamed, starry-eyed.
‘You look very attractive yourself, Lisa,’ said Danni, and the thought crossed Danni’s mind that Lisa, her face glowing with excitement, looked more like a bride than she did.
‘So Shiloh’s brother just told me.’ She raised her eyes. ‘He’s cute, too. Pity he wasn’t a couple of years older.’ Lisa glanced at the clock on Danni’s dressing table. ‘It’s nearly time. Your father said he’d be coming up in a minute.’ She handed Danni her bouquet of rich white frangipani and then lifted her matching bridesmaid’s bouquet of apricot frangipani. ‘Come on out into the living-room and we can peep out at the setting under the trees. It’s really lovely. Everyone’s here already.’
Danni looked around her bedroom again, in something of a farewell, as Lisa opened the door. In a way it was a farewell, because one way or another things would never be quite the same again. Her eyes rose to the photo of her brother and she took a deep resolute breath.
Her father had generously suggested that they live in the house at Broadbeach after they were married, until they decided where they wanted to set up house. Set up house. She shivered and gave herself a mental shake. Things weren’t going to change, she told herself firmly. She would keep them the same. She would still have this room, and she would still live in the house at Broadbeach during the week while she went to work. What Shiloh did she didn’t care. Somehow she couldn’t see him staying around after she’d finished with him tonight. This was for Rick. She had to hold on to that thought.
‘Danni?’ Lisa was waiting at the door. ‘You’re just not with it, are you?’ she smiled indulgently. ‘Come on, girl! Stop mooning about Shiloh or you’ll be late for your wedding.’
Jock Mathieson, looking a little out of character in his brand new suit, walked on to the patio as the two girls entered the living-room. ‘Ready, love?’ he asked, and Danni nodded.
‘Come on, then.’ He tried to laugh. ‘I’m as nervous as a kitten, but don’t tell anyone I admitted it!’ His eyes didn’t quite meet hers and she felt her heart ache painfully.
Oh, Pop, bear with me for a little while, Danni silently begged him. A few days and it will be over and we can get back to going on as we were before Shiloh O’Rourke came on to the scene with such devastating results. And she closed herself off from the little voice that jeered her, told her that the way things were would never be again.
The short walk across the drive to join the group of about twenty people on the lawn under the shady native gums was the longest walk of Danni’s life. Then before she knew it, she was standing beside Shiloh and she could feel his eyes on her. She couldn’t resist one quick glance in his direction and in that one swift glance her breath caught painfully in her chest.
He wore a cream dress shirt with his dark brown tailored suit which fitted his tall body to perfection, hugging his broad muscular shoulders, tapering to his narrow waist and moulding his long legs, the darkness of the colour emphasising the fairness of his hair. For one split second his tawny eyes smiled into hers and she almost cried out as a shaft of pure and mutual unity flashed between them.
‘Dearly beloved …’ began the celebrant, and those two words reverberated about inside Danni’s mind. Dearly beloved. Dearly beloved. Beloved. She had to fight that same almost hysterical urge to laugh and suddenly realised unshed tears were burning her eyes. There was an unreality about it all, as though it wasn’t, it couldn’t be happening.
She hardly took it in and yet, quite vividly, she remembered Nathan winking at her as he passed Shiloh their rings, and she was numbly aware that Shiloh kissed her gently on the lips and that her father seemed to have to resort to blowing his nose after the ceremony.
Hired caterers served the wedding guests in the large dining room at Mallaroo and Danni managed to eat a little, to drink some wine, to be merry. Once she noticed Shiloh and her father standing together talking, neither of them smiling. Speeches were made and there was much laughter and the usual good-natured teasing of the bride and groom. Just like any other wedding, Danni thought coldly.
‘Danni.’ Shiloh’s mother touched her on the arm and she turned, blinking, trying to pull her thoughts together. ‘You look beautiful, my dear.’ Estie kissed her cheek. ‘And Shiloh’s so proud of you.’
‘Thank you,’ Danni murmured, and they both turned to glance across at Shiloh as he stood talking to Bill Peterson. Danni’s mind was completely numb, refused to function. She watched Shiloh, but any thoughts she might have had refused to form in her mind, didn’t compute.
‘He deserves someone like you, Danni,’ Estie was saying, and a wave of feeling caused Danni’s heart to behave erratically as Shiloh moved his head and the light caught an unruly lock of fair hair as it sprang out of place.
‘You both have the same interests,’ continued Estie, ‘so perhaps you can understand this craving he’s always had for speed. I can’t pretend I like him racing, I never have, but he’s been through hell these past months, irrespective of his physical injuries. As you know, the doctors really didn’t expect him to walk again.’ There were tears in Estie’s eyes. ‘He suffered so much. Especially with all those rumours afterâ’
Danni felt her own eyes fill with tears and Estie patted her hand. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, but I felt I had to say it, Danni. He’s my son and I love him, and he needs you very much.’
Danni’s heart was fluttering again. Of course his mother was prejudiced. But that same niggling of doubt found that same chink in her armour. She was so confused.
But according to Dallas everyone had cast aside the findings of the Board of Enquiry, and to a man seemed to hold Shiloh responsible. Surely they wouldn’t all think that way without there being some grounds for the innuendoes? Where there was smoke there had to be fire.
Her brother was dead, at the high point of his career, for had he finished that race in even fifth placing Rick would have taken out the highest aggregate of points to make him Champion of the Year. The futility of it all washed over her once again in waves of frustration.
Her gaze moved back to Shiloh and in that moment he turned, in the act of lifting a glass to his lips, and their eyes met. The emotion that raced through Danni like wildfire was not hate or revenge and she was unaware of the softening of her features.
Shiloh smiled slightly and excused himself from Bill before beginning to walk across to her. Estie squeezed her arm again.
‘Here’s Shiloh coming. I’ll leave you two together,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m happy for you both. Maybe now all these vicious rumours about Shiloh will come to an end.’
Rumours. Did Estie meanâ? What did she mean? A horrible thought took hold of her, wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed excruciatingly. Was that the reason he had been so adamant about marrying her? To kill all the rumours about his involvement in the crash? No one would believe he was guilty when Rick Mathieson’s own sister hadâ
‘Do you suppose they’d think we were rude if we left now?’ he whispered in her ear, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. He looked relaxed and some of the strain seemed to have smoothed from
his face. But Danni had to physically check herself from flinching from his touch as his hand rested lightly on her waist.
‘It’s early yet.’ She felt panic rise inside her. She wasn’t ready to be alone with him, to face what she had set out to do.
‘Well, I could always begin to kiss you passionately right here in front of everyone.’ His lips touched the edge of her jaw.
‘You wouldn’t!’ Her eyes flew to his face.
‘I would.’
Yes, he would. Although his lips smiled, the creases in his cheeks deepening, his eyes flashed steel. ‘I’ll go and tell Pop.’ Danni’s face flushed beneath the force in those eyes and her hands were clasped together until the knuckles showed white.
Half an hour later they were driving down the narrow winding road to the coast.
‘Tired?’ he asked as his hands moved expertly on the steering wheel.
‘A little.’ Danni’s voice wasn’t quite her own.
‘Why not recline the seat and have a nap? I’ll wake you when we get to the hotel,’ he was saying indulgently.
‘Yes, I might do that.’ Anything, so that she wouldn’t have to make conversation, so that her eyes wouldn’t have to turn to the firmness of his profile.
Her head was full of dozens of impressions. The look in her father’s eyes as he kissed her goodbye. The feeling that, no matter what, she had let him down. And Shiloh’s mother and those few words that had chilled Danni’s partially thawed heart. She smiled cynically to herself. Maybe both of them, Shiloh and herself, would get what they wanted from this fiasco of a marriage.
Surprisingly she did sleep, and his hand gently moving on her arm dragged her from her slumber to blink in the dimness of the under road level car park of the high-rise hotel on the waterfront in Surfers Paradise.
‘Wake up, sleepyhead, we’re here,’ he said caressingly, and walked around to hold her door open for her.
Then they were in their room. Alone. Danni tried to take in the suite’s luxuriousness but it was beyond her. She walked slowly across to the large plate glass window and stared sightlessly down at the fairyland of lights far below that ran along the coast, the moonlight highlighting the restless motion of the sea. Shivering slightly, she wrapped her arms about her trembling body. As she turned slightly she caught the reflection of Shiloh’s movements in the shiny surface of the glass.
He had removed his suit coat and bow tic and now he was unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt, his eyes looking in her direction causing her to shiver even more. Once again she was reminded of a jungle cat prowling, stalking, forever on his guard.
A tap on the door of their suite brought her heart into her mouth and she spun around as Shiloh opened the door and spoke to the uniformed waiter who wheeled a small trolley into the room. On the trolley sat an ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne and two fine-stemmed glasses.
Shiloh closed the door after the man. ‘Just what the doctor ordered, or in this case, just what I ordered,’ he said with a smile. He filled the two glasses with the bubbly liquid, replacing the bottle in the ice bucket, and holding a glass out to Danni.
Feeling like an automaton, Danni moved across and took the glass in numbed fingers.
Shiloh lifted his own glass and raised it in her direction. ‘To us,’ he said softly.
Danni blinked at him as though he was a stranger she hadn’t seen before and the glass trembled in her hand.
Watching her closely Shiloh stopped his glass before it reached his mouth and he leant over and removed the glass from her hand and set both glasses on the trolley. His hands took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him. ‘What’s the trouble, Danni? You’ve been looking at me as if I was someone you’d just met on the street.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Her face almost cracked with her smile. ‘Nothing’s the matter. What could be the matter? I’m just tired, that’s all.’
He looked at her warily for a moment. ‘I’m ready for bed myself, but I’m not saying that tiredness is driving me there,’ he said huskily, drawing her against him, bending his head to run his lips along the line of her jaw. ‘Who needs champagne anyway?’ His white teeth teased her earlobe.
At the nearness of his body a sensual euphoria began to wrap Danni within its tentacles and she knew if she was to make her move it had to be now while she still had some semblance of control over her actions. She had to hold on to Rick’s memory, her father’s pain and now Shiloh’s mother’s revelations. She tensed and pushed her hands against his chest, taking him by surprise and breaking the lightly confident hold he had on her. His expression was more puzzled than anything else, and a surge of guilt rose within her. Her only defence against it was her anger, and it rose in combat.
‘Don’t touch me! I can’t bear for you to touch me!’ she said angrily, while part of her cried out to stop this now, not wanting to watch the change come over the planes of his strong face. Remember! she screamed at herself.
The puzzlement died and in its place appeared an anger to match and surpass her own. ‘For heaven’s sake, Danni, something has to be the matter. I don’t remember you fending me off before. In fact, I’d say you gave me the green light right from the start. So what’s the beef?’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Don’t try to tell me that if Nathan hadn’t interrupted us last weekend there wouldn’t be any need for this outraged virgin act. Or is that your thing, Danni? Lead them on and leave them hanging?’
‘No, it’s not my thing.’ High spots of colour burned in her cheeks. But you’re partially right about the act. It was an act. I pretended I enjoyed your lovemaking just so I could bring you to this moment. And it was remarkably easy.’ Danni cringed inside herself. It was as though she was standing apart from her body, watching the whole sordid scene unfold.
Shiloh watched her with eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose there has to be a reason for all this,’ he said flatly, expressionlessly.
‘You don’t think I could genuinely be in love with the man who killed my brother, do you? Rick and I were close, and his death shouldn’t go unavenged,’ she replied just as coolly. ‘And then there’s my fatherâRick’s death has broken him. And you’re responsible.’
His face was carved granite, white about the mouth, and his eyes raked her angrily, a cold, steely anger that sparked a quiver of fear within her. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ he barked out, one hand imprisoning her wrist in a vice-like grip. ‘I told you I had nothing to do with the accident. I thought we’d been through all that before, Danni, and I’m damned if I’m going to keep on saying it for the rest of my life. Not to you. Not to anyone.’
‘If you weren’t responsible for the pile-up then why did all the racing journalists say that you were?’ she demanded, trying futilely to drag her arm from his biting hold.
‘They didn’t say I was to blame,’ he said bitterly, ‘because if they had I would have sued them for libel. Unfortunately I have no say over what people read into newspaper reports.’
‘What about everyone in the racing fraternity, they all seem to agree with the reports?’
‘Rubbish! They all know the risks involved in motor racing and they would no more come out and accuse me of causing that accident than fly. Look, Danni, all of the blokes in that race, in every motor race, know the chances they’re taking. It’s part of it all. Rick knew, just as young Don Christie knew.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Who’s supposed to have convinced you of all this, anyway? Or maybe I can make a guess. Dallas Byrne.’
‘Well, Dallas saidâ’
‘So Dallas said. And that’s enough said, isn’t it? He’s so green with jealousy he’d say anything to get to you, and you know it.’ Shiloh thrust her hand away. ‘God, I’m sick of all this! It’s followed me around until I can taste it in my mouth and I’ve had it up to my back teeth.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘I’ll say it once more and I’ll never say it again, a
nd you can take it or leave it. I was in no way responsible for your brother’s death. It was an unfortunate accident, no more. It wasn’t a reflection on Rick’s driving. He simply didn’t have time to swerve to avoid that collision. Okay? Finished! Now for heaven’s sake, let the whole thing rest and let’s go to bed.’ He picked up a glass of champagne and downed it in one gulp, giving the empty glass a wry look before he set it carelessly back on the trolley.
‘Yes, I will go to bed. But not with you. Iâ I still hold you responsible for Rick’s death andâwell, we can stay married until I decide I don’t want to be married any longer.’
‘You can’t be serious! No one would be crazy enough toâ’ He stepped towards her, his fingers biting into her arms. ‘And what’s to stop me forcing you to perform your wifely duties?’ he asked harshly, ‘because I’ve a feeling it wouldn’t take much to change your scheming twisted little mind?’
A flicker of fear flashed in Danni’s eyes and her pale face flushed red at the implications in his words.
For a moment she thought he meant what he said, but his lips twisted and he flung her from him. ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe from me. I’ve never had to force myself on any woman and I’m not about to start with you.’ He walked across and picking up his coat moved towards the door. As he passed the drinks trolley he paused for a moment and, lifting the opened bottle of champagne, carried it with him, and as he opened the door he glanced back at Danni, his face set and cold.
‘Where are you going?’ she couldn’t stop herself asking.
‘Don’t tell me you care, Mrs O’Rourke?’ he said scathingly. ‘I’m going for a long walk. If I stay here I might change my mind about you, and we can’t have that, now can we? Besides, cold showers have never worked with me.’ He left, slamming the door after him.
Race For Revenge (Lynsey Stevens Romance) Page 12