The Temptation of Savannah O’Neill

by Molly O'Keefe

  They were both covered in little bruises and marks, physical proof of how out of control they’d gotten last night.

  Proof of how out of control she was.

  This is going to hurt, she told herself. When he leaves it’s going to hurt like nothing ever has.

  But she didn’t care. She’d take the pain later if it ensured the pleasure now. Because right now, she felt as though she’d die without the pleasure.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said, using her best librarian voice and his eyes flared. “You’ve been very bad, Matt Woods.”

  “Yeah?” He groaned and she slid down on him, until she could feel him in her heart. He rocked upward, and she moaned, sitting back on him, her thoughts scattering. “How bad can you be, Savannah?” he asked, his voice like honey.

  She leaned down over him, her breasts against his hot chest, her tongue licking at his mouth. “Put on your glasses,” she said. “And I’ll show you.”

  “YOU CALLING IN SICK AGAIN?” Margot asked on Friday, as they waited for the coffee to brew.

  Savannah nodded and cleared her throat, careful not to look at Margot, or let her look too closely at her. “Stomach thing,” she said, cupping her coffee mug to her chest like a secret.

  “That’s a whole week.”

  “It’s a bad stomach thing,” she said, biting out the words. She knew down to the minute how much time she had left with Matt.

  Matt chose that moment to step out of the sleeping porch carrying his thermos, looking to her like a man who’d been gorging on sex.

  “Morning,” he said into the silence.

  “Matt,” Margot said knowingly, her eyes sliding to Savannah.

  Savannah yanked the coffeepot free, spilling coffee over her hand.

  “Hello, Savannah,” Matt said, his voice rich with laughter as though he knew she was ready to die from embarrassment. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, patted her waist and headed out the door to the back courtyard, whistling as he went.

  “Seems to me,” Margot said, taking the pot from Savannah’s death grip, “you have a Matt thing.”

  “I have a…” Savannah paused, not sure how to finish that sentence. Heartache coming? Hole in my head? “None of your business.”

  “I was right, wasn’t I?” Margot asked, leaning one hip against the counter. “You like him.”

  Savannah didn’t say anything. Of course she liked him, an idiot could see that. An idiot could probably see that she was dangerously close to being in love with him.

  “You told Katie about her father?” Margot asked.

  “I did. It was time—she’d started to think that Matt was her father.” Margot’s jaw dropped open. “I know.” Savannah managed to laugh a little. “But with me never telling her anything, she started to answer her own questions. Matt got caught in the crossfire.”

  “He’s very good with her,” Margot said.

  Savannah lifted her eyes to see Matt and Katie in the back courtyard. He was carrying a huge, burlap-wrapped bundle, every muscle straining against his shirt.

  Katie leaped and danced around him like a muddy, tangle-haired butterfly.

  “That man is good for you,” Margot whispered. “That man is good for both of you. You’re changing because of him.”

  It was true. More than true. There were parts of herself she didn’t recognize. Every morning she looked in the mirror expecting to see that she’d become a redhead, or grown a third eye, or something dramatic that would match the utter transformation happening in her heart.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Savannah said, tears in the back of her throat, “whether I like him or not. Whether he’s good for us or not. Whether I’m changing or whatever. He has to leave on Sunday.”

  “You could go with him.”

  “Please,” she scoffed.

  “You think he won’t ask? That man looks at you like you’ve buttered his bread.”

  “I have,” she snapped. “But that doesn’t mean anything. You know that better than anyone.”

  Margot arched an eyebrow. “Don’t be catty,” she said. “He looks at you like you matter. Like you’re important to him.”

  Savannah took small sips of air, feeling as though the whole world was just too tight. In bed with him, his arm around her waist, his breath on her neck, anything seemed possible. It seemed possible that he might stay. That he might love her.

  But when she got out of bed and walked around the house where her family had left her, a space opened up in her chest and doubt settled in. Reality fell around her like a hailstorm.

  “He came here for his father and he’s staying out of guilt for having lied,” she said, not entirely convinced of that but unsure of what she should believe. “He’s got me all wrapped up in this building collapse thing.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “I do,” she said emphatically, convincing herself at the same time. “He’ll leave here, get back to his life and forget all about me.”

  “Well, of course he will if you let him go without a fight.”

  “A fight?” Savannah asked, laughing at the truly ridiculous idea. “How?”

  “Go with him,” Margot said, grabbing Savannah’s arms and giving her a little shake. “There’s a world out there. A big one. And instead of looking at it through your computer, you should try to experience some of it.”

  The back door creaked open and Matt stuck his head in, his smile so pure it stabbed right through her. “Hate to break up the conversation, but Katie is getting anxious to get this fountain in place.”

  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.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  KATIE AND SAVANNAH 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. H
e 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.

  SAVANNAH, 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.

  SAVANNAH 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 firs
t 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.”