by Peggy Webb
“It looks like we’re stuck with each other for the duration.” He offered his arm. “May I?”
“Of course. How lovely.”
“That’s a strange word for torture.”
“Do you plan to torture me?”
Artless. That’s what she seemed. Too bad it was all an act.
“Yes.”
He tried to conjure up images of her slowly roasting on a spit, but all he saw was Sandi spilled across the bed with the moon in her hair and his lips on her skin. Rapturous torture. Exquisite torture.
“Then I must warn you. I’m the screaming type.”
Matt suppressed a groan. He would have to be more careful. This woman was an expert. Get her in a court of law, and he would make mincemeat of her. But put her in the bedroom and he was out of his league.
He’d avoided that venue for years, and he didn’t plan on taking any crash courses now.
“My victims don’t scream, Ms. Wentworth. They run.”
She laughed. Darned if she didn’t throw back her head to boot. The moon gilded her throat and the Chinese lanterns shot golden sparks off her hair.
My God, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. The most appealing. And the most dangerous.
“I’m not the running type,” she said.
“Another warning?”
“No, just an honest confession. You see, I grew up the hard way, Matt. My dad died when I was three, and I was brought up by a series of nannies who trotted me out to play cute for whichever current lover my mother wanted to impress. After I got too old to be cute, she packed me off to live with my grandmother who subscribed to the creed ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Little children were to be washed and fed and put to bed without fanfare and as quickly as possible. My mom’s friend Phoebe provided the only touch of home I ever knew.”
Matt felt poleaxed. He wanted to fold her into his arms and hold her tight and whisper sweet encouragement against her hair. He wanted to tuck her into warm blankets and bring her hot chocolate and stroke her beautiful face while he told her how very much she was loved.
He must be going crazy. Speechless, he stood in the middle of his mother’s courtyard listening to the distant call of whippoorwills and trying to pack ice back around his heart.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to blurt out those things. It just happened. There’s something about you…”
He put his hand on her cheek. That was all. Just put it there and let it rest for a moment, warm and loving and reassuring.
“It’s okay, Sandi.” Her smile carried a world of bravery and a hint of tears. “It’s okay.”
She nodded, and Matt put his hand on her elbow and led her to the table where Dolly and Kitty waited, led her with such care, he feared the thawing of his heart would become a permanent condition.
His carefully laid plans went up in smoke. How could he try to get Sandi to reveal her true colors when she was a rainbow?
The things she’d said had the ring of veracity, and yet he’d been fooled before. Not for one evening, but for several months. He’d have sworn that his fiancée was the real thing, an angel-faced woman of sweet temperament and honorable intentions. And yet Nancy McMains Stayman had turned out to be a gold-digging floozy with the heart of a barracuda.
And then there had been that awful and shocking revelation about his dad, a man Matt had once considered a hero.
No, he couldn’t afford to stick around. He would get through dinner as quickly as possible, then make his escape.
When they reached the table, he breathed a sigh of relief. But even after he pulled out Sandi’s chair, his hands still burned with the print of her soft skin.
“Oh, everything looks wonderful,” she said. “I haven’t eaten alfresco since I was in Paris.”
“You studied there, didn’t you?” Dolly said.
“Yes. Even when I was a toddler I knew I wanted to paint. Fortunately, Dad was the kind of man who planned ahead. ‘Someday you will study at the Sorbonne,’ he used to say, and then he made sure I could. He was a wonderful man. I remember he used to carry me outside on his shoulders to watch rainbows.”
“Is that why so many of your paintings feature rainbows?” Dolly asked.
Matt had thought Sandi was merely a photographer and a portrait painter. He had no idea that she had a body of work. Trust Dolly to know, though. There was hardly a topic she couldn’t discuss, hardly a current event she didn’t know about or had witnessed in her travels.
He found himself leaning toward Sandi, waiting for her answer with more than idle curiosity.
“Yes,” she said. “Not only are rainbows pure, untouched beauty and symbolic of promise, but they evoke memories of family for me. Happy memories.”
Matt pictured Sandi riding high above the crowd on her daddy’s shoulders, laughing with the freedom and uninhibited delight of a child. And he had a sudden, unexpected desire to make her laugh that way again.
“Will you excuse me, please?” He pushed back his chair and stood up.
“Matt, you haven’t even eaten your dinner.” This from Aunt Kitty. Worried.
“I’m going to take my plate up and eat with Mother. She’s probably getting lonesome. Good night, all.”
“Good night, Matt,” Sandi said, and then she set about blaming herself for his leaving. If she’d talked about happy, uplifting things instead of her painful past, he would have stayed.
Then she got ashamed of herself for wanting him to stay. She was selfish to the core, wanting to keep a man by her side while his mother lay upstairs dying. But, oh, she had enjoyed the touch of his hand upon her cheek. She’d loved the way he held her elbow, the solid feel of him as he walked beside her, the sense of power and confidence that emanated from him as he sat beside her at the table.
She got through dinner but didn’t know how. Then as soon as she could, she made her own escape. But not to her room. She couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in that wonderful four-poster bed.
Instead, she went into the library and got comfortable with a good book. But not one of Lucy’s romances. Sandi couldn’t bear to read about other people falling in love and having babies while her own arms and womb were so painfully empty.
Chapter Four
His mother’s business affairs were a tangled mess. Matt felt guilty for letting them get that way. He pushed back from the desk that had belonged to his father, rubbed the back of his aching neck and noticed with some shock that it was after midnight.
If he could finish one more document tonight, then he could start tomorrow knowing that he’d made progress. The document he needed was in his mother’s desk in her bedroom. He’d kicked off his tuxedo shoes an hour ago, and if he was careful, maybe he could sneak in and get what he needed without disturbing her.
Shoeless, he hurried to the west wing, then tiptoed down the hall toward Lucy’s bedroom door. A thin line of light showed underneath. His mother had fallen asleep with the lamp on, poor dear.
“If the music and Chinese lanterns didn’t do the trick, I don’t know what will.”
Matt stopped, stunned. Aunt Kitty was in his mother’s bedroom. At this hour. She should know better.
He was all set to march in there and chastise her for keeping Lucy from her rest when he heard Aunt Dolly.
“You’re being too hasty, Kitty. Didn’t you see the way he was looking at her?”
Matt had a sneaking suspicion he knew who she was talking about. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Sandi all evening. If he’d stayed any longer, he’d have devoured her on the spot.
“What I want to know,” Lucy said, “is whether our plan is working.”
Plan? They’d planned this?
“Is my son falling in love with Sandi Wentworth?”
“Yes,” Dolly said.
“No,” Kitty said.
“You don’t know that, Kitty.”
“Neither do you, Dolly Wilder. I told you we should mind our own business.”
; “Oh, please,” Lucy said. “This is not about meddling. All I want is to see my son happy.”
Matt’s first thought was to storm into his mother’s bedroom and confront her. But then he remembered her condition. She’d recently had a heart attack, she was fragile, and she was dying.
He hurried out of the west wing. The only good thing to come out of his unintentional eavesdropping was that now he had a legitimate reason to send Sandi Wentworth home.
He would tell her first thing in the morning. She’d be on her way by eight o’clock. Nine at the latest.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him of all that delicious food he’d left on the table, and he decided to make a quick detour to the kitchen. As he passed the library, he caught a glimpse of white.
Sandi, illuminated by lamp glow, sitting in his favorite chair. He moved closer. She was reading his favorite book—The Tao of Physics.
“Sandi.” She jumped as if he’d startled her. Clever girl. “You’re quite an actress, aren’t you?”
“What? What in the world are you talking about?”
“All that sentimental garbage about your bad childhood. It was merely a ploy to gain my sympathy, wasn’t it?”
Her face paled, and her shock looked genuine. Matt was almost sorry for her.
“That is probably the vilest, lowest thing anybody has ever said to me. I’m sorry I ever told you. And even sorrier I ever met you.”
She was magnificent in her rage. Matt applauded. “Bravo, Ms. Wentworth. A performance worthy of Bette Davis in Now, Voyager.”
He’d cornered her, and now she was on the run. Matt blocked her escape.
“Move out of my way,” she said.
“You don’t get off that easy.”
“If you don’t step aside I’m going to…to…” Sandi sagged, the fight suddenly gone out of her. She covered her face with her hands and made a sound that nearly broke his heart. The heart he’d tried so hard to keep deep-frozen and safe.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh…” She was crying in earnest and looked as if she might never stop.
“Sandi…Sandi…” Her shoulders shook, her whole body shook. “Look, I know I can be difficult sometimes. Heck, I’m difficult most of the time.” She looked as if she was about to break apart. Alarmed, Matt touched her arm, and that’s all it took.
Suddenly she was in his arms, her face pressed tightly against his chest, wetting the front of his tuxedo with her tears. He patted her shoulder, stroked her hair, smoothed her back.
Then magically everything changed. He was no longer comforting her, and she was no longer sobbing. They were touching and caressing, giving in, giving up, giving over to the powerful currents that arced between them.
Desire bloomed, fierce and urgent, as unwelcome as the sudden summer storms that sweep over O’Banyon Manor knocking out power lines and rendering the household helpless.
That’s how Matt felt. Helpless. Totally defenseless against the onslaught of passion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and stepped back. Empty. Almost bereft.
She pushed back her golden curtain of hair and looked at him with still-wet eyes.
God, how many ways could this woman disarm him? “Let’s start over, shall we?”
“Okay. Do I need to sit down?”
“Yes. Over there.” If he touched her again, he was lost.
“This sounds serious.”
“It is.” Matt told her what he’d overheard, watching her face to see if she already knew. She didn’t. There are certain ways you can tell if a person is lying, nervous mannerisms, shifting eyes, sweating. Sandi Wentworth passed his tests. All of them.
“You mean, Lucy and Kitty and Dolly brought me here so you and I would fall in love?”
“Yes.”
Sandi sat quietly for a while, not even bothering to wipe the smudge of mascara off her cheek, not even aware. Matt found that endearing. And disturbing in ways he didn’t want to acknowledge.
When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and tender. “How sweet.”
“Is that what you call meddling? Sweet?”
“Think about it, Matt. Your mother is dying and her last wish is for you to be happy. Don’t you find that endearing?”
“I find it exasperating. Look, Sandi. My mother brought you here under false pretenses. There’s no way her plan is going to work.”
“Oh, I completely agree.”
“You do?”
“Of course. You’re not my type.”
Matt didn’t want to be her type, did he? He was relieved, wasn’t he?
“I’m glad we’re in agreement,” he said. “First thing tomorrow I’ll help you get your bag and art supplies to the car, and you can go home. I’ll deal with Mother.”
“She’ll be so disappointed.”
“She has to learn that she can’t play around with the lives of other people. Life is not one of her romance novels.”
“But, Matt, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could grant her dying wish?”
“Fall in love?” He would as soon try to fly to the moon…without wings.
“We could pretend.”
“I’m no good at pretending.”
“Just think how happy we could make your mother. Oh, do say yes, Matt.”
“Maybe,” he said, meaning no. At her crestfallen look, he said, “I’ll think about it,” knowing he would think of nothing else. When she gave him a radiant smile that warmed him all the way to his toes, he added, “Tomorrow we’ll see,” meaning yes.
What could be so hard about pretending to fall in love with the kindest-hearted woman he’d ever met?
Matt stood in the middle of the library drunk on Sandi’s lingering fragrance and dumbfounded by his own stupidity. Of all the insane things he’d ever done, pretending to fall in love topped the list. For one thing, the very idea of love made him cringe. For another, he didn’t know the first thing about romancing a woman.
His ill-fated romance with the blessedly long-gone Nancy McMains Stayman proved that.
He glanced down at his feet. Things would have turned out differently if he’d been wearing shoes. A shoeless man is a defenseless man. A shoeless man can’t be responsible for his actions.
What he would do was wait till morning, then tell Sandi he’d changed his mind.
And she’d get that forsaken look on her face, that little-girl-lost look that made him want to scoop her up, ensconce her on satin cushions and keep harm at bay with a gold-hilted sword.
“Damn,” he muttered. He was losing his mind.
Come dawn, he would lose face as well. Matt hated being second-rate at anything. Even romance.
What he needed was a few lessons. What he needed was a crash course.
He’d just put his hand on the light switch, when he noticed his mother’s novels occupying two complete shelves. He’d never read them, never wanted to. Naturally he was proud of her, even bragged about her talent whenever he got a chance, but he’d never had the least inclination to know what was between the covers of her books.
His secretary, Janice, called them things like fantastic, amazingly romantic, steamy. Matt stalked to the shelves and selected a handful. Romantic he could use. Maybe even fantastic. He didn’t plan on letting his pretense advance to the steamy stage, but it never hurt to be prepared.
He hurried to the bedroom with his arsenal of seductive weapons, then locked the door. Picking up a book called Penelope’s Persuasion, he turned to Chapter One….
Armed with a dagger in her stocking and her father’s musket under her cloak, Penelope lifted the latch of the heavy wrought-iron gates that guarded Brentwood Manor and slipped into the darkness. Tonight Pierre Lafette would pay for what he’d stolen…the largest plantation in Louisiana and a maiden’s virginity. Her virginity.
“Good lord,” Matt said. He would hate to meet this Penelope creature in the dark. A man looking at the business end of a dagger and a musket could be persuaded of many things.
He tossed the book aside.
Those were the wrong weapons for the kind of persuasion he had in mind.
Pawing through his pile of purloined romances, he selected another title. Matt opened the book called Tenderness, and began to read…
I’ll never forget the day Jim proposed. He was kneeling on my doorstep with the rain pelting his bare head and his arms full of oranges, never mind that we were at the height of a depression and oranges were more precious than gold. “Cynthia, will you marry me?” he said, and I told him yes on the spot. We went inside to the parlor and…
Matt gave a satisfied grunt. “Now, that’s more like it,” he said. Employing the speed-reading technique he used to plow through tomes of legal documents, he finished the book before sleep claimed him. Couldn’t put it down, as a matter of fact.
When he finally did, he sat in his rumpled tuxedo amazed. “Who would have thought Mother knew all that?”
Sandi nearly tripped on the oranges outside her bedroom door. There were twelve of them piled into a pewter bowl.
“What in the world?” Who would put oranges at her door?
She picked up the bowl. There was no note, no clue as to how the fruit came to be there. Maybe the housekeeper had been on her way to the library with them and had been interrupted. But that didn’t make sense. Both the kitchen and the library were on the first floor.
Mystified, Sandi picked up the bowl and carried it along with her art supplies to the west wing. She would take an orange to Lucy, then carry the rest down to the kitchen. Maybe somebody there could unravel the mystery.
Matt was with his mother. “Good morning,” he said. “I see you got my oranges.”
“You left these outside my door?”
“Yes.”
Sandi nearly burst out laughing, but the expression on his face stopped her. It was expectation mixed with a kind of awful hope that melted her all the way to her toes.
“Why, that’s absolutely lovely,” she said.
“You like oranges, then?”
“Yes, I do.” Sandi had never known how a smile could tug heartstrings.
“Well, good, then. I’m glad you do.”