Trust in Summer Madness

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘We do have the reception to talk about,’ she confirmed firmly, undaunted by that displeasure. ‘And we wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t be bored.’ Jarrett’s voice was hard, his eyes challenging as he once more met her gaze. ‘I’ve had some practice at it myself,’ he added softly.

  Colour heightened her cheeks before quickly fading again. ‘It can be a tiring business,’ she told him stiltedly. ‘Especially if it turns out to be unnecessary.’

  What reply Jarrett would have made to that deliberate taunt she never knew. ‘Our table is ready, Jarrett,’ came Bethany’s timely interruption.

  His mouth tightened, then he gave a slow nod. ‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘It was good to see you again, Sian. Newman,’ he nodded abrupt dismissal of the other man.

  Chris slowly sat down as the other couple moved to their table across the room, Bethany’s face animated as she spoke to the preoccupied man sitting across from her. ‘So that’s Jarrett King,’ he muttered.

  Sian’s eyes widened at the open dislike in her fiancé’s voice. ‘Yes, that’s Jarrett,’ she said in a puzzled voice, wondering at Chris’s attitude. Apart from that curt departure Jarrett had been very polite. And yet Chris seemed to dislike him on sight, an unusual reaction for him. Chris seemed to get along with everyone usually. Obviously not Jarrett.

  ‘He isn’t what I expected at all,’ he mumbled, a frown to his dark blue eyes.

  ‘Expected?’ she echoed sharply.

  He shrugged. ‘Everyone in Swannell has heard of the famous Jarrett King.’ He glanced over at the other couple. ‘I’m not sure Bethany should be with a man like him. I’ve heard things about Jarrett King that make him highly unsuitable as a companion for Bethany.’

  Sian had stiffened now, for some reason resenting the same criticism she herself had directed at him mentally. ‘Really?’

  ‘She’s too young to handle a piranha like him—’

  ‘I think that’s going a little too far, Chris,’ she protested heatedly.

  His eyes narrowed, his mouth tight. ‘Why are you defending the man?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not defending him—’

  ‘No?’ he bit out angrily. ‘It sounds very much that way to me.’ He eyed her moodily.

  She was very much aware of Bethany and Jarrett as they sat across the room from them, of Bethany’s sparkling charm and Jarrett’s lazy humour, almost as if Bethany’s efforts to charm him amused rather than attracted him.

  Her mouth was tight as she turned back to Chris. ‘I agree with you that he is totally unsuitable for Bethany,’ her tone was abrupt, ‘but I don’t agree that he’s a piranha.’

  His eyes flashed deeply. ‘Not even after the way he walked out on you?’ he rasped.

  All the colour drained from Sian’s face, leaving her eyes looking huge and haunted. ‘What do you know about that?’ she choked, crumbling the bread roll on her plate to destruction.

  Chris’s mouth twisted. ‘Only what the people in this town felt I should know when we became engaged.’

  She swallowed hard, having no idea he had been told the gossip about her. ‘Then perhaps they told you wrong!’

  ‘He left with another woman, didn’t he?’ Chris scorned.

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was pained at the truth of that.

  ‘Let’s eat, Sian,’ he muttered as their main course arrived. ‘This is hardly the place for this discussion.’

  She didn’t think anywhere would be the right place for discussing what was basically a private matter between herself and Jarrett. He had left with Nina Marshall, yes, but only because he found more pleasure in being with her than with Sian.

  All enjoyment in the meal had gone for her. All she was aware of was Chris’s brooding anger, and Jarrett and Bethany’s obvious enjoyment in each other’s company, the sound of Jarrett’s husky laughter beginning to grate on her nerves by the time they got to the coffee stage of their meal, and she refused any of the strong brew, as did Chris.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he asked tersely.

  She had never seen Chris like this before; she was more used to his easy charm and gentleness. This side of him was completely new to her, and she wondered if jealousy of Jarrett could have prompted this reaction. She could have told him he had no reason to feel anything over Jarrett; any love she might have felt for him had died when Nina Marshall returned to Swannell, also dismissed from his life. In time she could have perhaps forgiven his loving the other woman more than her, but when Nina returned a couple of weeks later without him it became obvious that neither of them had meant that much to Jarrett.

  As they walked past Jarrett’s table his hand came out to grasp Sian’s wrist. She looked down with a gasp; Chris had gone on ahead to pay the bill and so not witnessed this intimacy. But Bethany had, and her embarrassment was all the more acute because of her sister’s wide-eyed stare.

  ‘Let go of me,’ she ordered between gritted teeth, very conscious of her hip pressed against his arm, could feel the warmth of his body through his shirt.

  He made no effort to release her, his thumb moving rhythmically against the delicate veins in her wrist. ‘I have to talk to you,’ he told her throatily, his eyes intent.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she wrenched her arm out of his grasp. ‘If you’ll excuse me…?’

  ‘No!’ He stood up, towering over her as he always had, as powerfully built as ever. ‘Sian, I need to talk to you.’ He clasped her forearms.

  ‘Why?’ she asked flatly. ‘Isn’t it a little late for talking between us? I thought we’d said it all three years ago.’

  ‘Sian—’

  ‘Darling, are you ready to leave?’ Chris had paid the bill, coming back for her as he realised she hadn’t followed him out, and his irritation fanned to anger as he saw the way Jarrett was touching her. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, King…’ He pulled Sian to his side, a reckless challenge on his face. ‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he added tauntingly, ‘but Sian wears my ring now.’

  She gasped at this deliberate provocation, seeing Jarrett’s eyes narrow to steely slits.

  ‘Sian never wore my ring,’ he answered in a mild voice—too mild! ‘We never needed such affectations as rings to know she belonged to me.’

  Sian felt herself sway, forcing herself to remain standing as Chris’s hand crushed hers. But she couldn’t speak, knowing she would choke if she even attempted it.

  Chris was white with fury. ‘Well, she doesn’t belong to you now,’ he snapped. ‘So just stay away from her!’

  Jarrett’s jaw had tightened ominously at this, a pulse beating steadily there. ‘I’ll stay away from Sian if she tells me to—and if I think she really means it,’ he added tauntingly. ‘So don’t give me orders, Newman,’ he grated. ‘Sian could tell you—only too well—how much better I respond to—persuasion.’

  ‘Why, you—’

  ‘Could we please leave, Chris?’ Sian had finally found her voice; this last provocation had been too much. She looked at Jarrett with cold hazel eyes. ‘And I do ask you to stay away from me, Jarrett—as I ask you to stay away from Bethany.’

  Her sister coloured painfully, her embarrassment acute. ‘Sian, you can’t—’

  ‘I agree, she can’t,’ Jarrett drawled, bestowing a smouldering smile on the besotted Bethany. ‘And you didn’t mean that, Sian,’ he looked back at her with mocking eyes. ‘I always knew when you were telling the truth—and that wasn’t it.’

  Her mouth twisted, her hand through the crook of Chris’s arm now. ‘How unfortunate I was never as perceptive where you were concerned,’ she was deliberately insulting, ‘then I would have known from the first what sort of man you are.’

  ‘And that is?’ he bit out harshly, all amusement gone now.

  ‘The sort of man I don’t like dating my sister!’ She turned away from the angry flame of his eyes. ‘I’ll talk to you later, Bethany,’ she warned.

  Her sister looked sulky. ‘I’m not a
child, Sian,’ she snapped.

  ‘I agree—you aren’t,’ Sian said tightly. ‘Which is precisely the reason I think we should talk.’

  ‘Still trying to be the conscience of your whole family, Sian?’ Jarrett derided.

  She looked at him coldly. ‘Still caring for my family, yes, Jarrett. But caring is something you know nothing about. Excuse us.’ This time she and Chris managed to get out of the restaurant undisturbed.

  ‘Arrogant bastard!’ Chris rasped as he opened the car door for her to get in, closing it with a decisive slam.

  Sian knew how disturbed he had been by the encounter by the fact that he swore; Chris never used strong language. But about this she couldn’t blame him. She could quite cheerfully have sworn herself!

  Jarrett was arrogant, more so than ever before. And he was out to cause trouble. Why, she had no idea; he had hurt her badly enough in the past without wanting to cause a strain between herself and Chris. But the strain was already there, with Chris driving recklessly back to her home.

  ‘I’m coming inside.’ There was a determined glitter to his eyes. ‘We need to talk.’

  She could see that, knew that Chris deserved some sort of explanation. But about tonight she didn’t have one; she had no idea why Jarrett was acting as he was, had no idea what he was doing back in Swannell. He was a little young to be retracing his roots!

  Her father was still up when they got in, so she went and made them all a cup of coffee, giving a barely perceptible shrug of her shoulders to Chris, seeing by the stubborn set of his mouth that he intended staying as long as it took for her father to go to bed. He was determined to have that talk with her tonight.

  Sian felt totally confused as she prepared the coffee. She had no idea why Jarrett should want to talk to her about anything – especially while he was dating her sister! She couldn’t let Bethany be hurt as she had been hurt, she had to protect her sister against herself if it came to it.

  ‘Have a nice evening?’ Her father took the cup of coffee she handed him, oblivious of the strained atmosphere between the engaged couple.

  ‘We went to the Raven.’ Sian avoided giving him a direct answer, the reputation of the restaurant such that he was sure to think they had enjoyed themselves.

  ‘You didn’t happen to see Bethany, did you?’ he enquired casually.

  ‘We—’

  ‘You know the Raven isn’t her sort of place,’ she interrupted Chris’s reply, knowing by his angry scowl that he was about to say more than she wanted him to. But again she had avoided telling a deliberate lie. The Raven wasn’t Bethany’s sort of place.

  ‘No,’ her father chuckled, very comfortable and relaxed in his casual and old trousers and tattered worn cardigan, his usual attire after his formal clothing of the day at his office. ‘She’s more likely to be at the Swan, they have a discothèque there.’

  ‘Not on a Wednesday,’ Sian told him absently, aware of Chris’s glowering impatience.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose she’s just out with one of her friends,’ her father shrugged. ‘She left in such a hurry she didn’t have time to tell me. I doubt she’ll be too late.’

  ‘No,’ again Sian answered, when it became obvious Chris was going to make no effort at conversation.

  ‘There was a good Western on television tonight,’ her father told her happily. ‘I enjoyed that.’

  Sian smiled indulgently, Westerns were her father’s passion. ‘John Wayne?’ she teased, knowing the Duke was her father’s favourite cowboy.

  ‘Randolph Scott,’ he named his second favourite, and put down his empty cup. ‘Well, I’m off to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow, I suppose, Chris?’ he smiled at the other man. Liking and respect existed between the two of them, a deep contrast to what her father had felt for Jarrett; he had never quite trusted him. And that mistrust had been justified!

  ‘I’m sure you will, George.’ Chris roused himself enough to be polite.

  Sian stood up to kiss her father affectionately goodnight, a habit from when she was a child, a pleasant habit. ‘See you in the morning,’ she smiled.

  ‘Mm,’ he touched her cheek. ‘And don’t be too late to bed,’ he frowned. ‘You’re looking a little peaky today.’

  ‘Pre-wedding nerves,’ she joked.

  Her father smiled. ‘Both of you, by the look of it,’ he teased Chris’s tense expression.

  ‘It’s a hectic time,’ Chris mumbled.

  ‘I agree,’ her father laughed. ‘But it will soon be over, and I’m sure the honeymoon will be worth it,’ he added with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Dad!’

  He could still be heard chuckling as he went up to his bedroom, having no idea of the fraught tension he had left behind him, sure that they would be in each other’s arms the moment he left the room.

  ‘Is there still going to be a wedding?’ Chris finally rasped. ‘Or a honeymoon, for that matter?’

  Sian gave him a startled look, paling. ‘What do you mean?’

  He stood up forcefully, as if the inactivity of sitting down made him impatient. ‘Don’t try telling me that meeting King again hasn’t unsettled you,’ he scorned.

  ‘I found it a little—strange,’ she chose her words carefully, ‘but that’s all.’

  ‘Is it?’ he derided. ‘Then why didn’t you want your father told that Bethany was out with him?’

  She sighed, chewing on her inner lip. ‘He wouldn’t understand—’

  ‘Neither do I! God, when I think of the way he was touching you! I could have hit him in that moment,’ Chris growled.

  She had known that, but if he had Jarrett would have hit him back, and he wouldn’t have pulled his punches either. Jarrett was a physical man in every way, and he would have derived enjoyment from hitting Chris.

  ‘I didn’t like it either—’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ he ground out. ‘You didn’t exactly look as if you were fighting him off when I came back to see what was delaying you!’

  ‘We were in a public restaurant,’ she flushed. ‘I didn’t want to make a scene. As for my father being told about Bethany—he doesn’t like Jarrett, he never did. It would upset him to know Bethany was out with him.’

  ‘And you think it didn’t upset me to see King touching you?’ Chris asked bitterly.

  ‘I can see it did,’ she soothed, her hand on his arm. ‘But I didn’t choose to have him touch me.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘To talk to me—’

  ‘Talk!’ he derided harshly. ‘It looked to me as if talking were the last thing he had on his mind. The man was eating you with his eyes! Tell me about him, Sian, tell me about the two of you, why you broke up.’

  She turned away. ‘We just weren’t suited.’

  ‘He doesn’t give that impression,’ Chris said dryly. ‘In fact, he seemed to imply you were very suited, in some ways,’ he looked at her searchingly.

  She closed her eyes, flashes of vivid memory going in and out of her mind—she and Jarrett swimming in the river together, making love afterwards on a blanket beneath the willow tree, its weeping branches affording them a privacy that hid them from the outside world. After that first magical time together they had spent a lot of summer afternoons in the same way, never tiring of each other, never quite sated as they longed for the next time they could be alone together to make love.

  ‘You were lovers!’ Chris rasped at her silence.

  She raised her lashes. ‘I told you there’d been someone else—’

  ‘But not him!’ Chris groaned.

  The flecks of green in her hazel eyes were more noticeable as her anger rose at the disgust in his face. ‘Why shouldn’t it have been him? I was going to marry him!’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Circumstances,’ she revealed tautly.

  Chris’s eyes narrowed to stormy blue pools. ‘The woman Nina Marshall,’ he demanded to know.

  Sian moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, looking down at her c
lasped hands. ‘Yes. He went to America, I decided not to go with him.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Chris—’

  ‘Just tell me, Sian,’ he sighed his impatience. ‘Don’t I have a right to know about you and him?’

  ‘I—I suppose so.’ She swallowed hard, sitting down, knowing it wouldn’t be easy to relive the memories. ‘I was nineteen when I met Jarrett. Oh, I’d seen him about town, but he was a little too old for me, a little out of my league, so we’d never actually spoken. He ran a branch of his uncle’s business here, had a steady girl-friend called—called Nina,’ she revealed painfully. ‘He and I met one day, quite by accident, at Mrs Day’s.’ Her expression was far away, vividly remembering that first meeting with Jarrett, the jolt of awareness that had seemed to shoot through both of them the moment their eyes met. ‘He—he had some men doing some work at her house, an extension, I think. And I—I’d taken some apples round from the orchard here. He was there talking to his men, we began to talk, and—’

  ‘And so he dropped his girl-friend and started going out with you,’ Chris derided.

  Sian flushed. ‘Not exactly. He told me things had been cooling between him and Nina for some time, meeting me just ended it sooner than it would have done. That’s what he said,’ she insisted at Chris’s contemptuous expression.

  ‘The man would have said anything to get you!’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she avoided his glance. ‘But at the time I believed him. We spent an idyllic summer together, and after two months he asked me to marry him. I accepted,’ she continued softly. ‘We’d already started planning the wedding when his uncle invited him out to run the American business.’

  ‘You didn’t want to go?’

  She gave him a sharp look. ‘He was going to be my husband, of course I would have gone.’

  ‘But he went to America without you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because by that time he was back with Nina,’ she said shrilly.

  ‘What happened to her?’ Chris frowned. ‘He seems to be very much on his own now.’

  He seemed to be, but the magazine article implied differently; Arlette was now the woman in his life. ‘Nina Marshall lives in London now, with her husband,’ she told Chris dully.