A Solitary Heart Read online

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she insisted. Jane’s glance turned into a glare. “Honestly, nothing’s wrong. It’s just that—Joshua’s older brother Matt is out there.”

  “Whew!” Jane wiped her brow in an exaggerated expression of relief. “And here I thought you hadn’t even noticed the sexiest, most virile, exciting man present! There for a moment you had me worried! Aren’t you a cool customer?”

  “Not exactly,” said Sian with a delicate bite, and her right hand splayed the deck of cards into a fan and snapped them shut. “Not—quite—exactly. Mr. Matthew Severn condescended to notice me upon his unexpected arrival and made sure to communicate in precise terms just how unsuitable I was in the role of Joshua’s future wife. I was a fortune-hunter and Joshua a victim, and he would make our lives hell were we to go through with the marriage. Et cetera, et cetera.”

  “What?” It was not so much a question as a high shriek of astonishment, and Jane fell off the desk and into her lap, gabbling. “You sly dog! When did Joshua propose, for heaven’s sake? And what did you tell him? How dare you keep this a secret from me?”

  “That,” said Sian coldly with hot, glittering eyes as she wrapped both arms around the other girl in an instinctive gesture to keep her from falling to the floor, “is the crux of the matter. Joshua hasn’t asked me yet. He probably hasn’t got up the courage to, poor boy. The very first I heard of this was from the devil himself. Accompanied, of course, with a thorough lashing from those go-to-hell eyes.”

  “Oh, no!” Jane stuffed the heel of one hand into her mouth, staring over it at her, eyes wide and scandalised. “And you with a temper as hot and as Irish as they come—what did you do?”

  Reel from shock, ache inside, feel buffeted like a gale-blown leaf. Janey, Janey, there weren’t enough words. Sian gritted from between bared white teeth, “I called him boorish and intrusive and pretentious.”

  “Aha, that’s my girl!” Jane threw her arms around Sian for an exuberant hug. “And what did he do?”

  Sian buried her face into her friend’s slim shoulder and began to shake with fury and laughter. “You don’t want to know! Jane, that’s why Joshua has been wandering around looking so whipped and worried. He’s been trying to corner me all day. I don’t know what to say to him if he asks me. If he’d caught me when I was really angry, I might have said yes just for spite!”

  “Would you want to say yes anyway—for your sake, not for Joshua’s or Matt’s?” asked Jane, sobering.

  Sian groaned, long and low and full of frustration. “God, I don’t know! Joshua’s so sweet and gentle, considerate and handsome. What’s more he’d be the ideal husband and father—”

  Jane slipped off her lap and on to the floor, leaning against her knees. “But,” she said gently, “what about love?”

  “Love!” Sian used the word like an expletive, a furious snort of contempt with a curl of her lip and flashing, brilliant eyes. To her watching and concerned friend, she was magnificent and all woman, her lustrous raven hair spilling like midnight down the ivory cream of a willowy neck and shoulders, a creature of high spirit and sensuality who was totally oblivious to the fact. “What did love get my mother? A thoroughly enchanting ne’er-do-well, a handsome faithless lover with wanderlust and the gambling itch—don’t get me wrong, I love my father too. That’s precisely why I think so little of the emotion. Love, Janey, darling, is not on my list of requirements. Stability, constancy, devotion—they’re what’s important and Joshua could be the man to give them to me. I just don’t know.”

  “Oh, Sian.” Jane sighed and pressed her hands.

  The dim, far-away look in Sian’s gaze sharpened slowly to the present awareness and she looked down at the blonde’s upturned face. What was Jane’s expression? Love, a dear certainty—tinged with a hint of sadness and…pity?

  She felt shocked at the prospect, quite failing to see why she should be pitied, unless it was for having undergone such a humiliating, infuriating encounter on what was meant to be a day of sharing and celebration.

  “Well,” she said briskly, with a glint in her eye as she shook off her reverie, “what about joining this party, then?”

  “That’s my girl!” said Jane, who scrambled to her feet and straightened her dishevelled dress. They made a perfect foil for each other, one small and sun-kissed brown with light golden hair, the other tall with raven hair and creamy skin.

  “I’d murder to have legs like yours!” exclaimed Jane ruefully. “I can’t think how Joshua’s brother managed to be so hateful instead of eating you up! You’re a killer in that red dress—if I wore something like that, the dropped waist would be down around my knees! It’s a wonder he didn’t throw you over his shoulder and make off with you the moment he laid eyes on you!”

  “Somehow,” said Sian very drily, “he managed to contain himself. Not that you find me weeping with disappointment. My other reactions are far too satisfying for that!”

  Her room-mate hesitated in the act of striding out of the door and looked at her sharply, then began to smile. “Why, I declare, Solitaire, you’ve got a devil twinkling out of your eye. Just what do you have fermenting in your nasty little mind?”

  “Not a lot,” she purred sweetly as her anger settled cold and wicked in the pit of her stomach. “But if Matt is so determined to consider me unsuitable for his august, respectable family, I might have to show him just how unsuitable I can be.”

  “Do count me in,” whispered Jane delightedly. “That bad old sexy man can’t tell my best friend off and get away with it! What are you going to do?”

  She shrugged. “Play it by ear. After all, he’s already declared war. I’ll just wave the red flag around and see what happens.”

  She followed Jane out of the room and down the short hall to the kitchen, and then there was no more time for intimate conversation, for they were engulfed in light, and noise and the welcoming cries from their friends.

  Instantly upon entering the kitchen, Sian felt the heat of attention radiating from the man in the corner. Her betraying gaze winged over to him; yes, she had not been mistaken. By some radar sense she managed to pin-point where he was.

  Matt Severn was leaning against a low open window-sill beside Joshua, appearing to talk to the parents of Jane’s boyfriend Steven, who lived in Michigan City and had come to South Bend for the day.

  The hunter appeared to be at ease, but Sian took in a silent quivering breath under the weight of his sharp stabbing stare. Why did this have to be so difficult? Why did he have to look at her in such an appraising, antagonistic way? Why did she have to feel so intimidated and somehow small for all her height of five feet ten?

  He was too hard; not stone-cold hard, but the healthy, aggressive hardness of sophistication, maturity and physical confidence, and by comparison with the impact of his presence she felt a frailty in the curvature of her bones and slim body in a way she’d never felt before.

  Then Joshua strolled over and put his arm casually around her shoulders, and Sian saw Matt Severn’s gaze shift infinitesimally at the movement, and his subtle, inward calculation, and all her self-confidence came surging back. She gave him an insouciant smile and saw him register that as well with dark anger, and then she turned her attention to Joshua.

  “Happy birthday, beautiful,” said Joshua with a grin. “What have you been up to?”

  “No good; you can bet on it,” she replied as she slipped her arm around his waist, and she coaxed his beer from him to take a quick sip. That looked intimate, didn’t it, Matt? Eat that until you choke on it.

  “Cake time!” called out Steven. Jane clapped her hands, eyes glowing, and a frothy confection appeared that had Jane’s and Sian’s names written on the top. It was ablaze with candles. After the cake came presents, and wine, and the last of the afternoon flitted away.

  People moved in and out of the apartment, danced outside in the back yard, cooked h
amburgers and hot dogs and drank beer. Sian slipped away from the group in the kitchen and went to get some supper. The sun was setting, the breeze turning cool at last, and, though a few of the older folk had left already, the party was still in full swing. It looked as if it might carry on all night and, since the next day was a holiday, probably would.

  As she was piling coleslaw and potato salad on to a paper plate, Joshua sidled up to her, and Sian sighed with resignation. Masking her irritation, for she didn’t feel up to handling a tête-a-tête with him at the moment, she smiled at him and said, “Be a love and get me a glass of wine, will you? My throat is parched after talking so much.”

  He planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Don’t go off dancing with somebody while I’m gone.”

  “That’d be a trick,” she muttered as she looked down at her laden plate, even as Joshua left her side. “I’d end up putting coleslaw down their front.”

  “Putting coleslaw down whose front?”

  The lazy voice came from her other side and a curling thread of anger trickled hot fingers down her spine as her head jerked in surprise. She had dared to hope that Matt would go with the other early departures, for he lived in Chicago, which was a good two-hour drive away, but he had hung around instead. Spying on her the whole time, if his prompt appearance was anything to go by.

  She squelched the traitorous gratitude that she was, at least, spared any intimacy with his younger brother and managed to find a dry, even tone. “There are possibilities. What a good attention span you have. Do you like what you see?”

  And she could have immediately bitten her wayward tongue out as Matt ran his predator’s eyes down her entire length—heavens, he had to be well over six feet tall—and said, with mocking amusement, “Drop-dead legs and a pretty smile. I’ve got to hand it to the little brother—he’s got good aesthetics.”

  Sian’s paper plate trembled and she gripped it so hard in an effort to steady herself that she buckled the edges. But her face remained smooth; she even managed to wrinkle her nose in faint distaste. “I don’t know; the description sounds vaguely heavy metal to me. I’m surprised. I would have thought your tastes ran to the more conservative.”

  The setting sun slanted across his hard, intent face, and for the merest instant those hazel eyes were lit and reflective. The effect was barbaric, uncanny. He almost didn’t look human. Sian fought the urge to step back in alarm. He said, soft and gentle, “But we weren’t talking about my tastes, just my brother’s.”

  “What about your brother?” asked Joshua, reappearing at her side with her wine and a newly opened beer. He looked defiant as he challenged Matt’s presence, and almost childishly unformed next to the other man’s chiselled, hard features.

  Sian consigned yet another sigh to the nether regions of her empty stomach. It looked to all intents and purposes as if the two men would wrangle over her right then and there like two dogs over a bone, never mind what the bone thought of the contention. The situation was passing beyond the ridiculous into the farcical.

  “Oh, you got it, thanks,” she said with outward poise to Joshua and took the wine. “We were just discussing individual tastes. I said Matt seemed the conservative type.”

  Joshua laughed rather too loudly. “Matt’s about as conservative as a race-track. What he got up to in his youth shouldn’t be told in polite company.”

  One corner of Matt’s sensually cut lips pulled to the side, and what were engaging dimples in Joshua’s young handsome face were deep creases stamped into his older brother, signs of decision, temper, and, yes, humour. The two looked alike only in their colouring and general build of body, and, when they were standing side by side as they were, Sian had to admit reluctantly that Joshua was another man who paled next to Matt’s settled, virile maturity.

  “But you know what they say about youth being wasted on the young,” remarked Matt with pointed silkiness, as his fierce hazel eyes met and locked with his brother’s.

  Sian bit her lip as Joshua bridled visibly and snapped back, “Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t know your own mind!”

  “No, but it does mean that you have a great deal of inexperience in knowing what to do when you change your mind,” replied Matt coolly, his voice at complete odds with the anger that sparked like black lightning from the depths of his darkening gaze.

  Sian looked yearningly across the laughing people who were enjoying themselves, oblivious to the storm gathering in their midst. She turned her attention back to the men who were glaring at each other over her head. Over her head! This bone most certainly did not agree to the contention, and said in a dangerously soft voice, “Let’s clear the air, shall we?”

  Joshua recalled himself with a start. Matt merely raised his eyebrows, and his weary, sardonic expression was the final straw that broke her sorely tried patience and ignited her fuse. Sian’s eyes blazed and she bit out succinctly, “Your brother, Joshua, has seen fit to tell me that he does not approve of our engagement! I, on the other hand, had to hear myself denounced at unflattering length in my own home by a total stranger. Now, you two can fight among yourselves all you like, and it is no concern of mine! However, you will not do so at my birthday party, in my time!”

  Joshua fell back a step in astonishment, for Matt had been right earlier; he had never seen her lose her temper before but she was far too gone in her butane heat to care.

  Well into her stride, she rounded on Matt in fine fury, strands of her hair flicking along ivory collarbones like ribbons of black silk. “And you! I have never met a more rude, arrogant, overbearing and blindly prejudiced man in my life! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, though I suspect in saying so I am merely wasting my breath! If Joshua, or any other man, does me the honour of proposing marriage, I will accept or reject him strictly on the merits of our relationship, and believe me, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to influence my decision one way or the other! I have not enjoyed your company, you may leave at your soonest convenience, goodnight!”

  Oh, the awful nerve of the man; Matt grinned, swift and slightly incredulous, shedding his former demeanour of ennui. He looked so satirically entertained that Sian’s temperature shot sky-high. Her vision dimmed and blurred, and, in one beautifully controlled expression of purest rage, she dumped her laden plate together with the wine down the front of his shirt.

  Someone gasped in the dead silence. Sian suspected that it might have come from her. She stared up into the sudden, deadly calm of his face and it was like looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun. With supreme and enviable poise Matt brought up a hand, and she flashed back to the scene by the tree when she’d thought he was going to slap her.

  His savage gaze held her prisoner. With one forefinger he hooked one dollop of creamy potato salad off his white shirt and brought it to his lips to suck it off.

  Shock sizzled down the raw nerve-endings of her every limb at the sheer sensuality of the act, while the worldly hazel eyes mocked and challenged and baited. He smiled, smoky and satanic; she tossed her luxuriant head in disdain and all but stamped her foot. A slight gust of wind lifted her hair and blew it across her face in a transparent midnight veil, through which could be seen the lovely shape and colour of her unwinking eyes.

  The moment of frozen tableau passed. Jane was suddenly present, interposing her small body between Matt and Sian while babbling about accidents and washing machines and detergents. The world moved and breathed and lived again, but Matt and Sian still stared at each other with the naked aggression of two boxing opponents, insulated in their own electrical current.

  This was war, and Sian no longer cared about the how or the why of it; she only knew that it sang a hot fusion to the juddering blood in her veins.

  Chapter Two

  Sian had a quick word with Jane and left the party at around two o’clock to spend the night at a girlfriend’s apartment, frankly running
from the overwhelming events of the day. Late the next morning, which was as bright and promised to be as hot as the day of the party, she showered and dressed quickly in a pale rose bikini, over which she wore a matching pink vest top and a blue miniskirt, showing a good length of the long, slim, perfectly muscled legs that Jane yearned for.

  Karen, a manager of a local restaurant that didn’t close on Memorial Day, had already left for work. Sian wrote her a note of thanks for letting her sleep on the couch, then stuffed various toiletries into her hastily packed overnight bag.

  She didn’t care if her running away from the party had been transparent; she had badly needed time to herself. She had pleaded tiredness as an excuse to escape Matt’s tenacious presence. Just thinking about Joshua’s older brother brought her blood to a low simmer.

  It had been no use telling herself that he’d had to hang around while his shirt tumbled through a wash, then the drying cycle. It had certainly been no use telling herself that she only had her own hot temper to blame. For whatever reason, he had been there, tall and tough and bare-chested, like a great wild tawny animal that had prowled into the house for a nap. Laughing at the things Jane had said. Talking quietly at some length to a fuming and subdued Joshua in one corner.

  That she had hated to witness. Joshua had acted as if Matt were his father or something—rebellious, resentful and still with the challenging bravado of the male adolescent, yet reined and under control by his older brother’s tough, authoritative presence.

  Gone was the delightful young adult, the witty and articulate law student, and in his place sat a sheepish little boy. Sian had seen Joshua through Matt’s eyes, and she hadn’t appreciated the experience. Matt might feel responsible for his younger brother, but he was not Joshua’s father and could not take the place of that man, who had died some years ago.