The Engagement Party

“Why would an insectologist have a bag filled with crime books, a map of Clover and a copy of The First Families of South Carolina?”

“Oh, Hannah, you did go snooping in his bag!” Katie was aghast.

“I didn’t have time to get to his notebooks,” Hannah lamented. “Or those files. I wonder what was in them?”

“Hannah, the man is my guest!” Katie cried. “It’s bad enough that the first room I put him in was like being lodged under Niagara Falls, but then you insult him and search his things! I wouldn’t blame him if he checked out—oh, I hope he won’t!”

“Because you consider him a dependable source of income?” Hannah paused on the stairs to scrutinize Katie’s flushed face. “Or because you think he’s—he’s...” Her voice trailed off and she actually blushed.

“Oh, yes, he definitely is, isn’t he?” Katie laughed. An incoherent Hannah was a rare an amusing sight. “And he is obviously attracted to you, Hannah. I thought he was going to pounce when he saw you stretched out on his bed.”

“I didn’t want him to know that I’d looked into his bag. I was trying to distract him. Do you think it worked?”

“I think the contents of his bag were the last thing on his mind when he was looking at you, Hannah. But if you’re so certain he isn’t what he says, why is he here? And why the need for subterfuge?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out,” Hannah asserted resolutely.

“Hannah, from what I’ve seen of Matthew Granger so far, I wouldn’t recommend, uh, getting on his bad side.” Katie looked concerned. “We already know he’s quick to anger, and he’s aggressive and demanding, too. He is not the most agreeable guest I’ve ever had, but with the leaky roof to fix and the sump pump in the basement on the verge of giving out, I can’t be choosy. Whoever can pay, stays. But I intend to keep well out of his way, and I’d advise you to do the same.”

“Because you think he’s dangerous?” Hannah whispered, suddenly breathless.

The reckless glitter in her eyes disturbed Katie. “I don’t think he’s threatening in a physically harmful way. But I do detect a sense of danger about him, Hannah.”

“So do I.” Hannah’s face was aglow. “He makes me nervous, Katie. Me! That’s never happened to me before. When I’m around him, I feel jittery, both afraid and excited at the same time. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes.” Katie looked grim. “And those kinds of feelings and the kind of man who inspires them can be very dangerous, Hannah.” She had a haunted, faraway look in her eyes. “Emotionally dangerous,” she added bleakly.

Hannah stared at her, intrigued. Katie was three years her senior, slender and pretty with long, light brown hair and green eyes. Though she was warm and friendly and smiled often, during unguarded moments—like this one—there was a certain sadness about her. Was it inspired by an emotionally dangerous man?

Hannah remembered that some years ago Katie had seriously dated a man named Luke Cassidy, but he’d left town and never come back. Though Katie had never revealed what happened with Luke, the general consensus in Clover was that she’d had her heart broken. But nobody had any real facts, and Katie’s firmly quiet reserve did not invite intimate questions. Not even gossip maven Jeannie Potts dared to pry. This was the most personal conversation Hannah had ever had with Katie and she was tempted to take it further.

But before she could ask any questions about men in general or Luke in particular, Abby Long joined them on the steps. Slightly tipsy, she took Katie and Hannah by their hands. “I was looking for you two,” Abby exclaimed effusively. “Ben and Sean want to have a shag contest. Katie, do you still have those old shag records?”

“As if I would ever get rid of such nostalgic treasures!” Katie grinned, her somber mood evaporating. “I have Carolina Beach Classics, volumes one and two, and all four volumes of Shagger’s Delight. Why, those records are icons of the glorious past, handed down to me for safekeeping.”

“Maybe I should think about carrying them in my shop, along with the Victorian lady’s writing desk and the French Egyptian Empire chest and the Kestner baby dolls,” kidded Hannah.

“Katie, go get the records,” Abby ordered. “Sean, Tommy Clarke and Zack Abernathy are all demanding to have you as a partner, Hannah. You can either choose one or enter the contest with each guy.”

“Suppose I choose none of the above?” Hannah’s eyes danced. “I think I’d rather have that adorable hunk, Ben Harper, as my partner in the contest. Do you think his fiancée will mind?”

“That jealous witch?” Abby grinned, playing along with Hannah’s joke. “Keep away from her. She’ll get revenge by making you wear a hideous bridesmaid’s dress, say, something in puce with three hoopskirts and lots of ruffles.”

“Anything but that!” Hannah feigned a horrified gasp. “I swear I won’t go near the man!”

Laughing, the bride-to-be and her bridesmaids rejoined the party.

* * *

It took Matthew less than ten minutes to unpack, then he unzipped his canvas bag and pulled out his copy of The First Families of South Carolina. He turned to the index, found the name Farley and smiled slightly. It didn’t surprise him that the dark-haired beauty was a member of an affluent, highborn clan. She not only possessed the natural confidence of one blessed by money, brains and looks but also that intangible aura of class and privilege.

But Hannah Farley added sexual magnetism to the package; she had a provocative sparkle that other high-society types he’d met had lacked. That silver dress of hers with its halter top and short, tight skirt and those wickedly high-heeled sandals were unlikely to be seen at any proper country-club affair or society ball.

The jolt of pure desire that hit him caught him off guard, and he had to steel himself against it. He had not come to Clover to have a fling with the sultry little Southern belle with skin as soft and white as the magnolia blossoms that seemed to bloom in every yard in town. He was here to discover who he really was....

Matthew opened the top bureau drawer and removed the framed photograph he’d put there. The photo had been one of his mother’s favorites, always displayed on a small mahogany end table in the living room wherever they had lived. It was a five-by-seven color portrait of Galen and Eden Granger and their dark-haired, dark-eyed five-year-old son, Matthew, who gazed solemnly into the camera lens.

He had always been a serious child, intense and focused from an early age, and had grown into a responsible, hardworking student and athlete who’d made his proud parents even prouder. Matthew thought of the milestones—his graduations from high school, college and law school. His father, a camera buff, had been there to photograph the events, his mother smiling adoringly at her son. They had been there for the smaller everyday things, too—school programs, Little League games, helping with homework, a game of catch in the backyard. No son could have had a more loving, devoted set of parents. Matthew had been the center of their lives, and he knew it.

He had a shelf filled with albums of photos chronicling his life, from the day he’d been carried home from the hospital as a newborn to the family shots beside the gaily decorated Christmas tree snapped six months ago. It was the last Christmas he would ever spend with his mother and father. They had been killed in a car accident just two weeks later.

A spasm of grief, physical in its intensity, radiated through him. He remembered that devastating phone call from Albert Retton, his father’s best friend and fellow retired navy captain, the call that had shattered his life. And then the second shock, which had come only days after the funeral...

“You were adopted, Matthew,” Al Retton had told him. “Your parents knew you should have been told earlier but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They wanted you to believe you’d been born to them. I think they came to believe it themselves. But I was instructed to give you this letter if anything ever happened to them.”

The letter confirmed the adoption story and reassured Matthew of their great love for him. There were no references to the woman who had given birth to him or the man who’d fathered him, no mention of where he’d come from.

The news sent him reeling. He hadn’t had a clue. According to the letter, Galen and Eden had tried for years to have a child of their own before considering adoption. Matthew had been three days old when he’d left the hospital maternity ward with his adoptive parents, who had considered him their own from the moment they’d held him in their arms.

And from that moment on, adoption was never mentioned. Since the family had lived on naval bases all over the world and were without close relatives, the fiction had been easy to maintain.

Matthew placed the picture back in the drawer and reached inside his canvas bag. Inside were paperback editions of the books he’d written—page-turning thrillers with lawyers as the protagonists and the villains. He had used the pseudonym Galen Eden, a combination of his parents’ first names, and they had been thrilled with his success. He’d written the first book as a lark in his spare time, because he found the corporate law he was practicing both boring and unfulfilling. When the book turned out to be an unexpected blockbuster with the movie rights optioned, he decided to try again. After all, the first book might’ve been a fluke. It wasn’t. Two bestselling books later, he found himself retired from the corporation to write full-time.

But he hadn’t written a word since he’d learned that his whole life had been based on a lie. Six months later, he was still angry, bitter and disconnected, deeply grieving for his late parents yet hungry for the truth about his identity. A rather shady private investigator in Tampa, who demanded an outrageously expensive per diem, had promised him satisfaction, and finally, weeks later, had delivered his clandestinely obtained original birth certificate.

Carefully, Matthew removed it from the file at the bottom of the canvas bag.

He held it, not needing to read it because he’d studied it so long and so often that he knew it by heart. On the document, his name was listed as Baby Boy. No first name, no surname. Galen and Eden Granger were the ones who had named him Matthew John Granger, which appeared on a subsequent birth certificate, the familiar one he had always believed to be true.

Matthew’s eyes lingered on his birth mother’s name—Alexandra Wyndham, who had been just sixteen years old when her son was born. His father was listed as Jesse Polk, aged eighteen. There was no other information available. According to the detective, the maternity home for unwed mothers in central Florida where his mother had spent her pregnancy no longer existed.

But just last month, more information had turned up. The P.I. had tracked Alexandra Wyndham’s and Jesse Polk’s origins to a small, quiet and quaint city in South Carolina, situated very close to the ocean. Clover.

At first, Matthew had been dead set against coming to Clover. He’d tried to convince himself that the information he now possessed, the names of his birth parents, was enough. But the turmoil that had become his life continued unabated.

He couldn’t write; his concentration and his imagination seemed to have been suspended. He still lay awake night after night, troubled by grief and anger, grappling with the lifelong deception and all that was unknown to him. When he went to the library to research his latest book, he found himself researching South Carolina. Especially the coastal area. And finally, inevitably, Clover itself.

And so here he was, in the town where two lusty teenagers had taken no precautions and conceived him. He wondered if they were still here, although they certainly were not teenagers now. His mother would be forty-eight, his father, fifty. Still, they seemed startlingly young to him because his adoptive parents had been forty years old when he was born. And adopted.

Matthew stared at the battered copy of The First Families of South Carolina. His maternal relations were the upper-class Wyndhams. Their social position, wealth and prestige had come as a shock to him. Of his father, Jesse Polk, he knew nothing. The Polk family was not in the book, which meant they weren’t one of the first families of South Carolina.

But the Farleys were. Matthew turned back to the section on them. They rated only a few pages, as compared to the Wyndhams’ two full chapters. Both families had been given royal land grants in the latter half of the seventeenth century, but the Wyndhams, while keeping their land holdings, had soon moved up into the great wealth of the shipping business, with branches of the family based in Charleston. Through the centuries, the Farleys had remained socially prominent and well-to-do while the Wyndhams had achieved superstatus.

And he was part Wyndham. Part of their illustrious history. Matthew closed the book as confusion enveloped him like a heavy cloud. Matthew Wyndham. Matthew Polk. Matthew Granger. Who was he? It was a shattering blow to reach the age of thirty-two, only to find out that the life you’d been living and the identity you claimed as your own was a lie.

The sounds of music and laughter drifted up to his room, breaking the silence that enshrouded him. He was filled with a terrible loneliness. Since his parents’ death, he had distanced himself from everybody—his friends, his agent, his editor at the publishing house. His love life had been nonexistent. He had no energy or desire to pursue any of the women who wanted him.

Even before the tragedy, he had always been in control, remaining slightly aloof with his lovers because he wasn’t looking for emotional intimacy with all its accompanying entanglements. He’d enjoyed women and sex but steered clear of involvement. That dreaded phrase “serious relationship,” when uttered by a dewy-eyed woman, made him want to run in the opposite direction. He’d had his writing, his parents’ adoration, his friends and his woman of the moment. Who needed anything more?

Now his life seemed singularly empty, without focus, without love.

“Hannah Kaye Farley, you’re not allowed to invent new steps! You have to follow the rules!” A female voice, so loud and shrill that it sounded as if it were in the same room with him, startled him from his gloomy reverie.

Matthew looked around, discerned that the earsplitting voice came from downstairs and felt a flash of sympathy for those in close proximity. It seemed that somebody was scolding Hannah Kaye Farley for breaking the rules.

He smiled grimly. He’d bet that little Miss Farley was a rule breaker extraordinaire whenever it suited her purposes. From their brief acquaintance, he’d pegged her as a headstrong, spoiled beauty who said and did as she pleased. The kind of woman he avoided because he preferred quiet, compliant, worshipful types who let him call all the shots from beginning to end.

But thoughts of Hannah continued to haunt him as he sat on the bed listening to the rain pound on the roof. He had never met a woman who affected him as viscerally as Hannah Kaye Farley. She was vibrant and sexy, provocative and elegant, her face alight with laughter one minute, then stormy with anger the next. It occurred to him that she was the first woman since the accident to capture his interest, to make his body tauten and rise with desire.

He visualized her on his bed, but carried the image a step further, stripping her of that eye-catching silver minidress, picturing her silky, naked body lying open and ready for him. He thought of her mouth, not laughing or pouting, but swollen from his kisses, her gray eyes dreamy with passion.

Matthew stood, sensual heat and urgency coursing through him. Hannah stirred his senses, and while it was a relief to know that he was still a virile, functioning male, an affair with her was out of the question. She was already suspicious of him and with good reason. His imagination must still be in limbo if he couldn’t come up with a better cover story than that insect textbook nonsense. Katie was too tactful—and too interested in keeping him as a paying guest—to question the story, but Hannah had no such reticence.

And why should she? As the beautiful daughter of one of the first families in the state, she undoubtedly played by her own set of rules. And he was accustomed to making and breaking his own. An affair with her would be a disaster. She would expect things of him and from him, demand them even. The last thing he needed right now was a demanding woman who wouldn’t respect his need for boundaries and control.

No, he wasn’t willing or ready to get mixed up with the beautiful Miss Farley, however hot and hard she made him. He had to focus all his thoughts and energy on his secret mission, learning as much as he could about his birth parents. Only then could he make an informed, intelligent decision about whether or not to meet them and, possibly, introduce himself to them.

The surge of sexual energy made him restless, eager to turn the pulsating tension into action. Why not begin his investigation tonight?

It was as good a time as any to start, he decided, placing the canvas bag in the closet and pocketing his room key. He had an invitation from Miss Katie Jones herself to join the party of Clover citizens downstairs. He could ask some subtle questions, perhaps pick up some information about Alexandra and Jesse, as he’d come to think of them. Never mother and father. He preferred to view them distantly, like characters in a novel: interesting to contemplate but having nothing to do with him or his life.

He assured himself that the fact that Hannah Kaye Farley was there had nothing at all to do with his decision to join the party.

The music and the laughter grew louder as he walked downstairs. He stood at the threshold of the crowded living room and watched the couples dancing to some old rhythm-and-blues classics. He recognized some of the songs but not the fast, rather intricate dance steps they were doing. Hannah was one of the best dancers, animated and lithe and vibrant as she moved with her partners, and she seemed to have several.

Matthew tried to turn his eyes to others in the crowd. Invariably his gaze returned to Hannah.

“She’s a knockout, isn’t she?” A smiling blond preppy type joined Matthew and handed him a drink.

Matthew accepted the glass. “Who?” he asked, and the other man laughed.

“Hey, it’s nothing to hide. Every guy in town has been slavering over Hannah Farley for years. Unfortunately, she never slavers back. She likes to play things strictly as friends.”

“Is that so?” Matthew took a gulp of the drink, which was straight bourbon on ice. The liquid burned a fiery path down his throat and seemed to ignite sparks deep within him.

“I’m Blaine Spencer, a friend of Ben Harper’s.” The toothsome preppy introduced himself. “And I know you’re Matthew Granger. I understand you’ll be staying at the boardinghouse while you do some scientific research here in Clover?”

“News travels fast,” murmured Matthew. He found his new acquaintance overbearing and presumptuous. He had not been slavering over Hannah Farley like some slack-jawed dolt!

“Katie filled me in when she sent this drink over to you,” Blaine replied amiably. “She said you seemed more the bourbon on the rocks than the wine-punch type.”

“Wine punch?” Matthew grimaced at the concept.

“I believe the ladies are partial to it.” Blain winked. “So, Matt, I guess Hannah wins your vote as the best shagger here tonight. Am I right, my friend?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Matthew said testily.

Blaine took no offense. “The dance is called the shag. We’re in the midst of a highly competitive contest here tonight. My partner and I have already been eliminated. The shag was a classic fixture in the beach towns during the sixties and we like to keep the spirit alive. Every kid in Clover learns the shag and passes the steps along to future generations.”

Matthew finished his drink in one gulp. “This is a very strange town.”

“We Clover natives like to think of ourselves as colorful. Originals.” Blaine grinned, seemingly impervious to insult. “Clover is a timeless place, where the past is intermingled with today and tomorrow will—”

“Are you a real-estate agent?” Matthew demanded. “You might as well save your spiel because I’m not planning on buying any property here.”

Blaine laughed. “I’m a dentist, Matt. My office is a few blocks farther down on Clover Street, near the Beauty Boutique.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I lose a filling,” Matthew muttered. Since his new friend seemed disinclined to leave—had Katie asked him to baby-sit her new tenant?—he decided to use Blaine’s affable presence to his own ends. “So you’re a Clover native, huh?”

“Born and raised here, like my daddy and his daddy before him,” Blaine said proudly.

“I guess you know the, uh—” Matthew paused. His pulses were pounding in his ears, so loudly they almost drowned out the blare of the shag dance tunes. “The Wyndhams.” For the first time, he dared to use the name of his birth mother’s family—his family—in conversation.

“The Wyndhams!” Blaine looked pleased. “Well, I don’t know them personally, of course. I mean, I’m not in their social orbit. They’re in the stratosphere of society and my family and friends are earthbound, if you get my drift. But occasionally I see members of the Wyndham family when they come into town to shop. Good-looking people. Classy. Upper classy.”

Mention Alexandra Wyndham, Matthew silently urged himself. Say her name. He felt almost sick with anticipation, desperate to hear even the slightest bit of information about the woman who had given birth to him. And had given him up. His mouth was dry. He couldn’t get the words out.

“Hannah knows the Wyndhams,” Blaine continued. “Her family socializes with them. The Farleys are up there, too, you know.”

Matthew scowled at his frustration. He was not here to discuss the Farleys!

“You wouldn’t catch the Wyndhams or the Farleys at a party at the Clover Street Boardinghouse. Of course, Hannah is nothing like the rest of the Farleys.”

“Because she chooses to socialize with you earthbound peasants?”

Blaine laughed good-naturedly. “Hannah can mix with anyone. Say, would you like me to introduce you to her? She’ll probably dance with you if you ask. She’s very gracious.”

“Just a little Carolina belle brimming with Southern hospitality?” Matthew remembered their contentious meeting upstairs when she’d been far from gracious or hospitable. He watched her now, flirting with every guy at the party, and his face hardened. “I think I’ll pass on the privilege of doing the shag with Hannah Farley, but thanks for offering, Biff.”

“Blaine.”

Matthew took a deep breath. “Whatever.”

Three

From the corner of her eye, Hannah watched Matthew Granger talking to Blaine Spencer as the two men stood together watching the dancers. She had known the exact moment that Matthew had set foot in the living room, as if she possessed some kind of psychic radar that attuned her to his presence. She was acutely aware of him every second, knowing when he was watching her—which was almost constantly, except for those moments when he’d turned his eyes on the others.

She’d known the instant he looked at Maureen Fitzgerald, Sean’s cousin, a striking, sexy redhead whom Hannah had always liked. Until she’d watched Matthew Granger smile slightly at Maureen. Then she’d felt a disgraceful urge to dunk the other woman’s head in the punch bowl!

Hannah continued to dance and laugh and flirt, her nerves tingly and taut. She realized that she was overdoing it; her dancing, her flirting, her laughter had an almost desperate edge.

Matthew disapproved of her behavior, Hannah was certain of that. Cold fire burned in his onyx eyes. She pretended to ignore him, taking care not to glance in his direction except very covertly. He would never know that she had seen his every move, gauged his every response. His reaction to the compulsively genial Blaine Spencer almost made her laugh out loud. Matthew stood there, dark and surly and brooding, while Blaine nattered on, his smile never wavering.