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.
“I think it’s time to announce the winners of the contest,” Katie said, lifting the needle from the record player, thus ending the music. “The best shaggers in Clover are—”
“Abby Long and Ben Harper, of course,” Hannah cried, grabbing Abby’s left arm and Ben’s right and holding them high in the air.
Everybody clapped and cheered.
“Well, hey, if you can’t win the shag contest at your own engagement party, when can you?” Blaine exclaimed happily.
He turned to Matthew, who was surveying the scene, his arms folded across his chest, the only person in the room who wasn’t clapping or laughing or even smiling.
“It was generous of Hannah to name Abby and Ben the winners,” Blaine murmured confidentially to Matthew. “Of course, we all know Hannah is really the best dancer of them all.”
“So does she,” Matthew growled. “She is fully aware that she is the most fascinating woman in this room.”
Blaine raised his brows but made
