along with your dad, your stepmother or your mother. Not one of them. But to stay away from Travis’s wedding because you can’t be civil to your family for the space of one day doesn’t wash with me. And now you’re doing the same thing all over again. Although this time you’re using your painting as an excuse. Your painting and money.”
“I have to earn my living,” Jenessa put in hotly.
But Bryce overrode her. “Julie nearly lost Samantha midway through her pregnancy—I’m sure you’re aware of that. So that little baby is the apple of their eye. They dote on her, they adore her…and now they’ve asked you to be her godmother. But do you care? No, ma’am. You can’t even spare a day to fly up there.”
Put like that, it sounded horribly selfish; no wonder Bryce couldn’t condone her behavior. Knowing she was probably only going to dig herself deeper into trouble, Jenessa said weakly, “Of course I know how much they love Samantha. But the timing’s as bad as it could be. A show at the Morden is a huge accolade, I can’t afford to play around right now.”
His jaw hardened. “The message I’m getting is that you’re totally self-absorbed. It doesn’t matter that your brother loves you and his wife wants to get to know you, and that by inviting you to be Samantha’s godmother they’re asking you to be an important part of their lives. You’ve shut yourself up in an ivory tower called art. And you’re far too pure-minded to descend to the level of ordinary people.”
With a gasp of pure rage Jenessa said, “What gives you the right to speak to me like this?”
“My friendship with Travis does. You say you owe him money. Well, I owe him my life,” Bryce announced in a voice like a steel blade. “If it wasn’t for him, I’d be on the streets, in jail or dead.”
He broke off so abruptly that Jenessa said flatly, “You didn’t mean to tell me that.”
“You don’t deserve any information about my private life.”
“It’s wasted on me anyway,” she said, not altogether truthfully. “My mind’s made up.”
“So I’m supposed to stand by and do nothing while you ignore what’s most important to Travis—his wife and his child?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. Because it’s not your decision.”
“Do you really think you can do exactly what you please without hurting their feelings? Because that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? You’re disappointing both of them.”
Unerringly Bryce had found her most vulnerable spot. “Once the show is over, I’ll go and visit them,” Jenessa said in a thin voice. “I told Travis I would. In the meantime, I’ll thank you to mind your own business.”
“Frankly, having met you, I have no idea why he bothers to keep in touch.”
Jenessa stood up. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, Mr. Laribee,” she said tightly. “But you’re wasting your time and mine as well.”
“So that’s your last word?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Then you’d better go back to thinking about your painting, hadn’t you, Miss Strathern? I’ll tell Travis that daubing oil on canvas is more important to you than celebrating family occasions. Although I bet he’s already gotten that message.”
Bryce turned on his heel and strode along the path, disappearing around the corner of the house. A few moments later, Jenessa heard the sound of a car engine accelerating down the lane. Then, once again, silence fell over the garden. The only sound she could hear, apart from the drone of insects, was the thick pounding of her own heart.
He’d gone. He hadn’t recognized her. Hadn’t connected Travis’s sister with a young art student he’d gone to bed with many years ago, and then ruthlessly dismissed.
She sank back down on the bench, pulling her hat off and shaking out her mass of blond curls. Through the turmoil of emotion in her breast, one conclusion was clear: Travis must really want to see her to send his good friend Bryce to plead his cause.
Once again, she was disappointing her brother. Just as she had at his wedding.
Maybe she should tell Travis the truth, she thought, trying to ease some of the tension out of her shoulders. Confess what had happened—or rather, what hadn’t happened—all those years ago between her and Bryce. Get it over with. Surely such a confession wouldn’t damage his friendship with Bryce, not after this long. And it would put things straight between her and Travis, something she craved with all her heart.
But wouldn’t Travis then connect her confession with the lack of suitors in her life, with her continued refusal to become involved with someone, or to get married? He’d assume she’d been in love with Bryce. That Bryce had repudiated a lot more than her body. She couldn’t bear it if that happened. One humiliation was enough.
More than enough.
Jenessa staggered out of bed at eight-thirty the next morning. At two, three and four she’d been wide awake, staring into the darkness: her body craving the touch of the only man who’d ever swept her off her feet, her mind racing between a hotel room in New York City twelve years ago and her own garden the evening before. At three-thirty she’d gotten out of bed and gone to her studio, where she’d produced a series of very unsatisfactory sketches for her new work, tossed them aside and covered page after page with sketches of Bryce. Bryce in her garden, Bryce naked in the shadows of a luxurious bedroom, Bryce in her arms. These, too, she’d tossed aside. Finally, about five-thirty, she’d fallen into a dead and unrefreshing sleep that had mercifully been dreamless.
Coffee, she thought, yawning, stretching to get the aches out of her limbs. Coffee and a shower. Maybe then the day would seem worth beginning.
While the coffee dripped through the grinds, she wandered to the kitchen window. A sudden movement caught her eye. Her whole body stilled.
A man was hunkered down in the vegetable garden, weeding, his shirt stretched tight across the muscles of his back, the early sun glinting in his blond hair. He looked very much at home and completely at ease, and it was this that made Jenessa forget any vestige of caution. She slammed her empty mug down on the counter, marched through the mudroom and hauled the back door open. The hinges squealed. The man looked up.
CHAPTER THREE
THE sun was behind Bryce, shining full on the woman on the porch. She looked utterly magnificent, he thought, brushing the dirt from his hands. She also looked extremely angry.
Good. He was all too ready to take her on.
She ran down the board steps in her bare feet, her cream silk pajamas brushing the swell of her breasts and clinging to her thighs. Her hair was a wild tangle of curls, her eyes bluer than the sky and her cheeks the pink of the apple blossoms on the tree just behind him. To his dismay, his groin tightened involuntarily.
How could he desire a woman he so thoroughly disliked?
Was that one reason he was so angry with her? A reason that had nothing to do with Travis or Julie.
Standing up, he said cordially, “Good morning, Jenessa.”
She
