Charon's Crossing

"What are you doing?" she asked irritably.

"Looking for something to eat," he said, peering into the refrigerator.

She reached out and slammed the door shut. "You see? That's exactly what I mean about unbecoming behavior."

"If you're referring to the fact that you don't think ghosts are supposed to have appetites—"

"I'm referring to the way you think nothing of popping into rooms and doing whatever comes into your head without so much as a by-your-leave." Elton John had given up and Bruce Springsteen had taken over. Somehow, she wasn't in the mood for "Born in the USA." She shut the radio off and turned back to Matthew. "I called you when I came in a little while ago," she said crossly. "Didn't you hear me?"

"I assure you, Kathryn, if I really popped into rooms, as you call it, and did whatever comes into my head, last evening would have ended far differently than it did."

Kathryn went very still. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only that a woman who expects to share her bed with a man shouldn't end up sleeping alone."

Crimson streaks swept into her face.

"You were spying on us!"

"I was not."

"You were sneaking around in my bedroom, waiting to see if—if..."

"I was not in the house at all," he said, his tone filled with indignation. "I spent the night at the foot of the cliff, beside the sea. When I returned this morning, you were in one bedroom and your betrothed was in another."

Kathryn frowned. "Why did you spend the night on the beach?"

A tiny muscle leaped in Matthew's jaw. Until now, it had been easy to keep a bantering tone.

"I thought I owed you privacy," he said stiffly.

Kathryn folded her arms. "How gallant."

Matthew didn't answer. There was no reason to tell her that gallantry had had nothing to do with his decision to spend the night out of the house, that what he'd really figured was that she had the right to a fiancé who was all in one piece, which would surely not have been the case if he'd caught the son of a bitch in bed with her.

"How noble." Her tone was frigid. "How out of character."

He couldn't keep from grinning. "Yes, it was. And unnecessary, as it turned out. Not that I was surprised. I could tell from the way things had gone between you yesterday that you were not about to succumb to your Jason's manly charms."

Color blazed in Kathryn's face again. She turned her back and began scrubbing out the coffee pot.

"I should have known better than to think you could be polite."

Matthew hitched one hip on the table and folded his arms over his chest.

"Where did your Jason take you last night?"

"Don't call him that!"

"Isn't he yours? You said he was."

"I said we were engaged to be married. As for where we went... it's none of your business."

"Nowhere special, I suppose."

"Well, you suppose wrong. We went out to dinner."

"Dinner, then home? Nothing more imaginative?"