“My family...”
A jolt of recollection. Matt struggled out of his absorption in the sensations Peta aroused in him, opening his eyes to the embarrassed appeal in hers. Her cheeks bloomed with colour. She was vibrantly alive now and his heart soared with the pleasure of it.
“You’ve got lipstick on your mouth,” she said dazedly.
He let her slide away from him and plucked the handkerchief from his breast pocket. “Better clean me up then,” he invited.
She took the cloth and quickly erased the mark of their kiss. He didn’t care. He could still feel it.
“Is mine smudged?” she asked anxiously.
“No.” He grinned with pure happiness. “You look perfect.”
She gave a self-conscious laugh and tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket. “They’re waiting to meet you.”
“And I’m all primed to meet them.”
Another delightful bubble of laughter.
Matt caught her hand—the left one, wearing his ring—linking himself to her as they moved as one to begin facing the future together.
Megan watched their approach, ignoring the buzz of comment from the family as she keenly observed the man who had persuaded her sister to recklessly throw her lot in with him. She wanted to find fault. She wanted some cause to show Peta how wrong she was in entering a loveless marriage. Instead she found herself helplessly torn by what she saw.
He adored her.
That obvious truth kept echoing through Megan’s mind, while festering behind it was the knowledge that Peta didn’t love him. What would that do to him in the long run when his love wasn’t answered by love, when the cup of hope was drained and disillusionment set in, emptying his heart of all the feelings beaming from him today?
It was wrong...wrong...
Yet what could she do?
She loved her sister and wanted the best for her.
Maybe Matt Davis was best for her.
Except...was it fair to him?
CHAPTER TEN
MATT glanced at his watch again. Only a minute had gone by since he’d last checked. It felt like a million years and there were still another four minutes to go.
His best man leaned over and dryly remarked, “If you’re counting on punctuality, Matt, forget it. Brides are always late.”
He managed a rueful smile at his old friend. A bank of good memories lay between him and Tony Beaman, a long sharing, yet he couldn’t confide the uncertainties racking him during this wait. “That’s true,” he acknowledged.
True of the weddings he’d attended over recent years. He shouldn’t be counting on Peta turning up at exactly eleven o’clock, but if she didn’t, this unshakable anxiety was going to get a hell of a lot worse.
She’d been so quiet, withdrawn inside herself at the rehearsal on Thursday night and he hadn’t seen her since. Though she had sounded all right on the telephone when he’d called, calm and full of organisational details for the wedding. He didn’t really believe she’d get cold feet at this late hour. He just...needed her here with him.
A tap on his shoulder. He swung around to his mother who sat in the pew directly behind him, looking positively resplendent in a flowing peach outfit, her hair glowingly dyed a similar shade and lightened with artful blond streaks.
“I must say they’ve done a wonderful job with the flowers,” she whispered. “The church looks lovely.”
Flowers? Matt hadn’t even noticed them. He did, however, hear the concession in his mother’s voice and it wasn’t a grudging one. Had she finally resigned herself to the inevitable?
“You look lovely, Mum. I’m very proud of you,” he said with genuine warmth. She’d trimmed down considerably over the past month and with her hair restyled, she looked ten years younger.
She flushed with pleasure, though his compliment didn’t quite erase the touch of anxiety in her eyes. “I just hope you’ll be happy, Matt,” she said softly, caringly.