Jenna shook her head. She needed her wits about her. “No.”
He pulled two mugs from hooks under the cupboards and filled them, stirring some sugar into hers. “Here.”
Katie came in, a pile of cups and saucers in her hands. “Are you all right, Jen?”
Trying not to sound too hearty, Jenna injected a faint note of surprise into her reply. “I’m fine. Are you pleased to have your brother home? Don’t answer that. Silly question.”
Katie grinned, obviously unable to suppress it. “I never realized how much I missed him.” The grin fading abruptly, she added, placing the cups on the counter, “Callie’s a bit of a bolt from the blue, though.” Her eyes worried, she asked, “He…he hadn’t said anything about her to you, had he?”
“Not a thing.” Jenna made her voice cheerful. “If he’d told anyone it would have been you.”
Marcus interjected, “A whirlwind romance? If even you didn’t know anything, Katie…”
“He did mention her a couple of times, but I never twigged she was anyone special, and he hadn’t said anything about her recently. He says he was scared she’d turn him down, and he didn’t want to come home and have us all know he was nursing a broken heart. She only agreed to come to New Zealand with him a couple of weeks ago, and he decided to keep it secret until they got here, so he could see our faces when he gave us the news.”
Thank heaven he hadn’t seen hers, Jenna thought. She curled her hand around her hot coffee mug, ignoring the discomfort.
Katie added thoughtfully, “And I have a suspicion he was afraid she might change her mind before he got her on the plane.”
Jenna forced a smile. “Well, it’s a nice surprise, isn’t it?”
Dubiously, Katie agreed, “I suppose so. Are you sure you’re okay with it, Jen?”
Hoping she looked bewildered and innocent, Jenna said, “Of course. Dean’s very happy. And I’m happy for him. Aren’t you?”
Hesitantly, Katie said, “I thought it would be you and him. Even when we were kids you said you were going to marry each other.”
Jenna’s laugh should have earned her an Oscar. “We were—what?—eight years old? Come on, Katie!”
“Sometimes when we were older it kind of looked like you were more than friends.”
Jenna had thought so. They’d exchanged kisses from time to time. She’d imagined that, like her, Dean was keeping their relationship on the level of a warm, intimate friendship while they both worked hard at their degrees and were too young and impecunious for marriage.
After they’d graduated, the scholarship had come up for him to study in America. He’d asked Jenna’s opinion, stressing how long he’d be away from home, and she’d somehow concealed her panic and dismay and said of course he must take it, a chance like that wasn’t to be missed.
The kiss he gave her then was definitely not a brotherly one, and she’d seen it as a promise, a pledge, an unspoken commitment to a shared, if deferred, future.
She’d held on to that memory for four years. And now she wondered if Dean even remembered it. Certainly it had held none of the significance for him that it had for her.
Painfully putting her newfound insight into words, Jenna said, “We grew out of it. If there’d been anything serious, Dean wouldn’t have left me to go to the other side of the world for years. Would he?”
Marcus added, “Wishful thinking, Katie. Very nice for you, to match your twin and your best friend, but in real life our childhood sweethearts grow up and marry other people.”
“Did yours?” Katie asked, temporarily diverted.
“Of course,” Marcus answered. “And I didn’t lose a moment’s sleep over it.”
Katie switched her attention back to Jenna. “Have I been daydreaming?”
“I won’t lose a moment’s sleep,” Jenna echoed Marcus, trying to sound as convincing.
Either Marcus had sown the seed of doubt, or Katie decided to take her cue from Jenna’s denial. “Well, that’s a relief,” she said. For a long second her eyes rested thoughtfully on her friend, before she began stacking cups and saucers in the dishwasher.
Jenna and Marcus finished their coffee, and all three of them rejoined the others. Neighbors dropped in to say hello, and a cousin phoned inquiring after the traveler. Dean invited her and her parents and boyfriend to come over.
A party atmosphere developed. Some of the guests sat out on the tiled patio, and children were allowed to jump in the swimming pool in its fenced enclosure at the back of the house. Jenna talked and laughed and even conducted a conversation with Callie and Dean, finding that Callie was exactly what she looked like, a golden California girl. She’d been studying at the same university as Dean, although they had met only a few months ago.
“And when he opened his mouth and I heard that cute accent,” Callie confessed, her hand caressing Dean’s arm, “it was love at first sound.”
“She thought I was Australian,” Dean teased, grinning adoringly at her. “I had to educate her about the difference between Kiwis and Aussies.”
“It took him all night.” Callie swept him a flirtatious look.
“Slow learner.” Dean shook his head, returning the look.
Jenna’s smile felt set in concrete. She didn’t think the two of them would have noticed if everyone else in the room had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Marcus laid a hand lightly on Jenna’s shoulder. “Dad says you haven’t seen his latest acquisition,” he said. “He wants me to show it to you.”
Gratefully she followed Marcus to the back lawn, where a shade house was tucked into a corner screened by pink-flowered manuka shrubs. Mr. Crossan was a keen amateur orchid grower, and when Marcus ushered her into the shade house, they were surrounded by pots and hanging baskets of the exotic, distinctive flowers.
The air was cool here, and the bark chips that covered the ground muffled their footsteps. A damp rich smell pervaded the glassed-in area.
Jenna walked along the narrow space between the tiered benches holding rows of orchids, many of them smothered in blossom. Delicate, spidery varieties and large opulent ones were ranged along both sides, the flowers spilling over their pots, some almost to the ground. “Which one are we looking at?”
“The pink one over here.” He guided her to it with a hand lightly on her waist and stood behind her as she studied the pale, frilled blooms, flushed with gold at the throat.
Tentatively she touched a fingertip to a delicate petal. “It’s very pretty.”
“It’s called Puppy Love,” Marcus told her, slanting her a rather dry sideways glance. “Personally I prefer the more sophisticated varieties.”
Staring down at the plant, Jenna blinked away tears. Puppy Love. A fragile flower. And though orchids lasted longer than other flowers, there came a time when they too withered away and died.
She turned away from it, and Marcus moved to let her pass him, returning along the row. “We needn’t hurry back.” He strolled after her, hands in his pockets. “No one will miss us for a while.”
No one would miss Jenna. Self-pity threatened to overwhelm her. But they’d miss Marcus for sure. Marcus was a dominant figure in any gathering, not only because of his height. There was a quiet air of confidence and authority about him that even his family acknowledged.
Maybe it came from being the eldest. Jane was nearly his own age, but having two much younger, mischievous siblings might have given him an exaggerated sense of responsibility.
She