Scandalous Secrets. Michelle Douglas

Matt was behind her. She held her breath and dived like a porpoise.

      The rocks on both sides touched her shoulders. She used them to pull herself the last little way.

      And emerged...to magic.

      It was an underground pool that must feed out somehow into the pool they’d just been in, but at the same level. She could hear the rush of water over her head. The creek must branch, above and below. This pool was roofed, and yet not. There were fissures where the sunlight glimmered through, shafts of golden light making the surface of the underground water glimmer in light and shade.

      She could see the canopy of the trees through the fissures, but only glimpses. In a couple of places the water course above was overflowing and spilling down, so rivulets of water splashed the surface of the water in the cavern. Some sort of tiny, pale green creeper was trailing downward, tendril after tendril of soft, lush vine.

      And at the edges were flat rock ledges. It was, as Matt had said, totally safe.

      It took her breath away.

      She trod water and turned and Matt was right behind her. Watching her. And the expression on his face... He loved this place, she thought.

      ‘Oh, Matt, it’s beautiful,’ she breathed, and he smiled, an odd little smile she’d never seen before.

      ‘Beautiful,’ he agreed, and the way he said it... It took her breath away all over again.

      ‘I...do you come here often?’ She sounded nervous, she thought, and maybe she was, but in a weird way. It was as if the world was holding its breath. Something seemed about to happen and she wasn’t sure what.

      ‘Just when I need to,’ he told her. ‘Even Donald doesn’t know about this secret place. Isn’t it great?’

      ‘It is,’ she breathed. ‘So...your forty-seven maidens?’

      ‘Okay, I made ’em up.’ They were treading water. If they swam a couple of yards further on they could stand, but for some reason that seemed dangerous. ‘The water above doesn’t run except in times of flooding, so the waterfall’s a rare thing. But this underground cavern’s always here. You’re the first person I’ve ever brought here.’

      ‘That sounds...momentous.’

      ‘I think it is,’ he said seriously. ‘Penny?’

      ‘Mmm?’ What else was a woman to say?

      ‘I’d like to kiss you.’

      And suddenly she wasn’t cold at all. She was exceedingly warm.

      Apart from her body.

      ‘I’m all for it,’ she told him. ‘Except that I can’t feel my toes and if I kiss you I might forget about them and I’ll get frostbite from the toes up.’

      ‘Ever the practical...’

      ‘Someone has to be,’ she told him and only she knew what a struggle it was to say it. ‘But I have a suggestion.’

      ‘Which is?’

      ‘That we swim back through that waterfall, we get ourselves dry and then we think about kissing.’

      There was a moment’s pause. ‘You mean we have an agenda?’

      ‘I think it’s more than an agenda,’ she told him, and smiled and smiled. ‘Agendas can be changed. The time for agendas is past. Consider the kiss a promise.’

      ‘Then one for the road,’ he told her and he tugged her forward and kissed her, as long and as deeply as two people treading ice-cold water could manage.

      And then they turned to the sheen of white water that marked the entrance to their tiny piece of paradise and swam right through.

      Back to where the horses were waiting. Back to where their picnic was waiting.

      Back to the promise of a kiss and so much more.

      * * *

      Matt produced a towel and insisted on drying her. He rubbed her body until she could feel her toes again, until her body was glowing pink, until the feel of his hands rubbing her dry started sending messages to her brain she had no hope of fighting.

      Who’d want to fight?

      Then he gathered her to him and he kissed her as she’d never been kissed before.

      His skin was still damp, but out of the water the sun did the drying for him. And who was worried about a little damp? He felt almost naked and her tiny wisps of lace hardly seemed to exist.

      She melted into him. His mouth claimed hers, her body moulded to his and the kiss lasted an eternity.

      But of course it couldn’t.

      ‘Dammit, I should have...’ he said at last, putting her away from him with what seemed an almost superhuman effort.

      ‘So should I,’ she told him, knowing exactly what he was talking about. ‘I packed sandwiches, cream puffs, wine, chocolate. I can’t believe I forgot the After-Picnic essentials.’

      ‘It wouldn’t have been After-Picnic,’ he told her and tugged her forward again. This kiss was even better. Longer. Deeper.

      This was a kiss that had a language all its own. It was a kiss that promised a future.

      It was a kiss that sent her senses into some sort of orbit.

      But finally sense prevailed—as did hunger. They attacked the picnic basket as if there was no tomorrow—indeed, for now it seemed as if tomorrow wasn’t on the horizon. And then they lay back on the moss and gazed up through the canopy at the sky above.

      We might just as well have made love, Penny thought dreamily. She was held close in the crook of Matt’s arm. They hadn’t bothered dressing—with the warmth of the sun there was no need, and to put any barrier at all between them seemed wrong. She was warm, she was sated, the ride and the swim had made her sleepy...

      ‘Penny?’

      ‘Mmm?’ It was hard to get her voice to work.

      ‘How heartbroken are you about Brett?’

      Brett. He seemed a million miles away. Part of another life.

      If it hadn’t been for Felicity, she’d be married by now, she thought, and it was enough to wake her up completely. She shuddered.

      Matt tugged her tighter. The warmth of him was insulation against pain, but then she thought: There’s no pain.

      Humiliation, though, that was a different matter.

      ‘There’s no need to be jealous,’ she told him.

      ‘Hey, I’m not jealous.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I’ve got the girl. Whoever Brett’s holding now, he’s welcome. No one can match the woman I have in my arms.’

      It took her breath away, even more than the icy water had. The statement was so immense...

      And it was the truth. She heard it in his voice and part of her wanted to weep. Or sing. Or both.

      Instead, she twisted herself up so she could kiss him again. He kissed her back but then tugged her close, held her tight and said again, ‘Talk about Brett.’

      ‘Why do you want to know?’

      ‘Because he’s important,’ he told her. ‘Because he made you run. Because your family’s important to you and I figure if they’re important to you then maybe I need to know about them. So Brett seems a way in.’

      And there was a statement to take her breath away all over again. He wanted... No, he hadn’t said wanted... He needed to know about them.

      He was talking of the future?

      So tell him.

      ‘It was dumb,’ she told him. ‘I