Silver Linings

supposed to do that?”
    “Are you sure you really want to marry me?”
    He began to look wary now. “Hell, yes. Why else would I be going through this kind of nonsense?”
    “Because you've got your one-track brain set on getting yourself a wife. Because I'm convenient. Because I once volunteered to move out here to the edge of the world, so you figure I won't give you a hard time about it the way my sister did. Because you think you can handle me.”
    Hugh rammed his fingers through his hair. “You're trying to make it sound like a business deal or something.”
    “I think it is, in a way. You want a wife and I appear to be available. You don't have a lot of opportunity for finding suitable wives out here on this backwater island, do you? Some man down at the docks said living on St. Gabriel was rather like living in a monastery.”
    “Now, Mattie, babe—”
    “It's pretty clear why you fixated on me after Ariel opted out of the engagement. I'm a known quantity and I must have looked like I'd be a great deal easier to manage than Ariel. After all, I don't make scenes. I don't quarrel in public. I'm not melodramatic.”
    “Come on, babe, you're being ridiculous.”
    “No,” Mattie said tightly. “I don't think I am. I'm being realistic. What you don't seem to realize is that I'm not the same woman I was a year ago. I made some decisions that morning after I humiliated myself.”
    “What decisions?”
    “I told myself that never again would I settle for playing second fiddle to my sister. I had enough of that while I was growing up. Enough of watching her get the dates while I prayed the phone would ring just once for me. Enough of having her cast-off boyfriends come to me for sympathy and comfort. Enough of watching her win all the prizes and get all the applause.”
    “For crying out loud, Mattie.”
    But Mattie was too wound up to stop this time. “It was humiliating always being second best. It was miserable having people chalk up her tantrums to a budding artistic temperament while I always got a lecture on self-control. I hated being sent to counselor after counselor to find out if I was an underachiever or if I was just a hopeless case.”
    “Spare me a dissertation on your early childhood traumas, okay? I'll tell you something, babe, you don't know what real trauma is,” Hugh said through clenched teeth. “You with your fancy private schools and your art lessons and your rich aunt Charlotte.”
    “Is that right?” she raged back.
    “Damn right. You know what trauma is? It's having your old man run off when you're six years old and you're glad to see him go because it means the beatings will stop. It's having your mother give you up to foster care because she can't figure out how to deal with you and her own miserable, screwed-up life at the same time. It's having people tell you you're bound to wind up in jail sooner or later because you come from bad stock.”
    Mattie stared at him, aghast. Then her eyes narrowed. “Oh, no you don't, Hugh Abbott. You're not going to pull that old trick on me.”
    “What old trick?” he roared.
    “You're not going to belittle my feelings by making me feel sorry for you. All my life my feelings have been less important than anyone else's. Everyone else got to be temperamental, but not me. I was expected to be nice .”
    “Oh, yeah? Well, I've got news for you. You're not being very nice at the moment, babe. You're yelling louder than a damned fishwife.”
    “You know something? It feels good. Right now I have a right to feel used, damn it. You are trying to use me. You're accustomed to giving orders, accustomed to having things go the way you want them to go. Ariel gave you a setback last year, but that didn't stop you, did it? You've regrouped and decided to attack a weaker target this year. Well, I won't stand in for her. Not this time. Do you hear me?”
    “Mattie, that is not the way it is.” Hugh clearly had himself under control again.
    “Isn't it? You're picking me this time because you think I'll be so damn grateful to marry you I'll get down on my knees and thank you. Well, that's not how it's going to be.”
    “Babe,” Hugh said soothingly, “take it easy.”
    “I will not take it easy. We're going to settle this here and now. If you really want me, you can damn well prove it.”
    “I'm going to marry you. What the hell more do you want?”
    “I'll tell you what I want.” She was feeling goaded now—dangerous, reckless, and up