Jake's child (3 page)

Her skin flushed with a temper she rarely let loose anymore, but she was tired and confused and the boy had rubbed against old pain, leaving her off balance. "Look, this isn't my problem. You're the one who took off in the middle of the night with your son. You're the one who didn't plan ahead. Don't take out your guilt on me!"

A cabbage palm branch rattled against the roof, broken loose by the rising wind. Jake inhaled deeply. Sarah saw the visible effort he made to defuse the tension as he spoke. "I fouled up. But I need help now." He paused. His voice was expressionless when he continued. "For the kid."

Sarah felt petulant and didn't much like herself at the moment. Her hand strayed to touch the back of the boy's washed-to-no-color shirt. She stopped the inadvertent movement. They could sleep on the porch. No, she thought, as she saw the man's judgmental eyes, that won't do.

A sniffle escaped from the child. He needed a bed and he'd been ill. She could let him sleep upstairs. "All right." She rubbed her arms. "Do you want to carry him or wake him so he can walk up?" She wasn't experienced with kids. She didn't know which would be better, but she hated to ruin his sleep.

The man's decisiveness irritated her. "I'll carry him. Unless, of course," his tone was snide, "you want me to wake him up and give him a bath?"

The ache in her throat stopped her retort. Had she really seemed so nasty? "Carry him, then. Bedroom on the left of the stairs, but you sleep outside in your truck."

"Whatever you say." Carefully the man lifted his son out of the chair and tucked the small head under his bearded chin. The boy sighed and flung out an arm. The man placed

it carefully on the boy's thin chest. "Why don't you lead the way?" His gaze mocked her. "That way you can make sure we don't nab the family silver."

She didn't want to go up the stairs with him. Every cell in her body buzzed with alarm. Even with his arms filled with his son, even now that he'd clarified his presence, he made her uneasy. His unconcealed contempt made her uncomfortable. She wasn't used to other people analyzing her actions and finding them lacking. Her own judgment? That was a horse of a different color. She'd grown used to living with her inadequacies. Her conscience was harder on her than any pale-eyed stranger could ever be. He hadn't earned the right to judge her.

"You know, mister, you're awfully rude to someone who's let you in, fed you and your son, and is now giving him a bed for the night. Haven't you heard the story about biting the hand that feeds you?" Healthy anger chased out her disquiet. She led the way, feeling him close behind her the whole way up the long staircase with its wide, shallow steps.

Jake resisted a cheap comeback, but he bared his teeth. She wasn't what he'd expected. He watched the smooth curves of her thighs and ankles as she walked up the stairs. She had the tiniest waist and most beautiful bottom it had been his pleasure to see in years.

He'd been angry before she even opened the door. Driving around for hours trying to make up his mind whether to stop at her place or not. And then Nicholas had gotten sick. He'd taken too long to decide and then, when he had, he wanted in. Her caution had ticked him off. Once there, he wanted to settle the score with her. Get it over with.

When she opened the door, he'd been knocked back in his shoes. Her wide, dark blue gaze staring blindly at him, her small face carefully checking him out, her hand brandishing that damn bat had plunged him into a fury. Her silky smooth hair the color of wet leaves in autumn made his fin-

gers twitch with a need to stroke its smoothness, to see if it felt as soft as it looked. He'd wanted to touch the slim neck where a vein pulsed with fear. Anger and something else, something dark and primitive, had stirred in him at the sight of her.

He'd wanted to crack that ridiculous bat in two.

Nicholas stirred. Poor kid. She was right. He shouldn't have kept the kid out so late, but Jake's own devilish temper had whipped at his shoulders, telling him to stop, to deal with her. Finally he'd given in. As he'd coasted to a stop under the trees, he'd leaned on the steering wheel and known he was making a mistake. Nicholas had scooted over to the door and said wearily, "We getting out now, Jake? 'Cause I don't feel so good."

When Jake slashed the truck tire, Nicholas looked at him and they both stooped, listening to the hiss of air as the tire flattened into the sand. Jake hadn't explained. "Come on, Nicholas," he'd said and strode to the screen door showing in the dim, yellow light cast by a mosquito bulb over the frame.

And that had been that.

Now, her eyes wary, she paused before the door of a cool, dark room with twin beds. "Go ahead." Her reluctance to have him in her house fueled his desire to be there, to stay there, to see the look on her face when it was all over with. She wasn't going to get rid of him.

He slid Nicholas between sheets smelling of apples and roses, gratified by the smear of dirt the boy put across the immaculate blue surface. Would she flinch at that the way she had when the kid leaned against her? Let her.

Jake straightened and bumped into her. She'd followed him in, after all. She was looking at Nicholas. Probably wondering how she was going to sanitize her sheets. He smiled vindictively and thought about crawling between those same clean sheets in his own dirt. He glanced at her.

She was still watching the boy, her back straight as an arrow, chin up.

Her breasts moved once with a deep breath, a small movement that disturbed him. He wished he knew what she was thinking. The loose, flowered shirt fell just past her waist, the bottom button gaping an inch or so above the band of her shorts. A tiny freckle beckoned from the gap.

Nicholas flipped over, twisting the sheet with him.

She turned away. 'There you are, then. I'll shut the door behind me." She walked away, closing him out again.

He snagged the edge of her sleeve, touched the goose bumps on her arm. "Wait."

Shadows tinted the skin under her eyes. "Yes?"

"I'm going to take a bath." He wouldn't ask her permission.

She nodded. "All right." Some spark had drained from her. He missed it. He followed the narrow lines of her back down the long hall runner that muffled their steps. The hour and the strangeness isolated them, magnified every breath, every look. Her glance thrown back over her shoulder assumed an importance he didn't think she intended. In the shadowy hall, she lured him forward, a reed in the stream beckoning deeper to the secret depths. He felt entangled in secrets as she whispered to him in the silence and shadows.

"There's the bathroom. You can find towels underneath the sink."

Checking out the bathroom, Jake leaned over her shoulder just as she backed out of his way. Her bare heels bumped the hard toes of his boots. He reached out to steady her, but she'd already turned and his palms met warm arms, delicate bones, soft woman. He wanted to keep his hands there, on her warmth and softness. He wanted to move her exquisite bones over him. When he saw the shock in her eyes, he dropped his hands. She wasn't going to get an apology. He wasn't the least bit sorry.

"I have to go out to the truck for my stuff. Okay?"

She shrugged, the cotton moving over her skin in soft sibilance. The sound was loud in his ears, calling to mind skin and sheets and all the things he didn't want to think of.

Grabbing his bag from the pickup, he hurried back to the old house with its dark windows. Standing on the front stoop, he paused for a moment to savor the damp air and night sounds. Way off in the distance he heard a boat engine chugging up from the canal to the lake.

A sense of finality flooded him. He'd started a chain of events whose end he couldn't see.

Sarah waited for the bang of the screen door before she moved. She didn't want to encourage that look that changed his eyes into golden cat eyes. Better to stay out of his way. The boy whimpered in distress. Sarah rubbed the newel post, back and forth. He whimpered again, and she moved quietly down the hall to his room.

He was tangled in his sheets. Half asleep, he couldn't fight his way free. From her own childhood, she remembered the fright. Behind her, she heard the man close the bathroom door and turn on the shower.

"Shh, Nicholas. I'll untangle you. Hold still." Sarah touched his forehead, smoothed the dirt-stiffened hair off his face, traced the stubborn chin. Carefully she untwisted the sheet, lifting his surprising weight and trying not to wake him completely. She slipped his socks off and reached into the chifforobe near the bed for a light blanket which she tucked around him.

"Hi, ma'am." His sleepy smile caught her unawares, and she smiled back at him.

"Hi, yourself." She pulled the blanket up closer to his chin.

"Is it day, yet?"

"No, not for a long time. Just sleep, okay? Your father's taking a shower. He'll be here in a minute."

"You make him take a bath?" The boy yawned and rolled away from her as he said in a sleep-muted voice, "But he's

not my dad. Silly Jake, cutting the tire..." A deep breath and he sank back into sleep.

Sarah sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't hear the shower. The upstairs phone was in the hall, just past the bathroom. As she stood up, the bedsprings rattled.

She had to get to the phone. Passing the bathroom, she saw the light under the door, heard him moving on the linoleum floor. Had he heard her? She froze. The door stayed closed.

She inched her way to the phone and picked it up. For a moment she couldn't remember the police number, and then when she did, her fingers were trembling so hard she couldn't dial. She was dizzy with fear.

Suddenly water dripped onto her arm. A big, wet hand unwrapped her fingers from the phone. She turned and saw first the ropy chest muscles, the thick chest hair moving down to unsnapped jeans. Reaching for the phone, her hand slipped and slid down the still wet muscles, sleek and hard, to his jeans.

He'd shaved his beard off. Released from the shaggy beard and moustache, a face craggy with angles and cheekbones stared at her and he said very gently, returning the phone to its cradle, "You don't want to make that phone call."

Chapter Two

Oarah's fingers were wet where he'd gripped them. As he placed the receiver back down, she wiped her hands dry on the front of her shirt. He was absolutely still, but the knowledge of violence controlled by a powerful will crackled between them. Like waves rolling in steadily, building power before the immense ninth wave that drives everything before it, his restraint beat at her skin, pressed on her pores, rolled over her.

4 'Who are you?" she breathed.

He didn't answer. His breath sighed onto her. On his neck a bead of blood welled up through a bit of toilet paper. He peeled the paper off, looked at it as if not sure how it came to be there and wadded it between his thumb and forefinger absentmindedly as he considered her. His warm, wet hand pressed hers down onto the receiver, cutting off the buzzing of the earpiece. Sarah shivered.

His light brown eyes, more startling than ever without the distraction of his heavy beard, were cold again. A speck of shaving cream showed in the cleft of a square chin. He'd

hurried, then, nicking himself in his haste, drying his face carelessly. In a dark, wet strip, his chest hair carved a line down his muscles, separating them, emphasizing their strength, before disappearing below his navel in an ever-narrowing path. He ran his hand over his chest, drying it. Water dotted the floor. Sarah wondered if it would leave white spots that she'd have to polish out tomorrow. The possibility of such a homey action seemed far away.

"Please," she whispered again. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Look," he ran his hand once more over the curling hair of his chest, a drop of water flicking in her direction where she felt its damp coolness on her breast. "This is ridiculous."

She almost reached up to rub the wet spot dry, but she was afraid to move. Its chill burned her skin. Could she grab the telephone and smash him? No, she wouldn't look at the phone. Wouldn't even think of it. Her eyelid twitched with strain.

He sighed again and moved her carefully away from the phone. She'd given herself away somehow. His palm and fingers were hot on her arm where they curled together, meeting just under the sleeve. It was an intimate touch. A shudder rose up from her toes.

His finger rubbed the inner skin of her arm. "Look, can we talk?"

The banality of his statement made Sarah giddy with fear and relief. A warm, clean smell of soap drifted to her nose. Her soap, exotic and scented with musk, on his skin.

Suddenly she realized how close they were. His jeans scratched her knees. The metal belt buckle hanging loose from the jeans was a cold stroke on her inner thigh. She felt the prick of the tab against her skin.

With its sharp touch, something dangerous and unexpected crept into the quiet. His breathing quickened and his

hand slid higher on her arm. A floorboard creaked with his restless movement.

His bare instep brushed against the outside of her foot and in the opening of her shirt his chest hair grazed her skin. A quiver rippled through her stomach. He felt the ripple. His face told her so. So, too, did the slow stroke up and down her captured arm.

She pulled against his fingers, lifting them with all her strength. Momentarily they tightened, then freed her. Only now did her heart speed erratically, a sickening rhythm of fear and excitement.

Sarah whirled, her heart pumping madly for flight.

"God, what a mess. Wait." His large arm once more wrapped around her, efficiently halting her.

Her heels stung from the skidding slide on the hall rug.

She almost stuttered in her frenzy to speak. "Just go, go. I swear I won't tell anyone you were here. Leave the boy—" Ah no, she thought as his hand tightened on her. He'd kidnapped the boy. "Just go, please." She tried not to sob.

"Easy, look, I'm not touching you. Just hold still a minute and listen to me, okay?" He raised his hands palms up *o her.

Sarah swayed, but he didn't touch her. She gripped her hands tightly to stop their shaking. "I'm listening." She couldn't hear anything except his harsh breathing. "I won't run," she added as he moved closer to her. His exasperated expression calmed her by its very ordinariness. "But you're right," she said. "This is ridiculous. You can't stop me from making a phone call." She poked her trembling hands into the pockets of her shorts, pulling the threads at the bottom. If she could keep him talking, distract him... "You came shoving your way in here—"