Authors: Lindsay Longford
He poked his boots out the window towards her. Nothing subtle about that. Well, let him vent his temper in the cool air. It would do him good to know he couldn't push her
around. How could he possibly think she would accept his comment that the boy's mother would let him go off after his father's death? The man was hiding something in spite of his foxy candor. Let him. His secrets didn't concern her.
Sarah locked the screen door again, noticing that the lock tongue was loose. She turned the knob hard, double-checking that the lock still held, and went inside.
As she closed the front door she looked back. A coot trilled its loneliness out on the lake. No moon and a chill wind. Not a good night to be outside, but Jake seemed tough.
Would the boy be frightened if he woke up alone? Sarah nibbled her thumb. She'd sleep downstairs. It was almost morning, and sleep had already escaped her for most of the night. If the boy woke up and wandered downstairs, she'd be there.
She walked silently upstairs and removed her pillow from her bed. A yawn stretched her throat. Maybe she would sleep, after all. She stuck her head into the boy's room. Not his room. Hers, she reminded herself, and would be hers again this time tomorrow.
Nicholas was all over the bedsheets, one foot dangling off the bed. His mouth was parted and a sigh bubbled out. One grimy fist twisted in the sheets. Sarah covered him with the blanket, her fingers lingering on the soft skin of his cheek. She knew she wouldn't feel safe until the boy and man left her home.
Back downstairs she wrapped herself again in the afghan and lay in the dark, thinking. She must have been mad to let them into her house. Moon mad, but there was no moon. What a strange night.
Even stranger was her reaction to Jake What's-his-name. Without a beard, his rough, dented face was powerfully sensual. The hard planes and angles were pure, primitive male, the kind of maleness that demanded its female complement, softness and surrender, the kind of maleness that
kept her uneasiness at a full boil. She burrowed into the pillow and watched the shadows drift across the ceiling of the old house.
In the morning, harsh bird cries and Nicholas's voice calling woke Jake up. He'd slept, after all. Not a surprise since he was used to interrupted sleep and rough lay-downs. This one hadn't been the worst. In the cool night air sounds from the lake had infiltrated his sleep and mingled with dreams of Mexico and hot sun, beaches filled with bikini-clad blondes. Then, in the dream, soft blue eyes wove in and out of a blue, blue sea that swelled around him in an endless rocking.
A husky voice quieted Nicholas momentarily, but then the screen door whomped, and Nicholas's pointed little face, clean and scrubbed, peered in at him over the truck window rim. So she hadn't let the chance to tidy Nicholas escape her.
"Where'd you go, Jake? Why'd you sleep out here? You look funny without a beard, Jake. You gonna grow it again? I liked your beard. She," he tilted his chin to the house, "make you shave it?"
"Slow down, shortcake. Old Jake's still booting up his brain. Give me a sec."
"Sure, Jake, no problem. Listen, this is a great place. The lady, she said I could call her Sarah, Jake, made me oatmeal. You ever heard of anybody putting ice cream on oatmeal? That's what she did, Jake. It's the truth." Nicholas bounced up and down on the running board of the beat-up truck, bouncing it back and forth.
"Enough, Nicholas." Jake plunked his feet on the floorboard and groaned. He was much too old for this. Even his butt ached.
"Sure, Jake, but c'mon, I got something to show you." Nicholas leaped off the truck, arms flying, tumbling into the gray sand.
Life wasn't fair. All that energy shouldn't be packaged in one tiny frame. Should be spread around to people who needed it, like thirty-eight-year-old men who slept in trucks. Jake shoved open the door. Ahead, Nicholas, his arms extended into guns and his mouth screwed up so he could make "fpffpfffpt" sounds with his lips, dodged between trees and bushes. Jake didn't like this guerilla warfare game, but he wasn't going to stop it. First time Nicholas had run around much since they'd left.
"Wait, Nicholas." Jake grabbed Nicholas's shirt, dragging him to a halt. "What time did you get up, sport?"
"Early, I think." Nicholas kicked a Spanish moss clump until it shredded. "Wasn't dark, though."
"Good," Jake said grimly. Wonder what she'd thought when the dynamo came rolling downstairs? Come to think of it, how come Nicholas was in clean jeans and shirt? "What miracle happened overnight, kid? You look real spiffy." Jake tickled Nicholas's ear.
"She—Sarah—I mean, made me clean up. That's why I figured she made you shave your beard. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but it was getting smelly, Jake. You know what she did? While she was washing my stuff, she made me wear one of her shirts! Boy, am I glad none of the guys saw that! Yuck. They'd a called me a damned sissy girl."
"Not nice, Nicholas. All girls aren't sissies. Guys are squeamish even if they don't show it. And no more swearing."
"But that's what you always say, Jake. 'Damn fool this, damn fool that.'"
"Don't repeat everything you hear me say, kid, understand?"
"Well, the guys woulda made fun. You know that, Jake. They'd a laughed their heads off, me in a girl's shirt! Double yuck!" Nicholas sprinted ahead and threw himself into a wood-slatted swing dangling lopsidedly from a live oak tree.
Curling onto the ground, Spanish moss dripped in long swaths from the tree branches. Belly down, he swung in crazy loops over the hollowed-out ground beneath him.
The swing had been there for years. The whole place had that look of permanence. Jake hadn't seen such a permanent look to a house in years. Off toward the lake he could see a dock and several motorboats. Not much of an operation. Those boats looked too small for the motor he'd heard last night when he arrived. Could she be involved in something illegal out here? He looked around. Perfect setup if she were, and it would fit what he knew about her.
He knocked on the screen door before opening it. That ought to shock her out of her socks.
The sight of her almost shocked him out of his socks. Her small, heart-shaped rear end was all he saw at first. Then he realized that she was kneeling on the floor near the couch with her cheek slanted awkwardly on one arm while the other arm swung back and forth under the couch. Her shiny purple blouse hung loose, and he had a mouth-drying glimpse of that freckle on her stomach, and farther up soft curves in some barely there flesh-colored silk. At least he hoped it was silk. Hell of a wasted fantasy if it weren't.
"Oh." She scrambled up awkwardly. "I thought you were Nicholas."
She blushed, but he liked the way she didn't pretend she hadn't seen his reaction and heard his deep breath. She wasn't coy. No, she was direct. Maybe she'd be just as direct in bed—but he knew secrets stirred within her soft body, secrets he could hate her for, so he wasn't going to let himself find out.
"I was trying to get the bat for Nicholas." Her hands dropped helplessly to her sides and her expression was embarrassed, vulnerable.
"He's not far behind." Jake cleared his throat.
She wiped her hands down the sides of her black jeans, and he inhaled again as she lifted her hands to her hair
where a cobweb clung. Her breasts moved upwards with her arms and she was his night dream, beckoning, drawing him to her. He stepped forward, drawn in spite of himself to the promise of her softness.
"Jake? Look what I got!" The screen door slammed behind Nicholas's pell-mell entrance. His face looked as though he'd tried to shovel the yard with it and in his hands he cupped a tiny, emerald frog. "Look at 'im! He's a wonder, huh, Jake? Huh, Sarah?"
Sarah pressed her cool hands against her flaming cheeks as she turned to Nicholas. Stepping forward, she tucked her blouse in her waistband. She knew what had swum through Jake's eyes. That slight flare of his nostrils had set off some inner trembling in her. She wasn't used to that kind of out-and-out, unashamed wanting. She'd never felt it herself but, oh, she recognized it on his face. That look twisted at her, deep, deep. She hurt to think about the way his gaze had moved over her, touching her in places no longer touched.
His expression clearly said he didn't give a damn that she'd seen his need. His refusal to back off, to deny what he'd felt, had set her heart beating erratically and stolen her breath. She swallowed. "Nicholas, he's a wonderful frog."
The boy moved carefully toward her, and she sensed Jake staring at her. When she looked up, flustered in spite of herself, Jake's eyes had turned hard, cold, hostile. Her hair slid over her cheek as she looked down at Nicholas's prize. "May I see?" She crouched down to eye level. Unblinking, the frog watched her. Sarah touched its tiny, squat body delicately.
"You're not a sissy! Jake was right. Mostly he is, you know." Nicholas stroked the frog's flat head.
Sarah spared Jake a quick glance. He was looking again at Nicholas, and a grin creased Jake's face, lightening the clear brown eyes that had darkened on her.
"Just remember that the next time, sport." Jake stepped in back of Nicholas.
Now Jake could watch her, watch the way her slim, brown hand moved next to Nicholas's as she touched the damp, green frog. She didn't mind touching the little creature, but she sure hadn't wanted Nicholas and his dirt near her.
That reaction underscored Jake's feelings about her, made him want to stay a country mile away from the seduction of her skin and eyes and softness. He had to remember she was tough and calculating.
He couldn't ever let himself forget coldness in the sweet scent and feel of her. He had to solve this situation and get out quickly before it was too late. Then her face lifted to him, her eyes an unfocused blue. He hooked his thumbs under his armpits, felt the tingle of her all over his skin.
Jake looked away. "Nicholas, you can't keep him."
"No, Jake?" The bony little body slumped in disappointment.
"Right, Ms.—?" Jake waited for her to identify herself, wondering why he was compelled to push at her. He wanted her to trip herself up, but he should just confront her, do the deed and go on down the road. Nobody had told him how he had to wrap things up. He could do it now, now in the morning sunshine, here in this shabby, cozy living room marked by years of living, he could do it, he could, he could. And walk away.
Her back turned to him, she answered, "Simpson. Sarah Jane Simpson."
So she'd kept her maiden name. Bitterness ate at him.
He crowded her, stuck a hand in her direction. "Jake Donnelly." Her hand was cool in his, slightly rough from outdoor work. He didn't dare underestimate her. He had to remember those calluses, remember that she was tougher than she looked. She'd earned those visible calluses as well as others, less visible.
"Yes, well, Mr. Donnelly, you can use my phone to make arrangements to fix your truck and then you can get on wherever you were going." She led him to the phone.
"That may be a problem, Ms. Simpson."
"Don't let it be." She swung open the kitchen door.
Her damned cool, lady-of-the-manor dismissal was eating away at his control, just the way her refusal to let him and Nicholas in last night had made him frighten her just a little. He hadn't been completely honest with her about not forcing his way in. But he hadn't been completely honest about much with her. Oh, sure, he hadn't physically broken down her door, though he'd wanted to for a mad instant when he thought she wasn't going to let Nicholas in. But in his need to see those eyes a little frightened, Jake had deliberately intimidated her. It wasn't nice of him, but then he'd never been a nice guy. Being nice wasn't his stock in trade.
Sarah led him to the kitchen, hating to walk in front of him. She didn't like the way he looked at her, as though he were figuring something out. Jake still made her very nervous. He looked like a man on the edge. She'd seen men like that in the Glades. There were stories circulating about men who'd reached that line that kept them on the side of civilization and then crossed over into the wild. She didn't care what drove Jake Donnelly and the boy wasn't her concern.
She wouldn't think about the child. He hadn't been kidnapped, and he wasn't being abused. Whoever Jake was, whatever he was, his actions showed that he cared for the boy. So, too, did his face when it softened as he looked at Nicholas. Sarah handed Jake the phone. "There. Make your arrangements—and quickly, please."
He shut the door of the kitchen behind him, closing her in with him, his wide shoulders between her and the door. He hooked the receiver on her shoulder, his muscular forearm lying against her breast. She didn't like what stirred in the shallows of his brown eyes.
Jake wanted to rip at her composure. The need to do so itched at him and made him wonder what she'd do if he moved his elbow over the delicate nipple that lay under his
arm. He could feel its small heat clear to his bones, down to his groin. His damnable temper spurred him on, urged him to move in on her, disturb her. Under his arm her heart beat steadily on, a puny engine throbbing against the oncoming tide, and her eyes widened under his.
Chapter Three
Oarah saw hard muscles, warm male, and a look in Jake's eyes that she wouldn't tolerate. "Move your hand. I don't like these little games you're playing." Her cousins had loved to intimidate her when she was a kid. She'd spent some time figuring out how to make them back off, and when she had, they'd never terrorized her again.
Jake wasn't her cousin, though. He didn't move that arm that lay on her, a heavy, hot weight. His thumb nudged just under the notched lapel of her purple blouse. She felt it steal against her collar bone. Raising her chin, pushing against him with the force of her will, she repeated, "I told you to move your hand. I meant it."
Jake wondered what she'd do if he moved his whole body on her, took those soft lips tight now with anger under his. The look in her blazing eyes told him he'd be walking with a limp and talking like a soprano if he tried. She didn't realize how her face telegraphed her thoughts to someone like him. She was outgunned and still wouldn't give an inch. Unblinking and stubborn, she stared him down.