The Bridal Path: Sara (18 page)

Sara’s response to that was a single expletive. Jake’s eyebrows rose, but he kept on doggedly trying to make her see reason. She could have told him to save his breath, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He clearly had some point he wanted to make.

“What if your father had made a better deal with a total stranger?” he asked. “He could have, you know. He had offers over the years, some of them far more lucrative than what he and I had agreed to. You would have been out in the cold, if he’d taken one of those. Your bags would already be sitting on the front porch and the moving van would be in the driveway.”

Sara stared at him, openmouthed. This was a new wrinkle she’d never anticipated. “He’d had other offers?”

“A half dozen that I know of,” Jake confirmed. “One so sweet even I thought he was a fool for not accepting it.”

“Then why did he sell to you?”

“For one thing because he’s an honorable man. He’d made a commitment to me when I came here.” He leveled a look straight into her eyes. “For another he knew that you and your sisters would always be welcome here as long as I owned it. He trusted me to make sure of that.”

“How generous,” she said bitterly. “Will you give us a discount on our room rates?”

An immediate and infuriating smile tugged at Jake’s lips. “I’m not turning it into a bed-and-breakfast or a dude ranch, darlin’. And there are very few people I’d ever welcome here as guests.” His expression sobered. “Even fewer I’d consider hiring on to work with me.”

Shock spread across her face when she guessed his meaning. “You want me to work for you?” she asked incredulously.

“With me,” he corrected.

“When you get right down to it, that’s not much of a distinction.”

“It is to me,” he said.

He said it so softly that it made Sara’s nerves tingle with sudden awareness.

“I know this is difficult for you,” he said. “I know this is the last thing you expected your father to do, but it’s done now. There’s no going back. Let’s figure out some way to make it work for both of us.”

The sincerity and genuine compassion in his voice touched something very cold deep inside her, but it wasn’t enough to take away the chill that came with knowing that this was no longer her home.

She had one last chance to change that and she intended to take it. She met Jake’s gaze evenly, her shoulders stiff with determination.

“You’re forgetting something,” she reminded him. “In a week we’re competing to see who will really keep Three-Stars. This conversation is premature.”

Jake sighed heavily and stood up. “Right now you have a choice, Sara, one you can make of your own free will. How are you going to feel next week when you’ve lost and I’m holding all the cards?”

The prospect of that made her shudder, but she couldn’t allow herself to think about the possibility of losing. “I’m going to win,” she insisted. “How are you going to feel when I kick your butt out of here?”

He grinned at her defiance, a reaction she found both insulting and irritating.

“I am going to win, Jake Dawson,” she insisted with pure bravado. “Just you wait and see.”

* * *

Was she an absolute and utter idiot for not taking the deal Jake had offered her? Sara debated the question the rest of the night.

She was wide awake at dawn when she heard her father creep downstairs. Still dressed after her confrontation with Jake, she raced down after him. She caught him in the front hallway, a suitcase at his feet, a guilty expression on his face.

“Going somewhere, Daddy?” she inquired mildly. “Not without breakfast, I hope. You’ve always told us it’s the most important meal of the day.”

He regarded her warily, clearly uncertain what to make of her attitude. With obvious reluctance, he followed her into the dining room. Halfheartedly, he scooped up some fruit and poured himself a bowl of cereal, then sat down across from Sara. She waited patiently for the silence to start to weigh on him. It didn’t take all that long.

“Go ahead,” he said finally. “Get it off your chest. I can tell you’re dying to tell me what a rat I am.”

“Oh?” she said innocently. “Have you done something you’re ashamed of?”

“You know damned well I sold the ranch to Jake. I’m sure Annie couldn’t wait to break the news to you yesterday. She had enough to say to me on the subject when I got home.”

“Apparently none of it registered.”

“I did what I thought was best for all of us,” her father insisted. “You included. There’s money in the bank for each of you, enough so that you’re free to do anything you want, though you obviously don’t see it that way right now.”

Sara fought to keep from bursting into tears. “Nope, I can’t say that I do,” she agreed. “But then you never cared much about my opinion, did you? Or Dani’s? Or Ashley’s? Who’s going to break the news to them or were you planning to have your lawyer send them a clipping from the paper announcing the transaction? Or maybe the passbooks for their new savings accounts?”

He winced at that. “Okay, I deserved that. I suppose I just wasn’t up to the three of you ganging up on me. I needed to get away and I knew if I admitted that, you’d all start fussing and hovering.”

“Couldn’t you have just taken a vacation?” she asked, unable to keep the plaintive note out of her voice.

“I needed to make a clean break. There are too many memories here for me.” He sighed. “I’m lonely, Sara. And you know as well as I do that I’d never be able to bring another woman here after the life your mother and I shared. I need a fresh start and I’m fortunate enough to be able to make that happen.”

As badly as it hurt, Sara forced herself to try to see things from his perspective. She’d never given a thought to why he wanted so badly to sell. How could she have been so blind to his pain? She saw him every single day. She should have known.

She reached for his hand. “I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

“No,” he said forcefully. “It’s not your job to figure out what’s going on in my head. Maybe I should have spelled it out, but I’ve never been much good at talking about how I feel. That’s why your mama and I were so good together. She didn’t need the words. She always knew what was in my heart.”

“And you think you’re going to find her replacement sitting around some swimming pool at a retirement center in Arizona?” Sara teased gently.

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But at least these old bones of mine will be warm.”

“You’re not old, Daddy.”

“Maybe not in years, but since your mama died, my soul feels ancient.”

“Then go on and find the fountain of youth,” Sara told him.

Since there was no turning back anyway, there seemed little point in belaboring her hurt. She’d always been quick to anger, but just as quick to forgive. She was surprised to discover that the trait held, even for something as devastating as the sale of Three-Stars. Now that she understood what had motivated her father to sell, the betrayal didn’t cut quite so deep.

“You’ll be okay?” he asked worriedly.

Her lips curved briefly. “It’s a little late to concern yourself with that now.”

“You need anything, anything at all, you can go to Jake,” he told her. “He’ll always look out for you. I have his word on that.”

If only he knew, Sara thought. Jake was far more of a danger to her than anything that might be lurking around the corner.

When her father drove off a half hour later, just as the sun was creeping over the horizon in a blaze of orange, Sara waved goodbye until he was out of sight.

The effort to be cheerful, to ease her father’s guilt had cost her. Suddenly feeling all too alone and desolate, she couldn’t bear the thought of going back into that huge, empty house…the home that no longer belonged to her.

She hurried to the barn, saddled up her favorite mare and rode out with no particular destination in mind. As usual, though, she was drawn to the ridge above the creek.

From that distant point she could look out across Wilde land and see the home she loved so dearly nestled in the stand of shade trees that were just now filling in with leaves. With snowcapped mountains in the distance, the view was stark and rugged, warmed only by that glowing sunrise that bathed it in golden light.

Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks unchecked as she forced herself to accept the possibility that in less than a week she would no longer have any claim to any of it. Not the house where she and her sisters had played and fought as children, not the barn where she’d saddled her first horse, or the creek where she’d learned to swim. None of it. It would all belong to Jake.

As if just thinking of him had conjured him up, he rode up beside her. She felt his concerned glance, but she couldn’t make herself meet his gaze.

With every fiber of her being she was aware of the precise instant when he slipped off his horse, tethered it to a tree and then returned to her side and held up his arms. Needing the comfort he silently offered more than she’d ever needed anything in her life, Sara dismounted straight into his embrace. She might hate herself later for turning to Jake, but for now the promise of his compassion called out to her. There was no mistaking the irony that Jake alone truly grasped what she was going through at this moment.

He tucked her head against his shoulder and looped his arms around her waist, surrounding her with his heat and his strength, but more importantly, with his tenderness and understanding. If she hadn’t loved him before, she would have fallen deeply and desperately in love with him at that moment.

Because she needed his warmth and his compassion, she was able to suspend awareness that this was the man who’d stolen the ranch that meant everything to her. For just this instant, he was simply Jake, for so many years her reluctant best friend, her more willing mentor, and recently her very willing lover.

Silent tears turned to heartbroken sobs as she clung to him. He held her until she was spent, murmuring gentle nonsense that was so uncharacteristic of this sometimes harsh and cool-tempered man that it finally coaxed a smile from her.

When her sobs had quieted and smiling came more easily, she lifted her head. Jake’s callused hands framed her face. His thumbs gently smoothed away the dampness on her cheeks as his gaze locked with hers.

“You sure you’re finished now?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Good thing. I think the creek’s about to rise to flood stage from all the tears you shed. I know my shirt will never be the same.”

Sara tore her gaze from his and studied the soggy material. She covered mortification with daring. “Maybe you should take it off. It’ll dry faster if you toss it over a bush in the sun.”

She was suggesting much more and they both knew it. The sudden flare of desire in Jake’s eyes was reassuring. With everything that had happened, that hadn’t changed. He hungered for her in a way that stole her breath.

“Before breakfast, darlin’? I’m surprised at you,” he teased.

“I’ve had breakfast,” she told him archly and grinned. “Of course, if you’re not up to it without some fuel in your stomach…”

He clasped her hand, drew it down and proved otherwise. She lifted her gaze to clash with his. With this man only did she dare such brazen things. She couldn’t allow herself to wonder what would become of her if she never again met his equal.

“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked.

“I was thinking you might come to your senses. I can’t be among your favorite people about now.”

She touched a finger to his lips to silence the noble sentiment. On one level he was certainly right about that, but she needed his loving right now more than she needed to hate him, more than she needed to blame him for the unexpected twist her life had taken.

Because he seemed so determined to leave the final decision in her hands, she reached for the buttons of his shirt. She freed them one by one, ever so slowly, pausing to skim a fingertip across newly bared skin before moving on to the next button. Jake sucked in a sharp breath with each touch. His muscles clenched and rippled.

When Sara reached the snap on his jeans, she flicked that open as well, earning a soft moan for her trouble. His whole body tensed as her fingers dipped lower, teasing at the edges of the elastic band on his briefs.

“Sara?”

The soft whisper of her name barely broke her concentration on the smooth plane of his belly.

“Mmm?” she asked.

“When is it going to be my turn?” he asked in a choked voice.

The strain and tension made her smile. “Later,” she promised. “I’m busy.”

“Indeed you are,” he agreed, amusement mingling with breathless torment.

Even as she taunted Jake with her increasingly insistent caresses, Sara could feel the heat swirling deep inside her. Without a single stroke of his hand, without a single deep and breath-stealing kiss, her breasts were achingly sensitive. Her blood thundered through her veins. Moistness pooled at the juncture of her thighs.

A sudden urgency ripped through her, escalating the game. She stepped back, startling Jake. With hands that shook she shoved down jeans and panties barely to her knees, then moved back against him, stripping away his pants and briefs just enough to bare his throbbing shaft.

“Now, Jake, please,” she begged, her hands on his shoulders as she lifted herself to circle his waist with her legs.

His hands cupped her bottom at once to assist her. In a matter of seconds he was deep inside, filling her, moving with a slow, deliberate rhythm that was half the pace she would have set.

His satisfied, purely masculine smile told her he knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly how sweet the torment was as he took her only so high, then waited an eternity before taking her higher yet.

When she could bear it no more, her hips moved instinctively to a more hectic rhythm that matched her quick gasps of pleasure and Jake’s deeper cries of satisfaction.

The explosion of sensation, when it finally came, was more shattering than anything she had ever experienced. And if the thunderstruck expression on Jake’s face was anything to judge by, he was equally shaken by the intensity of their climax.

The moment was both exhilarating and terrifying. Discovering that such a sensual crescendo was possible thrilled her beyond her wildest dreams. Discovering that only Jake could take her to such heights, however, suggested a subconscious level of trust that circumstances and logic told her couldn’t possibly exist.