Jake's child (14 page)

She'd seen him with Nicholas, seen his emptiness, and couldn't turn away despite her doubts. "I'm not sure we're even talking about the same things. You disturb me. Yes," she added as he leaned forward, "I know you've made me feel something I never thought to feel, never hoped to feel." She cradled his face between her hands. "But that's not enough. I'm not sure what you're after." Releasing him, she held up her empty hands.

"Haven't you been listening?" His palm cupped the back of her head, rubbed the taut muscles of her neck. "Permanence is what I'm after. Nothing less. That's what this is all about."

She moved uneasily. "You don't understand."

"Then make me." He slipped his hand down the back of the blouse, comforting, caressing with slow sweeps of his callused palm.

She wanted to tell him how empty her life had been until he and Nicholas stormed in, shattering her defenses, but that was a risk she wasn't prepared to take. She was too raw and Jake was moving too fast.

"Come on, sweetheart, tell me," he encouraged. "We have to start somewhere, and the first step is the hardest. You took it last night when you talked to me. What can be so hard about the next step?"

"So much pain." Her voice sank. "I don't want to feel that much pain ever again in my life."

He wrapped both arms around her. "Pain's not what it's about, sweetheart. I would never cause you pain."

She freed herself. "You couldn't keep from it. Pain's part of living." Sarah heard herself. For the first time she'd put it into words. That was what she feared—pain. And she was right. Pain was a part of life. Cutting away pain had cut her off from life. "I'm a coward," she said and knew it was true.

"Never, not you, my tiger with a baseball bat." His voice puffed the strands of her hair and tickled her earlobe. "Give me time, Sarah."

"How much?" She'd known she wasn't ready for the need she'd sensed in Jake, but she hadn't thought events would spiral out of control this way. She wanted to give Jake the time he asked, but she was terrified. "How much?" she repeated insistently, hoping he'd force her into a corner and she'd have to—have to what?

"As much time as it takes." His voice was flat.

"That's ridiculous. You must have a job—I don't even know what your job is," she protested. "This is impossible." She twisted away from him.

"Sarah?" Jake touched her and his eyes narrowed as though he'd seen something unexpected in her face.

Sarah welcomed Nicholas's interruption.

"Jake, I got an owie," Nicholas whimpered.

"How'd you do that, sport?" Jake looked at the hook lodged through Nicholas's forearm. "Da—Hurts like a son of a gun, I'll bet, huh?" he said as Nicholas's whimper turned to a full-fledged yowl. "Just hang on, we'll have it out in a minute."

Jake's color faded to a sickly brown when he examined the hook piercing the thin arm, and perspiration soaked his dark hair. He wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his arm. "Do you have any pliers?"

Sarah felt the faint tremor as he took the pliers. She knew, as Jake did and couldn't face, that Nicholas was going to hurt more before the hook was out. The barbs lodged in the flesh were going to have to come out one way or another, and Nicholas was ready to pitch into hysterical tears.

"Want me to do it, Nicholas, while Jake holds your arm steady? Jake's so strong that I think he'll steady you better than I could." Sarah kept looking right at Nicholas and talking to him in a low voice. The rapidity with which Jake slapped the pliers into her palm told her of his relief.

Sarah rubbed her nose as she looked into Nicholas's woebegone face. She wished she hadn't volunteered, but she'd had no choice. They'd needed her. She wanted to tuck Nicholas's hair behind his funny little ears.

"I won't lie to you, Nicholas. This will hurt. You can handle it, though, okay?" Sarah turned his arm towards Jake and gestured for Jake to hold it so that Nicholas could see. "I'm not going to hide anything from you, honey, and we're going to work really fast so that it won't hurt long. You can help."

"What 'cha want me to do?" he bawled, tears raining down his cheeks, "'cause it hurts like hell." His small mouth was screwed up as he tried to keep the sobs inside.

"Oh, sugar, I know it does. It's going to be better in just a minute, though." Sarah wanted to bawl herself. "Now listen, I think you'll want to watch so that you can tell everybody how brave you were. And I want you to raise your other hand if I'm making it worse, okay? Can you do that?" Sarah smoothed his hair away from his forehead and kissed him. Fishy and sweaty, he leaned against her and she ached to draw him closer.

"Sure," he gulped.

"I also need your help with Jake." Sarah worked quickly to snip off the line from the eye of the hook, leaving the barbs still buried. Fashioning a loop out of the fish line, she took the loop and slid it between the shank of the hook and Nicholas's skin up to the bend of the hook.

"What do you want me to do with Jake?" Nicholas turned his head just as Sarah slipped the loop around the curve.

"Well, you know how tough guys are. Sometimes you have to watch them. A lot of times they faint." Sarah kept talking as fast as she could while she worked.

"Not Jake," Nicholas insisted through his tears, clearly astonished that Sarah could suggest such a thing.

"Probably not, but keep an eye on him for me, will you?"

Nicholas fixed his eyes on Jake.

"I'd sure hate to have to fish him out of the lake." Sarah pressed her index finger against the eye of the hook, holding it firmly against Nicholas's skin as she snapped the metal shaft back out its entry point with a clean movement of her left hand that sent the hook sparkling into the water.

Just as she pulled on the shaft, Jake, with a quick look at her, flopped onto the dock.

"Sarah! Jake fainted!" Nicholas squirmed, his injury forgotten.

"Really?" Sarah gave Nicholas a big kiss and hug before turning him loose. Her hands were shaking.

Nicholas scrunched down and lifted Jake's eyelid.

"How's your owie, sport?" Jake sat up. A thin, white line outlined his hard mouth.

"You teasing me again, Jake? Or did you truly faint?" At Jake's wink, Nicholas sniffed, "I don't like this teasing stuff. And anyway, when you gonna take out this damn hook?"

When Sarah and Jake burst out laughing, Nicholas frowned. "What's so funny?"

As Sarah took Nicholas's hand, Jake reached to him. Their three hands met, Jake's broad and dark, hers slim and tanned, both protectively tented over Nicholas's grubby little fist.

Jake's somber gaze met hers. "Sarah—"

"Yes?" She waited.

"Nothing. Nothing, at all." Jake's cheek brushed Nicholas's forehead, a swift gesture. Holding Nicholas, Jake leaned over, kissing her hard on the lips, a puzzling, angry touch that melted her bones.

Chapter Seven

bo Jake began his uneasy courting of Sarah.

The days were ruled by blue skies and sunny days, Jake's nights by doubt and longing.

Sarah said now that it was warm, they could go fishing for shell crackers. Wearing his bandage like a badge of honor, Nicholas allowed as how he wasn't sure he wanted to fish anymore. As for Jake, he was going crazier by the minute.

He tried to convince himself that the storm clouds on the horizon would blow past, but he was edgy and touchy. Tension rode him with roweled spurs.

He told himself that he had no choice, but he remembered all the times in his life when things had gone wrong— and the stakes had never been this high.

He chewed antacids by the handful, hoping the clawing in his gut would ease. It didn't.

He tried to stay away from Nicholas. He couldn't.

He tried to keep his hands and mouth off Sarah. He didn't.

He reminded himself by the hour that she was the enemy, but he couldn't be near her without wrapping his arms around her, pressing her up against a wall, a door, anything, and kissing her until his breath labored and his blood beat hard and thick.

She danced before him in butterfly colors, trailing wisps of green and yellow and pink in her wake, tossing shy smiles in his direction before hurrying off and taking all the color with her.

One day he found himself in her bedroom breathing in the scent she'd left behind. Dust motes danced near the window. Her dresser was tidy, but the essence of Sarah lingered, and he gripped her cotton nightgown hanging on the back of the door until his fingers cramped.

The false days crept by for Jake and his role became ter-rifyingly comfortable. He found himself trying to surprise those throaty, little laughs from her and knew something had to break soon. He hoped it wouldn't be him. He wanted Sarah anywhere, everywhere. He wanted her bound to him, so bound that he could break her and free himself.

Yet in the still of the night, as Nicholas slept in the bed across from him, a nasty little voice kept Jake awake. "Yeah, you're responsible for Nicholas, but you want her, too. That's why you're staying. Who're you kidding, chump?"

Waking up tired and frustrated, Jake crawled out of his twisted sheets and forced himself through days where he swung between go and stay, anger and desire.

Today was no different, he thought sourly as he scraped leaves into a pile. Nicholas had gone off with Sarah's cousin Buck, and Jake couldn't forget for a second that he and Sarah were alone. He was keeping as firm a grip on his hunger as he was on the rake he worked so ruthlessly through the grass.

Sarah opened the screen door. "What's this?" She thrust the lumpy package she'd found on the kitchen table toward

Jake. Looking up at her, he shaded his face, and she let her eyes linger on the muscles outlined by his close-fitting T-shirt, let them drift down over the sprung-hip stance that pulled his jeans tight over his pelvis.

Large and solid, he moved towards her, first leaning the rake against the oak. "A present.'* His grin was sly, and her breathing quickened at his look.

"You shouldn't have!" She traced the knobbly outlines of the brown-papered present.

"You're right. I shouldn't have." He came close, walking right into her space, surrounding her with him, sliding his big palms over her shoulders and down her back, swooping them over her hips, her thighs, and inching up her rib cage, teasing and coaxing, making her quiver with the slightest skimming graze of his fingers or lips. She vibrated to his presence like a tuning fork.

He'd been doing that for the last two weeks. Imprinting her with himself until she craved the sight and touch of him.

"So why did you?" Sarah brandished the package at him and pushed her hair back from her ear.

"Um, much better." Jake nibbled on its outer curve.

The flick of his tongue against her skin turned her to hot butter. If he were toast, she'd be sliding all over him in a golden, melted flow.

"Jake." She turned her lips to him. His taste had become as necessary to her as breathing, the hot, male taste of arousal that told her how much he wanted her. A taste, too, of disquieting hostility.

Even so, Sarah slanted her lips to his, answering the urging of his lips and seeking tongue.

Jake's mouth consumed her, heat on heat, burning her to a crisp. He lifted her off her feet, pulling her to him. All along the length of his body, his strength and hardness supported and seduced her. Frantically she moved her head, moved against him. Need coiled and twisted inside her and the key was Jake.

The package thudded to the wooden planks, bounced.

"Hell." Carefully Jake let her slide down his length, and she burned, burned against him. He settled her against him while their breathing slowed.

Sarah leaned on him and pressed her lips to the black hair that curled over the neck of his white T-shirt. He smelled so good.

"Don't," he muttered, pulling her tight to him.

She blew gently into the black curls and heard his heart thunder under her ears in response. "Why not?" she murmured, knowing, but unable to resist the temptation of her senses.

"I'm trying to do this right. Give me some help."

"You're doing everything perfectly. Don't stop." She burrowed her nose where the strong muscles of his neck met his broad shoulders. She turned, pressing her lips to him, biting lightly at the rugged strength, tracing the tendons with her mouth.

His shudder resonated through her.

"Want me to stop?" she whispered.

"Hell, no. Yes." He swayed with her for a moment before pulling her against him as he leaned on the door. His sigh was heavy. "No wonder courting went out of style. Too hard on the nerves."

She laughed up at him. "But you have nerves of steel, hero man."

Sarah smoothed the dark circles under his eyes. The situation was explosive and until today she'd been avoiding him when she could. "You're not sleeping well."

"You got that right." At her murmured regret, he snacked on her nose. "It's all right. I'll survive. Maybe," he added as she slipped her arms around his neck. "Take a look at your present." He bent and picked it up. His smile was hesitant as he handed her the bumpy package, almost as though he were as surprised by the present as she.

"You're really taking this courtship seriously, aren't you?" She peeled back paper from the top.

"I'm very serious." He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes where emotions warred.

"I know." Yes, he was serious, but something was cracking him apart. Every time he was near her he gave off an air of desperation that troubled her and kept her from completely surrendering to the power he increasingly wielded over her senses.

She wished she could read him as clearly as he read her. One week had stretched into two, the weeks carving new grooves in his weathered face. He was a man in torment and it showed.

"I know," she repeated in an effort to ease the turmoil she sensed. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him, letting her lips linger against his, giving whatever comfort she could. "Now let's see this present." She stripped away a swath of paper. "What in the world?" She flourished a bright red can of WD-40 oil.

"I have plans." He shifted uncomfortably.

"A porch swing." She'd never suspected a sense of whimsy hid underneath Jake's roughness. Flirting, she stroked his chin with the can. "In the meantime, what about making use of the swing on the tree?" She quirked an eyebrow at him. "It tilts, though."