A Light For My Love (8 page)

"I guess I almost owed you an apology."

China spun around, her breath caught in her
chest. Jake stood in the doorway to the hall. His hair was wet and
curling at the ends, and the smell of his rain-soaked wool coat
drifted to her. He sent her a hard look.

"Wh-what?" she stammered. Again she was
struck by the sheer presence of him. It gave her a funny feeling in
her chest, a perplexing combination of apprehension and warmth. She
was unaccustomed to having to look that high to see a person's
face.

"I was just about to light into you for
cheating me out of another meal that I paid for. I see I was
wrong."

She felt certain he hadn't seen her come in,
that he couldn't know she'd been outside. But when she touched a
hand to her hair she realized it was damp too, and she saw rain
spots on her skirt. Of all the luck, she stewed. None of this
appeared to be lost on Jake—his gaze swept over her. She knew she
must look harried and suspicious. Just one minute more and she'd
have been upstairs or in the parlor, or anyplace else. There was
nothing to do but to face him down.

"Yes, you
were
wrong. I put this aside
for you," she fibbed and retreated to the shelter of
self-righteousness. "Of course, the soup is cold now, since
lunchtime is at one." She looked at the clock. "Not one
forty-five."

Jake maintained his steady scrutiny. It was
plain to him that she was up to something, there was no doubt about
it. She looked worried, guilty. He

took off his coat and hung it up to dry on
one of the hooks next to the stove.

"Maybe I should buy the food. That way I
might get to eat even if I'm not able to keep to your
schedule."

China felt her face flush. "We went over that
yesterday. As a boarder in this house, you're welcome to join us at
mealtimes. But this isn't a restaurant—you can't come in and order
something whenever you like."

When he walked to the back door and opened
it, China almost bit her tongue to keep from objecting. She watched
in an agony of suspense while he glanced around the yard, then
leaned over the porch to ruffle the rain out of his hair. After he
closed the door, he pushed up his sweater sleeves again and came to
the table.

Pulling out a chair, he said, "Since you've
gone to so much trouble to keep this lunch for me, I'd be a real
ingrate not to eat it, even if it is cold." He bent another hard
look on her.

China fidgeted, not entirely comfortable with
her story about the sandwich. Still, it was only a white lie, not a
really bad one.

Jake sat down in front of the tray and pulled
out the damp napkin from under the silver. "I'd almost forgotten
how much it rains here," he continued. "I thought I'd drown
standing out on that dock today." He glanced at her damp hem and
then up at her face. "I guess you already know how wet it is out
there."

Defensiveness climbed higher in China and
tightened her jaw. It was bad enough that he was here at all, bad
enough that for some reason, she had to struggle to keep her eyes
off him whenever he was nearby. Nobody else in the house had been
so nosy about her comings and goings—not until he got here. She
kept her back to him while she rearranged the butter, milk, and
cheese in the icebox. At least he couldn't read her eyes. "Yes,
well, it does rain a lot here in January," she babbled inanely.

What was she hiding? Jake puzzled. He knew
this food wasn't for him. Even if he hadn't seen her from the
dining room window, crossing the yard with the tray in her hands,
he would have doubted her story. She could barely tolerate being in
the same room with him. She wouldn't have gone to any trouble for
him. It was as if she were protecting someone. He shouldn't care.
There'd never been anything between them, apparently not even
friendship. But more than idle curiosity made him wonder why she
was sneaking around.

He took a bite of the unappetizing sandwich
and put it back on the plate. "This sandwich tastes like you used
it to soak up a leak in the roof. The bread is soggy."

China's head came up and she turned to look
at him, strangely stung by his criticism. "I'm sure this isn't the
worst thing you've ever eaten."

"That's true," he agreed, lifting the bread
to pick out the chicken underneath. "One time I lived on hardtack
for two weeks when my ship was caught in the doldrums off the
Canaries."

China clenched her teeth for an instant
before answering. Why was she letting him vex her? "This isn't a
hotel. You knew that before you came here."

"Which brings me to what I wanted to talk
with you about this morning."

This abrupt shift caught China off guard. If
he mentioned Ryan again—

"I want a room on the second floor. If I'm
supposed to act like the other boarders, I should have a room like
the other boarders."

"Except, as I told you, there is no other
room available on the second floor."

"Come on, China," he snapped, and put a hand
flat to his chest. "This is Jake Chastaine you're talking to. I
know this house. I stayed here dozens of times when I was a kid.
There are more than four bedrooms upstairs."

China held her ground. "If you think back to
just a few years ago, you might remember that you were banished
from this house altogether."

He pushed away the sandwich plate disgustedly
and rose to his feet. "Aunt Gert invited me here. I'm her guest,
not yours."

He towered over her, and she felt his
impatience. She hated being alone with him, but it kept occurring.
Showing far more bravado than she felt, she insisted, "But I'm in
charge of all our business matters, and I have the final word."

He pushed past her and reached for his wet
coat. He jammed his arms into the sleeves, then gave her another
long look. "I'll be back in time for dinner, China, and I'd better
get something more appetizing than a leftover soggy sandwich, or
I'm going to start charging you for the meals I have to buy."

He strode to the back door, flung it open,
and walked out without bothering to close it.

*~*~*

Late in the afternoon, Jake sat at the
library table in the back parlor, making necessary adjustments to
the ship's clock. The distant sound of the side door closing broke
his concentration, and he looked up from his work on the
chronometer. He usually had the ability to shut out all
distractions when he needed to. Not today. He was tense and
restless—he swore he could feel his own hair growing. He stood and
wandered to the tall windows in the back parlor, trying to stretch
his spine as he went. It still felt like a corkscrew. He wasn't
looking forward to spending another night on that lumpy mattress in
the attic, but he'd gotten nowhere with China. She was determined
to keep him up there. The idea of a room at the Occident Hotel was
sounding better all the time.

From deep within a leather chair near the
fireplace, Captain Meredith's wheezy snores trespassed on Jake's
thoughts. He was beginning to yearn for the anonymity to be found
in the long, carpeted halls of a hotel, for the impersonal solitude
of a hotel dining room. Those were the very qualities about hotels
that he'd always disliked. But he wasn't about to spend two months
in that cubbyhole upstairs.

Jake rested his chin on the top of the window
sash and gripped each side of the frame in his hands. A sigh
escaped him, momentarily fogging the glass. Maybe he'd been a fool
to think he could come back here. He shouldn't have let Aunt Ger t
talk him into it. He hadn't forgotten that China had banished him
from this house, and she hadn't forgotten it either. This afternoon
she'd tossed it in his face like a custard pie. Her youthful,
white-hot anger had cooled and hardened into bitterness.

His mood matched the dark, brooding weather.
He stared out at the parklike yard that stretched between the house
and the next street. At least the rain was beginning to let up. A
long, narrow band of late-day sun brightened the western horizon
where the clouds had lifted.

Then a sudden flash of movement and color
caught his eye, and Jake watched as China darted across the yard.
His eyes narrowed. He saw her long black hair hanging free, and the
tails of her wool shawl streaming behind her as she ran. Her maroon
skirt billowed in the winter wind. Through the glass he heard her
light steps on the flat stones of the path. What the hell was she
up to? he wondered once more. Then he had his answer. She flew
toward the carriage house. There a medium-built man in seaman's
dungarees and pea coat stood waiting for her. The sailor reached
out to grip her wrist, and China, with a furtive backward glance
over her shoulder, hurried them inside. Even from where he stood,
Jake sensed the powerful urgency between them.

Jake stepped back from the window, recoiling
as though he'd been slapped. He wasn't sure what he'd seen, but he
sure knew what it looked like, what it felt like.

An intense emotion, one he didn't want to
consider very carefully, knifed through him, painful and swift. He
took a deep breath and tried to smother the feeling, along with the
impulse to storm outside and drag China into the house. Had anyone
else seen her? He looked around at Captain Meredith, but the old
man slept on, oblivious. Aunt Gert sat at the desk, deep in
concentration, sorting and arranging what looked like some little
cards, and he'd last seen Susan Price in the sewing room
upstairs.

All the pieces of China's puzzling
behavior—the sneaking around, the lying, taking trays of food
outside—began to fall into place, and Jake didn't like the picture
it created. He didn't like it at all.

But it gave him an infallible means by which
to get what he wanted, and he planned to use it.

*~*~*

It was just after five, and dusk was upon her
when China glanced up through the kitchen window a half-hour later.
Good, she thought; Aunt Gert must be in another room. From where
China stood, she could see no one in the kitchen. She climbed the
porch stairs and turned the doorknob. Before she was inside she
recognized the delicious aroma of ham baking in the oven. Chicken
last night, and now ham. They so rarely could afford good meals
anymore, the meat seemed like a dangerous extravagance to her.
She'd have to talk to Aunt Gert about this. China suspected that
her aunt was cooking with Jake in mind, rather than economy.

Despite what Jake had said at lunch, China
hoped he would eat dinner someplace else again tonight. She didn't
have much appetite when he was around, and the combination of lack
of food, her own anxiety, and hard work had her energy flagging.
She pushed open the door and pulled off her shawl to hang it by the
stove.

"Hello, China."

China swallowed a shriek and whirled to see
Jake sitting at the table. He slouched low in the chair, with one
foot crossed over his knee. His eyes were as cold as jade. She had
the awful feeling that she was being called to task. He'd changed
to a plain white shirt with a band collar, and it was unbuttoned to
his sternum. A small medal on a gold chain hung around his neck,
half hidden by the folds of his shirt, and her eyes were drawn to
it. In her confusion, her gaze moved on to the dark blond hair
revealed on his chest, and she felt her cheeks grow warm.

"Jake," she acknowledged and closed the door
behind her, showing more calm than she felt. Blast it, she thought.
She hadn't realized till this second that someone had closed the
curtains on the kitchen door. And the big window was too high above
the path for her to see anyone who was sitting in the kitchen. If
she'd known he was there, she'd have gone through the side door and
right up the stairs to her room.

"Nice evening, isn't it?" he remarked, lazily
pushing himself upright and unhooking his ankle. "Has the rain
stopped?"

"Why are you always sneaking up on me?" she
snapped, the level of her words rising on fear and anger.

His shrug was casual, but his green eyes
bored into her. "I suppose it could seem that way—to a person with
something to hide."

Panic began inching its way into China's
heart, but she tried to show only annoyance. "I can't imagine what
you mean." She turned to walk away and would have left the kitchen
to escape him and his questions, but the next thing he said stopped
her dead in the doorway.

"You might as well give up the game,
China."

She heard the chair legs slide over the
flooring as he pushed himself to his feet. He crossed the room and
stood right behind her, nearly touching, but not. She sensed him
there—she could feel the heat of his body, almost like an
electrical charge. She took a step forward to put some distance
between them.

"I saw you with him. And I know everything."
Oh, God, China thought, lacing her cold hands tightly in front of
her. She'd tried so hard to be careful, to stay away from the
carriage house. But in the last few days that had been impossible.
She turned and faced him.

"I guess you've developed a taste for the
working class," Jake said, irony in his voice. He reached out to
tweak a lock of her loose hair. "I imagine there are people who'd
be interested in hearing all about what keeps you so busy out
there." He tipped his head in the direction of the carriage house
and gave her a shrewd look. "And I'll be happy to tell anyone
who'll listen, starting with Aunt Gert, if you don't let me move to
a room on the second floor."

China could hardly believe what she was
hearing. She tried to think of some way to throw him off, but the
only defense she could formulate lay in denial and feigned
ignorance. "I repeat," she said firmly, "I don't know what you're
talking about. But whatever it is, I guess I shouldn't be surprised
that you'd stoop to blackmail to get your way."

Jake leaned a little doser. She should no
longer find him attractive, not after all the problems he had
created, especially given the horrible things he was saying. How
could she even notice his lean jawline or the curve of his mouth,
turned down in a humorless smile? For the briefest instant, he
gazed back at her with an odd yearning expression that caught at
her heart. Then a frown darkened his face, and he crossed his arms
over his chest as he considered her.