Jake's child (6 page)

Again her courage surprised him. If he weren't careful, he was going to find himself liking her. Hatred was safer for Nicholas. And probably safer for himself.

Holding her eyes, Jake drew the receiver lightly against her, let it linger just on the curve of her breast, let her see the mockery in his eyes. "You're a good-looking woman. You must be used to guys making passes."

Disdain glinted in her eyes. "You weren't making a pass. You were bullying me."

"Is that what I was doing?" Clever woman. He had been bullying her. Not his usual style, but what the hell. Everything she did riled him. If he'd just met her under different circumstances he'd have liked her, wanted her, had her. His ethics, flexible though they were, wouldn't bend now on this point. He wouldn't yield to this treacherous desire that moved like lava through his blood, slow and sluggish and burning.

He was tempted, though.

"Make your call and get out of here." Ice clinked in the drawling flow of her voice. "Now."

"Got a telephone book? Yellow pages?"

"In the drawer by the counter." She gave him a wide berth.

He wondered what she'd say if he told her he could have her wrapped against him faster than she could blink. She would be small and supple, a miracle of softness and tenderness. No. Not tenderness. He couldn't expect tenderness from her.

"Here." She dropped the book before him. "And make it fast. I want you out of here before noon."

"Noon? You're not talking southern time, then. I'll be gone as fast as I can get the truck going."

"I'll call Willy's wrecker. He can tow you out of here." Blue fire blazed in her eyes.

Jake flipped through the yellow pages, looking for a service station. He had no intention of leaving, but he might as

well fix his truck. Regardless of the satisfied look on her face, and the confident tilt of her slim neck, Sarah Jane Simpson wasn't through with him yet.

She wouldn't like knowing it, but she reminded him of a cheeky kitten he'd had long ago. Totally ignoring their differences in size and power, the hissing kitten would attack him, glowering in miniature fury. Later, satisfied by victory, she'd curl up at his feet, treating him like some out-sized trophy she'd dragged in by sheer dint of effort.

Frowning, Jake remembered that easy comfort, the contentment of the familiar routine, a good time. His friend had let him stay for a while when Jake was fending for himself. He'd envied his buddy for a long time, but Jake had deliberately forfeited that kind of life, selling that undervalued serenity down the river. Nobody to blame for that except himself. It had been years since he'd thought about how he'd felt back then, always on the outside looking in with nothing of his own.

He ran his finger down the page. It was Nicholas, of course. Jake wasn't used to being responsible for other people. Drop in, move fast, get out faster. That was his style. What was he going to do about the kid? That question had tormented him for hours yesterday as he drove in the dark towards Sarah.

Jake stabbed his finger on a name. "Can you give me a lift to Moore Haven? There's a tire place there." He smiled grimly as her jittery urge to have him and Nicholas gone showed in her tapping fingers.

Sarah watched the smile and didn't trust it. He wanted something. Should she drive him and the boy into town? Well, she wasn't going anywhere with Jake Donnelly. What if she let Jake take her VW? He'd be a tough fit. Suppose he took off with it?

"You going to give me a lift?" His lean hip balanced against the counter.

She considered his tough face, its irritated scowl* She wouldn't trust him with herself but she was reasonably certain she could trust him with the car, and considering the state of the VW, maybe he'd be doing her a favor if he stole it. "No. You can use my car."

His smile spread brilliantly across his dark face. "Thanks." He shut the book, dropped it in the drawer. "Can I leave Nicholas here?"

Sarah didn't like that. She didn't want Nicholas with his little body around, his guileless enthusiasm rending her like a vulture's beak. What would she do with him? Jake's smile disappeared. What did he expect? Was she supposed to leap up and down and cry, "Oh wonderful! What fun!" for heaven's sake? Some women would. But she couldn't.

Still, the thought of Nicholas confined in the small car, carted around from one place to another disturbed her. He'd been carsick yesterday. He didn't need to be cooped up in a car again so soon.

Sarah watched Nicholas jump with gleeful abandon out of the old swing. She'd done the same thing when she was young. Sarah smiled at the memory of blazing sky and sun whirling over her head as she pumped higher and higher and then, eyes tightly closed, leaped into the void.

"Well?" Jake lounged against the door between the living room and the kitchen. "Hell, I'll even pay you to kid sit if it's such a big deal." He reached toward his pocket.

Sarah blanched. "Keep your money," she said in a chilly voice, forcing her words past the anger and humiliation as she remembered the way he'd flung the quarter at her. "I wouldn't take your money if I were starving!"

"Really?" One eyebrow arched. "Fastidious of you. I'd have thought otherwise."

Sarah's hand prickled, her blood roared in her head.

"No comment?" Jake shoved himself off the door.

She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction. She fought for control and dammed up her tears. He

could stand there until hell froze over before he'd make her cry.

Like a net made up of the threads of her hurt and anger and his contempt, the moment stretched between them trapping Sarah. Jake reached to touch her. She slapped his hand away and pushed past him, jerking open the door. Breathing as hard as though she'd run a mile, she held the knob in her shaking hand. "Leave Nicholas. I'll watch him."

Jake nodded once, as though satisfied about something. Sarah kept the edge of the door and the edge of her anger between them as he walked out of the kitchen, his booted heels smacking on the wood of the living room.

Following him, she grabbed the car keys off the rack by the kitchen door and hurled them at him. He reached in back of him in midstride and caught the key ring as it jangled towards him. "I'll tell Nicholas he's staying, then." The screen door shut quietly behind him.

Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle and absorbed the shaking that slashed through her with Jake's departure. She didn't owe Jake anything. He was asking too much of her without even knowing it. Nicholas and his need sliced at her, but she'd function. Survival had been made up of worse moments than this. Emptying her mind, she sought control. Don 7 think. Don't think.

She'd give the boy what she could for the time being.

"Hey, sport!" Jake let the door close softly behind him as he yelled for Nicholas. Sarah puzzled him. Every time he thought he had a handle on her, she surprised him. He'd have bet the shine of tears over sea-blue eyes was real.

He knew he'd been vicious. Every time she retreated, he felt driven to slash at her. She hadn't cried, though.

The urge to comfort her startled him. He rubbed his chin hard, chasing away the imagined feel of her soft, wet skin against his palm. He wasn't interested in her pain, real or false. She'd get no sympathy from him.

4 'So, Jake, are we gonna get some worms and pop and go fishing?"

"Not right now, kid." Jake caught the flying body in his arms. "Hey. Careful, Nicholas. Warn a person before you jump on them."

"It's all right, Jake. I knew you'd catch me." Nicholas bumped Jake's chin companionably.

"Yeah, but warn me next time."

"Sure, Jake. Let's go fishing, now, okay?"

"Not right now, sport. We'll see about later."

"But, Jake—" Nicholas squirmed.

Jake explained the situation to him. For a long moment the boy clung to him, his small fist clutching Jake's collar. Powerless, Jake patted Nicholas's back. Jake wanted to leave, to take Nicholas with him and not come back. He wanted to let Sarah Jane Simpson keep her home filled with secrets and shadows. Jake swung Nicholas up on his shoulders and took long strides towards the orange VW under the porte cochere.

Absentmindedly Nicholas chewed on his fingernail.

"Stop that, sport." Looking at the painfully chewed nails, Jake winced.

"Oh yeah. I keep forgetting. It's just a bad habit I got. You got any bad habits?"

"Kid, you ask the craziest questions." Jake shook his head in frustration, thinking of several not-to-be mentioned habits. "I reckon I do. Maybe. I don't know!"

"Don't worry about it, Jake. You don't bite off your nails, anyway. I been watching."

"Good, now let's change the subject," Jake grunted.

"'Kay. I like it here, Jake. I've never been this near so much water. You gonna take me swimming while we're here? You said we'd stay while you took care of business." Nicholas thumped cheerfully on Jake's head.

How could he desert the boy now, with the whole mess still unsettled and himself the most unsettled of all? Jake's

brain told him to run like hell, but deep inside a barely heard plea cried out when he looked into the woman's pain-filled eyes.

Jake perched Nicholas on the steps from the porte coch-ere to the front porch and looked at the face that had grown so important to him. He was trapped.

"You'll be back, right, Jake?" Nicholas hid the worry.

Just as his mother, Sarah, had hid her tears.

"I said I'd never go off and leave you, shortcake."

"But people disappear, Jake."

Sarah would never know if they disappeared. There'd be no one to tell her, no tortuous thread for her to unwind. He was a stranger she'd be glad to see the last of. And as for Nicholas... How could she not recognize her son? Wouldn't she recognize her own son if she were any kind of mother?

Nicholas wouldn't be abandoned the way Jake had been, not while Jake was alive. To hell with Sarah Jane Simpson. Jake smoothed Nicholas's hair behind his ear.

In his turn, Nicholas pulled on Jake's ear. "When you going, Jake?"

"Right now, sport. I'm going to fix our tire."

Nicholas wrinkled up his face. "You're crazy, Jake! First you cut the tire and now you're going to fix it?" He laughed, a clear, careless sound that echoed in the morning.

Jake opened the car door. "Yeah, sport, you're right on target. I'm crazy, that's for sure." Jake scrunched inside the car and said through the rolled-down window, "You mind Sarah, you hear?"

"Don't be a dope, Jake! But hurry back, okay?" The boy's expression wavered between excitement and anxiety as he stuck one finger in his mouth. "Hurry back!"

As Jake drove down the shell-lined driveway he watched the small figure in the rearview mirror waving goodbye. Jake swore and second-geared the VW out onto the highway.

Going to the kitchen window, Sarah heard Nicholas humming. He was shoveling sand with his hands, digging a hole. What was he up to? He wiped his arm across his face and returned to his industrious shoveling. Sarah's fingers strayed to the cutlery drawer. When she felt the cool metal in her fingers, she looked with astonishment at the big soupspoon. Why not?

She stroked the curved back of the old spoon, felt the dents. She'd put one there banging on a rock. Her cousin Buck had made another when he'd tried to use her forehead as a drum. There had been no meanness in Buck, who was a lawyer now, just too much energy. Smiling, Sarah pressed the metal slope to her face as she went outside to the child.

"Nicholas?" Her shadow fell over him.

"Mmm?" He squinted up at her.

Maybe Jake hadn't been negligent. She'd sent the boy out clean and he looked now as though he'd been in a pig wallow. Dirty and happy. "Could you use a spoon? To dig with?"

Sarah could see the wheels turning behind his bright eyes as he considered the offer.

"Yeah, maybe." He squatted on his heels. "Sure. I'm done digging right now, but it would make a great bridge, see?" He laid the spoon across the top of his hole and tamped dirt on each end. It was, indeed, a bridge, a shining, silver bridge.

Sarah dropped to her knees beside him, drawn despite her caution. "Where does the bridge go?"

His look was patronizing. "Bridges don't go anywhere, Sarah, ma'am. They just are, you know?"

Yes, she remembered. Everything didn't have to have a purpose. Some things could just be. "What did you do with the frog?"

He pushed on the spoon, testing its stability. He wouldn't look at her.

Sarah waited.

The lake was calm today. She'd have customers tonight. Fish would be biting out around the Birdcage even after last night's blowup. She should be exhausted, but lack of sleep hadn't hit her yet.

Nicholas wasn't going to answer her. She could identify with that kind of stubbornness. "Nicholas?"

He scratched his nose. "I turned him loose."

"Oh?" Sarah wondered why he was making such a mystery of the frog. She handed Nicholas two twigs.

He stuck one at the edge of the hole and broke the other into bits he scattered on the bottom. "He was homesick."

"I see." Sarah trailed sand through her fingers, sprinkled it on the broken twigs.

"He missed his daddy." Nicholas picked a periwinkle blossom and arranged it neatly down in the hole, away from the twigs and sand.

"Not his mommy?" Pain seared her memory.

"Nah."

Sarah touched the sand. A hard shell pricked her finger when she grasped it. "Where's his mommy?"

Nicholas didn't answer. His fingers were busy scrabbling in a patch of sandspurs. He chose several and ringed the top of the hole making a thick fence of the prickly burrs. "There. They'll be safe now."

"Will they?"

"Course."

Sarah knew the anonymous "they" wouldn't be safe, but she envied Nicholas's certainty. "Who's after them?"

He avoided her eyes. "Oh, nobody." He leaped to his feet. "Want to swing?"

He darted before, this way and that, mapping out his route. Sarah gave in. The warm air chased away fatigue.

Well, Nicholas was a treasure and she let him beguile her into forgetting that he'd be gone soon, pretending for a time that the past had never happened.