By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Other Books By

  Title Page

  Pralague

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Other Books By

  Copyright

  DARE TO LOVE

  “I don’t know what I want, except you,” Jake finally admitted. He glared at her, as if angry she had forced him to this admission. “I want you, Kate Rose. And if you can’t handle it, fine. Just say so. But if you can…”

  He left the thought unfinished, waiting. Kate swallowed, intending to tell him where to get off. But she couldn’t quite muster the words. Her lips remained clamped shut because she knew whatever came out of her mouth wouldn’t be the truth.

  “You want me, too,” he guessed, coming to stand in front of her. She had a clear view of his denim-clad legs, but she refused to look up. “You do. You wouldn’t have responded like that unless you felt the same thing.” He squatted down in front of her, waiting until she reluctantly met his eyes. Then he whispered tautly, giving her no chance to squirm out of a direct answer, “You want me, and I want you. And I think we know where this is heading. Why don’t we just admit it and stop torturing ourselves? I want you,” he stated deliberately. “Now, tell me you want me, too.”

  ROMANCE FROM JANELLE TAYLOR

  ANYTHING FOR LOVE (0-8217-4992-7, $5.99)

  DESTINY MINE (0-8217-5185-9, $5.99)

  CHASE THE WIND (0-8217-4740-1, $5.99)

  MIDNIGHT SECRETS (0-8217-5280-4, $5.99)

  MOONBEAMS AND MAGIC (0-8217-0184-4, $5.99)

  SWEET SAVAGE HEART (0-8217-5276-6, $5.99)

  Available wherever paperbacks are sold, or order direct from the Publisher. Send cover price plus 50¢ per copy for mailing and handling to Penguin USA, P.O. Box 999, c/o Dept. 17109, Bergenfield, NJ 07621. Residents of New York and Tennessee must include sales tax. DO NOT SEND CASH.

  By

  Candlelight

  Janelle Taylor

  Pralague

  A Moment Long Ago…

  The church sat on a rise at the forgotten end of town. White clapboard siding encased it, and five cement stairs capped by a railing that hung drunkenly amidst blistered, chipped paint stood out against a threatening sky so black it made the hair on Katie Tindel’s arms rise just looking at it.

  She squeezed Jake’s hand to reassure herself, shivering, huddled within his navy blue and gold letter jacket. “It’s so dark,” she whispered.

  “It’s great, isn’t it?” He grinned, bright teeth gleaming, blue-gray eyes dancing with excitement.

  She caught the fever, smiling back. Jake threw his arm around her, and they ran up the stairs to the slanted porch, crowding together as a blast of lightning lit the sky, followed by a thunderclap that nearly deafened.

  Jake’s lips parted as they watched together. Katie could feel his heart racing next to hers. Her thoughts ran in a jumble of happiness through her mind.

  Glancing down at her, Jake leaned forward and kissed her with lips that were cool and dry and curved with the beauty of this special time for them.

  Rain poured. Buckets of it. A shimmering silver curtain that enveloped them both. The electric scent of ozone in the wake of another zap of lightning brought a sense of exhilaration that was inexplicable to anyone but those whom it touched.

  Katie was not immune. She ran down the cement steps, lifting her arms to the heavens and her face to the rain’s torrent. Jake laughed, ran after her, swept her up and carried her back to the church’s front doors. He fumbled for the handle, still carrying her. Katie kissed his face, all over. The doors swung open, the lock picked by Jake earlier that morning. Just a small bit of breaking and entering—all for a good cause. Nothing the good Lord could blame them for, for this was their day. Their destiny. Their untouched future.

  The church was empty. Abandoned. A For Sale sign swung forlornly at the end of the lane, nearly obscured by the current downpour. But it didn’t matter. This, too, was their church. Their private place. They would lock up later, but for now Jake managed to pull the doors closed behind them while Kate’s arms surrounded his neck and she held on for dear life.

  “I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

  “I love you more,” he answered automatically.

  It was a game they played. They had played it all through this last year of high school, and now with graduation just around the corner, their love had reached a new level, a new distinction. The physical side had yet to be breached. They had waited for the right moment, and on this April night with a symphony of rain surrounding them they planned to pledge their love to each other solemnly and permanently, in a church, a secret “marriage” that his parents would never really allow.

  With long, ground-devouring strides Jake carried Kate toward the altar. His steps were hollow. The room swirled with drafts from cracks around the windows. One pane was blocked by plywood; some caring citizen’s attempt to keep the church from becoming the home of vagabonds and thieves.

  The pews sat straight and rigid at attention—Jake and Kate’s only witnesses. Setting her on her feet in front of the altar whose maple base was carved in a relief of autumn leaves, Jake cupped Kate’s face in his cool, strong hands. They stared at each other, lost in their love.

  “Look in the pockets of my jacket,” Jake urged, and Katie dug inside to discover two white candles, two tiny crystal candlesticks, a book of matches and a Bible. Solemnly, silently, she handed the rich booty to her “husband-to-be,” and Jake set the candles upon the altar, striking the match and lighting the wicks with a tiny gold and blue flame.

  A wisp of smoke and the scent of candle wax. Kate slowly shed Jake’s jacket and stood beside him in a short white satin gown studded with seed pearls in an all over design of rosebuds. She had saved her dimes and nickels all school year from the job she had taken at a local restaurant. College was a dim thought, distant and indistinct. Her love for Jake was bright and real, and she had searched long and hard for the perfect dress, finding it unexpectedly in a boutique that also sold used clothing. The dress had a history; the saleslady said it had been owned originally by a wealthy woman who had purchased it for her daughter’s coming out party. The daughter had spurned the dress, and the mother had shoved it to the back of a closet. Finally she had rediscovered it and sold it second-hand. Kate had walked into the store the day it was draped across an antique rocker in the store’s window. It still cost a small fortune. She had put down twenty-five dollars to hold it and paid off the rest over time.

  Now, today, she wore it proudly as she stood beside Jake. His rain-soaked shoulders were broad beside hers. Glancing down at her own drenched feet, she silently bemoaned the destruction of her cream pumps. But it was worth it.

  “I love you,” he whispered, turning toward her, taking her hands in his.

  “I love you more,” she answered on a breath.

  Swallowing, Jake took a small, crumpled paper from his pocket, and Kate listened as he “married” her with words of love and commitment. Her own avowal came straight from the heart, not merely me
morized, but felt from the soul. They stared at each other in the silence that followed, candlelight flickering eerily over their faces.

  She gazed at his strong jaw, the darkening of beard, the beauty of eyes a dusky blue that was almost gray. His brows were straight, his mouth unusually sensual in such a masculine countenance. A shock of hair fell over his forehead, the only boyish quality still left in Jacob Talbot’s face.

  He kissed her, and his lips felt soft, yet strong and determined. He loved her. He loved her. She could still scarcely believe her good fortune. She was poor and struggling and he came from wealth, but it didn’t matter. He had chosen her and she had chosen him, and the world was theirs for the taking.

  Outside again, the candles snuffed, their ceremony complete, they stood on the porch and listened to the rain. Four weeks till graduation, and someday, somewhere, a real marriage sanctioned by church and state.

  But today they owned each other’s hearts.

  In unspoken agreement they ran for Jake’s car, laughing madly. As if the heavens were teasing, a deluge of precipitation pummeled the car, covering the windows with the visibility of a carwash.

  Their plan was to drive twenty miles to the outskirts of Portland and rent a room at a motel. People knew them in their little suburb of Lakehaven far too well—at least they knew Jake. Talbot Industries was a huge Portland concern, and the fact that Jake’s parents lived in the community west of the city, on the way to the coast, meant only that the local residents knew the Who’s Who of their town even better.

  But now in the steamy intimacy of Jake’s sports car, a bit of high school rebellion and fantasy intervened. When he leaned forward for another kiss, Katie suddenly knew she wanted to make love to him here and now, with rain curtaining them from the outside world. It seemed more romantic. Juvenile, perhaps, but something to remember for years to come and chuckle about in old age.

  And when she whispered her desire in Jake’s ear, he grinned hugely, a flash of white that was his trademark—a smile as bright as Hollywood.

  They relit the candles and placed them on the dash. Climbing into the backseat, Jake laid his jacket on the leather tuck and roll. The scent of vanilla wafted from the candles and mixed with his cologne as Jake made love to her awkwardly and tenderly, both of them giggling as they whispered their vows again and again, conscious not to rock the candles from their crystal candlesticks.

  It was only much, much later, when her dreams had turned to dust and she was left alone, that Kate realized the tragedy of sharp memory. Yes, she remembered their lovemaking. Yes, it was etched forever in her mind. But it was painful and stabbing instead of soft and romantic, and it could never be forgotten, for those first awkward moments together, followed by lovemaking in more conventional places, had produced a child. A daughter. April. Named for the month she was conceived and a wedding that never was. April, her lovechild. Hers and Jake’s.

  The daughter he had never learned he had sired.

  Chapter One

  Today…

  “Try this one,” the saleslady suggested, holding out a gilt and faux crystal atomizer for Kate’s inspection. She spritzed a cloud of perfume somewhere near Kate’s wrist. The scent rose up like fragrant mist from a lake, a soft, sweet faintly musky aroma that reminded Kate of something sad and long ago.

  Jake Talbot…a forgotten wedding…gentle misery.

  “No thanks,” Kate murmured, swallowing.

  It had been years. Eons. Several hundred lifetimes since she had seen or heard from him, yet reminders crept in like cold fog swirling around her. She would be doing something mundane and normal—like shopping—and then it would happen. Some memory would surface, swimming to the forefront of her mind to torment and hurt.

  Yet why should it hurt now? she asked herself as she left the perfume counter and stumbled blindly through the store. Since Jake’s defection she had lived a whole new life. She was no longer naive Katie Tindel. She was Kate Rose. Married, widowed and mother of a seventeen-yearold daughter whose dusky blue eyes reminded her of Jake, but whose sweet and slightly devilish character reminded her of herself.

  Okay, that wasn’t quite fair. Jake had been devilish, too. They had found each other in high school, and kindred spirits had bonded. But then he had left. Abandoned her. And she had been forced to grow up fast and discover the new life she was meant to have.

  Now, thinking back, she still shuddered at the pain. Even before she had learned of her pregnancy, Jake had left her. He had taken off right after graduation for a trip to Europe, promising to call, write and bind them together legally. A real marriage, he had assured her. But then he had disappeared, and when Kate realized she was carrying his child, she couldn’t live on dreams anymore.

  Pregnant and lost, she had shown up on Jake’s parents’ doorstep. She hadn’t known what to expect, certainly not a warm welcome, but neither had she anticipated the Talbots’ frigid antipathy. Desperate to contact Jake, she would have walked through a lion’s den to find him.

  Unknowingly, she came pretty darn close when she met with Marilyn and Phillip Talbot that afternoon in late June. Her hand was lifted to knock when the door was suddenly thrown open, as if her presence had been expected and entirely unwelcome .

  “Yes?” asked his perfectly groomed, tough-eyed mother.

  Though Kate had been introduced to Marilyn Talbot once before, the woman chose not to remember her. Swallowing back the news that had forced this meeting, Kate said in a small voice, “I’m Katie Tindel. We met once before. I’m a friend of Jake’s.”

  Marilyn had a snob’s knack of looking down her nose. In heels, she was a couple of inches taller than Kate, and she used her height to her advantage. “Jake’s not here,” she stated firmly.

  “Will he be back soon?”

  Marilyn’s lips pursed. Kate braced herself for the bellow of rejection she expected to blast her. She had known from the onset of her relationship with Jake that his parents would never accept her as his girlfriend. She wasn’t in their league, and though Jake had scrupulously avoided the issue, playing light on his parents’ disinterest in his girlfriend, Kate had easily picked up the vibes. She wasn’t good enough, and that was that.

  But now she was pregnant, with their grandchild. She desperately wished for Jake to magically appear, but it was not to be.

  “I really need to see him,” she choked out.

  “You’d better come in,” Marilyn invited stonily.

  This was more than Kate had expected. With trepidation she crossed the threshold and followed Jake’s mother along the thick oriental carpet runner that flowed into a mahogany-paneled den at the south end of the Talbot minimansion.

  It was late afternoon, a rather wintry June day, which wasn’t unusual for Oregon in the least. Summers started late, sometimes in the middle of August, but Septembers and Octobers were generally warm and gorgeous.

  On this day rain pounded outside, and a maple tree limb slapped against the paned windows, its green leaves tragically ripped from the branch or shredded with each successive beat. Kate stared at the tattered leaves through a haze of self-involvement. She could scarcely keep her mind on the words issuing from Marilyn’s mouth.

  “You’re very young,” Jake’s mother kept insisting. “It’s silly to think there’s anything between the two of you that would have any true meaning. Do you understand me? I’m not trying to be cruel.”

  Maybe not. But it sounded cruel. Beneath the polished voice lay an anxious desire to cut Kate out like a cancer. Kate was too intuitive to miss the real message.

  “Jacob’s in Europe for the summer,” she went on, shocking Kate to her toes.

  “I thought he was just supposed to go for a couple of weeks. He said he would call if things changed!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Kate couldn’t take it all in. “When—when did this happen?”

  “As soon as he got there. He had wanted to—get away.”

  Untrue! Kate’s inner voice cried. He had never w
anted to go in the first place! Marilyn was lying, forcing her will on both of them, dividing them like a knife.

  Jake’s mother sat primly on a peach-colored, velvet, wingbacked chair, her hands folded in her lap. Kate glanced her way and saw the clasped white knuckles which belied her composure. Tension was thick enough to almost see. Indeed it felt as if a mist had entered the room.

  “What’s your name again?” she asked with a faint gesture of apology. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”

  “Kate Tindel,” she whispered. The room was cold. No, it was hot. Dear Lord, was she going to pass out?

  “Miss Tindel, Jacob has responsibilities to his family. Surely you know that.”

  “I just want to talk to him,” she said from far, far away.

  “I understand, but it’s just not possible. He’s gone.” She shifted in her chair, and just when Kate thought things couldn’t get any worse, Phillip Talbot’s large frame filled the open doorway. He was the epitome of a patriarch: broad chest, bulldog chin, steel gray eyes and hair streaked with silver. His mouth was hard and unsmiling, and Kate shrank inside her own skin. Marilyn, with her poise and haute couture, was bad enough; Phillip Talbot was pure iron.

  Even in her distracted state, memory swirled. She recalled Jake relating the exploits of his black sheep older brother, Phillip, Jr., who was six years Jake’s senior. Kate had never met him, but Phillip’s wild ways and lack of responsibility had nearly gotten him thrown out of the family. As she watched Phillip, Sr., flank his wife, placing one hand on her shoulder as they both faced Kate—the enemy—Kate silently sympathized with Phillip, Jr., for running wild.

  “Miss Tindel,” Phillip, Sr., said to Kate, booming out her name with a familiarity that sent her nerves into overdrive. Clearly he had heard Marilyn address her before he had walked in the room. “Jacob is in Europe for the summer. After that, Harvard.”