By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

  “Sabotage? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. An officer called, and Gary wants you to get down there right away.”

  Gary was the foreman at the job site. Normally he handled all problems on his own. This, however, sounded more serious than most. “I’ve got that meeting with Diamond Corp. at three. Call Gary and tell him I’ll be there as fast as I can, but I can’t stay.”

  “Will do.” Pam swung around efficiently in her chair and began dialing Gary’s cell phone number.

  Jake slipped into his own office. The place was accessed through double doors and was a masterpiece of natural cherry paneling and recessed lighting. His desk sat in front of the window, his back to a tremendous view of the Willamette River and four of Portland’s downtown bridges. He glanced at his calendar and noticed a date with Sandra set for Friday night.

  Groaning, he wiped a hand across his face. The last thing he needed was another verbal fencing match with her. Worse yet, he would have to dance his way around his disinterest in taking her to bed.

  From that same, newly sensitive part of his mind rose the memory of making love to Katie in the confines of his old Corvette convertible. He recalled their limbs entwined and cramped, the smooth texture of her skin, her trembling sighs and choked giggles. He remembered slipping her ivory dress up long, creamy thighs and her fumbling fingers at his belt.

  And then the moment of supreme surrender, when they had both trembled on the brink of fulfillment the instant before he had plunged inside her, covering her soft gasp with the fervent possession of his mouth. He had moved inside her in a dream, his senses thick, his body picking up a tempo as old as time itself. She was lush and womanly and all his, and with each movement they had cried out their love and passion until he had felt the rush of pure desire and spilled his seed inside her…

  Realizing his eyes were squinched shut, his hands clamped over the arms of his desk chair, his jaw hard as steel, Jake slowly lifted his lids, shocked by the power of his memories.

  His black mood darkening further, he buzzed Pam on the intercom. “Cancel all engagements for me this weekend,” he ordered in a tight voice. “I’m going to the coast.”

  Billy Simonson wore a look of perpetual worry, his face long and hangdog. “A lot of your business departed with Ben,” he reminded her. “You’ve got to come up with new clients or scale back.”

  “Scale back?” Kate murmured, not liking the sound of that.

  “I know you don’t have a lot of overhead. You’re just a small operation. Ben piled a load of money into that business over the years and it managed to squeak by, but you’ve got your work cut out for you. It’s been six months since his death. I don’t mean to scare you, but you’ve got to do something or it’s going die out from under you.”

  Kate considered in silence. Rose Talent Agency had once been a bustling establishment; it still was fairly healthy. But Ben’s illness had forced Ben to turn his attention away from keeping it perking along, and Kate hadn’t had the control to change things until it was too late. She had spent the last few months searching for a new account. A big account. Something to bring them back. A company that would hire exclusively from their agency.

  But it had all been wishful thinking. She refused to consider Talbot Industries. Jake Talbot would never get into that kind of relationship with her. She would have to work on someone else from some other company. Barring that, it would be nice to have one of her actors or models suddenly shoot into fame and bring in hefty commissions.

  Kate drew a breath. “I know it’s bad, but just how bad is it?”

  “Your house is paid for. Ben saw to that. And right now the business is surviving, but you’re not going to have much to live on unless you improve sales.”

  “Isn’t that the nature of business?” Kate questioned ruefully, wishing she had paid more attention while Ben was alive. That wasn’t quite fair, however, since her husband hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about the details.

  “I’ll do what I can,” she murmured as they parted. Billy’s assessment only intensified the feelings she had already had about the business.

  It was a joke, really. Everyone thought she had married a rich man old enough to be her father. The latter might have been true; the former was far from the truth. Ben had been successful in a moderate way, and that had been okay with Kate. She hadn’t wanted a man loaded with money. The Talbot family had cured her of that! She had only wanted someone to love and take care of her and her daughter. Ben had done his best to provide that. It was her fault if the relationship had been less than storybook perfect, not Ben’s.

  She picked up some groceries and headed home, sighing as she saw April’s boyfriend’s beat-up cream-colored Chevy parked in the driveway. Ryan was a nice kid, but Kate couldn’t help being nervous. After all, she had made critical mistakes at April’s age; she wanted better for her daughter.

  “Hello, Mrs. Rose,” Ryan greeted her when she walked in.

  “Hi, Ryan. Want to stay for dinner?”

  “Sure.” He blinked several times, surprised because Kate wasn’t known for inviting him to stay. She spent most of her time being polite and hoping he would just go home.

  While Kate put together a salad and baked chicken, Ryan and April snuggled on the couch and laughed as they channel-grazed on the family room TV. Ben would have had a fit, Kate thought. As much as he had embraced April as his own, her arrival into the teen world had been a shock. Ben’s autocratic nature had reared up and given full play.

  April had ignored him.

  Kate glanced at the money—Jake’s money—now stacked behind the telephone at the kitchen desk. It irked her that he could throw bills down without a qualm. Worse, she knew April was right; it had been an unconscious thing. He hadn’t meant to make a statement. He had just been in a fog.

  Thinking about him caused a shiver to slide down her spine. Kate finished the meal and called Ryan and April to dinner. The three of them sat down, and Kate surreptitiously examined her daughter’s boyfriend as she ate. He was about six feet tall with thin, straight, longish hair. His interest in guitar consumed him, and he possessed a pair of sorrowful, deep brown eyes to match his musical soul.

  You’ve grown cynical, my dear.

  Yes, well…that was true. But the pitfalls of parenting loomed dark and deep. She was happy he was planning to go to college. She hoped to heck he didn’t change his mind.

  Her glance darted once again to the money. What would Jake think about Ryan?

  Of course, a better question was what would he think about having a daughter he had never been told he had sired?

  “What’s the matter, Mom?” April asked.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “You’re grimacing.”

  Kate swallowed, carefully schooling her features. “I’m just thinking about some things,” she offered lamely.

  “You know how I told you about Ryan’s dad? He’s looking forward to meeting you.”

  “April!”

  She shrugged sheepishly. “He’s a really nice guy.”

  Kate stared at her daughter in horror; then her gaze drifted to Ryan. “I’m sure he is,” she said tactfully. “I’m just not interested in—dating right now.”

  “That’s cool,” Ryan agreed, tucking into his chicken.

  “No, it’s not.” April threw him a dark look which he missed completely. “You’ve got to give yourself a chance, Mom.”

  “I don’t need a matchmaker,” Kate said sternly.

  “But, Mom—”

  “Nope.” Kate wagged her finger at her daughter. “I’m not interested.”

  “You should be.”

  “Let me rephrase that: I’m not ready.”

  April clamped her lips shut. Her thoughts churned so hard inside her head, Kate could practically see them at work. “When was the last time you really felt something for someone?” April finally delivered. “I know you and Dad appreciated each other, but it wasn’t there, was it?”

&nbs
p; Kate was appalled that her daughter could read her so clearly. “I don’t think Ryan needs to hear this.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said unhelpfully.

  “Don’t you want to be in love?” April asked her, her tone urgent and serious.

  This was getting way out of hand. “Who says I wasn’t?” she retorted.

  “I know you weren’t.”

  “Since when are you such an expert on romance?”

  “Mom…,” April chided.

  Kate couldn’t think of an answer. It didn’t seem right that her daughter was so on the mark, and it still wasn’t any of April’s business anyway!

  “I just know that you were missing something,” April went on doggedly. “And you know it, too. So, I think you should get out more. Try to think back to when you felt so excited to be with someone that you couldn’t think of anything else.” She gazed thoughtfully at Ryan, who seemed miles away from the conversation.

  Kate remained silent. The last time she had felt anything like that was with Jake.

  Jake, Jake, Jake! Everything comes back to him.

  Kate opened her mouth for another volley of arguments, then closed her jaw again, more thoughtfully. What was she fighting? What did it matter?

  “Okay,” she conceded.

  “Okay?” April couldn’t believe her ears.

  Kate nodded.

  “You mean, okay, you’ll go out with Tom—Mr. DeSart?”

  Kate smiled in surrender, then said, “So, what do you think about that, Ryan?”

  He started, then glanced up. After a moment of heavy concentration, he said, “Cool,” and that pretty much decided it.

  Jake’s shoes crunched on broken glass as he walked with Gary through the vandalized rooms of the strip mall. Someone had broken through the back windows of several stores, stolen merchandise, then hacked away at the fixtures. The officer in charge, Detective Marsh, was convinced it was the work of juvenile delinquents.

  “If they’d just planned on robbing the place, they would have slipped in and out, but they took an axe to that counter and broke out the lights and mirrors.” Detective Marsh gazed tiredly around, as if he had seen it a thousand times before, which he probably had. “Vandalism. It’s probably kids.”

  Jake was silent at the sight of the destruction. Talbot Industries had built the strip mall last spring and had filled up each store with reliable tenants. “It’s senseless.”

  “Everything kids do is senseless.”

  Jake didn’t entirely agree with the detective’s cynical assessment, but he wasn’t about to argue. He found the whole scene depressing.

  Phillip pushed his toe against some splintered glass lying on the floor. To Jake’s surprise—which was unending when it came to his brother—Phillip had decided to join him on this foray to the damaged strip mall. His face was grim, and he seemed even more disturbed than Jake.

  “You never know what kids’ll do,” he said after a long moment.

  Detective Marsh silently agreed, and Jake glanced at his watch. “Thanks,” he told the detective, then headed outside to his waiting Bronco. All he wanted to do was clear out of here and head for some peace of mind at the beach.

  But Gary, his foreman, caught up with him before he could escape. “A mess, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. What do you think happened?” he asked the older man.

  Gary shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s like someone’s mad at us.”

  “At us?” Jake questioned, though he knew what Gary meant. If it had been random theft and vandalism, it wouldn’t have been so targeted to the fixtures that were part of the building itself. None of the merchants’ inventory seemed to be damaged, which was certainly strange. Generally perpetrators weren’t so discriminating.

  Phillip crossed the lot in their direction, and Gary’s expression darkened. He had no use for the “playboy executive,” a tag Jake had once overheard him use when referring to Phillip. Though Gary was scrupulous about keeping his thoughts to himself around Jake, he had been known to grumble once in a while to others, so his feelings about Phillip were no secret.

  “Have we got any angry tenants?” Jake asked the foreman as Phillip joined them.

  “What?” Phillip gazed at Jake as if he had gone mad. “What do you mean? You think someone did this to us?”

  “It’s a theory,” Jake stated flatly.

  “I don’t know of anyone in particular,” Gary said slowly, his brow furrowed in thought.

  “Nobody’s after us!” Phillip declared. “The damage was done to the tenants!”

  “The damage was done to the fixtures. And I might buy it if whoever did it had a grudge against one tenant, but look around you.” Jake swept his arm to encompass the length of the strip mall. “Some ten stores and nearly every one of them’s been hacked at.”

  “And robbed,” Phillip argued. “That’s their inventory, not ours.”

  “What was really taken? All total, the thieves got away with a couple of thousand dollars of stuff, tops,” Jake pointed out. “But the damage to the property—it’s into the tens of thousands.”

  “All covered by insurance.”

  “It’s malicious intent, Phillip,” Jake told his brother in a tone that brooked no argument. “And if Detective Marsh is worth his salt, he’ll come to that conclusion, too.”

  “Well, maybe it’s one of the tenants themselves,” Phillip huffed, unwilling to be wrong.

  “No way.” This was from Gary.

  “What makes you so sure?” Phillip demanded.

  Gary shrugged. “They’re just trying to make a living, like the rest of us. Why would they hack up their stores? It’s not like insurance money’s going to get them anything better.” He gazed back at the wreckage. “It’s flat out mean, if you ask me. And a heck of a clean-up job, too,” he added.

  Jake nodded grimly. “We’re going to have to start on repairs right away.”

  “Got a crew already scheduled,” Gary assured him.

  “Let’s just pray this is the last of it,” Phillip said before he headed for his car.

  Jake and Gary watched him leave. Instead of giving Jake hope that his brother was finally coming around, Phillip’s interest in the sabotage bothered him. It didn’t jibe with everything else.

  With an effort he shrugged off the niggling worry. He shook hands with Gary, glad someone was completely trustworthy, then headed for the meeting with the principles from Diamond Corporation regarding the joint venture between Diamond and Talbot to build miniwarehouses. Diamond’s offices were located in downtown Portland about seven blocks from Talbot Industries. For reasons he refused to speculate on, Jake swung off the freeway and cruised through the northwest industrial district until he passed the building where Rose Talent Agency was housed. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited at a light, his thoughts distracted. Kate managed to keep occupying his mind all right, and it bugged him to no end. Even in the face of looming business problems, he could count on memories tweaking his brain.

  Despite all his vows to the contrary, he toyed with the idea of stopping in to see her. Then he wanted to kick himself.

  What in God’s name would he say? I can’t get you out of my mind. I’ve been thinking about you constantly. You’re still as beautiful as I remembered and I want a second chance.

  Jake drew himself up short. A second chance? Not in this lifetime! He must be starved for affection to be thinking such thoughts! She was just another woman from his past, like all the others he had burned through in college, and he would be damned if a little misty nostalgia was going to get to him.

  Growling under his breath at his own susceptibility, Jake yanked the wheel of the Bronco away from Rose Talent Agency and Kate Rose. He was through romanticizing about her. He was through being an idiot.

  It was time to switch his brain back to the job ahead, and then a weekend by himself at the beach to put everything else back in perspective.

  On Friday evening Kate found herself wishing
she hadn’t been quite so hasty. A date was the last thing on earth she wanted. She wanted to get out of town. She wanted to get away.

  But instead she was pacing her kitchen floor, waiting for Ryan’s father, Tom DeSart, to appear.

  April was thrilled and hovered around Kate like a yenta. “This is a new start,” she told her mom, examining Kate’s choice of dress critically. Kate wore black slacks and a cream-colored, short-sleeved top. Her hair was up in a casual bun which April wanted to get rid of. “You don’t have to look so much like a grown-up,” she complained.

  “I like being a grown-up.”

  “Yeah, but Ryan’s dad…”

  Kate stopped in the midst of threading the loop of a brushed silver earring in the shape of a sunburst through her pierced ear. Something sounded fishy. “April,” Kate warned.

  April made a face. “Well, he’s a little unconventional.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “No, no. Nothing bad. He just likes to dance, and he’s really big on the tango.”

  Kate lifted her brows. “Well, okay, as long as he doesn’t expect me to be Ginger Rogers.”

  “He’s into the arts, y’know. Like that’s why Ryan’s so big with the guitar. His dad paints and lectures on art appreciation.”

  “It sounds like the evening’s going to be more interesting than I expected.”

  “He’s got a ponytail,” April added, as if she had dropped a bomb.

  Kate threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, my God. A ponytail! That’s it. The date’s off!”

  “I just wanted to warn you,” April grumbled a little, though the dimple in her cheek deepened as she fought a smile.

  “It’s just a date,” Kate assured her, waving her daughter’s worries away. “To be honest, I’m relieved. I was worried you’d hooked me up with a suit.”

  “If you want a suit, look no farther than Jacob Talbot! I mean, you were involved once and he’s gorgeous!”

  Sometimes April’s innocent comments cut like a hot knife through butter. “We just knew each other in high school. That’s all,” Kate muttered repressively.