By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

  “Well, yes, I guess so. That’s what I first thought, before I hurt my ankle.”

  He looked up at her then, and Kate sucked in a breath and turned away from the beauty of his eyes. She was so ridiculously susceptible.

  “Tomorrow we’ll see a doctor,” he said, his proprietary manner getting under Kate’s skin.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she answered shortly and had hobbled off to bed before she could skirmish with him further.

  You really are touchy, she admonished herself now, rolling her shoulders back several times, wondering why she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow to blame.

  With determination, she tried to concentrate on her problems at work, but the thought of cornering new accounts—businesses that would turn to Rose Talent before other agencies—seemed like an impossible task tonight. Maybe she had given herself too much credit, she fretted. Maybe she didn’t have what it took to survive in the world of business. She certainly didn’t have the formal education, although Ben had been an excellent teacher in his own fashion.

  Sighing, Kate pushed her hands through her hair in frustration. She couldn’t think about the business now. It took too much effort, and she just wanted her mind to shut down and let her sleep.

  Thinking another cup of tea might be the ticket, Kate teetered her way through the darkness in the direction of the kitchen—and ran straight into a warm, hard body!

  She screamed, choking it off when she realized it was Jake’s strong arms steadying her. “My God, you scared me! I thought you were an intruder!”

  “Sorry.” Jake sounded amused. “I was just…I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Why didn’t you turn on a light? You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

  “I said I was sorry. I was trying not to disturb you. With that ankle, I figured you’d be horizontal for the night.”

  “Oh.” Kate’s heart rate slowly returned to normal. “I couldn’t sleep either,” she grumbled.

  “I could make some more tea.”

  She realized then as he switched on the lights under the cabinet that Jake was helping himself to another brandy. Catching her look, he asked, “Or, would you like something stronger?”

  “Apart from wine, I’m not much of a drinker.”

  “So, that’s a no?”

  Kate hesitated. She wasn’t completely against the idea of anesthetizing herself with a stiff shot of brandy.

  As if reading her mind Jake suddenly smiled, a boyish flash of white that had the susceptible portion of her mind fantasizing about capturing his mouth with her own. “I could add some honey to it,” he coaxed.

  “Sure,” Kate agreed recklessly.

  Jake did the honors, pouring brandy into a coffee mug and adding a dripping spoonful of honey. Kate tentatively tasted the concoction, half choking at the spirits.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “Fine.” Her voice was a croak. Clearing her throat, she tried again, “It’s good.”

  “I keep thinking I ought to make a fire, but it’s really not that cold,” Jake said, easing toward the living room. His eyes were on Kate as she limped after him, but though she knew he wanted to offer help, he wisely kept quiet.

  “Make one anyway,” she heard herself say.

  “Really?” His brows lifted.

  “I mean, if you want to. I don’t want to tell you what to do.”

  Jake snorted, an ambiguous sound. Still, he took her advice to heart, bending down to his task. His broad back and muscular arms were in her line of vision, and she forced herself to look away as she positioned herself on the couch once again. It wouldn’t do to get too comfortable with him, not when her antennae were attuned to his every movement. Ridiculous! She wanted to kick some sense into herself, but it was no use. A quick mental check made her realize she was thoroughly enjoying herself, and that ticked her off all over again!

  A glance at the clock told her it was two o’clock in the morning. “Why couldn’t you sleep?” she dared to ask as he set a match to the crumpled-up newspaper surrounding chunks of driftwood.

  “I don’t know.” He glanced her way, shrugged, and said with unexpected candor, “I guess ‘cause you’re here.”

  “Me?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Yes, she knew. She just wanted to hear him say it. “I guess we’re both uncomfortable being together,” she admitted, picking her way carefully.

  The crisp crackle of flames and scent of burning oak filled her senses. As if by magic, Kate’s anxiety and inhibitions began to melt away, and she sighed, cradling her mug of brandy and honey. Oh, she was in dangerous territory now, but her conscience couldn’t rally her flagging defenses.

  “It’s because of our shared past,” Jake said. “Neither one of us can forget it.”

  “Well, yes, but it was a long time ago.”

  “Apparently not long enough.”

  “What we had—bothers you?” Kate asked tentatively.

  “Not bothers. It’s just—there.” His profile was to her, the glow of the fire reflecting in yellow and scarlet against his face. “It wasn’t like some passing crush with us. You were my first…” He stopped himself before he trampled into dangerous territory. “We practically married each other.”

  “Practically,” Kate agreed. “But it wasn’t—real.”

  “Well, not exactly…”

  He glanced her way to regard her seriously. His eyes stared into hers as if he could find the answers in them. Kate wasn’t entirely certain he couldn’t. After all, she had been thinking of practically nothing else since the moment she had run into him again—even before that! “If we’d actually been married,” she said lightly, sidestepping a bit, “I wouldn’t have married Ben.”

  “You didn’t waste a lot of time waiting for me,” Jake pointed out dryly.

  “You were engaged to be married yourself, as I recall.”

  “Not immediately.”

  “Darn close.”

  Their eyes dueled. Kate would not back down. Her heart began beating fast and light, and her hands—those betrayers!—had begun quivering wildly. This bugged her to no end. Why, why, did she have to express every feeling so visibly? Why couldn’t she be strong and stoic and inscrutable, sort of like Jake!

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” he pointed out, his voice noticeably cooler.

  “That’s true.” Kate tucked her hands in-her lap to quell their trembling. “So, did you ever get married?”

  “Not right away, but yes…”

  “To the woman you were engaged to?”

  Jake couldn’t possibly explain all the twists and turns his relationship with Celia had encountered. It felt like a long, protracted illness with deep lapses into comas before he had fought his way back to health. “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Your mother once told me she was more suitable for you than I was,” Kate admitted softly, pretending the hurt wasn’t there. “At least she inferred it.”

  “She’s good at that.” Jake’s voice was clipped, as if he hated admitting Marilyn Talbot’s faults. “Anyway, she was wrong. She might even admit it now.”

  “Hah!” Kate disagreed. “I was not good enough for her favorite son. You can’t convince me she’s changed that much.”

  Jake rubbed his nose and sighed. “My mother has some strong opinions, none I really subscribe to.”

  “So, I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “No one appears to be suitable for me,” Jake said dryly. “She even realizes that Celia and I were a terrible match.”

  “So, Celia—your wife?—was no good either?” Kate probed, surprised.

  “Exactly.”

  “You poor thing. Must be tough being so impossible to live up to.”

  Jake shot her a sideways look, gauging her tongue-incheek tone. “I may stay a bachelor for the rest of my life.”

  “How long have you been divorced?”

  “A long time. I was only married eighteen months.”

  Kate’s brows lifte
d in surprise.

  “Unlike you,” he said, gesturing to her. “You were married, what? Eighteen years? And you have a daughter, too.”

  Kate’s gaze slid away. Guilt, she thought uneasily. Her deception was as vast as the Sahara. She hadn’t meant it to be; she had simply tried to survive during a terrible, terrible time of her life. But there was no way to tell Jake. He could only view her actions in their most negative light. Revealing the truth about April wouldn’t work, no matter when, or how, she did it.

  But she had to do it. Eventually. It was too, too unfair that he didn’t know. And so he had hurt her when they were young. So what? He had a daughter, and he needed to know the truth.

  “Kate?” Jake asked, witnessing her stricken face.

  She made a sound of protest.

  Instantly he was beside her, concerned. “Is it your ankle?”

  “No,” she breathed, swallowing.

  He took her mug and set it on the table. “You look ready to pass out.”

  “I feel like I might,” she said faintly.

  “Put your head between your knees.” Gently he pushed her neck down, but all she could feel were his strong fingers against her nape. “Maybe it’s the brandy.”

  She couldn’t bear him blaming himself. “No,” she assured him. “I’m just—tired, I guess.”

  “Injured.”

  “Actually, the brandy helped.” Her voice was muffled, coming from somewhere near the floor. Her hair had fallen forward, screening her face, and to her alarm he brushed it back until it lay on her shoulder. The intimacy was almost more than she could bear.

  “Jake, I—” she began, only to inhale a sharp breath as he began to stroke her hair. Catching himself, he stopped short, dropping his hand. Slowly she sat up, but Jake was still seated next to her, so strong and male and sexy that her mouth felt dry and woolly and her heart beat in a strange, uneven cadence.

  “What is it?” he asked, searching her face.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear my problems.”

  “Sure I do.”

  Kate couldn’t look at him. It distracted her too much. She didn’t know how to scoot away, either. Because it seemed safest, she launched into her financial woes rather than address all the trickier issues that lay between them, issues he knew nothing about.

  “…and so when Billy took me aside today, it really hit home. I’ve got to do something, but I feel paralyzed.” Jake didn’t immediately answer. Instantly Kate was embarrassed. “Look, I know you’ve got some of my talent trying for that spokesperson position. I wasn’t trying to push any one of them on you, especially April. I just needed to talk.”

  Jake was thoughtful. Kate cringed inside. She hoped he didn’t think she had been begging. “We’ll choose who’s best for the position.”

  “I know, I know. Absolutely. You should.” Kate rubbed her face. “I just heard myself and I sounded pathetic.”

  “You just sounded like you were working out a problem,” he disagreed. “I know how you feel. I’ve got a few of my own right now.”

  “Would you like a sounding board?”

  Jake hesitated. He didn’t think he should really be discussing criminal activity directed at his company. “Not right yet,” he said.

  Kate couldn’t help thinking he believed her unqualified to hear Talbot Industries’ activities. It stung a bit, though she had no real reason to take offense. Still, it reminded her how unequal their positions were: in life, and the business world as well.

  And it didn’t help that he sat so close to her that she could feel the heat emanating from his body.

  “Well, I suppose I should try to get some sleep,” Kate murmured, picking up her mug of brandy and swirling the shallow remains in the bottom of the cup.

  Jake didn’t answer. Instead he lay his head against the back of the couch and stretched his feet out, crossing his ankles on the coffee table. It was much the same position Kate had been in earlier, when her foot had been propped on the velveteen pillow, but she doubted she had exhibited the same lazy sensuality as Jake did. It was effortless on his part, and totally unconscious. When he stretched, she could practically hear his muscles ease and lengthen like the sinews of a jungle cat.

  It was too darn sexy by far!

  Clambering to her feet, she nearly toppled over. Jake’s hand shot out to steady her.

  “Whoa, there.”

  “I’m okay,” she assured him tensely.

  “I just don’t want you to fall.”

  “I won’t fall,” Kate declared, yanking her wrist from his grasp. Promptly overbalancing, she sat down hard on the couch. The tiny bit of brandy left in her cup plopped onto her pajama legs.

  Jake had the indecency to grin.

  “Well,” she muttered, embarrassed. “It’s your fault. You surprised me.”

  “My fault,” he repeated.

  She hid a smile, not wanting to give in. “Yes. It’s all your fault, because I refuse to have it be mine.”

  He chuckled, the sound a deep rumble in his chest. Kate couldn’t help her mouth curving in response.

  “This reminds me of how you were,” he admitted, still grinning.

  That stopped her. “How I was?” she questioned gingerly.

  “We used to laugh a lot.”

  “I don’t anymore,” she said quickly, unthinkingly. The topic was growing dangerous.

  “That I believe. You’re so serious now.”

  Kate opened her mouth to protest, but Jake’s smile had been replaced by a thoughtful frown.

  “Why did you marry him so soon?” Jake asked into the silence that followed. “Were you pregnant?”

  “P—pardon?” Kate choked in shock.

  “Your father said you were. He alluded to it, anyway.”

  “My father?” Kate whispered. “You talked to my father?”

  Jake nodded.

  “When?”

  “When I got back from Europe. You’d already married Rose by then. I thought maybe you married him because you were pregnant. Sorry,” he finished. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”

  She realized distantly that he thought she had been pregnant with Ben’s child. She should have been affronted, but she couldn’t be—not knowing what she knew to be the truth.

  Clearly Jake felt he had overstepped the boundaries of decency, however, for he added tersely, “You married him because you loved him. I’m way out of line.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Kate murmured.

  “I’ve always wanted there to be some other reason, I guess. It’s no excuse, but there it is. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kate negated. She couldn’t stand to hear him apologize for his behavior when she alone knew how unfair she had been to him. “Why did you want to see me when you got back? Where was your fiancée?”

  “Celia? She stayed in Europe. We weren’t together at that time,” he added for clarification. “I mean, not as a couple.”

  “You were engaged, though.”

  He gazed at her closely. Their noses were nearly touching. The intimacy wasn’t lost on Jake, whose focus narrowed on Kate’s face. Her lips trembled ever so slightly. “Not then. I was only thinking about you,” he admitted with a self-deprecating twist of his lips.

  She couldn’t hear this. She knew better. “You sure had a funny way of showing it.”

  “I wrote you, but you never wrote back.”

  Kate inhaled a swift breath. “I never saw the letters. I told my father to burn them. You were engaged!” she hissed to his tortured look.

  “No…” He seemed shattered that she had never seen his words. “I called your house once, but your mother said you were gone. No phone number. Just that you were gone.”

  “Jake…don’t…” She couldn’t let him turn this back on her.

  “As soon as I got back I came looking for you, but you were married. And pregnant,” he reminded her.


  “But you were engaged,” she insisted again.

  He shook his head.

  Her lashes swept the hill of her cheek, dark and lustrous. Jake remembered their moments together, here, at this house, and though he struggled to remain emotionally neutral, desire burned, compelling and deep. As if in a trance, he watched his own hand reach upward and slowly brush aside the curtain of her hair so he could stare at her profile directly.

  “Don’t,” Kate said, swallowing.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Okay.”

  Moments ticked by. Kate could feel the heat of his breath stirring her hair. Her insides were jelly. She and Jake were locked in silence. Unbearable, yet dangerously enticing. If she turned to meet his gaze, she would be lost; she knew it. She stared at the fire instead; but its embers throbbed, and her blood pulsed in hot response.

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he muttered, his voice a rush, as if he couldn’t bear it, either.

  “No,” she murmured, as his lips brushed her cheek. Her breath swept in in a gasp. She half turned, unable to help herself, and his mouth searched for hers. Her lips parted in eagerness against her will.

  His kiss was like liquid fire. She met it with the surrender of a drowning person clutching a lifeline. His tongue touched delicately, asking permission. She was weak, wanton, melting. Kate sank into the cushions and Jake came with her, his body half lying across hers, his kiss deepening as his tongue took over, thrusting inside the hot cavern of her mouth.

  It’s just a kiss, she lied to herself, allowing more. His hands gripped her shoulders, tense. As long as he just kissed her she wouldn’t move, she argued with her drugged conscience.

  But it was more than a kiss. It was an invasion. His mouth slanted hard on hers, his tongue a plundering invader that made her blood sing. A soft moan issued from inside her, encouragement for Jake. His palm cupped her jaw, held her tight. As if she would try to escape this sweet assault!

  “Jake,” she murmured.

  “Don’t,” he whispered right back, dropping soft kisses on the edges of her lips.