By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

  “It wasn’t quite that dramatic.” He ran a hand through his wet hair. “Although I did have to balance half-in/halfout of the shower to keep from getting this wet.” He tapped the bandage.

  “How are you feeling today?” Kate asked. She wanted to rush to his arms, but with Phillip in the room, she contained herself.

  “I’m okay.” He shrugged, a spasm crossing his face at the effort.

  “You’re not okay,” Kate declared, crossing the room to guide him to the loveseat. To hell with Phillip. She cuddled down beside him.

  Phillip didn’t care anyway. “How did it happen?” he asked.

  “Someone tampered with the gas line to the kitchen. It could have been a lot worse. Marsh better find who’s responsible soon, or someone’s going to get killed!”

  “It couldn’t have been an accident?” Phillip was anxious.

  Jake gave his brother a long look. “Apparently not.” He paused, then said, “Marsh thinks it’s a disgruntled ex-employee, someone who’s got a grudge against us.”

  “No way. I won’t believe it.” Phillip drew an unsteady breath. “God, Jake, you can’t believe someone was after you.”

  Jake frowned. “Did I say that? No one’s after me. I didn’t have any set time to be at the West Bank. I just showed up when I showed up and happened to get unlucky. Marsh thinks the perp picked that time because there weren’t many people around.”

  “Who has access to the kitchen?” Phillip asked, almost as if the words jumped out before he could stop them.

  “They’re compiling a list and hoping for a match.”

  “A match?” Kate asked.

  “Between West Bank employees and ex-Talbot ones.”

  Silence pooled among them. Phillip got to his feet a bit unsteadily. “I don’t like this.”

  “I’ve got to call our parents,” Jake said slowly, as if this task were the most onerous to date, which maybe it was.

  Phillip slid him an ironic look, showing a bit of his true nature once again. “Better you than me, little brother.”

  Jake snorted.

  Phillip departed a few moments later, and Kate climbed to her feet. “Have you got anything to make for breakfast?”

  “Pop-Tarts. The instructions are on the box.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of eggs, bacon, toast and fresh fruit,” Kate said dryly.

  “You might find some of that in there, too.” He slanted her a fond look, and Kate went about her chores with a light heart.

  April appeared just as Kate was serving up the scrambled eggs, bacon and sourdough toast. “I feel like shi—” she started, then amended, “I feel like I was run over by a truck.”

  “I’m sure glad you’re all right,” Jake said soberly.

  April smiled. “Same to you—Jake.”

  Kate’s throat tightened. She would have never dreamed they would be in a situation like this. What would happen when the truth came out? What would Jake think? What would April?

  “You okay, Mom?” she asked, witnessing the color leave Kate’s expressive face.

  “Never better.”

  Jake looked at her, too. Accosted by their twin expressions of concern, Kate’s mouth dried at their resemblance—the same eyes, the same mouth, the same way of regarding her when they felt she wasn’t being quite truthful with her feelings.

  “Eat up,” she admonished them brusquely, then turned away from their dual scrutiny.

  Very, very soon she was going to have to tell the truth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The rest of the weekend dragged by. Jake called, but he was embroiled in the West Bank Hotel affair and “other problems” at work, so Kate hung out with April and prepared for her daughter’s commercial the following Monday. Luckily, her scrapes were minor and wouldn’t show, and the ordeal had not dampened her enthusiasm. In fact, now more than ever April wanted to be a champion for Talbot Industries—Jake Talbot was her new hero.

  On Sunday afternoon Jake stopped by—and made a proposal that filled her with cold fear.

  “How would you like to come with me to visit my parents.”

  “Your parents!” Kate was instantly worked up. “Why?”

  “I need to talk over the sabotage with my father, and he wants to see me in person to make sure I’m still in one piece. I thought it might be a good opportunity for them to meet you again.”

  “Oh, Jake!”

  “I know how you feel, but let’s get it over with. You may be surprised by their reaction.”

  “This I truly doubt,” she murmured, but went to fetch her sweater as it was a cooler evening than it had been.

  On the road to Lakehaven, Kate said very little. Of course this was bound to happen. She and Jake were planning a wedding, for crying out loud, so sooner or later she was going to have to see his parents again.

  Gazing out the window, she watched the flashing landscape and passing miles with growing trepidation. The last time she met Phillip and Marilyn Talbot she had fainted dead away. She had believed she had told them she was pregnant, though the words had never actually formed and sounded.

  Jake’s hand caressed her knee as they neared the turnoff for Kate’s hometown. She hadn’t been here in years. Once, when April was around ten, she had taken her for an aimless country drive while Ben was at a meeting at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, about a two hours’ drive from Portland. Instead of heading to the east to meet her husband, she had turned west, as if she were heading to the coast, and when she had spied the turnoff for Lakehaven, she twisted the wheel without any previous intention.

  The streets had seemed old and small and tired, an unfair evaluation because Lakehaven’s central crossroads were a tidy, near trendy collection of shops. But on that date all Kate could see were the tattered remnants of her unhappy youth; the old hangouts that remained seemed worn and lackluster. Others had been replaced or refurbished or sold for some other business.

  Now, she steeled herself for the same hit. They cruised into town, and Kate hazarded a look out the window. Bright blue awnings fluttered in the tiny breeze. Cafe tables clustered around a new ice cream parlor, cheek-to-jowl with a deli on one side and an espresso shop on the other.

  “Wow,” she said softly.

  “It’s changed a lot.”

  She glanced at Jake, whose terse assessment seemed out of sync with the unexpected happiness she was feeling. “What’s wrong?”

  He shrugged and didn’t answer. He couldn’t explain that coming back to Lakehaven was like revisiting the worst of his past. Every time he saw his parents, which wasn’t often these days, he experienced the same sense of being smothered by a stifling, thick blanket. He hadn’t spoken his feelings to Kate because he had really wanted her to join him today, but the truth was he hated coming home.

  They pulled up in front of his parents’ home, and Kate swallowed against a hot throat. This, at least, looked exactly the same in her memory: imposing and somehow hostile. Her gaze flicked to the section of brick-lined concrete that meandered from the curving drive on its way to the guest cottage at the south end of the property.

  “We could go there instead,” Jake suggested, his lips twisting. “Although this time we don’t have blankets or a sleeping bag.”

  “I feel just the same way I did when I was a kid.” Kate turned anxious eyes to him, and Jake sighed and clasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing gently.

  “It’ll be all right,” he assured her.

  Kate wasn’t even close to believing him. The Talbots had looked down at her as if she were dirt, and no amount of time and distance could make her forget how small and desperate she had felt that day.

  They walked up the brick path together, Jake limping a bit from his tightly bound thigh. They stood tensely on the porch bathed by two lamps with wrought-iron lantern lights flanking the door. Jake pressed the bell which echoed dully in the depths of the house. Kate shivered.

  “Come here,” he murmured, dragging her into the circle
of his arms. She wanted to burrow against him; but the sound of a heavy tread coming their way brought her to her senses, and she withdrew a foot away from him, tense and expectant.

  Phillip Talbot, Sr., opened the door. He frowned at Kate blankly, then lightened a bit when he recognized his son. “Jacob, there you are. Your mother had about given up on you.”

  “I told her to expect me at seven,” he responded a bit tightly.

  “Well, you know how she is. Seven means five when it comes to you, son.” He extended a hand to Kate and said, “I didn’t expect Jacob to bring along such a lovely companion. I’m Phillip Talbot.”

  “Yes…nice to meet you.” Kate shook his hand, glancing about a bit desperately for Jake.

  “Father, this is Kate Rose. You’ve met her before,” he pointed out softly.

  “I have?” He examined Kate thoroughly.

  “We went to high school together,” said Jake tersely.

  Phillip’s brows arched, but he couldn’t place her, which suited Kate just fine. Yet when the three of them entered the drawing room where long ago she had faced off with both Jake’s parents, she could sense the sweat building on her skin until she felt clammy and slightly sick.

  Marilyn Talbot had aged. Phillip, too, for that matter, Kate noticed as he stepped into the warm light bathing the room. But as Marilyn gazed over the top of half-moon glasses at her, Kate couldn’t help seeing the wrinkles that plagued her lips and forehead, and the fact that her once dark brown hair was now blondish-silver.

  Phillip had gone from gray to white, and his bulldog jaw had grown jowly. His waistline had suffered over the intervening years as well, but when he took up his place in front of the fire, Kate was thrown back in time unwillingly.

  “Good evening,” Marilyn said crisply, her eyes quick and seeking. Her sharp intake of break said it all, even before Phillip, Sr., remarked, “This is Kate Rose. Jacob says I’ve met her before, but for the life of me, I don’t remember.”

  “We’ve both met her.” Marilyn’s smile was brittle, but she remembered her manners enough to stand up and offer Kate a limp handshake. “Would either of you like something to drink?” She walked straight for a side table that served as a bar and poured herself scotch, neat. That’s the second time in her life, Jake thought inconsequentially. Phillip, Sr., asked for the same, and Jake followed after his mother, picking up another decanter and pouring two brandies into snifters.

  When he handed one to Kate, he blocked her view of his parents momentarily and used the small bit of privacy to give her a wink of encouragement. Kate tried on a smile that felt wobbly and weak. She had to pull herself together.

  “We heard about the explosion. Are you certain you’re all right?” Marilyn asked Jake.

  “Luckily, no one was hurt badly,” Jake said by way of an answer. “But I don’t know about next time.”

  “Next time?” Phillip, Sr., demanded.

  Jake nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  “So, how have you been, Kate?” Marilyn asked after she had reseated herself. Her fingers were a death grip against her glass.

  “I’m all right,” Kate managed.

  “When did we meet?” Phillip asked absently, his thoughts clearly still on Jake’s disturbing comment about the accident.

  Marilyn shot him a cold look, but it was Jake who answered. “Kate and I dated in high school. I went away for the summer, and it ruined our plans for marriage.” His tone was light, not assigning blame, but Marilyn’s lips became a knife blade of repressed emotion nonetheless.

  “Oh.” Phillip’s perpetual frown deepened.

  “I understood you married,” Marilyn said, probing.

  “My husband died six months ago.” Kate’s mouth was cotton, and she was afraid her sweating would stain her blouse. Lord, she knew it would be bad, but she hadn’t realized how terribly uncomfortable this would be.

  “So…,” Marilyn murmured.

  Jake sighed. He almost pitied his mother for being so locked in her own self-made prison of etiquette and expectation. “Kate and I are getting married,” he said, shocking everyone in the room, including Kate.

  “Oh, my God!” Marilyn’s face turned gray.

  Phillip merely stared. He didn’t remember Kate very well, so his prejudices were less, but the announcement had come out of the blue.

  Kate, for her part, was light-headed. The whole scene was surreal. She hadn’t expected Jake to be so candid and up front, when their own discussions of marriage had seemed fuzzy and unformed, something to address in the future.

  Now Jake’s arm came around her waist protectively. She could see the small spasm of muscle in his jaw. A part of her wondered if he were using her for some ongoing, unspoken battle of wills with his parents.

  “When—is the wedding?” Marilyn asked faintly.

  “We don’t know yet. As soon as possible, if I have anything to say about it.”

  This was news to Kate. She felt like a pawn, and yet she didn’t doubt Jake’s love for her. Did she…?

  Phillip coughed into his fist. “Well, then, congratulations are in order. Welcome to the family…Kate,” he said with an attempt at grace.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “Yes,” Marilyn echoed. “Welcome.”

  Into the tense silence that ensued, Phillip said, “Jacob, let’s go to the den. We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’ll be right back,” he assured Kate, staring into her eyes as his father headed to a door at the back of the room that led to another, smaller retreat. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Right as rain,” she answered with false brightness.

  Left alone with Marilyn Talbot? A fate worse than death. As soon as the door closed behind Jake and his father, Kate wandered the appointments of the room, almost afraid to sit down. Marilyn seemed stunned by the events of the past few moments herself. But she surfaced eventually, and gestured for Kate to take a chair across from her.

  Kate perched uncomfortably on the edge. She hadn’t touched her brandy yet, but feeling Marilyn’s probing stare, she took a fiery gulp.

  “So, you found Jacob again, after all this time.”

  Kate nodded.

  “I don’t intend to apologize for what happened,” she went on, somewhat distractedly, as if she were talking to herself rather than Kate. “I wanted the best for my son, but life is full of little surprises, most of them unpleasant.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “Really? What about this—this sabotage?” She waved that away even before Kate could remark, returning to the other subject between them. “When Jacob was in Europe and I told you about his fiancée, you fainted dead away in our hallway. That was one of life’s unpleasant surprises, wouldn’t you say?”

  “It was a shock.” She swallowed. “And it turned out it wasn’t true.”

  “What do you mean?” Marilyn’s brows shot together.

  “Jake wasn’t actually engaged.”

  She dismissed that with a snort. “Both families had agreed. It just took Jake and Celia longer to accept the idea than either of us had anticipated.” She hugged her drink. Glancing down, she seemed surprised to find her glass empty. Kate rose and refilled it without being asked, and that made Marilyn Talbot shake her head. “I can admit I made a mistake. Celia and Jake were a terrible match. I gave up after that. Jacob makes his own way, just like his brother.”

  The hint of derision in her voice wasn’t lost on Kate. They both sipped in silence for several moments until Kate could feel the alcohol relaxing her own taut nerves. Marilyn must have felt a similar loosening, because she removed her glasses and shrugged her shoulders.

  “I thought a small town girl from a—dysfunctional—family was the last thing a man like Jacob needed. I felt bad about it at the time, but there it was.” She splayed her hands. “You didn’t waste any time getting married, so I forgot about you. Do you have any children?”

  Kate licked h
er lips. This was certainly tricky. “A daughter. April.”

  “How old is she?”

  Was it her imagination, or was Jake’s mother calculating already? “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen. My God, a teenager. What year is she in school?”

  “She’ll be a senior. School starts in a week,” Kate babbled on. “Right after Labor Day. It’s hard for me to believe that my baby’s grown up and near graduation.”

  “It happens fast, doesn’t it?” Marilyn mused. “When will she be eighteen? That’s when they’re really adults, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Kate agreed, her nerves screaming. Jake had never questioned her so thoroughly; he saw no reason to. But Marilyn was a woman with a clever, calculating mind, and whether she was on a fishing expedition, or whether she suspected something she wanted confirmed, Kate wasn’t about to be truthful in this matter. If she told Marilyn that her daughter was born in January, she would realize April had been conceived in April. There was no way Kate’s husband could have fathered her; the timing was wrong.

  “April’s birthday is June tenth,” she lied, knowing she was digging her own grave. But it would be unfair, almost criminal, for Jake’s mother to know the truth before he did.

  Marilyn inclined her head, defeated. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t name her June,” she joked. “I had an aunt named June whom I couldn’t stand.”

  It was an innocuous comment, but Kate’s blood ran cold as she realized how close Marilyn was to the whole truth.

  When Jake returned Kate literally leapt out of her chair to greet him. He seemed pleased that she and Marilyn had resorted to chit-chat, but Kate’s head ached from the brandy and the strain.

  “I’m going to take a look at the guest cottage before we go,” Jake told his parents.

  “It’s unlocked,” his father said.

  They both said goodbye to Kate, and once Kate and Jake were outside in the fresh air, Kate gulped a deep breath.

  Jake said, “See? It wasn’t so bad.”

  “Hah. And you were dreading it, too. You know you were.”

  “I was,” he admitted. “But, like I said, they see things differently now. In some ways both Phillip and I have been a disappointment to them. My mother would like to blame me for Celia, but it’s all water under the bridge now.”