By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

  “What are you trying to say?” he rasped, throat dry.

  “April’s your daughter, Jake,” she declared, closing her eyes and letting fresh tears squeeze between the lashes at her confession. “You left me pregnant that summer, and I married Ben to give our daughter a decent life…”

  In the filtered moonlight of the ivy-choked trellis, April wondered if she had just lost her mind. Eavesdropping was a curse, one she never indulged in. It had just happened, and the comfort of Ryan’s arms had made it so she was unwilling to move even when her mother’s anguished voice and Jake Talbot’s confused responses drifted down to her from above.

  But she had never expected to hear something so soul-destroying. She didn’t believe it. She had to have drifted off. She had been dreaming; because Mom was marrying Jake Talbot, she had made up a silly fantasy about them being a perfect, nuclear family.

  However, Ryan had stiffened to stone beside her. His face swivelled in her direction. Moonlight slanted and bared his expression, and she saw reflected in his face her own unmitigated horror.

  Jake Talbot is my father!

  She whimpered, and Ryan clamped a hand over her mouth to hide the noise. She gazed at him through wide eyes above his fingers. He blinked in bewilderment, as undone as she was.

  Mom lied. All these years. Mom lied!

  Her head swam. She felt faint. She collapsed against Ryan completely. Above her, deadly silence was the answer to her mother’s pronouncement. Was Jake as shocked as she was? Undoubtedly!

  Gently, Ryan got to his feet, pulling her with him. April could scarcely stand. He pointed to the far end of the trellis where black night and a path around the back of the house awaited. Clearly he wanted to evaporate into the stealth of the night, and April felt the same way. Cautiously, wincing at each footfall that crackled a bit on drying leaves, they made their way to the grass and footpath that wound to the front of the house.

  Once out of earshot, their footsteps quickened. And then they were in the front of the house and staring with the lust of thieves at Ryan’s car. “You want to leave?” he asked.

  “Forever,” she answered flatly. “I want to leave forever.”

  “Let’s push it out of the drive so they don’t hear us,” he suggested.

  April didn’t ponder the wiseness of this choice. Her whole world had been blasted to smithereens. There was no hope. No going back. What was that phrase about a “tissue of lies?” It had made no sense to her before, but now she saw that a foundation based on lies was as flimsy as tissue.

  “Get me out of here,” she told him. “I never want to see her again!”

  His silence was her undoing. His face had turned to granite, the beloved curves and planes harsh and unforgiving. Beyond that he was too stunned to move; she could read that clear enough.

  “Jake?” she whispered, afraid.

  He staggered to his feet, slowly shook his head, then swayed unsteadily for several moments. But when Kate reached to help him he jerked away from her so fast he overbalanced, slamming his shin into the nearby end table so hard it must have hurt terribly. But Jake made no reaction. He simply moved out of Kate’s range, as if she were as deadly and repulsive as a poisonous snake.

  “Jake…” Her voice caught in sorrow.

  “You’re—lying,” he rasped.

  She couldn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He had accepted the truth or he wouldn’t be so utterly destroyed. She didn’t make the mistake of coming near him again. She just gazed at him unhappily and shook her head.

  “You’re a lying bitch,” he added, though his words held no heat. It was as if he were trying to make himself hate her, and with time, Kate was afraid he would succeed.

  “I couldn’t tell you. You were gone! And I was pregnant and desperate, and when I went to see your parents, they told me you were engaged and that you weren’t coming back to Lakehaven. You were going straight to Harvard!” Kate inhaled a shaky breath. “I passed out on their floor when I heard.”

  “You should have told them. You could have told them. They would have told me.”

  “Would they have?” Kate demanded through a screen of tears. “Would they have? And, if they did, what then? Would you have left your fiancée to do the right thing!”

  “I wasn’t—I wasn’t engaged.”

  “But I didn’t know that! I thought you’d left me as fast as you could. I thought it was all a sham. And that silly, fake marriage was just your way of getting me in bed.”

  “You knew better!” Jake roared.

  “Did I? Well, you weren’t here to ask!”

  They glared at each other, and Kate couldn’t help feeling indignation well up in her chest. She had suffered. Oh, how she had suffered all these years. And though a certain amount of guilt was deserved, and she understood his feelings of betrayal, it had not been an easy path for her. It had been the only choice available at the time.

  “I don’t believe it,” he muttered, moving away to put the space of the room between them.

  But he did believe it. The truth had ravaged his face. His cheeks were deep hollows, and his eyes were glazed with shock.

  “Ben wanted April to be his,” she went on doggedly.

  “Don’t…” He held up a hand to ward her off.

  “He didn’t want anyone to know he wasn’t the father.”

  “Shut up,” he begged, stumbling to the door.

  “Don’t leave. Don’t drive away. Not yet.” Kate was beside him in an instant, her hand on the knob, but Jake snatched at her fingers, prying them away as he threw open the door.

  Kate gasped and pulled her hands to her chest, aching inside. She had known it would be bad. She didn’t know it would be this bad. “I did what I had to do,” she told him as he swerved toward his Bronco. “You shouldn’t drive,” she added, unable to help herself. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

  With that he swivelled to regard her with such loathing that Kate shrank away. “I’m thinking very clearly,” he stated coldly. “I’m thinking I’ve been so stupid and blind. I really wanted you to be something special. Something better than the rest. But you’re a liar. And I hate liars.”

  Kate swept in her breath. His harsh words cut like a knife. “I’ll take my share of the blame, but you’re—you’re a judgmental hypocrite! You don’t know what you would have done if you were me! It’s so easy to run off to Europe with Mom and Dad’s money, but it’s not so easy to be left behind, penniless and heartbroken!”

  “Damn it,” he warned through his teeth, shaking all over. She was getting to him in spite of himself.

  She threw back her head, tears glimmering in her eyes, her hair falling around her like a sweet, soft cloak. There was hatred in her eyes now, and Jake could have cowered beneath its intensity, knowing he had produced it in such a normally gentle creature.

  “I loathe you,” she told him, digging at the ring on her finger as if it suddenly burned her flesh. “You don’t deserve to be April’s father! So, go away! Get out! Get out of my life.”

  She was crying full force now and quivering with pentup rage. Jake knew it was reaction. Reaction to everything. But God, he was suffering from reaction as well. April. April was his. It was too much to take in.

  His shoulder collapsed against the side of the Bronco. He felt used up, old, and wracked by such misery that if he could have, he would have broken down and wept himself. But he was unable to comfort Kate even though she needed comfort. Her betrayal loomed in front of him like a red cape, and he had to attack.

  “You’ve had years to tell me,” he hissed through his teeth. “Years!”

  “Well, I finally did, didn’t I?” Kate’s lips quivered uncontrollably. Her whole body was a quaking mass. But her resolve was new, deep and solid as oak. She held up the ring which glittered hard and cold in the moonlight. Then she tossed it at his feet, turned on her heel and marched back inside. Jake braced himself for the slam, but with the restraint of pure hatred she softly closed the door behind her.
r />   Then there was silence.

  Slowly, he bent to pick up the ring. Slowly he climbed in the Bronco, and slowly he drove away to an empty, hollow future.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kate sagged against the door. The tears that had plagued her off and on all evening turned into a raging torrent. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and fought back a hot flood that seemed to have no end. Her whole body hurt so badly she wanted to cry out in pain.

  I hate him. I hate him! Oh, God, I hate him!

  Kate hiccuped on a sob. It wasn’t true. She knew she was lying to herself. But she wanted it to be true because loving him was so unfair.

  “Oh, Jake,” she whispered aloud, “what am I going to do?”

  She heard his Bronco drive away, and then she sank down to the floor, her chin pressed to her shoulder, letting the misery just flow for there seemed no other answer. All her bravado had been just that, bravado, and though it had helped salvage a modicum of self-respect, it was an empty victory.

  She felt like she had died.

  Eventually, because there was nothing else to do, she dragged herself to her feet again, glad April hadn’t wandered in unawares and discovered her mother in such a state. How would she have explained that? she asked herself.

  It was another twenty minutes before Kate roused herself from her self-involvement to wonder about April again. Ryan’s car had been parked outside when they arrived; she remembered remarking on it. But with all the weighty discussions on her mind, she hadn’t thought about it again, and now she realized it hadn’t been there when she and Jake had had their fight at his car.

  Which was why, she recognized now, she had behaved so rashly. Subliminally, at least, she had known they were alone. But when had Ryan, and she guessed April, too, left? It had to be sometime during her terrible discussion with Jake, and how had he—they—made their exit without passing by, or at least being heard?

  Kate’s head hurt from thinking so hard. She was just being overly anxious. A mother hen. Absorbed with so many worries of her own that she was making up problems when none existed.

  But where is she?

  After a few moments Kate checked the house, but April was nowhere to be found. And there was no note, which was unlike her. Kate drew a shaking breath and expelled it slowly. She wanted to call Jake and pour out this new worry. How ironic that their first conversation after she had dropped her bomb should be over the issue of parenting!

  But no, she wouldn’t call him. April would turn up any minute, and the best thing Kate could do for herself was take a couple of aspirin and head to bed. Just because her whole world had collapsed did not mean there wasn’t work tomorrow.

  As Scarlett O’Hara was wont to say, tomorrow was another day.

  * * *

  Jake didn’t remember the drive home. He didn’t remember the ride up the elevator or the fact that he had stripped off his tie and jacket and untucked his white shirt. Neither did he remember that he had been drinking himself into oblivion until he surfaced enough to catch sight of his swimming reflection in the mirror above the bar.

  His first thought was how much he resembled his brother, and through the haze of his mind he instinctively knew it was because he was dead drunk, generally a malady of Phillip, Jr.’s, not Jacob Talbot’s. He wasn’t a happy drunk, either, he thought inconsequentially as he viewed his scowling face. He was downright enraged, yet he felt paralyzed, lost, unfocused.

  Damn her. Damn her for making me fall in love with her.

  When the phone rang, Jake realized distantly that it wasn’t the first time someone had phoned. He had ignored the other calls. What time was it anyway? he wondered, attempting to push up his sleeve to examine his watch. After several futile tries, he gave up, only to have his blurred gaze encounter the kitchen clock. Midnight. A little after, actually.

  It had to be Kate calling.

  Growling beneath his breath, he lifted his drink, but with the glass to his lips, he lost interest. He barely managed to get the snifter of brandy on the counter. Not a smart idea. He shouldn’t have wasted the good stuff on this binge. Cheap bourbon would have sufficed just fine, thank you very much.

  Digging down through his anesthesia, Jake inadvertently stumbled on the source of his pain. I’m a father! he thought incredulously. April Rose is really April Talbot!

  “I have a daughter,” he said aloud.

  Brrriinng. Brrriinng. Brrriinng.

  The phone nagged on. In a sudden fury, Jake snatched up the receiver. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded coldly.

  “Jake?” his brother’s voice asked after a moment.

  “Ahh, Phillip. Nice to hear from you.”

  “I’ve been calling and calling. Sandra’s been looking for you, too,” he admitted almost in a mutter, as if he didn’t want to think about that one. “She’s blaming me for getting her thrown off the account. It wasn’t my fault.”

  Jake couldn’t care less. “Fine,” he said, turning away from the receiver.

  “Jake? I can’t hear you. Are you there?”

  “Go away, Phillip. I’m going to bed.”

  “Okay, it might have been my fault. I don’t think Sandra’s right for the job.”

  Jake muttered something in response, or at least he hoped he did.

  “Are you drunk?” Phillip asked after another moment of shocked assessment. “Little brother, are you drunk?”

  That struck Jake funny. Feeling half-crazed, he said, “I prefer to call it liquor impaired.” With that he doubled over, hooting with laughter, until he realized moments later he had accidentally hung up on his brother.

  So what. Phillip was a liar and a cheat as well. He should have linked up with Katie. Now there was a match.

  Pain ripped through him. It took him several tries to replace the receiver, and when he finally managed, the damn phone started trilling again. It almost hurt his ears. Snatching up the receiver, he growled, “I’m not home,” then slammed it down again before Phillip could say anything else.

  With that he went straight for the shower. He stayed under the needle-sharp spray for a millennium. At least that’s what it felt like by the time he was staggering around the bedroom, nude. A pounding penetrated his fogged brain. Someone at his front door.

  Thinking it might be Katie, Jake couldn’t find a way to force himself to answer it. He couldn’t see her. He had hurt her. God, she had hurt him! The pain was so intense it felt like his head was ready to explode.

  “Jake!” Phillip’s muffled voice sounded through the panels. “Open up!”

  “Go ‘way!” he yelled back, but the blasted pounding just kept right on beating until he yanked open the door to admit his brother.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Phillip demanded, glaring at Jake, who had managed to throw on a robe. He glanced past him. “Is Kate here?”

  “No!” Because there was nothing else he could do, Jake collapsed in a chair, bringing on a dizzying wave of nausea in the process. From the alcohol or his own internal misery, he neither knew nor cared.

  “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, little brother,” Phillip declared, towering over Jake. “Your friend from the police came to see me. Detective Marsh? Ring a bell?”

  Jake didn’t want to think about this. He rubbed his face with one hand and sighed. Detective Marsh…“What about him?”

  “They think I’m the one responsible for the explosions!” Phillip declared angrily. “What have you been telling him?”

  “Me? Nothing.” That was the truth. He had only outlined his theories to Kate. Kate! Pain ripped through him at the memory.

  “They fingerprinted an ex-employee of Talbot’s who happened to work for me some of the time, when he was here. Don’t you listen to your messages, man? They’ve got Nate Hefner detained on suspicion of breaking and entering, criminal mischief, robbery, and God knows what else. They think he did it at my authorization! Jake!” he bit out angrily, grabbing his brother by the shoulders and dragging him
out of the chair. “You’ve gotta help me. Now!”

  “I can’t think right now, Phillip.” Jake wished he had his wits about him. Something was going on here. But he was too far gone to pull himself back.

  Phillip swore several pungent words in sharp succession. “I need you to vouch for me. Say you were with me, so they don’t try to pin this on me, too.”

  “Let go of me. Tell them the truth.” Jake tried to jerk away from his brother’s grip, but Phillip hung on with near maniacal strength.

  “I can’t tell them the truth because I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been,” Phillip admitted.

  “Where were you?”

  “I was with a woman.”

  Jake was getting his wish. He was growing more and more sober by the minute. He stared at Phillip. “What woman?” When his brother hesitated, Jake asked again, harshly, “What woman, damn it!”

  “Marcus Torrance’s wife,” Phillip admitted, slowly releasing his grip. “I told her about the vandalism at the strip mall, and she must have told her husband. After the West Bank explosion Diamond Corp. backed out. I’m sorry, Jake.”

  Kate tossed and turned all night. She had thought she would pass out from sheer exhaustion, but she alternated between recalling every painful moment of her fight with Jake and the terrible fear that something had happened to April. Should she call the police? She had tried Ryan’s dad, Tom, but there had been no answer and no answering machine. She had called two of April’s friends and inadvertently discovered a party going on at a house where parents weren’t home, bringing the whole thing to a crashing halt, but still no April.

  The only information she had was that April was with Ryan. Had there been an accident? she wondered, checking the clock again. Should she call the police?

  It was just breaking daylight when she finally dialed the number of the local police station, her fingers cold and shaking.

  “My daughter is missing,” she managed to get out before breaking down completely. Reaction to everything; she knew that. But she could hardly explain it all to the policewoman at the other end of the line, so she stuck with the facts as she knew them.