by Lisa Jackson
Jake had stopped fiddling with the fire. Still squatting, he’d rocked back on his heels and stared up at her with an expression that could only be described as bleak. “That’s Sam,” he said gruffly. “My son.” His eyes grew distant and unreadable.
“He’s very handsome,” she said, slightly bewildered. Hadn’t Jake said he was childless?
“Thanks.”
Standing, Jake shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and pain lingered in his eyes. “I told you I didn’t have any children, but that wasn’t the truth. I had a child for nearly three years. Sam was killed shortly after that picture was taken.” Jake’s throat worked, and he had to clear it.
Kimberly felt numb inside. To lose a child. Her heart went out to him. “Oh, Jake . . .”
He held up a palm and shook his head. “Don’t say you’re sorry, okay. I just don’t want to hear it.”
She bit her lower lip and wished there were some words of comfort, some tender endearment that she could whisper to ease his pain. Of course, there was none. “I—I didn’t know.”
He picked up the picture and held it in his palm. Staring at the photograph, he blinked rapidly. “Some things just never go away,” he said, “no matter how hard you try to forget them.”
Taking a deep breath, he turned the picture facedown on the mantel, then stood near the window, bracing one hand against the casing as he gazed outside. “It happened years ago, but it’s with me every day.”
She ached to touch him—to offer some comfort. “Is Lindsay sleeping in his room?”
He shook his head but didn’t look back at her. “No. His furniture. But not his room. I—we—lived in the city then, a big house in Dunthorpe.” Turning, he tried to smile, failed and pursed his lips. “Lydia, Sam’s mother, wasn’t happy. Thought I should be working harder to become a partner in the firm. She expected me to climb the success ladder a little more quickly than I was. Anyway, after Sam was born, she was really dissatisfied—claimed life was passing her by.” He shoved the dark thatch of hair from his eyes. “So she found someone else, another attorney in town, a man really going places. A man with expensive cars, a boat, a private plane.” His lips curled. “A man who had the right connections.”
Kimberly felt cold to the center of her soul.
Jake’s eyes narrowed, and he walked to the bar, where he poured himself a stiff shot of Scotch.
“Who?” Kimberly asked, shaking inside. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
He tossed back his drink. “Your friend and mine. Ben Kesler.”
“Holy shit,” she whispered, her fingers clenching together. Ben was more than Robert’s attorney—they were partners in some business ventures. Even Ben’s plane, which was kept in Mulino, miles out of the city, was partially owned by Robert.
The seconds ticked by as Jake stared gloomily into his glass. “Yep. She intended to take Sam, make sure I never saw him again and marry Kesler.” He glanced at Kimberly. His mouth twisted wryly. “Now, that was her side of the story, mind you. I don’t know if Kesler had any intentions of marching down the aisle with her. He was just her divorce attorney and lover at that point—but it doesn’t matter. Right after the divorce was final, Lydia and Sam were in an automobile accident. Neither survived.” He took in a long bracing breath, and Kimberly crossed the room and took his face between her hands.
“I am sorry,” she said feeling him tremble beneath her touch. “And I won’t say I know how you feel, because I don’t. I can’t imagine losing a child.”
“It’s hell,” he whispered, his eyes dark with agony. “Pure hell. I swear to you here and now, I’ll never go through it again.”
Her throat closed and she had to whisper. “The joy of having a child is worth the risk.”
He knocked her hands away and turned his back to her. “As you said, you can’t know how I feel. No one can.” He reached for the bottle of Scotch again, grabbed it by the neck, discovered it was nearly empty and, swearing under his breath, hurled it into the fire. The bottle crashed, splintering into a hundred shards, and flames roared and flared as alcohol splattered against the wood.
“Jake . . .”
He didn’t answer her, wouldn’t look her way.
“Don’t shut me out,” Kimberly whispered.
The muscles of his shoulders bunched.
Kimberly felt helpless. “Please, Jake. I care too much for you. Let me help.”
When he turned to look at her, agony was in every line of his strained features.
Suddenly she understood far more than he’d admitted. His divorce and the loss of this child had happened while he’d worked with Diane. He didn’t have to say it. Kimberly knew. Diane had helped pull him from the abyss his life had become after Sam’s death. She’d pushed him in a new direction—into corporate law—when he couldn’t stand to deal with custody or adoption or divorce cases any longer.
How difficult it must have been for Jake to take her case. Tears filled her eyes. “I’d like to help.”
His eyes held hers. “No one can bring Sam back.”
Her heart breaking, she reached for him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She settled her head against his chest and fought tears. Slowly she felt his strong, tense arms folded around her. She tilted her face to his and pressed wet, tear-stained kisses to his lips.
He groaned loudly, his tall body stretched against hers.
“Trust me, Jake,” she whispered as his lips, hot and hungry, slanted over hers again. He was everywhere. His tall frame molded hard around her, his hands moving anxiously against her skin, his mouth and tongue seeking solace in hers.
She opened up to him as a flower to the sun, hoping to ease his pain.
His hands were tangled in her hair, and he pulled them both down to the thick carpet in front of the fire. He stripped them of their clothes and lay upon her, his long, hard muscles firm against her yielding flesh. Staring into her eyes, kissing her neck, cheeks, breasts and abdomen, Jake lost control.
In front of the fire, with golden shadows playing upon their skin, Kimberly helped him forget. If only for a little while.
* * *
The next morning Jake blinked rapidly. His head pounded, and he was disoriented. Finally his blurry eyes focused on the bright room—his room. Sunlight, reflecting on the snow outside, was streaming in blinding rays through the windows. He stretched lazily and stared down at the woman sharing his bed.
Her dark, red-brown hair, was mussed, tossed around her face in a fiery cloud. Dark lashes lay against creamy-white skin, and her expression was peaceful and still, her nostrils barely moving as she breathed.
The sheet, twisted and wrinkled, covered one of her breasts. The other was bare, the dark bud of her nipple protruding beguilingly upward. Memories of wild, savage lovemaking slipped into his conscience, and he grinned wickedly. He’d spent the night purging the past in fierce union with this beautiful woman, and she’d met his wild passion with a wanton abandon that he’d never before experienced.
He twisted a lock of her hair in his fingers and wondered about her. She was kind and caring, but could turn into a seductress so intense that he still ached for more of her.
His memory ablaze with desire, he stared again at her breast—so perfect, so enticing. Unable to stop himself, he leaned over to kiss the rosy seductive point. Immediately he felt a tightening inside and a heated response in his loins.
To his delight the nipple hardened, and Kimberly moaned softly, shifting closer. He threw a leg across her, and she sighed. Still kissing her breasts, he reached under the covers, to the apex of her legs, to touch her sweet essence and delve his fingers within.
She was ready—moist and waiting, letting out soft moans as he moved his fingers inside her. He stroked the bundle of nerves on her top wall, making her hips buck against his hand.
His gut tightened, and the ache between his own legs begged for release. He nibbled her nipple again and glanced up at her face as her eyes fluttered open. Two
slumberous blue-green eyes looked up at him with such erotic adoration that he nearly stopped.
She smiled, and that did him in. Sliding up the length of her, he kissed her face, laid himself atop her and buried himself deep within that warm, inviting spot that tore his soul from his body.
“Wh—what are you doing, counselor?”
“Saying ‘Good morning,’” he drawled.
“I like the way you say it . . .”
He thrust deep inside.
She tried to say something, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out.
With the flat of his hand he felt her heartbeat pound erratically, saw the shallow breathing and the rise and fall of her beautiful breasts. “You’re gorgeous,” he reminded her, taking in her flat stomach and toned legs.
Slowly he moved, so lazily that she lifted up to meet him, grabbing his buttocks in frustration, pulling him against her.
“Be patient,” he whispered, kneading her breasts and gritting back the urge to claim her as fiercely as he had only hours earlier.
While last night was lust to cure sexual abandon, a cleansing of all the pain in his past, this morning he paced himself. Giving and receiving, he watched for her response, enjoying himself as she reached peak after peak until at last she, not he, was spent. “Oh, Jake,” she sighed.
Only then did he satisfy himself, losing his self-control as he stared down into an angelic face relaxed in afterglow.
They laid together afterward, Jake holding her close. Her face was pressed to his bare chest, and the clean scent of her hair filled his nostrils.
“We failed, you know,” she finally said, glancing up at him and offering an impish smile.
“Failed? And here I thought we’d scored perfect tens last night.”
She blushed, then laughed. “I wasn’t talking about that.”
“I hope not!”
“But we didn’t manage to stay uninvolved.”
“No kidding,” he agreed. How could he ever live without her? How had he survived such a lonely past?
She looked over to the bedside clock and groaned, throwing an arm over her forehead theatrically. “I’d better get up before Lindsay comes running in here with all kinds of questions.”
Jake grinned boyishly. “You’re ashamed of me.”
“No, counselor,” she said, rolling her tongue in the corner of her cheek, “but I’m not up to explaining the situation to a curious five-year-old. However, if you’d like to fill her in on the facts of life—” she waved the fingers of one hand “—be my guest.”
“I think I’ll pass on that one.”
“I thought so.”
Stretching, he finally released her and watched as she slid out of bed, then snatched her clothes from the chair near the closet. He loved the length of her thighs, the round curve of her hips, the nip of her waist, the way her breasts swung free. Unconsciously seductive as she pulled her sweater over her head, shook her hair free and slid into her jeans, Kimberly finished dressing, and Jake finally closed his eyes so that he could resist the urge to jump out of bed, grab her and throw her back across the rumpled sheets again.
What was the matter with him? He’d been with more than his share of women in his life. But never had he felt this insatiable urge to claim one again and again. He’d gotten bored before. He knew that this woman with her quick wit and dimpled smile would always interest him. And he realized, with a shock that rocked him to his bones, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. With Robert Fisher’s ex-wife.
Groaning, he covered his face with a pillow. What had gotten into him?
He tossed off the pillow just to catch the movement of her backside as she walked out of the room.
Springing from the bed, he headed straight for the cool, healing spray of the shower. He considered calling her into the bathroom and stripping her beneath the misting rivulets of hot, running water, but discarded the idea. Though he could imagine her giggling with delight, he could also picture Lindsay waking up and walking in at just the wrong moment. Frowning, he twisted on the water.
Nope, he wasn’t ready to explain his personal sexual fantasies to an inquisitive five-year-old. He stepped into the shower and felt the needles of water against his back.
And what about Lindsay? If he wanted Kimberly, he’d end up with her daughter as well. They were a package deal. He, who’d sworn never to become a parent again, he, who would do just about anything to avoid the inevitable pain of fatherhood, was considering changing all his convictions and opening himself up to being a husband and father again.
“God dammit,” he muttered to himself, frustrated by his predicament. Maybe all these feelings would go away. When Fisher was caught and Lindsay was secure with Kimberly, Jake might have a chance to live his life the way he had before she’d shown up at his office, her black coat billowing around her, her gorgeous blue-green eyes searching his very soul.
A few minutes later, while buckling his belt, he heard the sound of footsteps padding across the oak floor of the bedroom. Glancing over his bare shoulder, he spied Lindsay staring at him curiously from the doorway.
“Good morning,” he said as she gave him the once-over.
“Mornin’.”
“You hungry?”
“Why’re we still here?”
“What?”
Her little brows drew together, and she stuck out her lower lip. “I thought we were going home last night.”
“It was too late.”
She looked as if she didn’t believe him, but she thought about it and changed the subject. “Why don’t you have a Christmas tree?” she demanded.
Jake’s jaw grew rock hard. He hadn’t put up a tree since Sam had died. The trappings and festivities associated with the holidays had seemed frivolous and pointless without Sam’s bright eyes and laughter. “I guess I just haven’t gotten around to it,” he evaded.
She tilted her little chin upward. “I’ll help.”
“Will you?” Jake grinned, charmed despite his own warnings not to get too close to this little blond imp. “Sounds like a plan to me!”
“We can do it right now. Mommy’s making breakfast.” With that, she took off down the hall, and Jake, dumbfounded, wiped the remainder of the shaving cream from his face.
Lindsay was right. Kimberly was making breakfast. Her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she moved around his kitchen as if she’d done it for years.
Jake crossed his arms over his chest, propping a shoulder against the wall and watched her work. Waffles browned in the waffle iron, coffee perked on the stove and sausage simmered in a frying pan. The kitchen was filled with a sense that tantalized and brought back memories he’d tried to keep in the back of his mind. As he stared at Kimberly cracking eggs into another frying pan, he remembered his wife.
There had been a time when Lydia had taken time for the family and cooked a large Sunday breakfast. But that time, when she’d loved him and wanted to deal with Sam, had been brief.
“Come on!” Lindsay cried. She’d found her coat and boots and was heading for the back door.
Kimberly smiled as she looked over her shoulder. “Don’t tell me,” she said, “you’ve been drafted into hunting down a tree.”
“I already have one,” Jake replied.
“Where?” Lindsay stared pointedly at the barren living room.
“Out here.” He opened the door to the back porch, and Lupus dashed through, startling a cat creeping under the rhododendron bushes flanking the house and giving loud chase. The cat sprinted to the nearest maple tree and scrambled upward while Lupus pawed and barked at the trunk, his tail whipping behind him, his paws sliding on the rough bark.
“He’s silly!” Lindsay proclaimed.
“Very,” Jake agreed, calling to the dog. “Lupus, here!” He slapped his leg loudly, but the shepherd wouldn’t be distracted and whined loudly. “He’ll give up,” Jake confided to Lindsay.
“When?”
Jake considered. “Probably by
the spring thaw. Come on, let’s tackle that tree.”
While Kimberly finished making breakfast, Jake pulled the little potted pine tree from his back porch into the living room. He found an old string of lights with only a few burned-out bulbs and a box of ornaments, and though the decorations were a little worn, the tree did add a festive touch to the room.
Lindsay wasn’t convinced the tree would do. “You need new stuff,” she said, eyeing a broken decoration. “Lots of it. And a bigger tree.”
“Next year,” he said, swinging her off her feet. She squealed happily, then slid to the floor.
“Arlene will get you one,” Lindsay exclaimed.
“Maybe we should ask her before you go making promises,” he said, moving back to the kitchen.
“Here, you deserve this,” Kimberly said, handing him an enamel mug filled with coffee. Her eyes were the color of a tropical sea, and her lips puckered into a little grin.
He took a sip, nearly burned his tongue and asked, “So, what’s gotten into you? Why are you Ms. Domesticity?”
“Merely paying off my debt, Mr. McGowan,” she said. “Remember? This is the weekend I work for you. After that, it’s all over.”
Jake grinned wickedly. “In that case I’ll have to see that you don’t waste a second.”
She laughed. “Go ahead. I’m sure I can handle anything you dish out.”
His eyes sparkled. “We’ll see about that.”
“I hate to admit it, but I’m not worried in the least bit,” she said, plucking a long pine needle from his freshly washed hair. “You and Lindsay better sit and eat before breakfast gets cold. Oh—and by the way—while you were in the shower—”
“Yes.” He took a swallow from his cup.
“The phone rang and I answered it. Some man—Koski, I think his name was—wants you to call him back.”
Jake’s muscles tensed. “Ron Koski?”
“That was it,” she said, nodding. “He seemed rather insistent. Said he might be taking off for a few days. I left the message on your desk.”