Summer Vows (Arabesque)

by Alers, Rochelle

  The house was eerily silent as she turned on the single-cup automatic coffeemaker, dropped in a pod for a rich dark roast. Placing a large mug under the unit, she pushed a button. The aroma of brewing coffee wafted in the kitchen as she opened the refrigerator and took out a container of milk. The brew cycle ended and Ana added a generous amount to the coffee, then sugar. Stirring the mixture, Ana placed the mug into the microwave to warm it. The beeping sound echoed loudly and as she reached for the mug she felt movement behind her.

  She froze, her fingers tightening around the handle of the mug. “Jacob? Is that you?”

  A soft chuckle caressed her ear. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  Turning, she saw him standing a few feet away. She forced her gaze not to stray below his neck. His body was so beautifully proportioned that her mouth went suddenly dry. He wore a pair of navy-blue-and-white striped pajama pants that rode low on his slim hips. “Oh...oh, no,” she said hastily. “I couldn’t sleep so I came down to make coffee.”

  Crossing muscled arms over a furred chest, Jacob angled his head. “I thought you said you were tired.”

  She knew she’d been caught in a lie and there was no way she could extricate herself except substitute that lie with another one. “I said that because I didn’t want to impose on you.”

  Jacob lowered his arms and stared at the petite woman in a skimpy cotton nightgown ending at her knees. Her tiny compact body was definitely a turn-on. He smiled when noticing the bright pink polish on her groomed toes. “How would you be imposing?”

  Ana lifted a bare shoulder. “You’ve made it quite known that I’ve ruined your vacation, so instead of compounding it I decided to make myself scarce.”

  He took a step, bringing them less than a foot apart. “Do you think hiding out in your bedroom is making yourself scarce? Even if I didn’t see you every hour, I’d still know you’re here.”

  With wide eyes, she said, “I bother you that much?”

  A smile softened the angles in his face. “No, Princess. You’re not a bother.”

  “Then what am I?”

  “You’re a reminder of how much I’ve cut myself off from the real world. I go to work, do what has to be done, then go to the gym to workout. After that I come home to shower off the reminder that I’m responsible for people who’re locked up because they’ve committed unspeakable acts. After that I flop down in front of the television to watch a number of news channels and then it’s ESPN for a few hours. I go to bed and then get up and do it all over again. If I’m not at a game, I may drive up to Winter Haven to visit my mother. So, you’re not a bother but a welcome distraction.”

  Ana cradled the mug, enjoying the warmth seeping into her palms. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never a distraction.”

  “Don’t forget I said a welcome distraction.” He peered down into her mug. “That looks like milk.”

  “It’s café con leche. Are you familiar with it?”

  Jacob nodded. “My friend’s grandmother used to make it for me.”

  “Would you like to share mine? There’s enough here for two.”

  “Seguro. Conseguiré otra taza.”

  She placed the mug on the cooking island, staring at the broad expanse of Jacob’s shoulders and back. She wanted to tell him he should be arrested for looking so deliciously sexy. “I can’t believe how well you speak Spanish.”

  “It helps whenever I’m on the job.”

  “Exactly what it is you do as a marshal?”

  Jacob retrieved a cup from an overhead cabinet and poured some of the café con leche from Ana’s mug into it. “I used to be assigned to the Violent Crime Fugitive Task Force before I was promoted to an administrative position.”

  “Do you miss not being in the field?”

  He smiled. “Somewhat. Come with me. We can sit in the family room and talk.”

  The ball game had gone into extra innings and it was almost 12:30 a.m. when he’d finally turned off the television. After checking on Baron, who slept outside on the deck, he came back inside, activated the security system and took a shower. Jacob was already in bed when he detected the smell of brewing coffee. Slipping into a pair of pajama pants, he headed in the direction of the kitchen, surprised to find Ana there.

  She’d admitted to not wanting to bother him when he wanted to tell her she did bother him in the worse way. Having her live under his roof was a constant reminder that it had been a long time since a woman had crossed the threshold to where he lived. Even in Miami he’d endured long droughts without female companionship. Jacob wasn’t certain whether he was getting old, in a funk, or that his outlook on life had changed wherein he didn’t want to contend with a merry-go-round of women in his life.

  He’d had one or two serious relationships, but none progressed to the point where he considered marriage. He knew his mother was concerned that she would die without him giving her grandchildren; however, his comeback was that she had four other sons who could fulfill her most reverent wish. Her response shocked Jacob when she stated that her husband’s sons were not her flesh and blood.

  He didn’t know what had made him so reluctant to commit, because his parents’ marriage was filled with overt displays of love and affection. And if they did argue or disagree it was never when he was present. Stephen Jacob Jones’s sage advice was: always let the woman believe she’s right even if she isn’t. After a while she’ll realize she was wrong even if she won’t openly admit it. That advice had made for a solid marriage for twenty-one years.

  Touching a wall switch, the family room was awash in a soft glow from recessed ceiling light. The space had become his sanctuary. Someplace where he could relax and forget about everything going on outside. Something he wasn’t able to do at his Miami apartment. The noise from pedestrian and vehicular traffic and the wail of sirens from emergency vehicles was a constant reminder that he lived in a thriving metropolitan city.

  Here in the Keys the order of the day was to kick back and let the world pass leisurely by.

  * * *

  Ana stared at the room with a leather seating grouping, a large flat screen mounted above a fireplace, two walls with built-in bookshelves crowded with books, and a large colorful jukebox filled with CDs. Another corner near the sliding glass doors held a pool table, dart board and portable bar. A large Tiffany-style light fixture was suspended above the pool table. There was even a popcorn machine.

  “Incredible,” she whispered under her breath.

  Jacob gave her startled look. “You like it?”

  She flashed a dimpled smile. “I love it. It’s the perfect sports bar. The only thing missing is peanut shells on the floor.”

  Throwing back his head, he laughed loudly. Here he thought Ana was a girly-girl, but apparently there was another side to her obviously feminine persona. Then he had to remember she was a female doing business in what was deemed a man’s world.

  “Do you play pool?”

  “I’ve been known to dabble in it.”

  Taking her free hand, Jacob steered Ana to the sofa, easing her to sit before he sat beside her. Pulling up her legs, she pressed the soles of her feet against his thigh. “That noncommittal answer tells me you do.”

  “Let me warn you that I only play for money.”

  He took a sip of the perfectly brewed milk and coffee, staring at her over the rim. “I don’t think so, Princess. There’s no way I’m going to let you hustle me.”

  She pushed out her lower lip. “You took my credit cards, so I’m going to have to try to get some cash any way I can. How can I shop in Key West if I’m flat broke?”

  “How much do you think you’re going to need?”

  “More than I have on me. And I could get a lot more if I had access to an ATM.”

  Attractive lines fanned out around his dark eyes
when Jacob smiled. “Do you actually believe I’m going to give you back your credit cards?”

  “You can’t blame me for trying. You can call Diego and tell him to send Henri down with some cash.”

  “No.”

  “I may as well be broke.”

  “You’re hardly broke, Ana.”

  “I feel broke.”

  Jacob ruffled her curly hair. “Usted chica rica, pequeña y pobre.”

  Ana swatted his hand. She resented the fact that he’d called her a poor little rich girl. “Does it bother you that I have more money than you do?”

  He shook his head. “Not in the least. If I was concerned about becoming wealthy I never would’ve become a cop.”

  Ana sobered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound condescending and I’m not begrudging you for what you do, because I doubt if I could ever make it in law enforcement. My older brother’s wife is an ex-DEA agent. She said there were times when she was so deep undercover that she actually identified with the people she’d been entrusted to bring down. Summer told me there was a drug dealer who had so much money stashed in a safe house that it was incalculable. She claimed it took two people three days, using a counting machine, to add up the money he’d made from selling two hundred kilos of nearly pure cocaine in a single month.”

  “I’m familiar with a few of those maggots.”

  “Just what do you do?” Ana asked Jacob between sips of coffee.

  “As an assistant director I oversee staff that supervises the U.S. Marshal Service at four Miami federal detention centers.”

  “That’s a lot of responsibility.”

  Jacob nodded. “It is, but it’s a lot less dangerous than chasing down bad guys.”

  “I always thought of directors as older men with receding hairlines and beer guts.”

  “Shame on you, Princess. I never figured you’d be into stereotypes. We only look like that after retirement,” he added, chuckling softly.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “You’re too vain to let yourself go.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Didn’t you say you work out?”

  “I work out to relieve stress. I could always do sit-ups and push-ups at home, but I go to the gym because it has a lap pool.”

  “There’s a pool and health club in the building where I live.”

  “Now that’s convenient.”

  Jacob didn’t know if Ana was boasting that by virtue of her wealth she could have anything within reason. She sent out her laundry, didn’t clean her house and had her dry cleaning and groceries delivered. He didn’t have unlimited funds at his disposal, but at least he could go to sleep at night knowing he earned his salary from doing an honest day’s work.

  He’d grown up with kids who wanted to make fast money and a few of them were either in jail or in the cemetery. Perhaps if Stephen Jacob Jones hadn’t put the fear of God in him that if he did mess up he would make certain to dispense his own brand of justice before turning him over to the proper authorities that kept him on the right road.

  He set his cup on a side table. “Don’t worry about money. I’ll pay for whatever you want when we go shopping.”

  Ana leaned closer to Jacob in order to share his body heat. The air-conditioning in the room was much cooler than her bedroom. “I’ll repay you once this craziness is concluded.”

  “Ana, Ana, Ana,” he intoned. “Let’s not talk about money anymore.”

  “But—”

  “¡Bastante! No más.”

  “Excuse me,” she drawled facetiously.

  “You are excused, sweetheart. Now, can we please talk about something else?”

  She wanted to get up and leave, but didn’t want Jacob to think she was the type to pout or run away. He just didn’t know how independent she actually was. Even as a child she’d always wanted to do things on her own terms. Her favorite childhood catchphrase was “I can do it by myself.” Her mother only had to show her once how to tie her shoes before she’d attempted it herself and got it right. It was the same with learning to swim or ride a bike. Wherein her brothers and sister took swimming lessons Ana decided to jump in and started swimming. Her parents may have thought she was gifted, but the reality was she’d watched and mimicked her older siblings. She’d learned to play the piano and a few other instruments. Fortunately for Ana she did inherit her father’s gift for recognizing exceptional musical talent. What she didn’t have, unlike Gabriel and Jason, was the gift for composing music.

  “How many CDs do you have?” she asked.

  “Probably close to 800.” Jacob pushed off the sofa, walking to the jukebox and punching several buttons before he returned to sit beside Ana, pulling her feet to rest on his thigh. “Your toes are cold.”

  “That’s because it’s cold in here.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  Ana flashed a sexy moue. “It’s cold in here, Jacob.”

  “I’ve programmed the thermostat, but I can always make it warmer for you.”

  “That’s okay. It’s time I go back to bed.”

  Jacob increased his hold on her feet. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

  She went completely still. “What are you going to do?” Ana didn’t have time to react when she found herself scooped off the sofa as Jacob carried her across the room to a door that led into a space no larger than a dorm room. A queen-size bed took up most of the space. “What are you doing?”

  Jacob placed Ana on the bed and covered her with a sheet and blanket. “I’m going to keep you warm while we talk and listen to music.”

  “Wait!” Her protest came too late when he turned on his heels and walked out of the bedroom. She didn’t want to believe she was in the bed of a man she hadn’t known twenty-four hours; a man who’d promised to protect her from someone who wanted her dead. But who, she mused, was going to save her from him?

  Sitting up, she pressed her back to the mound of pillows piled against a brown cordovan leather headboard. The music from the jukebox flowed into the room from speakers concealed in the ceiling. Closing her eyes, Ana felt as if she was in Brazil. The musical selection was a fusion of samba and jazz. Her eyes opened when Jacob returned and touched the dimmer switch on the wall and crawled into bed with her.

  “I thought we weren’t going to sleep together.”

  He pressed a kiss to her hair. “What we are doing is sharing a bed. That’s different from sleeping together.”

  “Same difference,” she drawled.

  Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, Jacob pulled her close to his chest. “Warmer?”

  Ana smiled. “A little, but my feet are still cold.”

  “Do you want a pair of socks?”

  “I wouldn’t need a pair of socks if I was in my own bed.”

  “Put your feet between my legs. Is that better?” Jacob asked after he’d sandwiched her feet with his legs.

  Ana tried making out his expression in the dim light. “Yes. Thank you.” A beat passed. “I like the selection. It reminds me of Brazil.”

  Jacob rested his chin on the top of her head. “I see you recognize bossa.”

  “It’s very distinctive.”

  He shifted into a more comfortable position when Ana rested her head on his shoulder. “That’s a country I would like to visit.”

  “You could if you decide to come with me to Salvador da Bahia.”

  “Is that where your cousin lives?”

  “Sí. She and her husband own a coffee plantation in the mountains. It’s beautiful and primordial. I went there for Carnivale and partied so hard that I needed a vacation when I came back to the States.”

  Jacob played with the short curls clinging to Ana’s scalp. “Do you want me to call Diego and tell him you want to go there?”

 
“No,” Ana said much too quickly. “Even though I love Regina to death, there wouldn’t be much for me to do there by myself. And I doubt that at fifty-something and a grandmother that she’d want to hang out at night.”

  “What does her husband do?”

  “Aaron’s a pediatric microbiologist. He was born in the States, but raised in Brazil. He inherited the plantation from his aunt. It sounds kinky, but Regina was married to Aaron’s father first. Theirs was a marriage in name only because she was nineteen and he was close to seventy.”

  “Damn! Talk about robbing the nursery.”

  Ana gave Jacob a playful tap on his shoulder. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Your family must have a lot of drama.”

  Smiling, she closed her eyes. “You just don’t know the half of it. The Coles put the d in drama. It began with my grandfather cheating on my grandmother with his young secretary, and it was rumored that she’d set out to seduce him. When she discovered she was carrying his baby his chief financial officer offered to marry her and pass the baby off as his. It got real grimy when Teresa confronted my abuela, who was also pregnant at the time, boasting that both were carrying the same man’s baby.”

  “That’s drama taken to the ninth degree,” Jacob drawled.

  “You’ve got that right. That single act nearly destroyed my family. My grandparents were estranged for years even though they lived under the same roof. After they reconciled my father was born.”

  “I’ve heard that make-up sex is the best.”

  “You’ve heard or you know for a fact?”

  “Sorry, baby, but I’m going to plead the Fifth. By the way, whatever happened to your father’s half brother?”

  “Joshua had remained the Coles’ best kept secret until he turned seventeen. His mother approached my grandfather for the first time because she needed his help getting Uncle Josh into West Point. That’s when my father, uncle and aunts discovered they had a half brother. Daddy said it wasn’t easy for Joshua, because everyone blamed his mother for the affair when Abuelo was just as guilty. After all, he was a married man. Josh was about thirty before he was totally accepted as a Cole.”