“Did you find something?”
Jake looked up and Megan’s breath hitched in her throat. His eyes had a paralytic effect on her. Here in the gloomy shadows of the cellar, their versatile hue took on a shade similar to the gritty earth that lurked at the corners of the rock foundation.
She swallowed down the effect. “What—what did you find?”
“Have you ever seen pictures of Gabrielle when she was young?”
“No.” Megan scanned the layer of shelves with musty bindings stacked in disorganized piles. “I haven’t had a chance to go through anything down here. Actually, I felt it would be intrusive of me.”
Jake cocked an eyebrow. “That’s your polite way of saying that I’m nosing around in something I shouldn’t be?”
Curious enough to tempt the fates and step closer, she broached the path of the flashlight. “No. Well—yes. Well, no, if they’re your relatives.” Her hand flipped helplessly at his growing amusement. “What did you find?” She stepped into the glow.
In silent invitation, Jake shifted to make enough room for her to sit beside him and benefit from the weakening ray of the flashlight. Megan glanced at the gritty floor, and then at the extensive legs splayed across it. For an instant, she hesitated. Curiosity won out over discomfort, and in a nimble move, she dropped down beside him. Interest piqued, she bowed her head over the book.
“Let me see.” It felt awkward leaning in so close to Jake, close enough to breathe in the scent of detergent and soap.
Aside from the clothes, he must have used the basin and the Ivory bar to wash up. Jake smelled clean and masculine and she drew in that aroma like it was a bed of flowers in this musky sea.
A woman’s magnetic eyes, even in black and white, drew Megan from the tempting scent of Jake’s neck to the face in the photo.
“Oh—my,” she whispered.
Jake nodded, close enough that the gesture brushed her hair. “Exactly. You can offer an unbiased opinion,” he said. “Do you see any similarity?”
Earnest in his need for her judgment, Jake looked at her. When their eyes met, Megan held her breath. She knew if she expelled it, it would dust across the full lips that were only two inches away from hers. Jake must have made the same observation. His gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered there.
“Hmm?” The hum vibrated through her.
“I said do you see any resemblance?”
She wrenched her glance to the glum woman in the book. The similarity was there, although not blatant. Even in black and white, Gabrielle’s long hair looked flaxen; her face ashen in contrast to what seemed a natural tan on Jake. Pale eyes were void of the myriad bursts of color that gave Jake so much character, but aside from those dissimilarities, there was the rugged protrusion of cheekbones. On Gabrielle’s frail countenance they seemed harsh, but on Jake, the stark planes and square jaw served to give him a determined mien, the tense look of one in charge.
“Yes, I see some resemblance.”
“Just some?” He sounded disappointed.
Megan forced herself to look again. On the few occasions that she had met Gabrielle Wakefield, she recalled gray hair cut into a pageboy and a thin face with a quick smile. There were signs of illness, shadows where flushed skin should have been, but from what Megan could recall, Gabrielle had tried her hardest to secret those signs. Fluffy scarves around a thin neck, droopy hats to shade weary eyes, all layers of camouflage.
The woman in this picture still had her youth, yet after all these years, the sadness in her pale gaze had never dissipated. Megan wondered if someone would look back at pictures of her someday and think the same thing.
“Okay, yes. I see similarities. The facial structure. Though her eyes are pale and your eyes are—” Megan swallowed when she looked into those cascades of color, “—are different. But you can see that they’re shaped the same. Almost an almond effect.”
“Different?” A scuff of a boot and the shift of a long leg had Jake resting his head back against the cinderblock wall, though still watching her. “What do you mean different?”
“But Gabrielle never had any more children. Supposedly she couldn’t.” She disregarded his question.
Jake frowned. “Says who?”
“Harriet. Who claims to have heard it directly from Gabrielle many years ago.”
“I don’t know.” He touched the face on the yellowed page and then snapped the book shut. “I just go by what I see, and the note of a woman I never met. If she was barren…” he ran a hand through hair that was still wet, and Megan noticed a furrow of frustration spike across his forehead, “…why did she send that letter?”
There was already enough mystery in Megan’s life. The last thing she needed was more unanswered questions. But the earnest way Jake clutched that book, like it was a link to a past he had not been privy to, tugged at her and she became caught up in his quest. Anything to soften that frown, to bring back the sexy grin that made her heart beat in triple time.
A year of seclusion—that was the only way to explain her reaction to this man.
“Well, let’s look around some more.”
Narrowed eyes stared her down. “Wait a minute.” Jake leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Did you just offer assistance?”
Self-conscious now, she hoisted to her feet and dusted off the rear of her jeans, uneasy when Jake’s eyes stayed glued to that region.
“We’re not doing anything else,” she observed.
Something in Jake’s brash gaze told Megan he had plenty of things in mind they could do to pass the time. She cocked her head and smirked. “Unless you’d rather try your luck with the car again.”
In a slow ascent, Jake rose. When he reached his full height he looked down with a frank perusal, an assessment that left Megan flushed over every inch of her body.
“I rather enjoyed that,” he said.
So did I, she thought. So did I.
All they were able to produce in the next few hours was a Victory Cove High School yearbook dated 1973. Gabrielle Wakefield was there, horn-rimmed glasses and all, but no accolades were listed. No school participation was heralded. There was just a name and somber colorless eyes.
Stiff from his hunched position and the chronic coldness trapped in the cellar, Jake reached an arm behind his neck, trying to stretch out.
“So, what have we learned?” he managed over a yawn. “She was the only daughter of Jonathan and Estelle Wakefield, born into money from the Wakefield boating empire. She went to high school, but I can’t find any record of a college.”
Jake watched Megan rise on to her toes and stretch to reach the top shelf. He was tired, but not too tired to appreciate the long legs, and more fascinating, the determination.
“If Jonathan Wakefield is your grandfather, he and his family were pretty famous around here. I think they sold off Wakefield Boats over fifty years ago, if I’ve heard correctly. Actually, I once saw a Wakefield boat down in the harbor. They were like Chris-Craft boats—all polished wood. Class.”
Seeing Megan’s nose stuck in a book, Jake prompted, “Anything else?”
She swatted at a chain of cobwebs. “Not much more than that. But—” she waved a folded letter like a trump card, “—Gabrielle seems to have had a boyfriend.”
“Well, you make it sound like she was a leper. I would hope she had several.”
“No, no,” Megan defended, offering Jake the yellowed note. “The way the sources of Victory Cove told the tale, Gabrielle was alone her whole life—simply existing to do her mother’s bidding.”
If that were true it sounded like a miserable existence, he thought.
He took the letter, careful not to touch Megan’s fingers in the process. He was just liable to grab her hand and yank her against him.
“Okay, so—” He lost his train of thought as the words flowed before him.
Jake recognized the bold handwriting, somewhat neater than the letter he had received. This was the precise script of a young lady
. Also recognizable was the heart that spilled into Gabrielle’s words. Here was a plea written to a man, a man who disappeared, a man she begged to return with fluid, grief-stricken sentences. What truly grabbed his attention, though, was the closing sentence, They took him away. Don’t you go too.
It was a letter that apparently was never sent.
“Poor woman,” he whispered.
Megan dropped a stack of notebooks back on the shelf and flinched from the billow of dust. “They took him away…” Her words hung heavy in the tomblike basement.
“Yeah. So there was a man, and he could be my—” Now he was getting carried away.
Megan heard that slip of the tongue, and her eyes turned round with sympathy.
“That’s a possibility.”
“Albeit, a small one.”
“Yes.” She followed the motion of him tucking the letter into his shirt pocket and never once protested that it was personal property.
“One that we will check into, but not now. This is heavy stuff and you need to rest up on it. And I’m—” her hand smothered a yawn, “—I’m beat.”
That much was evident. Jake was concerned by the smudges of fatigue under her eyes, and the fact that even after she smiled, the corners of her lips slipped down into a cheerless stripe.
But he was making progress. He was gaining ground on the doe that watched him with its dogged gaze. He felt that he had just been permitted a step closer to the graceful animal—that if he held his hand out, she might lean forward out of curiosity to touch him. If he was patient, maybe he could find out what Megan Summers was hiding.
Flouted bulbs did little to enhance the room. All they did was expose faded wallpaper, a floral pattern that had wilted into a smeared mixture of glue and paint. Despite Megan’s affirmation that she kept the linens clean, Jake sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, expecting the thin bedspread to disintegrate beneath his touch.
Rain battered a window behind yellow-stained curtains, a monotonous drone that he’d grown accustomed to. The rhythm of the downpour seemed intrinsic to the house as if on a perfectly sunny day it would still be heard.
The passion of his quest still pumped strong in his veins. He was certain he had found his birth mother, and the thirst for knowledge minimized the harsh surroundings. He stretched across the bed, propping a pillow that still retained the faint scent of detergent beneath his head. He grinned. Megan did indeed keep the sheets clean.
Thinking of her only two doors away staved off his need for sleep. What an enigmatic female she was, but eccentricity seemed to come hand in hand with being a resident of Victory Cove.
Megan had said she was a writer, but the image didn’t suit her. Perhaps he was too quick to label, but he considered writers true romantics at heart. In Megan he saw an analytical detachment that contradicted that impression.
Heck, what did he know? As if he had a romantic bone in his body.
Jake tried to drag his thoughts away from Megan. He tried not to imagine her alone in bed, tangled in sheets, glorious dark hair fanned across the pillow as she listened to the rain just as he did. Instead, he focused on what he had learned about Gabrielle Wakefield.
Could she really be his mother?
Sara must be going crazy with curiosity. He had to call her tomorrow. It was impossible to use the cell phone here. If the bridge was still out, he would have to use Megan’s phone.
It irked Jake that he hoped the bridge would still be out.
Perhaps he had drifted off to sleep, but the primeval scream that beset Wakefield House launched Jake to his feet. Disoriented in the dark, it took a moment to get his bearings. With a predatory stillness, he waited for the sound to repeat.
There it was. A muffled yell, agonizing enough to give him chills and make him suspect Megan’s analogy that the wind was a female ghost, pleading for mercy. He hauled open the door and felt his way blindly through the jet-black hall. The very real scream that followed had Jake surging through the bleak chasm, reaching Megan’s room with little to go on but instinct.
Inside, the somber glow of a nightlight was enough to reveal Megan in the throes of a nightmare. Blankets twisted between legs that jerked and arms that pumped, as even in slumber she tried to flee. Her head tossed from side to side in denial until another moan of terror surfaced on her lips.
Afraid to touch her and become a physical part of her tormented dream, instead Jake reached Megan’s bedside and gently spoke her name.
When there was no response, he tried with more urgency. “Megan.”
She writhed and swatted at an unseen force, but did not react to the sound of her name.
“Megan.” Jake touched her.
The move was nimble and wholly unexpected. He didn’t know what had happened until he found himself staring down the thin barrel of a 9mm. White fingers wrapped around the handle and held the weapon with unerring precision at his chest.
“Whoa!” He jerked back. “Easy now, it’s just me.”
It seemed that declaration did little to ease the wild torture in her eyes.
“Look.” Oddly intrigued by this unforeseen attack, yet at the same time concerned for his safety, Jake took a deep breath. “If you’re trying to keep me out of your bed—” he inched back a step, “—it’s working.”
For a moment all that could be heard was Megan’s erratic breathing. The gun remained fixed on him as he felt perspiration bead on his forehead. The steely conviction in Megan’s eyes made him believe she could truly pull the trigger. She was no writer. She was a psycho.
With one wretched groan, she deflated. Her arm plummeted like a fallen branch and her finger relaxed. The automatic dropped with a thud on the hardwood floor as Jake jumped back, afraid of the recoil from the jarring fall. It wobbled and fell still, and only then did Jake look up to see that Megan’s once-defiant glance now vanished.
Quivers claimed her slim shoulders. There were no tears, no physical evidence other than that revealing tremble.
“Whoa, hey…” Confident that the gun was out of her range, Jake took a step and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. He didn’t touch her, but Megan seemed heedless of his presence. Her head fell low and she twisted her hands in the tangle of sheets.
“It’s okay.” He dipped to look into her eyes, and even in the dim glow from the nightlight, the bleakness there wrenched at him. “It was just a nightmare, right?” Jake’s head snapped up. “Or did you hear something?”
Outside there was nothing but the steady drone of rain. Inside, the house offered up muffled conversation in hushed creaks and groans.
Megan shook her head. “No,” she whispered, “I didn’t hear anything.”
Jake bent over and wrapped his fingers around the 9mm and brought it up to rest on his thigh, staring at it as if it were a ray gun dropped from a spaceship. Again he looked at Megan. She was completely drained, collapsed against the headboard, staring blindly at the window.
Jake reached up and touched her cheek, but she did not respond—did not even flinch—she acted like she hadn’t felt him at all.
“Megan,” he whispered, “look at me.”
Nothing.
“Megan.” His voice softened. “Please look at me.”
Shadowed swirls of midnight engulfed him as if the Atlantic had surged toward shore and hauled him into its maelstrom. For a moment he was tempted to run—to out-swim the advancing waves, but even stronger was the urge to take Megan into his arms.
Jake’s touch dropped to her arm, and other than a slight jerk of the limb, she disregarded the contact.
“I’m going to do something right now that you may not like.” He paused, but Megan didn’t react. “You have to promise not to shoot me.”
It was impossible not to detect the tremor that charged through her body. Jake waited for Megan to respond, yet her bleak eyes continued to stare straight through him.
“Megan.” He leaned forward, closer, till he was lost in that heady scent of citrus. And then she was in
his arms.
Chapter Seven
There was no greater source of adrenaline than standing on the forty-first story of a skyscraper with just a slim slip of scaffolding beneath your feet and the dynamic city below. At least, nothing compared to that until this moment. There was a similar triumph in feeling Megan submit to his touch. Her surrender as she surged into his arms and linked her wrists behind his neck caused an Olympic sense of victory.
She seemed desperate, burrowing her face into the crook of his collarbone. His arms tightened about her, so much so that he felt every tremble, every shudder against his chest as she hiccupped and then held her breath.
“Easy now,” Jake whispered into her hair. “Easy, it’s okay.” His lips brushed those silken strands and then dusted across her forehead.
Megan stilled in his embrace, but her face stayed lodged against his neck. He could feel soft puffs of air against his skin and liked to imagine that her lips touched him there.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly, his palm flat on her back, moving slowly up and down.
Against his neck her head shook, and this time he was sure her lips touched his skin. Granted, it probably wasn’t intentional, but regardless, with her body draped across his lap and her arms wound around him, the effect she had on him was becoming quite evident.
It was dark. They were in bed, wrapped in an aura of citrus and rain. Jake wanted to tip her head back and taste her mouth. He wanted to kiss her till the fear fled her eyes.
“Megan.”
Perhaps his voice had been too husky. It broke through to the woman in his arms, and she drew back.
It was the deep rustle of his voice that roused her. A timbre full of gravelly need. Megan didn’t want to leave this sanctuary, this haven of warm masculinity, where the sturdy beat of Jake’s heart kept her from losing herself to the nightmare.
Jake enveloped her in a way that made her feel protected. The comforting trek of his hand as it slipped down her spine, the soft whispers of assurance in her hair, the taste of his throat when her lips dusted across it.
Endless Night Page 7