The Friendship Barrier

by Penny Jordan

  ‘I don’t honestly know,’ Stephanie admitted. ‘I just know that…’ She broke off as Brice came back into the kitchen, frowningly worried. ‘We’d better start back for Miami. The forecast isn’t so good. We’re due to catch the tail end of Elaine later on this afternoon. Nothing to worry about,’ he hurriedly reassured Hollie. ‘You’ll be fine here, but heavy storms are forecast and the road between here and the main highway isn’t too good.’

  As he spoke, Stephanie glanced at her watch. ‘We would have had to start back soon anyway. We’ve got to pick Jake up at three.’

  Stephanie diplomatically headed for the car, leaving Brice and Hollie alone to say their goodbyes. Although she liked the American girl, meeting her had reinforced her own heartache, making her all too aware that Jake would never look at her the way Brice looked at Hollie.

  As they drove away from the house thunder rumbled warningly in the distance, vivid flashes of lightning tearing apart the heavy grey clouds now lining the horizon. Inside the car, Brice turned off the air conditioning as the temperature suddenly dropped sharply, and started to whistle tunelessly between his teeth.

  The storm clouds spread so quickly that one moment it was light and the next it was almost dark, only the rapid-fire lightning providing any illumination.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Brice muttered, hurriedly switching on his windscreen wipers as the rain started. Stephanie had never seen rain like it. It fell earthwards in straight sheets, so heavy that the windscreen wipers simply could not cope. The road they were travelling was a minor one whose maintenance was the responsibility of the township, and which had suffered some damage during the spring in similar storms. The area they were driving through was still partially swamp, and Stephanie remembered admiring the mango trees lining the road as they drove down it. Now she could only catch glimpses of them when the lightning forked. Brice had slowed down to a crawl because of the density of the rain, and later, Stephanie realised that this was probably what saved them from a fatal accident. She was just glancing at her watch, worrying about whether they would make it back to Miami in time to pick Jake up when she heard thunder rumble deafeningly overhead. Lightning followed, lighting up the road ahead, striking right into the heart of a huge tree.

  Stephanie knew she must have cried out in shocked fear because she heard Brice’s tense response. The car skidded on the wet road as he braked, and she closed her eyes only opening them when the abrupt cessation of movement jerked her head against the windscreen.

  ‘Stephanie, are you okay?’

  Brice sounded as shaken as she felt.

  ‘Fine,’ she assured him, touching trembling fingers to her forehead. No doubt, she would have a bruise there tomorrow, right now, all that mattered was that they were both alive and unhurt.

  ‘We can’t go on,’ Brice told her. ‘That falling tree’s blocked the road and it’s the only one out of town. We’ll have to go back. I’ll ring Jake from the house and explain what’s happened. God, that was a near miss.’ The shock was still in his voice, and Stephanie shivered in response to it, trying to make her tense body relax as he restarted the car and carefully reversed it over the wet road.

  Stephanie had never been as relieved to see anything in her life as the lights of Brice’s house when they eventually drew up outside it, unless it had been Jake that night two years ago when…

  ‘Brice… Stephanie… my God, what’s happened to you?’ Hollie ushered them inside, exclaiming in concern as she saw how shocked they were.

  ‘Take Stephanie upstairs and let her bathe her forehead,’ Brice told her. ‘I’ve got to ring Miami and get in touch with Jake.’

  As he picked up the phone, Stephanie lingered in the living room, aching to hear Jake’s voice and yet not daring to ask if she could speak to him.

  ‘I’ll be able to get him at the lawyers’,’ Brice explained as he punched a number into the receiver, ‘this shouldn’t take long. I’ll tell him not to expect us until the morning.’

  Stephanie heard him speaking to someone, and asking for Jake. Seconds passed, and then she heard Brice saying, ‘Jake? Yeah, it’s Brice. Look, I’m at my place and Stephanie’s here with me. We’re spending the night here, the road…’ He broke off, holding the receiver away from him so that Stephanie could hear the fuzzy static. ‘Damn it all to hell, the phone lines are down… Never mind,’ he comforted her, ‘at least Jake knows where you are and that you’re safe.’

  ‘My goodness, you’re certainly going to have a bruise there,’ Hollie exclaimed ten minutes later as she examined the already darkening skin round Stephanie’s hairline. ‘Thank God Brice wasn’t driving any faster.’

  Stephanie shuddered. ‘I know… I keep seeing that tree falling and thinking that we could have been under it.’

  ‘Well, you’re both safe now. The worst of the storm’s past, and the road should be cleared by morning. Brice is going to report that it’s blocked, and when he comes back I’ll make us all some supper. I’m afraid none of the bedrooms are exactly comfortable at the moment, but we can offer you a bed and a duvet. It’s a pity we’re such different heights,’ she added, eyeing Stephanie’s slender height with envious eyes. ‘I can’t see you getting into any of my clothes—all I keep here at the moment are working jeans and shirts.’

  ‘My suit will dry out overnight,’ Stephanie assured her, glancing and grimacing at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her soft silk suit had got soaked in the dash from the car to the house and was now looking creased and crumpled, but having come so close to suffering a major accident, she couldn’t feel particularly concerned about the condition of her clothers.

  Supper was a rather subdued meal. Brice had reported the fallen tree and confirmed that it would be moved by morning, and when she had helped with the supper dishes, Stephanie excused herself, wanting to leave Brice and Hollie alone.

  As she showered in the bathroom of her bedroom, she examined her bruised forehead, wincing slightly. There were other bruises on her body, faint discolourations which she knew had not come from the accident and a low ache started up in the pit of her stomach. What was Jake doing right now? She mustn’t think about him, she told herself, she must accept that he could no longer be part of her life. ‘Tonight we’ll talk’ he had told her. She sighed. What was there left for them to talk about that would not cause him guilt and her pain?

  Sliding into bed, she paused to check the time on her watch; Brice hadn’t said what time they would leave in the morning, but no doubt Hollie would wake her.

  * * *

  ‘How are you feeling this morning? I feel as though I’ve gone ten rounds with the world champ,’ Brice commented, flexing his neck. ‘There isn’t a muscle in my body that doesn’t ache.’

  ‘I feel the same way,’ Stephanie admitted. ‘I suppose stopping like that jolted us both more than we knew.’

  ‘You’re both lucky to get off as lightly as you did,’ Hollie told them, adding ‘My, but that’s a fine bruise you’ve got Steph… a little lower and you’d have a lovely black eye.’

  ‘The phone still isn’t working, so I think I’ll drive you straight to the villa,’ Brice told Stephanie. ‘Even if Jake didn’t make it back there yesterday, it’s where your clothes are, and we can always ring Miami from there to find out where he is.’

  They set off half an hour later, and Stephanie grimaced as she looked down at her crumpled silk suit. She had managed to shampoo and dry her hair, thanks to Hollie’s offer of the loan of a hairdryer, but the other girl’s skin was much darker than hers and so the only make-up she was wearing was her lipstick. The shock of the accident had left her looking washed out and listless, the livid bruise on her forehead all the more noticeable because of her pallor.

  As they drove past the spot where the tree had fallen, a gang of men were just clearing away the final remains, and Stephanie shuddered, averting her eyes.

  ‘There, but for the grace of God…’ Brice murmured. ‘Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?’


  ‘Umm…’ Stephanie glanced at her wrist to check the time and realised that she had left her watch behind.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it back to you,’ Brice promised. He turned on the radio so that they could listen to the news and Stephanie was relieved to hear that the hurricane had changed course during the night and had missed Miami completely.

  ‘Happens that way with hurricanes. Unpredictable things—that’s why they’re always given female names,’ Brice grinned.

  By the time they drew up outside the villa, Stephanie was tense with nervous dread. She wanted to see Jake and yet she didn’t, and then Brice murmured, ‘Well, Jake’s hire car’s here, and it’s been moved, so it looks as though he got back last night.’ He glanced at his watch and frowned. ‘Look, I’d better not come in with you. By rights, I ought to be in my office right now. Tell Jake I’ll ring him later on, will you, and remember Steph, that job offer’s open if you want it.’

  As Stephanie let herself into the villa, Brice was reversing his car. She heard him drive away as she stepped into the living area, almost too weary to put one foot in front of the other. Her head was pounding with pain, and all she wanted to do was to lie down.

  ‘Some night that must have been if he didn’t even want to see you safely inside.’

  ‘Jake!’ Stephanie tensed, as he pushed open the kitchen door, unable to drag her eyes away from the dark fury of his face.

  ‘Why did you do it, Stephanie?’ he demanded savagely, coming towards her. ‘To make sure he offered you that job? Was it as good with him as it was with me? Was it?’ he grated, reaching out and curling his fingers into her hair, pulling her round until her face was in the light.

  ‘My God…’ His fingers touched her bruised face, the look in his eyes so ragingly contemptuous that she had to close her own against it. ‘Is that what you like?’ His voice came from somewhere above her, almost rusty with an emotion she could only interpret as anger. ‘All this time, I’ve been treating you with velvet gloves, and yet you went to him and let him…’

  ‘Jake, please…’ She was almost too exhausted to explain to him.

  ‘Please what? Open your eyes, Stephanie. I want to see what you’re really feeling when you say, “please” to me. Please what ? Let you go so that you can go to him; is that it? You liked what he did to you last night so much you want more?’

  ‘Jake, you don’t understand.’ She couldn’t understand what had got into him; why he should be making such unfounded accusations.

  ‘Oh, I understand all right,’ he told her with soft savagery. ‘I understand that you went from my bed straight to his, and that, by the looks of you, he threw you out of it much the same way that he threw you out of his car. Is that what happened when you were attacked, Stephanie? Did it make it impossible for you to respond to any man who didn’t treat you violently?’

  ‘Jake…’ Her voice was a broken whisper of protest. ‘That’s… that’s a horrible thing to say…’

  ‘Is it ? When I made love to you, you responded to me so passionately that I thought…’

  Dangerbells rang warningly in Stephanie’s mind. Panic stricken by the thought that Jake might be going to say he knew she loved him, she interrupted swiftly, ‘You thought what? That making love to me gave you exclusive rights to me? All right,’ she rushed on recklessly. ‘All right, so I slept with Brice. Why shouldn’t I? You don’t own me, Jake. I’m a free agent. I can…’

  She broke off as she heard someone knocking on the door. Jake thrust her away from him and, as he did so, she noticed that beneath his tan his face seemed to have aged, the lines running from nose to mouth deepening as though he had sustained great pain.

  ‘Perhaps it’s your latest lover, come to make amends,’ Jake taunted throwing open the door.

  To Stephanie’s surprise, it was Hollie who stood there, her smile fading as she looked from Stephanie’s pale face to Jake’s hard one.

  ‘Hi,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Looks like I came at a bad moment, but I’ve brought your watch back Steph. You left it last night and since I had to go shopping, I thought I might as well drop it off on the way. I won’t stop,’ she added. ‘I’m having lunch with Brice so that we can get the final arrangements for the wedding sorted out.’ She handed Stephanie her watch.

  ‘The wedding?’ Without taking his eyes off Stephanie, Jake asked the soft question.

  ‘Yeah, didn’t Brice tell you?’ Hollie queried, whilst Stephanie willed her not to say any more. ‘It’s only a month away now, and we’re working like beavers to get the house we’ve bought ready.’

  ‘The house?’

  ‘Yeah… In Charlotteville. I guess Stephanie hasn’t had a chance to tell you about it yet. I suppose you’re cussing Brice for bringing her out to see me yesterday, but for that she’d have been safe from the storm in Miami. Look, I’ll have to go… but maybe we’ll all be able to get together before you leave?’

  ‘So last night you slept with Brice,’ Jake said softly when Hollie had gone. ‘Now, tell me, what was Hollie doing whilst you were making love to her fiancé?’

  Feeling trapped, Stephanie could only stare at him. How on earth could she manage to explain? As her eyes met Jake’s, she knew there was only one way.

  ‘Jake, I didn’t sleep with Brice, but you seemed so determined to believe that I had that it was easier to…’

  ‘Lie?’ he offered, watching her.

  ‘All right, I did lie. I lied because…’

  ‘Because?’ Jake prompted softly. It was too much for Stephanie. His soft questions were driving her into a trap, as though he already knew what she was trying to hide from him.

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me.’ She took a deep breath and lifted her head, meeting his gaze proudly. ‘To feel that you owed me anything. To think…’

  ‘That because you’d crawled into my bed and made love to me that it meant you actually loved me. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A nerve jumped in his jaw.

  ‘Meaning that it was just a one-off thing, that you don’t want to repeat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah well, as you said to me the other night, there’s only one way to find out if you’re telling the truth.’

  ‘Jake, put me down!’ She gasped out the protest as he moved, too quickly for her to avoid him, picking her up as easily as though she were a child, carrying her determinedly towards and up the stairs.

  In his room, the covers were thrown back from the bed, the pillow still bearing the imprint of his head. He dropped her on to the bed and then followed her there, trapping her struggling body with the superior weight of his.

  ‘Stop fighting me,’ he ordered. ‘If you’re telling the truth you’ve got nothing to fear, have you? I know enough about women to know when one’s responding to me or not, Stephanie.’ His fingers curled round the top of her silk suit, unfastening the small pearl buttons.

  ‘When you told me you had slept with Brice, was it because you wanted to punish me?’

  ‘Jake, please.’ Stephanie ignored his question, trying to push his hands away from her skin. He had peeled back her top completely and was slowly tracing a line along the lacy barrier of her bra, too intent on his journey even to lift his eyes to hers.

  ‘Answer me, Stephanie…’

  ‘Jake, if you don’t stop this, you’ll make me hate you,’ she protested wildly.

  ‘You’ll hate me?’ Now his eyes did lift, a dispassionate interest in their depths as they searched her pale face. ‘You’ll hate this?’ His hand freed her breasts from her bra and caressed their pale softness, ‘and this…’ When he bent his head and touched his mouth to their rosy crests, she breathed in sharply, willing her body against response, but it was useless. She was shaking like a leaf, torn between self-contempt and molten desire. Jake’s hands moved deftly over her body, removing her remaining clothes while she protested feverishly against the intimacy, her fingers clutching
at the lapels of his shirt.

  ‘Jake, I don’t want you to do this.’ She moaned the protest deep in her throat, fighting against the fires he had ignited inside her.

  ‘You don’t? Touch me, Stephanie.’ he murmured. ‘Take my shirt off and touch me as you know you want to.’

  ‘No…’

  But it was no use. Jake’s mouth was exploring the sensitive skin of her throat, his hands caressing her body, and she couldn’t stop herself from sliding her palms into his shirt, from breathing in the male scent of him. Without warning, Jake’s mouth suddenly captured her own, forcing her head back and her lips to part for the deep, thrusting invasion of his tongue. Fire licked through her veins, burning away all restraint, consuming her in a heat that craved more of his touch.

  ‘So you don’t want me?’ Jake murmured, as he released her swollen mouth, stroking it with his tongue, biting gently at the soft contours, ‘and you don’t want this?’ He cupped her breast, the weight of his lower body crushing her back against the mattress as he bent his head, his mouth against her breast, caressing the swelling nipple, the sensually rhythmic movements of his body against hers increasing the sharp hunger rising moltenly through her body, until she was responding mindlessly to it.

  She wanted him so badly. She loved him so much. She trembled as Jake raised his head, knowing that he was looking at her. As he watched her, his thumb stroked caressingly over her nipple, his hand leaving her breast to run slowly along her silky skin to her thigh. The delicate patterns his fingers inscribed against her skin were a subtle form of torture designed purely to make her aware of her own weakness. Against her will, her body arched, clamouring for the heat of his. The rough fabric of his jeans scraped her skin, but Stephanie didn’t heed it. She needed and loved him with an intensity that overrode pride and caution. Her hands tugged away his shirt, her mouth finding the hard warmth of his shoulder and tasting the familiarity of it, and while she kissed him, worshipping him with feverish wild kisses, Jake did nothing. Her hands slid down his body, her fingers curling impatiently into his belt and then tensing.