“Things were different before,” he said and tried to put his arm around her.
Dani pushed his arm away. “How were they different?”
“You had your mother then,” he said.
“No I didn’t!” Dani yelled, her anger spewing forth the second Jake mentioned her mother. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I never had a mother at all. My mother spent less time with me than you have in the last thirteen years. Carla was nothing but a zoned-out cocaine junkie who never gave a damn about anyone but herself!”
Jake grabbed her by the shoulders so fast, Dani didn’t know what hit her. And his face was so close to hers, she could feel his breath when he said, “Don’t you ever talk that way about your mother again! Carla was sick, and she wasn’t strong enough to survive in the world she lived in. But she was still your mother. And whether you believe me or not, if Carla ever loved anyone, it was you!”
Jake pushed her away from him in total disgust. But as fast as he’d pushed her away, Jake pulled her close against his chest. This time, Dani threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. How long she sobbed against Jake’s shoulder, Dani wasn’t sure. She just kept holding on tight, and he just kept rubbing her hair and telling her over and over again that everything was going to be okay.
But Dani didn’t miss the fact that something powerful had just happened between them. Jake had finally acted like a real father, not just some guy who was connected to her by his DNA. A father who loved her. And a father who was now making her his top priority.
By the time Dani stopped crying, she had also come to realize the truth about something else that was very important. She had always wanted a real father and a real home, far more than she’d ever wanted a modeling career.
When Dani stopped crying, Jake reached behind the seat and handed her his golf towel. “Let’s go back home,” he told her. “I can hit golf balls some other time.”
“No,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “It’s too nice out to stay inside all day. We’re going to the driving range.”
She handed him the towel, then turned on the ignition. Jake didn’t argue when she drove the golf cart out onto the cart path. “Pick your battles” was a phrase he was beginning to understand. Things went much smoother when he let Danielle make a few decisions. He’d also gotten to know his daughter well enough to know that as volatile as her temper could be, she wasn’t the type to pout.
Keeping that in mind, Jake waited several more minutes before he said, “Maybe when we get to the driving range you can give me some pointers on my swing. I mean, since you taught Tiger Woods everything he knows.”
He knew he was taking a risk, but he was willing to chance it. The quicker he lightened the mood, the faster he could eliminate any embarrassment Danielle might feel over what had just happened. She looked over at him with her signature eye roll.
“You are such a goof,” she said, telling Jake he’d done the right thing.
When the driving range came into view up ahead, she looked back over at him again. “Just try not to embarrass me when we get to the driving range. Okay?”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” Jake said. “Cross my heart.” He grinned at her and made the gesture across his chest with his finger.
Danielle rolled her eyes again.
Jake settled back against the seat, but he was still shaking inside. Danielle had hit him right between the eyes with everything at once. Carla’s drug addiction. His absence in her life. Ranatta’s vicious lies.
The question about Alicia had alerted Jake to the fact that he needed to pay more attention when Ranatta called the house. He’d given Danielle her privacy when Ranatta called before. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
He didn’t know why he was so surprised that there were obviously no limits to what Ranatta would do to keep Danielle from staying in Illinois with him. He just never thought that Ranatta would stoop so low as to risk damaging Danielle’s self-esteem.
Jake glanced at his daughter again, his heart aching at the thought of everything she’d been through in her short thirteen years. He couldn’t change the past, but he would try his best to give Danielle a better future.
“Some guy’s waving at you,” Danielle said when the golf cart came to a stop in the driving range parking lot.
Jake looked to his right. The guy’s name was Bill Potter, and his wife’s name was Betty. Jen had introduced them shortly after he moved to Woodberry Park.
Betty was the mom he’d be taking turns carpooling with when school started in a few weeks. He would take the kids to school and pick them up on Mondays and Tuesdays, and take them to school on Wednesday morning. Betty would pick them up on Wednesday afternoon, and take them to school and pick them up on Thursdays and Fridays. The Potters had a daughter who was Danielle’s age, and two sons who were older.
Jake had mentioned once that they should call Katie Potter and invite her over before school started. But Danielle had vetoed that idea, informing him instead that after she told the social worker how much she hated living with him she’d be going back to LA anyway. Seeing Bill again, however, reminded Jake that he should make that suggestion again.
Jake waved and got out of the cart when Bill started walking in their direction. Bill was a big guy, in his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair. A banker, if Jake remembered correctly, and a heck of a nice guy.
“Good to see you again, Jake,” he said and stuck out his hand.
Jake shook his hand and nodded toward the cart. “Bill, this is my daughter, Danielle.”
He said hello, then looked around. “Katie’s around here somewhere,” he said. He looked back at Danielle. “We’ve been meaning to call and invite you over, Danielle. Katie wants to meet you before school starts. She can give you all the scoop on Westridge Middle School.”
Jake said, “We’ve been meaning to invite Katie over, too, Bill.”
“Well, you know how it goes,” Bill said. “Busy people, busy lives.” He looked back at Danielle. “But Katie’s excited you’re going to be carpooling together. Her two older brothers make her life pretty miserable. It’ll be nice having another girl to even things out.”
Jake kept holding his breath. He’d been waiting for Danielle to come back with one of her smart-ass replies about the car pool situation and her going back to LA before school started. He was surprised she hadn’t already done that. When Katie suddenly materialized, Jake got another surprise. Danielle actually smiled at the kid and introduced herself.
A tall girl, Katie was almost too thin. The braces on her teeth, Jake decided, weighed almost as much as she did. But she was pretty, with short, curly red hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.
She walked around to Danielle’s side of the cart and said, “Do you have to hang with your dad?”
“Nah,” Danielle said. “Jake’s going to hit some golf balls. I just came to drive the cart.”
“Sweet,” Katie said. “There’s a snack bar and a few arcade games in the driving range building. Wanna go hang with me?”
The girls started toward the building, but Danielle turned around when Jake called her name. She walked back in his direction, the expression on her face begging him not to say anything stupid that would embarrass her in front of her new friend.
“I thought you might need this,” Jake said, and handed her a twenty-dollar bill.
“Thanks,” she said, and ran off to catch up with Katie.
Bill Potter looked over at Jake and grinned. “Wanna go hang with me?”
“Sweet,” Jake said and headed to the back of the cart for his golf clubs.
Chapter 20
When the phone rang at ten o’clock on Sunday night, Alicia was surprised to see it was Jake calling. He never called until around midnight when he was sure Dani was asleep. Something must be wrong! Alicia decided and grabbed the phone.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m in the den watching TV,” Alicia said. “Is everything oka
y?”
“Do you have any candles?”
“Yes,” Alicia said. “Why?”
“How big is your bathtub?”
“It’s a garden tub, Jake.” Again, Alicia asked, “Why?”
“What about bubble bath? Do you have bubble bath?”
Alicia laughed. “Yes, Jake. I have bubble bath. What is this? Twenty questions?”
He said, “I want you to go unlock your back door. Then I want you to go upstairs. And when the knight gets there, he wants the candles glowing. The princess naked. And buried up to her chin in bubbles.”
“Have you been drinking?” Alicia said, laughing. “What do you mean when the knight gets here?”
“I’m coming over.”
“No!” Alicia gasped. “What about Dani?”
“Dani met Katie Potter at the driving range today. The Potters invited her to sleep over.”
Alicia said, “But what if Dani changes her mind and decides to come home?”
“I just called to check on her,” Jake said. “Betty said the girls were already in their pajamas and had barricaded themselves in Katie’s bedroom. I told Betty I was going out for a little while and to call me on my cell phone if she needed me.”
“But, Jake,” Alicia said, “you can’t just stroll across the street to see me. It’s only ten o’clock. Someone will see you.”
“Leave that to me,” Jake said and hung up.
Alicia stared at the phone for a second, then jumped up from the sofa. She tossed the phone over her shoulder, grabbed the remote, and turned off the TV.
A few punches on the security board in the kitchen later, and the patio door leading out to the pool was unlocked. Alicia briefly thought of leaving the kitchen light on for Jake until she glanced through the window at Tish’s house next door.
From Tish’s dining-room window, you could see straight into her entire downstairs, and no one knew that better than Alicia. She’d stood at that dining-room window with the girls too many times, surveying the entire cul-de-sac.
After digging a box of matches out of one of her kitchen drawers, Alicia switched the kitchen light off and hurried back through the house, grabbing every decorative candle she could find as she went. By the time she made it upstairs and into her bathroom, Alicia’s heart was pounding, more from excitement than her sprint up the stairs.
After all of the weeks she’d spent telling herself she’d never let their fantasy relationship go any further than amusing each other on the phone, she realized she’d only been fooling herself. Her lonely knight would be scaling the fortress wall at any minute, and when he arrived, the princess intended to be naked, buried up to her chin in bubbles, with the candles glowing.
She’d hyperventilate over the fact that she was helplessly in love with Jake later.
Jake kept the golf cart lights off as he let the cart coast down the hill in his backyard to the cart path. He didn’t turn on the ignition until he was on the pavement.
He’d already decided that the only safe way to Alicia’s back door without being seen was to take the cart path that ran behind all of their houses. Then he could come up through the woods behind Alicia’s house. The only problem was, the way the houses were arranged around the cul-de-sac, the distance from his backyard to Alicia’s backyard on the opposite side of the street was a pretty good stretch.
Walking the distance took too long when you had a naked princess waiting.
Jake zipped along the cart path, past the two houses that separated his house from Zada and Rick’s. But he slowed down when he approached Zada and Rick’s backyard.
“Dammit,” Jake swore under his breath. Rick and Zada were sitting on their back deck. He ducked down and remained hunched low over the steering wheel, relieved to see Rick and Zada hadn’t seemed to notice. Or if they had seen the cart, it was too dark out to see what idiot was in his golf cart at this time of night.
Next, Jake eased past Jen and Charlie’s house without incident. He picked up a little speed after he passed the Marshalls’ house since Joe and Charlie had gone in together and bought the pie-wedge-shaped lot in the center of the cul-de-sac to give their kids a bigger space to play. But he stopped the cart completely before he reached Tish and Joe’s backyard—the most crucial part of his trip. Jake pushed the cart past Joe and Tish’s house, then pushed the cart off the path and up into the woods behind Alicia’s house.
Extremely pleased with himself, minutes later Jake was sneaking through Alicia’s back privacy gate. A few seconds more, and he was walking through the patio door and into the house. The fact that he’d never been inside Alicia’s house before didn’t matter. The layouts of the houses in Woodberry Park were basically all the same.
By the time he reached the foyer, Jake was stark naked. He had his cell phone in one hand, and in the other hand he had the box of condoms he had rushed out to buy after he’d dropped Danielle off at the Potters’ house.
Jake smiled into the darkness.
In search of the princess, he started up the stairs.
Alicia knew the exact minute that Jake reached her bathroom door. But she didn’t open her eyes. She kept her eyes closed, her head resting back against the tub as she slowly moved the soapy sponge down from her chin, along her throat, and slowly across her exposed bare breasts. Again for his benefit, she lifted one leg slowly out of the water.
Jake was in the tub with her before the sponge left the tip of her big toe.
He slipped beneath the hot water, settling himself on the opposite end of the tub. Alicia gasped when he grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her to him.
She was sitting between his legs now—her own legs wrapped around his waist. He pulled her even closer, and Alicia gasped again. The sensation was incredible. Her legs thrown wide apart—the very center of her pressed against the base of his hardness.
“I want to remember everything about this moment,” he whispered, staring deep into her eyes. “How beautiful you look in the candlelight. How good you feel pressed against me like this.”
His hands slid up to her breasts and he kissed her softly on the lips. Alicia slid her arms around his neck, and the kiss deepened. He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer. Alicia closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure.
“Look at me,” he whispered, their faces only inches apart now. “I want to make you feel good, and I want you looking at me when I do. I want that image for later when we can’t be together like this.”
He kept looking at her as his hands clutched her hips, his desire for her evident. He moved her against him, sliding her slowly up and down along the full length of him.
Alicia bit down hard on her lower lip.
She could feel everything at once. Their bodies melding together. The hot, soapy water swirling around her waist from the motion. His strong fingers kneading her tender flesh as he moved her hips up and down. Her own breath catching every time he lifted her up, then pulled her downward again, creating a sensation so amazing Alicia feared she might pass out.
“Keep looking at me,” he whispered again. “Share this moment with me now. Do it for both of us later.”
He moved her against him faster.
Alicia’s breath quickened.
“Do you like that?” he whispered.
“Yes,” Alicia gasped.
“And this?”
He slowed the rhythm back to slow and easy.
“Yes,” Alicia whispered. “Yes.”
“Tell me how you like it best.”
“Faster.”
“Like this?”
“Yes!”
“And harder?”
“Yes.”
“Harder against me, like this?”
“Ummm, yes.”
“Let me make you feel good, Alicia.”
Alicia grabbed his shoulders.
“You’re getting close,” he whispered. “I can see it.”
Her fingernails dug deeper into his shoulders.
“Will you do this for me? Share this momen
t with me?”
“Yes, Jake! Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
“Let yourself feel it,” he said, “don’t hold back.”
Alicia felt the tingle spread through her body.
“Tell me,” he urged. “Tell me when you feel it.”
“Now!” Alicia cried out. “Oh, God, NOW!”
She never took her eyes from Jake’s face.
And never had she experienced anything more intimate.
Jake leaned forward and kissed her.
When their lips broke apart, he said, “I want to make love to you now.”
He stood up in the tub, and pulled her up with him. Alicia’s arms slid around his neck when Jake picked her up.
He carried her out of the bathroom and walked across her bedroom. And Jake kissed her again before he placed the princess’s wet, quivering body on her big four-poster canopy bed.
“I still say this is a crazy idea, Alicia.”
Alicia said, “And I still say you don’t know Tish the way I do, Jake. Nothing gets past her in this cul-de-sac. If Tish had seen you when you came over at ten o’clock, you can bet my phone would have been ringing off the hook until we gave up and answered her call. And if she sees you leaving now, we have to have a good reason why you’re tromping through the woods behind my house.”
“Then give me your hand,” Jake said. “Before you fall and break your pretty neck.”
Alicia took his hand as they started down a steep incline. Once they made it down the hill, they began making their way through the woods.
Jake said, “And if we do get caught now, do you really think Tish is going to believe we’re out looking for Kiwi at one o’clock in the morning?”
Dinner First, Me Later? Page 15