"I see." He paused. "I wanted to tell you, in case you saw it in the newspapers tomorrow and got worried—my car has been bombed, but I'm fine."
Her hand flew to her heart. "What?"
"I'm fine," he repeated. "It's nothing to get upset about, just a message from an old friend, that's all."
"Friend?"
"To tell the truth, we were never really friends."
"I'm not surprised to hear that. Jake, does this have anything to do with your bootlegging?"
"It has to do with exceptional greed and stupidity, Arabella. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Are you in danger? Tell me the truth."
"No. He went after the car, not me."
He sounded so convinced, she thought, but worry continued to nag at her. She started to ask him another question, but restrained herself. She had no right to ask him anything more, she realized. She had no real status in his life.
"Lucas and Vanessa are leaving tomorrow for the coast," he said unexpectedly.
He's so lonely. His mother's words came back to her.
"And I'm returning to SwanSea."
A shock ran through her, and for an instant she felt as if he were going out of her life forever. Irrational, she chided herself. Totally irrational. "You are? Why?"
"I have some business there."
"But what about your work here?" She grimaced self-consciously, realizing she sounded as if she were trying to talk him into staying.
"I can work there about as easily as I can here. One more thing." He paused. "Arabella, I'd like you to come with me."
"I can't." The answer was practically effortless on her part. She had said it to him so many times before, in so many ways.
"I've never known the kind of pain I've come to know from wanting you." The level of his voice had dropped, and his tone had gone husky and raw-edged.
She closed her eyes. Silence stretched…
"Good-bye, Arabella."
Chapter 9
"Miss?"
Arabella's head jerked up and the book in her lap tumbled to the floor. With a rueful expression she bent to retrieve the unread book, thinking that the frayed state of her nerves was embarrassingly obvious. This evening there had been no room in her mind for anything but Jake and what he had said on the telephone. Laying the book on the table, she turned to the butler. "Yes, Perkins?"
"Miss Vanessa Martin is here to see you. Shall I show her in?"
"Vanessa Martin?" She frowned.
"Yes, miss. That was the name she gave me. Perhaps you would rather entertain her in the drawing room?"
"No, no. Please bring her back here. The fire is going nicely." She was in a small cozy parlor at the rear of the house that almost no one used but she.
"Very good, miss."
A minute later Vanessa walked in, looking stunning in a sophisticatedly simple dress of gray wool with soft loose sleeves that flared at the wrists and a bias-cut skirt. Her gray wool cloche was fashioned in the new asymmetric style that showed rather than concealed her forehead.
"Hello, Arabella, I hope I'm not interrupting you. I took the liberty of calling earlier and was told you would be at home this evening."
"Yes," she said, waving her to a chair. "I decided to have a quiet evening at home tonight."
Gazing with speculation both at the room around her and at Arabella, Vanessa sat on the chair and crossed her long legs with ladylike grace. "That was wise of you," she said, though her tone and expression clearly indicated surprise at Arabella having the good sense to stay home and read a book in front of the fire.
Arabella smiled wryly. "Yes, I thought so."
Vanessa nodded absently. "It's beastly out. Snow, with more on the way. This is a charming room, by the way."
"Thank you. I like it."
Vanessa slipped off her gloves and laid them on her lap. "Lucas and I will be leaving for the coast tomorrow. The weather will be much better out there."
Arabella barely knew Vanessa, but she was absolutely sure she was a woman who didn't waste time discussing the weather. "Jake told me you were going."
Vanessa's expression turned speculative. "Did Jake tell you why?"
"No, and I didn't ask. I assumed it has something to do with your career. Am I right?"
Vanessa smoothed her hands over her gloves with an absorption that was unnatural to the task. Without answering her question, she went on. "Did he also tell you that he is returning to SwanSea?"
"Yes."
"But you said you wouldn't go with him."
This was a very odd conversation, Arabella decided. Vanessa seemed as if she were trying to make up her mind about something. "How do you know he even asked me?"
"He did." She paused. "Jake plays only with things that don't mean anything to him. But you"—Vanessa shrugged—"I think you've gotten under his skin."
Arabella shook her head. "You're wrong. As far as I can tell, what I thought was a developing relationship was nothing more substantial than prettily colored smoke for the benefit of the public." The last word caught and broke in her throat.
Vanessa eyed her. "He took you to see his mother. Lucas and I are the only two people in the world who have ever been given that privilege, and I'm not sure we count, because we have known her for years, since we were kids."
"Taking me to see his mother is a decision I think he regrets." Arabella laughed and hoped she was the only one who heard the pain. "No, Vanessa, our private moments were only about sex. He never let me get close to the real Jake."
"Sex is a start."
Arabella shook her head again. "I don't know why I'm telling you this, but no matter what the appearances were, Jake and I never made love. I'm not sure he's capable of making love in the true sense of the words. You said it yourself—he plays only with things that don't mean anything to him. And he really was only playing with me, Vanessa, no matter what impression you may have gotten." Her eyes filled with tears, and horrified that Vanessa would see her crying, she turned her head until she could get herself under control.
Vanessa stared at Arabella for a long moment, then exhaled a deep breath. "Arabella, I'm about to give you some information that the papers would pay a pretty penny for. But I'm going on the assumption that I can trust you with it. You seem to have the same opinion as I do of the columns, plus you should be aware that I will come back and pull every hair out of your head if you reveal any of this to anyone."
Not at all intimidated, Arabella straightened in her chair, extremely interested in whatever it was Vanessa was about to tell her. "Yes?"
"The other night you brought up the fact that Jake doesn't eat when the two of you are out together."
"As far as I could tell, he didn't eat even at SwanSea."
Vanessa nodded. "I came over here tonight to tell you why." She hesitated, but then after a moment went on. "When I was seven years old, my father died. Both my mother and my baby brother were sick and needed medicine, but we were too poor to afford it. Just about our only money came from what my older brother, who was nine, earned as a paper boy. Like all paper boys, he was given a certain number of papers each day, and he had to assume the losses for all the papers he didn't sell."
"But that's not right," Arabella said, unable to keep her indignation to herself.
Vanessa moved her shoulders, a dismissing gesture. "That was the way it was. I'm sure it still is."
The expression in Vanessa's eyes looked particularly old tonight, Arabella noted, fascinated by both the woman and her story.
"Anyway, one day my brother got sick. Suddenly. So I had to go out in his place." Vanessa's mouth twisted into a smile devoid of humor. "I didn't do well at all, and by late that afternoon a cold rain had begun to fall. Then Wade Scalia came along."
"Wade Scalia? There's a gangster named Wade Scalia who lives and operates right here in Boston. He's getting to be quite a celebrity." Arabella gave a light laugh. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have interrupted. It's just that for a minute there, I thought he might
be the same person."
"He is," Vanessa said flatly. "And he was almost as obnoxious back then as he is now. He told me I was selling in his territory and that I had to move on. I knew I was in my brother's territory, but Wade was not only bigger than I was, he was three years older, and I had no choice but to do as he said. It started to get dark. I still had all those papers, so I moved farther and farther out of the neighborhood, trying to sell them, and soon I was downtown." She paused. "That was where Jake and Lucas found me."
"Had they been looking for you?"
Vanessa nodded. "My mother sent them to try to find me." She gave a small smile. "I don't think anyone else in the neighborhood would have gone to the trouble, but they did and it didn't take them long to figure out what had happened. They tracked me all the way downtown."
Vanessa switched her gaze to the fire. "I was soaked to the skin and colder and hungrier than I believe I'd ever been in my life. I was standing in front of a ritzy restaurant and its large plate glass window. And I was crying my heart out." Her smile broadened. "I was never so glad to see anyone as I was to see Lucas and Jake.
"The three of us stared in the window at those rich people who were eating, drinking, laughing—having such a good time without the slightest concern for the three of us standing outside—if they even noticed us. We were wet and cold and so hungry we felt like our stomachs were pushing against our backbones. Lucas was quiet. But me, well, I saw a world I hadn't known existed, where everyone wore beautiful, elegant clothes and was dry and warm and could eat all the food they wanted. And I couldn't stop crying because I wanted what I saw so badly.
"And Jake"—she looked at Arabella—"he put his arm around me and told me to stop crying. Didn't I understand? he asked. Those people in that restaurant were too self-absorbed and stupid to even look around them and see us outside staring in at them. We could even throw rocks and bricks through the window at them, and they'd probably not look up. They were no better than animals in a zoo, too busy gobbling up their food to even be aware that they looked like fools and were at the mercy of those who watched them. Don't ever cry for fools like them, he said. Laugh at them. And so we did. All three of us started pointing and laughing and banging on the window until the headwaiter came out with his big black umbrella over his head and ran us off."
Her smile faded. "Jake and Lucas took me home, then ran Wade down. They gave him my newspapers and told him not to come back to the neighborhood until he had the money to give to my family. And since that night, Jake has never eaten in front of anyone he doesn't know extremely well and trust completely. He says if he ate in front of strangers, he would feel like an animal in a zoo."
It would make him feel vulnerable, Arabella realized, deeply touched and moved by the story. She saw that Vanessa was pulling on her gloves, preparing to leave. "Why did you come here tonight? Why did you tell me this story?"
"Because I think Jake is going to need you."
Arabella was stunned into momentary silence. "Why?"
"It's just a feeling I have." Vanessa stood and Arabella followed suit. "There's one more thing—if you decide to get back in to this thing you and Jake have going, you'd better be in it for real. Because once you've crossed the line, maybe you won't be able to go back."
Vanessa's tone was challenging, while making it apparent she had said all she would. "Wade Scalia," Arabella said on impulse. "Did he ever bring you the money?"
"Oh, yes. He wouldn't have dared not to, not with Jake and Lucas on his back."
"And was it enough to buy the medicine your family needed?"
Vanessa turned and began walking out of the room. She reached the door, stopped, and looked back at Arabella. "None of this is in my official studio biography, but both my brothers died that night. My mother died two weeks later."
Arabella gasped. "I'm so sorry. You were all alone. What happened then?"
"I was sent to St. Louis to live with an aunt and an uncle. And I was still alone. Good-bye, Arabella."
For days afterward, Arabella replayed Vanessa's story over and over in her mind. In her own way, Vanessa was as enigmatic as Jake. But Arabella knew Vanessa had not told her the story to help her. She had braved the weather and put herself through the pain of reliving that time when three members of her family had died for only one reason—to help Jake.
She had said, Jake is going to need you.
His mother had said, He's been so lonely.
Arabella's head hurt as she attempted to take the few disparate pieces she had of the puzzle of Jake and put a whole picture together.
But most of all her heart hurt.
She adopted the strategy of going to parties, to laugh and be gay with her friends, to try to purge all images and memories of Jake from her body and her mind. But each time she went out, she ended up leaving conspicuously early, and she soon stopped all her social activities.
She had always found immense satisfaction in her work with the Linden Foundation, but when she went into her office, she couldn't concentrate, and only stared off into space. Since she had a number of programs already working with knowledgeable and competent people running them, she finally decided that the foundation could do without her for a while.
She couldn't work, she couldn't play.
There was only Jake left—to think about, to dream about, to ache for and to love.
And she did love him, with everything that was in her.
Time passed, shadows appeared beneath her eyes, and Kenneth began to hover worriedly around her.
Then one morning during the second week in March she woke up and realized her life had come to a standstill. Her back was against a wall, and she had retreated from Jake as far as she could.
She had to start moving her life forward again.
And Jake was the only direction in which she could go.
"Lucas is worried about you, Jake," Vanessa said over the long distance line from California.
In his study at SwanSea, Jake leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk, grinning. "Oh, yeah? Then why didn't he ring me instead of having you do it?"
"Because he's still mad at you and he doesn't want to talk to you because he says he'll get even madder. He's taken to calling you 'that damned stubborn jackass.'"
Jake chuckled. "Tell him there's nothing to worry about. I haven't heard a peep out of Wade."
"I don't think that's necessarily good news, Jake."
"You too, Vanessa?"
"Me too. I can't help but worry. You forget how long I've known the three of you." She paused. "Are you there alone?"
"Nope. The house is full. I've got plenty of company, and everyone is having a grand time."
"I notice you didn't say you were having a grand time."
His grin slowly turned rueful. "You're just looking for things to worry about, aren't you?"
"With you and Lucas I don't have to look very far." She paused. "Is Arabella there?"
His grin faded. "What made you think of her?"
"Is she?"
"No, but there are women galore here. Don't fret about me. All I've got to do is pick one."
"So why don't you?"
He sighed and rubbed his brow. "Leave me alone, Vanessa. Don't you have a movie to make or something?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. They have me scheduled to start a new one tomorrow. And"—she paused for dramatic effect—"I will be the star."
"Wow! I'm very impressed!"
"You better be. Starring in a Hollywood movie is a long way from the old neighborhood, and I've worked hard for it."
"I know that better than anyone, and I couldn't be more proud of you… and for you."
"Thanks, Jake, that means a lot. Listen, I've got to hang up now, but I want you to think about something."
"What's that?"
"Coming out here. Our house out at the beach will be completed in a couple of weeks, and you can be our first and only guest."
He shook his head. "I can't right now, honey
, but I promise I'll come out soon."
"You won't, you know."
"Yeah, I know. Tell that guy of yours to take good care of you. Good-bye, honey."
Jake dropped the receiver into its hook and frowned down at the documents he had been trying to read before Vanessa had called. But then, as now, all the letters seemed to blur and reform before his eyes until all he could see was a clear and perfect picture of Arabella. Irritated, he glanced at the phone. He had not tried to get in touch with her since he had returned to SwanSea, but the accomplishment, such as it was, had cost him a great deal.
Night and day she filled his thoughts—to the point that he sometimes felt he might go mad if he didn't see her, touch her, hear her voice and her laughter.
But he was always stopped by the knowledge that she wanted and deserved more than he could give her. Love was foreign to him; marriage was impossible. It would make Edward too happy if he married and gave him the heirs he so desperately wanted. And making Edward miserable had been a part of him for so long, that if he stopped, he might die.
Dammit. He swept his arms across the desk, sending the papers flying.
Hearing the drone of an engine overhead, he expelled a long breath. He badly needed a distraction, he decided, rising to stroll outside to see if someone might be coming in by plane for a visit.
Outside, the day was crisp and clear with only patches of snow left here and there on the ground. Looking up, he saw a golden plane bank against a golden sun, then straighten out for a long gliding descent toward the back of SwanSea.
He frowned. A plane landing at SwanSea was a rare enough occurrence, but up until now the pilots had all elected to use the meadow that lay to the north of the house. Landing at the back of the house along the cliffs would definitely be risky.
Other people were streaming out of the house now. He saw Marlon and motioned him over. "Keep everyone well back."
The older man nodded and set off, and Jake turned his attention back to the plane. At least the pilot seemed to know what he was doing, he thought as he watched the little plane descend. In moments its wheels touched down lightly and it rolled along the cliffs to a neat, safe stop.
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