by Diana Palmer
“About time,” Tom chided as the bridegroom paused beside them. “Where’s Margo?”
“Arriving momentarily with her grandfather. I hope,” David added with a tiny shudder. “Have you seen Hank drive?” he groaned.
“Yes,” Tom replied with a sigh. “He’s almost, but not quite, as bad as Jacob.”
David laughed, and Kate hated herself for hanging so eagerly on to any tidbit of gossip about the man she loved.
“Jacob wrecked three cars before he got through college,” Tom mused. “Our grandmother wouldn’t let Kate go to Warlance unless Margo drove.”
“I expected to see you both at the house,” David began.
Kate was searching for an excuse when a shadow fell over her, and her heart ran wild. It was like radar; she always felt Jacob before she saw him.
“So there you are,” Jacob said, joining the group. He didn’t even look at Kate. “Hello, Tom. Good to see you.” He extended his hand and shook the younger man’s firmly. There was only about four years between the two men—Jacob was thirty-two—but Jacob seemed a generation older in his attitudes. “Where’s Margo?” he asked.
“On the way, with your father at the wheel, I’m afraid.” David sighed. “Well, it’s not my fault,” he added defensively when Jacob glared at him. “We couldn’t fit that expensive wedding gown you bought her into the car without taking it off first.” He grinned wickedly. “I was all for that, of course, but Margo seemed to feel that it would shock the congregation.”
Jacob wasn’t amused, but Tom had to bite his lip. So did Kate, despite the tense undercurrents.
“My father is half-blind with cataracts he won’t have removed,” Jacob said coldly. “He’s got no business driving at all.”
“Hurry, let’s rush and phone the state police,” David offered. “What a great opportunity to have his license pulled.”
Tom couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Sorry, but I have this mental picture of the entire wedding party bailing the old fellow out of jail—”
Kate clung closer to Tom’s sleeve. “There they are,” she murmured, nodding toward the road, where a big Lincoln with Hank behind the wheel was just nudging against the curb and stopping.
“See?” David laughed as Margo got out of the car, escorted by a tall, silver-haired man who was an older version of Jacob but without his fiery temper and cold, domineering manner. “No broken bones, no ripped fenders, everything intact. Hmm, she does look a bit pale.”
“Probably the stark terror of realizing she’s marrying a crazy person,” Kate offered, grinning at David.
“I’m not crazy.” David defended himself with mock solemnity. “Just because I once, only once, went with Margo to a male strip joint—”
“A what?” Jacob demanded fiercely.
David actually flushed. “Uh-oh.” He moved away. “Excuse me, have to rush. Getting married today, you see.” He vanished.
“A what!” Jacob glared at Tom.
“It’s a place where men take off their clothing while women wolf whistle,” Kate offered, adding fuel to the fire. “Very educational.” Well, she’d heard that they were, anyway. Kate herself wouldn’t be caught dead in such a place, but Jacob might as well think she would, if it needled him.
Jacob’s dark eyes were frankly insulting. “I can’t imagine that you’d need any educating.”
“How sweet of you to say so,” Kate said with a demure smile.
The taller man didn’t bother to reply. “See you inside,” he told Tom, and walked off.
“Whew,” her brother sighed as they started toward the rest of the congregation who were entering the church. “Talk about heat!”
“He hates me,” she sighed. It had been a good act, but only an act. Inside, she was bleeding to death and no one could even see.
“I wonder if Jacob really knows what he feels for you, Kate,” Tom remarked quietly.
But she didn’t answer him. She walked up the steps and into the church, thinking as she went how very fortunate Margo was.
Chapter 2
The wedding was so beautiful that Kate cried. Sitting quietly near the pulpit, listening to the words that would bind David and Margo together, she felt a sense of loss for herself. She’d never hear those words, never know the overwhelming joy of pledging her life to a man who would love her back with equal passion.
Involuntarily, her eyes turned toward Jacob where he towered over David at the altar. He took such occasions seriously, and this one must have touched him, because he and his father had been responsible for Margo since her tenth birthday. As if he sensed her watching him, he glanced over his shoulder, his dark eyes catching hers. She didn’t wait to read the expression in them; she quickly dropped her gaze to her lap. Such encounters with Jacob always left her feeling inadequate.
At last it was over, and the wedding guests gathered outside to pelt the lucky couple with dainty little sachets of rice. Margo reappeared shortly in a neat white linen traveling suit. David was at her side, his tuxedo exchanged for a sports coat and casual shirt and slacks. The newlyweds looked young and wildly excited, hardly able to keep their eyes from each other.
“Be happy, darling,” Kate murmured, hugging Margo warmly before she climbed into the red sports car beside her new husband.
“I will. I really will.” Margo glanced over Kate’s shoulder. “Uncle Jacob looks as if he’d like to bite somebody.”
“Probably me.” David chuckled as Margo got in beside him. “I told him about our jaunt to the male strip joint.”
“How could you?” Margo wailed. “He’ll kill us!”
“He’ll have to catch us first.” David put the small car in gear with a wicked grin. “Goodbye, Kate. Goodbye, new Uncle Jacob!”
And they were gone before Jacob could say a single word.
Kate couldn’t resist baiting him. It was a way of life. She glanced up at his strong, hard face with a small laugh. “Were you going to have a brief word with Margo about what to expect on her wedding night, Uncle Jacob?” she murmured discreetly, although they were away from the other wedding guests.
He glared down at her. “You might have done that yourself. I doubt if my experience would match yours.”
“You might be surprised,” she said.
He bent his tall head to light a cigarette, but his dark eyes never left hers. “Margo invited you to come down for a few days before the wedding to visit with her. You refused. Why?”
“Because of you,” she said without hesitation. “You threw me off Warlance over six years ago and told me to never come back.”
His broad shoulders shrugged, and muscles rippled like rapids in a river. He was overpowering this close—vividly male, abrasively masculine.
He stared down the long, straight road. “A few days after that pool party, one of the gardeners killed a rattlesnake in the bathhouse,” he remarked quietly.
“Nice of you to apologize when you found out,” Kate replied, almost shaking with suppressed rage. He could have admitted that six years ago, but he’d kept it to himself.
He looked down at her, and his eyes were cold. “There was a snake. But you were still naked in that boy’s arms.”
“I was scared to death, too,” she returned. “I hardly knew what I was doing.” She dropped her eyes to his tie. It was nice. Navy blue with red diamonds. “Never mind, Jacob. Think what you like. You always do, regardless of the evidence.”
“Why did you go to Chicago to work?” he asked abruptly, his dark eyes glittering down at her through a wisp of cigarette smoke. “Why not Pierre?”
The question shocked her. It wasn’t like him to seek her out deliberately and start talking. He never had before, at least.
She stared up at him helplessly, every single thought gone out of her head except how handsome he was. Darkly tanned, even-featured, he would have caught more sophisticated eyes than Kate’s. She swallowed.
“Chicago is big,” she said inanely, still staring up at him with wide, soft green eyes.
“So it is,” he agreed quietly. As they stood together without a word for long, static seconds, he searched her face, probing softly, and she felt her knees giving way.
“The…wedding… It was nice,” she choked out finally. Her heart was trying to burst under the intensity of his long stare.
“Very nice,” he agreed, his voice deeper than she remembered it.
“They’re going to Jamaica,” she added breathlessly.
“I know. Dad and I gave them the trip for a wedding present.”
“They’ll enjoy it, I’m sure.” This was ridiculous, she told herself. She was a reporter, a whiz with words, even her city editor said so. Why was she stammering like a grammar school kid?
He was still looking in her eyes as if he couldn’t get enough of just gazing at her. This is insane, she thought. Jacob was her worst enemy.
“You’ve changed,” he said finally. “You’re more mature. More poised. What do you do at that newspaper you work for?”
“Politics,” she said without thinking.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s very exciting,” she confessed. “Especially the elections. You get involved, even though you try to report impartially. I think I jinx the candidates, though,” she added with a sheepish smile. “Mine always seem to lose.”
He didn’t return the smile. He lifted his cigarette to his mouth again while Tom shifted restlessly in the background. It was unusual for Jacob and Kate to talk without looking for weapons.
Jacob dropped his cigarette and ground it out under his expensive boot. His dark eyes searched hers. “I suppose you and Tom will go back tonight?”
She nodded. “We have to. I’ve got an interview first thing in the morning.”
His cleft chin lifted and he narrowed his eyes, searching hers. “That boy, Kate…”
“I never lied to you, Jacob,” she whispered.
The change in his face was faintly alarming, explosive. The muscles in his jaw tautened, his eyes went black. “I can’t remember a woman ever saying my name the way you do,” he said half under his breath.
She had to fight from flinging herself into his arms and begging for his mouth. She looked at it now with aching hunger, followed its chiseled perfection with eyes gone misty from all the years of hopeless longing. Would it never end, this longing for him? He’d never touched her, never kissed her, in all the years she’d known him. She dreamed about it, about how it would feel. But it would never happen.
“I have to go,” she said miserably.
His chest expanded slowly, as if he was taking a deliberate breath. “Yes,” he said finally. “So do I. I’ve got to catch a train to New York for meetings about some cattle futures.”
He was taking the train because he didn’t trust airplanes, she recalled with a faint smile. He never flew unless it was a matter of life and death.
He did look every inch a businessman, all right. Her eyes adored him one last time. Now that Margo was married, she might never see him again. The thought was vaguely terrifying. That fright seeped into her expression, puzzling the tall man beside her.
“What is it?” he asked, his deep voice almost gentle.
“Nothing.” She clutched her purse closer. “Well… I have to go.”
“You said that.”
She shrugged and smiled faintly. “Yes.”
He didn’t reply and she turned slowly toward Tom, her heart sinking.
“I get to Chicago from time to time,” he said unexpectedly.
She turned, nervous and breathless. “Do you?”
His chin lifted again and his eyes lingered on her face speculatively. “I might take you out to dinner one night.”
She tried not to let her enthusiasm show, but she failed miserably. “Oh, I’d like that,” she whispered.
“So would I.” He let his eyes run slowly down the length of her body, admiring it with sensuous candor. “You’ve been off-limits for a long time, Kate,” he mused, catching her gaze suddenly. “But Margo’s out of the picture now; there are no more barriers.”
She didn’t understand. “What?”
He laughed softly, but it wasn’t humorous. “We’ll talk about that sometime. Are you in the phone book?”
“Yes,” she replied. “My first initial and my last name are listed. I’m in the Carrington Apartments.”
“I’ll find you.” He turned away to glance at Tom, who was still hovering. “Can I give you a lift to the airport?”
Tom joined them, smiling. “Thanks, but we’ve got a rental car.”
“Those do come in handy. I’ve got a train to catch. Nice to see you again, Tom.” He extended his big, lean hand and shook Tom’s. Then he glanced back at Kate with a peculiar smile. “I’ll see you.”
She nodded. “Have a nice trip.”
“I usually do.” He turned and strode off, while Kate watched him with her heart in her eyes.
“If he sees the way you’re looking at him, the game’s up,” Tom teased, holding her by the arm to propel her to the Ford he’d rented. “Come down out of the clouds, girl. We’ve got to make tracks if we’re going to catch our plane on time.”
“Yes, of course.”
“What were you talking about?” he probed.
“He comes to Chicago on business sometimes,” she murmured, glancing out the window and catching sight of Jacob as he passed them in his big Lincoln. She sighed. “Oh, Tom. He wants to take me out to dinner.”
“Horrors,” Tom exclaimed, pulling out into the street. “Watch out.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“For God’s sake, Kate. Margo’s married and you’ve just gone on the endangered-species list. Or hasn’t it occurred to you that he’s wanted you for years?”
Her heart skipped. “Me?”
“Of course, you,” he grumbled. “Jacob looks at you as if you were a juicy steak with his name branded on it. He always has. My God, if it hadn’t been for the fact that you and Margo were best friends, he’d have seduced you years ago.”
“It isn’t like that—”
“The devil it isn’t,” he persisted. “Listen, honey, I’m a man. I know how men think. Now that Margo’s out of the picture, Jacob feels free to pursue you, and I do mean pursue. He’s never believed you about that Gerald boy; he never will. As far as he’s concerned, you’re a city sophisticate, not a shy little country maiden. So watch it. I’ve heard stories about that man all my adult life, and I believe them. He’s a mature, sophisticated man with a line of women an arm long, and he doesn’t drag his feet. Did you really think that he was celibate all this time?” he added as he caught a glimpse of her shocked face.
“Margo said he never brought anybody home.” Her voice faltered.
“Of course not—he wouldn’t flaunt his conquests around Margo! Or don’t you remember what a peculiarly old-fashioned man he is when it comes to women and liberation?”
“I remember all too well,” she sighed, leaning back against the seat as she recalled his reaction that long-ago afternoon to the sight of her in a man’s arms.
“Then keep it all in mind. He isn’t in the market for a wife, honey,” Tom added softly. “I know how you feel about him. But don’t let your emotions blind you to the truth. What he wants is to satisfy a temporary hunger. When he marries, if he marries, it will most likely be Barbara Dugan, whose father owns the Double D Ranch adjoining his. It will be a nice merger and double his holdings, and Barbara isn’t half bad to look at.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right, Tom.” She felt sick all over. How was she going to manage to say no to Jacob when the time came and he asked her out? She loved him so desperately that even a few minutes of his company would last her starving heart for years. She looked at her brother helplessly. “Maybe he cares about me, a little.”
“Maybe he does,” he said. “But don’t you ever forget his mother and how he feels about the whole female sex because of her. He’ll never marry a woman he’s slept with.”
&
nbsp; She flushed despite herself and turned her eyes back to the road. “His mother ran around with everyone, from what Margo said. And poor old Hank just sat and did nothing.”
“She was a wild woman, Grandmother said. Nothing like Hank, who was easygoing and pleasant and not very ambitious. She got tired of having nothing and went after the rainbow.” He sat deeper in the seat as they approached the city. “I guess she found it eventually. She married that Texas oil magnate and lived happily until she died. But Jacob hated her for what she did to him and his father and brother, and he hated the humiliation of having to live down her reputation.”
“He hasn’t had a good impression of women,” Kate said quietly.
“Keep that in mind. He won’t let his emotions get in his way.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she promised.
He started to say something else. But he just smiled and reached over to pat her hand where it lay on her purse. “How about some lunch before we catch the plane? What would you like?”
“Something adventurous,” she said, quickly following his lead. “How about squid?”
“Yech! How about something civilized?”
She sighed. “Steak and potatoes, I guess?”
“Civilized,” he emphasized. “Like a McDonald’s hamburger!”
“Now, that’s civilized.” She laughed. “Drive on!”
Tom kept her mind occupied with wild tales about his advertising job in New York, and about some of his more eccentric clients—like the soap magnate who liked to listen to Tom’s presentations while taking bubble baths with a background of Mozart pieces, or the chewing gum heiress who brought her purebred collies to each meeting, to make sure her beloved pets approved of the ad campaigns.
Her brother was the only living relative she had now, and she tended to lean on him the slightest bit. She felt guilty at her own rebellious feelings when he criticized Jacob. Perhaps it was a fair warning, although she didn’t like facing that possibility. She preferred to think that Jacob had only just noticed her and wanted a new beginning for the two of them. So that was what she was going to think, whether or not her older brother approved.