by Diana Palmer
Her face went two shades of pink and she stared at him wildly. “What?” she breathed, overcome that he should hit accidentally on the one big dream of her life lately.
“You garden, don’t you?” he mused. “You have dozens of books on horticulture. I’ll make sure you have a place to practice your hobby while you’re recuperating.”
It was like a dream coming true. She wanted to be with him, even though she knew it was only guilt that motivated him. To be near him, just to be allowed to sit and look at him, was all of heaven. That, and a greenhouse, too. She had to be dreaming.
“That would be a lot of trouble,” she began, trying to be sensible.
“Not particularly,” he replied. “I’ve got the space, and there are a few experiments I’d like to try with new strains of forage grasses.”
“Well…”
“You’re running out of excuses,” he observed.
She sighed, folding her hands. “I’d like to go,” she confessed. “But I’ll just be in the way, and Janet has enough to do. And Barbara won’t like it,” she added, avoiding his eyes.
He hadn’t seen Barbara Dugan in so long that she was little more than a memory. He blinked. “What does Barbara have to do with it?” he asked curiously.
“Everybody says you’ll marry her eventually. Her land adjoins Warlance.”
“My God, Kate, so does Billy Kramer’s, but I’ll be damned if I’d want to marry him for it.”
His dry sense of humor was something she’d forgotten during the long antagonism of the years. She was the one person he’d never joked with in recent memory.
“I just don’t want to foul up your life,” she said doggedly, ignoring the humor.
“As if it isn’t pretty fouled up now,” he murmured, watching her closely. “You won’t cramp my style, Kate, or get in my way. I’ll take care of you until you can take care of yourself again.”
She was weakening. Her big, soft eyes searched his, vulnerable and frightened.
He moved closer to the bed, his protective instincts aroused and bubbling over. “I won’t hurt you again,” he said quietly. “I swear to God I won’t.”
Her eyes fell. “All right,” she sighed. “I’ll go with you, if you’re sure—”
“I’m sure.”
She lay back again and closed her eyes with a weary sigh, wincing as the movement caused her pain. “Shot’s worn off.” She grimaced.
“I’ll tell the desk on my way out,” he replied. “I’ve got a few details to take care of.” He brushed his hand lightly over her hair. “Can I bring you anything?”
“No, thank you,” she said.
“Then I’ll see you later.”
He paused at the door to look back. She was in pain again, and in a good deal of it from her rigid posture. He went past Tom, motioning the younger man to follow, and explained at the desk what was wrong. The nurse smiled and immediately went to take care of Kate.
“What did she say?” Tom asked him.
“I talked her into going home with me,” Jacob said. “She’ll do better in the country, and you can’t watch her and work at the same time.”
“I’m not arguing,” Tom mused. “I’m just wondering how you managed to convince her. She said the two of you had had a royal falling out.”
“We did. But maybe we understand each other a little better than we did.”
Tom lifted his eyebrows. “You didn’t tell her what I told you?”
Jacob shook his head. “I didn’t think revelations would be good for her state of mind. And you’d better believe I won’t take advantage of how she feels while she’s with me.”
“I never thought you would,” Tom said honestly. “You aren’t the type to play around with virgins.”
It was a good thing that Tom didn’t know the whole truth, Jacob thought with bitter humor. “I want to go and speak to her boss about a leave of absence. She’ll be upset if her job’s gone when she comes back.”
So much for Tom’s hope that Jacob might be feeling something deeper for Kate. As he feared, the other man felt only guilt and pity. Jacob was already making plans for her return to Chicago. How Kate would hate knowing that. Tom smiled forcibly. “That might be a good idea.”
“I’ll be back afterwhile.”
Jacob turned and left Tom in the waiting room. He didn’t know why, but he needed to get away, to think.
He walked for over an hour, his mind blank, seeing the city without really noticing anything about it. He turned finally and went down the block where the newspaper office that Kate worked for was located.
Morgan Winthrop was sitting at his massive desk, giving somebody hell over the telephone when Jacob walked in. As soon as Winthrop saw the other man, he cut the conversation short and hung up.
“How’s Kate?” he said without conventional greetings.
“She’s sitting up today, for short stretches, at least,” Jacob told him. “I’m taking her home with me to recuperate. I want to pay her salary while she’s out and let her think the paper’s doing it.”
“And I thought I was a blunt man,” Winthrop mused.
“It saves time to come to the point.” He studied the older man. “She’s too proud to let me pay her bills, so it’s the last resort.”
“Okay. I’ll set it up with the payroll department and we’ll settle it between ourselves.” He named a figure that Kate drew each week.
“Hell,” Jacob muttered, “I spend more than that on fertilizer and salt blocks!”
“People don’t work at reporting to get rich.”
“So I see. All right, I’ll send a check over in the morning. And not a word to Kate.”
Morgan Winthrop was darker and broader than Jacob, and his eyes had a faintly haunted look. “Maybe I’m talking out of turn, but do you know how Kate feels about you?”
Jacob’s face hardened. He almost didn’t answer at all. “Yes,” he said finally. “But she doesn’t know that I do.”
“My wife and I had a major misunderstanding two years ago,” Morgan Winthrop said quietly. “She went away to Paris to recover from the argument we had and I let her. The day she was due to leave for home, the taxicab that was taking her to the airport was involved in a wreck and she was killed instantly. Don’t ever assume that you have all the time in the world to clear things up.”
“Yes. I learned that three nights ago,” Jacob said. “How did you know?”
“Kate keeps a photo of you in her desk.”
Jacob’s eyes narrowed as he studied the older man. After a minute, he slowly pulled out his wallet, opened a section of it with plastic inserts and showed something to Winthrop.
The older man only nodded. “Take care of her.”
“I always did,” Jacob replied. He put up the wallet. “Not a word about the paycheck.”
Morgan Winthrop smiled. “What paycheck?”
Bud Schuman was at his desk when Jacob started out. He deliberately dropped a pencil and bent over to find it.
Jacob didn’t even glance in his direction. But when he got out the door, he was chuckling softly to himself. The old reporter was a character, and if Jacob had been just a little more forgiving, he might have spoken to him. But he couldn’t forget that Schuman might have cost Kate her life with that tip.
He stopped by Kate’s apartment long enough to have dinner, and then he went back to the hospital. He found a stranger sitting by Kate’s bed holding her hand.
It took all his willpower not to lift the man by the collar and drop him out the window.
“Well, well, you must be Kate’s brother. I’ve heard a lot about you,” the tall, heavyset blond man said pleasantly, rising to shake hands. “I’m Roger Dean. I work for a nearby weekly newspaper, and I’ve been trying to seduce Kate for years without success.”
Kate turned beet red and wished she felt well enough to get under the bed. Jacob had turned an odd shade of dusky red and his black eyes were flashing danger signals.
“That isn’t Tom,” Kate s
aid quickly. “Roger, this is Jacob Cade. His niece and I are best friends.”
“Sorry about the mistake. Nice to meet you, anyway,” Roger grinned pleasantly. “Just like Kate to jump in front of a bullet. I’ve warned her for years about following the police around….”
“Kate’s coming home with me to South Dakota,” Jacob said, his voice pleasant enough. But his stance was threatening, and his eyes were saying a lot more. He looked purely possessive—dangerously possessive as he moved to Kate’s side and deliberately blocked Roger’s attempt to take her hand.
Roger wasn’t thick. He knew immediately what was going on. He smiled at Kate.
“Glad to see you’re better, kid. Now don’t go roping steers and such, okay? And I’ll see you again before you leave.”
“All right,” Kate said softly. “Thanks for coming, Roger.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it. I always wanted to be part of a gun battle. Oh, well, maybe I’ll get caught in a tornado or something one day. See you, pretty girl. Nice to have met you, Mr….Cade? So long.”
Jacob watched him go with an expression Kate couldn’t quite classify. He frightened her a little.
“Damned prissy lunatic,” he muttered under his breath. “Is he unbalanced?”
“He was only kidding, Jacob. I went out with him once or twice.”
He turned on his heel, his gaze possessive. “Never again,” he said, without apology for the command in his tone.
She stopped breathing. At least it felt like that. Her green eyes searched his dark ones with wary curiosity. “You don’t own me, Jacob,” she began hesitantly.
“Under the circumstances, I have every right in the world to feel possessive about you,” he replied. “I don’t want another man’s hands on you, ever.”
She flushed crimson.
“Yes, I know,” he continued, unabashed, “you don’t want mine on you, either. I don’t blame you. But one day, I may even change your mind about that. Now, let me tell you what I’ve arranged with Winthrop about your leave of absence.”
He sat down and told her the fiction without jeopardizing the fact, and she was too bemused by his attitude toward Roger to question any of it. By the time her mind was clear, Tom was there and the conversation became general. The men were still talking when she finally slept, just as visiting hours ended.
Chapter 7
To get them back to South Dakota, Jacob had wanted to charter a private plane, a large twin-engine one with plenty of room for Kate to relax in without being cramped or crowded. But the doctor had said that because of her lung injury, she wouldn’t be able to fly for at least two months.
“But you hate flying,” she blurted out when he mentioned it in the hospital.
He shrugged. “I could have managed. But the doctor said you couldn’t fly.”
“It’s only a rib….”
“And part of your lung,” he continued for her, his gaze sharp and challenging. “So I’ve chartered a bus. A big one. Dad is going to pick us up in Pierre with the Lincoln and I’ll send someone to Chicago to pick up the Mercedes.”
“You’re going to a lot of trouble.”
He lifted his chin, studying her downcast face. “A little pampering isn’t going to hurt you.”
“Getting used to it from you is ironic, though,” she said.
He hesitated uncharacteristically and studied his clasped hands. “Old enemies, is that how it goes? But we weren’t always, Kate,” he reminded her. “There was a time when we were friends.”
She smiled, remembering. “You were kind to me, then.”
“You were the only friend Margo had,” he said. “You still are. It’s made things rough, in more ways than you realize.”
“Yes. You didn’t feel free to seduce me as long as she was around. You had to set a good example for her, didn’t you?” The minute the words were out, she regretted them.
“You make it sound cold-blooded,” he said with surprising patience. He sounded almost kind, and when she looked up, his eyes were indulgent. “Kate, I wanted you. But even then, if you’d said no, I’d have backed off. You see, I hadn’t counted on just how little self-control I was going to have when things heated up. I lost my head when I began to kiss you in the car.”
She hadn’t thought Jacob ever lost control, although she remembered how rapidly he’d lost it that night. She’d pushed him beyond his limits. Perhaps he was still angry about it. She remembered the way they’d kissed, too, and the aching sweetness of his mouth on hers. It seemed like such a long time ago.
“I suppose that happens from time to time,” she said noncommittally.
“It doesn’t happen to me.”
She looked up into half-amused, half-irritated dark eyes. “Oh.”
His brows drew down just a little as he studied her. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that men get unmanageable pretty fast when a woman responds without restraint.”
Her eyes searched his, frankly fascinated with the tenderness in them. “No. I read a lot of books, though….”
“Someday you and I are going to have to have a little talk about birds and bees,” he murmured dryly.
“That really won’t be necessary. I don’t have any inclination to build nests or make honey.”
He nodded. “That’s understandable. But eventually you’re going to learn that women get as much pleasure from sex as men do.”
“They do not!” she shot back, remembering the hollow, incomplete feeling, the anguished frustration she’d felt that night.
“Not the first time, certainly,” he said easily. “Not when the man takes it all and gives nothing back. That’s another first, in case you’re interested. I’m not a selfish man.”
This conversation was getting out of hand. It was too soon for such an intimate talk with him. She toyed with the sheet. “When are they going to let me out of here? Has Tom checked?”
He pursed his lips. “Evasive maneuvers, I see,” he mused. “All right, I’ll let you get away with it this time. Your doctor says you can go next Friday morning, if you’re still doing this well by then. That will make it about the tenth day and, according to your doctor, that’s considered a pretty short stay for this kind of injury.”
“I’m so tired of bed,” she said with a sigh.
“Don’t expect to climb trees the minute you’re discharged,” he countered. “You won’t be exercising very much until that broken rib heals and that will take about five more weeks.”
“What medical school did you graduate from?” she murmured with a faint smile.
“I got in a fight once and had two ribs caved in with a two-by-four,” he said. “I remember how it hurt to even dance with girls, much less do anything more strenuous.”
There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but it wouldn’t do to put them into words. He wouldn’t like it. He felt sorry for her, guilty for seducing her. That was all he felt—he wanted no part of her emotional hunger. She had to keep that in mind before she made a fool of herself.
“No comment?” he asked.
She shrugged, grimacing. “I don’t have any right to be curious about your private life, Jacob,” she said quietly.
“No right or no interest?” he asked, his voice deep and soft.
Her eyes found the floor and stayed there, hiding from him. “Wouldn’t you like some coffee?”
“I guess so,” he sighed. He got to his feet, gazing at her intently. “Can I bring you anything?”
She shook her head. What she wanted, nobody could bring her.
Unexpectedly, he reached down and touched her hair gently, feeling a sudden protective stirring deep inside himself. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but will you try to stop looking back? There’s nothing either of us can do to change what happened.”
“I know that,” she said, her voice subdued. “I don’t blame you, Jacob.”
“Don’t you?” He sounded bitter, and when she looked at him, his expression was hard and mocking.
“My father
was…was a fanatic,” she said softly. “You can’t imagine what it was like.”
“Oh, but I can,” he said. His dark eyes searched hers. “If I’d had any inkling of your upbringing, I’d never have touched you.”
“Don’t you think I knew that?” she asked, vulnerability in her tone as she watched him.
His hand smoothed the dull sheen of her short hair. “Did you want me so badly, little one?” he asked tenderly.
Her lower lip trembled and tears threatened. “I wanted…” She bit her lip, hard. Love, she could have added. Just a little love, a little respite from the loneliness and longing of years. She closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m very tired.”
She was closing up like a flower at night, shutting him out. He could imagine what she was about to admit, but she didn’t want him to know how she really felt. His lean fingers brushed her pale cheek.
“Get some sleep. I’ll come back when Tom does.”
“He was going to pack some things for me.”
“He already has. Your case is sitting beside your front door.”
Her eyes opened, the expression in them was very vulnerable. “Jacob, I could still go with him….”
“He can’t look after you and work. I can.”
“You shouldn’t have to. I’m not your responsibility.”
He almost smiled at her dogged expression. “Kate,” he said softly, “hasn’t it occurred to you yet that I might want you to be?”
“No, it hasn’t, and no, you don’t,” she returned. “You feel guilty and sorry for me. You needn’t pretend it’s anything else, and I don’t want to go home with you on sufferance—oh!”
Before she could finish the tirade, his mouth had moved softly over hers, touching her lips with aching tenderness. She smelled his spicy aftershave, tasted the faint tobacco tartness of his breath. It was all she could do to keep from responding.
“I don’t have time for guilt and pity,” he whispered against her moist lips. “I’m a busy man with autumn coming on. But I’ll make sure you have enough on your mind to keep you from brooding while you heal. Now stop hunting for excuses and go to sleep. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us.”