by Diana Palmer
“Why don’t you go back to bed?” she ventured.
“Loving me doesn’t give you the right to mother me,” he replied curtly, and glared at her shocked expression. “I don’t want to go to bed, thank you. I’ve got cattle to look after.”
“You can’t look after them if you die,” she replied. Talking about her feelings was beginning to feel natural—at least with him it was.
“I won’t die.” He sipped his coffee, made a face at the eggs and bacon and stood up. “I can’t eat. I’m going out.”
But when he started to move, he swayed. Kate jumped up without thinking and got under his arm. His body felt hot, and when she reached up to feel his forehead, it was blazing.
“Jacob, you’ve got a fever. A high one,” she announced.
“I do feel a bit woozy. Here, now, honey, don’t put that rib at risk. I can lean against the wall.”
“Just lean on me. I won’t let you hurt my rib,” she protested. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“I haven’t got time for this, Kate,” he grumbled. But he went with her, feeling sick and hollow—and oddly elated because Kate loved him. It had hurt more than he wanted to admit, having her run from him because he’d blurted that out about her feelings. His feverish eyes looked down on her dark head. She was one in a million. And she was going to marry him, one way or the other. He wasn’t letting her get away.
“Now, lie down while I get these off,” she said when they were beside his bed. She watched him lie down, and reached for his boot.
“No, you don’t,” he replied, glaring at her. “You aren’t supposed to do any lifting, or pulling, and boots don’t come off without some work. Get Hank.”
She sighed. He was right. “Okay. Where is he?”
“Probably at the barn. The vet was coming to check some new stock for us.” Stretched catty-cornered over the coverlet, his hat off, his feet hanging off the mattress, he closed his eyes. He looked sick.
“I’ll get him. You stay put.”
He opened one eye. “Worried about me?” he asked, and grinned wickedly.
She glared. “It would serve you right if I ignored you.”
He closed the eye again. “No, it wouldn’t. It feels good, being loved,” he said in a slow, tender voice, and he smiled.
She flushed, and tried to find the right words to reply. He was confusing her.
He opened his eyes to study her reaction, and the smile was still there, even more tender than before. “Put on a raincoat before you go out,” he reminded her. “I don’t want you to catch cold.”
A warm glow grew inside her. She smiled back at him, fascinated by his unexpected tenderness. Then she quickly went out, a little afraid of his new attitude.
Hank came at once, and when he saw Jacob, he immediately phoned the doctor, who said to bring the patient in. Kate got him into a raincoat and they stuffed him into the cab of the pickup and drove him into Blairsville.
It was a bad case of bronchitis, with a viral infection aggravating it. The doctor gave Jacob an injection and prescriptions for antibiotics and a cough syrup. They picked up the prescriptions on the way home. Then Hank got him undressed and into bed, Janet made him chicken soup and Kate sat with him while Hank went out to work.
He slept most of the day. Kate watched him with loving eyes, enjoying the unique experience of being allowed to look at him without having to worry about being seen. Even pale and feverish, he delighted her hungry eyes.
She left him only long enough to eat a quick dinner and then went back to his bedside with a cup of coffee to keep her warm. By night, he was stirring.
“I feel worse now than I did when I got up,” he murmured.
“Darkness before dawn,” she said cheerfully.
He smiled at her. “I guess. You should be in bed.”
“I’ll go in a little while.”
“If you’re going to stay, how about reading me something?”
“What would you like to hear? One of those murder mysteries?”
“I’d rather hear market news. There’s a recent cattlemen’s association magazine on my dresser.”
“Okay.”
She got it and read him an article about new marketing techniques and a report on forage grasses.
“That reminds me,” he murmured, “I’ve got the boys building a greenhouse for you. It should be finished in a day or so. Then we’ll get you some pots and potting soil and some plant stock from the nursery in Pierre.”
“You don’t need to worry with that,” she said, pleased that he’d remembered his promise, and sad that she wouldn’t get to use the greenhouse. “I’ll be able to leave in another week, you know,” she added quietly.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, without any subterfuge or camouflage. “I want you where I am.”
She flushed. “I have a job….”
“Quit it,” he said.
The color grew worse. “Jacob, I—”
“I can support you. I’ve got a damned empire out here, except at tax time. We can live on beef for a while, even if the money gives out. You can grow things in the greenhouse and we’ll have vegetables year-round.”
He didn’t sound as if he were joking. “You don’t want to marry,” she reminded him. “You’ve always said you didn’t.”
“I’ve said a lot of stupid things, Kate. Haven’t you noticed?” He moved onto his side so that he could see her. “Listen, don’t you want kids?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted, her eyes lingering with hopeless longing on his dark face.
“My kids?” he persisted gently, smiling.
She averted her eyes. “I’ll kill my brother,” she said through her teeth.
“He’s in New York, and I’ll protect him. I told you, I like being loved. Nobody ever loved me before, except family.”
Memories flashed through her mind. A deep, slow voice, faintly unsteady, whispering that. Her eyes widened, holding his. “You said that…you told me that when I was in the intensive care unit. You said, ‘Don’t die on me…’“
The smile faded, and he held her eyes relentlessly. “Yes. And I told you that I didn’t think I wanted to live without you. Would you like to hear me say it again?”
“You were just overwrought,” she said.
“I still am. I want you.” He reached out and caught her hand gently in his. “Don’t turn away like that. Wanting isn’t some unforgivable sin. It’s part of that emotion you don’t want me to know you feel for me.” He smiled at her softly. “Kate, you like planting things and watching them grow. Well, I guess God does, too. He arranged things so that a man and a woman do the planting, and the baby is the little seed that grows. Life is a miracle, Kate.”
She searched his dark eyes quietly. “I was punished every time I smiled at a boy,” she whispered. “All Tom and I heard was how sinful sex was.”
“Your father was a sick man, honey,” he said gently. “He was sick, and maybe he had more responsibility than he could handle.”
“If my mother hadn’t left us—”
He drew her hand to his mouth. “My mother left me, too,” he reminded her. “It wasn’t my fault when she left, any more than you were to blame for your mother’s desertion. Maybe she had a reason. You were very young when she left. It’s hard for a child to understand adult reasoning.”
“I used to cry for her at night,” she told him. “I missed her so much.”
“Maybe she missed you and Tom, too.” His eyes narrowed. He’d just had an idea, but he wasn’t going to share it with Kate just yet. Not until he worked out the details.
Kate didn’t answer. She looked at the lean, strong hand holding hers, and involuntarily her fingers stroked over the back of it.
“I wish I felt better,” he murmured, watching her. “I want to make love to you.”
She felt heat tingle through her. For an old-fashioned reactionary, he had a sexy way of talking to her. She felt naive with him.
“So shy,” he mused, turning her hand
over so that he could lock his warm fingers into hers. “And I’ve hurt you without even realizing how much, all these long years we’ve been apart. I wish I could take back every painful thing I’ve ever said to you.”
“You said what you felt at the time. There’s no need for any regrets,” she replied quietly.
“Think so? Get my wallet off the dresser, honey.”
Frowning, she found the battered black cowhide wallet and handed it to him. He struggled into a sitting position, knocking the covers off his broad, hair-matted chest, and opened the wallet. He thumbed through the plastic inserts to the one he’d shown Morgan Winthrop at the newspaper office. He turned it, and showed it to Kate.
She stared at the picture, dumbfounded. It wasn’t something he’d just stuck in there to impress her. From the faded, wrinkled condition of it, and the age she was when it had been taken, he’d been carrying the photograph around for a lot of years. It was of her, at one of Margo’s parties, in a Mexican skirt and peasant blouse, with her long hair settled around her bare shoulders and her mouth smiling at the photographer. There was a brilliance in that smile that puzzled her, until she remembered that Jacob had taken the picture for Margo, who’d been in it with her. He’d cut it to fit his wallet, removing Margo’s image in the process.
“I never knew why you looked so beautiful until Tom told me the truth,” he said, watching her rapt expression. “And then I realized that the light in your eyes in that picture was for me. I’ve carried it everywhere with me, for years. Having it with me made me feel at home wherever I happened to be.” He reached out and took the wallet back from her, glancing warmly at the picture before he closed the wallet and gave it to her to put on the dresser.
“You wanted to be a reporter, you see,” he said, studying her face when she sat down again. “You wanted the city. I wasn’t about to put myself in the position of losing out to a career. So I scotched down what I was starting to feel for you, and I found a reason to hate you. That kept you from looking deeper.”
She felt her breath stop in her throat. He’d been starting to feel something for her. He hadn’t known how she felt, but he was sure she wanted a career instead of marriage. What an irony.
“I…went to Chicago so I wouldn’t wear my heart out on you,” she confessed. “We all thought you’d marry Barbara someday because she was rich like you, and beautiful and sophisticated.”
“Bull,” he said curtly. “She was a decorator piece, great for standing in ballrooms and taking to expensive restaurants. I had in mind a woman who’d like being pregnant by me and spending her life looking at cattle and dust and hay.”
Her lips parted. “Oh.”
“The family ranch, like the family farm, is becoming a thing of the past, Kate, and do you know why? It’s because people on farms aren’t having a lot of kids anymore. It’s unfashionable. They have a son or two, and the son hates the country, so he leaves. Dad grows old and sells the farm.” He pursed his lips, letting his dark eyes travel slowly over Kate’s tall, slender body. “We could make a lot of babies together.”
She gasped. And he laughed, wickedly, seductively, watching her like a hawk.
“Little cowboys,” he said softly. “Little cowgirls. I could even learn to change diapers and give bottles, unless you wanted to nurse the babies.” His dark eyes went to her breasts and he felt himself going rigid with sweet memories. “Oh, God, Kate, I’d love to watch you nurse them,” he whispered fervently.
She was shaking by now. She loved him so desperately. And he wanted children; children would bind them. But even as she wanted it, would have died for it, she realized that their marriage would be only a travesty, with all the love on her side. Someday, inevitably, Jacob would fall in love with someone else and he’d leave her. Nothing would alter that. Her love alone wasn’t enough to build a future on.
“No.” She forced the word out without looking directly at him. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” She turned back toward the door.
“You love me, damn it!” he said, exasperated.
“Love on one side isn’t enough,” she said miserably. “It wouldn’t be enough for you, eventually. Someday you’ll realize that it was just desire shadowed with pity, Jacob.” She opened the door, hiding the tears she couldn’t let him see. “Good night.”
When she closed the door behind her, he was cursing steadily, watching her go with a kind of impotence he’d never felt. Damn women, damn female logic, damn it all! If he’d felt halfway well, and if she’d been completely healed, he’d have argued away all her protests. But as things stood, he couldn’t do anything. He lay back on the pillows with a weary sigh and closed his eyes.
He could have told Kate he loved her, he supposed. The words didn’t even feel uncomfortable. But she was certain that his conscience was responsible for how he felt, and that wasn’t true. And desire wasn’t the only emotion he felt. A man didn’t carry a woman’s photo around with him for years out of desire alone. But he wasn’t quite ready to deal with that much emotion. Not yet. Only, if he didn’t do something fast, Kate was going to walk right out of his life. And he couldn’t deal with that at all.
He slept on those troubled thoughts, and woke up with a fresh idea. Perhaps he should change tactics.
Kate was at the breakfast table, her face pale, her eyes a little puffy, as if she’d cried all night. He sighed, looking at her eyes. Incredible, that stubborn streak in her. She was still protecting him from himself. Or trying to.
“Want to see your greenhouse today?” Jacob asked, grinning at his father as he took his place at the head of the table and dragged the bacon platter closer. He was still a little hoarse and weak, but he wasn’t about to let those minor irritations get him down. He was well on the way to normal.
“Greenhouse?” Kate echoed with her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She brightened immediately. “You mean they’re through with it?”
“Haven’t you missed the hammering for the past day?” Jacob teased gently. “Yes, they’re through. And just in time, because the first snow isn’t far away now. I’ve had them add an emergency generator and a heating system, so that you won’t have to worry about power failures. If you get busy, you’ll have strawberries in December.”
“Strawberries in December.” She sighed. But then she looked at him and her face fell as she realized that in December she wouldn’t be here anymore. She’d been noble and turned him down. She’d be back in Chicago looking for work, and pretty soon. Her month was almost up.
“What’s that sad look for?” he asked.
“I’ll be gone,” she said. “In December, I mean.”
“No, you won’t,” he said good-humoredly. “We’re getting married.”
“We are not!” she tossed back, setting her lips into a thin line. “We went over all that last night, Jacob.”
“You did, but I didn’t.” He added eggs to his plate and a biscuit thick with apple butter. “Pour me some coffee, will you, honey?”
“That’s the way, son. Just ignore whatever Kate says and marry her anyway,” Hank agreed. “Well, Kate,” he coaxed when she glared at him, “you have to understand how desperate Janet and I are to marry him off. He’s been in a better humor altogether since you’ve been on the place. We wouldn’t want him to revert to type, would we?”
“I don’t care what he reverts to. I can’t marry him,” Kate said doggedly.
“He’s rich,” Hank coaxed. “Handsome. He’d spoil you rotten. You’d have lots of kids and I’d get to babysit them….”
“Like hell you would,” Jacob shot back. “I’m not having you teach my sons how to shoot pool and play blackjack and drink whiskey!”
“Well, it never hurt you none, Jay,” Hank said reasonably.
“He let you drink whiskey when you were a little boy?” Kate asked Jacob with wide, curious eyes.
“Of course he did,” he muttered. “He let us do anything we wanted. That way we didn’t use his whiskey bottles for targets and put burrs in his sheets
at night.”
“You little monster,” Kate accused.
“I had my good points,” Jacob replied, finishing his breakfast.
“Did you?” Hank said, puzzled.
“I love you, too,” Jacob muttered at him.
“I’m glad, but it’s Kate you ought to be practicing on. Why don’t you take her to see that greenhouse?” Hank suggested with raised brows and a grin.
“I did have that in mind. I don’t need any heavy-handed pushes, thanks.”
“Suit yourself, son,” Hank said innocently, and bent over his eggs.
Jacob swallowed the rest of his coffee and, noticing that Kate, too, had finished her breakfast, drew her chair out for her and led her down the hall toward the back door.
“Going to show Kate the greenhouse, are you?” Janet asked with a grin, looking from one to the other approvingly. “Nice day for it.”
Jacob said something under his breath and herded Kate out the back door.
“Janet is one of a kind.” Kate laughed, looking up at him.
“Thank God,” he said without a pause.
She shook her head. “It’s like an armed camp around here. Do you and Janet and your father fight all the time?”
“Only during daylight.” He linked her fingers into his and smiled down at her. It was a sunny, warm day, unseasonably so, and he was in his shirtsleeves. She was wearing jeans, as he was, and a blue print shirt much like the one that covered his broad chest and muscular arms.
“We match,” she said without thinking.
“Indeed we do.” His hand tightened. “We’ll find we have a lot in common. We both love the land, we’re dyedin-the-wool conservationists and, if I remember, you even like animals.”
“It isn’t enough. Please don’t harass me, Jacob,” she asked quietly. “It’s not fair.”
“You want to marry me.”
“More than anything,” she agreed, her voice husky and soft. “Except your happiness.”