Marrying Jake

by Beverly Bird

  So the kidnapper might well like Snickers, he thought. Which told him not a damned thing, although he would send the wrapper to Dallas anyway and have it checked for possible prints. Still, paper was one of the worst surfaces for holding fingerprints. Slick, shiny paper was even worse. And in this weather, whoever had tossed it had almost certainly been wearing gloves.

  They worked for another two hours without finding anything other than the usual detritus of reasonably thick woods. He finally leaned the fork against a tree and pushed his shoulders back, stretching the kinks out of his spine. There were distinct knots of discomfort between his shoulder blades and at the small of his back. He turned and looked at Katya.

  She raked on eagerly. If she was stiff, it didn’t show. Well, hell, he thought, disgruntled. He was a lot taller than she was. He’d had to bend over to do the job right. She didn’t. Still, it was time for a break, for a little comic relief here.

  Without thinking, he scooped up a handful of snow. He compacted it just enough, bouncing it from one palm to another to give her ample time to look back and see what he was up to. She didn’t.

  “Well, honey, you’ve got this coming, then,” he murmured under his breath, grinning. He let the snowball fly.

  It struck her squarely between the shoulders. She jerked so violently the pitchfork flew from her hands. Then she whirled, her hands up, ready to ward off another blow. Too late, he realized how cruel he’d been.

  “I’m sorry, baby. Oh, God.” He moved for her quickly, but she was still shaken and she backed up instinctively. He stopped in his tracks, holding his hands up. “Hey, hey,” he said quietly, “I was just playing around. It was only a snowball.”

  She stared at him. “A snowball?”

  “Yeah. Guess you guys don’t have fights with them, either.”

  She blinked. “Of course we do. Or, the children do.” She looked around vacantly as though expecting to see some. “The adults don’t have time.”

  “Well, then.”

  “I just—you startled me.”

  “Sorry,” he said again, feeling small, feeling like hell. She wasn’t going to let him get much closer, and it was just as well. He turned his back on her abruptly and went back to his pitchfork. He’d apologized. What else could he do?

  Comic relief. What the hell had he been thinking? Not a good way to keep his distance from her, he realized belatedly. He’d just been growing a little stiff and bored with the sameness of the job. She was easy to relax with. He’d lost his head for a minute—

  Thwap!

  As far as snowballs went, it wasn’t a good one. Too loose. Not packed enough. Still, it got the job done. It hit the back of his head and rained nice, cold snow down inside his collar.

  Jake turned slowly. “You know that means war.”

  She was standing with both mittened hands clapped to her mouth as though she couldn’t believe what she had done. But her eyes were alive. Something moved inside him. Oh, yeah, he thought. This was war.

  She saw him reach to scoop up another handful of snow. Katya backed up fast. Oh, it was going to be cold. She started to twist, to take it on her back again where it would be the most tolerable, but she only got halfway around before the missile came sailing. It caught her in the neck and she shrieked and dived for snow of her own before he could get more. She never had time to make a ball of it. He was advancing toward her. She simply flung the handful and ran.

  He had such long legs. He would catch her. But that didn’t matter. No, she realized, it didn’t matter at all. When was the last time she had actually run? She felt her shawl coming loose and managed to snag one end of it, but the rest of it trailed behind her. And the wind was icy and biting, even in the trees, but it felt so good, she thought, tingling all over her exposed skin. She tipped her face up to take it on her cheeks and laughed in sheer joy.

  Jake heard her and stopped cold.

  He had never heard her laugh before. He wondered if anyone had, or if she had been caught up in her own private hell for so long that the reflex had died in her heart. The sound drifted back to him, sweet, high, special. It hit him like a blow to the chest. He’d made her laugh. Worth the delay in their work, he decided. Definitely worth it.

  He wondered if she’d laugh with a good handful of snow shoved right inside the neckline of her plain wool jacket. The snowball she’d landed above his collar still chilled his skin with its cold wetness. He started jogging again, knowing if he went after her at an all-out run he’d only frighten her. And he’d catch up with her too soon. He wanted to prolong this a little. He saw her look back over her shoulder for him, her cheeks cherry red now. Laughing, she was still laughing. Then she ducked behind a tree.

  What was she doing? Jake laughed too, when he saw. She was hiding back there, out of his aim, building a whole damned arsenal. She was too busy to keep an eye on him. He crept around to her left, soundlessly, deeper into the woods. He came up behind her, snow in hand.

  She finally heard the crunch of his footsteps and her head snapped up, her heart hurtling instinctively. She pushed the fear away because she hated it. For once, just this one time, she wouldn’t be a slave to it. She grabbed as many finished snowballs as she could and shot to her feet again.

  Too late. One of his came flying.

  She shrieked again and ducked. It missed her. She tried to back up as he lunged for her, another handful of snow at the ready, but she only collided with the tree she’d been trying to hide behind. He lifted her right off her feet and dropped her in the snow—like a calf about to be tied, she thought indignantly. But he was laughing and she wasn’t afraid.

  She rolled—or tried to. Oh, that stupid tree! She came up against it again face first and felt him pull the collar of her jacket wide in the back. She knew what was coming and she gasped, half-laughing, before she felt it. Crunchy, hard snow spilled down against her skin.

  She squealed and tried to get away from him, but he straddled her quickly, trapping the snow in her dress with his hand, then forcing her onto her back to hold it in there. Gasping, she tried to roll again anyway, so he dropped his full weight upon her to hold her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. Hold up the white flag. Honey, you’ve been bested by a master.”

  She managed to work one arm to the side, her fingers still searching for the snowballs she had dropped. He caught her hand as quickly as he had once before, when she had crept into his room. So fast she didn’t know what had happened. One moment her fingers were fumbling, spidering across the snow. Then her arm was over her head, and somehow so was her other one, and he was pinning them there, both her wrists in one strong hand.

  But this time, instead of keeping her immobile with his thigh, his whole body pressed her into the snow. Something ticklish moved deep inside her. She couldn’t get her breath.

  “Give up your ammo,” he growled.

  “Y-yes.”

  And that was when it stopped being funny.

  He stared down at her. He realized what he had done. What he was doing. He’d moved without meaning to, didn’t even realize he’d done it until he had. He’d used his knee to push her leg out, to give himself room to settle between her legs, more fully against her.

  He tried to swear and couldn’t find his voice. The scent of her, springtime fresh, hit him again, filled his nostrils, seeming incongruous as they lay there in snow. And it was good. It was right, warm, intimate, and he felt himself respond more or less as he had yesterday when she had combed his hair off his forehead, but the wanting this time was suddenly a lot more than before. He tried to remember all the reasons he’d had for not getting involved with her, and at the moment he couldn’t even recall the first one.

  He looked down into her face. His mouth was maybe three inches from hers, and that was only because he was still angling his upper body away from her to be able to hold her wrists. Slowly, carefully, he moved his gaze from her mouth to her eyes, needing to know what he would find there.

  Her eyes were huge. Not
wary. Amazed, not scared. She was breathing a little too hard, but it wasn’t from the exertion.

  “What have we gotten ourselves into here, Little Katie Yoder?” he murmured.

  Jake knew he was playing with fire. He did it anyway. He had to. He lowered his mouth to hers and tasted her.

  Katya’s blood was tripping through her veins now, scurrying fast and without reason. She felt sure she was trembling, but she didn’t seem to be; all the tremors were inside. Her heart was moving fast and erratically, suspended somewhere between her chest and her throat. His weight was delicious and special, and her nipples tightened and something wonderful happened low inside her. It was as though her muscles were gathering, tightening, readying.

  He told himself he’d make it quick. Keep it playful, although most of the giddiness had gone out of this whole business moments ago. He could get it back if he wanted to. He’d keep it light.

  He slanted his head, going from a brush of his lips over hers to something fuller, deeper, better. She tasted the way she smelled. Clean, new, like spring on the verge of bursting into the full ripeness of summer.

  He wasn’t sure when he let go of her wrists, when he settled his upper body upon her, too. He wasn’t sure how his hands got into her hair, holding her face, one on either side, keeping her still, suddenly afraid, very much afraid, that she was going to stop him. One moment he was in control, then he wasn’t. One moment he knew exactly what he was doing, as he always did; one moment it was a game, as it always was. Then he was sweeping his tongue through her mouth, hungry, wanting. Needing her. He never needed. He never allowed himself to need. But he couldn’t have dragged himself away from her now if his life had depended on it.

  When she first felt his tongue, Katya was startled, repulsed. Everything inside her cringed back, away from rude, ugly memories of Frank. Ah, but it hadn’t been this way with Frank. Jacob didn’t pummel her. He didn’t grunt and paw. He was so gentle, his touches featherlight as he finally moved his hands a little, trailing a finger down her neck. His tongue swept; it didn’t just probe and invade.

  When he freed her hands, Katya knew one moment of awkwardness, wondering what exactly she should do with them now. It lasted only as long as it took her heart to boom one more time against her chest. Then she drove her fingers into his hair.

  He was so incredible, so strong and smart and...yes, he was a little wild. Dangerous. Certainly no other man of her acquaintance would have dared to kiss her without even asking first—and certainly not now, not when she belonged to Frank.

  And he was so handsome. She couldn’t believe, could scarcely accept, that he was kissing her.

  Everything erupted inside her. A certain desperation came to her that he might never do this again—he probably wouldn’t do it again, that just seemed too incredible—so she wanted to feel, to taste everything she could right now. His hair was just as soft and damp as it had been when she had hit him with the rolling pin. It slid through her fingers and that made her shiver, and when she shivered, she felt something changed within him, as well.

  She moved her hands, too, wanting to find out if his shoulders were indeed as hard as they had looked that day when she had crept in on him sleeping. She wished she could get her hands underneath his coat, his shirt, so she could feel how smooth his skin really was. She made a humming sound in her throat, a sound of pure pleasure.

  She didn’t hear the cracking sound at first, but she felt the ground give beneath her a little. She felt it because, for a brief moment, she thought she was actually floating. The second crack was louder, longer, turning into a shredding sound.

  She lost his mouth as he pulled away. She made a sound of distress even as Jake swore.

  “What the hell—” he began.

  And then it happened. The ground literally gave way beneath them.

  She screamed as they fell, but his arms came around her, and somehow he rolled with her, using his own body to absorb most of their fall. But more uncomfortable than the impact of landing was what they landed on. Jagged branches and twigs, dried and brittle and dead. And wet and cold with the snow.

  “What the hell?” Jake demanded again.

  Katya tried to push away from him, tried to sit up, but there was little room. They’d crashed through the top of a deadfall.

  “They’re all through the woods,” she gasped. “There was a tornado many years ago—it ripped right through here and crashed everything over. A lot has grown back, but the dead stuff is still here, and—”

  He took her face in his hands. “What are you talking about?” he asked with great patience. He was still shaken.

  “Deadfalls,” she whispered, losing her voice a little because he was touching her again. “All the...deadfalls. That’s what happened. I believe we were on top of one. It gave out.”

  His body was still alive and he still wanted her, but painful reality was settling in. His conscience wasn’t howling yet, but he knew that, given enough time, it would start screaming at him. He couldn’t deal with that. More immediate was the problem of how he was going to get them out of here.

  It struck him now—belatedly—that he’d had to go up an incline to get to the spot where she’d been crouched behind the tree. A small incline. An incline only in that specific location. Not a hill. It was only a few yards wide.

  A deadfall. Hidden beneath smooth, pretty, deceptive snow.

  He looked up. The hole they had fallen through was all ragged edges. It wouldn’t be sturdy. He probably couldn’t pull himself out, but she could. She certainly could, being as small as she was.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.” He got to his knees, gingerly, not sure how much farther down they could fall if the bottom gave out again. “Kneel here in front of me.”

  She knelt. He caught her waist then slowly, carefully, he stood with her, lifting her toward the hole above their heads. Katya was amazed by the strength that would require.

  He found himself nose first to an area just beneath her waist. Don’t think about it. He wanted her still. That shook him. Shook him badly. Despite their circumstances, the need was still there, and he was a man who could turn off like a light switch when he chose to. Not now. Now the need stuttered at first, then it grew, pounding for his attention.

  “Jacob!” she squealed.

  “What?” he asked hoarsely.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Carefully, deliberately, he loosened his fingers where they bit into her waist. “Can you reach anything up there to hold on to, to pull yourself out with?” he asked. “Is there anything sturdy up there?”

  “Yes.” One of the tree roots was exposed. The tree had been partially uprooted by the twister. She reached for it. “But what about you?”

  “Just go.”

  “But—”

  “Go, Katya. Just pull yourself out and I can take care of myself.”

  He felt the burden of her lessen in his grip. Whatever it was she had found was taking most of her weight now. She finally got one knee on the brittle edge and scrambled out the rest of the way.

  The hole wasn’t all that deep. If it had been made of anything but the dead limbs of trees, getting out would have been a cinch. But he doubted if any of the debris around him could bear his weight. He was contemplating the problem, sifting through his memory, wondering if he had ever read of anyone in a similar situation, when she screamed.

  Fire shot through his blood, galvanizing him. Someone out there was going to hurt her. Her husband? The kidnapper? A million possibilities raced through his mind.

  He looked up. She was staring down into the hole, at a point past his shoulder, her eyes wide and stricken, a hand clapped to her mouth.

  “What?’ he demanded. ”You scared the hell out of me, woman. What the—”

  “We...we...we...” she interrupted. Or tried to. She didn’t quite seem to be able to get the words out.

  “What?” he asked again, frustrated. He finally inched his way around to see for himself wha
t she was staring at. Then, in disbelief, he mentally finished her sentence for her.

  We had company. We weren’t alone.

  A hand stuck up out of the broken branches he was standing on. It was inclined at a strange, unnatural angle. A single hand. A woman’s hand. He knew it was a woman because it wore a ring, something delicate and feminine that glittered even in the scant sunlight that made it through the forest canopy and down into the hole. Otherwise he wouldn’t have known. There was no way to tell. The hand was skeletal, only bone.

  He heard a strangled, mewling sound from above him. He looked up again just in time to catch Katya as she fell, in a dead faint, right back into the hole.

  Chapter 10

  Katya swam back to consciousness to find herself on Mariah’s sofa. She was peripherally aware that many, many people were present. A tragedy always brought friends with helping hands extended. The hum of various conversations was buzzing around her. But the only person she cared about was the man leaning over her, his dark brows knit together in concern.

  “Damn!” she burst out. It felt so good, so gratifying to say it. She didn’t care who heard her. Tears burned at her eyes. She refused to let them fall.

  Jake reared back from her in shock. “Huh?” He straightened and looked worriedly for Adam. “She’s not right, bro.”

  Adam hurried over to look down at her, too. Katya sat up shakily. She realized that most of the people present were women. Mariah and the older children were still at the school. Only a few men had been able to get away from their farms.

  Thank goodness. She couldn’t bear for any more people than necessary to see her like this.

  She looked down again, ashamed. “I’ve never been very good in times of trouble,” she said quietly, speaking to her clasped hands.

  So that was what was bothering her, Jake realized. “That’s not true,” he said quietly. “You brought the whole county out to find me when Goliath dumped me on my backside.”