Marrying Jake

by Beverly Bird

  Jake had trouble finding his voice. “I know that.” That issue haunted him, tore him up inside with conflicting emotions. If she had been there, maybe Mills would have hesitated. He had waited until Deborah Stoltzfus was behind her line of sheets after all. Maybe Sam would still be here, because Katya’s attention would have had been focused on him. In all likelihood, she would have been holding him.

  But then, maybe, Mills would have hurt her.

  “So now what?” she asked.

  He brought his thoughts back to her. “I was going to catch an hour or two of sleep.”

  “There’s nothing that can possibly be done in the meantime?”

  He winced. “God, Katie, I wish there were. Believe me, I’d be out there doing it. But there’s not. I know who’s doing this now. The highway patrols in five or six states are looking for the car. I’ve gotten the guy’s license plate number. The FBI has an interstate APB out on him. His home is covered. Assuming he ever goes back there, my buddy in New Jersey will grab him. So, no, there’s nothing to do now but wait for someone to lay their hands on him.”

  But so much could go wrong, he thought again. Mills could abandon the Cadillac. The post offices were full of pictures of men who were wanted, who’d managed to elude the law for years and years. All Jake could do was pray that Mills wasn’t smart enough to pull it off. And praying had never held him in particularly good stead before.

  Katya was wearing that awed expression again. “How in the world did you ever manage all that?” she whispered.

  He realized that she didn’t know half of what had occurred tonight. Guilt tore at him all over again. There were things he could tell her. He had been so wrapped up in himself, he just hadn’t thought.

  He tried to tell himself he never shared all his cards, not even with the ChildSearch parents. It generally tangled up an investigation, having them overly involved. He always warned them to back off and let him do his job. He rarely shared, period. Why then, did he feel ashamed that he hadn’t now?

  Because in this instance, not telling Katie had been a decision based wholly upon not wanting to come back here sooner. Instead, he had sent Adam with vague messages about evidence that didn’t tell the whole story. Because he was a coward. Because he hadn’t known how to face her.

  And that was just another way of letting her down.

  “It’s a long story,” he said at last, carefully. “The skeleton helped. The candy wrapper fed into it. It just started to make sense that the same guy who killed Jannel has been snapping up your babies. And he lives in Jersey, and I’ve got a buddy over there who works with ChildSearch. He gave me the plate number. Police work is like that,” he went on. “Sometimes I’ve gone round and round on a case for years, turning up nothing. Then one weird little something happens, and everything else starts falling into place. I call it the domino effect. It just takes one thing, one little push, to start the blocks toppling over. In this case, it was the body we fell on. A millionto-one long shot, but it happened, we found her, and then everything else started clicking together.” Too late, he thought. Too damned late to save Sam. “Plus he got lazy this time,” he added. “He left clues and witnesses at the pond.”

  “Ah,” Katya said, clasping her hands together in front of her. “So Sam is...in New Jersey? Is that what you think?”

  Jake’s stomach rolled. It was always so easy for her to simplify things. “Not yet.” And he could have been. It was only a three- maybe four-hour drive. “But Mills will have to turn up there sooner or later.” He would probably turn up there sooner or later.

  “Can we go there and wait?”

  “For God’s sake, Katie, we don’t know how long it’s going to take!”

  “Oh. Well, then, I suppose I must wait here.”

  Suddenly he was angry again. “How the hell can you be so calm?” he demanded.

  “I’m not. I’m simply functioning.”

  No, he thought, that wasn’t entirely true. Oh, he didn’t doubt that her heart was tortured. A piece of it was gone, missing, out there somewhere with Sam. But she was doing better than functioning. He’d come up here to give her what pathetically little he could, to make it different this time. And from the moment he’d set foot in her room, she’d been calming him, soothing him, instead.

  “Ah, Katie,” he said finally. “You make me feel so small.”

  “Small?”

  And strong, he thought. Invincible. Worthwhile. Just because she seemed to believe in him.

  He cleared his throat. “I should let you get some sleep.” “Please don’t.”

  He scowled at her.

  “I won’t. I won’t sleep. I can’t.” She thought of what she had told Mariah earlier about distracting her. And it had worked. There was only one way she was going to get through this. One way she could bear this intolerable waiting. “Could you do something for me?”

  “Anything.” Then he thought about it. “I can try,” he amended. He’d made one too many promises tonight already.

  Katya’s heart pounded. “Could you make me forget for a little while?”

  His heart stalled. His eyes narrowed. “What are you asking?”

  “Could you make the next few hours pass in a...well, in a blur? Until something happens. Until you can go back out there and do something. Until I have something more to hold on to, some kind of hope.”

  His heart started beating again, slowly, cautiously. Hell, he probably wouldn’t sleep, either. What was the sense of trying? “What did you have in mind?”

  He wasn’t making this easy. Her fingers twined together into a knot. “Would you touch me again?”

  Jake felt the floor shift under his feet. “Touch you?” he repeated.

  “The way you did this afternoon.”

  “Adam would come charging in here like a white knight, trying to save your honor,” he said hoarsely. It was the first protest that came to his mind.

  “How would he know?”

  Because ten to one, he already knows I’m in here, Jake responded silently. But damn him, he’s not my keeper. Or hers.

  Katya’s face flamed. He didn’t want to. He’d already changed his mind about her. She turned away, back to the window. “Never mind,” she whispered. “Of course, you need your sleep. You—”

  She broke off, her breath catching, as she felt him lift her hair from her nape and touch his mouth there. She hadn’t even heard him cross the room. She turned back to him fast and chided herself helplessly as soon as she did, because her hair fell back into place and the moment was over.

  “Jacob?”

  “Katie, I’ve wanted you since I woke up with half a concussion and saw your face swimming above me,” he said quietly. “You’re selling yourself short again.”

  “I just—”

  “You’ve got to stop that.” If he didn’t leave her with anything else, he had to fix that. “I know what you thought. You thought that when I touched you before it was a case of temporary insanity or something. That now I’ve come back to my senses. What did Frank tell you?” he demanded, his voice suddenly harsh. “No, don’t bother. I think I know. He told you that no other man would want you.”

  Pain sliced through her.

  “Do you know why Frank said that?” he went on. “To keep you under his thumb. To keep you his. Because if you believed in yourself, you might find it within yourself to fight him. Because if you thought somebody else might want you, you might find a way out, a way to leave him.”

  Her eyes widened. “But the ordnung—”

  “He never believed in it, Katie!” he interrupted. “If he had, he could never have hurt you! Why should he believe it would stop you when he didn’t respect it himself? Why would he have thought it would stop you from leaving him?”

  “I...I don’t know,” she whispered, realizing it.

  “Well, I do.” Men like Frank Essler were the same the world over, he thought. “You’re beautiful, Katie. You’re a beautiful woman. You’re beautiful when you’re weari
ng those plain dresses. And when your hair is pulled back, even though it never stays there. And in jeans, with your hair loose, you’re a knockout.” If he could give her nothing else, he resolved, he would give her this. “Don’t believe him anymore, Katie. Don’t do it. He was lying.”

  She began to tremble. “Pride is a sin.”

  “No,” he said fiercely. “No.” He would never believe that. If that was what Frank Essler and her God had taught her, then they had effectively destroyed her. “Pride is nothing more than believing in yourself,” he went on, “and every human being has the right to do that.”

  “You don’t have to say these things.”

  He swore, frustrated. “I’m saying it because I’m scared to death to show you.”

  Her mouth opened in a little sound of surprise. Then she shook her head. “You’re never scared, Jacob,” she said, as she had once before.

  But this time his answer was different. I’m always scared. And he had never fully admitted it, even to himself, until he met her and understood the true meaning of fear. In that moment, he knew why he had so desperately needed to steer clear of her from the start. He had worked long and hard to accept his own inadequacies. He had blamed himself and hated himself for letting down those he loved. And so he had fixed himself—or he thought he had. He had turned away from that puppy, knowing that to love it would mean destroying it. He had stopped making promises because there had been too many promises he had been unable to keep.

  Katya wouldn’t let him be that way. She wouldn’t leave him alone. He had known from the start that she could reach past the barriers. Because she was beautiful, and he wanted her, but she wouldn’t accept what he was trying to tell her about himself, wouldn’t let him be the way he knew he had to be.

  “I’m scared now,” he managed to say.

  “Why?” she whispered, stepping closer, searching his face.

  “Because I’m not good enough for you. Because you deserve so much more than me, and you don’t believe it.”

  She shook her head slowly, thoughtfully. “No. But I won’t argue with you because I think you believe it.”

  She amazed him. Somehow, she just kept amazing him.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she went on.

  Something jolted in the area of his chest. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re here, at least for now. And no one else, no other man, good or bad or otherwise, ever will be. I’ve accepted that.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said harshly, feeling the panic set in again.

  Katya realized that she was utterly calm now. Her heart had stopped clamoring. That amazed her, but it made sense, too. So few things were within her ability to change. But she might be able to change his mind right now, about this.

  She was tired of waiting for God to bestow favors and kindnesses. Too often, He was too busy to remember her and hear her pleas. She had realized tonight that she was more or less on her own. And maybe, just a little bit, she wanted to defy Him. She wanted to defy the upbringing that had brought her to this place in her life.

  “No other anner Satt Leit man is going to come into my world, Jacob,” she went on in a rush. “Someone like you arrives here so rarely. And no Amishman will ever touch me because in their eyes I will always be married. I want this now, Jacob. With you. While I have the chance. Please don’t turn away from me and leave me with nothing forever.”

  He realized almost distantly that his hands weren’t steady. There was a thrumming sensation in his chest. How the hell was he supposed to turn away from that?

  He couldn’t.

  He went back to the door. Her heart plunged. Katya felt it virtually hit her heels. It hurt. It hurt so much more than she had thought it would. He must have been lying when he said she was beautiful. Otherwise, how—why—would he turn away?

  But he only pushed the lock on the door.

  He leaned back against it, watching her a moment. This was wrong. He knew—God help him, he knew—that if he did as she asked, he’d only end up hurting her when he left.

  He couldn’t live with that.

  But...the solution he had hit upon earlier in the department store came back to him. The criteria that would maybe make it all right. He could give her something. Maybe something as simple as what she had asked for—a short time of respite, time passing in a blur. Or maybe he could give her something bigger, like a belief in her own beauty and strength.

  If he gave her that, he thought he might possibly be able to live with himself afterward. Or maybe, maybe, she would end up finally and fully destroying all the things he had ever believed about himself... if he let her come any closer, if he let her in.

  Fear, he thought. It was there again, howling through his blood. It demanded that he leave now. Right now. Before everything could change. Before both of them were left with none of the things they needed. She needed her God, and he needed his own rigid rules of behavior, those tried-and-true guidelines that had grown out of his own years of hell.

  “Jacob?” she whispered.

  He crossed the room toward her. He didn’t trust words or his voice. He placed his hands carefully on either side of her face and he kissed her.

  For the longest time, for whole booming heartbeats, Katya had felt as though she were extending a handful of grain to a wild deer. She had felt his yearning—and that in itself was astounding, that he should yearn for her. She had felt his fear. She didn’t understand it, and then she didn’t need to. His lips were on hers and she could let herself breathe again.

  She caught his wrists with her hands as his tongue swept her mouth. The quilt slid from her shoulders.

  There was a certain desperation to his kiss this time, as though he thought he would be damned for every move he made now and couldn’t help but make them. She shivered. Then he stopped and bent to retrieve the quilt that had fallen from her shoulders to the floor.

  “You’re cold.”

  “No,” she whispered. “Leave it.”

  “But—”

  “You must leave it. Pull it aside, Jacob. Please.”

  He stood, letting it dangle from his fingers, and looked at her oddly. Then he looked at the quilt. It was pale ivory, with large blue rings interwoven all over it.

  He felt his throat tightening. He was confused by her urgency, and he hungered for her. Too much. Too easily. Because it was easier than arguing, he threw the quilt onto the bed.

  She came into his arms hard and fast then, with a small cry, as though that was all she had been waiting for. So he kissed her again, because doing anything else seemed impossible.

  Katya felt his fingers tense, tighten in her hair. His mouth was hard, almost bruising. Kissing him was delicious, heady, but he kept space between them, just a few inches. She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders with the thought of drawing him closer.

  She felt no fear. None at all. And she knew that that had less to do with trusting him than trusting herself to give him something. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she sensed it within herself. So rarely was she able to give anything to anyone. That made her heart pound.

  He still wore Adam’s coat. She tried to push it off his shoulders. He finally dropped his hands from her face and shrugged out of it without taking his mouth from hers. He flung it away blindly. It landed on the floor near the door.

  He was vaguely aware of that, as though it were blocking him from his sole avenue of escape. Then she nestled closer to him in the few seconds when he wasn’t holding her. Her arms went around his neck. For a moment that felt like an eternity to him, his own arms stayed rigidly at his sides. His heart thundered.

  If he kept his hands off her body, he was just kissing her. If he put his arms around her, he was lost. Restraint had never been his strong suit, yet now it was immense. It held him in a fierce grip...because he wanted so badly. And always, always, when he wanted, he turned away.

  But what he wanted didn’t usually pursue him, didn’t generally hunt him down.


  Her hands were in his hair now. Holding him, melding his mouth more firmly to hers. And she was pressing against him, and it seemed to him that he could feel every single part of her with equal intensity, all at once. The steady, relentless warmth of her. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Her thighs flush against his. He sensed rather than knew that she was standing on tiptoe.

  His hands finally moved. He heard a groaning sound and realized it came from his own throat. His arms went around her waist. He wanted He found himself with handfuls of her dress. He needed. His fist clenched and gathered the fabric at her hips, and he kissed her deeper, then he made a sound that might have been despair or rage. It didn’t deter her. She didn’t back off.

  “Katie, what are you doing to me?”

  She wasn’t sure, but she knew she couldn’t break their contact. It was as necessary as air. It was, perhaps, the first purely wonderful thing in her world. He pulled her dress all the way up, until it was pooled around her waist. And she knew then that she had been wrong that first day when he had tumbled her onto the bed—his hands were gentle. They cupped her bottom and she felt something growing inside her, trembling at first, then beginning to pound.

  “Please touch me,” she gasped. “Please.”

  Jake finally found his voice. “I’ve wanted to do this all day, ever since I saw you in those jeans, so tight, outlining every swell and curve.” But that didn’t make it right.

  Heat spread up her chest to her neck, but it wasn’t embarrassment. The way he said it only made everything pound inside her even more. “Then do it,” she whispered.

  His mouth came back to hers again, and there was a new urgency to his kiss. His hands moved, down to her thighs, up again, now sweetly, now dragging her into him. And even as she felt him grip her waist, even as she felt his thumbs slide under the elastic of her tights, she felt the hardness of him, too, pressing into her belly.

  He wanted her. This wasn’t just words, wasn’t designed assurance. This was real. One more good thing. One more defiance against everything that was supposed to protect her, but had let her and her children down. She would take the one thing for herself that she wanted most of all. She wanted this man for as long as he would be here.