Jake's child

by Lindsay Longford

  "Bugs. Yeah, I suppose." His expression was sagely understanding, a pint-sized guru. The light shone on his thin wrists.

  Didn't he get enough to eat? Sarah wondered. He seemed awfully small and stringy.

  "So what kind of bugs?" By now he'd opened the jar and stuck his index finger in, unself-consciously tasting it.

  The man had tipped his chair back against the counter and watched the proceedings through half-closed eyes as though he were running a tally sheet on her.

  "The bugs, ma'am." The boy leaned against her hip, his face tipped to hers.

  She moved sideways, away from him, before she could stop herself. His small bones against her were unbearable, like an accusation. Clearing her throat, she ignored his expression. "Cockroaches. Florida has huge cockroaches."

  "Yeah?" He was enraptured. "Roaches! Really big, huh?"

  "Well, sometimes we call them palmetto bugs because they nest in palmetto trees, but we have new bugs now, Asian cockroaches, bigger, meaner." She felt as if she were at the Mad Hatter's tea party. Midnight intruders. Cockroaches. She sliced the toast into rectangles and poured soup into a green bowl. "Here."

  "So how big, a foot?" The plate and bowl dangled precariously from the boy's dirty fingers and his narrow face sparkled.

  "Enough, Nicholas," a commanding voice broke in. "Eat." The man's chair banged on the floor. Sarah jumped. "Thank the lady."

  "Yeah, right, but, Jake, I really want to know about them cockroaches. She don't mind, do you, ma'am?" Nicholas leaned against her again.

  Sarah shook her head. "I don't mind." Her hand trembled.

  "See, Jake? She don't mind about the bugs. She just don't want me leaning up on her. Probably because I'm so dirty. You told me not to roll down that hill." He swallowed a huge mouthful that had swollen his cheeks up like a chipmunk's.

  She wanted to cry. The man's eyes were on her, a strange pity moving in them. She turned off the burner. "They're just big bugs, Nicholas. They fly."

  The boy nodded, content.

  Sarah gave the man soup and iced tea and poured 7-Up for Nicholas.

  "I don't have any milk for your boy." She opened the icebox door and put the bread and jam inside. "Have more iced tea if you want," she said, setting the pitcher down with just enough force that it tilted forward, spilling the cold tea down the man's chest and thighs.

  "What the hell?" He leaped to his feet. The plate skidded across the tea-splashed table.

  Sarah whirled. She could make it out the back door. She could.

  His muscular arm caught her around the middle.

  "Oomph." The breath was knocked out of her. Looking into his annoyed eyes, she drew a deep breath. "Turn me loose, please."

  "What?" He glanced down at his palm splayed across her middle, his square fingers tight against the tiny flowers of her shirt. "Sorry." He looked at his hand as if surprised by its quick movement.

  "See, Jake? She don't like you touching her, neither. Even if you're not as dirty as me." The boy's bright blue gaze shifted between the two adults. His tone carried a note of satisfaction.

  Sarah still felt the warm imprint of those muscles against her stomach.

  "Jake, you and me need a bath." The boy's face was peaceful. Filled up with toast and soup, he sat there with a sleepy grin splitting his mud-flecked face, his teeth a white line drawn through the grime.

  Sarah heard Jake's quiet breathing, heard her own heart beating in her ears. She smelled her own fear rising from her.

  Nicholas laid his face sideways on the table and sleepily traced noodle circles on the plate. "That guava's good. Maybe sometime I can have it on toast."

  Jake hadn't moved. Up close like this, Sarah saw a thread of gray in the glossy brown of his beard. His aggressiveness frightened her, but those light brown eyes didn't. They judged her, pitied her, dismissed her.

  At her indrawn breath, he stepped back. "Look, I barged in here like a Brahma bull, I reckon." He was uncomfortable, as though he'd just realized how she'd taken his actions.

  She stepped carefully back. "You did." Sarah sensed the easing of tension. Perhaps she'd overreacted. He really hadn't done anything. It was just his attitude. He was rude, crude, and probably tattooed, but he hadn't actually forced his way in.

  "God knows what you must have thought." Once again his eyes watched her knowingly.

  She saw Nicholas's lashes droop. "I think it's clear what I thought."

  He glanced towards his son, whose sleepy snores disturbed the quiet. "Yeah, I can't blame you, I guess. But you

  must be used to all kinds of activity out here, day and night. People must drop in at night." Watching, watching.

  What was he suggesting? Sarah turned back to the sink, washing the knife. "Not really."

  "Don't you get a lot of people wanting to go night-fishing?" He moved around the boy, touching his neck lightly as he passed.

  "No. People make arrangements ahead of time if they plan on using my boats at night." She swished the dishrag over the table, scrubbing hard at a splotch. Rinsing the rag out, she draped it over the sink and faced him.

  She was tired of this cat-and-mouse game. Weary fatalism sapped her energy. Whatever was going to happen, would. Her sympathies were all with the mouse. No wonder it got pounced on. It didn't have the patience to out-wait the cat. "Look, if you're trying to scare me, okay, you have. I don't know what game you're playing, but why are you here?"

  "I told you. Nicholas got sick, probably because he's been in the car too long and he's tired. He's afraid of the dark around here. You know how kids are sometimes. They get the most ridiculous notions. Then I saw your sign."

  "How?"

  He hooked his thumbs in his belt. "From the road."

  "It's a small sign with no lights."

  He looked straight into her own eyes, almost as though he knew how nearsighted she was. "I have good eyesight."

  "You must." Sarah tried to figure out why his simplest statements sounded like lies. Her fingers smoothed the wet dishrag. "I think it's time you and your son leave." Skirting the table, she cast a quick glance at the sleeping boy. He should be home in bed; not humped over a kitchen table at one o'clock in the morning.

  "We can't." The man's voice was flat and low.

  Her hands gripped the chair where the boy slept. "What do you mean, you can't?" Even in the chill air, sweat

  beaded her forehead. With an effort, she kept her voice down. "You have to!"

  Suddenly he was at her side, his rough whisper matching her tone. "We can't. The truck has a flat."

  "Fix it!" Sarah took two steps away from his rugged strength.

  "I don't have a spare. I thought you might have one. This being a fishing camp, you must carry spare parts." He circled between her and the back door.

  "Well, I don't." Sarah forced her words out. "You have to leave. I don't want you here."

  "Yeah, you made that clear, all right. I can understand you not wanting to let us in at first, but you couldn't even spare a sick kid something to eat without having your arm twisted." Contempt colored his voice.

  Put that way, her reluctance to let him and his son in seemed cheap and stingy, not cautious. But she didn't have to justify herself to him. He was the intruder. "Now just a minute—" As he leaned forward, his jeans brushed her bare thighs, sending a shiver over her skin. She pulled back. "You should have thought about that before dragging him out at this time of night." She smoothed her hair off her forehead and saw him follow the movements of her fingers down to her cutoffs. Suddenly she didn't know what to do with her hands.

  The hum of the ice-maker was followed by the thunking of cubes into the tray. The anger faded from his eyes. "Yeah, you're right," he said tiredly, "I should have thought about a lot of things. But I didn't." He looked back at his son for a long moment. "We can't leave tonight."

  Sarah looked at the grimy scrap with his thin fingers smeared with God-knew-what-kind of dirt and smashed noodles. She really didn't want this pitiful child in h
er home. His wiry energy and intelligence tugged at her memories. She wanted him gone. "I don't rent cabins. You can't stay here."

  4 'Hell. You have a big house. Can't you find a corner somewhere? I mean, I don't want to inconvenience you or anything." Sarcasm lashed his rough voice. "You're a real sweetheart, you are. Haven't you ever heard the story about the Good Samaritan?"

  Her skin flushed with a temper she rarely let loose anymore, but she was tired and confused and the boy had rubbed against old pain, leaving her off balance. "Look, this isn't my problem. You're the one who took off in the middle of the night with your son. You're the one who didn't plan ahead. Don't take out your guilt on me!"

  A cabbage palm branch rattled against the roof, broken loose by the rising wind. Jake inhaled deeply. Sarah saw the visible effort he made to defuse the tension as he spoke. "I fouled up. But I need help now." He paused. His voice was expressionless when he continued. "For the kid."

  Sarah felt petulant and didn't much like herself at the moment. Her hand strayed to touch the back of the boy's washed-to-no-color shirt. She stopped the inadvertent movement. They could sleep on the porch. No, she thought, as she saw the man's judgmental eyes, that won't do.

  A sniffle escaped from the child. He needed a bed and he'd been ill. She could let him sleep upstairs. "All right." She rubbed her arms. "Do you want to carry him or wake him so he can walk up?" She wasn't experienced with kids. She didn't know which would be better, but she hated to ruin his sleep.

  The man's decisiveness irritated her. "I'll carry him. Unless, of course," his tone was snide, "you want me to wake him up and give him a bath?"

  The ache in her throat stopped her retort. Had she really seemed so nasty? "Carry him, then. Bedroom on the left of the stairs, but you sleep outside in your truck."

  "Whatever you say." Carefully the man lifted his son out of the chair and tucked the small head under his bearded chin. The boy sighed and flung out an arm. The man placed

  it carefully on the boy's thin chest. "Why don't you lead the way?" His gaze mocked her. "That way you can make sure we don't nab the family silver."

  She didn't want to go up the stairs with him. Every cell in her body buzzed with alarm. Even with his arms filled with his son, even now that he'd clarified his presence, he made her uneasy. His unconcealed contempt made her uncomfortable. She wasn't used to other people analyzing her actions and finding them lacking. Her own judgment? That was a horse of a different color. She'd grown used to living with her inadequacies. Her conscience was harder on her than any pale-eyed stranger could ever be. He hadn't earned the right to judge her.

  "You know, mister, you're awfully rude to someone who's let you in, fed you and your son, and is now giving him a bed for the night. Haven't you heard the story about biting the hand that feeds you?" Healthy anger chased out her disquiet. She led the way, feeling him close behind her the whole way up the long staircase with its wide, shallow steps.

  Jake resisted a cheap comeback, but he bared his teeth. She wasn't what he'd expected. He watched the smooth curves of her thighs and ankles as she walked up the stairs. She had the tiniest waist and most beautiful bottom it had been his pleasure to see in years.

  He'd been angry before she even opened the door. Driving around for hours trying to make up his mind whether to stop at her place or not. And then Nicholas had gotten sick. He'd taken too long to decide and then, when he had, he wanted in. Her caution had ticked him off. Once there, he wanted to settle the score with her. Get it over with.

  When she opened the door, he'd been knocked back in his shoes. Her wide, dark blue gaze staring blindly at him, her small face carefully checking him out, her hand brandishing that damn bat had plunged him into a fury. Her silky smooth hair the color of wet leaves in autumn made his fin-

  gers twitch with a need to stroke its smoothness, to see if it felt as soft as it looked. He'd wanted to touch the slim neck where a vein pulsed with fear. Anger and something else, something dark and primitive, had stirred in him at the sight of her.

  He'd wanted to crack that ridiculous bat in two.

  Nicholas stirred. Poor kid. She was right. He shouldn't have kept the kid out so late, but Jake's own devilish temper had whipped at his shoulders, telling him to stop, to deal with her. Finally he'd given in. As he'd coasted to a stop under the trees, he'd leaned on the steering wheel and known he was making a mistake. Nicholas had scooted over to the door and said wearily, "We getting out now, Jake? 'Cause I don't feel so good."

  When Jake slashed the truck tire, Nicholas looked at him and they both stooped, listening to the hiss of air as the tire flattened into the sand. Jake hadn't explained. "Come on, Nicholas," he'd said and strode to the screen door showing in the dim, yellow light cast by a mosquito bulb over the frame.

  And that had been that.

  Now, her eyes wary, she paused before the door of a cool, dark room with twin beds. "Go ahead." Her reluctance to have him in her house fueled his desire to be there, to stay there, to see the look on her face when it was all over with. She wasn't going to get rid of him.

  He slid Nicholas between sheets smelling of apples and roses, gratified by the smear of dirt the boy put across the immaculate blue surface. Would she flinch at that the way she had when the kid leaned against her? Let her.

  Jake straightened and bumped into her. She'd followed him in, after all. She was looking at Nicholas. Probably wondering how she was going to sanitize her sheets. He smiled vindictively and thought about crawling between those same clean sheets in his own dirt. He glanced at her.

  She was still watching the boy, her back straight as an arrow, chin up.

  Her breasts moved once with a deep breath, a small movement that disturbed him. He wished he knew what she was thinking. The loose, flowered shirt fell just past her waist, the bottom button gaping an inch or so above the band of her shorts. A tiny freckle beckoned from the gap.

  Nicholas flipped over, twisting the sheet with him.

  She turned away. 'There you are, then. I'll shut the door behind me." She walked away, closing him out again.

  He snagged the edge of her sleeve, touched the goose bumps on her arm. "Wait."

  Shadows tinted the skin under her eyes. "Yes?"

  "I'm going to take a bath." He wouldn't ask her permission.

  She nodded. "All right." Some spark had drained from her. He missed it. He followed the narrow lines of her back down the long hall runner that muffled their steps. The hour and the strangeness isolated them, magnified every breath, every look. Her glance thrown back over her shoulder assumed an importance he didn't think she intended. In the shadowy hall, she lured him forward, a reed in the stream beckoning deeper to the secret depths. He felt entangled in secrets as she whispered to him in the silence and shadows.

  "There's the bathroom. You can find towels underneath the sink."

  Checking out the bathroom, Jake leaned over her shoulder just as she backed out of his way. Her bare heels bumped the hard toes of his boots. He reached out to steady her, but she'd already turned and his palms met warm arms, delicate bones, soft woman. He wanted to keep his hands there, on her warmth and softness. He wanted to move her exquisite bones over him. When he saw the shock in her eyes, he dropped his hands. She wasn't going to get an apology. He wasn't the least bit sorry.

  "I have to go out to the truck for my stuff. Okay?"

  She shrugged, the cotton moving over her skin in soft sibilance. The sound was loud in his ears, calling to mind skin and sheets and all the things he didn't want to think of.

  Grabbing his bag from the pickup, he hurried back to the old house with its dark windows. Standing on the front stoop, he paused for a moment to savor the damp air and night sounds. Way off in the distance he heard a boat engine chugging up from the canal to the lake.

  A sense of finality flooded him. He'd started a chain of events whose end he couldn't see.

  Sarah waited for the bang of the screen door before she moved. She didn't want to encourage tha
t look that changed his eyes into golden cat eyes. Better to stay out of his way. The boy whimpered in distress. Sarah rubbed the newel post, back and forth. He whimpered again, and she moved quietly down the hall to his room.

  He was tangled in his sheets. Half asleep, he couldn't fight his way free. From her own childhood, she remembered the fright. Behind her, she heard the man close the bathroom door and turn on the shower.

  "Shh, Nicholas. I'll untangle you. Hold still." Sarah touched his forehead, smoothed the dirt-stiffened hair off his face, traced the stubborn chin. Carefully she untwisted the sheet, lifting his surprising weight and trying not to wake him completely. She slipped his socks off and reached into the chifforobe near the bed for a light blanket which she tucked around him.

  "Hi, ma'am." His sleepy smile caught her unawares, and she smiled back at him.

  "Hi, yourself." She pulled the blanket up closer to his chin.

  "Is it day, yet?"

  "No, not for a long time. Just sleep, okay? Your father's taking a shower. He'll be here in a minute."

  "You make him take a bath?" The boy yawned and rolled away from her as he said in a sleep-muted voice, "But he's

  not my dad. Silly Jake, cutting the tire..." A deep breath and he sank back into sleep.

  Sarah sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't hear the shower. The upstairs phone was in the hall, just past the bathroom. As she stood up, the bedsprings rattled.

  She had to get to the phone. Passing the bathroom, she saw the light under the door, heard him moving on the linoleum floor. Had he heard her? She froze. The door stayed closed.

  She inched her way to the phone and picked it up. For a moment she couldn't remember the police number, and then when she did, her fingers were trembling so hard she couldn't dial. She was dizzy with fear.

  Suddenly water dripped onto her arm. A big, wet hand unwrapped her fingers from the phone. She turned and saw first the ropy chest muscles, the thick chest hair moving down to unsnapped jeans. Reaching for the phone, her hand slipped and slid down the still wet muscles, sleek and hard, to his jeans.

  He'd shaved his beard off. Released from the shaggy beard and moustache, a face craggy with angles and cheekbones stared at her and he said very gently, returning the phone to its cradle, "You don't want to make that phone call."