And big.
She swallowed. Temptation in all its glory.
Kat quickly jerked her stare forward as she struggled to fix her buttons. She didn’t hear him rise, so the first brush of his fingers against her skin caused her to startle.
The touch of his lips to the nape of her neck made her squeak. “Surely you’re not embarrassed because we played a little?”
Played a little? Playing is what they did with the baseball and the bat, not with his fingers and her…oh, no. Fresh warmth coursed through her. If that was just playing…what did he consider serious business?
Her mouth went dry with anticipation.
This was awful.
But he is so good.
Shame melted through her from head to toe.
Jake turned her in his arms. “Don’t be embarrassed, Kat. Look, I caught you in a moment of weakness. I took advantage of you.”
“More like I took advantage of you,” she muttered, looking anywhere but at him.
He placed a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up, forcing her to meet his gaze. Laughter gleamed in his eyes. “If that’s the case, feel free to repeat the insult at will.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever outgrow the Menace in me.”
He waited a beat before saying, “Marry me, Kat. We could be good together.”
Her eyes flew open. She stepped away from him, out of his arms. “We’ve already had this argument, sir. Nothing has changed. If anything, you should have a clearer understanding of why it’s totally out of the question.”
“What I understand is that you came alive in my arms. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“It means I have a proven weakness for men like you. Now I need to find my sister and tell her the news about Monique. Will you please show me the way out of here?”
For a long moment he gave her a considering stare. “I need a wife, Kat McBride. You’re the best choice for all of us. You’re the one I want.”
“We don’t always get what we want do we? Choose one of the others, Jake. I’m not strong enough to act like a mother to those children.”
“Oh, you’re strong. Maybe one of the strongest women I know.” He folded his arms and his gaze swept her from head to toe. “Any chance you’d want to make a trip to Tibet?”
“As what? A pack horse?”
“I’m thinking my personal assistant.”
Her eyes widened, then she sputtered a laugh. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Not often.”
She shook her head. “This time you must. Lead the way to my sister, Mr. Kimball.”
He sighed, clearly unhappy with her refusal, but took her arm and escorted her through the maze. As they approached the temple, Jake paused and called, “Dair? Miss McBride has come looking for her sister.”
Following a long pause, Dair MacRae called, “I owe you one for this, Kimball.”
The couple emerged from the temple a long few minutes later. Emma’s mussed hair and rosy complexion offered proof as to how the pair had passed their time—not that Kat had entertained any doubts about it. What did surprise Kat was Emma’s apparent lack of embarrassment and the scowl her sister sent her way.
The sooner we leave here, the better, Kat decided. Or both of them might get burned. “Emma, I need to speak with you.”
“It couldn’t wait?” her sister snapped.
“It appears to me I waited too long as it is,” Kat fired back. “We’ve had a message from Monique. I’ll give you one guess as to what she’s done now.”
Emma waited a beat, then said, “She’s remarried? Again?”
“And off on her honeymoon trip. Will you come upstairs with me, Emma? Please? We have some decisions to make.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, gunmetal gray clouds rolled in and an unseasonably cool wind began to blow, effectively putting a halt to outdoor activities at Chatham Park. As raindrops began pattering against the rooftop, Jake poured himself a glass of whiskey and stood at the window, staring outside, sipping his drink and brooding.
He tried to tell himself he was glad for the change in weather. He needed to talk to the girls, and he’d have an easier time locating them knowing they were somewhere inside the house.
Miss Parker did her best to keep the children corralled and Jake was eternally grateful for her help. However, once she turned the girls loose outside, they tended to leave her in the dust. To complicate matters, the young nanny was plagued by a lingering head cold. When Jake had returned to the house after leading Kat and her sister from the maze, he’d been met by the butler who’d informed him that the new nanny had confessed to the upstairs maid that she felt absolutely awful, that she’d had difficulty sleeping of late and missed her mattress at home.
Jake had ordered Nanny Parker to bed, then retired to his study where he poured himself a drink and faced the inevitable.
He’d run out of time. He had to solve this marriage problem now.
He had to give up on Kat McBride.
He drained his glass, then sighed. This truly went against his instincts. He wasn’t a quitter. To Jake, the word “no” meant only that he needed to try a different tact, take a different path. Ordinarily, he’d view Kat McBride’s “no” as a challenge to be overcome. Today, he’d accept it. Period.
If his decision had anything to do with her heart-wrenching tears, well, he wasn’t about to admit it. He refused to recall that each tear she shed had sliced him like a knife.
Jake set down his glass, then left the room. Keeping a sharp eye out for wandering brides—he’d have enough of their company later that night during the ball—he headed up the nearest flight of stairs in search of the children. The baby, he quickly discovered, was in the nursery napping. The girls took a little longer to locate, and when he did—even when he saw the proof with his own two eyes—he had trouble believing the scene before him.
Miranda, Belle, Theresa and Caroline each sat primly in a chair at a small, square table in the third floor, east wing playroom. Each girl wore a lady’s hat and gloves. Each girl held a doll in her lap. Each girl pantomimed sipping tea from the miniature china tea set.
A tea party? The wild, raging hooligans-in-petticoats were having a quiet tea party with their dolls? A shiver of worry crawled up Jake’s spine. They must have done something really awful to be behaving so good.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, ladies. What are you doing?”
“We’re having a party, Uncle Jake,” Theresa said, twirling her green hair ribbon around her finger.
“Nanny Parker is sick.” Miranda dabbed her doll’s mouth with a yellow napkin.
Caroline pooched out her lip and nodded sadly.
“We’re trying to be good for her,” Belle said as she fussed with her doll’s blue hair ribbon.
Jake was momentarily distracted when he realized his nieces had taken his color-coding idea and made it their own. He felt a surprising sense of pride at his own influence. “That’s nice.”
“Miss Kat told us that if we behaved real good for just a few days, Nanny Parker wouldn’t worry so much, and she’d get well faster. We like Nanny Parker, Uncle Jake. Nanny Pip picked just the right person.”
Jake stepped farther into the nursery. “You’ve been talking to Miss McBride?” When the girls nodded, he grabbed a child-sized chair and straddled it. “Tell me about it”
Caroline grinned and covered her mouth with her hand. Belle giggled and said, “You look funny, Uncle Jake. Your knees come up all the way to your chin.”
“Always glad to be a source of amusement. Now tell me about Miss Kat.”
Theresa said, “She came looking for us to show us her sister’s necklace and ask about yours.”
Jake went still. “My necklace?”
“The one you keep in your pocket, Uncle Jake,” Belle said with a smile.
Hell. “Miss Kat knows about that?” When the girls nodded, he added, “How?”
“We told her.”
“How do you know about it?”
“We snooped, of course. We needed to know about you.”
“I see.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck, his mind racing as he attempted to assimilate the possible consequences of this revelation. He had to expect that Kat would come to him and demand to see his necklace. He didn’t have a similar one on hand to substitute, so that pretty much limited his option to lying. Lying, or returning her necklace.
Jake drummed his fingers on the chair back. Hmm…return the necklace. Should he do it? Probably. Would he do it?
No.
Jake might well be a practical, pragmatic man, but even after all these years, the dream he had in that Himalayan cave wouldn’t turn him loose. Find the necklace. Find your family.
It was nonsense. Penny was dead, wasn’t she?
Yet, in a couple of months, he’d return to Tibet on an expedition he’d planned for years. His first trip to that part of the world since stealing Kat’s necklace from Willow Hill. A good man, a righteous man, would return the woman’s treasure.
Jake would carry the necklace with him to the Himalayas.
“Look, girls. We’ll talk about this snooping business another time. Right now we need to talk about the brides.”
His nieces visibly tensed. Miranda asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I need to know who you like best among the contestants who are still here.” Four pairs of eyes went round with worry. Caroline reached out and grasped Belle’s hand. Jake sighed, then laid out the truth. “I know we all wanted Miss Kat to marry me, but I’m afraid she’s refused my offer.”
The girls exchanged a look. “Make her change her mind!”
“I tried. Believe me, I tried.”
“We don’t want any of the others, Uncle Jake,” Theresa explained. “We only want Miss Kat.”
“I know. I feel the same way. However, this time, we’re not going to get who we want.”
They argued with him until he was ready to bang his fist onto the table in frustration. He talked to them about Kat’s Susie, tried to make them understand how deeply the loss of a child had wounded the mother, but they didn’t want to listen. They wanted Kat McBride.
Until Caroline managed the impossible without saying a word. She shut her sisters up by the simple act of standing.
Jake watched in amazement as Belle, Miranda and Theresa stilled, waiting for their youngest sister to “speak.”
Caroline simply shook her head. The other three girls frowned. “Why not?” Miranda asked.
Caroline closed her eyes, placed her hand on her heart, and dropped her chin to her chest. There was a long moment of silence, then Caroline took her seat. The quiet continued for another long beat, then Miranda sighed and said, “All right.”
She looked up at Jake. “Would you please go somewhere else, Uncle Jake? My sisters and I need privacy to figure out which of the brides we want.”
Unease crawled up Jake’s spine. “I think maybe it’s better we work together on this.”
All four girls shook their heads. Damn. “Girls…”
“No, Uncle Jake,” Theresa said. “This is our business.”
“But—”
Miranda folded her arms. “We need to pick a mother. That’s much more important than a wife.”
He could see their point. Still…
“You’re planning to leave us. We need someone who loves us and who won’t go away.”
Jake winced as the arrow struck home. “I…uh…I love you, girls. And I’ll always be your uncle.”
Theresa frowned. “Uncles aren’t worth much if they’re a billion miles away.”
“We’ll vote for who we want, Uncle Jake,” Miranda said. “Then we’ll come tell you. Since you’re leaving, you don’t get a vote. Now, if you’ll excuse us, please?”
Jake slowly unfolded himself from his chair, then returned the chair to its spot against the wall. He stuck his hands into his pants pockets, then rolled back and forth on his feet “Uh…you know, girls, uh…your mother understood what my life is all about. I hope you’ll try to understand, too. Your mom…by making me your guardian…well, she knew I couldn’t be around all the time. She knew I’m not cut out for family life. She knew I could never be a real father to you, but she trusted me to do what’s best for you and your brother. That’s what I’m trying to do here.”
“It’s all right, Uncle Jake,” Theresa said. “We always knew you wouldn’t stay.”
Belle nodded in agreement. “That’s why we won’t love you with all our hearts, only little pieces of them.”
With that, catching his breath against the pang in his chest, Jake walked away.
KAT MISSED Texas. She missed the prairies and the huge blue sky. She missed the scent of the honeysuckle outside her bedroom window and the sound of her mother’s laughter when her father chased his wife around the kitchen table. She missed Mari and her brothers. She was ready to go home.
The trip had helped her, she thought as she stepped beneath the stone arch leading into the rose garden. It’d been good to get away from Fort Worth for a while, to step outside the routine. Now she felt stronger, more in control. She thought she’d taken a big step forward.
“With maybe a few steps back,” she said on a sigh as she watched Jake Kimball stroll along the garden path with Miss Starnes on his arm. A flame of jealousy sparked. Blasted man. How dare he make her feel…
Defeated. Kat sighed. He’d also made her feel alive for the first time in ages. However, the interlude in the gazebo was merely that. An interlude. A moment of pure fantasy.
A serious lapse in judgment.
“Miss Starnes is welcome to you,” Kat told his retreating back.
Liar.
Ignoring the taunting voice inside her head, Kat gripped the archway’s mossy wall for support and frowned. She suspected that the sea captain’s daughter would get the matrimonial nod from Jake. He’d been particularly attentive to her during last night’s ball, and now again this morning.
Kat turned away from the garden and wandered back into the house, deciding to spend some time with the Texana collection. Maybe it would soothe this malaise she chalked up to homesickness, but suspected was something more.
Kat made her way to the west wing second floor parlor currently utilized as a Texana print room. There, she gravitated toward the caricatures hanging on the wall. Sam Houston at San Jacinto. A longhorn getting his first look at barbed wire. Outlaws on the run from a Texas Ranger carrying a very large gun. She wondered if Emma had seen these yet. She’d enjoy the drawing of the ranger. Kat and Emma liked to tease Mari about the size of her former-Texas- Ranger-husband’s “gun.” If Emma hadn’t explored this particular room yet, maybe the two of them could pay a quick visit here before their departure tomorrow morning.
Kat had wanted to leave Chatham Park today, but Emma had pleaded for one more day with Dair MacRae. Now Kat worried tomorrow might be too late.
Emma was obviously infatuated with MacRae, and Kat worried about her. She’d suffered some rough times, romantically speaking, in the past and didn’t need another broken heart.
Kat remained in the parlor for over an hour, and she honestly enjoyed herself. The pieces of Texana were fascinating, and it did provide Kat with a little taste of home. As a result, both her heart and her step was lighter when she left the room. She was even able to laugh when Jake’s nieces skipped past her squealing at the antics of an irritated goose they, for some reason, had on a leash. Inside the house.
They reminded her of her old Menace days.
Kat wasn’t prepared for the youngest one—sweet, silent Caroline—to turn around and run back to Kat. She lifted her arms to Kat, an unspoken request to be picked up.
Think of it as a test, Kat told herself. If I can do this, surely I’ll be better with Mari’s little ones.
Caroline put her little hand over Kat’s heart. Her big blue eyes filled up with tears. Kat felt herself tremble, and she moved t
o set the girl back on the ground. But just as she shifted her weight, Caroline removed her hand, replacing it with a gentle kiss. Then she wiggled, signaling she wanted down.
Kat placed a hand over the little girl’s kiss, cradling its heating warmth against her broken heart. What a sweet, sensitive child.
Once Caroline disappeared down the hallway, Kat went looking for her sister. She wanted to show Emma the caricatures. Not finding her in the house, she tried the stables and arrived moments after Jake had just departed on a horseback ride.
Watching her host gallop across the wide expanse of park, Kat sighed. She’d have loved to have gone for a gallop herself. A good hard ride was just the exercise she needed.
The thought gave rise to a mental vision of another sort of ride, and she groaned in self-disgust. He was a thief, a liar, a scoundrel. He’d stolen her most prized possession, for goodness’ sake! Why did he intrigue her so?
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked herself as she made her way back to the house. Why was she attracted to dangerous men?
She couldn’t leave Chatham Park soon enough. In fact, she’d leave right now if it were possible. She’d forget about the last ditch effort she had planned for retrieving her necklace. She’d leave the altar cross in its box. She’d flee the magnetism of the man who’d tempted her in ways she’d never before imagined.
The rattle of wheels against cobblestones caught her attention, and she looked around to see a well-appointed carriage departing Chatham Park. “Missed my chance again,” she murmured, idly wondering who occupied the coach. One of the brides, most likely. Someone who’d also seen the writing on the wall regarding Miss Starnes.
Though she had no concrete reason for it, Kat didn’t care for the sea captain’s daughter. She wondered why, out of the remaining women, Jake appeared to have chosen her. She was beautiful, true. Witty. Intelligent. Nice to the girls. Protective of the baby.
Kat couldn’t stand her.
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