Her Scoundrel

by Geralyn Dawson

  He brushed a knuckle across the peak of her breast. “I thought I made you angry.”

  “That, too. I couldn’t believe you were so stubborn about the cross. If I’d known then that you were going to compound the insult by making off with my necklace, I think I’d have knocked you down and drowned you.”

  The knot loosened. Jake trailed a finger along the inside of her wrist, and Kat shuddered. “You think so, hmm?”

  Jake wondered if he should confess to the circumstances of the theft of her necklace. One of these days she was bound to ask him about it. If he told her now, he’d have all his secrets out in the open. They could begin this new stage of their relationship without a single dark cloud hovering on the horizon. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

  He recalled those harrowing moments beneath the bed where she lay laboring. No. No, he didn’t think he’d confess. Some secrets were meant to be kept.

  “I thought about you, too,” Kat admitted, surprising him.

  “You did?” Jake worked one end of the cord through the loop and the knot was gone. He pulled the cord free, rubbed the reddened spots on her wrists, then brought them to his mouth for a kiss. “I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  “They don’t hurt.”

  Jake continued to kiss them anyway, ticking and sucking and soothing her with his tongue. “So, tell me about these thoughts of yours.”

  It took her a minute to gather herself enough to speak. “You intrigued me. I thought you were exciting. I’ve always had a weakness for intriguing, exciting scoundrels.”

  “I see. It’s different for me, however. I’ve never met another woman like you in my life. Strong, I’ve mentioned.” He turned her right hand over, kissed a knuckle. “Beautiful, too.” He kissed another knuckle. “Witty.” Another kiss. “Warmhearted.” Kiss. “Smart. So very smart.”

  He set her right hand down, then turned his attentions to her left. “Generous.” He kissed a knuckle. “Sensuous.” Another kiss. “Adventurous.” He lightly nibbled at her ring finger knuckle before kissing it “Fun.” One final kiss, then he gazed into her eyes and added, “Fascinating.”

  “Oh, Jake.” Kat’s brilliant green eyes softened and warmed. Then she smiled impishly and added, “Don’t forget my feet.”

  He looked over his shoulder toward the end of the bed. She wiggled her bare toes at him. “Careful. I might bite ‘em off.” When she wiggled them again, he chuckled. “Did I mention daring?”

  “I like it when you suck my toes.”

  With that, she defeated him. Arousal roared through him like a summer storm. Abandoning his plan to go slow, Jake slipped his knife from his boot and cut the cord. He threw the knife, sending it sailing end over end, to bury its point in the oak paneling on the opposite wall.

  Kat’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he knelt above her. “Do you understand now why I left you?”

  Wordlessly, she nodded.

  “Do you understand why I came back?”

  She swallowed hard. “Tell me now.”

  Jake’s heart pounded. His blood thrummed. He licked his suddenly dry lips and stared into her soul. “I came after you, Katrina, because I couldn’t stay away. I didn’t want to stay away. I came after you because I love you. I love the children. You’re my family now.”

  Jake waited, hoping to hear similar words from his wife’s lips, but the slow, sweet smile that spread across her face distracted him. She lifted her arms to him and drew him down against her, and within seconds Jake forgot everything but the woman in his arms.

  Their lovemaking was tender and gentle and reverent. So sweet it made his heart weep. At the same time, it was fierce and physical and as demanding as any encounter he’d ever experienced. Most remarkable of all, it was new. Unique. Making love to a woman he loved added an entirely new dimension to the event and it left Jake satisfied in a way he’d never been before.

  Almost. Never once during those long, pleasure-filled hours on the ride to San Antonio did she return his declaration of love. Not in the throes of ecstasy. Not in the quiet aftermath. She laughed with him, shared stories about the girls, tales about her family. Twice she wept softly at the beauty of their desire. Never once did she tell Jake she loved him.

  For the first time, Jake understood how much he’d hurt her by leaving, and doubt crept into his heart. Was the damage he’d done her irreparable?

  Alighting in San Antonio, he escorted his wife from their private railcar carrying an invaluable piece of pirate’s treasure and a heavy heart. As they walked beside the peaceful waters of the San Antonio River, and his gaze first landed on the bell tower of the Sacred Heart Mission rising into the blue sky before them, Jake stopped short.

  Wait just a minute. Since when had he become a quitter? He’d stolen her necklace twice. What made him think he couldn’t steal her heart all over again?

  Besides, something more than his own abilities was at work here. He gazed at the mission and considered all the events that had brought him here today. Eighty-odd years ago the pirate Jean Lafitte buried the cross in the sands of Galveston Island. Seventeen years back Jake experienced a weird, otherworldly vision in a Himalayan cave. Eight years ago a phantasmal Scotswoman gives a young Kat McBride a one-of-a-kind necklace. Two years later, the cross ends up in the hands of a man with ties not only to Jake’s own father, but to Kat. Then he and Kat happen to cross paths at the London Zoo. Could all this be coincidence?

  Not hardly.

  Some force was at work. Jake didn’t know if it was God or ancient magical beings or curses or simple fate or not-so-simple Shambhala. Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, Jake and Kat were meant to be together. She was meant to be his Bad Luck Bride.

  Jake took his wife’s hand and they walked up the weathered stone steps to the main entrance of the mission church. Baroque carvings framed thick wooden doors that needed some muscle to move. Stepping inside was like walking back in time.

  The chapel was cool and quiet. Votive candles flickered red and blue. Frescos decorated the walls. At the center of an ornate marble altar stood a simple wooden cross.

  “It’s a beautiful church,” Kat said in a low, reverent tone.

  “Your cross suits the altar.”

  A sound to the right of the altar drew Jake’s gaze, and he spied a round little man dressed in a friar’s robe enter the building carrying a stack of hymnals. “Excuse me,” Jake called out. “You’re one of the priests here, I take it?”

  “I’m Brother Paul. May I help you?”

  “We brought…wait.” He handed the box to Kat. “You do the honors, Kat. That’s the way it should be.”

  She smiled at him warmly, then turned to the padre. “My husband and I are delivering a long-overdue gift for the church. It’s taken a circuitous route to get here, but I guess it’s better late than never.”

  Kat opened the box. The brother took one look, slapped a hand against his chest, and cried, “Praise God! It’s the Sacred Heart Cross.”

  As Brother Paul reached into the box to lift the cross from its velvet nest, Jake placed a cautionary hand on Paul’s arm. “A bit of warning to you, there, Padre. It’s my opinion that this piece is in dire need of a good blessing. Give it the works—holy water, incense, whatever you have. This cross has an aura of bad luck about it, and I’d hate to pick up a newspaper in a week or two and read that the Sacred Heart Mission had burned to the ground.”

  So delighted was he by the unforeseen windfall that Brother Paul not only blessed the cross, but he expanded the blessing to include Kat and Jake and, to Jake’s delight, their marriage.

  After that he made a little ceremony of installing the cross in its place, then broke out a bottle of rum and offered a long line of toasts. As a result of the blessings and the spirits and the laughter on Kat’s lips, Jake left the church with a spring in his step and a confidence in his heart.

  Jake knew damn well that his luck was about to change.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “EXCEPT FOR BEING MARRIED
to our Katrina, Jake Kimball doesn’t have an ounce of good luck,” Trace McBride observed, strolling into his kitchen where his wife, sister-in-law and two of his daughters sat discussing their children.

  “What’s happened now?” Kat asked.

  Trace removed two bottles of beer and two bottles of Dr. Pepper soda pop from the ice box. “The man drew a straight flush. Bet damn near all his chips on the hand—just like any decent poker player would do. Damned if Billy doesn’t lay down a royal flush. Now, what are the odds of that? Have to be about five million to one. This after winning the cake walk at the church social this afternoon only to find out he won a cake baked by Wilma Hutchins.”

  “Oh, dear.” Claire McBride grimaced. Everyone knew Wilma Hutchins made the kind of cake one used as a doorstop.

  Trace continued, “And that was on the heels of his correctly guessing the number of marbles in the pickle jar at Martin’s General Store to win this month’s prize. Know what prize he won? Not a good pair of work gloves like last month or a new hammer like the month before that. Seems like George Martin was getting complaints about the prizes from the ladies, so he was making it up to them. Jake Kimball won a Kabo hipless corset from the Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue! I’m truly starting to feel some sympathy for the man.” He pinned Kat with a sharp look and added, “When are you going to get some?”

  “Now, Trace,” Jenny said. “That is Kat and Jake’s business, not ours.”

  Kat’s father scowled. “It’s my business when I have to watch the moony looks she gives him when he’s not looking and listen to his lovelorn sighs when he’s playing cards. Kat, I’ll be the first to agree that the son of a bitch did you wrong, and I don’t have a problem with you making him pay for it. Up to a point. I didn’t raise you to be hardhearted, girl. Don’t drag this out forever. It’s cruel.” With that he returned to his poker game leaving an awkward silence in the kitchen in his wake.

  Five days had passed since Kat and Jake returned from San Antonio. To his unwelcome surprise, despite the closeness they’d shared on their private railcar journey, she’d refused him permission to move into her house. He’d all but chewed his tongue in two, but he’d agreed.

  Then the blasted man convinced the Harrelson family next door to rent him a room. He was always underfoot, always pitching in to help with the children. Always trying to convince Kat that she could trust him with her heart.

  Now, glancing around her mama’s kitchen table and seeing the curious light in the eyes of women she loved, Kat felt the need to explain to them what was in her heart. If only she knew what that was.

  She’d made little progress in that respect in recent weeks. For the life of her, she didn’t know what she was waiting for, except, she was definitely waiting for something.

  “She doesn’t believe his love is strong, vigilant and true,” Mari told her mother and aunt, a faint note of disgust in her tone. “She wants it to be tested.”

  “Now, Mari,” Kat started to protest.

  “It’s true and you know it.” Mari met her mother’s gaze. “It’s that love for drama running through her that she wants to satisfy. Just because Luke proved the strength of our love by saving my life doesn’t mean Jake has to do the same thing.”

  “Now, Mari,” Aunt Claire chastised. “I’m sure your sister’s emotions are more complicated than that.”

  “That’s right,” Jenny agreed. She leveled a stern look upon her youngest daughter and added, “It’d be downright stupid for Kat to hope some madman shows up to kidnap her and leave her in a hole in the ground to die.”

  “That’s not what I want.” Kat scowled at her sister. “I don’t know what I want. That’s the problem. But until I do know, Jake Kimball can just hold his horses.” She folded her arms and sat back in her chair with a huff.

  Mari wrinkled her nose, then sipped her iced tea. “I agree with Papa. This is dragging on way too long.”

  “Stop it! Just stop it.” Kat shoved back her chair and pushed to her feet. “You have no right to sit in judgment of me, Maribeth Garrett. My situation with Jake isn’t a thing like yours was with Luke.”

  Mari scowled up at her sister. “Jake is a good man, Kat, and you’re not being fair to him. He loves you and you’re using that love as a weapon against him.”

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Girls…” Jenny warned.

  “Mama, she won’t forgive him for leaving her even though he came to his senses and realized his mistake. That’s no way to begin a marriage. Men are always making stupid mistakes, and women have to forgive them. That’s just the way marriage is. You know that. You do it with Papa all the time.”

  “I forgive Jake for leaving,” Kat declared. “I understand why he did it. I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t do the same thing if, God forbid, Emma disappeared. You, on the other hand…”

  “Why don’t you find Papa’s razor and sharpen your tongue some more, sister, dear?”

  “Girls!” Jenny snapped. “Enough.”

  Jenny’s rebuke was unnecessary, however, because Mari experienced an epiphany that drained her of anger. “You forgive him for leaving, but you don’t trust him not to do it again. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Kat found herself fighting back sudden tears as she sank back into her chair. “I can’t get past that. Since he returned, I’ve tried to put it behind me, tried to believe his assurances. I can’t love a man I can’t trust.”

  Aunt Claire reached over and patted her arm. “Of course you can’t, darling.”

  “Not after what you went through with Rory,” Jenny agreed, nodding.

  “So what do I do?” Kat asked. “How do I convince myself that Jake can be trusted not to break my heart?”

  Jenny patted her hand. “I don’t know, darling. I guess you’ll just have to give it time.”

  “Which brings us right back to the beginning,” Mari said with a sigh. “I suggest you do some hard thinking about this situation, Kat. I have a niggling feeling that y’all can’t go on the way you’re going too much longer.”

  “A niggling feeling?” Kat repeated, alarm washing through her. Mari’s intuition was even stronger than their father’s, and when she got a niggling feeling that trouble lay ahead, a person could bet the farm that trouble was coming. Kat glanced at her mother. “What about Papa? Has he mentioned anything about a niggling feeling?”

  Jenny’s teeth tugged at her bottom lip. “He’s troubled about Jake’s run of bad luck. Your father worries it will seep onto you.”

  “Or the children,” Kat murmured.

  She lay awake in her lonely bed most of that night.

  THE FOLLOWING day while Jake was on his way into a downtown store to buy jigsaw puzzles for the children, he heard a crashing sound above him. He looked up just in time to see scaffolding raining down upon him.

  He woke up in the doctor’s office half an hour later.

  “He’ll be all right, though?” he heard his wife’s anxious voice ask.

  Yeah, now she cares. Maybe if I get hurt badly enough, she’ll let me into her house. That’s it. He’d die, and she’d have him cremated and put his ashes in an urn on the parlor fireplace mantel.

  Bruised and beaten, cut and abraded, Jake was feeling a bit sorry for himself at the moment.

  He felt somewhat better an hour later after she’d tucked him into a guest bed at her house, fed him a bowl of chicken soup and kissed him on the forehead before telling him to sleep and leaving the room. He’d have preferred she kiss his mouth, but he wasn’t about to complain. Besides, he couldn’t do his best work with a split lip.

  He took her advice and slept for a while. When he awoke, sore and aching with a headache from hell, he thought he must still be asleep and having a nightmare. Trace McBride was sitting beside his bed.

  “Look, boy. We’ve got to talk.”

  Jake looked up at the ceiling. “Just shoot me and put us both out of our misery, why don’t you?”

  “Shut up and listen. I’m worried about
my little girl.”

  What, did she break a fingernail? “Look, McBride, I don’t want Kat getting hurt any more than you do, but—”

  “She needs to fall in love with you.”

  Jake wondered if the scaffolding accident had done something to his hearing. “Excuse me?”

  “Believe me, it makes my tongue curl to say it but I’m a desperate man. If we don’t do something, this bad luck is gonna kill somebody, and my fear is that it might be somebody other than you.”

  “I’m sorry. Since I suffered a head injury earlier today, you’re going to have to spell this out for me.”

  “Very well,” Trace grumbled. “Look, here’s the deal. I’ve battled this bad-luck business off and on for all my adult life. First it was me and Jenny, then Tye and Claire. Even had some British cousins get in on the act. So a while back when the girls came home with those necklaces, yammering on about a family fortune-teller, I listened. I believe in the Curse of Clan McBride, and I think it’s got hold of you.”

  Jake grimaced. “I don’t—”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t either, at first. But open your eyes, boy. What the hell are you waiting for, the earth to crack open and swallow you? You can’t go on like this, and I’m not going to stand around and watch it. Katrina can’t bury another husband.”

  As much as he’d like to argue the point, Jake felt too poorly to do so. Besides, to be honest, the man’s opinion coincided with his own.

  “Though it pains me to say, I suspect you’re meant for my Katie-cat, Kimball. Now, your bad luck started when you left her, right?”

  Jake made the mistake of nodding. The pounding in his head had him freezing fast. “Yes,” he croaked.

  “Getting rid of the Sacred Heart Cross was a good idea, but it obviously wasn’t the answer. I’ve pondered this matter at length, and I think what’s throwing everything all out of kilter is the fact that the two of you are married but not committed to each other.”