By Candlelight

by Janelle Taylor

  “Harvard?” She felt like a parrot, repeating everything, but it was all so foreign, so wrong! Jake didn’t want to go to Harvard; that was his parents’ wish. He wanted to stay in state, so they could be together.

  “The point is, he’s not coming back.”

  “You mean, he’s going directly to Harvard after his Europe vacation?”

  “He’s not coming home at all,” Phillip declared bluntly.

  Kate wanted to cry. Her lips quivered, and she waited for the nightmare to end. They were serious. Jake was gone, and she knew without asking that they wouldn’t tell her how to contact him.

  Her heart beat at her temple. She should tell them. There was no other choice. They needed to know she was carrying his child.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said at the same moment Phillip Talbot informed her, “He’s with his fiancée.”

  Kate blinked twice. Her mouth gaped open. A roaring in her ears. She saw the flicker of annoyance cross Phillip’s face the instant before her knees gave way and she collapsed in a dead faint.

  Later she realized she hadn’t truly voiced her condition. The words had just reached her lips, about to be spoken, when Phillip Talbot, Sr., announced that Jake was with his fiancée.

  Fiancée! The word had a dreaded ring to it. Kate hated this unknown witch as soon as she learned the woman existed. She instantly envisioned some man-stealing, coldblooded vixen with long, red fingernails and lips that curved into a sneer rather than a smile.

  But her hate was infantile and useless, an emotion she could indulge in because what she really felt was hurt and fear. Jake had hurt her. Crushed her. Stolen her faith in love and happiness. She was scared right down to her socks because she was eighteen, pregnant and with no family she could depend on.

  A girl she knew had taken an apartment on the outskirts of Portland. Kate had already been spending more time with her than at home, and after that meeting with the Talbots she moved in with her lock, stock and barrel. Her parents never knew she was carrying Jake’s child; she never told them. They said goodbye to her when she gathered her meager belongings, and their only subsequent contact with her was when Kate initiated it.

  “You got a letter,” her father mentioned to her on the phone later that fateful summer. “A couple of ‘em. From Switzerland and some other Europe place, I guess.”

  Jake! Kate’s initial thrill was instantly snuffed. A “Dear Jane” letter, no doubt. “Burn them,” she bit out in a tight voice. She slammed down the phone, shaking all over, agonizing over what words he may have written. In a fit of emotion she drove to her parents’ house that evening only to find her father had taken her at her word. Jake’s letters were ashes. Well, so be it. It was better not knowing. When she left Lakehaven that night she didn’t return for a long, long time.

  But it was all so long ago…

  Now, with a blast of August heat hitting her square in the face as she stepped out of the air-conditioned department store to the street, Kate watched gooseflesh rise on her arms. Memories of Jake still had the power to undo her. Ridiculous, but true.

  Sweat dampened the armholes of her sleeveless, taupe linen dress as Kate walked determinedly through afternoon Portland shoppers. She clicked the remote lock for her vehicle, a Mustang Saleen, a sports car nearly as ridiculous as the one she and Jake had first made love in so many years ago.

  Only hers was midnight blue, not black. She smiled grimly to herself as she climbed inside. These small things counted mightily.

  Heat sweltered as she maneuvered into traffic and waited for the air-conditioning to blast away the stuffiness inside her convertible. Too much money, but Ben had bought it for her and she hadn’t demurred. That’s what happened when you married for money instead of love.

  Not fair, she told herself. She hadn’t married for money. She had married for—desperation. Pregnant, alone and a burden to parents who had never cared about her in the first place, Kate had taken a job at Rose Talent Agency that August as a part-time receptionist. The owner of the business, Ben Rose, was refreshingly, if bluntly, honest.

  “You’re pretty and you look like you might have a few brains inside that head of yours,” he had assessed her. “You don’t have to do much. But wipe that sadness out of your eyes. This is a happy place.”

  “I’ll try.” Kate was grateful.

  “Don’t try, do it.”

  He cushioned that remark with a quick smile. Charm was not Ben Rose’s strong point; but he was magnetic in his power, and people turned to him as Kate soon learned.

  She also learned that he liked her a little more than she felt comfortable with. Was this how he treated each new, feminine employee? No, she found out from the two women who also worked there. Ben was notoriously standoffish with the “help.” They both found it highly amusing that he was smitten with Kate, but Kate was in a quandary about how to proceed.

  And then…he asked her to marry him. Boom!

  It was after hours. Kate had worked at the agency a month to the day. It was September, and the agony of her secret pregnancy gnawed at her like a beast from within. Soon she would have to take some steps. Soon…But what?

  She was seated at her desk, staring at the appointment calendar open to the date—September 5. A year earlier, Jake had first kissed her on September 5.

  Ben Rose’s slightly gnarled hand came into view. His hands showed his age, though he scrupulously dyed his hair a light brown that looked natural even when the gray showed through a bit.

  She stared at his hand, so carefully placed in front of her line of vision. With a magician’s flair he suddenly lifted his palm, and on the teak desk top glimmered a gold band studded with diamonds.

  She glanced up, quizzically. He stared her down.

  “The sadness is still there,” he said. “I’d like to help take it away, if you’ll let me.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said without a moment of thought. This time the words passed her lips.

  His brows lifted. He considered. He was not, as Kate had believed, put off by the idea. He gave his quick smile and said, “I’ve always wanted a little girl.”

  And Kate broke into heartbreaking sobs to which Ben pulled her into the comfort of his arms. He stroked her head with the tenderness of a father, something she had never really known. Her own father was a selfish man who had resented having another mouth to feed besides her mother. It was the unspoken rule that she leave home right after high school. She hadn’t told either of them about her dilemma.

  She married Ben two weeks later, a quick ceremony in front of a judge. No candles, no church, no breathless romance. Kate would have none of it, which suited Ben Rose just fine.

  So Katie Tindel became Kate Rose, and April Rose was born in January. Ben balked at the name. “April Rose is like Holly Tree, or Candy Barr! It’s terrible.”

  “Her name is April,” Kate insisted, for that was when she was conceived. “She can go by Tindel.”

  “No!” He nearly had a coronary over the idea. “I want everyone to know she’s my daughter. She’s no one else’s. Do you understand?”

  Kate understood implicitly, though she wasn’t sure she liked the idea all that well. Ben wanted everyone to think April was his daughter, and if people believed she came into the world a few months too early, well, that was their problem. In time they wouldn’t care; they might not even remember.

  So April arrived in late January and was christened with a moniker that never bothered her. She was sweet and lithe and blase and possessed a smile as bright as Hollywood—just like Jake’s. Sometimes it made Kate’s heart break a little to be reminded of her first love, but there was nothing to be done about it. All that showed of Kate in April was a peeking dimple and light brown hair shot with streaks of gold. Her eyes were Jake’s grayish blue ones. They gleamed with mischief and strength of personality. And there was no telling April Rose much of anything, Kate learned as her daughter grew up. She was her own person—to a fault!

  Thinking of April remind
ed Kate that her daughter was supposed to show up at the talent agency this afternoon. In a strange parallel, April was working as a part-time receptionist at the talent agency as Kate had when she was still a teenager.

  Life is a circle.

  Hurrying, Kate parked the car in her designated spot in the one-time warehouse’s underground lot. The elevator doors were open, and she pushed a button for the third floor. With a jolt and chug the old machinery lifted her upward. The bell dinged and the doors slid open, and Kate hurried down the newly redone oak floors to the heavy green metal door with the bold black and gold lettering that announced, ROSE TALENT AGENCY.

  Grabbing the handle with both hands, Kate jerked hard. With a rumble the door reluctantly gave way, revealing the warehouse loft that had been converted into offices in Portland’s once tawdry, now tony, northwest industrial district. It was her agency, and as she crossed the sanded and stripped hardwood floor, she didn’t know whether to groan or smile at the wildly ringing phones and her assistant Jillian’s bouncing, frizzy curls as she answered three lines in a row, “Rose Talent, please hold and someone knowledgeable will be with you in a heartbeat!” Unorthodox was the word to describe Jillian, but she was also loyal, efficient and a tornado in three-inch red pumps.

  Kate signaled that she would be in her office, a cubicle in bright blue with a watercolor of the coastal town of Astoria adorning one wall. Jillian’s curls bobbed as she caught the first line. “Good morning and thanks for waiting. You’re a peach. What can we do for you?”

  Discarding her short Eton, Kate ran fingers through her own shoulder-length, blond/brown hair. Summertime it was blonder; winter it could border on dishwater. Today it felt hot and sticky against the back of her neck, and she wistfully wished for a cool rain.

  A frisson of memory made her shiver, and she glanced around superstitiously. Sometimes rain, or even the thought of it, reminded her of Jake Talbot and that silly wedding so long ago. A lifetime ago. She had been married—really married—a millenium since.

  But like the musky perfume at the department store counter earlier, once in a while something reminded her. Some trick of her dormant brain. Some faint déjà vu. Then, like now, she would remember and wish she had been smarter as a teenager.

  Fighting the memory, Kate hugged herself, rubbing opposite elbows briskly. Since Ben’s death she had been more susceptible to this kind of thing. Funny. But just one more dish to add to a plate already way too full.

  Her phone buzzed. Through the side of her office that was a window open to the main room she saw Jillian waving madly.

  “What’s wrong?” Kate asked into the intercom.

  “It’s Delilah. She’s here and she’s coming your way!”

  At that moment a wild-eyed Delilah Harris rushed past Jillian’s desk in a beeline for Kate’s office. Groaning inwardly Kate grabbed for the tissues placed conveniently on her credenza just as her door flew open.

  “They cut me out!” Delilah wailed, throwing out her arms. “They cut me out!”

  “Who did?” Kate asked.

  “Those—those cheerleader people. I went in this morning and they—they—”

  “Here,” Kate said, pressing the tissues into Delilah’s hand.

  Delilah sniffed and dabbed at tears that came way too easily. She was an actress/model and inclined to behave as she thought actor/models should. This meant hysterics at every conceivable occasion. Kate had worked at the talent agency since she was eighteen and had learned that although talented people could be high strung, they didn’t have to act like two-year-olds.

  Delilah had yet to learn that lesson.

  “They brought in real cheerleaders!” she declared with affront. “Paid them nothing, and those smug little witches didn’t care! They just smiled and jumped around like frogs! It was awful.” She broke into keening sobs.

  Kate inwardly sighed. Since the agency had specific prices per hour, this, too, was nothing new to the industry. When companies could cut their advertising overhead, they did. Delilah’s job was supposed to have been modeling for a catalog that displayed cheerleading uniforms, but her price was awfully high if you could get real cheerleaders for nothing.

  “So, they sent you home. Did they sign the voucher for the work you did?” This was how the agency got paid.

  “Yes…” Delilah valiantly swiped at some baby tears, thought about breaking into another storm of weeping, shrugged and handed Kate the copies of the vouchers with her hourly rate and signature along with Northwest Uniforms’ client representatives’ signature as well. Rose Talent Agency took twenty percent for setting up the bookings and networking with the companies that paid the best. Kate had learned her trade from Ben. His death six months earlier had sent ripples through the industry, and Kate was working hard to assure longtime customers that business would be “as usual.” So far she had met with limited success, and her husband’s once healthy business was starting to feel the pinch of slow sales. Kate had an appointment set up with her accountant because she had begun to grow nervous. Ben, for all his supposed wealth, had really owned nothing but the talent agency and the small house he had bequeathed to her and April. Now the responsibility for both lay on Kate’s shoulders, and she had the squeamish feeling there was serious financial trouble ahead unless she improved business pronto.

  “I’ll talk to Northwest Uniforms myself,” Kate assured Delilah. “Did they like what you did?”

  Her lips curved into a sad smile. “They said I was beautiful.”

  “Well, there, then. It’ll all work out.”

  “You think they liked me?” She was anxious.

  Kate came around her desk and gave Delilah a big hug. “Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they? They’re just trying to cut costs. Now, go home. Pull yourself together. You’ve got an audition for Tender Farms tomorrow.”

  “That cheesy commercial for Thanksgiving?” Delilah made a face. “They put a live turkey on the table and expect me to talk to it!”

  “It’ll be fun,” Kate said firmly, leading Delilah to the door.

  “Do they bite? What if it bites me?”

  Kate looked into her big blue eyes. Save me, she thought, but said merely, “Don’t borrow trouble. Go home. Get ready. I’ll try to stop by the shoot and see how things are going.”

  “I don’t like animals,” she stated just before Kate slid the door to the agency closed behind her.

  “Whew!” Jillian declared. “Baby-sitting again.”

  Kate smiled. “It’s a living.”

  “Better than when Ben was here,” Jillian said blithely. Her disrespect for Kate’s husband was legendary. Ben hadn’t liked Jillian from the onset; she was too irreverent, too self-assured and way too outspoken. Ben Rose had been an autocrat, and Kate, who had married him out of desperation and a belief that she could fall in love with him, had spent the last seventeen years in a bit of a prison marriage. For April’s sake, she had stuck it out. That, and the fact that it had seemed easier to stay with the status quo than sail the uncharted seas of divorce. And what was out there anyway? Kate had been abandoned long ago by the one man she had loved. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe there would be another one. She had forced herself to forget Jake and had melted willingly into Ben’s strong arms. Their age difference didn’t matter. He loved her, and she was starved for love. If the passion of her relationship with Jake wasn’t there, well, too bad. This was better. More mature. It was better for her and better for April. Period.

  No regrets.

  Kate thoughtfully chewed on her lower lip. She hadn’t loved Ben, but she had hoped she would learn to. Unfortunately over the intervening years she had learned she never could. But he was good to her, if a bit overbearing, and he was good to April, too. And though these last few years Kate and he had been more like distant friends, he had left her the business, and Kate was humbled by his generosity.

  Of course Jillian thought she should get out in the dating scene, but whenever the subject was broached, Kate merel
y smiled and shook her head. A man was something she definitely did not need in her life right now.

  Now, as if on cue, Jillian started in again. “There’s this guy I know—”

  “No.”

  “—who is really cute and really nice.”

  “No.”

  “And I know you two would hit it off. He wants to meet you.”

  “Are you listening? No!”

  “No, I’m not listening. I never listen. It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

  Kate laughed and waved Jillian away as she headed for her office.

  “Where are you going?” Jillian demanded, following after her. “You can’t get away that easy.”

  “Do I have any phone messages? It looked for a while like you were holding them off with a whip and a chair.”

  “Lots of messages, but nothing urgent. Come on, Kate. Come out with me and Jeff. You should meet Michael. He’s great.”

  “I’m sure he’s wonderful, but April and I have a dinner date. She’s coming to work in a few minutes.”

  “April’s a wonderful kid, but she’s not the kind of companion you need right now.”

  Kate lifted her brows. “Oh, the kind I need?”

  “That’s right!” Jillian was undeterred. “You need a man, dear.”

  “I’ve got way too much to think about for that.”

  “How long’s it been since you did the wild thing?”

  “What?”

  “How long?” Jillian insisted.

  “Ben’s been gone six months.”

  She arched her brows. “How long?”

  “Six months.” Kate’s voice said the discussion was closed.

  “Been a lot longer than that, I’ll bet,” Jillian singsonged on her way back to the reception desk. “I’m making us a date for next Friday night.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “It’s practically done.”

  “NO!”

  “Lighten up!” Jillian grinned and wiggled her fingers at Kate through Kate’s office window.