by Peggy Webb
“Hello, Emily.” Lord, she had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen. He couldn’t seem to look away from them. “I hope you don’t mind my intrusion into this family affair.”
“Not at all. There’s always been enough love in this family to go around…and the food, goodness, you should see the food that’s brought in for our family reunions. Well, of course, you will see it.”
Jake was fascinated and pleased. He didn’t know there were any women left in this world who blushed, and he certainly didn’t know any who got flustered in his presence. Lord knows, he wasn’t much to look at. Windburned, weatherbeaten and lanky. That about summed him up.
While Emily was…well, it would take him a day or two to think of all the adjectives to describe her. Pretty. Soft and sweet. She was also strong and independent. He would have known that about her even if she hadn’t brought a skunk to the family mansion.
“Michael told me that your aunt Janice makes the best fried chicken this side of the Mississippi. I guess that’s why I tagged along.”
Liar. He’d accepted Michael Westmoreland’s invitation because he couldn’t face the prospect of going back to Atlanta to an empty apartment and a group of friends who acted as if mountain climbing were a disease he’d get over.
So did his mother, in spite of the fact that Jake’s father had been one of the world’s great climbers. Her dire prediction, which she issued with depressing regularity, was this: you’re going to fall and kill yourself, just like your father.
In mountaineering there are two kinds of falls, the unexpected kind where suddenly you’re five feet off the wall and descending at a constant acceleration of thirty-two feet per second, where you don’t have time to think, where you’re plummeting downward still frozen in climbing position.
Then there’s the second kind where you’ve misjudged your strength, your stamina, and you know that you’ll never make the next step. There’s the slow buildup of tension where you have time for remorse and the painful knowledge that within the next few seconds you could die.
The first kind of fall. That was what was happening to him now. The unexpected kind. The freefall.
Jake still had this mental image of himself as a solo climber, going ever upward, but in fact, he was rapidly descending into a pair of wide green eyes. He wondered if the impact would destroy him.
Here lies Jake Bean, formerly wild and free, now totally domesticated.
To top it all off, he realized he was still holding Emily’s hand. He let it loose, then he started casting about for something to discuss besides fried chicken or the weather.
That was when Michael rescued him.
“Nonsense. You didn’t tag along. I twisted your arm. I wanted my family to meet the world’s greatest climber while I’m still breathing that rarified air.”
“This latest expedition was Michael’s last climb.”
Michael’s beautiful wife slid her arm around her husband’s waist and gazed at him with such love shining in her eyes Jake had to look away.
Could it be possible to have it all, the passion for the unforgiving places and the love of a good woman? Was it possible that Jake had been wrong all these years?
Here was Emily, smiling up at him, invitation clearly written in her eyes, and he saw how it might be possible to win her. The trick, though, would be to keep her.
How had Michael done it? How had he managed to spend half his time away from home and still keep a woman like Anne Beaufort Westmoreland not only satisfied, but radiantly happy?
Jake wasn’t fixing to find out. He wasn’t fixing to mess up a good, satisfying life by bringing a woman into the mix, certainly not Michael’s daughter. Jake had too much respect for the man to tamper with the affections of his daughter.
“Anne just wants me home so I can cook,” Michael said.
“Precisely, darling. Don’t you think it’s about time to fire up the grill?”
Here was Jake’s chance to escape. Here was his chance to restore his sanity.
“I’ll help. I know my way around a grill better than I know my way around a mountain.”
“Don’t believe a word of it,” Michael warned the women. “This man thrives on thin air.”
Anne laughed. “If you think I’m letting Michael get out of my sight for one minute…” With her cheeks flushed, she looked almost as young as her daughter. “You two stay here and get acquainted, while Michael and I heat things up.”
“We might even get around to the grill.” Michael swung his wife off her feet, then raced to the house with her, laughing.
There was no escape for Jake now.
Jake looked as uncomfortable as she felt. For the first time since she could remember, Emily was miffed about her parents’ obsession with each other. What could they have been thinking, going off and leaving her with a man who obviously wished she would climb into a hole and pull the dirt in after her?
Certainly they weren’t matchmaking. That wasn’t their style. They didn’t believe in contrived relationships; they believed in true love, the kind that reached up and hit you over the head with a two-by-four. The kind that had whacked her between the eyes when she first saw Jake.
A lot of good it did her.
Well, she’d never been one to cry over what might have been. Face the music. That was her style.
“Look, Jake, let’s get a few things out in the open. You’re obviously not bowled over by my company, and that’s fine with me. But you’re a guest in my home, and I’m duty bound to play the Southern hostess. So we might as well make the best of it.”
“Don’t feel duty bound on my account. I can fend for myself.”
“Believe me, if we were at my cabin in the woods, I’d let you. But here at Belle Rose we mind our manners. Otherwise, it’s off to the woodshed.”
That coaxed a smile. “I can’t imagine either Michael or Anne wielding that much authority.”
“They don’t. They let us all run wild. It was Grandma Beaufort who taught us manners.” She laughed. “Or tried to.”
“Will I get to meet her?”
“Oh, yes. She’ll be here with bells on. Literally. She carries a little teatime bell around in her purse, and when she wants something from somebody, she rings the devil out of it.”
Now that he had smiled, Emily was feeling much more comfortable with him.
“Do you mind if I kick off my shoes?” she asked.
“Be my guest.”
“Grandma Beaufort would be horrified.”
“I promise not to tell.”
Jake’s smile got wider. Maybe that was the secret to all this relationship business. Just forget about impressing somebody and be yourself.
“It was a long drive and my feet got hot. Besides, I do love the feel of fresh spring grass on my bare feet.” She sank her feet into the grass. “Ah, that feels so good.”
“You make it sound that way.”
“Join in if you want. Nobody’s here except you and me and Gwendolyn. She won’t tell, and I can keep a secret, too.”
“I’ll pass for now.”
He sat down in a wrought-iron chair and stretched his long legs. Emily felt like drooling. Instead, she wiggled her toes.
“What made you choose to live in the woods with animals, Emily?”
“I like the ones in the woods better than the ones in the cities.”
He threw back his head and roared. It was a beautiful sound, and all of a sudden Emily realized how quiet her cabin was and how she missed the sound of a man’s laughter. It was a sound that had punctuated her childhood, her father laughing and tossing one of them in the air, the children or their mother, whoever was handy.
Emily knew their wonderful marriage was rare, and she wondered if she’d ever have anything that even approached it. Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d decided she was better off by herself. Better to be independent and sometimes lonely but usually content than to be married and to know you’d settled for less.
“Is your sister like
you?”
“Worse. The animals I rescue in the woods of northeast Mississippi are tame compared to the exotic ones she encounters. She’s a photojournalist.”
“Yes, your father told me. And your brother’s a preacher.”
“Yes. Methodist. I’m glad you used that good old Southern term. Your accent doesn’t suggest you’re Southern. Are you?”
“Not by birth. I was born in Colorado. After my father died, my mother moved us to Atlanta to be close to her people. I was fourteen.”
“Was he a climber, too? Don’t answer that if you don’t want to. I’m nosy.”
“What you are is a fresh breeze.” Emily was as pleased as if he’d handed her a bouquet of hothouse roses. “You speak your mind, don’t you.”
“Yes. I guess it comes from living by myself.”
“It comes from Michael. You’re very much like your father.”
Obviously Jake meant that as a compliment, too. For hadn’t he come home with Michael?
“That’s what everybody says.”
“To answer your question, yes, my dad was a climber. He died trying to rescue a party stranded on McKinley during a snowstorm.”
“I’m sorry.”
She thought how often her own father had been in precarious situations, how she and her mother and her siblings would gather around the television alternating between listening to the weather channel and Tom Brokaw’s commentary of rescue efforts taking place on the very mountain where Michael Westmoreland was filming. How they’d all live this sort of half-life until the telephone rang to tell them Michael was safe at base camp, that he’d never gone to the higher elevations, that he’d heeded early-warning signs of bad weather.
Now they would never have to worry about that again.
“It’s a risk all climbers take,” Jake said.
“Did you ever think about not taking the risks?”
“No. Did you ever think about doing anything besides what you do?”
“Not for one minute. And I would spit in the eye of anybody who tried to dissuade me.”
“I’ll be careful of my eyes around you, Miss Emily.”
He was playing with her, teasing her, and darned if she didn’t like it. Too much. Face it, a man as good-looking as Jake was bound to know his way around women. So he’d sized her up right away and seen that it wouldn’t take much to charm her, a woman who spent most of her life in the woods and didn’t give a flitter for social graces.
He was laying it on thick. For what purpose, she couldn’t imagine. First he’d acted as if he couldn’t wait to escape to a hot grill, and now he was actually relaxed and smiling and apparently having a good time.
She was too practical to believe the change had a thing to do with her. True, she had good hair and eyes, thanks to her father, but she had absolutely none of her mother’s easy charm and grace. Not one iota.
In high school and college she’d had her share of dates, but she’d always been just “one of the boys.” That was what they used to tell her. “Emily, you’re so much fun to be around you’re just like one of the boys.”
Sitting in the presence of the world’s most desirable man, she lost both her breath and her good sense. He’d made a nice riposte, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would be even remotely construed as smart or witty or charming.
She wished she’d paid more attention to Grandmother Beaufort’s favorite lecture: how a Southern woman wins her man. She and Hannah used to make faces at each other behind their grandmother’s back while she was droning on and on, warming to her subject.
“Now, girls,” she’d say. “Listen to me. I ought to know. I’ve been married five times. Outlived every one of them.” The last one had been poor Jackson Perkins, who had let Elizabeth Beaufort lead him around by the nose. After she buried him, she went back to using her first husband’s name, claiming he was the only one she’d ever truly loved.
Rule number one. Emily could almost hear her grandmother’s intonation. Let the man chase you till you catch him.
Now what the devil did that mean?
“Emily?” She looked at Jake like somebody coming out of a dream. Or a nightmare: Woman Smelling of Skunk Meets World’s Sexiest Man. “Did I say something to offend you?”
“Offend me? No, of course not. My mind just wandered off, that’s all.”
“Happens to me all the time. It comes from living by yourself.”
Well, she was fixing to put a big A-plus by his name. She’d always believed the mark of a truly good man was one who never, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever made you feel bad about yourself. If, in addition, he turned an awkward situation to your advantage so you also felt validated and even complimented, he joined the ranks of hero.
“Thank you, Jake.”
“You’re welcome.”
She loved it that he understood why she was thanking him, loved it that he didn’t pretend false modesty. She despised posing and posturing.
To show Jake how much she appreciated him, she sat there with her toes curled into the grass and smiling. She hoped he wouldn’t think her idiotic. She hoped he wouldn’t think her flirtatious and silly.
Goodness gracious, if she had to win a man acting silly, she’d just go on being content all by herself.
“Emily. Jake.” It was her father, calling from the back veranda. “Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”
When she first drove up she’d been starved, ready to eat an elephant. But that had been an hour ago. Before she met Jake.
Before she met the other half of her soul.
“Shall we?” Jake offered his arm, and Emily walked off feeling like a queen. Even after she discovered she’d forgotten her shoes.
One of the things Emily loved most about coming back to Belle Rose was the late-night chats she had with her mother. She’d missed that.
“Mom?”
Her mother was curled up on a plush velvet love seat, pink satin robe tucked around her feet, open diary in her lap.
“Come in, darling. I’ve been expecting you.”
“You have? I mean, with Dad home and all…I don’t want to keep you.”
“He’s not as young as he used to be. Let’s give him a little rest.”
She patted the cushion, and Emily sat down beside her.
“You two are perfectly outrageous, did you know that?”
“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“I’ve always thought so…and pitied the kids whose parents didn’t act like you and Dad.” Anne reached for her hair, and Emily leaned closer for her mother’s strokes. “How did it happen? How did you know to pick him and not somebody else?”
“I knew. If it’s true love, you always know.”
Her mother’s reply thrilled Emily all the way to the bone. Could it be true? Could the heart-leaping recognition she’d experienced this afternoon mean what she hoped?
All through dinner, she’d questioned her judgment, second-guessed herself, rationalized. There she’d been with Gwendolyn curled at her feet while Jake practically ignored her. To be fair, he hadn’t really ignored her; he’d merely engrossed himself in conversation with her parents.
Occasionally he’d look her way, his eyes burning briefly into hers, then he’d turn his attention back to them. Of course, that was the polite thing to do. After all, he was their guest. Not hers.
“This is about you and Jake, isn’t it.”
“Yes.” There was no use playing coy with her mother. She never had and she didn’t intend to start. “How did you know?”
“Your Dad and I both saw it. We’re thrilled, by the way.”
“You’re putting the horse before the cart. I don’t think Jake’s quite as taken with me as I am with him. In fact, I don’t think he even likes me very much. I’m not exactly date bait.”
“Do you want to be?”
“I’d rather be covered with peanut butter and hung out for the birds, Grandmother Beaufort’s advice, notwithstanding.”
The two of them were laughing heartily when Michael came through the door, grinning.
“What’s going on in here? Girl stuff? Or can I join in?”
“Are you bearing food?” Anne asked.
“Voilà.” He produced a big bowl of popcorn from behind his back. “With butter.”
“Then hurry.” Anne scrunched toward the middle of the love seat to make room for Michael on her other side.
“Where’s Jake?” he asked. “Maybe we ought to ask him to join us.”
Emily could picture it. Michael’s booming cordiality. Jake’s feeling obligated. Her feeling uncomfortable. Like somebody’s ugly stepdaughter who had to be pawned off on an unsuspecting stranger.
“I think he’s already gone to bed. And I don’t think that’s a very good idea, anyhow.”
Her father scrutinized her in that way he always did when he was reading his children’s minds. Hannah called him a guru, Emily called him psychic and Daniel called him intuitive. But whatever it was, not one of his children ever tried to fool their father.
The great thing about him was this: although he had the insight of the wizard Merlin, he believed in letting them make their own choices, learn from their own mistakes and grow from their own triumphs while he stood by offering guidance, love and strong arms to catch them if they fell.
“Have some popcorn.” He passed Emily the bowl and gave her another of his deep scrutinies. “He’s a very fine man, Emily. Solid as a mountain.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” She stood up and kissed both her parents. “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Good night,” they said, and when she left them, they were sitting close together with their hands in the popcorn bowl. It made Emily happy and lonely at the same time.
As soon as she got back to her room she’d talk to Gwendolyn about that.
Chapter Two
May 11, 2001
There are certain moments I wish I could pluck like a rose and press between the pages of a book. Today was one of them. First there was Michael. I was sitting in the swing reading and suddenly there he was, standing on the front porch smiling at me. “Good morning,” he said, as if he’d just walked out of the bedroom we’ve shared for thirty-five years, instead of off a mountaintop on another continent. We kissed as if he’d been off at war for four years, instead of off filming for four months.
