He tossed the condom on the bed, ran his hands down her arms, held her hands as he kissed her softly, gently. Then he found the hem of her sweater, slid it up, past her midriff, her cotton bra. He tossed the pink fluff of her sweater over her head, let it drop to the bed. Within another few seconds, her bra was lying beside it.
He found her body firm and toned as he unfastened her jeans, slid them down her hips. She toed off her shoes, stepped out of the denim puddled around her ankles.
He tugged his T-shirt out of his pants, tossed it away, pulled Carly back into his arms. Her skin was cool against his, dimpled with goose bumps. He laughed softly against her ear. Her hands were at his waist now. The metal buttons on his Levi’s opened one by one.
He sucked in his breath when her fingers grazed his erection, quickened when his blood surged.
“Jake.” She whispered his name against his chest. Her breath sent shivers along his spine.
His hands found her breasts, cupped them, kneaded them. She moaned, raised herself up on tiptoe to kiss him full on the mouth while his thumbs traced her tight nipples.
She fumbled with his jeans, pushed them down over his hips without breaking the kiss, as if he were her lifeline, the very air she breathed.
He tore his lips from hers, whispered an urgent curse as he nearly toppled over when his foot got caught in his pant leg. He skimmed off his Levi’s and his briefs and went down on one knee in front of Carly. Hooking his thumbs into her panties, he slowly pulled them down her hips, to her thighs, past her knees and shapely calves, following the soft cotton fabric with a trail of kisses.
Naked at last, she stood over him. Jake tipped his head back and stared up at her in the moonlight streaming through the bare window—Carly, with the star-splashed sky as her backdrop.
He took his time kissing his way back up to her navel, tongued it, moved up to her midriff. With his hand in hers, he gently tugged her down, urged her over to the bed, lay down beside her, tore open the packet and put on the condom.
“You’re trembling,” he whispered when he pulled her back to him again.
“I know.”
“Are you sure, Carly?” He slipped his hand between her thighs, found her slick with desire, and knew the answer before she said a word.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure.”
He kissed her again, hot, quick, demanding. She wrapped her arms tight around him, arched to meet him, cupped him, stroked him, an invitation communicated far better than any words could say.
He wanted to go slow. With her hands, her hips, her sighs, she begged him not to. He touched the curve of her hip. She reached for his erection, drew him close to the warm, wet opening between her thighs.
From the instant he sheathed himself inside her, she quickened and began to contract and convulse around him. She lifted her hips, cried his name as she thrust and pulled back, carrying him with her, urging him on until there was no denying her or his own burning need.
Promising her there was more to come tonight, he drove into her, met her frantic urgency with a need of his own. He called out her name, surged high and tight inside her. She begged him not to wait. Wasted words. He couldn’t have waited another heartbeat.
As the sound of the sea pulsed against the stark, bare walls of the bedroom, Jake let go, joined Carly as she rode her own release with a cry, a moan, a gentle whisper and then a satisfied sigh.
He wrapped her in his arms, held her as their heartbeats collided, as their breathing went from ragged, harsh gasps to hushed sighs while the promise of much more pleasure to share that night hung gentle on the air around them.
26
THE SUN WAS ALREADY STREAMING IN THE WINDOWS WITH dust motes sifting along the shafts of yellow-gold when Jake squinted against the light and reached for Carly.
He swept her side of the bed with his arm, realized he was alone, and abruptly sat up. The comforter slipped down to his hips. He rubbed his eyes.
“Carly?” When she didn’t answer, he pulled on the briefs he found lying on the floor beside the bed. The bathroom door was open, but there was no sign of her, so he wandered downstairs.
Not only was she gone, but so was any evidence that she’d been there at all. He glanced out the window. Her car wasn’t in the driveway, either.
It wasn’t until he went back to the bedroom to dress that he noticed a note lying on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up, read the fine, even printing written by an artist’s hand.
Jake,
Wanted to be home before Christopher got back from Potters’. Thank you for last night. Call me.
C.
He folded the note and slipped it into his back pocket with a smile. He’d do better than that. He was going straight to her house. There was no way he could keep the truth from her any longer.
He wouldn’t be able to live with himself another hour if he didn’t set the record straight.
Just then his cell phone rang, and he scrambled to find it. He flipped back the edge of the comforter trailing over the floor and caught the phone before his voice mail picked up.
He rolled back onto the bed, propped one hand beneath his head and stared up at the lines on the ceiling, a map of patched plaster still slightly visible beneath two coats of fresh paint.
“I miss you,” he said softly.
“Jake? It’s your mother.” She sounded as if she’d been crying.
So much for a little morning-after phone sex.
“Hi, Mom. What’s up?” He sat up, suddenly afraid something had happened to Julie or one of her kids.
“Oh, honey. Your Granddad died in his sleep last night. Carlotta found him in bed this morning.” She stopped abruptly, out of words.
Jake sat there with the phone pressed to his ear, listening to his mother breathe, and pictured Jackson Montgomery in his recliner, staring at the bay with a glass of Scotch in his hand and a scowl on his face.
“Jake?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“You’ll come home won’t you?”
After all these years, after all the grief the old man had put his mom and dad through, she was still going to bat for the old codger, still prodding him to do the right thing.
“Sure. I’ll be there. I guess it’s too early for any services to have been planned?”
“That’s the reason you need to come home. He left his last wishes with his lawyers, and their secretary called already this morning. They need to meet with you.”
Jake ran his fingers through his hair. Granddad had always made it crystal clear that his lawyers would take care of everything after he was gone. He gloried in reminding Jake that he was leaving every dime to charity and warned Jake that if he was only hanging around hoping to inherit anything, he was wasting his time.
As far as Jake was concerned, the old man owed him nothing and, by the same token, he didn’t owe his grandfather a damn thing either, especially something as precious as time.
“Jake?” She was waiting for an answer. “He’s family. You can’t turn your back on him now. You know I’ll help you any way I can.”
Jake sat up, awash in a slowly spreading beam of bright yellow sunlight. He climbed off the mattress and walked over to the bare window and stared out at shimmering water that mirrored the color of the sky.
Family.
Sometimes family had nothing to do with love.
There had never been any love between him and his grandfather. Only a contest of wills. Jackson Montgomery had no concept of the true meaning of the word family.
Jake thought of Carly, home alone this morning with Christopher. He thought of what he was going to have to tell her, thought of her having to face her secrets and her fears. He thought of Anna Saunders, alone with her money and her desperate desire to find her grandson.
Family. Love that came with conditions.
I’ll love you if . . .
I’ll love you when . . .
I’d love you if only . . .
The old man was gone. Whether or not he drove home to plan Jacks
on’s memorial wouldn’t matter to his granddad anymore.
But it did matter to his mother.
“I’ll be there, Mom.”
“When?”
He calculated how long it would take him to throw together his overnight bag, secure his tools, close up the house. And he couldn’t go anywhere until he’d settled things with Carly.
“Sometime tonight, probably.”
“I’ll call the lawyers back.”
She gave him his granddad’s lawyers’ number in case he needed it. Jake said good-bye, took one last look at the stunning view from the bedroom, and tossed the cell phone on the bed before he headed for the shower.
At nine-thirty, Carly waited on her porch as Glenn Potter helped Christopher unload his pillow and overnight bag from the back of the Toyota. Matt jumped out and helped Chris carry his things to the house. He’d only been gone overnight, but to her it seemed as if he’d grown another three inches.
She gave him a big hug, stopping him in his tracks before he shoved the pillow into her arms.
“Can Matt stay for lunch? Please tell his dad it’s okay.”
Everything was so right with the world this morning that she smiled at Glenn Potter. “Matt is more than welcome to stay for lunch,” she told him. She hugged Christopher’s pillow, knowing the euphoric high she was on was bound to fade but hoping that it wouldn’t.
She was beaming like a fool but she couldn’t help it.
Glenn hesitated. “We’ve got to pick up Willa at the vet in San Luis, so would it be all right if he stays here until we get back around two-thirty or three?”
“No problem. I don’t have to leave for work until four-thirty.”
“I’ll pick him up long before that. Thanks, Carly.” Glenn started back to his car and then stopped. “Do you think you’ll be seeing Jake this weekend?”
Carly was sure she had turned beet red when he mentioned Jake’s name. “Probably,” she said slowly, hoping Jake would call soon.
“I need to give him the receipt for the electrical service, but we just got the call from the vet, and Tracy can’t wait to go get Willa.”
She had no idea when or even if she’d see Jake today. She didn’t want to make any assumptions, even after last night.
Glenn walked back to his car, then brought her an envelope from the utility company. Handing it over he said, “Jake seems like a real nice guy.”
“Yes. He is.” Better than nice. Fabulous. Delicious.
“Chris told me he’s taken you both out to dinner and that you had a picnic at the house.”
“We did.”
“Chris thinks the world of him already. Maybe with Jake here all summer, you two might have a chance to get something going.”
Get something going?
She decided she needed to have a talk with her son if he was going to discuss her private life around town.
Suddenly Glenn was in no rush to leave. He glanced off in the direction of the beach path, then shook his head. “Who woulda guessed Jake’s a P.I.? I always think of a private detective as somebody like that rumpled guy on the Columbo reruns.”
Carly froze with her hand poised, about to brush back her hair. Too shaken to breathe, a ringing in her ears forcing her to take a deep breath.
“What did you just say?”
“Shit.” Glenn cursed under his breath, but she heard him. “He listed his occupation as self-employed, but when I ran a credit check on his bank account, his business turned out to be a private investigative firm in Long Beach. I figured he’d surely told you.”
“Of course.” She tried to sound as if she’d known all along, even as she hoped her legs would hold her until she could get inside. “Of course he did.”
“Oh, great. Then I didn’t blow it.”
No. I did. Jake. A private investigator.
No doubt working for the Saunders. No doubt here to prove she was a slut and a bad mother. Somehow he’d tracked her down, set her up in order to help Rick’s parents obtain custody of Christopher.
“Are you all right?” Glenn’s expression was one of concern.
The world had just shifted beneath her feet. It had to show on her face.
She shook her hair back over her shoulder and forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just . . . thinking of everything I have to do today.”
“Well, I’ll be back for Matt this afternoon.”
As he hurried back to his car, she stood there, numb, watching him, unable to move.
Just then the phone rang, and she panicked. If it was Jake, she didn’t know whether to answer and stall him, or just let it ring.
As Glenn backed out of the parking space, she stepped inside. The screen banged behind her, giving off the usual aluminum rattle.
Her hand was shaking when she finally picked up the phone.
It was Geoff.
“I want all the details. If you leave anything out, I swear I’ll . . .”
She had to get him off the line. Had to think.
“Geoff, listen—”
“Start talking. I’ve got to hear how it went last night.”
“It went fine, but I can’t talk right now.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t do this to me.”
“I’ll have to call you back.”
“Carly, what’s up? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Really. I’m just in the middle of something. I’ll call you back. Promise.”
She hung up without letting him say another word. Tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision so badly she couldn’t even see the trunk covered with magazines at her feet. The harsh reality was that she wouldn’t be calling him back. More than likely, she’d never see Geoff again.
Just like the day she walked out of Wilt’s life, once she and Chris left Twilight Cove, there would be no looking back.
The boys’ voices echoed in the hallway.
Think, Carly. Think.
Her hands were cold, her heart pounding. She felt gutted, like one of the rabbits her dad used to hunt in the desert and clean in the garage.
Finally she gathered enough strength to walk down the hall to her room. She opened her closet and stood there staring at the duffel bag on the floor beneath her clothes.
“Hey, Mom! Jake’s here.”
Nowhere to run. Before she could stop him, she heard Chris say, “Come on in, Jake. Matt’s staying for lunch. Have you ever had a peanut butter star?”
Blinded by panic, Carly somehow made it down the hall and stepped into the living area. Jake was already inside. Chris was staring up at him as if he’d hung the moon and every star around it.
Jake’s hair was tousled, still damp. He had on a wrinkled navy-blue T-shirt and jeans. A night’s growth of dark stubble outlined his jaw.
All male and enough to tempt any woman with a pulse, he was perfect, except that he was a cold-blooded liar.
When she met his eyes, she immediately saw his hesitation. His expression was shadowed with concern and something she couldn’t name. When he tried to smile she saw something she didn’t even want to acknowledge, something that her foolish, inexperienced heart might be tricked into thinking was love.
“Why don’t you and Matt go on back to your room, Chris. Jake and I need to talk.”
“Aw, Mom. Why can’t we—”
“Go! Now.” She could count on one hand the times she’d ever spoken sharply to her son.
She waited until the boys quickly scooted out. In seconds she heard them talking in Christopher’s room.
“What’s wrong, Carly?” Jake started across the room, coming at her as if he intended to hold her.
She couldn’t bear to have him touch her. Not now. She held up her hand, stopped him in his tracks. “Don’t! Don’t come any closer.”
He held out his arms, hands palms up. “What’s up?”
“You know damn well what’s up. You lied to me. You’ve been lying the whole time.” Enraged, hot anger spilling over her caused her to tremble. “What a fool I’ve been. Needy. L
onely. I fell right into your trap, didn’t I?”
When he didn’t ask what she was talking about, she knew that he understood completely, and any hope she had that this might all be a mistake vanished.
“You’re a private investigator, aren’t you?” Suddenly she found herself praying that he’d deny it, that he’d tell her she was wrong. Surely there was some other explanation. Maybe Glenn had mixed up Jake’s account numbers with someone else’s.
But then Jake nodded. “That’s right. I am.”
“You’re working for the Saunders,” she whispered.
“No. Believe me, I’m not working for anyone. I had my own reasons for finding you.”
“Money.”
“No. For Rick. For peace of mind.”
Her hand went to her heart. “Rick?”
“He was a good friend. He loaned me some start-up money for my firm.”
“I don’t believe you.” Rick? He had been Rick’s friend . . . and she’d gone to bed with him last night.
He reached for his wallet, pulled it out, started toward her again.
“Don’t come near me.” She backed toward the kitchen.
“Then here. Catch.” He tossed her the wallet. “Look through the photos.”
Shaking so hard she almost dropped it, she flipped through the plastic sleeves. Unrecognizable faces smiled back. Three children in a formal photo, two boys and a girl. A middle-aged woman sitting alone at a picnic table in someone’s backyard. A couple with the same three children from the other photograph—his sister and her family.
“So?” She started to hand it back.
“Look at the next one.”
She realized there was one more sleeve. She flipped it over and found herself staring at a photo of herself holding Chris. One of the shots Rick had taken of her that day in Borrego, the day he’d found out that he’d had a son.
He had insisted they burn through two disposable cameras taking photos of the baby to show his parents. Looking at the photo now, she realized how young she was then, how naïve. And yet, she’d felt so very old.
Not quite twenty—with a son of her own. Seeing the photo now, the only one left out of so many that were destroyed when Rick died, cut her like a double-edged sword.
She tossed the wallet back. “This proves nothing. The Saunders probably gave it to you.”
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