She jerked her arm away, pushing both hands through her short, soft hair. “Oh God! I— why are we doing this? I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to think about him.”
“You’re thinking about him all the time,” Jake accused. “You never forget. You opened up once, to Lance, and you got hurt. So you’re keeping the memory warm, making sure you never let anyone else close enough to get a knife in you again.”
“Stop it! I don’t— you’re making a big thing of this. It was only a teenage romance!“
The blue sky and the sand, the ocean roaring over the sand in long, unstoppable surges. And Jake, prying, watching, finding the weak places in her. She said desperately, “You should have brought a camera today. You could have gotten some terrific shots of this beach.”
But he wasn’t going to be distracted. He accused softly, “Hiding again, Jennifer? Running away from yourself? Don’t you think it’s time you talked about it all? You never have, have you?” She was silent, but he was putting the pieces together. “George didn’t know – it was obvious when she mentioned his name last night that she had no idea he meant so much to you.”
“He doesn’t,” she lied weakly.
“Then why not talk about him?”
She muttered, “You’re like a dog with a bone. You won’t stop. What do you want me to say?” She avoided his eyes, then said in a rush, “I fell in love with him. He was older, very impressive to a girl my age. We had an affair. Then he left. It’s an old story. I was seventeen and I cried a lot. Now I’m twenty-seven and it’s ancient history.”
Jake brushed gently at her cheek, as if he were wiping tears away. “Why did he leave?”
She said tonelessly, “Because I told him I was pregnant.“
She felt his shock in the moment of silence before he asked, “And were you?”
Jake was watching her as if her old hurts mattered to him and she found herself talking, unable to stop.
“He wasn’t local. He was a salesman, traveling around the northern part of Vancouver Island. I was always waiting for the next time he came – I was obsessed, I think. I was so lonely after George got married. I didn’t really understand what was happening to me, but Lance seemed like the answer to my dreams.” She laughed bitterly, “I was pretty young, and I guess I thought a man of my own would make everything right.” She took a shallow, ragged breath. “Lance said he loved me. That seemed to be all that mattered. I— we— he was there, and gone again, and I never seemed to know for sure when I’d see him again.
“I was full of dreams. I kept hoping I’d find I was expecting his child. It wasn’t likely. He’d made sure I was on the pill. But I kept dreaming weddings and babies and happily-ever-after. One night we were sitting in his car, parked near the ocean—” She closed her eyes, saw angry clouds hanging low over the stormy sea, pain surging up inside her at the memories. “I didn’t even know I was going to say it until the words came out… I told him I was pregnant.”
She stood in the sand, shivering, unable to get her face into a mask. Jake, staring at her intently, could see everything. He reached out slowly, took her shoulders in his hands, drew her down beside him, sitting in the sand.
“What happened then?” he asked, and his dark, intense face drowned out everything else as he put his arms around her and drew her into his warmth.
“Nothing. I just— I never saw him again. I would have written, making more of a fool of myself, but he’d never given me an address to write to. I guess he was married, but I never thought of that – not at first. I kept waiting for him to call.” She shrugged. “After a while I stopped waiting.”
His arms were far too strong to fight, and his heat was soaking into her. She let herself relax, too weak to struggle.
Jake said, thoughtfully, “And you never let anyone that close again?”
“You’re the first person I’ve ever told about Lance,” she admitted.
He nodded, half-smiling with a gentle teasing. “How does it feel?”
“Odd,” she admitted. “I hadn’t realized— I’m not sure what he looked like – I can’t help wondering if I could pass him on the street and not know, and yet I— I couldn’t take being hurt like that again.”
He touched her hand softly, a wordless sympathy, then he reached for the picnic basket. She accepted a sandwich from him, and bit into it. “Salmon? Do you think David caught this with his own hands?”
“With his net, more likely.”
They ate in a companionable silence. When the food was gone, Jenny leaned back and closed her eyes, the sound of the ocean a song in her ears. She drifted, listening, comfortably curled against a big log that had drifted in on a high tide.
She should have felt uncomfortably vulnerable after confiding in Jake. She’d shared a secret part of herself with him, given him a weapon. Yet his eyes told her that he would never use it against her. And she believed him.
He was leaning back against the log. He didn’t look like a restless city artist. She smiled and his brows lifted in query.
“You look like a beach bum,” she said. He reached a hand across to her and she came, protesting weakly, “Jake—”
“Relax,” he insisted softly, settling her against his broad chest.
Relax. It was the last thing she should do, lounging here with him at the edge of nowhere, his heat flowing into her through the thin shirt he wore. But she closed her eyes again, settling comfortably against him, enjoying the feel of her cheek pressed into the curve of his shoulder, his arm holding her close.
An hour stolen from fate, a fantasy hour. She looked and found his eyes closed, the lines of his face smoothed with contentment. She studied him freely… the off-center fold in his right eyelid, the pale white scar that drifted up into his hairline.
Lance’s face was a dim memory, but Jake’s would be engraved in her mind forever. She watched his nostrils widen as he took a deep breath, felt his chest rise beneath her face. Was he sleeping?
She let her fingers spread across his chest, startled as his free hand came up to cover hers.
How had he come by the scar on his forehead? A childhood accident?
His lids opened, the black lashes sweeping up. The fold she was watching disappeared and his brows rose in a question.
“Did I sleep?” He yawned, then laughed. “I guess I did. Have you been trapped here for long?” His arm tightened around her momentarily, then relaxed. “I thought I just closed my eyes for a second.”
“At least an hour.” She added whimsically, “I was watching you.”
“And what did you see?” He was smiling, but she saw a trace of unease in his dark eyes.
She touched his forehead fleetingly. “How did you get that scar?”
“Being a young fool. Were you speculating on the origins of my battle scars?”
“You looked content,” she mused. “As if there were no place else in the world you’d rather be. You should come here more often, Jake. It’s good for you.”
“Maybe it’s you that’s good for me,” he said suggestively.
She sat up abruptly, all the old uncertainties and fears washing over her. She brushed at sand, shaking out her shoes, avoiding his eyes. “Don’t— I doubt it. I’ve been around for years.”
“That was Jennifer,” he said softly. “This is Jenny. Mind you, I still see glimpses of the elusive Jennifer, but sometimes I think George dropped her overboard with your hair.”
“Stop making fun of me,” she said uncomfortably. She stood up and started organizing the picnic basket, looking around for any mess they may have left from their lunch. She badly needed to get this conversation back to normal, to put some barrier between them. “I’ve been working on a film on this trip – on wildlife. You’d be amazed at what we’ve seen coming down from Alaska. Dolphins, a big whale, sea lions.”
He said, slowly, as if he wanted to bring back the intimacy of a moment ago, “I got that scar when I was seventeen, having a damn foolish argument with my cousin.
He was bigger than me, but that didn’t stop me trying to light into him.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “I tried to hit him. He succeeded in hitting me. I ended up smashing into the stabilizers on the boat, cut my face wide open. Then we both went into the water. That cooled us off, and when my uncle got back to the boat he went after both of us.” He shrugged, grinning sheepishly. “I can’t even remember what we were fighting over. I told you, I got the scar being a foolish kid— I’d like to see the film you’re doing.”
She said defensively, “It won’t be an award winner, but I might manage to sell it.”
She found herself letting Jake draw her out on details as they headed back – despite her suspicions about why he was interested. “…right now, my most pressing need is for a second video camera. I’m getting so many bits and pieces of film, I need to get it edited.”
They were back at the truck. She stepped up into the cab. Jake closed her door, then walked around the front to the driver’s side.
His long legs showed lean and hard through his tight jeans, revealing muscles that his city clothes concealed. Was the rest of his body as darkly brown as the part she could see? She glanced down at her own hand, remembering his dark skin against her pale fairness, shuddering with a raw wave of desire that left her weak and frightened.
He pulled the driver’s door open and jumped up into the seat beside her. She sat tensely beside him, uncomfortably aware of how badly she wanted to be held in his arms again.
The engine roared to life as he said, “I’ll bring a camera to you next week. And, Jenny – don’t belittle your talents. You’re good.” He turned towards her and gave her the full force of his smile, saying gently, “but neither one of us is half as good alone as we are together.”
She took a deep breath, stared ahead through the window of the pickup. “It had to come down to that, didn’t it, Jake? You want me back at work.” She gave an angry toss of her head, but there was no long hair to send sweeping back. “I’m not coming. This film is not something I’m doing for you. There’s no need for you to supply my equipment.”
He changed the subject, startling her with a swift, “What have you got against Hans?”
She managed to shoot back, “I didn’t say anything against him.”
“Yes you did. This morning. Back at the boat— well, you snorted. Very expressively. I’d like to know why.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Stop hiding, Jennifer! Come out with it!” The truck lurched into motion as Jake let out the clutch with an uncharacteristic jerk. “We’ve had enough playing around, pretending things are fine when they’re not. Don’t you think it’s time for some honesty?”
Angry, she pulled her seat belt across and snapped it into place. “Anything I say about Hans would sound like sour grapes.”
“Why?” He shot a startled look at her, then snapped his eyes back to the road as they hit a rough pothole.
“Because— because he’s doing all the things I wanted to do. He’s taken over all the best parts of my job. Why is that, Jake? Why did you put Hans in my place?”
He shifted up, then down again as another monstrous pothole appeared in the road. “I— I thought you didn’t want the job anymore,” he evaded. “You quit. You left and— aside from–– do you have anything specific against Hans?”
If she said anything against Hans, Jake might think it was only resentment of her own loss in position. She glanced at him, found his face intent, his eyes on the road as he negotiated the potholes. He threw her a quick glance, telling her that he wouldn’t drop the subject. She bit her lip, wishing for a distraction.
Jake’s voice was carefully neutral as he prodded, “I’ll admit he’s sometimes disappointing, but he did that film for Manley – that was quite a job.”
Heaven knew why she’d covered for Hans for so long! She’d resented his presence, worried that he would damage Austin Media, worked frantically at times to cover his errors and omissions.
Jenny looked at Jake’s strong determination, then away – at the sky… the sea… the road ahead. He said he wanted honesty, but— with a shock she realized that hiding things from Jake had become almost second nature to her. In trying to conceal her strong attraction to him, she’d begun to conceal everything – her opinions, her resentments, her knowledge of Hans’ inadequacies.
Disconcerted by her own sudden uncomfortable self-knowledge, she said abruptly, “He didn’t do the Manley film. He did a few shots, then skipped off to be with some girl while you were out of town. I put the film together – I had to, or you would have missed the deadline.”
Jake frowned, demanded, “It’s not the only time you’ve covered for him, is it?” He saw the answer on her face and sighed. “No, of course it’s not. That explains a lot of things.” Jake inexplicably dropped the subject, saying, “Jenny, look out there! The fishing fleet is heading out. Not the trolling boats like David’s, but the seiners – the net boats.”
The sun came blazing through the open windows of the pickup. Jenny felt suddenly relaxed, easy, able to enjoy Jake’s company. Until the moment when Jake parked the truck near the docks, shoved the emergency brake on, then said with grim determination, “About Hans – would you come back if he were gone?”
Incredulously, she said, “You’d get rid of him just to get me back to work?”
“If that’s what it takes.” His hands still gripped the wheel tightly. He was looking out the front window as if he were still driving.
Jenny pulled on the door latch, found it stuck and pulled again, desperately. “Well, don’t fire Hans just for me, Jake. I’m not coming back.”
Jenny almost fell out of the truck as the door suddenly swung open under her struggles. David MacDougal appeared at the top of the ramp and Jake said, “There’s David. He’s taking me to the airport.“
He leaned across the seat and gripped her wrist with a strong, brown hand. She felt a shuddering wave of weakness at his touch, kept her face turned away from him as he said, low-voiced and determined, “You will come back to me, Jenny Winslow. Sooner or later, you’re coming back.” She shook her head, glancing at him with traces of panic in her eyes, shivering at the determined conviction in his.
He bent suddenly closer, brushing his lips against hers with a shocking, electric caress. “Take care,” he whispered. “Promise? Don’t do anything crazy?”
“Jake—” she breathed, her eyes tangled deeply with his. Her hand found the side of his face in an involuntary caress. “I—” Was she crazy? A total fool? Remember Jake and Monica… Jake and so many other women. She jerked away and waved brightly to David who was fast approaching the truck.
Her voice showed none of her inner bitterness as she said, “You’d better get back to Monica.”
He looked startled, opened his lips as if to protest. Jenny couldn’t help wondering what he would have said if David hadn’t reached the truck in that instant.
“All ready to go to the airport, Jake? We’d better move it, or we’ll miss your plane.“
Chapter 7
Jenny swung from her perusal of the mountains to stare at George. “What did you say?”
George’s voice was mild as she repeated, “Settle down and think about something else for a while. Jake will get here when he gets here.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Jake,” Jenny denied weakly, but her cousin wasn’t fooled.
“Nonsense! Every since you called to tell him that we’ve arrived in this unpronounceable bay, you’ve been jumping up, staring at the sky, looking for seaplanes. You’re obviously not getting over him. I think it’s time you made a play for him.”
Jenny sat down abruptly on a log. “George, he’s in love with Monica!”
“Did he ever say so?”
“He said—” Jenny hesitated, then finished, “He said he’d probably marry her.”
“Probably?” scoffed George with an unladylike snort. “If he’s marrying her, why is he running all
over the north Pacific after you?”
Jenny said, dully, “He wants me to go back to work.”
George’s brows went up. “If he were my almost-fiancée, I wouldn’t be very pleased when he hops on a plane to Alaska at a moment’s notice – just to have a little chat with you, you say. Next he’s burning up the wires, sending out search parties because you’re a bit late into Masset – then flying up to meet you on arrival. Where is Monica while he’s doing all this? Now he’s back again, just to guide you through these famous narrows. Don’t you think he could find someone else to show us the way if he really wants to be with Monica? The man’s related to half the fishermen on these islands. He could get a cousin or a friend to guide us. But, no! He’s got to come and do it personally, bring his Jennifer to safety. And if that doesn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t mean anything!” Jenny spun around in the sand, glared at George for a crazy minute, then shrugged helplessly. “It means he’s missing my work. You don’t realize how important Jake’s work is to him – it’s more important than anything else.”
“More important than Monica?”
“Definitely,” said Jenny with certainty, remembering Jake breaking a date with Monica for the sake of a chance to get just one more shot with that camera.
“But you’re part of that work.” George was thinking aloud, remembering the fierce look in Jake’s eyes as he’d met Jenny on the wharf at Masset. “So just which is the most important – you or the job – now that he has to separate them in his mind?”
Jenny shook her head and George said swiftly, concern for her cousin evident in her voice, “You can’t let one bad experience mess up your whole life. I know something happened to you. I had no idea then, but thinking back, remembering… it was Lance, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jenny admitted, her mind going back to the days after George married Scott.
As children, she and George had been constant companions. Jenny hadn’t needed any other close friends. Even when George married, Jenny’s growing relationship with Lance had insulated her from loneliness.
Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) Page 10
