by Sandra Field
Maybe it was time he found out. Demanded some answers of her. Because, of course, he was going to see her. There’d be no better opportunity than now, with Daniel safely at the rink for the next hour and a half.
What if Daniel really didn’t want anything to do with him? What then?
Won’t go there, Jake thought savagely, and backed out of the parking lot. The fog had thickened while he’d been talking to his son. Had he totally messed up his life? All his money wasn’t much good to him if the woman he’d loved and the son she’d given birth to didn’t want to spend the time of day with him.
Won’t go there, either.
CHAPTER FIVE
JAKE parked near the craft shop. Lights gleamed through the tall windows. The stained-glass panel of the whales was, if anything, more striking than he’d remembered. He was going to buy it, he thought, pushing through the door. And if Shaine objected, too bad.
To his great relief, there were no customers in the shop. When Shaine looked up and saw him, she didn’t faint. Progress, he thought, taking a moment to admire her slim curves in her bright orange tunic with its matching brief skirt.
“Hello,” she said coolly. “Nice of you to let me know you were coming.”
All his skills in diplomacy deserting him, he said, “I just gave Daniel a drive to the rink.”
“You what?”
“He was walking along the sidewalk, so I stopped and picked him up.”
In a wave of fury, Shaine planted her hands on her hips. “You were supposed to wait and talk to me before you spoke to him.”
“Well, I didn’t. And it makes no difference, anyway. Ever since he saw my photo in the hockey archives at the high school three or four years ago, he’s suspected that I was his father.”
She could feel the color draining from her face. “Is that what he said?”
“The kid’s not stupid, Shaine. He could see that he and I have the same color hair and eyes. And when he put it together with my dad’s funeral, the timing was right.”
“He never told me!”
“He did an Internet search on me, and read those financial magazines you had. If it makes you any happier, he wasn’t what you’d call delighted to meet me.”
“So for months he’s known the name of his father?” Stunned, feeling as though the world had shifted beneath her feet, she said, “I can’t believe he wouldn’t have asked me about you. Didn’t he trust me?”
Jake rested a hand lightly on her bare arm. “He’s only twelve—it’s a loaded topic.”
She stared down at Jake’s hand as if it were an adder about to bite her. “He’s angry with you?”
“You could say so.” Restlessly Jake moved away, prowling around the shop like a trapped mountain lion. “Why wouldn’t he be? Whether or not he said anything to you about his suspicions, don’t ever doubt he loves you. One reason he’s so angry with me is that you were left alone to bring him up, and with very little money—no support from me, in other words. While I, according to him, was stashing away millions, living like a king and having affairs with every woman in sight.”
“Sounds accurate to me.”
“Come off it,” Jake said impatiently. “You should know me better than that.”
The bell over the door tinkled as three customers walked in. The first of them, Jake saw with something akin to horror, was Maggie Stearns. Her pale blue eyes fastened on Jake like limpets to a rock. “Well, if it isn’t Jake Reilly,” she said genially, coming over and kissing him with damp enthusiasm on the cheek. “Someone told me you’d been in town. And now you’re back. What brings you to these parts?”
“I’ve stayed away too long,” Jake said with more regard for the truth than Maggie deserved.
“Thirteen years. I was saying to Shaine just the other day that I wished you’d dropped in for tea when you were here. How about this evening? Marty’d be real happy to see you.”
Her husband Marty, unless things had changed, busied himself making ships in bottles and rarely said a word. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Shaine waiting with malicious pleasure for his reply. “Some other time, Maggie,” he said. “Shaine’s invited me for dinner this evening.”
A pink patch adorning each cheek, Shaine began, “That’s not—”
“I was on my way to pick up a bottle of wine,” Jake said, smiling at Maggie, “and thought I should check with Shaine whether she wanted white or red.”
The other two customers were strangers to him. Tourists, he thought, and watched with amusement as Shaine struggled against the urge to tell him exactly where to go.
“I’m always partial to a glass of wine,” Maggie said. “What are you cooking, Shaine?”
Brimstone and ashes, said Shaine’s eyes. “Haddock,” she said in a stifled voice.
“Then you’ll want a nice dry Bordeaux. Just you ask Sammie at the liquor store, Jake, he’ll help you pick one out. Why,” she trilled, “I might have to drop in after supper myself and have a little glass. To welcome you home. How long are you staying this time?”
Mentally, Jake counted to ten. He was considered something of a connoisseur of wines; the last person he wanted to see tonight was Maggie; and he had no idea how long he was going to stay. He said cheerfully, “I’ll see you some other time, Maggie—I’ll be around long enough for that.” He eyed the shopping bag in her hand. “So you’re on your way home? Take care, won’t you, and say hello to Marty for me.”
Short of rudeness, Maggie had no choice but to leave the shop. As she flounced outside, Jake winked at Shaine. Unwilling respect and fury battling in her breast, she said sweetly, “If I’d remembered you were coming for supper tonight, I’d have made bakeapple pie.”
Three summers in a row he and Shaine had picked bake-apples on the barrens along the coast and sold them to the local grocery store; the orange berries, shaped like blackberries but growing low to the ground, were much prized in the village. That was in the days when they’d been friends, he remembered, two adolescents who, despite the difference in age and gender, had found pleasure in each other’s company. One point for you, he thought, and said, “I want to buy the whale panel, Shaine. Can you pack it up and ship it to Long Island?”
Whatever she might have expected him to say next, it wouldn’t have been that. “You don’t really want it—it’s too expensive.”
He tossed his platinum credit card on the counter. “Include the price of shipping, won’t you?”
“What will you do with it?”
“Hang it in the window that overlooks the patio, watch the light move across it, and think of you.”
“You must be hard up for kicks.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m beginning to think you’re right…I’ll be back shortly with the wine.”
“You’d better buy two bottles—I’m going to invite all three of my brothers.”
He laughed. “Tell them to leave their shotguns at home.”
“It’s too late for that, Jake.”
“You always were a worthy opponent,” he said affably, and marched out of the shop into the fog.
When had he felt as fully alive as he did now, walking down a narrow road, the sound of waves muffled by the mist, the air redolent with salt and seaweed? He was on his way to buy wine for a dinner that was almost guaranteed to be a social disaster. His son resented him, Shaine’s three brothers no doubt felt the same way, and Shaine both desired him and hated the ground he walked on. Maybe he should buy a whole case of wine.
He settled for two bottles of a fairly decent Chilean Chardonnay. Then he continued down the street to Mrs. Emily Bennett’s house. She opened the door herself, a plump widow in her sixties whose strong morals were sometimes in conflict with her kind heart. “Jake!” she exclaimed. “I heard you’d been in the village…come on in.”
Stepping inside, he hugged her. “While I’m back, I’ll come for a proper visit. But right now I’m hoping you can do me a favor. You wouldn’t happen to have a bakeapple pie in your freezer,
would you?”
“I made half a dozen the other day.”
“I’m having supper at Shaine’s, and I’d like to take her one.”
“You’re having supper at Shaine’s?”
Her face was an open book. In a resigned voice Jake said, “So you’ve figured out that Daniel’s my son?”
“Years ago. But I’ve never said a word to anyone.”
“I didn’t know about him, Emily. Not until two weeks ago.”
“That’s because you left this place fast as a wild pony leaves the corral.”
How could he deny it? “Daniel doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“He’ll come ’round. What about Shaine?”
“Same.”
“Well…I’ll go get the pie. A bakeapple pie can do wonders.”
Melt Shaine’s obdurate heart? Jake didn’t think so.
A few minutes later Emily came upstairs from the basement, puffing a little. “How long are you staying?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Are you planning to make an honest woman out of Shaine?”
“Shaine’s as honest a woman as you are, Emily, and that’s got nothing to do with her marital status.”
“It’s about time that boy had a father. Three uncles are no substitute for the real thing.”
“Shaine wouldn’t marry me if she’d had quintuplets,” he said in exasperation.
“Then you’d better stick around long enough to change her mind.” Emily handed him the pie, her smile breaking through. “Fine-looking man like you, you’ll have no trouble putting a ring on Shaine’s finger…don’t you forget to come for a visit, now.”
“I’ll be by in the next couple of days,” he promised, and started back the way he’d come. Did the entire village know he was Daniel’s father? Was the boy being taunted at school and at the rink about Jake’s return? Along with Shaine’s lack of a wedding ring?
Finding he could scarcely stand his own thoughts, Jake saw the yellow house loom through the fog. Impulsively he took a detour through the tall wet grass toward the cliffs. When he found what he was looking for, he put the pie down on top of the bottles of wine, and bent to his task. Then he walked back toward the house.
The lights were on inside. Blurred by the fog, Shaine was standing at the sink, wearing trim-fitting jeans and a fuchsia sweater that clashed with her hair. If only he could walk in the door and take her to bed. If only life were that simple.
She’d go. He was willing to bet she would. Wild images of her naked in his arms flitted through Jake’s head, setting his pulses racing. He’d never, technically, been to bed with Shaine; they’d made love on the island on a blanket spread on the grass.
Was sex the way to bring her around, or was he better to work on the wholly platonic friendship they’d shared for so many years? Wasn’t it near here that he’d first come across her? He’d been jogging the cliff path, his CD player clipped to his waist…
Jake circled the rocks, oblivious to anything but the music in his ears and the rhythm of his feet on the grass. A girl was crouched in the shadow of the rocks. He swerved, flinging out a hand so he wouldn’t trip. She was crying, slow tears seeping down pale cheeks under a mop of tangled red curls.
Jake stopped dead, his chest heaving. At thirteen, he wasn’t interested in girls who were years younger than he. Especially if they were crying. He yanked off his ear plugs and said reluctantly, “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Her lips were a mutinous line, although her eyes shimmered like dew on the early morning grass. On the flat rock beside her was a sketch pad; as he looked at it, she scrambled to cover it with her hands. “Hold on,” he said, interested, “let me see.”
“Go away!”
He almost did. After all, whatever was bothering her had nothing to do with him. But then he stooped, pushing her hands aside and stared at the page. She’d created a pinwheel of colors in jagged fragments that captured to perfection the profusion of wildflowers that surrounded them. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
She scowled at him. “You’re just saying that so I’ll stop crying.”
“Girls crying make me crazy.” He grinned. “But I meant what I said. You must get top marks in art. I flunked it last term—you’ve got to work hard to flunk art.”
“The teacher thinks I should stick to the class assignments and quit making all these weird designs.”
“That’s old man Mulligan for you. The guy’s a jerk.”
The first inkling of a smile tugged at her mouth. “I hate him,” she said.
“Do his stupid assignments if that’s what keeps him happy. But don’t stop doing these. Just don’t show ’em to him.”
“You really do like it? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, nonplussed. “I flunked art, remember? I just like the way it swirls, that’s all. Like when I’m on the rink—you can hear the wind.”
Her cheeks flushed with pleasure. “The other kids think I’m weird, too. I didn’t get invited to Sally Hatchet’s birthday party. It’s tonight.”
“Is that why you were crying?”
“Sort of. But I can’t stop being me!”
On impulse, Jake passed her his headset. “Listen for a minute.”
She did so, her face puckered with attention. “I never heard music like that before.”
“Classical. Baroque period. Albinoni’s Concerto for Oboe. Guys aren’t supposed to listen to stuff like that. I’m always getting into fights at school because I hate rap and I’m top of my class without having to study. Lucky for me I’m a hockey star, saves my bacon.”
“So you don’t fit in, either,” she said slowly.
“Nope. It doesn’t matter as much as I used to think it did. If that’s any help.”
“Girls don’t have fist fights at school. They just shut you out of all the girl things they do.”
“Tell you what, then. How about every so often you and I go for a walk? Or out in my dad’s boat. Or berry picking. I’ll listen to music and you can paint pictures and no one’ll tell us we oughta like punk rock and sissy pictures of kittens.”
She laughed outright, a delightful cascade of sound. “Okay,” she said, “I’d like that. I’m Shaine O’Sullivan, I live in the yellow house by the cliffs.”
“Jake Reilly. We live on Main Street.” They shook hands solemnly. “I’ll call you in a couple of days. My dad might be going out to Ghost Island on the weekend, the wild strawberries are ripe.”
That had been the beginning, Jake thought. A handshake, and then a sun-soaked day picking the berries that nestled in the low grass on the island. For years it had been an undemanding friendship, perhaps the deeper because of all they hadn’t needed to say. When he went away to university at seventeen, they’d exchanged letters; he hadn’t been home for nearly five years, because of hockey, his fanatic ambition to top his class, and two jobs every summer to pay for his tuition and board. Then he’d come back when his father had drowned, and found, instead of the young girl he’d remembered, a beautiful young woman. A stranger who wasn’t a stranger, and all the more seductive because of it…that was when he’d fallen in love.
He gave his head a little shake. Mist had settled on his shirt, and the legs of his jeans were wet. Time to go indoors. Time to face the family, he thought ruefully, and squared his shoulders.
He was still nuts about baroque music, although it had taken an unorthodox mathematics professor to ally that with his genius for numbers. What kind of music did Daniel like?
Another huge blank.
He walked up the steps and knocked on the back door. Shaine opened it. He said, thrusting his offerings at her, “Two bottles of wine, a bakeapple pie and roses.”
They were brier roses from the cliffs. As Shaine, conspicuously, said nothing, Jake labored on, “No flower shop in Cranberry Cove. As you know.”
They were very simple gifts. No need for her to feel as though she’d been given the moon and the stars. When she
thought she could trust her voice, she said, “Where did you get the pie?”
“I have my contacts.”
“I wish you didn’t make me laugh,” Shaine said ferociously. “I wish I didn’t like you when I can’t stand the sight of you.”
Astonishingly pleased by this incoherent speech, Jake said, “I shed good blood for those roses. Be careful when you put them in water, the thorns are vicious.”
“Are they supposed to be a metaphor?”
“For what?” he said blandly. “You?”
“For life in general,” she said, scowling at him. “Since you’re already bleeding, why don’t you put them in water while I thaw the pie? There’s a vase in the cupboard over the sink.”
He put the roses on the counter and advanced on her. “You’re supposed to say thank you.”
Frightened out of her wits, Shaine wielded a flour-coated wooden spoon at him. “Neither one of us was ever much good at doing what we were supposed to.”
He grabbed the spoon with one hand and her waist with the other. But because at the last moment she turned her head, his kiss landed on her cheek rather than her mouth. Tightening his hold, Jake slid his lips with sensuous pleasure down the taut line of her jaw to her throat. “You smell nice,” he murmured, “and you taste better. Too bad you’ve got three brothers and a son, or do you know where we’d be?”
“In this village? You’re joking—Maggie’d know what we were up to before we did.”
Her eyes had a jewel-like brilliance, while her body was as pliant as those long-ago wildflowers in the wind. Throwing caution out the door, Jake said, “Despite that glossy magazine, I haven’t had very many women, Shaine. Too picky. But in thirteen years there’s never been a woman like you. Never. I just have to look at you and—”
The back door slammed. Shaine pulled free and stuck the spoon into the wrong pot. “Put the roses in a vase, Jake.”
So when Daniel came into the kitchen, Jake was standing at the sink filling a tall glass vase with water. “Hi, Daniel,” he said.
