"No! You had to know I ... I cared about you, Rebecca."
She snorted. “I should hope so. We were friends, Jake. For six years I was your best buddy. The one you turned to when you were feeling lost or lonely or in need of some undemanding company."
"I know."
"So what possessed you to take off that morning?"
Jake's defenses locked into place so hard and fast he couldn't have fought them if he wanted to. He shook his head, unwilling to give her the answer she needed. To do so would mean giving up what precious little freedom he still had.
He spoke quietly, doing what he could to soften the blow. “I'm sorry, Rebecca. I can't answer that."
"I deserve an answer, Jake. I'm not the one who got myself locked up for sleeping with another woman two weeks later."
Jake stared at her, and realized with no small amount of amazement that she was more upset about the bedding part than the murder. “I didn't go to prison for sleeping with her, Rebecca. I went to prison for murder."
"Did you? Think about it, Jake. We both know you didn't kill her. Which means the only thing you're guilty of is being in the wrong bed at the wrong time. Did she have a boyfriend?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
"My point, exactly. After all, who knows your game plan when it comes to women better than I do? If they're already taken, so much the better. If not, never promise them anything, and when the pressure starts, get the hell out of Dodge."
"Now wait a minute, I never—"
But Rebecca was on a roll. She'd waited eight years for this conversation and she wasn't about to let go of it now. “Suddenly I was just one of the bunch, wasn't I? The only one who was available the night you got out of the army, looking for some company. And since I was engaged to someone else, there were no entanglements to worry about. I was spoken for. You could ride off in the morning with a clear conscience.” She glared at him, letting him see how angry she was, even now, after all these years. “Fifteen letters, Jake. Fifteen. Not once did you write back. Not once did you think to ask how I was doing, if my plans had changed, if you might have left a souvenir behind when you slunk out of my life."
Jake winced. She was dead wrong about most of it, but beneath her anger she had a point. “I was wrong to leave without saying goodbye,” he said. “I was wrong to take you to bed. I was wrong for not answering your letters. But you've got to know I would have answered if I'd known about Katie."
"Which was exactly why I didn't tell you about her,” Rebecca snapped. “I wanted you to write back because you cared about me, not because you thought it was ‘the right thing to do.’”
"You're kidding."
"Call it stupid, call it selfish, call it impossibly idealistic if you want to, but yes, I wanted you to admit you had feelings for me before I told you about the baby.” She looked at him, apparently running out of steam. “But you never did, so here we are."
Neither of them said anything for a while. The silence was crushing as Rebecca went back to rearranging the salt and pepper shakers. The phone rang and Jake looked over at it in relief.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Jacob, but might I speak with Rebecca? I got her note, but wanted to make sure she and Katie were all right."
"It's your aunt."
Jake left the room. He and Rebecca weren't going to get anything resolved tonight about Katie or anything else. He'd never seen Rebecca lose her temper before, never imagined she could blow like that.
Unfortunately, the sight of her angry only strengthened her appeal for him. She was kind of wild and sexy when she was mad. Face flushed, hair loose, blue eyes flashing fire.
He sank onto the living room couch, shook his head, then dropped it into his hands. This was never going to work.
"Maybe you should take her up on her offer after all,” he said when he heard Rebecca enter the room.
"Not tonight. Katie needs her rest."
Jake lifted his head, which was beginning to throb. Rebecca looked like she wanted to argue some more, but the time for talking was over. He'd probably said more in the past half hour than he had in a year in prison. “I'll see you in the morning."
She said nothing, simply crossed the room and went quietly up the staircase. Jake wondered if he would have preferred it if she'd stomped. Obviously he'd hit his head when he'd passed out at the hospital. Left his common sense lying somewhere on the floor. He listened to the floorboards squeak as Rebecca entered his bedroom. The room she'd filled with her own furniture. Furniture that, from the looks of it, was all she had left.
Jake tried to take that into account. The woman had just lost almost everything she owned. She had a right to be upset.
Someone knocked on his front door. A man Jake vaguely recognized from the library that afternoon stood on his doorstep. “Mr. Donovan? My name is Whitney Moog. I'm a reporter with the Forest County Register."
"We're not in Forest County."
"I know, but I was in town today doing research, and this goes beyond local news. I wonder if I might ask you a few questions about your heroic rescue at the library this afternoon for a story I'm writing."
Jake closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as his headache shifted into high gear. The last thing he needed was some reporter poking around in his life. “I just did what I had to do. Nothing special."
"On the contrary, Mr. Donovan. You saved the lives of two dozen people, including ten children and the mayor's grandson. You're a convicted murderer, recently paroled from prison, and a decorated war hero. I'd say that adds up to quite an interesting story. Now, I realize it's late, but..."
He trailed off and Jake turned to see Rebecca standing midway up the staircase, one hand on the banister. She'd put on a pair of cotton camo pants to cover her legs, but it was obvious she was wearing his clothes.
And he wasn't wearing enough.
The reporter cleared his throat. “Hello, Rebecca."
"Whitney."
He turned back to Jake. “So tell me, Mr. Donovan, what exactly is your relationship with Ms. Reed? Can you tell me how long the two of you have been—hey!"
Jake shoved the screen door open so fast he nearly knocked the reporter back into his home county. “Listen, buddy, I don't care if you work for White House Press Corps. You write anything even remotely unflattering about Ms. Reed and you're dead meat."
"I ... I was going to say friends."
"That's right. We're friends. She's staying here tonight because her apartment was wiped out this afternoon. She and her daughter will be bunking here until they can find somewhere else to live. But you're not even going to say that much about her. You're not going to say anything about her at all. Got it?"
The reporter looked at Rebecca, still frozen on the stairs, then back at Jake. Meeting Jake's rock-hard expression, honed to perfection in prison, he nodded once, then backed away slowly. “Got it."
Chapter Ten
"Good Morning."
Jake looked over his shoulder from where he was frying bacon at the kitchen stove. The dark circles under Rebecca's eyes matched his own. He'd spent most of the night lying awake, listening to the alarm clock go off upstairs, reminding Rebecca to wake Katie and ask her the simple questions the doctor had told Rebecca to ask.
Each time, Jake's first instinct had been to climb the stairs and listen in, to reassure himself that his daughter was all right. Instead, he'd stayed on the couch, knowing he didn't have the right to look in on them—to horn in on their relationship. He'd given that up the moment he'd walked out on Rebecca eight years ago.
As he'd listened with a longing more painful than any he'd known to the soft murmur of their voices above him, Jake couldn't help but wonder how many other sleepless nights Rebecca had spent caring for their daughter while he'd been behind bars. Couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if he'd been man enough to stick around and stand up for what he wanted after their night together in Pittsburgh.
Rebecca was right. He might not be guilty of mur
der, but he was sure as hell guilty of slinking out of her life without so much as a thank you or goodbye.
But as for the rest of it—his reasons for seeking her out that night in Pittsburgh, his reasons for sleeping with her, his reasons for leaving her—she couldn't be more wrong about those.
"Morning. How's Katie?"
"Doing well. She should be all right. She wanted to sleep in a little longer."
"Eggs?"
"That would be nice. Thank you."
He turned back to the stove, his emotions still raw and churning. Even pale and exhausted and stiffly polite, Rebecca was everything he'd ever wanted to wake up to. “Since we're running low on just about everything, I'll have to make a grocery store run today. It's still standing, but there won't be much left on the shelves by now. Half the town's been destroyed, and the other half's scrambling for what's left."
Behind him, Rebecca closed her eyes in stark relief. At least he hadn't suggested she and Katie move out again. She'd spent half the night terrified that, once he'd had time to mull over the bitter things she'd said, the subject of her finding different living arrangements would be first on his list today.
So far so good. Still, she couldn't deny the chill in the air. She shivered and rubbed her arms. “I need to go over to the apartment this morning and look for clothes."
"Already taken care of. They're in the dryer."
"Oh. Thank you."
Jake removed the bacon from the heat, set the strips aside to drain and turned his attention toward making their eggs. Rebecca got the plates out and set the table. “What are you going to do?” she asked midway through the strained silence of their meal. “About Katie."
"You mean am I going to petition for custody?"
Rebecca dropped her fork, jolted to the core. “Of course not.” She'd never even considered that possibility.
Jake sat back and lowered his own fork, eyeing her with speculative interest. “Does that mean you don't think I would, or you don't think I have a snowball's chance of winning?"
Rebecca scrambled for a response that wouldn't betray the depth of her astonishment ... or fear. “You can't be serious."
"The jury's still out on that one."
His gaze didn't waver. Rebecca's appetite vanished at the thought of Jake trying to take Katie away from her. At the ugliness that could erupt during such a court battle. At the lives that would be shattered.
"After all,” Jake continued calmly, “You were planning to tell me about her, so I'm assuming that means you'd hoped I'd take a more active role in her life. Otherwise, why bother telling me?"
Rebecca stared. Of course she'd wanted Jake to accept their daughter, to take an active role in Katie's life, but suddenly she realized she'd wanted it on her terms. Terms that involved Jake settling down, staying in Warner, building a family with herself and Katie—and any other children they might have.
Which was something Jake had never once—not even as a teenager—shown the slightest interest in doing—with her or with anyone else.
Now he obviously had his own ideas about his relationship with Katie. Rebecca swallowed the cold lump of fear in her throat and forced herself to meet his unflinching gaze.
"Jake, can't we be reasonable about this?"
"I am being reasonable. Since I don't plan to stay in Warner, at a minimum, we're going to need to consider some kind of visitation agreement. After all, Katie and I have a lot of time to make up for."
Slowly, Rebecca shook her head. “No. You can't do this. You can't just drop back into my life and try to take Katie away from me."
"It's not like I knew she existed before now, Rebecca."
"You can't have her, Jake."
"Then what do you want from me? Money?"
"Of course not! I'm perfectly capable of taking care of Katie financially."
"A fact I'm all too aware of,” Jake muttered in disgust, looking away for a moment, then turning his sharp gaze back on her. “So what did you expect? I'd welcome the news with open arms and we'd suddenly turn into a happy little family?"
Rebecca flushed deeply as his words hit dead on. “God forbid,” she snapped in self-defense. “We all know how allergic you are to anything that resembles a commitment."
Jake's eyes flashed, then hardened to flint. “I think I'm getting the picture. You didn't expect me to stick around once I found out."
"Have you ever given me a reason to believe otherwise?"
Jake closed his eyes briefly, but didn't take the bait. “All right. I'll ask you one more time. What do you want from me?"
"I want you to love Katie. To accept her as your own."
"But not lay any claim to her that would weaken yours."
"That's not what I—"
"Admit it, Rebecca. You're petrified at the idea of me suing for custody."
She forgot to breathe for a moment. “You're right. I am."
The pain in his eyes took her back to when they were kids, and nearly undid her. “What are you so afraid of?” he asked quietly. “That I'll hurt her?"
"No. Never. It's just that...” She paused and blinked back tears, willing herself not to break down now. But it was hard. Almost as hard as opening herself up to Jake like this. He looked so vulnerable. So alone.
But she had to remember that being alone was his choice, and always had been. “Everyone I've ever loved has left me, Jake. I couldn't stand to lose Katie, too. She's my life."
Was it her imagination, or did the bleakness in his eyes soften? “Do you really think any judge in his right mind would hand a seven-year-old girl to a convicted woman-killer?"
Rebecca stared, realizing he was trying to reassure her. Why, she had no idea. But sorrow filled her heart instead of relief or victory. Sorrow, and deep regret.
Jake looked at her for a long moment, then looked away, running a hand down his face. “Listen, Becca. I don't even know how long I'm going to be here or where I'm going when I leave. So why don't we just relax and leave things as they are. I'll be more than happy to accept Katie into my heart. I already have. But as for the rest ... she's all yours, Rebecca. You're the one who's been there for her for the past seven years, not me. I wouldn't even know where to begin to be a father."
"Mom? Jake?” Rebecca heard footfalls on the stairs.
"In the kitchen, honey."
"Does she know?” Jake asked quietly.
"No. No one does."
Katie entered the room wearing Jake's huge black T-shirt. She spotted Jake and offered him a sweetly shy smile. “Hi, guys."
"Good morning, sleepyhead,” Rebecca returned, and drew her daughter onto her lap for a morning hug. “How are you feeling?"
"Good, but ... Mom? What am I supposed to wear today?"
"Jake's got some things in the dryer. But for now you can eat breakfast in that, like I am."
"Yeah,” Jake drawled from across the table. “Makes you and your mom look like twins in those shirts."
Katie beamed, then stood and slid into her own seat at the table. Jake smiled and passed her the eggs and bacon. Rebecca frowned, not used to sharing her conversations with Katie. But then she noticed the quiet hunger in Jake's eyes as he watched his daughter eagerly fill her plate. His dark gray gaze all but devoured Katie's every feature and movement—much like Rebecca had done the first time she'd held her daughter. She still had moments like that when she marveled at the miracle that was her child.
And now she was Jake's child, too. Jake was right. She had cheated him out of knowing Katie. But what else could she have done? Fifteen letters she'd written to him, praying daily for an answer. A sign that he cared. A crumb to give her hope.
In the end, she'd realized his silence was his answer.
And now?
He'd just agreed to continue keeping his silence.
Suddenly Rebecca realized what Jake had done. He'd played on her fear of losing Katie to get her to agree to a compromise that would leave him exactly where he wanted to be—right next to his escape hatch. B
y not claiming Katie legally, Jake was still free to pick up and leave Warner whenever the mood struck.
Leaning over, Rebecca finally picked up her fallen fork. Wondering if she'd ever learn, she stood and scraped her cold eggs into the trash.
After breakfast, Rebecca and Katie changed clothes and the three of them went over to Aunt Martha's to begin clean-up efforts. A neighbor came by and offered his pickup to help cart away debris. Three truckloads later, Aunt Martha called them all in for lunch at her house. Afterward, Katie fell asleep on Aunt Martha's sunroom swing, so they left her there while Jake walked to the library to retrieve Rebecca's car and go to the grocery store. Rebecca returned to Jake's to unpack what remained of her personal belongings, and wondered again if the cache of furniture she kept in storage still existed. She'd tried calling the storage facility several times, but hadn't been able to get through.
Suddenly needing to know, she called her aunt to let her know she'd be back in an hour and walked to the facility. She almost wept with relief when she saw it had survived the tornado intact. After telling the attendant she'd lost her key in the tornado, he let her into her small storage space. The minute she was alone again, she thanked God for sparing her “good” furniture. There weren't that many pieces, but she'd hand-picked each to have a special place in the home she'd planned to one day buy for herself and Katie.
Buoyed by the knowledge she hadn't lost everything, Rebecca returned to the rubble to continue sorting. It was dusk before Jake returned, looking like he never wanted to set foot in a grocery store again. Katie insisted she was starving and pounced on the four bags of groceries Jake had already set on the table, then stared in disbelief as she pulled out the contents.
"Don't complain, Peanut,” Jake said, catching her horrified expression as he returned with another four bags. “I had to drive to St. Mary's to get this much. Every podunk grocery store between here and there was sold out of pretty much everything."
"But seven cans of Spam?"
"Sure. Didn't you know your mother's a whiz with Spam?"
"You are?"
"Was, Katie, was.” Spam had been a mainstay in Rebecca's—and Jake's—diet as a kid. Rebecca hadn't touched it since Katie was born, though. For some reason she'd craved Spam during her pregnancy. Enough to make her never want to eat the stuff again.
Jake's Return Page 11
