by Peggy Webb
Rick’s shoulders sagged. His feet planted wide in a fighter’s stance, he stopped in the middle of the room. “Does Rachel return your love?”
“She does. She’s told me so in a dozen different ways.” Jacob smiled. “All of them wonderful.”
“What else has she told you?”
Jacob gave Rick a sharp glance. “Is there anything she should tell me?”
“I suppose that’s for her to decide.” Rick resumed his pacing.
Jacob got off his bunk and put his hand on Rick’s shoulder. “You might as well tell me what’s bothering you and get it off your chest.”
“You said you didn’t want to know.”
“If you were in my place, would you want to know?”
Rick didn’t hesitate. “Hell, yes.”
Alarm squeezed Jacob’s heart again. Forcing himself to appear lighthearted, he sat on the edge of the bunk.
“I guess I’d better be sitting down when you tell me.”
Rick faced his friend. “Bob Devlin was not Benjy’s father,” he said quietly.
A silent scream of agony exploded in Jacob’s head. Pain ripped his heart. The words roared around his mind, whirling with the devastating power of a tornado, blowing away his love, his happiness, his chance for a future. He felt numb all over.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“How do you know?”
“Benjy was born in a private clinic owned by Martin Windham less than seven months after Rachel’s wedding. There were no other patients there. A shroud of secrecy surrounded the birth. And, of course, Rachel and Bob never lived in Greenville after the child was born. The story was that Benjy was premature. It might have worked except for the accident.”
Jacob was silent. Each word his friend spoke was a hammer blow to his heart.
Rick took a deep breath and continued. “It happened when they were living in Seattle. Benjy was on an outing with a church group. The roads were icy. The bus swerved off the road and plunged down an embankment. Benjy lost a lot of blood, so much that his father was called in to donate.”
“The blood didn’t match?”
Rick sank onto his own bunk, defeated. “There was no way in hell Bob Devlin could have fathered Benjamin.”
Jacob’s eyes were haunted as he looked across at his friend.
“You were right. This is something I wanted to know. I can’t say the possibility never crossed my mind, though.” He stood up slowly, as if the weight of the last six years were crushing him. “I need to be alone for a while.”
“I’ll bunk in with Jack and Mick.”
Rick left the small shack quickly. He’d gone only three feet from the front door when he heard the crash. Tin clattering against the wall.
“There goes the water pitcher,” he muttered.
A second loud crash quickly followed by another announced the demise of a couple of chairs. Next came the cry of agony, so desolate it made the hairs on Rick’s neck stand on end. Then there was silence.
He started to go back into the shack, but Jacob had asked for privacy. He had to respect that. His heart ached for his friend as he made his way through the dark.
o0o
Jacob grieved. His shoulders shook with silent tears as he mourned the lost years. Benjamin was his son, and he’d never been there to hold him when he’d cried, to see his first smile, to watch him take his first step, to hear him say his first word. Rachel had denied him that. She’d taken it all away with her lies.
On the heels of his grief came rage so cold and bitter, it made him shiver, even in the sultry heat. He sat on his bunk far into the night, staring into the dark.
o0o
One week after Jacob left for Venezuela, Rachel knew she couldn’t stand the waiting any more. She told her father goodbye, drove Vashti and Benjy back home to Biloxi, and caught a plane to South America. Jacob had said he’d be somewhere south of Maracaibo. An oil field fire shouldn’t be too hard to find.
o0o
The atmosphere in Maracaibo was festive. Dancers wearing colorful masks blocked traffic. Music and laughter filled the streets.
Rachel leaned over the front seat of her taxi and spoke to the driver.
“Can’t we go any faster?”
He gave her a wide, toothless grin. “No, señorita. If we go fast, we roll over six, maybe seven dancers. Make flat, like tortilla “The taxi swerved and rocked as he took his hands off the wheel and slapped his hands together, demonstrating how flat he would make the dancers. Laughing at his own humor, he grabbed the wheel. “We crawl, eh? We pinch along like bugs. Someday soon we get where we going— when carnival is over, eh?”
Rachel chuckled. She didn’t like to “pinch” along, but it was better to laugh than cry, she thought. She supposed she should be thankful for small favors. At least the taxi driver spoke English, such as it was. Her Spanish would have been even worse.
It took her four hours to get to the site of the oil field fire. Black smoke billowed into the sky; flames crackled and roared, shooting upward, raining sparks and cinders. The entire area seemed to be a mass confusion of asbestos-suited men and noisy machines.
Rachel fought back the panic that threatened to swamp her. Somewhere out there was Jacob. The man she loved was in the midst of that towering inferno.
“Carumba,” the taxi driver said. “You want to go there?”
“Yes.”
He began to mutter in rapid Spanish. The only word Rachel caught was loco. She supposed she was. She guessed that all people in love were a little crazy.
“Can we go closer?”
The driver pointed straight ahead. “No. Security.”
“I’ll go on foot from here.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, the driver collected his cab fare. Extortion, Rachel thought as she counted out the money. But seeing Jacob was worth any price.
As the cab driver drove back toward Maracaibo, Rachel picked up her small bag and started toward the security guard. He could tell her where Jacob was staying. She remembered from their conversations of years gone by that he always had some sort of lodging near the site of the fires. She also knew that he would be there only rarely, but that didn’t matter. If she could have five minutes with him, she’d be satisfied.
The security guard spoke no English, but Rachel managed to communicate. What she couldn’t say in Spanish, she made up for with eloquent gestures and a smile. The guard fell under her spell. Not only did he explain that Jacob Donovan was out there in the midst of the fire, but he also loaded Rachel’s bag into his jeep and drove her to the small shack where Jacob was staying.
She thanked the guard and sat down on the narrow bunk to wait.
o0o
Rachel waited for three hours. Darkness had come suddenly, dropping over the small shack like a shroud fallen from the sky.
She spun toward the door at the sound of footsteps.
“Jacob!”
Rachel hurried toward him, arms outstretched. He stood just inside the door. In his smoke-streaked face, his eyes were incredibly blue and filled with such cold fury that she faltered. Her steps slowed and she lowered her arms. She’d guessed he might be angry that she had come without telling him, but she’d never dreamed he’d be so furious.
“I know I should have let you know I was coming. . . . I know it’s a terrible time for you.”
“Do you, Rachel?” He walked past her, jerking off his fire-fighting clothes as he stalked across the room.
“Of course. I saw the fire. It must be horrible, going there every day, never knowing what will happen next.”
“The fire is nothing compared to the hell I’m going through.”
Rachel felt the first cold fingers of fear. She watched him hang up his gear. He moved carefully and precisely, as if he were a high explosive that could go off at any minute. The stiffness of his back was eloquent testimony to his tight control.
She folded her hands tightly together and waited. When he turned around,
his face was rigid with tension.
“That’s a nice act you have, Rachel—pretending to love a man.” He jerked a chair back from the table and sat down. “You’re good. You’re damned good. You had me fooled.”
Rachel forced herself to remain calm. “I love you. Jacob,” she said quietly.
His piercing blue eyes sought hers. For the first time in her life, Jacob’s gaze made her shiver with fear. He knew. Somehow he’d found out. She held her head up, bearing his cold scrutiny with all the dignity and control she could muster.
She saw the emotions war across his face—anger, love, betrayal, confusion. At last he stood up and pulled back a chair.
“Do sit down, Rachel,” he said with elaborate politeness. “I hate to sit while a lady is standing.” The scathing emphasis he put on lady chilled her heart.
He held the chair for her while she sat, playing his role of gallant Southern gentleman to the hilt. But he was scrupulously careful not to touch her. When he took his seat across the table, she started talking.
“Jacob . . . when you left Florida, I realized that I could no longer keep the truth from you. I went to Greenville with the specific purpose of telling you why I married Bob Devlin. But you were called away to this fire. . . .”
“How very convenient for you, Rachel.”
“Please don’t do this to us.”
“Don’t do what? It seems you’ve already done it all—lie, cheat, steal.” He leaned back in his chair, his face a blank mask. “Does that about cover everything, my sweet?”
Never had an endearment sounded so horrible. Rachel prayed for the right words to break through his terrible wall of fury. She prayed for the strength to endure and the wisdom to triumph.
“It wasn’t like that, Jacob.”
“How was it, Rachel?” He leaned across the table and stared into her eyes. “Tell me all the noble reasons you had for stealing my son.”
Her head snapped up. She would not cringe before Jacob Donovan.
“He’s my son, too. And I was the one who was pregnant when you left for Saudi Arabia. I did what I thought was best at the time. Maybe it was a mistake, but—”
“A mistake!” He rose from his chair and stalked around the table, towering over her. Reaching down he gripped her chin. “Look me in the eye and tell me how you could deprive me of my son and call it a mere mistake.”
She jerked out of his grasp and stood up to face him.
“Call me a coward, Jacob. I was young and pregnant and scared, and I made the wrong decision. But I am not a heartless monster. I never deliberately set out to deprive you of Benjamin.”
“Well, you did a damned good job of it.” He gripped her shoulders. She could feel his fingers biting into her flesh, but she didn’t flinch. “Dammit all, Rachel, you even gave him another man’s name.”
“Bob loved Benjy. He was a good father.”
“He was a good father to my son.” Jacob released her and strode across the room. She could see his muscles bunch up under his shirt as he stared out the small window at the darkness.
She wanted desperately to go to him, but she knew that now was not the time. Before she touched him, she had to let Jacob vent his wrath.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve borne the burden of this guilt for six years.”
He turned slowly around, his hands crammed deep into his pockets.
“Guilt becomes you, Rachel. It has made you more radiant . . . and more lethal.”
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you again, Jacob. When you came back to Biloxi, I fought against it.”
“And when you realized I was getting close to the truth, you confessed your undying devotion in order to protect your beautiful hide.”
“No.” Her own anger was welling up against his implacable will. “You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?”
She lost control. Her shoes slapped sharply against the wooden floor as she ran across the room. She caught his shoulders and glared at him, eye to eye.
“Damn you, Jacob Donovan. What we had in that Cessna was not pretense. Don’t you dare make something ugly of something that was so beautiful and precious. Don’t you dare!”
Jacob felt the heat of his passion rising, and he was astonished. Rachel had cut cleanly through his wrath and grabbed him by the heart—just as she always had. He called upon every reserve of will he had to fight his raging desire. But it was a losing battle.
“I loved you then, and I love you now,” she said. “You can’t deny that.”
He pulled her roughly against him. “Show me, Rachel. Make me see how beautiful it was.”
Knowing he couldn’t help himself, he slammed his mouth down on hers. She met his punishing lips with a fierceness of her own.
She felt his heart pounding heavily against hers; she heard the ragged racing of his breath. The bruising, brutal kiss went on and on until she almost swooned for lack of air.
When he finally lifted his head, his eyes were bright and deadly.
“Is that love, Rachel?”
“No, Jacob.” Her voice was soft as she put her hands on his chest. She circled her hands tenderly over that broad expanse, and then she began to unbutton his shirt. “But this is.”
She parted the shirt and pressed her lips against his skin. Her tongue darted among the crisp hairs.
Jacob tried to steel himself against her touch. His mind screamed with all the things he’d called her the last two days—betrayer, liar, thief. But nothing worked. She was a witch, and he fell under her spell.
Passion raged in him, stoked by her caresses and his consuming wrath. He jerked off his clothes and sent them flying across the room. A small sane corner of his mind screamed “Stop!” But it was too late. Rick would be out at the fire all night, and Rachel was there, ready and willing and so sensual, she turned the whole shack into a blazing conflagration.
Rachel came to him naked. He hadn’t even been aware of the moment she’d shed her clothes. He moved his hands roughly over her body. He wanted to control her, possess her, punish her. Every inch of her tender flesh claimed his attention. He sought with mouth and tongue to brand her.
Suddenly he lifted her and carried her to the bed. The ancient springs groaned under their weight. Silently, he placed her on the sheets and drove into her. She caught the headboard and held on.
There were no love words spoken. No soft murmurings accompanied their joining. It was not love they made; it was war.
They stayed locked in passionate combat for an hour. Rachel sought to heal by giving, and Jacob sought to punish by taking.
When it was over, Jacob rolled off her and stood up. Looking down at her tousled beauty, he felt nothing. Not love, not sorrow, not regret. He was still as empty as he had been the day Rick had told him that Benjamin Devlin was his son.
“You can stay here tonight. Rick won’t be coming back.” His voice was cold and curt. “Tomorrow you can leave.” He turned to go.
“Jacob. . . .” Propping herself on her elbow, she caught his hand. “Where are you going?”
His eyes blazed down at her. “To hell.”
He jerked on his pants and walked out the door. It banged shut behind him.
Silent tears ran down Rachel’s face.
“Forgive me, my love,” she whispered. “Forgive me.”
But nobody was there to hear.
o0o
Jacob walked blindly in the darkness. He had no timetable, no destination. And then he was running, running as far away from Rachel as he could. He ran for an hour, for two. He didn’t know how long. The darkened shacks were a blur to him. The forest rose up beside him, unnoticed. Even the brightness from the distant fire failed to catch his attention. At last, exhaustion forced him to stop.
He sank beside the road and put his head in his hands. Shame poured through him. For the first time in his life he had used a woman. And not just any woman. Rachel. He had tried to bury his hatred in the torrid flesh of the woman he loved.
<
br /> His body jerked. Not love, his mind screamed. He didn’t love her anymore. She’d destroyed all that. He lifted his fist and shook it at the moon. The moon had no right to be so beautiful when his life was so ugly and wretched.
He rose slowly and started back to the encampment. He was bone weary, and his time was limited. He’d squandered too much already. He couldn’t afford to go back to the fire without any sleep. Too many lives depended on him.
When he got back to the shack, Rachel was sleeping. In the pale light that filtered through the windows he could see a tear that was not yet dry on her cheek. Remorse shot through him.
Bending down, he touched his lips to her temple. It was damp with sweat.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” he whispered.
The faint scent of roses drifted around him.
CHAPTER NINE
The sound was soft—a footstep on the floor—but it brought Rachel completely awake. She sat up, pulling the sheet over her breasts, and watched Jacob dress. It was not quite dawn.
He hadn’t noticed her yet, and he was taking great care not to awaken her. She almost smiled. She’d never seen a big man tiptoe. As he pulled on his pants and shirt, she thought of the many other times she’d watched him dress. Happy times. Jacob had always been laughing and joking about how he needed her help. He’d cajole her out of a warm bed with his smile, then they would both be right back under the covers, tangled together in his shirt and giggling as only people in love can.
She wished she had some magic to bring back the past. Propping her elbow on her knees, she feasted her eyes on him.
A sense of being watched made Jacob spin around. When he first saw her, with her tumbled hair and love-flushed face, he felt a surge of joy. Then the ugly truth came pouring through him.
“Rachel.” He nodded curtly toward her, as if he were acknowledging a stranger. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
His cold tone squashed any hope she might have had.
“We need to talk, Jacob.”
His smile was bitter. “Yes, we do. But I think it’s best if you stay on that side of the room, and I stay on this side. We always seem to get sidetracked.”
She hugged her knees, taking courage from the solid feel of her own flesh. “I won’t make excuses for what I did, Jacob. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness and hope for your understanding.”
