Show Me

by Janet Dailey

  ‘You underestimate your ability,’ Jake laughed bitterly, walking away from the window in her general direction. A cigarette was taken from his pocket and placed in his mouth, the lighter viciously snapped to give flame.

  Tanya closed her eyes for a brief moment. ‘When you told me you loved me and why, all I wanted was to crawl into a hole and die rather than have you find out the way I’d deceived you.’

  ‘Why did you bother to tell meat all? Or did Father force you into it?’

  ‘He told me I had to tell you,’ she admitted, lowering her gaze to her hands.

  ‘You could have gone on letting me believe John was your son. Why didn’t you?’

  Unconsciously her gaze strayed to the bed. ‘If I hadn’t told you and became a real wife to you — a wife who took more than just kisses,’ she glanced back at him, pallor robbing her face of colour as she watched him stub out the freshly lit cigarette, ‘you would have learned anyway that I … I hadn’t given birth to your son.’

  Jake stared at her, his head tilted to one side almost as if he didn’t understand what she said. Then he took the step that brought him nearer, his hands closing over her shoulders. His gaze held hers with burning intensity.

  ‘Do you mean … Are you telling me that …’ Then he groaned as he read the answer in her face. With a convulsive movement he drew her against his chest, burying his face in the coiled knot of her tawny hair.

  And she clung to him, hopelessly praying that he would never let her go, that he would hold her like this forever. She felt his mouth moving in a rough caress over her hair as he whispered her name.

  ‘I wish you could forgive me,’ she murmured, her heart singing a bitter sweet melody. ‘I love you so very much, darling.’

  ‘Why? Because of John?’ he demanded. ‘You still want him?’

  ‘I love John,’ she admitted, understanding his reason for doubting the sincerity of her love. ‘But my love for you is separate from him. I know you can’t forgive me for deceiving you about him. But I love you, Jake.’

  ‘No, no,’ he protested savagely, dragging his head away from her. ‘I’m the one who needs forgiveness, for what I did to you and your sister.’

  ‘I’m not bitter about it any more.’ Her hands tenaciously gripped his waist, refusing to let him push her aside.

  ‘But it’s there, between us. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen.’ He stared down at her coldly, the muscle in his jaw twitching in his fight for control. ‘I love you, Tanya, maybe more now that I realize what you sacrificed for my son.’

  ‘My darling,’ her fingers lightly touched his cheek, ‘isn’t that important? That we love each other?’

  ‘Dammit, don’t you understand?’ Angrily he brushed her hand away. ‘The blankness of that night haunts me. I don’t know why I expect you to believe me, but I’ve never taken a woman who didn’t already know the score. It was bad enough thinking I’d taken you in a night of drunkenness. The only thing I thought about that night was you. I don’t remember looking at anyone else.”

  His torment reached out to touch her trembling body. Tanya felt his anguish as if it were her own. All the love that burned within her was shining in the eyes that looked into his. The hands left her shoulders as he turned away, making a small gesturing shrug of helplessness.

  ‘Do you have a picture of her?’ he asked in a more subdued tone. ‘Maybe if I saw it I could remember.’

  ‘In my wallet.’ Her handbag was on the dresser. Taking out the leather wallet, Tanya hurriedly flipped through the photographs to Deanna’s. She handed it to Jake. He stared at it for a long moment, then shook his head.

  ‘It’s vaguely familiar,’ he muttered, handing it back to her, ’but she has your smile.’

  She started to put it back in her bag as his hand reached out to close over her wrist.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ he ordered sharply. He looked at it again, then at Tanya.

  ‘Do you recognize her?’ she breathed slowly.

  ‘Think carefully,’ he said, his eyes watching her closely. ’Did she say that it was me she was with that night? I mean me specifically, my name.’

  ‘I guess so,’ she shook her head in confusion. ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘I’m asking you if she said she was with Jake Lassiter, or did you assume she was?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I was hurt and bitter. I didn’t want to talk about you.’

  ‘Is it possible she called me Jamie?’

  ‘Jamie is your brother,’ Tanya frowned. ‘Why would she call you that?’

  ‘Because my brother was with me that night. I vaguely remember that we didn’t go back to the hotel together, but I imagined it was because I was with you.’

  ‘But I saw you with Deanna!’

  ‘Was there anyone else with us?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ she admitted.

  ‘I know he met a gift there, but I was so wrapped up in finding you that I can’t say whether she was fat or thin or short or bald,’ he grumbled. ‘Jamie introduced her to me.’

  ‘Jake,’ she spoke hesitantly, her own mind racing now with doubts, ‘where was Jamie going the night he was killed?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he had a date somewhere north of Springfield.’ He shook his head, then stopped to stare at Tanya.

  ‘When was he killed? Not the time, but the day.’

  ‘Saturday.’ His face began to clear. ‘The weekend after the dance when I was supposed to have seen Deanna. It was Jamie!’ Jake declared vehemently.

  ‘When she told me she was pregnant, all I asked was whether the father was that Lassiter man she met at the dance. Of course she said yes, and we never mentioned a name again.’ The pieces were beginning to fall into place. ‘When John was born, Deanna was so ill that I was the one who gave them the information on the birth certificate. Your name. And all these years I blamed you,’ she said in a horrified whisper. ‘Oh, Jake, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he sighed heavily. ‘We can’t be sure it was Jamie.’

  ‘But, darling, we can’t be sure it wasn’t,’ Tanya smiled. ‘We do know that John is a Lassiter and your mother has shown me baby pictures of you and your brother. His resemblance to Jamie is remarkable.’

  ‘His car was wrecked between here and Sadalia. I’d like to believe he was going to see Deanna. Maybe they did fall in love that night. I’d like to believe that,’ Jake murmured, a rueful smile curving his mouth. ‘If for no other reason than to assuage my conscience.’

  ‘It’s not so hard to believe. I think I fell in love with you that night, for a little while at least,’ she admitted.

  He drew her gently in his arms, holding her tenderly against his chest. ’I wonder what would have happened if you’d told me the truth seven years ago,’ he murmured.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll ever know,’ she sighed, but it was a happy sigh.

  ‘I love you, Tanya, my sweet, honest wife. I think I would have loved you anyway.’ A tantalizing kiss touched her mouth. ‘We might possibly have discovered the truth about Jamie and Deanna then and not had any of the bitterness and hostility we lived through.’

  ‘I like to think,’ she whispered, inching closer in his arms, ’that this has made out love stronger because it was born and survived where it had no right to, don’t you?’

  His answer was by deed, not words.

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