A Light For My Love (26 page)

"Here, I have something for you."

"What is it?" she asked, pulling away. Faint
light from the kitchen window reflected dimly off the paper.
China's face was only a silhouette in the darkness.

"This," he replied, holding up an oblong
shape, "is a check for your share of the cargo I've gotten for the
Katherine Kirkland
—less the price of one dress. It's drawn
on Astoria National Bank, and the money is there for you. This—" he
extended the other slip "—is Quinn's address in San Francisco."

China reached for that one first, slowly, her
hand suspended in midair. "Quinn's address," she repeated faintly,
her fingers closing on it. "How did you get it?"

She saw the subtle lift of his shoulders,
bulky with the covering of his heavy coat. "It wasn't too hard. I
wired a couple of people and had them check around." He nodded at
the paper in her hand. "Anyway, now you know where your brother
is."

China wasn't sure if she should be glad for
his consideration. It only further eroded her crumbling defenses
against a perilous tenderness coming to life within her. A
tenderness that made her want to reach out in the darkness to touch
his face, bury her face against his neck, feel the kiss of his warm
mouth on hers. "I—well, thank you," she said, her voice trembling
slightly. Fighting the desire to act on her feelings, she took a
deep breath, then folded the check with Quinn's address to tuck
into her skirt pocket.

When Jake had envisioned China's reaction to
these tokens, she'd been pleased and his conscience had weighed
less heavily. She'd blamed him for her brother's absence, and now
he'd given her a way to reach him. She'd made a point of letting
him know that the family was strapped for cash, and he'd found a
way to help her. But all he heard from her was a bored sigh and a
halfhearted acknowledgment. Damn it, could he do nothing that
satisfied her? And why in the hell should he care if she was
pleased anyway? There were women in other places waiting for him to
come into port. Beautiful women who had cried when he left their
beds and had promised him such vividly described physical pleasure
if he'd return, that the thought of it had made him ache before the
ship had cleared the harbor. What kind of idiot was he to keep
trying to please this one cold, stubborn female?

Yet even as he asked himself these questions,
he suggested, "Let's watch the stars for a while."

"Oh, I don't think—maybe we
shouldn't . . . " China's voice trailed off and
she shivered in her thin shawl, not entirely from the night air.
No, no—Jake, don't do this—

But Jake ignored her halting protest as
though she hadn't spoken. "Here, you can wear this and we'll sit on
the back porch." He took off his coat and put it around her
shoulders. The very weight of it made it seem like the pockets were
full of sand. But it was warm inside from his own body heat and she
burrowed into it, surrounded by the scent of him that affected her
like a philtre. She found it impossible to refuse.

He led her up the back steps and settled her
on the long, weathered bench that had been there since they were
children. He sank down next to her, leaving about a foot of space
between them. Sitting low on his spine, he stretched his long legs
out in front of him and crossed his ankles. A square of light from
the kitchen door window fell over them and threw his clean,
well-formed profile into sharp relief.

China cast sidelong glances at him, studying
his straight nose and wide brow, the long muscles in his forearms
below his rolled-up shirtsleeves, the line of his throat above his
open collar. The damp air didn't seem to bother him as he sat next
to her, loose-limbed, contemplating the stars with a mariner's
eye.

"Are you going to write to Quinn?" he asked,
bridging the silence. With a long index finger, he traced the edge
of her billowing apron where it rested between them on the
weathered boards of the bench. "To tell him about your father?"

She wasn't sure how to answer. Now that
Quinn's whereabouts were no longer a mystery, China was less
certain than ever how she felt about her brother. Jake may have
taken him away from the family, but there was no good reason why
he'd never contacted her in all these years. Even Jake was
surprised that he hadn't written.

"I don't suppose it would matter to Quinn,
one way or another. The Captain was like a stranger to all of us.
Maybe it was harder on him, growing up with no father, I mean.
That's why I swore I'd never marry a sailor. I wanted my husband to
be at home, to know his children." She pulled the edges of his coat
around herself.

Jake was oddly silent, and she thought of
something her brother had once told her.

"Quinn used to say that your father wanted
you to marry a fisherman's daughter and settle down," she said.

He uttered a single, gruff chuckle, letting
his eyes rest on a constellation overhead. "Oh, yeah, he did. But
that wasn't what I wanted. We argued about it a lot. Christ, we
battled about nearly everything I did or wanted to do."

China pressed on. She wasn't sure she really
wanted to know, but she couldn't stop the next question. "If you
never had—um, a friendship with

Althea Lambert, uh—was there ever a special
one? Were you ever in love?"

When Jake didn't respond, she turned to look
at him. He hadn't answered the last time she asked about this
either. He sat up and shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the
question. He toyed with his watch chain, and even though his head
was tipped down, she could see the scarlet flushing his face and
ears. He behaved as though she'd asked him if his bladder was
full.

Jake was indeed uncomfortable. In the society
in which he'd grown up, men didn't discuss love. It wasn't
mentioned between sweethearts, husbands and wives, or fathers and
their children. It was a very personal subject. On Tenth Street, if
a woman asked her husband if he loved her, she was likely to hear,
"Well, I married you, didn't I?"

Just when China was wondering if he would
answer, Jake glanced at her with a strangely bittersweet smile.
Then he leaned back against the wall and looked away, crossing his
arms over his stomach. "It was a long time ago." He spoke the words
softly, as if summoning a fragile, cherished memory. China felt a
sudden, painful stirring of envy for that woman, whoever she may
have been.

He was silent for a moment, then he nodded to
himself as if in confirmation. "Yeah, there was someone once, but
it was one-sided. I'd watched her for years, waiting for the right
chance to say something to her. But there was a big class
difference between us, and the chance never came. I was just a kid
who grew up on the docks, and she was a lady from a wealthy family.
I knew she didn't like me much, and that made it harder." Absently,
he raked his fingers through his pale hair. "She never would have
guessed how I felt about her, and where I come from—well, men don't
talk about that stuff anyway." China saw his face flush again
slightly. "So I went to Otto Herrmann's and bought her a gold
filigreed box that came from France. I thought it might do the
talking for me. But when it came to giving it to her, I didn't have
the guts to face her. So I gave a quarter to one of the kids on my
street to deliver the package. Then I paid him a dollar to take her
roses every week for a month." He lifted his eyes to connect with
hers. "It was dumb, I guess. I'd hoped she'd realize I was the one
who sent them." His faint smile was lopsided. "She never did."

China gaped at him, stunned. No, it wasn't
possible. "Y-you gave me that box? And the roses?" Her voice was
just a shaky whisper. "You?"

He nodded, his expression watchful.

"But—but, there was a note with it—"

“'To the sweetest flower in Astoria,’ ” he
mumbled. "I couldn't sign my name to something like that. I didn't
have the nerve."

That was the line written on the note she'd
found inside the potpourri box. She'd never told anyone what it had
said. But Jake could have found that out somehow, she thought
wildly, unable to comprehend the truth that she faced. Maybe Quinn
had gotten into her desk and read it and told Jake about it.

"I guess you've never looked at the underside
of that box," he said.

She shook her head, eyes wide, like a person
who'd just undergone a horrifying shock. In that instant, she
couldn't have supplied her own name if asked.

"You should."

"Wh-why?"

"In the center you'll see where I had Mr.
Herrmann engrave a tiny heart with two sets of initials inside it.
JC and CS."

China continued to stare at him. He had to be
making it up—he had to, because she didn't want it to be true. She
didn't want to be in love with Jake Chastaine, and if he was
telling the truth, the fate of her heart was sealed. She'd resisted
it every day since he'd come back. Everything about loving him was
wrong for her. He mocked the way of life she'd held so dear, he was
dangerous, and too tall and hard-muscled for gentility. Delicate
coffee cups and stemware looked incongruous in his big hands.

And, oh, God, worst of all, he'd be leaving
very soon, gone away to sea again. A tremendous weight of feelings
for him lay on her heart and if she gave in to it, she would be
crushed by it when he was gone. She clenched her hands inside the
long sleeves of his coat, her heart pounding like a hammer.

Jake looked at China, and saw her shock and
disbelief. A tired bitterness washed through him. At the time, he'd
been afraid to tell her the gold box was from him. Now, all these
years later, her reaction was every bit as bad as he'd expected
then. The pain of it was just as sharp.

Better that he'd kept his mouth shut and let
her go on believing that Zachary Stowe had bought the damned thing
for her. Like a fool, he'd revealed everything, his heart and how
he'd felt about her. Attempting a salvation of his self-esteem, he
reiterated, "Like I said, it was a long time ago."

But it was obvious that she still saw him
with the same eyes as she had then. One corner of his mouth turned
down. He had to change that, he vowed to himself. He had to make
her recognize him for the man he was, or he would forever be lost
to himself. Scalding anger and mangled pride churned in his
belly.

China felt Jake's big hand close on her
wrist. He hauled her roughly to his lap. He held her in one arm,
and when she struggled to get away, he put a leg over her knees so
she couldn't stand up. She squirmed in his arms, trying to escape,
but her strength was no match for his. She couldn't touch her feet
to porch flooring, and she felt suspended, vulnerable.

"Let me go this instant!" she said, gasping
for air.

"China, look at me." His voice was low and
jagged, demanding attention. He put his hand on the back of her
head, and his fingers sank into her dark hair, forcing her to face
him. She lifted her gaze to meet his. Just inches away, his eyes
were like two hot green coals, burning into her in the low light.
Was it rage she saw, or lust, or pain? She didn't know, but it was
too frightening to watch, and she quickly looked away.

"Jake, let me go." Anguish and fear reduced
her voice to a quavering whimper. She pressed her hands against his
chest.

"Look at me, damn it!" he insisted, and shook
her once. His fingers tightened in her hair, and he pulled her head
back a bit farther. She could hear his breath coming as fast as
hers, harsh and shaky, ruffling the fine strands of hair on her
forehead.

As soon as their eyes met again, he made an
inarticulate, frustrated sound, and his lips came rushing down on
hers, while his arm pulled her closer. She braced for violence, but
instead his touch was fevered, soft and urgent. His tongue, slick
and intent, forced her lips apart to gain access to the inside of
her mouth. He was trembling—she could feel it, separate from her
own shivering. Beneath this tender assault, her resistance wavered.
Finally, she slid her hands from the wall of his chest to loop her
arms around his neck, and she was kissing him back.

Jake had shut out nearly all coherent
thought, acting mainly on instinct and need. He released China's
knees and turned her toward him, letting her feel the evidence of
his arousal against her hip. Freeing her hair, he dropped his hand
to the lapels of his coat where they overlapped down the front of
her torso. He reached between the layers of wool, seeking the soft
warmth of her breast. Her nipple immediately responded beneath his
touch. Dragging his mouth away from hers, he pushed open the coat
to press a kiss on the hardened bud through the thin fabric of her
blouse and chemise, wetting it with his tongue.

She called his name, low and throaty. "Jake,
please—we can't do this," she said helplessly. "I'm angry at you."
But her words lacked conviction, and even as she protested, her
hand came to rest lightly on the smooth nape of his neck under his
hair. "I don't like you."

He held her more tightly, and put swift, soft
kisses on her temple and her throat, then buried his lips against
her breast. "I'm going to change your mind," he growled.

Heaven help her, she knew he already had.

With a muttered curse, he grappled with the
tiny buttons on her blouse, popping one of them off in his
impatience. He pulled the fabric aside to reach her bare skin,
exposing it to the night air.

Goose bumps rippled over her body in waves.
She felt his breath, ragged and warm between her breasts. When his
hot, moist mouth closed on her nipple with a suckling pressure,
China couldn't stifle the moan that rose in her throat. This was
insane, she told herself. She was insane to lie here in Jake
Chastaine's arms and let him do these things to her. No man had
ever touched her like this. But she couldn't have stopped him any
more than she could have held back the ocean with a broom.