Commando (17 page)

Somehow, he realized, meeting Shah and falling in love with her had helped bring his past full circle, to completion. As he drew her more deeply into his arms and felt her sigh and rest her head against his shoulder, Jake felt a new flow of feelings through him. The past, his past, had finally been healed. Now he was genuinely able to step forward and dare to dream of a future with her.

“Thanks,” he told her gruffly, kissing first her cheek and then her brow, “for sharing this with me.”

Easing out of his embrace, Shah fought back tears. With a soft, unsure smile, she whispered, “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Jake.”

“They’re in my heart,” he told her quietly. “Forever. But I’m at peace with myself now, thanks to you, to us.”

Touched to the point of being unable to speak, Shah could only nod and grip his strong, scarred hand. She didn’t want to break the beauty, the healing, of this moment, but there were chores that had to be attended to. “Peace is another word for healing, Jake. In our own ways, we’re still healing from our pasts, but at least we know it’s possible to do that.” Then, sliding off the bed, she said, “I’ve got to get your legs taken care of.”

Shah bent down, opened a drawer in the lovely cedar dresser that Jake had made and drew out clean dressings. The bandages on his healing legs had to be changed daily.

Jake brightened as Shah leaned down after he’d removed the covers from his legs. “Hey, how about I try a walk outside? I’m only a day away from when the doc said I could start moving around in earnest.” Jake gestured toward the window. “I like cold weather. I like the snow.” Every day he’d been puttering around the house, extending his time out of bed and exercising his newly healed muscles. Shah would catch him standing forlornly at a window, looking out with a wistful expression on his face. Jake really was an outdoor person, and her heart bled for him, because she knew how hard it must be for him to remain house-bound.

“You like anywhere but this bed,” Shah reminded him as she expertly cut away the old dressings and put them aside.

“I warned you—I’m not one to be tied down. Especially when I’m sick.”

She smiled absently and looked at the many curved pink scars on his leg. All the wounds had healed nicely, but she regretted the hundreds of stitches required to patch Jake back together again. The scars would be many, and most would never go away. Gently she ran her hand down the expanse of his calf.

“How do they feel today?”

Jake tried to smile. Every time Shah touched him like that, he wanted to groan with pleasure. Did she realize how healing her touch was? How lovely her slender hand was as it caressed his ugly, scarred flesh? “Great,” he muttered, praying that he could control himself. The bulk of the covers would hide his reaction to Shah’s touch, but Jake lived in fear that one day, she would discover what her light caress did to him. Thus far, he’d been able to keep his hands off Shah. Every day she touched him a little more, and that told him that his decision had been right—for both of them. Every day Shah’s confidence in herself, as a woman, as a human being who could show her feelings without threat, was increasing. To Jake, it was like watching her blossom before his very eyes.

“I want to put that calendula oil on them before I bandage them back up,” she told him.

“Go ahead.” He pointed to his leg. “The scars are a lot less noticeable since you’ve been putting that marigold juice on them.”

With a smile, Shah brought the bottle of calendula, an essence of marigold, over from the dresser. “I’m glad I called my mother and she sent this to us right away,” Shah said. She poured the glycerine that contained the brownish-colored liquid into the palms of her hands. Leaning down, she gently bathed Jake’s leg with it. “Mother said it always took away scars if used early enough after an operation,” she murmured. “And she was right.”

“Your mother puts regular doctors to shame,” Jake told her. Jake lay there in abject pleasure. Just being touched by Shah sent wave after wave of longing through him. All too soon she had replaced the dressings and was retrieving a pair of jeans and a dark green polo shirt from his closet for him.

“What’s on your agenda today?” Jake wanted to know as he eased his feet to the golden-reddish cedar floor.

“I’m expecting a call from the Brazilian embassy today. They’ve got the video of Hernandez using chain saws.” Shah frowned and laid the clothes next to Jake. Although his legs were outwardly almost completely healed, he was still weak. Each afternoon she worked with him on several exercises designed to strengthen his legs. “They’re supposed to let me know if they’ll send the police to arrest him. I just hope they’ll prosecute.”

Jake saw the frown on her face deepen. “They will,” he assured her confidently. When she gave him a distrustful look, he grinned. “How about we go find a Christmas tree after you get that call? To celebrate your victory?”

“Jake, you’re not supposed to be going outside yet! The doctors are afraid you’ll slip on some ice and tear those newly healed muscles.”

“Now, Shah…”

She watched Jake slowly get to his feet. His routine was to shave, dress, and then move into the den to watch television, which he hated doing for any length of time. Then he would read books to stay mentally engaged in something. At other times he’d play secretary on one of her projects, folding letters and licking envelopes and placing stamps on them. Her heart went out to Jake; he just wasn’t the sedentary type. He groused because she split wood every morning for the huge earth stove that sat in the living room. He complained when she swept off the red-brick steps that led to the garage and the fieldstone sidewalk that led to the snow-covered dirt road. He groused a lot, but Shah knew it was because he considered those responsibilities his, not hers.

“Just one more day,” she pleaded.

He glanced at her as he moved slowly around the bed. “We’ll see,” he said, and then smiled at her. “Did I tell you how pretty you look in red?”

She grinned. “Matches my temper, don’t you think?”

“What a smart mouth you have, Ms. Travers.”

Rallying beneath his teasing, Shah said, “I’ll see you later. I’ll be working in your office if you need me.”

Jake stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. The snow had stopped falling, the sky was a light shade of gray, and the evergreens were swathed in their white winter raiment. It was almost noon, and he was bored out of his skull. There was only so much television a man could watch, only so many magazines, newspapers and books he could read, before he got restless. Very restless.

He crossed his arms, well aware of what lay beneath his keen restlessness. He wondered when Shah would gather enough courage to lean over and kiss him again. How many times had he seen the desire in her lovely, shadowed eyes? The hesitation, the fear, the longing? His own body fairly boiled for her, and it was all he could do to force his mind onto anything other than making long, slow, delicious love with Shah. But it had to be on her terms, Jake reminded himself savagely—her time and her decision. Intuitively he knew that once he got her in his arms, in his bed, she would never leave again. It was just that first time, overcoming her fear from the past, that was the sticking point. Jake had lost count of how many times he’d cursed her father and her ex-husband.

He was feeling strong again. Strong and powerful and incredibly vital. Jake turned, a plan in mind, a slight smile working its way across his mouth. The Brazilian embassy had just called to inform Shah that Hernandez was under arrest, and that he would indeed go to trial. That meant they would be going back down to Brazil as witnesses, but not until at least three months from now. Shah had put down the phone, thrown her arms around Jake and laughed in triumph. He’d hugged her long and hard, and both of them had been a little breathless after he released her. Yes, the time was ripening.

Jake hummed softly, feeling lighter with each step he took. If only Shah would go along with his plan, he felt it might be the turning point in their relationship.

S
hah had just entered Jake’s office, euphoric over the fact that Hernandez was being indicted by the Brazilian government. She hummed softly as she drew a file from the file cabinet. The phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Shah? This is your father.”

Her heart plummeted. Automatically her hand tightened around the phone. “What do you want?” she asked, standing stiffly. She’d been unprepared for the anger she’d heard in his voice.

“Want? You know what I want! How could you do this to me, Shah? You took those damned pictures of Hernandez cutting trees down with chain saws! How could you?”

Anger sizzled through Shah, and she sat down, her free hand clenched into a fist. “How could I? How dare you! You didn’t want me down there in Brazil because the stock you bought is all tied up with Hernandez and several other landowners. And don’t deny it. I have proof that you bought heavily into the Brazilian rain forest timber trade.”

“This is going to cost me millions! You don’t care, do you, Shah? You’re just like your damned mother—bullheaded, single-sighted, and you absolutely refuse to see anyone else’s point of view.”

Her heart throbbed at the base of her throat, and when she spoke again her voice wobbled. “You’ve lied to me, you’ve tried over the last year to have me kidnapped out of Brazil. Why couldn’t you have told me the truth in the first place?”

“Would it have done any good?”

“No, but at least there would be honesty between us. That’s a start.”

“There is no start, Shah. I can’t believe you would be this disloyal to me.”

Shah nearly choked. Every muscle in her body was tense with fury. “Disloyal? What about your disloyalty to Mother Earth?”

“Stop talking that drivel—”

“No!” Shah said tightly. “Father, you hate women of any kind. You don’t respect Mother Earth. You can’t even respect my mother, much less me.”

“Cut it out, Shah. I called to ask you to remove your charges against Hernandez. My company can’t afford to lose the millions we’ve invested in timber in Brazil.”

“I’ll
never
do that.”

“Shah, you can’t do this to me.”

Tears marred Shah’s vision, and she released a harsh bark of laughter. “Do what? Allow you to continue to rape our mother? Allow you to help alter the quality of our air? Of life itself? I will never lift those charges against Hernandez. Not for you, not for anyone.” Shah was breathing erratically, and she was trying to stop the quaver in her voice, but she couldn’t.

“If you love me, you’ll drop those charges.”

Shah sat back and shut her eyes tightly. Gulping back a scream of pure frustration at his unfair tactics, she was silent for a good minute before she could control her voice and her feelings. “Love?” she whispered. “You don’t know the meaning of love, Father. You never did. You never loved my mother, or me. You never respected us as human beings. I won’t allow you to use love as an excuse for forsaking everything I live for and believe in, just to please you.”

“You’re just as fanatical as your mother!” Travers snarled. “Fine! I’ll fight you in court on this, Shah. I’ll use every penny I have to defend Hernandez and the other landowners in Brazil. This is war. You’re not my daughter. You never have been.”

The words cut deeply into Shah’s heart. She had known that one day this would happen. The hurt seared through her, and for long moments she grappled with the truth of the situation: Some men were incapable of being fathers, much less decent, kind ones, such as Jake had been. “You do what you have to do,” she said. “You might be my biological father, but you’ve never been a real one to me. I’ll see you in court—on the opposite side, as usual.”

Shah dropped the receiver back into the cradle and sat for a long time, allowing the grief, rage and hurt to flow through her. Hanging her head, she realized that Jake had given her the strength to stand up to her father. He was the polar opposite of Ken Travers in every way possible. She was so glad Jake had shown her that album, shown her that parents could really love and respect their children.

With a ragged sigh, Shah stood up on shaky knees. She locked them, her hand resting on the desk, until she got the strength to move. She wanted to find Jake and share the conversation with him.

Jake sat in the overstuffed chair, the magazine he’d been reading lying idle in his lap as he listened to Shah recounting the upsetting phone call from her father. She sat on the stool where his feet rested, almost doubled over, her elbows planted on her thighs, her chin resting on top of her clasped hands. When she’d finished, the silence ebbed and flowed around them. Such sadness and abandonment were clearly etched on her features that Jake ached for her.

Reaching forward, he gently eased her hands apart and held them in his own. Her golden eyes were marred by darkness, and he felt her grief and injury. “You did the right thing, Shah.” Jake shook his head and gave her a gentle smile. “Sometimes life tests you on what you really believe in, and you’ve got to make choices. Hard choices. You made the right decisions for the right reasons. Your father was the one who was dishonest with you. Not vice versa.”

Sniffing, Shah nodded. “It hurt so much when he said that if I really loved him I would withdraw the charges.”

“I know…. Listen, when someone like him is stuck in such a dysfunctional state, everything he sees is interpreted with the same emotional skewing,” Jake explained quietly. “Travers never knew what love was, Shah. The man can’t love himself, and therefore he’s incapable of knowing how to love others, even you.”

The hurt in her heart mushroomed with Jake’s calm words. “It’s the alcoholism, Jake. That’s the root of it.”

“No, that’s a symptom,” he said. “I’ll bet if you went into your father’s past, the way he was raised, he was probably beaten the same way he beat you and your mother. Inside, the man’s a cowering animal, hurt and frightened.”

“Well, so am I, but I try not to take it out on others,” Shah murmured.

“The difference is that you want to get well, Shah, and your father doesn’t. And until he does, he’s going to continue to play these kinds of games with you. He’s using the word
love
when it’s not really love at all, just a manipulation of you.” He smiled a little and gripped her hands more firmly. “You didn’t fall for his game, and I’m proud of you.”

Shah held Jake’s warm gray gaze, feeling his care wash across her raw feelings. “There’s no easy end to this. No easy answers. My father sees me as this horrible villain ruining his life, his business.”

“Maybe,” Jake said, “someday, he’ll realize he’s got a disease that’s poisoning not only himself and how he sees the world through those eyes, but his relationship with his daughter, his ex-wife, and probably everyone around him. Until he does, Shah, you’ll remain the villain in his life. He won’t win this court fight, even though he’ll try. After he loses, he’ll probably hate you until the next problem in the guise of a person comes along, and then he’ll train his diseased focus on that poor target.”

“And then he won’t hate me as much,” she muttered, seeing his faultless logic.

Pulling her forward, Jake guided Shah onto his lap. She came without fighting and he was grateful. As she settled in his lap, her arm went around his shoulders and she pressed her brow against his hair. He held her in an embrace meant to give her protection and love.

“It’s so hard to know that he hates me. That he sees me as a bad person.”

Jake patted her gently. “I know, honey, I know. But you have to listen to me, to your mother and your grandmother about how good a person you are. Try not to listen to your detractors—that will only tear you down, and if you buy into it heavily enough, it will end up destroying you.” He closed his eyes, absorbing the vulnerability Shah was sharing with him. “You stick to the high road on these things, Shah. You didn’t set out to deliberately or knowingly hurt your father. You happen to have a different reality about how to live your life, and that’s allowed. You didn’t try to manipulate him the way he did you. You stuck to your guns, your beliefs, and walked your talk.”

She smiled a little and hugged Jake. “Sometimes I think you are part Native American. You seem to understand me so well.”

He sighed and closed his eyes, content as never before. “That’s because I love you, strengths and weaknesses combined. No one’s perfect, Shah. And you can’t march to someone else’s idea of how you should live your life.” Opening his eyes again, he said, “Come and help me find the right Christmas tree?” Shah lifted her head from where it was resting against him, her eyes widening at his request.

Jake held up his hand to stop the protest he knew was coming. “I know—I’m not supposed to start walking outdoors until tomorrow. But one day isn’t going to kill me, Shah.”

She laughed. “You’re such a bad boy when you want to be. You know I can’t stop you.”

Jake wove invisible designs on her hip and thigh with his light touch. “I more or less had you contributing to helping me go outdoors.” He sighed and looked around the large, airy room. “The place looks naked without a tree in the living room,” he complained. “Christmas is always something special. I miss not having the tree decorated. Usually, the tree was set up around the first of December.”

“You,” Shah said accusingly, “could get a rock to walk if you wanted to, Randolph.”

“It’s not a rock I want at my side. It’s you.”

The instant Shah met and held his warm gray gaze, she felt a ribbon of heat flow through her. The last of the hurt over her father’s phone call had evaporated. How could she say no to Jake? Did he realize how much sway he had over her? Placing both arms around his shoulders and giving him a quick hug, she muttered, “Oh, all right, Jake. You just keep chipping away at me until I break down and say yes!”

“I believe,” he said, with a rather pleased expression on his face, “it’s called nagging.”

The snow was fresh, fine and powdery, and it was knee-deep in places as they walked in search of just the right tree. Shah remained close to Jake’s left arm—just in case he should slip and start to fall. But she kept her worry to herself, because he was such a little boy about getting to go out in the cold, crisp winter air. Jake wore a brightly colored Pendleton wool jacket, a red knit cap thrown carelessly over his head, and a pair of warm gloves. His cheeks were ruddy from the temperature, which hovered in the high twenties. Each time he exhaled, a mist formed around his mouth and nose.

“Jake,” Shah pleaded, “we’re almost a quarter of a mile from the house. You shouldn’t overextend yourself this first time. Dr. Adams is going to throw a shoe when he hears what you’ve done!”

Jake halted and turned. Shah wore her red nylon jacket with a dark green knit cap and gloves. Her black hair flowed around her shoulders like an ebony cape, in stark contrast to the jacket. She wiped her nose with a tissue and stuffed it back into her pocket. Without thinking, because he was overjoyed to be outdoors again, he caressed her flushed cheek.

“Maybe you’re right,” he murmured. Then he gave her a happy grin. “Which one do you think will make a good Christmas tree?” He swung his arm outward to encompass the thick stand of evergreens that surrounded them.

The worry Shah felt evaporated beneath Jake’s touch. She ached to lean up and kiss his smiling mouth. Never had she seen Jake so happy, so vital, as now. The past two weeks had been a sort of living hell for Shah. She so desperately wanted to kiss Jake, to walk into his arms and discover the love he’d promised her. But she was afraid. Too afraid.

“How about that one?” She pointed to a seven-foot blue spruce.

Jake sized it up, his ax in his left hand. “Looks pretty good to me.”

Shah moved over to the tree and gently touched its snow-covered needles. “Now, don’t laugh at me, Jake, but if you really want this tree, we have to ask it permission to give its life for us.” When she saw his brows lift, she added breathlessly as she stroked the evergreen’s limb, “We believe everything has a spirit, Jake. And we never take without asking permission first. If the tree says no, we have to find another one. All right?”

He tramped over to where she stood. There was such anxiety in her eyes that he wanted to reassure her that he wouldn’t laugh at her explanation. Leaning down, he kissed the tip of her cold nose. “I like the way Native Americans see the world. Yeah, go ahead. Ask it.”

Her nose tingled from his brief kiss, breaking loose a portion of Shah’s fear. She moved the few inches that separated them and threw her arms around his broad shoulders. Pressing herself against him, her face nestled against his shoulder, she whispered, “I knew you’d understand. Thank you…” She moved away quickly, before his arms could wrap around her. Though embarrassed by her boldness, Shah was struck by the sudden hunger and need she saw in Jake’s narrowed gray eyes. It made her go weak with longing, and she struggled to stop herself from moving back into his arms.

Jake anchored himself. He ordered himself not to move a muscle after Shah’s surprising embrace. It had happened so fast that it had caught him off guard. And then he smiled to himself, joyous over Shah’s thawing toward him. Maybe it was the pristine air and the scent of the forest that encompassed him, but he was sure something special was happening. Sunlight broke through the low gray clouds, sending blinding, brilliant shafts across the mountain where they stood.

Shah closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, her hands gently touching the tree. For her, everything was alive, and everything had a voice. Maybe not one like a human being’s, but a voice, a feeling, nevertheless. Shaken by her unexpected spontaneity with Jake, she tried to concentrate on mentally sending a message to the tree asking if it would give its life to them. Her heart was pounding, but gradually it slowed as she formed the explanation and the question for the tree.

Jake stood silent, watching as Shah closed her eyes, her hands reverently cupping one of the branches of the blue spruce. There was something natural and touching about Shah’s belief system and her practice of it. How many spiders had she found and carried out to the garage? She wouldn’t throw them out in the snow for fear of killing them. One didn’t kill one’s relatives. Moved, Jake wondered if Shah knew just how special she was. Probably not, but he longed to be the one to show her, to tell her.