Jake's child (21 page)

would look at Sarah appraisingly or rub his cheek against her leg before bolting off. He ran from dawn to dusk, eating everything Sarah put in front of him and staying stick-thin.

Sarah's jeans and shorts took on an alarming tendency to slide past her hips and with each passing day Jake grew surlier. He never went anywhere with Nicholas, however, without telling her and including her. She always went along. Some part of her now accepted that he wouldn't vanish with Nicholas, but at a deeper level she was no more able to let them take off without her than she could have flapped her arms and flown.

As the days drifted and Jake made no overt moves despite his moodiness, Sarah became less anxious. Gradually, as the corrosive anger drained from her, leaving her limp as seaweed washed up on the shore, she unwound and allowed herself to think about Jake's accusations. For the first time she tried to put herself in his place. What would she have done?

The days drifted on until one morning a blaze of sunlight woke her, and her stomach rumbled with hunger. She found herself smiling. Bright blue sky filled a corner of the window. Stretching in the early morning quiet, she yawned, filled inexplicably with well-being. Lying in sun-warmed sheets, Sarah wondered if maybe she had used Jake as a convenient focus for all the untapped anger she'd felt toward Ted. And, yes, for herself.

Maybe it was guilt and anger that had made her bury herself for so many years. What more, after all, could she have done to save her child? As Sarah watched the sunlight dapple the walls of her newly painted bedroom, she finally forgave herself. She could have done nothing. Nothing.

Scrambling out of bed, she pushed back her hair and shimmied into jeans and a lemon yellow sweater. She was hungry enough to eat anything not nailed down.

"Nicholas? Jake?" She knocked on the bedroom door. No more peering into half-open doors for her. She'd learned her lesson, she thought wryly.

The polished cotton bedspread lay militarily straight, the corners even. Lifting the edge of the curtain near the pillows lying smooth under their shams, a breeze teased her with the sense that someone had just slipped out the window.

In the empty, silent kitchen, a napkin floated to the floor.

"Nicholas!" She ran to the front door.

Jake's truck was gone.

The breeze lifted the oak leaves and stirred the sand underneath.

When Nicholas was playing outside, he left F. Roggie in his container there in the shade.

Sarah walked to the tree and sank onto the crooked swing. There was no sign of the frog. No sign of Nicholas.

Jake must have been waiting for her to let her guard down.

No. That didn't make sense.

Jake had said he could disappear without a trace.

Numb, her hands lying palm up in her lap, she looked around at the peaceful, deserted yard.

Jake wouldn't do that to her.

Like a beginning algebra student, Sarah plodded through simple equations. Jake loved Nicholas. Loving her son, Jake loved some small part of her. If he cared for her, at all, he could not deliberately destroy her like this.

Jake knew she wanted him to leave.

He loved Nicholas. He wouldn't leave Nicholas. It would take some unimaginable power to separate Jake from Nicholas.

Sarah stuffed her fist into her mouth to smother the scream tearing from her throat. A whimper escaped.

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Jake would not take Nicholas from her. If there were any truth in life, that was it. He would not take her son away from her.

Time lost meaning as she sat in the swing. If she moved, she would bring disaster crashing around her. As long as she didn't move, her world was still whole, not shattered in a million, unrepairable pieces.

Sarah heard the truck first. Then Nicholas's giggle and Jake trumpeting an off-key, slightly bawdy song.

She stood, her muscles as stiff and aching as if she'd run a marathon, blood draining from her head.

From the driveway Jake saw her odd stillness and stopped singing. Uneasy, he slammed on the brakes. What had happened? "Stay here, sport." Vaulting from the truck, Jake ran to her. "Sarah!"

Her face was skim-milk white, and she swayed as he neared her. Damn it to hell, she thought he'd taken Nicholas. "Sarah, I left a note. We went for juice."

"Juice?"

"There wasn't any."

"I thought—" Her eyelids flickered. She was so pale he could see the blue veins.

Jake gripped her shoulders tightly. "I wouldn't have gone without telling you. You know that." He brushed the hair off her face.

"I didn't know where you were." Her voice was thready.

"Didn't you see my note? On the napkin?"

"No."

Sarah straightened her shoulders and breathed deeply.

Thinking she might faint, Jake cupped her neck and bent her forward. "I swear, I wrote where we were going. You were sleeping and I didn't have the heart to wake you. You've been exhausted. I thought you needed sleep. We were only gone twenty minutes, to the 7-Eleven and back."

"Just twenty minutes?" She shook her head. "It seemed so long." In her bleached, white face her lips were blue-gray and pinched. Turning away, she walked toward the swing.

Jake knew they couldn't survive this constant tension and doubt. He'd hoped she would forgive him if he gave her time to think things through. Clearly time hadn't brought trust, much less forgiveness, and he wouldn't be responsible for causing her this kind of anguish any more.

He'd lost.

"Did you phone Buck?" If she had, there was going to be hell to pay.

Her slow steps stopped. "No."

"That's something, I guess." At least she'd believed in him a little. That would be something to remember in the nights to come. He had to leave. He had no other choice. Not any longer. Not after seeing her sick white face when she believed he'd taken off.

"Sarah?"

She turned to face him. "Yes?"

Carefully he touched the soft skin of her throat. One last time, he thought. "I never meant to hurt you. I tried to keep from worrying you."

"I noticed." She twisted the frayed rope ends around her fingers.

Unwinding her hands, Jake raised them to his lips. The skin was cool and smooth. "I'm going to leave. No," he added as her fingers curled under his, "I'm not taking Nicholas from you. I could never do that to you. You should have known." Turning her palms up, he pressed a kiss into them. "I wanted you more than anything life's ever teased me with. But I want your happiness even more." He strode back to the truck.

He was dying inside. Nothing in his life had ever hurt this much. He had to finish before he lost his nerve.

"Hey, sport, come down from there and take a little walk with me. We have to have a talk."

Nicholas tumbled out and then reached back inside for F. Roggie. "Where we going?"

"Down to the lake."

'"kay."

It was harder than he'd imagined. Sitting down on the dock, Jake tugged Nicholas over to him. "Listen, sport, you know your dad wanted me to bring you back to America, right?"

"Yeah." Nicholas tossed a stick into the water that shone clear in the sunshine. Minnows zigged where the stick splashed.

"Well, you're here now, where you belong."

"Yeah, I like it a real lot, Jake. It's swell, all of us here." Nicholas belly flopped onto the dock and looked down into the water.

"That's the problem. I don't belong here." Jake cleared his throat. "This is your home." He placed his hand on Nicholas's back, feeling the bony spine under his fingers. Darn kid. Couldn't put an ounce on him. "Not mine."

"'Course it's your home, Jake," Nicholas scoffed, looking back over his shoulder. "Me and you are a team. I explained all that to Sarah."

"It's not that simple for grown-ups, Nicholas." Jake rubbed Nicholas's head brusquely.

"You're teasing, right?" Anxiety darkened Nicholas's eyes.

"No." Jake cleared his throat again. He couldn't swallow.

"You promised you'd never leave me, Jake! You promised!" Nicholas scrambled to his feet and stood over Jake. "You can't go back on a promise."

"I have to leave."

"Then I'm gonna go with you." Nicholas plopped onto Jake's lap and hung an arm around his neck. "You don't get along so good without me, Jake. You get scared of light-

ning and stuff. And I can help now that I know stuff like fishing." He searched Jake's face eagerly. " 'kay?"

"No."

"You can't go without me, Jake."

"You have to stay, Nicholas. You'll be going to school, you have to take care of F. Roggie. He can't go where I'm going, you know." Jake wrapped his arms around the scrawny little body. "And Sarah needs you, too. Think how lonely she'd be without you."

"You'll be lonely, too, Jake," Nicholas said tearfully, burying his head on Jake's shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Don't leave, Jake. I love you." Nicholas's tears were soaking Jake's shirt.

Jake swallowed the hot lump in his throat. "I have to leave, and you have to be strong and help Sarah and study hard." Jake couldn't go on. Lowering his head over Nicholas he fought for control. He rubbed his face against the shining softness of Nicholas's hair, so like Sarah's, and refused to think of how close he'd come to happiness. "Nicholas, I can't stay."

He stood up and carried the weeping boy in his arms back to Sarah.

Her eyes were enormous in her pale face and Jake looked at the two people he loved more than anything on earth and wished the ground would open up right then and close over him. He couldn't leave them.

He couldn't stay.

While Jake shoved stuff into his bag, Nicholas clung to him and wept uncontrollably, eyes puffy and swollen. Like a ghost, Sarah tagged behind, the blue of her eyes deep and glittery. He almost grabbed her and kissed her hard when he saw the misery on her face, misery he had caused and was trying the best he could to erase. But he was afraid if he kissed her he'd never be able to leave.

■M

At the last moment, Jake thought Sarah was going to say something.

She was clutching Nicholas to her as if her life depended on it. Nicholas's sobs shook his body and Sarah patted his back as she looked at Jake. He thought her lips were trembling.

He waited. Glacier ice was bearing down on him and her yellow blouse was like the dying sun. She didn't speak. Finally he shrugged and went up to her. "Sarah, I'm losing everything I ever wanted in this life, but I'd still do things the same way."

She blinked.

"And, yes, I think I know what love is now. I never knew anything could hurt so much. I said once that I'd never hurt you, but all I seem to have done is cause you heartache. You told me that pain's part of life, but God help me, I can't live with what I'm doing to you."

Tracing the contours of her face, the soft chin, the sweet forehead, Jake memorized Sarah, her shape, her texture.

He stooped to enclose her and Nicholas in his arms, enclosing them with all the love he'd never given before. Lightly Jake touched a spot above her left breast. "There's my home, Sarah, the only one I've ever wanted."

He wouldn't look back. Starting the rackety engine, he kept telling himself not to look back at Sarah and Nicholas and the house. But he looked in the rearview mirror and saw Nicholas tear loose from Sarah's arms and run down the driveway after him.

"Jake, don't go! Don't go!"

Jake's truck turning onto the highway snapped Sarah out of the strange immobility she'd been in since she found her house empty. Why hadn't she stopped Jake? Why had she indulged herself in the luxury of anger and hurt? She waited for Nicholas to trudge back to her.

"Sarah, I want Jake to come back." He rubbed his eyes, leaving streaks of dirt.

"Me too, honey."

Too late she realized what her anger had blinded her from seeing. She loved Jake and she'd let him go. Sarah wanted to sob right along with Nicholas. Instead, she picked him up and carried him home.

Night came, and the house seemed empty. Sarah wandered through the halls conjuring up Jake in every room. In Jake's bed, Nicholas woke up screaming there were monsters in the closet. Trying to calm him, she opened the door and showed him there was nothing there.

Except there was. A flat, purple-and-white striped box was tucked into the corner. Reluctantly Sarah brought it out and opened it.

A froth of Egyptian cotton and Irish linen erupted. The white blouse with its delicate tucks and cobweb lightness spilled into her hands. A courting blouse if she'd ever seen one, Sarah thought, bursting into sobs. When had Jake bought the blouse? What moment had he been waiting for? She rocked back and forth, tears splattering the pristine white as she curled up on a pillow next to Nicholas, Jake's pillow.

A week went by. Sarah and Nicholas clung to each other in silent comfort, not talking about Jake. Sarah called Buck and asked him to do the necessary legal work so that she could enroll Nicholas in school, come September. Being Buck, he had to know the whole story, and afterwards said only, "Hang in there, Sairy, you'll be okay."

Sarah knew she'd be okay. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that she missed Jake. She missed the small incursions into her space. She'd come to depend on the perking of her blood when he touched her. She missed his touch with every fiber of her being. If she'd known where to find him, she'd have dragged him back by his devil-black hair.

There weren't any closets to clean, no rooms to paint. Sarah kept thinking she saw Jake just out of the corner of her eye and she'd turn quickly, but of course he wasn't there.

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She and Nicholas stayed outdoors until dark drove them inside- Outside, Jake's presence didn't haunt them.

Accepting that she couldn't keep up a guide schedule once Nicholas started school, Sarah applied for a job with the newspaper. When Bernice Christianson called to tell her she could start in August, Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. At least that problem had solved itself. She'd never used any of the money she'd received from Ted's insurance, and now she transferred it to a trust fund for Nicholas.

Life went on. Nicholas seldom left her side, carting F. Roggie everywhere. Sarah grew used to the frog sitting in Jake's place on the table at breakfast, lunch and dinner, a squat, green, poor substitute for a prince.

Chapter Eleven

At the Buckhead Marina Tavern, Jake held up a finger to the bartender. "Hit me," he said, lining up the bottles in front of him and blearily counting them off, each one a symbol of the mistakes he'd made with Sarah.

Jolly shook his head but sent another beer sliding down the cypress-wood counter. The door opened. Sarah's cousin ambled in and lowered himself onto a bar stool, one leg hooked onto the rung.

Had Sarah sent him? Jake narrowed his eyes and peered at Buck through the cigarette smoke before tilting the brown bottle to his lips and downing half of it. Probably not.

"Evening, Donnelly." Buck gestured to Jolly to bring him a beer.

"Again, Jolly." Jake waggled his hand.

"Lot of bottles there," Buck commented, tipping his cowboy hat back.

"Yeah." Jake glowered. "What of it?" He half stood, spoiling for a good fight and no one better than Buck to let

loose on. Maybe a good fight would ease the pain in his heart. "Come on outside."

"Whoa, big guy." Buck leaned back. He measured Jake up and down. "Even two days into a pie-eyed drunk, you're out of my league."

"Five days, and it's still early in the evening," Jake muttered, tilting the bottle to the light and studying the shining color, color that shone like Sarah's hair in sunshine.

"Like it around here, do you? I hear you've been checking with some agricultural-engineering big shots from the university. Got some fancy plans for working on the lake?"

"Nope." Jake didn't want to be reminded of dreams.

"Can't leave, stud?"

"Can't stay." Jake took a long swallow, hoping for forget fulness.

"So how long you planning to camp out in your truck back in the Glades?" Buck's drawl stretched out into the space between them. "Some of my buddies spotted you a couple of days ago, said you hit the Buckhead every night."

"What's it to you?" Jake growled.

"Nothing to me." Buck swirled the beer in his bottle. "Maybe a lot to somebody I'm right fond of."

Sarah. Jake concentrated on Buck. "Cut the good-old-boy bit, Reilly. Get to the point."

"Right." Buck leaned his elbows on the bar and rolled his bottle between his palms. "You win the prize for plain dumb, Donnelly. Sarah's up at the house crying her eyes out, you're here drinking yourself into a stupor."

"She tell you what I did?" Jake eyed his empty bottle.

"Sure."

"I hurt her. I kept hurting her. No matter what I did, I made everything worse." Jake started to raise his hand once more.

"True." Pushing Jake's arm down, Buck shook his head at Jolly. "But you don't look very happy, and Sarah sure

isn't. Nicholas, of course," Buck added sarcastically, "is as happy as a pig in a mud wallow. But he misses you, too."

"I hurt her."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that. But Sarah doesn't hold grudges and I never figured you for a quitter." Buck looked at him in disgust.

Jake dredged up a smile. "Nice work, fella. You're hitting all the buttons. Trouble is, I've got a couple of years on you and I know the routine."

"Figured you did," Buck laughed. "It's the biggest damn mess I ever heard, I'll give you that. I can't imagine what strings you pulled to get papers on Nicholas. Some fancy footwork sneaking him out of there, I reckon."

"Yeah." Jake remembered how close it had been at the end, getting the oil exec out first, because Ted wasn't ready to let Nicholas go, and then going back in on a lightning strike for Nicholas and trying to time everything so he could get to the kid before Ted died and left him unprotected. "Yeah."

"And you're backing off from an itty-bitty thing like Sarah?" Buck snorted. "Not what I'd expect of a mover and shaker like you."

Jake menaced him with a surly glance.

"Stuff it, Donnelly. Of course I researched you. I know your history. You're the guy they call in to solve the deadend problems. And you always do, so I was told. You hadn't been in Sarah's house twenty-four hours before I had you scoped out. You don't think I'd have let you stay there otherwise, do you?" Buck's sly grin mocked him.

Jake looked right back with a tight smile. "Think you could have shaken me loose from there before I was good and ready?" He flexed his hands.

Buck laughed. "Guess not, but that kind of threat usually works. No, I'm not crazy enough to get in the way of you and something you've set your sights on. You can ease off, Donnelly. I'm not here to punch you out. Even if I

could," Buck said, looking at Jake's bulk and width. "Not that I wouldn't like to punch out your lights, you understand, but Sarah would skin me alive if I did."