That Thing Called Love (18 page)

“Is it because your wife died here, then?”

“No. Or not entirely.”
Not at all.
“Truth is, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t lust after something larger than what Razor Bay has to offer.”

“Still, I can only imagine how awful it must have been to lose her right after she gave birth to Austin. That had to be the last straw for Razor Bay.”

He’d discussed Kari’s death a little with Max, so he couldn’t say why having Jenny ask questions pushed his buttons now—why it stirred up things he didn’t like to think about. But it did and he focused a sharp gaze on her. “Why are you so damn interested in Kari?”

The delicate lift of her eyebrow and tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth was clear as a shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I care about Austin and I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Really?”
Snapping is not the way to make friends and influence people, Austin Jacob,
she’d said. Austin
Jacob.
“And you think pumping me for details about the worst time in my life is the way to do it?” How could it have escaped him that his kid had been given his name?

She blinked. Then said with stricken apology, “I’m sorry. That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“The hell it wasn’t. Kari and I weren’t fucking Romeo and Juliet. This isn’t some tragic, star-crossed love story.” Ugly emotions seethed beneath his skin. He had no idea where they’d come from.

But he couldn’t seem to get a handle on them.

Which was why he jerked upright, shifted his butt to the edge of the couch and leaned into her space. “Love is an illusion, sweetheart. A chimera that disappears if you look at it too closely.”

“That’s certainly—” she leaned back “—cynical.”

“No, that’s reality. You want to know what the final straw was?” he demanded in a hard voice, even as the whisper of Austin’s
“Dad”
in his head felt like a reproach. “That would probably be the fact that by the time Kari died, there wasn’t a speck of affection, let alone love, left between us. Or that I looked at my own kid—” Austin
Jacob
“—and the only thing I felt was a need to get the hell out of Dodge!”

She studied him for several long heartbeats, those Godiva eyes of hers searching for God-only-knew what.

Then blew out a breath.

“Look,” she said. “I hate the fact that your neglect caused Austin a load of disappointment over the years.”

There wasn’t a reflex on earth fast enough to catch his flinch. But it didn’t mean he had to parade it in front of her. He flopped back against the cushion and raised an eyebrow.

She pursed her lips and his eyes homed in on them. “At the same time,” she said slowly, redirecting his attention back to her steady gaze, “you were eighteen years old. Your lifelong plans had imploded and you had a boatload of responsibility dumped on your shoulders.” She examined him for seconds that felt like dog years, and his heart
thud, thud, thudded
against his rib cage. He slapped on a faintly amused smile to keep her from realizing how off balance he was.

“I’m guessing both you and Kari must have felt pretty damn trapped,” she continued. “On top of that, she was dealing with seeing and feeling her body balloon into something she probably didn’t recognize. I know Emmett and Kathy’s propensity for spoiling, so let’s say she was a young woman accustomed to being nubile and popular and getting what she wanted, and that she didn’t love what was happening to her. You were working a job
you
didn’t love and had had to walk away from a scholarship you’d worked toward your entire school career.”

“And you would know this because...?” he asked lightly, even though forcing the careless tone was like swallowing glass.

“Emmett and Kathy told me. They didn’t hate you, you know.”

“Coulda fooled me. They told me to stay away from Austin.”

“And this changed your life how?” For the first time her voice turned snappish. But she sucked in a breath, exhaled it and said evenly, “From what I understand you were big on saying you’d be by to see Austin, then never showing up. They finally had enough.”

Bitter shame filled him. Shame at his actions, shame at the relief he’d felt at finally being cut off—if only so he could quit feeling so fucking ashamed of all his broken promises. Giving her a shrug of acknowledgment, he resisted the tell of rubbing at the ache between his brows.

“But they didn’t hate you, Jake. They just didn’t want to see Austin hurt.”

Determined not to let her see his inner rawness any more than he already had, he yawned. “So is all this amateur psychoanalyzing your way of keeping yourself from jumping my bones again?” he drawled in a bored voice.

She shot to her feet, her cheeks flushed red. “God, you’re an ass.”

“And you’d love to get your hands on it, wouldn’t you?”

She gave him a chilly look down the length of her pretty, exotically fashioned nose. “I think we’re done here.”

His own rise to his feet was much more leisurely, and he smiled at the flash of panic on her face when it brought her breasts a whisper away from touching his chest. Snaking a hand around the back of her neck, he tipped her head back, lowered his and kissed her.

Thoroughly. Not until her tongue came up to engage his as it explored her mouth, not until she quit holding herself stiffly aloof and sagged against him, not until he felt the barbarian within rush the bars of his cage, howling to get out, did he lift his lips from hers and step back.

“Now we’re done,” he said. Then aroused and angry and slightly sick to his stomach over his behavior, he turned and sauntered out of her house.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“I’
M
SORRY
ABOUT
LAST
NIGHT
.”

Jenny’s head whipped up at the sound of the low, masculine voice just outside her door. She hadn’t heard anyone come up onto the unlit covered porch, and she gaped at Jake, because of course that’s who it was. He was a shadow in the dusk that crowded the other side of the screen door, but she’d know that voice anywhere.

She refused to think too deeply about why that was.

A little summerlike weather had finally arrived in Razor Bay this morning. The skies had been blue until the sun went down and were a deep, rich navy even now. The mountains were out in all their glory, the clouds that obliterated them for most of the past weeks blown away. The temperature had even climbed into the low seventies, although it had dropped significantly once the sun set. Loving the fresh air and the scent of the potted flowers that the inn’s gardeners had set on her porch and planted in the border at the base of the cottage, she’d put on a sweater and left the door wide open to invite in fresh air and clear out the winter stuffies.

Who would have thought
that
might be a mistake?

Clearly it had been, however. For Jake was no longer as shadowy as he’d been at first sight and, one hand gripping the overhead door casing, his cheek against rounded biceps, he looked at her through the screen.

And the instant he saw that he had her attention he said, “You were right. I was an ass.”

“You certainly are,” she agreed coolly, deliberately using the present tense. “You’re the only one who apparently harbors any doubt about it.” But, oh, God, that kiss—no attitude in the world could eradicate that from her head. Nothing could make her forget how it had edged into something uncivilized just before he’d pulled back. A...
dominance
that had made her feel as if she were flirting with the razor edge of danger.

And as much as she hated to admit it, as much as it was contrary to her customary caution, she’d loved it. She who preferred to play it safe. Who had held on to the security of the known ever since that period in her life when everything had been one great big unknown.

Not that she had any intention of acting on the temptation that had blossomed full blown last night. She gave her head an impatient shake. No, she was going to push away the enticement of taking a walk on the wild side and continue to play it safe. To do otherwise was an invitation to disaster.

Just look at how long it had taken her to settle down after he’d left last night. She couldn’t believe how upset she had been—all anger, arousal and frustration. She’d hardly known what to do with herself and would have been perfectly happy never to see him again.

At the same time, she’d longed for him to come back long enough for her to slap him silly.

And yet...

Jake had clearly been hurting and it had been hard to witness.

But it didn’t excuse him. Not when he’d been arrogant and rude and pretty damn quick to dish out a little pain to her, as well.

“Can I come in?”

Hell, no. She knew a bad idea, a sucker bet, when she heard one. And she was nobody’s sucker. In fact, she contemplated rising from the couch where she was glued to her seat to slam the door in his face. She’d send him on his way so fast he’d be nothing but the scent of burned rubber.

As if she were controlled by the Big Daddy of puppet masters, however, she hitched one shoulder. Or maybe it was the King of Ventriloquists, because when she opened her mouth to tell Jake no in no uncertain terms, her voice instead said, “Yeah, whatever.”

Are you kidding me?
Tossing aside the report she’d been poring over, she shot to her feet.

But she was too late to prevent him from entering her home. The door squeaked when he opened it, then slapped closed behind him with the meaty spank of wood on wood.

I rescind my offer!
she thought frantically, then felt like an idiot. Because, really, did that work anywhere outside bad vampire movies?

Apparently not. Or theoretically not, anyhow. One would have to actually
say
it to test its effectiveness.

“Here,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “These are for you.”

Oh, God. He was a mess, she saw as she got her first good look at him in the light. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw shadowed with dark stubble, and his hair suffered from a killer case of bed head, flat in some places and sticking up in others, as if he hadn’t bothered to so much as pull a comb through it.

And he had flowers. A huge fistful of roses and tulips and gerbera daisies that must have been hidden behind the lower solid panel of the screen door.

She reached out to relieve him of them. She wanted to be all cool and you’re-deluded-if-you-think-this-is-all-it-takes-to-get-back-in-my-good-graces. Longed to toss the lush bouquet on the coffee table to sit neglected until it moldered into dust.

Instead she buried her nose in it to take a deep sniff. Why could she never do the smart thing around this guy? She should not, not,
not
sorta love the damn flowers!

Smart
would be to say, “They’re lovely, thank you very much,” then add a firm “Now go away.” But when he looked at her with those green eyes shadowed with misery, she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She blew out a sigh. Because, so much for being nobody’s sucker. “I’ll find a vase.”

He trailed her into the kitchen and watched her dig one out of the cupboard, fill it with water, empty a little packet of preservatives into it and snip and arrange the flowers.

“Where’s Austin?” he asked, glancing around him as if expecting the boy to suddenly materialize.

She looked at him over the flowers. “He’s at an overnighter for Oliver Kidd’s birthday party.”

It was silent for a few moments as she tweaked the arrangement. Then he suddenly said in a low voice, “I really am sorry about last night. I can be an ass sometimes—but I’m not usually
that
big an ass.”

She glanced up at him. “Yeah? So how did I get so lucky?”

For a moment he leaned against the counter, rubbing a thumb between his brows and merely looking at her, and she thought his response would be to ignore the question. Then he dropped his hand to his side and looked her in the eye.

“For the first time since I walked out of Austin’s life, it hit home just how much I threw away.” Blowing out a weary breath, he walked over to her little drop-leaf table and collapsed onto one of the chairs.

She set the vase of flowers aside and joined him, taking the seat across the table. “You want some coffee?”

“No. Thanks. I didn’t sleep for shit last night. I’d rather not screw up any chance of getting some tonight. Tossing and turning all night sucks.” He stared down at his hands, fingers splayed against the warm-golden oak of her kitchen table.

Then he raised his gaze to meet hers. “The last time I saw him, back when he was a baby, he was this cranky, crying,
leaky
little stranger that I had no idea how to take care of.”

“Austin?” she asked, then made a face and an erasing gesture. Because who else would he be talking about?

But Jake didn’t seem to notice. “I was supposed to fall in love with him,” he said in a low voice. “That’s what everyone told me—that the minute they put your kid in your arms, you’ll fall in love.” He looked at her with haunted eyes. “So why didn’t I? Why did I look at him, and the only thing I could think was that he looks sorta simian? And where the hell did he get those lungs? He exercised the hell out of those every time I came near. Kathy could calm him down. Emmett could, too. But when I had to hold him, he always screamed. Jesus.”

He ground the heel of his hand into his forehead before pulling it back and staring at it as if he’d never seen a hand before. He lowered it to the table, his fingertips pressing so hard against the surface it drove all the color from his nails. “He screamed and screamed, and he was always wet and hot and stickier than a gummi bear. And all I felt was stark terror. I just wanted to get as far away from the responsibility of him as I could.” Self-loathing made itself at home in his voice.

“I knew damn well I was unnatural,” he said flatly. “No real father feels that way. So when Emmett said I should take that scholarship after all, that he and Kathy would take care of Austin—” He shook his head. “Man. I jumped all over it.”

She stared at the palpable anguish in his face and swallowed a sigh.
Dammit.
Half of her appreciated—no, flat-out admired—his raw honesty. She loved learning that he hadn’t taken his neglect of Austin lightly. It boded well for his future relationship with his son, and she genuinely wished a healthy relationship with this man for the boy she loved.

But the Jenny who was desperately scrambling to hold herself aloof in order to keep from feeling more for Jake than was wise—

Well.

She
almost wished he would demonstrate some of the careless, selfish and arrogant rat-bastard father qualities she had thought defined him before they’d actually met.

She could never in this lifetime fall in love with that man.

Not that she was falling in love now!

But her heart hurt to see his self-flagellation. It was right under her nose, however—this naked grief that was so much deeper than anything she’d glimpsed last night—and she felt...something.

Something that bristled with a lot more affection than simple lust.

To refute it, she demanded in a level voice, “But you never came back.”

“No. I never did.” He shook his head, and the sudden bark of laughter that exploded from his throat was bitter as wormwood. “I told myself—no, hell,
promised
myself—that I would. As soon as I accomplished this or achieved that. I made dates so that I’d
have
to go back.”

He looked her in the eye. “But as you know, I broke every one.

“Fuck.”
He pushed his chair back from the table with a force that made the legs screech against the fake terrazzo tiles of her kitchen floor. Thrusting a hand through his hair, he stared down at her. “So to answer your question—if you even remember what that was—I heard Austin call me Dad last night, I heard you call him Austin Jacob, when I didn’t even know that was his middle name, and everything I managed to screw up blew up in my face. But instead of owning up to it like a man, I turned it around on you. And I’m sorry.”

He about-faced and strode for the back door.

Let him go, let him go, let him go,
she urged herself. She watched him twist the knob and fling open the door to the mudroom.

Watched him take the couple of long-legged strides that brought him to the exterior door.

Hugged herself as he twisted that doorknob, as well.
Let him. Go.

Only to discover she couldn’t.

“What
I
said last night still stands,” she said to his back and watched him freeze with the knob gripped in one fist. “Do I wish you had handled your reaction differently—that you hadn’t been such a jerk? Absolutely. But I still believe that back then you were an overwhelmed eighteen-year-old.”

“That excuse is almost as shopworn as the always popular you’re-doing-the-best-thing-for-Austin one I’ve spent the past thirteen years selling myself on.”

“Maybe so. Yet they’re both still true. Did you know that babies react to stress in other people?”

He looked at her over his shoulder. “What?”

“Sounds to me like Austin felt your tension and reacted by screaming his head off. Didn’t Kathy or Emmett ever assure you of that?”

He slowly turned. “No.”

“I’m surprised. They were parents—they must have known.” A disloyal thought crept into her head that maybe they had known but liked the idea of getting Austin all to themselves for a while. She shoved it aside, however, for the mere suspicion made her feel like a traitor to two people who had been nothing but wonderful to her. And even if they had unconsciously sabotaged Jake, she doubted that their objective would have been for him to disappear entirely from his son’s life. “Or maybe they didn’t—we’ll never know. Frankly, Jake, it’s time to put the past behind you. What you do with the opportunity you have right now is what counts.”

He came over to where she stood. Bent and pressed a soft kiss on her lips and straightened. “Thank you. You really are one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

She made a rude noise. “No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you really are.” He smiled at her.

It was ridiculous to be insulted; he clearly meant it as a compliment. But she was so tired of the Goody Two-shoes label that had been slapped on her fairly early in her residence here. In that respect, at least, she understood Jake’s beef with Razor Bay. Small towns had a way of pigeonholing people sometimes.

Not that she hadn’t contributed to carving out a cubby for them to stick her in. She’d always felt this town had saved her when she’d needed it most, and she’d done her best to pay it back wherever she could.

But right this moment...?

Well, maybe she was tired of playing it safe all the time.

Stepping up to him, she slapped her hands to his chest. He stilled beneath her touch as she slid them up over his shoulders, then brought them in to curl around the back of his neck. “Get this through your head,” she said with soft-voiced firmness. “I am no damn Pollyanna.”

And rising onto her toes, she slid her fingers up to grasp the back of his head, yanked it down to hers and kissed him.