Silver and Spice (13 page)

This was her chance to change her image. Confidently, she delivered a throaty, sexy rendition of a bawdy old Bessie Smith song.

“Keep on truckin’, Mama. Trucking all the whole day long…”

Anne threw one hip west, caught in Jake’s palm.

“She’s the best truck driver this side of town…”

She threw the other hip east, crashing again into Jake’s opposite palm before she could accomplish the bump-and-grind action she had in mind. She delivered the rest of the song in a breathy roar.

“…’Cause she does her truckin’ from the hips on down. Keep on truckin’, Mama, truckin’ all your cares away…”

They definitely liked the chorus. Anne was envisioning a singing career, her cheek molded to Jake’s shirt. Bessie Smith hadn’t been the only one who could belt out a song. Her limp arm extended, Anne accepted pumping handshake after handshake, as Jake moved with her toward the front door. He had one arm tucked under her knees and the other around her waist. Being carried certainly beat walking.

Carla was trailing after them. “Dammit, I’ll
kill
him for making her sing. If she doesn’t come back here after this because of Reed, he’s going to have that divorce he’s been joshing me about all these years. Jake, you know he was just trying to make sure she wasn’t nervous with a bunch of strangers, that she could be comfortable with this—”

“It’s all right,” Jake assured Carla.

From about a million miles away, Anne was still humming, tapping out a tune on the second button of Jake’s shirt.

“I’m still going to kill him,” Carla reiterated with relish.

Who cared? Who really cared? Murder was on the front page of every newspaper. Jake’s buttons never rated headlines. Because no one knew, Anne thought sleepily. No one had any idea about the sexy hair on his chest. “Thank you for a wonderful evening, Carla,” Anne sang out politely.

“You want an aspirin for her?” Carla asked Jake. “I’ve got black coffee on the stove…”

“Much better than purple coffee,” Anne said happily.

Neither Carla nor Jake seemed to be paying her any particular attention. “It’s my fault,” Carla said. “Everyone who comes in knows the punch is spiked. I should have warned Anne.”

“Carla, there isn’t a bit of long-term harm done.” Over Anne’s limp body, Jake and their hostess exchanged a last peck on the cheek. Which struck Anne as terribly funny.

Giggling, she noticed vaguely that the warm, crowded room suddenly turned into a black chill night. Jake’s chest drew her like a magnet. She tried to mold herself around that warmth like clay. “Want to make love?” she whispered up to him seductively.

“First, I’d like to negotiate these stairs,” he whispered back. “Either you stop squirming or you’re going over my shoulder fireman-style.”

An idle threat if she’d ever heard one. “I had a wonderful time. I love your friends, Jake. I love Idaho. I love this night. I love…”

“Yes?”

Her finger poked his chest. “You never thought I’d sing in front of a bunch of people, did you? Old inhibited, proper Anne. Couldn’t strip in front of that hot tub to save my life. I knew what you were thinking—old, boring Anne. I keep waiting for you to be bored…”

“I have never—” breathing heavily, he adjusted her 110 pounds in his arms at the bottom of the steps
“
—
never
been bored with you, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead.

“You
do
want to make love,” she whispered hoarsely, brimming with satisfaction.

“I just thought I’d take a little on account. Something tells me you’ll be breathing fire in the morning.”

“Like a dragon, Jake?”

“A dragoness.”

That made more sense. She fell asleep.

Anne woke up to a pair of bright gray eyes leaning over her. Too-bright eyes, and an offensively cheerful smile. She dragged her comforter back over her head, and settled her five-hundred-pound head back into the pillow.

“Now, Anne. I have a nice
plain
piece of toast here for you.”

“No, thank you.”

“One tiny glass of grapefruit juice, two brewer’s yeast tablets…”

“God. No, thank you.”

“All I want you to do is put a little something in your stomach. Then you can go back to sleep while I drive.”

Going to sleep sounded good; grapefruit juice did not. She seemed to be waking up far too fast. Vague, distorted memories from the night before were trying to rush at her. “Did I…?” She spoke directly to the comforter. “Jake, if I did anything to embarrass you in front of your friends…”

“You don’t remember?”

She took a breath.
That
was a mistake. A knife sliced directly into her temples. “I’m sorry. Really sorry,” she said unhappily. “Jake, it tasted like fruit juice, and there were so many people that it was hot in there. By the time I realized… Carla told me it was homemade, but I thought she meant…”

“Excuses, excuses.” Jake mercilessly tugged the comforter away from her face. “
There’s
my big drinker,” he said affectionately, a grin just dying to be let out of the corner of his mouth. “When I tell the lady to watch the punch bowl, she
certainly
watches the punch bowl.” He took advantage of her parted lips to nudge a sliver of toast inside. “I really think you should be all upset about this, honey. I mean, it’s a terrible habit you’ve built up. You’ve had too much to drink exactly once in thirty-one years.” His forefinger tapped her nose. “It’s just a real shame you don’t remember last night, since you had such a good time. You kept most of your clothes on, honestly, you did.”

He sauntered up to the driver’s seat and started the engine. Anne stared after him. As the engine vibrated to life, she rather hastily realized she had a glass of grapefruit juice in her hand, trying not to spill.

She downed it, grimaced and edged out of the bed. It was no small punishment for the night before, trying to get dressed while Jake drove down Killer Road. They were going to Coeur d’Alene; she applauded herself for remembering that…

Jake was humming a vaguely familiar tune when she made her way up to the passenger seat, planning to sit in total silence. The song got to her after a time, though. It was the kind of tune that could drive her crazy trying to remember a title she thought she knew. “What is it?” she asked finally.

“The one you sang last night.” He started humming again.

Anne drew an imaginary hat down around her ears and curled up in the seat, her knees tucked up to her chin. The words to the song came to her. All of them. Particularly the chorus.

“And did you belt it out,” Jake said admiringly.

“One might be tempted to suggest that you’ve already gotten your licks in,” Anne said politely.

“Reed was ready to divorce Carla for you… Reed and the rest of the men there. You know, the guys whose mining stories you were sweet enough to listen to for more than two hours. The women, now, they can appreciate anyone who lets off a little tension from time to
time. It’s not the easiest life, being married to a miner. Now, if you’d stuck your nose in the air and looked down on them, you’d have had a little problem going back, but as it is…” Jake flashed her a crooked smile. “You’re invited for the next three thousand Thursdays.”

Her conscience knew very well she should be perfectly miserable, mortified and ashamed of herself. Jake, annoyingly, was making the incident seem unimportant. Despite her reluctance, a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips—never mind her aching head, or a few choice lingering embarrassing memories from the night before. She leaned back, her hair falling in a loose curtain around her shoulders. She’d had no energy to put up the silky tresses, and though she’d managed to tuck a trim cranberry blouse into a gray flannel skirt, she hadn’t managed shoes yet. All of which was beginning to add up to irrefutable evidence that she was changing radically.

It was Jake’s fault. She
knew
when she’d committed a federal crime in her own eyes. It was
his
eyes that jumbled everything up. Outside the window, fog was settling on the highway, swirling in light gray wisps around the cars. In spite of herself, that small smile kept on coming.

Jake, catching her smile, inadvertently started chuckling. A few moments later, so did Anne. He brought out the worst, the absolute worst, in her…but there was no denying Jake was the only man on earth she didn’t mind seeing her in that condition.

“Your hips were trying to defy gravity when you really got into the rhythm of the song,” Jake told her.

“Isn’t the weather nice?”

“And if there’s anything else you don’t remember about the evening, I do believe Benjy took a few snapshots… I could get a print or two for you, honey. Maybe blow it up?”

“It’s going to be colder than a stone tonight,” she said flatly.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” he murmured.

“Pardon?”

“I said I have a definite cure for your headache, Anne. Just stay strapped in the seat belt for a few more minutes.”

Shopping for clothes was his cure for a headache. For miles, the highway out of Wallace held little more than a rugged turnoff for a small mining town here and there, yet suddenly Anne had the sensation of going down, and just as suddenly clouds were put in their proper place. Above her. Not below.

Still, the flash of a long, low blue lake to the left startled her. “Coeur d’Alene Lake,” Jake told her, “but we’ll get back to the water in a little bit, Anne. First, some civilization for a change.”

The city of Coeur d’Alene was a mixture of old and new. A bustling logging industry was centered at one end, and schools and homes and shopping centers nestled high over the lake at the other. Anne found herself staring at Jake as he pulled into a parking lot in front of a row of shops. He certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to let her know this kind of gracious living was even remotely close by. Yes, he’d mentioned that he stayed here, but she just assumed the lake meant more camping-out territory. Instead, the schools looked new, and the homes were attractively nestled in hillsides. Trees shaded the streets, and the lake was dotted with graceful sails. Feeling inexplicably lighthearted, Anne fell in step beside Jake as they walked toward the stores. “It’s a lovely town,” she commented.

“I told you you’d like it. It will be a wonderful place to raise children.” He qualified that statement immediately, “Illegitimate children.”

Her fingertips suddenly went cold. He hadn’t mentioned marriage for days, and now she was afraid he wouldn’t let go of the subject again. She stared in rapt fascination at a raw silk suit in the store window ahead of them. The thing’s strange stripes of muted orange and purple horrified her. “What do you think?” she asked Jake.

“About your having my children, on any terms you like?”

“I’d like to buy a pair of jeans, but there’s no need for you to go inside with me if you don’t want to,” she said firmly. “I promise you I won’t be long…”

She pushed through the revolving door of the next shop. Western wear was its theme. Jeans and cords were piled high on tables, surrounded by buxom mannequins in plaid or flannel shirts. Rapidly, Anne fingered through the nearest pile of cords, paying no attention to size. A shakiness seemed to have infiltrated her nervous system.
Don’t push it, Jake…

“Tell me you don’t want children,” Jake said determinedly from the doorway. Both saleswomen looked up, and so did another wandering customer. Anne flushed. Jake was standing with his hands loosely on his hips, shoulders flung back, staring directly at her as if no one else existed in the world. There was nothing for it but to cross the room to seize him and drag him back to the pile of jeans…granted that he was willing.

“I have never once told you that I wanted children,” she clipped out in a furious whisper.

“But you do.”

Through a miracle of fate, she found the size eights. “Every woman who wants children doesn’t make a good mother, Jake. Some people probably think they’ll be perfectly wonderful, and other women turn out—”

“Like your mother,” Jake said flatly. He held up a pair of lobster-red jeans. Anne shook her head with exasperation, but Jake went on, “So that’s what scares you. Honey, you couldn’t be any less like her. How long have you been fretting about that one? You’ll be an outstanding mother, Anne. You’ll be there whenever your kids need you, with a cool head and a warm heart, willing to listen, involved and interested…”

She felt something catch in her throat. “I’ve never had any experience with little ones.” He lifted up a pair of turquoise jeans. Anne took his busy hands out of the clothes pile and put them back on his hips, trying to ignore the curious stares they were getting from other people in the store.

“What does experience have to do with anything? I figure by the fiftieth time, if only by chance, you’ll get the diapers on straight. Does that kind of thing really matter, anyway? I’ve never heard that psychologists with Ph.Ds in child development raise the happiest children.”

Anne gathered up a pair of soft gold cords, then brown ones. Jake reached the shirt racks before she did. “Well?” he demanded.

She draped two shirts over her growing pile, matching flannel plaids to blend with the jeans. “I don’t know why we’re talking about this.”

“Because we have to talk about things that scare you,” Jake said reasonably.

Only he wasn’t looking reasonable. He had that wolfish look again, the sheer male determination stamped in the stark silver of his eyes. Anne was well aware that he really
didn’t
care if anyone else was in the store. Or the universe. “Jake, I’m going to try these things on,” she said uncomfortably. “I won’t be long—”

“I love you, Anne. Would you kindly stop panicking for two and a half seconds?”

One saleswoman put her elbows on the counter and leaned forward to listen, clearly enthralled. She looked from Jake to Anne, evidently expecting a comeback the way she would expect the return of a Ping-Pong ball.

Color stalked up Anne’s cheeks. “I love you, too,” she whispered back to Jake. “That has nothing to do with anything!”

She pivoted in search of the dressing room, and escaped promptly behind a coarse white drapery. In seconds, she had stripped off her gray wool skirt and cranberry blouse. Mirrors reflected her oyster satin camisole on three sides; she fumbled for the gold cords and started pulling them on. Before she had them snapped at the waist, the drapes parted, and Jake let himself inside, ignoring her startled gasp.

“Did you mean it?”

“Jake, you’re going to get us kicked out of this store!”

“Nonsense, there’s almost no one else out there. The saleswomen understood. Did you mean it?”

“Did I mean what?” She snatched up a camel and brown flannel shirt and pulled it on, ten thumbs struggling with the pearl buttons.

“That you love me?”

Her hair got caught in everything, the hair that she had neglected to coil up sensibly that morning. “Conflicting lifestyles and potential divorce are the issues, Jake, and you know it. Not
loving.
You know I’ve always loved you—”

“No.” Jake turned suddenly quiet, ominously quiet, although he shoved aside her hands, efficiently brushed back her hair and dealt with the buttons himself. “You haven’t always loved me. You accused me of acting only on sexual vibrations, but that, sweetheart, was a description of
you.
It was fun in the beginning, Anne. I enjoyed playing the aggressor who came back to storm the fortress and win the lady again—but it was you who let the physical chemistry block out a thousand other feelings…feelings that mattered. I waited a long time for you to see more, for you to see the man I am. I had a role in your life, but only as lover, Anne—because you didn’t want more.”

“That’s not true. You always took off—”

“And I always asked
you
to come with me.”

The shirt was a bit too snug. The jeans were a tad long. She stripped off both shirt and jeans, reaching for a pair of denim pants. She was shaken, and badly. He was her dark prince—she had given him that name, and it wasn’t pleasant to be accused of being insensitive to his feelings. Only he wasn’t accusing her of anything; his voice was gentle with understanding, and somehow that hurt more. “Jake, it isn’t that simple. A woman these days has her own life, her own work. Do you really think it would be easy for me to drop my life and take off on one safari after another?”

“You’ve got a good head for finance, Anne, but that doesn’t mean you’re limited to working in a bank. You could be a broker or a CPA. I’ve been telling you that I need some financial advice, but you haven’t helped me at all. You could at least
lift
your wings—even if you don’t want to spread them.” The last seemed to come out in a mild roar; then Jake changed subjects so smoothly she almost missed the transition. “This outfit looks better. The first blouse pulled under your arms. This one—”

“You don’t
really
need my help,” she blurted out.

“The hell I don’t.”

“You know
perfectly well
you made up the whole thing about wanting a trust.”

“I don’t care what I made up. I need your help.”

She drew in the first deep breath she’d taken in several minutes. Jake’s critical eye was fastened on the mirror, taking in the pink and tan flannel molded softly over her breasts. The tan
cords fit like an Italian kid glove. Unobtrusively, she stole a glance at her rear end in the mirror, and was not overly thrilled at what she saw. “These pants are too tight,” she said swiftly.

“They are not.”

“Yes, they are.”

“Bend over.”

Enough was very close to enough. She glared at him.

“Test them out,” he said patiently. “Bend over—see what happens.”

Nothing remarkable happened. Jake gave a short, boring lecture on the fit of jeans. Anne cut him off in midsentence. “Look. You must know that if I ever thought you
really
needed me, Jake, I would be there. It’s not—”