Silver and Spice (4 page)

Jake, by contrast, was wearing a red flannel shirt and navy cords. He was a disgrace, a total disgrace. And those damn sexy eyes of his wouldn’t leave her alone for a minute.

She set down her wineglass and picked up a warm roll from the basket. “I returned your gift on my lunch hour,” she lied, knowing full well he was waiting for her to comment on the camisole.

“Did you, now?”

“I think you had in mind a lady of a little more…formidable stature.”

“Actually, I’m well aware of every dimension of the lady I bought that for.”

“Is she nice?”

“When I was in high school,” Jake drawled, “we used to make a little distinction between nice girls and good girls. Good girls went home and went to bed. Nice girls went to bed, and then got up and went home and went to bed.” He paused. “At times she can be very nice.”

Sooner or later, Anne figured, they would have to stop making inane conversation. The problem was, they always had inane conversation. Another problem was the way Jake was perfectly comfortable in a red flannel shirt when every other man in the place wore a suit. Still other problems were the way his hair had been roughly brushed back from his forehead and the bold male vibrations he sent across the table.
You still want him,
whispered a little voice in her head.

The waiter served a steak to Jake, which he devoured immediately, and veal parmigiana to Anne, which she pushed around the plate.

“Just try a bite,” Jake coaxed. “Or if you want, we can order something else.”

“No, thank you.”

“Why don’t you get it off your chest?”

“Why don’t I get
what
off my chest?”

The waiter suddenly dipped down from behind her to take her plate. A flush climbed up her cheeks like a glowing pink brush fire. The waiter didn’t even look up. Jake chuckled.

“The worst they can do is throw us out if you start shouting,” he said helpfully.

“I have never
shouted
in a public place in my life!”

“You should.” Jake leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table, his silvery eyes intent on hers. “Let’s hear it, Anne.”

Without her dinner to push around, she had nothing to do with her hands but clutch the coffee cup. “This has nothing to do with you and me
personally,
understand? We’re just talking about
you
now.” Distress was mirrored in her clear green eyes as she thought about something he’d said earlier. “Jake, how
could
you have gotten involved in something as fly-by-night as
silver mines
when you… Look. How deeply are you involved? No, I really don’t want to get embroiled in your personal affairs, but for god’s sake if you’re in over your head…”

“You’d help me?”

“Don’t make fun, Jake,” she warned in a low voice.

His silvery eyes settled on hers. “I wasn’t. And I never have. And if you’ve ever misunderstood that—”

She waved that aside with a motion of her fingers. Irrelevant. “The last I knew, you were tearing up your inheritance and tossing it to the four winds, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that you seem to have actually accumulated something to put away, and I really don’t want to see you just gamble it away, risk it all again…”

“Exactly why I need your help,” Jake agreed, claiming her frustrated little half-fist on the table. Slowly, he smoothed out her fingers, his thumb rubbing gently up and down her soft palm
to her wrist. “Laird must have mentioned that I’m willing to give you full power of attorney. You can do whatever you want with everything I have. Lock all the money up in trusts so tight that I can’t get my hands on it. You’re going to love the Silver Valley in Idaho,” he promised her.

She stiffened. “I am
not
going with you.” Her hand shot away from his.

He didn’t seem to notice. He was busy removing the spotless white napkin from her lap and standing up. “We might as well go if you’re not even going to drink your coffee.”

“I am
not
going to become involved in your personal affairs, Jake. Nor do I want your power of attorney. Ever.”

“Now let’s not say things we might have to take back,” he said mildly. “And I do promise, Anne, that you’re going with me.”

Why try to talk to a red flannel brick wall? Gritting her teeth, Anne led the way out of the restaurant and tried to force her blood pressure back down. Standing on the lamp-lit street, she shivered suddenly in the cold night air. A gray mist was climbing around the lampposts in whimsical little clouds. She buttoned her velvet jacket very slowly while Jake waited with an elusive half-smile.

“Ready for me to take you home and seduce you?” he asked casually.

“No.”

She slipped into the car and waited for Jake to come around to his side. While the engine was warming, he leaned back for a moment and just stared at Anne. She felt his eyes sweep over her fine-boned profile, taking in the slight flush in her cheeks, the way her lashes fluttered away from him when she felt that claim of possession. She knew he’d meant what he said. A polite kiss at the door was not what he had in mind. She stared straight ahead. “I think you should see something of your grandfather. You’ve been in town more than a day already, and Gil—”

Jake chuckled and backed out of the parking space. “The lady will just build up anxiety by waiting, but we’ll let her have her way,” he told the sky. “I called Gramps earlier this afternoon to let him know we’d be there,” he told Anne.

She leaned back in the seat and ignored him. Did she have a choice? They drove in silence for a few minutes, Jake’s car lapping up the freeway. “Anne?” he said finally. “The financial bit was a smoke screen. I think you know that.”

“Pardon?”

“A smoke screen. An excuse.” Jake flicked a glance at the rearview mirror, changed lanes and pulled over to the shoulder of the expressway—to Anne’s total horror. Cars whizzed past, headlights blinding them. She glanced out the rear window in search of approaching police cars, but Jake firmly turned her head until she was eye to eye with him. The smooth laziness was gone from his tone; his tenor was rough and sharp. “I’ve never wanted anyone intruding in my personal affairs, financial or otherwise, except you, Anne, but that isn’t the point. Giving you an excuse to come with me was the point. If you need it, take it,” he said harshly when she parted her lips to protest. “I’ll invent just as many excuses as you need. All I want is two weeks with you, Anne. Two weeks to convince you to marry me. And I’m going to have those two weeks.” He paused. “We’re not a matched set. If you think I don’t know it, you’re crazy. Unfortunately, though, I just can’t go on anymore without you, Anne. I’ve tried working myself half to death and not sleeping, and I’ve tried other women, but nothing works, and I’m damned tired of trying to make it without you. That’s the bottom line. And you’ve got the same problem, now, haven’t you?”

Anne just looked at him. Light and then shadow from the passing cars intermittently flashed across his face. Something tight and hard seemed to have settled in her throat. Jake had
never talked that way; he’d always been an easy, slow, sensual lover, impulsive in a way she found irresistible.

Marry him?
It was finally sinking in that he actually meant it. Oddly, the thought hurt her, deep inside. She’d fallen in love with the wolf who nipped at her hooks and eyes in the middle of a formal party, with the devil who dared to send an outrageous camisole to her at her sedate office. At thirty-one, though, she couldn’t keep on playing. She needed roots, and Jake couldn’t even define the word. Romance was a parachute jump where all the thrill was in midair, but Anne knew she couldn’t live her life without something to hold on to. She’d spent a whole childhood falling.

“Jake, it’s no good,” she said desperately.

“We’re going to have to try.” Jake touched her cheek gently, then settled back and turned his attention to the road again, easing the car back onto the expressway.

“All this time, you never said anything—”

“All this time,” he echoed, “I gave you every chance to find someone who would fit that mold you have in mind for a husband, Anne. Security, white picket fence, gray flannel suit—the whole bit. You’ve failed, honey. And I’m all through gnashing my teeth and worrying about who the hell you might be letting your hair down for, that he’d be the total ass I think you have in mind.”

“I’m certainly glad you appreciate my taste in men,” Anne remarked.

Jake shot her an amused glance. “Honey, a man who makes love to his wife two-point-three times a week couldn’t keep you happy by a long shot. It isn’t my fault you’ve built up these terrible misconceptions of what’s important in your life. You forget I’ve been there when the lights were off.”

Far
too often, Anne thought darkly.

Jake pulled into the long, shadowed drive of his grandfather’s house. A three-story stone mansion sat at the end of the drive. Warm lamps lit an impeccably landscaped lawn. Jake stopped the car, switched off the ignition and turned to Anne, who was ostentatiously studying the scene outside. “If I didn’t think you were desperately in need of a little sustenance, Anne, I’d be awfully inclined to offer you a little tangible proof…”

She got out of the car, slammed the door and stalked deliberately toward the house.

Gil Rivard was a perfect gentleman, certainly nothing like his grandson. He offered Anne a brisk, affectionate hug and a hand to hold on to as he led her through the hall to the living room. Unconsciously, she found herself smiling, looking with affection at the white-haired man with the gentle gray eyes who always made it so very clear he was glad to see her. “So our wanderer’s turned up again like the proverbial bad penny, Anne. What kind of trouble has he been in this time?”

“Don’t feed her lines, Gramps. She’s sassy enough. You two want brandy?”

“Please,” Anne murmured. Her need for Dutch courage must have shown in her voice, because Jake chuckled as he left the room. She and Gil exchanged glances.

“Your grandson…” she began gravely, and watched Gil’s fine network of crow’s-feet crinkle up when he laughed.

“I’m not responsible for his behavior, Anne,” Gil told her.

“Someone
failed to take him into the woodshed when he was still a child.”

Gil shook his head. “You can’t claim he’s spoiled. Jake’s never asked for or expected anything from anyone in his life.”

“So every once in a while he has a good point or two.” She settled back in the wicker peacock chair that was her favorite spot in the room. Jake returned with a tray of drinks and snacks, and she listened absently to the conversation between the two men.

The house was too monstrous for Gil to rattle around alone in; she often worried about him. This room, though, was where he seemed to do his real living. Once an octagonal porch, it had been closed in with jalousie windows; white wicker furniture and emerald-green curtains added touches of brightness. In summer, both sun and breezes wafted through the room; in winter, a small wood stove lent a wonderful coziness. Anne had spent hours there over the years, and her visits had had nothing to do with Jake. Gil had attended her high school graduation, sitting with her grandmother; Gil was the one she had talked to about her career goals when she was in college; Gil had invested faith and trust in her when she started her job at the bank. If anyone knew of her relationship with Jake, it was Gil, but no words had ever been spoken by either of them on the subject. Jake’s grandfather, in spite of the age difference, had always been a special friend to Anne, and now, she gradually relaxed in the familiar room. At least until she realized that she seemed to be devouring the plate of cheese and fruit Jake had placed next to her. And the cup of tea. No brandy, after all.

His eyes met hers in the distance. The last thing you need is alcohol when you didn’t have a thing to eat at dinner, he telegraphed.

She smiled faintly, uncrossed her legs, strode over to the coffee table between the two men, poured herself a liberal glass of brandy, then returned to the curved wicker throne chair.

Seven steps seemed to be the safest distance. If she moved any closer to Jake, something went haywire in her nervous system, something disgracefully sexual that didn’t belong anywhere near his grandfather and emerald cushions and the lazy conversation about Gil’s antique sword collection. In his red flannel shirt and jeans, Jake looked distinctly feral. Undoubtedly a stranger would only have seen a normal-looking man with strong features and lazy humor in his silver-gray eyes, but Anne knew feral when she felt it. The man was about as trustworthy as a hungry lion let loose in a meat market; he was as unpredictable as a kite in a windstorm; he would
never
outgrow the need to take the road less traveled by…

Go with him, Anne,
her heart whispered.

She quickly censored the vagrant thought, picked up the last cracker with cheese and delicately nibbled. She was not pleased with Jake at the moment. Silver mining, the fool. So he’d finally accumulated a little money. And he would probably throw it away. Again.

Marriage to a man like Jake would mean steak one year and canned beans the next. Bleakly, Anne acknowledged to herself that beans weren’t the point; it was the up-and-down lifestyle that threw her. The thought of children being tossed from one place to the next; a house all decorated just in time to move again… She’d lived that kind of life as a child with her mother. She hadn’t stopped having nightmares until she was old enough to dictate her own lifestyle. Jake’s life was very, very exciting; Anne’s was boring. She
loved
boredom, and she apologized to no one for valuing roots and stability and lifelong friendships.

Jake’s eyes met hers again, and Anne rapidly took another sip of brandy.
Look, Buster. If I want a glass of brandy, I will certainly have one.

Your choice, Jake’s eyes warned her wickedly. I hate to have to tell you this, honey, but you’re not much of a drinker. And you do tend to become endearingly amorous when you drink on an empty stomach.

Her eyes darted to the windows, and she became intrigued by the ivy clinging to the window frames. Thoroughly irritated, she acknowledged that Jake knew too damn much about her. If she were meeting him now for the first time, she would certainly be smart enough to avoid him like the plague. The whole problem was that they’d known each other far, far too long.

Go with him, Anne,
her heart whispered once more.
Marriage—you know better.
But what if…what if this was her last chance to be with him? What if he really never did show up in her life again, if he never made love with her again? Always, it was Jake who stood between her and the imaginary mate in the gray flannel suit he made fun of so regularly. Something always seemed to go flat when she found herself close to a commitment to someone else, a hint of panic that made no sense when Anne was totally honest with herself about exactly what she needed and wanted in a relationship.

Setting down her brandy glass, she rose restlessly from the chair and wandered to the window, staring at the fluttering leaves of the tall old maple in the yard. The night was lonely, a black sky offering no stars, a silent, cold, colorless world. She shivered, and just then suddenly felt two warm arms wrap around her from behind. Ever so naturally, Jake tugged her against the secure strength of his chest. It must have been those two sips of brandy that made her snuggle back against him like a kitten. “I love Anne,” Jake remarked offhandedly to his grandfather.

She stiffened like a cat, and turned around.

Slowly, Gil stood up from the couch, an affectionate smile wreathing his features. “Then perhaps you won’t be such a fool as to take off without her this time,” he scolded his grandson, and added absently, “I always hoped that the two of you…”

Anne didn’t say much until the Morgan was zooming along the deserted country road. “You gave him every reason to expect great-grandchildren,” she accused Jake furiously. “I just don’t believe that you would involve him—”

“All I did was tell him I loved you.”

Jake’s voice was quiet and reasonable. From Anne’s point of view, fuel for a fire. A wisp of hair had escaped from her figure-eight bun. She blew it back. “You all but announced you were sleeping at my place!”

“Which I am.”

“Which you are
not.
”
 
She stared straight ahead, at black branches dipping so low they nearly touched the roof of the car. Of all the strange roads for Jake to have taken! “You’re going to
drive me home, and then you’re going back to spend a respectable night at your grandfather’s. I don’t know where you got this wild idea about marriage, but it’s going no further, Jake.
Nothing
is going any further.”

“You are absolutely right.” He eased on the brakes and pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road. Puzzled, she stared at his jagged profile in the darkness, a profile set in stone except for the silver eyes. “Get off the throne, princess. The imperial approach sure as hell isn’t going to work with me.”

“I beg your—”

“Out.”
He slammed the door on his side as he got out of the car. Wisely, Anne ordered her heart to simmer down and her body to stay put. Jake was angry. That certainly didn’t happen very often, and rarely with her, but every instinct informed her that she was safer exactly where she was. Her eyes followed Jake as he stalked around the front of the car. It was jet-black midnight outside, yet there was a liquid silver in his eyes that she could follow, and his lithe, smooth movements were those of an animal seeking prey. She would not be his prey.

Belligerently, she glared at him when he pulled her door open. “If you think I have any intention of talking to you when you’re not in a reasonable mood—”

“I’m inclined to shake you silly, but I intend to do that—or see anyone else lay a little finger on you—when hell freezes over. Now get out of the car.”

Well. As it happened, her legs were a little cramped. That was the problem with sports cars. Her sleek, elegant calves emerged, followed by the crimson dress from Saks and the pale gold jacket, and last the regally coiled champagne hair. Her eyes were pure emerald. “You think you’re very good at intimidation—”

“And you damn well have to be retaught honesty every time we’re together.” She had her chin stiffly in the air about the same time her toes were. Jake must have suddenly decided she wanted to sit on the hood of his Morgan. Anne was not going to be reduced to making a fuss. If he wanted to argue in the middle of absolutely nowhere, sitting on the hood of a car, on a tree-lined lane in a thick mist… She shivered when his arms suddenly closed on both sides of her hips, deliberately forcing her to face him. “Honesty, Anne? You remember it?” he snapped.

“You’re not angry—you’re scared. You think I don’t know you? I know you shave your legs on Sundays and you turn into a moody little minx right before a storm. I know
you,
Anne, just as I knew you three years ago, and three years before that, and another three years earlier, too, and back when you were a prim little virgin—”

“Jake.” He had never, that she could remember, hit below the belt. A flush climbed her cheeks. Jake’s thumb, curled under her chin, forcing her head up.

“Don’t you
Jake
me. You’re not shook up because I told Gramps I loved you but because you know that this round is for keeps. So put an end to it, Anne, if that’s what you really want to do. Say ‘Goodbye, Jake,’ as if you mean it.”

A most unreasonable thing to ask. Her heart was beating out triple time in dismay. Unwillingly, her eyes lifted to his, as vulnerable as a green leaf in the wind. “You want honesty, Jake?” she asked in a low voice. “We have
sex
between us. That isn’t love. You want more honesty? You never talked me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I wanted you. I want you now. I will always want you…the whole conjugation of the verb. Anything else between us…would never work.”

She hated Jake, had always hated Jake for making her say things she never wanted to say. His arms suddenly wrapped her up, hugging her close, as he would a child. “That’s what you think? That the only thing we ever had was sex?” She heard the note of shock in his voice.
Or was it hurt? Whatever the emotion, it disappeared almost instantly. “You’re joking, honey. When you were eighteen, you weren’t much more than a beanpole with huge green eyes, an orphan who’d been kicked around the block just a few too many times. I suppose you think I found you beautiful even then?”

“Yes.” In spite of herself, a small smile curled on her lips.

“You actually think I
wanted
you?”

“You couldn’t keep your hands off me,” she whispered.

“True.” He hesitated, his smile dying. “But dammit, Anne, you really don’t believe that sex was my only motivation…”

Her eyes half closed in sudden total weariness, her cheek snuggled against the soft red flannel of his shirt. He could tease all he wanted to; she knew the truth. So did he. And part of that truth was that just being held by him, as he was holding her now, evoked the most special kind of peace. “We make good lovers,” she murmured tentatively. “We would make a terribly unhappy married pair. I don’t know why you can’t leave the subject alone. Don’t you think we make good lovers?” Her fears and frustrations faded as she sank into the warmth and security his arms offered. A spark of Anne’s coaxing humor shone in her eyes, a desire to tease Jake away from his line of questioning. She didn’t want to hurt him.

Jake seemed willing to take her up on the change of subject, a devilish gleam in his eyes. “We make very good lovers,” he growled softly, his large hands framing her face. “Which is one very small reason why I want an arrangement for life.”

“I’d rather take cyanide now. It would be much less painful in the long run.”

A chuckle rumbled in his throat. “You’re so convinced we have a problem with different lifestyles?”

“I know we do.”

“That we don’t share a single value that matters?”

“We don’t.”

“But how else are we going to get children for you, Anne? Who else would take you on but me?”

“Do you want a list of the offers I’ve had?” she demanded. But she was suddenly not feeling quite so lighthearted. Her perch on the car turned precarious when Jake leaned forward and buried his lips in her neck. The tickle of his breath made her shiver restlessly, like the leaves trembling in the night’s whispering wind. She tried to restrain his arms, but didn’t have any effect.

“So you’ve had offers,” he murmured. “But you’ve failed to make a commitment to a man in a gray flannel suit, Anne. You’ve run out of time. And I’m tired of talking.”

Obviously. Now he was into necking on deserted roads like two teenagers with no place to go. He slid his hands inside her jacket and around to the supple slope of her spine. Her troubled jade eyes met his silver ones as his came closer, suddenly holding no more humor than her own. “Jake, I’m not going to marry you,” she whispered desperately.

“We’re not going to talk any more about marriage,” he agreed. “Just violets, Anne. You smell exactly like violets…”

Anne was unwilling to discuss violets. She was unwilling to sit there on top of a car in the middle of nowhere on a night turned cold. His lips coaxed, trailing sweet, persuasive kisses along the line of her stubborn jaw, up to the furrowed frown on her forehead, down over her unhappy eyes. His mouth settled finally on the most difficult obstacle, her two lips pressed firmly together, at the same time that his hands were staging a subtle guerrilla war on her back.