This Love Will Go On (7 page)

But now, sitting beside Doug, letting him hold her hand, her thoughts were filled Jade and that night she’d sat next to him in a dark theater and had been so aware of him she could hardly breathe.  Throughout the movie, and even later in the pizza parlor when Doug joked with the waitress, Raine seemed caught in limbo, suspended between two worlds, the real one where Doug's grin shone at her, and the fantasy world inside her head where Jade commanded her every thought.  Was Jade out with someone tonight?  Would he kiss his date at the end of the evening, perhaps invite her to come home with him?  The thought made Raine’s stomach churn.

She got through the evening without, she hoped, betraying herself too much. But when Doug pulled up in front of Julia's house and put the car in neutral, he turned to her and said, “Happy New Year, Raine,” and pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She could no longer pretend. She stiffened immediately and pushed herself away.

He dropped his hands from her shoulders at once. "Has this thing with your sister turned you off men?”   Doug was friendly, and people talked to him.  He knew most of the gossip in each of the towns he visited on his route.

“No,” she said. “It’s just that…”

“There's someone else,” he finished the thought.  That was not what she was going to say. But it was the truth, she thought ruefully.

“I…just don't want to get too serious right now.”

“Hey,” he said, lifting his hands in a palms up gesture, “neither do I.”  He grasped the steering wheel and looked out into the street. Snow began to fall, a fine light snow that filled the air like white mist, making Julia's house and the rest of the town look like a setting out of a Currier and Ives.  “I'll see you next week, okay?”

“Fine,” she said, fumbling for the door.

“And Raine.”

Tensing, she turned back. “Yes?”

He perused her strained face slowly, the expression in his eyes unreadable.  “If you can manage it, use more paper next week, will you?  Sales have been falling off.”

Her laugh was instantaneous and relieved.  “Now I see.  This date was just a way to drum up more business.  Well, I’ll do the best I can, Doug.”

When he came in a week later, she asked him to be her escort at Marc and Sandy's wedding. He grinned and said he'd enjoy eating wedding cake with her, even if it was someone else’s.

Chapter 5

“Daddy, can we go home now?”  Jade looked down at his small son and smiled. Tate was dressed in a gray tuxedo with a pearl silk cummerbund that was the exact duplicate of the one he wore.  “Not quite yet, son. We have to eat some wedding cake.”

“Is it chocolate?” Tate asked hopefully.

Jade shook his head.  “We're on short rations this afternoon, buddy.  It's white cake.”

Tate shifted his feet and looked out over the crowd. He's already learned to hide disappointment, Jade thought wearily, and silently cursed himself for marrying a woman who had taught his son the meaning of abandonment and loneliness at such an early age. Tate fought it valiantly, but Michele's rejection colored every facet of the boy's life, Jade knew. He was his old self only after a day spent with Raine.

He'd agreed to Julia's persuasion and allowed them to set up a visiting schedule with Tate. He wasn't quite sure why he had given in so readily. Maybe because he knew she spoke the truth, that Tate did need to know there were women around him who cared for him. Jade hadn't been enthralled with the idea at first, giving Tate over to Raine and Julia every Saturday, but when Tate came home, so obviously happy and anxious to share with Jade the details of his exciting day, Jade knew he couldn't rescind his decision. The die was cast.

He'd thought Sandy would be a good influence on Tate, too. But for some reason Tate was wary of Sandy, even though she tried very hard to understand the boy.  She'd insisted that Tate be included in the wedding party so he'd feel a part of things, and even in the hubbub of today, she'd spared a moment to speak to Tate and tease him out of his stage fright.  In her radiant happiness, Sandy spilled affection over everyone.  Marc accepted her love with a foolish grin on his face.  Jade's lips moved in a cynical smile. He only hoped Marc had better luck with marriage than he’d had.

Jade ran a finger around under the tight collar. What a day.  The wedding took place at a small country church, but after a picture taking session that had Jade mentally crawling the wall, the wedding party drove back into Verylon. The reception was at the Legion Hall, a barn of a building roughly the size of a small airplane hangar with the same ambience. Someone had tried to decorate it and had almost been defeated by the task. They solved the problem by tying pink and white crepe paper streamers to the backs of the .chairs and suspending a huge pair of paper, accordion-pleated doves from the ceiling. Above the heads of the guests, the doves moved lazily in the heated air, their plump breasts bumping in inanimate affection. In the corner of the room a group of musicians played romantic songs. The whole atmosphere clawed at Jade's nerves.  He wanted nothing more than to go home, pull the tie from his throat, get out of the idiotic rented monkey suit and stop pretending he was happy to be at his brother’s wedding celebration.

The room was filled with the scent of roses, perfume and coffee brewing, yet somehow out of that mixture of aromas, he caught the whiff of a delicate scent he had never forgotten.

“How are you holding up, Tate?”

It was Raine, just as he knew it would be, slender and lovely in a blue silk dress he couldn't remember seeing her wear before, squatting down in front of Tate, reaching out to straighten the small tie that didn't want to stay level. Behind her stood a man, a dark-haired man he didn't know. The man smiled down at Tate. “Hi, tiger. You knocked 'em dead in the church this afternoon. I've never seen anyone carry a ring pillow with such style.” Tate smiled up at the man, obviously familiar with his teasing. As the guy smiled back at the boy, his hand dropped to Raine's shoulder in a gesture of possession.

Involuntarily, Jade's hands clenched at his sides.

“It was okay,” Tate said. To Raine, he said wistfully “Have you had cake?”

Raine smiled. “Hey, listen, you're the privileged character. You're in the wedding party.  I won't get mine until you have yours.”

Tate stared back at her with Michele's eyes. “Why can't I have mine?”

“You have to wait until everyone has some punch and says hello to your uncle and your new aunt.”  She poked the center of his pearl cummerbund with a delicate, pink fingernail. “Are you hungry? Maybe I can steal some mints and nuts for you off the punch bowl table.”

“He isn't hungry,” Jade said softly, staring down at her head, taking in the silky perfection of her golden brown hair as it lay in shining waves halfway down her back.  “He wants to go home.  And he isn’t the only one.”

Raine straightened and the action drew his eyes down the length of her slender figure. The blue silky thing clung in all the right places. Was she going all out, dressing up for that clown she was with?

“You haven't met Doug Martin, have you, Jade?” 

Her voice sounded different when she said Jade’s name. Did she hate him for what happened that night? She had a right to.  He'd had too damn much to drink.  He'd stopped going to Harry's after that.  “Doug, Jade Kincaid.  Tate's father.”

Doug Martin smiled a broad smile that irritated the hell out of Jade and stuck out his hand.  “Glad to meet you. I've enjoyed getting to know your boy.”

Tate had told him Aunt Raine's “friend” had taken them both to a movie in the afternoon last weekend.   Jade hadn't liked it then, and he didn't like it now. He took the man's hand, said “Martin,” and nodded coolly.

Raine stepped close to Jade and said in an undertone, “Doug and I can amuse Tate for a minute if he's getting bored.”

He didn't need a strange man entertaining his son. “He's all right.”

Tate, sensitive to every nuance in his father's voice, glanced at him in surprise. He hadn't missed what Raine said.  “Why can't I go with Aunt Raine, Daddy?”

Jade gave Tate a bland, mocking look.  “I might get frightened, standing here all by myself.”

Raine's eyes flashed over him and the normally guarded expression dropped away for an instant, revealing a raw emotion.  Before he could decide what it was, it vanished.  He stared at her, wondering what it was she had felt so strongly it had made her eyes go molten silver. With those silvery eyes and that hair streaked with gold, she was easily the most attractive woman in the room.

Raine was coolly polite as she said, “Natalie Forsyth asked about you a moment ago.”

He had gone into the bank the day after that episode with Raine, and Natalie had smiled at him with such obvious appreciation and suggested casually that they spend New Year's Eve together.  He'd agreed…and cursed himself later for it. Natalie had been pleasant enough, but he simply wasn't interested in her. He'd almost forgotten about that one night out, until now. Obviously, the Verylon grapevine was in good working order. He should have guessed he was at the top of the interest list. But Raine scrupulously avoided gossip, he knew that. Both she and Julia tried as much as possible to squelch rumors. Then why this veiled reference to Natalie?

Unless, holy hell.  Was she still nursing a remnant of that adolescent crush she'd developed on him when he first married Michele? She couldn't be. He'd done everything he could to crush it, even making her believe he'd have loveless sex with her. He didn't want her damned devotion. Love was a cruel joke. Maybe it worked for other people but it didn't work for him.

“If it’s all right with you,” Raine's frosty tone brought him back reality.  “I’m going to take Tate out into the lobby to get him a soft drink out of the machine.”

“Go ahead,” he muttered, wondering how much of his thoughts he had betrayed by the look on his face.

Raine took Tate by the hand and led him out of the noisy room.  Jade found a wall to lean against and later, when she came back guiding Tate past the scattered chairs and tables with one hand and carrying a bright red can of soft drink in the other, he tried not to watch her. But his eyes didn't obey instructions. Raine settled Tate and herself at a table and offered Tate the drink container. After he had taken a few sips, she engaged the youngster in a complicated hand-clapping game that required concentration and coordination, and Jade gave up the struggle to look elsewhere and openly watched them.

A sing-song kind of chant went with the hand-clapping and Raine’s soft voice was mesmerizing. Tate concentrated fiercely, his mouth open, his eyes on Raine. They made a picture that could have graced any magazine cover, the slim, beautiful woman sitting knee to knee with the enthralled boy-child.

“Jade?”  It was Sandy in her frothy swirl of white silk. “We’re going to cut the cake. Will you propose the toast?”

He knew damn well he was the last person in the world to give a sloppy sentimental toast, but he nodded, and when the ceremonial moment came, he said simply, “To Sandy and Marc. Long life and happiness,” and lifted his glass.

At the moment he put it to his lips, his eyes met Raine's. Even though she was several tables away, he felt the pull of those silver eyes again, and the deep-felt emotion in them. She raised her glass, and the lovely curves of her slender body strained against the blue silk.  His body responded, desire stirring deep within him.  He tipped his glass, blocking her out of his sight, draining the alcohol into a throat that had gone dry.

It was abstinence that was making him feel this way.  He hadn't had a woman in his arms for a long time, not since the last time he held Raine.

He wanted to hold her again. Not stopping to think, driven by a need he didn't want to analyze, he put his glass on the table and began to thread through the crowd toward her.

“Jade?”  A hand plucked at his sleeve.  “Hello. I've been waiting for a chance to tell you how devastating you look.”

The petite, red-haired woman smiled up into his face.  She wore a low-cut dress and she had positioned herself close enough to give him an unhindered view.

“Hello, Natalie. How have you been?”

“Missing you,” she said in a soft voice.  “Why haven't you come in to see me?”

“I've been busy,” he said and knew the excuse was the stupidest thing he had said that day. And the day wasn't over yet.  He went on talking to Natalie, talking complete nonsense and in the end offering to refill her wine glass. The moment he left her, John Forsythe, her recently divorced husband, stalked over to her and began talking, his face a bright red.  Jade glanced at them and decided Natalie could wait for her wine.

Raine was sitting alone, holding a sleepy Tate on her lap, swaying back and forth with him to the music.  “Where's Martin?”   Jade slid into the chair next to her.

“He had to leave.”

“Here, let me have him.  He's too heavy for you.”  Raine's arms tightened around Tate.  “He's fine.”

His son was half-turned in her arms, leaning between her breasts, his head curled into her shoulder.  He lay against her, snuggled into her soft curves like a tired puppy.  He wasn't asleep, but his eyelids drooped.  Something harsh and alien squeezed Jade's throat.  “He'll wrinkle your dress.”

She looked at him over the top of Tate's blond head, that silver fire flashing in her eyes. “I don't care if he does.”

His voice low and lethal, he ordered “Give him to me.”

Her arms tightened around him protectively. “I never dreamed you could be this vindictive.”

“Vindictive?'”

“You can't stand seeing him in my arms, can you?” 

In a blinding flash of clarity, he saw the truth. He was jealous, yes, but not of her. He was jealous of his own small son, lying so peacefully and comfortably in the place where he ached to be.

A heat raced upward, beat against his nerves, tore at his insides.  “Hold him all you like,” he told her. Catching a glimpse of the surprise on her face, he rose from the chair and muttered, “I've got to get some fresh air.”

He shrugged into his coat and let himself out the door. His warm breath generated puffs of fog ahead of him as he bounded down the steps of the hall and strode past the grocery store, the feed store, and the park. Barren trees sighed, their branches scraping together in the winter breeze.

Suddenly he was out in the country. The pale sun was just setting, casting long blue shadows on the snowy landscape that swept ahead of him like a silvery ocean. Flat and level, covered with two feet of snow, his grazing land started here, just beyond that redwood fence. He needed to replace that fence. He'd have to do it before he turned the herd loose this spring. He had a thousand acres of prime land, and he wanted more. He wanted to double the acreage, so Tate would be assured of a place of his own when he was old enough to appreciate it. He'd borrow more money and buy more calves. Fiercely, he tried to concentrate on the future, tried to keep away from the truth. But the truth beat at the door of his mind until he let it in. He'd been jealous of his son.

He was a colossal fool. Was he going to make the same mistake all over again?  He heard footsteps crunching on the snow behind him, someone running.  He turned.

Raine wore nothing on her head, and she clutched the edges of her unbuttoned coat together at her waist. “Jade, wait.”

She was the last person in the world he wanted to see at this moment…and the only one. He waited, watching as she huffed along the road toward him, her high heels sinking into the snow. She'd catch pneumonia.

“You're crazy to come out here like this. You'll freeze to death.'”

“I've got to talk to you." She was breathing fast from her exertion and her breath was coming in quick, little gray puffs into the cold air.