Firestorm (23 page)

“Don’t let us get to you, hon. We like you and want you to be happy. And we believe you can help make Jake happy, too. He hasn’t been for years, you know. Not since he realized Alice wouldn’t opt in for the kind of life he wanted. Her running off with that worm, Durwood Yates, was just the final straw.”

“I want Jake to be happy, too.”

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

135

“Then marry him. Let him get you pregnant if that’s what it takes. Jake loves kids. It was that woman who refused to have them.”

Kate laughed. It was either that, or cry. “I wouldn’t trap him,” she said, wondering if she might resort to that ploy if Jake himself weren’t so obsessed with preventing an unplanned pregnancy. She couldn't picture herself poking holes through the packages of condoms he kept in the drawer of his bedside table.

“That was just the product of a desperate mind,” Shana replied. “I know Jake, and I know what he really wants is a loving wife and family. Here we are,” she added as she pulled onto a winding driveway that led to the biggest house Kate had ever seen.

When Shana parked behind Scott’s Jaguar, Kate realized this was a co-ed affair and assumed that Jake would soon arrive. That eased her mind. She wasn’t looking forward to facing his mother alone.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

136

Chapter Eleven

It was time for his mom’s lunch ordeal, but Jake wasn’t at his parents’ River Oaks estate yet. Instead, he stood, practically squirming with discomfort, beside the Old Man’s hospital bed. When Scott had finally come to the office, he’d said Jake’s father wanted to see him right away.

Jake had waited around the office all morning, pretending deep concentration on those incomprehensible reports, while the Old Man had kept Scott here discussing who-knew-what. Now more than ever Jake knew he couldn’t take over the reins of the family business.

“You don’t want me to manage the company,” he told his father flatly, forcing himself to stare the Old Man down.

“You’re my only son. GreenTex Oil is your heritage.” Jacob Senior’s voice was strong, belying his frail, tired appearance.

Jake frowned. “It’s my heritage, yes. It’s also Shana’s, Leah’s and Deb’s. I want it maintained for my children and theirs, as much as you do. That’s why I want you to put Scott in charge. I’ll do more for the company out in the field than I ever could, sitting in your office and trying to be what I’m not.”

His father let out an exasperated sigh. “Your children, Jake? You’re thirty-one years old, and you haven’t given me the first grandchild. This Kate Black is the first woman you’ve given the slightest hint that you might be serious about since you left the witch your mother insists did all she could to destroy you.”

“Damn it. You can’t force me to produce your grandchildren the way a rancher sets his prize stud to the mares he wants bred. No more than you can make me follow in your footsteps and run the business end of the company. I’m me. Not some puppet whose strings you can pull and make dance to your tune.”

As pissed as he was, Jake forced himself to shut up. Not soon enough, probably, because the Old Man’s face was beet-red and a vein in his neck was throbbing. Maybe he should call in the nurse.

“Is there some reason you can’t father a child, son?” Jacob asked suddenly, his voice a feeble croak.

“No.” He had fathered a child, but the bitch he’d married had killed it before it had a chance to live. “Would you have wanted a grandchild of yours to be torn apart inside when I divorced its mother?” Jake asked gently.

“I want you to be happy, as I’ve been with your mother all these years.” The Old Man paused, as if his mind was somewhere far away. “Marry again. Have a son who’ll follow in my footsteps the way you follow in your grandfather’s. Do that, and I can rest easily, knowing Scott will hold my legacy for the next generation of Greens.”

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

137

It was extortion, pure and simple, done by a master of the art.

Settle down and start a family again, and you can keep doing the work you love.

Don’t, and you’ll be stuck in that jail cell of an executive suite, making decisions that may very well destroy your family’s business.

“What are you saying, Dad?” Jake asked, demanding confirmation of his suspicion.

“I’m saying you can take a seat on the Board and the title of vice president, and keep on managing the GreenTex fields…” The Old Man’s words trailed off, but his eyes remained steadily on Jake.

“If?” Jake prompted.

“If you marry again and assure me you will make an effort to provide me with a grandson as soon as possible.”

Subtlety was an alien trait in his father, Jake thought. Frustrated, he slammed his fist onto the table beside the bed. “Have you picked out my bride, or do you plan to leave that insignificant detail up to me?” he asked.

“I leave the choice of a woman up to you.”

“Gee, thanks.” Jake thought of a lot more things he could say, most of them profane, but he held them back in deference to his father’s condition. After a long pause, he spoke again.

“Damn it. I’m a petroleum engineer, pure and simple. Even if I had a burning interest in the financial and legal details of our business, it would take me years to learn enough to be able to make informed decisions about them. By that time, I’d probably run the company into the ground and make paupers of us all.

“I won’t risk our livelihood. But I won’t be a figurehead, either, and sit behind a desk looking important while Scott makes all the decisions.”

“So you plan to remarry soon?” the Old Man asked, his words barely audible.

Jake paused. Would Kate marry him if he asked her? He thought she would. And he wouldn’t mind having her warm his bed every night.

Yeah, he might as well make the Old Man happy, if marriage and fatherhood was all it would take.

He pasted a grin on his face. “I expect you to be well enough to dance at my wedding, say in about eight weeks or so,” he told his dad with all the grace he could muster.

“So it will be Miss Black.”

The Old Man’s satisfied expression galled Jake to no end. He wished he could give Kate the degree of trust his father apparently bestowed so easily.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

138

“If she’ll have me. I’ll let you know. It would seem I have some proposing to do,”

Jake said curtly as he turned and stared out the window at the lush, landscaped grounds around the hospital.

Kate. His bride-to-be. The idea of marrying her didn't seem half-bad. Being faithful to her wouldn't be a hardship, the way she kept him with a constant hard-on. He’d offer her a home and children, and all the material things she might ever want. Surely she wouldn't demand his heart as well.

“Jake?”

“What?” He turned and looked back at his father.

“Are you certain this is what you want?”

“Hell no. All I’m sure of is that I don’t want to take on a job I’m not qualified for, and that I’d die after a month being stuck in that prison of an office building that you and Scott seem to like so much.”

“You want to marry again, don't you?”

“Sure. I want kids. For that, I need a wife. I’d even been thinking that Kate might suit me as well as anybody else I know.” Jake rubbed his hand across his brow.

“Do me a favor. Let everybody else think I’m getting married entirely because I want to. There’s no way I want Kate to hear about your blackmail. If this marriage happens, I want it to last.”

“This conversation will remain between us.” The Old Man closed his eyes. This confrontation had to have exhausted him.

His father had kept working, carrying a load that would have crippled many a younger man while he held onto the hope that Jake would someday want to take his place as head of the oil company his own father had founded.

Now, when most of his friends had long since retired to sunny Florida beaches, the Old Man was very reluctantly giving up part of his lifelong plan. Jake vowed to do his best to make the rest of his father’s dream come true.

“All right, Dad. Rest. I’m going to find Kate and get this over with. I’ll spring the news on everyone as soon as she says yes.”

In three long strides, Jake reached the door and turned the knob.

* * * * *

“Kate. Come with me for a few minutes,” Jake said when he cornered her in his mother’s living room. He’d taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, but he was still dressed up more than she’d ever seen him.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

139

His grin looked forced, as if he wasn’t anxious to do whatever it was he had in mind. Curious, she excused herself and followed him to his mother's beautifully landscaped garden. He stopped in a secluded gazebo a few yards away from the large, free form swimming pool and turned to face her.

“Sit,” he said gruffly.

She did, and he joined her on the wrought iron bench. Creamy gardenias and orchids of many colors gave off exotic fragrances that hung in the hot, humid air. Dense dark green foliage fluttered around the latticed enclosure, giving evidence of a light breeze she could hardly feel.

What did Jake want? Had she done or said something to offend his mother or one of his sisters? She guessed she hadn't when he sandwiched her hand between his rough, work-hardened palms.

“I think we should get married,” he said casually.

Kate looked into his dark, inscrutable eyes. Was he serious?

He certainly acted it. His feelings, whatever they might be, were hidden beneath the deliberately bland expression on his handsome face.

“Why?” Her mouth opened and the question came out involuntarily.

“Why not?” His lips curved upward in a semblance of a smile.

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious, honey.”

As if he was trying to convey some deeper feelings he couldn’t put into words, he massaged the top of her hand absently with his thumb.

“Then, yes. I’ll marry you. Oh, Jake, I love you so much.”

“Good. Let’s go inside and tell my family,” he said abruptly, standing and pulling her up beside him.

“Now?” He should be taking her in his arms, echoing her words of love here in this spot she thought Adele must have had specially designed for such romantic declarations.

“It’s hot as hell out here. And Mom will be holding lunch for us. Come on.”

“Jake. Don’t you want to tell me something first?”

“No, baby. Not what you’re expecting to hear. Love is for kids and fools. I went that route before and got nothing but grief.”

He put his arms around her, as if to remind her of the chemistry that flowed between them. When he spoke again, the softness of his voice didn't quite mask his bitterness.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

140

“I’ll tell you this much. I want you. I want to come home and mess around with you every night, and wake up fucking you again each morning. I want us to have kids together. But I don’t love you. I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone the way you want to be loved. Not any more.”

Kate batted back tears. His honesty hurt.

But he’d been hurt, too. Tightening her arms around his waist, she told herself she loved him enough for both of them. Jake wanted her, and that would have to be enough.

“It’s all right,” she said as she ran her hands up and down the hard, muscled length of his back and buttocks.

“You’re still willing to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t be sorry,” he promised, bending to seal their promise with a quick, deep kiss. Then, he wrapped a hard-muscled arm around her waist and herded her back through the garden to his childhood home.

* * * * *

“We’ll tell them after we eat,” Jake told Kate as he led her into the dining room, to a mahogany Victorian sideboard that groaned with a staggering selection of food.

“The roast beef and ham’s always good,” he told her as he speared several paper-thin slices of each and put them on her plate.

Marriage to Jake had sounded so simple just moments ago, when he’d casually invited her to be his wife. Now, looking at the variety of elaborately prepared dishes set out for a supposedly informal family meal, Kate began to have second thoughts.

Not only was she blithely planning to marry a man who admitted he didn’t love her, she was also opting to join his globetrotting, wealthy family. The thought sobered her.

“Come on, honey, get yourself some food and let’s go over to the table.”

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking.” She helped herself to some of the beautifully arranged fresh fruit sections, a small serving of green beans, and some lobster salad before she followed Jake over to the table.

Smiling bravely, she looked around the table at the familiar faces. She’d survive.

She had to. Just having Jake at her side and feeling his hand at the small of her back bolstered her confidence, made her push aside her trepidation. She might not have his love, but she had him as a lover and protector, and that worked, at least for now.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

141

Jake’s father's place at the head of the mahogany table with its lemon yellow linen cloth remained empty. Adele sat like a queen at the foot of the table, and her children and their mates had taken places along the sides. A maid hovered unobtrusively in the doorway.

“May I have Maria bring you something?” Adele asked, apparently noticing Kate’s scarcely touched plate of food.

“Oh, no, ma’am. Everything’s delicious. And so pretty,” Kate murmured. She felt Jake grinning—even before she sneaked a glance his way.

He took the fork from her hand and held it there, next to her plate where everyone could see. Kate trembled a little when she looked around the table.

“Mom. Everybody. Listen.” Jake's deep voice boomed out, causing his mother, sisters and brothers-in-law to focus their attention on him and Kate. “This morning Kate and I decided to get married.”

“Wonderful.”

“When?”

“Where will the wedding be?”

“It’s about time, Jake!”

“Congratulations!”

Everyone spoke at once. Jake sat there grinning while Kate looked about helplessly, trying to voice an appropriate reply but unable to think amid the cacophony of congratulations and questions.