Friends--And Then Some (2 page)

* * *

Jake was in his cab, parked in front of the hotel, when she stepped into the balmy summer night. Eagerly she waved and hurried across the wide circular driveway to the bright yellow taxi.

“Jake!” she cried. “Didn’t I tell you today was the day? Didn’t I? The most fantastically wonderful thing has happened! I can’t believe I’m so lucky.” She felt like holding out her arms and twirling around and bursting into song.

With one elbow leaning against the open window, Jake studied her with serious dark eyes and a slow, measured smile that lifted one corner of his full mouth. “Obviously Daddy Warbucks introduced himself.”

“Yes,” she said, and giggled. “
My
Daddy Warbucks.”

Leaning across the front seat, Jake swung open the passenger door. “Climb in and you can tell me all about it on the way to your house.”

Rushing around the front of the car, Lily scooted inside the cab and closed the door. Jake started the engine and pulled onto the busy street, skillfully merging with the flowing traffic. “I was so surprised, I nearly missed my chance,” Lily started up again. “Suddenly, after all these months, he was there in a five-hundred-dollar sport coat, requesting a song. He called me ‘little filly,’ and, Jake, he’s rich. Really, really rich. I can just see that Texas oil oozing from every pore.” She paused long enough to inhale before continuing. “He’s older, maybe forty-five or fifty, but that’s not so bad. And he’s nice. I can tell that about a man. Remember how I met you and instantly knew what a great person you were? That’s just the kind of feeling I had tonight.” She continued chattering for another full minute until she realized how quiet Jake had become. “Oh, Jake, I’m sorry, I’ve been talking up a storm here without giving you a chance to think.”

“You’re talking with a drawl.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m practicing. I was born in Texas, you know.”

“You were?”

“No, of course not, but I thought it’d impress him.”

The slow, lazy smile came into play again.

Lily studied the intense profile of her friend as he steered. Jake wasn’t handsome—not in the way the models for
GQ
were. He was tall with broad shoulders and a muscular build. But with those sea-green eyes and that dark hair, he could be attractive if he tried. Only Jake couldn’t care less. Half the time he dressed in faded jeans and outdated sweaters. Lily doubted that he even owned a suit. Formal wear wasn’t part of Jake’s image.

As she studied Jake, Lily realized that she really didn’t know much about him. Jake kept the past to himself. She knew he’d been a medic in the Army, and had an engineering degree from a prestigious college back east someplace. From tidbits of conversation here and there, she’d learned that he’d worked at every type of job imaginable. There didn’t seem to be anything he hadn’t tried once and—if he liked it—done again and again. In some ways Jake reminded Lily of her father, who had been in the merchant marines and brought her a storehouse of treasures from around the world. Jake was the kind of man who could do anything he put his mind to. He was creative and intelligent, proud and resourceful. Lily supposed she loved him, but only as a friend. He was her confidant, and, in many ways, her partner. Her feelings were more like those of a young girl for an endearing older brother or an adventurous sidekick. Love, real love between a man and a woman, was an emotion Lily held in reserve for her husband. But first she had to convince a rich man that she would be an excellent wife.

Studying Jake now, Lily noted that something had displeased him. She could tell by the way he tucked back his chin, giving an imitation of a cobra prepared to strike. He exuded impatience and restrained anger. From past experience, Lily knew that whatever was bothering him would be divulged in his own time and in his own way.

“Well?” he snapped.

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to tell me your plan to snag this rich guy or not?”

“Are you sure you want to hear? You sound like you want to snap my head off.”

“Damn it, Lily, one of these days …” He paused to inhale sharply as if the night were responsible for his wrath. Several moments passed before he spoke, and when he did his voice was as smooth as velvet, almost caressing.

Lily wasn’t fooled. Jake was furious. “All right, tell me what’s wrong. Did you get stiffed again? I thought you had a foolproof system for avoiding that.”

“No one stiffed me.”

“Then what?”

He ignored her, seeming to concentrate on the traffic. “Listen, kid, you’ve got to be careful.”

Lily hated it when Jake called her “kid” and he knew it. “Be careful? What are
you talking about? You’re acting like I’m planning to handle toxic waste. Good grief, I don’t even know his name.”

“You could be playing with fire.”

“I’m not playing anything yet. Which reminds me, have you ever heard the song ‘Santa Fe Gal of Mine’?”

“ ‘Santa Fe Gal of Mine’?” The harsh, disgruntled look left his expression as a smile split his mouth. “No, I can’t say that I have.”

“Gram will know it,” Lily said with complete confidence. Her grandmother might be a bit eccentric, but the woman was a virtual warehouse of useless information. If that wealthy Texan’s favorite song was ever on the charts, Gram would know it.

Jake eased to a stop in front of the large two-story house with the wide front porch.

“Can you come in now or will you be by later?”

“Later,” he answered with apparent indifference.

Lily walked toward the house and paused on the front steps, confused again. A disturbing shiver trembled through her at the cool, appraising way Jake had behaved this evening. His smooth, impenetrable green eyes resembled the dark jade Buddha her father had brought her from Hong Kong. Nothing about Jake had been the same tonight. Lily attributed it to his having had a bad day. But it shouldn’t have been. They’d spent the majority of it sailing and they both loved that. But then everyone had a bad day now and again. Jake was entitled to his.

Shaking off the feelings of unease, Lily stepped inside the fifty-year-old house, pausing to pat Herbie. Herbie was her grandmother’s favorite conversation piece—a shrunken head from South America. A zebra-skin rug from Africa rested in front of the fireplace.

The television blared from Gram’s bedroom, but the older woman was snoring just as loudly, drowning out the sounds of the cops-and-robbers movie. With an affectionate smile, Lily turned off the set and quietly tiptoed from the darkened room. She’d talk to Gram in the morning.

After changing out of the red gown, Lily inspected her limited wardrobe, wondering what she’d wear first if the Texan asked her to dinner. Possibly the dress with
the plunging neckline. No, she mentally argued with herself. That dress could give him the wrong impression. The lavender chiffon one she’d picked up at Repeaters, a secondhand store, looked good with her dark eyes and had a high neckline. Lily felt it would be best to start this relationship off right.

She was sitting beside the old upright piano, sorting through Gram’s sheet music that was stored in the bench, when Jake returned. He let himself in, hung his jacket on the elephant tusks, and picked up a discarded Glenn Miller piece from the top of the pile.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” At least he sounded in a better mood than earlier. “It’d be just like Gram to have that song and not even know it.”

“You’re determined to find it, aren’t you?” Jake asked with a faint smile.

“I’ve got to find it,” Lily shot back. “Everything will be ruined if I don’t.” Her sharp words bounced back without penetrating his aloof composure. “He won’t be grateful if I can’t find that song.”

Jake sat on the arm of the sofa and idly flipped through the stack she’d already sorted. He didn’t like the sound of this Texan. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Lily was determined to find herself a rich man and, knowing her persistence, Jake thought she probably would. When Lily wanted something, she went after it with unwavering resolve. In his life, there wasn’t anything he cared that much about. Sure, there were things he wanted, but nothing that was worth abandoning the easygoing existence he had now. Lily’s dark-brown eyes had sparkled with eager excitement when she’d told him about the Texan. He’d never seen anyone’s eyes light up that way.

“Did you get a chance to do any writing today?”

Jake straightened the tall stack of sheet music and sat upright. “I finished that short story I was telling you about and mailed it off.”

Lily smiled up at him, her attention diverted for the moment. Jake had talent, but he wasted it on short stories that didn’t sell when he should be concentrating on a novel. That’s where the real money was. “Are you going to let me read this one?” He usually gave her his work to look over, mainly for grammar and spelling errors—Jake was a “creative” speller.

“Later,” he hedged, not knowing why. He preferred it when Lily had a chance to
correct his blatant errors, but there was something of himself in this story that he’d held in reserve, not wishing her to see. The interesting part of being a writer was that Jake didn’t always like the people inside him who appeared on paper. Some were light and witty, while others were dark and dangerous. None were like him and yet each one was a part of himself.

“I know Gram’s got tons more sheet music than this,” Lily mumbled, thoughtfully chewing on her bottom lip. “Do you want to go to the attic with me?”

“Sure.”

He followed her up the creaky stairs to the second floor, then moved in front and opened the door that led to another staircase, this one narrower and steeper. Lily tucked her index finger into Jake’s belt loop as the light from the hallway dimmed. They were surrounded by the pitch-black dark, two steps into the attic.

“Where’s the light?”

An eerie sensation slowly crept up Lily’s arm and settled in her stomach. The air was still with a stagnant heaviness. “In the center someplace. Jake, I’ll do this tomorrow. It’s creepy up here.”

“We’re here now,” he argued and half turned, bringing her to his side and loosely taking her by the hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.” She tried to make light of her apprehensions, and managed to squelch the urge to turn back toward the dim hallway light. Involuntarily she shivered. “Gram’s got some weird stuff up here.”

“It can’t be any worse than what’s downstairs,” he murmured, and chuckled softly as they edged their way into the black void. He took short steps as he swung his hand out in front of him to prevent a collision with some inanimate object.

Gradually, Lily’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light. “I think I see the string—to your left there.” She pointed for his benefit and squeezed her eyes half closed for a better view. It didn’t look exactly right, but it could be the light.

“That’s a hangman’s noose.”

“Good grief, what’s Gram doing with that?” In some ways, she’d rather not know what treasures Gram had stored up here. The attic was Gram’s territory and Lily hadn’t paid it a visit in years. In truth, Lily didn’t really want to know what her sweet
grandmother was doing with a hangman’s noose.

“She told me once that her great-grandfather is said to have ridden with Jesse James. The noose might have something to do with that.” As he spoke, Jake’s foot collided with a box and he stumbled forward a few steps until he regained his balance.

Lily let out a sharp gasp, then held her breath. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“What was that?”

“How would I know?”

“Jake, let’s go back down. Please.” Her greatest fear was walking into a bat’s nest or something worse.

“We already went over that. The light’s got to be around here someplace.”

“Sure, and in the meantime we don’t know …”

“Damn.”

Lily’s hand tightened around his, her fingers clammy. “Now what’s wrong?”

“My knee bumped into something.”

“That does it. We’re going back.” Jake could stay up here if he wanted, but she was leaving. From the minute they’d stepped inside this tomb, Lily had felt uneasy.

“Lily,” he argued.

Jerking her hand free, she turned toward the stairs and the faint beam of light. It looked as though the attic door had eased shut, cutting off what little illumination there had been from the hall. Everything was terribly dark and spooky. “I’m getting out of here,” she declared, unable to keep the catch out of her voice. “This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.” More interested in making her escape than being cautious, Lily turned away and walked straight into a spiderweb. A disgusted sound slid from her throat as her hands flew up to free her face from the fine, sticky threads. A prickling fear shot up her spine as she felt something scamper across her foot.

Her heart rammed against her breast like a jackhammer as the terror gripped her and she let out a bloodcurdling cry. “Jake … Jake!”

He was with her in seconds, roughly pulling her into his arms.

She clung to him, frantically wrapping her arms around his neck. Her face was buried in his shoulder as she trembled. His arms around her waist half lifted her from the
floor. “Lily, you’re all right,” he whispered. His hold, secure and warm, drove out the terror. “I’ve got you.”

It took all the strength she could muster just to nod.

Jake’s hand brushed the wispy curls from her temple. “Lily,” he repeated soothingly. “I told you I’d protect you.” His warm breath fanned her face, creating an entirely new set of sensations. His scent, a combination of sweat and man, was unbelievably intoxicating. For the first time, Lily became aware of how tightly pressed her body was to the rock hardness of his. Her grip slackened and she slid intimately down the length of him until her feet touched the floor. The hem of her blouse rode up, exposing her midriff so that her bare skin rubbed against the muscular wall of his chest. His hands found their place in the small of her back and seemed to hold her there, pressing her all the closer. Her breasts were flattened to his upper torso, and her nerves fired to life at the merest brush of his body.

As if hypnotized, their eyes met and held in the faint light. It was as though they were seeing each other for the first time. Her pulse fluttered wildly at his look of curious surprise as his gaze lowered to her mouth.