Her Fifth Husband? (11 page)

As if backing out was even a faint possibility.

Quickly, he stripped off his shirt, stepped out of his shoes and shed jeans and briefs in one smooth motion, his eyes never leaving her face. She tried not to stare, but oh my, he was…

The word
glorious
came to mind, but even that didn't do him justice. Turning away, she folded back the bedspread. She hadn't even been sure there were sheets on the bed, not that it would have mattered.

He slid her yellow bikini panties down her hips, then lowered her onto the bed and came down beside her, burying his face in her throat. His tongue stroked her pulse until she wanted to scream at him. Her thighs moved restlessly. She wanted him inside her to end this exquisite torture, yet she didn't want it to end—this desperate compulsive tension that was building, aching, throbbing inside her.

The scent of arousal eddied around them as she felt him thrust involuntarily against her belly. Moisture blos
somed as her eager body prepared the way. When he drew the lobe of her ear into his mouth, she groaned. When his lips moved down her throat to her breast to suckle there, she soared to a higher level, desperately near the edge.

When he moved his attentions to her other breast, circling her nipple with his tongue, her feet arched and her thighs fell apart.

This
was her dream.
This
was what her dream had been all about!

Weak from all the attention lavished on long-neglected places, she caught a shuddering breath, then gasped for breath again as he took her even closer to the edge of the chasm. Her mind flickered in and out as his kisses and his clever hands wove a magic spell on her body.

If this was a dream, let it never end. Awake or asleep, he was all her fantasies come alive.

He whispered something, the words muffled against her throat. He nipped the underside of her chin with tender, ferocious kisses, then moved on to nibble her cheeks, her lips, as if he couldn't get enough of her taste. His palm stroked her belly, his fingertips tracing the creases of her groin before feathering lightly across her mound.

When his fingers slipped inside her, his thumb stroking her until she was ready to scream, she could only whimper. Torn between wanting to prolong the exquisite agony and the desperate need to end it, she cried softly, “Please…”

“Shh, sweetheart, we're getting there, give me a minute…”

When he sat up and leaned away, she thought she
would die. Don't bother with that thing, she wanted to scream at him.

So much for intelligence. So much for survival skills.

And then she stopped thinking at all as he moved over her again. In a jumble of limbs, her toes pushed against the tops of his feet, her knees bumped against his, and he knelt over her, her thighs embracing his hips. Her hands moved restlessly over the parts of him she could reach. She'd thought she was experienced? Nothing even faintly resembling this had happened to her before—this intensity that made every cell in her body quiver in anticipation.

Just then, lightning brightened the room. A moment later thunder rumbled across the sky. It seemed appropriate considering the electricity they were generating inside.

Jake took her hands and moved them slowly down his body, lingering where he wanted her attention. She gave it eagerly, testing his powers of resistance against her own power to arouse, first with feathery fingertip caresses, then with the judicious use of her fingernails.

First thing tomorrow, the acrylic goes.

Finally wrenching her hands away, he gently thrust inside her, withdrew and then thrust again. She whimpered, moving her hips restlessly. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

“What are you trying to do, woman—cripple me for life?”

“Am I succeeding?” she panted hopefully.

“Slow down, slow down—short fuse.”

When she felt him withdraw she tried to grasp his shoulders, but her hands slipped off his sweat-slick skin. Then he turned, levered himself to a sitting position, and
with his back braced against the padded headboard, lifted her astride his lap.

“Oh, yesss,” she breathed as she wriggled against his groin. In the dim light from a small table lamp, his strained features could have been chiseled from stone.

His eyes were closed, his head back. He moved with carefully measured thrusts, his breath coming in raw gasps. “Sure you're not registered somewhere—as a—lethal agent?” he ground out.

And then there was no more room for words. Suddenly she was clinging to him, desperately trying to match the furious pace of his thrusts as fireworks began to burst around her, exploding in a brilliance of pulsating color. As if from a distance she heard a guttural cry and then her own voice cascaded over her in a series of soft, wild whimpers.

Breathless, she collapsed against his sweat-damp chest. His head was back against the headboard, his eyes still closed, his hands still gripping her hips.

Once she was able to think again, her first thought was not for herself, but for the infant upstairs. Any moment now she would need to be fed again. It had been so long since she'd cared for a baby that she'd almost forgotten what a full-time job it was. And as inevitable as it seemed, this thing that was happening between her and Jake vastly complicated an already complex situation.

They should have laid out the ground rules first.

Like what? No messing around until she's a year old? Two years old?

Where would Jake be by that time? Where would Jake's grandchild be?

Chances were, neither of them would be upstairs in her bedroom.

S
ex had to be the world's best cure for insomnia, Sasha thought sometime later as she stretched luxuriantly. Parts of her body were so deliciously tender that she was half aroused just remembering. Slowly, she opened her eyes and realized it was morning, and she was still in the spare bed instead of her own upstairs bedroom.

Who had fed the baby?

There was no sign of Jake, but someone had pulled the top sheet up over her shoulders. It probably wasn't the tooth fairy.

Her first thought was Peaches. As long as she'd been delegated baby-sitter-in-chief, she intended to do a first-class job of it. Whatever happened once Jake reclaimed his granddaughter, he'd have no room for complaint on that score.

As for anything else…

Time would tell. She had the world's worst taste in picking husbands, but then, in this case, no one had mentioned marriage.

Upstairs, she looked in on the baby, marveling that anything so precious, so perfect, was sharing her bedroom, even temporarily. But then, her house didn't reek of paint and varnish. Nobody was crawling around on her roof, sounding like a cavalry brigade.

She even had a few dependable friends who would gladly take over if she had to be away for a few hours. How many available women friends did Jake have?

Well. It was a tad late to be wondering about Jake's women.

There was a half-empty bottle on the dressing table. Evidently Jake had fed her before he'd left. She collected the bottle and tiptoed away. Changing could wait. Sleep was important at this age.

What else was important? It had been so long. She remembered from back when Annie, Jeannie and Buck had been babies, when first one, and then the other two, would reach the five-alarm stage, loosely interpreted as, “I want it, and I want it
now!
”

It had taken Sasha and her mother together just to handle the twins. By the time Buck came along, Sasha knew the drill. She'd had almost complete care of the new baby while their mother tried to tame the unmanageable twins.

A few years later the three youngest members of the Parrish clan had closed ranks. She could still see them exploding from the school bus, racing up the path to the house, laughing, chattering, the girls finishing each other's sentences. Buck had been the
pesky, tagalong brother, but even so, the three of them had enjoyed a closeness that had excluded her. As baby-sitter-in-chief, she'd ranked along with their parents as an authority figure—someone to be obeyed when absolutely necessary, but never included, much less confided in. At the time, she hadn't particularly resented it, but later, after she'd left home, it had made her feel sad.

Of course, Buck was gone now, but she and her sisters chatted on the phone whenever she called. They sent pictures of their families when she asked for them, which she framed and set around her house, if only to remind her that she did have a family. Their Christmas cards always included family newsletters all about promotions and camping trips and school honors, and she tried to feel a part of it all, but there was no real closeness involved. There never had been.

Maybe she should do a family newsletter. Hey, y'all, I've finally got a baby. She's only on loan, but then, I'm really too busy with all my commissions to have her full-time, anyway. Oh, and by the way, I'm in love again, and this time I have a feeling it's terminal. Ha-ha.

Ten minutes later when she tiptoed into the room again she was met by a pair of unblinking eyes in a red, tear-wet face. “Oh, honey pie, don't do that,” she murmured, trying to remember the words of a lullaby she used to sing to the twins. She hummed and la-la-ed while she did the necessary cleaning and changing. Those solemn blue eyes followed her every move.

“What are you thinking, dumpling? You're not sure you like all this roadrunning you've been doing lately? You're missing your granddaddy?” She swallowed a
laugh. “Oh, honey, so am I,” she whispered, lifting the baby to her shoulder. “So am I.”

So am I…

 

The first thing Jake had done on his way home was to arrange to have the Lexus picked up and driven to Muddy Landing. He dropped off the keys at a garage—the owner owed him a couple of favors—and drove the rest of way thinking about the next item on the agenda.

Next item, hell. All he wanted to do was turn back, crawl into her bed and stay there for the foreseeable future.

But if the first four guys she married couldn't satisfy her, what gave him the idea she'd be interested in an over-the-hill widower?

Maybe not over the hill—he'd pretty well proved he was still good for a few rounds—still, he was a meat-and-potatoes type and she was definitely caviar.

First stop, the office. Jake checked his phone messages while he scanned the note Miss Martha had left for him saying that she wouldn't be in until eleven or thereabouts. It was early yet for Hack. Feeling restless and vaguely unsettled, he started going through his schedule for the following week. Two installations, which he enjoyed. Three repairs, which he didn't. There was still the Jamison thing. He'd been called off, but something still didn't feel right.

In the middle of checking the addresses of the repair jobs, he paused. God, I've got a baby!

Allowing Sasha to get involved had been a mistake, but short of driving her back to Kitty Hawk and dumping her out at her car, at what point could he have ex
cluded her? From start to finish, it had gone down like a row of dominoes.

She was right about one thing, he thought, unlocking the inside door that separated his private office from his living quarters. This was no place to bring a kid. The office was gradually airing out, but his side stunk to high heaven.

Hands on his hips, he looked around, trying to see his familiar living quarters objectively. What the devil had she meant when she'd criticized his color scheme? What was wrong with white walls, white ceilings and brown floors? Not everybody wanted to live in a lavender house with green trim, filled with the kind of furniture a guy couldn't even pronounce.

Shedding his clothes along the way, he headed for the shower, which was also painted white. What the hell had he been thinking about, getting mixed up with a woman like Sasha Lasiter?

Answer: he hadn't been thinking, at least not with his brain.

A short while later, showered, shaved and dressed in a clean version of the jeans and T-shirt he'd discarded, Jake was already outside when the office phone rang. He grabbed it on the fourth ring. “JBS Security, Jake Smith.”

And then, “Mrs. Jamison?”

Several minutes later he replaced the phone. If he were inclined to be superstitious he might blame it on the phase of the moon, or some weird conjunction of planets. First Sasha, then the baby, then Sasha again—in a big way—and now this crazy on-again, off-again case he'd been working on when it had all started.

Evidently it was now on again. According to his wife, Jamison had lulled her into calling off the dogs, but the minute she lowered her guard, he'd cut the connubial cord. According to his wife, the guy had the morals of a rat snake. She wanted the goods on him, and she wanted it yesterday.

The lady didn't need a private investigator as much as she needed a sharp lawyer. Something here stunk to high heaven. Jake couldn't put his finger on it, and without evidence there wasn't a lot he could do. Trouble was, it was probably already too late.

But as long as he was back on retainer, Jake figured he might as well continue to stake out the cottage again, as Mrs. J. seemed convinced that that was where he was taking his girlfriend. During the time he'd spent watching the place, he had seen no evidence of it, other than a certain sexy redhead making herself at home on the upper deck.

Meanwhile, Hack could do the usual check, see if he could pick up another lead. Jamison was a local, his wife was from Virginia Beach. They owned properties in both places, and with the state line so close, things could get complicated.

Before he left the office, he made another attempt to reach his son. He'd tried several times in the past few hours, leaving a message each time. This time he connected on the first try.

“Hey, Dad, I was just about to call you. Jeez, I've been going crazy, wondering what was going down. Have you seen her yet? Is everything all right? Is Cheryl gonna let you have her?”

“Whoa, back up—first, everything's fine here.
Cheryl seemed relieved to let her go to family—I told her she can see the baby anytime she wants to. I've been thinking, though—did you ask Cheryl about her folks? I mean, genetically, it might be a good idea to know something about her background. I tried to get some information from her, but the way things went down, it was a pretty emotional time for all of us.”

“I know her mom's dead. She and her old man don't get along. I think he drinks a lot or something. Anyway, I don't know all that much about her folks, but Cheryl's a nice girl. What do you think, is the baby okay?”

“Ah, son—she's a real beauty.” Jake saw no reason to mention that she was bald and had a voice like a fire siren when she really cut loose. “All her working parts appear to be in good order, especially her lungs. I cleaned her up and gave her a bottle earlier this morning, and left her sleeping like a baby.”

“You
left
her? Left her
where?
”

“Whoa, no cause for panic.” So then he had to explain about Sasha and how she'd been caught up in the whole procedure, and how she'd agreed to keep the baby until the roofers were finished and he could get rid of the paint fumes. “You'd like her, son. She's good with babies—in fact, she's the one who got us in to see a lawyer so we could sew up things in record time.”

“Okay…I guess. I mean, I trust your judgment, Dad, but Cheryl, is she okay with this?”

“She's fine.” He could explain in more detail later. “Everything went down without a hitch, but you might want to be thinking about another name. Her birth certificate says Tuesday Smith. No middle name. It doesn't
do much for me, but you'll be the one to decide. At least Cheryl gave her your last name.”

They talked for a few more minutes before Corporal Timothy Burrus Smith had to leave. “Look, they're calling for me, but hey—I love you, Dad.”

Jake swallowed the lump in his throat and said gruffly, “Me, too, boy. You take real good care of yourself, we'll hold down the fort here until you can take over.”

“My son, the soldier,” he murmured, his eyes filming over. Not too long ago, Jake mused, he'd been changing the boy's diapers and feeding him disgusting stuff like pureed spinach and squash, while Rosemary strung beach-glass beads for a Nags Head crafts shop.

Now Rosemary was gone and Timmy was headed to the Middle East with his unit, and Jake was about to start the whole routine again, this time for his granddaughter. He didn't know if that made him feel older or younger—maybe a little of both.

On his way up the beach a short while later, Jake made three stops; two to check out problematic systems and one to pick up a large coffee and a cheese, turkey and apple sandwich. Next he called Sasha, only to be told everything was just fine, and she was getting ready to put the baby down for a nap. “While she's sleeping, I'll catch up on a few things, but you do know how often she eats, don't you? Every three hours. Are you sure you're ready for that?”

He wasn't sure of anything at this point.

Well, for one thing, he was hungry. He could eat while he was on stakeout, not that he expected to catch the guy in action.

Renters had already arrived at the cottage where he
usually took up a position. Three cars filled the parking area, one carrying a kayak on top, two others with surfboard racks. Jake cruised slowly along the narrow blacktop, looking for an unobtrusive place to park.

“Well, hell,” he muttered, spotting a car pulled up beside Driftwinds. He recognized it as belonging to the rental agent only because he'd had Hack run her plates the first day Jake had staked out the place. He'd seen her around, an attractive brunette, probably under thirty. “Lady, you're in my way,” he muttered, wondering whether to wait for her to leave or to give up now.

On the other hand, if he was waiting for the coast to clear, maybe Jamison was waiting, too. Odds were about one in ten thousand, but what the devil, until Hack could come up with another lead—and as long as he was here with a sandwich and a cup of coffee that was growing cold—he might as well stick around a few more minutes. The agent was probably checking to make sure Sasha had finished the job. That shouldn't take long.

He bit into his sandwich as he crept along the street in search of an out-of-the-way parking place, thinking about all that had happened since he'd shot a bunch of pictures of a luscious redhead only a few days ago, under the illusion that she was Jamison's girlfriend. The setting sun had turned her hair to flame while a light breeze had blown her flimsy blouse against her breasts. And those crazy pink shoes, he thought, grinning at the memory.

Oh, hell. Those shoes….

The one he'd taken off her foot was still on his dresser. Thank God the painters had finished his bedroom first; he'd hate to get the reputation of having a foot fetish.

Spotting an empty driveway near the end of the cul-de-sac where he would have a clear view of the Jamison place, he backed in and shut off the engine. His chances of catching Custer at his last stand were about the same as his chance of winning the lottery, but it wouldn't hurt to hang around for a few more minutes while he waited for Hack to come up with another lead.

According to the facts on file, the Jamisons had a small place in Colington over on the soundside, but with neighbors on either side, he would hardly show up there with another woman.

Jake flipped down the visor to cut the sun's glare. He'd just finished his sandwich and reached for his cell phone when he saw the rental agent come outside and head toward her car. “Okay, maybe now we'll see some action,” he murmured, waiting for her to get in and drive off. Chances were slim to nothing, but he needed to be doing something, and until he got another lead, this was it.