Higher Than Eagles (Donovans of the Delta) (13 page)

“And how did you do that?”

“With the business end of a gun, of course. Now he has to wear winter woolens to keep the cold from seeping through the holes in his rump.”

Jacob laughed, feeling good. Hannah always made him feel good. “You’ll never change, Hannah.”

“Jim says he sincerely hopes not.”

“And how is the intrepid reporter?”

“Holed up, working fast and furiously on his second novel, and absolutely
dotty
thinking about being a father again. From the way he acts, you’d think he invented fatherhood.”

Jacob’s glance swung to Rachel. She was leaning toward her father, laughing at something he’d said. Her musical laughter carried across the room.

“Go to her, Jacob.”

His head snapped back around toward his sister. “What?”

“I said, go to her.” Hannah folded her napkin and placed it beside her plate. “I’ve finished eating anyway, and I feel the need for an after-dinner nap. I’ll take a cab back to the farmhouse.”

“You will not. I brought you here, and I’ll see you safely home.”

“Indulge a pregnant woman, Jacob. If my overly protective husband can trust me to get myself and our daughter safely across the continent for a small visit home, surely you can trust me to take a seven-mile cab ride.”

She saw that he was wavering, so she went in for the kill. “She’s free now, Jacob, and so are you. You might take a lesson from our brother. Tanner would never have found happiness if he hadn’t let go of the past.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Let it go, Jacob. I want you to be happy.”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll call you a cab, Hannah.”

 o0o

Rachel watched Jacob escort his sister from the dining room. Disappointment rippled sharply through her.

“I’m glad he’s leaving.”

She glanced quickly at her father. “Who?”

“Jacob Donovan. You’ve done nothing but stare at him all evening.”

“Dad . . .” She put her hand on his arm. “Please don’t start.”

“You know how I feel about him. And this latest plan of yours is suicide. I’d absolutely forbid it if I could.”

“You can’t. He has to know.”

“He hasn’t had to know for years. I see no reason to change that now.”

“The reason is that I love him.” She lifted her chin in defiance. “I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but none as tragic as what I did to Jacob Donovan. He deserves the truth, even if it means I’ll lose him again.”

“Is there anything I can say, anything I can do to change your mind?”

“No. I’m going to tell Jacob.” She leaned back in her chair, her face as stubborn as her father’s.

“Tell me what?”

Jacob’s voice, deep and rich and deceptively mild, cut through her consciousness like a steel-edged rapier. Looking up at him, she called on all her professional skills to look serene and happy.

“I was going to tell you that Hannah looks particularly glowing.”

Jacob tried to hide his grin over Rachel’s bald-faced lie. He’d always admired the way she handled herself when cornered.

“Why, thank you,” he said with elaborate politeness.

Tearing his gaze away from her flushed and glorious face, he inclined his head toward her father. “Martin. Mind if I join you?” He slid smoothly into the chair beside Rachel, deliberately pulling it close enough so that his thigh touched hers under the table.

Martin didn’t try to hide his displeasure. “We thought you were leaving.”

“No. There’s something I have to do, first.” With his leg insistently pressing Rachel’s, he leaned back nonchalantly. “When I saw the two of you sitting here, I thought I’d do the neighborly thing and invite you for a ride.” A smile tugged at Rachel’s lips, and Martin’s eyebrows shot up. “An airplane ride,” Jacob added smoothly. “It’s a beautiful night for flying.”

“You must be mad.” Martin Windham flung his napkin on the table and stood up. His hostile attitude would have quelled a lesser man. “The only place I’m going is home with Rachel.”

Jacob Donovan, who thrived on challenge, was unperturbed by Martin.

“I’m sorry you don’t want to join us.”

His emphasis on
us
was not missed by the older man.

Martin glanced toward his daughter, his eyes warning her not to do this foolish thing Jacob Donovan was asking of her,
demanding
of her.

“I’m going, Dad.”

To Martin’s credit, he didn’t protest any further. He knew when he’d been beaten. Pressing his hand tightly on Rachel’s shoulder, he leaned down and whispered, “Think carefully before you destroy what you have.”

Giving Jacob a curt nod of dismissal, he stalked from the dining room.

Rachel’s mind and body were both in turmoil, but she covered it with a smile.

“I’ve missed your smile more than you can imagine.” Jacob leaned toward her and lifted her hand to his lips. “Thank you for saying yes.”

“If I had said no, would you have abducted me again?”

“It’s a temptation, even now.”

Her face flushed, she leaned back in her chair, trying to put a comfortable distance between them. In spite of her avowals to confess her love and to tell Jacob the truth, she was afraid. The way she handled telling him would make or break her future.

“But I’ve already said yes,” she added lightly, playing for time.

“The thought of having you slung over my shoulder, at my mercy, has great appeal. I have a sudden desire to make your body burn for me.”

When he smiled, he was the charming, wicked Irishman she’d fallen in love with so many years ago. She took courage from his smile.

“The last time I was at your mercy, Jacob, it was you who went up in flames.”

The bright flush on her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes told him what he wanted to know, what he’d wondered ever since he’d left that remote cabin on the edge of Lake George. Rachel had not left his bed unscathed. He took hope.

Rising smoothly, he pulled back her chair. When she stood up, he caught her around the waist and pressed her back against him. He heard her sharp intake of breath.

Leaning down, he whispered in her ear, “Tonight, my sweet, we’ll see who burns first.” Then, taking her arm and smiling gallantly, as if he had been talking to her about the weather, he sauntered from the dining room.

His car was waiting outside, a fiery red Corvette. Jacob loved fast cars as well as fast planes. Rachel leaned her head against the leather seat, grateful that Jacob hadn’t attempted further intimacies. She hadn’t expected to see him tonight, and she needed more time to figure the best approach.

Saying
I love you
to the man she had jilted years before was not going to be easy. Telling him the truth about his son was going to be even harder. If she told of her love first, would he later accuse of her lying to soften the blow? And if she told him about Benjy first, he probably wouldn’t even be around to hear the rest. She sighed.

“Is something troubling you, Rachel?” Steering easily with his left hand, Jacob reached across the seat and caressed her shoulder.

“You’ve always been sensitive to my moods, haven’t you, Jacob?”

His smile was carefree and easy. “It’s the Irish in me.”

“No. I think it’s the tenderness in you.”

“Do you find me tender, my sweet?”

“Always. Even when you’re striving to be a pain in the neck.”

His roar of laughter was her reward. Hearing that great boom of mirth, she relaxed against the seat. Jacob Donovan was not a hard man like her father. She had to believe everything was going to be all right.

A comfortable silence descended as the car raced through the warm night. She didn’t ask where they were going, and he didn’t say. He’d said they would be flying, but knowing Jacob Donovan, that could mean anything. Once he’d told her he was taking her to paradise, and they’d spent all afternoon in bed. She’d thought paradise was the name of one of the out-of-the-way cafés he loved so well.

When they turned underneath the sign that said “Donovan and Company” she turned to him. “Your fire-fighting company?”

“Yes.” He drove past a neat concrete and glass office toward a group of hangars. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’ve never stopped trusting you, Jacob.”

He shot her a quizzical look.

“Never once,” she added. “Not in all the years I’ve known you have I ever found you unworthy of my trust. That was never a problem between us.”

He smiled. “That’s a nice place to start.”

He cut the engine and leaned across the seat. Gliding his fingers into her gleaming hair, he cupped her face.

“Tonight is an impulse, Rachel. I had no idea you were coming to Greenville.”

“Neither did I.”

They looked deep into each other’s eyes. Jacob leaned closer until their lips were almost touching. But he knew that if he started kissing her now, he would never stop. And as much as he wanted to make love to her, he wanted more to say what was on his mind

Still holding her face, he said, “When I heard you were in town, I told myself I didn’t care.”

“Did it work?” she whispered.

“No.”

“It never has for me either.”

His lips brushed her forehead. “You’ve told yourself you didn’t care?”

“For years.”

He laid his cheek against her hair. They were silent while the night sounds beat around them—the distant sounds of traffic on the highway, the singing of crickets in the bushes, the whining of the ever present mosquitoes in the sultry delta.

Rachel broke the silence. “Finally, it didn’t work anymore, Jacob. After you left Florida, I knew I had to come to you.”

“Why, Rachel?”

He pulled back and watched her closely. He needed to see her face. When she said the words he hoped to hear, he needed to see the truth in her eyes. Long ago, love was something he’d accepted automatically, almost as his due. He was older now and far, far wiser. Six years without hope tended to make a man cynical.

When she hesitated, he caught her gently at the nape, massaging his fingers into her soft skin.

“I want to hear the words, Rachel. Why did you follow me to Greenville?”

“Because I love you.” She saw the joy flicker across his face, watched the flame leap in his eyes. And she was filled with hope. “I never stopped loving you, Jacob. Not even in all the years we were apart.”

He couldn’t trust himself to say anything yet, so he held onto her, almost afraid to let go for fear she’d vanish.

“If that seems disloyal to Bob, perhaps it is. But it’s the truth, and I can no longer avoid the truth.” She reached for him, touching his face in a gesture that begged his understanding. “My marriage was one of comfort and convenience. It was a rescue mission by a dear man for a confused young woman.”

Jacob waited, listening.

“I married Bob knowing I loved you, and for that I can only beg your forgiveness.”

“And Bob?”

“He understood. I’m asking you to do the same thing.”

“Say the words again.”

“I love you, Jacob Donovan.”

His hand trembled on her neck. She saw the desire in his eyes and the effort it cost him not to give in to that desire. She hadn’t expected more. Jacob’s easygoing, fun-loving ways might fool some people, but they didn’t fool her. She knew him too well. He was a man who had pitted his courage and steely determination against blazing holocausts time and time again, and had walked away the winner.

Besides all that, Rachel was too practical to think that six years of alienation and pain could be wiped away by three simple words. Right now Jacob’s hand, massaging the back of her neck, was the only reassurance she had.

The silence stretched between them until she felt as if her nerve endings were screaming. At last, Jacob spoke.

“I do my best thinking in the sky. Come.”

Taking her hand, he led her into a vast, dark hangar. Jacob flipped a switch, and light flooded the area. His twin-engine Baron was there parked beside a smaller, single-engine Cessna. In one corner was a huge multicolored balloon, deflated beside its woven basket. The Jet he used to transport his equipment to oil field fires was also there.

“Where’s your P-Fifty-one Mustang?”

“You know about that plane?”

“Yes. I kept up.”

Gladness filled his heart, but it was too early to let it show. Once burned, twice shy, he decided.

“Rick has it.” He saw no need to tell her why. After tonight, he hoped it wouldn’t matter anymore. He would call Rick and tell him the investigation was off. He loved Rachel, and that’s all that mattered. Her reasons for marrying another man were no longer important.

“We’ll take the Cessna tonight.” He lifted her into the plane. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“Not anymore.”

He smiled down at her. “You’re sure?”

“I confess to a few butterflies in my stomach, but that could be love.”

His laughter filled the hangar as Jacob climbed into his plane.

He taxied the Cessna along the runway, the engine roaring and the tires singing. Fingers of fear clutched at Rachel’s stomach, and then the plane was lifting proudly, higher and higher into the vastness above them.

She turned to watch Jacob. His profile was beautiful, chiseled against the backdrop of stars and sky. All the love he felt for flying was clearly evident on his face.

Rachel leaned back in her seat, content. If Jacob could only love her half that much, that’s all she’d ever need to make her the happiest woman on earth.

She reached to touch him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Cessna cut through the night sky, climbing toward a towering bank of clouds.

“There’s something I want to show you, Rachel.” Jacob fell silent as he piloted the plane into the fuzzy gray clouds.

Instead of watching the clouds, Rachel watched Jacob. He was totally at ease and supremely in command

“You love it, don’t you?”

He smiled at her. “I love it so much that I pity earthbound mortals.”

The plane lifted through the cloud cover and into starlight. After the foggy darkness, the stars were almost blinding.

“Look above us, Rachel.”

She glanced out the window, craning her neck to look up. Above them was another layer of clouds, so thick and heavy, they looked as if they might fall down and engulf the small plane.