Jake's Bride (12 page)

"And as you told me when you bought the jungle gym, I've listened to you, and now I have to make up my own mind."

Jake pushed away from the railing and was close enough that she could see the tiny scar on his left cheekbone.  Instead of angry, his voice was amazingly gentle.  "When you make up your mind, try to think about what Christopher needs, not about what's going on between you and me."

She wasn't sure what was going on between her and Jake.  But it would be easy to put Christopher first, she'd done that since she found out she was pregnant.

Chapter Five

On Saturday afternoon, Jake's headband caught the sweat as he dribbled the basketball around Nathan, aimed, and shot.  The ball danced around the rim, teetered, and fell over the side.  Jake swore, grabbed for the ball to rebound, but Nathan was quicker.

He dribbled the ball in front of his opponent.  "Playing hard today, aren't you?"

Jake swayed back and forth, ready to guard, ready to jump.  "I'm playing like I always play--to win."

Nathan went for the basket, but Jake blocked him, almost knocking them both over as he grabbed for the ball.  Nathan stooped with his hands on his thighs and took a deep breath.  "Let's say you win and give it a rest."

Jake shook his head.  "Uh uh.  I need the workout.  Getting too old for this?" he needled.

Nathan suddenly stole the ball from his friend and casually dribbled it between his feet.  "You played with Oscar, Lorenzo and Joe before I got here."

Jake came around the community center once or twice a week to mingle with the kids, to remind himself how much he had needed a role model at their age.  "They're seventeen.  No strategy.  Now you...I have to use my brain as well as my reflexes when I go against you."  Picking up his bottle of water on the sidelines, Jake took a few swallows.

"So, how's the marriage going?"

Jake took another swallow then set the bottle on the ground once more.  "Subtle, Bradley.  Like an eighteen wheeler.  At least with Gillian, she gives me a lead-in before she probes."

Nathan shrugged.  "Gillian says you're as tight as a clam on this subject.  What gives?"

Jake swiped the ball from Nathan, aimed, and sank it.  "Nothing.  Sara and I concentrate on Christopher."

Nathan's voice floated over Jake's shoulder.  "Twenty-four hours a day?  After he's in bed?"

Jake shrugged, as if he hadn't spent more than one hour in his office, so distracted by Sara's presence in the house that he couldn't concentrate.  "You know what it takes to be a parent.  I'm learning how to handle him."  Jake grimaced, remembering Thursday afternoon when he'd lost control of the situation.  "And he's learning to handle me."

Nathan grinned.  "You mean get away with murder.  The girls tried that with Gillian but she was too smart to fall into that trap.  We stood together and they realized they couldn't bamboozle either one of us."  He paused.  "Are you and Sara standing together?"

"We're trying."  Jake retrieved the ball and jogged back.  He gazed at the building that could use a good sandblasting, the teenagers shooting baskets at the other end of the lot, the few gathered on the asphalt watching the others.  "Not many kids here today."

Nathan didn't accept the change of subject.  "You can't ignore your marriage."

Jake knew his friend wouldn't give up once he'd started something.  "Ignore it?  I'm trying to deal with it," Jake shot back.  Nathan only pried because he thought he could help, but the prying was irritating nonetheless.

"Have you ever considered how Davie's death affected you?" Nathan asked, his eyes serious.

Silence fell between them.  Finally, Jake broke it.  "Of course, I have.  His death is the reason I quit being a cop, the reason my marriage fell apart!"

"More than that.  It made you trust nobody but yourself.  It was bad enough being a cop.  You had to depend on your gut instinct, your training, your reflexes.  But when it came to Davie, even those skills weren't enough."

"So what's your point?"

Nathan shifted on his sneakers, but didn't back down.  "You don't give of yourself easily.  Your guard is up most of the time."

"I let it down once with Sara," Jake murmured, remembering that one night, when she'd held him, when she'd cried his name in ecstasy...

"Are you giving her a chance now?"

Jake closed his mind to the pictures.  "A chance to burn me again?  I don't think so.  I'm not stupid."

"No, you're not.  You're angry.  About the way you had to grow up too fast, your mother's death, Davie, your divorce, Sara leaving you at the altar.  What's that anger going to get you?"

Jake snapped the ball to his friend and Nathan caught it reflexively.  "Protection.  Like a bullet proof vest.  Don't worry about me, Nathan.  I know the score and so does Sara.  We're aiming at peaceful coexistence.  The fates willing, one day we'll have it."  A voice asked,
Peaceful coexistence?  Is that why you were ready to kiss her again?

Jake shut out the voice.  The longer he was around Sara, the less she'd affect him.

Nathan dribbled the ball in front of Jake.  "Christmas is coming fast."

The comment seemed entirely out of context.  "So?"  He tensed his arms, ready to move in either direction.

"Maybe it'll bring the peace you want to find.  Maybe it will bring even more."

Jake didn't get the chance to mull over Nathan's words.  His friend feinted to the left, then the right, and made a basket.

#

Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang.  Sara stood at the bottom of the stairs and heard the low vibrations of Jake's baritone voice as he put Christopher down for his nap.  There was no point interrupting a ritual that was becoming precious to father and son.

Sara went to the door and opened it.  A tall man stood there.  She'd guess he was in his sixties from the wrinkles on his face and the silver in his dark hair, though his well-kept physique in an oxford shirt and jeans made him look younger.

"Hello there, young lady.  You must be the gal who left the message."

"No, I'm--"

He didn't seem to hear her as he smiled sheepishly and kept going, restrained excitement buzzing all around him.  "I was out of town on business.  Just got back this morning.  Sorry to bother you but there was no way I could wait till tomorrow to talk to Jake."

"Why don't you come in, Mr...."

"Just call me Harv."  He took Sara's hand and pumped it up and down.  "The message said Jake got a lead on Bernadette.   I can't believe I'm finally going to set eyes on her after all these years.  Just imagine.  I don't know if Jake told you, but we were high school sweethearts."

It didn't seem to matter that Sara hadn't left the message for Harv.  He probably thought she was Gillian.  He was so excited about what Jake had discovered, nothing else seemed to matter.

"We went to school together in Houston.  Who would've thought Jake would find her back East."

"You've been looking for a long time?"

"Actually, no.  I just got up the gumption a few months ago and didn't know where to start.  It was my fault we lost touch.  I shipped out with the army.  She wrote and I never wrote back.  Damn, I was young and stupid and wild.  Didn't want to be tied down, I thought."

"Well, Harv, I'm glad you're on your way to finding her."

"I'm unattached now.  Been a widower seven years.  I just hope she's free, too."

"I hope you find what you're looking for."

"If I find Bernadette, she's all I need."

"I know Jake's good at what he does.  If anyone can find her, he can."

"Hello, Harv."  Jake had come up behind Sara without her knowing it.  "Let's go into my office."

Jake's tone dismissed her.  He was going to have to accept the fact she wasn't easily dismissed.  "It was good to meet you, Harv.  I hope you find Bernadette."  She went to the kitchen to start a pot roast for supper.

With the roast in the oven, Sara decided she had enough time to make an apple pie.  She'd cut and peeled six cups of apples when Jake appeared in the kitchen doorway.  She could tell he was thinking about something, about how to put it to her.  He always got that little line on his forehead before he gave her bad news.

Although every nerve in her body was alive and shouting that he was in the same room, she folded the pie shell in quarters and lifted it onto the top of the apples.

"You shouldn't have talked to Harv the way you did."

She left the pie shell lay.  "Excuse me?"

Jake kept his distance but jabbed his hands into his pockets.  The gesture pulled the already snug jeans even snugger.  "Harv is my client."

Trying to ignore the heat creeping up her cheeks, she said, "I know that."

"I give my clients facts.  I don't raise their hopes needlessly."

"I don't understand.  He said you had a lead.  He said you knew Bernadette was back East..."

"Yes, I have a lead.  That's all I have.  You pumped him up, and now he thinks they're going to be reunited.  Even if I do find her, what if she wants no part of him?"

"He was already pumped up when he rang the doorbell.  All I did was--"

"Pump him up more.  I run my business a certain way, Sara.  Stay out of it, okay?"

She glared at him, thoroughly annoyed.  "You can poke into my life and tell me not to take a job, but I can't go near your clients?  Does that sound reasonable to you?"

Jake stood firm.  "Yes.  One has to do with our son's welfare, the other one doesn't."

She felt like turning that pie upside down on his stubborn head.  "You know, Jake, your rules make sense to you, they don't make sense to me.  Maybe you should give me a list, the parts of your life that are safe for me to talk about, the areas I should stay away from."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Slowly and deliberately, she said, "I don't think I'm the one being ridiculous."

Jake took his hands from his pockets.  "This is business.  I give my clients factual information, and I don't feed their emotions.  I find too many dead ends, and I will not give false hope."

"All I did was make conversation!"

His brown eyes were hard.  "All you did was interfere.  I had to bring Harv back to earth."

She turned back to the pie and opened the folded shell to give her hands something to do.  "Fine.  I'll stay away from your clients.  When the doorbell rings, I won't answer it.  Unless, of course, I have your permission.  All right, captain?"

"Sara..."

She didn't meet his gaze but crimped the edges of the pie shells, hurt edging out the annoyance she'd first felt.

The phone rang in Jake's office.  She felt him hesitate, then move away to answer it.  He was effectively trying to keep her pigeonholed, to think of her only in association with their son.  There was nothing she could do about that but live with it until Jake decided he wanted her in the rest of his life.  She could be waiting a long time.

#

After reviewing his notes, Jake pushed his chair away from his desk.  Harv's former sweetheart didn't drive and apparently didn't work.  That made it harder to trace her.  He'd found a record of her marriage to a Pennsylvania insurance salesman and the death certificate of that husband.  But that's all he'd found.  He had a contact on the East Coast checking real estate records.  That's all he could do for now.

He heard the buzzer go off on the oven.  A few minutes later, Sara went up the stairs, probably to get Christopher up from his nap.  Jake sighed.  He couldn't take a breath without thinking about her.  She was complicating his life, stirring up feelings, let alone hormones he'd thought were inactive, if not dead.  They were active all right and very much alive.  Confusing as hell.  He'd almost kissed her again the other night, and it wouldn't have been any kind of test.  Then he remembered what she'd done.  He'd remembered that she'd walked out without telling him the truth.

But he still couldn't stay away from her.  He definitely couldn't stay away from his son.  He shut down the computer and went up to Christopher's bedroom.

Christopher had just awakened.  His hair stood up in spikes as he rubbed his eyes.  Sara sat on the edge of the bed, picking up books that were scattered at the foot.  Before Christopher fell asleep in the afternoons, she let him page through his favorites.  Jake marveled at the way she could teach without words, the simple things she did to evoke Christopher's curiosity or instill a good habit.  Her son didn't realize it, but Sara was doing everything she could to prepare him to read.

Finally Christopher yawned and scrambled onto his mother's lap.  "Where's your smile, Mommy?"

The little boy's question made Jake feel guilty.  Sara's nature was bubbly and cheerful.  Especially around her son, she smiled a lot and laughed.  Right now laughter seemed to be a world away and Jake suspected that had to do with their conversation.

He entered the room and didn't wait for Sara to answer.  Conspiratorially, he stooped down to Christopher and whispered in his ear, "I think she left it down in the kitchen next to the pie she took out of the oven.  Want me to go get it?"