Lone Wolfe (8 page)

 
          
And
now, seeing the pain flash in Jacob’s dark eyes, she suddenly wondered if she’d
been wrong.

 
          
Jacob
laughed. It wasn’t a sound Mollie liked to hear. ‘Don’t bother answering,’ he
said as he slid off his stool and took his plate—he’d eaten everything—to the
sink. ‘I know what you think. Every emotion and thought is reflected in those
lovely eyes.’

 
          
Those lovely eyes?
Now Mollie was thrown in a completely different direction, her body suddenly
tingling in response to that throwaway compliment. Jacob turned to face her,
bracing one hip against the kitchen counter. The candlelight threw his face
into half-shadow, flickering across his features.

 
          
‘I’m
sorry,’ Mollie said after a moment. She didn’t even know what she was
apologising for, yet she felt, deep inside, that the words needed to be said.
She’d made so many judgements, in her loneliness and hurt, and she shouldn’t
have. She didn’t deserve an explanation or even an apology. Yet she still
didn’t know what Jacob thought … or why he’d left. And now she wanted to know,
for an entirely different reason. One she couldn’t quite name.

 
          
‘Don’t,’
Jacob said brusquely. He averted his face. ‘Don’t apologise for the truth.’

 
          
‘The truth?’
Mollie repeated in confusion. ‘What are you
saying, Jacob?’

 
          
‘I
did abandon my brothers and sister,’ Jacob said flatly. His voice was without
emotion. ‘It was a price I was willing to pay, but the cost was high.’
Questions clambered in Mollie’s mind.
The price for what?
And the cost was high—for
who
?
His
siblings?
Himself?
‘Come on,’ Jacob said after a moment. He sounded resigned and yet also
strangely gentle. Mollie looked up. He’d pushed away from the counter and held
out his hand. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Mollie slid off
the stool and took his hand.

 
          
His
fingers curled around hers, warm,
dry
, strong. A
shiver of awareness rippled from his touch all the way through her body, making
her breath hitch and her blood pump and everything inside her come alive.
Bubbles again, so sweet and tempting and dangerous.

 
          
‘What—?’

 
          
‘I
want to show you something,’ Jacob said. And still holding her hand, he led her
from the room.

 
          
JACOB
hadn’t meant to hold her hand. He hadn’t even meant to show her what he’d
found; she probably already knew, and even if she didn’t, he could have slipped
it in an envelope and left it on her doorstep.

 
          
He
didn’t want to draw closer to this woman who asked him pointed questions, and
yet stared at him with a shock and hurt
he’d
caused.

 
          
Yet
here he was, leading her through the shadowy corridors, his hand laced with
hers, her fingers small and slender under his, trusting and fragile despite his
harsh words of just a few moments ago. It felt good.
Too
good.
It had been so long since he’d felt another human being’s gentle
touch. Years since he’d allowed
himself
to get that
close to anyone. Mollie Parker drew him in with her sweetness, her softness,
and even her determination and strength. He didn’t want to be drawn, and yet
still he was. Still he wanted.

 
          
Yet
he knew he couldn’t want this. Jacob had returned home for one
purpose,
and one purpose only: to sell the manor. Reuniting
his family was a necessary and important part of that, but seducing Mollie
Parker was not.

 
          
For that was all it would be.
A seduction: pleasurable,
pointless. That was all he ever allowed himself to have, because he knew it was
all he could ever give.

 
          
He
was empty inside, empty and aching. Or worse, Jacob corrected himself, he was
full
.
Full of poisoned
memories, treacherous regrets.
Full of the truth of
himself
,
of what he was capable of. He had nothing to give Mollie Parker. Nothing she
would want.

 
          
Except a rose.

 
          
‘Why
are we going back here?’ Mollie asked, for Jacob had led her into the study.
The room still felt suffocating to her, despite the windows open to the night.
The smell of rain and roses carried on the breeze.

 
          
‘I
found something when I was going through my father’s papers,’ Jacob said. He’d
dropped her hand and retreated behind the big oak desk, leaving Mollie with the
sweet memory of his touch. Her fingers tingled. He began to riffle through the
papers on his desk. ‘He had the most atrocious filing system,’ he continued. ‘
Which of course isn’t very surprising.
’

 
          
‘I
didn’t know much about your father,’ Mollie said cautiously. ‘Except …’

 
          
Jacob
glanced up, his eyes flashing. He had stilled, again.
Watchful
and wary.
‘Except what?’ he asked quietly.

 
          
‘What
people
said.
Whispered about in the
village.’

 
          
‘And
what did they whisper about in the village?’ Jacob
asked,
his tone deceptively mild.

 
          
‘That
he was charming,’ Mollie answered hesitantly, ‘and a drunk.’

 
          
‘He
was both. Unfortunately he wasn’t much of a father.’

 
          
He
spoke so dispassionately, as if it hardly mattered, that Mollie was compelled
to ask, ‘You must regret that.’

 
          
His
eyes narrowed as he looked up at her. ‘I do. I’ve regretted it my whole life.’
She heard something in his voice, a raw, jagged note she hadn’t expected; it
cut beneath his cold, composed exterior, hinted at the hurting man underneath.
‘I regret it for my brothers and sister,’ Jacob continued. ‘I wasn’t much of a
replacement.’

 
          
‘But
you tried.’

 
          
He
lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug before turning back to the papers on
the desk, his manner brisk. ‘My father did, amazingly, have a few redeeming
qualities.
Such as this.’
He held out a piece of thick
parchment paper, yellowed and crackling with age, towards her.

 
          
Hesitantly
Mollie took it. ‘What …’ she began, her breath coming out in a soft rush as she
gazed down at the
paper.
A dried rose, its petals
brown and faded yet still perfect, had been affixed to the parchment.
Underneath, in an unfamiliar hand, was written
The Mollie Rose
.

 
          
Her
throat thickened, unexpectedly, with tears, and her fingers clenched on the
fragile parchment.

 
          
‘Careful,’
Jacob said, and he gently loosened her fingers’ death grip with his own.

 
          
‘Sorry.
I—I didn’t—
How
did he—your father—get this?’

 
          
‘As
far as I can tell, your father showed him.’ Jacob pointed to some more
handwriting, smaller and slanted, underneath the rose’s name.

 
          
A new hybrid Parker named after his
daughter.
Sweet
.

 
          
‘It
must have touched my father in one of his more lucid moments.’

 
          
‘My
father was always experimenting with roses,’ Mollie said in a voice she didn’t
quite recognise as her own. ‘Sometimes I thought—it seemed—as if he cared more
for them …’
She
shook her head, not wanting to taint
her father’s memory with regretful recollections. Yes, he’d loved his beloved
roses, been obsessed by them even, but she’d always known he’d loved her more.
She’d never doubted that, even in the darkest moments of his disease. She
looked up at Jacob. ‘He never told me—I never knew he named one after me.’

 
          
Jacob
glanced down at the pressed petals, now leached of colour. ‘I wonder what
colour it was. Red, perhaps, like your hair.’ He reached out to gently tuck a
stray curl behind her ear. His fingers barely brushed her skin, yet Mollie felt
as if they lingered. Her whole body reacted to that touch, the whisper of skin
against skin. Instinctively she leaned into it. Abruptly Jacob dropped his
hand, took a step back.

 
          
Mollie
realised she was holding her breath, and she drew it in with an audible gulp.
‘Thank you for showing me this,’ she said. She tried to ignore the fact that
her heart was hammering and her ear and cheek still tingled from his touch.

 
          
‘You
can keep it.’

 
          
‘Thank
you. It means a lot.’

 
          
‘You
were close to your father?’ He sounded almost wistful.

 
          
‘Yes
…’ Mollie realised she sounded hesitant, unsure. How could she explain the kind
of relationship she had with her father? He’d adored her; she’d always known
that. It had just been the two of them, together, forever, and for so long she
couldn’t imagine life without him.

 
          
Yet
living alone with a forgetful father who was obsessed with the quality of soil
and the new fertilising techniques had been difficult at times; Henry Parker
had not always known when she needed new clothes, or a listening ear, or a
simple hug. And then five years of dwindling into dementia had left Mollie
feeling more alone and bereft than ever.

 
          
His
death, in some ways, had been a relief. It was a thought that made her cringe
inwardly with guilt and shame even now.

 
          
‘I
know it was nothing like—like your father,’ she said stiltedly, ‘nothing at
all. But … sometimes … it was lonely.’ She felt ashamed to say it, especially
considering what Jacob and the other Wolfes must have endured under William’s
unforgiving hand.

 
          
Jacob
gave her the faintest of smiles. ‘We all carry our own sorrows. Just because
they’re different, doesn’t make them any less.’ He gestured to the rose. ‘I’m
glad you have that.’

 
          
Her
throat too tight to speak, Mollie could only nod. She felt humbled by Jacob’s
willingness to accept her own pain. He could have easily shrugged it off, told
her she had no idea, nothing to cry about …

 
          
Or
was that just how
she
felt?

 
          
She
looked up and saw that Jacob was regarding her with a certain thoughtfulness
that made her think he saw too much.
Knew too much.

 
          
And
she didn’t know anything.

 
          
‘Tell
me about him,’ she said, and he stiffened.

 
          
‘There’s
not much worth telling,’ he said after a moment. Mollie was glad he didn’t
pretend to misunderstand. She was talking about William Wolfe, his father, the
author of his own sorrows. The man he’d accidentally killed—and must have
hated. ‘I wish.’ Jacob said, and then stopped.

 
          
‘Wished
…?’ Mollie prompted softly.

 
          
‘I
wish there was more to tell,’ Jacob said, a brusque note entering his voice. ‘I
wish I had—we all had—more happy memories with him. I wish my siblings had had
a proper father, rather than—’ He stopped abruptly, but Mollie, just as before,
felt she could have finished his thought.
Rather than me
.
He gave her a
bleak smile.
‘If wishes were horses, eh?’