The wedding was so beautiful that Kate cried. Sitting quietly near the pulpit, listening to the words that would bind David and Margo together, she felt a sense of loss for herself. She’d never hear those words, never know the overwhelming joy of pledging her life to a man who would love her back with equal passion.
Involuntarily, her eyes turned toward Jacob where he towered over David at the altar. He took such occasions seriously, and this one must have touched him, because he and his father had been responsible for Margo since her tenth birthday. As if he sensed her watching him, he glanced over his shoulder, his dark eyes catching hers. She didn’t wait to read the expression in them; she quickly dropped her gaze to her lap. Such encounters with Jacob always left her feeling inadequate.
At last it was over, and the wedding guests gathered outside to pelt the lucky couple with dainty little sachets of rice. Margo reappeared shortly in a neat white linen traveling suit. David was at her side, his tuxedo exchanged for a sports coat and casual shirt and slacks. The newlyweds looked young and wildly excited, hardly able to keep their eyes from each other.
“Be happy, darling,” Kate murmured, hugging Margo warmly before she climbed into the red sports car beside her new husband.
“I will. I really will.” Margo glanced over Kate’s shoulder. “Uncle Jacob looks as if he’d like to bite somebody.”
“Probably me.” David chuckled as Margo got in beside him. “I told him about our jaunt to the male strip joint.”
“How could you?” Margo wailed. “He’ll kill us!”
“He’ll have to catch us first.” David put the small car in gear with a wicked grin. “Goodbye, Kate. Goodbye, new Uncle Jacob!”
And they were gone before Jacob could say a single word.
Kate couldn’t resist baiting him. It was a way of life. She glanced up at his strong, hard face with a small laugh. “Were you going to have a brief word with Margo about what to expect on her wedding night, Uncle Jacob?” she murmured discreetly, although they were away from the other wedding guests.
He glared down at her. “You might have done that yourself. I doubt if my experience would match yours.”
“You might be surprised,” she said.
He bent his tall head to light a cigarette, but his dark eyes never left hers. “Margo invited you to come down for a few days before the wedding to visit with her. You refused. Why?”
“Because of you,” she said without hesitation. “You threw me off Warlance over six years ago and told me to never come back.”
His broad shoulders shrugged, and muscles rippled like rapids in a river. He was overpowering this close—vividly male, abrasively masculine.
He stared down the long, straight road. “A few days after that pool party, one of the gardeners killed a rattlesnake in the bathhouse,” he remarked quietly.
“Nice of you to apologize when you found out,” Kate replied, almost shaking with suppressed rage. He could have admitted that six years ago, but he’d kept it to himself.
He looked down at her, and his eyes were cold. “There was a snake. But you were still naked in that boy’s arms.”
“I was scared to death, too,” she returned. “I hardly knew what I was doing.” She dropped her eyes to his tie. It was nice. Navy blue with red diamonds. “Never mind, Jacob. Think what you like. You always do, regardless of the evidence.”
“Why did you go to Chicago to work?” he asked abruptly, his dark eyes glittering down at her through a wisp of cigarette smoke. “Why not Pierre?”
The question shocked her. It wasn’t like him to seek her out deliberately and start talking. He never had before, at least.
She stared up at him helplessly, every single thought gone out of her head except how handsome he was. Darkly tanned, even-featured, he would have caught more sophisticated eyes than Kate’s. She swallowed.
“Chicago is big,” she said inanely, still staring up at him with wide, soft green eyes.
“So it is,” he agreed quietly. As they stood together without a word for long, static seconds, he searched her face, probing softly, and she felt her knees giving way.
“The…wedding… It was nice,” she choked out finally. Her heart was trying to burst under the intensity of his long stare.
“Very nice,” he agreed, his voice deeper than she remembered it.
“They’re going to Jamaica,” she added breathlessly.
“I know. Dad and I gave them the trip for a wedding present.”
“They’ll enjoy it, I’m sure.” This was ridiculous, she told herself. She was a reporter, a whiz with words, even her city editor said so. Why was she stammering like a grammar school kid?
He was still looking in her eyes as if he couldn’t get enough of just gazing at her. This is insane, she thought. Jacob was her worst enemy.
“You’ve changed,” he said finally. “You’re more mature. More poised. What do you do at that newspaper you work for?”
“Politics,” she said without thinking.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s very exciting,” she confessed. “Especially the elections. You get involved, even though you try to report impartially. I think I jinx the candidates, though,” she added with a sheepish smile. “Mine always seem to lose.”
He didn’t return the smile. He lifted his cigarette to his mouth again while Tom shifted restlessly in the background. It was unusual for Jacob and Kate to talk without looking for weapons.
Jacob dropped his cigarette and ground it out under his expensive boot. His dark eyes searched hers. “I suppose you and Tom will go back tonight?”
She nodded. “We have to. I’ve got an interview first thing in the morning.”
His cleft chin lifted and he narrowed his eyes, searching hers. “That boy, Kate…”
“I never lied to you, Jacob,” she whispered.
The change in his face was faintly alarming, explosive. The muscles in his jaw tautened, his eyes went black. “I can’t remember a woman ever saying my name the way you do,” he said half under his breath.
She had to fight from flinging herself into his arms and begging for his mouth. She looked at it now with aching hunger, followed its chiseled perfection with eyes gone misty from all the years of hopeless longing. Would it never end, this longing for him? He’d never touched her, never kissed her, in all the years she’d known him. She dreamed about it, about how it would feel. But it would never happen.
“I have to go,” she said miserably.
His chest expanded slowly, as if he was taking a deliberate breath. “Yes,” he said finally. “So do I. I’ve got to catch a train to New York for meetings about some cattle futures.”
He was taking the train because he didn’t trust airplanes, she recalled with a faint smile. He never flew unless it was a matter of life and death.
He did look every inch a businessman, all right. Her eyes adored him one last time. Now that Margo was married, she might never see him again. The thought was vaguely terrifying. That fright seeped into her expression, puzzling the tall man beside her.
“What is it?” he asked, his deep voice almost gentle.
“Nothing.” She clutched her purse closer. “Well… I have to go.”
“You said that.”
She shrugged and smiled faintly. “Yes.”
He