The Pride of Jared MacKade

  link her arms around his neck. “I feel wonderful.” Her lips found his and lingered, soft and warm. “How about you?”

  “Exactly the same.”

  She hoped so, she hoped he could. She would have lived her life in bliss if he could feel for her even a fraction of what she felt for him.

  He gathered her close and held her as no one else had ever held her. As if it mattered.

  “I don’t suppose we could stay here forever,” she murmured.

  “No, but we can come back.” He needed to think, and knew it was impossible as long as he held her. There were responsibilities at the farm that he was neglecting, he reminded himself. “I have to go.” But he buried his face in her hair, and his arms stayed around her. “Farms don’t take Sundays off.”

  “I have to pick up Bryan soon.” But her head nestled into his shoulder, and her arms stayed around him.

  “Why don’t you bring him over and…just bring him over?”

  “All right.”

  “Savannah.”

  “Hmm?”

  He caught her hair in his hand, drew her head back. His mouth crushed desperately over hers. “Just once more,” he murmured as he lowered her to the blanket.

  When he walked back to the farm, his mind was fogged from her. He’d never known a woman who could leave him so dazed, so weak-kneed. He passed the pigsty, where the stock caught the scent of man and grunted hopefully. In the chicken coop, hens clucked and fluttered over their feed. Distracted, Jared nearly tripped over one of the barn cats, who’d come out to stretch in the sun.

  Rubbing a hand over his face, he made it to the back door. The smells of breakfast hit him hard, and his stomach realized it was ravenous. He could have eaten the sausages Devin was grilling, and the skillet along with it.

  “Coffee.” He nearly whimpered the word as he stumbled to the counter.

  Devin glanced at him, then over at Shane, who was already gulping down his second cup. A look of pure enjoyment passed between them.

  “Your shirt’s inside out,” Devin said mildly.

  Jared scalded his tongue on the coffee, cursed, then collapsed at the kitchen table.

  With a grin cracking his face, Shane leaned on the counter near the stove, where Devin was frying up breakfast. “Brother Jared looks a little rough this morning. Looks like he spent the night crawling through the woods.”

  “I guess I should have sent out that search party.” Enjoying himself, Devin cracked eggs into the pan. “It’s tough on a man, spending the night in the haunted woods. Alone.”

  “I feel real bad about it. Let me get you some more coffee, Jare.” All solicitude, Shane brought the pot to the table. “Then you can tell us all about it. Don’t leave out a thing. We’re here for you.”

  Jared picked up the coffee Shane had just topped off and scalded his tongue again. “I’m in love with a former exotic dancer with a tattoo.”

  With an expert’s finesse, Devin flipped eggs. “She was a stripper?”

  “Where’s the tattoo?” Shane wanted to know. It earned him a halfhearted jab in the gut. “Okay, just give me the general area.”

  “I’m in love with her,” Jared repeated, weighing each word.

  “Well, hell, you’ve been in love before.” Shane strolled over to take biscuits out of the oven. “At least you’ve picked one that’s interesting this time.”

  “Shut up,” Devin muttered. He heaped food on a platter and came to the table. Then he sat and studied Jared’s face. A long moment later, he leaned back and took a considering breath. “All the way in love?”

  Experimentally, Jared rubbed the heel of his hand over his breastbone, which ached from the way his heart was swelling. “Feels like it.”

  With a shake of his head, Shane dumped biscuits into a bowl. “Man, we’re dropping like flies. First Rafe, now you.” He brought the biscuits to the table, sat, and propped his head on his hands. “It’s getting scary.”

  “Did you tell her?” Devin asked.

  “I’ve got to work it out.”

  “Next thing you know, we’ll have to put on suits again and get married.” Grumbling at the thought, Shane started to fill his plate.

  “I didn’t say anything about marriage,” Jared said quickly. Panic reared up and kicked him in the throat. “I’ve been there. I didn’t say anything about marriage.”

  “You weren’t married, you were contracted.” Cheering up, Shane shoveled in a man-size mouthful of eggs. A good solid breakfast always lifted his mood. “You might as well have cuddled up with a spreadsheet.”

  “What the hell do you know about it?”

  Shane washed down the eggs with coffee. “Because I never saw you look then the way you look now, bro.”

  Devin ate slowly and nodded in agreement. “Is it the kid that bothers you?”

  “No, Bryan’s great.” Frowning, Jared helped himself to what was left on the platter. He liked the boy, liked spending time with him, talking with him. And the truth was that one of the reasons his marriage had been doomed was that he’d wanted children, and his wife hadn’t.

  No, the boy didn’t bother him. It was the man who had helped create him who stuck in his craw. And, he realized, the other men since.

  He just couldn’t intellectualize them away. And he didn’t like himself for it.

  He caught Devin’s look, that quiet, knowing look, and jerked his shoulders restlessly. “I just have to get used to it.”

  Devin dashed some salt on his eggs. “The trouble with lawyers is, they like to gather up all the little facts, every little piece. Then they can argue either side. You were always good at that, Jare. Dad used to say you could twist something simple around from right to wrong and back again. Maybe this is one of those times you should just take it as it is.”

  Jared wanted to. And he hoped he could.

  He didn’t move in with her, technically. But he spent most of his nights there, and some of his clothes found their way into her closet, his books onto her shelves.

  He got into the habit of swinging by after work to pick up Bryan on practice nights. More often than not, they lingered on the field, tossing the ball.

  If a case kept him late at the office, he phoned her. Sometimes he phoned her just to hear her voice.

  With casual regularity, he brought her flowers, and baseball cards or some other treasure for Bryan. They were a trio on outings, and they gave the town a great deal to buzz about.

  Bryan accepted him without question—a fact that both pleased and distressed Jared. He wanted to believe it was because the boy cared for him, considered them a kind of family. But he wondered if Bryan was simply accustomed to having a man stake a claim.

  When that nasty toad of a thought jumped into his head, Jared did what he could to bat it away. It was, after all, the now that mattered. The way she looked at him. The way she laughed when she watched him and Bryan tussle on the lawn. The way, he thought, she arched her back after she’d been bending over the flowers she tended, or how complete her concentration was when she worked in her studio.

  It was the way she smelled that mattered, when she walked out of a steaming bath. It was the way she strained against him night after night in bed, as if she could never get enough. And the way she would reach for his hand when they sat together on the porch swing in the evening.

  Court had kept him late, and the strain of the day refused to be shaken off. He’d brought work home, and he knew that the headache that was drumming behind his eyes would be violent before it was over.

  He stopped off in town to pick up aspirin, searching the shelves in the general store for something that promised to kick big holes in the drums in his head.

  “Hi there, Jared.” Mrs. Metz, armed with a loaf of bread and a box of Ring Dings, cornered him. She was an expert at the ebb and flow of gossip.

  “Mrs. Metz.” The rhythm of small towns was too ingrained for him to hurry on, and he liked her, had fond memories of her feeding him homemade cookies. And chasing him of
f with a broom. “How’s it going?”

  “Fair to middling. Need some rain, that’s for sure. Spring’s been too dry.”

  “Shane’s a little worried about it.”

  “We’re going to get some tonight,” she predicted. “A storm’s brewing. Heard that Morningstar boy played a good game Saturday.”

  “Three RBIs, initiated two double plays.”

  She gave a cackling laugh that sent her trio of chins waggling. “You sound like a proud daddy.” Before he could comment, she hurried on. “Seen you and the boy and his mama here and there. She’s what my boy Pete would call a stunner.”

  “Yes, she is.” Jared chose a painkiller at random.

  “Hard, though,” Mrs. Metz continued, shifting her ample weight to block his retreat. “Raising a boy on her own, I mean. Not that lots of women don’t find themselves in that kind of fix today. She’s from out west, isn’t she? I guess the boy’s father’s still out there.”

  “I couldn’t say.” Because it was the literal truth, the pounding in his head increased.

  “You’d think the man would want to see his son now and again, wouldn’t you? They’ve been here close on four months now. You’d think he’d want to come around and visit a fine-looking boy like that.”

  “You’d think,” Jared said, careful now.

  “’Course, some men just don’t give two hoots, much less a holler, about their children. Like Joe Dolin.” Her cheerfully homely face puckered up on the name. “I’m happy as I can be you’re handling Cassie’s divorce and making it smooth for her. Mostly they’re not smooth— I know when my sister’s second boy got his, the feathers flew. I’d wager Savannah Morningstar’s divorce was a rough go.”

  Oh, no, you don’t, he thought. He wasn’t going to give her any fuel by saying there’d never been a divorce, since there’d never been a marriage. “She hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “You used to be more curious, Jared.” Before he could snarl at her, she beamed a smile at him. “And just look at you now, a lawyer carrying a briefcase. I’ve come up to watch you in court a time or two.”

  His anger with her deflated. “Yes, I know.” He’d seen her there, in her large flowered dress and sensible shoes. Like his own personal cheering section.

  “Better’n watching Perry Mason, that’s what I told Mr. Metz. That Jared MacKade’s better’n Perry Mason. Your folks would be right proud of you. And here we thought the lot of you would never be on the right side of the law.” She found that so funny, she almost doubled over with laughter. “Lord, you were bad, boy. Don’t think I don’t know who blackened my Pete’s eye after the spring dance in high school.”

  The memory was very sweet. “He tried to muscle in on my girl.”

  “Sharilyn got around in those days. It was Sharilyn in high school, wasn’t it?”

  “Briefly.”

  “Anyway, she got around, and so did you, as I recall. Girls always fluttering around you and your brothers. Young Bryan’s mother must be right pleased to have hooked herself a MacKade, and I got to say, the three of you look real nice together. I got a feeling your mama would’ve taken to that girl.”

  “Yeah.” Jared felt a clutching in the stomach. What would his mama have said about a woman like Savannah?

  He thought about it on the way home, and it added weight to his headache. If his mother were alive, how would he explain Savannah? Unwed mother, exotic dancer, carnival worker, calf roper, street artist.

  Pick one, he thought, and rubbed at his temple.

  The problem was, he could imagine it all, could see her in each stage of her evolution. And it was too easy to see how each layer was part of the whole that was the woman who was waiting for him.

  He was tempted to stop off at Rafe’s, or go straight to the farm. Just to prove he could. That Bryan’s mama didn’t have her hooks in him. But he turned up her lane, because it seemed that anything less would be cowardly.

  No MacKade was a coward.

  She was playing the music at full volume again. Usually it amused him, the way she would crank up that old stereo and blast rock out over the hills. Now he sat in the car, rubbing his aching head.

  He walked to the porch, his heavy briefcase weighing him down. Through the screen door he could see her back in the kitchen, washing dishes, singing along with the stereo in a lusty, throaty voice that would sizzle a man’s blood. Her hips were grinding to the beat.

  She sure knew how to move, he thought, jealousy and temper slashing through him at the same time the first flash of lightning blazed in the west.

  Before he could stop himself, he’d slammed the door behind him. Like a pistol shot, it boomed over the music. She swung around, her loose hair following the flow of her movement.

  “You want to turn that damn thing down?” he shouted.

  “Sure.” Hips still rotating, she sauntered over and flipped it off. “Sorry, didn’t hear you drive up.”

  “You wouldn’t have heard a freight train drive up.”

  She only lifted a brow at the edge in his voice and wiped her damp hands on tight jeans. “Rough day?”

  He stalked over, dropped his briefcase on the table where the daisies he’d brought her a few days before still smiled sunnily. “Is that how you danced for money?”

  The blow was so quick, so sudden and sharp, she couldn’t even gasp. It shivered through her once, viciously, before she gathered herself and rolled over the pain. “No. I wouldn’t have made much, if that’s all I’d put into it.” She walked to the refrigerator for a beer she didn’t want, because if there was something in her hands they might not shake. “Want one?”

  “No. Didn’t it bother you, being stared at, drooled over?”

  “Not especially.” She look a slow, deliberate swallow of beer.

  “So you enjoyed it.” He was prodding, very much as he would prod a witness who’d been sworn in. “Enjoyed the dancing, the staring, the drooling.”

  “It paid the rent. Men liked to look at my body, and I figured they could pay for it.”

  “And if they’d pay to look, they’d pay to—” He broke off, staggered by what had nearly come out of his mouth. He’d had no idea it was in there.

  She didn’t so much as flinch. This time, it wasn’t unexpected. “Now that you brought it up—” her shoulders moved in a lazy, careless shrug “—I thought about it. There was a time that that was all I had to bargain with, so I thought about selling myself.”

  The horrified apology that was on the tip of his tongue dried up. “And did you?”

  She stared at him, her eyes cool and blank. “I’m going up to say good-night to my son.” Her eyes went from cool to ballistic when Jared snagged her arm. “Don’t mess with me, MacKade. Stay or go, it’s up to you, but don’t mess with me.”

  She jerked free and strode quickly up the stairs.

  He wanted to break something. Preferably something sharp that he could stab himself with afterward. Instead, he ripped open the box of aspirin, fought off the lid, then downed three with what was left of her beer.

  Upstairs, Savannah settled Bryan in for the night. When she’d closed his door, she locked herself in the bathroom, where she could bathe her hot face over and over again with frigid water.

  How stupid she’d been, she thought, berating herself. How blind, not to have seen what he was holding back. How careless, not to have built a defense against what he thought of her, underneath it all.

  She would build one now, she promised herself. She would not allow herself to be hurt by the questions he asked, or the ones that were in his eyes. She would not, she swore she would not, allow him to make her feel ashamed of the answers.

  She had fought too long and too hard to let anyone make her feel less than what she was.

  But, though she tried, she couldn’t find that place inside herself, that quiet, untroubled place where she could escape.

  It seemed he could follow her there.

  Methodically she dried her face and tidied the sink. All the
while, she listened for the sound of his car leaving. But there was nothing but the crack of lightning, the mumble of thunder, and the mutters of old ghosts.

  He was at the kitchen table when she came back down, his papers spread out. He slipped his glasses off when she hesitated, but she turned her back on him and walked outside to wait for the storm.

  It came slowly from the west, and built. Like temper simmering. The wind kicked up and sent the trees waving. The roar of it—rain, wind, thunder—rolled over the hills, screamed through the woods and exploded.

  There was a smell of ozone in the air. A magic smell. A violent smell. Savannah threw her head back and drew it in. When the wind lashed the rain under the shelter of the porch to slap at her face, she stayed where she was. When lightning flashed so close it seemed to singe the trees, she welcomed it.

  At length, Jared put his work aside and walked out to her. She was drenched, hair dripping, shirt clinging. The air was cool, but she wasn’t shivering. Finally she turned, leaned back against the post and crossed her bare feet at the ankles.

  “Something else on your mind?”

  He’d taken off his tie and rolled up his sleeves, but he was feeling very much like a lawyer. “The question was crudely put,” he began, despising the measured tone of his own voice. “I apologize for that. But not for wanting an answer. I’m asking you if you prostituted.”

  “That’s what’s called rephrasing the question. Right, Counselor?”

  “I have a right to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Damn it, I’m sleeping with you. I’m all but living with you.”

  As her stomach clutched and twisted, she angled her head. “Have I charged you anything, Ace?” Her eyes flashed a warning as he stepped toward her. “Don’t put your hands on me now. You’ve got a nerve, MacKade, waltzing in here like it all belonged to you, tossing my past up in my face like you were part of it. Well, it doesn’t all belong to you, and you weren’t a part of it.”

  He stepped closer, until he was toe-to-toe with her. The storm flashed and burned in him, around him. “Yes or no.”

  When she started to shove him aside, he pressed her back, grabbed her chin in his hand. She bared her teeth, and her eyes shot daggers at him.

  “You think I want to know? I have to know, and I’m prepared to deal with whatever the answer is. Because I’m in love with you.” He jerked her chin higher. “I’m in love with you, Savannah.”

  Her eyes filled, overflowed so quickly his fingers went numb from the shock. She reared back and shoved him with all her strength. “This is how you tell me?” she shouted. “Were you a whore, Savannah, I love you? Well, go to hell, Jared. I won’t have you cheapening what I feel for you. I hate that you’d make me feel cheap when I hear it, when I tell you what I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear from me. I love you so much I’d settle for anything you gave me. Even this.”

  “Don’t.” He had to stop himself from springing forward when she reached for the door. He couldn’t touch her now, knew he didn’t deserve to. “Please don’t walk away. You’re right. You’re exactly right.”

  She stared through the screen at the home she’d fought all of her life to make. She closed her eyes and thought of the man behind her, a man she’d never have believed she could have.

  Suddenly she was exhausted, beaten by her own heart. “I never sold myself,” she said quietly, in a voice carefully picked free of emotion. “Not even when I had to go hungry. I could have, there were plenty of opportunities, and plenty of people who assumed I did. But I didn’t. I didn’t make the choice for myself. I made it for Bryan, because he didn’t deserve a mother who would sell herself for food or a night’s rent.”

  She drew in a deep breath before she turned. “Does that satisfy you, Jared?”

  He would have taken it all back if he could. Yet he knew that if it hadn’t come out, it would have festered and poisoned everything they had. Just as he knew that there was still more that had to be said, had to be asked. But not tonight.

  “Can you understand that I hate knowing you had to make the choice? That you were alone, and in trouble?”

  “I can’t change anything about the last ten years, and I wouldn’t.”

  He stepped toward her slowly, testing. “Can you understand that I love you? That I’ve just come to realize I’ve never loved a woman before, and this terrible need I have for you is making me crazy?” He lifted a hand, touched just the tips of her wet hair. “Let me hold you, Savannah. Just hold you.”

  He took her gently, closed her in his arms and rocked. Relief coursed through him when her arms finally came up from her sides and circled him.

  “I hurt you. I’m sorry. I didn’t even know I could.” Ashamed, he pressed his