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  He ran his fingers through her hair, smoothing it down around her neck where his hands halted almost encircling her slender throat. Then his thumbs began moving in a slow circular motion that was hypnotically sensuous. The slightest pressure was exerted on her chin, lifting her face towards his. Through half-closed lashes, Tanya glanced up at him, her pulse leaping as she saw his gaze dwelling on her mouth.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured, bringing her closer to him. His breath was like a warm caress, ‘I have to do this. Don’t fight me, honey.’

  There was only submission as he tilted her head back and covered her mouth with his. Submission, until his deepening kiss touched off the passionate core of her soft body spreading a yielding fire through every fibre of her being and Tanya responded. A thousand diamond brilliants glittered in rainbow colours behind her closed eyes. With quaking rapture, she swayed against the solid wail of his chest, her hands creeping up to his neck to twine about it in her own fierce possession.

  Yet his hunger for her was insatiable as his hands moved down her back, waist and hips, shaping her feminine form to the hard contours of his body. Tanya strained closer, her heart pounding like thunder in her chest while her mind whirled at the exquisite pain of his crushing embrace. With a driving mastery, Jake parted her lips and began a sensual exploration of her mouth, drawing a moan of sheer ecstasy from deep in her soul.

  The jacket fell into a heap on the dock near her feet, no longer needed to provide its impermanent warmth. They were surrounded by a heat wave of their own making, the white-hot fire searing them together. His mouth left a scorching trail over her eyes and ears and neck, then returned to consume her mouth again. Tanya recognized the throbbing weakness in the lower part of her body as the timeless desire for a woman to know a man. The completeness of the intimate longing frightened her and her hands made a fluttering protest against his chest.

  His arms tightened fiercely about her, conquering her weak opposition with arrogant sureness. There was a tiny sob of surrender as her lips melted under the ardency of his and her hands began a tremulous and exploring caress of his rugged features. Then his mouth was dragged slowly away from hers and a hand pressed her tawny head against his chest, holding her possessively against him. The rush of his heart was a serenade in tune with the frenzied pace of her own. A wild, sublime peace encircled them for endless minutes, neither wishing to break the mindlessly magic spell.

  Then his harsh, uneven breathing became more natural and controlled beneath Tanya’s head. His chest rose and fell in one long, shuddering sigh as his hands clasped her arms and reluctantly moved her away from him. Their firm grip prevented her from swaying back to him while she stared at her hands still resting on his waist.

  ‘Look at me, Tanya,’ Jake ordered.

  Unwillingly she lifted her chin a fraction of an inch, knowing her desire for him was still glazing her eyes. But she obeyed, looking into the smouldering blue flames that burned with the certainty of the power he had over her. His gaze made an intimate exploration of her face, satisfying himself of the response he had aroused.

  ‘Is this the reason for the crackling undercurrents that charge the air between us?’ he mused complacently. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as even in the moonlight he saw the heightened colour rush into her cheeks. ‘Do you still believe our marriage is a worthless cause?’

  This moment, more than ever before in her life, Tanya wanted their marriage to be real. Tears sprang to her eyes as the terrible pain of hopelessness struck her abdomen. With a sobbing sigh she lowered her chin, adding a tormented, negative shake of her head.

  ‘It’s impossible, Jake.’ Her voice quivered with defeat.

  She could feel the freezing rigidity flow through him. It was like a knife wound to her heart.

  ‘Impossible?’ he echoed angrily. His fingers dug into her arms, giving her a short, vicious shake. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It can’t work.’ The constriction in her throat made her voice sound very small and weak. ‘There’s too much you don’t know about me.’ She hesitated, afraid of the questions that statement might bring, then rushed on to cover it. ‘And I don’t know about you.’

  ‘I won’t accept that.’ There was a return of his haughty arrogance.

  ‘Oh, please please,’ Tanya begged, ‘can’t you leave things the way they were?’

  ‘No,’ Jake said grimly. ‘It’s too late to try to turn back the clock.’ The unrelenting hardness of his eyes seemed to pierce through her skin into the hidden secrets of her mind. ‘I should have taken you just now and made your submission irrevocable.’

  ‘No!’ She took a frightened step backwards, terrified that he might decide that it still wasn’t too late to do it.

  ‘I’m trying to understand you, Tanya, but you’re making it awfully hard.’ He shook his head in a sort of angry bewilderment and made no attempt to move nearer. ‘You said yourself that John needed a father. Well, he needs a mother, too. You can’t expect us to spend the rest of our lives sharing a child and still remain strangers to one another.’

  ‘I don’t really expect that,’ she said with a hopeless shrug.

  ‘What do you expect then? No, no, don’t answer that,’ he added with a wry shake of his head. ‘You’d probably send me back to Africa.’

  In spite of herself, Tanya smiled, his droll humour striking a responsive chord. ‘Maybe Antarctica this time,’ she suggested softly.

  His gaze moved to her sharply, a slight twinkle accenting his quiet contemplation of her. ‘Today John asked me if you couldn’t come along with us some time like Sheila did. Not all the time, but every once in a while.’ Jake paused, not really waiting for an answer as he studied her subdued expression. ‘We do need time to get to know one another — I said it the first night I came home. That’s also why I didn’t make love to you the way I wanted to a few minutes ago. If you don’t want to spend time alone with me right away, what better chaperon could you ask for than a seven-year-old boy?’

  ‘Oh, Jake, I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ The admission was wrenched from her heart. She wanted to agree, if for no other reason than to find out if the attraction between them was more than physical. But if it was, what would she gain? She turned away, letting her hands close over the railing.

  ‘Right now we have a son and a marriage certificate. I don’t know if we can have a future together or not.’ His solemn voice was directly behind her. She made no protest when his hands turned her back around to face him. ‘But I do know if we never make the attempt to find out, we’ll always wonder if our marriage could have worked. Our chances of making it a success are slim.’ His finger gently raised her chin, compelling her to look at the glittering resolution on his face. ‘I don’t know about you, Tanya, but I’m a true Missourian. I’m going to have to be shown that it’s impossible. And I haven’t been convinced so far.’

  For so many years she had told herself that she hated him. Her mother had often said that it was a very fine line that divided the equally potent emotions of love and hate. Had one been disguising as the other all these years? At the moment that answer eluded her as she stared at the strong mouth and tried to find the courage to answer Jake.

  A frown of impatience swept fleetingly across his forehead at her continued silence. ‘If you’re afraid that I’ll take advantage of you, then I’ll give you my word right now that I won’t touch you.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she assured him hastily, finding the thought of being near him and not having him touch her was intolerable. His regard of her took on a lazy, indolent look, almost as though he could divine her thoughts. Tanya swallowed convulsively, trying to appear composed and not at all shaken by the sensuous line of his mouth. ‘I don’t object to being kissed, although I … I …’

  ‘We’ll go no further than we did tonight.’ Jake rescued her from her stammering attempt to qualify her words. ‘Unless you specifically ask me to make love to you.’

  The amused and knowi
ng glitter in his eyes stole away her poise, leaving her standing defenseless before him.

  His arrogant features smiled down at her. ‘Are you agreeing to my proposal to get to know one another?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tanya sighed, a strange peace settling over her as she made her commitment. Her doubts about the sanity of her decision were momentarily banished.

  ‘This calls for a kiss to seal our bargain, doesn’t it?’

  Jake gave her time to reply as his head slowly lowered towards hers, but every quaking inch of her wanted to feel that shooting fire his lips were capable of setting aflame. The kiss was short, but without haste, lasting long enough to set her pulse racing before he gently released her mouth. His hands were on her shoulders and she trembled with longing. Jake misinterpreted the movement, deliberately, Tanya thought, as he bent down to retrieve his jacket, placing it back around her shoulders.

  ‘Are you ready to go back to the house?’ he asked.

  Tanya nodded, knowing that to stay here alone with him would be flirting with temptation. A thrill of gladness swept through her when she turned to retrace her steps and discovered his arm was possessively encircling her shoulders, keeping her beside him as they walked the tightrope of the narrow pier. Nor did it fall away on the rocky path to the house. She stole one quick glance at his face, noting his pleased, nearly triumphant smile, and wondered if she had made a fool of herself again.

  ‘You won’t be sorry,’ Jake said quietly, perceptively reading her thoughts. There was a teasing twinkle in, his eyes. ‘You might even find I’m a kind of likeable guy.’

  Tanya laughed shortly, sending him a rueful glance. ‘I think you could charm the stripes off a zebra if you set your mind to it,’ she declared.

  ‘In that case,’ he grinned, ‘a nice little wife shouldn’t be too much trouble!’

  The way she felt just then she could agree with him, but she wasn’t about to admit it. ‘The trouble is I don’t have any stripes,’ she reminded him.

  ‘It isn’t stripes I want,’ Jake replied as they reached the patio. Tanya was prevented from attempting a comment on that defense-destroying remark by J. D. Lassiter as he moved to let his presence be known. ‘Hello, Dad,’ Jake greeted him calmly, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to have his arm around his wife.

  ‘It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?’ his father replied after one brief, surprised glance at Tanya. He, too, had a rather pleased smile on his face as he gazed absently at the faint starry ribbon of the Milky Way.

  ‘We took a walk down by the lake,’ said Jake, glancing down at Tanya as she shifted uncomfortably away from him. He obligingly let his arm fall to his side, an understanding glint in his eyes.

  Tanya didn’t feel capable of discussing the trivialities of the weather. She slipped Jake’s jacket from her shoulders. ‘Excuse me. I feel … a little tired. I think I’ll turn in.’

  There was something very warm and intimate in the look that Jake gave her as he wished her a good night. It went a long way in restoring her shaken composure.

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  Chapter Six

  THE FIRST WEEK under their new agreement passed very smoothly, almost as though it didn’t exist. Tanya initially thought that Jake might be giving her a chance to back out — which was ridiculous, because Jake wasn’t the kind of man to allow anyone to go back on their word.

  There had been one short outing, an after-school fishing expedition with John. His delight in having both of his parents along was so pronounced that Tanya felt guilty for not accompanying them before. Not a single ’I-told-you-so’ look had come from Jake, only an occasional glance of shared satisfaction at the boy’s happiness had been exchanged.

  Tanya strolled along the winding private lane, enjoying her leisurely walk to the mail box. Two o’clock. In another three hours Jake would be coming home from his almost daily journey to the firm’s office in Springfield, sometimes in the company of his father, but more often alone. It was frightening the way she had begun to look forward to the hour of his arrival.

  The shadow of a circling hawk flitted across the ground in front of her as she neared the mail box. She glanced up at the winged predator, admiring the indolent grace of his gliding flight while shivering at the sinister silence of his approach.

  ‘I pity the unwary rodent,’ she said aloud as she opened the mail box and riffled through the assortment of envelopes and advertisements.

  Her name leaped out at her from the face of one of the envelopes. There was no mistake that it was meant for her and not Julia. It was addressed to Mrs. Tanya Lassiter. Even as she ripped it open, she knew who it would be from. These last few days she had tried several times to compose a letter to Patrick, only to have the words flow stiff and impersonally formal from her pen. With a sinking heart, she read the short message: ’Meet me Wednesday at twelve noon at the Persimmon Tree Restaurant. If you’re not there, I will know you couldn’t get away. Signed — Patrick.’

  Furtively, Tanya stuffed the letter in the pocket of her lemon yellow slacks. She resisted the impulse to dash back to the house and phone him. His secretary was something of a martinet, and it would be impossible to get through her without divulging her name. Since Tanya had never had cause to call Patrick before, her sudden interest in him would set the gossiping tongues wagging.

  Tomorrow was Wednesday. She had little time to decide whether she was going to meet him or not. To not go would only postpone things. Patrick would no doubt send another note of a similar nature. She might not be so lucky the next time and someone else might see it first. She had occasionally gone shopping in Springfield, and she would arouse no one’s suspicions if she went tomorrow. In that instant, Tanya knew she was going to meet Patrick without confiding in anyone the true purpose of her journey, least of all Jake. Somehow she just didn’t believe that he would understand.

  Her casual announcement that evening of her plans was taken very matter-of-factly, including Jake. But she didn’t escape quite as easily as she had thought she might after Jake spoke up.

  ‘Why don’t you meet me for lunch tomorrow?’ he suggested.

  A quick, apprehensive frown marred her poised expression. What excuse could she possibly give him for refusing his invitation? Her hesitation spoke for itself as did the slight narrowing of his gaze.

  ‘On second thoughts, you’d better not plan on it,’ offering her a way out as he leaned back in his chair. ‘I might not be able to be free. Lunches invariably seem to turn out to be business meetings these days. Maybe another time?’

  ‘Another time,’ Tanya nodded, smiling weakly in relief.

  Did he suspect another motive, namely Patrick, for her obvious unwillingness to meet him? She seriously doubted it. Jake was more apt to blame it on a reluctance to be alone with him. Part of her wanted to assure him that that wasn’t it at all and explain exactly why she was meeting Patrick, but there was a stronger, cold voice that kept saying it wasn’t any of his business.

  Dark clouds blotted out the sun. There was an ominous rumble of thunder in the distance increasing the drizzling rain to a steady pour, then allowing it to slack off again. A more melodramatic setting couldn’t have been staged for her clandestine rendezvous with Patrick. A hollow humour had dominated Tanya’s preparations for the meeting as she had chosen to wear a simple navy blue dress, attractive but not eye-catching. She had sleeked her long hair back into a neat pleat that added severity to her features without taking away their perfection. If the sun had been shining, she thought wryly, she would probably have hidden behind dark glasses.

  Still, when she looked at her reflection in the small car mirror, it was hard to believe that the poised, sophisticated woman looking back was herself. No one would guess that beneath that cool exterior she was a trembling mass of confusion and apprehensions. She had never done anything like this before and it made her feel oddly unclean, regardless of how innocent her reasons were. She resolutely thrust aside those feelings of
embarrassment and shame that kept bringing unnatural colour to her cheeks. But, as she got out of her car, she glanced unconsciously around to see if anyone was watching. Then she used the umbrella to hide her face as she skipped hurriedly through the puddles of the car-park, not feeling safe until she reached the restaurant doors.

  It was twelve o’clock on the dot when she deposited her raincoat and umbrella in the cloakroom. With a deep breath to calm her churning stomach, she walked towards the hostess, her gaze flitting about the room for a glimpse of Patrick.

  ‘How many in your party?’ the woman inquired politely.

  ‘Two,’ Tanya replied. ‘I’m supposed to meet a Mr. Raines here at noon. Would you know if he’s arrived?’

  ‘Mr. Raines, yes, of course,’ the hostess nodded. ‘Come this way, please.’

  As she followed the woman leading her down the long, narrow room, Tanya understood why Patrick had picked this particular restaurant. Despite its airy decor of brilliant greens, soft yellows and white, there was also an air of intimate seclusion obtained by the high backs of the white leather booths and the concave wicker chairs that closed around and hid their occupants from view. Patrick’s table was in the rear, allowing little chance of their being seen. He rose briefly as she took the seat opposite him.

  ‘I didn’t think you would come,’ he murmured, an ardent fire darkening his eyes which Tanya couldn’t meet.

  ‘I —’ she began, only to be halted by a person stopping at their table. She glanced up in alarm.