it. In addition, there was no phone to call his demented sisters and rake them over live coals for this horrendous betrayal. What the hell were those two thinking? They weren’t thinking, he decided. Of all the lamebrain ideas they’d ever concocted over the years this topped the list!
Muttering several foul expletives, Jake plunked down on the wooden chair to examine his evening rations. A tantalizing aroma filled his nostrils as he uncovered the plate that was heaping with smoked ribs, a baked potato, corn on the cob and vanilla pudding. Until now, he’d been too upset to realize he was starving. Jake plucked up a sparerib and sighed in culinary anticipation. Anna Jefferies might look like the female version of an army drill sergeant but she could damn sure cook, he decided at first bite.
Jake polished off the first melt-in-your-mouth spare-rib, then glanced down to see the mutt staring hopefully at him. “Yeah, well, that’s all I figured a little beggar like you would be good for anyway.” He handed the spitwad of a dog a chunk of meat. The mutt practically grinned as he trotted across the tile to plop down on the rug beside the sink. Jake watched the mutt chew his food happily.
While Jake ate his meal, he pondered this pointless hiatus. In the first place, he didn’t need stress reduction. No way, no how. He’d never suffered an anxiety attack. Okay, so he did endure throbbing headaches, eyestrain, shoulder strain and a few other job-related ailments, but that went with the territory. Jogging and pumping iron usually relieved his tension.
Secondly, who did that thirty-year-old bombshell think she was? A wanna-be psychologist? The next Dr. Freud? The way Jake saw it, Moriah was only colorful, attractive scenery at this haunt in the woods. For sure, she hadn’t been able to pry useful information from him during their road trip. He hadn’t told her a damn thing she could use to pick him apart and readjust his lifestyle—and that’s the way it would stay.
Having finished the delicious meal, Jake opened his suitcase to see what his sisters had packed for him. Sure enough, there was an array of chambray shirts in muted colors, plus several pairs of prewashed jeans, shorts and T-shirts. Jake’s eyes nearly popped from their sockets when he noticed the new string bikini briefs—in assorted bold colors and wild prints—that his ornery sisters had purchased for him. Hell! He favored the garden variety of white cotton underwear, not these skimpy scraps of fabric. The prospect of his kid sisters buying him this racy underwear made him cringe. Jeez!
Muttering and snarling in frustration, Jake shed his suit and donned a T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. He had no problem with casual clothes—the bikini briefs he wasn’t so sure about—but he wasn’t going to tramp over to the lodge to watch a flick with the old fogies from the other cabins. Furthermore, he was in no mood to see Moriah again. He was keeping his distance from the walking American flag. He wasn’t sure why he felt it imperative to avoid her as much as possible, but some inner voice—Good gad! He was starting to sound like her already—kept warning him to watch his step with her. He was too reactionary around her.
Besides that, he didn’t like blue-eyed blondes on general principle. His two-timing ex-fiancée was a blue-eyed blonde, so that was one strike against Moriah. Then there was the fact that Moriah dressed too outrageously for Jake’s sedate tastes. He preferred subtle and subdued. Moriah Randell was one of those here-I-come-ready-or-not, in-your-face kind of females. Plus, she was nagging him to get in touch with his inner self—whatever good that was supposed to do. She wanted him to change his perfected routine and develop a carefree approach to life.
Bull! It was all a bunch of bull!
“Ain’t happenin’,” Jake told himself resolutely. He may be stuck here for two hellish weeks—an eternity as far as he was concerned—rather than two days, but nobody was messing with his attitude. It worked for him and he wasn’t changing his ways at this late date.
When his parents died he’d moved back home to give Kim and Lisa the extra attention, security, guidance and support that a fourteen-year-old and sixteen-year-old needed at such a crucial time. He’d made a solemn commitment to his family and he’d stuck to it for ten years. It had cost him a fiancée and a social life. Hell, you couldn’t bring home a babe and fool around when you had two impressionable teenage sisters underfoot who were trying to cope with a devastating loss, could you? How insensitive would that have been?
Oh sure, Jake had promised himself that once he raised his kid sisters he’d let loose and enjoy himself for a couple of years. But working and riding herd over his sisters had become such an ingrained habit that he never got around to breaking it.
Jake had occupied his time and mind by getting his graphic design shop up and running. He’d had more clients than he knew what to do with before he knew it. So what was wrong with that? He’d taken on the responsibility of his sisters and become financially and professionally successful. Was that a crime? Around Triple R it was, apparently, he mused as he shoved his foot into the sneakers his sisters packed for him. If Moriah had her way, Jake would be strolling around the wooded hills, picking wildflowers and meditating. Not very damn likely!
Yeah, okay, so maybe he was transferring his frustration about the situation, and this feeling of betrayal to Moriah, when it rightfully should be vented on his sisters. But his sisters weren’t within earshot—and he couldn’t get his mitts on a damn phone to chew them down one side and up the other!
It was better this way, Jake convinced himself. Directing his irritation at Moriah was the safe thing to do. Fact was that, despite her vivid blue eyes and thick blond hair, despite her shockingly loud clothes and those aggravating smiles that nothing he said could affect, he was a teensy-weensy bit attracted to her.
A reluctant smile pursed his lips, remembering how her cheery smile had faltered when he kept yammering on and on about using sex, sex and more sex as a remedy to reduce stress. He’d rattled her, he knew. It was the most fun he’d had all day. Maybe all week…all month…aw, hell!
The disturbing thought that enjoyment wasn’t an integral part of his everyday life put Jake on his feet and had him moving toward the cabin door. “C’mon, Spitwad,” he commanded as he strode onto the porch. “Time to go jogging. And you better keep up or I’ll leave you out in the woods to find your way home. Or get eaten by a bear—whichever.”
The mutt stared at him, then glanced at the half-eaten chunk of meat between his front paws.
“If I’ve gotta hang out here in the boonies, then you’ve gotta hang out with me, Fuzzball,” Jake told the mutt. “Get off your lazy butt and let’s go.”
The pup defied him and went back to gnawing on the meat.
Jake stamped over to snatch the food away, tucked it in a napkin and then crammed it into his shirt pocket. Left with nothing else to do, the pup followed at Jake’s heels.
Left with nothing else to do, Jake thought as he jogged along the footpath that wound through the hills. Boy, if that didn’t just about say it all!
MORIAH HAD JUST returned to the lobby after chatting with the guest in cabin number three, when a baritone roar gushed through the open window. She had a pretty good idea who let out that booming shout. She made a beeline for cabin number seven.
Before she got within a hundred yards of the cabin the offensive smell of skunk closed in around her. Moriah covered the lower portion of her face with her hand, then glanced this way and that.
“Jake?” she called to the darkness at large.
“Over here, damn it to hell!” he bellowed like an outraged moose.
Moriah veered toward the hiking path, relying on the golden shaft of light that
