she asked, certain there had been a mistake. She hadn’t ordered anything by mail recently.
“Miss Allison Collins?”
She frowned, for the first few seconds unable to place the voice. “Jacob?”
He lowered the box and rested his chin on it, to gaze at her with a wicked smile.
“What are you doing here?”
“Delivering a package,” he said simply. “It’s pretty heavy. I’d better bring it inside for you.”
He pushed past her into the living room, stopping to look around when he reached the middle of the room. “Cozy. I remember your colonial decor—not bad reproductions.”
Allison trailed after him, sputtering her exasperation. “Get out of here this minute! Take whatever’s in that box with you.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want me to do that,” he responded and set the package down on her mother’s rock maple coffee table. “You wouldn’t have anything to wear to the party tomorrow night, if I took it away.”
She planted her feet at shoulders’ width, folded her arms across her chest, and glared at him. “What party?”
“The one I’m throwing on the Queen Elise tomorrow night. You’re invited.” He removed the stiff-brimmed uniform cap and combed his fingers through thick black waves. “Aren’t you going to open it?” He nudged his chin toward the box.
Allison lost her last strand of self-control. “No!” she shouted, rushing at him. “I want you out of my house...out of my life...out, out, out...now!”
He fell back a step, observing her as if she were a rare animal, recently captured but not yet identified...and certainly not tamed.
“Out!” she screamed.
A piercing wail rose above her voice.
Oh, no, she thought. Not now, Cray. Why hadn’t she been more careful to keep her voice down?
Jacob turned toward the hallway, his eyebrows arched, questioning. “What’s that?”
Allison thought of a half dozen lies on the spot. It’s my sister’s child; I’m baby-sitting. That’s the neighbor’s baby. The TV is on in the bedroom. None of them worked.
“That’s my son,” she said finally. “Now, if you’ll leave, I’ll go and take care of him.”
Jacob scowled. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”
“I’m not.”
“I see.” He took a step back. Somewhere among the planes of his face, a hardness grew and solidified. “I should have known a pretty woman like you wouldn’t be alone for long.” His eyes wandered toward the hallway. “That doesn’t sound like an infant’s cry.”
“Cray is fifteen months old, if you must know,” she said without thinking. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. The man wasn’t stupid.
“Fifteen months?”
She followed the tiny motions of his eyes, which grew faster by the second.
“I’d like you to leave now,” she said stiffly, desperate to get him out of the house, away from her son. She was having trouble breathing. “I have to get Cray settled down for the night. He hasn’t been feeling well.”
“Who is the father?” Jacob asked, his voice taut with emotion.
Allison leveled her sternest look at him. “That is none of your business. Go. Leave!”
The levels of emotion that crossed Jacob’s face were more frightening than any words he might have spoken. Instead of turning toward the door, he lurched forward, stopping inches from where she stood. His hands shot forward, vised her shoulders. He glared down at her, his eyes hot, bright chips of obsidian—blacker than black.
“I’ll leave after you tell me the name of the father.”
“Maybe I just don’t know.” She couldn’t help baiting him. He deserved it, didn’t he?
“I’m supposed to believe that around the time we were together, you were sleeping with a handful of other men, too?”
“Why not?” she challenged him. “I could have been.”
His hands tightened painfully on her shoulders. “You’re not that kind of woman.”
Cray was still crying from the back room, but no longer urgently.
“How would you know?” she said, her eyes falling away from his, despite her determination to give as good as she got. “You didn’t hang around long enough to get to know me.”
“I knew you well enough, Alli.” Jacob bent over her, capturing her eyes once more with his. “I knew you inside and out—every inch of your body, every corner of your sweet, generous soul.”
In one quick move, he released her shoulders but enclosed her in his arms. She could feel the heat of his body through their clothing. His lean, hard strength met her soft curves. He pressed her to him, and she could feel that he was aroused. Knowing that embarrassed her.
But not enough to make her struggle to be released. Some secret need or inner force kept her from fighting him. It had been so long, so very long since a man had held her. There had been a few dinners or group movie dates, arranged by Diane or one of her girlfriends. But she hadn’t encouraged a second meeting or allowed herself to be alone with a man. Now she realized how much she’d missed the intoxicating sensations that were rushing through her body.
Cray’s cries had turned to sleepy whimpers. She wished he’d let out a long, hearty scream to give her an excuse for breaking out of Jacob’s arms. She wished she had more willpower than she seemed to have at the moment. She wished...wished that Jacob would stop doing whatever it was he was doing.
His thumb stroked the side of her breast through her cotton sweater. Fiery tongues licked through her, making her knees feel weak. “Don’t do that,” she whispered.
“Tell me the name of the baby’s father?” Jacob said, his voice rumbling in his chest, vibrating against hers.
“I—I can’t.”
“You can’t. That’s different from you don’t know.”
Allison felt incapable of accomplishing anything more demanding than continuing to breathe in and out. And she wasn’t too sure she could keep that up for much longer. She was powerless to mold her thoughts into words.
“I can’t, Jay...Jacob...don’t make me...”
“Make you what?” His lips were less than an inch from hers. She could taste the spicy tang of his breath passing between them, smell subtle traces of male perspiration, feel a tension within his body that seemed to radiate through his skin and slip beneath hers.
She closed her eyes, steeling herself with a moment of darkness and silence, shutting herself
