had clenched her hands by her sides, blazing with bad temper and hurt pride. “Go ahead, then, believe I’m that kind of woman, even when you know I’m not!”
“I thought you were a little saint,” he replied curtly, his gaze chilling her, “until tonight when your halo slipped and I saw you grow up.”
She didn’t understand the way he’d phrased it. Not that, or the unreasonable contempt in his tone. “Jacob, I’m not like that! And I don’t lie—I’ve never lied to you!”
“I watched my mother go that route,” he said in a haunted tone. “One man after another and denying the whole time that she’d ever cheated on my father. One day, she ran off with her latest lover and never came back. I’ve never forgotten what a hell she made of my father’s life. I raised my niece to have a conscience and a sense of morality. I’m not having Margo exposed to women like you. Get off my place and keep off.”
Margo had gritted her teeth, but her eyes had been eloquent as they apologized to Kate silently. Jacob in this mood was dangerous. And Kate understood.
“You won’t listen,” Kate said quietly. “I’m sorry, because I’d never willingly lie about anything. There’s so much you don’t know, Jacob,” she’d added, her smile wistful and bitter. “Not that it would matter, I guess. You don’t think people should stoop to being human. You want perfection in every way.”
“Your grandmother would be ashamed of you,” he said roughly. “She didn’t raise you to be a loose woman. She never should have let you go to work for that damned newspaper.”
Kate had gotten a summer job with the local weekly paper, and Jacob had been against it from the start, unlike Grandmother Walker, who thought women should do what they pleased in business.
Her job had been just something else he disapproved of. Lately she had seemed to get on his nerves, to antagonize him for no obvious reason. This was the last straw, though. Kate knew that he’d never forget or forgive what he thought she’d done in that bathhouse. He’d stripped her of her pride and self-confidence—and without even raising his voice. That was Jacob. Always controlled. He never really lost his temper; he used it.
“I like reporting,” she replied. “In fact, I plan to make a career of it. And now I’ll be pleased to decontaminate your ranch by leaving it. I’m only sorry the snake didn’t bite me, because then at least you’d believe me. Goodbye, Margo. I’m sorry your uncle won’t let us be friends anymore.”
“You can make book on it,” he replied, his dark eyes glaring at her.
He’d given Kate an appraisal that spoke volumes before he turned and walked away without a single word.
That had been six years ago. In the time that followed, Kate had gone to journalism school for a couple of years and wound up working for a Chicago daily newspaper. She hadn’t known anyone in Chicago, but Tom had a friend there, and the friend had pulled a string or two. Kate liked the big city. It was the one place she might be able to forget Jacob.
Jacob had relented just a little afterward. Kate was still unwelcome at Warlance, of course, but he’d stopped short of forbidding Margo to talk or write to her. Once Margo had even invited her to the ranch for a weekend, apparently with Jacob’s blessing, but Kate had refused. She was still hurt from Jacob’s unreasonable treatment. She hadn’t even wanted to come to the wedding. But since it was being held in Blairsville, not on the ranch, she felt fairly safe. And Tom was with her. Dear Tom. She hated her own cowardice, but she clung to him.
“You’re a reporter,” Tom was saying, breaking into her silent reveries. “You’ve won awards. You’re almost twenty-five years old. Don’t let him intimidate you. It will only make him worse. You can’t buckle under with people like Jacob. You ought to know that by now.”
“Knowing it and using it are two different things. And I do hate him,” she muttered, glaring at Jacob as he turned to speak to a nearby couple. “He’s so lordly. He knows everything.”
“He doesn’t know you’re still a maiden, I’d bet,” Tom chuckled, “or he’d never have accused you of messing around in the bathhouse with that poor nervous little boy.”
Her face flamed. “I’ll never forgive him for that.”
“He doesn’t know what kind of upbringing we had,” Tom reminded her. “He never knew our folks, remember. We were living with Grandmother Walker by the time you met Margo and became friends with her.”
She smiled softly. “Granny was a character. Even Jacob Cade didn’t run over her. You remember, he tried to make her forbid me to go on that overnight camping trip with Margo just a few months before he told me to stay off the ranch forever. Granny informed him that I was eighteen and could go where I pleased.” She frowned. “I never did understand why he was so against it. We had a great time. There were college boys along, too, and chaperons… It was very well behaved.”
“It should have been, since he went along as a chaperon,” Tom mused.
“That was the only bad thing about the whole experience,” she muttered.
“Liar. I’ll bet you spent hours sitting and watching him,” he whispered.
Her eyes fell. Of course she had. One way or another, she’d spent her entire adult life mooning over the only man in the world who hated her. She wondered sometimes if she hadn’t deliberately worked toward a career in reporting just as an excuse to leave Blairsville and get away from him. Chicago was as far away as she could manage. Now that Grandmother Walker was dead and Tom was working for an ad agency in New York, there was no reason to stay in South Dakota. But there was every reason to escape; she had to keep away from Jacob. Kate had never fancied growing old with her heart in shreds from his day-to-day indifference. Living in Blairsville, she’d have seen him frequently, and heard about him even more often. That would have been too painful to contemplate.
Her attention was caught by a flash of red as Margo’s little sports car drew up at the curb, driven by her fiancé, David. He hopped out, resplendent in his white tuxedo with a red carnation in the lapel and a red cummerbund. He was fair, tall and very attractive.
“About time,” Tom chided as the bridegroom paused beside them. “Where’s Margo?”
“Arriving momentarily with her grandfather. I hope,” David added with a tiny shudder. “Have you seen Hank drive?” he groaned.
“Yes,” Tom replied with a sigh. “He’s almost, but not quite, as bad as Jacob.”
David laughed, and Kate hated herself for hanging so eagerly on to any tidbit of gossip about the man she loved.
“Jacob wrecked three cars before he got through college,” Tom mused. “Our grandmother wouldn’t let Kate go to Warlance unless Margo drove.”
“I expected to see you both at the house,” David began.
Kate was searching for an excuse when a shadow fell over her, and her heart ran wild. It was like radar; she always felt Jacob before she saw him.
“So there you are,” Jacob said, joining the group. He didn’t even look at Kate. “Hello, Tom. Good to see you.” He extended his hand and shook the younger man’s firmly. There was only about four years between the two men—Jacob was thirty-two—but Jacob seemed a generation older in his attitudes. “Where’s
