hear the music floating down from the Founder’s Day celebration two streets away. He caught the faint perfume of the summer cottonwoods, too, and the stirring fragrance of the teary woman in his arms. They’d emptied their souls, and had danced. Because nothing comforted better than a human touch….
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, trying to keep his attraction under wraps as they moved together in the calf-high grass. “Believe me, you’re better off without a cheat and a liar.”
“I know,” she answered in a ragged voice. “It’s not that I still care about him—I don’t. I don’t ever want to see him again. But I’ll miss being in love.”
“You won’t miss it for long. You’re a beautiful woman. There’ll be someone else.”
Sarah shook her head. “No, I don’t trust my judgment anymore. I was so sure he was good, and decent, and… And he was none of those things. I won’t chance marriage again.”
“You’re prepared to be alone for the rest of your life?”
“It’s better than hurting all the time.”
Jake had to agree. Since Heather, he’d adopted a new philosophy. Don’t expect too much from a relationship and you won’t be disappointed. But God, he thought, shortening his steps to a gentle rock and sway, it still felt good to hold someone.
He’d thought he couldn’t feel any lower when he’d found out Heather was sleeping around. He’d been wrong. On the heels of that, he’d learned that the father he’d never known—the father he’d imagined and hoped for as a child—had died. But his dad had sired two other sons. That’s why Jake had traveled three hundred miles to Comfort, Montana. He’d come to meet his brothers.
“You should tell your brothers who you are,” Sarah murmured, seeming to read his mind. “It’s too late to do anything about your dad, but you do have other family.”
“I tried. Walked right up to them tonight at the food booth and lost my nerve. I didn’t want them thinking I was looking for money or a chunk of their ranch. I don’t have any proof that we’re related.”
“Maybe your mother could talk to them.”
“Nope,” he said, and forced a smile. “Emily’s gone, too. But considering that she never even told me who my father was, I doubt she’d get involved even if she were alive. If I hadn’t run into a friend of hers last week, I still wouldn’t know.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said. “Would’ve been nice to know the guy responsible for my being here.”
Sarah’s compassionate gaze gentled on his. And suddenly, there was something so special and giving about her—something so good—that he needed to take a tiny bit of it for himself. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he cupped her face, lowered his head and kissed her. Softly. Briefly. Then, not so briefly.
Slowly, Jake eased away, feeling his blood pump harder, feeling the stirrings he’d been trying to ignore for the past hour finally surface.
Sarah touched his face.
He searched her eyes.
Then hungry lips found each other, and dancing became sweet, needy friction.
Maggie rapped sharply on the door, shattering his thoughts as she breezed inside. “Here’s the paper. Hope there’s something promising in there.”
Jake almost stood, then realized with a start that he’d gotten far too involved in his memory. “Thanks.” Taking the paper, he opened it to the want ads to cover his embarrassment. “Seems like that’s all I ever say to you.”
“No reason to. I haven’t done anything.”
“Right. You’re only helping me find a place to live, and boarding Blackjack at your ranch.”
“Not mine, my family’s. And it doesn’t take a lot of time to feed and water one more horse.”
“I’m still grateful.”
“And you’re still welcome.” Maggie paused for a moment, then spoke hesitantly. “Any chance you’ll be here for a while?”
Jake glanced up from the disappointing listings. “I plan to be. Do you have errands to run?”
“No, but I need to talk to Ross. We have tentative plans to meet at Aunt Ruby’s at eleven-thirty, but I can stay until Joe gets back if there’s something in the paper that piques your interest.”
“Go,” he said. “Have lunch with your husband. From the looks of it, I’m out of luck unless I want to buy a used washer and dryer, or baby-sit from eight to four. If a crime wave hits, I’ll phone you at the café.”
“Great,” she said with a bright smile. “See you later.”
But as the door closed in the outer office, Jake’s thoughts returned to Sarah.
Shoving the paper aside, he went to his office window, remembering again how extraordinary their lovemaking had been. An illogical stab of jealousy followed as he imagined her with Vince Harper.
Turning from the window, he started back to his desk. How could she have let Harper touch her, feeling the way she did about the pony-tailed creep? Worse, how could she have let herself get preg—
Jake froze in his tracks as that family picture he’d conjured earlier formed again in his mind and he realized why, aside from obvious reasons, it had looked all wrong.
Vince Harper had had blond hair.
Jake stopped breathing as his mind played a cautious game of connect the dots. First he ticked off the months since he’d made love with Sarah. Then he took a guess at her daughter’s age.
Hair color didn’t necessarily prove parentage, he told himself as his heart pounded. Eye color didn’t, either, unless you had enough family history to factor in. But Sarah Harper was a brown-eyed blonde, and her ex-husband’s hair had been light.
Kylie Harper had blue eyes, and her hair was black.
Every adrenaline-juiced nerve, muscle and cell in Jake’s body sprang to life, and he damned Maggie’s early lunch. He had to see Sarah again.
She’s becoming a little person, Sarah thought, shooing Kylie into the single bed in the first-floor toy room. But she still had that precious baby voice. That sweet, trusting baby squeak that often replaced L and R sounds with Ws, but managed to make herself understood very well, anyway. For a child who wasn’t yet two and a half, Kylie had an amazing vocabulary.
“Mommy, I’n not tired yet.”
Sarah kissed the tip of her nose and covered her with a thin blanket. Then she squeezed into the narrow bed with her daughter, dodging half a dozen stuffed animals, a green dinosaur and a naked Barbie doll with wild hair.
“I know you’re not,” Sarah murmured. “But Mommy and Pooh are, so we’re all going to take a nap before we start supper. Now, you close your eyes and I’ll close mine,
