Betrayed by Love

“I do. I’ve seen your grandmother Walker’s house,” he replied easily. “It was an old Victorian, but still elegant in its way.”

“I grew up,” she repeated, “in Nebraska. On a farm. My father was—” she almost said “a lay minister,” but she changed it to “—poor. My mother left when Tom and I were just babies. Dad kept us until his death.” Of a brain tumor, she could have added, one that made him crazy. She shuddered a little at the painful memories. After all these years, she still had a very real fear of male domination. She could hear her father shouting, feel the whip of the belt across her bare legs whenever she triggered his explosive, unpredictable temper.

“I grew up rich,” Jacob replied. “We inherited money from my great-grandfather. He made a fortune back in the late 1880s, when a blizzard drove out half the cattlemen in the West. The old devil had a knack for predicting bad weather. He managed to get his cattle east before that devastating snowfall. He made a fortune.”

“Money seems to bring its own responsibilities,” she remarked, studying his hard, lined face and cool, dark eyes. “You never seem to have any time to yourself.”

A corner of his mouth tugged up. “Don’t I?”

She looked down at the white linen tablecloth. Piped music was playing around them, very romantic, while white-coated waiters tended to the crowded tables. “Not during the day, at least,” she said, qualifying her words. “When Margo and I were girls, you were always being hounded by somebody.”

He was watching her, his gaze purely possessive. “It goes with any kind of business, Kate. I’d hate a life of leisure.”

He probably would. He didn’t keep his body that fit and muscular by sitting behind a desk.

“I guess I would, too,” she mused. Her slender fingers touched the heavy silver knife of her place setting. “Sometimes my job gets unpleasant, but there are compensations.”

“I suppose there would be. You work with a lot of men, don’t you?” he asked.

There was an unflattering double meaning in his words. She looked directly into his searching eyes, trying not to be affected by the increase in her pulse from his magnetism. “Yes,” she said. “I work with a lot of men. Not just at the office, but in politics, rescue work, police work—and in all those places, I’m just one of the boys.”

His gaze dropped to her bodice. “So I see.”

“I don’t work in suggestive clothing,” she fired back. “I don’t make eyes at married men, and if you’re going to start making veiled remarks about what you saw in the bathhouse six years ago, I’m leaving this minute!”

“Sit down.”

His tone was like ice, his eyes frankly intimidating. The cold note in his voice made her feel sick inside. She sat down, shaking a little with reaction.

“I know what it looked like to you,” she said half under her breath, coloring as she realized the interest she’d raised in other diners, who glanced at the dark man and the pretty woman obviously having a lover’s quarrel. “But it wasn’t what you thought.”

“What I saw was obvious,” he returned. “Gerald was damned lucky. If it had been my niece, even if she’d invited it, I’d have broken him like a toothpick.”

That was in character. He fought like a tiger for his own. But not for Kate. He thought that she was little more than a tramp and that she didn’t need any protection. It surprised Kate sometimes that he was so willing to believe the worst about her, when everything pointed to the contrary. He’d known her for years and he’d been so kind to her. And then, in one afternoon, he’d done an about-face in his attitude toward her. She’d never understood why.

“Lucky Margo, having you to spoil her,” she said, with a wealth of pain in the words. She stared at her lap. “Tom and I never had that problem.”

“Your grandmother wasn’t poor,” he argued.

She clenched her teeth. “I didn’t mean money.” It was love she and Tom had lacked. Grandmother Walker, not a demonstrative person, had never made any concessions in her way of life for them. She’d demanded that they grow up without frills or the handicap of spoiling.

He paused while the waiter brought menus. Kate studied hers with no enthusiasm at all. He’d killed her appetite stone dead.

“What do you want?” he asked carelessly.

She glanced up at him with a speaking look, and he actually laughed.

“Talk about looks that could kill,” he murmured. “Were you wishing I was on the menu?”

“I hate you,” she said, and meant it. “The biggest mistake I’ve made in years was to agree to come out with you at all. No, I don’t want anything on the menu. I’d like to leave. You stay and enjoy your meal, and I’ll get a cab—”

“That isn’t all you’ll get if you don’t sit down, Kate,” he replied quietly. “I hate scenes.”

“I’ve never made one in my life until tonight,” she said shortly. Her green eyes were huge in her ashen face as she stared across the table at him. How could he treat her this way when she loved him to distraction?

He stared at her with a mingling of emotions, the strongest of which was desire. She was, he thought, the most delicious tidbit he’d ever seen. He’d spent years chiding himself for his unbridled passion for her. Now the barriers were down, and he couldn’t seem to handle the confusion she aroused in him. God, she was lovely! All his secret dreams of perfection, hauntingly sweet and seductive. He wondered how many other men had wanted her, had been with her, and the strength of his jealousy disturbed him. It didn’t matter, he told himself, he had to have her. Just once, he told himself. Just once, to know that soft, sweet body in passion. Then the fever would be gone. He’d be free of her spell.

She couldn’t know that he’d suddenly seen her as a woman when she’d kissed that boy so hungrily. It had gotten worse when he’d confronted them in the bathhouse, and the desire he’d felt for her had almost knocked him to his knees.

He hadn’t even meant to take her out tonight. But the lure of her was irresistible. He couldn’t stop. And it wasn’t bad that she was experienced; he was even glad, in a way, because he had too many scruples about seducing innocents. If he made love to a virgin, he’d feel an obligation to marry her. It wasn’t a modern outlook, but then he wasn’t a modern man. He was country bred and raised, for all his money.

She looked sad, he thought, studying her. His own emotions confused and irritated him. He wanted her until she was a living obsession in his mind. He ached all over already, and he hadn’t even touched her. His dark eyes narrowed, studying her. She was lovely, all right. A walking, breathing temptation. Yes, it was just as well that she wasn’t innocent. If he didn’t believe her to be sophisticated, he’d never be able to seduce her.

He leaned back in his chair and let his eyes wander over her bodice, where bare skin peeked through the lacing. “Look at me.”

She stared back at him with trembling lips, almost shaking with fury. He’d ruined it. All her beautiful dreams had crumbled. Her voice choked when she spoke. “I shouldn’t have come with you. Roger Dean offered me a nice pizza. I should have settled for that.”

His chin lifted. “Roger who?”

“Roger Dean,” she shot back, gratified that he looked irritated. “He’s a reporter for one of the other papers. A handsome and very nice man,” she added. “And he likes me just the way I am.”

So she did have other men. That touched something vulnerable inside him and hurt it. Unsmiling, he stared at her. “Did you turn down a date with him to come out with me?” he asked, as if he expected she did things like that often.

“I turned him down before you called,” she shot back. “Sorry to shatter your black image of me.”

He sighed deeply and paused long enough to give the waiter an order for steak and a baked potato.

“What do you want?” he asked Kate politely.

“I’ll have a shrimp cocktail and coffee,” she murmured.

“You need more than that,” Jacob said.

“That’s all I want, thank you.” She gave the waiter the menu with a wan smile, and Jacob noticed how worn she looked, how tired. He knew suddenly that it was a sense of excitement gone sour.

“I’ve spoiled the night for you, haven’t I?” he asked with sharp perception.

Her lips curved into a rueful smile. “I broke speed records getting ready,” she said. “Went through every dress I had in my wardrobe to find something nice enough to wear for you. I suppose I was a little excited, being asked out by you after all these years, when I thought I was more of a pest and irritation than someone you…wanted to date.” Her eyes glanced off the expression of frank surprise in his. “I should have remembered how you feel about me. It’s my own fault. Nobody held a gun on me.”

His heart did odd things inside his chest at that confession. He hadn’t thought she might want to be with him. At times he’d wondered if she might feel a little of the physical attraction for him that he felt for her. But Kate was mysterious. She was close-lipped and very private, in spite of her modern outlook.

“Maybe we could bury the hatchet for once,” he murmured, feeling this way for the first time in his life. The self-confidence he’d always had with women was lacking tonight. He felt something new with Kate, and everything in him was fighting it. She confused him, disturbed him. She had to be sophisticated, but why did she sound so damned honest? She’d sworn once that she’d never lied to him, and he’d had to fight not to believe her. He couldn’t believe her, because if he did… He stared at her, feeling something tingle inside him as her face colored. He couldn’t prevent a warm, quiet smile.