ANGEL MEETS THE BADMAN Page 5

  "Hoo-ey," Jake said automatically. "Shoot, Sara. I'm sorry. I didn't know." He gave his head a shake. "No wonder you're so tense and testy."

  "Hell, Jake, that's not even the half of it. But it's your turn. Come on, what could be so bad that I'd think less of your family if I knew about it?"

  "You really want to know?"

  She nodded. And while it wasn't like him to share family matters with outsiders, he found himself perfectly willing with her. Because … she was different. And she'd pretty much convinced him that she wasn't going to judge anyone. And she'd trusted him with a little bit of her own dirt.

  "Look right over there," he said, and he pointed. "Corner booth. Vivienne."

  He watched Sara instead of Vivienne. Watched her brown eyes scan the faces, fall on the couple and then widen. Saw her wet pink lips part on a gasp. "But … but that's not Trent."

  "No," he said. "It's not."

  "Oh… Oh, damn," she whispered. "Poor Trent." She bit her lower lip, lowered her eyes. "Maybe we shouldn't be here, Jake."

  "No." Jake's gaze was on Vivienne now, and he was getting madder than hell. "She's the one who shouldn't be here." He started to slide off the stool, unable to sit still any longer. Trent was his best friend, his only friend.

  Sara's hand closed around Jake's bicep, her grip surprisingly strong for such a small hand. "Jake, don't."

  He paused, looked at her.

  "It's just not smart. Besides—" she nodded at the bar, where the tender was just setting down two shot glasses "—our drinks are here." She gave him a shaky little half smile.

  He returned it. "You're probably right." He settled back onto his stool, closed his hand around his glass, lifted it. She mimicked him. "All in one gulp. Ready?"

  She picked up her glass and nodded. Jake caught the bartender's eye, and the man gave him a nod. Then Jake clicked the rim of his shot-glass to the rim of Sara's and said, "Bottom's up."

  He slugged his shot back. She did, too. Then she smacked the glass on the table, and her eyes widened to the size of silver dollars. She opened her mouth and went, "haaaaaaaa," and thumped the glass on the bar three more times. The bartender handed her the glass of water he had waiting, and she gulped from it.

  "Told you you'd hate it," Jake said.

  She made such a funny face that he laughed. He couldn't help it. The bartender chuckled, too. "Yech," she said. "That must be what paint thinner tastes like."

  "It's … pretty close, actually." Jake was still grinning. And for just a moment his rage faded. Amazing.

  Sara turned to the bartender. "The water isn't cutting it. I need some … milk or something."

  "Milk?"

  She nodded.

  Jake shrugged and the bartender lifted his hands in surrender and went off to get the lady a glass of milk. She drank it all down, smacked the glass on the bar and said, "Now that's a drink."

  She had a milk mustache.

  It was at that very moment that Jake felt it. An odd sort of squishy feeling right in the middle of his chest. All warm and gooey. And a bubbling sort of frothy feeling in his belly. And a kind of a tightness in his throat. It came on all at once, without warning, and it scared him more than a sudden, crushing chest pain would have done. When he shook it off, he was left with a kind of aftershock.

  He reached up without a thought and with his thumb, he wiped the milk from her upper lip. "You're too damn wholesome, you know that?"

  She shrugged. "I'm a kindergarten teacher. I have a degree in wholesome."

  "Yet you're slugging back shots with an ex-con."

  Her smile was slow. "I'm on vacation." Then her expression grew a bit more serious. "Maybe you being such a big, scary ex-con is what's letting me enjoy myself so much."

  He frowned at her. "You're gonna have to explain that one."

  She turned around, wiggled her milk glass in the air. The bartender took it and brought her a refill. He handed her a chocolate chip cookie and said, "This is on the house, kid."

  The smile she gave him would have been thanks enough for any man, Jake thought.

  "I'm usually a nervous wreck in crowds, especially in strange places. You know, away from home. Around strangers. But I don't think I've looked over my shoulder once all day."

  Was she saying she felt … safe … with him? Man, that was a laugh. "Why is that, Sara?" he asked her. "That you're usually so nervous, I mean?"

  For the first time all day, he saw a shadow fall over her eyes, and he regretted the question immediately. "I'm not gonna talk about that today," she said. "I don't want to even think about that today. Besides, it doesn't matter. It's in the past."

  "The past always matters," he told her.

  "Oh, no. You're way off base on that one. The past is gone with the tick of a second hand. Blown away like a stray breeze. Every day is a chance to start over."

  "That's quite the philosophy."

  A loud, high-pitched giggle drew his gaze. He looked at Vivienne with her lover and lowered his head.

  "If you go over there and make a big scene, you'll ruin the whole day, Jake," Sara said very logically. "She's not worth ruining such a great day over, is she?"

  "She's not worth ruining a bad day," he said. "And you're right. This isn't the time or the place for me to have this discussion with her. But believe me, I am going to put a stop to this. One way or another, this was Viv's last rendezvous with Mister Wonderful there."

  Sara looked at him, frowning hard. He shook his head. "Let's get out of here," he said.

  She nodded, grabbed her cookie and jumped off the stool. Until then, he'd been sinking fast into a murky haze of anger. But when he saw the way she snatched a napkin up, carefully wrapped her cookie inside it and then tucked it into her straw shoulder bag as if she were tucking away the Hope diamond, that angry haze dissipated. He felt lighter again. Felt himself inclined toward grinning again.

  They stepped outside, into the sunlight, which was blinding after being in the darkness for so long. "So what do you want to see next?" he asked.

  She shrugged, then inhaled. "I can't believe how good it smells here! It's like everyone in New Orleans is cooking their favorite dish all at once. And all the smells are being fanned out at innocent bystanders, and—" She stopped talking and looked back at the doorway they'd just exited.

  Jake looked, too. Vivienne stood there, watching as her hunk walked away. When he got around a corner, she turned and looked right into Jake's eyes.

  "We came so close, too," Sara muttered.

  Viv came forward. "Well, I didn't expect to see you here Jake. Who's your … friend?"

  "Her name is Sara. She's renting a bungalow for the week, and you'd have met her by now, if you ever bothered coming home to your family."

  Sara elbowed him, but it was too late now to stop.

  "Who was your friend?" he asked.

  Vivienne lifted her painted-on brows in a perfect mimicry of innocence.

  "Oh, come on, Viv, we both saw you in the club sucking face with that guy. And I've got news for you. It ends here. Today."

  Vivienne's innocent expression vanished. Now she looked more like herself. Mean and selfish. "What I do and with whom I do it is none of your business, Jake Nash. Just who do you think you are, anyway?" She turned as if to go.

  Jake grabbed her wrist and jerked her back around. He heard Sara gasp and tried to ignore it. "End it, Viv. Today. I mean it."

  "Like I'm going to listen to some washed-up criminal? Let go of me, Jake."

  "I'm not gonna let you ruin Trent like this. If you don't want him, then leave him. But don't do this."

  "I said let go!" She hauled off and slapped Jake hard across the face.

  He let go. All around them, people were looking, watching. It burned him to know what they saw. A low-life jerk manhandling a nice lady. "If you don't end it, I'm going to go to Flossie and Bertram, and I'm going to tell them what you've been up to."

  The fury drained from her face, along with the color. "You … wouldn't
."

  "I'm so close you wouldn't even believe it. They'd disinherit you and you damn well know it."

  "They … would never believe you over me!"

  "I'm not so sure about that. But even if it were true, don't forget that Sara saw it all, too."

  Vivienne's hate-filled eyes raked Sara briefly before returning to Jake. "If I leave Trent, they'll disinherit me, anyway," she said, all but hissing.

  "So stay with him. Treat him half as well as he treats you. He'll think he's in freaking heaven."

  "You're a son of a bitch, you know that?"

  "I mean it, Vivienne. You give me a reason, I'll spill it all."

  She spun on her heel and stomped away, not looking back. The crowd around them dissipated the second Jake swung his gaze over them. They couldn't get out of there fast enough.

  Finally he remembered Sara and turned toward her. She was pale. The light was gone from her eyes; the smile from her lips. He didn't think they would be coming back anytime soon.

  "I'm sorry."

  "For what? Making a big, noisy horrible scene in the middle of the street? Grabbing a woman hard enough to bruise her wrist? Yelling like a maniac? Using me to threaten your cousin? Or just generally ruining my day?"

  He licked his lips, lowering his head. "I guess dinner's out of the question, then, huh?"

  "I want to go back. Now, Jake."

  "All right," he said. "I'll take you back."

  He honestly couldn't remember when he'd regretted anything quite as much as he regretted screwing up Sara Brand's good day. She had been having fun with him. She had been relaxing with him, letting some of that tension she'd brought with her drain away. She had trusted him with her family secrets, and she'd listened to his as if she really did give a damn.

  And then she'd turned nervous and sullen and jittery again. All because he was a hot-tempered jerk who didn't know when to leave well-enough alone.

  Maybe it was for the best, though.

  He hadn't liked that feeling that had come over him very much at all. It had been too big. Too hopeless. Too … everything.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Was she afraid of him a little bit, after all? No.

  Was she wrong not to be?

  Sara sighed deeply and thought on that for a moment. Jake had been furious at Vivienne, and when his pretty cousin had slapped him, Sara had seen something flare in his eyes … as if maybe he'd been thinking of hitting her back.

  Maybe not. But … maybe.

  And maybe Sara had been pretty damn stupid to be running all over New Orleans with a man who was an admitted criminal, who'd done time in prison and whom she barely knew. Maybe she'd been a complete idiot.

  But she didn't really think so. As logical as it sounded when she told herself those things, she honestly didn't believe them.

  So what was that? Instinct? Or wishful thinking? Could she trust her own gut feelings in this matter?

  The logical solution would be to leave here. Get away from him and his slutty cousin and his family drama and not look back. But the more appealing course of action would be to find out for herself exactly what Jake Nash was made of, just what kind of man he really was. But how?

  "You're awfully quiet." His deep voice broke into her thoughts. The long straight stretch of cypress-lined highway, broken only by dense shimmering heat waves, had been having a hypnotic effect. She'd almost forgotten she was in the car with him.

  Sara gave herself a mental shake but didn't look at him. "Maybe I don't feel like talking."

  "Maybe you're mad at me for ruining your day."

  "No maybe about that one, Jake." She darted a glance at him. He looked troubled, intense.

  "I couldn't just let it slide, Sara. She was making a fool out of my only friend, for crying out loud. Publicly. What did you expect me to do?"

  Her head swung around when he said the words only friend. And a surge of ridiculous emotion welled up inside her, rising in her chest like a thick, warm tide. "I don't know what I expected," she said very softly, seeing beyond the hard glint in his eyes now to the pain behind it. In spite of herself and her mind's constant warnings, she kept imagining him as a boy. Just a boy. Seventeen or eighteen years old, being sent to prison for what must have seemed to him like the rest of his life. "Whatever I expected, Jake, it wasn't that you'd attack Vivienne the way you did."

  "Hell, if I'd attacked her, they'd be scraping her off the sidewalk by now."

  That warm tide turned cold and drained like a whirlpool. Sara trembled, and there was a brief flash of memory—buried deep, but alive still. Bodies on the floor. Blood pooling. All seen through the eyes of a four-year-old child, playing hide-and-seek in the kitchen cabinet with the door that didn't close quite all the way. A child who, even in her innocence knew her mamma wasn't going to come find her this time.

  Then Jake swore, snapping her out of the nightmares of her past. "Damn it, woman, don't look like that. It was sarcasm, all right? Haven't you ever heard it before?"

  "Of course I have. I just … I just—"

  "You just never heard it from an ex-con."

  Swallowing hard, she looked at him slowly. Her eyes burned, but she blinked them dry. "Why don't you quit feeling sorry for yourself, Jake? It's really wearing thin, you know."

  "You should try living it for a couple of decades."

  "Living it? You wallow in it."

  He'd turned off the highway, onto the side road that led out to the plantation. She was glad of that, because there was less traffic here, and he was too busy gaping at her to look at the road. "I wallow in it?"

  "Yeah. You do. You wallow in it. You bring it up at least once in every conversation we have. Why is that, Jake? Huh? I couldn't care less about it, so why do you think you have to keep waving it around like a big red flag? Are you warning me away, or just hiding behind it?"

  He hit the brake. The car stopped, and Sara lurched forward, hands shooting to the dash automatically as the seat belt pulled tight. Then she sat straight again, only to find those dark eyes boring into her. "What exactly do you think I'm hiding from? Hmm? A prim-and-proper little kindergarten teacher?"

  She looked at him for a long moment. His tanned face, stubble painting it with soft shadows now, in the late-afternoon light. His eyes, gleaming and dark and boiling over with feelings he kept locked tight inside. Pain. Old, rusty pain that he probably thought he couldn't even feel. But he was feeling it. It was eating him up inside. She'd seen it before, in her cousin, Wes. In her brother, Marcus. Old pain could just about kill a man if he let it. He wasn't the bad guy. He wasn't like the men who'd butchered her family. He was like her brother. His life torn apart before it had a chance to get started. She knew she was right. She had to be right.

  She pressed the button to release her seat belt and slid closer to him, and she saw the flare of alarm in his eyes.

  "No, Jake," she said. "I don't think you're afraid of a kindergarten teacher. I think you're afraid of this." And she leaned up just enough to brush her lips across his. She let her lashes fall to her cheeks, touched his mouth with hers, and wished he would respond instead of sitting there like a rock.

  He didn't.

  She drew back, lowering her eyes, unable to look at him. He obviously hadn't … wanted that kiss.

  Jake was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed loudly. "That?" he said at last. "You think I'm afraid of that?" When she managed to lift her gaze to his, she saw something that hadn't been in his eyes before. Something dark, frightening and exciting all at once. "Come here," he said, his voice low and rough against the raw surface of her senses. He snapped his arms tight around her waist and drew her hard against him. "I'll show you something worth being afraid of."

  And she was afraid, in the heartbeat before his mouth captured hers. After that the fear left her. Everything left her. Every coherent thought, every emotion. There was only the sensation of his mouth on hers, nudging it open; of his tongue thrusting inside,
taking and tasting what it would; of his arms holding her crushingly to him.

  When he finally let her go, she was breathless. Her heart pounded like the hooves of a runaway horse, and her vision seemed distorted and blurry. Hand to her chest, she leaned back in her seat.

  Without a word Jake put the car into gear and drove the rest of the way back to Sugar Keep.

  Dinner was tense. Sara tried to make conversation to lighten the mood, but it was having no effect. Vivienne sat beside her husband, acting for all the world as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened today, except for the daggers she occasionally shot at Jake. Jake looked as if he would like to strangle her. Trent seemed oblivious to it all, for which Sara was thankful.

  There was just as much tension—maybe more—between Jake and Sara. Every time she looked at him, she could feel that kiss again. The passion building inside her in a way it had never done before. And when he looked back at her, she swore she saw the same thing in his eyes. She wanted so much to talk to him alone, to make him tell her what had happened to him when he was a teenager. What had happened to make him resort to robbing that store. She wanted him to be able to explain it away so that these feelings coming to life inside her would be all right. Would be sane and logical and good, as she was already convinced they were. Rather than self-destructive and foolish and blind, as she half feared they might be. And she wondered if it would matter which they were, because she would feel them, anyway.

  "Did you enjoy your trip into the city, child?" Flossie asked, with a smile that appeared forced.

  "Very much. I'm glad you suggested it."

  "Jake needed a day off. He tends to take life far too seriously for his own good, don't you, Jake?" Flossie beamed when she looked at her nephew. "Admit it, now. You had a good time, too, didn't you?"

  He glanced sideways, his gaze touching Sara's lips very briefly. Then meeting her eyes. A secret message. "Oh, I don't know. I think the little bit of New Orleans life we sampled today was just a teaser. There's a lot more to be savored."

  She couldn't take her eyes away from his as he went on.

  "I really expected our Sara would be a little bit afraid of the spicier selections. But she surprised me. Today I think she was willing to try just about anything."