Marrying Jake Read online

  “Turn his head to the side,” she said, not even aware she’d spoken aloud until Adam did as she instructed. “He might...he could get sick. It’s a normal reaction to...to such trauma.”

  “Good point,” Adam said. “Come on, Jake.” He slapped him a little. Not hard, Katya thought, but not gently, either.

  The man called Jake started to wake up. His eyelids fluttered. Katya let out a harsh breath of relief and kneeled beside him again.

  For the longest time, whole seconds, Jake hadn’t a clue where he was. Then his eyes focused. He recognized his brother’s face—Adam was wearing an interesting scowl. Jake’s gaze slid to his brother’s right, and that was when he knew he was dead.

  That damned bull must have butted him clear to heaven because there was an angel leaning over him. Her eyes were cornflower blue. Her features were perfect, her pale brows delicately arched. And her hair...dear God, he thought, her hair. He saw Mariah standing just behind her, holding a lantern. It spilled light over the woman, making her hair seem to glow. It was long but somehow... wispy and the color of wheat after the hot summer months. Strands of it curled forward underneath her jaw, shorter than the rest.

  “Could have sworn...” He paused for breath. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, slurring his words. “Thought I’d go the other way.” He struggled to sit up.

  “Oh, no!” she cried. “No, sir, please. You must lie back.”

  “Sir?” Bits and pieces of memory started clicking in. “I keep telling you guys. I’m not even forty.”

  Katya exchanged a quick, panicked glance with Adam. Adam shrugged.

  “Well, he’s not,” Adam said finally. “He’s a year younger than I am.”

  “Are you in much pain?” she asked the man.

  Jake found her face again. “Hell, no. Not anymore.” He watched her face go from parchment pale to a soft, rosy blush. Then Jake realized that she was crying silently. Her cheeks were wet. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “What for?”

  “Well, for hitting you.”

  “You hit me?” His eyes coasted downward.

  She wore a white cotton nightgown, and the light behind her illuminated her body beneath it—no details, not quite, just gentle curves and swells and shadows. He felt something quick and randy stir inside him even as he registered that she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. She packed a hell of a punch for a hundred pounds.

  He gave a short bark of laughter. “You hit me,” he said again. “Why?”

  “I thought you were my husband.”

  Every delightful fantasy he’d just begun to spin shattered into pieces.

  Jake groaned. He struggled to sit up again, waving his brother’s hands off, and actually managed to get upright this time. “I hate when this happens,” he muttered, resting his elbows on his thighs. He covered his face with his hands, scrubbing it wearily.

  “When someone hits you?” Her eyes widened. “Does this happen often?”

  “No. When—” Jake broke off, more out of instinct than anything else. When a great-looking woman turns out to be married

  There was something almost innocent about her, he realized, though he had finally come to the conclusion that she wasn’t an angel. He was still on earth, sordid and ugly though earth could be. And he felt uncomfortable—uncharacteristically uncomfortable—explaining to this particular woman that while he observed few rules, not messing around with married women was one that kept him saluting and at attention at all times.

  He got to his feet, swayed a little with brief dizziness, while Katya hovered, half of her wanting to rush to his aid, the rest of her instinctively staying clear of him. He stared at her, scowling a little, and she felt her heart cavorting all over again.

  Mariah—bless her—broke the moment. “The sun’s coming up,” she said softly but efficiently. “I’ll put some coffee on.”

  Jake looked sharply over his shoulder at the window. “Damn it.” So much for sleep.

  Adam shook his head. “You’ll need to watch your language around here,” he warned. “Otherwise you’ll tend to get an elbow or two in your thigh.”

  Jake looked at him blankly.

  “Upstairs, children,” Mariah went on. “The excitement is over. It’s time to get dressed for school. Matt, you need to go home and help your father with his farm chores. Bo, perhaps you could go with him just this one morning. I think we can spare you around here. I’ll relieve the hens of their eggs myself.”

  “Did he tell you I was a lunatic?” Jake asked because she seemed nervous. “That I’m as likely to brawl with the dudes I arrest as throw handcuffs on them?”

  Mariah flushed. “Well...yes.” In fact, that was exactly what Adam had said.

  Jake seemed to think about it, then he nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Katya continued to stare at him, and she felt her heart hitch at the surprising response. She didn’t know if she was amazed that he’d admit such a thing...or more frightened than she had been yet in what seemed like a lifetime full of fears. Of all the men she could have clobbered! She watched bemusedly as he, Adam and Mariah went into the kitchen.

  It wasn’t just his looks that were fascinating, she realized. It was everything about him. The air about him almost... crackled with something just a little bit dangerous, something amazing, even perplexing. And he hadn’t hurt her when she’d hurt him. It hadn’t even seemed to cross his mind. He hadn’t been horrified, either, at the way she had so blatantly broken the ordnung by fighting back. He’d just seemed...amused.

  He had laughed.

  She knew, after less than twenty minutes in his company, that she had never met a man like him before in her life.

  Chapter 3

  Jake didn’t watch her, but he was aware of every move she made. She lingered in the living room while the rest of them trooped into the kitchen. She reminded him of a hummingbird, hovering there. In the blink of an eye, at the slightest provocation, she could be gone again.

  She was.

  He glanced back just in time to see her look down at herself, at her thin nightgown. She gave a tiny gasp and clapped her hands to her cheeks. No matter that when Mariah had carried the lantern into the kitchen, the living room was pitched into relative darkness again. No matter that the nightgown revealed really very little. She scurried away up the stairs, all blushing modesty.

  Maybe that was what made him stare after her long after she was gone. He hadn’t encountered that kind of attitude in...well, ever, he realized. He wondered where her husband was and why she would want to flatten him with a rolling pin.

  Mariah hung the lantern on the wall, put a pot of coffee on the wood-burning stove, then excused herself. Adam sat at the table. Jake paced. The kitchen was homey enough that it got his hackles up.

  The floor was dark wood, the walls white. A hutch sat against one wall; country-pretty plates showed through the glass-fronted cabinets. Jake scowled at the light hanging over the table and saw a low flame flickering there. There was a grandfather clock in one corner, tick-tocking audibly and steadily, and a pile of wooden toys in another. Boxes were everywhere. There was a hanging plant in another corner, green and lush.

  It was the kind of place where things grew.

  “Who is she?” he asked finally, because the woman who had knocked him silly seemed like the safest subject at hand. At least, she was the only subject he trusted himself with. A sense of betrayal over what the cop had told him still sat low in his stomach, making it feel sour. Worse, Jake had seen Bo, plain as day, standing there on the stairs. Bo was okay.

  Adam hesitated a heartbeat. “Her name is Katya Essler. She’s a childhood friend of Mariah’s.”

  “She’s living here?”

  “She’s had some trouble. She’ll be staying with us for a while.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  This time Adam was quiet. “Husband trouble,” he finally replied.

 
Jake rubbed the bump growing on the back of his head. That made sense.

  “It’s a long story,” Adam went on. “But she’s not for you, Jake.”

  Jake moved to the window, to the table, back to the window again. He gave a grunt of acknowledgment. No sense in arguing that one. She was married. She blushed. That alone put her well out of his usual repertoire.

  Still, there was something captivating about her. Something almost...otherworldly. Something that made the hairs on his nape stand up with a sort of wary alarm. He needed to know more about her just to be able to put it all into perspective, but Adam changed the subject.

  “Where have you been?” he asked: “I’ve been trying to reach you all week.”

  Jake waved a negligent hand. “Here and there. I just got your messages last night.”

  More silence fell. Adam waited. When Jake made no move to break it himself, he asked, “Want some coffee?”

  “Make it a double.”

  The pot was burbling. Adam got up and went to it, then poured two mugs.

  “What the hell have you done?” Jake burst out. “Married?”

  Adam handed him a mug. Jake’s hands remained fisted. When he didn’t take it, Adam set it on the counter. “You told me. to take a stab at believing,” he said calmly. “I’m doing it.”

  “I said we both had a problem trusting in things that seemed too good! I told you to let go of hope and be done with it!”

  “You’ve got a selective memory.”

  “The hell I do!”

  “You told me I needed a woman.”

  “For a night! Maybe two! I was talking on a temporary basis, bro. I didn’t mean you should keep one, for God Almighty’s sake!”

  Adam didn’t answer.

  “What’s happened to you? What the hell has happened to you inside of one lousy week? You got religion, didn’t you?” Jake whipped around, raking a hand through his hair, pacing again. “Oh, man, I told you this would happen. I knew it. I smelled it coming.”

  “No,” Adam said quietly, “I haven’t gotten religion. Yet. I’m sort of hanging here on the outskirts, keeping an eye on it, though. Thinking about it.”

  Jake made a strangled sound. “God gave up on us Wallaces a long time ago.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Talk about a selective memory,” Jake snarled, looking at his brother again.

  Adam only shrugged.

  “Jannel took your kid and relieved you of a couple million dollars. You remember that, don’t you?” Jake demanded. “That’s what ‘married’ does to you.”

  “That was an entirely different situation.”

  “You’re scaring me, bro.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought I might.”

  “Is this why you left all those messages?” Jake still hadn’t touched his coffee. He had adrenaline enough of his own at the moment. “You wanted me to come here and play best man? What happened? She wouldn’t sleep with you until you said ‘I do’? That is really a bad reason to get hitched, bro. Man, she must really have you wrapped around her finger.”

  Adam swung his fist.

  It took both of them off guard, despite the fact that they’d pretty much scrapped their way through thirty-plus years together. Adam connected with Jake’s jaw, then stared down, stunned, at his own hand. Jake dodged at the last possible moment so the blow wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been. It grazed rather than impacted. Still, it sent him reeling back a few steps, trying to catch his balance.

  “Good shot,” he allowed, rubbing the sore spot.

  “She’s my wife,” Adam answered levelly. “Watch your mouth.”

  Jake nodded. “Fair enough.” There were lines he could cross and lines he couldn’t. Whether he was happy with this situation or not, he was smart enough to know that he had just come up against the latter.

  Adam met his eyes. “I didn’t call you here for the wedding. I would have married her with or without your approval. I need her.”

  It all rushed in on him again then, the betrayal, the fear, and this time Jake knew it wasn’t irrational. I would have married her with or without your approval Because his approval, his opinion, didn’t matter anymore. Because Adam had a wife, a family of his own.

  And then there was one. One Wallace, Jake thought. Marriage didn’t change Adam’s blood, but it sure as hell changed the fundamental heart of the man. It changed what he was, changed what God had taught the Wallaces to be. Marriage hadn’t changed his brother the first time around, but Adam had never slugged him on Jannel’s behalf, either. Mariah was different. He thought of the other one, her friend, the one who had fled, blushing, up the stairs.

  “I’m out of here,” Jake said curtly, swinging toward the back door. Suddenly, the sensation that filled his gut felt almost like panic.

  “Wait.” Adam’s voice was still calm.

  Jake looked back at him, one hand on the knob. “I can’t tell you congratulations,” he said honestly. “I do. wish you well, but I just don’t see it happening.” Or maybe he did, he thought, and that was what had him running scared. Maybe that was what he couldn’t tolerate.

  “I need your help with something else,” Adam explained.

  Jake’s eyes narrowed warily as he looked back at him. “Yeah? What?” I didn’t call you here for the wedding. He hadn’t called him because of Bo, either. And Jake couldn’t figure out what else his brother could possibly need him for.

  “Someone is stealing the settlement’s babies.”

  Jake went still and stared at him.

  “The FBI is making a mess of it. I need you to look into it,” Adam went on.

  The words seemed to hang in the air a moment. Jake wanted to fight them. To pretend he hadn’t heard them. He needed to do that because he didn’t want to stay here where he’d have to watch what was happening to his brother. He couldn’t stand here on the outside of Adam’s world, looking in.

  As though he had a choice. Someone is stealing the settlement’s babies.

  “Damn you, bro,” he said quietly. Adam knew what punches to land and which to pull. He knew how to reel him in. “What’s wrong with the Bureau?”

  “The Amish culture isn’t in their rule book.”

  Jake snorted. “No. It wouldn’t be.”

  “It’s a roadblock,” Adam went on, “and those guys keep running into it, then they just mill around in confusion. They have no...compassion. They tried to interrupt church services to interview everyone. Said it was an ideal time, what with everyone gathered together that way.”

  Jake looked at him disbelievingly. “And you think I have compassion?”

  “You’ve got heart, or you wouldn’t have worked ChildSearch these past four years without getting paid for it.”

  “We were looking for Bo.”

  “No. I was looking for Bo. You were the pit bull out there snarling over every other tip that came in concerning other kids. You went to Phoenix yourself, paid your own expenses and collected Amber Calabrese.” The little girl’s father had stolen her while Adam had been here in the settlement trying to reestablish his relationship with Bo. One of their L.A.P.D. contacts had been trying to handle the situation and had run into some problems. Jake had charged in like a white knight.

  On a black horse.

  Adam was under no illusions regarding his brother’s darker side. Jake was irreverent, vaguely irresponsible and more than a little happy-go-lucky. He had a tendency to get into sticky situations. Often. He didn’t have to go looking for fights and trouble. Both seemed to hang right over his head, just waiting for an excuse to explode. Adam couldn’t remember his brother ever dating the same woman more than two or three times.

  But...he was a walking encyclopedia. He was shrewd and he was bright, and he got outraged whenever anyone hurt one of life’s weaklings. Like their mother. Or their sister.

  “We need help here,” Adam said again.

  “I ran out of my annual leave with the department a while back,” Jake hedged. “I had to take th
is last week without pay. I don’t get any more vacation and sick time until the end of March.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Adam said quietly.

  Jake’s eyes narrowed again. “Yeah? How so?”

  “ChildSearch.”

  Jake’s heart thumped. He felt more bad news coming on. “What about it?”

  “It’s yours, if you want it. I’ll fund it for six more months. With you at the helm instead of me, it should be turning a profit by then.”

  “You want me to take it over?” Jake looked at him as though he had grown horns. No matter what he had expected, this hit him out of the blue. “No.”

  “Think about it.” Adam knew that that was the best he could hope for. He also knew that his brother wanted ChildSearch so badly it hurt. Jake cared about it. Jake cared about the kids, somewhere beneath that cocky, irreverent exterior.

  But Jake never, ever risked being too happy.

  He never got involved with anything he really loved, Adam thought, which was probably why he never dated anyone too long. He knew just when and where to draw the line. Give up, give out, before it gets too good. Before it hurts.

  “We’ll talk about ChildSearch later,” Adam went on. “In the meantime, can you sniff around a little on this thing now?”

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” Jake said again. He didn’t want to stay here. God knew, he didn’t want to stay here. It wasn’t just Adam and Mariah. It was the whole damned settlement. It was that woman upstairs, though why he should feel so inexplicably threatened by her was beyond him.

  Adam went on as though he hadn’t heard him. “There have been four of them now. Four babies. Just gone.”

  Jake felt something almost pained shift inside him. Be careful what you wish for, Jake. You just might get it. “Four,” he repeated roughly.