“Why did you leave?” he demanded.
“I wanted to give you some privacy.”
He thought that over for a couple of seconds and then said, “Daphne was out of town for several weeks. She didn’t know that I had gotten married.”
“She must have been surprised to hear it,” Jessica answered evenly. “You were seeing her before I came back to Bright River, weren’t you?”
“I don’t have to explain my past actions to you,” he answered coldly.
“I see,” Jessica said, getting up.
“No, you don’t,” he replied. “My life is my own and will remain so.”
“Does that mean you plan to continue with Daphne?” Jessica asked neutrally, as if his answer hardly mattered.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Not part of the deal?”
“That’s right.”
“So that means I’m free to pursue other interests as well?” she asked. Of course she had no such intention, but she was striking back at him in kind.
As soon as the words left her mouth she was sorry she’d spoken them. He seized her arm in a bone-crushing grip and said between his teeth, “If I find out that you have even looked at another man I will make both of you sorry you were ever born.”
“I’m already sorry,” she flung back at him. “Sorry I ever met you, sorry I ever heard your name.” It wasn’t true, but there was only so much pain she could stand before desiring to inflict some herself. The thought of him with Daphne was like a knife in her side.
His eyes blazed but he released her, and she stumbled backward, out of his reach.
“That makes us even,” he said quietly.
“Was she calling to ask you for a date?” Jessica inquired spitefully, unable to stop herself.
To her surprise, he answered her reasonably. “She was calling to tell me about a Chamber of Commerce thing they’re having in December. Some fundraiser or something, black tie. It’s for the museum.”
“She invited you to it?”
“I told her I would be going with my wife,” Jack answered, confirming her suspicions. “The announcement card will come in the mail, she said.”
“Do you really want me to go with you?” she asked.
“Of course,” he answered smoothly, as if their previous heated exchange had not taken place. “You’re my wife, Jesse,” he added, and she clutched the pillow tighter, unable to meet his eyes. She had a sudden vision of Daphne as she had seen her in the news photo, a perfect, curving size twelve. Jessica, who was rapidly dwindling to a size zero, resolved to eat a half-gallon of ice cream for breakfast every day and be voluptuous by the night of the formal.
She looked up and saw that he was studying her. “You should see your face,” he said flatly. “Is the idea of going to one lousy dinner with me such a grim prospect?”
“Jack, that’s not it.” How could she tell him that it wasn’t the thought of accompanying him, but the thought of her comparison to fun loving, carefree, sexy Daphne that caused her apprehension? What man wouldn’t prefer her to a thin, beset-with-problems, trying-too-hard-and-failing wife?
“You’re going to be there if I have to drag you,” he said darkly, walking back into the living room and picking up his jacket. “So get used to the idea.”
“I’ll go with you, Jack. I never said I wouldn’t,” Jessica called, hurrying to follow him. He was already at the door.
“Don’t do me any favors,” he said vehemently, spinning around to confront her. “Do you think I don’t know why you don’t want to go? All the old guard of the town will be there. They always are at these things, and you’ll be on the arm of the spinner’s boy, the outcast’s son. I could make a million dollars, fly to the moon, run for President, but that’s the only way they’ll ever think of me. And in their eyes you’re still George Portman’s daughter. Despite your daddy’s best efforts, you married beneath your station after all.”
Jessica stared at him, openmouthed, silenced by the staggering unfairness of it, which beggared reply. Such an idea had never entered her mind, but he believed it unconditionally. The scars of those early years were deep and permanent. It was important to him that she show she was with him now, and he thought she was refusing to do it.
“Now I was forgetting the deal, wasn’t I?” he asked softly and turned away.
“What are you doing?” she asked, worried. He was wild in these moods, capable of almost anything.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m leaving.”
“To go where?”
“To go for a walk,” he answered curtly.
“Now?” she said desperately. “Why?”
“I’m supposed to walk two miles a day, for my knee,” he answered, with barely disguised impatience.
This was the first she’d heard of such a convenient directive. “I’ll come with you,” she said hastily, rushing to the closet for her coat.
“No, you won’t,” he countered, holding up his hand. “I prefer to go alone.”
Naturally, Jessica thought dully. Just like he preferred to sleep alone. As she watched, he slung his jacket over his shoulder and left without a parting glance.
Jessica set about cleaning up the remains of the rejected dinner automatically, washing what dishes she’d used and putting everything away. She dumped the rest of her food down the garbage disposal and settled for a cup of coffee, realizing that this was no way to defeat dazzling Daphne, but past the point of caring. She curled up on the sofa to wait.
She had an idea Jack was going to take a very long walk.
* * * *
Jack left the complex of buildings and set off toward the river, hands in pockets, head down. He was dressed too lightly for the weather, but he just walked faster, warming up with a brisk pace. The moon illuminated his path as he moved along with his heralded, yard gaining stride. His thoughts weren’t on the ground he was covering, however, but on the woman he had left behind at the apartment.
Jesse was playing with his head, putting on an act to confuse him. The dinner tonight, the candles, the flowers, the whole scenario had an underlying purpose. She was trying to rob him of his just revenge, because she knew there was no sweetness, no savor, in punishing someone who did not appear to deserve it.
Well, he wouldn’t let her get to him again. He had fallen into her trap once, but he was older and wiser now. He knew what she had done, how it had soured him forever on women, on life, on love. All the kindness she affected now could not negate the ten years he had waited for, and plotted, this retribution.
He bent his head against the gathering wind and turned onto the river walk, striding off into the dark.
Jessica was in bed when Jack returned, but not asleep. She heard him come in and try the bedroom door. Then, with no warning but a furious burst of noise, he kicked it in abruptly.
Jessica sat bolt upright, more bewildered than scared. Why on earth had he done that?
Jack charged into the room as the door slammed against the wall. He ran to the bed and seized her by the shoulders, dragging her forward and shaking her.
“Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me?” he rasped, his large fingers digging into her bare arms.
“Do what?” she asked, staring up at him.
“Lock the door against me!”
“I didn’t lock it!” she protested.
“Don’t lie to me!” he raged, flinging her back against the pillows.
“I’m not lying.” She was almost weeping, and her unfeigned bewilderment gave him pause. He studied her as she went on, “The door has been sticking. I meant to tell you about it. I just noticed it this morning.”
He examined her a moment longer as she pushed back her disordered hair, and then walked to the door, shutting it quietly. When he turned the knob the door refused to budge.
“Now do you believe me?” Jessica asked softly behind him.
He turned and faced her, his eyes dark with some unnamed emotion.
“I wouldn’t lock you out,” she added, clutching the sheet to her breasts.
“Because I have my rights?” he asked cynically. He was watching her very closely.
“Yes. Because I plan to live up to my end of the bargain.”
He came to the bed and sat on its edge. “How flattering. I’m one of your duties, like the laundry.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it. You think it every time I touch you.” He slipped his hand to the back of her neck, his fingers curving around her nape possessively.
“It would be so much easier for you if I were a man, wouldn’t it?” she whispered, reading the amber glint in his slitted eyes.
He almost smiled. “What?”
She nodded slowly. “If I were a man you could punch me, beat me up, pummel me into the ground for the hurt I caused you. That’s really what you’d like to do, isn’t it?”
“No,” he murmured, as if the single word were |wrenched from his gut.
“I think it is,” she went on quietly. “But since I’m a woman, you’ve found other, more subtle tortures for me.”
As if in response to her words, he withdrew his hand and, rising, turned to go.
She reached up to stop him, her bare arm gleaming in the faint light from the hall. Her fingers closed around his wrist as the blanket fell away from her shoulders, and he saw that she was naked.
Jack dropped to his knees on the floor and pulled her into his arms. He pressed his mouth to her satiny shoulder and then trailed his lips downward, capturing the tip of one breast between them. Jessica tangled her fingers in his hair and held him tightly. When he lifted his head to kiss her, she drew him onto the bed, eager for the only form of closeness he appeared to require from her.
Jack moved his mouth to the pale hollow of her neck, and Jessica’s head fell back in abandonment, her hair a sheen of gold on the pillow. He was still fully clothed, but he pressed against her as if he couldn’t spare the few seconds it would take to undress, caressing her hungrily. He pinned her, drawing her knees up and settling into the cradle of her hips. Her hands traveled up and down his back, feeling the muscles contract beneath the fine cloth of his shirt. He lifted himself on one arm and stared down at her, seeing the heavy-lidded eyes, the parted lips swollen from his kisses. She was invitation incarnate, her whole body straining toward him, demanding fulfillment.
Jack trailed his free hand between her breasts, bisecting her body, over her navel, down to the puff of wheaten hair between her legs. She watched him, enraptured, her breath caught in her throat. When he touched her she gasped, then pressed her lips together, never looking away from him. She was wet, more than ready, and her grip tightened on him, became almost painful as he caressed her. He lifted his fingers, moist with her dew, to his lips and touched them with his tongue.
“Jack,” she moaned, pulling at his belt. “Please.”
He surged off the bed, tearing at his clothes, tossing them in a heap on the floor. When he moved over her again he entered her in almost the same motion, her deep groan of satisfaction echoing his own. He had no wish for refinements, and neither did she; they tumbled headlong to a turbulent conclusion that left them both drained and panting, drenched with sweat.
They didn’t move for several seconds, recovering from the storm. Then Jessica, stretching like a postprandial cat, reached up to smooth Jack’s damp hair from his brow in a languid, satiated caress. But he turned his face away, rolling off her and sitting up on the side of the bed.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, pulling at his hand, too besotted with him for pretense.
But he shrugged her off and stood, then bent to gather the pile of his clothes and walked to the door. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle her sob, but he didn’t see her as he left the room.
Jack paused to lean against the door on the other side once he closed it. He turned his head and put his hand up, palm flat against the panel in a gesture of longing. Then, his shoulders slumping with weariness, with defeat, he threw the ball of his clothes onto the sofa and went to the guest room to sleep.
Chapter 8
This pattern continued for almost two months. Jessica tried everything she could think of to pierce the barrier Jack had erected, but he would relent only in bed. And it seemed that any communion they achieved while making love counted for nothing. As soon as it was over he left her, and in the morning he was his usual hostile, withdrawn self. His attitude worked a change in Jessica, too. Usually she wanted to talk out her problems and would press for communication, but with Jack she, too, retreated into silence. She was not going to apologize for something she hadn’t done, and she wasn’t going to be his doormat. Because she cared so much, her self respect was on the line, and not even for Jack would she sacrifice it.
So it was that, on a morning in mid-December, she went with Maddy to visit her father in the nursing home, worn out and sick at heart. She had thought that by this time things would be better with Jack, and seeing her father always depressed her. He was improving, but listless and disinterested, a far cry from the man who had ruled the Portman Mill—and her—with a will of iron. Strange to think now that this was the despot who had held her life in the palm of his hand, played with it, and then crushed it like a candy wrapper and tossed it away. He had accepted the news of her marriage with grim resignation, aware that he had lost his power over her life and his fortunes forever. Jessica spoke to the ward nurse about his care, arranged a bunch of flowers in the vase on his nightstand, and left. She walked with Maddy to her new car, which was parked outside.