Endless Night Page 8

  That notion and the tone of his voice finally snapped the spell.

  She pushed back and held Jake at shoulder length. With the window behind him, he made a formidable profile. There was very little backlight, but it was enough to eclipse his features, producing a daunting, faceless silhouette.

  “Who are you?” She shot out of bed, eyeing the gun that rested on his thigh.

  Jake followed the trek of her eyes. He lifted the weapon, turning it from side to side, inspecting it in slow motion. His gaze held hers as he offered up the heavy chunk of metal, which she snatched with shaky fingers.

  “I’m Jake,” he said. “A thirty-five-year-old electrical engineer from Boston. A man who came here to find answers about his heritage.”

  For a moment he sat there, assessing her with the fixed gaze of a jaguar. Megan trembled under that appraisal and sank down onto the redwood chair.

  He crossed his arms. “Okay,” he began, “let’s try this approach. Who do you think I am?”

  You were sent to kill me.

  “I don’t know.” She wrenched her words in anguish.

  Some of the tension slipped from Jake’s shoulders. She thought Jake was going to reach for her and nearly leaned forward in anticipation of that sweet shelter.

  Instead, he shifted so that his head could be even with hers—so that he could look her in the eye.

  “It’s none of my business, Megan. But to me, it’s obvious you’re hiding from something out here.”

  “You’re right.” Panic gripped her voice. “It’s none of your business.”

  Jake nodded in submission, and then reached out and turned on the bedside lantern. She flinched against the bright assault and blinked until he came back into view.

  Oh God. Why did he have to look like that? Dark and lean, with eyes that mirrored the glow of the antique lamp. He leaned even closer and she discovered that the gold was just an eclipse around large black pupils.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “One last question. And for this one I need to see your eyes.”

  Megan’s breath hitched. In that second, she heard every throbbing beat of Wakefield House. The cadence of the rain. The tempo of the wind. The pounding of her heart.

  “Yes?”

  “Tell me.” He paused. “In all honesty, do you think I would hurt you?”

  She was startled at how easy the answer came. “No.”

  That response earned her a slight curve of his lips. Just that whisper of a smile that made her stomach tumble.

  “I wish I could say the same thing,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  Jake touched her now, placing his hand on her face. His thumb caressed her cheek while the rest of his fingers gently toyed with her hair.

  “You’re going to hurt me,” he said in somber resolve.

  “How in heaven’s name—” The smoky promise of passion in his eyes cut off her words.

  “I wanted to kiss the hell out of you out there in the rain,” he whispered. “I wanted to—”

  His hand retracted and rubbed over his face.

  “You are afraid of something, Megan Summers, and I’m certainly not going to add to that.” The stern wrinkles at the corners of his eyes softened. “But damn, you tempt me.”

  “Don’t—” Megan felt the panic well again. Only, this time her concern was for this stranger. The woman in her, the ghost of Margaret Simmons, screamed at her not to drag this man into her troubled world. “Don’t be tempted. I’m not a person you want to get involved with. It—it’s just not going to happen.”

  He smiled. A sad smile. “I know it’s not going to happen.” Regret thickened Jake’s voice. He reached for her again, his fingers touching the back of her neck. She felt them trace the sensitive skin beneath her hair, and she quivered in response. He must have felt it because he smiled.

  It was the last thing Megan saw before he kissed her.

  This was just going to be a soft kiss to let Megan know that he was there for her. Even now, save for the hand he had around the back of her neck, Jake barely touched her. His mouth was brief with its perusal, frustratingly so to keep him in check. And yet, to his surprise she seemed to pursue him.

  She leaned in to that kiss, one hand splayed across his thigh for support. Jake stifled his groan with another brief swipe of his mouth, but Megan was using her soft lips to coax his open. She wanted inside, and this time he couldn’t repress the rumble of need in his throat. Still, he managed to evade her. If he relented, he wouldn’t—couldn’t possibly stop at this kiss.

  Megan was making tiny mewls of frustration now, her hand inching up his thigh as she pursued him again. Jake recognized this burst of sensuality as a byproduct of fear, and didn’t think she necessarily wanted him as much as she needed escape. God help him, he wanted to offer her that, but when the morning came, where would that leave them?

  His hand slipped from the realm of silky hair down to her shoulder, where he gently coaxed her back.

  “Megan,” he whispered huskily.

  Stark blue eyes blinked and her head jerked as if she just woke from a dream.

  “Jake—I—” Her hand snapped from his thigh. “I—”

  He wanted to swipe the confusion from her troubled face with a searing kiss.

  “Easy, it’s okay.” He reached up and dusted long chocolate bangs away from her eyes.

  “Nightmares. They’re a bitch aren’t they?”

  For a moment Megan looked dumbfounded. Then she snorted, followed by a throaty laugh.

  He thought she looked absolutely beautiful. The pleasant sound of her laughter was the perfect weapon to fend off the storm. Damn. Never before had he paid attention to the sound of a woman’s laughter, or ever considered it melodic enough to alter weather patterns.

  “Quite succinctly put,” Megan managed.

  She sat back in the chair and drew a leg up, resting her chin on her knee and watching him. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t think I really knew what I was doing there.”

  “Sure, go ahead, stroke my ego.”

  Megan laughed quietly, and Jake liked to imagine that some of the tension eased from her body. She looked past his shoulder to the window matted with rain, noticing that the black of night had given way to a cool gray morning.

  “Thank you, Jake.”

  Jake cleared his throat, remembering the sensation of her hand inching up his thigh.

  “I wish you could tell me about it.”

  “The nightmare? It was nothing. Look at this place.” Her hand swept the shadows.

  “Wouldn’t you have nightmares here?”

  No, Megan, he thought. Glib prattle is not going to put me off. “That would bring me back to my original observation,” he said. “What are you hiding from that makes it necessary to live out here, so far from civilization?” He paused. “Megan, for God’s sake, why the gun?”

  Megan hoisted herself from the chair and paced to the window, brushing aside the lace curtains. “I need privacy in order to write. And being so far from civilization means I need protection.”

  Jake supposed that what bothered him the most was that she didn’t yell. She should have ranted and raved that it was none of his damned business. Her answer seemed too trite.

  He rose and approached her. There was an obvious stiffening of her spine, but she let him fall in behind her. Jake touched both of her shoulders and with the slightest exertion he drew her back so that her body ran the length of his. Merged together, as innocent as the embrace may seem, he swore the heat melted away the icy pelts on the glass.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  A tiny bleat signaled her frustration at his relentless questions.

  Jake continued, “If I can get out of here tomorrow—” He felt her tense, and hoped that it was the notion of him leaving that upset her. “If I can get out—will you come with me to visit Estelle?”

  Before she could deny him, Jake hastened to add, “I wouldn’t even recognize the woman. And let’s face it, I’m
an outsider in this town—”

  Megan let loose a short laugh. “And I’m not?”

  “By comparison—no.”

  Amazingly she leaned back into him. Perhaps fatigue caused the spontaneous gesture, regardless, his arms wrapped protectively around her.

  “What do you think?”

  Megan sighed and just for a moment touched the arms wrapped around her. Another gurgle of aggravation sounded in her throat and she pried herself from his grasp.

  “Don’t look for something from me.”

  Jake didn’t respond. He stared through the window at the slim band of light struggling to brighten a horizon weighed down by storm clouds.

  “I’m not looking, Megan.” He breathed, misting the glass and obscuring the view. “I’m just here to find out about Estelle Wakefield and her daughter.”

  Yeah, that’s what it started out as—but as of tonight, as of this embrace, Jake wasn’t sure that’s all he was looking for.

  How the hell had he convinced her to go out in public?

  Megan inched lower in the front seat of Jake’s Jeep, resting her head as far back as she could to mask herself within its frame. She studied his profile to see if he caught the motion, but the unshaven jaw was set grimly and his eyes were trained on the path. Strong hands wrapped around the steering wheel to control the vehicle as it bucked and finally climbed onto the main road.

  Megan inched even lower. Curse that fickle bridge for letting them through today. She wanted to stay in her remote fortress. There would never be a place that she felt safe—not anymore, but at least in Wakefield House she had an advantage. Here, out in the open, her vulnerability made her feel like a lobster primed for the boiling pan.

  Megan shifted her shoulders below the sightline of the door.

  “If you want, you can lie across the backseat.”

  “What?”

  A muscle pumped along Jake’s jaw. “A hat perhaps?” He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Maybe one of those fake nose and glasses?”

  Her cheeks infused with heat. “I happen to be tired. I was just getting into a comfortable position. Maybe take a quick nap.”

  Jake looked at her now. On the surface there were the slight wrinkles of a smile at the corners of his eyes, but the gold flecks grew dark with concern.

  “I guess contortionists can nap.”

  She didn’t rise to the bait, so he continued, “I promise one quick trip to Candlelight Center and then we’ll head straight back.”

  “I’m fine.” It irked her that he read her so well. “I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about.”

  Jake reached across the space between them and touched her hand. His wide palm engulfed hers as he squeezed gently. “Megan, if you don’t let go of that seat belt you’re going to lose all the circulation in your hand.”

  Megan eased her death grip on the seat belt and tried to wriggle her fingers to get some of the numbness out. She scowled at Jake and he only chuckled.

  His palm wound back around the steering wheel and Megan already missed its warmth. She reached for the seat belt again, but lowered her hands to grip the frame of the bucket seat so that he wouldn’t notice.

  “Agoraphobia, is that it?” he asked in a deep voice, any semblance of a grin gone.

  “Afraid of public places?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Her answer sounded a little too rushed, but Megan was finding it hard to breathe now.

  To her surprise Jake pulled the Jeep over to a roadside vista, an elbow in the road that offered a view of rocky cliffs and the grand silhouette of the lighthouse.

  “What?” She regarded him warily.

  He shifted the vehicle into Park and turned toward her with eyes that mirrored the clouds.

  “If you are really this uncomfortable, we’ll turn around.”

  Suddenly, Megan felt childish. She had ventured into Victory Cove before and encountered nothing but hospitable citizens who regarded her with warmth and kindness.

  But yes—she had worn a hat and sunglasses.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then what is it, Megan? Is it me?”

  Yes. No. Why couldn’t she think?

  Except for some bouts of paranoia and the deluge of nightmares, she had survived the past year with tenacity. Now, a soaking wet Jake shows up on her doorstep looking for his long-lost grandmother, and suddenly she has an epidemic of irrational tendencies.

  “You have an unsettling way about you, Jake.”

  Jake frowned. He sat back and Megan’s eyes latched on to what captured his focus. He was following the trek of a gull as it struggled against the wind, like a swimmer battling an undercurrent. It was a lone bird somehow misplaced in this desolate climate. She felt a kinship with the weary gull.

  “Unsettling,” he said. “You know, you’re really giving my ego a tough time. What do I do that unsettles you?”

  Look at me the way you did in the rain. Touch me the way you did in the dark. Express concern with those eyes. Why should you be concerned? You don’t know me.

  Megan cleared her throat. “To save your fragile ego…” She watched the bird dip below the cliff, and whispered, “…unsettling doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing.”

  Jake let out a soft chuckle.

  “Now see.” He twisted the keys and started the ignition. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  Jake tried to keep the conversation innocuous during the remainder of their drive, regaling her with tales of voltage stability and the implementation of superconductor power cables in his latest office building, but Megan did not appear to be engrossed in his dialogue. She looked like she was going to roll down the window and lurch through it at any second, and he hoped it was not to avoid his boring banter. The money he raked in was the only attractive aspect of his job to women. His was not an exciting profession such as a firefighter or a SEAL; he was just a dork with a voltmeter. No wonder she was ready to crawl out the window.

  As they pulled onto Victory Cove’s Main Street, her fidgeting reached epic proportions. He watched her eyes scan the sidewalk with the intensity of a hawk.

  Along this street of weathered storefronts, remnants of vitality were exhibited with vivid flashes of paint beneath the shade of metal awnings. A sprinkling of cars were parked at an angle before the row of antique shops and lobster-fishing supply stores. The echo of a hammer competed with the effervescence of the ocean as the dominant sound. Outside a storefront a man nailed a wooden panel over his door, next to the sign that read Closed for Winter.

  Jake pulled in before the Victory Cove Maritime Museum. The building could have represented anything from a former town hall to nothing more than a souvenir shop, with its red wooden annex and black shutters and a hand-painted sign alerting passersby of its identity. Judging by the minimal square footage, Jake guessed there wasn’t enough significant history in Victory Cove to occupy anything larger.

  “Two doors down.” Megan nudged her head toward the right.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “I made it as far as the sidewalk and the big Closed to Visitors sign on Friday.” He followed her glance to the white picket fence with an arched trellis woven with gnarled dead limbs. A twinge in his lower back as he got out of the Jeep was a reminder of the spill in the mud. He sliced a look at Megan to see if she suffered any muscle twinges, but she was still tucked away in the passenger seat, looking out on the road with anxious eyes.

  Jake rounded the vehicle and opened her door, his arm resting on the doorframe as he looked down at her. Their eyes held for a long time until the salty breeze forced him to blink.

  “I’m the one who’s supposed to be nervous here. You know, meeting my prospective grandmother and all?” He tried to goad her into smiling. Her troubled eyes were making him ache.

  What is she afraid of?

  He had to stop worrying about it. He had his own problems. After this little adventure with Estelle Wakefield was over, he would return to Boston and lose himself in another project, and Megan Summe
rs would be nothing more than a distant memory.

  “I’m not nervous,” Megan asserted and stabbed her leg out the door, nearly kicking him. He did not move aside as she emerged. When she stretched to her full height, she was boxed in between him and the doorframe as his body provided shelter from the breeze coming in off the cove.

  Caging her like this, when he would have anticipated panic in Megan’s eyes, Jake was surprised to see her pupils widen with awareness. He caught her gaze dropping to his mouth and lingering there as heavy eyelids and long lashes barely masked the dark flash of passion.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered gruffly.

  Megan’s eyes shot up. She tried to step back, but the frame of the Jeep prevented her. She panicked and grabbed the door.

  “Easy.”

  Her chin tipped up. “Visiting hours will be over if you don’t stop dawdling.”

  “Well, let’s not dawdle then.” He grinned and stepped back to let her slip past him.

  Chapter Eight

  It nearly felt like voyeurism, sitting in a room with someone oblivious of your presence. Megan was beside Jake in an equally uncomfortable chair. Together they faced a blue-haired woman in a rocker whose gray eyes were flooded with cataracts, those sightless orbs searching the window regardless of the fact that the shade was drawn.

  “Mrs. Wakefield, do you remember me?” Megan’s hands were clamped together. She stooped forward as if the motion would entice Estelle to take a peek. “I’m Megan Summers, the new tenant at your house?”

  Watery eyes sliced toward Megan’s voice. Thin white eyebrows narrowed with effort and her head shook above brittle shoulders. “No.”

  Megan arched her own brow and shrugged at Jake as if to say, you’re not going to get much here.

  Jake watched Estelle Wakefield, waiting for some recognition to flood his blood. Her gray eyes matched her sweater and skirt, and also her demeanor. He tried to attribute her aloofness to the disease that plagued her mind, but there was something about the aged woman that seemed too strong and determined to submit to weakness. Perhaps it was the rigid posture, the tip of her head that indicated she listened with a keen perception. Or it was just an aura of arrogance, as if she were royalty misplaced in a hovel.