Page 13 of Loving Jake
“Mmm, what is it?” Kimberly asked, her eyes glazed with a film ofdesire.
“Daisy.” His breath was rapid and coming out in gasps.
“Daisy?” She blinked her eyes and wondered why the name sounded familiar. “Oh no, Daisy!” she exclaimed when the distinctive scratching sound suddenly combined with a full-fledged bark. She opened her eyes, and looked at Jake. The fog of desire that had clouded his eyes earlier was gone. “I forgot all about her.”
Jake’s lip parted to form a wistful grin. “I let her out back right before you came home because she had been whining to go out. I take it that she is ready to come in,” he added with a disgusted shake of his head. He removed his hands from their resting spot on her hips and let them drop to his sides.
He shook his golden hair from his eyes as he reached down for her blouse, laying puddled at their feet. “Ah, here, you better put this on.”
“Jake, I, ah, we…” She reached for her blouse from his outstretched hand. The heat he had stirred within in her had faded away, and a tremble traveled over her skin.
“Don’t say it, Kim. Let’s leave it be. Please. Daisy obviously has a lot more common sense than we do and impeccable timing, I might add,” he finished with a ragged sigh.
She stared at him. His eyes were downcast and focused on a spot on the floor behind her. She wanted to argue with him, but his expression indicated that any questions she had for him would not be answered tonight. “I think I’ll go to my room now, if you will take care of Daisy?”
Jake noddedand then watched her walk away. He was unable to take his eyes off of her as she hastily swept out of the kitchen.
He ran the palm of hand across his mouth and chin whilethe dog continued to bark. No longer able to allow himself to stand in the middle of the kitchen in a stupor, he walked toward the backdoor and opened it.
“I’m coming, you damned dog,” he hissed under his breath, and immediately a sense of guilt washed over him for placing the blame on Daisy for his overactive libido. The panting dog pounced into the house the second he opened the back door. Taking care to remember the mud she normally tracked in from the backyard, Jake grabbed a rag and rubbed down her feet.
“Daisy, girl. You sure know how to take care of your mistress, don’t you?” He placed his hand on her back and absently rubbed the fur on her back until she began to squirm. Regret filling him, he lifted one of the dog’s back paws for cleaning. He reached for one of her front paws, and Daisy bent her head and licked his face. Jake chuckled although, deep inside, his heart ached.
“Well, don’t worry, girl. It won’t happen again. My emotions ran rather high tonight. I was worried...okay and slightly angry,” he amended when Daisy turned her shaggy head in his direction, cocking, what he swore, was a shaggy eyebrow at him.
“Give me a break, will you, dog? I worried about her all evening and then, when I try to do something about it, I find out her family doesn’t even know I’m living at her house. I mean, come on, Daisy. What’s the big deal? We’re grown adults.” Daisy growled playfully and then plopped down on the braided rug in the middle of the floor.
“Okay, I get your drift. I’ve sworn off marriage, love, and anything remotely associated to them. And nothing will change my mind.” He tossed the dirty rag into a basket by the back door.
Daisy lifted her head, a low growl escaped her large, salivating mouth.
“What? Can’t two people occasionally enjoy themselves without walking down the aisle?”
The large St. Bernard growled louder.
Jake ran a hand through the hair at the side of his head. “Okay, okay. I get it, Daisy. No wonder you don’t have any interested suitors sniffing around here. You are too old-fashioned for most of the dogs in the neighborhood.” He looked down at her and laughed because it occurred to him that he had been trying to hold a conversation with a St. Bernard. Man, he had definitely lost it. He ran his hand across his stubble-covered chin, and then sure he would never sleep, he decided to have the drink he had needed all evening.
As he approached the small liquor cabinet in the corner of the family room, he wondered what had come over him. In his mind, he saw Kimberly walk into the kitchen and open the cabinet door. Obviously, he had not been lost enough in his concern for her to miss the chance to admire her enticing bottom snugly poured into a pair of tight jeans or to notice her thick, rich mane of hair cascading down her back and its distinctive honey scent filling his senses.
The smell of wine trailed in her wake and increased his irritation. She had been out enjoying herself, while he sat home alone waiting for her. “Alone,” he repeated out loud. Was that his problem? He mixed himself a drink from the bar and tried to make sense of his behavior tonight. For nearly a month, he had had little to look forward to other than Kimberly’s return from work. He had spent several hours visiting his Grandfather each day, coupled with the few home improvement projects that he volunteered to do around the house, but mostly he was alone.
It was ironic, he decided with a startling realization, because he spent a considerable time alone as an international journalist and it had never bothered him before. He lived for months in foreign countries with no one closer to him than the otherjournalists and photographers whom he met on assignments. Yet, now he spent his time, regardless of what he had been doing, longing to see Kim each night.
Jake took a large swig from his glass, disturbed by this latest revelation. He needed to put a stop to his obsession with her. He planned to return to New York as soon as his brother came home and could stand vigil over their grandfather, and no one, not even a 5’ 10”, raven-haired beauty, could stop him. He placed his glass down on an end table and walked over to the built-in sound system. He pulled up his playlist on his cellphone and chose a song from Hozier. The artist’s music seemed to match his mood perfectly.
He reached for his drink and settled down on the couch with Daisy snoring softly at his feet. He had been a fool to start something with Kim tonight and could only be grateful it had ended when it had. A crushing weight of despair bore down on him. It had felt so good, so right to hold her in his arms, tasting each delectable inch of her. God, how he wanted to bury himself into her velvety warmth and stay there forever. “Forever, what a joke.” He leaned back against the couch with an air of defeat engulfing him. He drank deeply from his glass and swiftly emptied its contents before he returned the glass to its place on the end table. There was no forever for him and definitely not with Kimberly Urbane.
Kimberly, he learned after flipping through hundreds of photographs housed in the dozens of albums she kept scattered throughout the house, loved children. At least half of her photos contained a child with their tiny faces smiling happily at the camera. He had asked her about the photos over dinner one day last week, and she had explained that she began her career as a local photographer, her specialty being children because she loved to capture the happiness and open trust in their small faces. The photo albums were portfolios of her work. When shecould no longer pass up the lure of a steady paycheck and the health insurance that came with it, she had traded in the photography work she did locally with friends for a position with the magazine.
Jake stared blankly out the window, oblivious to the moonlight that shone down on him. His thoughts drifted to his disastrous marriage. In the stillness of the room, he could hear years of Brenda’s vile accusations being flung at him. “If you wanted children, Jake, you would take the tests. But you won’t, because you really don’t want children, do you? Do you?” she screamed. The hate-filled memories ran rapidly through his mind.
“I want children,” he whispered hoarsely. He bent his head in sorrow, cradling it between his hands. After ten years, almost twenty if he counted the time from the doctor’s prognosis his sophomore year in high school, he finally released all the pain he had kept locked up inside of him, the pain that had been slowly building, patiently waiting to be unleashed.
Alone, and in a room illuminated only by the moon, Jake wept for all the years he had spent without love. But mostly, he shed tears for all the years he would yet have to endure without the love of a woman like Kimberly and the love of children he could never have with her. He wiped the palm of his hand across his eyelids. Tonight had been a reality check and a reminder for him. He had carelessly, and selfishly, taunted Kimberly with the possibility of a relationship that was more than platonic, and he would make sure it never happened again.
SIX
Kimberly walked down the stairs with slow, methodical steps. Her hair, still damp from her shower, was pulled tightly into a braid that kept falling over the front of her right shoulder. Her white running shoes made soft taps on the tile floor as she approached the kitchen with less than eager steps. She had been mentally preparing herself for this moment for over two hours. Actually, she wearily admitted to herself, it was more like seven if she considered the hours she had spent staring at her bedroom ceiling until dawn.
