Snow Angel (31 page)

Something secretive moved in his eyes, down in their dark-gold depths. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. Nerves shot to high alert, though she couldn’t name the cause. He was hiding something. She felt it in the sudden pitching of her belly.

Oh, God.

She wanted to scream at him.
What? What is it?

“Jake?”

He only shook his head, his lips clamped shut.

Determined to remain outwardly calm, Melinda rested her palm against his cheek.

“If you stayed,” she said, “if I asked you to give up everything you’ve been working toward, I couldn’t live with myself. Don’t you see? And you’d hate me for it eventually. That’s no way to start a relationship.”

“Do we have to know now?” he asked, his eyes suddenly fierce. Burning. “We’re not even out of school. Do we have to have our entire futures mapped out right this second? I love you, Mel. If we’re together, we’ll figure it out. Maybe later you’ll decide you’re okay with leaving Paso. You might want to come with me, did you ever think of that? You’ve never given any other options a chance.”

“Neither have you,” she protested, sitting up again. “And you’re basically saying you won’t stay in Paso, so—”

“Being a team doctor means I have to travel. It’s part of the package. They need nurse-midwives everywhere. If you’re worried about finding a job—”

“It’s not that, Jacob. You know it isn’t.”

Frowning now, he grabbed her hands with both of his, his expression intent.

“The point is we’d be together,” he said. “Whatever happens down the road, we’ll handle it. This is right. Can’t you feel it?”

Raising her hands to his chest, he pressed them both over his heart, its thundering beat galloping beneath her palms.

She stared at their clasped hands, but in her mind’s eye, Melinda saw the sweet little house she’d always imagined sharing with her one true love, with its pretty garden, a dog or two rolling on the grass, a swing set full of giggling children. She knew it inside and out, knew it sat just a few blocks from her parents’ home, in the town of her birth, where most of her family and friends all lived. Every birthday and holiday would be shared with those same people, as they had been every year of her life.

Her kids would grow up with her cousin’s children and the children of her friends. They’d go to school together, at the same school she and Jacob had gone to, and on Sundays they’d go to the same little church she’d always attended. They’d go to their senior proms at the local resort, as she had. She’d work in the hospital where she’d been born, and she’d go home at the end of each day knowing and loving her place in the world.

Safe, content, and happy.

It was everything she’d always wanted.

Except Jacob wouldn’t be part of it.

“Jake,” she said softly, her heart aching, pulling hard in opposite directions, “it isn’t only us we have to worry about. It’s our families and friends, too. We shouldn’t do this if we know it will end badly.”

“We don’t know that,” he argued, frustration whitening the edges of his lush mouth.

She wanted to press gentle kisses there, to ease the tension, but he was asking so much. To give up everything she’d hoped for. Could she do it, even for him?

“We don’t, Mel,” he said again when she stayed silent. “Anyway, there are no guarantees, you know that. Look at Carl and Donna, look at my aunt and uncle. But we have something special, even more special than I’d realized until now.”

“I know, but—”

“I’m asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to be brave. I’m asking you to be with me.”

She couldn’t tear her eyes from his, yet even as he argued with her, that unknown shadow shifted in his gaze again, a secret unshared.

What was he hiding?

“Jake—”

“Look, I know I sprang this on you. I’m sorry. I meant to wait, but I couldn’t stop after that kiss, and…” He broke off, sighed. “Don’t say any more now, okay? I love you. That’s not going to change. We’ll work it out. I promise.”

“You’re sure? Because I can’t lose you, Jake.” Melinda sniffed, hard.

“You never will. We never will.”

“But—”

“What?”

“Can we wait...” She trailed off, unsure how to say what she wanted to say.

This was Jacob, the one person she could say anything to, but this…

Her stomach clenched, both in need and worry.

“Can we wait for the physical stuff? Just until, you know—I don’t want to risk—”

“
Shhh
,” Jacob whispered, putting a gentle finger over her lips. “We’ll wait. I don’t want sex confusing the issue, either. You’re so important to me, Mel. You have to know that. I don’t want to rush anything about this. When the time’s right, when it’s perfect and we both agree, we’ll be together. Not a second before. Okay?”

Nodding, relieved, she smiled more fully.

She wanted him like nothing she’d ever experienced, but it was like he’d said. Making love would only confuse things. She wanted her head and heart clear before traveling with him down that all-new road.

“Okay,” she said. But the needs rioting through her system wouldn’t quite let it go at that. “We can still, you know, kiss, though. Right?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, chuckling now, and kissed her to prove it. “Just promise you’ll be thinking.”

How could she think of anything else?

Studying him, she wished with all her heart that she’d simply told him she loved him, the consequences be damned. Because she did love him, painfully. But they had to be smart.

When the time was right, she’d make sure he believed it and never had reason to doubt her again.

Ever.

“I promise,” she said, a smile beginning to bloom across her lips.

He smiled back, a smile full of sweetness and patience and relief.

And love.

He loved her. And she loved him.

The knowledge was heady, euphoric, and she slid down, even more tightly against him, wanting to be part of him, wanting to communicate the strength of her feelings to him on a deep, almost spiritual level.

When he kissed her again, she poured herself into the meeting of lips and tongues and breaths, reveling in the sensations, the emotions.

The miracle.

He loved her.

It was amazing.

And it was terrifying.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Perfection.

She was perfection, he couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t get close enough, touch enough, feel enough. He wanted to breathe her in until she became a part of him, until every disparate particle of themselves fused together into a new whole.

She might not be sure it would work yet, but he was. He loved her. And she loved him. He didn’t doubt it for a second.

So he’d be patient.

Well, he’d try.

He’d be her friend, like always, and kiss her brainless besides.

Jacob stroked his hands up, up, up beneath her pajama top, his fingers flexing and smoothing over her bare skin, her silky back, tracing her delicate shoulder blades and the length of her spine, driving himself crazy.

Her thighs grasped the outsides of his, and the very center of her rubbed over his erection, her core pressed tightly to him.

And the heat.

God.

Melinda flowed over him like molten lava, scorching hot, unbelievably sweet, her fingers and lips as grasping, as seeking as his.

He wanted their clothes gone, wanted naked skin to naked skin and himself engulfed by her flames.

A tiny, still-rational part of his brain intruded. He tried to shut it up, he really did, but it got louder instead, more insistent, until he had to listen.

And agree.

This wasn’t right.

The time, the place. He’d promised to wait.

Besides, he couldn’t take her here, in the middle of the family room on a rented condo’s couch, where anyone could walk in at any moment and catch them together. Especially not their first time.

She deserved something special, she deserved care and time and attention. She deserved the best of him, the best he could give her, and right here, right now, was not it.

Damn it.

“Mel,” he said, groaning her name against her lips. And again when she continued raining kisses over his mouth, his jaw, his cheeks and eyelids. “Mel.”

Regretfully, he removed his hands from beneath her pajama top and smoothed it back into place over her hot, luscious skin, then dragged his fingers through her silky hair.

“
Mmmmmm
,” she said.

Melinda gave him one more smacking kiss on the lips, then settled against his chest. He laid his head back against the couch’s arm, every muscle in his body giving out.

Restraint had its costs.

Along with a serious case of sexual frustration, he didn’t think he’d be able to drag up the strength or energy to move any time soon.

Then again, there was something to be said for snuggling on the couch with the woman he loved draped over his length, her breasts pillowed against his chest, her sweetly scented hair ticking the base of his throat.

There were worse sacrifices.

Melinda went back to drawing shapes on his chest, and they dozed for a time, the faint music of the New Year’s Day parade lulling them in the background.

“Where is everyone?” she asked after a while.

Jacob squinted at the clock on the DVD player above the TV. Almost four o’clock. It was later than he’d thought.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought they were going to watch the football games, but they’re not next door, or we would’ve heard them by now. Maybe they went to the lodge or skipped it all to go skiing. There’s a lot of fresh powder again after yesterday’s storm.”

Melinda tensed against him, and he cursed himself for bringing Dane into the room with them with the mention of the day before.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she deliberately relaxed her muscles, hugging her arms around him and tucking her hands beneath him, between his body and the couch.

“We should talk,” she said into his chest, the words muffled. “Some more. About all this.”

“I know.”

There was a long, quiet pause, while they each seemed to debate what to say first. Then, as one, they shifted up until they sat facing each other, their knees touching and hands held. Eyes searching.

She smiled at him, though it was shy around the edges.

“Pretty weird, huh?” she said, and he huffed out a laugh.

“Yeah.”

Raking his hands through his hair, Jacob clasped her hands again, and said, “Listen, Mel—”

At that moment, the front door burst open, and a crowd of noisy people seemed to fall through the opening. He and Melinda dropped hands and scooted apart as they prepared to face the horde.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They came in stamping and blowing, complaining about the cold and rhapsodizing over the deep powder, bickering about the outcomes of the day’s college-bowl games. Christian had evidently lost a bet with Wendell involving first-pass rights with a cute girl they’d met in the lodge earlier. He wasn’t happy.

Melinda exchanged an amused glance with Jacob. Those two were forever arguing over girls, though never seriously. At least not so far.

Relief that she and Jacob seemed to be, at least for now, back on a fairly even keel, with the added bonus of some mind-blowing kisses rattling her memory banks, Melinda greeted everyone with a smile.

“Hi, guys,” Jacob’s dad called to them where they sat on the couch, watching as everyone stripped off their gear and made a general mess in the entryway. Bill’s tone said everyone should behave normally, as though yesterday never happened. “You two have fun today?”

“Hey,” they said back in unison, catching each other’s eyes and looking away again quickly. Pointedly not answering
that
question.

Melinda couldn’t imagine how Jacob’s dad, or anyone, would react to a relationship between them. That was one of the questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

“I call dibs on the first shower,” Bill said over his shoulder. No one seemed to be paying any attention.

Nancy, on her way to the other condo, poked her platinum-blond head through the door, ducking beneath Stan’s arm to catch Karen and Lois’s attention.

“Give us about an hour next door,” she said. “I’ll make up the trays over there, and we’ll meet you back here. Send one of the kids over to grab the extra drinks after you’re settled.”

“Will do,” Lois said.

“Can you send Danny down to the mini-market for more chips?” Karen added. “Someone—” she cast a meaningful glance at her husband, “—finished off the last bag.”

“What?” Stan said, all innocence.

“Sure thing,” Nancy said, waving as she headed next door.

Wendell and Christian disposed of their gear in the laundry room, then came over to the couch and dropped down on the coffee table facing Melinda and Jacob, studying Melinda’s face with identically pained expressions.

Wendell said, “Ouch. You almost match my sweater.”

He grasped the front of said sweater and pulled on it, drawing it to their attention.

It was, characteristically, a wild riot of colors and clashed horribly with his bright red hair. Oranges mixed with reds, mixed with purples, yellows, and greens.

“I do not,” Melinda said, half laughing, half indignant. “Nothing could look as bad as that sweater.”

“Yeah, so shut it, Wen,” Christian said, shoving at his friend. Jacob merely rolled his eyes.

To Melinda, Christian asked, “Does it still hurt?”

So much for pretending nothing had happened.

“It’s fine,” she said. For their benefit, she made her best gangster face and said, “You should see the other guy.”

Wendell snorted. “I did see him, rolling on the ground in agony. Remind me never to piss you off.” He winked at her and grinned, and she felt better again, Dane’s shadow receding to the back of her mind.

Christian shoved Wendell again. “Too right,” he said. “No one messes with our girl.”

Seemingly satisfied, Wendell patted her on the knee, Christian patted her on the head, and they both gave Jacob oddly meaningful looks, which he ignored. Then they made their way into the kitchen to guzzle water and snag carrot sticks from the tray Karen was busy arranging.

Jacob reached for Melinda’s hand and squeezed it surreptitiously. “Too right,” he said, echoing Christian, and smiled.

“Don’t you forget it,” she answered, determined to keep things upbeat.

The look they gave each other spoke of many things they couldn’t voice out loud with everyone around them. Even though they still needed to talk things over, Melinda’s nerves had settled again.

They would work it out.

“You two up for a party?” her mother called from the kitchen. “We’re having a do-over for New Year’s Eve.”

Jacob, all energy again, bounced up from the couch and pulled Melinda with him toward the kitchen.

“Absolutely,” he said, reaching for his own handful of carrot sticks and smacking Wendell’s freckled fingers out of the way.

“Good,” Karen said.

Wendell thwacked Jacob on the back of the head, then followed Christian back to the couch and changed the TV station to a late-afternoon football game.

Her mom continued to chop and arrange the carrots and celery, though she studied Melinda and Jacob closely. Her eyes filled with pain momentarily as she surveyed Melinda’s bruises, but she quickly sniffed back her emotions. She focused on Melinda’s eyes, instead, and Jacob’s. Seeming to approve what she saw in their depths, she gave them each a smile.

“All right, then.” Pointing at Wendell and Christian with her chopping knife, Karen said, “Jakey, take those two hooligans next door and see if Nancy needs any help.”

Christian, overhearing her, whined, “Aunt Karen, the game’s on!” Karen ignored him.

Melinda chuckled at the frown her younger cousin tossed first at her mother, then his own when he heard Aunt Pat’s warningly intoned, “Christian,” issue from the table where his mother sat slicing avocados.

“Mel, I need you to wash up the radishes and cherry tomatoes, please,” her mom continued, “and hunt up the ranch dressing, then make some of those cheese squares your dad likes. Let’s get this party rolling.”

“Did I hear cheese squares?” Stan asked, dodging Jacob to snag his own handful of carrots and celery. He winked at Melinda.

Though she would have preferred more time alone with Jacob, Melinda played along, grateful for the effort everyone was putting into recreating New Year’s and the sense of normalcy.

“Okay, Daddy,” she said, giving Stan a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll get right on them. I just need to brush my teeth first.”

She didn’t look at Jacob, but he caught her drift.

“Yeah, me, too,” he said.

Karen checked the watch on her wrist for the time. “You went all day without brushing your teeth? Dr. Parker isn’t going to be happy with either of you on your next visits if you do that again. And you, big guy,” she added, digging tickling fingers into Jacob’s ribs and making him dance away, squealing like a girl, “won’t be happy if you have to have another cavity filled. Remember what happened last time.”

Jacob shuddered, and Melinda smirked at him. Her best pal didn’t mind needles when they were meant for someone else, but try to stick him with one…

“Ha,” Christian said from his spot on the couch. “Yeah. How’d that go again?”

Clearing his throat, Christian gave a high-pitched, warbling scream before falling back against the couch cushions, chortling hysterically at his own humor, while Wendell issued a longer, ululating version.

Melinda bit the insides of her cheeks—hard—to keep from laughing with them, though she knew her eyes gave her away when Jacob pinched her nose.

“Watch it, pipsqueaks,” Jacob said, his brows lowered and topaz eyes glinting with promises of retribution, though his lips quirked. “I can get my hands on a needle or two for you clowns easily enough.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the boys said, waving dismissive hands in his direction before returning their attention to the game, unconcerned.

“Anyway,” Jacob said to the room in general, “I was seven.”

“Ha! You were eleven if you were a day,” Melinda said. She gave him a saucy wink.

Jacob pokered up, his arms crossed. “Lots of kids don’t like needles.”

“Uh-huh,” Karen said, reading Jacob’s face perfectly, a smirk of her own riding her lips. “Lots of big kids, too, I hear. Go brush.”

“We’re going,” Melinda said, plucking Jacob’s sleeve, still struggling not to giggle as they headed for the bathroom. She squealed and jumped when he whacked her across the butt.

Closing the door behind them, Melinda leaned back against it and stared at Jacob, the grin fading from her lips.

Thinking of the familial invasion and the interruption of their discussion, she said, “That was…”

“I know,” he said, reading her expression. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “But—”

“Yeah. But.”

They brushed their teeth, and Melinda smoothed the tangles out of her hair while Jacob ran a wet comb through his. Finished, they faced each other again, and the seconds ticked slowly by.