Texas Heat by Bárbara McCauley Page A

trying to read a date in the corner.
    â€œMy parents’ wedding portrait.”
    Savannah jumped at the sound of Jake’s voice so close to her ear. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. “They...look very happy.”
    â€œThey were.” He stepped closer and stared at the picture, looking at it as if he hadn’t seen it for a long time. “He was never the same after she died.”
    â€œMy parents died together,” she said quietly. “I’d never really thought about it, but I realize now it would have been harder for the survivor if only one had died.”
    â€œI kept him company with an occasional bottle for a while,” Jake admitted. “But he needed a different kind of company.”
    â€œMyrna?” Savannah asked.
    He nodded and it seemed as if he was looking through the picture, instead of at it. “Men make mistakes when they’re lonely.”
    Savannah detected a note of bitterness in Jake’s voice, and something told her he wasn’t just talking about his father. She started to turn then, preparing to say good-night, when another picture caught her eye. It was a photograph of a sprawling white two-story mansion. A circular driveway led to a set of double doors. Barely discernible, a man stood in the open doorway, his muscular arms folded as he smiled for the camera. Savannah froze. She’d seen this picture before. She knew this house.
    Eyes wide, she turned to Jake. “Where did you get this picture?”
    â€œThat’s the house my father built for Myrna. Stone Manor, she calls it.” He frowned at Savannah. “Is something wrong?”
    She turned back and stared at the photo. “This house—my sister designed it. She has—had—this picture, along with the blueprints, in her portfolio.”
    Silence echoed in the hallway. They were both looking at not only a piece of the past, but of the puzzle.
    â€œThat explains how they met,” Jake said at last, then gave a dry laugh.
    Savannah glanced over her shoulder. “What?”
    â€œMyrna hired the architectural firm and asked for the best. Obviously that was your sister. Wouldn’t my stepmother love to know she was the one who brought them together?”
    Again they were quiet, each of them caught up in their own memories. “There was never anyone else after she came home,” Savannah murmured. “I’d catch her sometimes, lost in her thoughts, and I knew she was thinking about him. I just never knew who him was.”
    A soft rasping sound filled the air as Jake’s fingers slid over his bristled chin. “Jessica found this picture with some books and papers after J.T. died. It’s the only photo we have of him smiling after my mother died.”
    Savannah stared at the man in the photograph, knowing that Angela had taken this picture. “She loved him, you know.”
    The quiet passion in Savannah’s voice pulled Jake from his reflection. He became suddenly, keenly, aware of the smell of peaches drifting from her damp skin and hair. The scent was as sweet as it was seductive, as soft as it was powerful, moving over him, stroking him like invisible silken fingers. Desire, hot and sharp, pumped through his body, heightening his senses. He had a wild crazy need to brush the damp golden hair from her neck and taste her there. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep his hands at his sides.
    â€œWould a woman leave a man she truly loved?” he asked, leaning closer. “And take his child without telling him?”
    The heat of Jake’s body burned through the thin cotton robe Savannah wore. She felt his breath fan her ear and slide down her neck, and her own breath caught in her suddenly tight throat. “Maybe he sent her away,” she whispered.
    Jake shook his head. “The Stone men never let go of what belongs to them.”
    It was a completely chauvinistic, utterly arrogant statement.