Burning Wild Read online

  She didn't want to cry anymore. She wasn't even certain she could. All day long, all night, all she could do was think of Andy, miss him, pray he'd died quickly, without pain. Now she was terrified of losing his child, of not having a way to take care of herself or the baby. She had no one to help her. She was completely and utterly alone in the world.

  "What are they saying is wrong?"

  His voice was calm and the sound of it steadied her. His hands moved through her hair with the tug of the brush and somehow even that motion soothed her. She took a gulp of air and found she could think better with him close to her.

  "I have some internal injuries and they think my body won't hold the baby as it grows. I'll have to be on complete bed rest by my fourth month."

  The brush stroked through her hair a few more times before he put it down and divided her hair into three strands. "We can get a second opinion, Emma. It's not hard to fly someone in. If he agrees, then you'll just do whatever it takes."

  "How?" She turned to look at him over her shoulder. "I don't have Andy to help me. They operated on my leg; I can't walk, I can't work. I don't have a clue what to do." She detested sounding so pathetic.

  He tugged on her hair until she turned back away from him, her shoulders sagging. "We'll do just what we're doing now. Help each other. I've got money and a big house if you need it."

  She stiffened. "I don't need a handout." She did, though. That was what was so humiliating. She was practically begging for a stranger to settle her life. She knew she was doing it, but she couldn't stop herself, not with this man. Who was he? Why did he feel so familiar and strong?

  She covered her face with one hand. He'd suffered a loss as well. Shaina. The name tasted bitter in her mouth. Shaina and her drunken friend had killed Andy. Strange, she could see pain in Jake's eyes sometimes but never feel it, while it coursed through her veins along with grief, carrying her on a tide of sorrow so strong she was afraid she could never feel happiness again.

  "You know there will be a settlement," Jake said. "You'll have plenty of money. I can get my lawyers to continue working on it for you. Once you have that, you won't have to worry about money for a while. There should be plenty to take care of you and the baby."

  "Blood money. Money can't replace Andrew." She jerked forward, away from the comfort of his touch.

  His hands tightened in her hair, tugging at her scalp, and she gave a little squeak.

  "Settle down. I'm not the one you're mad at," Jake pointed out. "And whatever the reason, the money will help with the baby. And you're going to need it, so if you don't mind, I'll just take care of that little detail for you until you can come to terms with it."

  "Whatever."

  Her voice was low, but triumph shot through Jake at her acceptance of his help. He wanted to take away her sorrow, yet a part of him was amazed and gratified that she could actually feel sorrow. He had been upset over his great-grandfather's death, but not half as upset as she was over her husband's. It fascinated him that she was capable of loving someone so deeply that her life was shattered when he was gone. Try as he might, Jake could not feel sorrow over Shaina's death.

  He found himself not liking that side of him, that cold, unemotional part of him that would take advantage of a woman as genuine as Emma. From the little information he'd gleaned from the hospital staff and the apartment, he'd discovered Emma was an independent woman with strong opinions and a sense of fun. But right now she seemed vulnerable and fragile, weighed down by grief and loss. The harsh realities of his world had long ago taught him no one could be so genuine, but though he kept thinking he would find a way to trip her up, he had not been able to. If she was an actress, she deserved an Oscar.

  Beneath his hands he felt her stiffen, go on alert, turning her head toward the door.

  "The baby's crying," she said. "Can you bring him in here?"

  Jake frowned. He had the ability to hear and sort sounds due to his "other," and he instantly recognized the cry of his son. He was leopard, his brain automatically recording sounds and conversations, sorting through data and registering facts around him, yet Emma had heard the cry and instinctively turned toward it before it had registered with him.

  His chest suddenly felt heavy, and in his ears, his blood thundered. His mother never once had responded to his cries, not when he'd been an infant, and certainly not when he'd been a toddler. This woman, this stranger, had more regard for his infant son than Jake did. He felt shame and guilt and confusion--something that happened a lot in her presence.

  "If that's what you want," he murmured, sliding off the bed, away from her warmth.

  "Yes, please."

  How could anyone who suffered such losses, who was reeling from so many blows, respond to the son of the woman who had caused the accident? Jake couldn't make sense of her. In some ways she scared him--something very hard to do. Jake wasn't afraid of pain or much of anything, really, but Emma shook him up in places he hadn't known existed. He didn't trust anyone, least of all anyone he didn't understand.

  As he gingerly carried the boy back to Emma's room, he tried to figure out what possible angle she could have other than genuine warmth. He had a motive for bringing the child to her. He wanted her in his life, loving him and the boy. If he could use her interest in the infant to trap her into coming home with him, he would do it. But what was her interest? Certainly not in him as a male. Hell, she didn't even seem to notice he was a man. Not his money. Nothing. He simply didn't interest her.

  When he pushed open her door, her gaze jumped to his face and he revised his opinion. There was something between them--strength, power. He mesmerized her. She was vulnerable and needed someone stronger to take over until she could face her life without Andrew. She saw the strength and power of his leopard, the steel in Jake, and because she needed those qualities, he drew her to him, and that was a start.

  Her gaze drifted down to the baby he was holding awkwardly, out and away from his body. He flashed a small, baffled grin at her. "He needs changing. I tried to get the nurses to do it, but they said I needed the practice. It's scary stuff holding a wiggling baby in the palm of my hand."

  "That's not the right way to hold him, Jake," she counseled gently. "You want to keep his body close up against yours so he feels safe."

  "He's wet." Jake made a face.

  "He's the baby, not you. Put him on the bed so you can change him."

  Jake couldn't get the diaper on to save his life. He put the boy down on the bed beside Emma as he worked, all thumbs, to get the diaper to stay on. The moment he lifted the infant, the covering would slip off and fall to the bed. The baby wailed in protest, little arms flailing about in the air while Jake made a production of raking his hands through his hair and breathing hard.

  "You aren't doing it right." Emma's voice was tinged with amusement.

  Jake felt triumph burst through him, but he kept an agitated, helpless frown on his face. "I can see that," he admitted, gritting his teeth. "There seems to be some secret eluding me." He kept one hand on the baby's stomach to prevent him from falling off the edge of the bed and glanced at Emma.

  The louder the baby cried and the more he squirmed, the more color seemed to come into her pale face. Jake could see she was getting distressed watching his apparent ineptness.

  She leaned toward the baby. "Let me."

  Jake allowed himself to sink down onto the bed beside her. "I don't know if you should be moving around too much."

  "It's just my leg," Emma said. She winced as she tried to shift her injured limb beneath the blankets, stretching out to sit up straighter.

  Jake sighed. "Here. You take the wet boy and I'll move your leg for you."

  He practically dumped the baby into her arms, sagging diaper and all, before reaching under the covers and half lifting her to pull her into a more comfortable position. "How's that?"

  Emma nodded without answering Jake, looking down instead into the baby's face. He looked like his father. His eyes. Not t
he normal fuzzy blue color of most newborn's but rather serious golden eyes that didn't smile. That was what bothered her about Jake. His voice was expressive, and sometimes his mouth smiled or frowned, but there was no emotion in his eyes. And there was little in his son's eyes. As if the boy already had suffered too much pain and sorrow. She knew about that and didn't want the infant to start out his life in sadness.

  "It's all right, little one," she murmured softly. "No one's ever going to hurt you."

  Jake's head jerked around. "Don't promise him that. Don't tell him lies." His voice was harsh, and he reached for the infant, dragging him out of her arms.

  Emma studied his face. There was something there. Finally. Real emotion. In his eyes. A dark, twisted pain that she glimpsed briefly before he blinked and it was gone, as if it had never been. Deep. Wrong. Glittering with menace. Making her heart pound with dread. Jake Bannaconni was a very dangerous man.

  Jake looked down as the little boy squirmed in his hands and for the first time Jake actually saw him. The boy had his eyes and a wild tuft of dark hair. There was intelligence in those antique-gold eyes, so much that Jake found himself running his fingers over the boy's hands, searching for evidence of anything unusual beneath that soft baby skin. The tiny bones felt perfect, although birdlike. The baby stopped crying to watch him with those unblinking cat's eyes.

  "People lie," he said gruffly. "I'll do my best to protect you, but people can't be trusted."

  "Jake." Emma's voice was soft with compassion. "He doesn't need to be taught that right now. He just needs to feel safe and secure, to have his diapers changed and food in his tummy. Most of all he needs to be surrounded with love."

  Jake's belly knotted at that word. Everyone made claims of loving everything and everybody, but in reality it was all about what they could get. At least he was honest with himself. He wanted Emma to look at him the way she had looked at Andrew. He was willing to use any weapon in his vast arsenal to get what he wanted. He looked down at his son, knowing right at that moment that the infant was his best choice, better even than money.

  Jake forced a smile as he laid the child down directly in front of Emma. "Who knew changing diapers could be so difficult?" He handed her the diaper. "I named him Kyle," he added.

  "Is that a family name?" Emma asked.

  "No," he responded tersely, took a breath and tried to soften it. "No, I just liked the name."

  Emma's lashes fluttered. "Well, it's a beautiful name." She put her finger in the tiny hand of the baby and Kyle instantly closed his hand around hers. "He's beautiful."

  "Yes, he is." Jake really looked at his son, a little in awe. The tiny, perfect face, his legs kicking with such force. Before, he'd thought of him as wriggling and red, but now he took note of the boy's features, the catlike eyes, the bowed mouth and the tuft of dark hair. He found himself smiling. "He really is, isn't he? But he's so little, he scares me." There was some truth in that as well. "I've never held a baby, let alone been responsible for one. I feel like I'm all thumbs."

  Emma carefully fit the diaper to him and watched as Jake awkwardly tried to pick the boy up. Again he held him out away from his body.

  "The nurses say I have to learn to feed him, but he doesn't like the way I'm doing it and he isn't eating very much," Jake admitted in a low voice, as if it pained him to admit he couldn't do something perfectly. "I can find oil in ground that no one suspects is there, but I can't feed or diaper a baby." He wiped his hand across his forehead.

  Emma held out her arms. "Let me show you."

  Jake held his breath as Emma took Kyle into her arms, cradling him against her breasts. She enfolded him, surrounding him with her warmth and the softness of her body.

  "You want to hold a baby very close so they feel safe." She smiled down at the small, upturned face. "Give me the bottle and I'll show you how to feed him." She held one hand out.

  Jake put a supporting hand under the baby's bottom. "Don't drop him." He remembered the countless falls to the floor, the feel of a shoe hitting his body, the toe of a boot in his stomach. He hadn't thought about it for years. He was no father--he sure as hell didn't know what he was doing--but no kid of his was going to be bounced on a hard floor.

  "I'm not going to drop him," she assured.

  Jake hesitated, studying her face. She seemed so damned genuine, but no one was really like her. No one. Watching her closely, he handed her the small bottle, bending his head close to see how she teased the baby's mouth until he opened. At once he began suckling. Kyle didn't turn his head from side to side as he'd done earlier when the nurse had tried to show Jake what to do. Jake had been impatient and annoyed, feeling as if he was wasting his time. Watching Emma with Kyle made him feel different.

  "Emma, do you remember what happened?"

  Her gaze flicked to his face and her arms tightened around the baby. She nodded. "Not how it happened, only you holding me down and fire all around us." She swallowed hard, her eyes shimmering with tears. "Andy . . ."

  He put his arm around her as if she belonged there--with him. "I know, Emma. I'm sorry. I couldn't get him out. It was too late."

  "Don't blame yourself." She looked up at him again and her eyes looked like two deep pools. For a moment he thought he was falling forward. "Did he suffer?"

  His fingers went to the nape of her neck, massaging the tension in an effort to comfort her. "No. He died immediately. He never felt the fire."

  She bit down hard on her lip and stared into Kyle's face. "The people in the other car? They both died, didn't they?" She swallowed visibly, trying to remember everything she'd overhead. "You knew them both?"

  Jake reached out and took Kyle's little hand. "His mother died, as well as the driver. The medics delivered my son and saved his life. I was lucky they could get the baby out in time."

  "I'm sorry about your wife."

  "We weren't married," Jake admitted in a low voice.

  Again her gaze flicked to his face. "I'm sorry," she said again. She turned her attention to Kyle, cradling him close to her, ducking her head so that her face was hidden.

  Jake realized she felt bad for him, that the tears shimmering in her eyes were for him, for Kyle--not for herself. It was to his advantage to allow her to think he'd been crazy about Shaina--that he felt the same sorrow at losing a loved one as she did. It gave them another bond. He considered letting her believe it, but something inside, something strong, welled up in him, refusing to let him lie to her about that. Not even by omission.

  "Emma," Jake said softly and waited until she looked up at him. "I didn't love Shaina. I don't have the same emotions as you do." Maybe he really wanted to warn her. All the advantages were on his side. Maybe there was a shred of decency left in him and he believed she deserved it. Or, God help him, Drake Donovon, his semi-friend and now part-time counselor, with his constant set of rules and talk of honor, was getting to him. Whatever, Jake knew he had to tell her the truth.

  "I despised her. She deliberately got pregnant to blackmail me into marriage. And then when it didn't work, she drank and did drugs while she was pregnant. I had to have someone watching her all the time. I came here to bring her back to my ranch, to keep the baby safe until he was born. You lost someone you loved. Shaina was . . ." Like me. He couldn't bring himself to say it and he just trailed off.

  Emma stared up at his face, her eyes wide and unblinking, completely focused on him so that he went still, feeling threatened--feeling as though she could see all the way to his soul, to the cold monster living there, waiting to strike. She shook her head slowly. "Not like you." As if he'd spoken the words aloud and she'd heard them. "You aren't who you think you are."

  He knew exactly who and what he was. He never spared himself by trying to whitewash his character. He'd embraced the cold monster, refusing to fall victim ever again. He would be stronger, more cunning, faster, more ruthless, than every enemy he had. And he would never be vulnerable again--not to anyone. They would find him an implacable enemy who pu
lled no punches and had no mercy when he struck at them--at any of them. And this one, this young, fragile woman who looked at the world through rose-colored glasses, she was going to belong to him and he was taking her, whether she wanted it or not. No, he was exactly like his enemies, only worse.

  He paced away from the bed, away from her intent gaze. He was the one in control, not her. He wasn't falling prey to her sweetness, or to the way she made him feel guilty. He controlled everyone in his world. He didn't need others. They needed him. She wasn't going to turn the tables on him by looking into his soul and seeing something he kept hidden from the world.

  Vulnerable. For a moment she made him feel that way, as if she could hurt him, as if she had some power over him he didn't understand. Jake rejected the feeling immediately. He would never be vulnerable again. And neither would his son. He glanced at the baby in her arms. He didn't want or love the kid, but he was going to do right by him. He would see to it that Kyle had every advantage, and just looking at the baby in Emma's arms, he knew this woman was the one he wanted for his son.

  The hell with it all. He had a plan and he was going to carry it out. Emma would benefit and so would her child. Jake would be fair about it. Eventually she would grow to love him, even if he couldn't love her back. Hell, he could even be faithful if he had to. He would give her a home, Kyle would have someone who would be good to him, and she would be well cared for. He had no doubt that he could satisfy her in bed and teach her to satisfy his every need. It would work out for both of them--for all of them. He shoved down whatever humanity still lay within him and hardened his heart.

  He was taking her over. One small piece at a time, starting here, starting now, just the way he went after the companies he wanted. He studied his prey, assessed the weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Emma needed a home and money while she was pregnant. His lawyers would be the ones working for a settlement, and just like contracts for businesses could be misplaced, "lost," or bought off, his lawyers could delay every procedure to ensure she needed him. Yeah, he was a bastard, cold and cruel and calculating, but he let himself off the hook by reminding himself he would take good care of her as he did all his possessions.