Secret Love

Jake gave no sign of having heard her as he continued to look around the kitchen. He even noticed the cookbook lying on the counter. His six sisters-in-law had gone to great lengths to collect all those recipes for that cookbook and put it together. It had been a labor of love and just one of the many gifts his family had lovingly given; their contribution to the home he had built for his wife.

“Jacob, I said that I’d clean up my mess,” Diamond repeated softly, slanting a glance at his rugged profile.

Jake turned and met her gaze. She was looking at him with intense concern, and he saw an apology shimmering in her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with how this place looks. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, it looks just like a kitchen should.”

He smiled down at her. “I’m dying to try out those cookies to see if they were worth the fight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go wash up.” He held her gaze for another quick second before abruptly moving toward the mudroom.

“You know,” Jake commented to Diamond a short time later, “you may want to consider a career in baking if you ever decide to give up acting. These cookies are delicious.” They were seated across from each other at a table in the kitchen by the window.

Diamond smiled, appreciating his compliment. She had tried baking for Samuel once or twice. He had laughed at her effort. “It was really nothing. I simply followed the recipe.” She motioned to the leather-bound cookbook lying on the counter. “Whoever put that book together did a fantastic job.”

Unable to help himself, Jake reached for another cookie. It seemed he had eaten a couple of dozen of them already. “My sisters-in-law will appreciate hearing that. It was a joint effort between the six of them and was intended to be a gift to the woman who was my wife at the time.”

Diamond nodded, hearing the slight bitterness in his voice. Sterling had told her that he was a divorcé. “Did she forget to take it with her when she left?”

“Nope.” Jake’s eyes narrowed. “She didn’t want it. She didn’t want anything to remind her of this place.”

Diamond knew it was probably none of her business, but she couldn’t help asking. “Why? It’s beautiful here.”

Coolly, Jake’s eyes met Diamond’s inquisitive ones. “She didn’t think so. She hated this place. She was a city girl from Boston, and married me hoping she could one day convince me that ranching wasn’t what I was good at, and that I’d eventually move with her back to Boston. On the other hand, I believed that one day I’d be able to convince her that ranching was what I was good at, and that she would be happy here. In the end, we both lost out. She went back to Boston and I remained here. End of story.”

Diamond’s eyes grew thoughtful as she watched Jake take another bite of his cookie. She doubted in all actuality that that was the end of the story. It was all he cared to share with her at the moment.

“So tell me. What brought you by? Did Sterling ask you to check up on me again?”

Drawn as if by magnet, his gaze locked with hers. “No. Coming out here was my idea. I was wondering how you were getting along.”

Diamond smiled. “Other than my fight with the flour today, I’ve been fine. On my first day I mostly slept in, and yesterday I decided to explore the great outdoors. I even went berry picking. I collected two pailfuls.”

Jake nodded. So Lowell had actually seen her near the south pastures picking berries after all. “What do you plan to do with all those berries?”

Diamond lifted a brow as if the answer to that question should have been obvious to him. Since it wasn’t, she decided to respond. “I’m going to make pies.”

“Pies?”

She nodded. “I came across a pretty good recipe in that book. I believe I picked enough berries for at least ten pies. They will be my gift to your men. That’s the very least I can do for their willingness to be discreet about me being here.”

Jake fell silent as he studied her. He was astounded that she was again thinking about the men who worked for him. He shook his head. He wasn’t sure if any of them would be able to handle receiving a piece of pie made by Diamond Swain’s very own hands.

He downed the last of his milk, knowing it was time for him to leave. The last thing he wanted to do was to get any ideas that Diamond was different from most sophisticates that he knew.

Jake stood. “Thanks for the cookies and milk.”

“You’re welcome, and if you’re out this way again, Jacob, do stop by. I enjoyed your company.”

Jake looked at her and felt that same sizzle he always felt around her. He was attracted to her, way too attracted. Suddenly he jerked his attraction back like a whiplash, refusing to go there. It had been years since he’d had woman troubles and he intended to keep it that way. His love affair was with Whispering Pines. She was the only lady in his life right now. He felt content in knowing she would always accept him for what he was and not try making him into something he was not.

“I doubt I’ll have time to drop by again. There’s plenty of work to do around here. I can’t very well expect my men to pull their share of the load if I’m not pulling mine,” he said curtly.

Because he had presented his blunt statement like he had expected some sort of response, Diamond said, “Of course you can’t. And I apologize if I’ve kept you from your work, Jacob.”

Jake didn’t like the idea that she thought she had kept him from his work. Then again, he thought maybe it was for the best for her to think that way. He couldn’t afford to share another quaint and cozy meal with her again, even one of cookies and milk. It was best if he went back to his original plan to keep his distance. Especially since each time he saw her he couldn’t help but wonder how her mouth would taste under his.

“The next time I talk to Sterling, I’ll let him know you’re doing okay. I’m sure he’ll want to know.” He then turned and walked out of the house.

Diamond followed him out to the deck and watched as he mounted his horse. Just before he was about to ride away, he glanced over at her. After making what appeared to be a quick but unwilling decision about something, he said, “You didn’t keep me from my work, Diamond. I was where I wanted to be.”

Without saying anything else, he rode off at a gallop and not once looked back.

Chapter 4

Smiling to herself, Diamond backed into the cabin and closed the door. Her eyes sparkled at the thought that Jacob had grudgingly admitted, in so many words, that he had wanted to spend some time with her. She was glad to know that he was fighting his attraction for her as much as she was fighting hers for him.

Diamond sighed as her mind began operating on some sort of adrenaline high. The very thought of Jacob was assaulting her senses and giving her a heated rush. For some reason, her attraction to him seemed instinctive, natural and sensible. He was handsome, rugged and downright appealing. What woman in her right mind would not be captivated by those attributes?

She remembered how at the table while they were eating cookies and drinking milk, Jacob had smiled at something she’d said. For one precious second, she had become mesmerized by that slow, seductive smile. It had taken all the willpower she possessed to maintain her composure.

Diamond shook her head, trying to fight off this unusual state she found herself in. She immediately reached the conclusion that she must be going through some type of hormone crisis. She was in total awe of the emotions Jake aroused in her. She struggled to clear her head, reminding herself that she’d come to the ranch for peace, quiet and relaxation.

She slumped down in a nearby chair, too weary and too confused to start tackling the cleanup of the kitchen just yet. She blew out a breath of frustration. Whispering Pines might be just what the doctor ordered, but Jacob Madaris was not. She wanted to convince herself that he was just another man, and in her line of business, she’d been around plenty. She drew her brows together. What was there about Jacob that wanted to make her forget the fiasco of a marriage she’d had with Samuel? It was a marriage that should have taught her a lesson. But one look at Jacob and she forgot everything, even the hard, cold fact that when it came to the affairs of the heart, she was a complete failure.

Diamond stood on her feet. She would put Jacob Madaris and how she intended to deal with him out of her mind for a while. She had a kitchen to clean and ten pies to bake.

Jake cursed himself for having admitted what he had to Diamond. The last thing he wanted was for her to start getting ideas that he was interested in her. She was used to men falling at their feet over her, both on and off the screen, and he had no intention of being one of them. Women who thought too much of themselves irritated him to no end. Usually they were women who lived in a world where money, looks and social status mattered a lot more than a person’s character. Over the years, he had dated a number of those types. He’d even been married to one nearly twenty years ago.

Jessie Wellington, of the Boston Wellingtons, had had this farfetched opinion of what a real man should be. Besides being good-looking, of course, he needed a wealthy family background, a big home and plenty of money. Although he hadn’t had any of those things at the time he’d met her, in him she had seen potential, and therefore she’d had no doubts about marrying him. After all, he had graduated at the top of his class from Harvard with a master’s degree in finance, and he was good friends with the newly elected senator from Texas, Nedwyn Lansing. And everyone knew Senator Lansing was going places.

Jake shook his head. Jessie had gotten angry, frustrated and put-out with him because she could not bend him the way she wanted. She hadn’t appreciated a man who valued honesty and hard work. She had wanted a man who would spoil her and give in to her childish tantrums like her father had always done. It had taken a little less than a year for her to discover that he was not that man. Her leaving had hurt because he had truly loved her. But she had shown him that there was no such thing as true love.

Looking back, he knew he and Jessie had been a bad match from the start. They had been as different as night and day, and she had thought she could mould him into something he was not. She had also thought that she could destroy his love for this land.

He had been born on this land in a small house that still stood on the other side of the north pastures. The Madaris family had settled on the land six generations ago, back in the eighteen hundreds after acquiring a ten-thousand acre Mexican land grant. At a time when most newly freed Blacks were still waiting for their forty acres and a mule from the United States government, Carlos Antonio Madaris, half Mexican and half African-American, along with his wife, Christina Marie, were shaping their heritage on the land they used to raise cattle. A parcel of land they named Whispering Pines.

Jake thought about his six brothers. All of them were alive and well except one. Robert had gotten killed in the Vietnam War. Jake was the youngest of the Madaris brothers. His mother had been in her late thirties when she gave birth to him and his father pretty close to fifty. All of his brothers, except for him and Robert, had chosen the profession of educator instead of rancher. There had never been any doubt in Jake’s mind that he would run Whispering Pines one day. It was as much a part of him now as it had been then. He had spent six long years away from the land he loved while attending Harvard. The day he returned, he had vowed never to leave it again. He had also vowed to build it into everything his ancestors would be proud of, and where future Madarises could take pride in their heritage. Believing that he would fulfill his dream, his brothers had signed their shares of the ranch over to him, keeping only an investment interest. That act of faith and show of confidence from his brothers had made him that much more determined to succeed.

And he had.

With the things he had learned from working closely by his father’s side while growing up, and by putting to use the vast education he had received from Harvard in the financial sector, the Whispering Pines ranch had tripled in size and now employed thirty men on a full-time basis. All of them had been hand-picked by him, and all of them were men he knew he could trust.

“There you go again, staring into space. At least this time you have your eyes open.”

Jake muttered something about not being able to go anywhere to find peace, before turning around to Blaylock. Blaylock Jennings, who was in his late sixties, had once been a rodeo star during a time when very few African-Americans competed on the national circuit. He had been doing pretty good for himself until a mean and nasty bull decided to plow into him one night. In the end, Blaylock’s battered body had been rushed to the emergency room with internal bleeding, a bruised kidney and a deep, long slash on the side of his face when the horn of the bull had tried ripping him apart. That slash was now a horrendous-looking scar that got a lot of attention when people saw him for the first time. Jake didn’t know of any one person who had a heart of gold like Blaylock nor a man who could be trusted more. His job around the ranch was to keep him and the ranch hands fed and to keep the ranch house clean. Blaylock did both effortlessly. His only fault, as far as Jake was concerned, was thinking that anything that went on around Whispering Pines was his business. He thought of Jake as a son, and Jake had to admit that he looked up to Blaylock as a father figure, as did most of the younger men who worked on the ranch.

“Don’t you have the dinner dishes to wash or something?” Jake asked. His question was gruff but he knew the teasing in it came through.

“They’re all done. You barely touched your meal tonight. You’re not coming down with something, are you, boy?”

Jake wanted to laugh. He was a long way from being a boy. “No, I’m not coming down with anything.” He saw no need to tell Blaylock he had ruined his appetite for dinner when he’d eaten about two dozen cookies and drank nearly a gallon of milk earlier that afternoon.