Chapter Fourteen

The next time Kat saw Jake was the afternoon of Molly’s birthday. He arrived an hour before her friends were due, bringing with him the present that Molly had been waiting all morning to see. Kat made Molly hide inside the house while she helped Jake carry the four sides of the Wendy House into the garden where he set about quickly assembling it before her friends arrived. As she stood back, admiring the way the muscles of his lithe body rippled as he secured the final sections together, she started to feel uneasy.

“It’s beautiful,” she told him as he fastened the final bolt onto the roof. It really was. Easily large enough to accommodate several friends, it boasted two rooms downstairs and a set of steps leading to an upper floor. It was a little girl’s idea of heaven. Molly would absolutely adore it, but that wasn’t what was troubling her.

“Thank you.” He took a step back to stand next to her and admire his handiwork.

“Jake.” She agonized for a moment over how to phrase it, in the end deciding the direct approach was probably best. “There’s no way you could have built that within the budget.”

He simply shrugged. “I used your money to buy the stuff I didn’t already have in the workshop.”

“But what about your time, Jake?”

He gazed at her in astonishment. “I enjoyed building it for her. I wanted to make it. I’m not going to charge for doing something I wanted to do.”

Kat had no answer to that. So she raised herself up on her tiptoes, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him softly on the lips. “Thank you.”

One of his rare killer grins slid across his face, and he pressed his lips more firmly onto hers. “If I’d known it was going to have that effect,” he murmured, “I’d have built a third storey.”

“Mum, can I come and look now?” Molly poked her head around the door, interrupting what was heading toward a rather heated encounter.

Regretfully Kat moved away from the circle of his arms. “Sure you can.”

Molly scampered out of the house, her pigtails flying, before skidding to a stop. “Awesome!” Eyes bright with delight, she opened the door and raced inside. “It’s huge,” she yelled, pirouetting inside. “Look Mum, a kitchen, a lounge, and even stairs to a bedroom. I could live here.”

Laughing, Kat dipped her head and joined her daughter inside. As Molly darted from room to room, shouting out where she was going to hang her curtains, Kat acknowledged that the gruff, very male carpenter had really done her daughter proud. She found her heart opening up that little bit more to him. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to be in too deep to pull out.

Though she hadn’t expected him to, Jake stayed for the party. Not only that, he proved to be a great help, organising the games, making the girls laugh with his improvised magic tricks. Kat found herself watching him more than she should, seeing for the first time the glimpse of the family man he’d once been. It was yet another facet of his deeply complex, but utterly magnetic character.

“Another beer?” she asked him when they were finally alone, her happily exhausted daughter at last curled up in bed.

“That depends,” he replied softly, turning so that she could move into his arms. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck as he bent to drop a gentle kiss on her collarbone.

“On, what?” she replied huskily, her voice rather giving away the fact she knew very well what it depended on.

“On whether you’re going to kick me out tonight, or tomorrow morning.”

There it was, laid out in the open. Just as he’d done after their dinner date, he’d told her exactly what he wanted. Now it was over to her. As she looked into his eyes and watched the burn of desire, there was nothing she would have liked more than to ask him to stay. However, she wasn’t a young, carefree woman any more. She had responsibilities. A daughter. It wasn’t fair on Molly to wake up and see a man in her mother’s bed. At least not one who wasn’t going to be a permanent fixture in her life. For much as she wanted Jake. Much as she’d started to have deep feelings for him, Kat simply couldn’t see how a relationship between them could work in the long run. Not when he kept so much of who he was still hidden.

“I guess I won’t be having that second beer.”

His words, spoken in a low, resigned voice, cut into her thoughts. “Jake, I’m sorry, it’s just...”

“Hey, it’s okay. I can understand. You need to trust me a bit more first.”

Suddenly he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was staring into space, his profile somber. Pensive. Whatever it was he wouldn’t tell her, she knew it was hurting him, bearing down on him. As much as it frustrated her that he wouldn’t let her help him, she ached for him. For the pain he had obviously been through. Was still going through.

Reaching out a hand she lay it against his cheek, drawing him back to face her. “I do trust you, Jake. This isn’t about how I feel, but about Molly. I think it’s too early in our relationship for her to find us in bed together. And yes, I know you could be gone before she wakes up, but it just doesn’t seem right.”

In answer he bent down and kissed her, ever so softly, on the lips. “How about if we sit together on the sofa and kiss. I could drive us both a little crazy for a while and then shoot off home.”

Jake did exactly what he’d promised. So much so that she was seconds away from saying to hell with her stupid rule and dragging him upstairs. As if sensing he was pushing them both toward the point of no return, Jake slowly removed his hand from where it had been working its magic underneath her bra, and pulled away. Neither of them said anything for a while. All that could be heard was the sound of ragged breathing.

“Time for me to go,” he said finally, slowly getting to his feet, his voice still thick with unfulfilled desire.

****

Jake didn’t know how he managed to pick himself up off the sofa. Not with Kat lying there, hair mussed, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from his kisses. And him with a hard-on that throbbed so much it ached. However, he knew he had to leave. Despite what she’d said, he was acutely aware that by not opening up to her about his past, he’d lost some of the trust she’d had in him. Now was the time to earn a bit back.

He was halfway to his car when a flash of white paint on her black plastic dustbin caught his eye. Walking over to check it out, his heart lurched violently under his ribs. Cursing under his breath, he ran his fingers over the still wet paint. It was an eye. Painted by the same hand as the one on the school wall. Instinctively he raced into the middle of the road, scanning frenetically up and down the dark lane for signs of movement. A car, a man on foot, anything that looked out of the ordinary. But there was nothing, only him panting wildly as he walked down the road, his eyes flickering from side to side, straining to see in the dark.

He noted with a small ripple of relief that Kat’s wasn’t the only bin that had been defaced, but the feeling of dread still clung to him like a cold, damp shirt. He tried to tell himself he was being irrational. The symbol, the meaning behind it, wasn’t directed at Kat. It was simply hooligans out to make mischief. His gut told him he didn’t believe that.

Having done a quick survey of the street, he knocked quietly on Kat’s door once more.

“Jake?”

She’d had time to change. The thin satin gown, thrown over what looked to be lacy nightwear, only served to emphasize her vulnerability and heighten his worry. Quickly he told her what he’d seen, his voice surprisingly calm. And a million miles away from how he was feeling. He couldn’t explain why such a seemingly innocuous symbol had him imagining the worst. Call it cop’s instinct. Call it paranoia. Whatever it was, he kept it to himself.

“It’s just youngsters, Kat,” he told her as he cradled her in his arms. Perhaps if he said it often enough, he would start to believe it himself. “A prank. Probably a dare. It’s on a lot of the bins in the street. Not just yours.”

She nodded. “But it was on the school too. I don’t think anyone else in the street is connected to the school. Someone is out there, watching me.”

Worry clouded her eyes. He longed to remove it. “Maybe a few former pupils have got together and decided spooking their former head is the height of hilarity,” he replied with what he hoped was the right amount of confidence. More likely it was that bastard Nick Peters, but he kept that thought to himself. “I’ll check it out tomorrow. I’ve still got connections in the force. I’ll talk to them. Right now you need to stop worrying and go back to bed.”

Though she nodded and turned to go, she paused. When she looked back at him, he thought his heart would break with the uncertainty he saw there. “Would you stay tonight, Jake? Please?”

God, he didn’t need asking twice. The circumstances were far from those he would have chosen, but after hurriedly undressing he was soon lying next to her soft, warm body, delighting in the way it trembled beneath his exploring fingers. He put all negative thoughts to one side and focused solely on Kat, and in doing so took both their minds off the painted eye and what, if anything, it really meant.

****

Jake spent the following morning at the local police station. He didn’t know anyone there, but he’d rung ahead and dropped a few names. By the time he arrived, he guessed they must have checked him out, seen his record, and approved him because they took their time to listen.

Though the officers he spoke to didn’t appear to share his concern, which even he had to admit, in the cold light of day, seemed slightly over the top, they did take him seriously and promised to keep an eye on Nick Peters. By the time he left, Jake was sufficiently reassured that if it was something more than a teenage prank behind the sinister artwork, the police would uncover it and deal with it.

****

For Kat, who spent the day at school as usual, the sense of unease remained, despite reassuring calls from the police, and from Jake. She’d been so glad of Jake’s presence last night, solid and comforting beside her. It was crazy because she’d lived alone, or with Molly, for most of her adult life and never had a moment of unease. However, the painted eyes had spooked her. She couldn’t help but feel that she was the target. That someone had specifically set out to try to frighten her. The only person she could think who’d want to do that, was Nick Peters. He’d already threatened her to her face. Now it looked like he was trying to scare her behind her back. Trying and succeeding. Especially when she started to second-guess what his next step might be.

Feeling unsettled and tired from a day where she’d seesawed between being an authoritative head teacher and being a scared woman, Kat parked up outside her house and took her mind off dark thoughts by recalling the morning. Of Jake making long slow, delicious love to her at dawn, just before he’d left. It had touched her that he’d made sure he left before Molly had woken up. He touched her. Absently she rubbed at the spot over her heart, which seemed to swell and ache whenever she thought of him. Oh, she knew she was rushing into something she was going to regret. That at some point, Jake would hurt her, not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t bring himself to fully love and trust another woman. But it didn’t stop her wanting to live the moment.

“Mum, why is there an eye painted on our door?”

At Molly’s words, the warm fuzzy glow she’d been enjoying vanished in a heartbeat. In fact, as Kat looked up her drive, a chill ran through her. There, staring menacingly back at her from the front door, was the painted white symbol of an eye.

Her hands shook so much it took several attempts before she could get the car back into gear. Once she did, she drove manically up and down her street, then into the next street, finally all around the village. When she arrived back home, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach had escalated into full-blown nausea.

Her house was the only one with graffiti on the front door.

The only one painted with an evil white eye.

It was, as she’d suspected all along, a message directed only at her.

****

Wade had watched it all. Holroyd leaving the cottage yesterday evening. Holroyd spotting the artwork on the head’s rubbish bin. Holroyd going back into the house and staying there. Who’d have guessed he’d be able to have so much fun with a tin of white paint and pair of binoculars? Now, observing the reaction of the woman and her daughter on finding his latest creation, he let rip a smile of satisfaction. The lady was clearly terrified. He bet if he waited here just a little bit longer, he would see the cop rushing to comfort his damsel in distress, as he’d obviously done last night. How touching. It made him wonder if the git thought he would be able to protect his new love, despite failing his old one.

Driving off, he answered his own question. Of course the bastard would think he could save his woman. He was a cop wasn’t he? Or at least he had been. They were all the same. Arrogant pricks. Thought they had a God-given right to fuck up everyone else’s life, but have a neat little family life of their own. Well he’d seen to that neat little family once. Now he was going to see to it again. Only this time, he was going to make sure the cop could never start another one.