Free JakesWildBride by Lisa Alder

that one sentence, he stopped her. He had to be wrong. You could change people’s perceptions of you. Wasn’t that what she struggled to do every day? To change the perceptions of others, to live up to the standards her father and aunt had drilled into her from day one. Then, his words penetrated.
    “You do care what people think of you.”
    He shrugged. “Not really.”
    But he did. He didn’t deserve the label he had, and here she had gone just assuming things about him. Maybe she was assuming the wrong things. Maybe he had come home to change the town’s impression of him. “Why can’t you leave?”
    “I promised my mother I would clean out their old house and get it ready for sale.”
    Not the town. His mother. Oh, how she envied him. “Are you very close?”
    Jake laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “No.”
    He had to stay because of a promise he made to his mother. His mother with whom he wasn’t close at all.
    Dear Lord, she’d screwed up his life.
    It was okay, well not okay, exactly, when she screwed up her own life, but now she’d messed up Jake’s life. She had to come up with a way to help him.
    “You need to stay in town.”
    “Yeah. At least for a few weeks.”
    Philippe pointed out Jax Brewery, formerly a brewery and now a giant shopping mall, and Lilah plotted how they were going to help each other. She studied Jake.
    He glanced at her and she remembered how intense his eyes had been when he’d been about to fill her body with his. He’d been a forceful, passionate lover.
    They could work with weeks. She could make the town see that he wasn’t a bad boy any longer. Then when he left, he could come home again.
    “I know what we can do,” Lilah said slowly. “Actually it will solve two problems.”
    “Christ, we have more than one?”
    Lilah ignored him.
    “What’s our second problem?”
    “I don’t have a place to live.”
    “What?”
    “I was getting married.” Lilah realized she was supposed to be getting married today. In six hours, to be exact.
    “And,” Jake prompted.
    “I was moving in with Tom. As a matter of fact, I’d already moved all the possessions I wanted to his house.”
    For a moment, Lilah flashed back to the last time she had seen Tom. A fresh stab of hurt pierced her organizational fog. How could he?
    “Stay on the subject.” Jake’s voice was harsh, but he took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers gently.
    “I rented out my aunt’s house to Peggy and her husband, Peter.”
    Jake said, “So un-rent it.”
    “I can’t do that,” Lilah said. “She’s about to have a baby.”
    “Aren’t there more bedrooms?”
    “She has three kids who are going to share the other two bedrooms.”
    “Sleep on the sofa.” But he didn’t sound harsh, he sounded desperate. And his fingers were stroking her hand with long, slow caresses.
    “Her mother’s coming to stay with her before and after the baby. There’s no room for me.”
    “You have nowhere to live,” Jake said flatly.
    “I can live with you.” She replied in a bold, confident voice and hoped he couldn’t see how nervous she was.
    “You want to live with me?”
    “Well it would certainly make my plan seem more credible.”
    “I’m afraid to ask.”
    Lilah turned to face him and saw amusement in his eyes not fear.
    “What plan?”
    “We’ll show the town you aren’t a wild boy anymore. Then when you leave, it will be okay for you to come back again.”
    “I don’t care what the town thinks.” Besides, after he took care of the house, he wasn’t coming back again.
    “Of course you do.”
    Jake thought about arguing but it didn’t seem worth it. He was not going to live with her. Not even for an hour. When they got back to town, he’d make her see reason.
    “And besides, this will help me.”
    “How will this help you?”
    “I’m not sure exactly yet. But I’ll have a place to stay and it shows I didn’t run off with you on a wild impulse.” A radiant smile lit her face.