Free Jake's child by Lindsay Longford

collapsed against him, and there, upside down in slowing spirals and a tangle of arms and legs, he kissed her.
    Sarah tasted anger and reluctant pity, but then Jake slanted his lips over her and hunger took her, leaving her breathless. His hunger, hers, she didn't know, didn't care while Jake's urgency sped her along.
    But the pity in the kiss nudged her thoughts down a dark tunnel she'd run screaming from years ago.
    Impossible. She didn't want to think. Wrapped in Jake's heat and urgency, she wanted to forget everything.
    Something about Nicholas... Her thoughts seized her, compelled her.

    Chapter Four
    Sarah!"
    The roaring in Sarah's head drowned out Jake's voice. His lips moved, but he was at the end of a long tunnel and was unimportant. Madness had come striking up at her like a shark from the deep, ripping her apart and sending her blood spurting into the dark waters. "Not again," she whispered, remembering the days and nights she'd spiraled in despair. Her son. Not dead. Not dead. She fought the fantasy.
    She'd thought she was through with all that kind of thinking, but here it came again. It was too painful now to let that fantasy seize her and throw her down that tunnel she'd dragged herself from once. She couldn't do it again.
    She'd been reckless to let Jake leave Nicholas with her.
    "Sarah?" The roughness in Jake's voice pulled her back.
    "I want to see Nicholas." Her cold hands pressed against her hot face. She tried to control the longing forcing her into irrational action.
    "Why?" Jake chained her to him.

    "Never mind!" Sarah shoved his arms away and tumbled off the swing. In the grip of her compulsion, she raced for the porch.
    "Are you crazy?" Jake's grip sent her stumbling towards the shell-packed driveway. "You can't go running into Nicholas's room like this!"
    His hands imprisoned her.
    "What's the kid going to think?" Jake shook her.
    That stopped her. Jake was right. She'd scare Nicholas. "I have to see him," she insisted, no longer sure why, just that she had to. She pushed at Jake, plucking futilely as his long fingers tightened around her wrists.
    "Fine, you can. Just hold on a minute, okay?" Jake's voice held a gritty note she couldn't identify. Goose bumps raised on her arms.
    "Don't treat me like an idiot!"
    "Then don't act like one!" The yellow porch light lit up the shadowy planes of Jake's face and a reluctant compassion in it, a compassion that seemed as surprising to him as to her. He smoothed her hair behind her ears.
    Anger plunged into melancholy. The past was dead.
    "Sarah, what are you doing? You're not making any sense." Jake stroked her hair, and Sarah wanted to weep with frustration and dying anger.
    "I want to see Nicholas." Her skirt whirled against her. Like leaves circling and whispering in the wind, her thoughts circled and returned, blurring the line between reality and possibility. "Oh, God, help me. I want my son!"
    Jake's fingers clenched in her hair. She felt the small pain and welcomed it as a barrier against the greater pain of old loss.
    "I don't know what you're talking about." On the rising wind, the clean scent of Jake's warm breath touched her face.
    Sarah brushed away his hands. "Nothing makes any sense to me. I know you're lying to me. I don't know why. I know

    you're here for some reason and I don't know what it is!" Wanting to block out Jake's face, Sarah pressed her hands against her eyes.
    "Sarah, think. How could that be?" Jake's sigh whirled away with the wind.
    "I don't know," she answered bleakly.
    Jake shook his head slowly. "Sarah, I didn't even know you. You don't know me. There's no reason in the world for me to show up on your doorstep."
    "I'm not crazy. I'm not." Sarah wrapped her arms around herself to still the shaking deep inside her. Maybe she was crazy. What had made her think for a moment that Nicholas could possibly be her son? Her son was dead, had been dead for years. The State Department had sent her official notification. They'd made sure