Higher Than Eagles (Donovans of the Delta) Read Free

chose to live in constant danger rather than with me. You left me, Jacob. I didn’t leave you.”
    He was shocked at her intensity. “I didn’t leave you, Rachel. I went to Arabia on business. As I recall, I asked you to go and you refused.”
    She closed her eyes, willing herself not to dredge up the past. Nothing would be accomplished by doing so.
    “Yes, I did. I refused.” She faced the mirror again and began brushing her hair. “It’s over and done with. Let the past stay buried.”
    She shivered as his bold gaze raked over her. The air seemed to pulse between them, heavy and electric with emotion.
    “I’m not here to relive the past.”
    “Then why are you here, Jacob?” She laid the hairbrush on the dressing table and turned to face him with quiet dignity. “After all these years, why are you here?”
    “I have to know the truth.”
    All the color drained from her face. Jacob half rose from his chair.
    “Rachel? Are you all right?”
    “Yes.” She lifted her hands and pressed them against her hot cheeks. “It’s the pressure, I suppose. Death leaves so many loose ends.”
    Jacob felt the anguish rise within him. He needed no more reminders that for the last six years Rachel had belonged to another man, had kissed another man, had slept in another man’s bed. He willed himself to sit calmly in his chair.
    “I’m sorry, Rachel. It must be hard for you.”
    “Yes.” She smiled at him, grateful to be off the subject of the past.
    “It doesn’t show. You look wonderful.”
    “So do you. You must thrive on danger.”
    “I always did, Rachel.”
    They were treading on shaky ground again. She decided to steer them to a safer topic. “And how is your family?”
    “Well and happy and growing.”
    “I hear your twin sisters, Hallie and Hannah, are both pregnant again.” Jacob arched one quizzical eyebrow, and she added, “Dad would never discuss the Donovans, but my friend Evelyn Jo keeps me informed.”
    So, she cared enough to keep up on news of his family. The thought pleased Jacob so that he threw back his head and laughed.
    Rachel joined him. It felt good to laugh again— especially with Jacob. But then, everything had always felt good with Jacob.
    “Hannah takes great pride in saying that she started it this time. Their daughters were born only two weeks apart.”
    “I know. I envy them.” She made herself remain calm as he studied her.
    “You and Bob never had more children.”
    It wasn’t a question; it was a bomb dropped into the silence between them. Rachel folded her hands carefully in her lap and looked at a spot on the wall behind Jacob’s head.
    “You kept up?”
    “No. Someone told me about your son . . . Mom, I think. She’s a hopeless romantic. She thought I still cared.”
    “You don’t, of course.”
    “No.”
    Rachel looked him straight in the eye, but she couldn’t read his careful expression. She could only hope he was telling the truth.
    “No, we never had more children.”
    “You used to say you wanted a big family.”
    “Bob was older.” She watched his face, praying he would believe her. “One seemed to be enough.”
    Looking at her with her long honey-and-butterscotch streaked hair and generous mouth, Jacob held on to the absurdly jealous thought that Bob had been too damned old to perform more than one miracle. He even hoped that fathering one son had tuckered him out so much, he’d had to spend the next six years celibate, recovering.
    “Did you love him?”
    Rachel’s head went up in defiance. “I married him, Jacob. That’s all that matters.”
    “No. It’s not all that matters.” He stood up abruptly and kicked aside his chair. “When I went to Saudi Arabia, I left behind a woman I loved, a woman I fully intended to marry. I want to know what in the hell happened.”
    She rose to face him, regal in her rage. “What happened is that you and I fought over your bullheaded determination to do everything in the world you could to put yourself