Leopard 03 - Burning Wild

little, he scares me.” There was some truth in that as well. “I’ve never held a baby, let alone been responsible for one. I feel like I’m all thumbs.”
    Emma carefully fit the diaper to him and watched as Jake awkwardly tried to pick the boy up. Again he held him out away from his body.
    “The nurses say I have to learn to feed him, but he doesn’t like the way I’m doing it and he isn’t eating very much,” Jake admitted in a low voice, as if it pained him to admit he couldn’t do something perfectly. “I can find oil in ground that no one suspects is there, but I can’t feed or diaper a baby.” He wiped his hand across his forehead.
    Emma held out her arms. “Let me show you.”
    Jake held his breath as Emma took Kyle into her arms, cradling him against her breasts. She enfolded him, surrounding him with her warmth and the softness of her body.
    “You want to hold a baby very close so they feel safe.” She smiled down at the small, upturned face.
    “Give me the bottle and I’ll show you how to feed him.” She held one hand out.
    Jake put a supporting hand under the baby’s bottom. “Don’t drop him.” He remembered the countless falls to the floor, the feel of a shoe hitting his body, the toe of a boot in his stomach. He hadn’t thought about it for years. He was no father—he sure as hell didn’t know what he was doing—but no kid of his was going to be bounced on a hard floor.
    “I’m not going to drop him,” she assured.
    Jake hesitated, studying her face. She seemed so damned genuine, but no one was really like her. No one. Watching her closely, he handed her the small bottle, bending his head close to see how she teased the baby’s mouth until he opened. At once he began suckling. Kyle didn’t turn his head from side to side as he’d done earlier when the nurse had tried to show Jake what to do. Jake had been impatient and annoyed, feeling as if he was wasting his time. Watching Emma with Kyle made him feel different.
    “Emma, do you remember what happened?”
    Her gaze flicked to his face and her arms tightened around the baby. She nodded. “Not how it happened, only you holding me down and fire all around us.” She swallowed hard, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Andy . . .”

    He put his arm around her as if she belonged there—with him. “I know, Emma. I’m sorry. I couldn’t get him out. It was too late.”
    “Don’t blame yourself.” She looked up at him again and her eyes looked like two deep pools. For a moment he thought he was falling forward. “Did he suffer?”
    His fingers went to the nape of her neck, massaging the tension in an effort to comfort her. “No. He died immediately. He never felt the fire.”
    She bit down hard on her lip and stared into Kyle’s face. “The people in the other car? They both died, didn’t they?” She swallowed visibly, trying to remember everything she’d overhead. “You knew them both?”
    Jake reached out and took Kyle’s little hand. “His mother died, as well as the driver. The medics delivered my son and saved his life. I was lucky they could get the baby out in time.”
    “I’m sorry about your wife.”
    “We weren’t married,” Jake admitted in a low voice.
    Again her gaze flicked to his face. “I’m sorry,” she said again. She turned her attention to Kyle, cradling him close to her, ducking her head so that her face was hidden.
    Jake realized she felt bad for him, that the tears shimmering in her eyes were for him, for Kyle—not for herself. It was to his advantage to allow her to think he’d been crazy about Shaina—that he felt the same sorrow at losing a loved one as she did. It gave them another bond. He considered letting her believe it, but something inside, something strong, welled up in him, refusing to let him lie to her about that. Not even by omission.
    “Emma,” Jake said softly and waited until she looked up at him. “I didn’t love Shaina. I don’t have the same emotions as you do.” Maybe he really wanted to warn her. All the advantages were on his side.
    Maybe there was a shred of decency left in him and he believed she deserved it. Or, God help him, Drake Donovon, his semi-friend and now part-time counselor, with his constant set of rules and talk of honor, was getting to him. Whatever, Jake knew he had to tell her the truth.
    “I despised her. She deliberately got pregnant to blackmail me into marriage. And then when it didn’t work, she drank and did drugs while