Leopard 03 - Burning Wild

he was. He did make enemies easily, and he seemed ruthless in his business dealings with others. Emma didn’t fully understand the concept of buying and taking apart other companies, but she knew Jake was considered merciless when he conducted business.
    She took another look at the birthday cake she’d decorated earlier, hoping Jake really would make it home this time before the weather brought another disaster. She wanted to surprise him with a small celebration.

    “Just last month I saw Linda Rawlins and Jake get into a huge fight over you.”
    Emma swung around, her eyes enormous. “Me? Why me?”
    Susan immediately felt contrite. Emma was very small and slender with flawless skin; well, almost flawless. She had two very faint scars marring the perfection of her face, both on the left side, one up near her eye, the other a long, thin crescent ending near the corner of her mouth. Susan had never gotten up the courage to ask her about those scars and Emma had never volunteered the information.
    Emma’s past remained something of a mystery. Even her father didn’t talk about Emma.
    Jake had brought her from somewhere on the West Coast to be his housekeeper. That was all anyone ever said. Susan adored her ever since their first meeting, when her father had gone to Jake’s house seeking campaign funds. She’d discovered Emma in the kitchen, laughing with the two toddlers.
    Immediately she’d pitched in to help and they had become good friends.
    Her most secret desire was to have Emma’s incredibly large green eyes and silky red-gold hair curving around her own face and cascading down her back to her waist in waves. Emma was sweet and understanding; she was always ready to listen to anyone, whether it was one of the ranch hands, Susan, or one of the children. Yet Emma always looked very vulnerable. Even at sixteen, Susan felt protective toward her.
    “I was just kidding,” Susan lied baldly, not liking the flicker of pain in the depths of Emma’s eyes.
    “You may as well tell me.” Emma sighed, pulling a large barrette from the pocket of her faded blue jeans. She caught at the thick mass of hair and clipped it at the nape of her neck. The pulled-back style emphasized her high cheekbones.
    Susan looked uneasy. “It’s only gossip, Emma, I didn’t believe it.”
    “Believe what? Come on, Susie, you’ve gone this far.”
    “Well.” Susan scuffed at the Mediterranean tiles with her foot uncomfortably. “I was in the hall, it wasn’t like I was eavesdropping on purpose or anything.”
    “Susie.”
    “All right, but I wasn’t listening on purpose. Linda waylaid Jake at this party and asked him to take her to the Bingleys’ party, which you probably know is the big event of the season.”
    Emma didn’t, but she nodded anyway, trying not to wince when she heard the other woman’s name.
    Susan grinned suddenly. “Can you believe it? I wished I’d had a tape recorder. The great Linda Rawlins actually having to ask a man to escort her. I could have made thousands selling that information to the tabloids. Little shipping heiress shunned by the oil king.”
    “You read too many gossip magazines,” Emma scolded determinedly.
    “Yeah, probably.” Susan was unrepentant. “But they’re so much fun.”
    “Get on with it.”
    “Jake was cool and very polite in that distant way he has, but you know, with that sort of bored, totally hot look he gets. He told Linda he was taking you and she blew up. Like, big time. Sky high. She was shrieking at him at the top of her lungs. She told him nobody in society would ever accept you, and that his own parents thought it laughable that he was with you and that he was only doing it to spite them.
    Then she called you a domestic servant. Jake looked down at her with that sort of contempt thing he does and then she really got nasty.”
    Emma twisted her fingers together. Lately she’d been emotional and upset, and for some strange reason Susan’s gossip really upset her. She knew everyone gossiped about Jake; he just took it in stride. But she was always out of sight on the ranch where no one saw her and she saw no one. She rarely even left the ranch. Linda had come by to see her already and said very ugly things in spite of the fact that Emma had tried to reassure her she was just the housekeeper.
    “Linda said everyone knew Jake was Andraya’s father and he got both you and Shaina pregnant at the same time and he only kept you around because of his