After Paulina married Joe, and Jake
realized he had lost her forever, he
seemed to transfer his feelings onto
Vicky. While she was away from Bay
City for 4 months while on the run from Grant, Jake pined away for
her.
Since that moment, and especially later when Vicky's fiancé Ryan
died, and Paulina had left Jake, Jake and Vicky became closer than
ever before.
After Paulina married Joe, and Jake
realized he had lost her forever, he
seemed to transfer his feelings onto
Vicky. While she was away from Bay
City for 4 months while on the run from Grant, Jake pined away for
her.
Jake had been without a woman's love
for a long time and was almost desperate in his pursuit of Vicky
when she returned. Vicky had no clue to Jake's new-found feelings.
She continued to regard him as her best friend who would always be
there for her and her boys.
Jake began planning Vicky's new life
with himself as lead actor. Vicky's
parents were wise to Jake's feelings long
before she was. Jake targeted Vicky's
renovator Shane Roberts (then known
as Bobby Reno) as his prime
competition when he learned that Shane
had received cornea transplants from Ryan the year before. Jake harassed Shane to no end, and
even tried to pay him off into leaving town.
Jake finally told Vicky that he no longer wanted to be friends with
her. Instead he wanted a new role that included rights to Vicky's bed.
Vicky was stunned to learn the depths of Jake's feelings and didn't
quite know how to handle Jake.
She agreed to go on dates with him,
and even accepted some modest kisses
from him. But when Jake turned up the
heat, Vicky found that the passion wasn't there. When he gave her an
ultimatum, she told him that she wasn't prepared to go beyond
friendship, not so much because of their feelings for each other, but
because of her lingering feelings for Ryan.
Jake sunk into a blue funk for awhile, but when he saw that Vicky was warming up to Shane, he realized he still had a shot in the game. He took her to their swings in Lassiter and was on the verge of proposing marriage when she stopped him in time. Vicky was presumed dead for awhile, a period during which she and Shane got close. When Jake went to see her, he found her sharing a kiss with Shane at their special place, the swings. At that moment he knew he had lost her, and vowed to break off ties and get on with his life.
Vicky got in deeper with Shane, and Jake stuck by her when she
needed his help to prove his innocence in a murder case. When
Shane's wife Lila entered the picture and hurt Vicky with some
half-truths, it was Jake she ran to. Wiser now, Jake counseled her to
admit that she loved Shane, and to see things from Shane's point of
view. Seeing how upset she was, Jake whisked her and her boys to a
fun-filled day in Central Park. Without Shane and Lila around to
make her sad, Vicky was able to see for the first time how well she and Jake went together, and
how happy he made her.
They shared a few kisses, with Jake being the one to pull away. After
analyzing the situation a little too logically, Vicky decided that Jake
was her soul mate, that she loved him and wanted to spend the rest
of her life with him. She brought him to their swings in Lassiter and
proposed. After Jake made her promise to close the door on her
relationship with Shane, he accepted her proposal.