A Christmas Blessing (12 page)

“Luke,” she whispered, “what were you thinking?”

She was so caught up in trying to explain her brother-in-law’s uncharacteristic behavior that she didn’t hear the crunching of ice or the muttered oaths until Luke was practically on top of her. Suddenly the passenger door was flung open—the damned lock didn’t even stick under his assault—and Luke jumped into the seat beside her.

Jessie shot him an accusing look. His gaze went from her face to the cellular phone and back again. He muttered a harsh oath under his breath.

“It was here all along, wasn’t it?” she asked in a lethal tone.

He didn’t even have the decency to lie. He just nodded.

“Why, Luke?” Her voice broke as she asked. Unexpected tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill over. She felt betrayed somehow, though she couldn’t have explained why. Maybe it was because she had expected so much more of Luke. The hurt cut deeper and promised worse scars than anything Erik had ever done.

Luke shoved his hand through his hair and stared off into the distance. He didn’t speak for so long that Jessie thought he didn’t intend to answer, but eventually he turned to face her, his expression haggard.

“I couldn’t make the call,” he said simply. “I just couldn’t make it.”

“Do you hate your family so much?” she demanded. “How could you let them worry about me? How could you leave them wondering if there’d been an accident? My heaven, they must be out of their minds by now.”

He shot her a look filled with irony. “Do you really think that was what it was about?”

“What else?” she demanded, her voice rising until she didn’t recognize it. “What else could have made you do something so cruel?”

Before she could even guess what he was about, he reached out and clutched the fabric of the coat that was several sizes too large for her. He dragged her roughly to him. This time when he claimed her mouth, there was nothing sweetly tentative about it. The kiss was bruising, demanding. It was the kiss of a desperate man, a man who had kept his emotions on a tight leash for far too long.

Jessie recognized the passionate claiming even before she felt the raging heat. Even as a protest formed in her head, exhilaration soared in her heart. Furious with herself for the weakness, she gave herself up to the magic of that kiss. His cheeks were stubbled, his skin cold, except where his mouth moved against hers. There, there was only the most tempting heat and she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of it.

As if he sensed that she wasn’t fighting him, as if he realized that she was fully participating in this conflagration of sensation, Luke’s rough touch became a softer caress. Demand gave way to the gentler persuasion. Out-of-control hunger turned to a far sweeter coaxing.

Jessie was captivated, her body aswirl with a riot of new feelings, more powerful than anything she’d ever felt with Erik. Not even her carefully cultivated battle against disloyalty could keep her from giving her all to this one devastating kiss.

This man, though, this timing…she couldn’t help thinking how wrong it was, when she could think at all. A spark of pure magic scampered down her spine, chased by a shiver of doubt. She suspected they could thank bulky coats and thick gloves for checking their actions, more than they could credit either of them with good sense.

Eventually Luke cupped her face in his gloved hands. With his eyes closed and his forehead barely touching hers, he sighed heavily.

“Oh, Jessie, I never meant for this to happen,” he said on a ragged, desperate note.

“But it has,” she said, not sure whether that was cause for regret or joy. Only time would tell. “Now what?”

Luke released her and sank back against the passenger seat, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You take that phone and you go inside and call the folks. Daddy will find some way to pick you up before the day is out.”

Somehow shocked at his matter-of-fact dismissal, Jessie stared at him. “You want me to go?” she whispered, devastated. “Now?”

“Especially now.” His gaze determinedly evaded hers.

“But why? It’s all out in the open at last. The way you feel. The way I feel. It was all there in that kiss. Don’t tell me you can still deny it. There’s no turning back now, Lucas. We have to deal with it.”

If he was shocked by her feelings for him, he didn’t show it. Instead, the look he turned on her was every bit as cold as the world outside that truck. “We are dealing with it. You’re going and I’m staying. That’s the way it has to be, the way it was meant to be.”

Jessie shivered, chilled as much by his tone as the howling wind. “You can’t mean that.”

“I’ve never meant anything more,” he insisted, his expression as steady and determined as she’d ever seen it. “Go to White Pines. It’s where you belong.”

A great, gnawing sensation started in the pit of Jessie’s stomach. She sensed that if she did as he asked, if she left him here alone and went to be with his family, taking her place there as his brother’s lonely, tragic widow, that would indeed be the end of it. Whatever might have been between them would die. Harlan, Mary, Jordan and Cody would be united in their opposition. The family and all of its complicated antagonisms and hurts would be like an insurmountable wall.

Well, she wouldn’t have it. Maybe what she thought she felt for Luke was wrong. Maybe what he felt for her was some sort of terrible sin. Maybe they were both betraying Erik.

In a perfect world, her marriage would have fulfilled all of her dreams. It would have lasted a lifetime. And no man would ever have come along who was Erik’s equal. She would have dutifully mourned until the end of time.

But her marriage hadn’t worked. Erik had died. And Luke Adams was twice the man Erik had been. That wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Erik’s. In his own way, Erik had tried to make her happy. He had never realized that she couldn’t be happy as long as he was so obviously miserable with the choices he alone had made for his life.

Nor, though, was the fault Luke’s. Their feelings simply were there. He had done nothing to exploit them.

And she couldn’t believe a benevolent God would have conspired to force her here to have her baby, if something more hadn’t been meant to come of it. If there was one thing Jessie believed in with all her heart, it was fate. Surely God had brought them together not just to forgive, not just to rid themselves of guilt, but to love.

“I will only go to White Pines if you will come with me,” she announced, her chin set stubbornly.

Luke stared at her, an expression of incredulity spreading across his handsome face. His mouth formed a tight line. Disbelief sparked in his eyes. “No way.”

“Then Angela and I are staying.”

“No way,” he repeated more firmly, reaching for the cellular phone that had started them inevitably down this path and now lay forgotten in her lap.

Jessie’s hand closed around it first and before Luke could react, she opened the car door and threw it with all her might. Landing silently, it disappeared slowly, inevitably in a soft drift of snow.

Luke’s shocked gaze followed its path, then returned to her face. His jaw worked. Jessie waited for an explosion of outrage, but instead his lips curved into an unexpected smile. Amusement sparkled in his eyes. He seemed to be choking back laughter.

“The situation is not amusing, Lucas.”

“It’s not the situation, it’s you. I can’t believe you did that,” he said at last.

She glared at him, not entirely sure what to make of this new mood. “Well, believe it.”

“We might not find it till spring.”

“So what?”

“You were the one who mentioned how cruel it was to leave my parents wondering and worrying about you.”

Jessie’s determination faltered ever so slightly. Apparently she was every bit as thoughtless as he was. “The phone lines are bound to be up soon. We’ll call then.”

He regarded her quizzically. “And if there’s an emergency?”

“What kind of emergency?” She couldn’t seem to keep a faint tremor out of her voice.

“The house burning down. The baby getting sick.”

Jessie felt the color drain out of her face. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, clambering out of the pickup. She tumbled into the snow, then struggled back to her feet. Before she could steady herself, Luke was beside her.

“You okay?”

“We have to get that phone.”

He gave her an inscrutable look. “I’ll get it. You go on inside. Despite the charming winter attire you appropriated from me, you’re not really dressed for this weather.”

She eyed him distrustfully. “You’ll bring it inside?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who tried to bury it. I knew exactly where it was in case we really needed it.”

She scowled at him. “Don’t start trying to make yourself into a saint now, Lucas. It’s too late.”

He turned back and, to her astonishment, he winked at her. “It always was, darlin’.”

* * *

Luke retrieved the cellular phone and barely resisted the urge to roll in the snow in an attempt to cool off his overheated body. The effect Jessie had on him was downright shameful. His blood pounded hotly through his veins just getting a glimpse of her. The kiss they had just shared could have set off a wildfire that would consume whole acres of prairie grass.

Damn, why had she been so willing? Why hadn’t she smacked him, put him in his place, blistered him with scathing accusations? The instant he had hauled her into his arms, he’d half-expected the solid whack of her palm across his cheek. When it hadn’t come, he’d dared to deepen the kiss, dared to pretend for just a heartbeat that he had a right to taste her, a right to feel those cool, silky lips heat beneath his, a right to feel her body shuddering with need against his.

The truth of it was, though, that he had no rights at all where Jessie was concerned. Even though she seemed to feel that that kiss had opened up a whole new world for the two of them, he knew better. He knew it had paved the way to hell, destroying good and noble intentions in its path.

He stuck the phone in his pocket and continued on to the barn, where he fed Chester and the horses. Chester nudged his hand away from his pocket, searching for his treat. Instead, there was only the phone.

“Sorry, old guy. I left the house in a hurry. I forgot your apple. I’ll bring two when I come back later.”

The old goat turned a sympathetic look on him, as if he understood the turmoil that had caused Luke to fail him.

“Good grief, even the animals are starting to pity me,” he muttered in disgust and made his way back to the house, where he found Jessie singing happily as she worked at the stove.

The table had been set with the good china. Orange juice had been poured into crystal goblets. The good silver gleamed at each place. Luke eyed it all warily.

“It’s awful fancy for breakfast, don’t you think?”

“We’re celebrating,” she said airily.

He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. It hinted that she wasn’t letting go of the momentary craziness that had gripped the two of them in the pickup. “Celebrating what?”

She cast an innocent look in his direction. “Christmas, of course,” she said sweetly.

“Oh.”

She grinned. “Disappointed, Lucas?”

“Of course not.” He glanced around a little desperately. “Where’s Angela?”

“Sleeping.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I should go check on her. She doesn’t usually sleep this late.”

Jessie actually laughed at that. “Surely a grown man doesn’t have to rely on a three-day-old baby to protect him from me, does he?”

Luke felt color climb up the back of his neck and settle in his cheeks. “I just thought she ought to be here,” he muttered. “It is her first Christmas morning.”

“She’ll be awake soon enough. Sit down. The biscuits are almost ready.”

He stared at her incredulously as she bent over to open the oven door. The view that gave him of her fanny made him weak.

“When did you have time to bake biscuits?” he inquired, his voice all too husky.

“You were in that barn a long time,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder. “Cooling off?”

Luke stared at her. What had happened to the sweet, virtuous woman who’d arrived here only a few days earlier? What did she know about her ability to drive him to distraction?
Get real, Lucas
, he told himself sternly.
She was as responsible for the heat of that kiss as you were
.

“Jessie,” he warned, his voice low.

“Yes, Lucas?”

She sounded sweetly compliant. He didn’t trust that tone for a second. “Don’t get into a game, unless you understand the rules,” he advised her.

“Who made up these rules? Some man, I suspect.”

“Oh, I think they pretty much go back to Adam and Eve,” he countered. He fixed his gaze on her until her cheeks turned pink. “I figure that gives ’em some credibility. People have been living by ’em for centuries now.”

Jessie shook her head. Judging from her expression, she seemed to be feeling sorry for him.

“You are pitiful, Lucas,” she said, confirming his guess.

He stared at her, a knot forming in his stomach. “Pitiful?”

“You don’t know what to do about how you feel, so you start out hiding behind an itsy-bitsy baby and now you want to put God and the Bible between us.”

“Right’s right,” he insisted stubbornly.

“And what was meant to be was meant to be,” she countered, looking perfectly confident in making the claim.

Obviously she wasn’t worried about the two of them being stricken dead by a bolt of lightning. Luke couldn’t understand it. How could she be so calm, so sure of herself, when he’d never felt more off balance, more uncertain in all of his life?

“Whatever that means,” he grumbled.

“It means, Lucas, that you might as well stop fighting so hard and accept the inevitable.”

He studied her worriedly. “Which is?”

“Angela and I are in your life to stay.”

He swallowed hard. “Well, of course you are,” he said too heartily. “You’re my sister-in-law. Angela’s my niece.”

Ignoring his comment, Jessie dished up scrambled eggs, bacon and golden biscuits. Only after she’d seated herself across from him did she meet his gaze.

“Give it up, Lucas. It’s a battle you can’t win.”