Sherryl Woods - A Christmas Blessing

There was only one way he could think of to keep from making another dangerous mistake like that one. He had to stay inside this room with the door securely locked…and temptation on the other side of it.

Chapter Four

Unfortunately, temptation didn’t seem inclined to stay out of Luke’s path. Only one person could be tapping on his office door not an hour after he’d stalked off in a huff and left her all alone with her baby in the kitchen. Since that display of temper obviously hadn’t scared her off, he wondered if she’d have sense enough to take the hint and go away if he didn’t answer. He waited, still and silent, listening for some whisper of movement that would indicate she’d retreated as he desperately wanted her to do.

“Luke?” Jessie called softly. “Are you asleep?”

Apparently she didn’t have a grain of sense, Luke decided with a sigh. “No, I’m awake. Come on in.”

She opened the door and stood at the threshold, shifting uneasily under the glare he had to force himself to direct her way. Despite his irritation, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.

She’d wound her long hair up into some sort of knot on top of her head, but it threatened to spill down her back at any second. Luke stared at it in fascination, wondering what she’d do if he helped it along, if he tangled his fingers in those silky strands and tugged her close. An image of their bodies entwined flashed in his head with such vivid intensity it left him momentarily speechless—and racked with guilt.

“Are you hungry?” she asked quietly, ignoring the lack of welcome. “I’ve fixed enough supper for both of us. I hope you don’t mind.”

Luke thought of all the reasons he should reject the gesture. If not that, then tell her to bring the food to him in his office. Sharing a meal seemed like a lousy idea. He had no business sitting down across from her, making small talk, acting as if they were a couple or even as if they were friends. Every contact reminded him of the feelings he’d had for her while she’d been married to his brother. Every moment they were in the same room reminded him that those feelings hadn’t died. He owed it to her—to both of them—to keep his distance.

Just when he planned to refuse her invitation to supper, he caught the hesitancy in her eyes, the anxious frown and realized that Jessie was every bit as uncertain about their present circumstances as he was. There apparently wasn’t a lot of protocol for being stranded with the man responsible for a husband’s death, especially when those feelings were all tangled up with feeling beholden to him for delivering her baby.

“Give me a minute,” he said with a sigh of resignation.

He watched as she nodded, then closed the door. He shut his eyes and prayed for strength. The truth of it was it would take him an hour, maybe even days to be ready for the kind of time he was being forced to spend with his brother’s widow. He had only seconds, not enough time to plan, far too much time to panic, to think of all the dangers represented by having Jessie in his home.

As soon as he’d gathered some semblance of composure, he got to his feet, gave himself a stern lecture about eating whatever she’d fixed in total, uncompromising silence, and then racing hell-bent for leather back to the safety of his den. That decided, he set out to find her.

When he reached the kitchen, where she’d chosen to serve the dinner on the huge oak table in front of a brick fireplace that Consuela had persuaded him to build, the first words out of his mouth were, “I don’t want you waiting on me while you’re here.”

It was hardly a gracious comment, but he had to lay down a few rules or it would be far too easy to fall into a comfortable pattern that would feed all the emotions that had been simmering in him for years now.

She leveled her calm, blue-eyed gaze on him. “We both have to eat. It’s no more trouble to fix for two people than it is for one,” she said as she dished up a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes. She passed the bowl to him.

Luke didn’t have an argument for that that wouldn’t sound even more ungracious than he’d already been, so he kept his mouth clamped shut and his attention focused on the food. The potatoes were creamy with milk and butter. The gravy was smooth and flavored with beef stock, just the way he liked it. The chicken fried steak was melt-in-the-mouth tender. The green beans had been cooked with salt pork.

“When did you have time to do all this?” he asked. He studied her worriedly, looking for signs of exhaustion. She looked radiant. “You’re not even supposed to be on your feet yet, are you?”

“There wasn’t much to do. Consuela saw to most of it. I’ve never seen so many little prepackaged, home-cooked meals. She must have been stocking your freezer for a month. How long is she going to be gone, anyway? Or has she abandoned you for good, because of your foul temper?”

“I wouldn’t blame her if she had, but no.” Luke allowed himself a brief, rueful grin. “She figured company might be dropping by during the holidays, but I doubt she imagined it happening quite this way.”

“Neither did you, I suspect.” Jessie’s penetrating gaze cut right through him. “You’d holed up in here for the duration, hadn’t you? You were planning to spend the holidays with your buddy Jack Daniel’s.” She gestured toward the cabinets. “I saw your supply.”

Luke winced at the direct hit. “I’ve only touched one bottle and I smashed it halfway through,” he said defensively.

“Too bad you didn’t do it sooner,” she observed.

“If I’d known you—and especially Angela—were coming, I would have.”

“Now that we are here, what happens next?”

He regarded her cautiously. “What’s your real question, Jessie? You might as well spit it out.”

Her glance went back to the cabinet. “Are you planning to finish off the rest?”

“Not unless I’m driven to it,” he said pointedly.

This time Jessie winced. “Believe me, I know what an imposition this is. We’ll be out of your hair as soon as the roads are passable.” She glanced toward the windows, where the steadily falling snow was visible. “When do you suppose that will be?”

Luke shrugged. “Don’t know. I haven’t heard a weather report.”

“Are the phones still out?”

“Haven’t tried ’em since last night.”

“Don’t you have a cellular phone? That ought to be working.”

To be perfectly honest, Luke hadn’t given his cellular phone a thought. He still wasn’t used to carrying the damned thing around with him. Keeping track of it was a nuisance. It was probably outside on the seat of his pickup. “I’ll check next time I have to go to the barn.”

“I could get it. I need to get the rest of my clothes from my car.”

Luke cursed himself for not thinking of that. Of course, she’d had luggage with her if she’d been intending a stay at White Pines for the holidays.

“I’ll get ’em,” he said, pushing away from the table, leaving most of his food uneaten. The excuse was just what he needed to escape this pleasure-pain of sitting across from her in a mockery of a normal relationship between a man and a woman.

“Finish your supper first.”

“I’m not hungry,” he lied. “I’ll get something later. Besides, I’m sure you’re anxious to call the folks with the good news. They’ll be thrilled to know that you and Erik have a daughter. Doubt they’ll be quite so thrilled to hear where you had it though. Dad will want to fly in a specialist to check you and the baby out. He’ll probably have a med-evac copter in here before the night’s out.”

Though he couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his tone, Jessie grinned at his assessment. “He probably will, won’t he? But not even Harlan Adams can defy nature. Nobody’s going to be taking off or landing in this blizzard.”