Catherine Spencer - Tempting Lucas

It seemed that avoiding Lucas wasn’t going to pan out quite as neatly or quickly as Emily had hoped. Unless a miracle occurred within the next hour or two, she and Monique might have no choice but to accept Beatrice’s hospitality until Belvoir was habitable again.

The thought of having to face Lucas across the dining room table three times a day, not to mention running into him at other times in between, and of sleeping down the hall from him, left her dizzy with dismay.

CHAPTER THREE

IT SEEMED prophetic that the first person Emily ran into on the street after she’d seen Consuela off was Lucas. He’d just crossed the road from the post office, which was situated opposite the entrance to the hospital, and was so busy thumbing through the mail he’d picked up that he quite literally cannoned into her. “Sorry,” he muttered absently, reaching out a hand to steady her, then did a double-take when he realized who it was he’d almost knocked down.

For just a second, she was reminded of the day she’d fallen in love with him. He’d almost stumbled over her then, too, and a whole sequence of events had been set in motion. One kiss had led to another and she’d read “for ever” in them. Sadly, she’d been the only one to do so. She’d also been pathologically naive in those days.

“Good thing it wasn’t your grandmother,” he said now, the ghost of his old self emerging briefly. “She’d be threatening lawsuits for sure. So, did you get fixed up at the hotel?”

“No,” Emily said, dry-mouthed all over again at the sheer male magnificence of him.

He had no right to be so beautiful. He was too muscular in the chest and shoulders for a doctor, as if he’d spent the last eleven years in some work more physically strenuous than she could envision medicine being. He should have been stooped and the African sun should have left his skin all wizened. His eyes should have faded, been half-buried in wrinkles from squinting in the bright, tropical light; they should have peered out myopically through thick lenses. Instead, he was spellbinding, his lean-hipped, rangy grace lending elegance even to the blue jeans that seemed to be his preferred mode of dress these days.

“No?” He did have squint lines around his eyes when he glanced at her quizzically like that, but they were an asset, enhancing his good looks rather than detracting from them.

She shook her head. “Your grandmother was right. Except for a couple of days here and there, the hotel’s booked up right through September.”

If he was dismayed to hear that, he hid it well. “From Monique’s standpoint that might not be such a bad thing, you know. It’s my guess she’s damaged the ligaments in her knee and that she’ll be off her feet for the next week or so. Being confined to a hotel room would be no picnic for anyone, especially not someone of her. . . ah... temperament.”

“I’m afraid,” Emily said, wondering how many times she was going to have to apologize to him for one thing or another, “that she’s behaving very ungraciously toward you and your grandmother, and I’m sorry. I think it’s just that she’s afraid of change, of not being in control of the events shaping her life. What with her failing health and now this latest problem, she sees her independence seeping away, and it terrifies her, but she’s too proud to admit it.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Growing old can be hell, Emily, and some people react just as your grandmother does, fighting it every step of the way.”

“Still, that’s no reason for you to have to put up with her ill humor.”

When he laughed, the years melted away from his face, leaving only the threads of silver in his hair to betray his true age. “I might as well get used to it. It looks as if we’re all stuck with each other—at least for the next little while.”

“Stuck with each other? Oh, I don’t think so!”

“You have some other solution up your sleeve?”

“Well, I...no, not exactly—not yet. How could I, when I only just found out the hotel can’t take us? But I’ll come up with something.”

“I can’t imagine what. Your grandmother made it plain enough last night that she’s not budging far from home. And quite frankly, even if the idea of moving in with relatives did sit well with her, I doubt her doctor wants to see her traveling any great distance right now. She’s a lot frailer than she might seem, you know.”

“So what are you saying? That the only other choice is... ?” She lapsed into silence, still unwilling to accept the solution staring her in the face.

Entertaining no such uncertainty, Lucas finished the question for her. “Roscommon? Afraid so.” Another of those brief smiles illuminated his face. “Don’t look so horrified, Emily. We don’t have rats in the pantry or bugs in the beds, and, although it might not be her home, realistically it’s probably the best place for Monique to be right now. She’ll be on relatively familiar territory, able to keep an eye on repairs to Belvoir, voice her disapproval of everything the workmen do—which will keep her happy even if it does run them ragged!—and at the same time give my grandmother someone else to bully besides me.”

His summation was right on target: sensible, practical, convenient. But Emily was too dismayed to acknowledge any of those supremely sane responses—so dismayed, in fact, that she blurted out her true thoughts without taking time to edit them first or consider how they might be interpreted. “Lucas, I couldn’t possibly stay another night under the same roof as you!”

She hadn’t meant to sound so insulting but he allowed her no time to rephrase her objection. His eyes narrowed, their brilliant blue stripped of any amusement. “Why not?” he drawled. “Forewarned is forearmed. I have a lock on my bedroom door and I’ll make a point of using it.”

She had thought he could never hurt her again, that nothing could come close to the pure agony of having him reject her and turn to another woman for all those things she had been willing to give him. But his softly uttered contempt seared her more thoroughly than anything he’d flung at her the night she’d conceived his child. Devastated, she spun away from him, stepping blindly off the edge of the sidewalk and out into the road.

A horn blared, brakes shrieked. The bright red fender of a car reared up and seemed to hover perilously close as she stumbled to regain her balance.

I’m going to be killed, she thought in mild surprise, and wondered who’d come in her place to take care of Monique.

And then Lucas’s hand shot out, grabbing her urgently by the scruff of the neck and yanking her back to safety. Or increased danger, depending on one’s perspective. Because finding herself pressed up against him, pressed so close that they were imprinted on each other from knee to breast, was just as life-threatening in a different kind of way.

For the first time since they’d met again, his eyes neither avoided hers nor skittered past her as if the sight of her was too repugnant to be endured. Instead, his gaze burned into her, ablaze with impassioned horror. To the people passing by, they might have appeared to be lovers locked in wordless conflict, so furiously did he clutch her to him.

But they weren’t lovers. And the fact that, even knowing that, she still wanted to lean into him, to bury her face in his neck and inhale the warm, well remembered scent of him, enraged her.

So she shrugged him off and flicked at her hair to restore it to some sort of order. “Do you mind?” she said, too discombobulated to care that, considering he’d just spared her serious injury and possibly even saved her life, the question was downright ridiculous.

Lucas passed a trembling hand over his face. “Damned right,” he said hoarsely. “Jeez, Emily, if you want to teach me to think before I speak in future, a smack in the mouth will suffice, OK? You don’t have to lay your life on the line to make your point.”