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He studied the scuff marks on a pair of skates, his brain in high gear, his curiosity intense. Kelsey wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; he always paid attention to that particular detail. Married women had never been on the cards for him. Too complicated. Particularly when there were so many single ones all too ready to play.
Then Kelsey marched into the dining room and put two placemats and a dish of butter on the table. “Cutlery’s in the drawer,” she said. “I’ll get the wine glasses.”
He put the bag of food down on the table. Knives, forks and spoons were jumbled together in the drawer. All sterling silver, he noticed, and all badly in need of polishing. As she came back in with the glasses and a corkscrew, he said lightly, “Do you spend so much time organizing other people’s stuff that you don’t get around to your own?”
“I’ve had other things on my mind. I’ll get some serving spoons.”
As she moved past him, the overhead light caught her hair, streaking it copper and bronze. Her hips moved delectably in the tight denim. He heard himself say, with a bluntness that dismayed him, “Why the brown tweed suit? Which should, in my opinion, be tossed in the nearest garbage can.”
“Open the bag, Luke. Let’s eat.”
As she sat down across from him, he said blandly, “I see your train of thought—from one bag to another.”
A smile twitched her lips. Those eminently kissable lips. “The suit belonged to my mother,” she said rapidly, watching as he put a bowl in front of her and removed the plastic lid. “She was a very pretty woman with the clothes sense of a rhinoceros. Mmm…the soup smells luscious.”
“Have some sour cream on it. Do you always wear that suit to work?”
“Only for unattached men with a reputation.”
“So there’s been gossip in the village about me as well as my mother?”
She took a sip of borscht and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Not unfounded, in your case.”
“I like women. So what?”
“In the plural.”
“One at a time,” he said, rather more sharply than he’d intended.
“Serial fidelity?”
“Is there anything wrong with that?”
As she shrugged, shadows lingered in the little hollows under her collarbones. He wanted to press his lips into those hollows, find out if her skin was as silky smooth as it looked, smell her hair, trace the slim line of her throat to that other hollow at its base.
Dammit, Luke thought, he needed to bed someone like Clarisse or Lindsay. Hot, slick sex, with no entangling emotions. Too bad he’d cooled both those particular relationships in the last year. Out of—he had to be honest—boredom.
He could always find someone else.
“Serial fidelity must be very convenient,” Kelsey said. “For you.”
Luke dragged himself back to reality. “The women I date always know the score, because I spell it out for them. If they don’t like the rules, they don’t have to play the game.”
“How sophisticated,” Kelsey said in a brittle voice. “Why don’t we change the subject? I’d hate for a discussion of your sexual standards—such as they are—to ruin this delicious soup.”
There were pink patches high on her cheekbones; her skin swept in creamy curves to the corners of her mouth. But he wasn’t going to think about her mouth. “So what are you wearing to work tomorrow, Kelsey? Now that I’ve found you out.”
Her thick dark lashes hiding her eyes, she said calmly, “Jeans, I guess. What were you doing in Hong Kong last week?”
Agreeably, he began to talk about his latest real estate deals along the Pacific Rim. He didn’t elaborate on the side trip to Cambodia.
As Kelsey got up to remove the soup dishes and bring some plates from the kitchen, Luke pushed back his chair and wandered over to examine the painting on the far wall. A quite astonishing painting, he realized, his interest quickening as he tried to read the signature. It was an abstract, seething with subdued energy, color escaping from an overwhelmingly dark background in small explosions of delight.
Hearing her come back in the room, he said, “Who painted this?”
“I did,” she said reluctantly.
“You did?”
She raised her brows. “The dinner’s getting cold.”
“Recently?” he rapped.
“Six months ago.”
More and more he was inclined to believe in an ousted husband. “Do you have more?”
She had a roomful of them upstairs. “A few. Oh, look, asparagus. I adore it. And the wild rice looks scrumptious.”
Clarisse had the appetite of a sparrow, while Lindsay was allergic to just about everything. It was fun, Luke thought in faint surprise, to share a meal with someone who appreciated it. Smoothly, he began describing his latest visit to the Guggenheim.
As Kelsey swallowed the last mouthful of mousse, she sat back and said spontaneously, “That was a wonderful meal—the bistro only opened last summer, and I’ve never eaten there. Thank you, Luke.”
She was looking right at him, her eyes the glossy brown of melted chocolate. The warmth in them hitched at his breath.
“You’re welcome,” he said. She wasn’t his type. She was from the backwoods, all excited about a takeout meal. Get real, Luke. He added casually, “Can I see more of the paintings?”
She said grudgingly, “There are three others in the living room. I’ll put on some coffee.”
Picking his way past a mesh bag of soccer balls and a heap of well-worn cleats, he checked out the other paintings, and felt again the stirring of excitement that genuine creativity called up in him. Each of the three gave that same sense of something desperately striving to burst its bonds. Untutored paintings, yes, but full of raw talent.
Forgetting to watch where he was going, he knocked over a pile of textbooks. A signature leaped out at him, written in an untidy masculine scrawl: Dwayne North.
Kelsey’s husband. The reason she painted pictures frantic for release.
Not stopping to think, Luke marched into the kitchen. “What’s with the husband?”
“Husband?” she said blankly. “Whose husband?”
“Yours. The owner of the soccer gear.”
She gave an incredulous laugh. “I do not have, nor have I ever had, a husband. Ditto for fiancé or live-in lover.” And there, she thought, is the story of my life.
His eyes narrowed. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Then the guy who owns the cleats and the chemistry texts can’t be your son.”
“Gee, you’re good at math—must be handy for keeping track of all your women.”
Luke wasn’t used to being laughed at. He said abruptly, “You should be doing something with your art—what are you waiting for? I can’t believe you spend your time cleaning out closets for rich people when you’re so obviously loaded with talent.”
Her chin snapped up at his tone. “I don’t see why my paintings are remotely your business.”
“When I see work like yours hung where only you can see it, I get a little irked.”
“If this is irked, I’d hate to see angry. Coffee’s made. You can drink it now or take it with you.”
“What’s the story, Kelsey? Who owns the cleats and the chemistry books?”
Luke had just treated her to one of the best meals in her life, and she had no reason not to tell him. Other than pure cussedness. “My eldest brother, Dwayne. First year med school. Age twenty-one.”
“What’s wrong with me? I didn’t even think of a brother.”
“Like I said, the eldest. Glen’s twenty, he’s studying computer technology; the hockey gear’s his. Kirk’s eighteen, he started forestry school a week ago. He took his lacrosse gear with him.” She gave Luke a level look. “I brought them up. I’m an expert in teenage psychology and hamburgers with the works. I didn’t have the time to flit off to art school every morning once they were on the school bus—I was too busy keeping a roof over our heads.”
“They all lived here with you?” Luke said, feeling his way.
“They sure did. I’d just started cleaning out Kirk’s room the day you called. Five unmatched socks under the bed, a wedge of mummified pizza and six copies of Playboy. I did my best to civilize all three of them, but it was uphill work. And now they’re gone.” The crazy thing was that she missed them, even though she’d been counting the days until she was free.
“Your parents?”
Her voice flattened. “They both died in a train wreck when I was eighteen. No other relatives. So it fell to me to bring up my brothers.” Which was also the story of her life.
“So this was your parents’ house?”
“At the time, it seemed best to keep things as normal as possible.” With a flick of temper she added, “So now you know why my paintings are hanging on my own four walls.”
“You sacrificed ten years of your life for the sake of your brothers?” he said inimically.
“It wasn’t a sacrifice! Well, not really. Besides, what choice did I have?”
“Plenty, I’d have thought—you could have left.”
“My brothers and I had just lost both our parents,” Kelsey said tersely. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d abandoned them. And if you don’t understand that, I don’t know where the heck you’re coming from.”
Ferociously Luke tried to batten down the emotions roiling in his chest: bafflement, fury and pain. His mother hadn’t hung in as Kelsey had. The first eight years of his life had been a study in broken promises.
He said sharply, “How is it the three boys are all off at college and you’re still home?”
“Give me time—Kirk just left last week,” she retorted. “As you can see, step one is to clean up the house. Then I’ll put it on the market.”
Luke looked around, taking in the battered table, the faded paint, the general air of a house worn down by use and a lack of money. Hadley was a rundown fishing village; she wouldn’t get much for the property. “Then what?”
She glowered at him. “You’ll be happy to know I’m planning to go to art school on the proceeds—together with what you’re paying me.”
“So that’s why you changed your mind about working for me?”
“Pride and Practicality. Jane Austen, the modern version.”
“My offer to double your pay still stands,” Luke said.
“I don’t take charity.”
“Call it support for the arts,” he said with a grin.
“You know what bugs me about you? You make me angry enough to spit nickels and then you make me laugh.”
You know what scares me about you? he thought. I’m as far from bored as I can be.
He kept this observation to himself. Okay, so Kesley had been dealt a tough hand, and she hadn’t folded. Unlike his mother. But she still wasn’t his type. Far from it. Too unsophisticated. Too many emotions too close to the surface.
Too real.
So why was he sitting here watching the play of light over her cheekbones, the little dimple at the corner of her mouth when she smiled, the sweet curve of her breasts under her tight shirt? Watching and lusting after her, fire streaking straight to his loins in a way he deplored.
He said at random, “Did you find anything in the boxes you brought home?”
“Oh—I forgot! Yes, I did. An envelope of photographs. What did I do with them?”
His heart lurched in his chest. He didn’t have a single photograph of his mother.
Kelsey was rummaging through a pile of papers by the telephone and unearthed a faded brown envelope, which she held out to him. The flap was unglued. She said, following the direction of his eyes, “It was open. I had to look inside to see if it was anything important.”
He hated the fact that she’d seen the photos first. As if he couldn’t help himself, he pulled one out. A pretty little girl was standing under an apple tree that was in full bloom; she was laughing, clutching a book to her chest. It was, unquestionably, his mother.
Kelsey had busied herself pouring the coffee. But something in the quality of the silence caused her to lift her eyes. Luke was standing like a man stunned, his gaze riveted to the picture in his hands. She felt a surge of compassion so strong it took her aback. Hastily she pushed the cream toward him, watching him shove the photo back in the envelope as though it had bitten him. He said flatly, “I should go.”
“What about your coffee?”
“I’ll skip the coffee—I’ll go back and sort through a couple more boxes.”
“Luke,” she said with careful restraint, “I wish you’d tell me why this search is so important to you—why you’re paying me all this money for dribs and drabs of information about your mother.”
His knuckles tightened on the envelope. “You don’t need to know why! Just give me anything relating to her and keep your mouth shut in the village.”
Hot color stained Kelsey’s cheeks. “I don’t indulge in local gossip.”
He should apologize. He didn’t. Instead he dropped the envelope on the table and closed the distance between them in two quick strides. Taking her in his arms, he plundered her mouth, his teeth grazing her lip.
And was lost in the red haze, the furious ache of hunger.
CHAPTER THREE
FOR THE SPACE of two full seconds Kelsey was frozen in Luke’s embrace. His arms were tight as steel bands. Through her palms, pressed to his chest, she felt the heat of his body, his muscles’ taut strength. She couldn’t have escaped if she’d wanted to.
She didn’t want to. The hard pounding of his heart beneath her fingertips excited her beyond measure. She’d never been kissed like this in her life, with such searching intensity, such a depth of need and desire. She looped her fingers around his neck, feeling with a shock of pleasure the silken thickness of his hair. When his tongue brushed her lower lip, she opened to him, yearning for him to taste her, to invade her.
