Secret Desire

Luke had a premonition that dismissing her from his mind and his feelings wouldn’t be as easy as he’d thought, that handling his reaction to her would prove as tough a test as any he could remember. Her dignity, charm and impish ways fascinated him, and something in her eyes seemed to hide the wisdom of the ages and to promise him anything he would ever want.

He watched her read the menu, and wondered what was taking her so long. There wasn’t that much to read.

Very soon, it became clear that she hadn’t been reading. She didn’t take her gaze from the menu, which hid half of her face. “Luke, why aren’t you having dinner with your wife and children?”

That set him back a bit, but the question told him much about her. He closed his eyes briefly. “Kate, I’m a widower, and have been for six years. My wife and I weren’t fortunate enough to have children.”

She folded the menu, laid it on the table beside her plate and looked at him. “I’m sorry. Did you want children?”

Getting into that would drag him down as sure as his name was Luke Stuart Hickson. “Yes, I did. More than anything. What happened to your husband?”

So he didn’t like talking about it. Well, that was a kind of pain she could understand. She told him of Nathan’s death, and why she’d resettled in Portsmouth. “I was teaching here when I met Nathan. So it was Portsmouth or Charleston, where I grew up, and I didn’t think I could raise Randy and make a living for us in South Carolina. I want him to have every opportunity.”

He tapped the two middle fingers of his left hand on the table. “If he doesn’t get strong discipline, the opportunities you provide him with won’t mean one thing.”

She knew she had her hands full undoing the damage caused by Nathan’s pampering. He’d mistaken that for love, but she had recognized it as a substitute for the guidance their child needed.

“I know I’ve got my hands full with Randy, and I’m trying. But he threatens to call his paternal grandparents and tell them he’s being abused, the way he tattled to his father whenever I made him stay in his room. He’s smart beyond his years, Luke. I haven’t told them where we are yet, and with his attitude and a few other problems, I’m not sure I want to.”

He seemed to meditate for a few minutes before he said, “Enroll him in our Police Athletic League. Most of those boys aren’t with their fathers, so we give them the discipline they need.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to turn Randy loose with a group of underprivileged boys. Medicine that cured one ailment could cause another that killed. “We’ll see. I—”

“Some of those boys are from homes just like Randy’s, and all of them have learned to respect their mothers, so don’t be huffy about it. It may be just the help you need.”

One more indication that this man should not be taken for granted. And he said what he thought. “I may give it a try,” she said, mostly to change the subject.

“The sooner, the better.”

The waiter arrived to take their orders, and she breathed a long breath of relief. “I’ll have the leek soup and roast beef,” she said to the waiter, then glanced at Luke. “What are you wrinkling your nose for?”

He spread out his hands in a gesture of innocence. “With all this good food—stuffed crabs, crab cakes, Cajun-fried catfish, rolled veal in wine sauce with wild mushrooms, if you want to get fancy—why would anybody ask for roast beef and mashed potatoes?”

Why, indeed? If he thought she’d tell him that she hadn’t read the entire menu because he disconcerted her, he could think again. She caught the waiter’s sardonic expression.

“If you’d like to change…Captain Hickson eats here regularly. He may suggest something.”

She looked from one to the other and controlled her tongue. “I ordered roast beef because I like it. I’d also like a glass of Châteauneuf du Pape. You do carry French wines, don’t you?”

She’d known Luke Hickson exactly ten hours, but she would have bet her life that if she looked at him she’d see a grin on his face. He didn’t disappoint her.

“Yes, ma’am,” the waiter replied. Then he took Luke’s order of broiled mushrooms and crown roast of pork and moved away as quickly as possible.

“Aren’t you having wine?” she asked Luke.

His grin turned into a full laugh—and what a laugh. If she had any sense, she’d get out of there. The man was like a time-release drug.

He sobered up and answered her question. “I’m driving, so I don’t drink. I’m a cop, remember? By the way, do you drive?”

She told him she had a Ford Taurus, but that she drove because she had to and not because she enjoyed it. They finished the meal, and he leaned back and watched her. She folded her hands in her lap, unfolded them, smoothed her hair, and then pushed aside the clump that hung over her right ear. Finally, discombobulated beyond measure, she told herself to relax and went on the attack. “Luke, would you please stop staring at me? You’re making me uncomfortable.”

Horrified, she could see that his look of innocence was not feigned. He leaned forward, appeared to reach for her, then pulled back his hand. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was enjoying being here with you. I don’t often have the company of a woman who wants nothing from me except time and good conversation.”

She believed in being honest. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve got a ten-year layer of social rust, plus I’ve had a lot more of my own company than was good for me. I’m out of practice, so I hope you’ll forgive me. Shall we go?”

“You’re wonderful company, rust or no rust,” he said, his grin hard at work. “I do want to ask if you have any idea who that man was who robbed you. If a criminal intends to shoot after committing a crime, he doesn’t usually let himself be talked out of it.”

“He seemed young, not more than twenty-five. I didn’t see his face, though, because he wore a hood. I’m wondering if my in-laws didn’t find out where we are and put someone up to it. They don’t want me to succeed. I’m sure of it.”

He sat forward, his posture rigid, as if he sensed approaching danger. “Your in-laws? If they’re wealthy upstanding citizens, would they hire a hit man? Somehow, I doubt it.”

“Then why would he have put the gun away when I told him he was frightening Randy and begged him to spare us?”

Luke drummed his fingers on the table. “Beats me, but I’ll get to the bottom of it. Be sure of that.”

He stood, looked down at her, and extended his hand to assist her from the booth. She took his hand, but released it as soon as she was safely on her feet. Inwardly, she laughed at herself. Why would a thirty-eight-year-old woman let a man make her jittery? She’d been married and was the mother of an seven-year-old boy, for heaven’s sake. She stood straighter and held her shoulders back.

“This has been wonderful. Actually, it’s my first night out since I’ve been here. And what do you know? I think I stepped out with the king of the hill.”

He had the grace to be embarrassed. “Come on now, Kate. You’re exaggerating.”

The waiter didn’t bring a bill, and she decided not to ask for one. Since he ate there regularly, he probably had an account with the restaurant or someone had slipped him the check. In any case, he didn’t seem the type who’d split the bill with a woman the first time they ate dinner together. A few April sprinkles dampened them as they strolled half a block to Luke’s car, but he didn’t hurry. She’d already noticed that Portsmouth inhabitants, like the Charlestonians among whom she grew up, took their time about most things. He walked with her to her apartment door, and her nerves started a wild battle with one another. She didn’t think he’d ask to come in, but…

“I’ve enjoyed this evening with you, Kate. I enjoyed it a lot. I hope we’ll get better acquainted.” Before she could say a word, he winked, turned around and headed down the hallway.

“Luke,” she called. “The dinner was wonderful, and so were you.”

He waved, opened the building’s front door, and disappeared into the night. She stared at the hall that led to the building’s lobby and shook her head. She knew herself as a conservative woman, one whom Nathan Middleton in his perverted gentility had taught to wait for the man to make the first move. In a flash, she realized that Nathan had discouraged, even rejected, her advances early in their marriage until she’d stopped making them. Ultimately, he had set the tone of their relationship and called all the shots. Ultimately, she hadn’t cared.

Maybe she was about to find out who she was, or to rediscover herself. She couldn’t figure out what had gotten into her. She’d dared Luke, flirted with him and challenged him, and she wasn’t even ashamed. Ashamed? She’d enjoyed every second of it. But he’d kept his counsel, and she suspected he’d just let her know that he didn’t go in for casual good-night kisses, not even pecks on the cheek. It was just as well. If he’d kissed her, she’d probably have landed on the clouds. She had always wanted to fly with a man, and the woman in her knew instinctively that Luke Hickson could take her with him on wings of ecstasy. However, she’d been certain of that once before, and in ten years of groping for fulfillment, she’d gotten nothing but emptiness, a painful kind of loneliness—a thousand disappointments, like a field of scentless roses or an orchard of flowering cherry trees that bore no fruit. She didn’t feel like retracing those steps.

Luke propped his left foot on the step stool he kept in his walk-in closet and pondered his sudden urge to look at his family album. Why, after a dozen years or more, did he need to see pictures of his late parents and of him and Marcus as growing boys? He put the photo album back in its place without opening it, clicked off the light and wandered into the den. It wasn’t a time for nostalgia. He’d loved and cherished Eunice, and until her horrifying demise, they’d had a wonderful marriage—a happy marriage, comforting and companionable. But, he realized all of a sudden, it had been unexciting. Kate Middleton exhilarated him. And she had a streak of wickedness that brought out something strange in him, a kind of wildness with which he was unfamiliar. He’d controlled it, but he’d give anything to know what would happen if he felt it again and let himself give in to it.

He knew the danger of taking up a woman’s challenge, and she’d practically dared him to show her the man that he was. Not that he was gullible; he’d walked away from more glittering pitfalls. What got to him was the thin layer of sadness beneath her jocular manner. That, along with her wit and charm, made him vulnerable to her, piqued his curiosity and made him want to know everything about her. He went to the refrigerator, got a can of beer and took a few swallows. An inner urging told him to bide his time, and he knew he’d better listen.

He snapped his fingers as he remembered her fear that her in-laws might be trying to prevent her from succeeding with the bookstore. It didn’t quite wash, but to be on the safe side, he’d assign a detective to watch that block first thing Monday morning.

When Kate walked into her living room, she found Madge Robinson snoring in front of the television and Bugs Bunny savoring a carrot while he plotted mischief. She awakened the woman by turning off the TV.

Madge jumped up. “I didn’t expect you’d be back in no two hours. If I went anywhere with Captain Hickson, I’d keep him half the night, too.”

She didn’t have much patience with busybodies. Madge Robinson had known she’d been with Luke because she’d walked to the edge of the garden and peered through the hedge, snooping. “Mrs. Robinson, it’s only nine-fifteen, and I’d hardly consider that half the night. Did Randy give you any trouble?”

Madge sat down and flicked the television back on. “I didn’t see the rest of Bugs. No, Randy didn’t give me a speck of trouble. I went to my place and got him some ice cream, and he went to bed as peacefully as a lamb, just like he promised.”

Just what Randy needed, someone else to pamper him and cajole him into doing what he knew he should do. “You mean, you bribed Randy to go to sleep?”

Madge glued her gaze to the television. “That tiger’s gonna catch Bugs if he ain’t careful. What? Oh. It was better for him to sleep than give me a hard time. Besides, he was tired, anyway. Poor kid said he hadn’t slept all last night.”

“How much do I owe you, Mrs. Robinson?”

“What? Fifteen. That’s my regular price, and call me Madge, like everybody else does. I’d rather not charge for keeping the tenants’ children, but everybody wants to pay. It’s a pleasure for me, ’cause I’m always by myself ’less someone wants me to keep the kids. I never had any, so I enjoys it. I ’spec you want to turn in, so I’ll go on home soon as Bugs is finished.”

Kate inhaled a long breath and sat down to watch Bugs Bunny. Within minutes she had closed her eyes and begun to relive the evening.

She opened her store the next morning at nine o’clock, the usual hour. Beside the doorknob, she noticed a buzzer that hadn’t been there before the robbery. She’d ask Luke about that. Half an hour later, she answered the buzzer and opened the door for a policeman.

“’Morning, Miss Kate,” he said, tipping his hat. “I’m Officer Cowan, and I’ve been assigned to patrol your area. I just wanted to give you my pager number, in case you have a problem. I won’t be more than eight or ten blocks from you at any time, so feel safe. You can turn this buzzer off till near dark. I doubt anybody’s gonna bother you in broad daylight.”

That air that whistled through his teeth with each word he uttered and the large patch of black hair beneath his left ear guaranteed that she wouldn’t forget him. She thanked him, and he left, but she wanted to ask somebody if Luke Hickson took such good care of every citizen in his precinct. The protection gave her a sense of security, but she didn’t want special favors. One way or another, you paid for them. She’d rather spend her precious funds on a store guard and keep her independence.

She rang up a sale, handed the change to the buyer. Then, as her gaze caught Luke heading toward her, she jammed her finger in the drawer of the cash register. She’d thought him handsome, but as she stared at him in his captain’s uniform she nearly swallowed her tongue. He glided toward her, his stride purposeful and powerful and his gaze fixed on her.

He stopped beside her customer and touched his cap. “Glad to see you’re up and out, Miss Fanny. You had a long siege.”

“Oh, Captain,” the woman exclaimed, “I don’t know what I’d have done if you and your men hadn’t kept a close check on me.” She turned to Kate. “They’re my family. Brought me food and the paper every single day. Good, hot food, too, ’cause, honey, I wasn’t able to get up and cook. I’m going to bake them some gingerbread soon as I feel up to it.” She pointed a finger toward Luke. “He loves gingerbread, gingersnaps and whatever else I can put ginger in.” Kate wrapped the woman’s purchases—a volume of poems and a copy of Fools Rush In—and handed them to her.

“I’ll be back soon as I finish Fools Rush In,” Miss Fanny called over her shoulder as she left.

“Did you sleep well?” Luke asked.

She nodded. “Wonderfully. Thanks.” Then she remembered the buzzer. “Luke, did you have that buzzer put on my door?”

He flipped back his cap and closed his eyes for a split second. “Yeah. Of course I did. It’s dark long before you leave, and most of the stores in this block close a couple of hours before you do. You’re vulnerable. What’s the matter? You don’t want it there?”

What could she say? Of course she needed that, and any other protection that would prevent her from losing her store. “Please don’t think I’m not grateful. I am—”

He frowned and barely narrowed his left eye. “But what, Kate? Tell me you’re going to do this all on your own, that you don’t need anybody’s help. Fine. Give me a screwdriver, and I’ll remove the buzzer.”

Now she’d done it. What was it about men that made them see things in black-and-white? “I appreciate your kindness, but in ten years of marriage, I wasn’t allowed to make a single meaningful decision. I was spoon-fed, managed and manipulated. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m supersensitive about my independence.”

He stepped closer and burned her with his all-knowing gaze. “If your marriage wasn’t a happy one, why did you stay?”

“I have a son, and I took a vow.”

She’d said more than she wanted him to know. But then, she’d already accepted that she wasn’t normal around him.

Something akin to recognition—or could it be approval?—gleamed in his intense gaze. “You’re an admirable woman. I just dropped by to make certain everything’s all right. Did Cowan introduce himself to you this morning?”

She nodded, perplexed. The man whose company she’d enjoyed the previous evening had been swallowed by that captain’s uniform. She didn’t know what to think. “Officer Cowan said he’d be checking on me. Luke, do you think it’s necessary to go to so much trouble?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “For a simple robbery, I wouldn’t take such steps, but you’ve implied that you’re in jeopardy, and until that robbery case is solved, it’s my job to protect you—whether you like that or not. What time will Randy be here this afternoon?”

She tried to imagine what was behind the question. “Three-thirty. Why? What did you have in mind?”

“I’d like him to come over to PAL.” He gave her the address. “You can’t begin too early. He has the profile of a kid who needs help, and you have to straighten him out now.”

She knew he didn’t exaggerate. “All right. I’ll…I’ll send him.”

Her nerves shimmered when his hand covered hers in a gentle gesture of comfort. “One of the counsellors or officers will pick him up at three-thirty and bring him back before you close. Relax, now. He couldn’t be in better hands.”

She let herself luxuriate in the warmth that leaped out from him. She knew she should move her hand, but why couldn’t she enjoy his caring gesture for just a minute? He looked at her the way he had when they sat in that booth without speaking after their dinner—not searching or examining, just communicating in a most primal way. She wanted to ask him if he was telling her he liked her, but she didn’t.

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Be my friend, Luke, but please don’t spoil me. I’ve had too much of that. Do you understand?”

He clasped her hand more tightly, but he didn’t smile, and she wondered what had happened to the grin with which he’d mesmerized her Sunday evening.

“I understand,” he told her, “but you can’t assume that I’d treat you as your husband did. I believe in giving a person breathing space, and I like women who’re capable of standing on their own two feet.” He touched the brim of his cap. “I’ll drop by again to see how you’re getting on.”

He moved his hand, leaving her with a sense of loss. “Thanks, Luke, for…for everything.”

As he turned to go she amazed herself by saying, “I make great gingerbread. Randy’s crazy about it.”

His stare made her want to disappear, for he had to know that her remark had been an attempt to detain him. Then a grin began around his mouth and quickly covered his face in a smile that lit up everything around them. “You may never get rid of me. If you don’t make some soon, I’ll put in a request. Bet on that. Just thinking about gingerbread gives me a high.”

She joined in his merriment, more comfortable with him in the lightened mood. “Ever the officer. Imagine getting high on gingerbread. Well, if that’s what revs your engine.”

He grinned again and his left eye flicked in a deliberate wink. “That, and one or two other things. See you later.”

He strode toward the door with a seductive swing, as though his rhythmic gait had been choreographed by a master choreographer. My Lord, she thought, walking toward me or striding off, the man oozes sex appeal. She’d have her hands full trying not to become attached to him. He was used to giving orders, to controlling people, and she’d had enough of that. Her one priority was to establish her store in order to take care of Randy and herself. Falling for a man, even a handsome catch like Luke Hickson, didn’t fit into her plans. But oh, how tempting he was!

Chapter 2

No sooner had Luke gotten back to the precinct and settled down to work than Axel Strange strolled into his office without knocking and took a seat. Ten years on the force, nine of them at that precinct, and he still couldn’t warm up to the man.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

Axel leaned back in the chair and crossed his right leg over his left knee, as comfortable as if he were in his own office. “I’m told you know where the cutter is.”

Luke lay his pen beside his writing pad and prepared for some of Axel’s sleuthing. Something about Axel Strange reminded him of grease, always had. He never meant precisely what he said, leaving himself an out. His words had to be decoded. And just when you had to depend on him, he wasn’t there. The man never talked about himself, but he always had the goods on his fellow officers and didn’t mind talking about them. He didn’t exactly dislike Axel, but he was more comfortable when the man wasn’t around.

Luke let his gaze roam over Axel, cataloging the things that irked him. “Unless someone used that cutter after I did, it’s in its place. Why are you asking me, anyway? Speak to the sergeant in charge of storage.”

Axel shifted his demeanor from amiable to harsh, checked himself and produced another smile. “I just thought you’d know. By the way, who was the woman? I tell you, I couldn’t believe you spent most of your day off looking after some dame. Must be some dish, huh?”

Luke stiffened. A little of Axel could last him a long time. “Read the log, man. I’m sure it contains everything you need to know. Cowan’s on that beat, and he can handle anything that comes up. I’d better get busy.”

It surprised him that Axel didn’t move, and he wondered if he’d finally have to pull rank on the man.

“Rick—you know, the waiter at River Café—said you had a sharp-looking gal there with you last night that he didn’t recognize. Couldn’t have been the same woman, could it?”

Luke strummed his fingers on his desk, his patience waning. “I’m surprised you consider that your business. It isn’t.”

Axel’s smile was about what he expected, given that the man could back away from a position with the swiftness of an Indianapolis 500 racer. “Everybody’s curious about you, man. We’re all waiting for the boss to be had.”

Luke picked up his pen, signaling the conversation’s end. “Fortunately, I am not gullible enough to believe the men in this precinct have nothing better to think about than my private business. Since we’ve both got work to do, I suggest we get to it.”

The ugliness that glazed Axel Strange’s face so quickly that it was hardly discernible sent a shot of adrenaline streaking through Luke—pure animosity, and he knew he hadn’t imagined it. He’d never regarded the man as an enemy, and maybe he wasn’t, but he’d bear watching.

Luke missed his camaraderie with Jack McCarthy, whom he’d replaced as detective captain when the man retired, and he enjoyed an occasional lunch with him.

He sat at his favorite table in the River Café, facing the door, when the old man walked in, tall, straight and still striding with the regal bearing of a five-star general.

“Great to see you, Luke. How’s it going? Chopped any heads off yet?”

That brought a laugh from Luke because he’d come to expect that question whenever they met. “How are you, Jack? I haven’t, but my fingers are getting itchy.”

McCarthy ordered two beers for himself. “One of the rewards of retirement,” he explained. “How are you and Strange getting along?”

Luke cocked an eyebrow. “Fried Norfolk spots today,” he told the waiter before turning his attention to his friend. “Do you expect Axel to be a problem?”

Jack enjoyed his first swallow of beer, shook his head and laughed. “Luke, that man is a problem. Don’t you know he submitted a written application for every promotion you got? Of course, he lost to you every time. I told him it wasn’t even a contest. By the time I retired, he’d become obsessed with you. Wanted to know about your assignments, expense accounts, semiannual evaluations, and I don’t know what all. I told him the way to beat you was to do a better job.”