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He was standing right behind her, so close she could feel the warmth of his body against her own. She could also hear him breathing. She felt the hair at her crown stir. And heard his breathing quicken.
‘You smell like peaches.’ His voice was low, sexy, seductive.
She wanted to move, but she was trapped between him and the sink. Besides, she doubted her shaky legs were capable of taking her anywhere. Her finger under the cold tap began to feel numb. She noticed the bleeding had stopped, and she tugged her hand free from his grasp.
He swung her around, and his eyes were dark. ‘Do you taste like peaches?’
He held her right shoulder with his left hand, and with his other, brushed a finger lightly down her left cheek; trailed it across to the corner of her mouth; let the tip linger. ‘I know you’d like me to find out.’
She wanted to jerk her face back, but his blue eyes had hypnotized her into immobility. ‘You’re crazy!’
‘I know you’re attracted to me. I could tell by the way your pupils dilated, when we were discussing who would sleep where—and with whom...’
His words drew all the strength from her body. ‘You’re crazy,’ she repeated, this time in a thready whisper.
‘Am I?’ The back of his fingernail scraped across her teeth. ‘And what about you? Are you ... greedy?’ His voice had all at once become angry, bitter. ‘As greedy...as your mother was?’
He’d been playing with her; testing her...
Cheeks burning with humiliation and resentment, she shoved him away from her abruptly.
He laughed, and the harsh sound grated in her ears. She wanted to press her hands to them, to blank out the sound. But she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
‘If you’ll get out of here,’ she said in a glacial tone, ‘I’ll finish up. It’s been an exhausting day and I’m going to have an early night—’
‘I’ll clean up.’
‘No, I’ll clean up!’
‘You’ve already cut yourself once. You want me to have to play doctor again? You want more of that? Okay, then, go ahead.’
She couldn’t win; not with this man. But she really was all in; she felt as if she would keel over, any minute now—
Impatiently, he barked, ‘Well?’
‘All right. I’ll go.’ She hesitated. ‘But... what about...won’t you...need any help with...the baby?’
‘I can manage just fine, without having to resort to anyone...particularly a female...for help.’
‘Well, good for you! But don’t forget...I did offer.’
On her way out, she slammed the door behind her... hard.
A knockout. That’s what he’d called her.
And the image of her mother.
Green eyes dark with distress, Whitney drew the bristle brush through her glossy red hair one last time, before putting the brush down on the dresser. Then rising from the padded stool, she crossed to the wardrobe and slid open the bottom drawer. From under a pile of assorted cashmere sweaters, she extricated a silver-framed photograph.
A picture of her mother...and Luke’s father, Ben.
For the past thirteen years Whitney had kept it hidden. She’d taken it out only when she was alone...and had become adept at quickly tucking it away at the sound of Cressida’s light tap on her door.
She’d hated acting so furtively, despite doing so with the best of intentions... and even now, even knowing Cressida was beyond being hurt, she couldn’t help feeling guilty.
But there was no reason to.
She had done nothing wrong.
It was her mother who had done that. Adultery could never be excused, no matter the circumstances-
Whitney gave herself a shake and reined in her drifting thoughts. She must go to bed; she needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow, she’d have to cope with Luke.
Until Edmund Maxwell could get her the ammunition she required to get rid of her unwanted guest, she’d have to find a way to divide the house between them, so she could avoid him as much as possible. He would fight the idea, of course. He would want to have the run of the place as he had done when he was growing up. She’d better have her wits about her. He would be a crafty opponent.
Pushing herself to her feet, she crossed to the dresser and defiantly set up the framed picture.
There was no longer any need to hide it. Only one person in the world could conceivably be offended by its presence here at Brannigan House...
Luke.
And if she was sure of nothing else, she was sure of this: It would be a frosty Friday indeed before she’d ever invite that man into her bedroom!
‘Ah, you’re up.’ Luke closed his bedroom door behind him just as Whitney came out of her own room the next morning. ‘Do you normally lie in bed this late?’
Coffee. Whitney swept past him and made for the stairs. She always needed that first cup of coffee to get her going... but today, she needed it much more than she normally did, in order to be able to cope with this man.
‘One could hardly sleep with that racket you’ve been making in the attic,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I assume,’ she added, as she ran down the stairs with his heavy tread not far behind her, ‘you found what you needed?’
‘Yup. Everything’s washed down, and I have the cot mattress airing in front of the living room fire.’
Hand on the banister, she jolted to a stop, and looked back up at him with an eyebrow cocked ironically. ‘So you’re not above setting a fire and getting it going?’
‘Needs must, when the devil drives.’
‘Whom.’
‘Whom what?’
“‘He must needs go whom the devil doth drive.’”
‘So...you got yourself an education while I’ve been away. And who paid for that, I wonder?’
She subjected him to a rigid glance but wasn’t so angry that she didn’t see, before she jerked her gaze away again, that he was wearing a crisp white T-shirt and black jeans. In that one glance she’d also noticed that his hair was still damp from his shower, and that he’d shaved; the cleft on his chin was now visible—a cleft she’d forgotten was there. Thirteen years was a long time, after all...and she’d been just twelve when she’d known him before.
Known him...she smiled self-derisively as she stalked to the kitchen...now that was a misnomer. She’d never known him. They’d lived in the same house for a few months, that was all—the most awful months of her life. She’d just lost her mother; and she’d cowed in terror as Luke had fought savagely with his grandmother over the elderly woman’s decision to give a home to this girl Luke hated so viciously.
The ongoing battle had culminated in that last, dreadful row, when Luke had called her those ugly names, yelling them at her, after describing her mother and Ben Brannigan in words she’d never heard before and didn’t understand.
But Cressida had heard ... and she had understood.
Shaking with anger, she’d ordered Luke to apologize or get out.
He’d shouted that he was going to leave.
And she’d called after him not to come back, then, till he was ready to say he was sorry.
He’d never, apparently, been ready to do so.
And it wasn’t till Whitney was almost fourteen that she realized Luke’s leaving had broken his grand-mother’s heart.
‘You ought to try to find him,’ Whitney had said one day, stumblingly.
‘I have my pride, child.’ Cressida had replied, her slender back ramrod straight as always. ‘I have my pride.’
And was it pride that had kept Luke away?
But even if she knew the answer to that, Whitney reflected, what good would it do now?
‘I’m going to make coffee.’ She pushed the kitchen door open and went in. ‘And then we’ll talk. We have things to discuss.’
He leaned back against the fridge as she poured cold water into the coffeemaker. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘about my grandmother. She’d been ill for some time?’
‘She fell a year ago and broke her hip. It seemed to be taking a long time to heal so the doctors ran some tests. They discovered a tumor—’ Whitney cleared her throat of a sudden huskiness. ‘Strong coffee okay with you?’
‘Stronger the better.’
She measured eight scoops into the filter, and switched on the coffeemaker. ‘She was very weak by the time they sent her home from hospital, and for the next ten months or so, she passed most of her time in bed.’
‘And in pain?’
‘Yes.’ Understatement of the century.
‘Why the hell didn’t you try to contact me?’
‘She didn’t want me to.’
He swore vehemently.
‘You had thirteen years.’ Her tone was heavily laced with accusation. ‘Why did you never come home?’
‘She told me to leave.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you sound like a spoiled child! All you had to do was say you were sorry.’
‘I wasn’t sorry.’ He pushed himself from the fridge and crossed to the sink. Grasping the countertop edge with white-knuckled hands, he stared out the uncurtained window. ‘What my grandmother did—taking you in—was unforgivable.’
‘Your grandmother was a warm and compassionate woman.’ Whitney fought to keep control of her emotions. ‘I know it must have been hard for you to understand her actions—after all, you were only seventeen and had been very badly hurt—’
‘I wasn’t thinking of myself!’ He whirled around and his eyes reflected more than a decade of built-up pent-up resentment at her. ‘I was thinking of my mother. Of what they—my father and your mother—had done to her—’
‘Don’t!’ Shaking, Whitney put up her hands to stop him. ‘Please don’t let’s start all this over again. I do understand why you’re so resentful, but, Luke, for your own sanity you have to put it all behind you—’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? Don’t you think I’ve tried to forgive? To forgive and forget? What do you think it did to me, walking away from my grandmother, the one person in the world who meant anything to me? And now—’ he swung an arm out wildly ‘—to come back to this house, and find I’m too late—my God, it’s ripping me apart!’
Taut silence vibrated through the kitchen following Luke’s outburst, a silence suddenly broken by the wavering cry of a baby.
Whitney looked around confusedly.
Luke exhaled a heavy breath, and said wearily, ‘It’s the baby monitor. Over by the bread bin.’
She saw it then, a blue-and-white gadget, with a red light flickering.
‘I haven’t seen one of those before.’ Her voice came out stiltedly, but she kept going. ‘You leave one part in the baby’s room, and set the other up wherever you are?’
‘That’s right. I’ll just go up and fetch him...’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Troy,’ he said over his shoulder, as he left the room.
Troy. Short for Troilus? The names Troilus and Cressida were indelibly linked in literature; had Luke, despite his estrangement from his grandmother, remembered the elderly woman with love as he’d chosen a name for his son?
When he returned, the coffee was ready, and she’d just filled two mugs and put sugar and cream in her own.
She’d been determined to keep any communication between them on a purely impersonal and businesslike level, but she made the fatal mistake of looking at the baby in his arms.
‘Why...he’s dark!’
‘I guess you didn’t see him without his hat yesterday.’ Luke ruffled his son’s wispy black hair, and the child chuckled and blew out a bubble. His lashes were as dark as his hair, but he had his father’s blue eyes. He was wearing a red sweatshirt, with a pair of red corduroy dungarees.
He was beautiful, adorable...and he melted her heart.
‘Could you unhitch that tray,’ Luke said, ‘so I can get him into his seat? Those catches baffled me.’
It took Whitney a couple of moments to get the hang of them herself, but she finally managed. After Luke had seated the baby, she clicked it in place again.
‘So...’ She stepped back, uncomfortably aware of his closeness. ‘What does he have for breakfast?’
‘Today, he’ll have a banana and toast, some milk...’
‘I don’t have any bananas—’
‘I’ve brought enough food to last him a couple of days. Then I thought,’ he went on as he took a brown bag from the fridge, ‘you might drive me into town and I can stock up on supplies. My credit was always good at Stanley’s corner store, so I’m sure it’ll—’
‘Jim Stanley died years ago. His store was bulldozed, and you’ll find a superstore there now. You’ll have to go to the bank, if you’ve no money...and get a loan.’
He toppled the contents of the bag on the table: a bunch of ripe bananas, a small loaf of bread, a container of wheat germ, a pint carton of skim milk. ‘To get a loan, a person needs collateral. Looks as if I’m going to be depending on you for supplies. But Troy and I don’t eat much—do we, monster?’ He grinned down at the baby, and the baby grinned back—showing two small white teeth—as if they were sharing some huge joke.
