A Christmas Blessing

“How should I know?” she snapped unreasonably.

Luke’s gaze caught hers. “You okay?”

“Just peachy.”

His expression softened. “Aw, Jessie, don’t start panicking now. The worst is over.”

“But I don’t know what to do,” she countered, unexpectedly battling tears. “I have three more classes to take just to learn how to breathe right for the delivery, and a whole stack of baby books to read, and I was going to fix up a nursery.” She sobbed, “I…I even…bought the wallpaper.”

Her sobs seemed to alarm him, but Luke stayed right where he was. Her presence here might be a burden, her tears a nuisance, but he didn’t bolt, as many men might have. Once more that unflappable response calmed Jessie.

“Seems to me you can forget the classes,” he observed dryly, teasing a smile from her. “As for the wallpaper, you’ll get to it when you can. I doubt Angela will have much to say about the decor, as long as her bed’s warm and dry. And babies were being born and fed long before anybody thought to write parenting books. If you’re not up to nursing her yet, it seems to me I heard babies can have a little sugar water.”

“How would you know a thing like that?”

“I was trapped once in a doctor’s office with only some magazines on parenting to read.”

His gaze landed on her breasts, then shifted away immediately. Jessie felt her breasts swell where his gaze had touched. Her nipples hardened. The effect could have been achieved because of the natural changes in her body over the past twenty-four hours, but she didn’t think that was it. Luke had always had that effect on her. A single look had been capable of making her weak in the knees. She had despised that responsiveness in herself. She was no prouder of it now.

“I have a hunch that left to your own devices, the two of you can figure it out,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone. I’ve got chores to do, anyway.”

He headed for the door as if he couldn’t get away from the two of them fast enough. Jessie glanced up at him then and saw that, while his cheeks were an embarrassed red, there was an expression in his eyes that was harder to read. Wistfulness, maybe? Sorrow? Regret?

“You’ll holler if you need me?” he said as he edged through the doorway. Despite the offer of help, he sounded as if he hoped he’d never have to make good on it.

“You’d better believe it,” she said.

A slow, unexpected grin spread across his face. “And I guess we both know what a powerful set of lungs you’ve got. I’m surprised the folks on every other ranch in the county haven’t shown up by now to see what all the fuss was about.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t mention that,” she teased.

“Probably not,” he agreed. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, his expression turned dark and forbidding. “It would be a mistake to think that I’m a gentleman, Jessie. A big mistake.”

The warning startled her, coming as it did on the heels of hours of gentle kindness. She couldn’t guess why Luke was suddenly so determined to put them back on the old, uneasy footing, especially since they were likely to be stranded together for some time if the snow kept up through the day as it seemed set on doing.

Maybe it was for the best, though. She didn’t want to forget what had happened to Erik. And she certainly didn’t want to be disloyal to her husband by starting to trust the man who rightly or wrongly held himself responsible for Erik’s death. That would be the worst form of betrayal, worse in some ways perhaps than the secret, unbidden responses of her body. Luke had delivered her baby. She might be grateful for that, but it didn’t put the past to rest.

“Well, Angela, I guess we’re just going to have to make the best of this,” she murmured.

Even as she spoke, she wasn’t entirely certain whether she was referring to her first fumbling attempt at breast-feeding or to the hours, maybe even days she was likely to spend in Luke’s deliberately ill-tempered company. Days, she knew, she was likely to spend worrying over how great the temptation was to forgive him for what he’d done.

* * *

An hour later, the chores done, Luke stood in the doorway of his bedroom, a boulder-size lump lodged in his throat as he watched Jessie sleeping. The apparently well-fed and contented baby was nestled in her arms, her tiny bottom now covered in bright blue plaid. Erik’s baby, he reminded himself sharply, when longing would have him claiming her—claiming both of them—for his own.

Sweet Jesus, how was he supposed to get through the next few days until the storm ended, the phone lines were up and the roads were cleared enough for him to get word to his family to hightail it over here and take Jessie off his hands? He’d gotten through the night only because he’d been in a daze and because there were so many things to be done that he hadn’t had time to think or feel. Now that his head was clear and the crisis was past, he was swamped with feelings he had no right having.

He forced himself to back away from the door and head for his office. He supposed he could barricade himself inside and give Jessie the run of the house. He doubted she would need explanations for his desire to stay out of her path. Now that her baby was safely delivered, she would no doubt be overjoyed to see the last of him.

Last night had been about need and urgency. They had faced a genuine crisis together and survived. In the calm light of today, though, that urgency was past. He could retreat behind his cloak of guilt. Jessie would never have to know what sweet torment the past few hours had been.

He actually managed to convince himself that hiding out was possible as morning turned into afternoon without a sound from his bedroom. He napped on the sofa in his office off and on, swearing to himself that he was simply too tired to climb the stairs to one of the guest suites. The pitiful truth of it was that he wanted to be within earshot of the faintest cry from either Jessie or the baby. A part of him yearned to be the one they depended on.

Shortly before dusk, he headed back to the barn to feed the horses and Chester. The wind was still howling, creating drifts of snow that made the walk laborious. Still, he couldn’t help relishing the cold. It wiped away the last traces of fog from his head. He vowed then and there that no matter how bad things got, he would never, ever try to down an entire bottle of whiskey on his own again. The brief oblivion wasn’t worth the hangover. And he hoped like hell he never again had to perform anything as important as delivering a baby with his brain clouded as it had been the night before.

He lingered over the afternoon chores as long as he could justify. He even sat for a while, doling out pieces of apple to the goat, muttering under his breath about the insanity of his feelings for a woman so far beyond his reach. Chester seemed to understand, which was more than he could say for himself.

When he realized he was about to start polishing his already well-kept saddle for the second time in a single day, he forced himself back to the house and the emotional dangers inside. Chester, sensing his indecisiveness, actually butted him gently toward the door.

The back door was barely closed behind him when he heard the baby’s cries. He stopped in his tracks and waited for Jessie’s murmured attempts to soothe her daughter. Instead, the howls only escalated.

Shrugging off his coat and tossing it in the general direction of the hook on the wall, Luke cautiously headed for the bedroom. He found Jessie still sound asleep, while Angela kicked and screamed beside her. Luke grinned. The kid had unquestionably inherited Jessie’s powerful set of lungs. Definitely opera singer caliber.

Taking pity on her worn-out mama, he scooped the baby into his arms and carried her into the kitchen. Once there, he was at a loss.

He held the tiny bundle aloft and stared into wide, innocent eyes that shimmered with tears. “So, kid, it looks like it’s just you and me for the time being. Your mama’s tuckered out. Can’t say I blame her. Getting you into the world was a lot of hard work.”

The flood of tears dried up. Angela’s gaze remained fixed on his face so attentively that Luke was encouraged to go on. “Seems to me that both of us have a lot to learn,” he said, keeping his voice low and even, in a tone he hoped might lull her back to sleep. “For instance, I don’t know if you were screaming your head off in there because you’re hungry or because you’re soaking wet or because you’re just in need of a little attention.”

He patted her bottom as he spoke. It was dry. She blew a bubble, which didn’t answer the question but indicated Luke was definitely on the right track.

“I’m guessing attention,” he said. “I’m also guessing that won’t last. Any minute now that pretty little face of yours is going to turn red and you’re going to be bellowing to be fed. Seems a shame to wake your mama up, though. How about we try to improvise?”

Angela waved her fist in what he took for an approving gesture.

“Okay, then. A little sugar water ought to do it.” Cradling her in one arm, he ran some water into a pan, added a little sugar and turned on the burner to warm it. Unfortunately, getting it from the saucepan into the baby required a little more ingenuity.

Luke considered the possibilities. A medicine dropper might work. He’d nourished a few abandoned animals that way as a kid, as well as an entire litter of kittens when the mother’d been killed. One glance into Angela’s darkening expression told him he was going to have to do better than that and fast.

“Chester,” he muttered in a sudden burst of inspiration. When the old goat had wandered into the path of a mean-spirited bull, Luke had wound up nursing him with a baby bottle for months while he recovered. Where the hell had he put the bottle?

Angela whimpered a protest at the delay.

“Shhh, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be just dandy,” he promised as he yanked open every single cupboard door in the kitchen. Consuela had the whole place so organized that a single old baby bottle should have stood out like a sore thumb. If it was there, though, he couldn’t find it, which meant it was probably out in the barn. He couldn’t very well take the baby out there looking for it.

“Damn!” he muttered under his breath.

Huge tears spilled down the baby’s cheeks. Obviously she sensed that his plan was falling apart. Any second now she was clearly going to make her impatience known with angry, ear-splitting screams.

“Hey,” Luke soothed. “Have I let you down yet?”

Spying Consuela’s rubber gloves beside the sink, he had another flash of inspiration. He snatched them up, put another pot of water on to boil, then tossed the gloves in to sterilize them. He found a sewing kit in a drawer, extracted a needle and tossed that in as well.

So far, so good, he reassured himself. The problem came when he judged everything to be sterile. He couldn’t poke a hole in one of the glove’s fingers and then fill it with warm water while still holding the baby. He grabbed a roasting pan that looked to be about the right size, padded it with a couple of clean dish towels and settled the baby onto the makeshift bed. Judging from the shade of red that her face turned, she was not happy about being abandoned.

“It’s only for a minute,” he promised her as he completed the preparations by tying a bit of string tightly around the top of the glove. He eyed the water-filled thumb of the glove with skepticism, waiting for the contents to gush out, but it appeared the hole he’d made was just right. He held it triumphantly where Angela could see it. “There! Now didn’t I tell you we could manage this? We’re a hell of a team, angel.”

He picked her up, then sank onto one of the hard kitchen chairs and offered her the improvised bottle. Her mouth clamped on it eagerly and within seconds she was sucking noisily. Luke regarded her with pride.

“You are brilliant,” he applauded. “Absolutely the smartest baby ever born.”

“You’re pretty smart yourself,” a sleepy—and damnably sexy—voice commented.

Luke’s heart slammed against his ribs. He refused to look up, refused to permit himself so much as a single glance at the tousled hair or bare legs or full, swollen breasts he’d dreamed about too many times to count.

Unfortunately Jessie pulled out a chair smack in his line of vision. She was still wearing his shirt, which came barely to mid-thigh. Her shapely legs were in full view. How many times had he envisioned those legs clamped around him as he made love to her? Enough to condemn his spirit to eternal hell, no doubt about it.

“Feeling rested?” he inquired huskily, keeping his eyes determinedly on the baby he held.

“Some. When did the baby wake up?”

“About a half hour ago. She was hungry.”

“So I see.”

He could feel a dull, red flush climbing into his cheeks. “I didn’t want to wake you. I figured we could manage. It gave me a chance to test that theory I read. Seems to be working. She likes it.”

“I’m impressed.”

He stood so suddenly that the makeshift bottle slid from Angela’s mouth. She protested loudly. Luke shoved both baby and water into Jessie’s arms.

“I have work to do.” There was no mistaking the sudden expression of dismay in Jessie’s eyes, the flicker of hurt at his harsh tone. He managed to grit out a few more words before fleeing. “Help yourself to whatever you need. I’ll be in my office.”

“Luke, you don’t have to run off,” she said quietly.

Something in her tone drew his gaze back to her face. The longing he read there shook him more than anything that had happened so far. “Yes, I do,” he said tightly.

“Please, I’d like the company.”

“No.” He practically shouted the word as he bolted.

Her expression stayed with him. Had it truly been longing, he wondered to himself when he was safely away from the kitchen, a locked oak door between him and temptation. Surely he’d been mistaken. No sooner had he reached that conclusion than he cursed himself for a fool. Of course, Jessie was yearning for something right now, but not for him.

No, he told himself sternly, that look had been meant for her husband. It was only natural at a time like this that she would be thinking of Erik, missing him, wishing that he were the one beside her as she fed their first precious baby. Luke was nothing more than a poor substitute.

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.”

“They will if Daddy pays them enough,” Luke retorted dryly.

“Well, I won’t have it,” Jessie retorted with a familiar touch of defiance. “Nobody needs to risk a life on my account. The baby and I are perfectly fine here with you and I intend to tell Harlan exactly that.”

Luke had to admire the show of gumption. Obviously, though, Jessie hadn’t had to stand up to his father when he got a notion into his head. To save her the fight she couldn’t win, he found himself saying, “Maybe it would be best not to make that call, then.”

Jessie actually looked as if she was considering it. “But they’ll be worried sick about me not showing up last night,” she said eventually. “I have to let them know I’m okay.”

So, reason had prevailed after all. Luke was more disappointed than he cared to admit.

“Darlin’, they’ve seen the weather,” he said, beginning a token and quite probably futile argument, one he had no business making in the first place. Perversity kept him talking, though. “Their phone lines are probably down, too. They’ll understand that you probably had to stop along the way and can’t get through to let them know.”

“Not five seconds ago you were telling me I didn’t know your daddy. Now who’s kidding himself? Harlan probably has a search party organized. The Texas Rangers are probably out on full alert, sweeping the highways for signs of my car.”

There was no denying the truth of that. Luke stood. “Then I suppose we’d better head them off at the pass. I’ll get the phone.”

He grabbed his heavy sheepskin jacket from the peg by the back door, realizing as he did that Jessie must have hung it there. As he recalled, he’d merely tossed it in that general direction when he’d heard the baby crying earlier. As he pulled it on, he could almost feel her touch. He imagined there was even the faint, lingering scent of her caught up in the fabric.

Outside, the swirling snow and bitter cold cleared his head and wiped away the dangerous sense of cozy familiarity he’d begun to feel sitting at that old oak table with Jessie across from him. He took his time getting Jessie’s belongings from her car, then lingered a little longer in the cab of his truck.