by Lisa Jackson
The crowd laughed, and Katie glanced up at Luke, who managed a smile.
“Silly, huh?”
“But fun,” he conceded, staring so deeply into her eyes that she had to swallow hard, and her mouth lost all moisture. “I…I…uh, need to talk to Tiffany,” she said to break the spell, the pure madness that seemed to be a part of the night.
Sometime near eleven, Mr. and Mrs. Mason Lafferty ran out the front door of the hotel and, while being showered with birdseed, ducked into a long white limo that idled near the front steps. As the guests waved and shouted, the newlyweds roared away. Katie felt a faint twinge of envy, then told herself she was being a romantic twit. She was glad that Bliss and Mason were together, thrilled that Tiffany had found J.D. to become her husband as well as a stepfather to Stephen and Christina. What was right for her half sisters didn’t necessarily mean that she wanted the same thing. She couldn’t. She didn’t dare let her heart be broken again.
They lingered for a while, dancing, talking with friends and sipping coffee as the crowd thinned. She wandered on to the veranda, but Luke grabbed hold of her arm.
“Let’s stay inside.”
“Are you kidding? It must be a hundred degrees in here.” She winked at him and, tugging on his hand, dragged him outside. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to be alone with me, Gates.”
“That’s not it—”
“Good.”
Ignoring the look of unwarranted consternation that twisted his features, she walked across the flagstones and leaned over the rail. From far below, the sound of the creek tumbling over stones and exposed roots reached her ears.
“Tell me about the letter you got,” he said, resting a hip against the stone railing and folding his arms over his chest. He stared down into the canyon, his eyes narrowing as if he were searching for something. Or someone. “The one that’s supposed to be from Isaac Wells.”
“I take it you read the article in the Review.”
“Every word.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” she teased, then added, “Really, there’s not much more to say. I received the note, gave the original to the police and wrote the article. I don’t know if it’s phony or real.” She turned her palms upward. “I guess time will tell.”
“Could be dangerous,” Luke mused aloud, though his gaze was still searching, his eyes narrowed against the darkness that escaped the wash of light from the hotel’s security lamps. “A nutcase.”
“You sound like Jarrod.”
“Just be careful.”
She lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “You think I’m in some kind of danger?”
“I don’t know that you’re in danger, Katie, but, yeah, it could be trouble.”
“Maybe.” A needle of fear pierced her heart. How many times had she told herself just the same thing?
“It doesn’t worry you? You’re a mother and—”
“And what I do shouldn’t worry you,” she interrupted as her anger suddenly flared. Who was he to insinuate that she was messing up her life? She couldn’t control her tongue. “If I didn’t make it clear before, let me assure you I don’t need another brother, okay? Three half brothers add up to too many—way too many when it comes to giving advice about my life.” Turning quickly and seething deep inside, she headed toward the French doors. The last thing she needed—the very last thing—was a man telling her what to do.
Before she’d taken three steps he grabbed her elbow, spun her around and kissed her so hard she didn’t know what hit her. She gasped as hot, demanding lips crashed over hers and strong arms surrounded her waist, dragging her close. She started to protest, to push away, but his hands splayed against the exposed skin of her back, and a tingle of excitement sped through her blood.
Don’t do this, Katie. Don’t kiss him. This was what was dangerous—emotionally dangerous. Not the Isaac Wells case.
But she didn’t stop, and the sound of wanting that reached her ears came from her own throat. Oh, Lord, what was she thinking?
With all her strength she pushed away. “Is—is that what you do?” she asked, drawing in a shaky breath and hating herself for how weak she was when it came to him. “When a woman gets into an argument with you, do you always grab her and kiss her just to make her shut up?”
“Most women don’t get me so riled up,” he admitted.
“Don’t they? Well, good. That’s very good. For you. Because these Neanderthal, 1950s B-movie tactics are…are…” Damn the man! He was actually smiling, amused by her reaction. Her fists balled in frustration.
“Are what? Effective?”
“I was going to say boorish, or antiquated, or, at the very least, rude and entirely unacceptable!”
He laughed then. Threw back his head so that his blond hair brushed the collar of his shirt and he laughed.
“This is not funny!” She almost stomped her foot, then decided she’d look even more adolescent than she felt. “Good night, Luke. The evening has been… entertaining, but I think I’d better leave now.”
“And back off from a fight?” he challenged.
Though she knew she was being goaded, she couldn’t stop herself. Like a trout spying a salmon fly on a hook, she rose swiftly to the bait. “I’m not backing off from anything, Gates. If you don’t know anything else about me, you should at least figure out that I’m dogged, not afraid of too much, and never, never duck an argument.” She was about to say more when Josh, who had somehow rediscovered his crutches, hobbled onto the patio, and Katie, wondering if her skin was as inflamed as it felt, told herself to count to ten and cool off.
“Is it okay if I spend the night with Stephen?” he asked.
“But you’re still recovering.”
“I’ll be good. Promise.” Josh flashed her his most engaging smile just as Stephen, eating a piece of wedding cake, sauntered outside. His hair was unruly, his tie was dangling from his neck and he licked a spot of icing from the corner of his mouth.
“Why doesn’t Stephen come over to our house?” Katie asked, trying not to remember that Luke was standing only inches from her, that he kissed her like no other man had ever kissed her, that she didn’t know quite how to handle her wayward emotions whenever he was near.
“’Cause we’re gonna camp out in the backyard.”
Tiffany and J.D. joined the group. J.D. was carrying an exhausted Christina, whose usually springy curls were as droopy as her eyelids. Her head was nestled against J.D.’s shoulder, and she yawned broadly. “I take it you’ve already heard?” Tiffany asked, nodding toward the boys.
“Sounds like they’ve already cooked up plans.” Katie eyed her son and his crutches. “He really should come home and elevate the foot and—”
“Aw, Mom…I’m okay.” To prove his point, Josh lifted both crutches in the air and walked without so much as a limp. “I’m better. A lot better. Besides, it’s almost our house, isn’t it?”
“Not quite,” Katie said, but shrugged. “It’s all right with me if you’re sure—” She looked at Tiffany who nodded. “I’ll see he takes care of that ankle, and in the morning, if he’s up to it, he can help Stephen pack his room.”
“He doesn’t have his pajamas—”
“Don’t need ‘em,” Josh said.
“But I don’t want you sleeping in your church clothes. I’ll stop by the cottage and pick up anything you need.”
“I said I don’t need anything,” Josh insisted.
“He’s probably right,” Tiffany agreed. “We have double of just about anything he could want. He can have something Stephen’s grown out of.”
Josh threw Katie a look that begged her to give in.
“If you’re sure,” she said to Tiffany.
“Positive.”
“Okay. I’ll call you in the morning.” Katie planted a kiss on her son’s cheek, and he made a hasty retreat on his crutches. Tiffany and J.D. ushered the kids through the ballroom and out a side entrance. As Katie watched them leave, she realized that she’d just lost
her ride. “Oh, wait,” she called after them. “I need a lift home…”
Luke grabbed her again. “Don’t worry about it,” he said as she turned and saw the smoky blue of his eyes.
“But—”
“I’ll take you home, Katie. It would be my pleasure.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
In her driveway, Luke braked and cut the engine of his pickup. Katie reached for the door handle. Once before, she’d been in this very truck with the night closing in on them and had felt the sheer intimacy of the moment as he’d kissed her. She didn’t want a repeat of that incident. Or at least, she tried to convince herself that she didn’t. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Maybe I should come in and see that everything’s okay.”
Her heart nearly stopped. She heard the ticking of the engine as it cooled and the jingle of his keys as he pulled them from the ignition.
“Okay? What wouldn’t be okay?” she asked, buying time. Part of her was tempted to invite him in, to take a chance; the other, more sane portion of her mind warned her that she was only asking for trouble. Begging for it. The kind of trouble she didn’t need and couldn’t deal with. This man was linked to Ralph Sorenson, Josh’s grandfather. “For what?” she asked, shoving her shoulder against the door while trying to ignore her elevating pulse and dry mouth. Come on, Katie, let him in. What would it hurt?
“I’m not sure. But it’s just a feeling I’ve got that something isn’t right.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a worrywart?”
“A few people,” he said and climbed out of the cab.
Blue gave a soft bark as Katie inserted her key into the dead bolt and discovered the door unlocked. “That’s odd,” she said, dropping her keys into her purse. Frowning to herself she walked into the kitchen. “I’m sure I locked it.”
“You remember doing it?”
“No…” Flipping on the kitchen lights she tried to think over the rapid beating of her heart. Blue’s toenails clicked on the linoleum as he greeted her with a wagging tail and lowered head. “It was real crazy,” she said, dropping her purse on the table as she scratched Blue behind his ears. “We were running late. Josh had trouble with the knot of his tie and then had a fit about having to use the crutches, and the next thing I knew, Tiffany was knocking on the back door.” She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “I don’t remember, but I always lock it. It’s habit.”
Luke’s gaze was thoughtful. Worried. Katie felt suddenly awkward. “Would you like…some coffee or soda or…anything?” Why did the question sound so lame?
“I’m fine.” Jaw set, he strode through the kitchen and into the living room to her desk. Without asking, he pushed the Play button on the answering machine.
“Hey, wait! You can’t—”
The machine clicked as someone hung up.
Katie’s stomach curled, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. “Who was that?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Luke scanned the desk area. “Just about everyone you know was at Bliss’s wedding tonight, right?”
“Of course, but—”
“So who would have expected you to be home?”
“No one,” she thought aloud, her skin crawling at the thought that someone might actually be watching her. “You think it might have something to do with the letter?”
“I don’t know. It could be just a mistake, a wrong number, but it might be a crank—either this Wells character or someone looking for him.” His gaze fastened on hers. He was stone-cold sober. “But your door was unlocked. Someone could have been in here.”
Her knees threatened to give way at the thought.
She laughed a little nervously. “I can’t believe—”
“Sure you can. Now take a look around. Does anything seem out of place?”
Walking slowly through her few cluttered rooms, she eyed her belongings, touched a few pieces of furniture and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was just as she and Josh had left it when they had rushed out of the house and into J.D.’s Jeep. She would have sworn that, out of habit more than anything else, she had locked the door behind her.
“Nothing seems to be missing or out of place,” she told Luke.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure.”
“Would your dog have allowed anyone inside?”
“Probably, but I don’t really think anyone was here,” she said, though she had a severe case of the creeps. Thinking that an intruder, a stranger, had been in her house—in Josh’s room, for crying out loud—caused a chill in her blood as cold as all November.
“Maybe you should call the police.”
“And tell them what? That I left the door unlocked? That I think someone was in here, but nothing is missing or out of place, that someone has been calling and hanging up? What could they possibly do?”
“Stake out the place?”
“On what? Your hunch? Just because I got a letter from Isaac Wells?”
“Yes.”
She almost laughed. “Even in a small town like Bittersweet, the police have better things to do.”
Scowling, he paced to the front window and stared through the plate glass to the yard. Even with the glow of the street lamp at the corner, it was dark. “I suppose you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
“Sure, there is,” he said, slowly turning to face her. “I can stay here.”
“What?” Was he out of his mind? “Here? No way.” She couldn’t believe her ears. Although a secret little part of her was pleased, the other saner, more rational side of her nature was scared to death.
“On the couch.”
“I don’t want a bodyguard!” she snapped, throwing up a hand. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. It’s…it’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t think so.” He was firm, his jaw set, his gaze steady. He looked like a man who wouldn’t be swayed. But the thought of him in the house alone with her, even on the couch, was unnerving. “I’ll be fine. Blue’s here with me.”
“What if the guy has a key?”
“A key? Wait a minute. I don’t think there is a guy, and if there was, why would he have a key to my house?”
“Don’t you have one hidden outside for Josh?”
“Yes, but—” She felt the color drain from her face. Was it possible? “You’re spooking me, Gates.”
“Just trying to get you to see the possibilities.”
She went to the back porch, skimmed her fingers over the ledge above the door and found the key. “Still here,” she said, holding it up for Luke’s inspection. The metal glinted in the glare of the single bulb burning over the door.
“Good. Bring it inside.”
“No one was here,” she insisted as she tossed the key into a kitchen drawer and met him in the archway to the living room. “You’re borrowing trouble.”
“Maybe.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
A million reasons. I can’t trust myself around you. I don’t know you. Having you in my house is more emotionally dangerous than anything. “I hardly know you.”
As if he could read her mind, he grinned—a wide, sexy smile that did considerable damage to her self-control. “Maybe this is a way to get to know me better.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
His eyes said he didn’t believe her. “I’ll stay on the couch. Believe me, your virtue is safe with me.”
“My ‘virtue’?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “My virtue? Are you crazy, or what? You think I’m worried about my inability to say no to you?” If it wasn’t so near the truth, it would have been funny.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Of all the conceited, self-centered, egotistical ideas I’ve ever heard… Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, following him down the short hallway to her bedroom. He shoved open the door and
strode inside as if he’d done it all his life, as if it were his damned right!
Her heart was in her throat as he strode to her sleigh bed in the center of the room. “Luke, you can’t—”
He threw back the covers, grabbed a pillow, then reached for the blanket folded over the foot of her bed, an antique quilt her great-great-grandmother had pieced from scraps seventy-five years earlier. “I’ll be out there,” he said, his smile disappearing as he hitched his chin toward the door, “in the living room. You stay in the bedroom.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue.” To her surprise he reached forward, grabbed hold of her arms, yanked her close and kissed her hard. She opened her mouth to protest, and his tongue slid past her lips and beyond the barrier of her teeth. Steely fingers clenched her forearms. She tried to concentrate, to find the words to disagree with his high-handed tactics, to tell him exactly what he could do with all his good intentions, but she was lost.
A small moan escaped his throat, and her heart pounded expectantly. His tongue touched hers, explored the roof of her mouth, and a thrill, hot and wanton, swept through her blood. She told herself she was being foolish, that she shouldn’t let him touch her, but she couldn’t stop herself. She heard the zipper of her dress hiss open, felt the cool air touch her back where the silky fabric parted, experienced a rush of desire as the tips of his fingers, callused and blunt, brushed across her skin.
A thousand warning bells rang through her mind as he kissed her cheeks and eyes and throat, but she ignored them all. Her neck arched as her head lolled back, and his lips found the shell of her ear.
Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Her mind screamed as her legs buckled, and Luke caught her, sweeping her off her feet. This is madness! Katie, use your head! But the alarms ringing through her head couldn’t chase away the wonder of the feel of him, the heat of his body, the smell of sweat and musk that lingered on his skin. He placed her on the bed and slipped her dress over her shoulders.