A Christmas Blessing

by Sherryl Woods

Jessie seemed to struggle to find her voice. When she finally did, she said dryly, “Now that’s the famous Luke Adams ego that’s legendary around these parts.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he taunted, enjoying the deepening color in her cheeks.

  “It’s as close to one as you’re likely to get,” she taunted right back.

  Luke chuckled. “Never mind. I already have my answer.”

  Jessie’s gaze clashed with his, hers uncertain and very, very vulnerable. Luke finally relented. “You’re immune to me. You’ve seen me at my worst.”

  “Bad enough to terrify the angels,” she confirmed, her voice laced with unmistakable gratitude for the reprieve he’d granted.

  She stood up with a brisk movement and reached for the baby, making her claim on the armor he’d clung to so desperately. “I’ll feed her now,” she said.

  “You haven’t had dessert,” Luke protested, not relinquishing the baby. At this rate they’d be engaged in a tug-of-war over the child.

  “We’ll have it in front of the tree,” Jessie said determinedly and held out her arms.

  Reluctantly, he placed Angela in her mother’s arms and watched them disappear down the hallway to the bedroom. Only when the door shut softly behind them did he breathe a heartfelt sigh of relief.

  The reprieve, however, didn’t last nearly long enough for him to regain his equilibrium. The clean-up kept him occupied briefly. Fixing coffee and pie to take into the living room took only moments longer.

  In the living room, he plugged in the tree and turned on the radio, once again tuning it to a station playing carols. The room shimmered with a thousand twinkling colored lights. Luke was certain he had never seen a more beautiful tree, never felt so clearly the meaning of Christmas.

  As he anticipated Jessie’s return, he fingered the carved wooden figures in the cr;ageche he’d placed beneath the tree, lingering over the baby Jesus. His thoughts were on another baby, one he wished with all of his jaded heart was his own.

  He was standing, still and silent, when he sensed Jessie’s approach. He heard her soft, indrawn breath. The faint scent of her perfume whispered through the air, something fresh and light and indescribably sexy.

  “Oh, Luke, it’s absolutely spectacular,” she murmured. “The whole room feels as if it’s alive with color.”

  He glanced down and saw reflected sparks of light shimmering in her eyes. Her lush mouth was curved in the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. Angela was nestled in her arms, spawning inevitable comparisons to the most finely drawn works of Madonna and child. In motherhood, even more than before, Jessie was both mysterious and beautiful, so very beautiful that it made his heart ache.

  Nothing in heaven or hell could have prevented what happened next. Luke felt his control slipping, his resolve vanishing on a tide of desperate longing. He lowered his head slowly, pausing for the briefest of instants to gauge Jessie’s reaction before gently touching his mouth to hers.

  The kiss was like brushing up against fire, hot and dangerous and alluring. He lingered no longer than a heartbeat, but it was enough to send heat shimmering through him, to stir desire into a relentless, demanding need. The temptation to tarry longer, the need to savor, washed over him in great, huge, pulsing waves.

  This one last time, though, the determination to cling to honor was powerful enough to save him, to save them both. He drew back reluctantly, examining Jessie’s dazed eyes and flushed cheeks for signs of horror or panic. He saw—or thought he saw—only a hunger that matched his own and, to his deep regret, the grit to resist, the impulse to run.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said softly before she could flee.

  She hesitated, her eyes shadowed with worry. “Merry Christmas,” she said finally, apparently accepting the truce he was offering in their emotional balancing act.

  Luke hid a sigh of relief. She hadn’t run yet and he had just the thing to see that she didn’t. “I found Consuela’s tapes. What’ll it be?”

  Jessie blinked away what might have been tears, then said, “Miracle on 34th Street, I think.”

  “Good choice,” he said too exuberantly. He slid the tape into the VCR and flipped on the TV while Jessie settled herself and the baby on the sofa.

  Luke warned himself to sit in a chair on the opposite side of the room, warned himself to keep distance between them. He actually took a step in that direction, before reversing and sinking onto the far side of the sofa.

  Jessie shot him a startled look, then seemed to measure the space between them. Apparently it was enough to reassure her, because slowly, visibly she began to relax, her gaze fixed on the TV screen where the holiday classic was unfolding.

  They could have been watching Dr. Zhivago for all Luke saw. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze or his thoughts away from Jessie. Each breath he drew was ragged with desire. Each moment that passed was sheer torment as his head struggled between right and wrong.

  And yet, despite the agony of doing what he knew deep in his gut was right, he thought he had never been happier or more content. The night held promise tantalizingly out of reach, but it shimmered with possibilities just the same. A few stolen hours, he vowed. No more. He would soak up the scent of her, the sight of her so that every fiber of his being could hold the memory forever.

  Her laughter, as light as a spring breeze, rippled over him leaving him aroused and aching. Tears spilled down her cheeks unchecked, luring his touch. His fingers trembled as he reached to wipe away the sentimental traces of dampness. At his touch, her gaze flew to his, startled…hopeful.

  That hint of temptation in her eyes was warning enough. If Jessie was losing her resolve tonight, then being strong, being stoic was going to be up to him.

  He withdrew his hand and thought it was the hardest thing he had ever done. Only one thing he could imagine would ever be harder—letting her go. And tomorrow, just a few brief hours from now, he would be put to the test.

  Chapter Eight

  Christmas morning dawned sunny and clear. The snow shimmered like diamonds scattered across white velvet. Sparkling icicles clung to the eaves. The world outside was like a wonderland, all of its flaws covered over with a blanket of purest white.

  For once Jessie had apparently gotten up before Luke. She hadn’t heard him stirring when she fed Angela at 6:00 a.m. Nor was there any sign of him in the kitchen when she went for a cup of coffee before showering and getting dressed. Usually starting the coffeepot was the first thing he did in the morning. Today it hadn’t even been plugged in. Jessie checked to make sure the electric coffee machine was filled with freshly ground beans and water, then plugged it in and switched it on.

  After tying the belt on her robe a little more securely, she sat down at the kitchen table to wait for the coffee to brew. Her thoughts promptly turned to the night before. Every single second of their holiday celebration was indelibly burned on her memory: the delicious dinner, the sentimental old movie, the shared laughter, the twinkling lights of the tree, the kiss.

  Ah, yes, the kiss, she thought, smiling despite herself. She wasn’t sure which one of them had been more shocked by its intensity. Even though Luke had initiated it, he had seemed almost as startled as she had been by the immediate flaring of heat and hunger it had set off. Though his mouth against hers had been gentle and coaxing, the kiss had been more passionately persuasive than an all-out seduction. Fire had leapt through her veins. Desire had flooded through her belly. If he had pursued his advantage, there was no telling how far things might have gone.

  Well, they couldn’t have gone too far, she reassured herself. She had just had a baby, after all. Still, there was no talking away the fact that she’d displayed the resistance of mush. And once again Luke had proven the kind of man he was, strong and honorable.

  His restraint, as frustrating as it had been at the time, only deepened her respect for him. She added it to the list of all of his admirable traits and wished with all her heart that she had met him first, before Erik, before any possibil
ity of a relationship had become so tangled with past history and old loyalties, so twisted with guilt and blame.

  Almost as soon as she acknowledged the wish, guilt spread through her. How could she regret loving Erik? How could she possibly regret having Angela? Life had blessed her with a husband who had loved her with all his heart, no matter his other flaws. She had been doubly blessed with a daughter because of that love. What kind of selfish monster would wish any of that away?

  “Dear God, what am I thinking?” she whispered on a ragged moan, burying her head on her arms.

  There was only one answer. She had to find some way to get away from Luke, to put her tattered restraint back together. She had to get to White Pines before she made a terrible mistake, before the whole family was ripped apart again by what would amount to a rivalry for her affections.

  Despite their occasional differences, she knew how deep the ties among Erik’s family members ran. They would consider themselves the protectors of Erik’s interests. Luke would be viewed as a traitor, a man with no respect for his brother’s memory. They would hold her actions against him, blaming him alone for their love when the truth was that she was the one who was increasingly powerless to resist it. She wouldn’t allow that to happen.

  An image came to her then, an image of Luke returning from his pickup, his expression filled with guilt as he’d sworn he couldn’t find his cellular phone. More than likely she’d been in denial that night, longing for something that could never be, or she would have known what that expression on his face had meant.

  Anger, quite possibly misdirected, surged through her. It gave her the will to act, to do what she knew in her heart must be done. She stood and grabbed Luke’s heavy jacket, poked her bare feet into boots several sizes too large, snatched up his thick gloves, and stomped outside.

  She was promptly felled by the first drift of snow. She stepped off the porch and into heavy, damp snow up to her hips. She dragged herself forward by sheer will, determined to get to the truck, determined to discover if Luke had deliberately kept her stranded here.

  Her progress could have been measured in inches. Her bare skin between the tops of the boots and the bottom of the coat was stinging from the cold. Still, she trudged on until she finally reached the pickup and tugged at the door. The lock was frozen shut.

  Crying out in frustration, Jessie tried to unlock it by scraping at the ice, then covering the lock with her gloved hands in a futile attempt to melt the thin, but effective coating of ice. She tried blowing on it, hoping her breath would be warm enough to help. When that didn’t work, she slammed her fist against it, hoping to crack it.

  Again and again, she jiggled the handle, trying to pry the door open. Eventually, when she could barely feel her feet, when her whole body was shuddering violently from the cold, the lock gave and the door came free. She jumped inside and slammed the door, relieved to be out of the biting wind.

  Remembering that Erik had always left the keys above the visor, no matter how she’d argued with him about it, she checked to see if Luke had done the same. No keys. She doubted Luke was any more security conscious than his brother had been. She checked under the floor mat, then felt beneath the front seat.

  That’s where she eventually found them, tucked away almost beyond her reach. Her fingers awkward from the gloves and the cold, she finally managed to turn on the engine. It might take forever for the truck to warm up, but she intended to spend as long as it took to thoroughly check the pickup for that cellular phone.

  It didn’t take nearly as long as she might have wished. To her astonishment and instantaneous fury, she found it on the first try, right in the glove compartment. Luke hadn’t even bothered to lock it, though it was obvious to her that he had made a passing attempt to hide the phone under some papers. Clutching the phone in her hand, she sank back against the seat and simply stared at it.

  “Luke,” she whispered, “what were you thinking?”

  She was so caught up in trying to explain her brother-in-law’s uncharacteristic behavior that she didn’t hear the crunching of ice or the muttered oaths until Luke was practically on top of her. Suddenly the passenger door was flung open—the damned lock didn’t even stick under his assault—and Luke jumped into the seat beside her.

  Jessie shot him an accusing look. His gaze went from her face to the cellular phone and back again. He muttered a harsh oath under his breath.

  “It was here all along, wasn’t it?” she asked in a lethal tone.

  He didn’t even have the decency to lie. He just nodded.

  “Why, Luke?” Her voice broke as she asked. Unexpected tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill over. She felt betrayed somehow, though she couldn’t have explained why. Maybe it was because she had expected so much more of Luke. The hurt cut deeper and promised worse scars than anything Erik had ever done.

  Luke shoved his hand through his hair and stared off into the distance. He didn’t speak for so long that Jessie thought he didn’t intend to answer, but eventually he turned to face her, his expression haggard.

  “I couldn’t make the call,” he said simply. “I just couldn’t make it.”

  “Do you hate your family so much?” she demanded. “How could you let them worry about me? How could you leave them wondering if there’d been an accident? My heaven, they must be out of their minds by now.”

  He shot her a look filled with irony. “Do you really think that was what it was about?”

  “What else?” she demanded, her voice rising until she didn’t recognize it. “What else could have made you do something so cruel?”

  Before she could even guess what he was about, he reached out and clutched the fabric of the coat that was several sizes too large for her. He dragged her roughly to him. This time when he claimed her mouth, there was nothing sweetly tentative about it. The kiss was bruising, demanding. It was the kiss of a desperate man, a man who had kept his emotions on a tight leash for far too long.

  Jessie recognized the passionate claiming even before she felt the raging heat. Even as a protest formed in her head, exhilaration soared in her heart. Furious with herself for the weakness, she gave herself up to the magic of that kiss. His cheeks were stubbled, his skin cold, except where his mouth moved against hers. There, there was only the most tempting heat and she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of it.

  As if he sensed that she wasn’t fighting him, as if he realized that she was fully participating in this conflagration of sensation, Luke’s rough touch became a softer caress. Demand gave way to the gentler persuasion. Out-of-control hunger turned to a far sweeter coaxing.

  Jessie was captivated, her body aswirl with a riot of new feelings, more powerful than anything she’d ever felt with Erik. Not even her carefully cultivated battle against disloyalty could keep her from giving her all to this one devastating kiss.

  This man, though, this timing…she couldn’t help thinking how wrong it was, when she could think at all. A spark of pure magic scampered down her spine, chased by a shiver of doubt. She suspected they could thank bulky coats and thick gloves for checking their actions, more than they could credit either of them with good sense.

  Eventually Luke cupped her face in his gloved hands. With his eyes closed and his forehead barely touching hers, he sighed heavily.

  “Oh, Jessie, I never meant for this to happen,” he said on a ragged, desperate note.

  “But it has,” she said, not sure whether that was cause for regret or joy. Only time would tell. “Now what?”

  Luke released her and sank back against the passenger seat, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You take that phone and you go inside and call the folks. Daddy will find some way to pick you up before the day is out.”

  Somehow shocked at his matter-of-fact dismissal, Jessie stared at him. “You want me to go?” she whispered, devastated. “Now?”

  “Especially now.” His gaze determinedly evaded hers.

  “But why? It’s all out in the open at last.
The way you feel. The way I feel. It was all there in that kiss. Don’t tell me you can still deny it. There’s no turning back now, Lucas. We have to deal with it.”

  If he was shocked by her feelings for him, he didn’t show it. Instead, the look he turned on her was every bit as cold as the world outside that truck. “We are dealing with it. You’re going and I’m staying. That’s the way it has to be, the way it was meant to be.”

  Jessie shivered, chilled as much by his tone as the howling wind. “You can’t mean that.”

  “I’ve never meant anything more,” he insisted, his expression as steady and determined as she’d ever seen it. “Go to White Pines. It’s where you belong.”

  A great, gnawing sensation started in the pit of Jessie’s stomach. She sensed that if she did as he asked, if she left him here alone and went to be with his family, taking her place there as his brother’s lonely, tragic widow, that would indeed be the end of it. Whatever might have been between them would die. Harlan, Mary, Jordan and Cody would be united in their opposition. The family and all of its complicated antagonisms and hurts would be like an insurmountable wall.

  Well, she wouldn’t have it. Maybe what she thought she felt for Luke was wrong. Maybe what he felt for her was some sort of terrible sin. Maybe they were both betraying Erik.

  In a perfect world, her marriage would have fulfilled all of her dreams. It would have lasted a lifetime. And no man would ever have come along who was Erik’s equal. She would have dutifully mourned until the end of time.

  But her marriage hadn’t worked. Erik had died. And Luke Adams was twice the man Erik had been. That wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Erik’s. In his own way, Erik had tried to make her happy. He had never realized that she couldn’t be happy as long as he was so obviously miserable with the choices he alone had made for his life.

  Nor, though, was the fault Luke’s. Their feelings simply were there. He had done nothing to exploit them.

  And she couldn’t believe a benevolent God would have conspired to force her here to have her baby, if something more hadn’t been meant to come of it. If there was one thing Jessie believed in with all her heart, it was fate. Surely God had brought them together not just to forgive, not just to rid themselves of guilt, but to love.