A Christmas Blessing

by Sherryl Woods

  “I will only go to White Pines if you will come with me,” she announced, her chin set stubbornly.

  Luke stared at her, an expression of incredulity spreading across his handsome face. His mouth formed a tight line. Disbelief sparked in his eyes. “No way.”

  “Then Angela and I are staying.”

  “No way,” he repeated more firmly, reaching for the cellular phone that had started them inevitably down this path and now lay forgotten in her lap.

  Jessie’s hand closed around it first and before Luke could react, she opened the car door and threw it with all her might. Landing silently, it disappeared slowly, inevitably in a soft drift of snow.

  Luke’s shocked gaze followed its path, then returned to her face. His jaw worked. Jessie waited for an explosion of outrage, but instead his lips curved into an unexpected smile. Amusement sparkled in his eyes. He seemed to be choking back laughter.

  “The situation is not amusing, Lucas.”

  “It’s not the situation, it’s you. I can’t believe you did that,” he said at last.

  She glared at him, not entirely sure what to make of this new mood. “Well, believe it.”

  “We might not find it till spring.”

  “So what?”

  “You were the one who mentioned how cruel it was to leave my parents wondering and worrying about you.”

  Jessie’s determination faltered ever so slightly. Apparently she was every bit as thoughtless as he was. “The phone lines are bound to be up soon. We’ll call then.”

  He regarded her quizzically. “And if there’s an emergency?”

  “What kind of emergency?” She couldn’t seem to keep a faint tremor out of her voice.

  “The house burning down. The baby getting sick.”

  Jessie felt the color drain out of her face. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, clambering out of the pickup. She tumbled into the snow, then struggled back to her feet. Before she could steady herself, Luke was beside her.

  “You okay?”

  “We have to get that phone.”

  He gave her an inscrutable look. “I’ll get it. You go on inside. Despite the charming winter attire you appropriated from me, you’re not really dressed for this weather.”

  She eyed him distrustfully. “You’ll bring it inside?”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who tried to bury it. I knew exactly where it was in case we really needed it.”

  She scowled at him. “Don’t start trying to make yourself into a saint now, Lucas. It’s too late.”

  He turned back and, to her astonishment, he winked at her. “It always was, darlin’.”

  * * *

  Luke retrieved the cellular phone and barely resisted the urge to roll in the snow in an attempt to cool off his overheated body. The effect Jessie had on him was downright shameful. His blood pounded hotly through his veins just getting a glimpse of her. The kiss they had just shared could have set off a wildfire that would consume whole acres of prairie grass.

  Damn, why had she been so willing? Why hadn’t she smacked him, put him in his place, blistered him with scathing accusations? The instant he had hauled her into his arms, he’d half-expected the solid whack of her palm across his cheek. When it hadn’t come, he’d dared to deepen the kiss, dared to pretend for just a heartbeat that he had a right to taste her, a right to feel those cool, silky lips heat beneath his, a right to feel her body shuddering with need against his.

  The truth of it was, though, that he had no rights at all where Jessie was concerned. Even though she seemed to feel that that kiss had opened up a whole new world for the two of them, he knew better. He knew it had paved the way to hell, destroying good and noble intentions in its path.

  He stuck the phone in his pocket and continued on to the barn, where he fed Chester and the horses. Chester nudged his hand away from his pocket, searching for his treat. Instead, there was only the phone.

  “Sorry, old guy. I left the house in a hurry. I forgot your apple. I’ll bring two when I come back later.”

  The old goat turned a sympathetic look on him, as if he understood the turmoil that had caused Luke to fail him.

  “Good grief, even the animals are starting to pity me,” he muttered in disgust and made his way back to the house, where he found Jessie singing happily as she worked at the stove.

  The table had been set with the good china. Orange juice had been poured into crystal goblets. The good silver gleamed at each place. Luke eyed it all warily.

  “It’s awful fancy for breakfast, don’t you think?”

  “We’re celebrating,” she said airily.

  He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. It hinted that she wasn’t letting go of the momentary craziness that had gripped the two of them in the pickup. “Celebrating what?”

  She cast an innocent look in his direction. “Christmas, of course,” she said sweetly.

  “Oh.”

  She grinned. “Disappointed, Lucas?”

  “Of course not.” He glanced around a little desperately. “Where’s Angela?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe I should go check on her. She doesn’t usually sleep this late.”

  Jessie actually laughed at that. “Surely a grown man doesn’t have to rely on a three-day-old baby to protect him from me, does he?”

  Luke felt color climb up the back of his neck and settle in his cheeks. “I just thought she ought to be here,” he muttered. “It is her first Christmas morning.”

  “She’ll be awake soon enough. Sit down. The biscuits are almost ready.”

  He stared at her incredulously as she bent over to open the oven door. The view that gave him of her fanny made him weak.

  “When did you have time to bake biscuits?” he inquired, his voice all too husky.

  “You were in that barn a long time,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder. “Cooling off?”

  Luke stared at her. What had happened to the sweet, virtuous woman who’d arrived here only a few days earlier? What did she know about her ability to drive him to distraction? Get real, Lucas, he told himself sternly. She was as responsible for the heat of that kiss as you were.

  “Jessie,” he warned, his voice low.

  “Yes, Lucas?”

  She sounded sweetly compliant. He didn’t trust that tone for a second. “Don’t get into a game, unless you understand the rules,” he advised her.

  “Who made up these rules? Some man, I suspect.”

  “Oh, I think they pretty much go back to Adam and Eve,” he countered. He fixed his gaze on her until her cheeks turned pink. “I figure that gives ’em some credibility. People have been living by ’em for centuries now.”

  Jessie shook her head. Judging from her expression, she seemed to be feeling sorry for him.

  “You are pitiful, Lucas,” she said, confirming his guess.

  He stared at her, a knot forming in his stomach. “Pitiful?”

  “You don’t know what to do about how you feel, so you start out hiding behind an itsy-bitsy baby and now you want to put God and the Bible between us.”

  “Right’s right,” he insisted stubbornly.

  “And what was meant to be was meant to be,” she countered, looking perfectly confident in making the claim.

  Obviously she wasn’t worried about the two of them being stricken dead by a bolt of lightning. Luke couldn’t understand it. How could she be so calm, so sure of herself, when he’d never felt more off balance, more uncertain in all of his life?

  “Whatever that means,” he grumbled.

  “It means, Lucas, that you might as well stop fighting so hard and accept the inevitable.”

  He studied her worriedly. “Which is?”

  “Angela and I are in your life to stay.”

  He swallowed hard. “Well, of course you are,” he said too heartily. “You’re my sister-in-law. Angela’s my niece.”

  Ignoring his comment, Jessie dished up scrambled eggs, bacon and golden biscuits. Only afte
r she’d seated herself across from him did she meet his gaze.

  “Give it up, Lucas. It’s a battle you can’t win.”

  Determination swept through him. “Try me,” he said tightly.

  To his annoyance, Jessie actually laughed at that. “Oh, Lucas, I intend to.”

  Chapter Nine

  With Jessie’s challenge ringing in his ears, Luke retreated to the barn. He figured it was the only safe place for him to be and still be within shouting distance of the house in case of a crisis. Inside, even in his office with the door shut, he couldn’t escape Jessie’s unrealistic expectations for their future. As brief as her presence had been, she had pervaded every room, leaving him with no place to hide from her or his unrelenting thoughts about her.

  What she wanted from him, though, was impossible. How could they possibly have a relationship without bringing the wrath of the entire family she admired so much down on them? Couldn’t she see that they were as doomed in their way as Romeo and Juliet had been? Or had she considered and then dismissed the problems? Could he possibly be that important to her?

  He hunkered down on a bale of hay and distractedly tossed apple sections to Chester. The goat seemed to accept the unexpected largesse as his due. When Luke grew distracted and forgot to offer another chunk of apple, Chester butted him gently until he remembered. He scratched the goat behind his ears and wished that all relationships were this uncomplicated.

  Dealing with goats and horses and cattle was a hell of a lot less troubling than dealing with a woman, Luke concluded when Chester finally tired of the game and wandered off. Food, attention, a little exercise, a few animal or human companions and their lives were happy. Women, to the contrary, sooner or later always developed expectations.

  To avoid dealing with Jessie’s fantasies, he considered saddling up one of the horses and riding off to check on the cattle. He manufactured a dozen excuses why such a trip was vital to the ranch’s operations, even though he had a perfectly capable foreman in charge, a man who could probably account for every single head of longhorn cattle on the ranch without Luke’s help.

  Unfortunately, he could see through every excuse. He had no doubts at all that Jessie would be even quicker to see them for what they were: cowardly reasons to bolt from all the emotions he couldn’t bear to face. While being someplace else—anyplace else—held a great deal of appeal at the moment, Luke wasn’t a coward. Which meant, like it or not, staying and seeing this through.

  Finally, tired of having only Chester and the horses for company when the most beautiful, if unavailable, woman in the world was inside, Luke heaved himself up and headed back to the house. Maybe Jessie had come to her senses while he was gone. Maybe his body had become resigned to celibacy.

  And maybe pigs could fly, he thought despondently.

  He found her sitting in front of the fireplace in the kitchen mending one of his shirts. As an inexplicable rage tore through him, he yanked the shirt out of her hands.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  Jessie didn’t even blink at his behavior. “There was a whole basket of mending sitting in the laundry room waiting to be done,” she said calmly as if that were explanation enough to offer a man who’d clearly lost his mind.

  “Consuela’s the housekeeper around here, not you.”

  “Is there some reason I shouldn’t help her out?”

  “It’s her job,” he insisted stubbornly.

  Jessie merely shook her head, gave him that exasperating look that was filled with pity, and reached for another shirt. “It’s my way of thanking her for all the meals she fixed before she left.”

  “She fixed them for me,” Luke said, clinging to his stance despite the fact that even he could see he was being unreasonable. There was a quick and obvious remedy for what ailed him but he refused to pull Jessie into his arms, which was clearly where his body wanted her, where his long-denied hormones craved her to be.

  One delicate eyebrow arched quizzically at his possessive claim on the meals Consuela had fixed. “Does that mean I’m no longer allowed to eat them?” Jessie inquired. “You planning to starve me into leaving?”

  “Of course not,” he snapped in frustration. “Just forget it. I’m going to my office.”

  “On Christmas?”

  “If you can sew on Christmas, I can work.”

  “I’m not sure I see the connection,” she commented mildly. She shrugged. “Whatever works for you.”

  Luke clenched his fists so tightly, his knuckles turned white. Why had he never noticed that Jessie was the most exasperating, the most infuriating woman on the face of the earth? She was so damned calm and…reasonable. He didn’t miss the irony that he considered two such usually positive traits to be irritating.

  To emphasize his displeasure, he plunked the cellular phone on the table in front of her. “Call my parents,” he ordered tightly, then stalked away.

  With any luck at all, Jessie would be tired by now of his attitude, he thought with only a faint hint of regret. After all, how long could a woman maintain this charade of complacency in the face of such galling behavior? She’d be packed and gone by the time he emerged from his office. His life could return to normal.

  He glanced over his shoulder just as he headed through the doorway. She was humming to herself and, if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a full-fledged smile on her face. He had the sinking realization that she wasn’t going anywhere.

  * * *

  Jessie wasn’t entirely sure why she was being so stubborn. One devastating, spine-tingling kiss hardly constituted a declaration of love.

  Still, with every single bit of intuition she possessed, she believed that Luke was in love with her. That kiss was a symptom of stronger emotions. She was certain of it. She simply had to wait him out. Sooner or later, he would see that she wasn’t afraid of the consequences if she stayed. He would see, in fact, that she welcomed them. Eventually he would realize that together they could even conquer all of the opposition they were likely to arouse.

  The unexpected ringing of the cellular phone startled her so badly, she pricked her finger with the needle she’d been using to stitch buttons back onto Luke’s shirts. Should she answer it? Or take it to Luke in his office? Of course, by the time she carried it through the house, whoever was calling would probably give up thanks to her indecisiveness.

  It was guilt over her own failure to call Harlan and Mary that finally convinced her to answer on the fifth ring.

  “Hello,” she said tentatively.

  “Who the hell is this?” Harlan Adams’s unmistakable voice boomed over the line.

  An odd mix of pleasure and dismay spread through her. “It’s Jessie, Harlan. Merry Christmas!”

  “Jessie?” he repeated incredulously. “You’re okay. What the devil are you doing over at Lucas’s? Why haven’t you called? My God, woman, Mary’s been out of her mind with worry.”

  Jessie decided that rather than responding to the questions and the barely disguised accusations Harlan had thrown out at her, she’d better go on the offensive immediately.

  “I went into labor on the way to your house,” she explained. “I was scared to death I’d deliver the baby in a snow drift. Luke’s ranch was the only place nearby. You have a beautiful granddaughter, Harlan. I’ve named her Angela.”

  As she’d expected, the announcement took the wind out of his sails. “You’ve had the baby? A girl?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mary,” he called. “Mary! Get on the other line. Jessie’s at Luke’s and she’s had the baby!”

  Jessie heard the echoing sound of footsteps on White Pines’s hardwood floors, then the clatter of a juggled, then dropped, phone. Finally, Mary’s breathless voice came over the line. “You had the baby?”

  “A girl,” Jessie confirmed. “Angela. She is so beautiful, Mary. I can’t wait for you to see her.”

  “But why are you at Luke’s? Why not a hospital?”

  “Angela was t
oo impatient to get here. With the blizzard and everything, I figured this was my best bet.”

  “But the doctor did get there in time?” Mary asked worriedly.

  Jessie hauled in a deep breath before blurting, “Actually, Luke delivered her. He was incredible. Calm as could be. You would have been so proud of him. I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

  The explanation drew no response. Jessie could hear Mary crying. Eventually, Harlan spoke up.

  “I don’t get it, girl. That was three days ago. Why haven’t you called before now?”

  “The phone lines are down and Luke had misplaced the cellular phone. He hunted all over for it. It finally turned up this morning, buried under some papers.” It was a stretch of the truth, but Jessie had no intention of filling them in on her own battle with Luke over this very phone.

  “No wonder we couldn’t reach him,” Harlan grumbled. “That boy would lose his head if it weren’t tacked onto his neck.”

  Jessie sighed. She’d never noticed that Luke was particularly absentminded, not about anything that mattered. The observation was just another of Harlan’s inconsequential put-downs, uttered without thought to their accumulated cutting nature. She’d practically bitten her lower lip raw listening to him do the same thing to Erik. If she had thought it would help, she would have told him to stop, but she had known the order had to come from Erik.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Harlan said. “Now that we know where to find you, I’ll have my pilot pick you up in an hour. There’s a landing strip not far from Luke’s. He should be able to get you there.”

  “No,” Jessie said at once.

  “Beg pardon?” Harlan said, sounding shocked by her unexpected display of defiance.

  “Jessie, darling, you must be anxious to be away from there,” Mary protested. “We know how difficult it was for you to see Luke after what happened to Erik. Please, let Harlan send for you. We want you here with us and we can’t wait to see the baby. You should be with family now.”