by Jule McBride
“Coffee?” he said again, setting the bag she’d brought on the tiled floor beside the refrigerator. “Or something else?”
“Coffee sounds great. I could use something warm.”
Fortunately, some of Luke’s usual humor seemed to return. “If I’d known your mama was going to send you all the way out here with dinner,” he said, opening the refrigerator door and transferring Tupperware containers onto the shelves, “I wouldn’t have had scrambled eggs and fried potatoes earlier.”
Relief moved through her at the change in tone. Relaxing, she put her elbows on the countertop and watched him. “Don’t worry. Everything’ll keep.”
Surveying the containers, he said, “Looks like the works.”
“Turkey and ham both, dressing, homemade cranberry sauce and biscuits,” Claire rattled off.
He read the scribbling on a strip of masking tape Mama used to label things. “Cheese grits?”
“Tex won’t eat any meal without grits.”
Luke glanced up. “Not even Christmas dinner?”
“Nope.”
Luke whistled softly, turning back to the food. “Big portions, too. Your mama must think I have an appetite.”
Claire, of course, had packed the food. “Mama did notice how much you ate the other night.”
“Hope she took it as a compliment to her cooking.”
“She did.” As Luke shut the refrigerator door, Claire smiled, enjoying the power in his movements—the slow ripple of muscles on his back and the view of fine black hair softly curling between his pectorals. She smiled. “Besides, Mama thinks you’re a starving bachelor.”
Leaning against the refrigerator door, Luke tilted his head thoughtfully and ran a light palm over his washboard-flat belly. “Do I look like I’m starving?”
She considered. “Maybe.” Strange lights were in his eyes, scarcely veiling male greed that made her aware of herself as a woman.
“Claire...thanks,” Luke continued, smiling as he used a bare shoulder to push away from the refrigerator. “It was nice of you to drive all the way out here.”
“Are you kidding?” The corners of her lips curled. “Driving hours in the snow is every girl’s idea of a good time.”
His eyes drifted over her. “I mean it. I can’t remember the last time I had turkey in my refrigerator on Christmas. I tried to cook one once, though.” He reached for mugs and began pouring their coffee.
“It didn’t turn out so hot?” she guessed.
Luke shook his head ruefully. “Oh, it was hot, all right, darlin’. I burned it. I’m only good with things you can fry. If it goes in the oven, forget it.”
He offered an almost sheepish shrug that didn’t suit the raw power he carried in his shoulders, and Claire’s heart tugged. If she’d only known, she’d have brought him turkey dinners every year. Finding her voice, she said, “I brought you a present, too, Luke.” She nodded toward the dining chair where she’d left the painting.
Setting down the two mugs, Luke leaned across the counter, his eyes capturing her straying attention. “You’re a present in yourself.” The tone was light and teasing now, but the gaze was a bold caress that loved every inch of her. “You look nice.”
“We dressed up for dinner,” she lied.
“I don’t care why you dressed up,” he returned, though his appreciative expression said he’d guessed the truth, that she’d dressed for him. “You look...sexy.”
Hearing the words made her realize how much she’d craved them. “Sexy. That’s even better than nice.” Their eyes met again and held, this time for so long that she became aware of things she’d rather not notice, like her racing pulse and the jittery, excited breathlessness that told her how much she wanted this man. Suddenly, her knees felt weak. Her lips wanted his hot mouth, her hands wanted his smooth shoulders, her breasts wanted to be crushed against that naked chest. A song called “Moondance” began to play, and she could hear her heart pound over the airy, romantic background flutes. Drawing a steadying breath, she said, “You want to open your gift?”
He merely leaned closer, ran a finger lightly down her sweater sleeve and smiled. “Open it before Christmas?”
A soft chuckle released some of her tension. Between her worry over Clive and her reaction to Luke, her body felt too wound up. “I won’t tell Santa you were bad,” she promised solemnly.
Luke grinned, his white teeth quickly flashing. “Not even if I am bad?”
She just couldn’t help herself. “How bad can you be?”
“How bad do you want to find out?”
“How bad do you want to show me?”
His chuckle made her wonder how serious he was. “Bad.”
Should she circle the counter and move into his arms? Wasn’t that what she wanted? Wasn’t that why she’d really come? Suddenly, the small, cozy, fire-lit space felt too intimate. Feeling heat rise in her cheeks, she glanced away and squinted. She hadn’t noticed before, but unwrapped toys were stacked everywhere—on chairs, on the floor and on a dining table strewn with decorative paper and rolls of ribbon. Wrapped packages were stacked a few feet away. Her gaze returned to Luke’s, full of questions. “All these toys...”
As his firm mouth twisted into a secretive smile, his eyes crinkled at the corners. “They’re for the kids at Lost Springs,” he admitted.
She could only stare. Everyone in Lightning Creek knew someone delivered gifts to the ranch every Christmas Eve. But it was Luke? “It’s really you?”
He surveyed her with mock soberness. “I can only tell you if you’ll take the secret oath.”
Despite her surprise, she managed a playfully sage nod. “A blood oath?” she guessed.
“That’s only for blood brothers.”
“Well, we can’t be brothers since I’m a girl.”
“Woman,” Luke corrected her. “Which means there’s only one solution, darlin’.”
“Which is?”
“This.” Leaning, Luke swept his mouth across hers. Barely pressuring her lips, he brushed his mouth back and forth with a kiss that should have only been casual, but wasn’t. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured, pulling back.
“It’s okay,” she said guiltily, knowing he meant because she was engaged. “I guess I can’t tell Santa you were bad....”
“Not if I am Santa,” Luke agreed, his voice holding a trace of huskiness. Moving as lithely as an animal in the wild, he lifted the coffee mugs and circled the counter, his eyes holding hers as he carried their drinks to the dining table. “John Garret gives me the boys’ letters,” Luke explained, licking his lips absently, as if he were still tasting hers.
“John? The postman?”
“Yeah.” Luke stared down at the mess of wrapping paper, then at the stacks of boxes. “In all the excitement,” he continued, “I’ve gotten a little behind. It’ll take all night to finish the wrapping.” He ran a ragged, work-callused hand through his hair. “I wrap about like I cook turkey.” His eyes met hers, suddenly sparkling as he raised his big hands. “All thumbs.”
Claire was still stunned. She thought of all the hours Luke must have spent shopping for the kids, and as her eyes drifted over the packages again, her heart swelled with emotion. “I still can’t believe this.”
“I guess I don’t much look like Santa.” His smile broadened. “You know, heavy with a white beard and mustache.”
“You have the eyes.”
“Ah,” he replied. “So you noticed.”
Staring into them, she nodded. “What woman wouldn’t?”
“Thanks for the compliment,” he teased, “but now that you know I’m Santa Claus, maybe you’re trying to flatter me into bringing you better gifts tomorrow night.”
“Could be.” She sighed. “Luke, I really can’t believe you’ve been helping
me when you had all this to do. The least I can do is help you now.”
“A wrapping partner,” Luke said, pulling out a chair and seating her with her back to the living area. “This is even better than your bringing me dinner.” Seating himself, he slid a toy truck and a square of silver paper across the table. “Have at it, woman.” Taking a sip of his coffee, he continued, “Does anybody know you’re here, in case Clive calls?”
“I call-forwarded my phone. I hope you don’t mind.” She often came and went without much fanfare at the ranch since she didn’t like to be disturbed when she was working, and she kept a separate phone line.
Luke shook his head. “I don’t mind at all.”
“Before we start wrapping...” She lifted Luke’s gift from the chair beside her and handed it to him.
His expression was hard to read. Apologetic, Claire decided, since he had nothing for her. Taken aback, maybe, since he hadn’t expected a gift. But mostly he looked moved as he gently turned over the package she’d wrapped in gold foil paper and tied with a green ribbon. She watched him glide a finger beneath the tape. “I had you pegged for the kind of guy who tore presents open,” she commented.
“Me?” Luke’s steady eyes lifted again, blazing into hers for the briefest moment as he shook his head. “No way. Gifts have been too few and far between, Claire.”
Emotions she didn’t even recognize tore at her. Didn’t he know she’d long wanted to give him the greatest gifts of all—her body and heart? Her love? “Glad I brought you something, then.”
He’d opened the painting from the back, and now his lips parted as he slowly lifted out the canvas, turning it over. “The picture from above your bed.” He gazed down for long moments, his eyes absorbing the details: the hominess of the log cabin, the billowing smoke from the stone chimney, the lone set of elk tracks in the snow. His voice low, he said, “I sure appreciate your bringing it, Claire. But this...I mean, this was hanging above your bed. I can’t accept this.”
The picture was a favorite, one of the rare few she’d ever bothered to keep for herself, and it had felt so right to bring it to Luke tonight, maybe because years ago she’d imagined sharing a home with him someday. A place like this, or the one in the painting. “I saw you admiring it the other night, in my bedroom,” she finally said. “Don’t you like it?”
“Like it?” Luke looked flabbergasted. “It’s incredible.”
“You’ll keep it, then?” she urged.
“Yeah,” Luke amended softly. “I’d like that.”
She smiled at him a relieved moment. He smiled back, his face shadowed in the firelight, his eyes tender as he watched her pick up the truck and position it in the middle of the wrapping paper square. Occasionally glancing at the painting, Luke also began wrapping gifts, both of them sipping coffee and working in companionable silence. At one point, Claire glanced up from where she’d been tying a red ribbon around a children’s book, and found him watching her.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For the painting?”
“And Christmas dinner.”
She smiled again. “Give me your finger, Santa Claus.”
“Sure.” Leaning over, he pressed a finger where the red ribbon crossed, enabling her to tie a bow, and she noticed his big, strong hands. She liked their callused sturdiness, the rough darkness of the skin. As she looped the ribbon around his finger, she thought about tying ribbons to fingers for remembrance. She glanced into his eyes. “How are you doing?” Now she was thinking about his conversation with Slim.
“I’m handling it.”
When he offered nothing further, she began wrapping a board game while he cut lengths of ribbon. She smiled again, her worry over Clive almost leaving her for a moment when she saw how Luke threaded the ribbons through his fingers like reins. “Ride ’em, cowboy,” she teased.
He glanced up. “What?”
“Nothing.” As he worked, she glanced around again, seeing the living room for the first time. A couch and chairs were arranged around the fire, and a small planted pine was perched on a table, decorated with blue lights. There were four or five wrapped gifts beneath it, along with a holiday basket of fruit. Claire tried, but she couldn’t imagine spending Christmas alone, without a household of chattering siblings. And then she wondered where she’d be at this time next year. Probably alone like Luke, she thought, sudden sadness curling inside her. Just days ago, she’d pictured herself with Clive, maybe pregnant with their first child....
All at once, as her eyes settled above the mantel, she drew in a sharp breath of surprise. So, that’s why Luke had hedged about bringing her inside, hustling her toward the kitchen and seating her with her back to the living room.
Claire was on her feet before she could stop herself. Crossing the room, she stood before the fire, gazing up at Blue Sage Dreams. She hadn’t seen the almost photographic landscape for years, and although the painting had been offered as a limited print and was said to be her best, she’d never known who’d bought it. Luke had framed it beautifully, in a simple gold frame; above the frame hung a small, gold-shielded fluorescent bulb that illuminated it.
He’d bought the painting of Lost Springs, too, and the fact took her breath away. Her heart slamming inside her chest, Claire turned and stared at where it hung above the couch. Luke would have no way of knowing that the day she’d asked him to make love to her had inspired it. Even now, she could remember how she’d felt that day, all jangling adolescent emotions and raging hormones. She’d felt scared, too, especially when Luke’s dark hands glided between her legs. Now warmth suffused her as she recalled how she’d returned that intimate caress. But he’d rejected her, she reminded herself. It wasn’t wise to forget that, not even now. Especially not now, she amended, not when seeing him was rekindling her feelings.
Staring at the painting, she remembered that day at Lost Springs. As she was driven away from the parking grounds, crying her eyes out in the back of Tex’s big black Cadillac, she’d seen that young boy, wandering in the summer twilight, his arm outstretched. “Whoever you’re having troubles with will come around,” Tex had vowed furiously, knowing only that she’d been rejected, though never guessing the extent of it. “No boy on earth couldn’t want to go steady with my best gal,” Tex had proclaimed. And then Tex had driven like a bat out of hell, hurrying to get Claire home to Mama, whom Tex felt was better equipped to deal with such troubles.
Now Claire wished Luke understood that he’d inspired the picture, that it wasn’t the boy, but she, who’d been reaching for the sky, wanting to touch what she could never have...to touch Luke. The image of that boy had stayed with her for years. It was another summer—the last before she’d finished graduate school—when Claire finally painted him. She’d done so quickly, barely sleeping or leaving the studio until the picture was complete. The second the paint was dry, she’d dropped off the work at a gallery in Cheyenne, never wanting to see it again.
Now the same soul-crushing longing Claire felt years ago on the parking grounds at Lost Springs threatened to overwhelm her again. Luke came up behind her, his bare chest feeling warm behind her back, his breath close to her ear. “You’ve bought two of my paintings.” Her voice was unsteady.
“Secret collector,” he returned, striving for casualness and wholly missing the mark. “Now you know why I’m so happy to get another.”
Suddenly, Claire wanted to scream. Or punch him. Something. Dammit, she’d seen the glimmer of raw, heartfelt emotion in his eyes when he’d opened the picture of the cabin, but now he was pretending none of it meant anything. Tears burned in her eyes, hurting like fire, and as she turned toward him, desperately fighting to control her emotions, her attention was caught by the Christmas tree. His gaze must have followed hers, because he leaned over, touching the top of the fruit basket. “Cross Creek gave them out to the hands,” he commented. “Nice of them, h
uh?”
She felt stung. How long was he going to deny his feelings? And where was Clive? What was going on? It had been a long day. She and Luke had been shot at earlier, for God’s sake, and the drive out here had been treacherous. Didn’t Luke understand that she was human? That underneath it all, she, too, was a mess of tangled emotions right now? She’d agreed to marry Clive—to marry him!—and not only was he missing, but as soon as he resurfaced, Claire was probably going to confront an uncertain future. She tried to hold back the tears, but suddenly, it was all too much. She had to escape, to sit down somewhere and cry. “Where’s your bathroom?” She guessed it wasn’t what he expected her to say.
“Uh...last door at the end of the hall.”
She headed blindly toward it, eyes filling, vision blurring. She tried to tell herself she hated Luke, that she was better off not wanting him, better off forgetting how she’d felt at Lost Springs. Luke’s every breath had always been a denial of their potential love, and no matter what she did, no matter what happened, he’d always be too scared to try.
She’d nearly made it to the bathroom when a light caught her eye. Turning, she found herself staring into Luke’s bedroom.
A rough-hewn log bed was covered in a quilt, and polished hardwood floors were laid with hand-woven wool rugs. There wasn’t much other furniture, just a bedside table with a telephone. Two saddles and a pair of snowshoes had been left carelessly beside the door, and a trunk was at the foot of the bed. But it was the painting above the headboard that had captured her attention.
A Crow chief in full ceremonial dress gazed down, his dark eyes all-seeing. Transcending earthly knowledge, those eyes seemed to hold the sacred wisdom of revered, hallowed spirts. The chief was a study in rich colors—clay reds, mustard yellows and royal blues—and with his sharp cheekbones, high forehead and straight blue-black hair, the man could have been one of Luke’s forebears. Claire had called the painting Love Warrior, and it was the very first painting she’d ever sold.
Looking at it, she remembered the thrilling rush of heady excitement when the gallery owner called from Laramie, saying she’d sold a piece. Though faded now, the first dollar he’d counted from his strongbox remained tacked to her easel. After that, the man had commissioned more work, and other galleries started calling, wanting to tour her studio. Now her pictures were available throughout the state, but before selling Love Warrior, Claire didn’t think she had a professional prayer.