“Like you?”
He hesitated, but only for a second. “I’d be pleased if you wanted to be like me.”
A long silence ensued, but he waited. “Gee. Okay. I’ll get my mom.”
“Luke. What a surprise. I wasn’t expecting you to call.”
“Cowan told me what happened. Did you get a good look at the man?”
She described the man who accosted her and added, “He wore glasses, but they might have been a disguise. Also, he wasn’t the man who locked Randy and me in the store. This one was older and rougher. Robbing my store wasn’t his priority. He was after my house keys.”
None of it made sense to him, and its strangeness increased his concern. “I want you to put alarms on your door and windows, but we’ll take about that when I get back. Is your garden fenced?”
She told him it was, and eagerness laced her voice when she added, “When are you coming back?”
Was she telling him she wanted to see him? Oh, hell, he had to stop thinking about her in that way. “I’m debating that right now. I have a feeling that hood knows me, and that he’s seen us together, because he gave me forty-five minutes to get way out of town. And he didn’t wait till dark to make his move. Did it occur to you that even though you closed more than an hour early, he was there waiting for you?”
He hadn’t reasoned it out before, and now a pain scissored his belly. Simple robbery wasn’t the man’s motive, and until he knew what the guy wanted he’d be handicapped in his efforts to catch him.
“Be careful, Kate. I…Look, I don’t want anything to happen to you and Randy. Keep him close to you this weekend. Kate—”
Her voice, soft and sweet, could tempt him to do things he didn’t want to do. “What is it, Luke?”
“I’ll call you when I get back there. Take good care.” A strange, indefinable emptiness suffused him, but he hung up without telling her he wanted to see her right then, that he feared for her well-being, and would go to any lengths to protect her.
“Is she okay?” Marcus asked when Luke joined him in the family room. It had been Amanda’s living room before Marcus renovated the house and added a wing.
“Yeah. She’s fine. I wish I could get a handle on this thing. She’s vulnerable, and it occurs to me that I’d better put a man on Randy.”
“Who’s Randy?”
“Her seven-year-old son. He’s wayward, and there’s no telling what he’ll get into.”
“Send him down here when school’s out. We’ll soften him up.”
“Thanks. We’ll see about that. Look, I think I’d better head out of here tomorrow morning. I don’t like anything about the report Kate and Cowan gave me. I’d better check on her.”
“Sure,” Marcus said, a grin easing over his face. “And give her a kiss for me while you’re at it.”
Luke rubbed the back of his neck, anxiety for Kate fighting for supremacy over his desire for her. “You’re getting rather fanciful.”
Marcus laughed. “Telling you like you told me, just like it is, brother. Get it together. Tell her you need her, and if she’s reluctant, drag out the famous LSH charisma and change her mind. Man, you’re supposed to be knock-’em-dead irresistible. You’re ruining your reputation.”
Luke’s left eyebrow arched. “I wouldn’t mind if you kept thoughts like that to yourself. I don’t need to hear this from you. I get enough of it from that gang I work with. Axel Strange is preoccupied with the subject of me and women.”
Marcus shrugged. “Forget about Axel. A loser. The guy reminds me of a bullfrog on a rainy night croaking for the hell of it.”
Worried as he was, Luke laughed. “Well said. See you in the morning.”
Now who could that be at eight o’clock Saturday morning, and where was Tex, the doorman? Remembering Luke’s words of caution the previous night, Kate opened the peephole. Anxiety, joy, fear, and eagerness battled for possession of her nerves, set her belly to churning and her heart thumping. She slipped the lock and threw open the door.
“Luke…Who…Where? I thought you were in North Carolina.” She sought to calm herself in the face of his nonchalance and in the absence of any obvious emotion on his part. From the expression in his eyes, she could have been a broom standing there.
“I asked you to call me if you needed me, but you didn’t. I had to see that you’re all right. It’s my job.”
Her joy at seeing him unexpectedly, at knowing he’d wrecked his weekend to see her, withered like wild dandelions beneath a shower of weed killer.
Her gaze caught the fist of his left hand, opening and closing in rapid succession as if he were keeping time or pumping air, and she looked back into his eyes, still casual and indifferent. If she had the nerve, she’d…
“I’ll bet you haven’t had breakfast, so why don’t you come on in and have some coffee?”
When his lips parted, she knew he intended to refuse. She hadn’t planned it, but then something in her reached out to him. She took his hand and tugged at it, displaying an aggressiveness that she knew surprised him.
“Come on. It’s Saturday, and you have the day off. You can afford to waste half an hour with me, and I make great Columbian coffee.”
He let her hold his hand as he followed her to the kitchen, and she doubted he would have gone so docilely if she hadn’t staggered him with her forwardness. The feel of his big hand in hers filled her head with intimate ideas about him, and fired her body like torched gasoline. He didn’t caress her fingers, merely let her hold his hand, so she had to release it.
He sipped the coffee without taking his gaze from her eyes. “I’m not in the habit of doing what I don’t want to do.”
Uh-oh. Here it comes, she thought. “I don’t understand,” she said, though she knew he hadn’t wanted to enter her apartment.
“I think you do. I had my reasons for speaking with you at your door. For both our sakes, don’t test my attraction to you. You may catch me when it’s at fever pitch, and the temptation to howl outweighs everything else.” He set the cup on the kitchen counter. “I’ll be in touch.”
She caught herself twisting her hands and stuck them behind her, praying he hadn’t noticed. Best to brazen it out. She laid back her shoulders, tossed her head and smiled.
“As far as I’m concerned, Luke, you’d have to do a lot to unravel your character. Besides, you can’t turn a Town Car into a Jeep.”
She couldn’t figure out the message in those fiery gray eyes, but his words settled it. “No, but you can trash it. Thanks for the coffee. I’ll find my way out.”
He strode toward the short hallway, stopped and turned. “Where’s Randy?”
She stood straighter, intent on his knowing that nothing and no one got the better of her. “Randy’s painting. It’s one thing I don’t have to urge him to do.”
“Take care.” He walked swiftly, almost as though he scented a prize.
She hated seeing women stand akimbo with their hands on their hips, but she did it then, frustration gripping every muscle of her body. Disgusted with herself, she threw up her hands and headed out back to her garden.
She paused on the porch. Why was she so riled up? She didn’t want to become involved with him or any other man, did she? Her knees nearly buckled as the truth pierced her thoughts. She wanted him. She’d made a play for him because she’d recognized the vulnerability in him. He saw what she’d done, and let her know he didn’t like it. Maybe she was reaching for a thin reed, but she was thirty-eight years old, already past her prime, and had never been in the arms of a man who put her interests, her fulfillment and her well-being above his own. Luke Hickson would do that, and she wanted him. Deflated and saddened when she recalled his disinterested behavior minutes earlier, she reminded herself of the times when he’d behaved otherwise.
“Why can’t I have him, if he wants me?” she asked. She looked at herself in the hall mirror, at the tiny lines at the edges of her still beautiful eyes and the slight creases across her forehead. I’ll take
the consequences.
Chapter 4
Luke got in his car, drove around the block and stopped. He had to get a grip on his emotions. He rolled down the window and let the crisp, bracing wind bruise his face. Memories of the peace he’d known with Eunice flooded his thoughts. Their tranquil moments, easy communication and quiet loving came back to him, strong, visionlike, as if it had happened the day before. But was that what a man needed—contentment, a sameness that neither exercised the mind nor the emotions? Yet, it had been good in its way. Eunice hadn’t been imaginative about life, loving or much else, but she’d always been there for him. And he’d loved her. How different his feelings for Kate! She challenged him, excited and galvanized him. Sometimes he had an urge to bend her to his will and, at others—like this morning—he wanted to open himself to her, let her have her way with him and watch her fly.
He turned the key in the ignition and eased away from the curb. A whole day on his hands. His heart told him he should be spending it with her, but for as long as she was under his protection he meant to stick to his guns and stay away from her.
He hadn’t done it on purpose, but he found himself driving in the direction of her store.
He glanced to the right as he neared it, and slammed on the brakes. Yellow and black chalk marks defaced the door and window of her store. He got out and examined them, searching for a symbol, because he was becoming increasingly more certain that Kate’s in-laws had no part in the crimes against her.
He couldn’t let her face that ugliness, so he drove to the housing projects just off Frederick Boulevard, got out, and knocked on Rude Hopper’s door. He could depend on Rude for just about anything, including the man’s vast knowledge of “the street” and what went on there. He’d gotten Rude’s younger son away from a gang and into the Police Athletic League, where he exhibited leadership abilities, and he was now college bound. Rude couldn’t do enough for him.
“I’ll take a couple of friends over there, and it’ll be good as new before noon,” Rude told him after hearing about the vandalism. “You putting somebody there to watch the place?”
“I’ll have a guard on duty from now on. Thanks, brother, I owe you one.”
Rude shook his head. “Not me. I’m the one who’s in your debt, and I always will be. We’ll get right to it. And if I pick up on anything, I’ll let you know.”
Luke thanked him. Kate opened at twelve on Saturdays, so perhaps he’d saved her the shock of seeing the ugliness. He used his cell phone to call a junior detective and assign him to watch the store. That done, he drove out to Eunice’s grave, placed some dogwood blossoms at the headstone, said a prayer and walked back to his car. For reasons he couldn’t understand, he felt lighter than he had in years, and he didn’t question it. He picked up a stone and sent it twirling through the air as a sense of release washed over him. Amanda had begged him to try to bury the past, but he’d punished himself with guilt, and had never attempted to forget. He wondered if he could, and if Eunice had forgiven him for not being there when she needed him. For once, remembering didn’t hurt so much.
When he went to bed that night, he gave himself points for refraining from calling Kate, but he could still smell her perfume, that spicy floral scent that stayed with him for hours after he’d been near her. Fit to bite nails, he swore at himself when images of her heated his loins, but then a strange peace flooded his being and, with a little effort, he put desire behind him.
He phoned her the next morning, told her about the vandalism and that he’d had the evidence of it cleaned off. She thanked him, and he asked himself why she didn’t protest his protectiveness, as she usually did. That was something he had to watch.
Kate got to her store shortly before twelve and let out a deep breath when she saw nothing untoward, but as she unlocked the door she noticed the squad car sitting across the street and walked over to it.
“Are you stationed here, or just resting?” she asked the officer.
“Ma’am, Second Precinct detectives don’t rest during working hours unless they want another job. I’m posted here.”
“Well…thank you,” was all she could manage. She went in her office and made coffee. Then she took a cup to the officer, who accepted it gratefully.
“Does everybody get this kind of service?” she asked him.
He took a few sips of coffee, and she could see how much he enjoyed it. “This is good stuff, and I was dying for some. Thanks a lot. Oh, yes,” he said, remembering her question. “We do this whenever it’s necessary. Just ignore me and go on about your business.”
She didn’t know what to make of Luke, protective yet distant. She wasn’t a lamb born the day before, so he couldn’t tell her that every citizen in Portsmouth could count on that level of protection. She was grateful that she hadn’t seen her store defaced and that she didn’t have to look over her shoulder every minute, but she hated that when men got interested in her they insisted on enclosing her in some kind of shell, as though she were a fragile embryo. She thought she’d left that behind when she buried Nathan. Still, she wouldn’t dare complain because Randy needed her safe and healthy. It hung in the mirror of her mind like a brilliant Picasso painting that she was all her son had.
By the end of the day, three more people had signed up for the reading club, among them two sexy young women. If providence was kind to her, Axel would flip over one of them. The likelihood of that seemed remote, however, when Axel arrived at closing time bringing an embarrassingly large bouquet of red and yellow long-stemmed roses. She loved roses of all colors, and she didn’t have the heart to scold him.
“You like them?” he asked, more pleased with himself than he had a right to be.
She tried to sound moderately disinterested. “I love roses. Is there a woman anywhere who doesn’t?”
Self-satisfaction radiated from every part of him, and she knew he thought he’d scored big with her. “If I know anything,” he boasted, “it’s how to treat a woman, and especially one like you.”
The door opened and Randy bounded in, followed by an off-duty policeman. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see her son or anybody else.
“I made my rounds, Mom, and delivered the stuff to all my clients.” He turned to the officer who’d arrived with him. “I did real good, didn’t I? Mom, this is my partner, Officer Jenkins.”
She greeted the officer and shook hands with him, but she couldn’t hide her embarrassment as Jenkins stared with all-knowing eyes from Axel to the oversize bouquet in her hand.
A frown eclipsed Randy’s face as he stared at the flowers. “Where’d you get those, Mom?”
“Officer Strange just gave them to me.”
Randy looked at the man. And looked and looked, while Jenkins watched. She couldn’t help wondering how early in life the male of the species adopted territorial prerogatives. Randy had just served notice that he did not like Axel Strange and didn’t want him around.
“Captain Luke helps me with my lessons,” Randy said. “He’s my friend.”
She would have banished Randy to her office for that piece of one-upmanship, had not Jenkins begun laughing. And the more he laughed, the more he laughed. She squelched a giggle when she noticed that Randy had gone to stand beside Jenkins, and that Axel’s face had become bloated from his ripening anger. Unable to think of a way out of it, she laid the flowers on a table and started toward the office for a vase. “I’d planned to tail you and Randy home, ma’am,” Jenkins said, “but—”
She cut in quickly. “Thanks so much, officer. I’ll be ready as soon as I get a container for these flowers.”
She didn’t know what the three of them said to each other in her absence, and she hardly cared, but she’d forever be grateful to Jenkins. Not that she disliked Axel—she didn’t. But the man didn’t seem capable of modest behavior. She brought out a plastic Chinese-style vase that she’d filled with water, arranged the roses in it, put the vase on the table, and left it there.
“
Now the store will have a nice feminine touch,” she said in a gesture to Axel, and thanked him for the roses. But a bunch of flowers, however beautiful and expensive, didn’t purchase her company, and he’d have to learn that.
She’d thought that had ended it until later that evening when Randy had leaned both elbows on her lap, looked up at her, and said, “I don’t like him. Don’t let him come in the store anymore.”
She put an arm around him, loosely because he hated to be petted. “Randy, my store is a public place, and unless people misbehave, I can’t prevent their entering it. That’s the law. Besides, he’s not a bad person.”
“He’s not like Captain Luke and Officer Jenkins, and he doesn’t like for us kids to go to the precinct. I don’t want him to give you any flowers.”
As much as she loved Randy, she couldn’t let him run her life, but he needed assurance that Axel wasn’t important to her. “Don’t worry about him, Randy. He isn’t special to me in any way.”
“He isn’t?”
“No, darling. Not at all.”
“Gee.” Evidently satisfied, he skipped out of the room.
Luke didn’t care much for parties, not even fund-raisers for PAL, but as a principal supporter of the organization he knew that Mrs. Joshua Armstrong, as she liked to be known, would be insulted if he didn’t attend. He dressed in a business suit, arrived around eight-thirty and made certain that his hostess and all of her guests saw him. Then, he went out on the back porch and sat there in the darkness away from the fawning women, small talk and the scent of liquor. Kate filled his thoughts, and he was glad she hadn’t come. If he didn’t see her, he couldn’t break his promise to himself. He closed his eyes and let the night air blow over him, invigorating him.
Kate hadn’t wanted to be the last person to arrive, but she didn’t relish being the first at a party, either. She greeted Mrs. Joshua Armstrong, resplendent in a long, red hostess gown—a throwback to the thirties, Kate thought—and took a look around her. She wished she’d stayed home. Axel Strange was the only person she knew in that huge room filled with Portsmouth’s moneyed class. Having found her way to an opposite corner of the room, she refused the smoked oysters, wines, and liquors that the waiter offered her and opted for a glass of club soda; after all, she didn’t have a designated driver.
Secret Desire Page 6