A Christmas Blessing

her with a stroke of his finger across her cheek and a murmured, “Shh, angel. Everything’s okay. Your mama and I are just having a slight difference of opinion.”
His angry gaze settled on Jessie. “I bought this ranch because ranching is what I do. I built this house because I needed a home.”
“How many bedrooms, Luke? Five? Seven? More than there are over at White Pines, I’ll bet. And how many rooms do you really live in? Two, maybe three, if you don’t count the kitchen as Consuela’s domain?”
“What’s your point?”
“That you’re every bit as desperate for approval from Harlan as Erik ever was. You’re just determined to do it by besting him at his own game.”
“Or maybe I was just planning ahead for the time when I have a family to share this ranch with me,” he said quietly, his gaze pinned on her. “Maybe I was thinking about coming in from the cold and finding the woman I loved in front of the fire, holding my baby.”
The softly spoken remark, the seductive, dangerous look in his eyes held Jessie mesmerized. His voice caressed her.
“Maybe I was imagining what it would be like when this was no longer just a house, but a home, filled with warmth and laughter and happiness. Or didn’t you ever stop to think that I might have dreams?”
“So why don’t you do something to turn it into a home?” she taunted before she could stop herself.
The look he shot her was unreadable, but there was something in the coiled intensity of his body language that sent a thrill shimmering straight through her.
“Perhaps I have,” he said, his challenging gaze never leaving hers.
Then, while Jessie’s breath was still lodged in her throat, he pressed a kiss to the baby’s cheek, handed her back to her mother and sauntered from the room with the confidence of a man who’d just emerged triumphant from a showdown at the OK Corral.
That was the last she saw of him until after the supper she’d been forced to eat alone. She’d spent most of the evening the same way, alone in the kitchen, pondering what Luke had said—and what he hadn’t. With the radio tuned to Christmas carols, her mood was a mix of nostalgia and wistfulness and confusion.
She hadn’t especially wanted to spend the holidays with Erik’s family, hadn’t been much in the mood for celebrating at all in fact, but now that Christmas was only two days away, she couldn’t help thinking of the way it had been the year before. She wondered if she would ever recapture those feelings.
The whole family and dozens of friends had been crowded around a gigantic tree, its branches loaded with perfectly matched gold ornaments and tiny white lights, chosen by a decorator. Mary had played carols on the baby grand piano, while the rest of them sang along, their voices more exuberant than on key.
Jessie remembered thinking of all the quiet Christmases as she’d been growing up, all the times she’d longed for a boisterous houseful of people. With her hand tucked in Erik’s, she’d been so certain that for the first time she finally understood the joy of the season. Her heart had been filled to overflowing. In agreeing to go to White Pines this year, perhaps she’d been hoping to reclaim that feeling for herself and eventually for her baby.
It seemed unlikely, though, that it would have been the same. Erik had stolen her right to be there from her, wiped it away in an instant of carelessness that she’d never really doubted for a moment was as much his fault as Luke’s. Sometimes, when it was dark and she was scared, she blamed Luke, because it hurt too much to blame her husband.
Everything Luke had said earlier was true. Erik had hated working on the ranch, whether his father’s or his brother’s. He’d had other dreams, but his father had been too strong and Erik too weak to fight. He’d preferred working for Luke, who tolerated his flaws more readily than his father did. He’d accepted his fate by rushing through chores, by doing things haphazardly, probably in a subconscious bid to screw up so badly that his father or Luke would finally fire him.
Well, he’d screwed up royally, all right, but he’d died in the process, costing both of them the future they’d envisioned, costing Angela a father and her the extended family she’d grown to love. Sometimes Jessie was so filled with rage and bitterness over Erik’s unthinking selfishness that she was convinced she hated him, that she’d never loved him at all.
At other times, like now, she regretted to her very core all the lost Christmases, all the lost moments in the middle of the night when they would have shared their hopes and dreams, all the children they’d planned on having.
“Jessie?” Luke said, interrupting her sad thoughts as he stood in the kitchen doorway, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. “Are you okay?”
“Just thinking about last year and how much things have changed,” she admitted.
Luke’s eyes filled with dismay. “I’m sorry. I know facing a Christmas without Erik is the last thing you expected,” he said, regarding her worriedly. “Why don’t you come on in the living room? I’ve started a fire in there.”
Without argument Jessie stood and followed him. She was frankly surprised by the unexpected invitation, but she had no desire to spend the rest of the evening alone with her thoughts, even if being with Luke stirred feelings in her that she didn’t fully understand.
When Luke stood by the fireplace, Jessie crossed over to stand beside him. He looked so sad, so filled with guilt, an agonizing of guilt that had begun some seven months ago for both of them. Instinctively she reached for him, placing her hand on his arm. The muscle was rigid.
She tried to make things right. “I don’t blame you for the way things are, Luke. I wanted to. I wanted to lash out