A Christmas Blessing

decision stirred in her. Stranded here with him, she didn’t dare explore any of her feelings too closely, but she had been reminded sharply of all of them. Most especially she had remembered how a simple glance could warm her, how easily the soft caress of Luke’s voice could send a tremor of pure bliss rippling through her.
At White Pines, with Erik alive, those responses had been forbidden. She had felt the deep sting of betrayal every time she hadn’t been able to control her reaction to her husband’s brother. Now it seemed the denials had gone for naught. Luke had reawakened her senses without even trying. He, thank goodness, appeared far more capable of pretending, though, that he hadn’t. The charade of casual distance between them would be maintained to protect them both from making a terrible mistake.
“I think I’ll put Angela down for a while,” she said, practically dashing from the room that vibrated with unspoken longings.
Only after she had the baby safely tucked into her makeshift bed again, only after she was curled up in a blanket herself did she give free rein to the wild fantasies that Luke set off in her. Dangerous, forbidden fantasies. Fantasies that hadn’t died, after all, not even after her attempt to put time and distance between herself and this complex man who’d found a spot in her heart with his unspoken compassion and strength of character.
“Oh, Lucas,” she whispered miserably. “How could I have done it? How could I have gone and fallen in love with you?”
There was no point in denying that love was what she was feeling. She had fought it practically from the moment she’d first set eyes on him. She had run from it, leaving him and White Pines behind. But three nights ago, when Luke had been there for her, when he had safely delivered her baby and treated her with such tenderness and compassion, the powerful feelings had come back with a vengeance.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t go on denying them with every breath left in her. She owed that to Erik.
More than that, she knew as well as Luke obviously did, the kind of terrible price they would pay, the loss of respect from the rest of the family if he ever admitted what she was beginning to suspect…that he was in love with her as well.
* * *
Luke was slowly but surely going out of his mind. There wasn’t a doubt about it. Another few days of the kind of torment that Jessie’s presence was putting him through and he’d be round the bend. His body was so hard, so often, that he wondered why he hadn’t exploded.
All it took was a whispered remark, an innocent glance, a casual caress and he reacted as if he were being seduced, which was clearly the farthest thing from Jessie’s mind. There were times it seemed she could barely stand to be in the same room with him. She’d bolted so often, even a blind man would have gotten the message.
He couldn’t understand why she, of all the women in the world, had this mesmerizing effect on him. Maybe guilt had made all of his senses sharper, he consoled himself. Maybe he wouldn’t be up to speed and ready to rock and roll, if there weren’t such an element of danger involved. He was practically hoarse from telling himself that Jessie was not available to him ever, and his body still wasn’t listening!
It had been tough enough with Erik alive. His sense of honor had forbidden him from acting on his impulse to sweep Jessie into his arms and carry her off to his own ranch. Erik and Jessie had made a legal and religious commitment to love each other till eternity. Luke had witnessed their vows himself, had respected those vows, in deed, if not always in thought. He’d been tormented day in and day out by the longings he could control only by staying as far from Jessie as possible. With her right here in the home in which he’d envisioned her so often, his control was stretched beyond endurance. He was fighting temptation minute by minute. Each tiny victory was an agony.
A lesser man might not have fought so valiantly. After all, Erik’s death had removed any legal barriers to Luke’s pursuit of Jessie. But he knew in his heart it hadn’t diminished the moral commitment the couple had made before God and their family and friends. Maybe if Luke told himself that often enough, he could keep his hands off her for a few more days.
But not if she impulsively threw her arms around his neck again, not if he felt the soft press of her breasts against his chest, or the tantalizing brush of her lips against his. A man could handle only so much temptation without succumbing—and hating himself for it forever after.
The safe thing to do, the smart, prudent thing would be to retrieve that blasted cellular phone from his truck and call his parents.
And he would do just that, he promised himself. He would do it first thing Christmas morning. Tomorrow, Jessie would be out of his home, out of his life. She would be back where she belonged—at White Pines—and back in her rightful role as Erik’s widow, mother of Harlan and Mary’s first grandchild.
Tonight, though, he would have Jessie and Angela to himself for their own private holiday celebration. Just thinking about sitting with Jessie in a darkened room, the only lights those on the twinkling tree they’d had such fun decorating, made his pulse race. They would share a glass of wine, listen to carols, then at midnight they would toast Christmas together.
And tomorrow he would let her—let both of them—go.
That was the plan. If he had thought it would help him stick to it, he would have written it down and posted it on the refrigerator. Instead, he knew he was going to have to draw on his increasingly tattered sense of honor.