A Christmas Blessing

like diamonds scattered across white velvet. Sparkling icicles clung to the eaves. The world outside was like a wonderland, all of its flaws covered over with a blanket of purest white.
For once Jessie had apparently gotten up before Luke. She hadn’t heard him stirring when she fed Angela at 6:00 a.m. Nor was there any sign of him in the kitchen when she went for a cup of coffee before showering and getting dressed. Usually starting the coffeepot was the first thing he did in the morning. Today it hadn’t even been plugged in. Jessie checked to make sure the electric coffee machine was filled with freshly ground beans and water, then plugged it in and switched it on.
After tying the belt on her robe a little more securely, she sat down at the kitchen table to wait for the coffee to brew. Her thoughts promptly turned to the night before. Every single second of their holiday celebration was indelibly burned on her memory: the delicious dinner, the sentimental old movie, the shared laughter, the twinkling lights of the tree, the kiss.
Ah, yes, the kiss, she thought, smiling despite herself. She wasn’t sure which one of them had been more shocked by its intensity. Even though Luke had initiated it, he had seemed almost as startled as she had been by the immediate flaring of heat and hunger it had set off. Though his mouth against hers had been gentle and coaxing, the kiss had been more passionately persuasive than an all-out seduction. Fire had leapt through her veins. Desire had flooded through her belly. If he had pursued his advantage, there was no telling how far things might have gone.
Well, they couldn’t have gone too far, she reassured herself. She had just had a baby, after all. Still, there was no talking away the fact that she’d displayed the resistance of mush. And once again Luke had proven the kind of man he was, strong and honorable.
His restraint, as frustrating as it had been at the time, only deepened her respect for him. She added it to the list of all of his admirable traits and wished with all her heart that she had met him first, before Erik, before any possibility of a relationship had become so tangled with past history and old loyalties, so twisted with guilt and blame.
Almost as soon as she acknowledged the wish, guilt spread through her. How could she regret loving Erik? How could she possibly regret having Angela? Life had blessed her with a husband who had loved her with all his heart, no matter his other flaws. She had been doubly blessed with a daughter because of that love. What kind of selfish monster would wish any of that away?
“Dear God, what am I thinking?” she whispered on a ragged moan, burying her head on her arms.
There was only one answer. She had to find some way to get away from Luke, to put her tattered restraint back together. She had to get to White Pines before she made a terrible mistake, before the whole family was ripped apart again by what would amount to a rivalry for her affections.
Despite their occasional differences, she knew how deep the ties among Erik’s family members ran. They would consider themselves the protectors of Erik’s interests. Luke would be viewed as a traitor, a man with no respect for his brother’s memory. They would hold her actions against him, blaming him alone for their love when the truth was that she was the one who was increasingly powerless to resist it. She wouldn’t allow that to happen.
An image came to her then, an image of Luke returning from his pickup, his expression filled with guilt as he’d sworn he couldn’t find his cellular phone. More than likely she’d been in denial that night, longing for something that could never be, or she would have known what that expression on his face had meant.
Anger, quite possibly misdirected, surged through her. It gave her the will to act, to do what she knew in her heart must be done. She stood and grabbed Luke’s heavy jacket, poked her bare feet into boots several sizes too large, snatched up his thick gloves, and stomped outside.
She was promptly felled by the first drift of snow. She stepped off the porch and into heavy, damp snow up to her hips. She dragged herself forward by sheer will, determined to get to the truck, determined to discover if Luke had deliberately kept her stranded here.
Her progress could have been measured in inches. Her bare skin between the tops of the boots and the bottom of the coat was stinging from the cold. Still, she trudged on until she finally reached the pickup and tugged at the door. The lock was frozen shut.
Crying out in frustration, Jessie tried to unlock it by scraping at the ice, then covering the lock with her gloved hands in a futile attempt to melt the thin, but effective coating of ice. She tried blowing on it, hoping her breath would be warm enough to help. When that didn’t work, she slammed her fist against it, hoping to crack it.
Again and again, she jiggled the handle, trying to pry the door open. Eventually, when she could barely feel her feet, when her whole body was shuddering violently from the cold, the lock gave and the door came free. She jumped inside and slammed the door, relieved to be out of the biting wind.
Remembering that Erik had always left the keys above the visor, no matter how she’d argued with him about it, she checked to see if Luke had done the same. No keys. She doubted Luke was any more security conscious than his brother had been. She checked under the floor mat, then felt beneath the front seat.
That’s where she eventually found them, tucked away almost beyond her reach. Her fingers awkward from the gloves and the cold, she finally managed to turn on the