A Christmas Blessing

engine. It might take forever for the truck to warm up, but she intended to spend as long as it took to thoroughly check the pickup for that cellular phone.
It didn’t take nearly as long as she might have wished. To her astonishment and instantaneous fury, she found it on the first try, right in the glove compartment. Luke hadn’t even bothered to lock it, though it was obvious to her that he had made a passing attempt to hide the phone under some papers. Clutching the phone in her hand, she sank back against the seat and simply stared at it.
“Luke,” she whispered, “what were you thinking?”
She was so caught up in trying to explain her brother-in-law’s uncharacteristic behavior that she didn’t hear the crunching of ice or the muttered oaths until Luke was practically on top of her. Suddenly the passenger door was flung open—the damned lock didn’t even stick under his assault—and Luke jumped into the seat beside her.
Jessie shot him an accusing look. His gaze went from her face to the cellular phone and back again. He muttered a harsh oath under his breath.
“It was here all along, wasn’t it?” she asked in a lethal tone.
He didn’t even have the decency to lie. He just nodded.
“Why, Luke?” Her voice broke as she asked. Unexpected tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill over. She felt betrayed somehow, though she couldn’t have explained why. Maybe it was because she had expected so much more of Luke. The hurt cut deeper and promised worse scars than anything Erik had ever done.
Luke shoved his hand through his hair and stared off into the distance. He didn’t speak for so long that Jessie thought he didn’t intend to answer, but eventually he turned to face her, his expression haggard.
“I couldn’t make the call,” he said simply. “I just couldn’t make it.”
“Do you hate your family so much?” she demanded. “How could you let them worry about me? How could you leave them wondering if there’d been an accident? My heaven, they must be out of their minds by now.”
He shot her a look filled with irony. “Do you really think that was what it was about?”
“What else?” she demanded, her voice rising until she didn’t recognize it. “What else could have made you do something so cruel?”
Before she could even guess what he was about, he reached out and clutched the fabric of the coat that was several sizes too large for her. He dragged her roughly to him. This time when he claimed her mouth, there was nothing sweetly tentative about it. The kiss was bruising, demanding. It was the kiss of a desperate man, a man who had kept his emotions on a tight leash for far too long.
Jessie recognized the passionate claiming even before she felt the raging heat. Even as a protest formed in her head, exhilaration soared in her heart. Furious with herself for the weakness, she gave herself up to the magic of that kiss. His cheeks were stubbled, his skin cold, except where his mouth moved against hers. There, there was only the most tempting heat and she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of it.
As if he sensed that she wasn’t fighting him, as if he realized that she was fully participating in this conflagration of sensation, Luke’s rough touch became a softer caress. Demand gave way to the gentler persuasion. Out-of-control hunger turned to a far sweeter coaxing.
Jessie was captivated, her body aswirl with a riot of new feelings, more powerful than anything she’d ever felt with Erik. Not even her carefully cultivated battle against disloyalty could keep her from giving her all to this one devastating kiss.
This man, though, this timing…she couldn’t help thinking how wrong it was, when she could think at all. A spark of pure magic scampered down her spine, chased by a shiver of doubt. She suspected they could thank bulky coats and thick gloves for checking their actions, more than they could credit either of them with good sense.
Eventually Luke cupped her face in his gloved hands. With his eyes closed and his forehead barely touching hers, he sighed heavily.
“Oh, Jessie, I never meant for this to happen,” he said on a ragged, desperate note.
“But it has,” she said, not sure whether that was cause for regret or joy. Only time would tell. “Now what?”
Luke released her and sank back against the passenger seat, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You take that phone and you go inside and call the folks. Daddy will find some way to pick you up before the day is out.”
Somehow shocked at his matter-of-fact dismissal, Jessie stared at him. “You want me to go?” she whispered, devastated. “Now?”
“Especially now.” His gaze determinedly evaded hers.
“But why? It’s all out in the open at last. The way you feel. The way I feel. It was all there in that kiss. Don’t tell me you can still deny it. There’s no turning back now, Lucas. We have to deal with it.”
If he was shocked by her feelings for him, he didn’t show it. Instead, the look he turned on her was every bit as cold as the world outside that truck. “We are dealing with it. You’re going and I’m staying. That’s the way it has to be, the way it was meant to be.”
Jessie shivered, chilled as much by his tone as the howling wind. “You can’t mean that.”
“I’ve never meant anything more,” he insisted, his expression as steady and determined as she’d ever seen it. “Go to White Pines. It’s where you belong.”
A great, gnawing sensation started in the pit of Jessie’s stomach. She sensed that if she did as he asked, if she left him here alone and went to be with his family, taking her place there as his brother’s lonely, tragic widow, that would indeed be the end of it. Whatever might have been between them would die. Harlan, Mary, Jordan and Cody would be united in their