A Christmas Blessing

by her thoughts. She grabbed her coat before she was tempted to act on anyone of them.
As if he’d read her mind, Luke inquired lazily, “In a hurry,darlin’?”
“You have no idea,” she replied in a choked voice.
“Oh, I’ll bet I do.” He touched a finger lightly to herlips. “Hold those thoughts.”
Jessie had no problem at all complying with that rather surprisingrequest. She doubted she could have banished them with a solid whack by a crowbar. Whatshe couldn’t comprehend to save her soul was why Luke had suddenly taken it intohis head to torment her like this. Whatever his reasons, though, she intended to makethe most of his presence.
He might walk away from her and from White Pines eventually, but if hewent this time it wouldn’t be without putting up the fight of his life for hisheart. Jessie intended to claim it, this time for good.

Chapter Twelve
Luke was having a great deal of difficultyremembering what it was that had originally brought him to White Pines. Sitting acrossfrom Jessie in a booth at Rosa’s Mexican Café, his mind kept wandering to thatdesperate, hungry kiss they had shared in his truck. Just thinking about it aroused him.She had been hot and yielding in his arms, every bit as passionate as he’d everimagined.
Now, as he watched her gasp with each bite of Rosa’s lethally hotsalsa, he was just as fascinated by her passion for the spicy food. Her eyes watered.Sweat beaded on her brow. He thought she had never been more appealing, though hewondered if she was going to survive the meal.
“They have a milder version,” he said, taking pity on her.
She waved off the offer. “This is delicious,” she said as shegrabbed her glass of water and gulped most of it down before reaching for another chipand loading it with the salsa. “The best Mexican food I’ve ever had. Iwonder why Erik never brought me here.”
Luke didn’t have an answer to that, but he couldn’t help beingglad that they were sharing her first experience with Rosa’s Café, a placehe’d always preferred to the fanciest restaurants in the state. Rosa, yet anotherof Consuela’s distant cousins, had been bossing him around since his first visityears before. Coming here felt almost more like coming home than going to White Pines.He was delighted that Jessie liked it.
In fact, he was discovering that he was captivated by her reactions toeverything. It seemed to him that in many ways Jessie took a child’s innocentdelight in all of her surroundings. Her responses to the simplest pleasures gave him awhole new perspective on the world, as well. Each time he was with her, his jaded hearthealed a bit. Each time she chipped away at his resolve not to get more deeply involvedwith his brother’s widow.
Remembering his resolve reminded him at last of why he’d broken hisvow never to return to White Pines. He had come not simply to see Jessie again andindulge his fantasies about her, but to ply her for information about her past. It was amission from which he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He wanted to give her thegift of her family before he walked out of her life.
“It doesn’t bother you at all, does it?” she asked,snagging his attention.
“What?”
“The food.”
“Why? Because it’s hot? I grew up on Mexican food. Consuelaput jalapeño peppers in everything. I’m pretty sure she ground them up and putthem in our baby food.”
Jessie grinned. “No wonder you’re tough as nails. This stuffwill definitely put hair on your chest, as my daddy used to say.”
There it was, Luke thought. The perfect opening. “Tell me about yourfamily,” he suggested. “Did you always know you were adopted?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t have a clue until I was ateenager. One night I was talking about a friend who was adopted and who’d decidedto search for her birth mother, and my mother suddenly got up and ran from the room. Ihad no idea what I’d said to upset her so. Daddy looked at me like he’dcaught me torturing a kitten or something and went rushing after her. I sat there filledwith guilt without knowing why I should feel that way.”
Luke couldn’t begin to imagine her confusion and hurt. “Isthat when they told you?”
“Later that night. I’d cleaned up the supper they’dbarely touched and done the dishes when they finally came into the kitchen and told meto sit down. They looked so sad, but stoic, you know what I mean?”
Luke nodded. He’d actually seen a similar look in her face the daybefore, when he’d sent her away. He wondered how much of this she’d sharedwith Erik. A pang of pure jealousy sliced through him, and he cursed himself for being aselfish bastard, for wanting more of her than his brother had had.
Oblivious to his reaction, Jessie went on. “Anyway, they told methen that they had adopted me when I was only a few days old. They said theydidn’t know anything at all about my birth mother, that they hadn’t wantedto know. They’d made sure the records were sealed and never lookedback.”
“You must have felt as if your whole world had been turned on itsear,” Luke suggested.
“Worse, I think. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t whoI’d always thought I was—Dancy and Grace Garnett’s daughter. It wasthat they had lied to me for all those years. If you knew how Dancy and Grace preachedabout honesty above all else, you’d know how betrayed I felt when I learned thetruth. It was as though they weren’t who they’d claimed to be,either.” She looked at him. “Am I making any sense here?”
“Absolutely.” Since she seemed to be relieved to be sharingthe story with him, Luke remained silent, hoping that would encourage her to go on.
“I begged them to let me find my biological mother, but Gracestarted crying and Dancy got that same accusing look on his face again.”
Even now, she sounded guilt ridden, Luke noticed. “Do you realizethat when you talk about them in casual conversation, you refer to them as Mother andFather, but just now, talking about that time, you instinctively