A Christmas Blessing (7 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked crankily, rubbing his aching shoulders as he eyed Jessie warily. For a woman who’d just had a baby less than forty-eight hours before, she was damned energetic. Normally he’d consider that an admirable trait, but at the moment it seemed a nuisance to have her bustling around as if he weren’t even there. “Jessie, whatever you’re up to, give it a rest.”

“I’m getting some light in here. It’s dark as pitch.” She drew back the draperies with a flick of her wrist, revealing the blinding glare of sunlight on snow.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked cheerfully. “I’ll be back in a minute with your breakfast. You really shouldn’t sleep at your desk, Lucas. It’s bad for your back.”

Given the fact that every muscle between his neck and his butt ached like the very dickens, Luke couldn’t argue with her. If she hadn’t taken off, though, he would have had a few things to say about her intrusion into his domain. He figured they could wait until she returned. If she brought strong, black coffee with her, he might even moderate his protest to a dull roar.

He stood up cautiously, testing to see if any of his parts actually worked. His legs held him upright, which was better than he deserved. He stretched carefully, slowly working the kinks loose. By the time he heard Jessie’s returning footsteps, he was feeling almost civilized. That didn’t mean he intended to tolerate her sudden burst of uninvited activity.

Unfortunately for his resolve, the aroma of coffee preceded her into the room. Oblivious to whatever order there might be to his desk, she brushed piles of papers aside and deposited a tray laden with pancakes, eggs, bacon and a pot of coffee. Luke glanced at the new disarray, considered bellowing in outrage, then took another whiff of that coffee and poured himself a cup instead. He sipped it gratefully as he sank back into his leather chair.

Maybe the bustling wasn’t so bad, after all. Only trouble now was, she didn’t go away. In fact, she seemed to be waiting for something. She hovered at the edge of his desk, her gaze fixed on him as if trying to determine how to broach whatever was on her mind.

“Coffee’s good,” he said, watching her uneasily. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll bring them back to the kitchen and wash up when I’m done,” he said, hoping she’d take the hint and leave.

She actually grinned at that. “Trying to get rid of me?” she inquired.

Almost as if to taunt him, she pulled up a chair and sat down. What astonished him was the fact that even though she was wearing her oversize maternity clothes, she managed to look as sexy as if she’d been wearing something slinky. His imagination was perfectly capable of envisioning every curve under her shapeless top. As if it might make a difference, he turned his attention to the food she’d brought. He poured syrup on the pancakes and cut into the eggs.

“I told you yesterday that I didn’t want you waiting on me,” he reminded her even as he took his first bite of pancakes. They were light as air. He knew for a fact that Consuela hadn’t left these, which meant Jessie had been cooking. “You need to rest. Taking care of a new baby is tiring. I want you concentrating on Angela.”

“Angela’s fine. She’s been fed. Now she’s sleeping. That’s what newborns do.”

He snapped a piece of crisp bacon into crumbs and prayed for patience. “So, rest while you have the chance. Read a book. The library next door is filled with them.”

“Maybe later.”

He could see he was getting nowhere. Maybe if he divided up the chores and took the lion’s share himself, she’d restrict herself to doing only what she’d been assigned.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “I’ll fix breakfast and lunch. You can deal with supper, since Consuela already has those dishes prepared and ready to pop into the oven. I’ll clean up. Agreed?”

“That hardly sounds fair,” she said. “I’ll cook all the meals. You clean up.”

“No,” Luke insisted, his voice tight. “We’ll do it my way. And since you’ve already done breakfast today, I’ll handle dinner. You’re done for the day. Go take a nap.”

“I wonder why I never noticed before what a bully you are,” she commented, her expression thoughtful.

The observation didn’t seem to trouble her a bit, but he found it insulting. “I am not a bully. I’m just trying to divvy things up fairly.”

“You have an odd notion of fair,” she observed. “Oh, well, never mind. I won’t argue for the moment. Maybe you should consider the pancakes a bribe,” she suggested.

Luke’s gaze narrowed. “A bribe? For what?”

“So you’ll do what I want, of course.”

“Which is?”

She opened her mouth, seemed to reconsider, then closed it again. “No, I think we’ll wait and talk about it later. I think you could use a little more buttering up.” She stood and headed for the door.

Luke stared after her in astonishment. “Jessie!”

His bellow clearly caught her by surprise. She halted in the doorway and looked back. The glance she shot him couldn’t have been more innocent if she’d been a newborn baby.

“Yes?” she said.

“What kind of game are you playing here?”

“No game,” she insisted.

“You want something, though. What is it?”

“It can wait. Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Tell me now,” he ordered.

She smiled. “I don’t think so.”

She closed the door with quiet emphasis before he could even form another question. Suddenly, despite himself, he found himself laughing.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said aloud. “Maybe I underestimated you, after all, Jessie Adams. Seems to me you have gumption to spare, more than enough to take on the Adams men.”

On the other side of the door, Jessie heard the laughter and the comment. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Luke Adams,” she murmured sweetly.

Unlocking the puzzle that Luke represented had become a challenge she couldn’t resist. And drawing Erik’s family back together seemed like the best Christmas gift she could possibly give to all of them. She’d come to that conclusion during a long and restless night.

Erik wouldn’t have wanted his death to split them apart. He wouldn’t have wanted the unspoken accusations, the guilt and blame to stand between Luke and his parents. Whatever had happened on Luke’s ranch that day, Erik would never have blamed the big brother he’d idolized. He would have forgiven him. As much as Erik had craved his independence, he had loved his family more. If he hadn’t, he might have fought harder to break free from Harlan’s influence.

If, if, if…so many turning points, so many choices made, a few of them deeply regretted.

If she had accepted Harlan’s offer to fly to his ranch, then the storm and her unexpected labor wouldn’t have forced Jessie into accepting Luke’s help and his hospitality. If that wasn’t a sign from God, she didn’t know what was. Obviously, He had given her a mission here and the most readily accessible place to start was with Luke. After all, Christmas was a time for miracles.

With the snow plows uncertain, she figured she had a few days at least to utilize her powers of persuasion. By the time the roads were cleared, she was determined that she and Angela wouldn’t be going on to Harlan and Mary’s alone to celebrate the new year and a new beginning. Their son would be with her.

* * *

By late that afternoon, Jessie’s plans and her temper were frayed. She hadn’t seen more than the flash of Luke’s shadow the entire day. He’d managed to sneak lunch onto the table and disappear before she could blink. She’d passed his office, just in time to see him vanish into the library. She’d bundled up and trailed him to the barn, only to see him riding away on horseback. A gimpy old goat had been gamely trying to follow him.

Shivering, she had trudged back inside only to hear Angela screaming at the top of her lungs. Nothing she’d done had settled the baby down. Angela was dry and fed. For the past twenty minutes, Jessie had been rocking her in front of the fire in the kitchen. Angela’s great, hiccupping sobs continued unabated.

“A few more minutes of this and you’ll have me in tears, too,” Jessie murmured in distress. “Come on, sweetheart. You’re tired. Go off to sleep, like mommy’s little angel.”

Blessed silence greeted the suggestion. Five seconds later, Angela screamed even louder than before. Obviously she’d only taken time off to rev up her engine.

Jessie could feel the first, faint beginnings of panic. Already uncertain about her mothering skills, her inability to soothe her baby seemed to confirm just how unprepared and inept she was.

Because the rocking seemed to be making both of them more jittery than serene, she stood and began to pace as she racked her brain for some new technique to try.

She tried crooning a lullaby, singing an old rock song at full volume, rubbing her back. She was at her wit’s end when she heard the back door slam.

Luke hesitated just inside the threshold. “What’s all this racket?” he demanded, but there was a teasing note in his voice and a spark of amusement in his eyes. “I could hear both of you all the way out at the barn. Chester took off for parts unknown. The horses are trying to hide their heads under the hay.”

“Very funny,” Jessie snapped just as Luke reached for the baby. She relinquished her all too readily.

“Come here, angel,” he murmured consolingly. “You were just missing Uncle Luke, weren’t you?”

Jessie’s traitorous daughter gulped back a sob, then cooed happily. Held in the crook of Luke’s arm, she looked tiny, but thoroughly contented. Jessie wanted to warn her that a man’s arms weren’t a guarantee of protection, but maybe that was a lesson it was too soon to teach. If the feel of Luke’s strength could silence the baby’s cries for now, Jessie had no complaints. She felt the oddest, most compelling yearning to have his arms around her as well. With her hormones bouncing around in the wake of the baby’s birth, she seemed to be more insecure than ever.

Luke glanced her way. “Stop hovering. We’re doing fine. I’m going to start supper and Angela’s going to help, aren’t you, munchkin?”

Jessie sank gratefully onto a kitchen chair and watched Luke’s efficient movements as he pulled packages from the freezer with one hand, all the while carrying on a nonsensical conversation with the baby. Jessie sighed with envy as she watched him.

“How do you do that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe it’s like a horse. If it knows you’re afraid, it’ll buck you off sure thing. If you handle it with confidence, it’ll go along with you.”

Jessie sorted through the metaphor and came to the conclusion he thought she was scared to death of her own daughter. “In other words, I’m lousy at this.”

He shot a glance over his shoulder at her. “Did I say that? I thought I was saying that she senses you’re not sure of yourself.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“You will be.”

“How did you get to be so good with babies?”

“Three younger brothers, I suppose. All three of them had very different temperaments. Jordan was the charmer from day one. He could wheedle anything out of anybody. He gurgled and smiled and cooed. Even Daddy wasn’t immune to him. It’s no wonder he’s been such an incredible business success.”

“And Cody?”

“He’s the flirt. There hasn’t been a woman born he couldn’t win over. Daddy couldn’t handle him worth a lick. Come to think of it, Mama could never handle him either, but he could always make her think she’d won. He wrapped Consuela around his little finger and, believe me, she’s no patsy.”

“What about Erik? What was he like?” Jessie asked cautiously, keeping her gaze on Luke’s face. His expression didn’t change, but he did hesitate. For a moment she almost regretted bringing him up.

“Erik was the diplomat,” he said eventually. “He was the master of compromise. If Mama gave him two chores, he’d make her settle for one. If Daddy ordered him to be home at midnight, Erik would compromise for twelve-thirty. He never, ever accepted their first offer. If he’d been in the foreign service, it was a skill that would have served him well. As it was, he compromised himself into waiting for the life he really wanted by offering to prove himself first as a rancher.”

There was a note of sorrow in his voice that resonated deep inside Jessie. “He wanted so badly to be a teacher in junior high, the age when kids are testing themselves, and he would have been good at it, too,” she said. “He just wanted to please your father.”

“He should have known that nothing would impress Daddy except success,” Luke said bitterly. “If Erik had stuck to his guns and gone on to be a teacher, if he’d won recognition for that, it would have pleased Daddy more than seeing him trying to be a rancher and failing.”

Jessie felt a surge of anger on Erik’s behalf. “Don’t belittle your brother for trying. At least he admitted that he was staying at the ranch in an attempt to gain your father’s approval. You won’t even admit that’s what you’re doing.” She waved her hand to encompass the kitchen, the whole house. “Isn’t that what all of this is for, to impress your father, to prove you could start from scratch, without a dime of his money and have a bigger, more impressive ranch?”

As if she sensed the sudden tension, Angela whimpered. Luke soothed 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.