Luke’s jaw took on the stubborn set that was a family trait. Erik had been equally bullheaded, his chin perpetually at the same defiant tilt. Yet Erik had been easily swayed, easily reasoned with. Luke, to the contrary, was no pushover.
“Jessie, you’ll stay downstairs for as long as you’re here,” he insisted. “You won’t have to climb stairs.”
“But I’ll be in your way,” she protested.
His gaze settled on her. “You won’t be in my way,” he said with soft emphasis. “This is the way I want it.”
She retreated from the argument she clearly had no way of winning. It was his house. She’d stay where he wanted her. “I’ll be going to my room, then.”
Before she could reach for her bags, Luke shot her a warning look, then picked them up and preceded her down the hall. Inside the room with its dark wood and masculine decor, he deposited the suitcases, then whirled to leave, practically colliding with her in his haste. Jessie’s hands immediately went out to steady herself, landing on his chest. Luke jerked as if he’d been brushed by a branding iron. Their gazes clashed, then caught.
“Sorry,” she murmured, pulling her hands away.
“Are you okay?”
“You just startled me when you turned around so fast. I stumbled a bit, that’s all.”
Luke shook his head ruefully. “I’m not used to having to watch out for other people underfoot. It’s one of the habits that comes from living alone. Well, not alone exactly. Consuela’s here, but she’s used to dodging me. To hear her tell it, I’ve got all the grace of a bull in a china shop. Did I tell you she went to visit her family in Mexico?”
Listening to him, Jessie couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Lucas, you’re babbling,” she teased. “Are you nervous for some reason?”
“Nervous?” he repeated the word as if he were testing it. “What would I have to be nervous about?”
“That’s what I was wondering. It’s not as if we’re strangers.” Jessie blushed despite herself. “Especially after last night.”
A dull red flush crept up Luke’s neck. “Maybe it would be best if we didn’t talk too much about last night.”
“But what you did for me...” She tried to think of the right words to express her gratitude.
“I did what anybody would have under the circumstances.”
“That’s not true. Luke, if you hadn’t been here, if you hadn’t been who you are...”
“Who I am? You mean Erik’s brother,” he said on an odd, flat note.
“No,” she said emphatically. “I mean the kind of man you are, completely unflappable, gentle, competent.” She trembled when she thought of the tragedy his presence and his calm, quick actions had averted. “My God, Luke, you delivered my daughter, and if you were even half as terrified as I was, you never let on to me.”
“Try three or four times as terrified,” he corrected. “I just talked a good game.”
Jessie reached up and rested her hand against his stubbled cheek, felt a faint shudder whisper through him, saw his eyes darken. “Don’t joke,” she chided. “I’m serious. I’m trying to thank you properly for what you did, for bringing my baby safely into the world. I’ll never forget it.”
“There’s no need for thanks,” he said, brushing aside her gratitude.
“There is,” she insisted, trying to think of an adequate way of showing him how grateful she was. The perfect gesture suddenly came to her and she blurted it out impulsively, not pausing to think of the implications. “In fact, I would be honored if you would consider being Angela’s godfather. I know that’s what Erik would have wanted, too.”
Luke’s eyes turned cold and he broke away from her touch. “You’re wrong, if you think that,” he said flatly. “I’m the last man in the world Erik would want anywhere near you or your daughter.”
Too late, Jessie realized she couldn’t have shattered the quiet moment any more effectively if she’d tossed a live hand grenade into the room. By mentioning Erik, by reminding Luke of his brother, she had destroyed their fragile accord.
“Luke, that’s not true...” she began, but she was talking to herself. Luke had fled from the room as if he’d just been caught committing a crime and a posse of lawmen were after him, guns already blazing.
Troubled, Jessie stared after him. Not until she heard her daughter whimper did she move. Picking Angela up from her makeshift bed, a blanket-lined drawer, she paced the floor with her until she quieted.
“You know something, angel? Your uncle Luke is a very complicated, perplexing man.”
No one knew more clearly than she did how dangerous those two traits could be in a man, especially for a woman who enjoyed nothing more than solving puzzles.
5
There was a huge stack of unpaid bills on Luke’s desk. Normally he hated sitting there with a calculator, checking the totals against his own records, writing the checks, meticulously balancing the books. The process bored him. The mistakes irritated him. If he’d wanted to do this much math, he’d have been a damned accountant.
Tonight, though, the tedium of the assignment drew him. In fact, he hadn’t been able to leave that bedroom fast enough to get to his office and shut the door behind him. Only a vague sense of the absurdity of the action kept him from bolting it.
At any rate, as long as he had to concentrate on numbers written out in black and white, numbers that either added up or didn’t, he wouldn’t have to think about the woman in his bedroom who made no sense to him at all.
What had possessed Jessie to suggest that he be godfather to Angela? Couldn’t she
