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.
“Maybe I was imagining what it would be like when this was no longer just a house, but a home, filled with warmth and laughter and happiness. Or didn’t you ever stop to think that I might have dreams?”
“So why don’t you do something to turn it into a home?” she taunted before she could stop herself.
The look he shot her was unreadable, but there was something in the coiled intensity of his body language that sent a thrill shimmering straight through her.
“Perhaps I have,” he said, his challenging gaze never leaving hers.
Then, while Jessie’s breath was still lodged in her throat, he pressed a kiss to the baby’s cheek, handed her back to her mother and sauntered from the room with the confidence of a man who’d just emerged triumphant from a showdown at the OK Corral.
That was the last she saw of him until after the supper she’d been forced to eat alone. She’d spent most of the evening the same way, alone in the kitchen, pondering what Luke had said—and what he hadn’t. With the radio tuned to Christmas carols, her mood was a mix of nostalgia and wistfulness and confusion.
She hadn’t especially wanted to spend the holidays with Erik’s family, hadn’t
