She was on a roll now, releasing months of pent-up anger and frustration. She scowled at him. “But I for one do not intend to ruin the rest of my life indulging in a lot of wasted emotions. I cried for Erik. I grieved for him. But a part of him lives on in Angela. I think that’s something worth celebrating. Maybe you’re content to spend the holidays all shut up in this bleak atmosphere, but I’m not.”
Oblivious to his startled expression, oblivious to everything except the sudden determination to take charge of her life again, starting here and now, she declared, “The minute I get up tomorrow morning, I am going to make this damned house festive, if I have to make decorations from popcorn and scraps of paper.”
She shot him a challenging look. She had had it with his veiled innuendoes and sour mood. “As for you, you can do what you damned well please.”
6
Sitting right where he was, staring after Jessie long after she’d gone, Luke realized he hadn’t given a thought to Christmas beyond being grateful that he wouldn’t be spending it with his family, enduring their arguments and silences, their grief. Consuela had dutifully purchased his gifts to everyone, wrapped them and sent them over to White Pines. He’d merely paid the bills.
Now, though, he would have had to be denser than stone to miss Jessie’s declaration that the atmosphere around his house was awfully bleak for the season. That parting shot before she’d gone off to her room had been a challenge if ever he’d heard one. Just thinking about it was likely to keep him up half the night, wondering how he could give them both a holiday they would never forget. There was no question in his mind that with Jessie and Angela in the house, it would be wrong, if not impossible, to ignore the holiday—the baby’s first.
A week ago he hadn’t expected to feel much like celebrating, but for the past forty-eight hours his mood had been lighter than it had been in months. Part of that was due to Angela’s untimely, but triumphant, arrival. She was truly a Christmas blessing. A far greater measure of his happiness was due, though, to this stolen time with Jessie and his sense that she truly didn’t blame him for Erik’s accident.
He finally admitted at some point in the middle of the night that instead of getting her out of his system, he was allowing her to become more firmly entrenched in his heart. He could readily see now that his initial attraction to Jessie had been pure chemistry, tinged with the magical allure of the forbidden. In some ways, his conscience insisted, she was even more out of reach to him now.
But he knew in his gut that the attraction went beyond her being unavailable to him. Traits he’d only suspected before were clear to him now. He was coming to know her strengths and her weaknesses in a whole new way and nothing he’d discovered disappointed him.
In addition to being beautiful and warmhearted, she was also quick-tempered. In addition to being strong and brave, she was also willful and stubborn. She had a quick wit and a ready laugh, but she could also be a bit of a nag when she believed in her cause. In his view the positives outweighed the negatives. The contrariness only made her more interesting.
Those discoveries solidified his long-held belief that she and Erik had been mismatched from the start. As much as he had adored his younger brother, he’d also recognized that Erik was weak, too weak to stand up to their father, too weak to provide much of a challenge to a woman like Jessie.
He’d wondered more than once what had drawn them together in the first place. Observing them in years past with a sort of detached fascination, he had had no problem guessing why Erik had chosen a woman with Jessie’s strengths. Less clear was why she had fallen in love with his brother. The past couple of days had given him some insight into that.
He was beginning to realize that far from being the gold digger she had appeared to some distrusting family members at first glance, Jessie had simply craved being part of a family with history and roots. On the surface, anyway, his family was storybook caliber with its strong men, boisterous affection, deep-rooted ties to the Texas land and abiding sense of loyalty. Erik had been her passport to all of that.
He couldn’t help wondering, though, why she had chosen to move across the state after Erik’s death, when she could have stayed at White Pines, claimed her rightful place in the family she’d obviously grown to love, and been doted on.
As he understood it, his parents had begged her to stay, especially after they’d learned she was pregnant. Even though it had meant giving up something desperately important to her, Jessie had insisted on going.
Whatever her reasons, he admired her for standing up to them. He also knew she hadn’t taken a dime when she’d left. It was yet more testament to her character, proof that she had married Erik for love, not for money.
Lingering in the barn, Luke was leaning against a stall door, still contemplating Jessie, when Chester butted him from behind. The old goat was obviously tired of being ignored. Luke turned on him with mock indignation.
“Hey, what was that all about? Goats who get pushy don’t get treats.”
Chester didn’t get the message. He nudged Luke’s coat pocket trying to get at the sections of apple he knew were there. Luke dug them out and fed them to him.
“So, what do you think, Chester? What can I do to make this holiday special?”
Since the goat didn’t seem to have any sage advice, Luke headed
