Luke was slowly but surely going out of his mind. There wasn’t a doubt about it. Another few days of the kind of torment that Jessie’s presence was putting him through and he’d be round the bend. His body was so hard, so often, that he wondered why he hadn’t exploded.
All it took was a whispered remark, an innocent glance, a casual caress and he reacted as if he were being seduced, which was clearly the farthest thing from Jessie’s mind. There were times it seemed she could barely stand to be in the same room with him. She’d bolted so often, even a blind man would have gotten the message.
He couldn’t understand why she, of all the women in the world, had this mesmerizing effect on him. Maybe guilt had made all of his senses sharper, he consoled himself. Maybe he wouldn’t be up to speed and ready to rock and roll, if there weren’t such an element of danger involved. He was practically hoarse from telling himself that Jessie was not available to him ever, and his body still wasn’t listening!
It had been tough enough with Erik alive. His sense of honor had forbidden him from acting on his impulse to sweep Jessie into his arms and carry her off to his own ranch. Erik and Jessie had made a legal and religious commitment to love each other till eternity. Luke had witnessed their vows himself, had respected those vows, in deed, if not always in thought. He’d been tormented day in and day out by the longings he could control only by staying as far from Jessie as possible. With her right here in the home in which he’d envisioned her so often, his control was stretched beyond endurance. He was fighting temptation minute by minute. Each tiny victory was an agony.
A lesser man might not have fought so valiantly. After all, Erik’s death had removed any legal barriers to Luke’s pursuit of Jessie. But he knew in his heart it hadn’t diminished the moral commitment the couple had made before God and their family and friends. Maybe if Luke told himself that often enough, he could keep his hands off her for a few more days.
But not if she impulsively threw her arms around his neck again, not if he felt the soft press of her breasts against his chest, or the tantalizing brush of her lips against his. A man could handle only so much temptation without succumbing—and hating himself for it forever after.
The safe thing to do, the smart, prudent thing would be to retrieve that blasted cellular phone from his truck and call his parents.
And he would do just that, he promised himself. He would do it first thing Christmas morning. Tomorrow, Jessie would be out of his home, out of his life. She would be back where she belonged—at White Pines—and back in her rightful role as Erik’s widow, mother of Harlan and Mary’s first grandchild.
Tonight, though, he would have Jessie and Angela to himself for their own private holiday celebration. Just thinking about sitting with Jessie in a darkened room, the only lights those on the twinkling tree they’d had such fun decorating, made his pulse race. They would share a glass of wine, listen to carols, then at midnight they would toast Christmas together.
And tomorrow he would let her—let both of them—go.
That was the plan. If he had thought it would help him stick to it, he would have written it down and posted it on the refrigerator. Instead, he knew he was going to have to draw on his increasingly tattered sense of honor. He stood in his office for a good fifteen minutes, his gaze fixed on Erik and Jessie’s wedding picture just to remind himself of the stakes. He figured his resolve was about as solid as it possibly could be.
He tried to pretend that there was nothing special about the evening by choosing to wear one of his many plaid shirts, the colors muted by too many washings, and a comfortable, well-worn pair of jeans. Consuela would have ripped him to shreds for his choice. His mother would have declared herself disgraced. He considered it one small attempt to keep the atmosphere casual.
There were more. He set the kitchen table with everyday dishes and skirted the temptation of candles with careful deliberation. He would have used paper plates and plastic knives and forks if he’d had them just to make his point.
Still, there was no denying the festive atmosphere as he heated the cornish game hens with wild rice, fresh rolls and pecan pie that Consuela had left for his holiday meal. The wine was one of his best, carefully selected from the limited, but priceless, assortment in his wine cellar. The kitchen was filled with delicious aromas by the time Jessie put in an appearance.
She’d dressed in an emerald green sweater that had the look of softest cashmere. It hung loosely to just below her hips, suggesting hidden curves. Her slacks were a matching shade of wool. She’d brushed her coal black hair and left it to wave softly down her back.
“Something smells wonderful,” she said peering into the oven. The movement sent her hair cascading over her shoulder. She shot him an astonished look. “Cornish game hens? Pecan pie?”
“Consuela,” he confessed tightly as he fought the desire to run his fingers through her hair.
Her gaze narrowed speculatively. “She must have suspected you’d be having a special guest here for the holidays.”
Was that jealousy in her voice? Luke wondered. Dear heaven, he hoped not. Jealousy might imply that his feelings were returned and he knew without any doubt that all it would take to weaken his resolve was a hint that Jessie felt as he did.
“Not suspected,” he denied. “Hoped, maybe. Consuela is a hopeless romantic and my bachelor status is a constant source of dismay to her. She stays up nights watching old videos of Hepburn and Tracy, Fred Astaire and
