Jessie recognized the passionate claiming even before she felt the raging heat. Even as a protest formed in her head, exhilaration soared in her heart. Furious with herself for the weakness, she gave herself up to the magic of that kiss. His cheeks were stubbled, his skin cold, except where his mouth moved against hers. There, there was only the most tempting heat and she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of it.
As if he sensed that she wasn’t fighting him, as if he realized that she was fully participating in this conflagration of sensation, Luke’s rough touch became a softer caress. Demand gave way to the gentler persuasion. Out-of-control hunger turned to a far sweeter coaxing.
Jessie was captivated, her body aswirl with a riot of new feelings, more powerful than anything she’d ever felt with Erik. Not even her carefully cultivated battle against disloyalty could keep her from giving her all to this one devastating kiss.
This man, though, this timing...she couldn’t help thinking how wrong it was, when she could think at all. A spark of pure magic scampered down her spine, chased by a shiver of doubt. She suspected they could thank bulky coats and thick gloves for checking their actions, more than they could credit either of them with good sense.
Eventually Luke cupped her face in his gloved hands. With his eyes closed and his forehead barely touching hers, he sighed heavily.
“Oh, Jessie, I never meant for this to happen,” he said on a ragged, desperate note.
“But it has,” she said, not sure whether that was cause for regret or joy. Only time would tell. “Now what?”
Luke released her and sank back against the passenger seat, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You take that phone and you go inside and call the folks. Daddy will find some way to pick you up before the day is out.”
Somehow shocked at his matter-of-fact dismissal, Jessie stared at him. “You want me to go?” she whispered, devastated. “Now?”
“Especially now.” His gaze determinedly evaded hers.
“But why? It’s all out in the open at last. The way you feel. The way I feel. It was all there in that kiss. Don’t tell me you can still deny it. There’s no turning back now, Lucas. We have to deal with it.”
If he was shocked by her feelings for him, he didn’t show it. Instead, the look he turned on her was every bit as cold as the world outside that truck. “We are dealing with it. You’re going and I’m staying. That’s the way it has to be, the way it was meant to be.”
Jessie shivered, chilled as much by his tone as the howling wind. “You can’t mean that.”
“I’ve never meant anything more,” he insisted, his expression as steady and determined as she’d ever seen it. “Go to White Pines. It’s where you belong.”
A great, gnawing sensation started in the pit of Jessie’s stomach. She sensed that if she did as he asked, if she left him here alone and went to be with his family, taking her place there as his brother’s lonely, tragic widow, that would indeed be the end of it. Whatever might have been between them would die. Harlan, Mary, Jordan and Cody would be united in their opposition. The family and all of its complicated antagonisms and hurts would be like an insurmountable wall.
Well, she wouldn’t have it. Maybe what she thought she felt for Luke was wrong. Maybe what he felt for her was some sort of terrible sin. Maybe they were both betraying Erik.
In a perfect world, her marriage would have fulfilled all of her dreams. It would have lasted a lifetime. And no man would ever have come along who was Erik’s equal. She would have dutifully mourned until the end of time.
But her marriage hadn’t worked. Erik had died. And Luke Adams was twice the man Erik had been. That wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Erik’s. In his own way, Erik had tried to make her happy. He had never realized that she couldn’t be happy as long as he was so obviously miserable with the choices he alone had made for his life.
Nor, though, was the fault Luke’s. Their feelings simply were there. He had done nothing to exploit them.
And she couldn’t believe a benevolent God would have conspired to force her here to have her baby, if something more hadn’t been meant to come of it. If there was one thing Jessie believed in with all her heart, it was fate. Surely God had brought them together not just to forgive, not just to rid themselves of guilt, but to love.
“I will only go to White Pines if you will come with me,” she announced, her chin set stubbornly.
Luke stared at her, an expression of incredulity spreading across his handsome face. His mouth formed a tight line. Disbelief sparked in his eyes. “No way.”
“Then Angela and I are staying.”
“No way,” he repeated more firmly, reaching for the cellular phone that had started them inevitably down this path and now lay forgotten in her lap.
Jessie’s hand closed around it first and before Luke could react, she opened the car door and threw it with all her might. Landing silently, it disappeared slowly, inevitably in a soft drift of snow.
Luke’s shocked gaze followed its path, then returned to her face. His jaw worked. Jessie waited for an explosion of outrage, but instead his lips curved into an unexpected smile. Amusement sparkled in his eyes. He seemed to be choking back laughter.
“The situation is not amusing, Lucas.”
“It’s not the situation, it’s you. I can’t believe you
