Obviously she wasn’t worried about the two of them being stricken dead by a bolt of lightning. Luke couldn’t understand it. How could she be so calm, so sure of herself, when he’d never felt more off balance, more uncertain in all of his life?
“Whatever that means,” he grumbled.
“It means, Lucas, that you might as well stop fighting so hard and accept the inevitable.”
He studied her worriedly. “Which is?”
“Angela and I are in your life to stay.”
He swallowed hard. “Well, of course you are,” he said too heartily. “You’re my sister-in-law. Angela’s my niece.”
Ignoring his comment, Jessie dished up scrambled eggs, bacon and golden biscuits. Only after she’d seated herself across from him did she meet his gaze.
“Give it up, Lucas. It’s a battle you can’t win.”
Determination swept through him. “Try me,” he said tightly.
To his annoyance, Jessie actually laughed at that. “Oh, Lucas, I intend to.”
9
With Jessie’s challenge ringing in his ears, Luke retreated to the barn. He figured it was the only safe place for him to be and still be within shouting distance of the house in case of a crisis. Inside, even in his office with the door shut, he couldn’t escape Jessie’s unrealistic expectations for their future. As brief as her presence had been, she had pervaded every room, leaving him with no place to hide from her or his unrelenting thoughts about her.
What she wanted from him, though, was impossible. How could they possibly have a relationship without bringing the wrath of the entire family she admired so much down on them? Couldn’t she see that they were as doomed in their way as Romeo and Juliet had been? Or had she considered and then dismissed the problems? Could he possibly be that important to her?
He hunkered down on a bale of hay and distractedly tossed apple sections to Chester. The goat seemed to accept the unexpected largesse as his due. When Luke grew distracted and forgot to offer another chunk of apple, Chester butted him gently until he remembered. He scratched the goat behind his ears and wished that all relationships were this uncomplicated.
Dealing with goats and horses and cattle was a hell of a lot less troubling than dealing with a woman, Luke concluded when Chester finally tired of the game and wandered off. Food, attention, a little exercise, a few animal or human companions and their lives were happy. Women, to the contrary, sooner or later always developed expectations.
To avoid dealing with Jessie’s fantasies, he considered saddling up one of the horses and riding off to check on the cattle. He manufactured a dozen excuses why such a trip was vital to the ranch’s operations, even though he had a perfectly capable foreman in charge, a man who could probably account for every single head of longhorn cattle on the ranch without Luke’s help.
Unfortunately, he could see through every excuse. He had no doubts at all that Jessie would be even quicker to see them for what they were: cowardly reasons to bolt from all the emotions he couldn’t bear to face. While being someplace else—anyplace else—held a great deal of appeal at the moment, Luke wasn’t a coward. Which meant, like it or not, staying and seeing this through.
Finally, tired of having only Chester and the horses for company when the most beautiful, if unavailable, woman in the world was inside, Luke heaved himself up and headed back to the house. Maybe Jessie had come to her senses while he was gone. Maybe his body had become resigned to celibacy.
And maybe pigs could fly, he thought despondently.
He found her sitting in front of the fireplace in the kitchen mending one of his shirts. As an inexplicable rage tore through him, he yanked the shirt out of her hands.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
Jessie didn’t even blink at his behavior. “There was a whole basket of mending sitting in the laundry room waiting to be done,” she said calmly as if that were explanation enough to offer a man who’d clearly lost his mind.
“Consuela’s the housekeeper around here, not you.”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t help her out?”
“It’s her job,” he insisted stubbornly.
Jessie merely shook her head, gave him that exasperating look that was filled with pity, and reached for another shirt. “It’s my way of thanking her for all the meals she fixed before she left.”
“She fixed them for me,” Luke said, clinging to his stance despite the fact that even he could see he was being unreasonable. There was a quick and obvious remedy for what ailed him but he refused to pull Jessie into his arms, which was clearly where his body wanted her, where his long-denied hormones craved her to be.
One delicate eyebrow arched quizzically at his possessive claim on the meals Consuela had fixed. “Does that mean I’m no longer allowed to eat them?” Jessie inquired. “You planning to starve me into leaving?”
“Of course not,” he snapped in frustration. “Just forget it. I’m going to my office.”
“On Christmas?”
“If you can sew on Christmas, I can work.”
“I’m not sure I see the connection,” she commented mildly. She shrugged. “Whatever works for you.”
Luke clenched his fists so tightly, his knuckles turned white. Why had he never noticed that Jessie was the most exasperating, the most infuriating woman on the face of the earth? She was so damned calm and...reasonable. He didn’t miss the irony that he considered two such usually positive traits to be irritating.
To emphasize his displeasure, he plunked the cellular phone on the table in front of her. “Call my parents,” he ordered tightly, then stalked away.
With any luck at all, Jessie would be tired by now of his attitude, he thought with only a faint hint of regret. After all, how long could a woman maintain this charade of complacency in the face of such galling behavior? She’d be packed and gone by the time he emerged from his office. His life could return to normal.
He glanced over his shoulder just as
