Sitting across from Luke in the huge, formal dining room, with the table set with fancy china, sterling silver and fine crystal, Jessie felt as if the atmosphere were suddenly charged with electricity. In his kitchen she had been comfortable, even sure of herself. Here she felt as if she were on a first, very nerve-racking date. She wondered if he felt the same uncertainty, the same shivery anticipation.
If he did, it wasn’t apparent, she decided with some regret. He’d worn slacks and a white dress shirt, left open at the throat just enough to reveal a sexy whorl of crisp, dark hair and tanned skin. With his hair neatly combed, his cheeks freshly shaved, he looked as confident as Jordan, as sexy as Cody and as at ease as Erik. The combination was enough to make her palms sweat.
Luke lifted his glass of wine and took a slow sip, his gaze never leaving her face. The intensity of that look was deliberate. There was no mistake about it. Jessie could feel her cheeks flush. Her pulse skittered wildly.
“Everything okay?” he inquired in a lazy drawl that sent fire dancing through her veins.
“Of course,” she responded in a choked voice. “Why?”
“You look a little…feverish.”
Oh, sweet heaven, she thought desperately, wishing she could pat her cheeks with a napkin dipped in the crystal goblet of ice water. The man was deliberately turning the tables on her. She swallowed hard and searched her soul for the confidence to play his game and win. “No,” she said eventually, her voice shaking. “I’m fine.”
He nodded politely, but there was a knowing gleam in his eyes. “If you say so.”
“I do,” she said adamantly.
“Okay.”
Fortunately, Maritza came in with the main course just then—beef Wellington. “It is your favorite, Señor Luke, sí?”
Luke grinned at her, his attention diverted at last. Jessie used the reprieve to draw in a deep breath and surreptitiously fan herself with her napkin.
“Absolutely,” he told the housekeeper. “And not even Consuela does beef Wellington better than you do.”
“I will not tell her you said so,” Maritza said, her cheeks rosy with pleasure at the compliment.
“Thank you,” Luke said, his expression absolutely serious. “She’d put me on a diet of canned soup for a month, if she found out.”
When the housekeeper had retreated to the kitchen, Jessie said, “You’re very kind to her.”
He seemed surprised by the comment. “Why wouldn’t I be? She’s terrific. The whole family is. Did you know that Rosa who owns the café we went to is another cousin? I believe Lara is Rosa’s daughter or maybe she’s a second cousin. I’ve lost track of all the connections.”
“And you’re nice to all of them.” Seeing his skepticism, Jessie tried to analyze what she’d seen in their rapport. “I can’t explain exactly,” she finally admitted. “It’s not that you’re just polite, that you say what’s expected. You genuinely appreciate what they do. I’m sure that’s why Consuela chose to go with you when you left White Pines. I suspect you make her feel like part of the family, while your mother treated her like hired help.”
Luke shrugged off the compliment. “Consuela is family to me,” he said with surprising feeling. “She’s the one who really raised me, raised all of us, for that matter. Mother’s single goal in life was to make Daddy’s life easier, to give him whatever he wanted. She gave him four sons, then did everything she could to see that we stayed out of his way. If I’m ever fortunate enough to have children, I made a promise to myself that they will never feel the way we felt as kids, as if we were a nuisance to be tolerated.”
Jessie was appalled by the assessment, by the trace of bitterness in his voice. Obviously his resentments ran deeper than she’d ever realized.
“Your father certainly never treated any of you that way as far as I could tell,” she argued. “He’s obviously very proud of all of you.”
Luke’s expression was doubtful. “You can say that after the way he manipulated Erik, the way he’s always tried to control the rest of us?”
Jessie found herself smiling at the concept that anyone on earth could manipulate or control Luke. “I don’t see that he exactly has you under his thumb.”
“Because I rebelled.”
“Don’t you suppose the struggle to become your own man made you stronger?”
His gaze narrowed. “What’s your point?”
“That if Harlan had made it easy for you, you might not have fought half so hard to get your own way. All of this could have been yours. You would have had a nice, comfortable life without really struggling for it.”
“Are you saying he deliberately battled with us over every little thing just to make us fight back?”
Jessie shrugged, refusing to spell it out any more clearly. She wanted him to look at his past from a fresh perspective and draw his own conclusion. “You know Harlan better than I do.”
Luke’s expression grew thoughtful. “I never thought about it that way before,” he conceded. “I always wanted my own place. I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps and simply claim what he’d already built. The harder he fought to keep me here, the harder I fought to go.”
“And you succeeded in making the break,” she pointed out. “You have a successful ranch of your own now, one you can be especially proud of because you know it’s the result of your own hard work, isn’t that right?”
He nodded slowly. “Jordan made the break, as well. He and Daddy used to stay up half the night fighting over his future. Daddy was fed up with him wildcatting at oil wells all over hell and gone. Told him it was time to settle down back here. Swore he’d cut him out of the will, if he didn’t stay.”
He paused,
