Harlan sighed deeply, but there was little shock in his eyes. Instead, his gaze hinted of sorrow and anger. “I was afraid of this,” he said.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re just two people who fell in love. You could be happy for us.”
“She’s your brother’s widow, dammit!”
Luke bit back an expletive of his own. “Erik is dead, Dad. Denying our feelings won’t bring him back.”
The quietly spoken remarks did nothing to soothe Harlan’s temper. “How far has it gone?”
“Not far. She just had a baby.”
His father scowled at him. “I meant before.”
Luke felt a rough, fierce anger clawing at his stomach. How readily his father was willing to condemn him for a sin he hadn’t committed. He supposed that was the price he had to pay for declaring his independence. Despite Jessie’s analysis last night, he knew that Harlan would never totally trust him because of that.
“There was nothing between us when Erik was alive,” he declared quietly. “Nothing!”
“Who the hell are you trying to kid, son? I saw the way the two of you looked at each other. I knew in my gut that was what drove you away, what drove both of you away. You were running from feelings you knew weren’t right.”
He stared hard at Luke. “Whose baby is it?” he demanded. “Erik’s or yours?”
For the first time in his life, Luke honestly thought he could have slammed a fist into his father’s face and enjoyed it.
“How dare you?” he said, his tone lethal. “Neither Jessie nor I ever did anything to deserve a question like that. It doesn’t say a hell of a lot about your opinion of Erik, either. Whether you choose to believe it or not, he and Jessie had a good marriage. She’s not the kind of woman to turn her back on her vows. And I would have rotted in hell before I would have done anything, anything at all to take that away from him.”
“Instead, you took away his life.”
The cold, flatly spoken words slammed into Luke as forcefully as a sledgehammer. Though he had blamed himself too damned many times in the middle of the night for not doing more to save Erik, the doctors had reassured him over and over that his brother had been beyond help. Hearing the accusation leveled by his father, the same man who’d absolved him from guilt only a day or two before, made him sick to his stomach.
He refused to dignify the accusation with a response. Instead, he simply stood and headed for the door. “I’ll be gone before Mother gets down.” He glanced back only once, long enough to say, “If Jessie so chooses, she and your granddaughter will be going with me. You can put us all out of your head forever.”
“Lucas!” his father called after him. “Dammit, son, get back here!”
Luke heard the command, but refused to acknowledge it. He could not, he would not submit to more of his father’s disgusting accusations. Nor would he allow Jessie to be put through the same ordeal.
He had known this was the reaction they would face. It was one reason he had fought his feelings so relentlessly. It was why he’d struggled against Jessie’s feelings as well, but no more. Those feelings were out in the open now and the fallout had begun. That didn’t mean he had to linger at White Pines until his parents poisoned the happiness he and Jessie were on the threshold of discovering.
He was still trembling with rage when he slammed the door to Jessie’s suite behind him.
Visibly startled by his entrance and by his obviously nasty temper, Jessie motioned him to silence. “I’ve just gotten the baby back to sleep,” she whispered as she led him into the bedroom. “What on earth’s wrong?”
“Pack your bags,” he ordered at once. His plan to give her an option in the matter had died somewhere between the dining room and the top of the stairs. He intended to claim what was his and protect them from the righteous indignation they would face if they remained here.
“Why?”
“We’re going to my ranch.”
To her credit Jessie held her ground. “Why?” she repeated, her voice more gentle. Worry shadowed her eyes.
Luke muttered an oath under his breath and began to pace.
“Lucas, sit down before you wear a hole in the carpet. Besides you’re making me dizzy trying to follow you.”
“I can’t sit. I’m too angry.”
“It’s barely seven o’clock in the morning. What could possibly have set you off this early in the day?”
“I just came from having a little chat with Dad. Apparently he saw me leaving your room last night and jumped to all the worst conclusions.”
“Meaning?”
He frowned at her. “He assumes you and I are having an affair.”
“Luke, if it weren’t for certain circumstances, we would be,” she said pointedly.
“He assumes it has been going on for some time.” When she showed no evident reaction to that, he added, “He wonders if perhaps Angela is mine.”
Jessie’s eyes widened. Her mouth gaped with indignation. Patches of color flared in her cheeks. She flew out of the rocker and headed for the door.
Luke stared after her. “Where the devil are you going?”
“To have a few words with your father. I will not allow him to insult Erik’s memory, to insult all of us with such a disgusting allegation.”
Luke caught her elbow and hauled her back into the room. “It won’t help. He’s in a rage. He won’t listen.”
“Oh, he’ll hear me,” she insisted in a low tone. “Let me go, Luke.”
“Not until you calm down.” After a moment, she stopped struggling. Her utter stillness was almost worse. “I’m sorry, Jessie. I knew this was the way he would take it. God knows what Mother will have to say when she finds out. She’ll probably insist on going into seclusion from the shame of it all. I think the thing to do is get away until they’ve had a chance to settle down and digest the news.
