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'What is it that makes you so desperate for safety? Does Willa Kennedy have anything to do with it?'
She accepted the plate he handed her with a stiff murmur of thanks, staring at it, feeling nauseous. Individually, the items of food were perfectly cooked; it was the combination she couldn't stomach. Or him. He would be enough to put her off the most delicious fare ever created.
'Am I right?' he persisted, taking the chair opposite hers.
'Of course not,' she answered coldly. 'I happen to be adult enough to appreciate security and the contentment that goes with it.' Not grown-up, she simmered, enraged at his poking his nose into her life as if he had rights!
'So you like to feel secure and content?' He lifted a fork, toying with noodles. 'That's a pretty boring ambition for someone of your age.'
So she was boring now, was she? Hot colour burned along her cheekbones, only to intensify when her stormy eyes lifted to meet the indisputable humour in his. About to burst with rage, she acknowledged that she had to cool down. She could hardly do as her instincts prompted. Jamie would be understandably distressed if she were to empty the contents of her plate right over Luke Derringer's head!
So she ate what she could of her meal in silence, only half an ear on the animated conversation being conducted between the man and the boy. Luke lost no opportunity to torment her and she couldn't think why. He'd admitted an interest in her, only sexual and fleeting, of course, but if he had seduction on his mind then surely he was going about it all the wrong way!
Almost guiltily, she stole a glance at him from beneath thick dark lashes. His was the face of a man who appreciated women. The cool blue eyes, the high-bridged nose, the sensual curve of his lower lip, reinforced her opinion. This was a man who would revel in sensuality, who would demand an answering response in his women. And his women, she reminded herself, would last no longer than his needs, his interest. He tra
velled far and he travelled alone; he made no commitments. Norman had told her that much, and nothing Luke had done or said in any way altered that opinion.
So what was it with him? She wasn't particularly beautiful and she most certainly didn't possess the glamour he would go for—glamour such as Willa possessed in abundance. So it must be the challenge of the chase and the inevitable conquest that drove him to torment her, she thought sickly. And when she'd succumbed, as he was so arrogantly sure that she would, he'd walk away. Nothing was surer than that.
There was a nausea inside her that had nothing to do with the meal Luke had made. The wall she had built around her emotions was beginning to crumble at the base—she knew it, and the knowledge made her feel physically ill. And it was all his doing. He had made her far too aware of the sensual side of her nature, the side she thought she'd battened down many years ago.
So she'd simply have to reinforce the hatches, she told herself forcefully, making Jamie's empty plate, his flushed cheeks and drooping eyes the excuse she needed.
Rising and taking the child's limply curling fingers in hers, she said brightly, 'Will you come and help me find a bedroom, Jamie?'
When he slid off his chair, his little hand tightening around hers, she added, 'Then it's bedtime for you—and me, too. Say goodnight to Luke.'
She didn't turn as she and Jamie left the room. She didn't need to register the sardonic 'Here we go again!' look that would be occupying those vivid blue eyes. She could see it all too clearly inside her head.
There was a slip of a room right next door to Jamie's, just big enough to house a single bed and a chest. Annie looked around and told Jamie, 'It couldn't be better. If you wake in the night, just give me a shout. I'll be right next door.' For all she knew, the little boy could well have nightmares about what had happened earlier in the day and she would be near enough to offer comfort quickly.
Returning him to his own room, she looked down at him uncertainly. She supposed he should be washed. She didn't think he was old enough to do it for himself, not properly, anyway, so she suggested, 'Why don't you show me where the bathroom is?'
But he ignored that, stating as firmly as a plaintive vocal wobble would allow, 'I want my mommy!'
'She'll soon be here, old son, I promise.' Luke had appeared in the open doorway and, annoyingly, all Annie could feel was relief. He scooped the small boy up in his arms, saying, 'I think I saw some bottled bubbles on the bathroom shelf. Did you bring them?'
He was already walking away down the corridor, the boy clinging to him, his hot little face buried in the man's neck. But he muttered, 'Yes, I brought bubbles.'
Luke went on, 'Then I guess they're there to be used. When I was your age, I seem to remember being bathed at the drop of a hat—when I got up, when I went to bed, and whenever I got dirty in between, which seemed to be an awful lot—'
'Did you have bubbles?' Jamie wrenched back his head to stare into Luke's face and Annie, trotting behind with the pyjamas she'd found under the little boy's pillow, found herself wondering what Luke's home life had been like, what his parents had been like.
It was a new consideration. Somehow she'd thought of him entering the world as a fully grown, adult, arrogant male! But he hadn't, of course. He had a background, like anyone else. And while he was running the bathwater, adding prodigious amounts of bubbling essence, she undressed Jamie and found herself asking questions, aware that she shouldn't be interested in anything about him, not if she intended to keep him firmly at a distance— which she most assuredly did.
'Are your parents still alive?' Somehow, she didn't doubt that they were. Only a vigorous couple could have produced this vibrant man, instilled in him that unquestioning self-assurance, that obvious sense of self-worth. 'Do you see much of them?'
'They're very much alive!' He had rolled his sleeves up and was testing the water, swishing the suds to mountainous heights. 'But I don't see as much of them as I'd like. When my father retired he and Ma joined friends of theirs in Vancouver. Dad and Joe spend most of their time fishing while Ma and Joe's wife try to outdo each other when they give dinner-parties. They're all having the time of their lives.'
His tone was indulgently affectionate, and she envied him his obviously caring background. But her eyes were fixed in unwilling fascination on the tanned, sinewy forearm which was gently stirring the water. Droplets of moisture clung to the slight furring of dark hairs, slicking them against the satiny skin that covered solid muscle and bone.
Annie gulped. Something was stirring to life inside her, uncoiling, then tightening. Quickly, she tore her eyes away and began folding Jamie's clothing as Luke lifted the child into the bath and reached for a bar of soap, gently rubbing the squirming body, grinning at the shrieks which ensued when Jamie found the bubbles coming up to his diminutive chin.
Watching the way Luke cared for the child—a delicate balance of firmness and indulgence-Annie's eyes sparkled with incipient tears. He was very gentle yet very masculine, and that was an alarmingly potent combination…
'And your parents? We all know and love the great Willa Kennedy, but what about your father? I know he died fairly recently, and I'm sorry about that. But did you get to spend much time with him?' He turned from his ministrations, his back still bent as his strong hands steadied Jamie's wild slides up and down the length of the bath. His eyes were holding hers, and there was more than a casual question in those deep, blue depths. He seemed to be reaching for her soul.
Annie didn't like the feeling of being dissected. If anyone else had asked that question she would have shrugged it aside with a casual half-truth. With this man, though, she was uneasily aware that she might just tell the whole truth, tell him that she'd never seen her father, that he'd never wanted anything to do with her, until right at the end when he'd willed everything he had to her.
