Passionate Awakening

by Diana Hamilton

  But she could, and would, distance herself. She said, 'I'll let Norman know what's going on,' and swept out of the room, taking her time about phoning because time spent away from Luke was time well spent.

  Eventually, though, she settled herself on a leather chair behind a cluttered desk in what had to be the Professor's study. Like all the other ground-floor rooms she had just poked her nose into, it was high-ceilinged and spacious but in here, at least, an effort towards comfort had been made.

  A fire was laid in the cavernous hearth and there were a couple of shabby but comfortable-looking armchairs. She wondered whether to put a match to the kindling and decided against it. Luke could light a fire and spend the long evening in front of it if he wished. She would take herself to bed as soon as Jamie was asleep. And she would lock her door.

  With that thought on her mind she dialled, her fingers shaking, and she wondered disgustedly what had happened to her to make her feel so afraid, so vulnerable. Luke might torment her with words but he wouldn't force himself physically where he wasn't wanted. But perhaps, the intolerably honest thought popped into her mind, perhaps he already knew he was wanted!

  She caught back a groan as Joan's voice cut out the dialling tone. She had expected to speak to Norman, had actually forgotten he was lying flat on his back in bed, and was guiltily amazed by how little she had thought of him since she'd left Seabourne in Luke's company.

  'Oh, what a shame!' Joan's sympathy was patently superficial. 'I'll pass the message on, and of course you must stay as long as you're needed. There's no hurry for you to get back here. I've made Norman nice and comfortable. I got the man next door to carry the television through to his bedroom, and my armchair, so we'll both be able to watch together after we've had supper. I'm giving him his favourite home-made tomato soup and a nice piece of grilled sole…'

  Which only goes to assure me that I am totally unnecessary to Norman's well-being, Annie thought as she murmured non-committal responses in what she hoped were the right places. Norman didn't want romance, and if he thought he was being offered the passion of a lifetime he would be appalled. What Norman needed was a wife who would look after his creature comforts, unravel life's knottier threads and be a compatible companion. Joan, she realised, was far better suited to that role than she.

  And was he necessary to her well-being? Annie asked herself as she settled the handset back on its cradle. The answer was no.

  She pushed herself up out of the chair and stared with empty eyes at the shabby, book-lined room.

  She and Norman had decided to marry for various reasons, all of them sound. Companionship, a secure and settled home life based on a mutually caring relationship. Mutual respect. But since the business of Monk's Hall the respect had disappeared. It had been the cornerstone of her regard for him, and now that it had gone the whole edifice was crumbling. And since Luke had appeared on the scene she had been seeing sides of Norman's character she had never noticed before, sides she didn't like. Luke, with his personal and highly potent magnetism, had made her see herself in a new light, too, perhaps opening her eyes to things about Norman she didn't like.

  She knew then, with quiet certainty, that she would never marry Norman.

  'Come and get it!' The loud masculine call, closely echoed by a piping treble, penetrated the thickness of the study door and Annie lurched out of her introspective mood, a frown of annoyance darkening her eyes as she remembered her earlier decision to explore the upper regions after phoning her news home.

  She had been determined to pick out a room for her own use, and stow her gear, before facing Luke again. But it would seem he had rustled up a meal and she would have to go back to the kitchen, if only for Jamie's sake. She and Luke had to make things seem as normal as possible.

  In direct contrast to her own bleak thoughts the kitchen was bright and welcoming. Wondering at herself, she allowed her qualms, her mental reservations regarding the devious Luke Derringer to slip out of her mind quite effortlessly.

  Informing herself that she was going to act as though everything was hunkydory for the next half-hour or so, simply because Jamie had suffered enough traumas for one day without her adding a hostile atmosphere to his suppertime, she wrinkled her nose and said, 'Something smells good.'

  Jamie announced gruffly, 'Luke's cookin' our dinner.'

  'Is that so?' Annie's smile was dry. She was already acquainted with several sides of his multi-faceted personality, and had imagined various others—none to his credit! But never would she had added 'domesticated' to her list.

  'His lordship,' Luke tilted his head in Jamie's direction, 'placed the order. I hope you like fish fingers, baked beans and noodles.' He turned from the Aga, a slotted spoon in one hand, a frying pan in the other, and his grin was devastating. It made his face impossibly attractive. Annie flinched as her breath caught in her throat, but she gave back his smiling, appraising glance with a detachment she was proud of.

  He had, she noticed, opened the neck of his shirt, and he looked hot, but not bothered. She was the one who was bothered, she thought resignedly as she scooped Jamie up in her arms and carried him over to one of the dressers where she busied herself by rummaging through the drawers for cutlery.

  'When are you going to grow up, Annie, and lose your need for a shield?' Luke enquired pleasantly, and she stiffened immediately, setting the child down on a chair and hoisting it near to the table.

  She wasn't going to dignify that taunt with an answer. The trouble was, she admitted tiredly to herself, he was right. Oh, not about the need to grow up, she was completely adult, thank you very much, but she had used Jamie as a shield, picking him up, showing him how to lay the table, acting as though Luke weren't in the room, talking to Jamie because she didn't want to admit that Luke was here, admit that he existed. He posed a threat, and that was something she would prefer to pretend to ignore.

  But Luke wasn't so easily deterred. He had doled the unsophisticated ingredients of a meal on to three plates. Serving Jamie first, Annie felt his eyes on her, heard his low tones as an invasion of her mental privacy.

  '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.

  Luke was dangerous, she admitted, almost drowning in those steady eyes. She had known that at the first moment of seeing him. She had to get a grip on herself. Her feelings were her own, weren't they? It would be folly to share them with him, to allow him to get closer to her.

  If he had cared for her, and she had cared for him, she would have willingly have told him about her lonely childhood. But all he cared about was the chase, the conquest, and he would use any information she gave him about herself to serve his own devious ends! She didn't trust him; he was shallow.

  So she said blandly, 'Spend much time with him? Not so as you'd notice,' and smiled. And her smile felt painful, as if it had been nailed to her face, and she was thankful when Jamie shipped half a gallon of water out of the bath and on to her feet, glad to have the excuse to break the steadily mounting tension, glad of the excuse to escape Luke's hypnotic presence. Her voice was oddly breathless as she made for the doorway.

  'I'll fetch my things up from the hall and get into something dry.'

  Later, when Luke had finished reading to Jamie from a story-book he'd found on the bedside table and Annie had changed into a long, woollen housecoat which zipped from her neck to her ankles, she poked her head round the bedroom door.

  She had heard the soothing murmur of his voice trail off into silence, heard the snick of Jamie's bedside light and guessed the child was asleep. So now was the time to say her own goodnights. That way he wouldn't come looking for her, that way he would understand that she had no intention of spending a long, cosy evening with him!

  'I'm turning in now,' she announced firmly. 'And I've mopped up the mess in the bathroom, so it's all yours now.'

  'Is that so?' A half-smile tugged at his mouth. He advanced, just a little, very slowly. Annie felt colour rise to her face as her heart began to race frantically. He was altogether too potent, too male, too knowing. It frightened her.

  She made to turn away, to close the door right in his face if that was what it took, but he reached out a hand and took her arm, stopping her in her tracks.

  'I want to talk to you.' He sounded reasonable, not coaxing, not that, not from him. Bu
t reasonable, very relaxed.

  She felt her skin burn beneath his fingers, the thick fabric no barrier at all. Her blood clamoured in hectic response to his magnetism. And she wanted to cry because she was losing something, she knew she was. And if she didn't move, didn't put an end to this—this whatever it was that drew her so strongly to him—there would be no going back for her, not ever.

  She wasn't going to lose her self-control, her self-respect, her peace of mind, for the tawdry, all-too-fleeting excitement of physical pleasure. Years ago she had made that vow to herself and she wasn't going to break it now. When she gave herself to a man it would be because she loved him, and he loved her. She was capable of loving—despite Willa's off-putting example. And, in a blinding flash of insight, she realised that Luke, in some strange way, had taught her that much about herself. Had taught her that one day she would meet the man she could truly love. And she knew that that was the reason she had really decided to break with Norman. She had never loved him and never would.

  'Please let me go. I can think of nothing you might want to say to me that I might want to hear.' She tried, she really tried, to sound uninterested, but her voice emerged throatily, and he grinned slowly, as if he knew that the words her brain strung together had nothing whatsoever to do with what her body was saying.

  'I might surprise you.' There was an infuriating edge of laughter to his voice and, far from releasing her, he pulled her closer. She could feel the heat of his body now, and, desperately, she pulled back, her movement violent, knocking her head on the doorpost so that she winced, biting her tongue against crying out with the sharp pain because she wouldn't permit him to see such weakness.

  'Surprise me? Not you,' she hissed, the sharp, transitory pain in her head fuelling her anger. 'I can read you like a book. It begins with the chase and ends with the conquest and there's nothing else. No substance. Nothing!'

  'And that is exactly why we have to talk.' His mouth had tightened fractionally but his tone was quiet, level, as if he remembered the sleeping child so close at hand. 'We have a lot of talking to do, you and I, and we can't do it here.' He reached behind her and closed her bedroom door. 'Fighting me won't achieve a thing—unless it's another self-inflicted blow on the head. So you come willingly' —his words were dangerously soft—'or I'll carry you and let you face the consequences of unavoidable bodily contact! The choice is yours.'