He was smiling openly by now, his expression a little rueful. "The minute you figured out who I was the whole game plan was probably shot to hell," he admitted. "I can't threaten to beat you and you won't let me make love to you, which just about eliminates the traditional methods of handling a difficult woman." He stubbed out his cigarette, then stood up. "You win. I'll help with the wood."
Randy was charmed by his concession speech and couldn't pretend otherwise. The logs were heavier than she'd expected and it was very hard work to haul them the fifty or so feet to the house, but she really didn't mind. Eventually, however, her arms were simply too sore to continue. Luke didn't look too pleased when she told him she was going inside to lie down, but he didn't argue with her, either.
She slipped under the covers and waited a little tensely, wondering whether he'd come in after her, but when five minutes went by with no sign of him she relaxed and closed her eyes. After all, he'd just admitted that there was nothing he could do to enforce his wishes.
Eventually she dozed off, only to be awakened by the slam of the front door. She was wonderfully comfortable and hated to get up, but the sound of Luke's footsteps in the room started to change her mind. She opened her eyes to see him leaning against the door-jamb, watching her.
"Am I going to have to wake you up every time I want a meal?" he asked lazily.
Randy was still half-asleep. "It isn't very nice to be woken up by somebody nagging at me for meals all the time," she complained.
"You agreed to do the cooking. Besides, I get very moody if I'm not well-fed."
Just like the bears in the zoo, Randy thought as he left the room. She took a minute to brush out her hair and walked into the living room to find him sitting on the couch, his feet up on the coffee table, holding a paperback book. Randy had read that particular novel earlier in the year and remembered it well. The hero and heroine were caught up in a series of incidents that ultimately had them confusing illusion with reality.
Some perversely impish streak got the better of her, and she sat down beside him on the couch and said ingenuously, "Is that your inspiration for this crazy abduction of yours? By the time you get through with me I'm likely to wind up thinking that I really am my sister."
He snapped the book shut and tossed it on the table. Randy knew she'd made a serious error even before she found herself flat on her stomach, helplessly pinned over his thighs. She tried to squirm away, laughing, but Luke obviously had no intention of releasing her. His hand explored the curve of her bottom much too thoroughly, then lifted. What followed was a playful little slap that was far too gentle to punish—unless one considered an erotic game a form of punishment.
Randy didn't. Even before the first gentle slap her heart was racing, and by the time he got around to the second the blood seemed to be tearing through her veins. By the third she was ready to admit that this so-called spanking was in fact a very expert sort of seduction, and just as enjoyable as Luke had claimed it would be. She was still trying to wriggle away—it was clearly part of the game—when he wrapped his hands around her waist and turned her over.
"That's enough of that," he said, pulling her into a sitting position on his lap. His eyes glowed with hunger, but not for food.
Randy looked at his mouth, wanting him to kiss her, but aware that it would lead straight into the bedroom. His hand slipped under her turtleneck to cover her breast, teasing the nipple to hardness and sending a spasm of sensual awareness to her loins. If she didn't stop him now she wouldn't stop him at all.
"I'd better go make—" she began, but her words were cut off by his lips, possessively claiming her own.
She thought of her affair with Sean and started to pull away, but Luke snaked an arm around her shoulders to keep her close and held her chin in his hand so she couldn't turn her head. Randy didn't try to prevent him from deepening the kiss, but she certainly didn't respond to it, either.
His tongue probed her mouth for several fruitless seconds before he broke the kiss and released her, saying hoarsely, "What are you trying to do to me? Drive me crazy?"
Randy quickly stood up and backed away from him, putting several yards in between them. "I don't want to sleep with you," she said. "Regardless of what you think, I'm not my sister and I don't—"
"You sat down next to me," Luke interrupted coldly. "You teased me into reacting and loved every minute of what I did to you, but now you're suddenly saying no." The longer he spoke the more angry he seemed to become. "I don't know what your game is, Linda, but try it again and I'm not going to play. And if you want to cry rape to Daddy you go right ahead and do it."
Randy was thoroughly shaken by the time he was finished yelling at her. The fact was, he was right. Although teasing him had been the furthest thing from her mind, she had provoked him. Her behavior reflected her deep ambivalence about him: she was extremely attracted to him, yet determined not to plunge into another reckless love affair. Since she hadn't asked the blasted man to haul her up to Maine in the first place she couldn't quite bring herself to apologize, so she simply walked over to the kitchen and started to fix lunch.
Once she'd placed two cheese sandwiches in a buttered frying pan to grill them she began to struggle with the can opener in order to open a can of soup. She succeeded in getting the can partially open but when she tried to pull the lid away she slashed an angry-looking cut near the base of her right thumb with the jagged edge. Her muttered curse gained Luke's attention; he looked up from his book just as Randy shoved her hand under the running faucet in the hope that the cold water would relieve the sting. It was bleeding heavily, turning the water in the sink red.
Luke put down his book, got up and walked over to her. "Let me see how bad it is," he ordered.
Randy silently held out her hand. Luke inspected the cut, then took a first-aid kit out of one of the cabinets and fished out a box of gauze pads. For a moment he pressed a pad against her injured thumb, and then told Randy to hold it there. "It should stop bleeding in a moment," he said. "When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?"
"Two years ago, after I finished…" Randy choked back the last word, "college." This wasn't the time to argue about who she was. Luke removed a roll of gauze and some adhesive tape from the first-aid kit and waited another minute before checking the cut.
If Randy had doubted his story about being a medic in the Peace Corps she would have believed it now. He carefully washed his hands before applying an antibiotic ointment to the wound with his finger, then wrapped her thumb in gauze up to the first knuckle and added a layer of adhesive tape.
"Isn't that a little elaborate?" Randy asked, not displeased by his efforts.
"I'm a frustrated doctor." Luke grabbed the can of soup and opened it up. "Besides, it's in a bad spot. A Band-Aid wouldn't have stayed on or protected the cut very well."
"Luke?" Randy's voice was so uncertain that Luke cocked a puzzled eyebrow at her. "Would you mind opening the cans from now on?"
He smiled. "Sure. Just ask me."
At first Randy was baffled by how quickly Luke's anger had left him, but then she remembered her father's comment about him—that Luke Griffin had a temper, but either controlled it or said what was on his mind and put it behind him. In this instance, obviously, the second rule applied.
Whatever tension remained between them slowly dissipated as they ate. By the time Randy got up to make the coffee she felt thoroughly confident about asking a few questions.
"Where did you get the scar, Luke?" she began.
"Oh, that was put there by my first kidnap victim," he said, eyes twinkling.
Randy shook her head, smiling. "No, really."
"I grew up in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn," he explained. "When I was twenty and my sister was twelve, one of the local thugs started to bother her. I told him to lay off. The next day he and a group of his friends picked a fight with me and my friends. Somewhere along the line he flipped out a knife and I was dumb enough to get in the way. Then a squad c
ar showed up and we all ran like hell. But he left her alone after that."
Randy had grown up sheltered in a high security building and had attended exclusive private schools. Although she'd gone to college in New York City, just as Luke apparently had, she'd traveled back and forth to the campus in a chauffeured limousine, not on the bus or subway. Luke Griffin's childhood was as foreign to her experience as an Iowa farm boy's would have been.
"Your nose is a little crooked," she said. "Did you break it in a fight, too?"
"You think I'm a physical wreck, hmm?" he drawled.
"Obviously not," Randy said, refusing to be teased. "Your nose?"
"Was broken during a game of street football," he said. "I'm still hungry, Lin. What's for dessert?"
"You know what you brought up here as well as I do," Randy reminded him. "Exactly nothing."
"I was thinking Spartan. Obviously a major error. Why don't you make me something? Chocolate chip cookies, brownies…"
Since his doctoring deserved something in the way of a reward, Randy got up and rummaged around in the cabinets. "No chocolate chips or baking chocolate," she informed him. "What did you have in mind after lunch?"
"The floor in the living room could use cleaning and waxing." He held out his mug for some coffee. "Why?"
"I could probably manage to bake a cake," Randy said, pouring the coffee. "Given the ingredients you've got around it would have to be plain vanilla. That might not serve your purpose as well as having me scrub floors, but I'll remind you that I'd expect you to help." She shrugged, then added, "But it's your stomach."
"You're on. The floors can wait." He sat and drank a second cup of coffee after they'd finished the first, watching as Randy cleared the table and began to wash the dishes. The soapy water quickly penetrated Luke's bandage, however, causing her to wince with pain and pull her hand away.
"Go sit down, Linda." Randy hadn't heard him get up over the sound of the running water and she started slightly. "I'll do the dishes for you," he added.
She thanked him and went over to the couch, thumbing through an old magazine she found sitting on an end table. Luke Griffin could be very sweet when he wanted to be, she decided. When he was through with the dishes he strolled over to her, holding out one of the most dog-eared cookbooks she'd ever seen in her life.
It was no problem to find a recipe for vanilla cake, and in a creative moment Randy even decided to try using some hot chocolate mix for frosting, an experiment that succeeded admirably. Luke was so absorbed in his book that he paid absolutely no attention to Randy while she worked, but the moment the cake was cooled and frosted some sixth sense seemed to tell him that food was in the offing, and he promptly appeared at the table.
Randy cut two pieces, a large one for Luke and a smaller one for herself. His was gone amazingly quickly, but then, the cake was actually quite good.
"This deserves a reward, Mrs. Franck," he said. "A reprieve for both of us—no floors till tomorrow. Want to come for a walk?"
Randy immediately agreed. She was beginning to wonder if her father's assessment—that once she'd met Luke Griffin she wouldn't stand a chance—could be correct. She wanted to get to know him better, and felt that everything would be okay as long as she kept him at arm's length. She'd learned her lesson with Sean and wasn't about to make another mistake.
They doubled around to the back of the cabin and entered the evergreen and maple woods, reaching a trail of sorts after a hike of about twenty feet. The trail led to a gurgling, pristine stream, obviously the water that Randy had heard the night before. A few little fish darted past as they watched.
"I pump my water from here," Luke told her, taking her hand to help her across the rocks that provided convenient stepping stones to the other bank. "When I first inherited this place there was nothing but the cabin. The generator and prefab shed had to be flown in piece by piece. The same with the plumbing. Only somebody as eccentric as my father's uncle would have built the cabin in the first place."
"Tell me about him," Randy said.
The path continued on the other side of the stream and they started to follow it further into the woods as it meandered up the gently sloping hill. The tangy scent of pines and spruce was intoxicating, and the maples would be spectacular in autumn.
"My father was a salesman who hit the road permanently when I was twelve and my sister was four," Luke told her. "At first he sent my mother money, but after about a year the checks stopped coming and we lost track of him. My mother is a nurse—she used to work the three-to-eleven shift so she could get us off to school in the morning but still be home to sleep. I looked after my sister in the afternoons."
Randy had never met anyone with a background like Luke's. She couldn't imagine what it would do to a child to be abandoned by a father at age twelve and take major responsibility for a younger sibling at the same time. It was little wonder that Luke was protective of Anne—he was more father than older brother to her.
"My mother remarried when I was nineteen, but she didn't quit her job," he continued. "I was going to City College at the time and when I graduated I decided to try the Peace Corps. I only stayed eight months, though, and when I got back—" He cut himself off, saying, "Look to your left, Linda."
She did so, and was rewarded by the sight of a graceful doe and her spotted fawn, standing stock-still only ten feet away, watchfully sniffing the air. They soon bounded out of view, to Randy's acute disappointment.
"They're enchanting," she said. "Do you see many animals up here?"
"I'm not tremendously observant when it comes to wildlife," he admitted. "I once saw a moose feeding on plants in the streambed, and a few miles downstream there used to be a beaver lodge, but that's about all, unless you count birds. I'm not too interested in birds, except"—he winked at her—"certain species."
Randy smiled but didn't answer, and they continued on in silence for a time, companionably enjoying the beauty of the lovely old hill. But after a few minutes she prompted, "You were saying, when you got back from the Peace Corps… ?"
"Right. A few months later some lawyer got in touch with me. It was the first anyone had heard of Arthur Griffin, my father's uncle. Apparently he'd settled in Maine near Portland and made a pile of money with a string of inventions. He was a bachelor and must have had a thing about solitude, because he bought this land and had the cabin built—"
"Where?" Randy interrupted.
Luke's mouth quirked a fraction but he answered the question. "In northern Maine, about twenty miles from the Canadian border. According to his will his money was supposed to go to his oldest male relative. My father was his only nephew and the lawyers traced him to Las Vegas through his employment history. One of them told us he'd been killed in a fire about two years before. They located me through his second wife. I eventually met her—she's a very nice lady—and naturally I paid her well for her help."
"So there was more than just the cabin and land?"
"Right. The minute I laid eyes on this place I loved it, but I'm too much of a city slicker to live with outdoor plumbing and gaslight. It cost a lot of money to fix up, but thanks to Arthur Griffin money wasn't a problem."
"If money wasn't a problem, and if you were serious before about being a frustrated doctor, why didn't you go to medical school?" Randy's question suggested a second one. "And why did you leave Africa after only eight months? Isn't two years the usual tour of duty?"
"Personal reasons," Luke said. Randy knew she'd hit a very raw nerve by the curtness of his tone. They walked on, side by side, for another few minutes before he picked up the story. "I would have liked to be a doctor, but I knew it would take too much of my time and I had other obligations to think about. I wound up at the Business School at Stanford instead. It was valuable in more ways than one. I got a first-rate business education and I learned how to invest my money. There are trust funds for my two nieces and even income to pay for little amenities, like the plane."
Randy hadn't realized
that Tom Havemeyer had children, and found Linda's dalliance with the man all the more dismaying because of that. But even more than disappointment with Linda, she felt intensely curious about Luke. What had he meant by personal reasons? And what was the nature of his other obligations? Since he clearly didn't want to talk about it, however, she didn't bother to ask.
They were walking through thicker woods now; the ground was covered with a blanket of brown evergreen needles and the path had petered out. Every now and then Randy heard the sound of a small creature scurrying out of their way.
"Why did you decide to work for my father?" she eventually asked him.
"I'd started working at Stockman's during the summer after my first year of business school. I never expected to make a career out of retailing but I found I had a talent for it and enjoyed it. I joined the store full-time after I graduated. By the time I was thirty I was managing the flagship store in San Francisco, and then there was a promotion to a company vice president."
An Act of Love Page 7
