To Wed and Protect

by Carla Cassidy

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said and curtsied.

  “We’ll be the best-looking family in Inferno today,” she said, and the two kids giggled.

  At that moment a knock fell on the front door, and Abby knew Luke had arrived. He’d finished the porch the day before, and the last thing he had done was open the front door so it was once again functioning. She opened the door to greet him, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Always before, she’d seen him dressed for work, wearing worn jeans and faded T-shirts or jeans and no shirt. This morning he was again clad in a pair of tight jeans, but instead of his customary T-shirt, he was wearing a gray-and-black-striped dress shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to expose his strong forearms, and the colors of the shirt enhanced the black-lashed beauty of his eyes.

  “Good morning,” he said, his gaze sweeping over her with obvious approval. “Wow, you look terrific,” he said, and the heat that flowed from his eyes caused a warmth to sweep into her cheeks.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “You look really nice, too.”

  He grinned. “When you go to town on a Saturday morning, it’s good to clean up a bit. And I must say, Ms. Graham, you clean up damned fine.”

  Again heat suffused Abby’s cheeks, and at that moment the kids pushed past her and flew out the door.

  “Let’s go!” Jason exclaimed. “We want to go shopping and eat lunch at the diner and see all the stores.”

  Luke laughed and gestured Abby out the door. “Looks like somebody is eager for a trip into town.”

  Abby locked the house, then stepped off the porch, following Luke and the kids, who were just ahead of her. “Where’s your pickup?” she asked as she realized a beige station wagon awaited them.

  “At the ranch. We use this to transport guests, and I figured it was better to drive it than have the kids ride in the back of the pickup.” His eyes twinkled with humor. “Of course, if anyone sees me driving this thing, it’s going to totally destroy my image. A black, shiny pickup is a babe magnet. A beige station wagon just isn’t the same.”

  “I’ll tell you what, if we see any babes along the way, you can duck down and I’ll pretend like I’m driving.”

  Luke laughed.

  Abby got into the front passenger seat while the kids got into the back. “Buckle up,” she reminded them as Luke slid behind the wheel.

  Within minutes they were on their way.

  “Nice day,” she said, fighting a wave of unaccountable shyness. She’d slept with this man, knew most all the parts of his body intimately and yet at the moment felt nervous and shy.

  “Gorgeous,” he agreed. “It’s always nice when autumn brings cooler temperatures.”

  “I guess cooler is relative. Back home, autumn just meant the beginning of winter.”

  “That’s one thing we don’t have here,” he replied.

  “The winter months are our best months at the ranch. We stay fully booked from November through February with people wanting to escape winter.”

  “It will sure be nice not to have to worry about shoveling snow or driving on icy roads.” She settled back in the seat and tried to relax. “So, you mentioned the other day you’re going to show us all the joys and secrets of Inferno. What kind of secrets are there?”

  “Is there buried treasure?” Jason asked from the back seat.

  Luke laughed, the deep rumble shooting pleasure through Abby. “Not that I know of, Jason. If I knew there was buried treasure somewhere in Inferno, I would have dug it up long ago.”

  Luke shot Abby a conspiratorial wink. “But I can show you real bullet holes in the side of the bank where a band of desperados tried to steal the bank’s money.”

  “Wow,” Jason exclaimed. “I can’t wait to see that.”

  “And what are the holes really?” Abby asked, keeping her voice low so Jason and Jessica couldn’t hear her.

  “Oh, they’re real bullet holes, all right, but they weren’t put there by desperados,” Luke said, keeping his voice low, as well.

  “So, how did they get there?” she asked, leaning slightly toward him in an effort to hear his quiet voice. Instantly she could smell the familiar scent of him, the woodsy, spicy male scent that had driven her half wild when she’d made love with him.

  “Burt Holloway used to work as one of the tellers in the bank before he retired last year. One day his wife called him outside and held him at gunpoint against the side of the building. Seems she was miffed because she’d heard a rumor that he was flirting with one of the waitresses down at the Honky Tonk.”

  “So she shot him?” Abby asked incredulously.

  “She unloaded a six-shooter into the wall behind him but didn’t hurt him none. Just put a touch of fear into him. Old Burt, he hasn’t been back to the Honky Tonk since.”

  “What are you guys whispering about?” Jason asked, a touch of indignation in his voice.

  Luke wheeled into a parking space in front of the diner, shut off the car, then turned to look at Jason. “We were trying to decide if you were going to drink one or two chocolate shakes at lunch.”

  “Two!” Jason exclaimed.

  “Then we’d better get sightseeing so we can work up an appetite,” Luke said.

  The four of them got out of the car, and Abby and the kids looked at Luke for direction. “Let’s see the bullet holes first,” Jason said.

  “Is that okay with you, Jessica?” Luke asked, his tone infinitely gentle with the little girl.

  She nodded affirmatively and grabbed Abby’s hand.

  “Then we’ll begin our tour of the lovely town of Inferno at the bank.”

  Minutes later the four of them stood in the alley beside the bank, eyeing the six holes in the adobe building. “What are desperados?” Jason asked curiously.

  “Bank robbers…bad guys,” Luke replied. “But don’t worry buddy, bad guys go to jail.”

  “And they stay there forever?”

  Jason’s question hung in the air for a moment, and Luke looked at Abby, as if wanting help in answering the question. “Most of the time bad guys stay in jail forever,” she replied, the tiny white lie told to still a little boy’s fears.

  “What you have to remember, Jason, is that we’re the good guys,” Luke said. “And the good guys always win.” In one smooth movement he picked Jason up and placed him on his shoulders.

  Jason squealed in delight as his arms locked beneath Luke’s chin. “Look at me, I’m tall as a tree,” he said and laughed.

  And that set the tone for the day. Luke took them in and out of quaint little shops. He took them to the fire station manned by volunteers where the kids got to sit on the shiny red fire engine and play with a litter of kittens that had taken up residency there.

  Everywhere they went Luke was greeted with friendliness. It was obvious he was adored by the women of the town, and liked by the men, as well.

  And throughout the town tour, Abby found herself fighting the enormous attraction that had drawn her to Luke from the moment she’d first met him.

  It didn’t help that he seemed to have endless patience with the kids. He was sweetly gentle with Jessica and abounding with good humor in the face of Jason’s endless curiosity. And to Abby’s surprise she found those traits sexy as hell.

  She couldn’t help but realize that this was the way a family interacted, that to strangers on the street who didn’t know either her or Luke, they appeared to be a perfectly normal, happy family.

  And she knew the danger of those kinds of thoughts. She hadn’t lied to Luke when she’d told him she had learned to expect nothing from men.

  Certainly Justin Cahill had shown her the epitome of cruel indifference, and Ken…he had simply shown her that words of love spoken when blue skies abounded meant nothing when stormy seas lay ahead.

  At least Luke had been honest with her, telling her that in seven months he was out of there, and he had no intention of allowing anything or anyone to stop his pursuit of his dream.

  It was
midafternoon when they finally stopped for lunch at the diner. The meal was accompanied by lots of laughter as Jason pled his case, once more, for a dog.

  “I would clean my room twice every day,” Jason said. “And Jessica told me she would, too.” Jessica nodded vigorously in eager agreement.

  “And we’d make you breakfast on Saturdays…your favorite, pancakes. And if we had a dog, Jessica and me would feed him and take him outside for walks and take care of him so you wouldn’t have to ever do anything. We’d do everything around the house and you could just stay in bed if you wanted and—”

  “Whoa.” Abby laughed and held up a hand to still the promise-spewing Jason. “I’ll tell you what.” She grabbed her purse and got out a handful of change.

  “Why don’t you and Jessica go play the jukebox and let me think about it for a few minutes.”

  Jessica and Jason scrambled from the booth, leaving Abby and Luke alone for the first time that day. Luke smiled at her across the table. “You know they aren’t going to be happy until you get them a dog.”

  “I know,” Abby agreed with a small laugh. “Jason has been unrelenting in his quest, and there’s a small part of me that thinks it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I mean, I know the bulk of the work for a pet would fall on my head. But on the other hand, having a dog seems so wonderfully normal and right.”

  “And you want wonderfully normal and right for the kids,” he said.

  She nodded. “I do.”

  He took a sip of his soda and gazed at the children, then back to her. “My offer still stands to help you find a good dog.”

  “You’ve done too much for me and the kids already,” Abby replied.

  “You keep wearing that killer dress and I’ll keep trying to do nice things for you.” His eyes glowed with a familiar heat that she hadn’t seen since before they’d made love.

  “And you keep looking at me like that and I’ll try to do nice things for you,” she returned, her voice slightly breathless.

  He laughed, not the full-bodied laughter he’d shared with the kids all morning, but rather a low, seductive laugh that held a promise that momentarily swept away her ability to breathe.

  She broke eye contact with him and grabbed her glass of water, her mouth suddenly achingly dry.

  “You feel it, too, don’t you, Abby?” His voice was whisper soft, and again she looked at him, into the heat of his sexy eyes.

  “Feel what?”

  He smiled knowingly. “The desire to repeat what we did the other day.” Like powerful twin magnets, his eyes held hers, making it impossible for her to look away. “That dress is lovely on you, Abby, but all I’ve been able to think about all day long is taking it off you.”

  Flames of heat warmed her cheeks at his words. “I must say, that surprises me.” She fought to control both her blush and the raging turmoil his words created.

  He lifted a dark eyebrow. “And why should that surprise you?”

  “If I am to believe that you are the womanizer people in this town have told me you are, then half the excitement of getting a woman in bed would be in the chase. I’m afraid I didn’t give you much of a chase.”

  “Abby.” He reached across the table and drew one of her hands into his. “I’m the first one to admit that I like women and I’ve dated a lot of women. But I don’t sleep with all the women I date and I definitely don’t like to play the kind of head games so many people like to play.”

  “I don’t play head games, either,” she replied. “I just… I’m not very exciting and…”

  He squeezed her hand to still whatever other protest she was about to make. “Abby, you have no idea how exciting I find you, and I’d like to make love with you again.”

  “Let’s change the subject. You’re making it difficult for me to think.”

  He grinned and released her hand. “Okay, tell me what you were doing before you started taking care of Jason and Jessica.”

  “My life was okay. I was a third grade teacher.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. It’s obvious you love children. Okay, so during the day you were a teacher, and in the evenings?”

  She shrugged. “I visited with Loretta and the kids a lot and I was dating a man named Ken Masters.”

  Luke’s eyes were opaque. “Were you in love with him?”

  “No.” The answer came swiftly and with assurance. “I wanted to be in love and I tried to fool myself that I was in love with Ken. He was a high school coach and we had school in common. We attended school functions together, and it just seemed sort of natural that we’d eventually be together forever.”

  “But he let you down.”

  She nodded her head. “He was great initially in the days immediately following Loretta’s death. It wasn’t until he realized I intended to keep the kids with me that he started to freak out.”

  She paused a moment and took a sip of her tea, grateful that thoughts of Ken no longer hurt at all. “He tried to talk me into putting them into foster care. He said they required more than I could give them, but what he meant was their presence in my life cramped his style. I realized then that I’d been fooling myself about my feelings for him. The easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life was tell him goodbye.”

  Before he could respond, the kids returned to the table.

  “So, do we get to have a dog?” Jason asked eagerly.

  Abby gestured the kids into the booth. Jason slid in next to Luke and Jessica next to her. She eyed them both soberly, grateful to be on less treacherous ground talking about a dog with the kids instead of the past or Luke’s desire for her.

  “I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve decided that next week, if Luke could take us to some of the dog breeders he knows, then we’ll see about getting a dog.”

  Jason yelped with excitement, and Jessica clapped her hands together, her button eyes shining with delight.

  “Oh boy, a dog! That’s a lot better than a lizard,” Jason exclaimed.

  Abby checked her watch and realized it was almost three. She knew Luke played his guitar and sang at the Honky Tonk on Saturday nights and probably had other things he wanted to do besides spend all his free Saturday time with her and the kids.

  “We probably should be getting back home,” she said to Luke.

  He checked his watch and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a few things to take care of before I go to work tonight.” He stood and pulled out his wallet.

  “Please, let me get lunch,” she said, fumbling quickly in her purse.

  “I’m not accustomed to my date paying my way,” Luke protested.

  “We aren’t a date,” Jason exclaimed.

  Abby laughed. “That’s right. We aren’t a date, and I insist I pay in return for your fascinating tour of town.”

  Luke grinned easily and stuck his wallet back in his pocket. “I never argue with a headstrong woman.”

  Luke and the kids stood nearby while Abby paid for the meal, then together the four of them left the diner. They had just reached the car when Luke snapped his fingers. “Hey, we almost forgot what we came to town to get—the guitar strings.”

  “You said the man in the general store orders them for you?” Abby asked. She knew the general store was a couple of blocks away, and she could also tell that the kids were growing tired.

  “Why don’t you guys go ahead and get in the car. It will just take me a couple of minutes to run and get them,” Luke suggested.

  “Let’s go in here and look,” Jason said, pointing to the craft store in front of where they were parked.

  “Okay, if you aren’t in the car, then I’ll know you’re in there,” Luke said, then turned and began to walk in long, even strides away from them.

  “All right, we’ll take a peek around and by that time Luke will be back,” Abby said as she guided the kids to the quaint shop’s door.

  Inside the air was cool and sweetly fragranced by candles and potpourri. The shelves held an array of items—knitted booties and crocheted blank
ets, hand-sewn dolls and wooden painted trucks.

  There were hand-painted bird feeders and intricate yard ornaments, flower arrangements and paintings and cross-stitched towels and T-shirts.

  “Hello…hello. Welcome to My Place.” A dainty, gray-haired woman approached them, beaming a smile and bearing a platter full of cookies. “I’m Rita Sue Ellenbee, the proprietor of this establishment.”

  “Hi, I’m Abby Graham and these are my children, Jason and Jessica,” Abby replied.

  “Ah, yes, the town has been buzzing with the news of the pretty new widow and her lovely children. Would you like a cookie? My own special recipe of honey and oatmeal.” Rita Sue held out the platter.

  “None for me, thank you,” Abby replied, then nodded at the kids, who each took one.

  “Feel free to wander around. We have something for everyone in here.”

  “We’re just waiting for Luke,” Jason said around a mouthful of cookie.

  “Luke? Luke Delaney?” Rita Sue asked, and Abby nodded.

  “He’s such a nice young man…a bit of the devil in him, but just enough to make him fun. His work always sells the quickest here.”

  “Really? What kind of things does Luke sell here?” Abby asked curiously.

  Rita Sue placed the platter of cookies on a shelf and gestured for Abby and the children to follow her. “I haven’t put out his newest work yet. He just dropped it off to me a couple of days ago.”

  She led them into a back room that was obviously used for storage. Boxes and crates lined the walls, and in the center of the room set a gorgeous, solid oak dressing table. “That’s Luke’s work,” she said.

  Abby ran her fingers across the smooth, glazed wood in surprise. “It’s beautiful,” she said, awed by the workmanship displayed in the intricately carved lines and decorative etching. “He’s been doing some work for me around my place, but I had no idea he was so talented.”

  “Luke could make a good living just building furniture, but he doesn’t seem to have any real ambition that way,” Rita Sue said. “He brings me a piece every couple of months, and it usually sells the first day I put it out on the floor. I’m always harping at him to make them faster, but he just grins that devilish grin of his that tells me he’s going to do it in his own time, his own way.”