Secret Desire

by Gwynne Forster

  “Is your sister-in-law very formal?”

  He stroked his stubble-free jaw. “Formal? Amanda? I’m trying to figure out how many times I’ve seen her wear shoes in the house.”

  “Uh…do you like her?”

  What was she getting at? “Kate, I couldn’t love my own sister more. I think of her as my sister.”

  He could see something akin to peace settle over her. “That’s wonderful. I’ll look forward to meeting her.” Seeming puzzled, she chewed on her bottom lip. “Luke, what will they think about you taking us there? I mean…well, we’re just friends.”

  He grinned, more out of habit than amusement. “Then that’s what we’ll tell them. Not to worry.” He kissed her cheek and headed for the front door, where Jessye stood, waiting for him.

  “Thanks for looking over my project, Captain Luke.”

  He gave thanks for Randy. Whatever Jessye had planned, the boy had just botched. He stood between them and, in an uncharacteristic act, held both of Luke’s hands.

  “Anytime, son.” He nodded to Jessye. “Good night, miss.”

  “Whew!” That had been close. From fresh makeup to flowing hair, jersey top and tight satin pants, the lady had been ready for all-out war. Not that she was unattractive. She wasn’t. She was just so damned obvious. He got in his car, turned on his Max Bruch tape and headed home.

  They reached Caution Point at six o’clock as he’d figured they would, and he drove slowly through the town, pointing out places of interest to Randy and Kate. He promised to take them to the museum that housed the remains of a boat in which runaway slaves had escaped from a Charleston plantation and won their freedom, and to the church in which a piano once owned by Hall Johnson still supported the choir each Sunday morning.

  “Does your brother have any children, Captain Luke?”

  “Three of ’em.” He turned into Ocean Avenue and parked in front of number thirty-seven.

  “You must be Kate. I’m Marcus. Come on in.”

  “I’m happy to meet you, Marcus. I hope we’re not putting you out.”

  What a disconcerting wink! “Of course not. Luke doesn’t do things like that. He’d never bring you where you wouldn’t be comfortable. Where’s your boy?”

  She looked around. “I suppose he’s back there with Luke helping him put the car into the garage,” she said, and winked right back at him.

  He treated her to uproarious laughter, and she had the kind of comfortable feeling one experiences when getting home.

  “Where’s Amanda?”

  “She’s feeding Todd, my younger son. Go on upstairs.”

  “I see you’ve met.” Luke and Marcus clasped each other in bear hugs. “This is Randy. Randy, this is my brother, Marcus. You may call him Mr. Marcus.”

  Randy looked Marcus up and down. “But you’re not a detective?”

  At that moment, Amy came barrelling down the stairs with Marc in her wake. Kate’s eyebrows shot up when Amy walked up to Randy, offered to shake hands, and said, “I’m Amy, this is my brother Marc, and Lady is nursing my other little brother. Wanna come see?”

  Randy looked at the three adults for permission. “I think he can watch some other time, Amy,” Luke said.

  As though anxious to assure his status with Amy, Randy said, “Amy, this is my mom, Kate Middleton. You may call her Miss Kate.”

  Kate gave silent thanks that Luke and Marcus didn’t seem amused at Randy’s mimicking of Luke. He had needed a role model. She saw that now. He couldn’t have a better one than Luke, but she didn’t want Randy to become too attached to a man who’d told her, for whatever reason, that he intended to keep a distance between them.

  Luke’s gaze as she shook Amy’s and Marc’s little hands set the marbles in her belly to rocking. His gray eyes sparkled with the fire of desire, and she didn’t imagine it, for Marcus looked from Luke to her. And though she knew she blushed, Luke didn’t shift his gaze. She swallowed furiously, aware that she failed in her effort to hide what she felt. The blaze dancing in his eyes drew her as a flame draws a moth and, like a zombie, she stepped toward him. If he burned her, she didn’t care, so long as he made it all that it could be. She didn’t know what would have happened if Marcus hadn’t suddenly taken Randy and Amy by the hand and walked toward the back of the house.

  With trembling fingers, she reached out and he was there, flesh, sinew and blood, a man who cared about her and who wanted her. The tips of her fingers touched his warm body, and she gazed up at him.

  His posture a rigid contrast to the swirling heat in his eyes, he said, “Don’t test me right now, Kate.”

  Shivers coursed through her. For that moment he was hers to do with as she pleased. Power and passion leaped within her, battling with her common sense. But reason had deserted her. Frantic for a way to indulge her passion, she let her gaze sweep the foyer.

  But he second-guessed her, slickly divining her thoughts. “There’s no privacy in this foyer, and it’s just as well, because I’d give in to you all the way. And I’d regret it.”

  “I’m…I’m not trying to seduce you. Can’t you see that I’m just as susceptible to you as you are to me? What do you think happens to me when I see you look at me as if you want to—”

  “Don’t say it.” He shook his head as though in wonder. “God made us like this, but I wish he’d posted a cure someplace where I could find it.”

  Not till after I’ve had my way with you. Aloud, she said, “Lord forbid!”

  Sparkles lit the wonderful gray eyes that she adored, and a grin slowly took possession of his face. “Honey, you’re one heck of a piece of work. A woman with the guts to say what she thinks and feels. I’m not going anywhere. Trust me on that. But I’d appreciate a little patience.”

  Say whatever she thought? Humph! She wondered how he’d take it if she blurted out everything about him that worked its way into her mind? A smile formed around her eyes. “You like that, huh? Then you won’t mind knowing I think you ought to have danger signs posted on you in big letters, going and coming.” She poked her tongue in her left cheek and looked at him through slanted eyes. “No, honey, you are definitely not going anywhere.”

  He glanced downward and dug the toe of his shoe into the carpet before staring into her eyes. “Cut it out, Kate. If I believed that kind of talk, I’d be as asinine as Ax…as some other people you know.” He looked down again. “Marc, for Pete’s sake, stop pulling out my shoelaces.”

  He hunkered before the little boy, who sat on the floor bubbling with giggles. Yes, she thought, he loves children, and her mind immediately conjured up a vision of him holding their child. Luke stood with Marc in his arms and looked down at her for a long time, obviously shaken. His eyes let her know he’d read her thoughts. His own expression became unreadable. Then, as quickly as lightning streaks the dark, his mood changed.

  “It’s time you met Amanda.” He took her hand with his free one. “Come on.” And they climbed the stairs together.

  “Where are they?” Amanda asked Marcus. “You think they’re still standing in the foyer?”

  “Bet on it. Considering the sparks I saw flying between them, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were glued to the spot.”

  Amanda loved her brother-in-law. She often fretted over his aloneness and his inability to put the circumstances of his wife’s death behind him.

  “What did you think of Kate?”

  “I liked what I saw. A good-looking, intelligent, and frankly, feminine woman. She has a sense of humor, too, and anybody living around Luke needs that. Randy’s infatuated with Luke.”

  When she reached up and brushed her husband’s lips with her own, his eyes promised her heaven. She’d learned not to play with him unless she meant business, because he’d lock the door, and they’d eat supper when they ate supper.

  “I think I’ll put Todd in his crib and run down and welcome her.”

  She got no farther than the top of the stairs. After hugging Luke, she opened her arms to Kate. “Than
k you for coming down to see us, Kate. I’ve wanted to meet you and Randy. Would you believe my daughter is already besotted with him? Come see my baby.”

  While Kate watched Todd play with the gadgets strung across his crib, Amanda fixed her gaze on Luke. His eyes blazed with passion as he looked steadily at Kate, but she also saw more in his regard of her, unaware that she watched him. Warmth and caring shone in his face, open and unguarded. Kate smiled at Luke, and blushed at the intimacy of his expression—unsmiling, with a look of love and longing. Amanda relaxed, satisfied, and glanced at her husband. He, too, had witnessed the couple’s silent communication. Nobody had to tell Amanda that Marcus liked what he saw, for a smile covered his face.

  “Drinks if anybody wants them, and supper in half an hour,” she said. She started down the stairs, turned back and spoke to Kate. “Why don’t you come down with me, and let’s get acquainted.”

  A woman without guilt or pretense, Kate concluded as they descended the stairs.

  “I want you to visit often, Kate. Luke spends every weekend with us, but I expect that’s about to change.”

  Let her spell it out. I’m taking nothing for granted. “Why do you say that?”

  Amanda skipped down the last three steps and waited for Kate. “He won’t need us as much as he does now. Luke loves Marcus, all of us, in fact. But he needs his own life, and what I see when you two look at each other tells me he’s going to get that. It gives me a nice warm feeling.”

  Kate laughed inwardly, reluctant to tell Amanda that she hoped it also gave Luke a warm feeling. “Luke’s biding his time. He isn’t ready for a commitment, at least not to me.”

  “Don’t expect a man with Luke’s intelligence and sense of responsibility to surrender easily. If he promises you anything, you can bet your life on it. Of course, such a man would be careful.” Amanda took a pan of apple turnovers from the refrigerator and prepared to fry them.

  “When Marcus and I married, I wouldn’t have bet a nickel on our being together today. But Marcus fell in love with me. Oh, he fought it like Don Quixote did his windmills, but, honey, love is powerful, and I didn’t hide mine from him.”

  Must be a family trait. “I don’t think he’s scared of what he feels. I believe whatever I represent to him is something he doesn’t want. Simple as that.”

  Amanda flipped a turnover. “Pshaw! I know he doubts himself because of what he experienced with his wife. And don’t get me wrong, it’s something he can’t seem to shake. But you’re the one woman I’ve seen him with, the only one he’s brought here, and a man who looks like that one, who has his status, can get just about any woman he wants. Right now, he’s with you.”

  “I’m not going to pressure him. He roared into my life like a souped-up locomotive less than a year after I swore I’d never look twice at another man. One look at him was enough to make me eat my words. I can’t believe such a powerful attraction is one-sided.”

  Amanda put the turnovers on a sheet of brown paper to drain. “I don’t give people advice. Smart people don’t need it, and the rest can’t use it.” Twinkles flashed in her soft brown eyes. “But in this case…well, honey, learn to make gingerbread, gingersnaps and ginger rum cake.”

  Kate couldn’t restrain the mirth that poured out of her as she joined in Amanda’s sparkling laughter, amused and happy that she’d found a new friend. She wanted to hug the elfin woman. When she could stop laughing, she said, “I knew about the other two, but ginger rum cake?”

  Only wickedness could describe Amanda’s slow wink. “I’ll give you the recipe. I made it up when I got sick of gingerbread.”

  As naturally as if she’d done it for years, Kate opened her arms and embraced Amanda. “I’m so happy that I know you.”

  “Where’s all this good stuff I smell?”

  Kate looked at Marcus, so like Luke and yet so different. It crossed her mind that Marcus enjoyed a happiness, a contentment that she didn’t see in Luke.

  “I like your family, Marcus. Amanda is…well, a very special person. But of course, you know that.”

  He seemed to rise above his six feet four inches, his pride in his wife almost a tangible thing, and she got a good dose of Hickson charisma when he treated her to a broad grin.

  “The credit for our life together goes to Amanda. She withstood plenty, and she gave me the family and the home I wanted and needed. Amanda’s pure gold. Morning sunshine and evening shade.” He shook his head as though unable to believe his good fortune. “I’ll never know how I got so lucky.”

  “Where’s Randy?” Kate asked him.

  “Luke’s reading stories to the children.”

  Kate mused over that for a second. “But there’s such a difference in their ages.”

  Marcus shrugged first one shoulder, and then the other. “That’s no problem for Luke. He makes up things as he reads and puts in something for all of them. Besides, Amy will enjoy anything Randy likes. She’s just six, but she’s the best student in her advanced second-grade class. And I can thank Amanda for that, too.”

  “I’ve never known Randy to take to anyone so quickly.”

  “No? She wants him to stay here with us for a while. Said she needs a big brother.”

  Both of Kate’s eyebrows shot up. “I doubt he’d consider that. He hates being away from his clients, computer, painting things, and all the other stuff he has in his room.”

  Marcus winked mischievously. “Don’t bet on it, Kate. Amy’s got almost as many feminine wiles as a thirty-year-old woman, and she’s already working on him.”

  Luke strolled into the kitchen, bringing the three older children with him, and sniffed with pleasure at the aroma that greeted him. Amanda set out a meal of roast pork and dressing, candied sweet potatoes, string beans, biscuits and a salad of sliced tomatoes with basil dressing. Randy watched Luke to see what he did, for which Kate was grateful, because Luke didn’t lift his fork until Marcus said grace. She marveled that—though Randy claimed to dislike everything on Kate’s table at home except the biscuits—he ate everything with gusto. If she could have, she’d have taken Amy home with her.

  “We’re having apple turnovers for dessert, Randy,” Amy said. “Every night, Lady makes something with apples, ’cause my daddy loves apples things. Uncle Luke loves ginger in everything.”

  Randy stopped eating and looked at Amy. “In everything? Everything? Yuk!”

  “’Course not. Just gingerbread, gingersnaps and ginger rum cake,” Amy explained.

  “That’s different. I’m crazy about gingerbread, too, and my mom sure knows how to make it.”

  Amy looked at Kate and let an angelic smile light up her face. “When you come back to see us, Miss Kate, please bring me some. I love it, too.”

  With the children asleep, the four adults talked long into the night. Luke held Kate’s hand as she sat beside him on the velvet sofa, and Amanda sat on an ottoman beside Marcus’s knees while he occupied a lounge chair, his left hand draped over his wife’s shoulder. Everything about Amanda seemed natural, Kate silently observed—her bare toes peeping out from beneath the orange caftan, her hands relaxed in her lap, her serenity. Marcus looked down at her, smiled, and Amanda seemed to catch fire. A glow covered her face, her lips parted and her eyes drank him in, welcoming him.

  Kate counseled herself not to envy the woman, but in her mind’s eye she saw Marcus carrying his wife to his lair, loving her, flying with her on an ecstatic voyage to heaven—a voyage that she had never taken, one that she longed with every fiber of her being to experience. The hot fire of desire swirled on Marcus’s gaze. Frankly. Openly. And the woman he adored reached for him. Kate had to close her eyes.

  “Where are you? You haven’t heard a word I said,” Luke told her, his knowing gaze fixed on her. She worked hard at shaking herself out of the trance into which witnessing the couple’s frank desire and need had thrust her. “I’m over here. Look at me,” he persisted.

  She turned her face toward him, but couldn’t make herself
open her eyes, because she knew what he’d see, and she wasn’t ready to give him access to her soul.

  “I think it’s time I turned in,” she announced to no one in particular, certain that Marcus and Amanda, wrapped in their own world, wouldn’t hear anything she said.

  Her shaky fingers found the light switch at the bottom of the stairs that led to the new wing of the house, and as she stumbled up the first few steps she realized that Luke followed. Beneath the surface of her skin, her scrambled nerves battled each other, testing her. She fought to keep going. What she wanted was to turn back to that living room and see for herself how a man loved a woman he cherished.

  Her steps faltered, and Luke came up beside her, draped an arm around her shoulders and took her weight.

  “This way, Kate,” he said, and turned them into a wide hall hung with paintings and art objects. He pointed to a doorway. “That’s your room,” he said, his rueful smile making a lie of his cool facade. “And this one’s mine.” He leaned against the door that faced hers and crossed his ankles, his gaze fixed on her. His gray eyes were without their fire and sparkles—lackluster, haunting.

  She wondered what he’d say if she invited him into her room, and oh, how she wanted to! She pinned him with a searching, accusing stare—healthy, virile, as good-looking and sexy a man as she’d ever laid eyes on. Couldn’t he see her loneliness, how much she needed him? That dull ache she’d lost when Nathan was no longer a part of her life, promising and forever withholding, once more pummelled her chest, exacerbating her longing for the man before her. At the moment, she wished she had never seen him.

  “Good night, Kate.”

  She managed a smile, opened her door, went in, and closed it. She was doggoned if she’d cry! She hadn’t sunk to that even when Nathan had stayed out nights and ignored her for days. She showered, pampered her body with the lotions she found in the bathroom and got into bed.

  “He’d better not wait too long,” she said aloud. Then she turned out the light and went to sleep.