Читать книгу Secret Desire - Gwynne Forster - Страница 8

“Thank you kindly for nothing.”

“You got more than you deserved.”

“I didn’t seek what I deserve. No amount of money can compensate for the ten years of emotional hell I endured with Nathan Middleton.” Kate Middleton waved the check. “This is for my son’s future.”

She stared at Joshua Johnson’s thin pinched lips, hollow cheeks, and cold pigeon eyes, then swung around and headed for the door. With her hand on the knob, she let her gaze sweep the staid office of Johnson and Jackson with its ancient markings of respectability, including the graying old man—attorney for her late husband’s estate and a friend of the Middleton family—who didn’t raise his head to look at her. She took it all in, opened the door, walked out and closed it gently. Then she turned around, wiped her feet on the doormat, headed down the hall and didn’t look back.

Nathan Middleton hadn’t intended to set her free, but that was what her husband of ten years had done when he mocked fate by test driving a new-line sports car. While he’d lived, he’d done his best to rule and control her, pampered her and tried to stash her away in their elegant home. Her rebellion had been a source of increasing friction between them. For ten years, she’d fluttered around with clipped wings, but now she’d show them all, including her in-laws, who’d told their son that he’d married beneath his status. The world would know that she could manage her life and take care of her child.

Two hundred and ninety thousand dollars, a pittance of an inheritance for her and her child from the only son of a rich family—but it was more than she needed to get her life in order. She stepped out into the street, tightened her jacket against the sting of the brisk April breeze, inhaled the Grosse Pointe, Michigan, air, and smelled its familiarity. She had to get out of that town, away from that house with its memories of what Nathan had told her about her in-laws and their unfair estimation of her. She walked rapidly, her mind bursting with visions of her future. For many of her thirty-eight years, life had shortchanged her, but she meant to correct that—beginning right then.

Four months later, having returned with her son, Randy, to Portsmouth, Virginia, where she’d had her only teaching job, the only place she knew besides Charleston, South Carolina, and Grosse Pointe, Kate embarked on her new life—managing the bookstore that she’d purchased with a portion of the money from Nathan’s estate.

“You don’t need that sitter. You can leave your boy here with me while you’re at your store,” Madge Robinson, her building superintendent, said. “I take care of the kids that live in this apartment building while their mothers and fathers are off to business.”

Kate looked from the gnarled fingers and wrinkled and heavily veined hands to the lined, weathered face and the hair that hadn’t grayed or ever been dyed, and she wondered how many of life’s barbed-wire fences and spiked gates the poor woman had scaled. She jumped at every opportunity to baby-sit, and Kate suspected that the occasions gave her a chance to talk with her neighbors. Lonely hardly described her. She exhibited the energy of a fifty year old, but the appearance of an octogenarian.

“I’ll take you up on that, Madge,” Kate said, though she didn’t want to be beholden to Madge or anyone else. “And I do thank you,” she added, “but I want him to love books so, for now, he can sit in my store after school and read. When you do keep him, I’ll pay you the going rate for sitters.” She knew Randy would rather not be under her watchful eye, but she had to repair the damage that his father’s overindulgence had caused, and that meant keeping a right rein on him.

Luke Stuart Hickson hugged Amanda and Amy, his sister-in-law and niece, and walked with Marcus to his car. “It’s time you got to work on settling down, Luke,” Marcus said to his older brother. “We’d be happier if your life was what you want it to be, and we know it isn’t.”

Luke inserted the key into the lock, opened the door of his blue Buick LeSabre, and looked off into the distance. “Yeah, but it isn’t something I can manufacture. You know that. Don’t forget that you backed into paradise kicking and screaming.” He let a grin crease his mouth at the memory of it. “And look what you found. If I had a woman like Amanda, I wouldn’t be here with you right now. See you next weekend.”

An hour and forty minutes later, Luke turned off Route 17 onto Greenwood Drive in Portsmouth and headed home. He thought about what he’d do the rest of the day, his coveted Sunday off, and decided to get a bag of hamburgers and fries, pick up some Sunday papers and spend the day lolling around. He drove up Deep Creek Boulevard, stopped at Burgundy for the red light, and did a double take. Making certain that his eyes hadn’t fooled him, he backed up, stopped and got out. No, it wasn’t a mirage.

His steps quickened as he neared Kate’s Friendly Bookstore.

A woman and small boy peered at him from behind the door, handcuffed together, their faces pressed to the glass. It didn’t take him a second to figure out that they were prisoners. He tried the door. Locked, as he’d guessed. Too bad he wasn’t wearing his uniform. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out his badge, and held it so the woman could see it. If she recognized it as a policeman’s identification, she didn’t show it.

“Can you hear me?” he asked, but the woman didn’t respond. Instead, her eyes grew larger, and tears began to trickle down the boy’s face. He tried sign language, but got no response. There goes my Sunday. He tried to signal that he’d be back, then went to his car, got a knife and screwdriver, and picked the lock.

“I’m Detective Captain Luke Hickson,” he told them when he got the door open. “What happened?”

She didn’t appear to believe him, so he showed her his badge again. He gave her points for her caution; she had good reason. “I was locking up last night, and a man pushed us into the store, took the money from the cash register and said he was going to shoot us. I begged for mercy for my son, and he handcuffed us, took the store keys and locked us in. We’ve been here since nine last night. I’m…I’m so glad you came. My son, Randy, is starving.”

He looked at her more closely. She had to be tired and miserable, but you’d never guess it from her bearing. She had an aura of dignity, strength and soft femininity, and she earned his respect when she didn’t apologize for inconveniencing him. That would have smacked of dishonesty.

A half smile settled on her face as she glanced at her son. “You’ve been a great little trouper, Randy. I hope the captain can get these handcuffs off us soon, so we can get you something to eat.” She looked at Luke for confirmation that their hands would soon be free.

“I’ll do my best, ma’am, but it may take a while, so maybe you two want to go to the washroom before I start on these handcuffs.”

He got the bunch of keys that he kept in the glove compartment of his car and examined them. “Let’s get busy,” he said when they returned. If none of the keys fit, he’d have to use a cutter.

“Suppose you can’t find a key,” Randy said, apparently anxious to end his ordeal.

“We’ll get them off, with or without a key. It’s just easier with a key.” Another ten minutes is all I’m giving it, he told himself as one key after another failed to fit.

“That does it. We have to go to the station, but I’ll stop along the way and get you some food. What do you want to eat, ma’am?”

He didn’t imagine the relief that spread over her countenance. “Burgers, fries and milk for Randy. Buffalo wings, fries and coffee for me.”

“I’m not drinking any milk,” Randy said.

Luke let the boy have a steely gray-eyed stare. “Your mother said you’re drinking milk, and if you want those handcuffs off, young man, you will drink milk. You got that?”

He’d have sworn that her look was one of thanks. The boy was probably a problem, but his uncouth behavior didn’t so much as put a frown on her face, and he wondered about that. His olfactory sense triggered a masculine response. Her perfume again filled his head with ideas that had nothing to do with the work of a police detective, and he tried to shut it down. When he took her arm to help them into the back of his car, she turned to him, smiling, apparently to thank him, and the bottom dropped out of his belly. He stared into her greenish brown eyes, unable to shift his glance until Randy, in another display of bad manners, jerked his mother’s arm. Get your act together, man, he cautioned himself.

He left them in the car and bought their food. Then he drove with them to his precinct on Crawford Parkway. “As soon as you finish eating, we’ll start on those handcuffs,” he said, and with a look at Randy added, “and that includes drinking all of your milk.”

While they ate, he sent a clerk to get the details of their ordeal. “What’s your name, ma’am?” Luke asked her as he began trying more keys in the handcuffs.

“Kate Middleton.”

The sooner he freed their hands, the better; he did not relish standing that close to Kate Middleton for any length of time, touching her hands and…He shook himself out of it.

“Where’re you from, Mrs. Middleton?” he asked, though he knew he’d find out as soon as he read the clerk’s report. When she told him, he resisted asking her how she happened to make the jump from Grosse Pointe to Portsmouth, because that was personal, but he wanted to know all about her. With the fingers of her free left hand, she wiped perspiration from her brow. He’d already known she was getting warm, because her spicy perfume got stronger and stronger—teasing him, daring him to enjoy her nearness and to prolong the whole torturous experience. He’d recognize that perfume again if he smelled it in Timbuktu.

“Do you think it’ll take much longer?” she asked.

“Can’t say. I’ve got another fifty or so keys that I can try. Failing that, we’ll cut them off, but that won’t be fun.” She glanced up and caught his gaze, and embarrassment reddened her flawless tan complexion. So she was attracted to him! He’d as soon not have that piece of information—she was tempting enough as it was.

“Would you like to walk, or just stand?” he asked. “I know this is tiring for both of you.”

That soft, sweet smile again. “I’ll stand for a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to stand,” Randy put in. “I was standing all night, and I wanna go to bed.”

Luke loved children and had always wanted some of his own, but he loved nice kids, not brats. “If she wants to stand, you stand,” he said to Randy. “You may not realize this, but it’s a man’s pleasure to please the women in his life, and you’re old enough to practice that. On your feet.”

“All right,” Randy said, his tone less than friendly.

Luke felt a twinge of sympathy for the boy, but Randy Middleton was going to respect his mother, at least until those handcuffs were removed. She stood slowly, and he wasn’t sure whether that was because she was tired or because she was standing so close to him. He moved back to give her some space, and made the mistake of looking into her eyes. He was forty-two, he knew when a woman’s interest in him was more than casual. Her warm, intense gaze told him plenty. It had been a long time since he’d last wanted a particular woman, but he wanted this one. Not that it mattered. He didn’t know a thing about her, and he refused to let himself be sucked into her orbit just because his testosterone had gotten unruly.

Enough was enough! He called a junior detective. “Set up that cutter, will you?”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Captain. You’ve been so kind to us,” Kate said, rubbing the wrist that had borne the metal cuff.

“My pleasure. You may go in a couple of minutes.” He handed her a notepad. “Jot down the address of your store and the hours and telephone number, and your home address and phone number, in case I need to reach you.” He knew his young colleague had taken that information from her, but he didn’t want to raise eyebrows by copying from the record in the presence of his officers. He gave her his card. “If you have a problem of any kind, call me.”

She did as he asked and thanked him again. “Could I phone for a taxi, please?”

He looked at the address she’d given. “I’ll drop you off on my way home.”

By the time he’d taken them home, the Hamburger House had closed, so he stopped at the River Café and bought enough Cajun-fried catfish, french fries and coleslaw for two meals, got the Sunday papers and headed for his co-op town house.

For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why Kate Middleton wouldn’t get out of his head. He put on a CD and listened to his favorite music—a Max Bruch violin concerto—while he savored his lunch.

Relaxed, he thought back to the time when the woman he loved, his wife, had needed him and called for help. But he’d been busy saving someone else’s life, and he’d lost her, a victim of mistaken identity. He was not going to get involved with a woman he might have to protect. The fact that the robber had selected Kate’s store from among those nearby, which even the most inexperienced criminal should have known would yield more cash, made the crime suspicious. To his mind, it wasn’t an ordinary stickup. It occurred to him that he ought to have someone put a new lock on her store and get the keys to her. An expletive slipped through his lips.

Kate crawled into bed and replayed the day in her mind. Luke Hickson wasn’t an ordinary man whom you met on an ordinary day. The personification of gentleness, but oh, boy, you would not want to cross him. Power. He exuded it. Even seven-year-old Randy noticed it, because he hadn’t tried any of his usual antics on the captain. She couldn’t let her thoughts dwell on him, though, because such a man had to be married. And even if he wasn’t, she’d served her years of martyrdom in her marriage, and she wasn’t going that route again.

Thank God the robber hadn’t come ten minutes earlier. No one would ever know how glad she was that she’d taken all but a few dollars from the cash register and put her day’s take in the safe in the back room. She couldn’t afford to lose money. Buying a little summer home on the Albermarle Sound, moving Randy and herself into an apartment and setting up her bookstore had taken over half of her capital. Still, she was thankful. The robber had spared their lives. Tremors shook her at the thought that he might return to finish what he’d started. She hoped Luke Hickson would catch him.

She didn’t let herself dwell on the career she’d given up when Nathan moved them to Grosse Pointe, because she couldn’t resume teaching music education and advanced piano in the Portsmouth schools unless she took refresher courses or got another degree. Even then, she’d have to pass board exams again. With Randy to care for, she couldn’t spare the time or the money. Her career was a thing of the past.

She stretched out on the satin sheets—that her late husband had insisted they use—and let her bare skin enjoy the silky softness. Now that she wasn’t married, she’d taken to sleeping nude and loving it; that was part of her statement of independence.

She reached for the phone on its second ring.

“Ms. Middleton, please. Luke Hickson speaking.”

Currents of dizziness attacked her, and it seemed as though her head had lost most of its weight. “This is Kate, Captain Hickson. Is…is something the matter?” She hated the unsteadiness of her voice. The man must be used to having women roll over for him. Not this one.

“I hate to disturb your rest, but it’s occurred to me that you need a new lock and key for your store, and you need it now. With the simple padlock I put on it, a criminal wouldn’t need much imagination if he wanted to open it.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We can take care of it, but you have to be present. I can pick you up in half an hour.”

“Thanks. I’ll be ready.”

What next? She wanted to stay as far away from that man as she could get, but fate seemed to have other plans. She phoned Madge Robinson, the building superintendent.

“Madge, I have to go out for…I don’t know…an hour or two. Could you please keep an eye on Randy for me? He’s asleep.”

“In that case, I’ll go down to your place. It ain’t smart to leave a child his age alone. Be right there.”

She met Luke in the lobby and knew she’d never hear the end of it, because Madge was standing in the garden, though she should have been inside with Randy.

“Who’s with your boy?” Luke asked after handing her the new keys to her store.

She told him and waited, since it was clear he had something else to say.

“He needs a strong male hand. Where’s his father, if you don’t mind my asking?”

She hated talking about herself. Although he’d asked without seeming to probe, that didn’t make her more comfortable. “I’ve been a widow for fourteen months. Randy is showing the results of his father’s pampering and overindulgence. Sometimes he’s very unruly.”

“I can see that.”

He had a way of looking at her intently, of focusing on her as if she were the only other living creature on the planet. Suddenly, he smiled, and her heart flipped over like a jackknifed eighteen-wheeler. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“You didn’t get any rest, but…well, since we’re out here, do you feel like having a decent meal with me?”

Stunned at the unexpected invitation, she gazed up at him, judging his intent.

His smile widened. “I’m harmless. Besides, everybody in town knows me, so I can’t possibly abduct you and get away with it. What do you say?”

An infectious grin, his sparkling white teeth against his dark brown skin, gave her a warm feeling, and the twinkling mischievous challenge in his beautiful gray eyes provoked in her an oddball sense of devilment, a wickedness she hadn’t felt in over ten years.

In a reckless moment, she said, “Harmless? Luke Hickson, you’re about as harmless as a hungry lion among a herd of antelope.”

With his jacket open and his hands in his pants pockets emphasizing his six-foot, four-inch height and his imposing maleness, he gave his left shoulder a quick shrug. “I expect I’ve been likened to less admirable things, but when a charming woman tells me to my face that she thinks I’m dangerous, there’s no telling what will pop into my head.” He grinned again. “You willing to risk it?”

Primed for the game, she looked him up and down. “Oh, I don’t know. What kind of ideas get into your head?”

His eyes flashed fire, daring her. “You might be surprised.”

If he thought she’d back off, he was in for a surprise. “Good. I love surprises.”

His left eyebrow shot up. “And challenges, too, no doubt.”

She pulled on the long strand of hair that hung beside her right ear. “Oh, I thrive on those.”

“Ever pushed your luck too far?” he asked, his voice low and dark.

She couldn’t remember when she had last enjoyed flirting with a man, giving him back as good as she got. And a sharp-looking brother, at that. She pulled a curtain of innocence over her face and smiled. “Maybe. I don’t think so, though I’ve been told I have got an angel on my shoulder. So who knows? Where’s this place that serves a good meal?”

When he stepped closer and touched her elbow with a single finger, she looked around and then glanced up at him. He wasn’t smiling, and she knew she’d given herself away.

“If you’re checking to see who’s around in case you want to play, we’re alone in front of your store, four feet from a streetlight.”

The thought of playing with him, as he put it, sent a riot of sensation through her body, but she steeled herself against his intoxicating virility. “I don’t make a spectacle of myself, Captain. I just like to—”

“Tease?” His grin lacked its previous playfulness. “I like to tease, too, but I know when to draw the line. You’d better watch it. Your kind of funny stuff can get out of hand. Oh, yes. Let’s cut the formality, Kate. We’re way past that now. There’s a nice restaurant about six blocks away. I’ll drive us.”

“Sure you want to have a meal with this child?”

A frown marred his otherwise perfect features. “Child? What do you mean, child?”

She lifted her nose just enough to let him sense a mild reprimand. “I don’t suppose you make a habit of lecturing to adults.”

She couldn’t manage more than a wide-eyed stare as he ran his hand over his hair, gave her a sheepish grin and finally shrugged his left shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”

His hand on her arm was not impersonal as it had been when he took her and Randy to the police station. His grasp now bore an intimacy, a possessiveness, and it had a tenderness that made her want to feel his hands skimming her arm. Sensing danger, she told herself to remember to ask him about his wife and children, and to stay out of his company.

Luke had a premonition that dismissing her from his mind and his feelings wouldn’t be as easy as he’d thought, that handling his reaction to her would prove as tough a test as any he could remember. Her dignity, charm and impish ways fascinated him, and something in her eyes seemed to hide the wisdom of the ages and to promise him anything he would ever want.

He watched her read the menu, and wondered what was taking her so long. There wasn’t that much to read.

Very soon, it became clear that she hadn’t been reading. She didn’t take her gaze from the menu, which hid half of her face. “Luke, why aren’t you having dinner with your wife and children?”

That set him back a bit, but the question told him much about her. He closed his eyes briefly. “Kate, I’m a widower, and have been for six years. My wife and I weren’t fortunate enough to have children.”

She folded the menu, laid it on the table beside her plate and looked at him. “I’m sorry. Did you want children?”

Getting into that would drag him down as sure as his name was Luke Stuart Hickson. “Yes, I did. More than anything. What happened to your husband?”

So he didn’t like talking about it. Well, that was a kind of pain she could understand. She told him of Nathan’s death, and why she’d resettled in Portsmouth. “I was teaching here when I met Nathan. So it was Portsmouth or Charleston, where I grew up, and I didn’t think I could raise Randy and make a living for us in South Carolina. I want him to have every opportunity.”

He tapped the two middle fingers of his left hand on the table. “If he doesn’t get strong discipline, the opportunities you provide him with won’t mean one thing.”

She knew she had her hands full undoing the damage caused by Nathan’s pampering. He’d mistaken that for love, but she had recognized it as a substitute for the guidance their child needed.

“I know I’ve got my hands full with Randy, and I’m trying. But he threatens to call his paternal grandparents and tell them he’s being abused, the way he tattled to his father whenever I made him stay in his room. He’s smart beyond his years, Luke. I haven’t told them where we are yet, and with his attitude and a few other problems, I’m not sure I want to.”

He seemed to meditate for a few minutes before he said, “Enroll him in our Police Athletic League. Most of those boys aren’t with their fathers, so we give them the discipline they need.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to turn Randy loose with a group of underprivileged boys. Medicine that cured one ailment could cause another that killed. “We’ll see. I—”

“Some of those boys are from homes just like Randy’s, and all of them have learned to respect their mothers, so don’t be huffy about it. It may be just the help you need.”

One more indication that this man should not be taken for granted. And he said what he thought. “I may give it a try,” she said, mostly to change the subject.

“The sooner, the better.”

The waiter arrived to take their orders, and she breathed a long breath of relief. “I’ll have the leek soup and roast beef,” she said to the waiter, then glanced at Luke. “What are you wrinkling your nose for?”

He spread out his hands in a gesture of innocence. “With all this good food—stuffed crabs, crab cakes, Cajun-fried catfish, rolled veal in wine sauce with wild mushrooms, if you want to get fancy—why would anybody ask for roast beef and mashed potatoes?”

Why, indeed? If he thought she’d tell him that she hadn’t read the entire menu because he disconcerted her, he could think again. She caught the waiter’s sardonic expression.

“If you’d like to change…Captain Hickson eats here regularly. He may suggest something.”

She looked from one to the other and controlled her tongue. “I ordered roast beef because I like it. I’d also like a glass of Châteauneuf du Pape. You do carry French wines, don’t you?”

She’d known Luke Hickson exactly ten hours, but she would have bet her life that if she looked at him she’d see a grin on his face. He didn’t disappoint her.

“Yes, ma’am,” the waiter replied. Then he took Luke’s order of broiled mushrooms and crown roast of pork and moved away as quickly as possible.

“Aren’t you having wine?” she asked Luke.

His grin turned into a full laugh—and what a laugh. If she had any sense, she’d get out of there. The man was like a time-release drug.

He sobered up and answered her question. “I’m driving, so I don’t drink. I’m a cop, remember? By the way, do you drive?”

She told him she had a Ford Taurus, but that she drove because she had to and not because she enjoyed it. They finished the meal, and he leaned back and watched her. She folded her hands in her lap, unfolded them, smoothed her hair, and then pushed aside the clump that hung over her right ear. Finally, discombobulated beyond measure, she told herself to relax and went on the attack. “Luke, would you please stop staring at me? You’re making me uncomfortable.”

Horrified, she could see that his look of innocence was not feigned. He leaned forward, appeared to reach for her, then pulled back his hand. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was enjoying being here with you. I don’t often have the company of a woman who wants nothing from me except time and good conversation.”

She believed in being honest. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve got a ten-year layer of social rust, plus I’ve had a lot more of my own company than was good for me. I’m out of practice, so I hope you’ll forgive me. Shall we go?”

“You’re wonderful company, rust or no rust,” he said, his grin hard at work. “I do want to ask if you have any idea who that man was who robbed you. If a criminal intends to shoot after committing a crime, he doesn’t usually let himself be talked out of it.”

“He seemed young, not more than twenty-five. I didn’t see his face, though, because he wore a hood. I’m wondering if my in-laws didn’t find out where we are and put someone up to it. They don’t want me to succeed. I’m sure of it.”

He sat forward, his posture rigid, as if he sensed approaching danger. “Your in-laws? If they’re wealthy upstanding citizens, would they hire a hit man? Somehow, I doubt it.”

“Then why would he have put the gun away when I told him he was frightening Randy and begged him to spare us?”

Luke drummed his fingers on the table. “Beats me, but I’ll get to the bottom of it. Be sure of that.”

He stood, looked down at her, and extended his hand to assist her from the booth. She took his hand, but released it as soon as she was safely on her feet. Inwardly, she laughed at herself. Why would a thirty-eight-year-old woman let a man make her jittery? She’d been married and was the mother of an seven-year-old boy, for heaven’s sake. She stood straighter and held her shoulders back.

“This has been wonderful. Actually, it’s my first night out since I’ve been here. And what do you know? I think I stepped out with the king of the hill.”

He had the grace to be embarrassed. “Come on now, Kate. You’re exaggerating.”

The waiter didn’t bring a bill, and she decided not to ask for one. Since he ate there regularly, he probably had an account with the restaurant or someone had slipped him the check. In any case, he didn’t seem the type who’d split the bill with a woman the first time they ate dinner together. A few April sprinkles dampened them as they strolled half a block to Luke’s car, but he didn’t hurry. She’d already noticed that Portsmouth inhabitants, like the Charlestonians among whom she grew up, took their time about most things. He walked with her to her apartment door, and her nerves started a wild battle with one another. She didn’t think he’d ask to come in, but…

“I’ve enjoyed this evening with you, Kate. I enjoyed it a lot. I hope we’ll get better acquainted.” Before she could say a word, he winked, turned around and headed down the hallway.

“Luke,” she called. “The dinner was wonderful, and so were you.”

He waved, opened the building’s front door, and disappeared into the night. She stared at the hall that led to the building’s lobby and shook her head. She knew herself as a conservative woman, one whom Nathan Middleton in his perverted gentility had taught to wait for the man to make the first move. In a flash, she realized that Nathan had discouraged, even rejected, her advances early in their marriage until she’d stopped making them. Ultimately, he had set the tone of their relationship and called all the shots. Ultimately, she hadn’t cared.

Maybe she was about to find out who she was, or to rediscover herself. She couldn’t figure out what had gotten into her. She’d dared Luke, flirted with him and challenged him, and she wasn’t even ashamed. Ashamed? She’d enjoyed every second of it. But he’d kept his counsel, and she suspected he’d just let her know that he didn’t go in for casual good-night kisses, not even pecks on the cheek. It was just as well. If he’d kissed her, she’d probably have landed on the clouds. She had always wanted to fly with a man, and the woman in her knew instinctively that Luke Hickson could take her with him on wings of ecstasy. However, she’d been certain of that once before, and in ten years of groping for fulfillment, she’d gotten nothing but emptiness, a painful kind of loneliness—a thousand disappointments, like a field of scentless roses or an orchard of flowering cherry trees that bore no fruit. She didn’t feel like retracing those steps.

Luke propped his left foot on the step stool he kept in his walk-in closet and pondered his sudden urge to look at his family album. Why, after a dozen years or more, did he need to see pictures of his late parents and of him and Marcus as growing boys? He put the photo album back in its place without opening it, clicked off the light and wandered into the den. It wasn’t a time for nostalgia. He’d loved and cherished Eunice, and until her horrifying demise, they’d had a wonderful marriage—a happy marriage, comforting and companionable. But, he realized all of a sudden, it had been unexciting. Kate Middleton exhilarated him. And she had a streak of wickedness that brought out something strange in him, a kind of wildness with which he was unfamiliar. He’d controlled it, but he’d give anything to know what would happen if he felt it again and let himself give in to it.

He knew the danger of taking up a woman’s challenge, and she’d practically dared him to show her the man that he was. Not that he was gullible; he’d walked away from more glittering pitfalls. What got to him was the thin layer of sadness beneath her jocular manner. That, along with her wit and charm, made him vulnerable to her, piqued his curiosity and made him want to know everything about her. He went to the refrigerator, got a can of beer and took a few swallows. An inner urging told him to bide his time, and he knew he’d better listen.

He snapped his fingers as he remembered her fear that her in-laws might be trying to prevent her from succeeding with the bookstore. It didn’t quite wash, but to be on the safe side, he’d assign a detective to watch that block first thing Monday morning.

When Kate walked into her living room, she found Madge Robinson snoring in front of the television and Bugs Bunny savoring a carrot while he plotted mischief. She awakened the woman by turning off the TV.

Madge jumped up. “I didn’t expect you’d be back in no two hours. If I went anywhere with Captain Hickson, I’d keep him half the night, too.”

She didn’t have much patience with busybodies. Madge Robinson had known she’d been with Luke because she’d walked to the edge of the garden and peered through the hedge, snooping. “Mrs. Robinson, it’s only nine-fifteen, and I’d hardly consider that half the night. Did Randy give you any trouble?”

Madge sat down and flicked the television back on. “I didn’t see the rest of Bugs. No, Randy didn’t give me a speck of trouble. I went to my place and got him some ice cream, and he went to bed as peacefully as a lamb, just like he promised.”

Just what Randy needed, someone else to pamper him and cajole him into doing what he knew he should do. “You mean, you bribed Randy to go to sleep?”

Madge glued her gaze to the television. “That tiger’s gonna catch Bugs if he ain’t careful. What? Oh. It was better for him to sleep than give me a hard time. Besides, he was tired, anyway. Poor kid said he hadn’t slept all last night.”

“How much do I owe you, Mrs. Robinson?”

“What? Fifteen. That’s my regular price, and call me Madge, like everybody else does. I’d rather not charge for keeping the tenants’ children, but everybody wants to pay. It’s a pleasure for me, ’cause I’m always by myself ’less someone wants me to keep the kids. I never had any, so I enjoys it. I ’spec you want to turn in, so I’ll go on home soon as Bugs is finished.”

Kate inhaled a long breath and sat down to watch Bugs Bunny. Within minutes she had closed her eyes and begun to relive the evening.

She opened her store the next morning at nine o’clock, the usual hour. Beside the doorknob, she noticed a buzzer that hadn’t been there before the robbery. She’d ask Luke about that. Half an hour later, she answered the buzzer and opened the door for a policeman.

“’Morning, Miss Kate,” he said, tipping his hat. “I’m Officer Cowan, and I’ve been assigned to patrol your area. I just wanted to give you my pager number, in case you have a problem. I won’t be more than eight or ten blocks from you at any time, so feel safe. You can turn this buzzer off till near dark. I doubt anybody’s gonna bother you in broad daylight.”

That air that whistled through his teeth with each word he uttered and the large patch of black hair beneath his left ear guaranteed that she wouldn’t forget him. She thanked him, and he left, but she wanted to ask somebody if Luke Hickson took such good care of every citizen in his precinct. The protection gave her a sense of security, but she didn’t want special favors. One way or another, you paid for them. She’d rather spend her precious funds on a store guard and keep her independence.

She rang up a sale, handed the change to the buyer. Then, as her gaze caught Luke heading toward her, she jammed her finger in the drawer of the cash register. She’d thought him handsome, but as she stared at him in his captain’s uniform she nearly swallowed her tongue. He glided toward her, his stride purposeful and powerful and his gaze fixed on her.

He stopped beside her customer and touched his cap. “Glad to see you’re up and out, Miss Fanny. You had a long siege.”

“Oh, Captain,” the woman exclaimed, “I don’t know what I’d have done if you and your men hadn’t kept a close check on me.” She turned to Kate. “They’re my family. Brought me food and the paper every single day. Good, hot food, too, ’cause, honey, I wasn’t able to get up and cook. I’m going to bake them some gingerbread soon as I feel up to it.” She pointed a finger toward Luke. “He loves gingerbread, gingersnaps and whatever else I can put ginger in.” Kate wrapped the woman’s purchases—a volume of poems and a copy of Fools Rush In—and handed them to her.

“I’ll be back soon as I finish Fools Rush In,” Miss Fanny called over her shoulder as she left.

“Did you sleep well?” Luke asked.

She nodded. “Wonderfully. Thanks.” Then she remembered the buzzer. “Luke, did you have that buzzer put on my door?”

He flipped back his cap and closed his eyes for a split second. “Yeah. Of course I did. It’s dark long before you leave, and most of the stores in this block close a couple of hours before you do. You’re vulnerable. What’s the matter? You don’t want it there?”

What could she say? Of course she needed that, and any other protection that would prevent her from losing her store. “Please don’t think I’m not grateful. I am—”

He frowned and barely narrowed his left eye. “But what, Kate? Tell me you’re going to do this all on your own, that you don’t need anybody’s help. Fine. Give me a screwdriver, and I’ll remove the buzzer.”

Now she’d done it. What was it about men that made them see things in black-and-white? “I appreciate your kindness, but in ten years of marriage, I wasn’t allowed to make a single meaningful decision. I was spoon-fed, managed and manipulated. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m supersensitive about my independence.”

He stepped closer and burned her with his all-knowing gaze. “If your marriage wasn’t a happy one, why did you stay?”

“I have a son, and I took a vow.”

She’d said more than she wanted him to know. But then, she’d already accepted that she wasn’t normal around him.

Something akin to recognition—or could it be approval?—gleamed in his intense gaze. “You’re an admirable woman. I just dropped by to make certain everything’s all right. Did Cowan introduce himself to you this morning?”

She nodded, perplexed. The man whose company she’d enjoyed the previous evening had been swallowed by that captain’s uniform. She didn’t know what to think. “Officer Cowan said he’d be checking on me. Luke, do you think it’s necessary to go to so much trouble?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “For a simple robbery, I wouldn’t take such steps, but you’ve implied that you’re in jeopardy, and until that robbery case is solved, it’s my job to protect you—whether you like that or not. What time will Randy be here this afternoon?”

She tried to imagine what was behind the question. “Three-thirty. Why? What did you have in mind?”

“I’d like him to come over to PAL.” He gave her the address. “You can’t begin too early. He has the profile of a kid who needs help, and you have to straighten him out now.”

She knew he didn’t exaggerate. “All right. I’ll…I’ll send him.”

Her nerves shimmered when his hand covered hers in a gentle gesture of comfort. “One of the counsellors or officers will pick him up at three-thirty and bring him back before you close. Relax, now. He couldn’t be in better hands.”

She let herself luxuriate in the warmth that leaped out from him. She knew she should move her hand, but why couldn’t she enjoy his caring gesture for just a minute? He looked at her the way he had when they sat in that booth without speaking after their dinner—not searching or examining, just communicating in a most primal way. She wanted to ask him if he was telling her he liked her, but she didn’t.

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Be my friend, Luke, but please don’t spoil me. I’ve had too much of that. Do you understand?”

He clasped her hand more tightly, but he didn’t smile, and she wondered what had happened to the grin with which he’d mesmerized her Sunday evening.

“I understand,” he told her, “but you can’t assume that I’d treat you as your husband did. I believe in giving a person breathing space, and I like women who’re capable of standing on their own two feet.” He touched the brim of his cap. “I’ll drop by again to see how you’re getting on.”

He moved his hand, leaving her with a sense of loss. “Thanks, Luke, for…for everything.”

As he turned to go she amazed herself by saying, “I make great gingerbread. Randy’s crazy about it.”

His stare made her want to disappear, for he had to know that her remark had been an attempt to detain him. Then a grin began around his mouth and quickly covered his face in a smile that lit up everything around them. “You may never get rid of me. If you don’t make some soon, I’ll put in a request. Bet on that. Just thinking about gingerbread gives me a high.”

She joined in his merriment, more comfortable with him in the lightened mood. “Ever the officer. Imagine getting high on gingerbread. Well, if that’s what revs your engine.”

He grinned again and his left eye flicked in a deliberate wink. “That, and one or two other things. See you later.”

He strode toward the door with a seductive swing, as though his rhythmic gait had been choreographed by a master choreographer. My Lord, she thought, walking toward me or striding off, the man oozes sex appeal. She’d have her hands full trying not to become attached to him. He was used to giving orders, to controlling people, and she’d had enough of that. Her one priority was to establish her store in order to take care of Randy and herself. Falling for a man, even a handsome catch like Luke Hickson, didn’t fit into her plans. But oh, how tempting he was!