An Act of Love (10 page)

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 car 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."

A small stone had rolled down in front of them, perhaps
dislodged by a raccoon or deer, and Luke began absentmindedly to kick
it along as they walked. "Last year your father came through California
on his way to mainland China," he went on. Randy didn't bother to
mention that her parents had stopped in Los Angeles to see her en route
back to New York. "He called me up and asked me to consider working for
him. At first I said no, I was happy where I was. Then he offered me
the vice presidency of Branch Operations." Luke glanced over at her.
"It was an offer I couldn't refuse. Especially since Annie was married
to a friend's younger brother and had moved to Poughkeepsie the year
before. I missed her after she left—" He cut himself off,
frowning.

"After she left where?" Randy asked.

"Nothing. Forget it."

There was no way Randy could forget it. She started to fit
puzzle pieces together, beginning with the fact that Luke couldn't have
missed his sister unless she'd once lived nearby. That meant she'd been
in California with him, but for how long? Had she gone to college there
and stayed? Or was she perhaps the "obligation" he'd mentioned earlier?
She mentally picked up another piece of the puzzle—the reason
he'd left the Peace Corps. What had made him rush away from Africa? His
mother's death, perhaps?

"Is your mother still alive?" she asked.

"My mother?" He seemed surprised by the question, but not
offended. "She lives in Florida with my stepfather. He's retired now."

There was a coldness in his voice when he referred to his
stepfather that told Randy he didn't like the man. She tried to fit
that in with everything she'd learned. Perhaps Luke hadn't rushed
away
from Africa, but
back
to New York. It sounded
very much like he'd taken his fifteen-year-old sister with him when
he'd gone to California, and his mother had obviously permitted it. Add
the fact that he disliked his stepfather…

Randy started to feel a little sick. Maybe she was miles
off-base, but she had to find out if she was right. "Did you leave the
Peace Corps because you found out that your stepfather was…
bothering your sister?"

Luke stopped dead in his tracks. Randy looked at him, then
took a step or two backward at the icy expression on his face. "You're
very quick," he said. "For some reason I didn't expect you to be."

He seemed to debate whether or not to fill in the details
before finally continuing, "My mother was still working evenings and
that left Annie at home with my stepfather. After he tried to touch her
a few times she wrote to me. She was afraid to tell my mother and
didn't know what else to do. I was on the next plane home. Fortunately
things hadn't gone too far, or I would have…" He didn't
bother to finish the sentence, but Randy shuddered to think what he
might have done.