Delilah's Weakness (15 page)

"Why not?"

"Well, because… You have to touch it." She stopped, coughed, and knew she was blushing. The sensual image of herself rolling naked on a sheepskin rug as a routine part of her nightly schedule was just too much.

Luke’s eyes were very bright and carried strange, golden lights. Delilah had an idea he might be sharing her fantasy, but he merely nodded gravely and said, "Of course."

He picked up the wobbling plate and took the fork from her hand, using it to carve out a bite–sized section of toast. "Breakfast," he said placidly. "Come on, open up."

Delilah was still rattled enough to follow orders. After a moment she managed to mutter crossly, "It’s cold."

"Since when has that bothered you? Ready for smother bite?"

"No! I don’t—"

He gave her a beatific smile. "Tweet, tweet, here comes the mama bird…"

Delilah shocked herself by erupting in a fit of giggles. She never giggled. She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the offending sounds in and the "mama bird’s" offering out. "MacGregor," she protested, "you’re not going to sit here and feed me."

Luke paused, eyebrows raised and fork poised. "Why not?"

Why not? Because it makes my throat close just to look at you. Because…

"You—you make me nervous!"

A slow, exultant smile warmed his eyes, and he lowered the fork. "Why," he purred in his wooing voice, "do I make you nervous?"

Why? Oh, dear Lord.

Because she was nervous, she blurted out what was in her mind. "Because you’re too damn beautiful!"

Luke made a strangled coughing noise and abruptly leaned over to set the breakfast plate on the floor. Delilah was sorry to see it go. It had been a distraction, at least, and a barrier of sorts between them. Now she felt imperiled, like a helpless creature deprived of its protective coloring in the presence of the predator.

Luke cleared his throat, folded his arms across his chest, regarded her with a wary frown, and said, "I’m too what?"

His tan had deepened, acquired a dusky cast. Delilah wondered with amazement if he could possibly be blushing.

That idea was so intriguing that it bolstered her courage, and since it was too late to retract anyway, she repeated the idiotic statement. "Beautiful. You know, as in handsome? Good looking?" He continued to regard her with unblinking gravity—rather, she thought, like a miffed owl. With a touch of asperity she added "Well, it must have occurred to you that you
are."

He cleared his throat again and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. And with each manifestation of his discomfort, a funny little warm spot in the vicinity of Delilah’s heart shivered and grew.

His frown deepened. "And that bothers you?"

"Yes," she said staunchly. "It does. I’m sorry, I can’t help it."

"You mean," he said slowly, "that you’d be more comfortable with me if my eyes were a little smaller and my nose a little bigger and my ears stuck out? Something like that?"

"Well," she hedged, while her eyes defied her by feasting on his offending face. Then she gave up, closed her eyes, and moaned, "Ye–es!"

He was touching her face, measuring her features with his fingers, tracing the line of her brows, brushing the tips of her eyelashes, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and finally drawing his thumb across her lower lip. She held herself very still, wanting to lean into his touch and all the more determined not to.

"What do you see when you look in the minor, Blue Eyes?"

"I don’t know." Her words pushed her lips against his fingers. "Just…me, I guess."

"Me too." His smile was slightly askew. She found it every bit as endearing as his blush, and even more potent an assault on her resistance than the angel’s smile or the puckish grin. "And a few centimeters more or less don’t have much to do with who I am."

Every cliché she’d ever heard told her he was right.
Beauty is only skin–deep. Pretty is as pretty does.
But deep in her heart she didn’t believe a word of it. He’d had that face all his life, been treated differently in certain subtle ways because of it. Had women falling all over themselves to please him because of it. No wonder he thought he could drop into her life, literally out of the blue, and take control of every single aspect of it without a struggle. I’ll wait, he’d said with unshakable self–confidence.
No wonder.

"But I don’t know who you are," she protested feebly.

His hand was moving again, fingers just barely skimming the surface of her skin, stirring nerve endings like a breath of warm air, exploring her jawline, the shape of her ear, the taut cords of her neck, and the sensitive hollows below throat and collarbone.

"You could know me," he was saying, "if you’d let yourself."

"Don’t." She was suddenly shivering.

"Don’t what?"

His hand had reached her shoulder, and almost casually he began to move the material of her sweat shirt back and forth over her skin. She shrugged, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge his hand. "Don’t do that. You’re always…touching me."

"And you don’t like that?"

"Right!"

"Wrong. And that’s what bothers you, isn’t it, Blue Eyes?" He was leaning forward, smiling, relaxed and irritatingly confident. But there was something in his eyes that held hers, and kept her silent. "You like it too much. I know because of this––" his finger touched one hot cheek "––and this––" he traced the fullness of her lower lip. "And because I can see it in your eyes."

Delilah moaned helplessly and flopped back on her pillow, pulling the rug up over her head. From under it she shouted, "Cut it out, MacGregor, or I swear—" Muffled laughter touched her, and then his warm presence was gone from her side, leaving a curious void.
How can he sit there and say he hasn’t been affected by that face? Of all the conceited, overconfident, arrogant––
Thinking he’d gone, she threw back the rug.

He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "One more thing, boss," he drawled, taking in her rumpled and flushed appearance with cool amusement. "You might take a good long look at your motives for putting me out there in that barn."

"My motives! It seems pretty—"

"Irrational," Luke finished with maddening calm. "Considering you don’t have enough blankets to cover your own bed because of it."

"
Irrational!
After last night? When every time I turn around you—you try to kiss me? You’re lucky I’m even letting you stay around!"

"
Try
to kiss you?" The words were very soft, but something kindled in his eyes—a warning, and a reminder. Remembering where she was, Delilah bit back her fury and tore her gaze from his face. She’d never felt so vulnerable, so at a disadvantage. It would be a grave mistake to challenge him.

As her gaze fell on the plate of French toast lying forgotten and abandoned on the floor, she wondered if it would be as satisfying as she thought it might be to hurl it at his head. His gaze followed hers, then came back to her face. He shook his head slightly and smiled, making it very hard for her to resist the impulse. The only thing that stopped her was the awareness that she would probably miss, and he would have the last laugh anyway.

I’ll have to get more blankets, she thought when he had gone, leaving a chuckle hanging in the crisp air. But she never once thought, as a solution to her problem, of telling him to go.

** ** **

In their nice, warm stall in the barn the newborn lambs were nursing vigorously, tails aquiver. Delilah carefully set the hypodermic full of antibiotics on the plank that ran across the top of the stall gate and paused a moment to watch. Luke came and stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. After one involuntary jolt she stood quite still.

Maybe I’ll get used to it––having him touch me.

It would be better if she didn’t try to fight him. And it was much easier like this, with him behind her, out of sight. It was easier when she couldn’t see his face.

He chuckled, his breath stirring her hair. "Cute little devils. Kept me awake all night."

She nodded, and thought:
I wish he’d kiss me again.

Thoughts were treacherous things. That one stunned and sobered her.

Luke didn’t kiss her, and the lambs had satisfied their appetites for the moment. She picked up the syringe and went into the stall to treat Number 907 for possible aftereffects of precipitous and unsanitary lambing.

After the morning chores were done, she left Luke rearranging the haystack and went to town to borrow some blankets from Mara Jane Underwood. On the way down the mountain she met a flatbed truck carrying a trencher, a roll of fence wire, and what looked like some small miscellaneous building materials.

Oh, good, she thought.
It looks like they’re finally going to build that culvert at Deer Creek.

O
ver a cup
of coffee at Mara Jane’s, Delilah found herself confiding in her friend her mixed feelings for Luke MacGregor. Although she wasn’t used to feminine heart–to–heart talks, she felt somewhat better for having talked with someone.

"If only he weren’t so good–looking," Delilah said as she was leaving with an armload of blankets. "Do you have any idea what it’s like to have somebody around all the time who it almost hurts to look at?"

"Just think of it as a physical handicap," Mara Jane advised. "Like a scar, or a deformity. I’ll bet after a while you won’t even notice."

** ** **

The first thing Delilah saw when she returned was a narrow strip of freshly turned earth, as if a very large and determined mole had dug a beeline from the house to the barn. There was no sign of Luke, but from somewhere above the barn came the slightly syncopated rhythm of echoing hammer blows. Though the connection between the trencher she had seen on the flatbed truck and the giant mole–digging across her yard was obvious, there was no sign of that piece of equipment. It had done its job and departed. Remembering the roll of wire fencing that had also been on that truck, Delilah was pretty sure, even without the hammering sounds, where she would find Luke MacGregor.

A few minutes later she was leaning against the barn doorway overlooking the orchard, weak–kneed and shaking with silent, rueful laughter. She had told Mara Jane that Luke looked like the man on the cover of one of her books, and there he was, the hero of
Raven’s Rapture
in the flesh.

The afternoon sun was warm, and, like that particular figment of Mara Jane’s fertile imagination, Luke was working without a shirt. But, unlike any paper hero, Luke MacGregor was firm, resilient flesh and warm blood. His body glistened with real sweat. She knew he would smell of sun and earth and hard–working man.

She had a sudden impulse to turn and run; she dreaded being caught there, watching him. But it was already too late.

"Hi, boss." He was grinning at her, wiping his forehead with his arm. He drove another staple into a post, securing a section of wire fencing, and stood back to let her survey the finished run. "What do you think?"

What did she think? She couldn’t think, she could only feel. She felt angry, confused, afraid, helpless, full of resentment, full of yearning. . .

Anger seemed safest. It tingled through her like static electricity, lifting the fine hairs on her skin and crackling in her voice. "What the hell do you think you’re doing? I left you with a job to do."

He lifted his eyebrows at her, but only said mildly. "Haystack’s all done. Straw bales all on the barn side of the stack, except for the two I put down in the clean stalls for bedding." He plucked his shirt from a tree limb and came toward her, tossing the shirt casually over his shoulder. Again Delilah had to resist an urge to bolt. When he stopped a step away from her, so close that she could see the tiny drops of sweat among the dark hairs on his chest and feel the heat of his exertion, she thought wildly:
I will never get used to this—never!

"What did you—" She stopped, swallowed, and began again. "Did you buy all this stuff?"

Dear Lord, where could she look? Certainly not at his face—his eyes were promises in brown velvet, his mouth a sensual reminder. The lines of his neck and shoulders were overpoweringly masculine, evocative of some proud and virile animal—a stallion, or a stag. He wasn’t a big man, but he seemed to radiate almost palpable power and energy. It left her feeling cowed. Weak.

She fought it, desperately clinging to her anger and her authority. "How could you spend money without my authorization? I told you, I can’t—"

"It’s my money," he said easily, folding brawny arms across his naked chest and regarding her from under half–closed eyelids.

"It’s my place, dammit!"

"Consider it a loan." She caught the glitter of his eyes through his lashes, but couldn’t tell whether he was angry or amused. "I expect to be paid back—with interest."

"Don’t you think you should ask me first?" She was shouting, really shouting, angrier than she could ever remember being in her life. "I don’t want a loan. I can’t afford interest. I can’t afford you! I want you out of here—out of my life! And what the hell did you do to my driveway?"

He moved quickly. Tucking the hammer into the waistband of his jeans, he took her by the arms, spun her around, and marched her back into the barn.

He’s angry, she thought. She could feel it in the controlled violence of his movements, and in the ruthlessness of his fingers on her upper arms. Why hadn’t she noticed that ruthlessness and violence before? For the first time her vague fears took on form and became reasonable.
Who is this man? I don’t know him. He could be a maniac. He could be—he is a brute. He’s been hiding his true nature behind that angel’s smile and devil’s charm.

They had crossed the barn. As they approached the front door, Luke spun her back around and pinned her firmly against the wall with one hand on her shoulder. She shrank involuntarily and closed her eyes.

"Open your eyes," he said harshly, "and I’ll show you what I did to your driveway."

There was a soft click. She opened her eyes, but even suspecting what she was going to see couldn’t prevent one shocked gasp from escaping. The barn was flooded with light—cool blue fluorescent light from a six–foot fixture firmly mounted under the ceiling’s center beam. From the fixture a professional–looking metal conduit snaked across the beam and down the cement–block wall to a metal switch box at her left shoulder. And that wasn’t all. Running the length of the side walls, along the back of the stalls just above the level of the fences, was an outlet bar with electrical plugs accessible to each and every stall.