Delilah's Weakness (9 page)

"It’s not that easy," he said with a put–upon sigh. "I care about Glenna—a lot. I don’t want to hurt her, but we just don’t see eye–to–eye on the subject of marriage. Since I’m not busy right now, she’s expecting me to get serious about it. I don’t want to have it out with her. I don’t want to hurt her. But if I were to make myself inaccessible…" His eyes crinkled ruefully. "So, how about it? Satisfied that my motives are, if not honorable, at least valid?"

Delilah was silent. She didn’t know why she should feel depressed. It was what she should have expected of someone with his looks, charm, and magnetism. She felt very sorry for the poor woman whose misfortune it was to be in love with this man. She would be doing Glenna a very big favor by preventing her from marrying a man who didn’t even have the guts to face up to her with the truth. How awful it must be to be so emotionally dependent on a man. It was a state Delilah vowed never to find herself in.

"I don’t know," she muttered finally, biting her lip. "It seems… I’d have to think about it. There are problems."

"What problems?"

She ran a hand through her hair, uncaring that the gesture invariably made her resemble a street urchin.

"Well, for starters, I don’t know where I’d put you. I only have one room."

Luke shrugged, smiling. "I don’t mind. I can sleep on the couch."

She eyed him and said stonily, "I was thinking in terms of the barn."

"Ouch." He winced, then grinned. "Delilah, are you afraid of me?"

"Afraid, no," she retorted scornfully. "Realistic, yes. And you aren’t. Do you have any idea at all what you’d be getting into?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever seen a birth before? Any birth?" When he shook his head blithely she eyed his beautiful jacket and snowy shirt and said flatly, "It’s messy."

He made a scout’s–honor sign. "I promise to change my clothes first."

"Hmm," she murmured skeptically. "You know there’s no such thing as nine to five on a farm."

"There’s no such thing as nine to five when you own a company, either."

"I’d have to be able to depend on you. Really depend on you. A lamb’s favorite time to be born is three o’clock in the morning. It’s cold and dark, and you have to get out of bed and sit in the cold and wait. Sometimes we’ll be up all night and work right through the next day, and the next night we might be up all night again—"

He took her arms and interrupted her with his quiet voice. "But if I’m here helping you it wouldn’t be like that, would it? We’d take turns."

Delilah swallowed. "I don’t want to lose a lamb because you decided to sleep through your turn to check the ewes. And if I need your help—"

"I’ll be there. You can count on it." There was a soft, thoughtful look in his eyes. "Any other objections?"

Oh, yes. she thought, there were other objections. But she couldn’t very well say, "You’re too attractive. I don’t know how to breathe when you’re close to me." Just for a moment she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to work alongside this man, to share the long night vigils, to have an extra pair of hands and a strong back to help when trouble came. And a shoulder to lean on, arms to hold her when she cried with exhaustion and frustration.

She licked her lips.
This is insane.
She knew what kind of man he was. It was crazy. And, of course, out of the question.

"I—I’ll think about it," she finally said.

"Good." Luke was smiling at her, maddeningly confident, sure of himself, sure of her. "Well, while you’re thinking it over, why don’t we go find that phone, and I’ll buy some clothes more suitable for delivering lambs. Just in case."

He really is sure I’m going to give in, she thought.
And why shouldn’t he be? He probably doesn’t hear an unequivocal "no" very often.
And why in the world hadn’t she been able to give him that firm answer herself? Indecision wasn’t usually part of her makeup.

She glanced out the window, biting at her lower lip. "It’s late," she mumbled distractedly. "I don’t know where the time goes. It’s too near chore time. I can’t go now. You’ll have to wait."

"Listen, tell you what." Luke was positively overflowing with expansive good humor. "Why don’t you let me go into town in your pickup? I can get some clothes, make my calls, and you can stay here and do your chores and make up your mind. I can even run any errands you might have, pick up some groceries. See how nice it can be, having an extra hand?"

Delilah hesitated a moment longer and then capitulated. Maybe without his disturbing presence she could think of a way to say "no" and make it stick. "Okay," she agreed at last. "Keys are in the pickup. Watch the brakes on the downhill grade."

"Gotcha." Halfway out the door he stopped and turned. "Do you have a grocery list?"

"I don’t really have time—"

"Never mind. I’ll do without. See you later."

"I’ll get you some money—I’ll pay you later," she said to the closing door.

A moment later she heard her pickup cough grumpily and go snarling away down the road.

All through her chores she kept imagining what it might be like to have the president of Thermodyne sleeping in her barn, hauling water and hay to her sheep. All she had to do was remember what had happened this morning when he’d tried to handle old number 907 to know it could be highly entertaining. He was so confident. So arrogant. The thought of a man who looked as if he could model for Gentlemen’s Quarterly, up to his immaculate elbows in wet, slippery newborn lambs was incredibly appealing.

And interrupting her more coherent thoughts were other, more nebulous and far more disturbing images and impressions: just–washed hair with a life of its own; a strange good–morning kiss; a husky voice with erotic overtones, murmuring, "Come help me, love."

Like her temper, her fantasies had a tendency to get away from her now and then.

But Delilah was a practical person and, as she’d told Luke, a realist. Her house was small, but it suited her perfectly. It was a cozy house. Intimate. She might be able to get away with making Luke sleep in the barn, but he’d still be eating with her, sharing the bathroom, long spring evenings…

By the time she’d settled down to milk the goat it was dark, and she’d finally come to terms with the real reason she didn’t want Luke staying on. It had come to her inescapably at dusk, when she’d heard her pickup grumbling up the road and had reacted with pounding heart and weak knees.

She was intensely attracted to Luke MacGregor.

The very fact that deep down inside she really wanted him to stay was the best reason she could think of for telling him to go. She couldn’t have that kind of complication and distraction right now. As she’d told Roy Underwood, men just didn’t fit in with her life’s goals and ambitions, and that went double for a man like Luke MacGregor.

She’d tell him no. She would. Just as soon as she got to the house.

About ten yards from her door she stopped dead, the milk bucket in her hand. There was warmth and light pouring from the windows, and with it the most incredible, mouth–watering, stomach–twisting
smell.

Lady came and sat on her boots. Delilah dropped a hand to the dog’s head and was rewarded with the white flash of a canine grin. "Hush," she murmured absently. "I can hear you drooling."

She swallowed hard, climbed the steps, and pushed open the door.

The president of Thermodyne, dressed in new khaki work clothes and wearing a floral–print flour–sack dish towel knotted around his hips, looked up and quickly doused his cigarette under a stream of water from the kitchen faucet. "Sorry," he said, looking guilty. "I keep forgetting. I always smoke while I’m cooking. Keeps me from eating."

Delilah stared blankly at him, then realized she must have been standing there sniffing the wind like a hunting dog. "No, no," she murmured, then asked fearfully, "Is that steak I smell cooking?"

"Yeah." Luke slid a loaf of foil–wrapped French bread onto the oven’s lower rack and turned back to the sink, where he began assaulting a head of lettuce. "You just about have time to wash up—unless you like your steak well done. In which case you could probably manage a shower."

"Medium rare," Delilah said faintly. Sizzling and popping under the red glow of the broiler were two of the biggest T–bones she’d ever seen. With what he’d paid for them she could have eaten for a week. She caught the unmistakable glimmer of red among the chunks of crisp green in the salad bowl. She happened to know the off–season price of tomatoes at the local markets.

That was the clincher. He had to go. She couldn’t afford him. She was pretty sure she didn’t have enough money left in the house to repay him for the groceries.

But, she told herself as she washed her hands, there was no use crying over spilled milk. The damage was done, the food was here, and she couldn’t send it back. The only thing to do was enjoy it.

"It was too late to get the potatoes in," Luke said airily, blissfully unaware of her consternation. "You know, with your lifestyle, what you need is a microwave oven. You can bake a potato in five minutes in a microwave."

"Wonderful," Delilah murmured as she lowered herself weakly into a chair. She wondered if the presence of potatoes meant he’d also bought sour cream. She coughed and stared fixedly at her hands. "How much do I owe you?"

He didn’t answer except to set a plate before her almost reverently, like an offering. Delilah swallowed again, but kept her hands primly folded in her lap, reminding herself that she was a civilized person and must not, therefore, fall upon her plate like a ravenous wolf.

When the silence had become noticeable and Luke still hadn’t taken his place at the table, she looked up to find him watching her, leaning on his hands, one of which was on the tabletop. The other was on the back of her chair. His eyes, shielded and unreadable, were very close to hers. "Don’t worry about it," he said softly. "It’s on me."

"Uh–uh. No." Pride alone propelled her upward. When she found herself nose to nose with a face handsome enough to melt mirrors, she sank back down, trying to blink into focus.

"It’s the least I can do," Luke said, smiling with devastating effect. "I’d have taken you out to dinner, but I didn’t think you’d want to leave your sheep, so I did the next best thing. I brought dinner to you." He dropped a kiss neatly on the end of her nose and moved away from her to pick up his own plate. "Besides, I like to eat, and I don’t mean peanut butter and oatmeal. If I’m going to work for you, I’m going to need real food." He glanced up at her, noticed she hadn’t yet tackled her steak, and made an impatient gesture with his knife. "Come on, eat. That’s an order."

"Are you as good at
taking
orders?" Delilah asked, finally allowing herself to pick up her knife and fork. Luke lifted his eyebrows interrogatively, and she added, "You don’t get to be the president of a corporation because you like taking orders. How do you think you’d like taking orders from me?"

He frowned thoughtfully, then said with a slow, lazy smile, "Well, it would probably depend a lot on what the order was, but on a temporary basis I think I could handle it. Does this mean you’ve made up your mind to hire me?"

"No," Delilah said, frowning. "It doesn’t."

"Take your time." His smile was positively beatific. Still so confident. So sure. How she longed to turn him down once and for all, to wipe that smug look off his face. If he thought he could buy her with a few groceries, even if some of those groceries were steak and sour cream…

Why not? she thought almost defiantly.
Why shouldn’t I let him stay? What harm could it do? I’m a grown woman, and I seriously doubt he’s a rapist or an ax murderer, and, what’s more important, he isn’t after my land.

And deep down inside, and maybe not so deep at that, was the fear that, in spite of her bravado, she really couldn’t handle ninety–five lambing ewes single–handedly. What if she got sick? What if faced with the probability of disaster, she was forced to turn to Amos? There might be something very fishy about Luke MacGregor, but he was infinitely preferable to Amos.

Luke interrupted her silent debate by lobbing a dish towel into her lap. "Okay, you dry. I’ll wash. It would be fairer if you did all the clean–up. since I did the cooking, but I’ll overlook it just this once. We can work out the details later—if you let me stay." He put his hands on the back of her chair and leaned over to whisper in her ear, "Are you?"

"What?" she asked vaguely.

"Going to let me stay?"

He wasn’t touching her, not really. And yet she could feel him there—his breath on the side of her face, on her neck, his hands on the back of the chair, his body on the other side of it. She could feel the heat of his body as if it, and not the hard, unyielding wood of the chair, supported her back and thighs.

Delilah lurched out of the chair. Luke watched her quizzically as she walked to a drawer beside the stove and took out a flashlight.

"What’s that for?"

She hesitated, slapping the flashlight against her palm, then drew a deep, steadying breath. "I’m going to make you a bed in the barn." Frowning at the middle button on Luke’s shirt, she added, "It’s too late to go into town tonight. I’ll…um…"

His hand touched the flashlight and then closed on her wrist. Very softly, lightly chafing her wrist with his thumb, he said, "I didn’t think you were serious about the barn."

She looked at him intrepidly, but couldn’t answer. The fingers on her wrist were generating queer little electrical impulses, and all she could think about was whether he would let go, and if he did, whether she would be sorry or glad.

"Why are you afraid to have me sleep in the same house with you? You weren’t afraid last night."

"Last night," she said pointedly, "you were out cold."

He laughed softly, and his eyes held hers. "You don’t trust me?"

With a lift of her chin Delilah countered, "Should I?"

His lips relaxed and curved into a smile of captivating sweetness. "Absolutely." Delilah realized her chest was hurting, and released a long–held breath. "Delilah, I’d never do anything you didn’t want me to do."