To Wed and Protect (3 page)

Once again Jason looked at him. “Is your daddy mean?” he asked.

“My daddy was the meanest man on the earth,” Luke replied truthfully.

“No more questions, Jason. Let Mr. Delaney eat his lunch,” Abby said to the child, then turned her gaze once again to Luke. “Would you like some potato salad?”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

She half stood to pass the bowl across the table to him. As she stretched out her arm, her T-shirt sleeve rode up, exposing a livid bruise on her underarm.

That's why she'd winced when he'd grabbed hold of her earlier, he thought. He took the bowl from her and spooned a portion on his plate, his mind racing.

A black eye, an ugly-looking bruise…was the lovely Abigail Graham being abused by her husband? The bruises, coupled with Jason asking him if his daddy was mean, caused ugly speculation to whirl inside him.

He tried to tell himself it was none of his business. He tried to tell himself to stay out of it. But the thought of some man angrily putting his hands on the delicate, fragile woman before him, or hurting the children beside him, enraged him.

He set his fork down and looked at her. “Uh…could I speak with you for a moment out in the living room?”

She gazed at him curiously, then wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Sure,” she agreed. She stood and looked at the kids. “You guys go ahead and keep eating. We'll be right back.”

Luke allowed her to precede him into the living room. “Is something wrong?” she asked, a worried frown appearing on her forehead as she turned to face him.

“I don't know. You tell me.” Luke drew a deep breath, aware that he was about to invade deep into her personal territory. “I know this is really none of my business, but does your husband have a problem?” he finally blurted.

Her eyes widened in obvious surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I couldn't help but notice that you have the evidence of a black eye and a big bruise on your arm.” Luke gazed at her intently. “What I really need to know is if you need some help.”

 

Abby stared at the big, handsome man before her and swallowed hard against the tears that suddenly pressed at her eyes. Help? She needed help in a thousand different ways, but certainly not in the way he meant.

“There is no husband,” she confessed. Shock swept over his features. “There's no abusive husband, no abusive boyfriend. I'm a widow, and now it's just the kids and me and I can be incredibly clumsy at times.” The lie tripped smoothly off her tongue but left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She wasn't sure he believed her, but her heart expanded with warmth that he'd cared enough to ask. She offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “This moving business has been far more physical than I anticipated. A box fell off a shelf and hit
me in the eye, and I'm not sure how I got the bruise on my arm. But we're getting settled in enough that bumps and bruises are at an end.”

She reached out and touched his forearm, trying not to notice the hard muscle beneath the warmth of his skin. “But thank you for asking.” Self-consciously she dropped her hand.

“I just had to make sure nobody was hurting you.”

Abby nodded, finding the fact that he cared far too appealing. “Nobody is hurting me, so that's that. We'd better go finish our lunch.”

He nodded, and together they returned to the table. The meal was finished in relative silence, and Abby was grateful when the food was once again put away, Luke was back at work, and she could escape to her bedroom to finish unpacking.

It had been slightly disconcerting to sit at the table across from him and feel the silvery gray glow of his eyes on her. She was far more aware of him than she should be.

She pulled her bedspread from a box and opened it up to air out. The room would feel more like her own with her sunflower spread on the bed and her favorite knickknacks and perfumes on the dresser top.

She had peeked in on Jessica and Jason before coming into her room and knew they were having a pretend picnic on the floor in Jason's room. As usual, Jason was doing all the talking, but occasionally she heard a girlish giggle from Jessica, and the sound warmed her heart.

As she worked unloading the last of the boxes, she heard the sound of banging coming from the porch.
For a moment she allowed her mind to visualize Luke swinging the sledgehammer. She could vividly imagine the play of the firm muscles in his arms and across his back. Her fingers tingled as she remembered the warmth of his skin beneath her touch.

From the moment she'd told him she was a widow, she'd sensed a subtle change in him. He seemed less standoffish, smiling at her with a gleam in his eyes that made her breath catch in her chest.

She shook her head, as if to dislodge the thoughts. The last thing she could do was invite a man into any area of her life. She was living a lie, and to allow anyone in meant the possibility of danger and heartbreak.

It was nearly an hour later that she heard the sound of the back door opening and closing and knew Luke had entered the kitchen. She left her bedroom and hurried into the kitchen just in time to see him gulping a glass of water.

“Whew, it's definitely warm out there,” he said.

Abby nodded, trying to keep her focus on his face. At some point he had taken off his shirt, and his broad, tanned chest shimmered with a light sheen of perspiration. The dark, springy hair that sprinkled his chest formed a valentine pattern, the faint tail disappearing into the waistband of his low-slung tight jeans.

She suddenly realized he was looking at her expectantly as if waiting for her to say something, and a flush of heat warmed her cheeks. She leaned against the table, hoping he hadn't noticed her intense perusal of his firmly muscled, gorgeous chest. “I meant to ask you, I'm going to take the kids out to dinner tonight,
but we haven't been in town to really see what's there. Any suggestions on a good place to eat?”

He set the glass on the counter and swiped a hand through his beautiful thick hair. “My personal choice is the diner on Main Street. It's nothing fancy, but the food is good, and it's where most everyone in town eats.”

“With two kids, I'm not in the market for fancy. Do they have chocolate shakes?”

He grinned at her, that wide, sexy grin that did amazing things to his sinfully gorgeous eyes. “Do I feel the kinship of another chocolate shake addict?”

“Not me,” she protested with a laugh. “Jason is a chocoholic. I prefer anything with strawberries.”

“Hmm, the best way to eat strawberries is lying down on a blanket beneath a big old shade tree.” His gaze seemed to hold the glint of blatant flirtation.

“And they taste best of all when somebody else is feeding them to you, rather than you eating them by yourself.”

“I wouldn't know about that,” she said, her insides trembling at the picture he'd painted with his words.

“I've never had anyone feed me anything.”

“That's an oversight that will have to be addressed,” he replied. He studied her for a long moment. “You mentioned earlier that you're a widow. How long has it been?”

There was a gentleness in his voice that made her regret the lies she was about to tell. “A little over a year. He died in a car accident.”

“I'm sorry. It must have been tough for you and the kids.”

She nodded and averted her gaze from his. She didn't want to see the sympathy there, sympathy for a dead husband who had never existed. “We've managed okay on our own.”

“Yeah, well, if you ever need a man around here, you know, to do any heavy lifting or whatever, don't hesitate to call me.”

She looked at him again, and something in his metal-flecked eyes made her feel as if he were offering her more than strong arms to lift heavy items. Her cheeks burned with a blush as she wondered if perhaps she was reading more into his offer than he'd intended.

“Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.”

“If you really want to eat at the diner, I recommend you go around five. By six the place is packed on most evenings, but Friday night is always the worst.”

She nodded, then turned and headed out the kitchen door. She drew a deep breath as she entered her room, wondering why a man she hadn't exchanged more than a hundred words with affected her so. Maybe it was because the sight of him evoked thoughts and images that had little to do with conversation.

“Jason,” she said as she entered his room. “Time for a bath, buddy.”

“A bath? But it's not bedtime,” he protested.

“If I'm taking my best boy into town for dinner, then I want him scrubbed sparkly clean.” His face screwed up for another round of protest. “And I hear the place we're going to eat has the most super-duper chocolate shakes in the world.” The promise of his favorite drink did the trick, and he headed for the bathroom.

Within minutes Abby had Jason in the tub with Jessica waiting to bathe next. Abby had just pulled Jason from the tub and was fixing fresh water for Jessica when Luke appeared in the doorway.

“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I'm going to nail the front door shut, then knock off for the day.”

She quickly turned off the faucets, gestured Jessica to get in the tub, then stepped into the hallway and pulled the bathroom door closed behind her to afford the little girl her privacy.

The first thing she realized was that the hall seemed far too small. He stood close enough to her that she could smell the masculine scent of him, a mixture of fresh cologne and a whisper of hot male. The heat from his body radiated outward. “You'll be back tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yeah, but before I leave, I wanted to talk to you for a minute about my hours here.”

She wanted to move him out of the hallway, step back enough from him that she didn't feel so vulnerable, so overwhelmed by his presence.

“If it's all right with you, I'll work here each day until about three. Then I need to knock off. I work on the family ranch in the afternoons, then in the evenings I work at the Honky Tonk, a little bar on the edge of town.”

“Three jobs? You must be an overachiever.”

He laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that echoed in the pit of his stomach. “Not hardly. In fact, most people would tell you the opposite is true, that I'm just kind of drifting through life, dabbling here and there.”

“And what would be closer to the truth?” she asked curiously.

“I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure it out,” he admitted with a wry grin. He started down the hallway toward the kitchen, and she followed.

“I'll be back around seven in the morning,” he said as he reached the door.

“That would be fine,” she agreed.

“Then I'll see you first thing in the morning.” With another of his beautiful smiles, he turned and left the house.

To Abby, his parting words felt like a nice promise, and that worried her. She closed the door after him and for a moment leaned against it.

What was wrong with her? Why did Luke Delaney make her feel so shaky inside, so vulnerable and needy? And why did she have the feeling that once he'd discovered she wasn't married, he'd been subtly flirting with her?

She knew exactly what was wrong with her and knew she couldn't trust her own perceptions. For the first time in a little over a year, she was feeling relatively safe, anticipating the beginning of a normal life…a new beginning.

For a moment, as Luke had looked at her with his flirting gray eyes, she'd been taken back in time, back to a time of innocence, before tragedy had taken its toll.

She responded to Luke because for the first time in a very long time she felt the stir of wonderful, frightening hope. But she knew how quickly hope could be destroyed, how fast lives could shatter. She knew better than to hope for anything.

A
bby and the children had driven into Inferno the day they had arrived for a brief visit to the grocery store, but this was their first real foray into town.

As far as Abby was concerned, it was a delightful little town, with a main street typical of hundreds of other small towns across the United States.

When they'd been driving from Kansas City, Missouri, to Inferno, they'd gone through dozens of towns just like this one, and each time Abby had thought how nice it would be to call one of those small towns home.

The businesses were all in one-or two-story buildings, and each had a charming facade that spoke of what lay inside. The barbershop had an actual barber pole just outside its doors, and the floral shop had two barrels of wildly blooming flowers. The sidewalks
were wide and shaded with small trees planted here and there.

It was just after five when she pulled her car into a parking spot directly in front of the Inferno Diner. The kids tumbled out of the back seat as Abby stepped out of the car. In the past month, the kids had grown accustomed to diners in small towns.

Stepping inside the establishment, Abby sniffed appreciatively. The air spoke of good home cooking and strong black coffee. She gestured the kids into a booth near the jukebox, knowing they would eventually end up there, feeding coins to the brightly lit machine to hear songs they didn't know.

“I want a cheeseburger, French fries and a chocolate shake,” Jason pronounced as they got seated.

Abby nodded and looked at Jessica, who sat next to her brother in the red plastic booth. “What about you, sweetheart?”

Jessica shrugged.

“How about a grilled cheese sandwich with fries and a soda?” Abby suggested, knowing it was the little girl's favorite. Jessica nodded.

“Hi folks.” An older woman with gray hair and a big smile greeted them and handed Abby a menu.

“The special today is meat loaf, but I highly recommend you steer clear away from it.”

Abby laughed. “Thanks for the honesty.”

The waitress grinned. “The cook here does just about everything to perfection, but there's something scary about his meat loaf.” She tilted her head and eyed Abby. “You just passing through, or one of the
dude ranch guests, or are you new in town?” the woman asked with unabashed curiosity.

“We've just moved into the old Graham place on the edge of town,” Abby replied.

“Whooee, you've sure got your work cut out for you. By the way, I'm Stephanie…Stephanie Rogers, head waitress of this fine establishment.”

“Abby Graham. The local space alien was a great-uncle of mine.”

Stephanie laughed, a loud, robust sound of one accustomed to laughing often. “Ah, honey, every family has at least one in their family. I've got a brother we all try not to claim because he's nuttier than a fruitcake.” The laughter in her blue eyes faded and she looked at Abby seriously. “But that old Graham place is kind of a wreck.”

“It isn't as bad on the inside as it looks on the outside,” Abby replied. “Besides, I've already hired a carpenter to work on the place…Luke Delaney. Do you know him?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Honey, every woman in the four-state area knows Luke Delaney.” She leaned closer to Abby. “That man is sin walking on two legs.” Her gaze flickered to the children. “Course, if you're married, then you're safe.”

“I'm widowed,” Abby replied.

“Then you'd better watch yourself. That handsome devil drips charm from every pore in his body, and he can seduce a woman before she knows what's happened.”

Stephanie used her order pad to fan her face.
“There are days when I see him and wish I wasn't so long in the tooth and could have a go at him.”

“At the moment all I want from him is a new front porch,” Abby replied with a laugh, although she was more than a little unsettled by Stephanie's characterization of Luke.

“Famous last words,” Stephanie replied with a wry grin. “Now, what can I get for you all?”

She took their orders and small talked a moment longer, then left the booth and disappeared into the kitchen area.

“Can we have money for the jukebox?” Jason asked.

“Not until after we eat,” Abby replied. “You know the rule, eat first, play the jukebox afterward.” It was a rule she'd instigated the first time she and the kids had eaten at a place that had a jukebox.

She'd mistakenly allowed them to play songs before their meals were served and had had to fight with them to get them in their seats to eat.

Before Jason could lodge any real protest, Stephanie returned to their table with their beverages. A thick chocolate shake effectively stilled any complaint Jason might have uttered.

“Cute kids,” Stephanie said as she lingered for a moment at their table.

“Thanks, I think so,” Abby replied.

“What's your name, cutie?” Stephanie asked Jessica.

Jessica's gaze instantly went to her brother. “She doesn't talk,” he explained soberly. “She doesn't talk to anyone but me.”

“Shy, huh. My oldest boy was like that,” Stephanie said to Abby. “He's twenty-five now and still doesn't talk much unless he's got something really important to say.”

“Hey, Stephanie, how about some fresh coffee over here,” a guy hollered from the counter.

“No rest for the wicked,” she said with a wink, then hurried away.

Abby took a sip of her soda and settled back in the seat. She wished it were just shyness that kept Jessica silent. But she knew it was much more than that, and it ached inside her that after a whole year Jessica still didn't trust Abby enough to speak to her, that the little girl trusted and depended solely on her brother.

Within a few minutes, Stephanie had served them their meals and they were all eating. It was only then that Abby allowed the conversation with the waitress to replay in her mind.

Sin walking on two legs. Yes, that was certainly an apt description, at least physically, of Luke Delaney. From the moment she'd seen him standing at her doorstep, with those gorgeous eyes and that drop-dead lean body with his mountain-broad shoulders, she'd been affected on a purely hormonal level.

But Stephanie's words warned Abby away from what she knew would be foolishness in any case. She could not get involved with any man, not yet…not until she knew for certain they were safe and her secrets were secure.

Even if she was in the market for a relationship with a man, the last kind of man she wanted was a handsome charmer with seduction on his mind.

If and when she decided to invite a man into her life, it would be a man who had the capacity to parent two wounded children, a man who could be a source of strength, support and love for Abby. She certainly didn't need a good-looking cowboy carpenter with a reputation of being a ladies' man.

As they ate, the diner began to fill with people, and Abby was glad she'd taken Luke's advice and come early enough to beat what appeared to be a dinner rush in the making.

She felt the curious gazes of other diners on her and the kids and knew that probably strangers in town were a topic for gossip. It wouldn't be long and everyone would know she was Inferno's newest resident, and not just a passerby who had stopped in for a meal.

“How about some dessert?” Stephanie asked when they had finished the meal. “I've got a fresh apple pie back there that's still warm from the oven.”

Abby looked at the kids, who both shook their heads. “I'll take a piece, and a cup of coffee,” she said, deciding she could enjoy the pie and coffee while the kids played the jukebox.

Minutes later, the kids stood at the music maker armed with a handful of quarters, and Abby nursed her coffee and cut into the luscious-looking apple pie.

She'd just taken her first bite when Luke Delaney walked into the diner. Instantly, she felt as if the air pressure in the room subtly increased.

He paused inside the door, his long-lashed eyes scanning the room. When his gaze landed on her, a slow smile curved his lips. As he sauntered toward her,
she was aware of every other woman in the room watching his progress.

He stopped at her table and smiled. “I see you got here okay.” He flickered his gaze to the empty space beside her. “Mind if I join you?”

She wanted to tell him no but found herself scooting as close to the wall as possible to allow him plenty of room to sit next to her.

“Stephanie.” He raised a hand to the waitress.

“Bring me the usual.” The waitress nodded, and Luke slid into the booth next to Abby. “Where are the munchkins?” he asked.

She pointed to the jukebox near the door where the two were feeding in coins and punching buttons. “On the cross-country drive they discovered the joys of the jukebox,” she said.

“Do they know what they're playing? I mean, can they read the titles?”

“Jason can read a little, enough to recognize all the Alan Jackson songs.”

He laughed. “At least the kid has good taste in music.”

“You like country music?” she asked, trying to ignore the clean male scent of him that seemed to wrap around her so effectively. His body warmth seeped to her even though their bodies weren't touching.

He turned sideways so he could look at her, his thigh suddenly pressing against hers. “As far as I'm concerned, there's no other kind of music. What about you? What's your listening pleasure?”

She tried to focus on what he was saying and not on the sensory overload of his nearness. Despite the
material of his jeans and hers, she could feel the heat of his thigh intimately against her own. “I used to enjoy old rock and roll, but when we were driving across country, there were times when we could only pick up country stations, so I have to admit, I've grown pretty fond of it.”

“You should come down to the Honky Tonk one night.”

“The Honky Tonk?” She was intensely aware of speculative glances being shot their direction from the other diners, particularly the female diners.

“It's a little tavern on the north side of town. I pick a little guitar and sing there most nights.”

“Really? So you're a singing carpenter cowboy rancher.”

“Yeah, although I'm hoping eventually I can drop carpenter cowboy rancher from my résumé.”

She looked at him in surprise. “So, you want to be a performer?” He was certainly handsome enough. She wondered if he had any talent, other than the one of seduction that Stephanie had mentioned earlier.

“In seven months' time I'm Nashville bound,” he said, his eyes sparkling with good humor. “And in the meantime, I've got a front porch to build.”

She returned his smile with one of her own. “Why seven months? I mean, if Nashville and fame are your dream, then why wait to chase after it?”

Abby knew all about the danger of waiting to reach for dreams. She knew that far too often if you waited too long, fate destroyed any chance of gaining the dreams you might entertain. No, fate hadn't destroyed her dreams, Justin Cahill had seen to that.

She shoved this thought aside and listened as Luke explained to her about his father's will. “Anyway, the short of it is that if I don't want my brothers and sister to lose their inheritance, then I have to hang around here for the next seven months and put in twenty-five hours a week at the family ranch.”

He grinned, that slow, lazy smile that ignited heat in the pit of her stomach. “But, with a new pretty lady in town, hanging around here isn't going to be so bad, after all.”

“I already warned her about you, Luke Delaney.” Stephanie placed a dinner platter before him and eyed him in mock sternness. “I told her to watch out for you, that you're a charming devil without a heart.”

Luke laughed and turned to Abby. “Don't pay any attention to her. She knows the only reason I don't have a heart is because she stole it from me long ago.” He turned to look at the waitress. “You know you're the only woman for me, Stephanie.”

She slapped him on the shoulder with her order pad. “And you are utterly shameless. You drink too much, you don't take care of yourself and you never take anything seriously.” With these words and a wry shake of her head, she turned and left their table.

“She always gives me a hard time,” he explained, his features still lit with humor.

“She did warn me about you before you got here,” Abby replied. “She said you were a charmer.” Abby bit her bottom lip, unwilling to tell him what Stephanie had said about his powers of seduction.

Luke looked at her once again, and she wondered
if he had any idea that his eyes seduced by merely gazing at her. “And that's a bad thing?”

“Well, no…” She felt breathless beneath the power of his bedroom eyes. “That is, unless the woman you're charming takes you too seriously.”

He grinned. “I take my charming of women very seriously.”

She broke the eye contact with him and gazed to where the two kids stood at the jukebox, tapping their feet and wiggling their bottoms in the unself-consciousness of children.

He didn't speak until she looked at him once again, then he smiled that sexy grin that released a million butterflies in the pit of her stomach. “I'll tell you what, I'll give you fair warning before I attempt to charm you, and that way you won't be caught unprepared.”

Despite the fact that Abby felt as if she had suddenly plunged into deep waters over her head, she laughed. “Okay,” she agreed. “That sounds fair to me.” Once again she broke their eye contact and looked at the kids. “And now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to get home and get those two ready for bed.”

In actuality, it was time for her to get away from Luke Delaney's smile, his body warmth and the heated light that shone from his eyes. He was making her feel things she hadn't felt for a very long time.

She sighed in relief as he stood to allow her to slide out of the booth. “I guess I'll see you in the morning,” she said.