A Christmas Blessing (9 page)

Angela, however, was another story. In her makeshift bed, a drawer they had lined with blankets, she was cooing to herself and waving her arms as if to let him know she was ready for an adventure. Luke couldn’t resist the invitation. There was something about holding that tiny bundle of brand new life in his arms that filled him with a sense of hope.

Swearing to himself that he was only picking the baby up to keep her from waking Jessie, he carried her, bed and all, into the kitchen. Those serious eyes of hers remained fixed on him trustingly all the way down the hall. He was certain they were filled with anticipation, indicating she was ready to try anything. He figured she was destined to break a good many hearts with what seemed to him her already-evident daredevil nature.

“Now, then, sweet pea, can you be very quiet while I bring the tree in? Just wait till you see it. It’s your very first Christmas tree and, if I do say so myself, it’s just about the prettiest one I’ve ever seen.”

Angela seemed willing to be temporarily abandoned. Luke was on the porch and back in a flash, lugging the tree through the kitchen and into the living room. He found the perfect spot for it in the nook formed by a huge bay window. As soon as he’d put it down, he went back into the kitchen for the baby. This time he plucked her out of her bed and carried her in his arms, admiring the simple red plaid sleeper Jessie had apparently stitched up from another one of his old shirts.

“So, what do you think?” he asked as he stood before the tree, admiring the sweep of its branches against the ten-foot-high ceiling. Placing it in a stand, assuming he even had one that would fit its thick trunk, definitely would require a little trimming at the top.

Angela seemed fascinated. He echoed her approval. “Pretty awesome, huh? Wait till you see it with lights and decorations. You won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

The only problem was the lights, the decorations and the tree stand were all stored upstairs. He had a hunch she wouldn’t tolerate being put back in that drawer again. “Now that is a quandary,” he said to Angela. “But we can solve it, can’t we? I’ll just settle you right here on the floor so you can see, put some pillows around you in case you happen to be precocious enough to roll over. I think that’s a little advanced even for someone of your brilliance, but there’s no point in taking chances.”

Angela’s face scrunched up the instant he deposited her among the pillows. He propped her up so she had a better view of the tree, an arrangement which seemed to improve her disposition. “Now don’t let me down, angel,” he cajoled. “No crying, okay? I promise I’ll be back before you can say Santa Claus.”

He darted worried glances over his shoulder all the way out of the room. The baby seemed to have settled into her nest without a fuss. He doubted her contentment would last, though.

Thankfully, Consuela was the most organized human being he’d ever met. The Christmas decorations were tidily stacked and labeled in a storage closet, where he’d insisted they remain this year. She’d succeeded in sneaking a fat, pine-scented candle and a table decoration into the dining room, but that was all she’d dared after his firm instructions.

Luke managed to get all the boxes into his arms at once, then juggled them awkwardly as he made his way back downstairs. The boxes began to wobble dangerously halfway down. The top one tumbled off, then the one after that. There was no mistaking the tinkling sound of glass breaking. Mixed with his muttered oaths and Angela’s first faint whimpers, it was apparently more than enough to wake Jessie.

He’d just turned the corner to the living room when she came staggering out of the bedroom, sleepily swiping at her eyes. “What’s going on? Where’s Angela?”

Luke stepped in front of her and blocked her view of the living room. “Everything’s under control. Why don’t you go back to bed? You must be exhausted after being up half the night.”

“I’m awake now. What broke?”

“Nothing important.”

“What’s all that stuff you’re carrying?”

“For someone who’s half-asleep, you ask a lot of questions. Did you get a job I don’t know about as a reporter?”

Ignoring the question, she blinked and took a step closer. Her heavy-lidded gaze studied the boxes. When the contents finally registered, her face lit up with astonishment. “Christmas decorations?”

Luke sighed. So much for his surprise. “Christmas decorations,” he confirmed, then shifted out of her way so she could see past him.

“I thought Angela should have a tree for her first Christmas,” he admitted sheepishly. “You made it pretty clear last night how you felt about the lack of holiday spirit around here. I decided you were right.”

Jessie’s eyes widened. “Luke, it’s…”

“Awesome?” he suggested, after trying to study the tree objectively. Despite the impressive size of the room, the tree took up a significant portion of it.

“Huge,” Jessie declared.

“I know. It didn’t look nearly as big outside.”

Before he realized what she intended, Jessie turned and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she said, kissing him soundly.

Her lips were warm and pliant against his, impossibly seductive. The impulsive gesture almost caused him to drop the remaining boxes. “Jessie!” he protested softly, though there was some doubt in his mind if he was warning her away to save the decorations or his sanity.

She regarded him uncertainly for the space of a heartbeat, but apparently she chose to believe he was worried about the ornaments. She claimed several of the boxes and carried them into the living room. Then she took a thorough survey of the tree and pronounced it the most incredible tree she had ever seen. The glint of excitement in her eyes was enough to make Luke’s knees go weak. If she ever directed a look half so ecstatic at him, he could die a happy man.

“Don’t do a thing until I get back,” she demanded as she headed from the room.

“Where are you going?”

“To get dressed and to make hot chocolate.”

He thought she looked exquisite in her robe, a pale pink concoction that was all impractical satin and lace. As for the hot chocolate, he was plenty warm enough as it was. “Not on my account,” he said.

“On mine,” she said, visibly shivering. “I’m freezing in this robe.”

The innocent comment lured him to look for evidence. He found it not in the expected goose bumps, but in the press of hard nipples against the robe’s slinky fabric. “I’ll turn the heat up,” he countered eventually. Anything to keep her in that softly caressing robe.

Apparently she caught the choked note in his voice or the direction of his gaze, because her expression faltered a bit. A delectable shade of pink tinted her cheeks. “It’ll only take a minute,” she insisted. “Besides, we can’t possibly decorate a tree without hot chocolate. I’m pretty sure there’s a law to that effect.”

Luke found himself grinning at the nonsense. “Well, we are nothing if not law abiding around here. I’ll test the lights while you’re gone.”

“But don’t start stringing them on the tree, okay? I want to help.”

“You mean you want to give orders.”

She grinned back at him and his heart flipped over. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But you wouldn’t want to end up with blank spaces and have to do it all over again, would you?”

He shot her a look that was part dare, part skepticism. “Who says I’d do it over?”

“It is Angela’s first tree,” she reminded him in that sweet, coaxing tone she used so effectively. “You want it to be perfect, don’t you?”

He laughed. “So that’s how it’s going to be, is it? One teeny little mistake and you’re going to accuse me of traumatizing the baby’s entire perception of Christmas?”

He glanced down at Angela and saw that she’d fallen fast asleep amid her nest of pillows. “Look,” he said triumphantly. “She’s not even interested.”

Jessie waved off the claim. “She won’t sleep forever. Test the lights, but that’s all, Lucas.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When she’d gone, Luke tried to recall the last time he’d taken orders from anyone. Not once that he could think of since moving out of his father’s house. More important, this was absolutely the only time he’d ever taken orders and actually enjoyed it.

* * *

Something had changed overnight, Jessie decided as she searched through her luggage for the festive red maternity sweater she’d bought for the holidays. She’d fallen in love with the scattered seed pearl trim around the neckline. Except for its roominess, it made a stylish ensemble with a pair of equally bright stirrup pants and dressy flats.

Suddenly she was overwhelmed by the Christmas spirit. It wasn’t just the sight of that incredible tree. It was Luke’s thoughtfulness in getting it for her. There was no mistaking that the tree and his shift in mood were his gifts to her.

She thought she’d seen something else in his eyes, as well, something she didn’t dare examine too closely for fear she would confirm the attraction that had scared her away from White Pines.

Twenty minutes after she’d left him, she was back with a tray filled with mugs of steaming hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, and a plate of Christmas cookies she’d found in a tin, plus slices of her own homemade fruitcake. It made an odd sort of breakfast, but who cared? It fit the occasion. She also brought along the radio, which she immediately tuned to a station playing carols.

“Now?” Luke asked dryly, when she had everything set up to her satisfaction.

Jessie surveyed the ambience and nodded. “Ready. Did you check the lights?”

“All the strands are working,” he confirmed. “More than we could possibly need even for this monster. I suspect half of them were used outside last year.” He regarded her with a teasing glint in his eyes. “I assume you have a blueprint of some kind for their placement.”

“Very funny.”

He held out the first strand. “It’s all yours.”

Jessie’s enthusiasm faltered slightly as her gaze traveled up the towering tree. “You have to do the first strand. I can’t reach the top.”

“I brought in a ladder.”

She shot him a baleful look. “Never mind. Heights make me dizzy.” So did Luke, but that was another story entirely. She was finding the powerful nature of her reactions to him increasingly worrisome.

“Are you sure you can trust me to do it right?” he teased.

“Of course,” she said blithely. “I’ll be directing you.”

To his credit, he actually took direction fairly well. He seemed to lose patience only when she made him shift an entire strand one level of branches higher. “It’ll be dark there, if you don’t,” she insisted.

“There are going to be a thousand lights on this tree at the rate we’re going,” he argued. “Nobody’s even going to see the branches.”

She turned her sweetest gaze on him. “The baby will like the lights.”

The argument worked like a charm. Luke sighed and moved the strand.

“I’d better check the fuses before we turn this thing on,” he complained. “It’ll probably blow the power for miles around.”

“Stop fussing. It’s going to be spectacular. Let’s do the ornaments next.”

“Where did you intend to hang them? There’s no space left.”

She hid a grin at the grumbling. “Lucas, I could do this by myself.”

He actually chuckled at that. “But you’d miss half the fun.”

Jessie narrowed her gaze. “Which is?”

“Bossing me around.”

“You have a point,” she said agreeably. “But admit it, you’re getting into the holiday spirit.”

The teasing spark in his eyes turned suddenly serious. There was an unexpected warmth in his expression that made Jessie’s pulse skitter wildly.

“I suppose I am,” he said so quietly that she could practically hear the beating of her heart. “Can I tell you something?”

Jessie swallowed hard. “Anything.”

“It’s the first Christmas tree I’ve ever decorated.”

She stared at him incredulously. “You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “Mother always hired some decorator, who’d arrive with a new batch of the most stylish ornaments in the current holiday color scheme. We were never even allowed to be underfoot. By January second, it was all neatly cleared away, never to be duplicated.”

“That’s terrible,” Jessie said. “I just assumed…”

“That we had some warm family tradition, like something out of a fairytale,” he concluded. “You were there. You saw the fuss Mother made over choosing the design for the tree.”

“I thought maybe it was something she’d started to do after you were all older and the family started doing more formal entertaining during the holidays.”

“Nope. Not even when we came home from school with little handmade decorations. Those went on Consuela’s tree. I think she still has them all. Mother paid a fortune for the perfect tree. She wasn’t about to have the design marred by tacky ornaments made by her children.”

Jessie’s heart ached for the four boys who’d been deprived of the kind of tradition she’d always clung to. When she looked his way again, Luke’s thoughtful gaze was on her as if he was waiting for her reaction to having one of her myths about his family shattered.

“Where are those decorations now?” she asked, clearly surprising him.

“In Consuela’s suite, I suppose. Why?”

“Can you find them?”

He gave her an odd look. “Jessie, there’s no need to get all sentimental about a bunch of construction paper and plaster of paris decorations.”

“I want them on this tree,” she insisted.

Luke shook his head at what he obviously considered a fanciful demand. “I’ll take a look later.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” He played along and solemnly crossed his heart. “What about you, Jessie? What was it like at your house?”

“Quiet,” she said, thinking back to those days that had been a mix of happy traditions and inexplicable loneliness. “There were just the three of us. By the time I was adopted, my parents were already turning forty. There were no grandparents. I always thought how wonderful it would be if only there were aunts and uncles and cousins, but both of my parents had been only children.”

“Is that why you were coming back to White Pines this year? Did you want to maintain the ties so your baby would eventually have the large family you’d missed?”