in her belly. Yet at the same time, the idea of crossing the threshold of this strange house, with all the questions hiding inside, had her heart pounding a furious beat.
She needed to be free of his touch! She needed to find some excuse not to go up those porch steps! Trepidation jumbled her thoughts beyond recognition.
Jenny stopped dead. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m not ready.”
Thankfully, Luke’s hand swung to his side and she was free. The heated tendrils subsided somewhat, but she still couldn’t seem to get her leaden feet to move one inch closer to the front door.
She knew there was pleading in her eyes as she looked up into his face. She wanted him to understand. She wanted him to realize how afraid she was.
“I know this isn’t easy for you,” he said. “But waiting isn’t going to make it any easier.”
Jenny blinked. She darted a quick glance at the ground, and then back up to his eyes. He was right. Excuses and postponing weren’t going to make her homecoming any easier.
Filling her lungs with a huge, steeling breath, she turned toward the house.
Luke opened the heavy oak door for her and then motioned for her to enter. With her bottom lip tucked firmly between her teeth, she went through the doorway and looked around.
Pennsylvania bluestone covered the floor. Rather than describe the area as a foyer, she would have called it a hallway that ran the length of the front of the house. A gallery, she supposed it was, with tall, narrow windows that let in lots of light. One end of the hall opened onto what looked like a library, a small, cozy room lined with bookshelves. The Queen-Anne-style table and chairs she saw peeking from the room at the opposite end told her that was a formal dining area.
“Well,” Luke said, “this is it. Home Sweet Home.”
She gazed into the living room in front of her. The lush, dove-gray carpet butting up against the bluestone lent a formal feel that Jenny wasn’t sure she liked. She stood there, listening to the quiet.
Luke’s hand on her shoulder gave her a start.
“You okay?”
It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed she’d been holding her breath, waiting. For what? she wondered.
“Fine,” she answered, distracted. The smile she offered him barely curved her lips.
What had she been waiting for? The question continued to niggle.
Had she expected the sight of the house to bring some onrush of memories? An overwhelming flash flood carrying on its swift and turbulent current years and years’ worth of mental pictures from the past?
Jenny realized she actually felt disappointed. Again, she found herself looking all around her, just listening and wondering. Hoping that she would feel some small nuance of familiarity. But she felt no recognition whatsoever. She might as well have been standing in Buckingham Palace, as foreign as this place felt. This house that was supposed to be her home.
“Give it time,” Luke said, smoothing his hand over her shoulder and down her arm to her elbow.
He must have read the disappointment on her face. Must have understood her wild, crazy expectation to miraculously regain her memory.
“This might not feel like home to you now,” he went on, “but you’ll make new memories. You’ll have new experiences. Experiences that will turn this house into your home again.”
You’ll make new memories. You’ll have new experiences. Jenny studied her husband’s face, acutely aware that he hadn’t used the word we.
He smiled then, and every dark and dire message she imagined he was sending faded into oblivion as the heat of his hand on her elbow seemed to wash across her skin to her forearm, and then her wrist, and then further, until it reached the very tips of her fingers.
This was the first time his body had ever contacted hers, flesh to flesh, skin to skin. Well, the first time in her mind, anyway. She’d thought his touch was hot when he’d placed his hand on the small of her back where the fabric of her shirt had been between them, but this...
This was fiery. Blistering.
The heat radiating from him became an element with a life of its own, flowing up over her shoulder like some flammable, intoxicating liquid and cascading sensuously down both her back and her chest.
“Do you want me to give you a grand tour?”
Surely he must see, she thought. Surely he must recognize how his touch ignited something in her. Something mysterious. Something frighteningly erotic.
Fearing she was about to burn completely to ashes, or embarrass herself beyond belief, she took a backward step. She moistened her parched lips, her mind whirling as she contemplated a response.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, surprised by how normal her voice sounded, “I’d like to wander around on my own.”
Luke nodded, but his mouth firmed into a straight line. “Whatever you wish.” He glanced down at the bag he still carried. “I’ll take your things upstairs, and then I’ll park the Bronco around back.”
His tone wasn’t quite clipped, but Jenny could tell her desire to explore the house alone had offended him.
“Well, there she is!”
She looked up and saw her brother-in-law standing by the library door. He’d obviously come from the hallway that led to the back of the house.
Before Jenny could speak, Luke said, “Chad, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be overseeing the work crews up on the mountain.”
“Relax,” Chad told his brother, tossing out an easy smile. “You’re too focused on work. The stress alone is going to give you a heart attack.”
“If someone doesn’t focus on work, and on getting those trees cleared, the ski runs aren’t going to be ready, come winter,” Luke shot back.
Irritation emanated from Luke in palpable waves. Jenny watched his jaw tense as he stared at Chad, and she couldn’t help but notice how the annoyance he felt turned his features sharp and hawkish.
“They’ll be ready,” Chad said, seeming not the least disturbed by Luke’s anger. His gaze glittered warmly as he turned it on Jenny. “I just had to be here to welcome you home. How are feeling? You doing okay?”
Jenny was surprised. She’d been dreading seeing Chad again. She’d been confused by the fear she’d felt of him when she’d first awoken in the hospital. But there wasn’t a nuance of anxiety in her now. And he seemed so genuinely concerned about her.
“I’m—”
“How do you think she’s feeling?” Exasperation was clearly evinced by Luke’s question. “She’s scraped up and bruised. The last thing she needs is to be barraged with a bunch of questions.”
Although Chad looked wounded, there was an argument brewing in his
