he said authoritatively. “An order from the boss.”
Kelsey stood up, her eyes flicking over the unmade bed, the tattered wallpaper. Anywhere but at him, in this dingy, too-small bedroom, where a man’s body had drowned her in desire. With a strangled gasp she fled the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
Briefly she leaned against the panels, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. Her exit had been about as undignified as her entrance. Neither had been even remotely sophisticated.
She was beginning to hate that word.
Behind the panels she heard the floorboards creak as Luke moved around the room, and she took to the stairs as fast as she could. He’d better be fully dressed when he came downstairs, or she wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.
She could have eaten him alive, devoured him without a thought for the consequences.
For once, Kelsey was glad to be in the archaic kitchen, where she now had a small area clean enough that making coffee had become a comfortable routine. As the scent of Colombian blend teased her nostrils, she hooked her bra, patted her cheeks with cold water, and tried very hard to think.
Torrid sex. She now knew exactly what it felt like.
Wonderful. Overwhelming. Powerful. Frustrating. Oh, she could go on forever.
But was it what she wanted?
Freedom to be herself, to be on her own, was what she wanted. If torrid sex translated itself into an affair with Luke Griffin—even a short-lived affair—wouldn’t she lose something she’d craved for years?
Or would she berate herself for cowardice instead? Sex, so she’d read, was supposed to free the creative impulse, feed the artistic muse. Somehow she didn’t think what had happened upstairs in that gloomy bedroom had had much to do with her muse.
With a wry twist of her mouth, Kelsey decided caffeine was necessary for tackling such philosophical issues. But at least she’d distanced herself from that woman in the bedroom who would, in an instant, have begged for more, more, more…
She was seated at the table in the room down the hall, busily working, when Luke wandered in ten minutes later. “Great coffee,” he said absently, and sat down at the adjoining table.
Just as if he hadn’t kissed her senseless only minutes ago, she thought furiously, flicking through a pile of bank statements and subduing several shrewish replies.
“Did I forget to lock the door last night?” he added. “Is that how you got in?”
“I climbed the Virginia creeper up to your room.”
He gave a choked laugh. “A cat burglar—where did you learn to do that?”
“In the ivy on the old oak tree behind our house.”
“I must remember to keep the silver locked up when you’re around.”
“You do that.”
“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
He was openly laughing at her, teeth gleaming, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Her own teeth gritted, she fought against his charm. “I’m glad I amuse you.”
“You do more than amuse me—that’s the problem,” he said. “But why did you bother climbing the creeper? Why didn’t you just go home?”
“I thought you might have broken your neck on the back stairs.”
“You were worried about me?” he said, taken aback.
She was scowling at him. “Yes.”
“Oh,” Luke said. He wasn’t used to anyone worrying about him; he wasn’t at all sure he liked the sensation. “Thanks,” he said shortly. “And now we’d better get to work. We’ll quit at noon for lunch.”
If she was smart, Kelsey thought, she’d quit right now. She took another sheaf of papers out of the box and bent to her task.
She had a delightful profile, Luke decided, her nose straight, her chin with a decided firmness. She was certainly no push-over. Unfortunately, she was no sophisticate either.
He had to have her. That hadn’t changed. Even though he’d doused himself in a tepid shower and done his best to conjure up images of Clarisse and Lindsay.
His best hadn’t been good enough. They’d dropped off his radar. Kelsey was the one he wanted. And Kelsey wanted him. She was twenty-eight years old, he thought, old enough to know that affairs, by definition, didn’t last. Besides, after bringing up three boys, she must be all too ready to break out.
Remembering how she’d clambered up the creeper filled him with amusement at her skill, and sheer terror because she could have fallen.
First things first. Once the weight of these damned boxes was off his shoulders, he’d be able to concentrate.
By noon, he’d found school reports where Rosemary had been getting into far more serious trouble than talking in class, and Kelsey had turned up a newspaper report about Rosemary’s second appearance in juvenile court, this time for drinking and driving. Training his face to immobility, he put them to one side. At four-thirty, while Kelsey was in the kitchen brewing another pot of coffee, he came across three letters.
The first was from Rosemary to Sylvia, demanding money and making it clear Rosemary had been banished in disgrace from Griffin’s Keep in her third month of pregnancy, with less than a hundred dollars to her name. Sylvia’s reply, dated several weeks later, was cold and to the point: she would pay for admission to an addictions clinic, but nothing else. The third letter was Rosemary’s furious refusal, laced with invective. From the dates on the letters, he’d been about six.
Addictions clinic. With all his strength Luke fought back images merciless in their clarity. But amidst this turmoil one thing was obvious: at Griffin’s Keep the recipe had already been in place. A miserly, heartless mother. A rebellious young girl, full of spirit and hungry for life. An unplanned pregnancy, and exile.
And he, a little boy, caught between two generations.
He buried his face in his hands. How he hated being ambushed by the past like this! He’d overcome the past, or so he’d thought. Wasn’t his bank account proof enough?
“Luke! Are you all right?”
Cursing, he raised his head. “Yeah…tired, that’s all.”
His slumped shoulders, the defeated bend of his neck, had frightened Kelsey. If only he’d share with her what this all meant, she thought painfully. “I brought you a chocolate doughnut,” she said, trying to steel her heart against the tension in his jaw and his hooded eyes.
Secrets. She’d never liked them.
She sat down, took a bite of her own doughnut, and went back to work. Four hours later they’d emptied the last box, which yielded three more reports from juvenile court. Luke dumped them on his pile and ran his fingers through his hair. “Thank God that’s over.”
He looked exhausted,
