the stairs without a moment of hesitation.
She stared after him for a moment, bemused. “He’s going to be an absolute terror.”
He’d probably do the family a lot of good during the holidays. This would be the first Christmas without Daniel. Perhaps having a crazy kitten in the mix would distract them all.
Before she went back downstairs, Sophia stopped off at the medicine cabinet to pick out the day’s fragrance. Unfortunately, none of the self-talk up the stairs stopped her from wondering which fragrance Luke would like.
Irritated, she reached for Daniel’s favorite, sprayed it on and went downstairs with a renewed determination not to have any bizarre reactions to Luke.
She found Luke standing in front of the giant bay window that overlooked the ranch. He was staring out at the horizon and seemed to be lost in thought.
“Mission accomplished with the kitty box. Did he come through here?”
“Yeah.” One side of his mouth lifted. Sophia could tell by that one small gesture that the kitten cracked Luke up. “He went tearing through here, ran headfirst into the cabinets, shook it off like nothing happened, jumped up a foot in the air, spun around and went flying back toward the library.”
“That kitten is a menace. Your dad is going to hit the roof when he sees him.” Sophia laughed. She picked up her tea and walked over to stand next to Luke. Perhaps she stood closer to him than she should have, but once she was there, she didn’t have any desire to be anywhere else.
“At first. But he’s always the one who gets attached the quickest,” Luke said as he continued to stare at the horizon.
“It must feel good to be home, especially with all of this,” she said of the snowcapped mountains in the distance. “It’s getting a bit old for me, but this is your home.”
Again, Luke was quiet, as he often was. He stood stock-still, but Sophia could feel his body become tense beside her. She almost moved away, worried she was invading his space, but something made her stay put.
All Luke could do was keep his eyes trained forward. He wanted nothing more than to drape his arm around Sophia’s shoulders and pull her close until her body was molded into his. She was wearing his favorite fragrance. She smelled like citrus and freshly cut grass, and he wanted to bury his face in her neck and breathe her in.
And then she would slap me.
Luke shook his head at himself before he drained his cup.
“What?” Sophia noticed him shaking his head.
“Nothing. I think it’s time for a fire.”
There was something raw in his voice that quickened her pulse. She nodded her head and put some distance between herself and Luke. “I’m going to check my email real quick and then I’ll be back down.”
They both went their separate ways, headed in two completely different directions. No matter how hard Sophia tried, she couldn’t stop her body from reacting to Luke. And it seemed that little Danny was having his own reaction to his uncle’s voice. Was it her imagination, or did her baby seem to get more active whenever Luke was around?
Being around Luke was tying her up in knots on the inside. She felt like an absolute lunatic. She was hormonal and grieving, away from her friends and family, and now she was faced with her husband’s twin. No wonder she was confused. But she had to make sense of it all and do it quickly. After all, Luke had never liked her, not from the very first day that Daniel had introduced them to each other. If he had even a remote clue what was in her head, he’d dislike her even more. This tentative truce he had forged with her for Daniel’s sake would be ruined.
She smoothed her hand over her stomach. “We’re not going to let that happen, are we, Danny boy? No. We’re not.”
More than anything, she wanted Luke to be a big part of her son’s life. She couldn’t screw it up. She wouldn’t let herself screw it up. Instead of booting up her laptop, Sophia did something she rarely allowed herself to do; she curled up on the bed, buried her face into a pillow and cried.
After she cried, she slept. And both activities seemed to do her a world of good. When she awakened an hour later she felt a million times better, and she went downstairs with a renewed sense of purpose. It wasn’t like her to let things eat at her. She liked to bring things out in the open; clear the air. That was just the way she was; that was the therapist in her. And, even though Luke wasn’t exactly the most approachable guy in the world, she wanted to believe that his bark was really much more serious than his bite. She was just going to have to tell him how she was feeling, and he was just going to have to listen. Like it or not.
Sophia found Luke in the library. The fire had died down and the library felt to her as if she was slipping into a warm bath. It was the perfect temperature. Luke was sitting on one end of an overstuffed couch, head back, eyes shut. Ranger was perched on the armrest beside him. When Ranger saw her, he trilled but didn’t move.
“Nice fire,” she said.
“Hmm.” That was the extent of Luke’s reply.
Sophia sat down at the other end of the couch. She sank deep into the cushions and realized that she wasn’t getting back up unless Luke agreed to pull her out. Sophia slid her butt forward and leaned back. She rested her hands on her belly.
“My friends tell me it’s perfectly normal to get tired of being pregnant.” She sighed. “I look like I swallowed a basketball, but at least I have a comfortable place to rest my hands.” She smiled at herself after she said that.
“Hmm.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
Luke cracked an eye open. “No.”
Sophia grabbed a pillow and smacked him in the head with it. “Thanks a lot, Luke. That’s really sensitive!”
She saw his chest moving; saw the corner of his upper lip lift. The man was actually chuckling. Amazing. Rare. She hit him again.
Luke glanced over at her. “When has anyone ever accused me of being sensitive?”
Sophia raised an eyebrow at him. “Good point.”
After a minute, exasperated, she said. “Luke! Aren’t you going to say ‘you don’t look like you swallowed a basketball’?”
Luke pushed himself up so suddenly that it caught her off guard. He leaned forward and turned his head toward her. He had a hard, exasperated look on his face. “You don’t look like you swallowed a basketball, Sophia,” Luke said in a clipped manner; his hand sliced the air as he spoke. “And, honestly, I don’t like to hear you say sh...stuff like that about yourself. You’re a beautiful woman who looks better eight months pregnant than most women I know who aren’t pregnant. If you need to put yourself down, don’t do it around me anymore.”
Sophia was taken aback by Luke’s words. Shocked, actually. Just when she thought he was a total jerk, Luke would throw her a curve ball and prove her wrong.
She saluted him. “Aye, aye, el Capitan.”
Luke shook his head slightly at her sarcasm before he leaned back into the couch
