She studied his face in silence and he gave her a tiny shake and said her name again.
She gave him one jerky nod up and down in affirmation and her breath broke and a small whimper escaped her lips when his hand slid to her breast and unerringly enfolded it in the palm of his hand.
He stroked his thumb across her nipple and lightning streaked down her spine and landed in a pool of hot need between her thighs.
"You sure?"
Oh God.
Emma's mind went blank again.
The arm that held her around the waist slid down and he cupped her buttocks at the same time he gently squeezed her breast again. "Emma," he demanded an answer.
Drawing oxygen into her lungs, she broke away and stepped from the circle of his arms. His eyes followed her movement and stayed on her like a hot brand and she knew he'd never let her leave the room until she answered his question to his satisfaction. "Yes, I understand."
He watched her closely and had she known him better, she would have sworn that what she was seeing was relief in his demeanor. He gave her a short nod and began to move to the door.
She knew he was going to walk away and leave her standing there alone.
But she had one burning question that needed to be answered.
"Luke," she called to get his attention when his hand landed on the doorknob.
He turned back to her and waited.
"What--what if I had said no?" She tried desperately to keep the tremor from her voice.
He gave her an all-encompassing look and gritted his teeth as his face clearly drew into lines of pure stubbornness. "You didn't."
She wasn't going to let this go. "But what if I had?"
He studied her face and then his eyes slowly dropped to her body before moving up to clash violently with her eyes again. He shook his head slowly back and forth in an unhurried motion of denial and then walked from the house.
Emma knew there were only two ways she could take that. He was either refusing to give her an answer, or he was telling her his answer would have been no.
She knew then, in her gut, that she would have had a fight on her hands if she'd chosen the other option.
Chapter Five
Emma was standing alone with only her thoughts to keep her company when Maria came back into the house.
The housekeeper seemed to take one look at her and moved swiftly to the stove to put the kettle on to boil.
Emma turned and made her way back to the chair, sat, and folded her hands together in her lap.
Maria moved to stand in front of her. "Was it bad?"
Emma didn't know how to answer that question and bit her lip.
"Did they argue?" the housekeeper asked.
"Yes."
"Over you?"
"Yes. The sheriff wanted me to go back to town and Luke refused."
The two woman studied each other in silence for a moment until after a pause, Maria responded, "I figured as much. Luke won't let you leave. I've seen the way he looks at you."
"How--how does he look at me?"
"Like you're the last piece of chocolate cake and he's not about to share."
Emma absorbed that response as a thrill of excitement raced through her. "Do you think so?"
"I've known him a long time, and I've seen that look in his eyes before. Never about a woman, no, but when Luke gets something in his mind, there's nothing and no one gonna keep him from it."
"It's so hard to believe. I mean, look at him. He's so--"her voice trailed off and then picked up again. "And I'm so--"
"You're so what?" Maria questioned in a sharp voice.
Emma shook her head as she realized there was no way to explain what she was feeling. Luke was handsome, ruthless, and from the looks of the house and the ranch around it, rich to boot. She had nothing. She was an orphan with a limp, she had no family or money to speak of, and her looks were as drab as clotted cream. "I'm so average."
"Average?" Maria exclaimed. "Who are you trying to fool, girl? There's nothing average about you."
Emma was surprised by that heartfelt response. "What do you mean?"
"You're sweet and kind and gentle. A man could do much worse."
"But I'm plain and I have annoying habits--"
"You're not plain, Emma. Far from it, girl. Are you fishing for compliments? You have a pleasing face, you're form is nicely rounded, and if you take the time to look closer, you'll see that Luke can't keep his eyes off you. I tell you, I had to slip from the house I was so afraid of what would transpire with the sheriff."
"You knew he wanted me to stay?"
"Now, there's no need for secrets between us. We're the only two women on this ranch. Of course I knew! Are you honestly telling me you didn't?"
Emma tried to form an answer as carefully as she could. She was glad she'd found a friend in Maria, but she didn't know if she was ready to tell the other woman everything in her heart quite so soon. "I suppose I can't read him as well as you do. I know he's gruff and has a coarse exterior, and he hasn't been ungenerous. I can see now, after the sheriff's visit, that he wants me here."
"Yes, well, I could tell it the second I saw him in the same room with you. You need to make up your mind as to what you want, because he's not a man to beat around the bush, and I can't protect you from him. Luke is his own man, and nothing I or anyone else can say will stop him from taking what he wants. The only one who could possibly stop him would be you. So you need to make up your mind."
A few hours later, Emma sat in the comfortable chair in the living room with her sewing in her lap. It had been brought to her from the stage with her luggage and she was glad. It gave her something to occupy her fingers if not her mind.
She took quick strokes with the needle, back and forth, as she embroidered a rosette onto the lace collar of one of her blouses. She often added embellishments to her otherwise plain clothes. She liked pretty things, and usually the only way she could afford them was to sew them herself.
She sat for a few hours and pondered her predicament until night began to fall and she realized Luke would be in for supper soon.
Emma sat alone in the kitchen with Luke, their meal finished, Maria having long since cleaned the kitchen and gone to the cabin.
Silence passed between them and she knew he was staring at her without trying to mask the fact even a bit. She ran her gaze over the kitchen, trying to memorize it, looking for something to occupy her gaze, as she desperately tried to keep her eyes from looking at him.
A shiver ran down her spine at the undivided attention she was receiving.
Tantalizing as it was to be alone with him in the big shadowed house as night fell, she wasn't quite yet ready to be a sitting duck, easily within his scope and ready to be brought down.
She rolled her eyes at her own analogy.
She needed something to occupy his attention, something that would take his heated gaze away from her lips.
Suddenly, her mind latched onto an idea.
"Shall we play a game?"
"A game?" His voice was heated and then his looked changed to incredulous at the idea.
"Yes, a game. You know, checkers or something. Perhaps you have a deck of playing cards?"
"Yeah, we have a checker board and cards both, somewhere around here." The look on his face was skeptical, as if he hadn't played in years.
"I'd love to play checkers," she said wistfully, and threw in a look of longing for good measure.
"I don't suppose one game would hurt." His chair scraped back from the table and he stood and walked to a cabinet below the sideboard. "It's been years, but last time I saw them, they were in here."
He opened the cabinet door and retrieved the game and was back at the table in seconds. He placed it down between them. He sat at the end of the table, and she sat in the chair to his right.
"Do you want to play here, in the kitchen?" Emma asked, suddenly eager to actually play the game when she saw the old scarred board and the wooden pieces, half in a dark mahogany wood and the other in a much lighter pine wood. She lovingly ran her fingers over the markers as she thought about all the people who must have played on this very board before her.
"It's as good a place as any, I guess," he said in a slow, modulated voice as he watched her fingers slide over the wooden place markers.
"This is an old game, has it always been in your family?"
Luke saw the shining look of enquiry in her eye and wished for a moment he had a story to tell her about the game being passed from one generation to the next. But it wasn't so. "It came with the house," his words were abrupt.
"Came with the house?" She repeated the phrase as if she didn't understand.
"It was here along with some of the older pieces of furniture when I acquired the house and ranch."
Her hands were busy lining up the markers to start the game. She looked up at him when she was ready to begin. "How long have you been here?"
"Ten years. Won the house and barns and surrounding two-hundred thousand acres in a poker game."
"A poker game!" she exclaimed in a rush of disbelief.
"Yeah," he agreed gruffly.
"How old were you?" She immediately blushed at the personal question and qualified, "If you don't mind me asking."
His eyes caressed her face. "I don't mind, Emma. You can ask me whatever you want." His eyes ran over her face, down to her throat where the top pearl button of her waistcoat was unbuttoned. "I might not answer, but you can always ask," he rumbled. "I was twenty."