A Father For Her Baby

Now as he watched her move around the living room, studying his aunt’s art work, he speculated about the body that was hidden under the clothing. The sexual nature of the thought amused him, but he reined in his thoughts. He was more interested in what else the woman was hiding from him.

Almost absently, she uncoiled her hair and shook out the waves of fiery red. They tumbled down to the middle of her back, thick and rich, with a texture that at one time would have made him want to run his hand over it, just as he would a fine piece of wood.

She turned, the movement accenting the swell of her breasts beneath the baggy sweats, the rounded curves of her hips. He was stunned by a sudden stab of longing that pierced his angry shell like an arrow.

But he recovered quickly and smiled to himself as he brushed the feeling away, finding it insignificant in light of his other emotions—disdain for Kit Killhorn being at the top of the list. She could call herself “Bannack” but to him she was Mrs. Derrick Killhorn. The name alone damned her.

He’d never before thought of himself as vengeful. But he’d never before dealt with the pain of losing a brother. That loss, coupled with the injustice of Derrick Killhorn going unpunished for the crime, burned within Luke stronger than any desire he’d ever felt—or thought he ever would. And this woman, he reminded himself, stood between him and the vengeance he demanded.

He concentrated on how Mrs. Kit Killhorn was going to help him. One way or the other. With the evidence she had and her eyewitness testimony, Derrick Killhorn would probably go to prison for most of his miserable life. But was that enough? No, Luke thought, as he looked at Kit. Not nearly enough.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_4ed3e3f7-7d0a-5b13-8dac-0eb00c68d4f4)

Kit could feel the tension in the air the moment she walked back into the room. There was no doubt that they’d been talking about her. Lucille looked upset and Luke…Well, he looked even more angry—if that were possible.

“Let’s try some of this gumbo,” Lucille said nervously.

Luke got up and moved to the fireplace to throw a log onto the dwindling blaze.

Kit pretended she hadn’t noticed anything amiss as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and went to the crib where Andy sat surrounded by toys. He looked utterly content. She picked him up, hugging him to her tightly and dug into his bag for the baby food.

As she headed for the table, she noticed more watercolor seascapes lining the walls. “Are these yours?” she asked Lucille.

“It’s just a hobby,” the woman said modestly.

“They’re very good,” Kit said, the cheerful bright paintings warming her all the more to Lucille.

“See, I told you you have talent,” Luke said to his aunt as she placed a huge pot of steaming gumbo in the center of the table.

Kit noticed something odd in the way he moved toward the table, but before she could think of what it was, she heard Luke say, “Mrs. Killhorn is an artist herself. A painter. I’ve seen her work.”

Kit felt as if he’d punched her. All the air rushed from her lungs; she thought she might faint. How could he know that? It wasn’t as if it was common knowledge. And where could he have seen any of her work? She didn’t like him calling her Mrs. Killhorn either, and he knew that—but it was her name, wasn’t it? Did he think he needed to remind her what a fool she’d been to marry Derrick?

“I was at the house,” he said sitting down at the table. “Killhorn’s house. Twice, actually.”

“When could you have—”

He looked up, pulling her down into the gray depths of his gaze until she thought she could see the dark bottom of his soul. “Seven months ago. One of my cousins is a locksmith.”

Kit knew she shouldn’t have been shocked by his confession. Nor by the open defiance in his eyes. The man had spent seven months tailing Sanders, bugging Sanders’s car and his motel rooms, tracking her, then abducted her and Andy. Why was she so shocked that he’d broken into the house she used to live in with Derrick?

Because she was just beginning to understand how far Luke St. John would go to get what he wanted. And that was exactly what he wanted her to know.

She met his gaze with an angry one of her own. Her art had always been private, painted in secret. First, because her aunt hadn’t approved. Later, because Derrick didn’t like her wasting her time painting.

But she had painted, filling the long hours alone in Derrick’s huge house with the one thing she loved. When he’d seen her work before they were married, he’d shown no interest. His only concern was that she might want to hang some of them in the house, the house he’d spent a fortune paying an interior designer to decorate.

“I have a certain position in the community to uphold, you understand,” he’d said. “I can’t have amateur artwork on the walls.”

He’d given her one room upstairs—what he called her sewing room; what she called her studio—and told her she could do with it whatever she wanted. So she’d put most of her paintings in storage. Only two, her favorites, were on the wall in her studio. Since Derrick never went in there, he hadn’t noticed. Nor did he know that she’d begun to paint again.

But Luke had seen her paintings, had noticed they were hers and had probably seen her works in progress in the closet where she kept them. She felt as if he’d gone through her underwear drawer. Her paintings were extremely personal, and now, she realized, Luke St. John, a complete stranger, knew things about her, intimate things, things that made her feel vulnerable. She would have preferred him to go through her underwear drawer.

He raised a brow, challenging her to question his behavior. He’d broken into her house, tracked her, kidnapped her, and yet he still thought what she’d done—witnessing a murder and running instead of reporting it—was much worse than anything he’d done to reach her. He must think her a horrible coward. Or worse.

She dropped her gaze as she slipped Andy into the high chair and sat down at the table.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lucille shoot Luke a warning look. He said nothing more as she ladled one of the bowls full of gumbo and handed it to Kit. “This will warm you up.”

Kit took a bite, amazed at the incredible blend of tastes. “It’s wonderful,” she exclaimed.

Lucille smiled. “Food can make anything better.”

“This problem takes more than gumbo,” Luke said as he took the bowl Lucille offered him. “Even your gumbo.”

Lucille ignored him as she served herself. Then she chatted about fishing, Texas, the weather, anything but what they were all doing here and why. Luke ate silently, his gaze on his gumbo, responding only when asked a direct question and then only in monosyllables.

Kit ate, listening to Lucille’s wonderful southern accent, feeling warmed by the woman’s good nature as well as her spicy meal and cozy beach cottage. She fed Andy, who took spoonful after spoonful of baby food without even a whimper, but did pound the high chair tray occasionally and let out loud whoops, just in case anyone had forgotten he was there.

Several times during the meal, she felt Luke’s gaze on her. It seemed fired by both hostility and curiosity. The anger she could feel coming off him like heat waves from the woodstove, but she understood the anger. And it bothered her much less than the open curiosity.

And she didn’t understand the tension that arced between Luke and his aunt. It made Kit wonder what he’d done that had upset the woman. Kit suspected it was more than abducting her and Andy.

Kit found herself studying Luke out of the corner of her eye while she ate. He was no hero who’d come riding up in a long black limo to save her and Andy. She knew that. Maybe he’d temporarily saved her from Derrick. But there was little doubt that his motivations were selfish ones. He’d kidnapped her for his own purpose. The question was: what purpose? To seek justice? Or did he just want revenge and not care who he had to hurt to get it? She worried it might be the latter.

She contemplated him for a moment. He did frighten her, she realized, but on a level that had nothing to do with his hostility over his brother’s murder and the part she’d played by keeping it a secret.

No, what she feared in him was something more…primal. Something more…Luke looked up, his gaze connecting with hers, stunning her with its intensity, shocking her with its intimacy. In that instant she knew exactly what it was about Luke St. John that terrified her.

His lips turned up in a knowing smile and he nodded as if he’d read her thoughts and agreed wholeheartedly that she should fear him.

She looked away, shaken, and tried to focus on eating. But she could feel him, and realized she’d been keenly aware of him from the moment she’d looked into his gray eyes. Since then, she’d known where he was in the room without consciously looking for him. She felt his presence.

It suddenly hit her—the mannerism she’d noticed earlier when she’d watched him walk to the table. She knew, the same way she knew without looking right now that he was kneading his right thigh above his knee with the heel of his large hand. Luke St. John walked with a limp. It was so slight that it was almost unnoticeable, but she had noticed it. Because she noticed everything about the man.

That shocked her. And she told herself that it shouldn’t. Of course she’d be aware of him. He was her kidnapper. He held her and her son’s welfare in his hands. Of course she would try to read this man, to gauge his behavior, the tone of his voice, the subtle meaning of his movements. It was some basic instinct that had been handed down for centuries to women, from a time when a woman’s life depended on her ability to sense whether a man meant her harm.

Something just as basic told her this man wouldn’t harm either her or Andy. Still, the ancient instinct that was making her so conscious of Luke St. John disturbed her. The same way she’d been disturbed when she’d looked at his smiling photograph She glanced at him across the table now and realized that she was uncomfortable because she had the distinct impression that he was equally aware of her.

She took seconds on the gumbo at Lucille’s prompting and concentrated on finding contentment in just being warm, dry and fed. It had never taken much to make her content because she’d never had much. So much of her life had been spent caring for other people, seeing to their comfort, their desires. She’d never given much thought to her own.

“So you’re an artist,” Lucille was saying.

Kit blinked and shot a resentful look at Luke. “No.” She wouldn’t consider herself an artist until her work was seen in a gallery showing. That would not only make her work complete, but make Kit’s dream come true.

“I was a history major in college. Now I’m a…” She recalled the way Luke had said in the car that he was a carpenter, a furniture builder, as if that was who