A Father For Her Baby. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ 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

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