In His Wife's Name. Joyce Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ hadn’t been able to provide.

      Luke eased into the traffic behind a dusty black coupe with a dented right fender. This Mary Tatiana Calder didn’t go far, just to the hardware store on the west end of town. Luke pulled into the parking lot a good two minutes behind her, then sauntered into the store while she was wrestling the stroller out of the bed of the truck.

      He planted himself near the book display just inside the entrance, fanned open the pages of a how-to book on wiring and waited. Suddenly the automatic doors swung inward and Luke heard the woman’s muted voice talking to the infant. But he lost track of the words as his gaze took in the baby girl propped up in the stroller and wearing a pink sundress that reminded Luke of cotton candy and all things feminine. Her full round cheeks, dark silken hair and wide gooey smile caught him like an arrow to the heart.

      Once upon a time he and Mary had dreamed about having children. Planned for it. They’d even had names picked out. Nothing too fanciful like Tatiana, which Mary had hated as a child. Simple solid names like Ryan and Laura.

      Pain Luke thought he’d banished clawed at his throat as his gaze trailed upward toward the baby’s mother. The shape of her oval face enhanced her startling resemblance to Mary, but only superficially. Even as his body registered the woman’s beauty, his brain logically picked out subtle differences—the nose that was longer and delicately pointed, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks, the smile that was wider. Eyes that were more hazel than blue. And from his vantage point he could see the telltale traces of natural-brown roots in her dyed blond hair.

      He ducked his head behind the pages of the wiring book as the woman’s gaze swiveled past him. Instead of moving directly into the maze of plumbing and electrical-parts aisles, she turned toward the customer-service desk. Luke watched as she stopped in front of a bulletin board mounted on the wall near the desk and removed from her denim purse a piece of paper, which she posted on the board.

      She seemed to be scanning the board with interest, then with a sigh, turned and headed right past him into the store, close enough for him to become acquainted with the exotic scent of her perfume, which made him think of hot summer nights and jasmine. Luke hid his face behind the book until he was certain she’d passed, then casually moved over to the bulletin board.

      The Help Wanted notice she’d posted gave him all the excuse he needed to make the woman’s acquaintance.

      AWARE OF THE TIME, Shannon hurriedly buckled her daughter into her car seat as the yard clerk loaded her lumber order into the back of her truck. It had taken longer than she’d anticipated to select and purchase the knot-free planks she needed; now she was worried Samantha might fall asleep before they got home. Taking a nap in the car, even a short nap, usually screwed up her daughter’s sleeping schedule, and Shannon needed to start cutting the pieces for the signs and the letter boxes today if she was going to fill Glorie’s order as promised.

      Shannon climbed into the cab, slamming the door behind her. The engine ground for a second, then sputtered into life. She breathed a sigh of relief and popped a children’s cassette into the tape player, hoping a sing-along would keep her daughter awake and entertained for the next twenty minutes.

      Cheerfully warbling a silly ditty about lost little ducks, Shannon turned onto the highway. Blossom Valley, located in close proximity to Canada’s arid desert region of Osoyoos, was framed by rugged hills covered with sagebrush and antelope-bush and the occasional stand of ponderosa pine and cottonwood. Orchards of ripening peach, apricot, apple and cherry trees lined the highway, and vineyards crept up the hills, irrigated by the many crystal-blue lakes that abounded in the Okanagan.

      Shannon had picked this area because her aunt Jayne, who lived in Halifax and knew the bleak cold rain of the Maritimes, had toured the region with a friend several years ago and had come home raving about the dry climate.

      A few minutes outside of town, the highway climbed, winding between a lake and a ridge of mountains. The curves were sharper. Shannon felt an insistent tug on the steering wheel as it seemed to resist her efforts to stay in her lane. What was going on? With fear mounting that they might plunge off the road, she reduced her speed and gripped the wheel tightly.

      The truck continued to lean to the right, and it took Shannon a full minute before she realized she probably had a flat tire. There was no shoulder here where she could safely pull over, but she knew there was a lookout over the lake not far ahead. Knuckles white with fear, Shannon slowly negotiated the curves, feeling as if she was trying to coax a recalcitrant bull into submission. By the time she pulled safely into the lookout, her heart was pounding and her face was damp with perspiration.

      Now what? She didn’t belong to an auto club that gave roadside service. And she’d never changed a tire in her life. Shannon slowly climbed out of the truck and examined the deflated right front tire. There were many things she’d never contemplated doing before Rob had assaulted her. Changing a tire should be a piece of cake.

      “NEED SOME HELP?”

      Shannon looked back over her shoulder in alarm at the driver of the blue sedan that had pulled up behind her. She’d been so intent on figuring out how the jack worked and at the same time soothing Samantha, who was mewling with growing indignation at being confined to her car seat, that she hadn’t heard a car approach.

      She gazed up warily at the brown-haired man who’d offered his assistance. He had a hard dangerous look to his face, or what she could see of his face beneath the reflective sunglasses concealing his eyes. Something about the sharply chiseled nose and the shadow of stubble clinging to his jaw made her throat go dry as she rose from her crouched position. “Thank you for offering,” she said firmly over the sound of Samantha’s distressed cries, “but I’m sure I can manage. It’s the twenty-first century. Women change tires. I’m setting a good example for my daughter.”

      The man laughed dryly and removed his sunglasses, clipping them onto the ribbed neck of his navy T-shirt. “She’s a little young, wouldn’t you say? It’d really be no trouble to help you, ma’am. The least I could do is drive into town and call someone to assist you. My name’s Luke Mathews.” Quiet intense gray-blue eyes gazed back at her. Pulled at her in a curious way Shannon didn’t understand.

      “Thank you, but it’d be faster to change the tire than wait for a tow—” she broke off as Samantha let out an eardrum-piercing wail. Shannon instinctively turned toward the truck and her daughter. Samantha’s face was red and tear-streaked. Shannon reached through the open window and stroked her sticky cheek. “Oh, Samantha, it’s all right, baby. We’ll be home soon.”

      Samantha’s mouth opened, her little pink tonsils quivering, and her eyes squeezed tight as another pitiful wail erupted from her tiny body.

      Shannon’s heart clutched at her daughter’s obvious discomfort. Over the noise of her daughter’s cries, she heard the engine of the sedan suddenly extinguish and a car door open. She looked back over her shoulder, alarmed to see Luke Mathews striding purposefully toward her truck.

      “Ma’am,” he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his lean mouth. His eyes were lit with a deference that inexplicably soothed her apprehension at his approach. “It looks to me like you’ve already got your hands full. Why don’t you take your baby out of your vehicle—it’s safer and she’ll be cooler—while I change the tire? It’ll only take me a few minutes. Have you already set the emergency brake?”

      Shannon decided Samantha’s women’s-lib training could take place another time. Right now her baby needed to be held and comforted. And her instincts were telling her that Luke Mathews didn’t mean her or her daughter any harm. Not with those eyes.

      “Yes, СКАЧАТЬ