Secret Desire. Gwynne Forster

I was dying for some. Thanks a lot. Oh, yes,” he said, remembering her question. “We do this whenever it’s necessary. Just ignore me and go on about your business.”

      She didn’t know what to make of Luke, protective yet distant. She wasn’t a lamb born the day before, so he couldn’t tell her that every citizen in Portsmouth could count on that level of protection. She was grateful that she hadn’t seen her store defaced and that she didn’t have to look over her shoulder every minute, but she hated that when men got interested in her they insisted on enclosing her in some kind of shell, as though she were a fragile embryo. She thought she’d left that behind when she buried Nathan. Still, she wouldn’t dare complain because Randy needed her safe and healthy. It hung in the mirror of her mind like a brilliant Picasso painting that she was all her son had.

      By the end of the day, three more people had signed up for the reading club, among them two sexy young women. If providence was kind to her, Axel would flip over one of them. The likelihood of that seemed remote, however, when Axel arrived at closing time bringing an embarrassingly large bouquet of red and yellow long-stemmed roses. She loved roses of all colors, and she didn’t have the heart to scold him.

      “You like them?” he asked, more pleased with himself than he had a right to be.

      She tried to sound moderately disinterested. “I love roses. Is there a woman anywhere who doesn’t?”

      Self-satisfaction radiated from every part of him, and she knew he thought he’d scored big with her. “If I know anything,” he boasted, “it’s how to treat a woman, and especially one like you.”

      The door opened and Randy bounded in, followed by an off-duty policeman. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see her son or anybody else.

      “I made my rounds, Mom, and delivered the stuff to all my clients.” He turned to the officer who’d arrived with him. “I did real good, didn’t I? Mom, this is my partner, Officer Jenkins.”

      She greeted the officer and shook hands with him, but she couldn’t hide her embarrassment as Jenkins stared with all-knowing eyes from Axel to the oversize bouquet in her hand.

      A frown eclipsed Randy’s face as he stared at the flowers. “Where’d you get those, Mom?”

      “Officer Strange just gave them to me.”

      Randy looked at the man. And looked and looked, while Jenkins watched. She couldn’t help wondering how early in life the male of the species adopted territorial prerogatives. Randy had just served notice that he did not like Axel Strange and didn’t want him around.

      “Captain Luke helps me with my lessons,” Randy said. “He’s my friend.”

      She would have banished Randy to her office for that piece of one-upmanship, had not Jenkins begun laughing. And the more he laughed, the more he laughed. She squelched a giggle when she noticed that Randy had gone to stand beside Jenkins, and that Axel’s face had become bloated from his ripening anger. Unable to think of a way out of it, she laid the flowers on a table and started toward the office for a vase. “I’d planned to tail you and Randy home, ma’am,” Jenkins said, “but—”

      She cut in quickly. “Thanks so much, officer. I’ll be ready as soon as I get a container for these flowers.”

      She didn’t know what the three of them said to each other in her absence, and she hardly cared, but she’d forever be grateful to Jenkins. Not that she disliked Axel—she didn’t. But the man didn’t seem capable of modest behavior. She brought out a plastic Chinese-style vase that she’d filled with water, arranged the roses in it, put the vase on the table, and left it there.

      “Now the store will have a nice feminine touch,” she said in a gesture to Axel, and thanked him for the roses. But a bunch of flowers, however beautiful and expensive, didn’t purchase her company, and he’d have to learn that.

      She’d thought that had ended it until later that evening when Randy had leaned both elbows on her lap, looked up at her, and said, “I don’t like him. Don’t let him come in the store anymore.”

      She put an arm around him, loosely because he hated to be petted. “Randy, my store is a public place, and unless people misbehave, I can’t prevent their entering it. That’s the law. Besides, he’s not a bad person.”

      “He’s not like Captain Luke and Officer Jenkins, and he doesn’t like for us kids to go to the precinct. I don’t want him to give you any flowers.”

      As much as she loved Randy, she couldn’t let him run her life, but he needed assurance that Axel wasn’t important to her. “Don’t worry about him, Randy. He isn’t special to me in any way.”

      “He isn’t?”

      “No, darling. Not at all.”

      “Gee.” Evidently satisfied, he skipped out of the room.

      Luke didn’t care much for parties, not even fund-raisers for PAL, but as a principal supporter of the organization he knew that Mrs. Joshua Armstrong, as she liked to be known, would be insulted if he didn’t attend. He dressed in a business suit, arrived around eight-thirty and made certain that his hostess and all of her guests saw him. Then, he went out on the back porch and sat there in the darkness away from the fawning women, small talk and the scent of liquor. Kate filled his thoughts, and he was glad she hadn’t come. If he didn’t see her, he couldn’t break his promise to himself. He closed his eyes and let the night air blow over him, invigorating him.

      Kate hadn’t wanted to be the last person to arrive, but she didn’t relish being the first at a party, either. She greeted Mrs. Joshua Armstrong, resplendent in a long, red hostess gown—a throwback to the thirties, Kate thought—and took a look around her. She wished she’d stayed home. Axel Strange was the only person she knew in that huge room filled with Portsmouth’s moneyed class. Having found her way to an opposite corner of the room, she refused the smoked oysters, wines, and liquors that the waiter offered her and opted for a glass of club soda; after all, she didn’t have a designated driver.

      “I looked all over for him,” an attractive fortyish woman who stood nearby said to her female companion.

      “I asked Mrs. Armstrong if he’d showed up, and she said he was out on the back porch, probably asleep, since he hates parties,” the woman replied.

      “Asleep? In that case I wasted my time coming here. I’ve been dying to meet that man. Girl, if I ever get my hands on that hunk, he can look out.”

      The snicker that followed would have discouraged most women. “Honey, what have you got that the rest of us don’t have? Luke Hickson is as elusive as quicksilver. Getting that man is about as easy as grabbing a handful of air.”

      Kate didn’t wait to hear more.

      Suddenly alert, Luke cocked his ear at the sound of footsteps, though he didn’t open his eyes. And then, tongues of fire leaped through him like a roaring furnace, and he braced himself. Waiting. Delicate fingers covered his eyes, barely touching his flesh. He didn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, as he awaited the next move. His breath nearly exploded from his lungs as soft, half-parted lips caressed his own, twin butterflies sipping nectar. When he flicked his tongue against them, asking entrance, he heard a quick gasp, then rapid steps—heaven flying from his grasp. The screen door slammed, and he sprang out of the chair and went after her. She could lie if she wanted to, but he knew the wearer of that perfume. Gone was his reticence, his resolve to leave her alone. She’d whetted his appetite and kicked his libido into high gear, and he knew he wouldn’t rest until he’d caressed every centimeter of her naked flesh and lost himself in her.

      He found her in conversation with Axel Strange. “Hello, Kate. Imagine finding you in here.” He nodded to Axel. “Evening, Lieutenant.”

      Her smile shone with innocence, but that meant little to him. “You wouldn’t have been a track star at some earlier time, would you?” he asked her.

      “What does that mean?” Axel