An Act of Love by Brooke Hastings Page A

awareness to her loins. If she
didn't stop him now she wouldn't stop him at all.
    "I'd better go make—" she began, but her words
were cut off by his lips, possessively claiming her own.
    She thought of her affair with Sean and started to pull
away, but Luke snaked an arm around her shoulders to keep her close and
held her chin in his hand so she couldn't turn her head. Randy didn't
try to prevent him from deepening the kiss, but she certainly didn't
respond to it, either.
    His tongue probed her mouth for several fruitless seconds
before he broke the kiss and released her, saying hoarsely, "What are
you trying to do to me? Drive me crazy?"
    Randy quickly stood up and backed away from him, putting
several yards in between them. "I don't want to sleep with you," she
said. "Regardless of what you think, I'm not my sister and I
don't—"
    "You sat down next to me," Luke interrupted coldly. "You
teased me into reacting and loved every minute of what I did to you,
but now you're suddenly saying no." The longer he spoke the more angry
he seemed to become. "I don't know what your game is, Linda, but try it
again and I'm not going to play. And if you want to cry rape to Daddy
you go right ahead and do it."
    Randy was thoroughly shaken by the time he was finished
yelling at her. The fact was, he was right. Although teasing him had
been the furthest thing from her mind, she
had
provoked him. Her behavior reflected her deep ambivalence about him:
she was extremely attracted to him, yet determined not to plunge into
another reckless love affair. Since she hadn't asked the blasted man to
haul her up to Maine in the first place she couldn't quite bring
herself to apologize, so she simply walked over to the kitchen and
started to fix lunch.
    Once she'd placed two cheese sandwiches in a buttered
frying pan to grill them she began to struggle with the can opener in
order to open a can of soup. She succeeded in getting the can partially
open but when she tried to pull the lid away she slashed an
angry-looking cut near the base of her right thumb with the jagged
edge. Her muttered curse gained Luke's attention; he looked up from his
book just as Randy shoved her hand under the running faucet in the hope
that the cold water would relieve the sting. It was bleeding heavily,
turning the water in the sink red.
    Luke put down his book, got up and walked over to her.
"Let me see how bad it is," he ordered.
    Randy silently held out her hand. Luke inspected the cut,
then took a first-aid kit out of one of the cabinets and fished out a
box of gauze pads. For a moment he pressed a pad against her injured
thumb, and then told Randy to hold it there. "It should stop bleeding
in a moment," he said. "When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?"
    "Two years ago, after I finished…" Randy choked
back the last word, "college." This wasn't the time to argue about who
she was. Luke removed a roll of gauze and some adhesive tape from the
first-aid kit and waited another minute before checking the cut.
    If Randy had doubted his story about being a medic in the
Peace Corps she would have believed it now. He carefully washed his
hands before applying an antibiotic ointment to the wound with his
finger, then wrapped her thumb in gauze up to the first knuckle and
added a layer of adhesive tape.
    "Isn't that a little elaborate?" Randy asked, not
displeased by his efforts.
    "I'm a frustrated doctor." Luke grabbed the can of soup
and opened it up. "Besides, it's in a bad spot. A Band-Aid wouldn't
have stayed on or protected the cut very well."
    "Luke?" Randy's voice was so uncertain that Luke cocked a
puzzled eyebrow at her. "Would you mind opening the cans from now on?"
    He smiled. "Sure. Just ask me."
    At first Randy was baffled by how quickly Luke's anger had
left him, but then she remembered her father's comment about
him—that Luke Griffin had a temper, but either controlled it
or said what was on his mind and put it behind him. In this instance,
obviously, the