Christmas at Candlebark Farm by Michelle Douglas Page B

expected Luke to holler no and storm from the room.
    Luke had to swallow before he could speak. ‘I thought that if you wanted to help me haul them out we could go through them. This place is looking a bit…dull.’ All of Keira’s colourhad brought that home to him. ‘From memory, we had some nice stuff.’
    No matter how nice Tammy had made their apartment in the city, though, Luke had never stopped longing for home.
    â€˜When?’ Jason had lost all pretence at nonchalance. ‘Now?’
    â€˜As soon as we’ve helped Keira with the dishes.’
    The grin she sent him when she turned from the sink made him feel a million dollars.

CHAPTER SIX
    â€˜Y OU’RE baking?’
    Keira swung around from taking the last sheet of cookies from the oven, to find Luke silhouetted in the kitchen doorway, bringing with him the scent of the outdoors and a reminder of her own wayward desires. Her hand shook. She hastily set the tray down on a rack to cool, and wiped suddenly damp palms down the sides of her shorts. ‘I’m practising.’
    â€˜I like the sound of that.’
    Backlit by the sun she sensed rather than saw his grin. He and Jason had spent yesterday working in the fields, and ever since Luke had seemed to find it a whole lot easier to smile. Which was great, she told herself, a definite improvement. Even if those smiles were proving lethal to her pulse.
    It would be a bigger improvement if she could forget about kissing him. But all it took was one glimpse of those broad shoulders and strong thighs and yearning would stretch through her, pulling her skin thin and tight across her bones—as it had when they’d sat on the floor together at that ridiculous time the other morning.
    Dwelling on that, though, wouldn’t help. You’re a strong, independent woman, she reminded herself.
    She waved a hand at the cooling cookies and tried to banish all thoughts of broad shoulders, strong thighs and kissing from her mind. ‘All the best mums bake.’
    A chuckle emerged from the strong column of his throat.Before her thoughts could go all wayward again she added, ‘I just know I have a speciality.’
    â€˜Speciality?’
    â€˜You know—something that will make my kid swoon whenever he or she smells it baking or sees it cooling on the kitchen table.’ She gestured to the cookies. ‘Like choc-chip cookies or scones or pineapple upside-down cake or pikelets.’
    â€˜Or lamingtons or lemon-meringue pie,’ he supplied, that grin still stretching through his voice.
    â€˜Exactly! So much baking, so little time. You can see why I have to start practising now.’
    Christmas and cakes and birthday parties and bedtime stories—they were what childhood memories were made of. She might not be able to give her baby a father, but she was working on the baking and the bedtime stories. She’d bought a stack of children’s books the other day in town, and when no one else was in the house she’d taken to reading them out loud. She wanted to get all those funny voices just right. Besides, her pregnancy books told her that her baby would hear her voice while it was in the womb, and would recognise it once it was born. The thought thrilled her.
    She couldn’t wait to hold her baby in her arms!
    â€˜Oh, Luke.’ She clasped her hands beneath her chin and recalled what he’d said about the first moment Jason had been laid in his arms. Magic—that was how he’d described it. ‘Wouldn’t you just love to have another baby?’
    â€˜No!’
    His vehemence startled her. The choc-chip cookie goodness leached from the air, the wholesome baking scents dissipating in the face of Luke’s stark denial. Her mouth went dry. Did he hate single parenthood so much?
    She tried to erase the frown from her face, moderate her shock. He and Jason had sorted everything out, hadn’t they?Everything between them was