The Thunderbolt - Lori Wilde Page 0,31

You think your mother and father didn’t have problems? Raising six children isn’t easy. The thunderbolt doesn’t erase all difficulties, drahy. It simply tells you who you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. It’s up to you to make love last.”

“That’s not the story you’ve been telling me my whole life! You made it sound so easy, so magical.”

“It is, if you don’t try to complicate matters. There, drahy, don’t cry.” Great-Gramma handed her a tissue from a box resting on the headboard. “It’ll all work out, I promise.”

“Lacy?” Bennett stood in the doorway, the black medical bag in his hands. “Are you all right?”

She blew her nose. “Fine. Just a little emotional.”

Simply looking at him, his hair falling boyishly over his forehead, that concerned expression on his face, tugged at her heart in inexplicable ways. Her entire body buckled. Her senses were so heightened that his long, lingering gaze brushed her like a caress. She felt as if she’d waltzed off a precipice into thin air, as if she were tumbling in weightless slow motion, spinning helplessly toward a shattering end.

Yes, she had fallen for him at first sight, but there was no guarantee he felt the same way. They’d been tricked into coming here by her great-grandmother’s artless machinations and this felt more and more like a total disaster.

Bennett set the bag on the bed, opened it, and removed a stethoscope. Several of Lacy’s family members appeared in the doorway, watching the proceedings.

“Hey, Lace.” Her youngest brother, Jack, held up a pair of crutches. “Look what I found in the attic.”

“Thanks,” she said. Now Bennett wouldn’t have to carry her everywhere. That thought both saddened and relieved her.

“I smell sausage,” Great-Gramma said to Lacy as Bennett pressed the stethoscope to her chest. “Bring me some breakfast.”

Lacy shot her great-grandmother a dirty look. “Oh, no, you’re having chest pains. You can’t have sausage.”

She wasn’t going to let her great-grandmother get away with her meddlesome chest-pain stunt without paying some kind of price, but neither was she going to embarrass her great-grandmother—or herself—by giving away her secret.

But Lacy did have to get Bennett out of here as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the next thing she knew her family would be ordering flowers, sewing a wedding dress, and making an appointment with the preacher.

9

“Shoo!” Lacy’s great-grandmother made shooing motions with her hands. “Everyone out of here but the doctor. You, too, Lacy.”

“But Great-Gramma...” Lacy shot her relative a chiding expression.

“Go.”

Bennett winked at Lacy. “Go ahead. We’ll be all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go have breakfast. I’ll be there in a minute.” Bennett figured Great-Gramma Kahonachek had something to tell him that she didn’t want her family to hear.

He watched while Lacy hoisted herself up on the crutches, his eyes drawn to her petite body. How long had it been since he’d felt so helplessly overwhelmed by desire? He remembered all too well what it felt like to run his hands over her well-rounded body, to taste her lips with his tongue. His fingers tingled at the thought, as did other more southernly body parts.

“Close the door,” Great-Gramma said, yanking Bennett from his fantasies.

“Yes, ma’am.” He did as she asked.

“Now, go over to the bureau and open the jewelry box.”

Bennett followed orders, humoring her. The heavy wooden jewelry box tinkled a melody when he opened the lid. He expected some Czechoslovakian tune, but to his surprise he recognized the music from an old disco song. Something about thunder and lightning and knocking on wood.

“Move those necklaces and rings aside. There’s a false bottom. Lift that out,” Lacy’s great-grandmother instructed.

Curious, Bennett obeyed. He lifted up the bottom and found a pair of gold cuff links in the shape of lightning bolts. They were unique, unusual.

“I want you to have them,” she said. “For coming this long way to check on me.”

“Oh, no, ma’am.” He turned to face her. “These cuff links look like a family heirloom.”

“They’re yours,” she reiterated. “For taking such good care of my great-granddaughter.”

Bennett shook his head. He felt very odd, and the cuff links lay strangely warm against his palm.

“Please, don’t argue.”

“I really appreciate the offer, Mrs. Kahonachek, but you don’t have to pay me for being Lacy’s friend.”

“You’re more than her friend, and you know it.”

Her bold statement startled him. Bennett shifted his weight, uncertain how to extricate himself from this touchy situation. He liked the elderly lady. He liked Lacy’s whole family. That was the problem. He couldn’t have them thinking he was anything more to