It was a lovely, sprightly melody the box played an air with the sound of a folk song, unfamiliar but oddly captivating. Joey cocked her head and closed her eyes to listen. It was the kind of tune that called for joy, dancing, and happiness, and Joey felt the delicate strains begin to dispel her melancholy. The melody had begun its second repetition when it cut off with a sudden snap of the lid.
Luke’s body pressed against her back, the lean hardness of him shocking her back to awareness. His hand clamped down on the music box as if to physically hold it in place there, and his breath came fast against the crown of her head.
Her first thought was to free herself and escape his almost suffocating presence, but he held her there as surely as he did the music box.
“I would prefer,” he said very softly, “that you don’t touch the things on this table.”
There was a definite warning in his voice, but it was his closeness and not the subtle hint of anger that made her heart leap into her throat. She wavered between pushing him back so that she could turn to confront him or holding absolutely still in hopes that he would go away on his own, every inch of her was aware of him from the firm pressure of his thighs against her buttocks to the strong jaw alongside her own temple.
His voice vibrated above her ear, echoing through her body as he released the music box. “Don’t touch this again.” For a long, tense moment it seemed as though he would not release her, either, and then he stepped back “Please.”
The last word had the nature of an afterthought, but it served to take the heat from Joey’s indignation. She turned quickly to face him, the edge of the table pressing into the small of her back as he had pressed a moment before.
“I’m sorry I touched something I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t mean any harm by it, and I certainly didn’t do any damage.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze squarely. “There’s no need to fly off the handle.”
Luke’s face had been rigid with something approaching hostility, but now his features relaxed into the usual cool remoteness. Joey was almost grateful for the safe distance it put between them again. It might have worked if it hadn’t been for the seesawing of her own emotions.
“Did I fly off the handle?” Luke’s words were even and as distant as his expression, but Joey almost sensed amusement in their tone. She took a moment to slide away from him and the table to a more neutral location. She watched his face as he moved to stand where she had been, his fingers touched lightly a final time on the music box and caught at one of the long black tresses on the hairbrush.
The subtle shifts in his features were small, but Joey knew she did not imagine the change. Luke lifted the hair and wound it around his fingers, caressing it as his eyes grew unfocused. The harsh lines of his face softened, there was almost the faintest whisper of a smile on his narrow lips.
“Who did it belong to?” Joey found herself asking, needing to learn what could bring such an expression of—tenderness, yes, even that—to his face. She half-braced herself for a return of his cold anger, but it didn’t come.
Instead, he seemed to find his way back from some faraway place to hear her words, and his response was slow and remote.
“It was my mother’s.” He offered no more, unwinding the dark hair from his fingers and pressing it almost reverently back into the bristles of the brush.
With an inward sigh that seemed to release a year’s worth of accumulated tension, Joey felt her muscles relax. She leaned against the bookshelves behind her. Question upon question rose up, demanding release, but she pushed them back. The strange gentleness of Luke’s demeanor now was worth patience, for once he might expose something no amount of questioning could ever force from him.
As if sensing the intensity of her concentration, Luke turned back to her. There was still a hint of the unguardedness he had briefly revealed, but it was now tempered by wariness.