The Greatest Risk (11 page)

She was a vision of feminine allure, and she knew it, the dress skimming around her, her hair falling in a rich cascade over a shawl that played peekaboo with the creaminess of her naked shoulders.

She watched it all register in his eyes. She took a deep breath. Run or take the plunge? Her whole problem was she took everything way too seriously.

A date did not a marriage and children make! She was not a starry-eyed sixteen-year-old, and the Cinderella notions of a handsome prince, glass slippers and happily ever after had to go!

Though, forcing her mind to take lighter roads, she doubted the glass slipper had anything on Jimmy Choo, including price.

“I wondered if you'd like to go out with me tonight, Luke,” she said.

He folded his arms over the deepness of his chest and
rocked back on his heels. A man just had no right to look that sexy in a robe and slippers.

“We weren't going to see each other,” he reminded her. “You said. I thought—”

She moved toward him, put her finger on his lips and looked up at him through lashes darkened with mascara. “Don't think,” she said huskily.

She thought he might start laughing at her imitation of a woman so confident in her own skin, but he didn't. He gulped.

“I'll go get ready.”

She smiled.

“And meet you at the back door?” he asked.

She shook her head and brandished a white piece of paper. “I got you a pass.”

“You can do that? Get passes?”

“If you know the right people.”

“And wear a dress like that,” he muttered. “Give me ten minutes.”

He gave her one more quick, loaded look, and then staggered off like a man who had stood much too close to an exploding bomb.

 

Luke went into his room, shut the door and leaned on it. He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself looking straight at Nurse Nightmare. He let out a little yelp.

“I understand you have a pass,” she said to him with deep disapproval, apparently having forgotten how prepared she was to cozy up to him this morning when she had wanted something on Billy's behalf.

“Yeah. I understand that, too.”

“Maggie Sullivan is one of the sweetest girls you could ever meet,” Nurse Nightmare informed him through pursed lips.

He should just open the door and give the nurse a little look at how her sweet little Maggie had turned to spicy in the blink of an eye. Five-alarm spicy, in fact. But he didn't. He just said, “Yes, ma'am. I understand that.”

“Do you?” Her tone was etched with disbelief. She was giving him the insensitive lunkhead look.

He didn't say anything. He wanted her to get out of here so he could throw on some clothes and have another look at Maggie. He moved by her and looked through the wardrobe-style closet at the side of his bed.

“She's been hurt before.”

He'd already guessed, and didn't want to know. But reluctantly, he turned and gave the nurse his full attention.

“There's an expression about being left standing at the altar, though very few people have had to experience that literally. But she did. Arrived at the church in her gorgeous gown and the whole entourage, and all the guests seated, only to find no groom.”

Luke had to turn swiftly back to the wardrobe to hide the expression on his face. He was sure it would scare the nurse, because he felt murderous. He could not believe the white-hot surge of rage that he felt. He could not believe someone could do that to Maggie. Or to anyone.

But mostly to Maggie. He had seen the goodness of her, the purity of her soul, when she had talked to Billy today. What kind of ass could do that to someone like her?

Okay, Luke was no fan of the institution of marriage,
but at least he was up front about that from the second things started looking serious.

And here Maggie was, in her red dress, trying to put her life back together again. Her bravery was touching and heart-wrenching and scary as hell.

Why pick on Luke August? Couldn't she see he was the least likely guy to be able to help her ever trust the male half of the human race again? Apparently Nurse Nightmare could see that simple truth!

“Does she have a penchant for insensitive lunkheads or what?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light. He failed. There was a snarl of barely leashed anger in it.

“That's the thing. Darnel worked at Children's Connection. Many of us knew them both, at least professionally. He seemed to be a very nice man.”

Unspoken in the air between them hung the remainder of her thought.
Not like you.

Luke thought Darnel was going to be a very nice man with a rearranged face if he ever had the happy opportunity to meet him in a dark alley. No, scratch the dark alley. He'd settle for the opportunity.

“When did it happen?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual, his teeth clenched together so hard his jaw hurt.

“Two years ago. No, three. The whole hospital talked of nothing else for months.”

He felt angry again at the thought of Maggie trying to hold her head up high with everyone talking about her.

But three years ago? That wasn't nearly as bad as if it had happened last week. Surely she was over the worst of it now. It wasn't as if he was being entrusted with a newly bruised heart, a soul freshly ravaged.

He heard the door open and shut behind him, and
knew the nurse, her warning delivered, had left him to mull it over. He picked a pair of dark cords and a sports shirt out of his limited choices and went into the bathroom for a quick shower and a shave.

A woman in a red dress.

Really, a red dress gave about the simplest message in the whole world to a man. There was something primal about it, sexy and seductive.

But on Maggie Sullivan? Absolutely nothing was simple about her. He should just hang a white flag out the door. He should tell her he wasn't going anywhere with her.

But, just like last night, he had this almost irresistible desire to make her laugh, to make her forget some of the secrets and sorrows that made her eyes so somber.

“Wrong man for the job,” he said slapping his freshly shaved face with cologne.

But it occurred to him that was twice today his nemesis, Nurse Nightmare, had trusted him with very delicate assignments.

What had she said this morning? Oh, yeah. Require more of yourself.

And so tonight, that was what he would do. Luke August, who had a gift for impersonation, would impersonate the perfect gentleman. He would escort Maggie wherever she wanted to go, and he would make sure she had fun. He would not mess with her broken heart. That meant no on-fire kiss goodnight.

A better man would not have felt such sharp regret.

Outside the hospital, Maggie handed him the keys to her car.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I've been known to wreck
all manner of things with engines. Even my lawn mower can't keep up with me.”

“I'm sure,” she said.

He sighed inwardly. Okay, she was bent on trusting him, and he was determined to be a gentleman about it. He held open her door for her, but seeing that red dress ride up her knee when she sat down weakened his resolve.

And when he got in the other side of her tiny car and smelled that scent that was all hers—citrus with an underlying shade of musk—his resolve weakened some more. He knew a great place to go on a night like this. A rocky beach where they could be alone.

“Turn left here,” she directed him.

He could keep going straight, but her voice did not match the dress or her fragrance. Her voice was nervous, like a schoolgirl going to the prom. He wondered what she had in store for him, and reminded himself he was on his best behavior.

Not that his best behavior had ever been that good.

She directed him to a place called the Heavenly Cup. It was a coffee bar in a remodeled sandstone. Once they were inside, they were directed across the room to where wall-to-wall French doors opened onto a yard at the back, full of potted trees and little white lights and wrought-iron tables. They were close to the bank of the river, and he could see its dark waters moving, reflecting the lights of downtown Portland.

“Not my regular kind of place,” he teased her. “Where's the sawdust on the floor? Is the pool table hidden somewhere? Can I get a beer?”

“You don't drink beer,” she reminded him. “Actually, I've never been here before, either.”

Despite that, it was her kind of place, he could tell. The crisp linen tablecloths, the nice lights in the trees, the fresh flowers on the tables, the murmur of the river in the background. The place had an ambience of romance.

“There's a concert here tonight,” she said. “I thought you might like it.”

A freckle-faced girl came over to their table and whispered something in Maggie's ear that made her blush.

“This is Tracey, Luke.”

He took Tracey's hand, and the girl turned and smiled at Maggie. “Off the scale,” she said. “Do you think it was worth it?”

“Worth what?” he asked Maggie.

“Oh,” the girl said before Maggie could answer, “here's Kenneth now.”

A guy came out of the restaurant and sauntered up to them. He had long blond hair in dreadlocks and jeans with a hole in the knee, and the look he gave the freckle-faced girl, and the one she returned to him, reminded Luke, almost painfully, what it was like to be young and brand-new to the world of passion.

He glanced at Maggie. She had seen that look, too, and longing passed, brief and bright, through her eyes before she looked quickly away.

“Kenneth is the musician tonight,” Tracey said proudly. Then she looped her arm through his and escorted him to a small raised podium set back amongst the light-spangled trees.

Given Kenneth's appearance, Luke hoped for some good ol' rock 'n' roll, but that was probably dating himself. The kid probably rapped or did head-banging or something similar.

Though Luke couldn't imagine Maggie would go for either style of music.

With his girlfriend beaming her love from the front table, the kid picked up the guitar that was leaning casually against the stool on the stage. He leaned his fanny on the stool and bent his head over the instrument. Then his fingers began to do a dance over the strings.

“This is for Tracey,” Kenneth said as he cast her a heated look. “It's called ‘Love on a Summer Night.'”

In a moment the small space shimmered with the beauty of that music.

Maggie's hand crept across the table and Luke took it. No worries about butter tonight, apparently.

He'd expected to be bored. Instead, the most amazing thing happened. His mind—or maybe it was more his soul—opened to the music. He was stunned by the gentle and glowing beauty of it. Who would have thought Luke August could be so taken with a sound? Or that his world had somehow become so narrow that this sound was new to him?

He would have thought no one would ever accuse him of being the kind of man who did not explore his horizons.

He pushed boundaries all the time. Boundaries of speed and strength, muscle and sheer determination pitted against the laws of physics. But that was his world, and somehow he had stopped venturing into worlds beyond it.

He glanced at Maggie. Her expression was rapt, her eyes glowing softly as she let the music wash over her.

He had a feeling that if he let this thing with Maggie go anywhere she would take him to places he had never been before.

Places of the soul.

Places of the heart.

Places of deep longing that would expose the loneliness at his core.

It seemed the guitar was finding that place, the melody haunting, exquisitely tender, making Luke
feel
exactly what the title of the song had promised.

Love on a summer night. The boy's fingers plucked and danced and stroked, and coaxed from his guitar not music but love, shimmering with hope and pathos and pain and glory.

Luke had never had any desire to go to such places. Amber would not have brought him to a place like this. No, jukeboxes loaded with old Springsteen tunes would be more her style. Peanut shells on the floor, dancing on the tables as the night grew wilder.

Despite the promise of Maggie's red dress, Luke had a feeling this was as wild as things were getting tonight.

Thank God. He could not stand the contradictions posed by Maggie. The complications. How could she wear a dress like that, and then bring him to a place of his soul instead of his libido?

She obviously had no idea that this was a game men and women played, and that it had rules. He was willing to forgo his vow to show her a fun time. It was replaced with a desire just to get out of here alive.

The dessert tray came. He ordered one of everything on it. Speed wasn't the only way to stuff back uncomfortable feelings of confusion and yearning mixed. Besides, it was the kind of gesture that would have dismayed his well-bred mother.

Maggie seemed to think it was hilarious, and she
laughed. Just as it had done last night, her laughter transformed her and chased some of the seriousness from her. So, he was going to get her laughing after all.

An hour later it occurred to him that eating too many sweets was a dumb plan for trying to get out of this evening intact. He had just eaten a dessert called death by chocolate and he was pretty sure that was going to be his fate.

But better that than death by innocent girl in a red dress. He glanced up at her. She had a little ring of chocolate around her own mouth and looked adorable in her distress when she looked down at all the empty dessert plates.

She excused herself rapidly.

Watching her hurry off, he hoped she wasn't one of those types who had to puke after they ate. No, she had too many delicious round curves to have that particular disorder. All he noticed when she came back was that the subtle fragrance of citrus and musk that seemed to be all hers was stronger.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked.