The Greatest Risk (20 page)

Kristen continued to focus on the film star, and Maggie continued to focus on the chaos her life had become.

At the break she intended to sneak out and not come back. How could anyone here shed any light on the mess her life had become? It was back to her couch, and Double Chocolate Madness.

“Well,” Dr. Richie said, beaming, “it's our last night together. I hope everyone has discovered the boldness and the beauty of the new you.”

Maggie thought she had discovered the boldness of the new her, all right. She just wasn't at all sure it was a good thing.

Her mind wandered. She thought of Luke. She thought of him telling her, with such tender sincerity, that she already had those qualities in abundance. She thought of their night together. She thought of the look of boyish delight on his face as he had pulled up on the motorcycle outside just now. She thought of Kristen saying, “That man is crazy in love with you.”

Since it was the final class, Dr. Richie reminded everyone that his new series of seminars, called Losing Weight Through Visualization would be starting shortly.

This seemed to be directed personally at the film star.

Maggie glanced over at her and didn't think the gorgeous Miss Reynolds looked as if she needed to lose any weight. She was curvy, yes, but in that way of a woman maturing, coming fully into herself.

“Because it is our last night,” Dr. Richie said, “perhaps some of you could share with me the changes this seminar has made in your lives.”

The testimonials were enthusiastic and numerous. Maggie was not sure she could bear listening to one more person say how happy they were, how the B&B seminars and NoWait seemed to have changed their lives. They felt more energetic. More alive. More passionate.

Well, she could add an “and how” to that last one. Actually, she had to admit she could say yes to all those things.

“I have a final challenge for you,” Dr. Richie said, “before we say adieu.”

He paused, steepled his fingers thoughtfully under
his nose, and when he spoke again, his voice had changed. It seemed as if it was coming from a place deep, deep within himself.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “we have a strangle-hold on life. We exhaust ourselves and milk the joy from life by trying to be in control of everything, including other people. The truth is that we only have control over one small thing in this world. And that one small thing is ourselves.”

Maggie found herself listening, truly listening, for the first time tonight.

Dr. Richie went on. “We need to give up our need to control everything. We need to surrender to the process of life, to trust it.”

Maggie stared at him. It seemed as though he was speaking directly to her. And suddenly he did turn and look right at her.

She was aware, from the sympathetic look on his face, that she might not be looking her best.

But nothing about the way Luke had looked at her just a few minutes ago had made her feel the way Dr. Richie's gaze was making her feel—as if she should rush off and change clothes, brush her hair, apply a dab of lipstick.

“There is one thing you are holding on to,” Dr. Richie said, his voice sage, his eyes locked on hers, despite the presence of the movie star in their midst. “Let it go.”

Let it go. She stared back at him. She felt as if he had seen right into her heart, exposed her deepest fears and insecurities, and told her exactly what she needed to do.

Let it go.

She scrambled up from her chair, nearly knocking it over.

Kristen sighed and rolled her eyes. “I hope you have come to your senses.”

“I think I have,” Maggie said.

“Good. Go call that man and ride in the moonlight. I don't know about the Scrabble part, though.”

Maggie smiled. “That was the best part.”

“So, are you going to call him?”

“Excuse me,” a woman beside them said. “Must you two girls be so disruptive?”

They ignored the question. “No,” Maggie said to her friend, “I am not going to call him.”

Kristen glared at her. “Then you're crazy.”

Maggie actually laughed. “I think I am,” she said.
Crazy in love.
She raced out the doors of the Healthy Living Clinic and practically ran all the way home.

She arrived breathless, picked up the phone the minute she got in the door, and crossed her fingers. But she did not call Luke August.

No, she called Skookum Leo's, and nearly cried with relief when he was there and answered his phone.

Calmly, firmly, she made her request.

And then she called her office and left a message on her secretary's voice mail. No doubt the woman would be surprised in the morning.

 

“She's not here for the rest of the week, sir.”

Luke couldn't believe his ears. Maggie was not answering her phone at home, and now she was not at work, either?

“Well, where is she?” he growled.

“Sir, even if I had that information I would not give it to every stranger who called in,” he was told snippily.

He was so crazy in love he actually appreciated that her secretary was so protective of her.

Crazy in love. This couldn't be happening to him, Luke August, but it was and there was no hiding it. It was in his face every single time he failed to make contact with her. For a little Maggie Mouse, she was showing amazing stubbornness. She wouldn't return his calls and was avoiding him with great success.

Well, he'd played this game before. Of course, before he had always been on the other end of the avoiding game.

So, he was being brushed off. He was just going to have to accept that. He should be grateful that he was thirty-four years old and had never had this horrible experience before—the experience of being on this side of unrequited love.

He was miserable. He couldn't eat. He couldn't sleep. He yelled at Brian. He called his mother. He bought a puppy that he called Stinkbomb, Too. It promptly lived up to its name by depositing a steaming brown pile on the new carpet in his house.

The dog was supposed to replace Maggie. It was supposed to take his mind off her. It was supposed to meet his need for love and attention.

And really, the poor creature was no better at any of those things than Amber had been.

Luke was like a lovesick boy and it was embarrassing. He actually considered canceling the race, phoning and telling her.

But he stopped short of that. It felt all wrong. Agreeing not to ride in the race would be more than surrender, it would be utter defeat. He would be giving a part
of himself away. And if he did that now, this early in the relationship, what would be left of him by the time little Miss Maggie was through with him?

“Remember Samson,” he told himself and the dog. “Crazy in love with Delilah. Gave his power to her. That was the message. It's not real love if it takes your power.”

Stinkbomb, Too cocked his head this way and that, and looked at Luke with rapt adoration.

“She appears to be through with me now,” Luke told the dog after he'd tried her number for about the hundredth time and gotten no answer. The dog whined sympathetically.

“So, I go on with my life. I enter that race on Saturday. And I bet I win, too.”

They were the sentiments of a man who had nothing to lose, who could pull out what few stops he had ever exercised in his life.

But despite his resolve to put Maggie out of his mind, he did not succeed. In unguarded moments that wild night with her would enter his mind and fill him with the most intense longing. She was in his dreams. He caught himself having imaginary conversations with her.

He was crazy in love, and the humiliating fact was that everyone knew. Brian knew. His mother knew. Even Rhonda down at Morgan's knew.

It was as if he had a big flashing sign on his head that said “Luke August has fallen and fallen hard.”

“You got it bad,” Brian told him, not without satisfaction.

“I don't,” Luke snapped. “It's over.”

Brian regarded him with a faintly sympathetic smirk.
“No, it ain't, boss. This is just the beginning. It's like a roller-coaster ride. Up, down. Up again. Hang in there.”

It was a sad state of affairs when a guy like Brian was giving advice to the lovelorn.

His mother guessed when he told her he'd bought a dog. How did women do that—make these leaps that defied logic, and that were almost always right?

“Hey, Ma,” he said wearily, “do you want to come watch me race my motorcycle this weekend?”

He expected the lecture. Maybe he actually even craved it. He could feel much better about the mess his relationship with Maggie was in, if all women were the same. If they all nagged and worried unnecessarily, and manipulated to get their own way. His mother's reaction to the invite could serve as a great reminder that he was lucky Maggie was not returning his calls. He was lucky he was still free. Lucky to still be his own man, with no one and nothing to answer to.

But his mother did not get with the program. “Why, I'd be delighted!” she shocked him by answering.

He went to Morgan's once, hoping he might see Maggie there, even though he knew the possibility was beyond remote. Rhonda asked where she was, and then said, out of the blue, “You got a thing for her, Luke?”

“No!” he growled.

But Rhonda had smiled that annoying little female smile that said she knew something that he didn't know.

Race day arrived, and Luke was frazzled, but glad to be here. There was nothing that required intensity of focus so much as climbing dirt hills and sliding around tight corners on a powerful bike. The concentration re
quired to ride a race like this would be a total reprieve from his own Maggie-induced insanity.

He unloaded his bike from the trailer behind his truck. He began to don gear, checked over the bike.

“Hey, Luke!”

He turned in surprise. Billy was behind him in his wheelchair. Pushing it was Nurse Nightmare, looking very out of place in high-waisted jeans and a primly buttoned blouse.

“Hey, buddy.” He went over and high-fived the boy. He could feel his heart beating fast. “How'd you hear about this?”

“Maggie,” Billy said.

Maggie. It confirmed what Luke had thought as soon as he had seen the boy. She was the only reason Billy would be here.

She had forgiven him. Luke just knew it. She had forgiven him and come to watch, and brought Billy with her.

She had accepted who he was. She'd been mulling it over for the better part of a week and reached her conclusion. Now she was here to cheer him on!

The relief he felt was immense. Relief mingled with amazement and wonder and gratitude. Did she love him after all? Was there hope? His life seemed to be going from black and white to full blazing color at the very thought. He had not realized the full extent of his agony until this happened, a promise it was going to be over soon, a hope that it might all turn out all right after all.

Brian had been right. It was a roller-coaster ride. His mother had been right. Rhonda had been right. Luke needed her. Wanted her. He looked around, his heart on fire for wanting to see her.

But he didn't see her, and doubt began to cloud the momentary euphoria he had felt. If Maggie had brought Billy, why was Nurse Wagner here with him?

“Uh, where is Maggie?” Luke asked.

Billy shrugged. “She said I'd see her here.” He turned his attention toward a commotion going on down by the announcer's booth.

Luke looked over, too. A cluster of riders—most of the men he recognized as seasoned racers on this circuit—had formed a circle around a rider he didn't recognize.

No wonder the fuss. She was fully outfitted for a motocross race, filling out her leather pretty nicely. She was wearing the red number that designated riders in the novice division.

The guys were high-fiving her as if they were her pit crew. Nigel Henderson was probably the best racer on this circuit, and Luke couldn't ever remember him making a fuss over a novice, not even a female one. Leo himself pushed to the center of the circle of boisterous bikers and wrapped a brawny arm around her shoulder.

“Is she ready or what?” he bellowed.

The guys gathered around her responded with the enthusiasm of Romans waiting for the gladiators to enter the Colosseum.

The female rider ducked her head, tugged at the chinstrap of her helmet, and then pulled it off, setting free a cascade of hair.

Luke felt his heart stop when the rider shook her head and that rich blond hair spilled out from under the helmet and over the padding on her shoulders.

“Oh, no,” he whispered.

By chance, she turned and looked toward him. The
last time he had seen her that flushed with happiness she had been naked in his arms.

There was no doubt about it. It was his one true love. It was Maggie.

L
uke crossed the distance between him and Maggie in about three long strides. He ignored the protests of the fan club clustered around her when he found it necessary to put them, none too gently, out of his way.

She saw him coming toward her and her face lit up. It was as if the sun came out in a world that had been doomed to gray.

But he could not let her worm into his heart just like that!

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” he demanded when he finally reached her. He folded his arms over his chest and gazed down at her.

Her expression turned from warmly welcoming to mutinous in a split second.

“Pardon?” she said snootily.

“You heard me.”

“I'm racing in the novice division today,” she said. “Leo and I have been working on it all week. Haven't we, Leo?”

“Darned right,” Leo said, eyeing Luke stubbornly and folding his own arms over his rather massive chest. He was aging, but he still looked tough as nails and had all the tattoos to prove it. “You got something to say about that?”

“It's between me and Maggie,” Luke said.

“Leo's my coach,” she told him, “and you are not the boss over me, Luke August.”

He stared at her, stunned. Was that not the exact emotion he had felt when he had shown her the entry form for this very race and she had expressed her disapproval?

He had never had the tables turned on him so thoroughly, and he was not happy about it. In fact, he felt furious.

“You are riding in this race over my dead body,” he said.

He said it even though he knew it was exactly the wrong thing to say. He said it even though he knew if someone had ever worded a request like that to him, he would have done the exact opposite just for spite.

But Maggie wasn't spiteful, like he was. Or stubborn.

Though from the look on her face, he realized he didn't know half of what there was to know about Maggie.

He wasn't willing to risk her at this stage. She could be hurt out there. She could be killed. What had Leo been thinking, taking her on as a pupil?

Luke had seen her ride. She had no aptitude for sports. She had no competitive spirit, no athletic ability.

“I am riding in this race,” she told him, her face set in stubborn lines.

Leo clapped her approvingly on the shoulder. A few of the other guys, listening avidly though it was obviously none of their business, also murmured approvingly. Luke glared until most of them got the hint that they might be standing in the danger zone and disappeared.

“We need a moment alone,” he told Leo.

Leo looked to Maggie for the okay. For a woman who had never been terrific at the man-woman interchanges, it occurred to Luke she had won over every male here without half trying! She thought over his request for a moment alone and finally nodded, but reluctantly.

“Are you sure?” Leo asked her, and then something caught the corner of his eye and his head swivelled away from his star pupil. “Ooh, la, la,” he said. “What have we here?”

Luke couldn't have cared less, but he glanced the way Leo was looking—and closed his eyes and groaned.

Here came his mother. She was actually wearing blue jeans, rhinestone-studded, with stiletto heels and a silk blouse, diamonds dripping from her ears.

Luke wished he had warned her about the earrings.

“Luke,” she called, giving him a little wave.

“You know the babe?” Leo said, a little too lasciviously for Luke's liking.

“She's my mother,” Luke said, part resignation and part warning. And she couldn't have picked a worse time to turn up, either.

Still, he made introductions. Maggie was acting as if they were not in the middle of a most important discussion. She and his mother were eyeing each other
with the frightening enthusiasm of people who knew they were going to know each other for a long, long time.

“My dear,” his mother said to Maggie, “you are everything I had hoped for for Luke. Everything.”

Maggie blushed. He glared at his mother. For God's sake. She had known Maggie fifteen seconds. How could she say such a thing?

He glanced at Maggie and saw how his mother could say such a thing. And saw why all the guys who hung around the dirt track were so taken with her.

That faint uncertainty that Maggie had always carried with her was gone. She had come into her own in a big way since he had seen her last. She looked more than gorgeous. More than confident. She looked absolutely genuine. And there was nothing more attractive in the world than that—someone who had learned to be themselves, and liked what they had found.

He thought of how good he was at pretending to be other people. Why was that? Was it because he was in some way dissatisfied with who he was?

That was the problem with loving a woman like Maggie. He had succeeded in living his life on the surface, and she made him go deeper. Without half trying she made him come face-to-face with who he was. They were supposed to be arguing about whether or not she was racing, and instead he was getting sidetracked into an entirely unexplored area of his psyche.

“I simply can't wait to get to know you better, Maggie,” his mother was saying.

It occurred to Luke if he didn't cut her off at the pass, his mother was going to propose for him. He won
dered, stunned if that was what he planned to do. Did he plan to marry Maggie?

Damned right,
the voice of his reason told him, most unreasonably.

Well, maybe eventually, after he got Maggie sorted out about the race. “Leo, would you go buy my mother a soda? Maggie and I have business to discuss.”

Leo apparently forgot he was Maggie's coach and defender, because he offered his elbow to Luke's mother with old-world courtliness. “Annie?”

Luke had never heard anyone call his mother anything but Annabelle. But his mother giggled girlishly, looped her arm through Leo's and allowed herself to be led away.

“Good grief,” Luke moaned, watching them go.

“Luke,” Maggie said, “your mother is so adorable. And aren't she and Leo cute together?”

“Don't even try and sidetrack me,” he said. His mother was not adorable! And Leo couldn't be cute if he put on a fuzzy pink bear suit.

“Sidetrack you?” she returned innocently. “Luke, I don't know what you mean.”

“Okay,” Luke told her in a low voice. “You've made your point. I get it.”

“You do?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

“Oh, sure. I get exactly how I've made people feel all these years. I understand how I made you feel when I told you I was entering this race over your better judgment. I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I'm sorry you worried needlessly. So, here's the deal. You win. I won't race. You won't race.”

She smiled rather tragically, as if he was an idiot child who wasn't quite getting it.

“I don't think that would be a win for either of us,” she said.

“What?” he sputtered, not sure he could have possibly heard her correctly.

“I am racing. You can do whatever you want.”

“Maggie! This has gone far enough.”

“No,” she said, “it hasn't. All my life, Luke, I've played it safe. I've never taken chances. I've never been bold and daring. I thought I could protect myself from being hurt that way. But you know what? I was wrong. All I did was stop myself from living.”

“Maggie,” he said, leaning very close, his mouth practically at her ear, “I love you. If something ever happened to you, it would feel as though the sun set on my world forever.”

She tilted her head back and looked at him. A light came on in her eyes. Her lips captured his.

He was aware of the guys cheering around them, but only faintly, as he concentrated on the kiss. He was sure his declaration of love had convinced her. Instead, she let go of his lips and smiled at him.

“Love lets go,” she said. “It doesn't hang on.”

It seemed as though he had waited his whole life to hear a woman capable of saying those words to him.

But now that he had heard them, in this context, he was not so sure that they were what he wanted to hear after all.

Still, he looked at the light shining in her eyes and knew she was right. She had played it safe her whole life. She had made some trade-offs that she had paid too much for. Now she was prepared to take some risks. And he realized he was part of her risk-taking package.

He knew what he had to do, and what he had to say.

He knew love was requiring more of him.

He took a step back from her. “Good luck,” he said hoarsely.

“You, too,” she said. She smiled, lowered the visor over her face and turned on the machine. To the cheers of her dedicated fans, she putted off for her practice run around the novice track.

Distracted, Luke went and got ready for his own race. He felt as if he was reeling, had none of the kind of focus that was required to make a competitive run.

The start of his own race was called. He pulled into his place.

The starting flag swept down and for the first time in his life he was aware of holding back, of having a responsibility larger than feeding his own need. For the first time in his life he held something back as he made his way around the track.

And he paid for it. At the end of the race, he came in fourth. But he was aware, as he crossed the finish line, that he did not feel disappointed with his result. Instead, Luke August was aware of a sensation of freedom unlike any he had ever felt.

For once in his life he had not needed the win to make him feel good. What was making him feel good, that place inside him filled to overflowing for the first time in his life, was love.

He joined Billy and Nurse Wagner in the stands just in time to watch Maggie's race. His mother and Leo came over and joined them.

His mother made a great fuss over Billy and, rather than be embarrassed by it, Billy seemed to take to her like a duck to water.

Luke had a feeling something very special would happen between those two. His mother was looking for a child to love, to make up for one she felt she had not loved enough a long, long time ago. And here was a boy who needed all the love he could get. It was a match made in heaven.

Nurse Wagner was no dummy, either. “Annabelle,” she said, “do you ever do volunteer work?”

“Oh, I used to. Silly things,” his mother said.

They began talking like the oldest of friends. Leo, the newest of friends, looked faintly chagrined by it all.

Luke returned his focus to the racers lining up at the start. Leo, who suddenly seemed to realize his star was out there, glanced at Luke, and together they left the stands to get a place closer to the track.

There were eight novices in the race. Maggie was wearing the number twelve. Luke had to fight back a primal urge to protect her, to run out there and pull her off that bike and drag her off to safety, by her hair if necessary. But he fought down the caveman. And watched.

The flag went down.

 

It was so loud on the track, Maggie felt disoriented. Her nerves were eating her alive. But she did see the flag go down. She seemed to forget every single thing Leo had drummed into her over the last week. Nothing could have prepared her for the amount of noise and then the blinding cloud of dust as the other competitors leaped off the starting line.

It was not helping that the last thing she had seen was Luke coming closer to the track, his brow knotted with worry, his emotion on his sleeve.

The man was crazy in love with her!

The thought filled her with a wild and surging energy. She gunned her motorcycle, felt the little lift of the front end that meant she had given it a bit too much, and settled into the business at hand. Now she could remember everything Leo had told her.

She felt as if she were entering a place of heightened awareness. She was totally aware of the track, the other racers, her own body and the capabilities of the bike beneath her. There was a glorious sense of being connected to all things, of being totally in the moment. No wonder Luke loved this sport.

Still, despite her great effort she drifted farther and farther behind the other racers. She just did not have the aggressive edge she needed, the pull-out-all-stops attitude.

She finished the race dead last.

She took off her helmet sheepishly, to find Leo and Luke right there, both of them beaming as though she had won the race instead of lost it.

And that was when Maggie understood. Taking a risk wasn't about winning or losing. It was about living.

She looked at the tenderness and relief in Luke's eyes. He lifted her off that bike and swung her around as if she was light as a feather.

She knew she was ready, finally, to take the greatest risk of all.

His mother arrived, and Billy and Hillary.

“I'd like to take you all to my club for dinner,” his mother announced. “You, too, Leo.”

Maggie sent Luke a private and frantic look. He interpreted it exactly.

“How about if we meet you there?” he asked. His
mother named the time, and he took Maggie's elbow and they ran toward her Volkswagen.

“We'll come back later for my truck and bike,” he said.

“Your place is closer,” she said when he took the downtown Portland route.

“You don't want to meet my new roommate,” he said.

She slugged him playfully on the arm. “Let me guess? Bambi? Tiffany? Star?”

He laughed. “Stinkbomb, Too.” And he told her about his pathetic effort to replace her with a puppy.

They were still laughing when they entered her apartment.

“Have you ever showered with a man, Maggie Mouse?” he asked her softly.

She felt suddenly shy and scared. “No.”

“It's a breeze compared to what you just did out there. Trust me.”

And she realized she did. She trusted him completely, more than she had ever trusted another living soul.