by Cara Colter
She actually was blushing a charming shade of crimson, something Amber did not do, and would not do when he finally found her.
“Never mind,” she said, and tossed her hair. “That was a silly thing to say. I don’t know what got into me.”
It was the wrong kind of hair for him. Since Amber, he liked redheads, and not necessarily real redheads, either. But that self-conscious toss had drawn his eye. Miss Priss’s hair was an intriguing shade somewhere between corn silk and ripening wheat.
Considering it wasn’t the type of hair he went for, at all, he found it odd that he suddenly wanted to touch it. “We could,” he said, “go out.”
Her green-blue eyes got very big. Amber would have licked her lips and let her eyes travel suggestively down his hospital gown, but hers didn’t.
“Maggie, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what Nurse Nightmare called you?” He was helping her along, giving her an opportunity to flirt, but she was obviously terrible at this. She was looking everywhere but at him.
“Maggie Sullivan,” she confirmed reluctantly. “But really, never mind.”
“Go out?” he prodded her. “Like for a drink or something?”
“Oh. No. I mean I don’t drink.”
Hell’s bells, this was getting worse by the moment. Amber would drink. Get on the tables and sway her hips and lick her lips when she’d had a few too many.
And he’d be the one who got to bring her home.
“So, what did you mean, then, go out?”
“I thought maybe a movie…or something,” she said lamely.
Worse than he thought. A movie, which meant the big debate. Do you hold her hand? Put your arm over her shoulder? When was the last time going out had meant that to him?
He thought he’d been twelve.
“Did you have a particular movie in mind?” Mind. Had he lost his? Maggie Sullivan was not his kind.
On the other hand, his search for Amber was proving futile. Why not entertain himself until she came along? Maggie was the kind of girl who had always snubbed him in high school, the kind of girl lost behind too many books in her arms, not amused by being tripped by his big foot sticking out in the hall.
Miss Goody Two Shoes and the Wild Boy.
Life had been getting a little dull. Why not play a bit? She’d asked, not him. She’d started it. If she wanted to play with fire, why not accommodate her?
“I had heard Lilacs in Spring was good, but—”
Lilacs in Spring. He was willing to bet it was all about sappy stuff, no motorcycles or pool tables in the script. Kissing. Romance. Eye-gazing. Hand-holding. Fields full of flowers. Mushy music. In other words, the big yuck.
The type of movie he and Amber would not go to, ever.
“Meet me right here, at say, eight?” he said. “We could catch the late show.”
“Aren’t you in the hospital?”
“Did you ever see the movie Escape from Alcatraz?”
“No.”
That figures. “Everything’s way more fun when you’re not supposed to do it,” he explained, attempting to be patient with her. “I loved playing hooky as a kid. There are things a man misses about being a kid.”
He could tell she just wanted to turn and run. She had never gone out with the kind of guy who liked playing hooky, not in her entire life. Instead she yanked her skirt down one more time, lifted her chin and said, “Eight o’clock it is.”
She scurried away and he watched her, amused. “I bet I’ll never see her again,” he said out loud. Just the same, he knew he would be waiting here at eight o’clock just in case Miss Maggie Sullivan decided to surprise him one more time.
Something hit him hard in the knees and he turned around. Billy Harmon grinned at him from his wheelchair. His bald head was covered with the baseball cap Luke had given him yesterday.
The kid just tugged at his heartstrings, a surprise to Luke, since he liked to deny the existence of a heart.
“Hey, Billy, you escaped Nurse Nightmare. Good man!”
“Luke, I got two rolls of toilet paper. You want to do something with me?” Billy leaned forward, his eyes alight with glee as he laid out his plan for laying a toilet-paper trail all the way from Nurse Nightmare’s private bathroom facilities to the men’s locked ward.
Luke scanned the boy’s face, looking for signs of weariness, but there were none. That nurse had been right, he wasn’t a doctor. But he knew mischief could be a tonic, especially for a kid who knew way too much about the hard side of life. In Luke’s evaluation, Billy needed his mind taken off the bleak realities he faced everyday, and that wasn’t going to happen if he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling.
“I’m in,” Luke said, picking his wheelchair up off the floor. He inspected it for damage, found none and settled himself in the seat. He followed Billy’s example and hooked the toilet paper roll on the back push grip where it began to unroll merrily behind him.
But the whole time he laid his toilet paper trail down the hall, Luke August was uneasily aware that he was thinking of eyes that were an astonishing shade of blue and green, not the least little bit like Amber’s.
He tried to imagine if those eyes would be laughing or disapproving if she was watching him right now.
Who cares? he asked himself roughly.
He realized he did. And that maybe he was the one who needed to be thinking long and hard before he showed up in that hospital foyer at eight tonight.
Two
Luke caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of the hospital front doors, and felt satisfied with what he had accomplished. He was wearing the green overalls and the white-bill cap of a hospital custodian.
“Evenin’, Doc,” he greeted his own doctor as she hurried by him out of the building. She was an Amazon of a woman, in her mid-fifties, but they were on a first-name basis, and she had that gleam in her eye whenever she saw him. What could he say? It was a gift.
But tonight she barely glanced his way. “Good night,” she said politely.
It wasn’t just that she hadn’t recognized him. It was as if he was invisible. People leaving the hospital as the end of visiting hours approached bustled by him in the main foyer with nary a glance, returning his casual greetings without really seeing him.
Invisible. Exactly the effect he had been attempting when he had raided the maintenance closet on his floor. Luke swabbed the floor with his mop and congratulated himself on his ease with the art of disguise. He liked trying on other personas and slipped into them easily.
He would have made an excellent spy or undercover cop, he thought. He realized he probably would have excelled in a career in acting. In fact, he had entertained the idea of becoming an actor after one successful role in a high school production. A girlfriend had talked him into playing Hook in Peter Pan and he had gotten a great deal of mileage out of telling his upscale and very conservative parents he planned to hit Hollywood upon graduation. He could not find a single other career choice that his parents disapproved of as heartily as that one, which was guaranteed to get a rise out of them both.
His eventual choice, a career in construction, had certainly proven to be a close enough second in the disapproval rating. Nevertheless, he hadn’t looked back.
“Manly, too,” he muttered to himself of his career choice. Now, though, he enjoyed being in character, an eccentric floor cleaner who muttered and swabbed. No one watching would be even remotely aware that Luke kept a surreptitious eye on the front door.
“Visiting hours are now over,” the tinny voice over the public address system announced officiously.
Luke glanced at the clock, confirming what he had just heard. Eight o’clock, on the dot.
“Big surprise,” Luke said to his washtub, giving the mop a vigorous wring. “Miss Maggie Sullivan, an on-the-dot kind of gal if there ever was one, is not coming.”
After his weak moment this afternoon, when he had caught himself actually caring what Miss Maggie would think of a grown man unraveling toilet
paper down a hospital corridor, Luke had arrived at the conclusion that he was not going out with her. There was something dangerous brewing under the surface of that pristine exterior.
Still, as the hands of the clock had ticked closer and closer to eight, curiosity, that worst of male vices, had gotten the better of him.
He’d found everything he needed in the maintenance closet on his floor, including a name tag that said Fred. It was really the best of both worlds—he got to see if she showed up without being the least bit vulnerable himself.
Really, Luke told himself, it was as if he was studying human nature, nothing more. He wanted to see how accurately he had judged her character, and now he congratulated himself on his astuteness.
He’d surmised Miss Maggie had never asked a man out before in her life. He had predicted she would get cold feet.
Okay, he might have also been just a tiny bit curious what she would have worn had he happened to be wrong.
But he wasn’t. He looked at the clock again. Three minutes after eight. If she was coming, he would have bet his last fifty cents she would have been here at precisely five minutes to eight. She was not the kind of woman who would be late. He knew these things. He should have let Billy in on it. They could have bet five bucks, though it would have been a shame to take Billy’s money.
Just underneath the hearty round of congratulations he was giving himself as he wrung out the mop one final time and prepared to go back to his room, Luke became aware of something besides self-congratulation stirring in his breast.
He realized he was wringing the mop just a little too vigorously, the handle bending dangerously under the pressure he was applying. He paused and analyzed the unwanted feeling that hovered at the edges of his consciousness. Could it be?
Disappointment?
No! He would never be disappointed because a little mouse like that had stood him up! Or if he was, it was only because he had gone to a great deal of trouble to be able to have a front-row seat to her reaction to being stood up by him.
He felt the cool draft of the front door opening, and out of the corner of his eye caught a flutter of movement. He turned his head marginally, froze, then ducked his head and began mopping again. He slid another glance out of the corner of his eye.
Her.
He waltzed the bucket around so he was facing her, but kept the bill of his cap down. He peered at her from under it and digested the fact the little mouse, Miss Maggie, had managed to surprise him again.
She had not been five minutes early. And she was not a no-show, either.
Maggie Sullivan stood, a trifle uncertainly, scanning the foyer. The outfit was worth waiting for. It was evident she had worked very hard at choosing it, and had arrived at a look that was not in the least overstated, and that was certainly not designed to impress anyone. Still, there was no denying the way those plain black trousers, flared faintly from knee to ankle, hugged the lovely feminine swell of hip that had caused her so much trouble earlier in the day. She had on a light-brown suede jacket over a black T-shirt that promised to be formfitting if he ever had an opportunity to get a better look at it.
He remembered the soft press of that form just a little too well.
“Brilliant,” he muttered at the murky water in his bucket. The girl was obviously brilliant. She had chosen an outfit designed to make it look as though she was not trying to impress anyone, least of all not him, and that had succeeded in intriguing, nonetheless.
It was not an Amber-approved outfit. No cleavage or glimpses of underwear were to be seen, but it was a long way from the Miss Priss he had knocked right off her feet this afternoon. Her blond hair was free and cascaded down over her shoulders in a shiny wave. He felt that same rebel need to touch it that he had felt this afternoon.
He tried to read her features, but the little tilt of her delicate nose, the furrow at her brow and the quick glance at her watch were not all that readable.
Was she disappointed that he hadn’t showed? He was amazed that he couldn’t tell. She glanced at her watch, took another look around, then spun on her heel. He thought maybe he had caught a quick glimpse of something on her face before she had turned away. Relief?
That Luke appeared not to have shown up? That seemed unlikely, especially since she herself had gone to the trouble of getting here.
Still, she was leaving. Would she give up that quickly? He had been at his station, a patient patient, for a full half hour.
Wait. Her shoulders slumped marginally as she pushed at the door. In that one small gesture he read a heartrending weariness at the ways of the world, and at the callousness of his sex.
He was not the kind of guy who could be trusted with a girl who got hurt easily, and he was the least likely guy to save his sex from a reputation of being callous. In fact, he had probably personally helped his gender gain that reputation!
Nope, Luke August knew himself inside out. He was superficial and insensitive, and for the most part, damned proud of it.
Let her go, his voice of reason cautioned him.
“Hey, Maggie.” It was his other voice.
She spun, startled, and scanned the room again. Her eyes rested on him briefly, studied the empty foyer, and then returned to him, understanding dawning in them.
He rested his hands on the top of the mop, pushed the bill of his cap up with the handle and grinned.
She stared at him, her hand still on the door. It occurred to him that she was considering bolting, and that he would be sorry if she did. But then she let go of her grip on the door, turned, folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot.
In that pose, she reminded him of a teacher he’d had in the sixth grade. A formidable woman whom he had not liked one little bit. Why hadn’t he just let her leave?
That’s what I told you to do, the voice of reason reminded him churlishly.
It occurred to him that underneath that stern expression, Maggie was trying not to smile. But the smile flickered across her lips, disappeared and then reappeared again, the sun peeping in and out of rain clouds.
The sun won, and that smile changed everything.
Cameron Diaz, eat your heart out, Luke thought. Maggie Sullivan’s smile was wide and infectious. She had glossed her lips some kind of soft, shimmery shade of peach, and he saw the kissable plumpness of her lower one. In the blink of an eye that smile transformed her from an old-maid schoolmarm to a woman who looked young and carefree and quite astoundingly beautiful.
Not beautiful in the Amber way, all painted and promising seduction. Beautiful in quite a different way, natural and graceful, like a doe pausing in a meadow.
He noticed the smile lit her eyes to a shade that was electric, and she had little crinkles at the edges of them that told him her smile was one hundred percent the real thing.
His eyes were drawn to the plumpness of her bottom lip again. How was it possible he had been in such close proximity to her this afternoon and not noticed how kissable her mouth was? It must be the gloss, because now it seemed he couldn’t focus on anything else as she came across his nicely cleaned floor toward him.
“You’re full of surprises,” she said, stopping, looking up at him through a tangle of thick lashes.
Whoo boy. He was full of surprises? She was the one who was late. And here. And beautiful in some spectacular, understated way he had not appreciated in a woman before. And the biggest surprise of all? Miss Maggie had lips that could be declared dangerous weapons.
“You, too,” he said.
“Me?” She laughed with disbelief and self-consciousness. “Oh, no, I don’t think I’m a surprising kind of person.”
“You’re here,” he pointed out. “That’s a surprise.”
“You didn’t think I’d come?” The smile faded, and with it went the spell of great beauty it had cast. Not that she wasn’t cute enough, if you had the librarian fantasy.
Which he didn’t. Amber in black leather was all the fantasy he needed.
“No, I di
dn’t think you’d come.”
“Oh.”
He noticed how awkward she was, just plain bad at the man-woman interchanges. It was a quality he should not find the least endearing.
But he did, not that it changed anything. Luke August did not date awkward girls. Or ones that were easily hurt. And yet her eyes wouldn’t let him go, beckoned to him, a lighthouse to a ship lost at sea.
“So, er, why did you come? If you thought I wasn’t coming?” she asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “Floor needed mopping?”
“Well, that explains the outfit.”
He suddenly didn’t want her thinking about his outfit for too long. He didn’t want her arriving at the real reason he’d worn the disguise—to spy on her, and then to slip away, unscathed by her smile. It was too late for plan A.
Luke decided to formulate plan B as he went along. “It’s part of my escape plan,” he confided in her. “Nurse Nightmare takes a dim view of her patients ducking out to catch the late show.”
“The late show,” Maggie repeated, as if she had only just remembered why she was here. She looked around uncomfortably, took a deep breath and began talking, the fast chatter of someone who was nervous, or trying very hard to sell a product they didn’t actually believe in.
“Actually, Luke,” she said, “I asked you to go to the movie with me on an impulse.”
“You don’t say?” he said dryly.
She hurried on. “I had decided not to come. But then it seemed so unfair to leave you waiting with no explanation. So I just came to tell you, it’s off. No date.”
He regarded her silently. Well, well, well. Another surprise from Maggie Sullivan. She was brushing him off? It was actually much worse than just plain being stood up. He was not entirely accustomed to this turn of events. He found himself reluctantly intrigued by it, so he folded his hands more firmly over the mop, leaned his chin on the tops of his hands and let her flounder.
“You wouldn’t have liked it, anyway. The movie,” she added hastily as if, left to his own devices, he would have assumed it was something incredibly, indescribably naughty.