by Cara Colter
The truth was, he didn’t have a clue, and the more he thought about Billy being sad, the more he wished he could be the one to help, to change it, to fix it. Maybe he didn’t have a clue what to do, but he knew someone who did. He thought of the softness of her big hazel eyes. He reminded himself they weren’t going to see each other again.
But this was an emergency!
He looked at the clock, then went down to the phone at the end of the hall and looked up the Children’s Connection phone number.
His heart seemed to be beating way too fast as he waited to be put through.
“Maggie Sullivan.”
She certainly sounded chipper this morning! Why had he assumed she would be as gloomy as he was?
“Maggie Sullivan,” she said again.
“Hi, Maggie.”
There was a long silence, and then she said his name.
He was not sure his name had ever sounded like that before. A breath, a whisper, a prayer.
He wanted to ask her how she felt. How she had slept. If she had thought of him the first thing when she woke up.
But it would be like signing a confession saying how he felt, how he had slept, what he had thought of first thing upon waking.
“Um, Maggie, I have this little problem. I was hoping you could help me with it.” As he explained the situation, he tried to think when the last time was that he had ever asked anyone for help with a problem. It had been a long, long time ago.
He realized, suddenly, and not with good grace, that something had lived within him, ignored and unidentified until this very moment.
Loneliness.
“So,” she repeated back to him what he had just told her, “Billy’s feeling sad this morning, and Hillary thought you could help?”
“That’s right. But I can’t, Maggie. I don’t know what to say. I’m good at joking around. Small talk.” He decided not to tell her his idea about the girl jumping out of the cake. “Can you help me?”
“Do you want me to come?”
The question was posed softly, and yet he felt as if he was a man who had been trapped in the chilly depths of an icy crevasse, who had resigned himself to his fate, and then was suddenly thrown a rope.
He marveled that last night she had told him so firmly she could not see him again, and yet she put that aside instantly when the welfare of a child she didn’t even know was at risk.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I want you to come.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you at the nurses’ station.”
“Thanks, Maggie.”
He hung up the phone and stared at it. He had just called a woman he barely knew and asked her to help him. A woman who had said in no uncertain terms she never wanted to see him again. He should not feel good about that at all.
But he felt okay. He hummed his favorite ditty.
She arrived in ten minutes, five minutes early, precisely the kind of woman he had pegged her for before their “date” last night.
She looked like who she really was today, too. Her lustrous hair was coiled in a neat bun, she had on a slack suit in an uninspiring color that reminded him of porridge. She even had a little pair of granny glasses perched on her nose.
And underneath that was a secret they shared. A kiss that made that outfit such a lie.
He tried to keep that kiss out of his mind as he strolled toward her. He suspected she did, too.
“Thanks for coming.” He felt as if he was looking beyond the glasses to the richness of her eyes. He could imagine the hair spinning down over her shoulders, wondered what kind of underwear she had on.
It occurred to him it might have been a mistake to call her.
But that feeling didn’t last. In a few moments, he knew she had been exactly the right person to call.
They went together into Billy’s room. He was lying with his back to the door and them, looking very small and fragile under the blanket.
“Hi, Billy,” he said.
“I don’t feel like racing wheelchairs today, Luke.”
“That’s okay. I don’t either. I brought you some breakfast.”
“Thanks.” But Billy did not turn toward them.
“I wanted to introduce you to a friend of mine,” Luke said.
Billy turned, the whole cocoon of his blanket turning with him.
Maggie went forward and put out her hand, forcing him to emerge from under the blanket to take it.
“I’m Maggie Sullivan.”
“Billy Harmon.”
She pulled up a chair and sat down, leaning forward, her hand cupped under her chin. “This is a lousy place to spend a gorgeous July day,” she said.
“I have cancer,” Billy said without preamble.
Luke tried to think whether Billy had ever told him he had cancer. He didn’t think so. It had been one of the nurses or Billy’s parents who had told him.
“What kind?” she asked softly, her voice soothing.
The floodgates opened. Billy told her what kind, and how long he’d been fighting it. Luke was astounded to know this poor kid had been in and out of the hospital since he was twelve years old. He’d lost all his hair. His friends treated him differently. His mom cried all the time.
And Luke had been wheelchair racing with him?
Then the boy was crying. Big racking sobs that Luke could feel inside his own body. He eyed the door, but he could see Maggie being so brave. She took the boy’s hand.
He eyed the door once more, heard Nurse Nightmare in his mind telling him to require more of himself, and he went to the other side of the bed. He took Billy’s other hand.
“Luke, I don’t want you to see me crying,” Billy choked. “Guys like you don’t cry, do they?”
He thought of his life. Had he deliberately made it into an emotional wasteland, where there were no tears because there was absolutely nothing worth crying about? “Hey. Everybody cries.”
“Do you?”
He felt as close to it at the moment as he had felt for years, so it was no lie when he said, “Yeah.”
“When?”
Hell. But he suddenly remembered something. “When I was about your age I had a dog. My mom hated her. Said she made our house smell bad, and that there was dog hair on the furniture. One day I came home from school, and no more Stinkbomb.”
“You named your dog Stinkbomb?” Billy asked, and the first wisp of a grin flitted across his face.
This was more like it! “And for obvious reasons,” Luke said. “That dog could—” He suddenly remembered Maggie. “Uh, let’s just say the dog was an impressive performer in the stink department.”
“So, your Mom was right?” Maggie asked. “The dog made the house smell bad?”
Luke frowned. He had never once in his life considered the possibility that his mother might have been right about anything. Had the dog really made life that uncomfortable for other people?
The problem with a girl like Maggie was she might make you look at your whole life from a different, deeper, more mature perspective. And who wanted to do that?
“You cried when Stinkbomb went missing?” Billy asked.
“Like a baby.” He didn’t add that then he’d gone out on a stolen motorbike and had his first extremely impressive wreck. He’d broken his leg in four places.
But the admission that Luke had a softer side seemed to ease something in Billy. He looked at him for a long time, sighed, and then looked away.
“I just feel so scared,” Billy said. “I think I’m going to die.”
Every problem Luke had ever faced suddenly seemed small and insignificant. It seemed like there was nothing meaner in the world than a seventeen-year-old boy facing that kind of fear, a fear no one could help him with, no matter what they said or did.
He wanted to say with false confidence, “Of course you aren’t going to die,” but he didn’t know if it was true, and Maggie caught his eye suddenly, as if she had guessed what he wanted to say. She gave a slight
shake of her head.
“Is there something you would do if you were going to die?” she asked softly.
Billy wiped the tears from his face and nodded solemnly. “I’d make a will. When I try to tell my mom what I want, she goes off the deep end. It’s just little stuff, like to give my kid brother my goldfish and my baseball glove, and to put my paper route money in my sister’s college account.”
“I don’t think those are little things,” Maggie said softly. “Not at all.”
Luke didn’t, either. The kid was thinking of his own death, and he wasn’t thinking of himself—the things he had left to do, the places he wanted to see—he was thinking of the people who loved him.
Luke had another aching feeling that his own life was a wasteland.
“I’d like them to play ‘Amazing Grace’ on the bagpipes at the funeral.” Billy smiled wryly. “Not a single soul, besides you two, even knows I like the bagpipes.”
Luke decided Maggie was the bravest damn woman in the world, because she didn’t flinch from any of that. He was mulling over the discovery that Billy had a brother and sister, and clenching and unclenching his fists behind his back, trying to keep himself from giving in to the emotion that clawed at his throat.
Maggie nodded thoughtfully. “Do you want to write it down and give it to me for safekeeping? Then if the time does come, I’ll know and I’ll look after it for you.”
Luke felt the depth of her courage, and he saw in Billy’s face a truth about Maggie that was worth more than gold. She was a woman a person could trust.
Billy nodded, relief apparent in the lines of his young face. Amazingly, he seemed happier than when they had walked in. “I’ll do that today. I’m going to start right away. Thanks, Maggie. See you later, Luke.”
In the hall, Luke gazed down at Maggie, seeing her in a new light. She was rich and deep and any guy who had named his dog Stinkbomb was probably completely unworthy of her. “What you did in there was great. Thanks.”
“I was glad to help out, Luke.”
“How did you know what to say?”
“I didn’t, really. I just paid attention to my intuition.”
She looked at her watch, gave a little yelp of dismay and moved away rapidly, waving over her shoulder. “I’m late! Bye, Luke.”
So nothing was changed. She still thought it was best they didn’t see each other. Well, maybe she was right. She was the one with the intuition.
Because he had seen things in her eyes in that room that made him understand he was completely unworthy of her. Still, watching her move rapidly away, he wished it could be different.
But then, glancing back at Billy’s room, didn’t he wish all of life could be different?
Maggie decided it had been a dumb thing to answer Luke’s call for help. Not that she regretted helping Billy. In fact, she intended to look in on the boy as often as she could. Catastrophically ill children had special challenges, including feeling guilty about the stress their illness was causing others. So guilty, that they were alone with all their worst fears. She could help Billy with that, and wanted to.
But Luke… He was a different question.
She had awoken this morning with his kiss still searing her lips, a strange and wonderful song singing within her.
Despite the fact she had announced she was never going to see him again, she had felt a delicious sense of well-being this morning.
But wasn’t that why she was taking the Bold and Beautiful seminar? To unlock her capacity for happiness, to move closer to having a fulfilling life? There was another B&B seminar this afternoon, and maybe that was why she had awakened this morning feeling happy and adventurous. Of course, she doubted that was the true reason, a doubt that had been confirmed when Luke called.
Then those lovely tingling feelings had escalated to something near delirium when she had recognized the sexy growl of his voice on the other end of her phone.
It was really what she had least expected. And what did it mean that he had called her about Billy?
That he trusted her, for one.
Trust was a lovely thing, of course, but a long way from what she was feeling for Luke. She had felt it again as soon as she had seen him strolling down the hospital corridor toward her, looking big and buff and self-assured.
That swooning feeling had come over her again, milder than before, thank heavens. And she had been able to block out his presence, for the most part, when she’d talked to Billy.
But afterward she had felt a familiar sensation of weakness, of wanting, and she had practically run away from him on some feeble excuse.
Now, hours later as she sat in her office, Luke August was still the strongest thing on her mind. Obviously, the decision not to see him again had been the right one, given the effect he had on her. But as the day passed, she became less certain in her conviction that she had done the right thing.
Maybe something she learned at the seminar this afternoon would help her know what to do next.
Her secretary came in and studied her thoughtfully.
“Are you okay today, Maggie?”
“Of course. What makes you ask?”
“You kind of have this goofy look on your face.”
“I do?”
“A little funny half smile, as if you know a secret.”
“Nonsense,” she said, wiping any vestiges of a smile from her face.
“And who is Luke?”
“Pardon?” she said on a gasp.
The secretary, Joy, passed her some papers she had worked on that morning. In each space where she should have written a name on a contract, only the surname was correct.
The first name she had inserted was Luke!
“Isn’t that silly?” she muttered, grabbing back the papers. “I’ll redo these tomorrow.”
Joy smiled at her. “I shouldn’t have said you look goofy. You actually look nice. Kind of radiant. The way my cousin looked for a year or so after she got married. Have you met a guy, then?”
Maggie stammered but Joy gave her no time to reply.
“I hope you have. Nobody in this whole office ever knew what you saw in Mr. Booths, believe me. And just for the record, you didn’t deserve what he did to you, but you were darned lucky he did do it to you. Imagine being married to him.”
She shut the door and left Maggie sitting there with her cheeks burning. No one had ever really discussed her relationship with Darnel Booths.
Or at least not in front of her.
He had been a fellow social worker. A nice guy, devoted to his work, not spectacular in any way. Maggie had been attracted to the fact he was solid and reliable. They had dated and somehow evolved into a couple. When he had asked her to marry him, she had been so excited. Planning the wedding had been so much fun.
He had not shown up at the church.
There she had stood in her long white dress waiting, along with four bridesmaids, a flower girl, a ring bearer, a best man, a hundred and three guests and a minister.
Sometimes she wondered how she had survived the embarrassment, the humiliation. Sometimes she knew she had not survived, not completely.
For a part of her had died. She had chosen Darnel partially because he had seemed like the safest of men. Predictable and ordinary, just like her.
He had called her from Mexico that night, filled with remorse, not sure what had happened. The church had been a left turn, and he had made a right. He’d gone to the airport and used one of their honeymoon tickets, boarded the flight they were supposed to be on together to the Mayan Riviera. It was cold feet with a vengeance.
He was sorry. He could never make it up to her. And no, he did not want her to join him, and no, he wasn’t coming back.
From time to time she got postcards from her “predictable and ordinary man” from the snorkeling school he was now employed at in Manzanillo, Mexico. He was sorry. He was happy. He was sorry he was happy.
In retrospect, it had been a blessing. She realized now she had been more
excited about planning the wedding—her perfect fairy-tale day—than she had ever been about Darnel.
The whole fiasco had been more than three years ago. Time to get over it. But somehow she knew you never quite got over something like that.
And if you couldn’t trust a man like Darnel, it begged the question whom you could trust.
Luke August? That seemed unlikely. She was acting like a love-struck teen and she knew it. Doodling his name all over official documents.
Even thinking of him now and trying to fight her thoughts, only seemed to intensify them. She should seek him out, without his knowing, just look at him, study him in the light of what Darnel had done to her. That should help her take away the larger-than-life image she was carrying around.
That was what she’d do. She’d take a casual walk through his ward on her way to the Bold and Beautiful seminar.
Gathering up her purse, she said goodbye to Joy, her heart hammering in her throat as if she was being sent on a spy mission into deepest, darkest Afghanistan.
On his ward she found out through some cloak-and-dagger work that would have done him proud, that Luke was at a physiotherapy session.
It was a perfect setup. The physio room had mirror windows into the hallway. Maggie stood there and watched.
She tried to think of Darnel.
But she could not hold the thought of Luke and another man in her mind at the same time.
Luke was dressed in a muscle shirt and shorts. His skin was absolutely gorgeous, copper silk stretched taut over well-formed muscle.
At the instructions of his therapist he was doing chin lifts on a bar.
“We’ve got to build the strength in your upper back before we can send you back to work. And you’re not going back to work until you can pump out twenty-five of those.” Maggie listened as he was given instructions, her eyes glued on him.
His face was set in fierce lines of concentration.
She counted with him, fascinated by the play of muscle. The first few chin lifts went smoothly, almost effortlessly, not even his facial expression changing.