by Cara Colter
“I hadn’t got that far,” Maggie admitted. It occurred to her that if she played pool at Morgan’s in this itty-bitty red dress the male heat in the place would probably set off the sprinkler system.
“I have an idea,” Tracey said.
Maggie wondered if this funny freckle-faced girl was some sort of little angel sent to guide her through the pitfalls of trying to heal old wounds, find her inner woman, and just incidentally, get a man interested in her.
“It’s just a suggestion, but have you heard of Heavenly Cup? The coffee and dessert bar?”
“I’ve walked by it a zillion times. I’ve never gone in.”
“From the street you can’t tell that they have this divine outdoor area with potted plants and trees, all lit up with white lights at night. It’s right on the banks of the river. Tonight they’re having a classical guitar concert on the patio. My boyfriend is playing, so I happen to be selling tickets. Inexpensive, so it balances out the dress. You can go and have coffee and dessert, and listen to the most beautiful music for under twenty bucks a person. And it does look like it’s going to be a gorgeous night.”
It did look like that. And Maggie had an absolute weakness for the classical guitar. But Luke at a classical guitar concert?
Well, why not?
She had moved into his arena last night, eating hamburgers and playing pool. Why not invite him to a place where she would feel comfortable?
A dessert bar! An evening of eating desserts was probably not the perfect date for a girl with way too much hip.
On the other hand, this dress did magical things to her hips, and there was always a little extra NoWait!
Maggie took a deep breath and dug back into her wallet. “Two tickets, please.”
Tracey giggled. “I’m going to be there. I always try to watch Kenneth perform. But I can’t wait to see you walk in with the guy you think is worth that dress.”
Maggie laughed. This whole little interlude had seemed like the most pleasant and wonderful of adventures.
Is that what happened when you began to live your life more fully? When you went after what you wanted? When you tried to erase self-doubt?
She gathered her packages. “See you there,” she said with breezy confidence that felt so good. But by the time she reached her car, her confidence was flagging.
Well, maybe she wouldn’t see Tracey there, after all. She hadn’t even asked Luke yet. It dawned on her he had the option of saying no. What if he had other plans?
Maggie, she told herself, the man is in the hospital. What other plans could he have?
He looked as if he might be one of those guys who was fanatical about sports. What if there was an important baseball game on TV? A baseball fan herself, she mentally reviewed the schedule, but couldn’t remember a game of any importance. What if he just plain didn’t want to go?
I am simply not accepting no for an answer, she thought, climbing into her car and stowing her packages behind the seat. That was part of the self-doubt, thinking she wasn’t good enough for him, that somehow he was used to a different kind of woman and she didn’t have a chance.
He had phoned her this morning, not the other way around. He was the one who had reopened a closed book. He was the one who had tangled their lives together just a little more deeply.
He still could have other plans, she told herself with a moan.
But as inexperienced as she was around men, Maggie knew one thing. All she had to do was show up at the hospital in that dress. If he had other plans, he’d change them.
It would take a bigger man than Luke August to resist her.
She giggled self-consciously. Good Lord. Maggie Sullivan playing the siren. The truth was she could hardly wait. And so she decided she would not phone and forewarn him; she would just show up in the dress and let it do its magic.
Hours later, she stepped out of her car in front of Portland General. Male heads turned as she sashayed up the walk. A nice man nearly tripped over himself trying to get to the door fast enough to open it for her.
The dress was summer itself—fun and sultry, playful and promising. It made her feel like a different person, outgoing and bold and carefree.
She discovered Luke in the TV room at the end of his hall, but he was unaware of her. Coming toward him, she could see he had on a plaid housecoat and slippers, and was leaning toward the TV, chin in hands, intently regarding the screen.
Her footsteps slowed as she regarded the picture he made. Aside from the fact that he looked like he could be doing the Christmas layout for GQ, it was a cozy picture of a man at home, relaxed, content with his life. Sunday morning. Newspapers scattered around, an old dog at his feet, a fire crackling in a hearth, the smell of bacon cooking.
But she already knew Luke August to be the man least likely to enjoy a relaxing moment in his housecoat and slippers.
Even so, the picture remained. In the background she almost heard the crackle of the bacon sizzling in the pan and the laughter of children at play.
Children? Oh God, she could not think of children and this man! Though Children’s Connection had a fertility department, and Maggie knew there were many ways to make children these days, everyone tried the old-fashioned way first! If she let her mind wander too far down that road—making children the old-fashioned way with Luke August—she’d probably swoon again.
Despite her every effort not to think of Luke and children, in her mind’s eye, green-eyed little boys with dark hair and freckles and grins full of mischief and liveliness materialized.
Maggie felt like a fraud. How could she go to Luke in a dress like this, when she harbored a dream like that in the back of her mind? A dream she hadn’t even acknowledged she had, a dream of domestic bliss and contentment that Luke August, certified daredevil, would never fit into?
Trying to banish the green-eyed children, and with her heart in her throat, Maggie turned to walk away before he caught sight of her.
“Hey.”
Too late. The red dress had worked against her and must have caught his attention. She turned slowly back to him.
He looked at her, shook his head and then looked again. He got to his feet and stared at her. If they were sharing that cozy little scene of her imagination, from the smoldering look in his green eyes, there would be some burned bacon and children sent out to the yard to play.
“Maggie,” he croaked.
She had to get a hold of herself. She could not allow the boundaries of fantasy and reality to melt together.
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 t
he 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.