The Greatest Risk

by Cara Colter

  After the class, Maggie was trying to scramble over bodies to get out of there, but Dr. Richie calling her name stopped her mid-flight.

  “Miss Sullivan, could I have a moment?” When Maggie arrived at the front, the doctor looked at her warmly. “Maggie, I wanted to thank you for your trust in me the other day. I was deeply honored by it.”

  “Oh.” She now found the fact she had turned to him embarrassing.

  “You seem more yourself again tonight,” he said warmly. “I watched you come in. Your step was lighter. That sparkle is back in your eyes.”

  Maggie was a little taken aback that anybody paid that much attention to her. She only hoped he hadn’t noticed her and Kristen rudely yakking through much of his presentation.

  “Is your personal life, er, back on track?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She supposed that would depend on how the homework assignment went.

  “Well, good. I mean it’s not good that you don’t know if your personal life is back on track, but it is good that you’re not dwelling on it.”

  She had done nothing but dwell on it!

  “He’s not worthy of you.”

  “How do you know?” Maggie asked.

  Dr. Richie looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Just a guess,” he said breezily. “Anyway, on to other things. You know, tonight’s homework was to take a risk, and what kind of leader would I be if I didn’t follow my own advice?”

  When Maggie didn’t answer, he chuckled uncomfortably, fitted a finger between his necktie and his collar and gave a little tug.

  “So, this is my risk,” he said nervously. “Would you like to go out for dinner one night? And maybe to the opera after?”

  Maggie stared at him, flabbergasted. A few months ago—no, even days ago—it would have seemed like an invitation from heaven.

  Dr. Richie was handsome and articulate and successful.

  And tonight all those qualities paled when she compared them to the qualities of another man.

  A man who was afraid to love her.

  A man who had given a young man with very little to hope for a day of carefree joy.

  A man who took great risks all the time. But the greatest risk of all? Never.

  “Dr. Richie,” she said gently, “thank you for asking. I am deeply flattered. But no.”

  He looked stunned, as if he couldn’t believe she had refused him, and she hurried away from him and out the door where Kristen was waiting with avid interest.

  “What did he want?”

  “He asked me out,” Maggie said. Both she and Kristen turned when a woman hovering near the coffee table gasped audibly.

  Maggie thought the woman’s name was Carolyn or maybe Carrie but she wasn’t quite sure. The woman was lovely, but very quiet. She kept to herself and didn’t participate in the class at all.

  Maggie saw she had knocked over a coffee cup, which would explain the gasp. She smiled sympathetically, and then returned her attention to Kristen.

  “Seriously? Dr. Richie asked you out?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Isn’t that a bit unethical? I mean he’s the leader of the class.”

  “I don’t know, Kristen. He’s a doctor but we’re not his patients.”

  “You went to him for advice.”

  “I hardly think that makes me a client.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Kristen said, then shrugged. “So what’s your risk going to be, Maggie?”

  But Maggie wasn’t telling anyone that. She was not even sure she had admitted it to herself yet.

  “Oooh,” Kristen said with wicked approval, just as if Maggie had said her most private thoughts out loud.

  Eight

  “Hi,” Luke said. His eyes were a smoky shade of green, intent on her face. His voice was deep and low and welcoming. He leaned against the jamb of his outside door, his arms folded across his chest. His arms were gorgeous in the fading light, sleek and muscular. He was wearing a simple white T-shirt and dark blue denims that hung low off his hips.

  In that simple greeting, Maggie’s self-doubt was, finally, erased.

  Maggie knew she had done the right thing by coming here, to that address she had memorized out of the phone book just as surely as she had the phone number.

  And she knew also she had done the right thing by coming as she was—not in a porridge-colored pantsuit, and not in a red dress, but in the same comfy stretchy jeans she had worn to see Billy and to the seminar.

  Tonight, she had come to him as herself.

  “Hi,” she said back.

  As she went up the walkway toward the welcome in his eyes, she had a sensation of homecoming, as if they both could fight this thing as hard and as long as they wanted, but in the end they belonged together in some way she did not fully understand.

  “What took you so long?” he asked when she stood before him. He lifted a lock of her hair, and she tilted her chin to look up into his eyes.

  She wondered what had taken her so long to figure it out. Self-doubt she supposed. “You mean to figure out that Amber was fictitious?”

  He shook his head. “No. To get here from wherever you were.”

  “You couldn’t have been expecting me,” she sputtered. “This is a surprise.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you ever since I got the call asking for Amber. Not your voice. A friend?”

  “Not my idea to call,” she said. “Yes, a friend.”

  “I could have said she was here, you know.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I like to live dangerously?”

  She stared him down.

  “Okay. I’m done playing games. What made you guess there was no Amber?”

  “You left a clue with Billy. She’s hanging out in his room now. Literally hanging out—of her jacket.”

  He sighed. “I miss her.”

  Maggie thumped him on the arm. “You do not, you liar.”

  “You better think of that before you walk through this door, Maggie Mouse. I’m a pathological liar, and that is probably the least of my faults.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. So, the risk had paid off. He was not sending her away. He was inviting her in. He wanted her to be here as much as she wanted to be here. He was giving her the option of running, but still inviting her in.

  “Your house isn’t what I expected,” she told him, delaying. She liked it out here on his front stoop. She liked the way he looked and she liked this house, and she didn’t want to rush anything. She wanted to savor each small detail of this encounter.

  He lifted a dark slash of eyebrow at her. “No? What did you expect?”

  “A bachelor pad at one of those complexes with a pool and party room.”

  “Ah. The kind of digs that go well with pathological liars.”

  “Exactly.”

  It felt light and easy between them, as if nothing had ever gone wrong, and as if nothing ever could.

  “Who would have expected Luke August to live in Boring?”

  “Nobody,” he said. “That’s why I live here. Nothing predictable about me. So, are you coming in, Maggie Mouse?”

  “Depends what you have planned, Luke Louse.”

  He laughed and held open the screen for her. “I deserved that. And I have no agenda. I was watching a ball game and planning to make some popcorn.”

  “My idea of a good time,” she said, and meant it. “I love baseball.”

  He shot her a swift sidelong look. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “The woman of my dreams,” he muttered.

  She could only hope. The inside of the house was as surprising as the outside. She was not sure what she had expected—some sign, she supposed, of a lifestyle in keeping with a great-looking single guy.

  Instead, the house was plain and neat. There was no black leather and chrome, no dimmer switches on the lights, no expensive stereo system.

  A huge TV was the predominant piece of furniture in his livi
ng room. It was on, the Angels up to bat in the bottom of the ninth. There was a couch that looked as if it had never been sat on, and a recliner chair that was worn nearly right through its leather covering.

  “You want some popcorn?” he asked. “And a soda?”

  “Yes.” She followed him through to his kitchen. Again, everything was neat and tidy, but devoid of feminine touches.

  Not only was Amber not in residence, unless she was mistaken this had been a male sanctuary for a long, long time.

  The strangest thing was that Maggie felt as though she should be uncomfortable. She was chasing a man who had spurned her. She was bearding the lion in his den.

  And yet, as she took the popcorn from him, and laughed as he liberally poured the melted butter on it, she was aware of feeling comfortable, her sensation of homecoming deepening.

  He carried the popcorn through to the living room, she the soda. A moment later they were sitting shoulder to shoulder on his couch.

  “Don’t worry about the butter, Maggie Mouse.”

  “I wasn’t going to. Did you see that catch in centerfield?”

  They laughed and talked and exchanged baseball info as the game wound down. Then it was over. The popcorn was gone, and so were the drinks. It was a weeknight and she knew it would be sensible to go.

  But, frankly, she was tired of always being sensible.

  Luke, of course, was probably rarely sensible. “So,” he said, settling his back onto the arm of the sofa and stretching his legs out so that his toes tickled her thighs. “Tell me everything.”

  “Like?”

  “Were you a brainiac in school?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.” It was quite hard to focus with his toes playing chopsticks on her pant leg. “Chess club, debate team. No date for the prom.”

  “Boys at that age are very shallow.”

  “They change?”

  “Yes!”

  “I’d believe you if I hadn’t seen Amber firsthand.”

  He had the grace to grin a bit sheepishly. “I bet you had a pet goldfish.”

  “Three of them. And you had the dog that disappeared.”

  “Yeah. Do you think that has something to do with me not wanting to get close to people? My mother thinks so. I had lunch with her today.”

  Now, who would have ever imagined Luke was the kind of guy who had lunch with his mother? In a flash the conversation had gone from lighthearted to serious, and she felt him reaching out to her, trusting her.

  “I do think you might have a few trust issues.”

  “You can still run, Maggie.” His toes had stopped moving.

  She picked up his foot and set it in her lap. She stripped off the sock and ran her hand over the tenderness of his instep.

  “Maggie, don’t do that. I haven’t had a wink of sleep for twenty-four hours, and if I get any more relaxed, I’m a goner.” Unless she was mistaken, Luke August’s eyes were very heavy.

  “I have a few trust issues of my own,” she admitted, gently kneading the bottom of his foot with her knuckles.

  “Yeah, I heard.” His words were ever so slightly slurred with sleepiness.

  “What?” she gasped.

  “Hospital gossip. Sorry, sweetie. I know all about your sordid past.”

  “Like what?”

  “I know you got left standing at the church.”

  “Oh!”

  “Don’t say it like that, as if it has anything to do with you. Because it doesn’t. It was all about him. And just for your information, if I ever see him, I’m going to rearrange his face.”

  She laughed unsteadily. “You don’t even know his name.”

  “Yes, I do.” His eyes were closed now, his foot totally relaxed in her lap. And yet there was no mistaking the absolute danger in what he was saying.

  A man talking about rearranging another man’s face was totally barbaric, if you thought about it logically. But Maggie did not feel the least logical. In fact, Luke’s protectiveness of her struck her as being very romantic.

  “You want to tell me about him?” he asked. Again, she heard the faint slur of a very, very tired man.

  “I don’t think so,” she said softly. Darnel seemed like something that had happened to another person, on another planet, in another time. All she felt toward Darnel at the moment was extreme gratitude—that some instinct in him had warned him not to settle, had warned him something was missing.

  He had left her in an awkward position, but not nearly as awkward as it would have been if she met someone who made her heart sing as Luke did and she had already said “I do” to the wrong man.

  “Okay. Then tell me everything else. Your favorite song, and your favorite flower, and your favorite movie.” His voice was husky.

  “Okay.” She told him. His eyes remained closed, as if he was listening with intent enjoyment.

  But as she was describing her favorite scene from Shakespeare In Love, a very gentle sound escaped from his lips. Stunned, she stared at him. Sure enough, his chest was rising and falling with deep regularity.

  Had he gone to sleep?

  “Luke?” she said tentatively.

  He sputtered, and his hand reached for hers. She let go of his foot and reached back. When she took his hand, he tugged her into the wall of his chest. Wrapping his arms solidly around her, he buried his nose in her hair, sighed and snored.

  She lay there, stiffly, in the circle of his arms.

  This could only happen to her! She’d put the man of her dreams to sleep. It was horrible. It was insulting.

  It was the story of her life.

  But was there another way of looking at it? Luke was completely at ease with her. He trusted her. And given he was a man with a few trust issues, that might be every bit as important as passion.

  Still, if she had an ounce of pride, she would get up and leave. But if her choice was between being proud and alone, or humble and with him, she was taking humble.

  She relaxed. She placed her cheek on his chest, and her hand on the hollow of his stomach. She remembered, from once before when they had lain on top of each other, the solid and enticing strength of him.

  She felt the steady rise and fall of his breathing and she felt strangely contented. Her own eyes felt heavy. She would just close them for a moment, and then she would find a blanket and cover him, tiptoe out the door and lock it behind her.

  But somehow, perhaps because his hand found her hair and stroked it absently and dreamily, she never did get back up.

  Luke woke at first light, felt the sweet weight of Maggie curled into him.

  He’d fallen asleep on her! He couldn’t believe it. It was probably a sign of aging and too many injuries.

  But he had been up for more than twenty-four hours without sleeping when she had showed up at his door. In his weakened state he had been happy to see her. In his weakened state he had been unable to send her away.

  But now he’d had sleep, and he still felt weakened—by the nearness of her, by her softness and her scent.

  She looked like hell, her hair messed, her light makeup smudged, her mouth agape, her clothes crumpled.

  She looked adorable.

  And like she was going to have one hell of a kink in her neck when she woke up.

  He lifted her. She stirred but did not wake, and her weight in his arms was sweet and warm. She snuggled deeper into him, and he made his way down the hallway to his bedroom. He laid her gently between the sheets of his unmade bed and gazed down at her.

  There had never been a woman in this bed. Or this house. He gazed at her for a moment longer, and then realized he felt sticky and rumpled. He grabbed a pair of gym shorts out of his bureau, changed, went into the kitchen and picked up the phone.

  There was a square on the wall, where Amber used to be, that was darker than the rest of the wall.

  “Should have used acrylic,” he said.

  “Acrylic?” Brian asked, amazed.

  “Uh, sorry, partner. I’m not going to be in agai
n today. Are you managing all right?”

  “Yeah, fine, but are you okay? Is everything okay?”

  “Never better.”

  “It’s a girl,” Brian said dryly. “I just knew it.”

  Luke went back to the bedroom, pulled back the comforter on the other side of the bed and slid in.

  He turned on his side so he could look at her, lifted the richness of her hair and sifted it through his fingers. He sighed and pulled her body into his.

  And then he slept.

  Luke was startled awake by a feminine cry, high and panicked, way too close to his ear. Cautiously, he opened one eye.

  He was never going to figure Maggie Mouse out. Somehow, he might as well just resign himself to that fact. He had thought she might be pleased to see him first thing in the morning.

  Despite being woken by a shriek to the look of dazed panic on her face, he still felt pleasure waking up beside her. Which, given that none of the normal things had transpired between them, he found rather astonishing.

  Maggie’s eyes skittered over him, then skittered away. She shut them tight, then opened them again as if she hoped to see a different set of scenery on her second try. When she didn’t, another little mouselike squeak came from her.

  “Hey,” he said, “it’s okay. It’s me.”

  “I know it’s you,” she said. “I’m not sure that makes it okay.”

  She pulled the blanket up to her chin, had a second thought and peeped cautiously under it.

  “Fully clothed,” he told her dryly.

  “I am. But you don’t appear to be.”

  He was amazed, and just a little pleased she had noticed that in her quick glimpse under the blankets.

  “In deference to your unexpected presence in my bed, I do have on a pair of shorts.”

  She blushed crimson.

  “Not that kind,” he said patiently. “Running shorts.”

  “It’s the unexpected part that I’d like you to expand on,” she said primly, as if his short attire was of no interest to her whatsoever. She had no idea how transparent she was. He had seen that she was mightily relieved about his clothing.

  “I usually sleep nude,” he informed her just to watch the crimson on her face deepen. He leaned up on one elbow to get a better look at the phenomenon.