Crush

by Crystal Hubbard

  In the morning sunlight, her beauty had drugged him. He knew that he should have gotten the hell out of her room, or at the very least he should have covered her. But he’d been transfixed by the sight of her.

  The sheets were wrapped around her waist and her hair was a shining tangle of sienna on the pillow. Her golden brown skin was perfectly unblemished but for a tiny, heart-shaped birthmark low on her flat abdomen. One of her graceful arms was draped over her pillow, the other rested across her middle. Lucas’s eyes had traced every lyrical inch of her neck and collarbones before coming to rest on her breasts. They were small but so exquisitely formed, Lucas yearned to touch them.

  Under his gaze, the plumrose peaks of her breasts pebbled invitingly. Her nude torso was a thing of perfect female beauty—strong, healthy, soft, lovely. From stage light, to candlelight, to moonlight and sunlight, Miranda had grown only more beautiful, and the sight of her had violently aroused him. Even his toes had felt erect. His head had forced his feet to get him out of the room before his heart conspired with the rest of his body to crawl back into the bed and wake her with kisses.

  “Fool!” He shook his hair beneath a swirling jet of water. Bringing her to Conwy had been a huge mistake. Her visit was supposed to make him forget her, not want her that much more. He exited the shower, and it had helped, although now he was so cold and numb that he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. But his fingers and toes weren’t the problem. They weren’t the parts that would betray him once he saw Miranda.

  * * *

  A whirlwind of activity and Bernie’s boisterous presence managed to keep Lucas and Miranda from having to face each other one-on-one, a situation both dreaded given their convoluted feelings regarding the night they had spent together. As they browsed in Harrods, London’s famous Knightsbridge luxury department store, Lucas wondered how he had gotten into so much trouble without having even slept with a woman with whom he’d spent the night.

  Miranda barely noticed her surroundings. She was acutely aware of Lucas and the handsome figure he made in his long, dark wool coat. And the way he picked up things, such as a six-foot tall teddy bear and a diamond-studded choker, to ask her if she liked them. She was scared to say yes, for fear that he would buy them for her.

  She showed a spark of interest in a Manchester United sweatshirt. She fingered the cuff and collar, looked at the price tag, then moved on to a display of men’s underpants. In the tail of her eye she caught the slight nod Lucas aimed at one of the Harrods personal shoppers attending them along with the store’s elite security team. But when she turned to get a better look, Lucas seemed inordinately interested in a mannequin modeling purple silk pajama pants.

  By the time they were ready to leave the store, Bernie had filled six giant shopping bags with ties, shirts, shoes, belts, pants, and oddest of all, a tin of digestive biscuits. At a newsstand, Miranda bought a pack of Smarties, the English equivalent to M&Ms, and she had refused to let Lucas pay the starry-eyed cashier for her.

  Weary from touring dozens of departments covering seven floors of everything from designer clothes to the Bagel Factory, Miranda was more than happy when Lucas asked her if she was ready to leave.

  “I was ready to leave two hours ago, but I didn’t want to spoil Bernie’s fun.”

  Lucas stopped in the middle of the wide pathway. “Bernard told us that you loved to shop.”

  “He’s the one who likes shopping. He should have his paycheck directly deposited at Abercrombie & Fitch.”

  Lucas glanced at Bernie, who was still grabbing at merchandise even as they were trying to leave the store. “He certainly seems to be in his element. I bloody hate shopping myself. The last time I came here, I was barred entry because of the dress code.”

  “No shoes, no shirt, no service?” Miranda guessed.

  “This is the one and only Harrods,” Lucas said. “The Harrods dress code, and I quote, ‘Does not permit any person entering the store who is wearing ripped jeans, high cut Bermuda or beach shorts, swimwear, bare midriffs, athletic singlets, cycling shorts, bare feet, flip flops or thong sandals, dirty or unkempt clothing or any extremes of personal presentation.’”

  Miranda laughed. “How very English. That last bit should have kept Bernie out.”

  “I’m somewhat more well known now than I was the last time I came here. These days, I could walk in bum naked on my hands and I’d still be permitted to shop.”

  “It’s good to be the king,” Miranda said.

  Lucas asked one of the security guards to collect Bernie while another called for Lucas’s car. At the Brompton Road entrance, Miranda couldn’t see daylight through the glass doors. The scene before her was a hundred times worse than the one she’d suffered through at the Herald-Star. A full phalanx of English “Bobbies,” standing with linked arms behind a barricade of portable steel fencing, held back a writhing mass of humanity that looked capable of swallowing Lucas’s limousine. Autograph books flapped on the ends of arms jutting from the crowd. Though she was still safe in the quiet store, Miranda didn’t resist when Lucas practically pulled her into the security of his coat.

  “Perhaps we should utilize a more discreet exit, sir,” offered the head of security in his very proper, very cool English. “We’re well able to handle the safe arrival and departure of our more well known guests. Your shopping experience has been quite pleasant, up until now, may I presume?”

  Miranda peeked out from Lucas’s embrace. It was a Sunday afternoon, but the store was eerily deserted. She looked around more carefully and saw store guards at the doors and at various escalators. Now that she thought about it, each floor they had visited had been markedly empty, but for sales personnel who had been friendly, but not at all pushy. She had chalked that up to the nature of the English, rather than something she herself had been taught as a reporter: Don’t go nuts over celebrities.

  She now realized that the store had expected Lucas’s visit and had prepared for it accordingly. The staff had probably been forewarned to be on its best behavior, and each floor had been cleared to allow Lucas to browse in peace.

  All that trouble, Miranda thought, and the only thing we bought was a bag of M&Ms with an English accent.

  “Sir,” the security chief said, “I really must ask you to reconsider going out there.”

  “We have to,” Lucas said pensively. He took Miranda by her shoulders. “Your newspaper and my label wanted photographs, and I refused to allow either party at Conwy. My publicist arranged to have some of our more friendly paparazzi here to shoot us, but apparently word of our presence has spread. Are you up to going out there? I leave it to you, Miranda.”

  She looked at the crowd, and the waiting limo that seemed small and vulnerable within it. The driver and two bodyguards stood ready to spring into action the instant she and Lucas hit the sidewalk. The limo was so close, really. And the photographs were a necessity. “I can do it.”

  “There you go, love.” Lucas proudly kissed her forehead and turned to the security chief. “We’re ready.”

  Reeling somewhat from his offhand kiss and his use of the word ‘love,’ Miranda tightly held his hand as the store security team closed in around them. They headed for the door.

  “No!” Bernie protested as he was practically carried out ahead of them. “I never got to go to the music section!”

  Bernie stilled when the doors flung open and the roar of the excited crowd washed over him. He shrank into a ball, clutching his bags for dear life, and let Harrods’ security pitch him into the limo. Lucas hurried Miranda to the car, keeping his head bowed but pausing just long enough to allow a decent photograph.

  “Sir Lucas!” his fans screamed. “Sir Lucas!”

  Only when the crowd noise was a dull growl on the other side of the bulletproof vehicle did Miranda dare open her eyes.

  Lucas poured her a glass of water. “I assumed that you would be used to crowds and the hoopla surrounding a celebrity. You are a reporter, after all.”

  �
��That’s just it.” Her hands shook, dripping water onto her lap. “I’m usually on the other side of the action. I don’t think I’d like being famous.”

  Lucas helped steady her hands as the limo pulled into traffic and headed for a police heliport, where they would take a chopper back to Conwy. “I’m afraid you already are, love.”

  “That makes two.” From the other side of the limo, Bernie rifled through his bags, making sure that he hadn’t lost or forgotten anything.

  “Two what?” Miranda asked.

  “Two ‘loves.’” Bernie withdrew one of his new ties and laid it over his hand. “This looked great on me in the store but now it looks sallow. Oh, well.” He tossed the tie back in its slim box. “I’ll give it to Rex. Sallow is his color. So what’s up with the ‘loves,’ Lucas?”

  “You reporters don’t miss a thing, do you?” Lucas rarely blushed, but he felt one fighting from under the collar of his sweater. “I was wondering when you’d show your stripes.”

  “Answer the question,” Bernie said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “‘Love’ is just…” Lucas looked at Miranda as he pondered an answer. She had removed the black elastic ponytail holder from her hair and now wore it on her left wrist. She used her left hand to comb her hair from her face, and as it cascaded past her shoulders, she turned and looked at him. She wore no makeup. Her expression seemed troubled, yet her simple beauty was stunning. She was funny and smart, and touching him with nothing but her trust and intellect, she had made him feel like more of a man than any woman ever had. All at once, he knew that the woman sitting beside him was someone he could…“‘Love,’” Lucas began again, “is just an expression. Like ‘duck’ or ‘egg.’”

  “It’s an expression of affection, though, right?” Bernie persisted.

  “Yes.”

  Bernie sat back, letting Lucas off the hook. “I like ‘love’. I’m more of a ‘duck’ man, truth be told, but love is nice, too.”

  * * *

  Love wasn’t just an expression of affection. For Miranda, it was also a curse, and the very thing she wanted to avoid. As a reporter, she had learned to read people, particularly those who didn’t wish to have their true feelings or thoughts known. Lucas had explained his use of the word love, but Miranda had sensed more meaning behind it.

  The chopper ride back to Conwy had seemed too quick. Miranda had focused on the scenery beneath them, and listened as Lucas had pointed out key landmarks and sites. But every time she had looked up at him, he had been looking at her, not at what he was describing.

  The helicopter had delivered her and Bernie to the Welsh airstrip where their bags awaited them on the jet that would take them back to Boston. As much as she had dreaded the big date, Miranda scarcely believed that in eight hours or so, she would be right back at the Herald-Star. And Lucas Fletcher would be out of her life forever.

  He accompanied them to the plane. “I’d fly back with you, but I have to meet the band in Tokyo for the second leg of our tour. Our schedule is fairly tight, and I’m afraid I can’t deviate from it.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to you, Miranda.”

  She stared at the asphalt. If she looked into his eyes for one second longer, she would never be able to get on the plane. Most men had a way of cloaking their feelings, either by avoiding eye contact or by lying outright. Lucas’s eyes hid nothing. His emotions were naked and honest and, for Miranda, overwhelming.

  “Did you have a good visit?” he asked.

  She finally lifted her face. “I had the best sleep of my life.”

  “I hope that wasn’t the highlight,” Lucas remarked. The sky was overcast, as it often was in the north of Wales, and the absence of sun left the air chilled. Lucas didn’t mind the grey sky or the cold, not with the bright shine of Miranda’s magical eyes on him.

  She smiled, unwittingly giving herself a firmer hold on Lucas’s heart. “It wasn’t.” Having Fenway Franks in a seven-hundred-year-old kitchen had been nice. Knowing that he’d slept with her—without sleeping with her—had been really nice. But the best had been sitting in his arms beneath the full moon and having him genuinely listen to the secret contents of her heart. “I had a very nice weekend,” she said. “The commute stinks, but other than that…it was perfect.”

  “Do you think Mr. Reilly had a good time?”

  Miranda nodded toward the limo. The driver and one of the flight attendants were trying to pry Bernie’s fingers from the frame of the door. “I think he wants to stay.”

  “Conwy could use a good music reviewer. And a sports writer.”

  “The perfect gifts for the man who has everyone,” Miranda joked somberly. “Thing!” she blurted. “I meant—”

  The backs of his fingers tickled over her temple as he brushed a windblown tress from her face. “I know what you meant.”

  She wanted to kick herself for ruining their farewell with a lousy Freudian slip, and there was nothing she could do now but to end it quickly. She held out her hand. “I had a great time. Thank you. And thank you for helping me at the concert. For saving my life.”

  He took her hand in both of his and gave it a warm squeeze. “It was my pleasure, Mir—” was all he got out before she tossed an arm around his neck and drew him in for a kiss. He jumped on her lead, deepening the kiss as he wrapped his arms around her and brought her into his coat. Her hands moved through his hair, luxuriating in its softness while she savored the heat and taste of his mouth. Her fingertips played over the lean planes of his face, memorizing the feel of him, and she let herself go lightheaded rather than break their kiss to breathe.

  Go, the sensible part of her brain told her, but her heart was too busy with its gymnastics routine to listen.

  Go, girl! her brain insisted, even as her hips pressed more firmly into Lucas.

  Jordan, her brain sang matter-of-factly. The name was like a bucket of ice water, and Miranda abruptly backed away from Lucas, leaving him bewildered and panting.

  “You changed your mind about kissing me,” he gasped. Her kisses had stolen all but the obvious.

  “What harm can it do?” She touched her lips, which were ripe from his kisses. “I’ll never see you again. Goodbye, Lucas.” She turned and fled up the portable staircase that had been parked alongside the plane.

  “You’re wrong about that, love,” he whispered as she vanished inside the plane.

  Chapter 5

  Miranda stared at her sister from across the table. Calista Penney lived up to the meaning of her name, “most beautiful.” Like their mother, she was negro branca, and her long, thick hair was more curly than wavy. Her black eyes, another gift from their mother, crackled with vitality. Calista had a lush bosom, full, rounded hips and a small waist; basically the body of Salma Hayek and the brain of a financial planner, which she was.

  She tried not to, but Miranda envied the way her younger sister moved even while performing the mundane task of laying out refreshments. Calista had all the fire and feistiness of their mother’s roots in Bahia, Brazil. She oozed passion and vitality, everything intoxicating about being Latina. From her soft, floral perfume to the way her hair floated on the slightest breeze, Calista always seemed to be dancing to some secret rhythm only she could hear. Unlike Miranda, who’d inherited her father’s eyes, mouth and lanky, angular build. There was no inner music when Miranda moved. She was more like a broken marionette than the Queen of Carnivale.

  Miranda turned her attention to her sister’s labors. Calista had layered the white, wrought-iron table with all the tabloids, newspapers and magazines that had run cover stories on Lucas Fletcher and his “crush,” Miranda Penney. The papers and periodicals covered the five-week span since Miranda’s weekend in Wales, but each story had basically the same photos, the shots of her and Lucas in London exiting Harrods, in varying degrees of clarity.

  “Lucas was very cool about the photographs,” Miranda said. “His people did a good job of keeping our plans private. The only pa
parazzi we ran into were at Harrods.”

  “I read Bernie’s article about the date online.” Calista set out a plate of freshly baked biscoitos de maizenas, the Brazilian cornstarch butter cookies Miranda loved. “He did a really good job of conveying the romance of the date without over sentimentalizing it.”

  “I didn’t realize that he’d noticed so much.” Miranda stuffed a cookie into her mouth, her jaw jutting out as she tried to chew and talk at the same time. Calista daintily handed her big sister a paper napkin with lacy embossing on the edges. “Bernie was all about Bernie over there. He’s a crackerjack writer, though. I’ll give him that.”

  Calista wore beige cotton twill Capri pants, a burnt-orange twin set and a pair of jute-colored espadrilles. The garden boxes in her enclosed back deck overflowed with mums in russet, butterscotch, goldenrod and rust. Against the riot of rich fall colors, Calista looked like a junior version of their mother. “So tell me what really happened in Wales,” she said.

  Miranda didn’t answer right away, although she stopped chewing her second cookie. Her eyes fixed on one of the magazine covers, and she could almost feel Lucas’s arm around her, steeling her to face a crazed mob of Karmic Echo fans.

  “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Calista said.

  “Who?”

  “Lucas Fletcher.”

  Miranda snorted and finished her cookie. Calista patiently leafed through a magazine. “How could you tell?” Miranda finally said, rolling her eyes.

  “You get a gooey look on your face when you hear his name.”

  “I do not.”

  “Lucas Fletcher.” Calista abruptly leaned forward and pointed at her sister’s face. “That’s it. That’s the look.”

  “I came all the way down to Silver Springs to help you choose the menu for your big Penney-Henderson engagement dinner, not to talk about Lucas What’s-His-Butt.” Miranda wiped her hands on the leg of her jeans before she gathered the publications from the table and set them in Calista’s recycling bin. She went into the spotless kitchen, retrieved a pile of menus from the counter beneath the wall phone, and thumped them down in the middle of the deck table.