by Cara Colter
There he was mentioning the future again!
Maggie hit the cue ball with all the pent-up frustration that had built within her breast, and it responded by promptly jumping over the ball she was aiming at. It flew off the table and rolled across the floor underneath the neighboring table.
Luke undraped his body from around hers, folded his arms over his chest and gave her a stern look. “What does the word tap mean to you?”
She straightened from where she had been bent over the table, and turned to face him.
Gazing up into the unblinking green of his sparkling eyes, she noticed how thick his lashes were, as if they had been dipped in India ink. Her mind went completely blank. “Tap? Water faucet?”
He groaned.
“I’ve never been athletic, Luke. It’s hopeless.” That was exactly how she felt. Hopeless. Hopelessly, helplessly, impossibly attracted to him.
“Athletic? You have to be an athlete to play baseball. To ski. To run foot races. Playing pool does not require athleticism.”
“If it requires hand-to-eye coordination, it’s hopeless,” she told him. Gosh, he looked cute, bristling with that kind of mock irritation, his eyes narrowed on her. His beard had darkened with the late hour. It looked as if it would scratch in the most delightful way.
It occurred to her she wanted to kiss him. Madly. Wildly. And that she didn’t care who was watching.
The thought was so uncharacteristic that she glanced at her drink. It was just cola, wasn’t it?
“It’s math, pure and simple,” he informed her. “You figure the angle. You apply the correct amount of pressure. You have to know the difference between a tap and a slam. It’s that easy.”
The surge of passion that was affecting her was apparently having no effect on him at all. If it was, he wouldn’t be talking so casually about taps and slams.
Not that either of those words had ever had an erotic meaning to her before. She looked at his lips, the gorgeous green of his eyes, the pulse that beat steady and strong in the hollow of his throat and felt almost dizzy.
My God, she thought, I’m swooning.
Maggie knew it was impossible. She was not the type of girl who swooned, of all things. She was reliable. She was pragmatic. She was responsible. Passion, and all the recklessness it implied, was for other people.
“Are you okay?”
He was suddenly right in front of her, looking down, his eyes surveying her face with concern. He took her shoulders firmly between his hands. “Maggie!”
“I’m sorry. I—” She gave up and leaned into him.
“Fresh air,” he said. He bustled her through the crowd, putting people none-too-gently out of his way.
Moments later, they were standing outside the front doors of Morgan’s, the laughter and noise now muted in the background. Maggie took in several deep gulps of the cool, night-scented air. His arm stayed around her shoulder, protective, surprisingly tender.
“I’m sorry,” she said, truly embarrassed. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“You looked like you were going to faint,” he said, studying her carefully. “The color is starting to come back into your cheeks now.”
“I’ve never fainted in my whole life,” she protested, but weakly. The night air was just what she needed. She could feel herself coming to her senses. His scent did not seem quite so overpowering. She avoided looking at him and moved away from under the weight of his arm, though it took a great deal of effort to get her feet to obey her command to move away from him.
“I should get back to the hospital, anyway,” he said, consulting his watch. “I’ll just go back and settle the bill and grab your jacket. Two seconds. Don’t move. And breathe.”
When he returned, he helped her into her jacket. He was going to take her hand, but she quickly inserted both hands into her coat pockets. He noticed the deliberate action with a quizzical raise of his eyebrows, but she pretended she didn’t care.
The truth was she was frightened. Maggie Sullivan did not lose control.
She could not subject herself to any more temptation tonight. Not when she felt so uncertain about how she would react to it.
They walked back to the hospital in silence. He whistled under his breath, a happy little song that only served to remind her that the strength of what she had just experienced at the pool table in Morgan’s had been completely one-sided.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said when they came to the hospital lot, “and then I’ll slip in the side door where we came out. I don’t want you over there by yourself at this time of night.”
It wasn’t until he said that, that Maggie realized she had been anticipating going back to that spot, cloaked in darkness and utter privacy.
“Thank you,” she said, hearing the stiffness in her own voice, and ducked from the query in his eyes. She fished through her bag for her keys when they arrived at her car, a new gold Volkswagen Beetle.
“Cute,” he said. “Just about what I would have figured.”
“Really?”
“I like to do that. Figure out what people drive. It tells me about them.”
“What does my car tell you?”
“Cute,” he repeated.
“I have to go,” she said hastily. “It was fun, Luke, really it was.”
“Hey.”
His hand on her upper arm stopped her from flinging herself into the car and making her escape.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Oh, Luke. Don’t do this. Don’t be sensitive, on top of being gorgeous and charming and a man I can’t have.
“Nothing.”
“Something changed back there in the pool room. Did I say something? Did I hurt you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Because I can do that. Without meaning to. Beak off and not even realize I’m stepping on people’s feelings.”
“You didn’t step on my feelings.”
And then the self-control she had been trying so hard to exercise snapped. She turned full to him, let go of her grip on the car’s door handle. She twined her arms around the strong, beautiful column of his neck, and she stood on tiptoe.
And she kissed him. It wasn’t the kiss of Little Miss Mouse, either. No, the tigress was unleashed.
At first, he went very still. And then he pressed himself hard against her, and his hands went to the small of her back and pulled her even closer into him, so close she could feel his heat, and it fueled the fire that was raging within her.
Out of control.
Miss Maggie Mouse was totally out of control. And loving it. His hands moved from the small of her back to tangle in her hair, to bring her lips in fuller contact with his.
Flashpoint. Maggie was on fire. Heat, glorious and sizzling, enveloped her entire being. She could feel her bones melting, her skin, as her body met the hard line of his.
His lips, which had looked so firm, were deliciously soft under hers, and yet no less commanding.
He was hungry for more than a break from hospital food. That became evident very, very quickly. He plundered her mouth, his kiss hot and destructive and glorious, like slowly rolling lava. When she felt he would ignite her, as if the fire of his kiss would consume her and leave nothing behind but smoldering ash, he lifted his lips from hers. He spread small kisses from her neck to her earlobes, hot spots of delight so intense it was painful. He tormented her eyelids, and her cheeks, and the tip of her nose. She had been right about his whiskers. The scrape of them across the soft flesh of her cheek was heady. Then his lips returned to her mouth again.
She was totally unaware of anything but him, lost in the passion of the moment, swimming in the fire, headily and completely consumed by it, her senses blocking out everything but him. The way he tasted and smelled and felt.
The way he tasted and smelled and felt affected her, making her feel alive.
She had been unaware that she was dead, but now she was like a sleeping princess brought to life by the touch
of his lips.
He yanked away from her.
“Someone’s coming,” he said in an undertone.
How had he noticed that? She had noticed nothing. No better than that woman on the steps of the hospital earlier today, or that man at the booth in Morgan’s.
She peered past Luke, saw the white jacket of a doctor coming off duty. It was someone she’d worked with occasionally in conjunction with her cases at Children’s Connection.
He saw her, recognized her, and his eyebrows shot up.
Furious embarrassment rushed through her body, heated and ugly.
Maggie broke away from Luke. She grasped for her car door again. “I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” Luke said. “Are you crazy?”
“Apparently.” She slid into her car, using all the discipline she could muster. She couldn’t look at him again.
But she did.
He stood there under the dim light of the parking lot streetlamp. He was big and self-assured, all barely contained masculine grace and power. In a nutshell Luke August was way more man than she would ever be able to handle.
Never again did she want to unleash whatever had been unleashed inside her tonight. It was too strong a drug.
She ordered herself to drive away. She even started the engine. But Luke still stood there, his hands in his pockets, looking at her.
What was that expression?
He was stunned, obviously. By her performance. By how out of control she had been. Well, that made two of them.
But there was something more there in his expression that she could not read.
She could not explain to him what had happened just now. She could not say, I am not that kind of woman, when she had just been exactly that kind of woman. Instead, she rolled down her window, just a crack.
“It would be best if we didn’t see each other again,” she said.
He looked at her steadily, then nodded. “I think you’re right,” he agreed.
She drove away quickly, before he had a chance to see how much his quick agreement had hurt her.
Luke folded his arms over his chest and watched Maggie leave the parking lot. Somehow he had not figured her for the kind of gal who would squeal her tires.
But then what had he figured right about her so far?
The answer was nothing. He just was not reading her right. That kiss! He was still smoking from the heat of it.
And trembling slightly, if he was going to be totally honest about it.
The truth was that was the way he had always imagined Amber would kiss—with a kind of no-holds-barred intensity that left a man feeling as though the world was disappearing, crumbling beneath his feet.
As if there was nothing that remained but sweet, soft lips, and hot, lush curves pressed into his chest.
Wait! If he looked the world over he would never find a woman less like Amber than little Miss Maggie Mouse.
Amber would drive a vintage fire-engine-red Barracuda convertible. Amber would wear short leather skirts and sashay her hips. She would hustle pool, not flub balls onto the floor. She would drink whiskey not soda.
All in all Amber was not the kind of girl a boy took home to Mama.
Which was the whole idea. Luke August had decided a long, long time ago he was never taking a girl home to Mama.
Or at least not one Mama would approve of.
And he had a feeling his mother would approve of Maggie. Maggie with her soft eyes, and her obvious intelligence and decency. Maggie who helped little children as her life’s work, and didn’t have a clue how sexy she was.
He would have had never to see her again for that reason alone, even if she had not suggested it first.
Though, going back to his room he had to admit that he was just a tiny bit frosted that Maggie had mentioned it first.
She must have been a whole lot less shaken by that kiss than he had been.
In the maintenance closet, he carefully returned Fred’s stuff to where it had been. He stuck five bucks in the pocket so Fred could have a coffee on him in exchange for the loan he didn’t know he had made.
Luke donned his gown over his jeans and sidled down the hall.
“Mr. August! Where have you been? Evening meds were over an hour ago.”
He turned to look at the night nurse. “Oh, just down in the TV room.”
“I looked there for you.”
“I went to the TV lounge on the next floor. They were tuned into something a little too tender on this one. One of those bachelorette things where she gives some poor sucker a rose. You know. Gigantic yuck.”
“Um-hmm.”
The nurse was older and had on sensible shoes and her uniform was pressed with military precision, but her face was kind and she was not at all like Nurse Nightmare.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked, all innocence and wonder.
She leaned close to him.
“You have lipstick on your neck. Glossy. Peach-colored.”
“Oh.” Damn her observation skills. Luke had not wanted to think about glossy peach-colored lips again tonight. Or ever.
“Get to your room before I report you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you have fun?” she asked as he headed down the hall.
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” he muttered, as much to himself as to her.
Four
Luke woke up in a nasty mood. That rarely happened to him. He nearly always woke up full of plans for his day, with a song in his heart—usually “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?”—which he happily and loudly shared with anybody within earshot.
But this morning he gloomily contemplated the pure white of his hospital-room ceiling. He felt crabby and out of sorts. It had, he decided firmly, nothing at all to do with Maggie Mouse telling him she never wanted to see him again.
Not that the name Maggie Mouse was going to do now that he knew the stunning truth. The girl kissed like a house on fire.
He’d have to come up with a new name for her. If he was ever going to see her again, which he wasn’t.
“So, no problem,” he said out loud. The real problem was this place. It was time to get out of here. He had way too much time on his hands, way too much time to think.
But when the doctor came on rounds, she did not look impressed to see him in his street clothes, his bag packed.
“No,” she said sternly, when he announced his plans for the day. “If I let you out of here, you would go straight back to work, the same as you did last time.”
“What if I promise?” he asked.
“You promised last time!”
“But last time I had my fingers crossed.” He held out his hands in front of him, a gesture of sincerity and honesty that she was not the least taken in by.
“Your body needs more time to repair itself.” She carefully explained to him what the most recent injuries to his back would do if he stressed them too soon. She mentioned words like permanent disability and wheelchair, which of course he knew to be baloney.
He was as strong as a team of oxen.
“I don’t think I can stay, Doc. I’m going out of my mind. The food stinks, and there’s nothing to do.” What he didn’t say was that he did not need time to think about Maggie Sullivan or that kiss or how much fun he’d had playing pool with her or the way that black T-shirt had molded around her luscious curves.
Or her final words to him.
But even though he didn’t elaborate, the good doc seemed to get it, that with or without her approval he was on short time now.
“All right,” she agreed with a sigh, “I’ll read the report from your physiotherapy session today, and if it’s good, we’ll talk about this some more tomorrow.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.
“Your insurance won’t cover any of this unless I sign for your discharge.”
He gave her his high-voltage smile. She tried to look stern, but he could tell she c
ouldn’t resist that smile. “Which you will, right?”
“I said we’d talk about it tomorrow.”
But he knew it was settled. There. He was getting some control back over his life. He felt a little glimmer of his normal cheerfulness. By the time he’d ordered breakfast from the fast-food joint around the corner, enough for the whole ward, and had it delivered to the hospital, he was in a pretty good mood, passing out hash browns and egg sandwiches while serenading the other patients with “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?”
“Mr. August!”
He had stopped to chat with a young nurse between rooms and deliveries, and he turned to see Nurse Nightmare bearing down on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the young nurse disappear.
He braced himself.
“Have you seen Billy yet this morning?”
“No, ma’am. I was going to bring him breakfast, though.”
She glanced at the brown paper bag, and he waited for the disapproving lecture. But it didn’t come.
“He’s not himself,” she said in a low voice. “I was hoping you might cheer him up. Without wheelchair racing, of course.”
“He’s sick?” Luke asked, and felt the fist of fear close around his heart. He’d been right. It was time to get out of here. There were too many sick people around. You didn’t want to go getting attached to sick people.
She shook her head. “Not any sicker than usual. He’s sad, Mr. August.”
Sad. Sheesh. A sad seventeen-year-old boy with cancer. What Luke wanted to do was run the other way. He had nothing to offer in a situation like this. Nothing. He was rough and gruff, an unpolished construction crew boss.
“I wouldn’t know what to do for him,” he said. “I’m not great in the sensitivity department.”
“Look, you self-centered lunkhead,” the nurse said. “Require more of yourself!”
She marched away, leaving him to stare after her, oddly hurt, though working in his field he’d been called worse and told off better many, many times.
“Self-centered lunkhead,” he repeated to himself. He was delivering breakfast to the other inmates. Didn’t that count?
No longer singing, he finished his deliveries, annoyed that Nurse Nightmare had managed to get under his skin. So, if he did require more of himself, what would he do for Billy to cheer him up? Order a cake that a girl jumped out of? Pretend to be Patch Adams?
