Cara Colter - The Greatest Risk

The voice of reason tried to interject in his inspection. Luke, it asked him, when was the last time you were with a girl who blushed?

“I just don’t want to,” she stammered, and then added, apparently for emphasis, “Really.”

Twelve. Same age that I last took a girl to a movie.

“Really,” he repeated, not quite sure if he was amused or aggravated. “Women rarely say they don’t want to. To me.”

“I’m sure that’s quite true, Mr. August,” she said formally. Her eyes skittered away from his, looking for an escape. “I mean, it’s obvious you’re a very charming man. And attractive.”

Her blush deepened as if telling him he was attractive was something she would now have to confess to the neighborhood priest on Saturday night.

“I have to go,” she said frantically.

Not so fast, little Miss Maggie. “What part don’t you want to?” he asked. He deliberately lowered his voice. He took one hand off the mop handle, tried to fight the renegade urge one more time and failed. He picked up a strand of her hair, felt the tantalizing silk of it between his thumb and finger, and then let it fall.

She gasped as if he had asked her to have sex on the foyer floor, and tucked the offended strand of hair behind her ear. “The movie part,” she squeaked.

She was not in his league at all. That was evident. His league was women who knew how to play the game—who breezily returned the repartee loaded with sexual innuendo, who blinked their lashes and tossed their hair, who leaned a little closer to let him have a peek down shirts that were unbuttoned one button too low.

Luke could not have guessed it would be so much fun playing a different game, toying with Maggie. The thing was, he couldn’t predict what was going to happen next with her. And that lack of predictability was just a tiny bit refreshing.

“What’s so scary about a movie?” he asked, knowing darn well it wasn’t the movie she was scared of.

Unless he was mistaken, little Miss Maggie found him wildly attractive. One touch of his lips on her lips, or on her neck, one little nibble on her ear, and she would probably lose control of herself.

The thought of Maggie Sullivan losing control of herself flared, white-hot, in his poor male-hormone-driven brain.

Down, Fred, he ordered himself.

“Who’s Fred?” she asked, bewildered.

He realized he had spoken out loud, recovered and pointed to the name tag on the hospital-issue coveralls.

“Oh.” She was very flustered.

“You were explaining about the movie,” he reminded her silkily.

She looked down at her suede jacket and picked an imaginary fleck off of it. “Okay,” she said, looking back at him suddenly and jutting out her chin, the determined look of a woman about to come clean, “it’s about the popcorn.”

“Popcorn?” he echoed. He had expected anything but that. Popcorn? Was she serious?

She nodded, deadly serious. “Do I get popcorn?”

He wondered if it was a trick question. There it was again. Every single time he thought he was sort of figuring her out, she tossed a curve at him.

“Do you want popcorn?” he asked cautiously. He was not accustomed to being with women who were complicated, hard to read, easy to offend.

“Of course! What’s a movie without popcorn?”

“Agreed.”

She sighed. “But if I get popcorn, then I have to decide about butter.”

“That hardly seems earthshaking,” he said, but he could tell she thought it was.

She sighed again, then blurted out, “Do I get my popcorn with butter the way I like it or without so that you’ll think I at least try to be skinny?”

He slid his eyes over the lushness of her curves. What a shame skinny would be on her.

When he looked back at her face she looked earnest and indignant, and Luke found he had to put a hand up to his mouth and bite on his knuckle so he wouldn’t laugh. It would be a mistake to laugh in the face of her earnestness.

“And then,” she continued, “if I say to hell with what you think since you’ve already seen my skirt stuck around my hips—”

She didn’t look like the kind of girl who used even mild curse words like hell very often. Dare he hope he was already being an evil influence on her?

“—and get the butter, maybe even double butter, then my fingers are covered in grease and if you try to hold my hand, not saying that you would, but—”

He held up his hand to stop the flow of words, choked down the laughter that was trying to get out and gazed down at her, trying to discern if she was attempting to amuse him or if it just came naturally to her.

It occurred to him that it had been a very long time since he’d been anything but bored with any woman, with the notable exception of Amber.

Having tamed the twitching of his lips, he finally said, “Has anybody ever suggested you might take life a tad too seriously?”

She nodded, sadly.

“I mean that is just way too much effort put into thinking about popcorn.”

“I know. I’m twenty-seven years old, and I have more self-doubt than I had as a teenager. It’s pathetic.”

Uh-oh. If he was not mistaken, he heard a past heartbreak in there. What else took a beautiful woman’s confidence from her so thoroughly? Geez. Somebody should teach this girl how to have a little fun. Not him, of course, but someone.

His voice of reason told him to wish her a polite good night and a nice life and get the hell back to his room. It told him heartbreak made women fragile. It told him he was the man least likely to be entrusted with anything fragile even for a few hours.

His voice of reason pointed out to him that she was worried about whether they were going to hold hands, for heaven’s sake, and his mind was already conquering her lips and beyond.

Of course, if he was any damned good at listening to his voice of reason, he wouldn’t be in the hospital for the seventh time in five years.

“What do you say we downgrade?” he suggested after a moment’s thought.

“Downgrade?”

“You know, from a date. We’ll just grab a cup of coffee somewhere.”

She wanted to say yes. He could tell. But she didn’t.

“I don’t think it’s a very good idea,” she said uncertainly.

It was really beginning to bug him that she found him so infinitely irresistible that she was resisting with all her might.

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s just the popcorn question with a different backdrop. Maybe worse. We’d have to talk. I mean just stare across the table and look at each other and think of clever things to say.”

Clever? Was she kidding? You told a few blond jokes, you talked about your job and your motorcycle, you found out she’d been a cheerleader in high school and owned a poodle. Maggie expected clever? It was his turn to worry.

His voice of reason told him to bid her adieu, go back to his room and start a gratitude journal.

Entry number one could be how grateful he was to have avoided any kind of involvement with a woman who didn’t know anything about flirting, dating or making small talk with the opposite sex. And also one who was so obviously a fresh survivor of a heartbreak.

“So, how do you usually get to know people?” his other voice asked. “Meaning men people?”

“Oh, you know. Shared interests. Work. Church.”

Shared interests? Would that be the poodle or the motorbike? Work? He couldn’t even picture Amber on a construction site! And the worst one of all—church?

Whoo boy, church girls were not on his list of potential dates. In his limited experience they lived by rules that all began with Thou Shalt Not. Church girls loved commitment. Made vows. Mooned over babies. Babies!

Run! His voice of reason screamed. But he wasn’t running. So, he’d show little Miss Maggie Mouse, church girl, an evening of fun. Maybe he’d get himself a few points in the heaven department if he didn’t encourage her to curse any more. Everybody could use a few points in the heaven department, right?