Maggie Sullivan was wearing an outfit worth waiting for.

But Luke was not the kind of guy who could be trusted with a woman who got hurt easily. Let her go, his voice of reason cautioned.

“Hey, Maggie,” said his other voice.

She spun, startled, and stared at him. Why hadn’t he just let her leave?

That’s what I told you to do, the voice of reason reminded him.

Maggie was trying very hard not to smile. But then it flickered across her lips, disappeared and then reappeared, like the sun peeping out of rain clouds.

The sun won and changed everything. Maggie’s smile was wide and infectious. In the blink of an eye it transformed her from an old schoolmarm to a woman who looked young and carefree…and astoundingly beautiful.

How was it possible he’d been in such proximity to her earlier and hadn’t noticed how kissable her mouth was?

Miss Maggie had lips that could be declared dangerous weapons. And he was determined to see them put to good use.

CARA COLTER

lives on an acreage in British Columbia with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is a recent recipient of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in the Love and Laughter category. Cara loves to hear from readers. You can contact her or learn more about her through her website, www.cara-colter.com.

The Greatest Risk
Cara Colter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Be a part of

Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

Two mismatched people meet and discover an unquenchable passion. Can love be far behind?

Luke August: Whether it’s scaling a tall building or making daredevil jumps on his motorcycle, Luke loved taking risks. But nothing prepared him for Maggie Sullivan and the adventure she offered….

Maggie Sullivan: A dedicated social worker who loved dealing with children and parents, Maggie wanted a family of her own someday. She had no intention of dating a thrill-seeker, but Luke was in a league of his own when it came to excitement.

The Good Doctor?

Dr. Richie had mysteriously charmed the Portland community with his weight-loss oil. Could this elixir be responsible for the sudden surge of amorous behavior among his followers?

THE SOLUTION YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR…

THE REMEDY YOU DESERVE…

NoWAIT

THE AMAZING NEW DIET OIL. USE IT AND WATCH THE POUNDS MELT AWAY!

NoWait: A little rub on the skin, and in no time you're thin!

SPONSORED BY THE HEALTHY LIVING CLINIC IN AFFILIATION WITH PORTLAND GENERAL HOSPITAL

PORTLAND, OREGON

Use as directed.

Some side effects may occur.

Check with your physician before applying.

Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.

AVAILABLE JUNE 2010

 1.) To Love and Protect by Susan Mallery

 2.) Secrets & Seductions by Pamela Toth

 3.) Royal Affair by Laurie Paige

 4.) For Love and Family by Victoria Pade

AVAILABLE JULY 2010

 5.) The Bachelor by Marie Ferrarella

 6.) A Precious Gift by Karen Rose Smith

 7.) Child of Her Heart by Cheryl St. John

 8.) Intimate Surrender by RaeAnne Thayne

AVAILABLE AUGUST 2010

 9.) The Secret Heir by Gina Wilkins

 10.) The Newlyweds by Elizabeth Bevarly

 11.) Right by Her Side by Christie Ridgway

 12.) The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2010

 13.) The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter

 14.) What a Man Needs by Patricia Thayer

 15.) Undercover Passion by Raye Morgan

 16.) Royal Seduction by Donna Clayton

To Jane Leyh,

an inspiration,

with a heart of purest gold,

and the fighting spirit of a tiger

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Prologue

T hey loved him.

Dr. Richard Strong stood on the front steps of his new clinic and looked out at the sea of upraised faces. All his life he had waited for this moment, and he stood in the glory of it, drank it in through his skin, felt as wholly and fully alive as he had ever felt.

Take that, Dr. Beachball, he silently addressed his TV nemesis, Dr. Terry Browell, a tubby psychologist with sparse red hair whose runaway success with the TV program “Live Airy with Dr. Terry” both baffled and frustrated Dr. Strong.

Richard knew he himself looked excellent for his forty-two years. He was trim and appealing. He ran a hand through his own thick silver-streaked dark hair. It was a gesture that he knew endeared him to audiences, making him look boyish and humble, as if he didn’t quite know what to do next.

But of course he knew exactly what to do next.

“Under my leadership,” he said, his voice strong and sure, “Portland General Hospital’s new Healthy Living Clinic will be on the cutting edge of health and wellness. But we are not just about health.” He paused dramatically. “We are about hope!”

The applause was thunderous, and he tilted his head and smiled, then turned slightly so that the TV news cameras caught his best profile. Maybe, one day soon, he would have his own television series! He was so much more suited for celebrity than dumpy Dr. Terry Eatwell.

The applause began to die, and Richard could feel it waning, as if it was stealing energy from him, so he stepped forward and cut the yellow ribbon. The renewed applause lifted him above his past mistakes, his self-doubts.

He studied some of the faces before him, and felt as though all that was less than perfect about him was being erased by the adoration he saw in these eyes.

He recognized Ella Crown, the aging florist from the hospital. Everyone secretly called her the dragon lady, but he had charmed her by buying her one of her own flowers, tucking it in the pure white of her hair. He doubted Dr. Terry would have been up to the task!

And there, standing close to Ella, was that plain social worker—Maggie, he thought her name was—from Children’s Connection. The poor girl had never looked anything but tired and distracted to him, but now as she gazed up at him, he could see the hope he had just promised shining in her eyes.

Her beautiful redheaded friend stood beside her and she, too, was smiling approvingly. But instead of being taken by her beauty, Dr. Richard Strong remembered, a trifle uneasily, all the beautiful women who had been abandoned on his path to standing right here.

The applause was dying again. He could not allow the sudden intrusion of his past to steal this moment from him. Not when he had waited so long and worked so hard!

He looked behind him at the dignitaries and prominent hospital staff seated on the raised dais. How unfortunate that his eyes should meet those of Faye Lassen, possibly the only person he had not won over. She coveted the Chief of Staff position, he knew. His position. And she was eminently qualified, too, with a Ph.D. in nutrition and psychology.

But she had no presence. Really, Faye, he said to himself, those glasses. Hideous. Still, something in the deep, penetrating blue of those eyes was making his uneasiness grow.

He looked quickly away from Faye to public relations genius, Abby Edwards. Abby’s lovely golden-brown eyes held nothing but admiration for him.

It was quiet now as the audience waited. Dr. Strong wanted the love back. The silence was an empty void he was compelled to fill with his voice.

“I have a special surprise for all of you today,” he announced. “To coincide with the opening of this leading-edge clinic, I am unveiling an amazing new product.”

He liked the little murmur of anticipation. They thought he was just a motivational speaker, the latest health and fitness guru, but Richard’s days of being underestimated were over. He was a scientist, an inventor, a miracle worker.

Really, he knew he should hold on a bit longer before releasing NoWait. The science on his new product was not quite as solid as it could have been. But he knew it worked! And he knew unveiling it would forever cement the admiration and adoration he felt from this crowd.

He’d already sent out several secret letters about the product to celebrities. Famous actress Cynthia Reynolds had answered him personally. Her interest promised him access to the world of fame and riches, promised him that finally he was going to matter.

He reached into his inside pocket, touched Cynthia’s letter affectionately, and then pulled out the slim, gold box that had been nestled beside it. On it was a picture of him. The box was beautiful, a marketing marvel. But then he, Richard Strong, of all people, knew that packaging was everything. Packaging and the pitch.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I present to you NoWait, a pure homeopathic oil that guarantees weight loss.” He paused and repeated, softly, “Guarantees.”

He had their attention now. Dr. Richard Strong lowered his voice, felt the audience leaning toward him. “Unwanted pounds can vanish within hours.”

He savored the gasp of the audience. “With the amazing NoWait oil, a woman can go from a size sixteen to a size six within one month.”

The silence ended abruptly. Voices rose and fell in incredulous excitement. He held up his hand.

“NoWait,” he repeated the name. “A little rub on the skin, and in no time you’re thin.” There was a ripple of appreciative laughter. He knew it was time to pull back.

“Please join me inside,” Richard invited, “for a tour of the new facility.”

The press was calling out questions. People were pushing forward. Flushed with the intoxicating power of success, Dr. Richard Strong passed out NoWait samples, accepted congratulations, gave thoughtful, intelligent answers to the press. Only he knew how often in his mind he had fielded those very questions.

They loved him. He could see it. He could feel it. He needed it.

Dr. Richard Strong would have been quite dismayed to learn there were two people in his audience not the least taken with him.

One, a curvy, attractive, middle-aged woman with shoulder-length blond hair had to hug herself against the chill she felt as she saw the crowds pushing toward the man she had once been married to, the father of her son.

“I know who you really are, Richard Strokudnowski,” she whispered.

The other person who was not totally enamored with Dr. Richard Strong had happened by the ribbon-cutting ceremony by pure chance. He had been on his way to the main hospital building to see his ailing grandmother, and his way had been blocked by the crowd.

Resigning himself to the delay, he had listened with customary skepticism. But it was with growing alarm that he took in the looks on the faces in the crowd.

They were buying this nonsense. Well, why wouldn’t they? The man was the new Chief of Staff of a branch of a medical institution with an impeccable reputation.

Narrowing his eyes on the man at the center of the crush of attention, Detective Daniel O’Callahan folded his arms over the broadness of his chest.

“I know a snake-oil salesman when I see one,” he muttered out loud.

The observation earned him dirty looks from several of the pudgy people around him. Still, Daniel made a quick mental note that the good doctor needed to be watched.

Which would take time, the commodity Daniel had the least of. He sighed and put Dr. Richard Strong on a back burner. But he knew he wasn’t about to forget him.

One

“E xcuse me,” Maggie Sullivan said, trying to get by the couple who were blocking the main staircase into Portland General Hospital.

Sheesh, she thought to herself, weren’t they just a little old for that? She glanced at them from behind a silky curtain of blond hair. She could feel herself blushing.

The woman was perhaps forty, coiffed, bejeweled and dignified in every way—except that she had her tongue tangled with that of a silver-haired man who was pressed so tightly against her that a piece of paper couldn’t have been inserted between them.

To make matters worse, Maggie was sure she recognized the woman from the seminar that she and her best friend, Kristen, were taking at the recently opened Healthy Living Clinic. The New You: Bold and Beautiful was being given by Dr. Richard Strong himself, which made it twice as appealing.

Maggie did not think the performance she was reluctantly witnessing was what Dr. Strong meant when he’d finished the seminar by giving them a homework assignment. He’d said, “Be bold. Do something totally out of character this week.”

For Maggie that had meant eyeing up the bold and flirty red summer dress in the front window of Classy Lass, a haute couture shop way out of her price range.

“Excuse me,” she said again, a trifle more forcefully.

The couple moved marginally, without unfastening their lips. Maggie slid by them, giving them a look of firm disapproval that she was pretty sure neither one of them saw.

Maggie, she told herself, don’t be so judgmental. She did not know the story behind the obvious passion of that kiss. Maybe one of them was being admitted for a life-threatening illness or a complicated surgery. It would be okay to kiss like that if you thought you were saying goodbye forever. Wouldn’t it?

At the top of the stairs, she paused and looked back on the situation, prepared to reevaluate it in this softer light.

The pins had fallen out of the woman’s hair, and her silk jacket was halfway off her shoulder. She was running her knee up the man’s thigh.

Maggie turned away from the scene so fast she bumped into the door. Dazed, she held her bruised nose, opened the door and hurried through it. Her face felt as if it was on fire. And, in truth, it wasn’t just because she’d embarrassed herself by slamming full-force into a glass door. Nor was it entirely because of seeing the couple behaving so brazenly in public.

There was a tingle in the pit of her stomach that felt like hunger, only more intense. She felt as if she needed something, but with a type of need that was frightening, the kind of need she imagined a junkie must feel, or a gambling addict, or a person with the shakes reaching for a drink.

And she, Maggie Sullivan, was just not that kind of girl. In fact, she prided herself on the amount of control she had, on how responsible she was, how reliable.

But the truth was, this feeling had been enveloping her at odd moments for days. It had nearly overwhelmed her when she saw a young couple holding hands, when she overheard a whispered “I love you” in the hospital cafeteria, when she saw a man and a woman pushing a stroller. On those occasions, Maggie would feel an emptiness so vast, a yearning so strong, she felt as though the emotions could overtake her entire well-ordered life.

“I’m twenty-seven,” she murmured. “Biological clock.”

Unfortunately not a single soul had warned her that the ticking of a biological clock could seem much more like the ticking of a time bomb—as if it could explode without warning, leaving nothing but wreckage where a neat and tidy little life had once been.

Maybe biological clocks were something she needed to talk to Dr. Strong about at the next meeting of the B&B Club, as she and Kristen had dubbed the Bold and Beautiful series. B&B was the first in a full schedule of wellness seminars that Dr. Strong would be personally hosting.

Since she was still rubbing her nose from her last moment of inattention, Maggie really should have known better than to crane her neck for just one little last glance back. The couple was still on the steps. The man was gnawing on the woman’s neck, and she was bent backward over his arm as if they were executing a very complicated dance maneuver. Maggie’s head spun, as if she would die to feel that way, so enamored with another person that she could forget all the rules, enter a world of just two and never mind who was watching.

“Look out!”

Maggie whirled. Her mouth opened in shocked surprise, but no sound came out. A wheelchair was careening toward her at full tilt. A man was in it, his powerful shoulders drawn forward, his arm muscles gloriously knotted from the effort of propelling himself forward at such an atrocious speed.

She was aware of images—astonishing green eyes narrowed in ferocious concentration, thick dark-brown hair flying back, coppery unblemished skin beaded with sweat—and then Maggie awakened to the reality that she was about to be run down. She threw herself to one side to avoid being flattened.

Unfortunately the wheelchair veered crazily at exactly the same moment and in exactly the same direction. Maggie was lifted off her feet, the blow cushioned somewhat by bands of steel wrapping around her and pulling her hard into the wall of an extraordinary chest.

For a suspended moment it seemed as if a fall might be averted, but the wheelchair tilted, lolled, tried to right itself, listed crazily again and then capsized, dumping Maggie on the floor and the wheelchair’s inhabitant right on top of her.

The bands of steel—which she recognized were a deliciously masculine set of arms—remained wrapped protectively around her. She was remarkably unhurt, pinned below a strange man.

He was big and he was gorgeous. From her position, sprawled below the muscle-hardened length of his body, Maggie stared up at him, amazed. She ordered herself to sputter indignantly, but no sound came from her mouth.

Instead, she studied his eyes and decided she had never seen eyes that shade before, the exact color of those mysterious Mount Hood National Forest lakes that gleamed in smoky jade. The man’s eyes were lit with equal parts of mischief and pure seduction, and fringed with a sinful and sooty abundance of black lashes.

Maggie used being stunned as a result of the collision to continue to stare at him. Her gaze drifted hazily down his features, ticking them off—thick, dark hair, arched eyebrows, beautiful nose except for a savage scar across the bridge, high cheekbones, strong chin. The cheeks and chin were darkly whisker-roughened. It was the face of a man who would have been far better suited to guide a pirate ship than a wheelchair.

But pity never entered her mind because his lips, full and firm, suddenly formed themselves into a sardonic grin that revealed teeth so brilliant and white and sexy that she felt the breath was being drawn from her body. This close she could even see the smile was not perfect—a chip was missing from the right front tooth—but it did not detract from the powerful male potency of that smile even one little bit.

Slowly, her awareness of the pure and roguish appeal of his face was diluted by another awareness. Their bodies were pressed as closely together as were those of that couple she had just judged on the front steps. And she was just as reluctant to pull away.

He was all hard edges and formidable masculinity, and Maggie could feel herself melting into him. She could feel the steel-band strength of the muscled arms that had tightened around her, protecting her from the worst of the fall. To her dazed mind, he felt good, heated and strong, the exact drug that unnamed yearning in her had craved. His scent enveloped her, tangy and tantalizing, the scent of wild, high places, forests and mountains, and all things untamed.

“Sorry,” he said, but the lazy grin said he wasn’t the least bit sorry, that he was quite content to be lying on the shiny tile floor of the main foyer of Portland General Hospital pressed intimately into the curves of a complete stranger.

“Oh!” Maggie said, coming to her senses abruptly. She could feel her skirt—marginally too tight, despite her faithful use of Dr. Strong’s miracle NoWait ointment—binding the top of her thighs. She tugged frantically at it, not unaware that the lazy amusement burning in his eyes deepened as she wriggled beneath him.

She was, however unintentionally, putting on a better show than the couple outside. At least that couple probably knew each other.

“Anything I can help you with, ma’am?” he drawled.

“Oh!” Maggie said. “How impertinent!”

She rolled out from under him and onto her knees. The skirt was indeed stuck. She should have never taken Dr. Strong’s advice to use only half doses of NoWait oil.

“You are already nearly the perfect size, my dear,” he had explained to her, his sincere brown eyes making her feel as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. “Apply a half dose of the oil behind your ears for its nutritional value.”

If she’d taken the full dose, her skirt wouldn’t be bunched up around her hips and refusing to move.

Her attacker’s grin had evolved into a deep chuckle. If he wasn’t wheelchair-bound, she would probably hit him for that chuckle, and for the frank and insolent way he was evaluating parts of her legs that, to date, had only been shown at the beach.

“Impertinent,” he repeated slowly, as if he was trying on a new label to see if he liked it. She suspected he did.

She frowned disapprovingly at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow. His eyebrows arched wickedly as if he had taken a front-row seat at the peep show.

“No, I am not okay,” she said through clenched teeth. “I am exposing myself to half the hospital!”

He suddenly seemed to get it that she was not finding this situation nearly as amusing as he was. He shoved himself upward and then leaped lightly to his feet. He held an arm down to her.

She stared at him, astonished, as if he was a biblical character who had folded up his cot and walked.

“You aren’t handicapped!” She ignored his arm and rocked back from her kneeling position to sitting, hoping that changing position would help her untangle the skirt where it bound her legs. The skirt, however, was determined to thwart her. When she got home tonight, she was rubbing a whole bottle of NoWait behind her ears!

He folded arms over a chest she now saw was massive. He had on a blue hospital gown that bound the muscles of his arms as surely as her skirt was binding her thighs, his result being far more attractive than hers. Underneath the gown, thank God, he had on a faded pair of blue jeans. He watched her undignified struggles with infuriating male interest.

“It’s against the law to pretend to be handicapped,” she told him, though she had no idea if it was or not.

“Handicapped?” He followed her glance to the overturned wheelchair. “Oh, that.”

He watched her for a moment longer, then, apparently unable to stand it, moved quickly behind her and without her permission put his hands under her armpits and set her on her feet.

For some ridiculous reason an underarm deodorant jingle went through her head. She hoped, furiously, ridiculously, she wasn’t damp under her arms.

“You were driving like a maniac,” she said, yanking herself away from him to hide her discomfort at how it had felt to be lifted by him, so easily, as if she were a feather, as if the NoWait could gather dust in her bathroom cabinet forever.

“And you weren’t watching where you were going,” he said, coming back around to face her, looking down at her, smiling with an easy confidence and charm that might have made her swoon if he wasn’t so damned aggravating.

She glared at him. She bet that smile had been opening doors—and other things—for him his entire life.

How dare he be so incredibly sexy, and so darned sure of it?

“Are you saying this was my fault?” she demanded.

“Fifty-fifty?” he suggested with aggravating calm.

“Oh!”

“Mr. August!”

He turned toward the voice. Maggie turned, too. Hillary Wagner, a nurse Maggie knew slightly from her own work as a social worker at Children’s Connection, an adoption agency and fertility clinic that was affiliated with this hospital, was coming toward them, looking very much like a battleship under full steam.

Apparently here was a woman who was immune to the considerable charm radiating off Mr. August. “What on earth have you been up to now?”

“Remember the nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?” he asked Maggie in an undertone.

Maggie sent him a look. Was he an escapee from the psych ward, then?

Hillary took in the upturned wheelchair, and her tiny gray eyes swept Maggie’s disheveled appearance.

“Mr. August, you’ve been racing the wheelchairs again!” she deduced, her tone ripe with righteous anger. “And this time you’ve managed to cause an accident, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and hung his head boyishly, but not before giving Maggie a sideways wink.

“Mr. August, really! You cannot be racing wheelchairs down the hallways. Who were you racing with? Don’t tell me it was Billy Harmon.”

“Okay. You won’t hear it from me.”

“Don’t be flip, Mr. August. He’s a very ill boy. Which way did he go?”

“I think I caught a glimpse of him wheeling off that way in a big hurry when I had my, er, collision. Frankly, he looked better than I’ve ever seen him look, not the least ill.”

“You are not a doctor, despite that horrible prank you pulled, visiting all the poor ladies in maternity.”

“Isn’t impersonating a doctor illegal?” Maggie asked.

“It certainly is!” Hillary concurred.

But he ignored Hillary and turned to Maggie, not the least chastened. “What are you—a lawyer? I wasn’t impersonating a doctor. I found a discarded lab jacket and a clipboard. People jumped to their own conclusions.”

“You are a hazard,” Hillary bit out.

“Why, thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment! Billy is sick, Mr. August, and even if he wasn’t, wheelchair racing is not allowed. Do you understand?”

“Aye, aye, mon capatain, strictly forboden.” He managed to murder both the French and German languages.

Maggie wanted to be appalled by him. She wanted to look at him with the very same ferocious and completely uncharmed stare that Hillary was leveling at him.

Unfortunately, he made her want to laugh. But it felt to Maggie as if her very life—or at least her professional one—depended on hiding that fact.

Hillary drew herself to her full height. “I could have you discharged,” she said shrilly.

“Make my day,” he said, unperturbed by her anger. “I’ve been trying to get out of this place for a week.”

“Oh!” she said. She turned to Maggie. “Are you all right? Maggie, isn’t it? From Children’s Connection? Oh dear, your skirt is—”

“Very attractive,” Mr. August said.

The skirt continued to be bound up in some horrible way that was defying Maggie’s every attempt to get it back where it belonged.

Strong hands suddenly settled around her hips, and Maggie let out a startled little shriek.

The hands twisted, and the skirt rustled and then fell into place.

Maggie glared at the man, agreed inwardly he was a hazard, and then patted her now perfectly respectable skirt. “I don’t know whether to thank you or smack you,” she admitted tersely.

“Smack him!” Hillary crowed, like a wrestling fan at a match, without a modicum of her normal dignity.

“There’s Billy,” the hazard said.

Maggie turned to see a young man, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, his head covered in a baseball cap, doing wheelchair wheelies past the nurses’ station. Giving Mr. August one more killing look, Hillary turned and dashed after Billy.

“Maggie, I’m Luke August.”

Maggie found her hand enveloped in one that was large and strong and warm. She looked up into eyes that were glinting with the devil.

She snatched her hand away from his, recognizing the clear and present danger of his touch.

“You were racing wheelchairs?” she asked, brushing at an imaginary speck on her hopelessly creased skirt. “With a sick child?”

“He’s not really a child. Seventeen, I think.”

“And the sick part?”

“Careful, when you purse your lips like that you look just like Nurse Nightmare over there.”

“I happen to be an advocate for children,” she said primly.

“You would have approved, then. The kid’s sick. He’s not dead. He needs people to quit acting like he is. Besides, I was bored.”

She stared at him and knew that he would be one of those men who was easily bored, full of restless energy, always looking for the adrenaline rush. He was the type of man who jumped out of airplanes and rode pitching bulls, in short, the kind of man who would worry his woman to death.

“What brings you to Portland General, Mr. August?” she asked, seeking confirmation of what she already knew.

“Luke. Motorcycle incident. Broke my back. Not as serious as it sounds. Lower vertebrae.”

“Not the first time you’ve been a guest here?” she guessed.

He smiled. “Nope. They have my own personal box of plaster of paris put away for me in the E.R. I’ve broken my right leg twice, and my wrist. Of course, then there are the injuries they don’t cast—a concussion, a separation and a dislocation. And the cuts that required stitches. That’s what happened to my nose.”

She suspected he knew exactly how darn sexy that ragged scar across his nose was, so she tried not to look. And failed.

He smiled at her failure, and that smile was devastating, warm and sexy. Of course, he was exactly the kind of man who knew it, and whom a woman with an ounce of sense walked away from. No, ran away from. He had mentioned seven injuries in the span of seven seconds!

Besides, he was exactly the kind of man who could have you breaking all the rules—kissing on the front steps of a public place and loving it—before you even knew what had hit you.

“Look, Maggie, it was nice running into you.”

A different person might have known how to play with that, but she just looked at him with consternation.

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry I ran you down. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you,” he said. He was dismissing her.

It was a carelessly tossed-out offer. He didn’t mean it, and of course there wasn’t anything he could do to erase the fact that she had been wagging her upper thighs at everyone who had come in the main entrance in the last few minutes.

But for some reason, looking into the jewel-like sparkle of those green eyes, feeling the wattage of that devilish grin, Dr. Strong’s homework assignment came to mind.

Be bold. Do something totally out of character.

It would be absolute insanity for Maggie to actually say the words that formed in her brain. She thought of that couple kissing on the steps and was filled with a sudden, heady warmth.

“You could go out with me,” she said, and then at the look of stunned surprise on his face, she stammered, “You know, to make it up to me.”

His eyes widened, and then narrowed. He was looking at her in a brand-new way, and she suddenly had the awful feeling she was coming up short.

She was not the kind of woman a man like this dated. He dated women who had waterfalls of wild hair, who wore skimpy clothing molded proudly to voluptuous curves. He dated women who wore bright-red lipstick and had a matching color for their fingernails.

Fingernails that would be long and tapered, not short and neatly filed. Maggie hid her fingers behind her back, but it didn’t help.

Maggie Sullivan was not Luke August’s kind of woman and they both knew it. Still, why did her heart feel as if it was going to fly right out of her chest while she waited for his answer?

You could go out with me.

Luke eyed the woman in front of him with surprise. She did not look like the type of woman who surprised a man.

She was presentable enough, in that kind of understated way that he associated with schoolteachers, librarians and dental hygienists, though her eyes prevented her from being ordinary. They were a shade of hazel that danced between blue and green. She had beautiful blond hair, untainted by the color streaks that were so fashionable. Her features, her nose and cheekbones and chin were passably cute, but not spectacularly attractive.

And she had a nice body under that prim gray straight-line suit with the uncooperative skirt, and he knew quite a bit more about her body than he should, since it had been flattened under him for fifteen or twenty most delectable seconds.

But Luke had already guessed quite a lot about her from their short acquaintance. She would be the predictable sort. If she said she’d meet you at two, she was the type who would be there five minutes before. The problem with the predictable sort was they always had an expectation that you were going to share their predictability.

He also guessed she would prefer reading a novel to experiencing real adventure. Her idea of a perfect Friday night was probably to be curled up on her couch with a book, a cup of tea and a cat. The problem with that type was that they generally held old-fashioned values of home and family in high esteem, a view that, given his own childhood home life, he was not inclined to share.

He was willing to bet she was the type who could be counted on to bake cookies and bring them into the office, and even though Luke liked homemade cookies as much as the next man, he was wary of what they represented—a longing for domesticity.

If the woman in front of him was all that she appeared, she was sweet, wholesome and predictable.

In fact, not his type at all. Least likely ever to wreck a wheelchair while racing down a hospital corridor.

Also least likely to ask a strange man out. Were there more surprises lurking behind that mask of respectability? Damn. He did like the unexpected.

Still, when he’d asked if there was anything he could do for her, what he’d meant was that he’d pick up her dry-cleaning bill. He should have been more clear about that.

He was going home to his ideal woman in a few more days. Her name was Amber. She had long, wild, red-tinted hair, red lips and eyes that were so black they smoked. A lacy white bra, filled to overflowing, peeped out from under her black leather jacket.

Amber had appeared in his life—unexpectedly—in April of 2002. In fact, she had appeared at the flick of his wrist. He’d been changing the calendar from March, and there she was, April 2002 on his Motorcycle Maidens calendar.

At least he was faithful to her. He had never turned the page to May. New calendars were a dime a dozen, after all, but a woman like Amber? He’d been searching for her since then. When he found her, then and only then, would he consider giving up the bachelor lifestyle. Meanwhile, he could tell his mother who, after seeking counseling several years back, had started showing unexpected and not entirely welcome interest in him, that he was “seeing” someone.

Amber was not the type who baked cookies, or was content with a cup of tea on a Friday night. She probably didn’t like cats or small children. But the way she unbuttoned her jacket and leaned over the handlebars of that Harley—the exact same make, year and model that he himself rode—who cared?

Meanwhile, it was true, he’d gone through a number of Amber look-alikes. Big-busted redheads, with steamy smiles and promising eyes, some of whom even shared his addiction to all things fast and furious. But somehow it always dead-ended, always disappointed, never even got close to filling that place.

Luke did not like thinking about that place. The restless place. The empty space. He was thirty-four years old and facing up to the fact that the older he got, the harder it was to fill. Speed didn’t do it anymore, not the way it used to. And the broken bones took longer to mend than they used to.

“What do you mean, go out?” he asked, leaning toward her, playing the game he knew how to play. Even though she was not his type, the man-woman thing was an effective form of outrunning that place, at least temporarily.

She actually was blushing a charming shade of crimson, something Amber did not do, and would not do when he finally found her.

“Never mind,” she said, and tossed her hair. “That was a silly thing to say. I don’t know what got into me.”

It was the wrong kind of hair for him. Since Amber, he liked redheads, and not necessarily real redheads, either. But that self-conscious toss had drawn his eye. Miss Priss’s hair was an intriguing shade somewhere between corn silk and ripening wheat.

Considering it wasn’t the type of hair he went for, at all, he found it odd that he suddenly wanted to touch it. “We could,” he said, “go out.”

Her green-blue eyes got very big. Amber would have licked her lips and let her eyes travel suggestively down his hospital gown, but hers didn’t.

“Maggie, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what Nurse Nightmare called you?” He was helping her along, giving her an opportunity to flirt, but she was obviously terrible at this. She was looking everywhere but at him.

“Maggie Sullivan,” she confirmed reluctantly. “But really, never mind.”

“Go out?” he prodded her. “Like for a drink or something?”

“Oh. No. I mean I don’t drink.”

Hell’s bells, this was getting worse by the moment. Amber would drink. Get on the tables and sway her hips and lick her lips when she’d had a few too many.

And he’d be the one who got to bring her home.

“So, what did you mean, then, go out?”

“I thought maybe a movie…or something,” she said lamely.

Worse than he thought. A movie, which meant the big debate. Do you hold her hand? Put your arm over her shoulder? When was the last time going out had meant that to him?

He thought he’d been twelve.

“Did you have a particular movie in mind?” Mind. Had he lost his? Maggie Sullivan was not his kind.

On the other hand, his search for Amber was proving futile. Why not entertain himself until she came along? Maggie was the kind of girl who had always snubbed him in high school, the kind of girl lost behind too many books in her arms, not amused by being tripped by his big foot sticking out in the hall.

Miss Goody Two Shoes and the Wild Boy.

Life had been getting a little dull. Why not play a bit? She’d asked, not him. She’d started it. If she wanted to play with fire, why not accommodate her?

“I had heard Lilacs in Spring was good, but—”

Lilacs in Spring. He was willing to bet it was all about sappy stuff, no motorcycles or pool tables in the script. Kissing. Romance. Eye-gazing. Hand-holding. Fields full of flowers. Mushy music. In other words, the big yuck.

The type of movie he and Amber would not go to, ever.

“Meet me right here, at say, eight?” he said. “We could catch the late show.”

“Aren’t you in the hospital?”

“Did you ever see the movie Escape from Alcatraz?”

“No.”

That figures. “Everything’s way more fun when you’re not supposed to do it,” he explained, attempting to be patient with her. “I loved playing hooky as a kid. There are things a man misses about being a kid.”

He could tell she just wanted to turn and run. She had never gone out with the kind of guy who liked playing hooky, not in her entire life. Instead she yanked her skirt down one more time, lifted her chin and said, “Eight o’clock it is.”

She scurried away and he watched her, amused. “I bet I’ll never see her again,” he said out loud. Just the same, he knew he would be waiting here at eight o’clock just in case Miss Maggie Sullivan decided to surprise him one more time.

Something hit him hard in the knees and he turned around. Billy Harmon grinned at him from his wheelchair. His bald head was covered with the baseball cap Luke had given him yesterday.

The kid just tugged at his heartstrings, a surprise to Luke, since he liked to deny the existence of a heart.

“Hey, Billy, you escaped Nurse Nightmare. Good man!”

“Luke, I got two rolls of toilet paper. You want to do something with me?” Billy leaned forward, his eyes alight with glee as he laid out his plan for laying a toilet-paper trail all the way from Nurse Nightmare’s private bathroom facilities to the men’s locked ward.

Luke scanned the boy’s face, looking for signs of weariness, but there were none. That nurse had been right, he wasn’t a doctor. But he knew mischief could be a tonic, especially for a kid who knew way too much about the hard side of life. In Luke’s evaluation, Billy needed his mind taken off the bleak realities he faced everyday, and that wasn’t going to happen if he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

“I’m in,” Luke said, picking his wheelchair up off the floor. He inspected it for damage, found none and settled himself in the seat. He followed Billy’s example and hooked the toilet paper roll on the back push grip where it began to unroll merrily behind him.

But the whole time he laid his toilet paper trail down the hall, Luke August was uneasily aware that he was thinking of eyes that were an astonishing shade of blue and green, not the least little bit like Amber’s.

He tried to imagine if those eyes would be laughing or disapproving if she was watching him right now.

Who cares? he asked himself roughly.

He realized he did. And that maybe he was the one who needed to be thinking long and hard before he showed up in that hospital foyer at eight tonight.

Two

L uke caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass of the hospital front doors, and felt satisfied with what he had accomplished. He was wearing the green overalls and the white-bill cap of a hospital custodian.

“Evenin’, Doc,” he greeted his own doctor as she hurried by him out of the building. She was an Amazon of a woman, in her mid-fifties, but they were on a first-name basis, and she had that gleam in her eye whenever she saw him. What could he say? It was a gift.

But tonight she barely glanced his way. “Good night,” she said politely.

It wasn’t just that she hadn’t recognized him. It was as if he was invisible. People leaving the hospital as the end of visiting hours approached bustled by him in the main foyer with nary a glance, returning his casual greetings without really seeing him.

Invisible. Exactly the effect he had been attempting when he had raided the maintenance closet on his floor. Luke swabbed the floor with his mop and congratulated himself on his ease with the art of disguise. He liked trying on other personas and slipped into them easily.

He would have made an excellent spy or undercover cop, he thought. He realized he probably would have excelled in a career in acting. In fact, he had entertained the idea of becoming an actor after one successful role in a high school production. A girlfriend had talked him into playing Hook in Peter Pan and he had gotten a great deal of mileage out of telling his upscale and very conservative parents he planned to hit Hollywood upon graduation. He could not find a single other career choice that his parents disapproved of as heartily as that one, which was guaranteed to get a rise out of them both.

His eventual choice, a career in construction, had certainly proven to be a close enough second in the disapproval rating. Nevertheless, he hadn’t looked back.

“Manly, too,” he muttered to himself of his career choice. Now, though, he enjoyed being in character, an eccentric floor cleaner who muttered and swabbed. No one watching would be even remotely aware that Luke kept a surreptitious eye on the front door.

“Visiting hours are now over,” the tinny voice over the public address system announced officiously.

Luke glanced at the clock, confirming what he had just heard. Eight o’clock, on the dot.

“Big surprise,” Luke said to his washtub, giving the mop a vigorous wring. “Miss Maggie Sullivan, an on-the-dot kind of gal if there ever was one, is not coming.”

After his weak moment this afternoon, when he had caught himself actually caring what Miss Maggie would think of a grown man unraveling toilet paper down a hospital corridor, Luke had arrived at the conclusion that he was not going out with her. There was something dangerous brewing under the surface of that pristine exterior.

Still, as the hands of the clock had ticked closer and closer to eight, curiosity, that worst of male vices, had gotten the better of him.

He’d found everything he needed in the maintenance closet on his floor, including a name tag that said Fred. It was really the best of both worlds—he got to see if she showed up without being the least bit vulnerable himself.

Really, Luke told himself, it was as if he was studying human nature, nothing more. He wanted to see how accurately he had judged her character, and now he congratulated himself on his astuteness.

He’d surmised Miss Maggie had never asked a man out before in her life. He had predicted she would get cold feet.

Okay, he might have also been just a tiny bit curious what she would have worn had he happened to be wrong.

But he wasn’t. He looked at the clock again. Three minutes after eight. If she was coming, he would have bet his last fifty cents she would have been here at precisely five minutes to eight. She was not the kind of woman who would be late. He knew these things. He should have let Billy in on it. They could have bet five bucks, though it would have been a shame to take Billy’s money.

Just underneath the hearty round of congratulations he was giving himself as he wrung out the mop one final time and prepared to go back to his room, Luke became aware of something besides self-congratulation stirring in his breast.

He realized he was wringing the mop just a little too vigorously, the handle bending dangerously under the pressure he was applying. He paused and analyzed the unwanted feeling that hovered at the edges of his consciousness. Could it be?

Disappointment?

No! He would never be disappointed because a little mouse like that had stood him up! Or if he was, it was only because he had gone to a great deal of trouble to be able to have a front-row seat to her reaction to being stood up by him.

He felt the cool draft of the front door opening, and out of the corner of his eye caught a flutter of movement. He turned his head marginally, froze, then ducked his head and began mopping again. He slid another glance out of the corner of his eye.

Her.

He waltzed the bucket around so he was facing her, but kept the bill of his cap down. He peered at her from under it and digested the fact the little mouse, Miss Maggie, had managed to surprise him again.

She had not been five minutes early. And she was not a no-show, either.

Maggie Sullivan stood, a trifle uncertainly, scanning the foyer. The outfit was worth waiting for. It was evident she had worked very hard at choosing it, and had arrived at a look that was not in the least overstated, and that was certainly not designed to impress anyone. Still, there was no denying the way those plain black trousers, flared faintly from knee to ankle, hugged the lovely feminine swell of hip that had caused her so much trouble earlier in the day. She had on a light-brown suede jacket over a black T-shirt that promised to be formfitting if he ever had an opportunity to get a better look at it.

He remembered the soft press of that form just a little too well.

“Brilliant,” he muttered at the murky water in his bucket. The girl was obviously brilliant. She had chosen an outfit designed to make it look as though she was not trying to impress anyone, least of all not him, and that had succeeded in intriguing, nonetheless.

It was not an Amber-approved outfit. No cleavage or glimpses of underwear were to be seen, but it was a long way from the Miss Priss he had knocked right off her feet this afternoon. Her blond hair was free and cascaded down over her shoulders in a shiny wave. He felt that same rebel need to touch it that he had felt this afternoon.

He tried to read her features, but the little tilt of her delicate nose, the furrow at her brow and the quick glance at her watch were not all that readable.

Was she disappointed that he hadn’t showed? He was amazed that he couldn’t tell. She glanced at her watch, took another look around, then spun on her heel. He thought maybe he had caught a quick glimpse of something on her face before she had turned away. Relief?

That Luke appeared not to have shown up? That seemed unlikely, especially since she herself had gone to the trouble of getting here.

Still, she was leaving. Would she give up that quickly? He had been at his station, a patient patient, for a full half hour.

Wait. Her shoulders slumped marginally as she pushed at the door. In that one small gesture he read a heartrending weariness at the ways of the world, and at the callousness of his sex.

He was not the kind of guy who could be trusted with a girl who got hurt easily, and he was the least likely guy to save his sex from a reputation of being callous. In fact, he had probably personally helped his gender gain that reputation!

Nope, Luke August knew himself inside out. He was superficial and insensitive, and for the most part, damned proud of it.

Let her go, his voice of reason cautioned him.

“Hey, Maggie.” It was his other voice.

She spun, startled, and scanned the room again. Her eyes rested on him briefly, studied the empty foyer, and then returned to him, understanding dawning in them.

He rested his hands on the top of the mop, pushed the bill of his cap up with the handle and grinned.

She stared at him, her hand still on the door. It occurred to him that she was considering bolting, and that he would be sorry if she did. But then she let go of her grip on the door, turned, folded her arms over her chest and tapped her foot.

In that pose, she reminded him of a teacher he’d had in the sixth grade. A formidable woman whom he had not liked one little bit. Why hadn’t he just let her leave?

That’s what I told you to do, the voice of reason reminded him churlishly.

It occurred to him that underneath that stern expression, Maggie was trying not to smile. But the smile flickered across her lips, disappeared and then reappeared again, the sun peeping in and out of rain clouds.

The sun won, and that smile changed everything.

Cameron Diaz, eat your heart out, Luke thought. Maggie Sullivan’s smile was wide and infectious. She had glossed her lips some kind of soft, shimmery shade of peach, and he saw the kissable plumpness of her lower one. In the blink of an eye that smile transformed her from an old-maid schoolmarm to a woman who looked young and carefree and quite astoundingly beautiful.

Not beautiful in the Amber way, all painted and promising seduction. Beautiful in quite a different way, natural and graceful, like a doe pausing in a meadow.

He noticed the smile lit her eyes to a shade that was electric, and she had little crinkles at the edges of them that told him her smile was one hundred percent the real thing.

His eyes were drawn to the plumpness of her bottom lip again. How was it possible he had been in such close proximity to her this afternoon and not noticed how kissable her mouth was? It must be the gloss, because now it seemed he couldn’t focus on anything else as she came across his nicely cleaned floor toward him.

“You’re full of surprises,” she said, stopping, looking up at him through a tangle of thick lashes.

Whoo boy. He was full of surprises? She was the one who was late. And here. And beautiful in some spectacular, understated way he had not appreciated in a woman before. And the biggest surprise of all? Miss Maggie had lips that could be declared dangerous weapons.

“You, too,” he said.

“Me?” She laughed with disbelief and self-consciousness. “Oh, no, I don’t think I’m a surprising kind of person.”

“You’re here,” he pointed out. “That’s a surprise.”

“You didn’t think I’d come?” The smile faded, and with it went the spell of great beauty it had cast. Not that she wasn’t cute enough, if you had the librarian fantasy.

Which he didn’t. Amber in black leather was all the fantasy he needed.

“No, I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Oh.”

He noticed how awkward she was, just plain bad at the man-woman interchanges. It was a quality he should not find the least endearing.

But he did, not that it changed anything. Luke August did not date awkward girls. Or ones that were easily hurt. And yet her eyes wouldn’t let him go, beckoned to him, a lighthouse to a ship lost at sea.

“So, er, why did you come? If you thought I wasn’t coming?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder. “Floor needed mopping?”

“Well, that explains the outfit.”

He suddenly didn’t want her thinking about his outfit for too long. He didn’t want her arriving at the real reason he’d worn the disguise—to spy on her, and then to slip away, unscathed by her smile. It was too late for plan A.

Luke decided to formulate plan B as he went along. “It’s part of my escape plan,” he confided in her. “Nurse Nightmare takes a dim view of her patients ducking out to catch the late show.”

“The late show,” Maggie repeated, as if she had only just remembered why she was here. She looked around uncomfortably, took a deep breath and began talking, the fast chatter of someone who was nervous, or trying very hard to sell a product they didn’t actually believe in.

“Actually, Luke,” she said, “I asked you to go to the movie with me on an impulse.”

“You don’t say?” he said dryly.

She hurried on. “I had decided not to come. But then it seemed so unfair to leave you waiting with no explanation. So I just came to tell you, it’s off. No date.”

He regarded her silently. Well, well, well. Another surprise from Maggie Sullivan. She was brushing him off? It was actually much worse than just plain being stood up. He was not entirely accustomed to this turn of events. He found himself reluctantly intrigued by it, so he folded his hands more firmly over the mop, leaned his chin on the tops of his hands and let her flounder.

“You wouldn’t have liked it, anyway. The movie,” she added hastily as if, left to his own devices, he would have assumed it was something incredibly, indescribably naughty.

“Why the change of heart?” he asked, enjoying the little flood of crimson that was staining her cheeks. She had quite amazing cheekbones, when they were highlighted like that.

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?

Wrong, his voice of reason said stubbornly.

It was dumb to ignore that reason-voice. Luke knew from experience you almost always ended up going off a ramp on a dirt bike at eighty miles an hour, filled with the sudden knowledge that you would have had to be going ninety to make the ramp on the far side of the ravine.

He ignored the voice of reason. This was a challenge after all. He had a weakness. He had never been able to say no to a challenge.

And he had all the scars to prove it.

“Okay, the movie is out. Coffee is out. How about if we just go down to Morgan’s Pub, play a game of pool and call it a night?”

There. He’d risen to the challenge and gotten himself off the hook in one smooth move. No girl who got to know people from the church was going to say yes to going to a pub and playing pool with a virtual stranger, a renegade dressed in a custodian’s outfit.

She hesitated for only a moment, filled herself up with air as if she was building up the nerve to step off a cliff into a pool of ice-cold water, and then said, “Okay. I guess that would be all right.”

Maggie could not believe she had just said that. It would most definitely not be all right to go play a game of pool with Luke August. She didn’t even know how to play pool, though that would be the least of her problems.

It was his eyes, she decided. They were green and smoky and they danced with amusement and mischief and seduction.

Seduction, she repeated to herself with a gulp.

She had come here to Portland General to tell him politely she had come to her senses and that she was not going to a movie with a stranger, with a man she knew nothing about except that he raced wheelchairs. Badly. She could just have not come at all, but it had seemed as if it would be too rude to leave him standing there in the foyer, waiting for her.

Of course, if she was going to be honest with herself, the truth was she could have used the phone and left a message for him at the nursing station.

But then she wouldn’t have known if he had come. Somehow she had thought maybe he wouldn’t. What had she felt when she had first walked in and the hospital foyer had appeared empty?

Much too much.

Her resolve to break the date had intensified when Luke had touched her hair. What had she felt then? Again, much too much. As if she wanted to lean toward him, place her fingertips on his chest, feel the hard wall of muscle and man beneath her hands, as she had felt it this afternoon.

Everything in her mind was screaming at her to run. Every sinew of her body was keeping her rooted to the spot.

In the end his eyes had proved irresistible, the laughter in them beckoning to her, promising her something outside the predictability and the monotony of her own narrow world.

Look at it as homework, she persuaded herself when she heard her voice saying with deceptive calm that she would go play pool with him.

Homework assignment: Be bold. Do something totally out of character this week. So, she’d asked a man out. It hardly counted if she then refused to go out with him!

“My lady,” Luke said, picking up the bucket and resting the dripping mop over his shoulder, “follow me.”

By then she was helpless to do anything but obey. Following him allowed her to study the broadness of his back, the narrowness of his hips, the firm line of his rear end, the length of his leg.

She realized, even in those custodian’s overalls, too short for his six-foot-something frame, that he walked like a man who owned the earth, his stride long and loose, powerful and confident.

“Evenin’,” he said cheerfully to a nurse coming toward them.

The woman gave him a quick glance, squinted at his chest. “Evening, Fred,” she replied distractedly.

Maggie stifled a giggle.

“Fred” turned and winked at her. He led her through a maze of hallways and up and down elevators until they came to an exit she suspected no one knew existed.

While she watched, he reached for the zipper on the coveralls.

“Want to take bets what I have on underneath?” His eyes were very dark in the murky light of the hall, dark and watchful.

She wished she was one of those girls who knew what to say in moments like this, but Maggie only gulped and shook her head. But she didn’t look away, and he had known she would not look away.

Aware her eyes were riveted on that zipper, he lowered it very slowly, winked at her when she spotted the shirt underneath, and then he shimmied out of the coveralls, as if he undressed in front of women everyday.

Which he probably did, she reminded herself. The man was as close to irresistible as men came, and he knew it.

Underneath the coveralls, Luke had on a white denim shirt, sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, revealing the power of his lower forearms. Faded jeans clung to the large muscles of his thighs.

“How did you know this was here?” she asked a trifle breathlessly, trying to think about anything but the way he was made.

“This exit? I explore.”

“For what reason?”

“You never know when you might have to get ten old people in wheelchairs out because of a fire.”

He could have said anything. That he got bored. That he was restless. And those things probably would have been true. But what he said also had sounded true. It would almost be too much to handle if he looked the way he did—so handsome, powerful, self-assured—and also had heroic qualities.

He opened the door for her and bowed. “The only one in the building that’s not alarmed,” he told her.

“How many alarms did you set off finding that out?” she asked, stepping by him, trying desperately to keep it light, to banter, not to give in to the shivering awareness she felt when she glimpsed the squareness of his wrist, caught the scent of him, noticed how the darkness made his faintly whisker-roughened face look like that of a pirate.

“Lots. Ask Nurse Nightmare.”

“I intend to.” She looked around. There was no light over the door, and it was pitch-black out here. She didn’t have the foggiest notion where they were. Behind one of the hospital wings, she assumed.

He leaned over and stuck a rock in the door, holding it ajar ever so slightly. “So I can get back in.”

“Why do you go to all the trouble?” she asked. “I think we could have just walked out the front door. You’re a patient, not a prisoner.”

“Ha. You don’t know the first thing about Nurse Nightmare, do you?”

“I know her name is not Nurse Nightmare! It’s Hillary Wagner.”

He leaned close to her. She could feel his breath on the soft hollow of her neck. It occurred to her she was in a very dark and deserted place with a man she knew absolutely nothing about.

“I like to live dangerously,” he said softly.

So, now she knew that. And yet she did not feel the least afraid, or at least not for her physical safety. When she looked into Luke August’s eyes she saw a man who planned escape routes for ten people in wheelchairs and who loved to play.

And she saw something else.

Her own need. She leaned toward him, her eyes closing, her lips parting. He was leaning toward her, too, so close she could smell the tangy scent of him, feel the faint heat rising off his body. She gave in to the temptation to touch. Her fingertips grazed his shirt, and she shut her eyes against the pulsating power contained behind the thin and flimsy wall of fabric.

He pulled back, away from her touch, and she straightened and stared at him.

“Ah, Miss Maggie Mouse,” he said softly, “you aren’t that kind of girl.”

She was grateful for the darkness because she could feel the blush leap onto her cheeks. It was true. She was not that kind of girl.

But she sure wanted to be.

“Miss Maggie Mouse?” she asked, faintly chagrined, but slightly charmed, despite herself. Boys in high school had always given the girls they liked teasing nicknames. She had never been one of those girls chosen.

“That’s right,” he said, his eyes warm in the darkness. “Miss Maggie Mouse.”

She held her breath. She could tell he wanted to kiss Miss Maggie Mouse very badly, or at the very least, touch her hair again.

But he did neither.

He held out his hand to her, and there was no mistaking the brotherliness of the offer. She took it. His grip was strong and warm and protective. Unfortunately, he had just protected her from himself, a gesture that was completely unwanted.

“Let’s go play that game of pool,” he said, his voice thick.

She had a sudden, wild yearning to show him she was no mouse, to show him the mouse was only a disguise.

But for what? She wanted to be a tigress, but that was a bit of a stretch. She was a twenty-seven-year-old social worker whose one serious romance had ended like a bad Hollywood comedy.

She decided that trying to tempt Luke August might be a mistake, and yet even the notion of taking his lips captive until he was helpless with yearning filled her with a lovely, drugging warmth that was not typical of her. Even entertaining such an idea made her feel vaguely guilty.

Unaware of the war within her, Luke led them through the darkness with catlike confidence, bringing them out on a side street just to the west of the hospital.

“Morgan’s is just around the corner. Have you ever been there?” he asked.

“On occasion. They have a great lunch special. Have you been there?”

He snorted. “It’s where everybody knows my name.”

Great, Maggie thought. He was restless and reckless. He loved to live dangerously. He was comfortable shedding his clothes in front of a woman. He was totally at home in a bar. What was she doing here?

Having the time of your life, a little voice, one she did not recognize at all, answered back to her, not without glee.

Three

M organ’s Pub was crowded. And loud. The cheerful Irish bar was a popular place in downtown Portland, and Maggie usually enjoyed the atmosphere, noise and decor, but tonight, after walking hand in hand with Luke, and after a near miss in the kissing department, it felt way too public.

Not that anyone noticed! A couple in one of the oak booths by the windows didn’t seem to be even remotely aware of either the noise or the crowd. They were tangled around each other like tree roots.

Were these performances becoming more common? Or was Maggie just noticing them more?

“Sheesh,” Luke muttered. “Get a room.”

So, he had noticed, too. Maggie glanced once more at the couple and frowned. Wasn’t that a man she had seen on several occasions at the Healthy Living Clinic?

“Hey, Luke, haven’t seen you for a while.”

Maggie’s attention was diverted from the couple. The waitress was cute, one of those perky outgoing types that Maggie always somehow envied, even though they always seemed to end up working in places like this.

Blond and decidedly voluptuous, the girl had on a white tank top that showed off a pierced belly button. It was exactly the type of clothing that Maggie would never be able to wear. The young waitress was looking at Luke with something that seemed frighteningly close to adoration.

Maggie realized it should come as no surprise to her that Luke was the kind of man accustomed to being adored by the kind of girls who could get away with wearing skimpy white tank tops and piercing their belly buttons!

She sneaked a look at him and felt a renewed ripple of pleasure at the sheer masculine presence of the man, the dark crispness of his hair, the roguishness of his features, the rippling strength evident in every inch of his powerful frame.

A quick glance around proved his entrance had not gone unnoticed by many of the women in the establishment. A table of four attractive mid-twenties women were all looking at him with unveiled appreciation. When they caught Maggie’s eye, they turned quickly away, chattering animatedly to each other over the table. Maggie suspected they were asking the very same question she herself was asking.

What was she, plain, ordinary Maggie Sullivan, doing here with this man? The movie would have been a better choice after all. She could have sat in the dark, chewed popcorn and worried about butter, never having a clue of what she was up against in terms of his massive appeal to all members of the opposite sex.

Up against? Good grief, that made it sound as if she had designs on Luke August! Maggie reminded herself she was doing her homework, being bold, not making lifetime plans. Still, she watched the interchange between Luke and the waitress with pained interest.

Luke gave the girl a light tap on the shoulder with a loose fist. “Hey, little sister,” he said, and with that single phrase, seemingly tossed out casually, he defused Maggie’s anxiety. The phrase recognized the girl’s youth without snubbing her. He acknowledged her, but didn’t encourage her interest.

Was there more to Luke than met the eye?

“Where have you been?” the waitress asked, coquettishly blinking mascara-dripping lashes at him. She slipped her tray onto her hip, apparently planning a long chat that ignored Maggie. “It’s been a couple of weeks, hasn’t it?”

“I’ve been laid up,” he said. “Is there a table back in the pool room? Great. Hey, Rhonda, can you bring us a couple of burgers? Heavy on the fries. Don’t stint on the gravy, either.”

Maggie suspected anyone else would have been told that that wasn’t her section, but Rhonda didn’t seem to realize she had been gently brushed off and was still eager to please. “To drink? Your regular?”

“Yeah.”

“And your lady friend?”

“Just a cola, thanks,” Maggie said.

“Two regulars,” Rhonda said, rolling her eyes.

Maggie and Luke pushed their way through the crowd in the front of the bar, to the pool room at the back. There was one table to sit at, and lots of greetings to Luke. He helped her take off her jacket, the old-world courtesy completely wiped out by the wicked way he raised his eyebrows at what was underneath.

The black T-shirt was way too tight. She had known it when she put it on, but of course at that time her crystal ball had failed her. She hadn’t known the evening was going to hold more than a polite refusal to see him. She had thought the jacket was staying on!

“You look great in that,” he said gruffly.

The comment flustered her. Did she really? Or did he just know how to make women feel sexy?

Thankfully, they had no sooner settled at the table than he was swarmed. He fielded questions about his long absence from this favorite watering hole.

He was obviously popular and well-liked by both men and women. Though she desperately would have liked to find fault with him, Maggie found herself reluctantly liking how he interacted with people. He was a man who had been given many gifts, the kind of man who could easily have become stuck on himself.

But Luke seemed genuinely interested in other people. He knew and remembered small details. He asked one woman about her cat, and even remembered the pet’s name. When he inquired about details of their lives, he appeared to care about the answers. He introduced Maggie to everyone who visited the table and made sure she was included in the conversations. He exchanged banter with some beautiful women, but never once to the point where Maggie felt he would rather be with them, or that he was asking the question she was certain everyone else was asking.

What is he doing with her?

Still, for all his comfort with the patrons of Morgan’s, after a while Maggie noticed something she found a tiny bit sad, though the word sad seemed like the last word you would have thought of, looking at the dynamic Mr. August holding court.

“Doesn’t anybody know you’re in the hospital?” she finally asked when they once again had the table to themselves.

He shrugged it off. “I didn’t exactly send out announcement cards.”

But Maggie was a social worker. She was trained to look deeper, and her intuition was finely honed. She suspected Luke August deliberately chose relationships that were superficial, that required very little of him.

What did that say about him? Not much. It added to his already less-than-stellar résumé: that he was restless and reckless, loved to live dangerously and was quite comfortable shedding his clothes in front of women. And that was before she even began to factor in his ease at assuming roles from doctor to janitor, and his apparent love of flaunting rules.

But a more sympathetic thought was already crowding out all the unsympathetic facts. How lonely could he be that he chose relationships that asked so very little of him? That gave him nothing?

Ha! A man who looked less lonely she had rarely seen.

Besides, could it be any lonelier than her life, where she managed to bury her own heartaches in an almost crippling workload? Was escaping a life of real commitment and intimacy through overwork any different than escaping through riding motorcycles too fast or cultivating friendships in a bar?

“Hey,” he said, reaching over and pressing his thumb against her forehead. “You’re getting too serious, again. Tell me you are not thinking about butter.”

She laughed. “No.”

“Well, whatever you’re thinking about, stop. You’re going to get a wrinkle right here.”

The small gesture, his finger briefly touching her forehead, coupled with the mischief in those green eyes, was strangely intoxicating.

Besides, he was right. The whole point of this exercise was to have fun, to let go, to be different than she normally was. Bold. She gave herself permission to do that, ordered herself to quit the analyzing that came as second nature to her, a skill that made her a great social worker but probably not such a great date.

“Is your regular drink really soda?” she asked him when their drinks arrived. “I’m surprised.” Again.

“I am in the hospital. It’s probably not a great idea to return inebriated.” She realized he didn’t want to discuss his less-than-macho choice of drink because he quickly changed the subject. “I can’t wait for that burger. Maybe I’ll have two. Hospital food is, well, horrible.”

“She said it was your regular,” Maggie said of his drink choice, not prepared to let him wiggle out of it.

“Did she?”

“So, unless you’ve been slipping out on these little field trips every night…” She already knew he hadn’t, at least not to Morgan’s.

“Great idea, but no. This is the first time I’ve had a night out. This hospitalization, anyway.”

“This hospitalization?” she asked. “So you play hooky every time you’re hospitalized?”

He shrugged.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Are you a reporter?” he teased, but did she hear a faint warning? Don’t ask too much. Don’t get too personal.

“No, I’m curious.”

“You know what that did to the cat.” He hesitated, then answered. “In the last five years, I’ve been in the hospital seven times. I get bored.”

She was startled, but something in his look made her back off. She reminded herself she was supposed to be having fun. She wasn’t conducting a parenting suitability interview.

“Well, here’s to brown and bubbly,” she said, lifting her glass to him.

“Did you have me pegged for a beer-swilling swine, little Maggie Mouse?” he teased. He liked it light. Well, that was fine. She was planning one night of being out of character. It really had nothing to do with him, except that he was a different kind of choice than she had ever made before. And how.