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“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—”
