The Greatest Risk

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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.