Bride Candidate #9. Susan Crosby

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СКАЧАТЬ they returned to port, he’d managed to chip that wall low enough to step over. But when he’d asked to see her after the trip, she’d automatically said no—and he’d respected her wishes. She’d become more grateful as time passed, coming to believe it would have been just another shipboard romance.

      But seeing him again made the feelings resurface fast enough to give her the bends.

      Maybe she was making a huge mistake coming to him for help—

      “What can I do for you, darlin’?” he asked in a tone so tender she almost threw her arms around him Had her face revealed her feelings so vividly? She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “I’m here on business, Lucas. Strictly business.”

      “‘Lucas,’” he repeated, angling her way. “No one but my grandmother calls me that. Same prickly tone of voice, too.”

      “I’m sorry,” she said, then rested her shoulders against the cushions, making herself relax. “I’m under a lot of pressure right now. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

      “I’m just such an agreeable target.”

      “Too agreeable. You shouldn’t let me get away with it so easily” She touched the back of his hand in apology.

      He turned his hand over and entwined his fingers with hers. “You have abused my tender sensibilities upon occasion.”

      Ariel’s breath caught. He’d held her hand on the cruise now and then, mostly in public, when he needed her to seem like his date in order to avoid a fawning fan. And he’d held her chair for her at meals, then touched her shoulder or arm briefly before moving on to take his own seat.

      And they’d danced. He was an incredible dancer, but it wasn’t his smooth moves that had triggered a shortness of breath or a rise in body temperature. There’d been something magical about the connection she felt with him, stronger than she’d ever felt for any man.

      She might have accepted his invitation to see him after the cruise, too, if she hadn’t been so afraid of the attraction. He was a man who graced magazine covers, a man who lived in the spotlight, a place she couldn’t ever afford to be again, not if she wanted to keep what she’d worked so hard to achieve.

      Regardless, they were too different in too many other ways. Compared to her slight frame, he was too big. A humble bone didn’t live in his body. He didn’t walk; he swaggered. He was forever chomping on that infernal cigar. His chest was hairy. He wasn’t anything like any other man she’d dated. Not even close.

      And yet...the mere touch of his fingers to hers reduced her to jelly. She looked from their joined hands to his face. He seemed content just to sit there with her, not saying anything, which was staggeringly out of character He tended to talk a charmingly outrageous blue streak.

      After a minute his assistant, a stunning brunette in her mid-twenties, came into the room, carrying a tray with a teapot, two mugs and a plate of cookies. Ariel tried to slide her hand from his.

      “Will there be anything else?” Marguerite asked.

      “No interruptions, please.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      After the door closed, Luke released her hand and picked up the teapot.

      “You don’t have to entertain me. I came here on business,” Ariel said, noting how gracefully he poured even though his hands were large, his fingers long.

      “Well, now, I don’t know how you do business, but I kinda like to ease into it.” He passed her a mug. “I’ve got plenty of time for you.”

      “I’ll bet you don’t hold hands with most of your associates ”

      He turned his head her way and flashed a smile. “You’d be right about that, darlin’.”

      “Or call them darlin’.”

      “Right again.” He picked up his mug and almost took a sip. “Haven’t seen any of them in swimsuits either. But that’s neither here nor there,” he continued. “So, I can see you’re all tensed up. Why don’t you tell me what’s goin’ on?”

      Luke sipped his tea and watched her wrap both hands around her mug. She was nervous, he could see that. Why? he wondered. Him or the reason that had brought her here? He couldn’t wait to find out

      “Oh, it’s this Couch Potatoes Mash event I cooked up. Your team getting into the Super Bowl has ruined it. And it looks like I’ve gotten all these kids’ hopes up for nothing. Which happens far too frequently in their lives. And I really want this—”

      “Hold on, there, Ariel.” He stretched an arm along the cushion behind her. “Start at the top.”

      She blew out a breath. “I had this brilliant idea to have a mid-winter, let’s-get-our-butts-off-the-couch event to raise funds for the Wilson Buckley Youth Center in San Francisco. Have you heard of it?”

      “Can’t say as I have.”

      “It’s an excellent facility, with the highest standards and a tremendous staff in a pretty tough neighborhood of the city. My vision was a whole day of competition for the kids, kind of a mini-Olympics, followed by a dinner-dance and silent auction for adults. I figured I could get local businesses to sponsor individual athletic events. The publicity would draw more kids into the center and show them there are safe places they can go and have fun, particularly during the middle of winter. We planned it for the last weekend in January.”

      “Super Bowl weekend,” he said, looking away from her.

      “Which is less than two weeks from now, as you know. Well, no one expected the Gold Dusters to make the Super Bowl without—Well, without you. All the sports writers said so, and for most of the season, it looked like they’d be right. Then, you know what happened.”

      He took a controlled sip of his tea, needing a moment before he responded. “They came to life.”

      “Did they ever! But now I’m in a big jam, Lucas, and I hope you can help me out of it”

      “Go on.”

      “The Center is privately funded. They get no government support of any kind. They’ve just completed a major remodeling so that they can handle a fifty-percent increase in membership. Financially, they’re in deep, though. Several of the Gold Dusters had promised to support the event, but now that they’re in the Super Bowl, they can’t. The game’s the next day. Without them, interest is lagging.”

      He stood and wandered to the window, keeping his back to her. He was glad to see her but—“Why don’t you just change the date?”

      “We could, but everything’s in place. It was a lot to set up. I even got some of the kids involved, Lucas. They took part in the meetings with the local business owners so they could see how the system works—how to negotiate, how to deal with people different from themselves. They’ve got a lot at stake here, not the least of which is their need for people to believe in them and their genuine needs. If I can’t drum up a major sponsor for the event, we’ll lose everything we’ve put into it. At this point, we’d settle for breaking even and doing something again in the summer.”

      “Which СКАЧАТЬ