Kitabı oku: «Bride Candidate #9»

One

It was a short list, considering he was thirty-four years old, financially secure, reasonably good-looking and practically a household name. Luke Walker leaned back in his office chair and held a piece of paper aloft, contemplating the list he’d typed a few days ago while experimenting with his new computer. A nice, neat list of names. Eight potential candidates for the permanent job of Mrs Lucas Walker.

Luke flipped the paper onto his desktop, then spun his chair to face the window behind him and the view of the mountains, frosted with fresh January snow, looking as stark and daunting as his life.

Too many changes at once. He acknowledged that. After a lifetime of knowing who and what he was, he no longer had a clue. But an offhanded question from a reporter recently had planted an idea—now was as good a time as any to settle down and start a family. After all, the more new roles he could assume, the quicker he could find out where he would settle for the rest of his life.

He heard his office door open and close.

“Luke, your two-o’clock appointment is here.”

He searched his memory, drawing a blank, before he turned around. “I have an appointment?”

The assistant he’d inherited strode to his computer, punched a few keys and brought up his date book. “There. Two o’clock. Ariel Minx.”

“Ariel Minx?” He leaned forward to look at the monitor himself. “Hell must’ve frozen over.”

Silence hovered between them for a few seconds before his assistant spoke again. “I don’t think I’ll ask. She called early this morning and said she needed to see you, that it was urgent. You were in conference. Your message icon is lit, Luke.” A long-suffering sigh was built into her words.

“I haven’t mastered that function yet.” A sudden, clear image of Ariel Minx came to mind—blond, delicate, average height. She’d filled out a basic black one-piece swimsuit to perfection. Nice shoulders, too, he recalled, and an elegant back—things he didn’t usually notice on a woman.

“Is this business or pleasure with Miss Minx, Luke? Do you need me to take notes?”

His gaze drifted to the list of names, which he then shoved into his top drawer. “Business, I suspect. We met on that charity cruise last summer. Give me a minute, Marguerite, then show her in. If I need you, I’ll let you know.”

As soon as Marguerite left the room, Luke scooped up the crutches leaning against his desk and propelled himself across his office, swiping his suit jacket from a rack as he passed it. His crutches belonged in the bathroom, out of Ariel’s sight and curiosity, on the off chance this wasn’t a business call.

He had no intention of becoming another of her charitable causes.

Ariel Minx’s instincts were usually good, but she hadn’t pegged Lucas Walker at all. The office of the former star receiver of the San Francisco Gold Dusters and now president of Titan Athletic Shoes should have been gaudy with masculine pretense. It wasn’t.

Ariel turned a slow circle as she waited for him to arrive. She’d anticipated a giant trophy room of gleaming tributes to his years as a professional football player. At the very least, his six Sports Illustrated covers, framed for public viewing and admiration, should have peppered his walls. Perhaps even a mounted animal head or two, in keeping with his all-American-male image.

She figured he fished and hunted with the best of ’em, given his penchant for tall tales. But, if so, such manly pursuits weren’t in evidence here in his amazingly understated, tastefully decorated office, the furnishings of which were chosen for comfort, the arrangement cozy. She was drawn to the view of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and knew that beautiful Lake Tahoe was nestled a ridge away. She’d passed it on the way to Luke’s office building.

Damn the man, anyway. She couldn’t even fault him for having poor taste—and he’d been hard enough to resist with his more obvious liabilities.

“Well, Miz Minx, if you aren’t a welcome sight for these sorry eyes.” He filled the room with his presence as he came through a door, shutting it before he added, “What brings you out of the big city?”

In casual wear he had been imposing, she recalled. In a tuxedo, he’d all but sent her into a swoon. But then, most men looked good in a tux. Dressed for success, however, he overwhelmed. The navy blue fabric of his suit matched his eyes. A splash of burnished gold in his tie coordinated with his hair, gleaming brilliantly in the mid-afternoon sun shining through a picture window, freeze framing him in her mind.

“Cat got your tongue?” His eyes danced with friendly humor, as if he’d last seen her six days ago instead of six months.

Ariel frowned. He’d flustered her from the moment they’d met. She, who was always in control, chairing committees, not just serving on them. She, who managed a portfolio worth millions; she, who successfully sweet-talked celebrities and politicians into giving time and money to charitable causes, was reduced to struggling to find the right words with him.

Which was why she’d avoided him since the cruise she’d arranged and he’d attended as a sports celebrity—before his unexpected retirement. And if she’d been surprised or even a little disappointed that he’d taken her at her word and not contacted her during the ensuing months, she hadn’t thought about it more than, oh, a couple of times a day.

She focused on the ever-present cigar that he grinned around. “Good afternoon, Mr. Walker. Still stinking up rooms, I see.”

With a chuckle, he pulled the cigar from his mouth and ground it out in a nearby ashtray. He led her to a burgundy leather sofa, then sat beside her. He fingered the sleeve of her red wool suit. “Dressed like this, you must mean business.”

He was a toucher. She’d forgotten that. He must be a wonderful lover—Ariel blinked, cannoning the image away, not for the first time. “I have a favor to ask,” she said abruptly. “I thought it should be in person.”

“Would you like something to drink?” He didn’t wait for her answer, but pressed a button on a speaker phone. “Marguerite, would you get Miz Minx and me a fresh pot of tea, please?”

“I’d be glad to, Luke,” came the immediate response.

“‘It should be in person’?” he repeated to Ariel, not skipping a beat.

She shifted her gaze from the intercom to his face. “What if I’d wanted coffee?”

“You don’t drink coffee.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Why, Ariel, we shared quite a few meals on the cruise. You always ordered tea. Plain tea. No fancy flavors. No sweetener. No milk. A smart man pays attention to what a lady in his company prefers. Now, the woman who sat on my other side—”

“The one you were setting your sights on that first night, until her husband joined her?”

His eyes twinkled. “I was just bein’ friendly.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She liked margaritas—and keep ’em coming. And the lady across the table drank only milk. Six months pregnant, you recall.”

“Which leaves Mrs. Kent...”

“She enjoyed her sherry, didn’t she?”

He waited, a challenge in his silence.

“Am I supposed to be flattered that you remember my tastes, Lucas, when you can also remember everyone else’s?”

“Can’t say the issue was whether you should be flattered, darlin’. Only that I noticed.”

Reluctantly Ariel smiled. Something else she’d forgotten—how easily he’d made her laugh. How much fun he was with his born-and-bred Texas drawl and understated humor. He’d been the only unmarried celebrity on the cruise, so at times—most of the time, actually—they’d ended up as a pair. He hadn’t harassed her. He hadn’t even looked at her with lust. But as soon as they’d become a couple by default, he’d monopolized her attention, entertaining her with stories that could as easily have been truth as fancy, and chipping away at the wall she’d built instantly between them, knowing she couldn’t handle him in the way she handled any other man.

Before 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 leads you to why you’ve come, I suppose. You want my company to take over sponsorship.”

“Would you? It would mean so much to the kids.”

He let the words sink in as he turned around. He couldn’t let his pride get in the way of an important cause. The look of expectation on her face made his stomach clench. He cocked his head. “You haven’t done this before, have you, darlin’?”

“Done what?”

“Fund-raising.”

Ariel fidgeted. “What makes you say that?”

“‘Cause you’re goin’ about it all wrong.” He carried his mug with him to his desk. “You’re supposed to approach your target expecting positive results. You should be anticipating my objections. You should be sayin’ things to let me try on the idea of involving myself. Now, I’m not sayin’ that usin’ the emotional approach won’t work, but a seasoned fund-raiser saves that tactic for last.”

“You’re limping.”

“Nice change of subject. Smooth, Ariel. Real smooth.” He chuckled and shook his head.

“Well, you were. I thought you’d had surgery. Didn’t it work?”

“It worked Rehab takes longer than you might think. It’s no big deal” He booted his computer and typed a few words.

“I was sorry to hear about your having to retire,” she said. “That must be really hard on you.”

“Not as hard for me as others, maybe. I had the company to turn to. I’ve worked for Titan since I was twenty-two, off and on. My grandfather decided it was a good time for him and my grandmother to see America, so it worked out all the way around.”

Ariel wondered if he was deluding himself that he could give up that part of his life so easily, or if he was trying to delude her. Men. Such tough guys. Can’t ever let anyone see them vulnerable.

She couldn’t sit still as he spent the next few minutes at his computer, looking at his budget—she hoped—for what he could swing for a donation.

She strolled to the window behind him. She ran a mental list of the advice that the foundation’s professional fund-raiser had given her, deciding she’d messed things up because she hadn’t factored in her own emotional response to seeing him again. Ariel had decided to meet personally with Luke, alone without the fund-raiser, since she had the advantage not only of having met him but of having spent a lot of time with him.

But Luke was right. She wasn’t any good at asking people for help. Which was why she usually just dove in and did things herself instead of begging someone else She glanced at the back of his head, wondering if she should tell him how desperate she was for his help.

“Any chance you missed me some?” he asked out of the blue, then turned and leveled a penetrating stare on her.

She cupped her mug a little tighter “A slight chance.”

“Slight, as in ‘a passin’ thought once a week’? Or slight, as in ‘way too much but I won’t let him know that’?”

“Somewhere in between.”

He tapped a pencil on his desk “Are you ever gonna cut me any slack? I didn’t do anything but admire you.”

“You monopolized my time so I couldn’t spend it with anyone else. I had lots of friends aboard the cruise. Friends who are more like family. I didn’t get to spend time with them thanks to you.”

“Family,” he repeated thoughtfully, tipping his chair back. “Now, there’s a word to consider. What defines a family to you?”

She frowned. “People you care about, of course. People you love. People you can count on.”

“So, they don’t have to be related by blood?”

“If that were the case, I’d have a family of one.” She regretted the words the minute she said them, because his gaze softened pitifully.

“Who would that be?”

“My Aunt Bonnie, the wildest, craziest woman you could ever hope to meet.”

“In what way?”

“In every way. She didn’t believe in staying put for longer than a few months, so I grew up traveling around Europe. It was quite an education” She set her mug on his desk. “What’s your answer, Lucas? Will you help or will those poor kids be at the mercy of the streets? Their futures he in your hands.”

“Oh, that’s good, Ariel. It’d be my fault if they turned into delinquents, right?”

“You could make a difference.”

A computerized female voice announced that e-mail awaited his attention. He punched a couple of keys, read the words that came up on the screen, shut it down, then moved to stand beside Ariel.

“Why did you come to me for help?” he asked

“You seem to march to your own drummer I thought if anyone could pull this off at the last minute, you could. I know that companies usually decide what and how they’re going to donate early in their fiscal year, but I was hoping you’d override your board of directors and pitch in. I also figured you’d be in town, anyway, for the game, so you might be able to drop in personally.”

“Well...you figured wrong.”