The Greatest Risk (10 page)

“I'll take it as a sign,” she told herself. And then she laughed out loud. “No, I won't. I'll find an even better one.”

 

Carrie Martin sat at the back of the seminar when they came back in from coffee. She looked around the room, trying to mask her cynicism, trying to mask how appalled she was at the gullibility of these people. Couldn't they see right through “Dr. Richie”?

She was willing to bet he hated being called that. He probably tolerated it because that popular TV doctor, so successful, allowed people to call him by his first name.

She did nothing to draw attention to herself, but she knew he would never recognize her. Everything about her had changed in twenty years.

Her hair color, her eye color. She was fifty pounds lighter than the pudgy girl who had married Richard Strokudnowski right out of high school. They'd been small-town kids from Apopka, Florida. Only, Richard had harbored big-time dreams.

She had wanted the things women of that age had wanted: a little bungalow with a white picket fence, babies, a swing set and a blow-up wading pool. Carrie had dreamed small, lovely dreams.

Richard had dreamed of glory.

Back then hadn't she been just like these people? Richard had a certain charm, there was no denying it. And he'd had years to perfect it. Once, she had looked at him with the same starry-eyed gaze that he was now eliciting from the loyal following here.

“I'd like to hear some NoWait success stories to kick off our second half,” her ex-husband said suavely.

There were many NoWait success stories. Carrie would have loved to caution these folks to be careful. Richard was no chemist, not that that had ever stopped him.

Oh, he had loved “inventing”—a love that had intensified after he'd gotten his degree, as if it gave him license to mix and match all kinds of herbs and chemicals.

The sad truth was, even his attempts to make salad dressing—“Look at Paul Newman, Carrie”—had been an unmitigated disaster. He had blown up the toilet in their first humble apartment trying to make a better, not to mention cheaper, cleaning solution.

At the time it had seemed funny and charming and rather exciting.

At the time just about everything had seemed funny and charming and rather exciting. Until the exact point their dreams had ended up on a collision course.

Already pregnant, Carrie had asked him one day when he would be ready to have children.

“Never,” he'd said, and she had heard the truth in his voice, in the way he said that one word. He'd read the stunned expression on her face correctly, because he'd hastily added, “Well, maybe not
never
but certainly not now.”

Sometimes, looking back, she wondered if she had pulled the plug too quickly. Certainly Dr. Terry Browell, that TV doctor who gave out such confident advice, probably would have thought so. Over the years she had wondered so often. Had she done the right thing? Had it really been her decision alone to make?

But in that moment, the word
never
shivering in the air between them, her husband had seemed like such a stranger to her, a man she had no hope of ever knowing, or ever holding.

She had gone on to marry a lovely man, Ralph Martin, now dead, not the least exciting, but never, ever a stranger to her.

And truth be told, Richard still seemed a stranger as she watched him today, performing, playing to his adoring public.

He stopped speaking suddenly and grinned.

Her heart stopped. Because suddenly he was not such a stranger. She had seen that very same grin for nearly twenty years.

In their son, Jason. And whenever Jason had grinned that grin, she had remembered the man who had given it to him.

Not the betrayals. Not the dreams on collision course.

The laughter. The lovemaking. The sheer joy of being together.

“Go after what you want,” he repeated emphatically at the end of the seminar. “Erase self-doubt.”

Carrie did not join the many who wanted to talk to him after the class. She slipped out the door and contemplated his words.

She smiled cynically. He would not have uttered
them nearly so confidently if he knew that what one member of his class wanted to go after was him. Oh, how she would love to expose Dr. Richard Strong for what he really was: a superficial man who had left his pregnant young wife to fend for herself. Who had emptied half the bank account when he had left.

Not, she thought reluctantly, that he had known she was pregnant.

That was the self-doubt part.

Erase it,
she ordered herself. But she couldn't.

With Jason in college she had felt so confident that it was time to track down her old husband, to put away the ghosts of her old life for good.

She stood in the late-afternoon sunshine outside the Healthy Living Clinic. The door swung open, and a wave of laughing people, filled with confidence and energy and excitement from what they had just learned from Dr. Richie, spilled out on the sidewalk.

And her self-doubt intensified. She was no longer nearly as certain why she had come here or what she had hoped to accomplish. But a voice inside her, one of those ones that Dr. Richie spoke of but that she was pretty sure he was not on familiar terms with in his own life, told her to wait. When the time is right, you will know exactly what to do.

She walked away, feeling lonely and tense, and very, very separate from all the hopeful, energetic people who had been inspired by a man who was not even close to being what he was saying he was.

F
or all the times she had looked longingly in the window, Maggie had never shopped in Classy Lass before.

The summer dress was still in the window, red and bold, and, taking a deep breath, Maggie went through the wide double oak and glass doors. It was quickly apparent that Classy Lass was not the kind of store she usually shopped in. It was more like walking into a very posh hotel lobby than a store. There were deep comfortable leather sofas, tasteful displays, wonderful little alcoves to explore.

A freckled, friendly girl introduced herself as Tracey and made Maggie feel warmly welcome. Tracey acted as though she had no idea Maggie did not belong in a shop that was not advertising the underwear special in aisle 9 over the PA system.

“Make yourself at home,” she said, “and just ask me if you need anything.”

After looking at the price tag on a leather bag hooked carelessly over the arm of one of the sofas, Maggie wanted to say what she needed was a dose of oxygen. For a moment she considered leaving, but then she took a deep breath and approached Tracey.

“I like the red dress in the window, but I don't see it on display anywhere else. Have you got it?” Maggie gave the woman her size, and crossed her fingers that they'd have it.

Tracey grinned without one little bit of condescension. “Only one perfect little red dress,” she said. “You don't want to see everyone in Portland wearing a dress you paid eight hundred dollars for, do you?”

Maggie felt her jaw dropping. Eight hundred dollars? For a dress that looked as if it barely contained a yard of material? She had known Classy Lass was going to be expensive, but she had not expected it to be quite so far out of her price range.

The girl read her expression, and instead of looking haughty, she took on the look of a conspirator. “It doesn't hurt to try it on,” she said, and before Maggie could protest, she was up in the window retrieving the dress. “It is your size.”

A moment later, Maggie found herself in a huge fitting room with thick carpets and wall-to-wall mirrors. There was room for a leather armchair and a reading table heaped with fashion magazines. There was no sign on the door warning about the dangers of shoplifting, either.

It was madness for Maggie to be here, and yet even so, she found herself skinning out of her clothes eagerly. She had hated the outfit she was wearing ever since she
had seen Luke eye it—and dismiss it—this morning. Camel had always been one of her favorite colors. Now, lying in a crumpled heap on the thick burgundy rug, her suit looked like leftover porridge.

She didn't even want to know what he might think of her plain cotton briefs and bra. Maggie slid the red dress over her head, and stood there for a minute with her eyes shut, not even wanting to look. The dress felt exquisite where it touched her skin, as light and feathery as a cloud.

Maggie opened her eyes and gasped.

The dress had been designed to show a woman at her very best. It looked deceptively simple, with its narrow spaghetti straps, snug bodice and a short skirt that swirled and lifted around her legs at the slightest movement.

She was not sure how but the dress managed to turn each of her faults into an asset. Her curviest areas, hips and chest, looked amazing, sensuous and full. When she twirled she saw how the flare of the skirt, the lightness of the fabric drew attention to the long, clean line of her leg.

It was the perfect summer dress, light, carefree, perky, flirty. It was a dress that celebrated all the mysteries and marvels and delights of being a woman.

But eight hundred dollars? She'd paid only slightly more than that for her wedding gown!

“Come show me,” Tracey called.

Feeling as shy and as gauche as a farm girl fresh out of her overalls, Maggie emerged from the fitting room.

“Oh my God,” the girl said, and Maggie knew it was no sales pitch.

“It's nice, isn't it?” she asked, twirling experimentally in front of another bank of floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

“Nice? Oh, no. It's not nice. It's naughty as hell, and if you don't buy it, you should have your head examined.”

Maggie laughed. “I can't pay eight hundred dollars for a dress.”

The girl eyed her shrewdly. “Let me guess. Working. Professional something, like a teacher or a nurse. Single.”

“That all shows?” Maggie was going home and dumping the porridge suit in the garbage. She was unexciting and broadcasting it to the whole world!

“So, what do you spend your money on?” Tracey teased gently, “Your cat?”

“I don't have a cat,” Maggie admitted.

“Well, then, you have absolutely no excuse not to treat yourself,” Tracey said. “He won't be able to resist you.”

“Who won't be able to resist me? A homeless cat looking to change his circumstances?” Maggie asked innocently.

“Nobody looks at a dress like that unless there's a
he
involved: human, male, ten-out-of-ten. Believe me. I've been working here a whole four months, and I know.”

Maggie laughed. “I do believe you.” She turned and looked in the mirror again. Well, why not buy the dress? Tracey was right. Maggie spent money on rent and had collected some lovely pieces of furniture. She treated herself to all her favorite romance authors' books, brand-new. She was saving for a down payment on a house. She had a car she adored.

But when did she ever spend money on just making herself feel good, beautiful, one hundred percent a woman? The Bold and Beautiful seminars didn't count!

And neither did the wedding that had not happened, but still had had to be paid for. Maggie realized that her
non-wedding was the last time she had splurged on deliciously decadent things just for her. She had bought underwear and lingerie and sexy sundresses for the honeymoon on the Mexican Riviera that Darnel had gone on by himself. And had never returned from.

And when things had not worked out, she had packed up the items, unworn, most with the tags still on them, and sent them off to the Goodwill store.

What she hadn't realized until twenty-four hours ago, sprawled beneath a strange man's chest, was that she had packed up all that was feminine about herself, too. Her hopes and dreams, her longings and desires had suddenly seemed too fraught with danger to investigate any further. She had locked herself away from a world that held pain, like a princess in a tower. Or a social worker in an office.

“I'm going to take the dress,” Maggie decided firmly. And not for Luke, either. For herself. She could sit out on her balcony at night, look at the waters of the Columbia River, just visible through a maze of other buildings, sip iced coffee and feel splendidly and sexily like a woman.

Okay, she planned to share that feeling of being womanly and sexy with Luke, but it was still for her.

It was time to begin the healing that she had never done.

“Want the bad news?” Tracey asked her.

“Eight hundred dollars isn't bad enough news?”

“I have some Jimmy Choos that are going to look divine with that.”

“I'm scared to ask, but what the heck are Jimmy Choos?” Maggie asked.

A little while later she stood at the front desk with
the Jimmy Choo shoes, a shawl, new underwear and the dress all being packaged up for her.

“Now,” the girl said when she was done folding everything carefully into tissue paper and putting it in boxes and then bags, “have you got the place picked out? To wear it?”

“I hadn't got that far,” Maggie admitted. It occurred to her that if she played pool at Morgan's in this itty-bitty red dress the male heat in the place would probably set off the sprinkler system.

“I have an idea,” Tracey said.

Maggie wondered if this funny freckle-faced girl was some sort of little angel sent to guide her through the pitfalls of trying to heal old wounds, find her inner woman, and just incidentally, get a man interested in her.

“It's just a suggestion, but have you heard of Heavenly Cup? The coffee and dessert bar?”

“I've walked by it a zillion times. I've never gone in.”

“From the street you can't tell that they have this divine outdoor area with potted plants and trees, all lit up with white lights at night. It's right on the banks of the river. Tonight they're having a classical guitar concert on the patio. My boyfriend is playing, so I happen to be selling tickets. Inexpensive, so it balances out the dress. You can go and have coffee and dessert, and listen to the most beautiful music for under twenty bucks a person. And it does look like it's going to be a gorgeous night.”

It did look like that. And Maggie had an absolute weakness for the classical guitar. But Luke at a classical guitar concert?

Well, why not?

She had moved into his arena last night, eating hamburgers and playing pool. Why not invite him to a place where she would feel comfortable?

A dessert bar! An evening of eating desserts was probably not the perfect date for a girl with way too much hip.

On the other hand, this dress did magical things to her hips, and there was always a little extra NoWait!

Maggie took a deep breath and dug back into her wallet. “Two tickets, please.”

Tracey giggled. “I'm going to be there. I always try to watch Kenneth perform. But I can't wait to see you walk in with the guy you think is worth that dress.”

Maggie laughed. This whole little interlude had seemed like the most pleasant and wonderful of adventures.

Is that what happened when you began to live your life more fully? When you went after what you wanted? When you tried to erase self-doubt?

She gathered her packages. “See you there,” she said with breezy confidence that felt so good. But by the time she reached her car, her confidence was flagging.

Well, maybe she wouldn't see Tracey there, after all. She hadn't even asked Luke yet. It dawned on her he had the option of saying no. What if he had other plans?

Maggie, she told herself, the man is in the hospital. What other plans could he have?

He looked as if he might be one of those guys who was fanatical about sports. What if there was an important baseball game on TV? A baseball fan herself, she mentally reviewed the schedule, but couldn't remember a game of any importance. What if he just plain didn't want to go?

I am simply not accepting no for an answer,
she thought, climbing into her car and stowing her packages behind the seat. That was part of the self-doubt, thinking she wasn't good enough for him, that somehow he was used to a different kind of woman and she didn't have a chance.

He had phoned her this morning, not the other way around. He was the one who had reopened a closed book. He was the one who had tangled their lives together just a little more deeply.

He still could have other plans, she told herself with a moan.

But as inexperienced as she was around men, Maggie knew one thing. All she had to do was show up at the hospital in that dress. If he had other plans, he'd change them.

It would take a bigger man than Luke August to resist her.

She giggled self-consciously. Good Lord. Maggie Sullivan playing the siren. The truth was she could hardly wait. And so she decided she would not phone and forewarn him; she would just show up in the dress and let it do its magic.

Hours later, she stepped out of her car in front of Portland General. Male heads turned as she sashayed up the walk. A nice man nearly tripped over himself trying to get to the door fast enough to open it for her.

The dress was summer itself—fun and sultry, playful and promising. It made her feel like a different person, outgoing and bold and carefree.

She discovered Luke in the TV room at the end of his hall, but he was unaware of her. Coming toward him, she could see he had on a plaid housecoat and slip
pers, and was leaning toward the TV, chin in hands, intently regarding the screen.

Her footsteps slowed as she regarded the picture he made. Aside from the fact that he looked like he could be doing the Christmas layout for GQ, it was a cozy picture of a man at home, relaxed, content with his life. Sunday morning. Newspapers scattered around, an old dog at his feet, a fire crackling in a hearth, the smell of bacon cooking.

But she already knew Luke August to be the man least likely to enjoy a relaxing moment in his housecoat and slippers.

Even so, the picture remained. In the background she almost heard the crackle of the bacon sizzling in the pan and the laughter of children at play.

Children? Oh God, she could not think of children and this man! Though Children's Connection had a fertility department, and Maggie knew there were many ways to make children these days, everyone tried the old-fashioned way first! If she let her mind wander too far down that road—making children the old-fashioned way with Luke August—she'd probably swoon again.

Despite her every effort not to think of Luke and children, in her mind's eye, green-eyed little boys with dark hair and freckles and grins full of mischief and liveliness materialized.

Maggie felt like a fraud. How could she go to Luke in a dress like this, when she harbored a dream like that in the back of her mind? A dream she hadn't even acknowledged she had, a dream of domestic bliss and contentment that Luke August, certified daredevil, would never fit into?

Trying to banish the green-eyed children, and with her heart in her throat, Maggie turned to walk away before he caught sight of her.

“Hey.”

Too late. The red dress had worked against her and must have caught his attention. She turned slowly back to him.

He looked at her, shook his head and then looked again. He got to his feet and stared at her. If they were sharing that cozy little scene of her imagination, from the smoldering look in his green eyes, there would be some burned bacon and children sent out to the yard to play.

“Maggie,” he croaked.

She had to get a hold of herself. She could not allow the boundaries of fantasy and reality to melt together.