The Greatest Risk Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.
    â€œYou’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.
    â€œYou, too,” he said.
    â€œMe?” She laughed with disbelief and self-consciousness. “Oh, no, I don’t think I’m a surprising kind of person.”
    â€œYou’re here,” he pointed out. “That’s a surprise.”
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œNo, I didn’t think you’d come.”
    â€œOh.”
    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.
    â€œSo, er, why did you come? If you thought I wasn’t coming?” she asked.
    He lifted a shoulder. “Floor needed mopping?”
    â€œWell, 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.”
    â€œThe late show,” Maggie repeated, as if she had only just remembered why she was here. She looked arounduncomfortably, 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.
    â€œActually, Luke,” she said, “I asked you to go to the movie with me on an impulse.”
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œWhy the change of heart?” he asked, enjoying the little flood