Bride Candidate #9. Susan Crosby
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