The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter

Author:Cara Colter
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2004-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

“Maggie,” Kristen said, “what on earth is wrong with you? That’s the third time in less than an hour that I’ve asked you a question and gotten a blank look. Are you ill?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. You’re not eating as if you’re ill.”

Maggie had tried to avoid Kristen for this very reason. Her best friend always saw way too much. But Kristen had a nose for something being wrong, and today she hadn’t taken no for an answer about a lunch date.

At least Maggie had talked her out of Morgan’s Pub!

“Thanks for noticing I’m eating well,” Maggie said glumly. If she kept it up, shortly she would no longer fit into that red dress.

And that was a good thing, wasn’t it? That dress only reminded her of the woman she had thought she could pretend to be. And had failed so miserably to be.

She had even stopped using the NoWait. What did she care if she turned into a one-ton hippo?

This morning she had retrieved her camel-colored suit from the bag destined for Goodwill. She’d let it hang beside the shower, and the worst of the wrinkles had come out of it. She had put it on, resigned to who she really was.

“Maggie! The question? What is wrong with you? If you aren’t ill, what’s the matter?”

“I’m fine,” Maggie said. “Sorry, I’m just distracted.”

“Distracted? You look like hell. You’re eating like a horse. You’re body is in this room with me, but your mind is not. Gosh, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say it was a man.”

Maggie was silent.

“Oh, God,” Kristen said, “it’s a man.”

Maggie sighed and took a deep drink of her non-diet soda.

“What is going on? How can you have a man in your life without me knowing about it?”

“His name’s Luke,” Maggie said, “Luke August.” The words started to flow out of her like rainwater out of a barrel that had been shot full of holes.

It felt disgustingly good to be purging herself. In her own ears it sounded ridiculous—that she’d asked a man out on the strength of him running her over in a wheelchair. She sounded like a teenager, hopelessly infatuated with a man she knew nothing about.

Of course, the extent to which she had known nothing about him had only become shockingly clear to her a few nights ago. She was still dazed by it, by how wrong she had been about him.

“He had a girlfriend,” she finished her sad tale, licking the last remnants of chocolate drizzle from her cheesecake off her fork. “Live-in. He went out with me, and then, when he was released from the hospital, he went home to her.”

“No,” Kristen said, incensed. “The snake!”

“That’s right,” Maggie said with a sad shake of her head. “The snake.”

Kristen regarded her through narrowed eyes, and then declared, “You still have feelings for him!” The tone was definitely accusatory.

“Believe me, I’m trying not to.” It was true. Maggie was doing her best to feel righteously angry, betrayed, scorned. Instead she would think of his eyes caressing her, and his lips, and feel a chasm of loneliness open up inside her.

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