“Oh yeah, they’re so intimidated by us,” Lucas said. “That’s why I had Hana on the phone for half an hour yesterday demanding that I let her husband come home for the weekend. Hana’s Brett Tuckerson’s wife,” he said to Sara as an aside. “Who is a former Olympic tae kwan do medalist and one of Maggie’s pals. I’m not sure she’s ever been intimidated by anyone in her life. She definitely didn’t have any trouble telling me it was unreasonable for our starting pitcher to have to be in Florida for all of spring training.”
Maggie laughed. “Well, that may be true but Hana’s married to Brett, not one of you three. It’s not the same thing. I need an ally.” She made puppy-dog eyes at Sara. “You have to come help me out.”
“Stop harassing the poor girl, Maggie,” Alex said. “Let her think about it for a few days. After all, you haven’t even asked Mal about this. Maybe he has a date by now.”
“He would have told me,” Maggie said. “Malachi is the sensible one.”
“If you think that, then you really haven’t figured Mal out yet,” Lucas said. Sara’s curiosity spiked a little. Mal was clearly the strong, silent type. There was a story there. But she wasn’t going to try to pry it out of him.
If she stayed with Lucas then there’d be time to figure it all out. “I’ll think about it,” she said to Maggie. “It’s a very nice invitation,” she added. “But I need time to think.”
Maggie opened her mouth to reply and Lucas held up a hand. “She said she’ll think about it, Maggie.”
He stood and planted a quick kiss on the brunette’s cheek and then straightened and held out a hand to Sara. “We’ll see you all later.”
* * *
The silence when they got back to her apartment seemed to weigh a ton. Sara let Dougal off his leash, and he nosed around his food bowl hopefully. When no early dinner magically appeared, he flopped down in his dog bed and closed his eyes. He had the right idea. Ignore the whole situation.
Sara stowed her purse and keys and shed her jacket. Lucas hadn’t made a move to take off his yet.
He’d been quiet during the drive back from Deacon. She wasn’t sure she’d pinned his mood down, though. He didn’t seem to be actively mad about anything, but he did seem … distracted. Distant. Almost how he used to be during those first few flights.
Was he upset because they’d run into Alex and Maggie? Upset about being outed? Upset that Maggie had invited her to the ball? Upset that she hadn’t immediately accepted?
She took a deep breath. Too many options. Given that she wasn’t a mind reader there was only one way to find out and that was to ask. But first it might be a good idea to restore some goodwill. She made her way over to Lucas and put her arms around him, tilting her head up to look at him.
His hands came to her waist—that was a good sign—and she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. Gently at first, but then the kiss turned hungry. She almost dragged him off to her bedroom but she didn’t think that a postcoital glow was quite the time to have a relationship discussion. Better to do it with a cooler head and then use the sex part to smooth over any bumps the conversation might cause.
A cooler head and a full stomach, she thought as hers rumbled slightly, reminding her that it was past lunchtime and she hadn’t eaten anything except a few cookies since breakfast.
“So, Dr. Gorgeous,” she said, pulling back from Lucas a little. “How about you make me some lunch?”
* * *
Forty minutes or so later she was sitting at her kitchen table, biting into the pasta that Lucas had made and trying not to moan with pleasure. Apparently he not only cooked, he cooked well. Divinely.
Figured. He was the sort of man who made sure he excelled at something once he decided to do it at all.
Sara had stood at one end of the counter and watched as Lucas had sliced and diced tomatoes and eggplant and bell peppers and onions with knife skills that could only belong to a professional chef or a surgeon. It was like watching a dance in a way, every movement purposeful and elegant and controlled.
And it had been a complete and utter turn-on. She’d barely restrained herself from jumping him in the kitchen. Only the smell of the sauce he was concocting restrained her. She’d watched and found the herbs he’d asked for, and set the table and poured the wine he’d brought, but otherwise he’d insisted on doing it all himself.
“I could get used to this,” she said, pausing before she scooped up another forkful of pasta.
Across the table, Lucas lifted his water glass and sipped before he said, “I could, too.”
And there was the opening she’d been looking for. She’d been avoiding having this talk with him, but meeting Maggie and Alex earlier had meant that avoiding wasn’t going to work any longer.
“I know we said we’d just see how things go but this changes things, yes? If I go to the ball, it says something.”
“It says you’re going to the ball with me.”
“It’s taking things public. That will change things. Your world is … different.” She didn’t know if he understood just how different. She doubted he’d ever had to be aware of how much money he had to the exact dollar and do mental math to make it through another month. And if he had problems with an insurance company he could just set a whole squad of lawyers on them.
“I understand,” Lucas said. “And I understand if you don’t want to change the status quo. This isn’t what you signed up for.”
He wasn’t what she’d signed up for. He’d tilted her world off its neat little flight path. She hadn’t expected to like someone like him. Let alone let him start to get a foothold on her heart.
Foolish.
Not enough words to describe just how foolish.
But also too late to stop now. And the thing was, in her heart of hearts, she would love to go to a ball with Lucas. To stand at his side and let the world see that this gorgeous, ridiculous man was hers. Even if it was just for one night. Sanity was warring with desire and she had a horrible feeling that, just like it had every night she let him into her bed, sanity would lose.
“I need to think,” she said. “I need to think about this. So do you.”
She wished desperately that Viv were just across the hall like she had been in Manhattan. She would be an objective opinion. But she wasn’t.
“I’ve thought about it,” Lucas said. “And I want you to go. I want to show you off.” He smiled at her. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll force you to go.”
She pushed pasta around the plate with her fork. Such a seemingly simple choice, pasta. Red sauce, some vegetables, some chicken, some red wine. Simple. But dig deeper and there was a world of subtle complexity in the dish he’d made.
If only she could figure out her life as easily as she could decide if she liked the pasta.
“And if I say yes?” she said. “Do you think Mal will go along with Maggie’s plan?”
“I think Mal likes Maggie and he’s not dating anyone at the moment, so I can’t see why not.”
“I’m not sure that plan even makes sense.”
“Probably not. Like you said, there will be plenty of people who know me there. No pictures will keep it out of the press and the wider world but not from them. But it’s an option if you want to take it. I can understand not wanting your picture in the papers. I don’t like it, either.”
“Where is the ball, anyway?” she asked. It was a relatively minor detail at this point but maybe knowing the venue might let her figure out what level of craziness she was getting herself into.
“At the Paragon.”
Huh. The Paragon. Right in the heart of the city. Times Square. Better than it being somewhere ridiculously extravagant like the Met, but still, not exactly a hole-in-the-wall venue. About the only point in its favor was that it was in Manhattan, which meant the Staten papers wouldn’t cover it. Or would they? After all, it was a Saints fund-raiser, and the Saints belonged to the island even if they were called the third New York team.
“And it’s full-on black tie?” She didn’t hold out much hope that it wouldn’t be. She thought about her wardrobe for a moment. She had one simple long black gown that had seen her through a couple of wedding receptions and an army shindig or too. She hadn’t pulled it out of her wardrobe in a while, though. God knew what shape it was in. Or even where it was. She thought of the boxes that she’d dumped temporarily in her parents’ garage while she settled into this apartment. Hopefully it was somewhere in there. She couldn’t even remember if she’d seen it in her city place since she’d gotten back from deployment.
She could afford a new dress; she could spend some of the money the Saints were paying her. But she couldn’t spend the sort of money a designer ball gown cost.
“Yes,” Lucas said. “Penguin suits and gowns all around.”
She made a face. “They didn’t want to buck the trend and do an all-jeans ball?”
“You have to look like money to ask for money,” Lucas said.
It sounded like a quote. She wondered who from. Alex, perhaps?
“And,” Lucas continued when she didn’t say anything, “it’s only fair. You already got to see me in a tux. I think it’s only fair that I get to see you in a gorgeous dress.” He stopped and tilted his head at her, humor gleaming in his eyes. “You do own a gorgeous dress, don’t you?”
“Yes, I own a dress.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but to be fair, he’d only ever seen her in her uniform, yoga pants, or jeans and casual things. It was warm in Florida but not yet dress weather. Not when she had to fly helos anyway.
“Just one?”
“More than one.” She stuck her nose in the air. “And I look good enough in them to give you a heart attack, rich boy.” Lies, damned lies, but he didn’t have to know that. Though she did scrub up quite nicely.
He smiled then and waggled his eyebrows at her. “Oh good.”
“What will you be wearing? That tux you wore to the Hamptons?” She assumed he probably had more than one, though it was hard to imagine he had one that made him look better than he had that night in the chopper.
He shrugged. “I guess. Why, did you like that tux? Is that why you jumped me?”
“I didn’t jump you.”
He snorted. “Yeah, you did.” He poured more wine—the same red he’d used in the pasta—into his glass then topped hers up with water. She didn’t drink if she was flying.
“It was a momentary lapse of reason,” she said.
The glass tilted in her direction. “To momentary lapses of reason, long may they continue.”
“I thought surgeons were all about logic and reason.”
“Not when it comes to getting beautiful women into their beds, they’re not. Then it’s whatever works.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like you ever had to work that hard.”
“You might be surprised. And speaking of jumping me, if you need another incentive to come to the ball, then let me offer this. We’re going to have to fly in and then fly out afterward. So if you want to drag me into a supply closet to have your wicked way with me, then the ball is going to be your only chance that weekend.”
The vision of Lucas and a small dark room derailed her train of thought. “What?” she said, suddenly thinking of his hands sliding over her in the dark.
He laughed. “I said, it’ll be your only chance to have your wicked way with me that weekend. If you’re sticking to your no-sex-in-Florida rule.”
“Yes, I am. I’d rather not deal with everybody I work with knowing about us just yet. So. You think I can’t live without you for a whole weekend?”
His mouth quirked. “As much as I like our hotel phone sex, I prefer the live-action version. I think it’s more like I can’t live without you and I’m hoping I don’t have to. So Cinderella, do you want to go to the ball?”
She forced her mind back to somewhere near the vicinity of rational. As lovely as balls and supply closets sounded and as much as she definitely didn’t want to go a whole weekend without getting some quality naked time with Lucas, she had to be sensible. Even though it was killing her. She took another swig of water, wishing that it were wine. “Cinderella wants to sleep on it.”
Lucas tracked Sara down near the front of the bleachers halfway through Monday’s game. She was munching popcorn and following the action with an expression of fierce concentration that was kind of adorable. A Saints cap shielded her skin from the sun. She looked pretty cute when she was so engrossed. He stood still and watched her for a minute or two.
When the batter connected solidly and the ball went flying across the park like a rocket, the crowd—small but not too bad for a Monday game playing the Pirates—erupted. Sara applauded, grinning and whooping along with the rest of the crowd.
Ha. The baseball bug was starting to bite. He made his way along the row and slid into the empty seat next to her. “You know, we have this nifty owners’ suite back there.”
She jerked her popcorn and bits of it shot everywhere. That earned him a sea-blue glare. “I think you need to wear bells on your cufflinks or something.”
“Sorry, but you looked kind of cute all intent on the baseball. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Well, for once we seem to be winning. I thought I should enjoy it while it lasts.” She stuck out her tongue. “Sam’s doing pretty good, isn’t he?”
“He’s sitting on a 4.5 ERA—that’s Earned Run Average. Yep, that’s not too shabby at all.”
“Is he going to get a slot?”
“If he keeps pitching like that, then probably.” He grinned. He’d grown fond of Sam. He worked like a dog and sucked up knowledge like a sponge. He listened and he implemented. He kind of reminded Lucas of himself many moons ago. Tico wasn’t doing too badly, either. And there were still a few weeks left until the season proper began.
“I’m glad, he’s trying so hard.” She held out the popcorn. What was left of it.
He took a piece and looked at it before tossing it into his mouth. “You know we have real food in the owners’ suite.”
She wrinkled her nose and gestured widely at the crowd with her free hand. “But isn’t this what it’s about? Sitting with the crowd in the sunshine, eating junk, and enjoying the game?”
He smiled. A woman after his own heart. During the real season he was going to have to be in the owners’ box because there would be sponsors and VIPs and all that bullshit to deal with. He hadn’t really thought about it until now, but he wasn’t going to get many chances to just sit in the stands and kick back. Not unless he snuck out to non-Saints games. Damn.