A Bride by Christmas Read online

  All right, she thought decisively, this obviously wasn’t working well. Sneaky and wonderful images of that afternoon with Luke kept creeping in and disrupting her concentration. So, therefore, she’d indulge in a trip down memory lane, relive every tantalizing, sensuous moment of what they’d shared and finally put it to rest. Then she’d be able to get her chores done like a proper little business owner should.

  Maggie stared into space, making no attempt to erase the soft smile that formed on her lips as picture after picture slid into her mind and sensation after sensation swirled within her body.

  Heat settled low within her, pulsing and hot, and she shifted slightly on the chair. Her breasts began to ache, yearning for the soothing feeling of Luke’s hands, then mouth, on the sensitive flesh. Mercy. Her cheeks, she knew, were flushed and she could hear the increased tempo of her heart echoing in her ears.

  Ecstasy in its purest form, she mused dreamily. That’s what that joining had been. And at the peak of it, the climax? God, she had no idea it could be like that. It defied description, required words that hadn’t even been invented yet.

  Imagine what it would be like, she mentally rambled on, to be married to Luke, to be the recipient of all that magnificent masculinity night after night after… It boggled the mind.

  Of course, there was more to marriage than just…well, than just that. She and Luke would laugh and talk, eat meals together, shop for groceries, discuss events from the six-o’clock news. They’d choose a house they both knew would be their home, then furnish it room by room, agreeing on choices, compromising where necessary.

  And, of course, one of those rooms would be a nursery for the baby they’d create with their wondrous lovemaking. A baby boy? A girl? It wouldn’t matter. Then a couple of years later another little miracle would arrive to join the first. Luke would be a fantastic father to all their children, whether they had two or four or…

  But each night when tiny heads were nestled on pillows after stories had been read and prayers heard, it would be grown-up time, Maggie-and-Luke time, private time. And in their marriage bed they would reach eagerly for each other, the desire never waning, their heartfelt love growing deeper and stronger with each passing year. Their lips would meet and…

  “Maggie?”

  Maggie shifted her gaze to focus on the direction the voice had come from. Luke. He was standing right in front of her desk in all his masculine splendor.

  He really wasn’t there, she told herself, was a figment of her imagination due to the fantasy playing out in her head. No, he really wasn’t there, so what the heck….

  Maggie got to her feet, leaned forward to grip Luke’s tie and pulled him toward her to plant a searing kiss on his lips.

  But the very moment that their mouths met, a mortified Maggie realized that Luke really was there in living, breathing color. She released her hold on his tie and plunked back down in her chair, wishing she could disappear into thin air, never to be seen again.

  “Well,” Luke said, smoothing his tie and smiling at her, “that was quite a welcome. Hello to you, too, Maggie.”

  “’Lo,” she mumbled, staring at the middle button on his shirt.

  “You certainly make a man feel special, like you’re glad to see him, I must say.”

  “I can explain that,” Maggie said, finally meeting his gaze. She sighed and shook her head. “No, forget it. It’s too ridiculous.” She paused. “I guess you’re here because you haven’t heard from me regarding honeymoon suites, but I’ve been buried in paperwork and haven’t had a chance to do any investigating yet.”

  “No, I’m here because I missed you,” Luke said, settling onto one of the chairs opposite Maggie’s desk. “That’s it, pure and simple.”

  “Really?” A bright smile lit up Maggie’s face, then in the next instant she managed to erase it and adopt an expression of vague interest. “Oh?”

  “Yep,” Luke said, chuckling. “And since this tie I’m wearing may never be the same, I’d say you missed me, too.”

  “Well…” Maggie flipped one hand in the air. “Whatever.”

  “Mmm. My, my, Maggie, I’m surprised to see that you’re wearing that shade of blue on a Thursday. You didn’t go so far as to take a bath or shower this morning, did you?”

  “Huh?” Maggie peered down at the string sweater she wore, then looked at Luke again, obviously confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Luke propped his elbows on the arms of the chair and tented his fingers.

  “There are certain cultures,” he said, “which believe the color blue represents the ocean, the sea. They also think that Thursday is the unluckiest day of the week. Therefore, to tempt fate by wearing that color on a Thursday, you’re destined to have an accident in water, maybe even drown.”

  “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes heavenward.

  “Not to the people who believe it.”

  “Which probably number about three. For heaven’s sake, Luke, the wrong color on the wrong day and you’re deader than a doornail? That’s a nonsense-to-the-max superstition.”

  Luke shrugged with a rather nondescript expression on his face.

  “Besides, I took a long bath in my wonderful tub this morning and lived to tell about it,” she said, lifting her chin. “So there.”

  “No kidding? Well, maybe that superstition is garbage after all,” he said thoughtfully. “It was so off-the-wall that I was leaning toward believing it. I mean, there must be enough evidence to substantiate it in the first place.”

  Maggie leaned toward him. “That tie of yours that I just wrinkled is blue, sort of sea-blue. Did you shower this morning?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I rest my case. That superstition is nonsense.”

  Gotcha, Luke thought smugly. Score one for Luke St. John.

  “So back to why you’re here,” Maggie said.

  “Well, it’s not because I’m bugging you about the honeymoon suites,” Luke said. “One of my clients had a bit of an emergency and I had to put on my big-boy-lawyer clothes and meet with him for a long, boring lunch close to here. I just dropped in to say hello and to tell you that I missed you.” He attempted once again to smooth his crumpled tie. “And to get my tie killed, I guess.”

  “I’d offer to replace it, but I don’t think I could afford to do that on my budget. How much did it cost?”

  “A hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “For a tie?” she said, nearly shrieking. “That’s absurd.”

  “It’s imported silk from Italy.”

  “Could I interest you in installment payments?”

  Luke laughed. “Tell you what. You agree to have dinner with me tonight and we’ll call it even.”

  “Well…”

  “I’m in the mood for pizza, if that suits you, so dress very casually. But don’t wear blue. Okay?”

  “Pizza sounds great but, Luke, you’ve got to forget about that superstition because it really is nuts.”

  “I’ll try,” he said, rising with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock. I’ll let you get back to work now. See you later.”

  “But…” Maggie said as Luke strode from the room. She smiled as she heard the front door of Roses and Wishes close behind him. “Eight o’clock will be just fine.”

  She picked up an invoice, then stared into space.

  She’d really gotten carried away with her mental fantasy, she mused. Goodness, she’d gone all the way to being Luke’s wife and having a slew of his babies. Well, that was all right…except, of course, for the embarrassing tie episode.

  It didn’t matter how much daydreaming she did because she knew, really knew, that all this was temporary. She could indulge in anything she wanted to with Luke St. John because once Precious and Clyde were married that would be that. No more Luke in her life. In the meantime? She was free to go for it because she had total command over her emotions. Everything was dandy.

&nb
sp; That night Luke drove past several well-known pizza restaurants to the far side of Phoenix.

  “You must really like the pizza here,” Maggie said, as they settled into a red vinyl booth. “You certainly were willing to drive a long way to reach this place.”

  “Best pizza in Phoenix,” Luke said, glancing at his watch. “I’ll go up and place our order. What would you like on yours?”

  “Anything and everything except the little fishes,” she said, smiling.

  “Got it,” he said, sliding out of the booth. “Soda?”

  “Perfect.”

  A few minutes later Luke returned to sit across from Maggie and set a slip of paper on the table.

  “I’m glad this is Thursday and not Friday,” he said. “We have the number thirteen. Thirteen on a Friday is bad news, you know.” He looked at his watch again.

  “No worse than drowning in the bathtub because you wore the wrong color,” Maggie said drily. “Luke, what is with this sudden preoccupation with superstitions?”

  “It’s not sudden,” he said. Oh, man, his nose was going to grow. “I’ve always been superstitious, but don’t talk about it much because people have a tendency to scoff.”

  “Scoff?”

  “Yes, definitely scoff. But, you see, Maggie, I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about what you told me about the Jenkins Jinx. My first reaction was to tell you that it was nonsense. I scoffed. And I apologize to you for doing that. Jinxes, superstitions, wives’ tales all have merit. I want you to know that I respect your belief in the Jenkins Jinx.”

  “You do? I mean, you’re not going to attempt to talk me out of it? Tell me it’s a bunch of baloney? Try to convince me that I could be a bride, get married, just like anyone else?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh.”

  Well, that was good, she thought. Wasn’t it? Sure. Then why did she suddenly feel so sad, gloomy and depressed? Luke’s acceptance of the Jenkins Jinx meant he was as fully prepared to walk away as she was after Precious and Clyde’s wedding. No fuss, no muss. That was…great. But her stomach hurt. And her heart hurt. Her heart actually hurt. Damn it, what was the matter with her?

  “Luke, my boy,” a deep voice boomed, snapping Maggie back to attention.

  “Well, Dad, my, my, what are you doing here?” Luke said, looking up at his father where he stood next to the table.

  “Your mother got hungry for pizza so I called in an order and came to pick it up. This place has the best pizza in Phoenix, you know.”

  “Yes, I certainly know that and you’re fortunate to live only a few blocks away,” Luke said. “You remember Maggie.”

  “Certainly,” Mason St. John said. “Delightful to see you again, my dear.”

  “My pleasure,” Maggie said.

  “Luke, I’m just beside myself,” Mason said.

  “Oh? Why is that, pray tell?” Luke said.

  Pray tell? Maggie thought. For some dumb reason Luke and his father sounded like they were reading words from a script and not doing a very good job of it. No, that was silly. So what, pray tell, was Mr. St. John beside himself about?

  “I lost my acorn,” Mason said.

  Huh? Maggie thought, frowning slightly.

  “Oh, no, anything but that, Father.”

  “I know, I know,” Mason said, resting one hand on his heart. “I didn’t tell your mother I was driving over here without my acorn. She’d be worried sick.”

  “For good reason,” Luke said. “But fear not, because I always carry two.” He leaned back so he could slide his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. “There you go, sir. One acorn.”

  Mason curled his fingers around the acorn Luke had placed in his hand, then slid the little nut into his pocket. He clamped one hand on Luke’s shoulder.

  “Bless you, son. Enjoy your pizza. Good night, Maggie. Farewell, Luke.”

  As Mason hurried away, the waitress appeared at the table and set a pitcher of soda in the center along with two glasses. Luke thanked the young girl, then filled the glasses. Maggie leaned forward, staring at Luke intently as she waited for an explanation about the bizarre interchange regarding the acorn. Luke glanced around.

  “Sure is getting crowded in here, isn’t it? That’s understandable, though, when you consider that they serve—”

  “The best pizza in Phoenix,” Maggie finished for him. “Would you care to explain what just happened here?”

  “The waitress delivered our soda,” Luke said, smiling. “Hey, they just called number eleven. We’re getting closer. Man, I’m starved.”

  “Luke,” Maggie said, smacking the table with the palm of her hand. Luke cringed. “What was that whole weird thing with your father about the acorn?”

  “Oh, that,” Luke said. “Did they just call number twelve?”

  “Luke,” Maggie said, narrowing her eyes and drumming the fingers of one hand on the top of the table. “The acorn. Now.”

  “You bet,” he said, nodding. “Well, it’s very simple. It’s good luck to carry an acorn on one’s person. We St. Johns have toted acorns around for years. Years and years. Never go anywhere without our acorns, by golly. So you can see why my father was so upset about having lost his and not wishing my poor mother to know. But—” he grinned “—I saved his bacon because I always have two. Insurance, you know what I mean?”

  Maggie leaned back in the booth and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s stupid,” she said.

  “It certainly is not,” Luke said indignantly. “One could become jinxed, experience endless lousy luck if one didn’t carry one’s acorn, Maggie. Remind me to find an acorn for you.” He paused. “Yo. They just called thirteen. That’s us. I’ll be back in a flash.”

  “But…” Maggie said, pointing one finger in the air, then realizing that Luke was long gone.

  All the St. Johns were superstition freaks? she thought incredulously. They were intelligent, highly educated people, lawyers and what have you, for heaven’s sake, but they flipped out if they lost their acorn? How weird was that?

  Luke interrupted Maggie’s racing thoughts by setting a huge, fragrant pizza in the center of the table, then sitting down again and rubbing his hands together.

  “Now that looks delicious,” he said, smiling. “Dig in and enjoy.”

  “I will, but…Luke, about this acorn thing. Your father didn’t say he’d experienced any bad luck or mishaps or whatever while his acorn was missing. Correct?”

  Luke nodded as he chewed a big bite of the hot pizza.

  “So,” Maggie continued, “doesn’t that suggest that there is nothing to the superstition surrounding the acorn? That it is just that—a superstition, which is fun and cute but…isn’t grounded in reality?”

  Luke stared into space. “You’ve got a point there. When I was a kid I left my acorn in the pocket of my jeans and my mom washed them, turned the acorn into a mushy mess. It was quite a while before I could find another one because it was the wrong time of year. Nothing bad happened to me except that I flunked a spelling test, which was my fault because I didn’t study for it.”

  Maggie picked up a slice of pizza and smiled, obviously pleased with herself. “See?” She took a bite of her dinner.

  “I’ll give this some serious thought,” Luke said. Oh, this was going great, even better than he had hoped for. “Wait a minute here.”

  “Hmm?” Maggie said, her mouth full of pizza.

  “I bet you didn’t know that if you say goodbye to a friend on a bridge you’ll never see each other again. Well, when I was fifteen I had this buddy. We did everything together, were really close. One summer we were riding our bikes and said goodbye at the end of the day on a bridge. I never saw him again. How do you like that?”

  “Why didn’t you ever see him again?” Maggie said.

  “Because of the bridge thing, Maggie.” Luke paused. “Well, not entirely, I guess. His dad was a creep, physically abused his mom and… She took off in the middle of the night with my buddy and disapp
eared.

  “I figured it was because of the parting on the bridge, but now that I really think about it… Well, hell, so much for the bridge belief.” He shook his head. “Amazing. All these years I was convinced…mmm.”

  Maggie smiled sweetly. “This pizza is delicious. Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Luke said, frowning. “This is rather unsettling. The acorn. The bridge. I don’t really have any concrete data to… Just goes to show ya, doesn’t it? Things aren’t always what they seem to be. Ready for some more soda?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Maggie said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Luke. You got caught up in the theories about the acorn and the bridge, have believed them for so long you haven’t questioned their validity in years. I think you’re being very noble—there’s a good word—to accept that the superstitions about them aren’t real, aren’t true.”

  “You’re right,” he said, “and I have you to thank for showing me how ridiculous I was for buying into those tales.” He deserved an Academy Award for this performance, he really did. “Let’s just concentrate on the pizza now. This has been a pretty heavy topic for my weary brain. Enough for one night.”

  “Okay. Do you want to discuss Precious and Clyde’s wedding?”

  Luke smiled. “Maggie, I’d love to discuss the wedding. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

  “Well, the church is reserved for December twenty-third,” Maggie said, her voice ringing with excitement. “And I got the ballroom at the Majestic Palms Hotel sewn up for the reception.”

  “The Majestic Palms,” Luke said, nodding in approval. “Classy. Very nice.”

  “I have an appointment next week to meet with the chef to plan the buffet dinner at the reception. I still have oodles to do—you know, decide on the color of the tablecloths, the centerpieces, start shopping around for the exact shade of material I want for the bridesmaids’ dresses and, of course, there’s the wedding dress itself.”

  “Yep.”

  “What about the invitations, Luke? Do you think Precious and Clyde would prefer traditional ones that say the name of the parents or a more modern version where the couple themselves are inviting everyone to share their special event?”