Читать книгу Hearts Are Wild - Laura Wright, Laura Wright - Страница 9

Look No Further. The Girl Of Your Dreams Could Be Right Under Your Nose.

Rock music blared throughout the fashionable salon, making it hard for Maggie to concentrate on her continuing struggles with slogan writing. She glanced around the lobby with its bottles of expensive shampoo and styling gels, wondering if anyone else felt that the music was just a bit too loud. Behind the front desk, the cherry-tinted receptionist was practically shouting into the phone, and the older woman sitting next to Maggie was ripping up a tissue and stuffing the pieces into her ears.

Oh, good. I’m not going crazy.

She’d certainly wondered at that possibility after Nick’s spur-of-the-moment price check on the floor of the store. But at least in all the craziness she’d gotten him to buy three pairs of nice pants and a couple of shirts.

His playfulness had surprised her. The big, bad biker had a silly streak, and she found it immensely attractive.

Maggie glanced at the clock on the salon wall. Nick had been in with Domingo for more than an hour and a half. The two men were probably at war behind those double doors. It wouldn’t be much of a shocker after the touch-me-again-and-you-die glare that Nick had sent the bald hairstylist when he’d taken one look at Nick and exclaimed, “Now, aren’t you a handsome one.”

Laughter bubbled in Maggie’s throat. Mr. Masculinity vs. Mr. Clean. This project was going to be some fun.

“Miss Conner?” Domingo’s assistant stood directly in front of her, but because the music was so loud, she looked as if she was mouthing the query.

Maggie nodded, not willing to shout.

“Domingo is just finishing up with your friend.” The blaring rock song ended abruptly and a soft ballad took its place. “He’ll be out in a minute.” The girl winked. “He’s really something.”

Maggie stared after the girl. What in the world did that mean? He was something? Stashing her pen and pad of paper in her purse, she stood up and hustled to the front to pay.

“Mr. Kaplan already took care of it,” the cherry-haired receptionist informed her.

“He did?”

“Yes, I did,” came his smooth baritone from behind her. “I told you I would.”

She turned sharply, then froze where she stood. Every word of “this project is going to be some fun” melted like a Popsicle on a hot day. Nick Kaplan looked like a sexy rebel out of a men’s fashion magazine. He still wore his faded jeans, but he’d put on one of the white shirts they’d picked out that afternoon. He looked like a different man, yet not quite.

Her pulse pounded like a steel drum, and she wondered if everyone could hear it, even the lady with the tissue in her ears. Surely they could see her face, her eyes, as she took in the transformation of her drop-dead-gorgeous roommate.

Clean shaven, he had a stubborn, confident face that had seen sun and wind, had confronted them head-on. Like he did all challenges, she imagined. His hair had been cut short—but not too short. The chestnut waves licked the edges of his white collar, while the same maple-colored hair on his chest peeked out from the vee. And when her gaze trailed reluctantly upward, she found him staring at her, his green eyes blazing a wild streak, daring her to say something.

No doubt about it, he was still the same bad boy who had walked into her office that morning. He was just a stylized one.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

Her throat went dry as cotton. “What?”

“Well, you did this to me,” he said on a chuckle. “Do I look fine, or what?”

You are about the finest looking man I’ve ever seen, she wanted to say, but the Sahara had replaced the cotton in her throat and she wasn’t doing much talking. She looked around her. Did Nick have any idea that every woman in the salon was staring at him, their eyes filled with longing?

And she had to go home with this Greek god.

Maggie groaned inwardly. What had she done? What in the world had made her believe that she could continue being unaffected by men when someone like Nick Kaplan walked the planet?

He cast her one of those squinty, hooded, James Dean looks. “So this is it, Maggie? No more fixing? No tattoo or scar removals planned?”

“You have a tattoo?” she asked without thinking.

“Yeah.”

She couldn’t help herself. “Where is it?”

He raised an amused brow at her.

Maggie could actually feel every woman in the place lean forward in their chairs, their ears pricking up to hear Nick’s answer to her intimate query. And out of the corner of her eye she saw the older woman she’d sat next to earlier remove the tissue from her ears.

“We should go,” she said. For some reason she didn’t like all the ogling that was going on. And, interestingly enough, she really didn’t want any of these women to know where his tattoo was.

She waited for Nick to give the ladies behind the counter a smile and a quick thank-you before he followed her out of the salon. Covetous stares trailed him as they walked through the mall and out the exit doors, heading for the parking lot.

Nick’s motorcycle was parked on the first level of the parking garage, and they walked to it together. “So this is going to make all the difference, huh?” he asked with a chuckle as he strapped his purchases onto the back of the bike. “New clothes, new look?”

Maggie’s gaze swept over him again, taking in his broad back and firm backside. She rolled her eyes heavenward. Why couldn’t a different man have walked into her office this morning? One who didn’t make her hands sweat and her imagination run wild.

She knew darn well that she was going to have about zero trouble finding him a woman. They were going be lined up around the block when they got a look at his videotape.

That thought should have made her insanely happy. But instead she felt oddly discontented.

“You look great, Nick,” she said. “You’ll be a hit.” She forced a smile to her lips. “So I’ll see you back at the house, then?”

He climbed onto his motorcycle, then turned those mysterious eyes on her. “Get on.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you a ride to your car.”

Her heart raced, then leaped. She’d never been on a motorcycle in her life. Dangerous, forbidden machines with dangerous and forbidden drivers.

The longing to say yes was almost overwhelming. It wasn’t the first time in her life she’d wanted to rip through her good-girl safety net and fly. Cautious living, no risks—it got tedious. But accepting his offer, even for the twenty or so feet it would take to get to her car wouldn’t just be a risk, it would feel…intimate. And there was no way she could go there with Nick.

He kicked the Harley’s pedal hard, and the motorcycle roared to life beneath him. For just a second she saw herself behind him, her arms around his waist, her thighs pressed against his—

Her hands balled into fists. “I’ll walk,” she told him. “My car’s right over there.”

He nodded nonchalantly, his engine purring like an enormous black cat.

As she turned and walked away, she knew that her new roommate was watching her. Watching and waiting until she was safely in her car.

She hadn’t expected that, she thought as she slid her key into the lock with shaking hands. She hadn’t expected him to be a gentleman, too.

“Nick, I could be going crazy, but I swear I saw you today in Santa Flora. At the mall of all places. I decided to come home for the summer. Dad said you were coming into town, but he didn’t think it was until next week. If you are here, big brother, please come by the house or call. It’s been way too long. I miss you. Dad and I both miss you.”

Nick stabbed the button on his cell phone and tossed it on the bed that he’d be using for the next six months. It was good to hear from his little sister. Throughout his childhood, he’d gone to boarding school on the East Coast, so he didn’t have many friends in Santa Flora—just family and a few acquaintances. But his sister was the best of the bunch.

Normally Anne stayed on campus in the summer, interning at the hospital, but this summer she’d gone to Europe. She wasn’t supposed to have been back until next week, but he was glad she was home. He’d missed her and hadn’t wanted to avoid her at the mall today. But he was no liar, so that meant he’d have had to tell her about the deal he’d made with Maggie—the search for Miss Right. His sister knew well enough how he felt about relationships, but she’d still tried on numerous occasions to set him up with her friends from medical school. He’d always declined.

Women and setups and explanations of who Maggie was aside, Nick also didn’t want to get into further discussion about his father and “the big change.” It was going to take a helluva lot more than the man saying he was different for Nick to believe him. Words were just Band-Aids. They covered up a wound, nicely and easily, but they didn’t make it disappear.