Crush (27 page)

“Damn you, Miranda,” he laughed softly.

She was so sure that he would stray, yet in giving him her soul she had ruined him for all other women. If nothing else, the past weeks had taught him that no matter who caught his eye, Miranda had stolen his heart and soul. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Lucas, and he laughed until he felt tears trickling down his face.

* * *

Miranda sat in the third row of folding chairs that had been set up in the Conference Room at the Harborfront Regency. She yawned into her fist as Jordan, accompanied by Alec and a few more of their teammates, stepped onto a dais. Jordan, dressed in a smartly tailored business suit, stood at a podium next to his boss, team owner Buzz Schaefer. Miranda studied her press package while Buzz thanked the media for attending, and then introduced Jordan. Miranda made a point to withhold her applause as Jordan took the podium.

More and more, Jordan’s name—linked to hers—was sneaking into
Psst!
Meg had published Jordan’s speculations regarding Lucas’s proposal, which gave readers the clear misconception that Miranda had “unresolved issues” with Jordan that kept her from making a decision right away.

The only unresolved issue Miranda had with Jordan was how to get him to stop sending her flowers at work every other week, and to cease his surprise visits to her apartment. Of course, the visits were a surprise only to her.
Herald-Star
photographers seemed to always know when Jordan would be dropping by. The one thing their photos never showed was Jordan’s failure to gain entrance to her building every time he showed up.

This press conference was the first time they had been in the same room together since her interview with him, and again, it was work that brought them there. Jordan was launching a new charitable foundation, Bats Not Bullets, which was supposed to encourage inner city youth to take up baseball instead of gang activity. It was a tax write-off for Jordan, but Miranda knew firsthand that his teammates, Alec in particular, genuinely cared about the project and participated for humanitarian, rather than financial, reasons.

As the largest contributor to the project, Jordan had won naming rights. His partners winced when he repeated the foundation’s name. The project’s launch had originally been scheduled for mid-April, but for reasons unknown to Alec or Miranda, the date had been suddenly bumped up to April Fool’s Day. Miranda had covered a basketball game the night before and hadn’t gotten home until two
a.m.
, yet Rex had sent her off to this nine
a.m.
press conference. If she hadn’t been so sleepy and preoccupied, she might have been able to smell an ambush.

When Jordan called for questions, he chose Miranda first of the fifty print and television reporters. “Yes, Miss Penney?” he grinned stupidly, rolling his eyes at the absurdity of their formality.

“This foundation is geared toward at-risk inner-city youth, many of whom have been, or are currently, members of gangs,” Miranda began. Cameras began flashing at her rather than the men on the dais, and she was embarrassed by the undue attention. “While your motives in forming this foundation may be honorable, the name of your organization has forced community leaders to question whether you really understand or can relate to the very people you hope to accommodate. In fact, local NAACP president—”

Jordan chuckled. “Is there a question in there somewhere, Mrs. Fletch—I mean Miss Penney?”

Miranda ground her teeth. “How do you respond to community leaders who have stated that the name of your foundation is a direct reflection of your ignorance of the people you wish to serve?”

Jordan’s grin vanished. He stared blankly into the television cameras trained on him.

“That was a question, Mr. Duquette,” Miranda prompted.

Jordan loudly cleared his throat. “Bats Not Bullets isn’t a suggestion that kids in gangs pick up bats instead of guns to commit crimes.” He laughed nervously. “I just want to stroll down Blue Hill Avenue and see kids walking around with bats and gloves instead of concealed weapons. As for your accusation that I’m not attuned to the needs of my community, let’s just say that I’m not the one who’s abandoned his brothers of color.” He fixed a triumphant stare on Miranda.

Miranda was sorely tempted to publicly remind Jordan of his ménage à blondes in St. Louis. Instead, she silently fumed.

Just as Jordan was fielding a question from a
Boston Sentinel
reporter, a group of about forty young people crashed into the room. A twentysomething man with light brown hair and beady blue eyes scanned the crowd. “There she is!” he shouted, pointing a stiff index finger at Miranda. The group descended, knocking chairs aside as they zoomed in on her.

“You broke his heart!” a woman shrieked.

“If you don’t want him, give him to me!” another anonymous female voice cried.

“Lucas is better off without you!” a man shouted.

“You don’t deserve him!” the loudest voice declared.

The two
Herald-Star
photographers began snapping photos of the verbal assault, drawing away from Miranda as she made her way to the end of the row of chairs. The angry mob closed around her. Miranda recognized a few of the faces. The stout young man with the green-tipped, spiky hair was partial to sleeping against the mailbox in front of her building. The tall black girl, whose height came from clunky, platform combat boots that laced up to her knees, liked to pace in front of Miranda’s building as though she were on a picket line. The other faces crowding and yelling at Miranda blended into one cruelly jeering organism that closed tighter and tighter around her.

Voices assaulted her ears, flashbulbs shocked her eyes and her microcassette recorder clattered to the floor. Her former fans, the “Anti-fans” as they now called themselves, pulled at her satchel and her clothing. She stumbled, but caught the worst of her fall on her hands. From the floor she watched the waffled sole of a combat boot crush her microcassette recorder, and she was helpless as the girl in the boots stumbled backward and stomped on her foot.

The room full of male reporters did nothing to assist Miranda, even as she screamed in pain. Her foot had crunched as though the girl had instead stepped on a bag of corn chips. She tried to stand, but her foot couldn’t bear weight. She was going down again, this time from the nauseatingly sharp pain in her foot, when a pair of strong arms caught her up at her shoulders and knees. She instinctively clung to the wide shoulders of the man whisking her through the angry crowd.

He spoke to her, but she couldn’t understand a word he said through the continued shouting and the haze of pain clouding her brain. By the tone of his voice, it seemed that he was trying to comfort her. There was no comfort for her, she knew that. Everything her anti-fans had said was true. The misery and melancholy of the past month and a half was no less than what she deserved. Obviously, the truth about the proposal had gotten out, and it didn’t matter how. Her foot throbbed with bright, hot pain, but that pain was nothing compared to what she had done to her own heart. Pain was something she had gotten used to, so Miranda did the only thing she could. She closed her eyes and gave in to the sensation of falling.

* * *

No-No From Loco Yoko

Far be it for us to say we told you so, but we told you so! Very reliable sources close to
Herald-Star
hottie Miranda Penney have confirmed that our very own sports siren turned down music superstar Lucas Fletcher’s oh-so-romantic proposal last month, which involved a very large rock and a very small box.

No reason was given for Penney’s thumbs-down, but
Psst!
has learned that it may have to do with some unfinished funny business between Penney and hubba-hubba homerun hunk Jordan Duquette.

Fletcher’s camp gave us a ho-hum “No comment” when asked about the proposal. Penney, too, refused comment, but
Psst!
has seen firsthand the ravages the bust-up has taken on Number 25. Let’s hope that Luscious Lucas is already finding comfort in the arms of lucky Number 26!
Psst!
has previously revealed that the front-running filly for that spot is fresh young musical wonderbabe, Tess Cullor. After a long visit to parts unknown in Europe, Fabulous Fletcher graced our side of the pond with a three-day stay in St. Louis. Let’s hope he and Tess made beautiful music!

Lucas pounded the
Herald-Star
into a ball and pitched it into a tall trashcan as he shook off the rain and entered Boston’s Metro Medical Center. He had acquired the April Fool’s Day
Herald-Star
at the airport in New York City and had read through it just to pass the time during his short flight to Logan. Gossip reports usually amused rather than angered him, but Meg LaParosa had outdone herself with the Loco Yoko bit. The truth had finally come out, as he’d known it would, but everything else regarding him in the item was grossly false. His worry about Miranda’s condition only worsened a mood befouled by Meg’s infernal rumor mongering.

He inquired as to what room Miranda was in, and threw a rare celebrity punch when he was told that visiting hours were over and Ms. Penney wasn’t receiving visitors. “I’m Lucas Fletcher, damn it, and I will see Ms. Penney,” he’d stated, leaving no doubt as to the strength of his determination. “Now what room is she in?”

Deaf to the information officer’s request for an autograph, Lucas hopped into the elevator. He took a deep breath through his nose and steeled himself to do battle once more upon encountering a tall, well-built African-American man sitting in a chair outside Miranda’s room.

“Mr. Fletcher,” the man said, offering his hand as he stood. “This is a surprise.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. The man was pleasant enough, and was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, rather than a security uniform. He was younger than Lucas, and had an athletic grace about him.

Lucas took the man’s hand and gave it a fierce squeeze. “Are you Jordan Duquette?” he demanded.

“Alec Henderson,” the man said, his right bicep flexing under his dark skin as he returned Lucas’s vicelike grip. “I’m going to be Miranda’s brother-in-law.”

Lucas let go of his wrath and Alec’s hand. “Sorry, mate. It’s been a trying day.”

“I understand.” Alec nodded toward the closed door behind him. “Did she call you?”

Something deep in Lucas’s chest tightened painfully. Miranda hadn’t called him. He hadn’t spoken to her since the day she put him out of her life. “I saw the coverage of the press conference on a cable news channel at a hotel in New York City. I flew here as soon as I could. You were the one who pulled her from that mob?”

Alec nodded. Lucas noticed a faint scratch across Alec’s forehead and bruises on his upper arms. He was sure that the mild injuries came from rescuing Miranda.

“How did something like this happen?” Lucas asked. “Are such press conferences typically accessible to the public?”

Alec shook his head. “Jordan was at my place the other day when I was listening to messages on my machine. Calista called, and made a vague reference to Miranda and your proposal. One look at Miranda, and even Jordan could put two and two together and come up with a way to spend Miranda’s misery on free publicity for Bats Not Bullets. Jordan and I have been friends for ten years, and he’s basically a good guy. I know he feels bad about what happened.”

Lucas managed to suppress a skeptical glare. If Jordan was sorry, he’d hidden it well from the cameras that had shown him pointing and snickering as Miranda was being manhandled by her irate anti-fans.

“Her foot is broken,” Alec said. “That’s the worst of it. She was a little…irritable…when she was brought here, so the doctor decided to keep her overnight for stress-related anxiety. The doctor figured she could get at least one night of sleep without your fans or the media hounding her. She hasn’t been sleeping well.”

Neither have I,
Lucas thought. Then, as a courtesy to the man who had saved Miranda and continued to protect her, he said, “May I see her?”

Alec stepped aside, and pushed the door open for Lucas.

The room was dim, illuminated only by a wash of brightness from the blinding halogen lamps on the roof of the parking garage in Miranda’s view. Half of the room was dark, the other bed unoccupied. Lucas gravitated toward that half as he neared her. The head of her bed was elevated, and her face was toward the rain-streaked windows. Her body looked so thin and rigid clothed in the flimsy hospital gown, while her right foot was immobilized in a cumbersome cast and brace that reached up to her knee.

The room was cool, as though the hospital had a rule that the inside and outside temperatures had to be the same. Lucas’s grey ribbed sweater was damp with rain, and the chilly room made him shiver.

It was the scent of rain on the cool air that aroused Miranda. It refreshed and relaxed her after her hellish day. A seam of lightening parted the night sky and brought a shadow into the fringe of her peripheral vision. She turned her head and saw that her sense of comfort and security came not from the spring rain, but from Lucas. She meant to say his name, but managed only a sharp intake of breath.

“I wanted to see for myself that you were all right,” he said.

Miranda’s eyes closed. Her soul had shattered the last time they had been together, and the pieces hadn’t reassembled correctly. Of all the medicines and treatments she had been given at the hospital, Lucas was the cure for what ailed her. She was glad that she was trapped in the bed, because she knew she would have collapsed in relief if she’d been standing. The dark was surely playing tricks on her, though, for his face was hard, despite the care and concern in his voice.

“My foot is broken,” she said.

“I know.” He stood near the foot of the bed, gripping the side rail. “I heard on the news in New York City. Mr. Henderson told me as well.”

“My blood pressure was high, too.” To give her hands something to do, she tugged a thin blanket over herself, leaving the bulky cast exposed. “And I was having heart palpitations.”

“Alec told me that it was diagnosed as an anxiety attack.” Lucas’s eyes moved from the tips of her exposed abused toes, up the length of her cast, and along her thigh. It was so hard to be so near her without touching her, holding her, kissing her and loving her. He abruptly stepped back into the darkness. “Well, as long as you’ll recover.”