Lucky Charm (13 page)

Missy gave Rick a narrow-eyed look that didn’t bode well for the rest of his evening.

Concentrate, Matt, keep your eye on the job, he thought to himself. Don’t forget Bill.

As if he ever could.

He turned his attention back to Carly before she started pouting, something he found very unattractive in a woman.

Miriam held their place as some of the Marathon group led Steve away, talking to him intensely at the other end of the bar.

“You should see Carly’s new hottie,” Miriam was saying with a lift of her chin to Aidan and a few of the others. “Went past them on the way to the bathroom. They’ve huddled in that back booth all night.”

With a grin, Aidan said, “The ice queen strikes again,” as he turned to look.

Ariel turned, too, to see who they were talking about.

She froze.

Thick blond hair. Beautiful green eyes. Matthew.

She could only agree when Miriam referred to him as a hottie.

Now in a polo shirt that made the most of his broad shoulders, muscled chest and narrow waist, he looked fantastic. He wore khaki slacks more suited to the woman beside him than the jeans he’d been wearing when she’d met him. To be honest, Ariel had liked him better in the jeans. They had seemed to suit the man she knew. The dark t-shirt, too.

The woman, well, Ariel understood exactly what Aidan had said about ice queen.

She was one of those blondes with classic features, a fall of straight hair and cool blue-gray eyes. Tall, thin and distant. Sitting side by side with Matthew the way he was dressed, they looked like the perfect country club couple.

Had her instincts gone so bad in the years since she had last dated?

It hadn’t been the circumstances in which she’d found him that had made her want to make love to him, it had been the look on his face and in his green eyes when he’d seen her there. Fear for her. Battered, beaten and bruised, she’d watched him try to gather himself for the effort to protect her. It had been there in that moment of hesitation that morning when he realized where he was, who he was with and stopped, although he’d clearly been aroused. She’d known in that moment that if she said no, he would have. She still thought so, or maybe she just wanted to believe that. He wasn’t the type to hop from bed to bed, or so she’d thought. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe shed misjudged him. Maybe her own longing and loneliness had given him character he didn’t really possess.

For some reason it hurt, although it shouldn’t have and she knew shouldn’t let it. She hardly knew him. This was what happened when you let down your guard.

Matt looked up as the attention from a few of those at the bar turned their way just at the moment Carly leaned in to whisper something in his ear, something he missed completely for the look in Ariel’s dark-fringed bright blue eyes. They were so very blue in contrast to her fair skin and dark hair.

Confusion, doubt and disappointment.

She lowered her eyes and looked quickly away, as if ashamed, and that stung.

From the end of the bar, Steve called, “Shots for everyone, on me. Set ‘em up.”

Shots? Ariel glanced toward him, grateful for the excuse to look somewhere, anywhere else than at Matt, until she saw the expression in Steve’s eyes and the spitefulness reflected in them. He’d drunk her margarita and found out there was no alcohol in it. Not knowing why she didn’t drink, he was trying to put her on the spot. She glanced across to the booth where Matt sat and as quickly away.

It had been fun for a while but all the pleasure had suddenly disappeared. She’d misjudged everything tonight.

“Miriam,” Ariel said, “I’m going to go.”

“Aw, but Ariel the fun’s just getting started,” Miriam protested as she accepted her shot.

With a small smile, Ariel said, “I have a long drive tomorrow afternoon. It’s better if I go. Thanks for bringing me, though.”

“To Ariel, a toast,” Steve called. “Come on, Ariel. There’s one for you, too. You have to drink to this one.”

Taking a deep breath, she said evenly, “No, I don’t. Good night, everyone. Have fun.”

Ariel went resolutely out the door into the humid Fort Lauderdale night, looking for a cab.

She felt stupid and foolish. How had she misjudged Matthew so badly? She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt but the way Carly had leaned in to whisper in his ear had been intimate, though. It hadn’t taken him long to recover, if it looked the way it seemed. Of course, Ariel knew nothing about him. She might have kept him out of his own bed, or someone else’s. No rings didn’t necessarily mean not taken. It wasn’t as if she’d taken the time to ask the requisite questions. His skillful hands had brought up the raging fire within her and she’d responded. That was the chance she’d taken by having sex with a stranger. He’d given her the opportunity to stop. She was the one who’d chosen not to. Feeling disappointed was foolish. She had only herself to blame.

Really, though, she couldn’t bring herself to blame either herself or him, it had been wonderful while it lasted. That was all that it was and all she’d said she wanted it to be.

None of which helped her feel any better.

Ariel started walking simply to walk, not knowing if she was going in the right direction. Walking out of the bar without finding out which way to go was stupid. What had she been thinking? She knew better, with her sense of direction. For some foolish reason she felt like crying and that was stupid, too. It had been a one-night-stand, what did she expect? Nor should she have expected anything else. It wasn’t her place to judge him, either, after all, no one had told her to bring him back to her own motel room.

One-night-stands weren’t her thing, or anything else, not for three years or more. It had been an impulse brought on by need, by loneliness and a longing she didn’t want to admit she felt. She didn’t know the man and this was the price you paid for making rash decisions.

A taxi turned the corner. She lifted one hand.

She was so distracted she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until it was too late.

A hand gripped her arm and swung her around.

“You can’t leave now,” a familiar voice snapped.

Ariel looked up and sighed.

For a minute, Matt was torn. The disappointment in Ariel’s eyes burned. What was she thinking? That he’d jumped right from her bed into someone else’s? As if he was the kind of man who looked for notches on his bedpost, the way Steve did? In a way, he couldn’t blame her. What else would she think? That was what she thought she’d saw. Should he let her go thinking the worst of him? That ate at him. He was here for a reason, though, and he had to remember that. That was what he should concentrate on. The only problem was he couldn’t bring himself let her go thinking that of him – not only for himself but for her. There was that look in her eyes. He wasn’t that kind of man and he’d be damned if he was going to let her think he was.

Then he saw Steve heading for the door Ariel had just exited, an unpleasant look on his face. Something about that expression didn’t look promising.

That was the last straw.

Patting his pockets, he said, “Damn, I forgot my wallet in the car, I’ll be right back.”

They barely noticed him leave. Carly and the other girl were debating their commission structure, which of them had gotten the better deal and whether Marathon was ripping them off.

He walked out to the street, looked in both directions and saw Ariel up near the intersection just as Steve reached her. Took her arm and wrenched her around.

“Let her go,” he shouted.

Steve turned, startled. He flung up his hands. “I was just making sure she was safe,” he said.

A glance was all it took to have the other man take a step back.

“Sure you were,” Matt said.

Backing away, Steve hurried back toward the nightclub.

The cab was heading for the curb. He didn’t have much time. Ariel’s black-fringed blue eyes looked back at him, her expression wary, tired and disillusioned.

Oh, hell
.

Ariel took a deep breath. The confrontation with Steve had been bad enough. Her heart still pounded. She’d been relieved when she’d heard Matt’s voice, seen his expression. All it had taken to get Steve to back off had been that look. That Matt had come after her made her want to hope, something she didn’t dare do. She was leaving the next day. It was better that way.

“You don’t owe me anything, Matthew,” she said.

His thick blond hair blew in the warm, humid breeze. He was so very handsome. Why had he come after her? Did she really want or need to hear an explanation? She didn’t know. What she did know was that she didn’t want to feel all these conflicting emotions.

 “I do,” he said, “It’s not what you think.”

“Why does it matter what I think?” she said. “You’re your own person, I have no right or hold on you, nor any right to judge you. It was only one night. Tomorrow I’ll be in another city, another town. You’ll never see me again.”

It mattered to Matt a great deal, if only for the look in her eyes but also because she’d saved his life. Without her it was likely he’d have wound up the same way that Bill had, found dead in some alley. It was also about the sorrow he saw in her eyes, that sound of longing in her throat when he’d touched and kissed her. And for those whispered words, when she’d said she’d forgotten what it was like to be touched. In very many ways, Ariel O’Donnell was an innocent, wounded somehow. It did, in fact, matter to him very much what she thought of him.

Matt wouldn’t for any reason have wanted to hurt her.

He looked at her. “It matters, Ariel.”

The cab pulled up.

“You don’t do one-night-stands, do you?”

His green eyes were so direct, so earnest and so beautiful. It was crazy, but looking into those eyes, Ariel found she wanted to believe in him.

She shook her head, slowly. In nearly three long years no one had touched her. Something she’d seen in his face, a reflection of her own loneliness perhaps or the long weeks on the road had broken past her resistance.

That and the tenderness of his touch.

Somehow Matt felt vindicated and relieved. He’d been right.

“You gave yourself to me the other morning, and that’s not something I take lightly. Believe me.”

Ariel sighed and smiled a little, feeling more than a little relief as a weight fell from her shoulders.

“It’s nice to know I didn’t misjudge you but I have no right to say even that much. No right to judge you at all, really.”

“If it weren’t for what I’m doing…”

Matt couldn’t tell her, couldn’t explain, not without involving her. She worked for Marathon in some capacity. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

That hesitation was fatal. It was a reminder Ariel hadn’t needed. She remembered the men who’d beaten him, her own hands pressing the cold washcloth against the bruise on his face. Whatever he was doing, it was clearly dangerous. She’d seen that. And she didn’t want to know what it was.

She also remembered his gentleness when he touched her. Her eyes were drawn to his firm mouth, remembering the feel of it on hers, the taste of him. For a moment she felt herself sway toward him, wanting to feel that, wanting to kiss him again. Something moved in her that she hadn’t felt in a long time and something else that still did. Fear. For him. Of losing someone she cared for. Whatever he was doing was dangerous.

She chose to run, reaching for the door of the cab.

“Be careful, Matthew,” she begged, “whatever it is you’re doing, be careful. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Matt saw something in her eyes, a longing and that shadow. Something else shimmered in them, too, something he didn’t want to think about. It took everything he had not to haul her back into his arms and kiss her breathless, kiss her until she wouldn’t leave. But there was Bill. It was better this way.

It cost him nothing to make the promise. He would anyway for the sake of his own skin and for Bill if not for her.

“I will,” he said, “I promise.”

She ducked into the cab. Those black-fringed blue eyes looked up at him and her mouth softened. Then she closed the door.