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of crimson that was staining her cheeks. She had quite amazing cheekbones, when they were highlighted like that.
    The voice of reason tried to interject in his inspection. Luke, it asked him, when was the last time you were with a girl who blushed?
    â€œI just don’t want to,” she stammered, and then added, apparently for emphasis, “Really.”
    Twelve. Same age that I last took a girl to a movie.
    â€œReally,” he repeated, not quite sure if he was amusedor aggravated. “Women rarely say they don’t want to. To me.”
    â€œI’m sure that’s quite true, Mr. August,” she said formally. Her eyes skittered away from his, looking for an escape. “I mean, it’s obvious you’re a very charming man. And attractive.”
    Her blush deepened as if telling him he was attractive was something she would now have to confess to the neighborhood priest on Saturday night.
    â€œI have to go,” she said frantically.
    Not so fast, little Miss Maggie. “What part don’t you want to?” he asked. He deliberately lowered his voice. He took one hand off the mop handle, tried to fight the renegade urge one more time and failed. He picked up a strand of her hair, felt the tantalizing silk of it between his thumb and finger, and then let it fall.
    She gasped as if he had asked her to have sex on the foyer floor, and tucked the offended strand of hair behind her ear. “The movie part,” she squeaked.
    She was not in his league at all. That was evident. His league was women who knew how to play the game—who breezily returned the repartee loaded with sexual innuendo, who blinked their lashes and tossed their hair, who leaned a little closer to let him have a peek down shirts that were unbuttoned one button too low.
    Luke could not have guessed it would be so much fun playing a different game, toying with Maggie. The thing was, he couldn’t predict what was going to happen next with her. And that lack of predictability was just a tiny bit refreshing.
    â€œWhat’s so scary about a movie?” he asked, knowing darn well it wasn’t the movie she was scared of.
    Unless he was mistaken, little Miss Maggie found him wildly attractive. One touch of his lips on her lips, or on her neck, one little nibble on her ear, and she would probably lose control of herself.
    The thought of Maggie Sullivan losing control of herself flared, white-hot, in his poor male-hormone-driven brain.
    Down, Fred, he ordered himself.
    â€œWho’s Fred?” she asked, bewildered.
    He realized he had spoken out loud, recovered and pointed to the name tag on the hospital-issue coveralls.
    â€œOh.” She was very flustered.
    â€œYou were explaining about the movie,” he reminded her silkily.
    She looked down at her suede jacket and picked an imaginary fleck off of it. “Okay,” she said, looking back at him suddenly and jutting out her chin, the determined look of a woman about to come clean, “it’s about the popcorn.”
    â€œPopcorn?” he echoed. He had expected anything but that. Popcorn? Was she serious?
    She nodded, deadly serious. “Do I get popcorn?”
    He wondered if it was a trick question. There it was again. Every single time he thought he was sort of figuring her out, she tossed a curve at him.
    â€œDo you want popcorn?” he asked cautiously. He was not accustomed to being with women who were complicated, hard to read, easy to offend.
    â€œOf course! What’s a movie without popcorn?”
    â€œAgreed.”
    She sighed. “But if I get popcorn, then I have to decide about butter.”
    â€œThat hardly seems earthshaking,” he said, but he could tell she thought it was.
    She sighed again, then blurted out, “Do I get my popcorn with butter the way I like it or without so that you’ll think I at least try to be skinny?”
    He slid his eyes over the lushness of her curves. What a shame skinny