Bride Candidate #9

“Right again.” He picked up his mug and almost took a sip. “Haven’t seen any of them in swimsuits either. But that’s neither here nor there,” he continued. “So, I can see you’re all tensed up. Why don’t you tell me what’s goin’ on?”

Luke sipped his tea and watched her wrap both hands around her mug. She was nervous, he could see that. Why? he wondered. Him or the reason that had brought her here? He couldn’t wait to find out

“Oh, it’s this Couch Potatoes Mash event I cooked up. Your team getting into the Super Bowl has ruined it. And it looks like I’ve gotten all these kids’ hopes up for nothing. Which happens far too frequently in their lives. And I really want this—”

“Hold on, there, Ariel.” He stretched an arm along the cushion behind her. “Start at the top.”

She blew out a breath. “I had this brilliant idea to have a mid-winter, let’s-get-our-butts-off-the-couch event to raise funds for the Wilson Buckley Youth Center in San Francisco. Have you heard of it?”

“Can’t say as I have.”

“It’s an excellent facility, with the highest standards and a tremendous staff in a pretty tough neighborhood of the city. My vision was a whole day of competition for the kids, kind of a mini-Olympics, followed by a dinner-dance and silent auction for adults. I figured I could get local businesses to sponsor individual athletic events. The publicity would draw more kids into the center and show them there are safe places they can go and have fun, particularly during the middle of winter. We planned it for the last weekend in January.”

“Super Bowl weekend,” he said, looking away from her.

“Which is less than two weeks from now, as you know. Well, no one expected the Gold Dusters to make the Super Bowl without—Well, without you. All the sports writers said so, and for most of the season, it looked like they’d be right. Then, you know what happened.”

He took a controlled sip of his tea, needing a moment before he responded. “They came to life.”

“Did they ever! But now I’m in a big jam, Lucas, and I hope you can help me out of it”

“Go on.”

“The Center is privately funded. They get no government support of any kind. They’ve just completed a major remodeling so that they can handle a fifty-percent increase in membership. Financially, they’re in deep, though. Several of the Gold Dusters had promised to support the event, but now that they’re in the Super Bowl, they can’t. The game’s the next day. Without them, interest is lagging.”

He stood and wandered to the window, keeping his back to her. He was glad to see her but—“Why don’t you just change the date?”

“We could, but everything’s in place. It was a lot to set up. I even got some of the kids involved, Lucas. They took part in the meetings with the local business owners so they could see how the system works—how to negotiate, how to deal with people different from themselves. They’ve got a lot at stake here, not the least of which is their need for people to believe in them and their genuine needs. If I can’t drum up a major sponsor for the event, we’ll lose everything we’ve put into it. At this point, we’d settle for breaking even and doing something again in the summer.”

“Which leads you to why you’ve come, I suppose. You want my company to take over sponsorship.”

“Would you? It would mean so much to the kids.”

He let the words sink in as he turned around. He couldn’t let his pride get in the way of an important cause. The look of expectation on her face made his stomach clench. He cocked his head. “You haven’t done this before, have you, darlin’?”

“Done what?”

“Fund-raising.”

Ariel fidgeted. “What makes you say that?”

“‘Cause you’re goin’ about it all wrong.” He carried his mug with him to his desk. “You’re supposed to approach your target expecting positive results. You should be anticipating my objections. You should be sayin’ things to let me try on the idea of involving myself. Now, I’m not sayin’ that usin’ the emotional approach won’t work, but a seasoned fund-raiser saves that tactic for last.”

“You’re limping.”

“Nice change of subject. Smooth, Ariel. Real smooth.” He chuckled and shook his head.

“Well, you were. I thought you’d had surgery. Didn’t it work?”

“It worked Rehab takes longer than you might think. It’s no big deal” He booted his computer and typed a few words.

“I was sorry to hear about your having to retire,” she said. “That must be really hard on you.”

“Not as hard for me as others, maybe. I had the company to turn to. I’ve worked for Titan since I was twenty-two, off and on. My grandfather decided it was a good time for him and my grandmother to see America, so it worked out all the way around.”

Ariel wondered if he was deluding himself that he could give up that part of his life so easily, or if he was trying to delude her. Men. Such tough guys. Can’t ever let anyone see them vulnerable.

She couldn’t sit still as he spent the next few minutes at his computer, looking at his budget—she hoped—for what he could swing for a donation.

She strolled to the window behind him. She ran a mental list of the advice that the foundation’s professional fund-raiser had given her, deciding she’d messed things up because she hadn’t factored in her own emotional response to seeing him again. Ariel had decided to meet personally with Luke, alone without the fund-raiser, since she had the advantage not only of having met him but of having spent a lot of time with him.

But Luke was right. She wasn’t any good at asking people for help. Which was why she usually just dove in and did things herself instead of begging someone else She glanced at the back of his head, wondering if she should tell him how desperate she was for his help.

“Any chance you missed me some?” he asked out of the blue, then turned and leveled a penetrating stare on her.

She cupped her mug a little tighter “A slight chance.”

“Slight, as in ‘a passin’ thought once a week’? Or slight, as in ‘way too much but I won’t let him know that’?”

“Somewhere in between.”

He tapped a pencil on his desk “Are you ever gonna cut me any slack? I didn’t do anything but admire you.”

“You monopolized my time so I couldn’t spend it with anyone else. I had lots of friends aboard the cruise. Friends who are more like family. I didn’t get to spend time with them thanks to you.”

“Family,” he repeated thoughtfully, tipping his chair back. “Now, there’s a word to consider. What defines a family to you?”

She frowned. “People you care about, of course. People you love. People you can count on.”

“So, they don’t have to be related by blood?”

“If that were the case, I’d have a family of one.” She regretted the words the minute she said them, because his gaze softened pitifully.

“Who would that be?”

“My Aunt Bonnie, the wildest, craziest woman you could ever hope to meet.”

“In what way?”

“In every way. She didn’t believe in staying put for longer than a few months, so I grew up traveling around Europe. It was quite an education” She set her mug on his desk. “What’s your answer, Lucas? Will you help or will those poor kids be at the mercy of the streets? Their futures he in your hands.”

“Oh, that’s good, Ariel. It’d be my fault if they turned into delinquents, right?”

“You could make a difference.”

A computerized female voice announced that e-mail awaited his attention. He punched a couple of keys, read the words that came up on the screen, shut it down, then moved to stand beside Ariel.

“Why did you come to me for help?” he asked