let out a little sigh. All the financial advantages that she had at her disposal hadn’t put a baby in her arms, yet. Hadn’t gotten her even close. Her appointment with the adoption attorney that very day had simply underscored that point. There were no women around—none that they could find, anyway—who were interested in a private adoption even though Emily was offering to cover all of the mother’s medical costs. The few pregnant girls who’d responded to her attorney’s ad had all passed on the opportunity when they’d learned Emily was single, and planning to stay that way.
“Money doesn’t buy everything.” She dipped another speck of salt off the glass and touched it to her tongue. “And money or not, I think people are like your animals out at the Double Crown. Not caring how or why so much, just as long as we have what we need.”
He clearly didn’t believe her. “And what do you need?”
She opened her mouth, but no words came.
And fortunately, the waiter returned then. She ordered the first special he reeled off and she was a little surprised when Max did the same.
Somehow, she doubted his reason was the same as hers.
The waiter disappeared again and an awkward silence fell over the table. Emily couldn’t quite figure out why. She’d never felt particularly tongue-tied in any business situation before. She looked around the restaurant. The flickering candles on the tables. The gurgling fountain and the Latin-flavored music. Nothing there felt businesslike. Certainly not sitting at the small table with Max, her knees only inches from his.
She suddenly didn’t want a business situation. She wanted social. And that was an area in which she’d never felt particularly comfortable. Just like Wendy had accused.
The young waitress was clearing a table beside them, but her gaze kept turning to Max, and Emily leaned over the table toward him. “I think you have an admirer,” she said softly, sliding her gaze to the side.
He grimaced and, surprisingly, hunched forward, as well. “That’s just Ellie.”
She felt breathless with their noses only inches apart above the flickering candle. “So you do know her.”
“She’s a kid.”
“I think she looks pretty grown-up to me.” The girl filled out the frilly, white peasant-style blouse she was wearing in a way that Emily had given up on ever achieving when she’d hit twenty. “If looks could kill, I’d be wearing a toe tag. How do you know her?”
“She used to be a cocktail waitress at one of the bars I liked to frequent.”
“Why’d you quit drinking?” She knew it was none of her business, but the question popped out anyway.
“I needed to.”
Which she’d assumed, but the answer still told her nothing. She took the answer as the roadblock it had probably been meant to be and propped her chin on her hand again. Another fortifying sip of her margarita had warmth sliding down her throat.
He had the most compelling eyes. She wondered fancifully what he’d say if she told him she’d thought about his eyes more than once in the days since she’d been buried in airport rubble. “What were you doing at the airport that day?”
“When the tornado hit?” He pinched his earlobe, then dropped his hand on the table. His finger grazed her elbow. But he didn’t move it away and her heart gave a funny little lurch. “I’d been over at the hangar with Gary. We saw the storm rolling in.” His lips compressed for a moment. “Once we realized what was happening, he told me to head over for the terminal, do what I could do to make sure people were taking shelter, while he was gonna make sure the planes were secure in the hangar.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “When I got there, it was complete mayhem. I didn’t even know until later that the hangar had been hit, too. Gary was hit by a collapsing beam. Damned old man never came out of a coma.”
She could all-too-easily imagine sharing Gary’s tragedy. “Instead of helping me, you could have been helping him,” she said softly.
But he shook his head. “That’s not the way Gary would have thought.”
“Is it the way you think?”
His gaze met hers. “I think some things happen for a reason,” he finally said. “And I could make myself crazy trying to understand them, or I can just deal with the facts and move forward.” He made a face. “Something else that Gary taught me.”
She couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward, covering his hand with hers. “You were close, weren’t you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. And when he did, his brief “Yeah” managed to convey so much more. Then he turned his wrist, flipping his hand until their palms met.
Her heart lurched even harder.
“Two Red Flame specials,” the waiter announced as he balanced a tray next to the table. “Chicken breasts stuffed with asiago cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes served over roasted chiles. And you know how seriously we take our chiles here. You order ‘em, you’re committed.”
Emily sat back again as the waiter set their plates in front of them. She wished he would have taken a little longer with the food.
Max didn’t seem to show any such disappointment, though, as he dropped his napkin onto his lap and jabbed his fork into the steaming entrée.
Emily spread her own napkin on her lap and more slowly picked up her fork. The well-known reputation that Red possessed wasn’t a fluke, and even though she was more interested in her dinner companion than she was in the dinner itself, the spicy aroma coming from her plate did its magic and she tucked into the meal, feeling more ravenous than she’d expected.
Two bites in though, she realized just how spicy the dish was. “Oh, my word.” She gasped, grabbing her water and downing half of it. “I’ve burnt off the top layer of my tongue,” she said when she finally set down her water.
Max was grinning. “Didn’t pay enough attention to Julio’s warning when he described the dish?”
“Evidently not.” She realized she was grinning, too. She couldn’t help it in the face of his.
“Here.” He pulled the wedge of lime off the rim of her margarita and held it up. “Suck on this.”
She didn’t know what possessed her.
Maybe it was the fact that her palm was still humming from the touch of his against it. Maybe it was the way his lips canted up a little higher on the right side than the left when he smiled. Or maybe it was just the balmy evening, the flickering candlelight and the tinkling sound of water from the fountain in the center of the patio.
Instead of taking the lime from him, she simply leaned forward and sank her teeth into the small wedge, closing her lips around it to suck at the tart fruit.
His pupils flared.
Time seemed to stand still.
Finally, he let go of the lime and sat back. “You want to dance?”
She slowly drew the lime from
