you known Claire long?” Alma asked, smiling at Max, and Claire tensed. She should have known that Max would be grilled on his life from birth to present. It was her own fault; since her divorce from Jeff, she’d stubbornly resisted the efforts of her family to plunge her back into the social scene, so it was out of character for her to show up with a man in tow. Virginia’s party had been the only party she’d attended in years, except for small family get-togethers, and Claire had no doubt that Martine and Alma had discussed at length the fact that she’d finally given in to Martine’s urgings. Their curiosity over Max would be running high.
His eyelashes had drooped over his brilliant eyes, as if he were a little drowsy. “No, I haven’t,” he said, his tone gentle and faintly amused. Claire wondered if she were the only one who heard that amusement, and she darted a quick look at her mother. Alma was still smiling, and she wore that slightly dazed expression Claire had seen before on women’s faces when they saw Max for the first time. Suddenly Claire relaxed, no longer worried about any interrogation Max might face from her family; she sensed that he was perfectly at ease, as if he’d expected to be questioned.
“Max is new in town, and I’ve been showing him around,” she explained.
Both Alma and Martine gave her intensely pleased looks then glanced at each other as if congratulating themselves for a job well-done in finally getting Claire out of her shell. Now that she was older, Claire often found this silent communication between her mother and sister amusing, though when she was a child it had intimidated her, making her feel left out. Her lips twitched in a smile; really, there was something comforting in knowing your family so well that you could almost read their thoughts. Martine looked back at Claire and saw her sister’s amusement, and a sunny smile broke over her lovely face. “You’re doing it again!” she said, laughing.
“What’s that?” Steve asked, leaning toward his wife.
“Claire’s reading my mind again.”
“Oh, she’s always done that,” Alma said absently. “Harmon, dear, the steaks are on fire.”
Claire’s father calmly sprayed water on the flaming charcoal. “What type of work are you in, Mr. Benedict?” he asked, keeping an eagle eye on the coals in case they flamed up again.
“Investments and real estate.”
“Real estate? That’s a volatile profession.”
“Speculating in real estate certainly is, but I’m not in that area of the business.”
“When we get settled in Arizona, I’m going to begin studying for my real estate license,” Celia put in. “It’s a fascinating career, and now that the children are both in school I want to get back into it. I worked in a real estate office in Michigan,” she explained to Max. “I was planning to get my license then, but two babies persuaded me to put it on hold until they were older.”
Martine leaned forward, her dark blue eyes sparkling as she leveled them on Max. “Do you have any children, Mr. Benedict?” she asked sweetly, and Claire closed her eyes, wavering between horror and a bubble of laughter. Martine didn’t believe in tact when she was engaged in protecting her younger sister, and right now that protection took the form of digging all the information she could from Maxwell Benedict.
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