in a relationship?”
Maggie’s laugh had a fragile edginess that set it half a note off-key. “Who, me? You must be joking. I’m too busy for a relationship. I have a winery to run, and don’t tell anyone, but I’m feeling my way here. I’ve hired a new wine maker, and if he doesn’t come through for us we could lose a lot of our markets. Don’t get me wrong. He’s good. I just don’t know if he’s got the flair Dad had. We’ll start releasing his first vintage in October and I’m organizing a wine fest for Labour Weekend. I just hope it’s a success. This is a new concept for us. I always wanted Dad to run one, but he said our wines sold themselves. I can’t count on that anymore, so I’m working on promoting it whenever I can.” She cut off her words in midstream, pushed at her hair and rolled her eyes in embarrassment. “Oh, boy! Will you listen to me?” She excused herself with a shrug. “For the last year the winery has been my life.”
“Join the club. This would be maybe the third night off I’ve had in three months.”
“And you’re wasting it on business?”
“No…pleasure.”
“So, you’re saying this isn’t business?”
“It isn’t business.”
“Then why are you here?”
“For starters, your scarf. Secondly, I wanted to get to know you and I seized on the scarf as an excuse. But I’d have come without it. I couldn’t keep away.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Well, hear this,” he said bluntly, as he got to his feet and walked around to Maggie’s side of the table. He took the glass from her hand and set it down, then pulled her to her feet so she wouldn’t feel intimidated by his height. Her eyes had gone black and opaque as if she were dazed. He’d forgotten she had no shoes on, and he towered over her. So he slipped an arm around her and pulled her up onto her toes. He felt himself tremble and abandoned all reason. Maggie Kovaks was David to his Goliath and he would die if he couldn’t taste her lips. “I want you, Maggie.”
Her hands pushed against his chest and he heard her breath quicken. “Don’t be frightened, Maggie. I don’t mean here and now, but someday, you and I are going to get together. When the time is right, it will happen.” He tilted her chin up and felt a tremor run through her, mimicking the ones weakening his body with desire. “Like this,” he said, and feathered his lips over hers. “And this.” Max slanted his mouth across Maggie’s, tasting wild blackberries, tasting sunshine.
Her hand slipped around his collar as he caught a sigh from her lips and breathed it in. The kiss deepened as she opened for him and his tongue searched out the dark, sweet cave of her mouth, savoring every nuance and flavor. Knowing this might be all he had of her for quite a while, he memorized the subtle textures of satin and pearls to keep him going during the sexual drought ahead of him.
Maggie’s hand fisted in his hair as he felt her tongue seek his out. When she stepped onto his shoes, pressing closer, his hand cupped her hips, plastering them together from knee to shoulder. Hunger, hot and dark, slashed through him as her breasts cushioned his chest and he ground his hard, aching need against the softness of her belly, giving passion its rein.
Max didn’t want to stop. He had to stop. Now—before he threw her on the floor and took her there and then, like an uncontrollable animal. A groan of pain ripped from him as he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away while he had the strength. The look in Maggie’s eyes almost broke his resolution as he set her back a step, leaving his hands as their only link.
He brushed his thumb over the full redness of a bottom lip that looked thoroughly kissed. “Seems the feeling is mutual.” Max heard her small gasp of shock as realization hit. “I ought to go while I’m still able.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Maggie felt like spitting tacks. So, he was right. The feeling was mutual. She’d been caught up every bit as much as Max, so much so that she hadn’t wanted to break the contact, the kiss. And it riled her that he’d been able to…to push her aside. It rankled that it could never happen again. He was wrong for her, wrong in every way. She’d lived the first part of her life with a man who hadn’t believed in her, and had no intention of getting caught up with another. One who called the part of her that should have been special “garbage!”
“This ends the moment you walk out that door,” she declared.
“You mean you want me to stay?”
“No, dammit! I mean this is it. Over! Kaput! I won’t hurt my best friend and I’ve no intention of having an affair with a man who reminds me of my father.”
“Don’t try to tell me you kissed your father like that. I won’t believe you.”
Maggie almost spat in disgust. “What I’m getting at is that my father never believed me, either. If he had, he’d be alive today and you wouldn’t even be in the picture. You’ve got too many counts against you, Max. I’ve already suffered at the hands of the police and now I’m gun-shy. I need a man who isn’t frightened of the unknown, one who can open his mind to the possibilities.”
“I never said I didn’t believe in fate.”
A rueful note wove its way into Maggie’s laughter. He was a beautiful man, and she bet he stripped off well. She’d already felt the lean strength of his arms and would like nothing better than to rest her head on the hard bulk of his chest at the end of a day when things had gotten too tough. She was tired of shouldering everything alone. Strength was good, but she wanted more, she wanted a man who would listen—listen and empathize—without cringing.
“I’ll bet before you met me, when Sergeant Gorman was slinging his mouth off to the tabloids, you thought I was weird.”
“Truth to tell, I probably thought a lot worse. I would have been separated about a year by then, and there was a lot of stuff I didn’t like about women, and so-called psychics would have topped the list.”
His words hit Maggie like a slap in the face, wiping out her last scrap of hope, a scrap she hadn’t even realized she’d been saving.
“Humph, that sounded pretty harsh. It wasn’t meant as a put-down—honest, Maggie.” He reached out, needing to touch her, but before he could caress her cheek, she stepped back.
“I thank heaven I’ll never have to experience your version of a put-down, as I doubt we’ll ever meet again. I think it’s time you went now. Don’t you?” Turning on her heel, she walked away, hoping Max would follow her. He was too big to throw out.
He followed in her footsteps, then slipped in front of her before she reached the archway. “Look, Maggie, the way I see it, you’ve got a history and I’ve got a history and we haven’t got time to go into them tonight. But what’s between us could be bigger than all of that, if only you’ll give it a chance.”
“And I think we used up all our chances long before we met. Everything we have going for us is on the debit side, and I can’t stand being in the red.” She moved around Max and headed for the door before he could attempt to change her mind.
Maggie gripped the handle tightly, ready to close the door the instant he walked through it. She supported herself with the doorknob and raised her heels from the floor. It wasn’t fair; Max’s height put all the advantage on his side.
“I
