the patio was nice, white fieldstones smooth as glass, wicker furniture, glass-topped table, an umbrella for shade, white with a pattern of green ivy, like the cushions on the chairs. It was a warm evening. Sitting out there in the starlight, smelling the sea breeze, citronella torches ablaze, it felt just fine.
When it got too cool to remain, Lou decided to make coffee, which meant unpacking cups and things. And that task turned into unpacking nearly every box marked Kitchen. The three worked in synch and had the job done in under an hour. Max’s blender and toaster and coffeepot were on the counter—the pot half-full. All the dishes were put away except the cups they’d been drinking from. Those he stacked in the dishwasher.
He liked the kitchen here. Of the entire place, he thought he liked it best. It was clean, efficient, not overly fancy. And the pink-and-gray marble was perfect. Tiny squares of it covered the walls, and a huge chunk formed the surface of the island in the middle of the room. Now, that, he thought, was Max. Pink swirls. Soft on the surface, but tough as rock underneath.
Fortified with caffeine, kitchen unpacking all done, Lou next carried some boxes up the stairs to the bedrooms the girls would be using.
Maxie’s room—formerly Morgan’s—was huge, with an attached bathroom that included a sunken tub and a shower with multiple heads. It had a balcony with French doors, and filmy white curtains, and it was fully furnished.
He set Max’s boxes of clothes and toiletries in the bedroom and took a look around. The room was dark and dramatic. It wasn’t Maxie. But when he tossed her ladybug-patterned beanbag chair into a corner, he thought that she might transform it, given time.
“There are a half dozen other bedrooms, besides mine and Stormy’s,” Max said.
He turned to see her standing in the doorway. She moved into the room past him, scooped a box off the floor and set it on the huge bed. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I’ve been here before, too, you know.”
She nodded. She was pulling items out of the box now. Nightgowns. Underthings. She held each one up as if to inspect it before folding it and dropping it into the top drawer of the bureau beside the bed. “So which room do you want to use?”
“Max, hon, I told you, I’m not staying over.”
“Oh, come on, you don’t still mean to leave. If you did, you’d be gone by now. At this point, you’d have to drive all night.” The item she was holding up now was a sheer black teddy. He looked at it, then at her, and then he was imagining her wearing it, which was a stupid thing to think about. And yet he couldn’t shake the image from sneaking through his mind. The nightie was short, and her legs were long. He’d seen her in shorts in the summer, so he knew about her legs. Hell, she’d made sure he knew. Maxie seemed to live for teasing him, though most of the time he managed to believe she didn’t mean anything by it. She was young, probably thought it was safe to flirt with him. He was too much older than her to take her seriously, and too good a friend to be dangerous. She thought he was safe. Comfortable.
She ought to be right. He felt like a pig for the images of her prancing around in that skimpy teddy that were currently filling every corner of his mind.
“Lou?”
He shook himself, snapped out of it, looked at her again.
She smiled at him. “You like this one, huh?”
“What?”
“The teddy. You were kind of staring at it.”
He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Sure you were.”
“I was lost in thought, that’s all.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“You damn well should,” he muttered, turning away to leave the room.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Back on topic, kid. I can’t stay the night. Plain and simple. I’ll stay until you get hold of your friend Jason, just so I know what you’re up to, but then—”
“Will you be reasonable, already?”
He knew she was right. He was being utterly unreasonable. Why drive all night when there were vacant bedrooms for the taking and an open invitation?
Because he didn’t trust himself to spend the night under the same roof with Maxie, that was why. He searched his mind for a reasonable argument and latched on to the first one he found. “I didn’t bring anything with me,” he said.
There. She couldn’t very well argue with that. He kept walking along the hall toward the stairs.
She popped into the hallway behind him. “Yes, you did.”
Lou stopped and turned slowly to face her.
She was standing with one hand braced on the door frame of her bedroom, and she turned her green eyes up to their most innocent setting. “You were being stubborn. I was afraid you’d end up stranded here with none of your stuff, so … I tossed your overnight bag into Stormy’s car before we left White Plains.”
“You …?” He couldn’t even form a sentence, he was so stunned.
“You can use this room here,” she said, striding down the hall toward him and flinging open a door. “This is a nice room. One of my favorites. I think it’s the one Morgan’s godfather, David Sumner, used when he came out here to visit. It’s all earth tones, greens and browns. Very masculine.”
It was also, he realized, the room right beside her own.
She read that observation on his face and said, “Besides, you’ll be close to me. In case I need you.”
He stared at her. God, why wouldn’t she lay off him with this constant flirting and teasing? He was human. He was not a gelding. He was a red-blooded man, and he could only take so much. And it didn’t matter to his libido that she was his opposite in every imaginable way from personality to phase in life. She was just starting out, ready to take on the world and whip it into submission. He was ready to slow down, lie back, relax a little. She wanted marriage, long-term commitment—kids, for crying out loud. And she deserved those things. He wanted none of the above. Wasn’t capable of any of them even if he did want them.
“Maxie, maybe you and I need to sit down and have a talk.”
“It’s about time,” she said. “My room or yours?”
He opened his mouth, but before he got a word out, Stormy was calling to them from the bottom of the stairs. Max clenched her fist. “Curses, foiled again!” Then she started down the stairs. “What’s wrong, hon?”
“I’ve got Jason on the phone.”
Max glanced at Lou, and he got the distinct feeling he’d just had a narrow escape—he couldn’t be exactly sure what from. More of her teasing, more than likely. Sure as hell wouldn’t have been anything more. But damn, if he ever slipped up—lost the iron grip he held on his self-control.
Showed her I’m not a gelding after all …
He
