think I know how hard it is to drive?”
“I think you’re trying to twist my arm to get me up there.”
“I can think of a lot of men whose arms wouldn’t require any twisting at all,” she said.
“Then have one of them drive you.”
“I don’t want one of them. I want you.” She let the double entendre hang there.
He pretended not to notice. It was damned infuriating. He responded to all her flirting that way, either pretending it sailed over his head—when she knew damn well it hadn’t by the flash of fire it sometimes evoked in his eyes—or by changing the subject. She was beginning to think he didn’t take her efforts at all seriously.
“I’m going fishing for the weekend,” he said. “Leaving from here, in fact. Got my bag all packed in the car, and a friend with a big boat waiting for me at the pier.”
“God forbid I interfere with that,” she said.
“You’ll do fine on your own, Maxie. You’re the most capable woman I know.”
She drew a breath, sighed. “Fine. Just fine. Will you at least hang around until I get the beast backed out of the driveway? You can pretend you’re a traffic cop again.”
“Aah, the good old days.” He looked toward the house. “You gonna wait for Stormy?”
“She’s driving her car up. And she knows the way.” She dug in her jeans pocket for the key, then climbed up into the van and cranked the engine. Through the windshield, she saw Stormy step out of the house and close the door. She sent her friend a secret smile. Stormy frowned, looking worried.
Max shifted the van into Reverse and looked in the side mirrors. She saw Lou standing in the road, making hand motions at her, probably to tell her to back out. She popped the clutch. The van bucked and then stalled.
She started it again, and this time backed up a little before the bucking and heaving began. She kept that up—start, stop, start, stop, jerk, cough, sputter, start—until a car came along the road and Lou changed his hands to a “stop” position. Then and only then did she back up smoothly and quickly, over the mailbox, aiming dead into the path of the oncoming car.
A horn blasted. Tires squealed. Stormy shrieked, and Lou shouted.
Max stalled the van again and got out, leaving it sitting there, with its ass-end poking out into the road. The car had skidded to a stop five feet short of the van, and the driver, a neighbor she recognized, got out, looking scared half to death.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Robbins,” Max called, sending the man a sheepish wave and walking behind the van. Lou and Stormy joined her there. She looked sadly at the crushed mailbox and shook her head. “Okay, this isn’t so bad,” she said. “I’ll just pull in and start over.” She looked ahead at the driveway, where Stormy’s car was parked. “Um, you might want to move that.”
Mr. Robbins was muttering, shaking his head and stomping back to his car. He got in, pulled a K-turn and drove away. Stormy went to move her car.
Lou said, “Didn’t you hear me tell you to stop?”
“I did. I just hit the wrong pedal. I’ll do better this time, promise.” She went to the driver’s door, reached up and put her foot on the step.
Lou’s hands closed around her waist, picked her up off the step and set her back down on the driveway. She had to forcibly resist the urge to moan in pleasure, because she loved his hands on her. Anywhere, anytime. She really hadn’t tried hard enough with him, she thought. Flirting was flirting. But men could be awfully bad at picking up hints. Maybe she should have set him down and told him flat out. She visualized it in her mind. Her looking him in the eyes and saying, “Lou, I want you. I want you in my life and in my bed and in every other way that matters. What do you say?”
He probably wouldn’t say anything, she thought. He would probably go speechless with shock. No, she really hadn’t tried hard enough. And now it was pretty much too late—unless her hastily devised plan worked the way she intended.
She just blinked up at Lou, her eyes wide with innocence and questions.
He sighed, lowered his head. “You win, Maxie. I’ll drive.”
Ye-e-es!
“Don’t be silly, Lou. You don’t have to do that.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“But your fishing trip …”
“Will wait for another time.”
She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. Lou put his hands on her waist after a moment, though instead of pulling her closer he seemed more interested in keeping her hips a safe distance from his. She didn’t resist, because she needed to take things slowly and carefully this time. This was a second chance—she couldn’t blow it.
Demurely, she said, “Thank you, Lou.”
“I’m not staying, Max.”
God, how did he manage to see right through her like that?
He took her arms from around his neck, held her wrists in his hands as if to keep some distance between them and looked her squarely in the eye. “I’ll drive the van up there, help you unload, and then I’m coming right back. Understood?”
“Well of course it is.” She nodded toward his car. “You can leave your car in the garage. I’ll drive you back whenever you’re ready. Better bring that weekend bag you have packed, though.”
He blinked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Honey, I just told you, I’m not staying.”
“I know that. But hell, Lou, it’s an eight-hour drive. At the very least you’re gonna want a shower and a change of clothes before you head back.”
He watched her through narrow eyes. “I won’t need the bag,” he said. “I’m not staying.”
“All right, all right. Whatever you say.”
She walked up the driveway, hauling open the garage door. “Hey, if you’re driving, then we can use the tow bar and bring my car along, can’t we?” she called, as if she’d just had a brilliant idea.
He looked at her car. “There’s a tow bar?”
“Yeah, mounted underneath the van.”
He nodded, went back to the van, got in and moved it out of its precarious position, parking it safely along the shoulder of the road, on the opposite side of her driveway from where he’d parked his car. He left room behind the van for Maxie’s Bug. When he got out, he moved behind it to mess around with the tow bar.
Stormy came walking over to join Max in the garage. “He’s coming with us, isn’t he?” she asked.
Max smiled. “Well, he couldn’t very well let me drive, once he saw how likely I was to get killed on the way. Could he?”
“That was pretty
