smiled, pleased by her reaction. “It’s one of those old American Indian tales. I told it to Tokoni when he was putting a puzzle together with pictures of birds.” Max stopped smiling. “The original story involves love. But I left off that part when I told Tokoni. I figured he was too young to understand it. Plus, it would have been hypocritical of me to tell it that way.”
She took a ladylike sip of her tea. “Now I’m curious about the original version and just how lovey-dovey it is.”
“It’s pretty typical, I guess.” He went ahead and recited it, even if he preferred it without the romance. “It’s about a hunter who loves a girl from his village, but she’s never even noticed him. He thinks about her all the time. He even has trouble sleeping because he can’t get her off his mind. So he goes to the forest to be alone, where he hears a beautiful song that lulls him to sleep. That night, he dreams about a woodpecker who says, ‘Follow me and I’ll show you how to make this song.’ In the morning, he sees a real woodpecker and follows him. The bird is tapping on a branch and the familiar song is coming from it. Later, the hunter returns home with the branch and tries to make the music by waving it in the air, but it doesn’t work.”
Lizzie removed her hat. By now the sun was shifting in the sky, moving behind the trees and dappling her in scattered light. But mostly what Max noticed was how intense she looked, listening to the silly myth. Or was her intensity coming from the energy that always seemed to dance between them? The sexiness that seeped through their pores?
Ignoring the feeling, he continued by saying, “The hunter has another dream where the woodpecker shows him how to blow on the wood and tap the holes to make the song he’d first heard. Obviously, it’s a flute the bird made. But neither the hunter nor his people had ever seen this type of instrument before.”
She squinted at him. “What happens with the girl?”
“Once she hears the hunter’s beautiful song, she looks into his eyes and falls in love with him, just as he’d always loved her. But like I said, I told it to Tokoni without the romance.”
She was still squinting, intensity still etched on her face. “Where did you first come across this story? Was it in one of the books you used to read?”
“Yes.” When he was in foster care, he’d researched his culture, hoping to find something good in it. “I hated that the only thing my mom ever talked about was the scary stuff. But I’m glad that Tokoni’s mother tried to do right by him.”
“Me, too.” She spoke softly. “Parents are supposed to want what’s best for their children.”
He met her gaze, and she stared back at him, almost like the girl in the hunter’s tale—except that love didn’t appeal to either of them.
But desire did. If Lizzie wasn’t his best friend, if she was someone he could kiss without consequence, he would lock lips with her right now, pulling her as close to him as he possibly could. And with the way she was looking at him, she would probably let him kiss the hell out of her. But that wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“I appreciate you coming to Nulah with me,” he said, trying to shake off the heat of wanting her. “It means a lot to me, having you there.”
“I know it does,” she replied, reaching for his hand.
But it was only the slightest touch. She pulled away quickly. Determined, it seemed, to control her hunger for him, too.
* * *
A myriad of thoughts skittered through Lizzie’s mind. Today she and Max were leaving on their trip, and she should be done packing, as he would be arriving soon to pick her up. Yet she was still sorting haphazardly through her clothes and placing them in her suitcase. Normally Lizzie was far more organized. But for now she couldn’t think clearly.
She hated it when her attraction to Max dragged her under its unwelcome spell, and lately it seemed to be getting worse. But they’d both learned to deal with it, just as she was trying to get a handle on how his attachment to Tokoni was making her feel. Even with his troubled past, being around children was easy for Max. Lizzie was terribly nervous about meeting the boy. Kids didn’t relate to her in the fun-and-free way they did with him. Of course her stodgy behavior in their presence didn’t help. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to change that side of herself.
After her mother had drifted into a deathly sleep, she’d compensated for the loss by taking on the characteristics of an adult, long before she should have.
But what choice did she have? Her grieving father had bailed out on parenthood, leaving her with nannies and cooks. He’d immersed himself in his high-powered work and business travels, allowing her to grow up in a big lonely house full of strangers. Lizzie didn’t have any extended family to speak of.
Even after all these years, she and her dad barely communicated. Was it any wonder that she’d gone off to Columbia University searching for a connection to her mom? She’d even taken the same journalism major. She’d walked in her mother’s path, but it hadn’t done a bit of good. She’d returned with the same disjointed feelings.
Her memories of her mom were painfully odd: scattered images of a beautifully fragile blonde who used to stare unblinkingly at herself in the mirror, who used to give lavish parties and tell Lizzie how essential it was for a young lady of her standing to be a good hostess, who used to laugh at the drop of a hat and then cry just as easily. Mama’s biggest ambition was to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. But mostly she just threw away her writings. Sometimes she even burned them, tossing them into the fireplace and murmuring to herself in French, the language of her ancestors.
Mama was rife with strange emotions, with crazy behaviors, but she was warm and loving, too, cuddling Lizzie at night. Without her sweet, dreamy mother by her side, Elizabeth “Lizzie” McQueen had been crushed, like a bug on a long white limousine’s windshield.
After Mama killed herself, Dad sold their Savannah home, got a new job in Los Angeles and told Lizzie that she was going to be a California kid from then on.
But by that time she’d already gotten used to imitating her mother’s lady-of-the-manor ways, presenting a rich-girl image that made her popular. Nonetheless, she’d lied to her new friends, saying that her socialite mother had suffered a brain aneurysm. Dad told his new workmates the same phony story. Lizzie had been coaxed by him to protect their privacy, and she’d embraced the lie.
Until she met Max.
She’d felt compelled to reveal the truth to him. But he was different from her other peers—a shy, lonely boy, who was as damaged as she was.
The doorbell rang, and Lizzie caught her breath.
She dashed to answer the summons, and there he was: Max Marquez, with his longish black hair shining like a raven’s wing. He wore it parted down the middle and falling past his neck, but not quite to his shoulders. His deeply set eyes were brown, but sometimes they looked as black as his hair. His face was strong and angular, with a bone structure to die for. The gangly teenager he’d once been was gone. He’d grown into a fiercely handsome man.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Sorry. No. I’m still packing.”
He entered her condo. “That’s okay. I’ll text my pilot and tell him we’re running late.”
Lizzie
