Meet Your Mate (A Good Riders Romance Book 1) (19 page)

After a long soak with a glass of
wine and a boring book, Annabel stumbled to the kitchen in a dispirited fog.
Too tired to attend yoga class, she lingered over multiple cups of tea instead.
Watching the local news on her laptop, she kept her eyes riveted on the screen
when Carly poked her head in the back door around ten o’clock.

“All alone?” the chipper teen
asked.

Annabel merely nodded. The
disastrous condition of the kitchen caught Carly’s attention.

“Holy guacamole, what happened in
here?”

To prevent Carly from detecting any
hint of the previous night’s sex-
capades
on Annabel’s
face, she kept her focus on the news. “I fixed a midnight breakfast and was too
tired to clean up afterward.”

“Honestly?” Carly peered around
wide-eyed. “Are you sick? You never let
me
leave a mess like this.”

“And you can see why.” Annabel
frowned at the mess around her. “In retrospect, it was a mistake.”

Carly moved the strawberry jam from
the place Max had occupied the night before and sat down. “Thanks for texting
me about the awards. We saw some Community First footage on the late news last
night. You and Max looked awesome together.” She reached out and pushed the
laptop’s screen down. “I’m sorry you didn’t win.”

“Thanks, I got your text, too. That
was sweet.”

“Are you okay, Anna?”

She worked her throat a couple of
times, but finally her answer emerged with a stiff smile. “I’m fine.”

“And how was Max?”

Fabulous
, Annabel wanted to
say, but she supposed Carly’s question didn’t refer to his post-ceremony
performance. “He seemed okay.”

“Did he have breakfast with you?”

With two used plates and cups on
the table there was no way to deny it. “Yeah, we both needed company and a
little cheering up.”

Carly sat forward, eager for
details. “How long did he stay?”

“Awhile.”

“Annabel!” she huffed. “You forget
that I’m almost eighteen. If you want to stop treating me like a
twelve-year-old who’s never been kissed, you can.”

Annabel rested her head in her
hand, choosing her answer with care. “It’s not so much your age, sweetie, as
our relationship. I’m used to being the parent, and I still think I need to
protect you.”

“My mom told me about the birds and
bees a long time ago, you know.”

“Hey!
I
told you about the
birds and the bees.”

Carly smirked. “Yeah, but her
version was a lot better than yours.”

“Oh, really?” Annabel’s eyebrows
skyrocketed.

“You’ve only been married to Dad,
and so she knows more.”

“She’s only been married to your
dad, too.”

“Yeah, but that was a long time
ago, and no offense, but she’s made up for it since.”

“And she’s shared details of her
sex life with you?” Annabel was past being appalled at Belinda’s idea of sound
parenting, but she wished she’d known about this sooner. No telling what
inappropriate stories Carly had heard.

“Some, so it’s all right if you
want to talk to me, too. You’re always going on about how knowledge is power.”

“I wasn’t talking about sex!”

“Yeah, but I always thought that was
because you didn’t know much about it. Mom says even though you have a college
education, you may not be an expert on this subject.”

Annabel found herself caught
between laughter and outrage. Maybe they were right about her sexual expertise,
but she’d learned a lot in the last twenty-four hours. And she wasn’t about to
share that information with Carly.

“How long did Max stay? Did you
sleep with him? Did he spend the night?” Luckily the barrage of questions came
too closely together to be answered individually.

“Until about two thirty. No! And
no!” Annabel blurted out responses just to stop the flow. True enough, they’d
planned for him to spend the night, but he hadn’t. And there had been
absolutely no sleeping.

“Did
anything
happen?”

“Nothing worth talking about.” Her
cheeks reddened, and she knew from Carly’s grin that the girl noticed.

“Then why are you blushing?”

“We really can’t discuss this. I
still think of you as a teenage soccer-jock, not a young Dr. Phil.”

Carly leaned forward, a young
beautiful girl, but nearly a woman. “I’ve had more boyfriends in the last three
years than you have.”

Annabel remembered those boyfriends
and remembered all the late nights watching the clock until the teenager got
home. Still… “Max was wonderful, a gentleman, and he got called away for work
before we got around to cleaning up this mess.”

“Oh, Annabel.” Carly shook her head
in disappointment. “Only you would go out with a hunk like Max and send him
home alone.”

Annabel fidgeted with the zipper
pull on her robe, eager to halt the discussion. “Carly, I really don’t want to
talk about this.”

Her stepdaughter studied her for a
full ten seconds. “Why are you so upset if nothing happened? Is it because you
expected something to happen and it didn’t? Or did he make a pass and you
didn’t know how to handle it?”

“Of course not! Are these more of
your mother’s ideas?”

“No, I’m just saying... You were
used to Dad.”

Annabel straightened in her chair.
“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, he was a professor of
literature
.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Smart and sweet, but not real involved, and since there
were very few PDAs, I’m guessing, not very demonstrative. And no offense, but
Mom once told me that he was about as exciting in bed as a dead poodle.

“A dead poodle? What does that
mean?”

“I don’t know.” Carly got up and
opened the fridge, scrounging around for a container of yogurt. “I thought it
was one of those expressions adults use that don’t make sense unless you
understand the context. Maybe she said
wet
poodle. He was about as exciting
as a wet poodle.”

“Did she say “wet noodle?”” The
description didn’t flatter Carl, but at least it didn’t border on necrophilia.
Or bestiality.

“Wet noodle! Yes, that’s it.” At
that, Carly must have caught a glimpse of Annabel’s disapproval. “
Eewww
. Believe me, that’s a lot more than a girl wants to
know about her father. Please, don’t feel the need to confirm, deny, or share
similar confidences.”

Annabel had no intention of doing
so. Her thoughts reeled wildly away from the direction the conversation had
taken.

“You know I love you, Anna. I can’t
imagine my life without you, but…” Carly bit her lip and dropped her gaze
before finishing in a rush. “One thing I always wondered is why you married
him. He was crazy about you, in his own quiet way, but I don’t know what you
saw in him.”

Many people had been surprised
about the mismatch in their ages, but it hadn’t seemed odd to her. “He gave me
so much, honey. A home, security, love, all the things I lacked after my
parents died.”

“But did you love him?”

“In some ways, I did.” Annabel
smiled at the thought of her husband’s many fine qualities. “I admired his
intelligence, his gentleness, his dependability. He really needed me in his
life, and I liked that.” She’d found the idea fulfilling at the time, but she’d
given up a lot of herself to please Carl and make the marriage work. And she
hadn’t realized until last night how much had been missing. “And if I hadn’t
married him, I wouldn’t have you in my life.”

“I’m glad you were happy with him,
and for purely selfish reasons, I’m glad you married him.”

Annabel pulled her into a hug,
pushing away pointless regrets at the same time. “Me, too, honey.”

“But Max, now.” Carly awarded
Annabel with an impish grin. “He looks like a complete stud. He’s got a sexy
smile and a great butt. And I love how he follows you with his eyes. I thought
from the way he looked last night when he saw you in that dress that he
wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of you.” She waited expectantly, but
Annabel’s tongue remained glued to the roof of her mouth.

Carly shrugged. “Of course, if you
say nothing happened, I believe you, because you never lie. But I hoped you’d
have someone special in your life.”

“I have you in my life, and you’re
special.”

“That’s not the kind of ‘special’ I
mean. I’ll be leaving soon, and I wanted you to have someone you could count on
besides me.”

“Well, I appreciate the thought,
sweetie. Really I do, but I don’t need a man in my life to be happy, and Max
would only be a temporary fix at best.”

“Yeah,” Carly said, laughing. “But
he’d be good for some excitement.”

“Until he’s gone.”

“Gone? Where’s he going?”

Annabel lifted her cup for a sip of
stone cold tea. She returned it to the saucer with a clink. “News people tend
to move from market to market. It’s not a very stable lifestyle.”

“Oh, shoot,” Carly huffed. “I
hadn’t thought of that. Where would he go after here?”

“New York, maybe.”

“New York! That’s great! You should
go, too. There are plenty of career opportunities in New York.”

“Sure. Documentary companies there
are dying to give high-budget projects to unknown women with nothing more to
recommend them than having been an also-ran for a local media award.”

“You have more to recommend you
than that.” Carly shook her head. “The only thing keeping you from trying is
you.”

“That and the desire to keep a roof
over my head.” Although her current roof required about twenty grand she didn’t
have to get it
reshingled
before the next deluge.

“All right, maybe that plan’s too
aggressive for you. Max and New York are big leaps for someone with your timid
nature, but I’ll keep thinking. Maybe I can scout up someone more suitable for
you. The new boys’ soccer coach is built like a Greek statue, thirty, and
single.”

Timid nature?
Ouch, that
hurt. Especially after her recent progress. Of course, Carly hadn’t seen
Annabel in her trench coat last night, eluding a criminal and aiding in his
capture. And she wasn’t at liberty to mention anything about it yet.

“Or,” Annabel said, deflecting the
suggestion, “I can decide what to do with my life all by myself.”

“Yeah, right.” Carly shook her head
and snorted, as if she found the possibility farfetched. She stood and
stretched. “I’m going to take a shower, then head over to school for soccer
practice.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Back by two. How about you?”

“I’m feeling lazy today.” Annabel
yawned to emphasize the point. “Maybe I’ll just stay around here.”

“Says the lady who thinks she can
manage her own love life.” Carly left the kitchen with a parting shot. “You
won’t find any available males if you don’t get out there and look.”

Annabel knew that. She did. She
just couldn’t handle it today. Dropping her head in her hands, she rubbed her
temples and contemplated cleaning the kitchen.

Out in the foyer, Carly’s footsteps
paused halfway up the stairs, then stomped back to the kitchen.

“Uh huh,” she said, with one fist
planted on her hip and a bow tie dangling from the fingertips of her other
hand. “What is
this
?”

Annabel willed herself to stay
calm. “Max’s tie. He hates wearing them and says he feels like they’re
strangling him, so he took it off when we got here. I guess he forgot it.”

“That makes sense.” Carly lifted
her other hand from her hip and revealed a black dress sock balled up in her
palm. “Does he feel strangled wearing socks, too?”

Oh, God, busted!
Teenagers
were far too knowing these days to let a parent get away with anything. Annabel
expected Carly to ground her any minute now.

“I guess so.” She plucked both
items from Carly’s grasp. “I’ll make sure he gets them back.”

To Annabel’s vast disappointment,
her phone remained silent throughout most of Sunday. And when it did ring, it
wasn’t who she wanted to hear from. No calls, no texts from Max. Her phone
worked both ways though. She debated calling him. A daring step for her, but
she didn’t want him to interpret the action as needy, or desperate, or smitten.

No matter how much she wanted him,
they were still all wrong for one another. She could never be with someone who
treated women as callously as he’d treated
DeeDee
,
but then again… Now that she knew him better, she couldn’t picture him actually
treating a woman that way. Rumors could be wrong. And
DeeDee
never actually said she was hung up on Max. Or that the baby was his. Maybe
Annabel had mistakenly assumed those things.

She stewed over it for a few
minutes before pulling up
DeeDee’s
Facebook
page to catch up on her recent posts. Loved her
new job. Cute baby. Newly engaged. To her baby’s father, Jonathan Andrews.