Sexy/Dangerous (20 page)

She was realistic enough to know that she couldn’t run around playing Storm until she was old and gray. She’d readily admit to not being as physically sharp as she’d been a decade ago. Skills eroded, reflexes slowed,
and eventually people like her had to find other employment in order to keep themselves, their colleagues, and their missions out of harm’s way. So her question became, was she mad at him for wanting her to change her life, or was she just mad, period, because she knew he was right? Truthfully, she was scared to look at the answer, and because she wouldn’t know what to do with the answer even if she had one, Max chose not to deal with it at all, at least for now. Instead, she looked up at the moon and hoped the misery would eventually subside.

It didn’t. When she woke up the following morning, she was just as blue as she’d been going to bed.

Breakfast was a forced affair.

When she came into the kitchen, he and Portia were already there. Good mornings were exchanged. Max looked at him. Adam looked back. Max sat.

Portia said, “Adam and I have been talking about collaborating on some future projects.”

Max forced a smile. “That sounds exciting.” She glanced over at him and found him watching her. Whatever he was feeling was hidden deep beneath that unreadable mask. “Looks like a good day to fly,” she said, needing to break the lengthening silence. Unlike her mood, it was sunny and bright outside.

“Yeah, it does,” he replied.

Neither had anything to say after that.

When it was time for him to go, she pasted on her false smile and walked with him out to the cab waiting to take him to the airport. The dogs trotting alongside were subdued and silent. They seemed to have picked up on the fact that he was leaving and had followed him around all morning.

Adam opened the cab door and tossed his duffel inside. He then looked down at the woman he wanted to share life with but couldn’t. “Thanks for everything.”

“No problem.”

Both felt the words that could be said, but Adam thought it best if they made this parting short. “Call me sometime and let me know how you’re doing.”

“I’ll do that. You do the same.”

They both knew they wouldn’t unless one or the other relented.

Adam wanted to kiss her, hold her, feel her heart beating against his own, but he didn’t. If he touched her, he’d shatter, so he said, “Take it easy, Max.”

“You, too.”

He gave the dogs an emotion-filled scratch across their backs. Ruby whined and Ossie began to bark. Adam took a deep breath, got into the cab and closed the door.

As the cab drove off and took Adam Gary out of Max Blake’s life, she stood in the driveway watching, but he didn’t look back.

Adam took a cab home from the airport and was surprised by the yellow police tape over the opening in the gate. The fence was still torn up from where Max had punched the Honda through, but he didn’t understand the reason for the tape until he walked into the house.

The interior had been trashed. Sledgehammers had been taken to the walls, the kitchen cabinets and what had been inside them strewn everywhere, and the refrigerator lying on its side, its contents puddling on the floor. The big glass door leading out to the patio had
apparently been shot out, with bullet holes in the trim and shattered glass covering the furniture and floor.

Adam ran down to the lab, noticing more destruction to the walls on the way. He assumed the destruction had been carried out by the men on the jet skis and their friends looking for the prototype. His lab was in shambles. Busted equipment, monitors, and books littered the place. A herd of cattle couldn’t have done more damage. Grim-faced, he picked his way through the broken glass and forest of papers just to make sure the carnage was total, and it was. Nothing was intact, not his computers, copiers, or anything else that had been kept in the lab and the outer office. The only saving grace was that because he’d taken Max’s advice, he had everything on portable disks. That knowledge didn’t lessen his anger at the damages or at the fact that ten years’ worth of work was now about as valuable as napkins from Mickey D’s blowing down the street.

He also took solace from knowing they hadn’t been able to find the prototype. Max’s face floated across his mind, but he pushed it aside. The less he thought about her, the better he’d be able to handle her not being around.

The second floor had taken a hit, too. Bedding was slashed, his bookcases had been turned over, and the drawers of his dresser tossed across the room. Kaitlin’s pink and white room had not been spared, either. While surveying her damaged things, he made a note to call her later.

But at the moment he had other calls to make. The first was to the police. They expressed regret that they hadn’t been able to catch the perps who’d annihilated the house, and they assured him the investigation would
be ongoing. He thanked them and made a second call, to his mother. She didn’t pick up, so he left her a message, saying he’d be there sometime tomorrow and would call later with the specifics. His last call, aided by directory assistance, was to the local Cadillac dealer. Adam didn’t own a car, but because of all the patents he’d sold over the years, he had plenty of money, so by seven o’ clock that evening a salesman knocked on his partially attached front door and handed over the keys to a black, fresh-out-the-box Escalade that was parked in the drive, gassed up and ready to go. Adam took the keys, signed the paperwork, and named the powerful new truck Ossie.

The day after Adam’s departure, Max made her own preparations to leave. She and the dogs would be flying home to Texas, and after that she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to jump into another job right away, mainly because she hadn’t completely healed, and because she wasn’t real interested even though she knew keeping busy would help banish her ennui. Adam stayed on her mind in spite of her determination not to think about him. His leaving seemed to have left a hole in her life she didn’t know he had filled.
No use crying over spilled milk, the man’s gone.
Life as she knew it would continue.

But was it a life she wanted?
she asked herself on the plane ride home to Texas. Until meeting him, the world had been her oyster, and whether she wanted it raw or fried, the choice had been up to her. After two bad marriages, the idea of a long-term hookup with any man was about as desirable as root canal without an anesthetic, but who knew she’d meet a man with a
brain the size of Texas and a heart to match? He’d even bitten the bullet and taken a liking to her dogs, and with his history, that was a major undertaking. Yes, he’d acted like a complete jerk the first day they met, and she’d been convinced he was carved from stone, but beneath the lab coat was a man she’d enjoyed cooking for, laughing with, and walking on the beach alongside. She could relax around him, and having to prove she was the baddest bitch on the block wasn’t necessary because he didn’t care. He came from a world that valued brain power, not firepower, and if she wanted to walk in his world she’d have to lay down her guns—not because he believed a girl shouldn’t have them, but because he preferred her alive. Max had no problem with that. She liked being alive, too. However, the life she led had meaning, purpose, and she was proud to be one of the shadowy shape shifters fighting the world’s crime. For a small-town girl with a GED, she’d come a long way, and she wasn’t ready to get off the ride, at least not yet.

Her mama, Michele, was waiting for her in Baggage Claim. They shared a long embrace, a mutual affectionate grin, then went to retrieve her bags. It took almost thirty minutes for the dogs to be transported to the terminal, but Max knew her mother would’ve waited until Christmas for her granddogs to arrive, as she affectionately called Ruby and Ossie.

The dogs were happy to see her as well, and stood patiently while she attached their leashes. After taking a short walk from the terminal to the parking garage, the reunited Blakes got into Michele’s new green Navigator and she drove away from the airport.

Max could feel herself physically and mentally relax
as they rolled by the familiar landscape. Although the Blake land was outside of the city, Max was home.

Her mother said, “First your sister, and now you.”

Max turned. “What do you mean?”

“She’s here, too. Got in last night.”

“JT’s here?”

“Yep.”

Max liked hearing that. Because of their jobs, they rarely got to hang out except during the winter holidays. Max loved her big sister. “How’s she doing?”

“Okay, I guess. Usual drama with those basketball boys, but some man is giving her the flux. She’s here trying to figure it out.”

Max leaned her head back on the seat. “Aren’t we all?”

“You, too?”

“Oh, Mama, you just don’t know.”

Her mother said with amusement, “Lord. Do I need to put a sign saying ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ out front?”

Max grinned. Her mother was a crazy woman. “Hold off, but I’ll let you know.” Max looked over at the woman who’d given her birth, taught her to read, and turned her sixteen-year-old self over to the juvenile authorities because it was all she had left. Max loved her like she loved breathing. “I’m glad to be home.”

Her mother smiled back. “I’m glad you’re here, too, babygirl.”

Adam had grown up in suburban Chicago, and
when he drove up to the house he’d lived in most of his life, his mother was out front watering her flowers with the hose. Dressed in her sneaks, jeans, and a faded T-shirt, she didn’t look like the nation’s premier African-American woman of letters, but she did look like his mama.

She turned toward the street to see who was parking in front of her house, and when Adam stepped out and came around the truck, a smile spread across her still youthful face. Hurrying to turn off the water, she wiped her hands on her jeans and held out her arms.

The grinning Adam hugged her close and twirled her around until the laughing began. “Put me down, boy!”

But he knew she loved it. He’d been greeting her this way since high school. He kissed her on the cheek then did as she’d asked.

“I got the call from the government folks saying you were on lockdown. Are you done with the prototype? Should I start looking for something to wear to the Nobel ceremonies?”

The grin spread across his face. “Nothing on the Nobel, but you might want to start looking for something to wear to the White House.”

She asked skeptically, “The White House?”

He nodded. Thoughts of the fall ceremony made him think about Max.

His mother must have seen the clouds roll across his mood, because she asked, “What’s up with you, Adam?”

“Long story.”

Lauren McDonald Gary looked up. “Oh really? Does it explain why you’re driving somebody’s Escalade?”

Adam’s humor returned. “It’s mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yeah. Why do you look so surprised?”

“When was the last time you owned a car?”

He stopped and made a show of thinking. “Well, let’s see?”

She waved her hand. “No no. Who are you and what have you done with my used to be really boring son?”

Adam began to laugh. “I’m the same me.”

“Not if you’re driving that. The story behind this must be a whopper, so come on in and tell all. By the way,” she added as she hooked an arm affectionately around his waist and walked them up the stairs, “it’s wonderful to see you, babyboy.”

He pulled her close. “Good seeing you, too, Mom.”

When they entered, Adam went straight to the kitchen. “Is there anything to eat?”

Her dark eyes sparkled with mirth. “Now that’s the son I know.”

She fried him up a quick hamburger, which he devoured with all the gusto of a twelve-year-old.

“Why’s the table set in the dining room?” he asked, coming back in the house after getting his bags out of Ossie. “If you’re having company over, I can stay at a hotel if I’m in the way.”

“Please. It’s just your dad. I promised him dinner while he’s in town.”

Adam said, “Well, now.”

“Don’t start. I do it every now and then. When he’s been on the road like he has for the last month or so, a home-cooked meal gives him a chance to catch his breath.”

Adam sat in the chair across the table from her. “He still loves you, Mom. Are you going to make him stand out in the rain forever?”

“He loved me when he was married to me, but that didn’t keep him from cheating. Besides, a little rain never killed anybody.”

“But it’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has. Hope he’s been buying good umbrellas. Now, enough about me. What’s been going on with you?”

They’d been each other’s confidante for as long as Adam had been alive. Pregnant and married at sixteen, she’d lost his father, Craig, to the war in Vietnam in 1967. She’d married Ray Gary when Adam was five and divorced him ten years later. No matter the trial or the triumph, she’d always been there for Adam, and he’d walk through fire for her. “Do you want the short version or the long one?”

“Door number two. The long version.”

So he started at the beginning with Max’s arrival.

Partway through, she interrupted and asked, “Dogs?”

“Rottweilers.”

“Oh, lord.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine with them.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Okay,” she said, sounding doubtful, “go ahead.”

From there he gave her the highlights: the jet skiers, the car chases, and Max’s confrontation with Pearl and his men. Then he told her about Max being shot.

“Is she okay?” Lauren asked anxiously. “Girlfriend sounds like Linda Hamilton in
The Terminator.
”

“She was healing up when I left.”

“I’m glad she was with you, and that you’re in one piece.”

“So am I.”

Lauren studied him. “So what happened between you and Max that made you go out and buy an Escalade?”

“Nothing,”

She sat back, folded her arms and waited.

He sighed.
Mamas.
He didn’t stand a chance of getting out of the kitchen alive unless he told her something. “I could honestly see me spending the rest of my life with her, but she doesn’t want to give up being Linda Hamilton.”

“Why should she?”

Adam placed his forehead on the table for a few long seconds, then looked up. “When you and Pops were first together and totally in love, how would you have felt if one of his crazy lady fans some kind of way got on stage and shot him right before your eyes?”

She stiffened.

“The force knocks him down, blood’s everywhere—”

She held up her hand. “Enough.”

“I couldn’t even take her to an E.R. because of who she is and what she does.”

“You really care for her, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I do, but it’s not going to happen, so life goes on.”

“I’m sorry, Adam.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m a big boy. I’ll get over it.”

But he wondered if it would be in this lifetime or the next.

When Raymond “Sweet Ray” Gary showed up at the house, the sight of Adam made him break out in a surprised grin. “Adam!”

The two men shared an emotional embrace. Ray was the only father Adam had ever known, and he loved him as much as he did his mother. When they stepped back, Ray said, “Lauren didn’t say you were coming in when I called her yesterday morning.”

“I didn’t know,” she said easily.

Adam checked out his pops looking dap in his sky blue stage clothes. “I’m liking those blue gators.”

Ray looked down at the alligator skin shoes. “Picked these up the last time I was in Detroit. Gator capital of the world, you know.”

“I do.” Adam thought about his own adventure in Detroit and another man, with the nickname Sweet.

Ray said, “Your mother and I tried to call you for days after we saw the news about the prototype but couldn’t catch you.”

Lauren ushered the men into the dining room. “That’s because Mr. Wizard here was costarring in his own James Bond movie.”

“What?” Ray stopped, looked at his stepson and asked, “What’s she talking about.”

So while they had dinner, Adam told the story again.

Ray cut into his pork chop. “Am I right to assume the Lady Max is fine?”

Leave it to Pops to ferret out the truth.
“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to, I could hear it in your voice. Chocolate, caramel, or vanilla?”

Lauren was looking at him sideways.

“Caramel,” Adam replied.

“Eyes?”

“Green.”

Ray looked up from his plate. “Whoa.”

Adam never ceased to be amazed by his pops. “But nothing’s happening.”

“Why not?”

“Because Wonder Woman fights better when mild-mannered Clark Kent isn’t hanging on to the edge of her cape.”

Ray met his eyes, studied his son for a moment, then asked, “You want to clip her wings?”

“Nope, just her gun hand.”

His mother said, “But that gun hand kept you alive, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“It must have been terrible seeing her hurt like that, but would you give up chemistry if she asked you to?”

“It’s not the same, Mom.”

“Why not? Suppose you accidentally mix the wrong chemicals. You wind up in the burn ward looking like
the mummy, and she says, ‘Oh please, Mr. Wizard, no more chemicals.’ What would you say?”

Adam sat silent.

Ray forked up some of the green beans on his plate and said to Adam, “I don’t even know why you started this. You know Ms. Debate Queen over there was going to beat you down, especially on something that could be called a woman’s issue, quote unquote.”

Lauren shot her ex a look but there was a smile behind it. “Why should men be the only folks allowed to blow stuff up?”

Adam met his mother’s eyes. “So you think I’m being overprotective,” he declared.

“No, darling, I think you’re in love.”

High-powered sports agent Jessi Theresa Blake, aka JT, looked over at her baby sister Max lying on the pool’s edge and asked, “This is
the
Dr. Adam Gary, the inventing brother who was on the cover of
Time
magazine last year?”

Max nodded.

“Since when did you start hanging around with men with IQs?”

“Shut up,” Max said, chuckling from behind her shades. The sun felt good. “It was a job at first. Now?” Max shrugged.

“Now you’re wishing you’d read more than just
Fanny Hill
in school, I’ll bet.”

Max snorted. “I will shoot you, you know.”

JT yelled to Michele, who was inside the house watching a DVD of
For Love of Ivy
with her granddogs. “Mama! Maxie said she’s going to shoot me!”

Michele yelled back, “Maxie! Only plastic bullets. Okay?”

“Okay, Mama!”

The sisters laughed, then Max tossed back, “From what I’m hearing, I’m not the only one with manly issues.”

JT sighed.

Max turned over on the warm tile and propped herself on her side. “Spill it.”

Brown eyes met green ones, then JT said, as if confused, “I think I’m in love.”

The wonder and surprise on her sister’s chocolate face made Max start to laugh. “Really?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I thought I was in love, too, twice, remember? Sure it’s not the flu?”

JT grabbed one of the pillows off the chaise and threw it at Max. Max yelled out, “Mama!”

Michele hollered back, “Interrupt me with ‘Mama!’ one more time and you’re both going to your rooms!”

They fell out.

Once they regained some sense, Max asked seriously, “Why do you think it’s love?”

“Can’t eat, can’t sleep. Think about him all the time. Dream about him.”

“Then why are you here instead of where he is?”

“I don’t know,” she said glumly. “Scared, I guess.”

“Of him?

“No, of me. I’ve been by myself for so long. What am I going to do with a man?”

“He treat you good?”

“Always. A little arrogant, though, but hey, so am I.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I just need to figure out what I really want.”

Silence settled between them.

JT finally asked, “What about you?”

Max rolled over onto her back and sighed with the same frustration JT had a moment before. “I don’t know, either. He’s so smart. He’s kind, nice, and fabulous in bed, by the way.”

“Then I’ll throw your question back: Why are you here instead of where he is?”

“He wants me to give up the Life.”

JT’s response was blunt. “I ain’t mad at him. Mama and I worry about you all the time. Where you are. Are you alive?”

“I know,” Max replied softly. Because her sister and mother loved her, they rarely expressed their fears about what she did for a living, but Max could see it in her mother’s eyes every time a new assignment called—the fear that maybe that good-bye would be the last.

JT pointed out, “Even Pam Grier got too old to play Coffy, Max.”

Max smiled under her glasses.

“So what are you going to do?”

Max gave a minute shrug. “Who knows, but if I turn in my stuff, it’ll have to be because
I
want to, not because somebody else does. I do that and I’ll be letting folks chip away at my soul for the rest of my life.”

“Deep.”

Max tossed back with a smile. “Thought you’d like it.”

That evening, Max called Kaitlin. They’d exchanged numbers a few days before Kent’s death. Max had begun to like Kaitlin toward the end. Finding out how the young woman was doing in the wake of her father’s death was long overdue.

“I’m doing, okay,” Kaitlin replied in answer to Max’s question. “After the autopsy, I had him cremated. The service was last week.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks. The Bureau agent in Grand Rapids said his murder had something to do with South Africa?”

Max just said, “Hmm.”

“They didn’t tell me a lot because they’re still doing the investigation. Now tell me what happened to the house.”

“What do you mean? Which house?”

“Adam’s house on the lake. Sheriff Ramos called me and said the place was wrecked.”

Max sat up straight. “Really?”

“You weren’t there?”

“No. It must have happened after Adam and I left to deliver the prototype.”

“Supposedly there are big holes in the walls, and I guess Adam’s lab is completely ruined. They jacked up all the computers, busted up his counters. Do you think it was somebody looking for the prototype?”

“Probably.” She assumed the jet ski riders were the culprits, and Max’s heart went out to him. Luckily, he’d downloaded his work, but still, it must have been hard to walk in on something like that.

Kaitlin said, “Is he there with you?”

“No. We parted ways after we took care of the prototype.”

“Oh,” was all Kaitlin said, then added, “he left me a message and gave me his new number. I tried calling him back, but I got his voice mail.”

“Give me the new number, maybe I’ll try and run him down, too.”

Kaitlin gave Max the number and she wrote it down.

“Thanks for letting me know about the house,” Max added sincerely.

“No problem.”

“Again, my condolences on your loss.”

“Thanks.”

Max clicked off. Kaitlin’s description of the house’s damage was disturbing. If it was as bad as she’d made it sound Adam probably had to find someplace else to stay. She wondered if she should call him. After all they’d been through together, she was naturally concerned, and a part of her wanted to hear his voice badly, but other parts were jumping up and down shouting
No!