Spooning Daisy (29 page)

Max obviously didn’t talk about Molly-Anne—had never told Rita about her—but here he sat, confiding his sorrow to Daisy. Was this the same man who, only a week before, hadn’t wanted Daisy to know how many suits he had? But here he was, trusting her with one of the most painful moments of his life. How could she not feel—

“It was a long time ago,” Max added.

Maybe Charity was right. Maybe the blonde
was
a misunderstanding. Maybe Max was just a puppy trying to find his way. Maybe Max Kendall deserved a second chance. Maybe Max Kendall . . .

“I’m sorry, Max.”

“Yeah, what can y’ do?”

Daisy tried to brighten the moment. “Move to Alaska?”

“It’s not called the Great Escape for nothing.” One heartbeat. “Right?”

He looked
into
her, at least that’s what it felt like to Daisy. “It’s cold out here,” she said, rubbing her goose bumps and ignoring his insight. “Aren’t you cold?”

“If you think this is cold, you’re going to love winter.”

Rain hit her cheek. “It’s raining.”

Turning from Daisy, Max lifted his face to the tumbling clouds as if inviting the assault.

“You’re going to catch cold.”

“I’m fine.”

“Please, Max, come inside.”

“In a minute.”

“I’m going back inside. You’re on your own.”

“Naturally.”

“What?” Daisy asked.

Max side-glanced her. “I said . . . thanks.”

Caught off guard by yet another unexpected response, Daisy brushed it off. “I don’t know what for. You’re impossible to take care of.” But she quickly retreated into the house. Stopping at the bedroom door, she glanced back at Max, sitting alone on his deck in the gloom of the impending storm, his gaze returned to the ocean vastness . . . and shook off the impulse to—

She shivered and wrapped herself in her arms, wishing she’d made Fitz stay.

Max never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box, but he knew enough to come in out of the rain. Once the drops assembled into an army, Max pushed himself from his comfortable deck chair and hopped for cover inside. Closing the glass door, he left a few inches for the indoors and out to mingle. He lingered, watching and listening as the rain hit, realizing as he stood there that his knee wasn’t throbbing. He finger-raked the rain from his hair and remembered his doctor’s warning.

“Pain is not necessarily a bad thing,” she had told Max. “It’s your body telling you to take it easy. It keeps you from repeating your mistakes. Pay attention to your pain.”

When it came to pain, Max was a wuss. He didn’t like it, didn’t need it, didn’t want it. So why the hell was he reaching for that which would only cause more hurt? He was smarter than this; a long time ago smarter. And yet, here he was, being stupid. If only there was a pill he could pop to numb his feelings for Daisy.

He’d work on that tomorrow, when his mind was less jumbled and she was out of his reach. Right now, he needed a hot shower to ward off this midnight chill.

He turned from the glass and headed to his bathroom, slowing when the scene registered. Light peeked from under his unlatched bathroom door and leaked around the edges. Was that the shower he heard?

Cautiously he approached the door as a cat might approach an unsuspecting mouse. Inching the door open, he was met by a warm mist that felt good against his chilled skin. If he was smart, he’d leave his curiosity at that. But Max Kendall, admittedly, wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box.

She felt his presence long before she felt his eyes.

“It took you long enough,” Daisy said, standing beneath the hot spray of the dual shower heads, her back to Max, her racing heart quivering her breast. She glanced at him over her naked shoulder, trying to be coy and worldly, as if seducing a man was something she did every day. Trying to be unaffected by the magnificence of him, scars and all, standing in the V of the open shower door, looking confused, uncertain, but nonetheless melt-in-her-mouth hunky, his eyes questioning her presence in his territory, suspicious of a rebuff or ambush or worse . . .

Not that she blamed him.

“Are you in or out?” she asked, trying to keep the inexperience from her voice.

After a moment of visible indecision, Max slipped off his boxers and joined Daisy beneath the sprays, turning her to face him and pulling her close.

Close enough to feel his expectations.

She saw the question in his face. “It’s complicated.”

“Fair enough,” he said in not much more than a whisper. He met her lips halfway as his hands, silky like the water, cascaded down her back, along the curve of her spine, and the swell of her hip. Her heart surged and her breath stopped when his hand gripped her thigh and lifted.

Daisy clung to his shoulders as their kiss turned feverish, her hands grasping his knotted muscles, his slick flesh. Her fingers plowed his hair as he tasted her skin, sucking the water from her neck, her throat purring vulnerability and acquiescence. She gasped at the cold tile pressing her back as Max drove into her and then everything jumbled together into a whirlpool of soft, hard, cold, hot, give, take, and, and,
and
—

Yes, yes, yes, yes . . .

—Damn the torpedoes, crazy-for-you, no turning back, now you’ve done it . . .

“Ohhhh,
Max
!”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“D
aisy . . . I have to tell you . . .” Max sighed, fighting to keep his eyelids from closing.

“You sure these sheets are clean?” Daisy asked, hoping to avoid the inevitable caveats men used to warn women about getting too serious.

Spent and sated, they lay in murky twilight, beneath the covers in his bed, Daisy in the comfortable crook of Max’s arm, her cheek against his chest, her fingers meandering through the soft whorls, listening to the rain gently pelt the glass in a rhythmic lullaby.

She could fall asleep if only he’d let her; if only he’d shut up and not say something that would make her regret the second chance she’d given him—

—
to lie, cheat, break her heart
.

She tried to push the doubts from her mind, doubts that only a short while ago had swirled down the drain.

“Daisy,” Max began again, in a sleepy whisper, “I . . . shouldn’t have scared you tonight . . . in the woods. I was just . . . you’ve been so . . . bitchy—”

“You had the start of a really great apology going.”

“Sometimes . . . pride takes over. I just wanted to get even. But I shouldn’t have done that,” he finished with effort; from the drugs pulling him into a sleep or his own male ego, it was hard to tell which. “It was terrible what I did. You seem to bring out the worst in me . . .”

“Hey!” Daisy lifted her head and poked him in the ribs.

He flinched, and with a brief awakening, popped his eyes at her indignation. “I mean that in a
good
way.”

“Yeah, it sounds like it.” And then, “People should bring out the best in each other, not the worst.”

“From now on we’ll bring out the best in each other.”

“From now on?”

“From this day forward . . . ,” he added, nestling Daisy back against his chest.

“From this day forward . . . ?” she squeaked.

“You’ve been quite the surprise, Daisy Moon,” Max said in a fading voice. “I never . . . expected . . .”

“Never expected . . . what?” But no answer followed. “Max?” Only the steady rise and fall of his chest. “Max?”

Max Kendall had left the building.

Trying not to read too much into his disjointed choice of words, Daisy settled against him, but her mind was anything but settled. Unexpected scenarios swirled in her head.

It hadn’t dawned on her that Max might actually take their relationship seriously. But isn’t that what Daisy wanted? To be taken seriously?

As opposed to just being
taken
?

Wasn’t that what her rage over the blonde had been about? That Max
hadn’t
taken them seriously? That he had defiled their union by bringing another woman into her bed?

Daisy groaned at her dramatics. Bringing another woman into her bed had been tacky, but had the stink she made given Max the wrong idea about her feelings? Had it made Max think she seriously cared about him?

Of course, it might help the discussion if Daisy knew exactly what her feelings for him were. Her thoughts traveled along the rocky road of their relationship, from the first moment her eyes lit on the stubbled, rumpled hunk to now, lying beside him after the best shower sex she ever had. Hell, forget the shower—

But . . . sex wasn’t love. Attraction wasn’t love. And, although on some inexplicable, crazy level, she liked the challenge of him, that wasn’t love either. True, he had experienced her at some of her worst and lowest moments—not to mention her most embarrassing—and he hadn’t fled the scene . . .

Y’ gotta love the guy for that!

But gratitude wasn’t
that kind
of love. And, yes, snuggled next to Max, she did feel a warm glow of serenity, but that wasn’t love either. . . was it? Even if she added all her feelings together, did they add up to love? Vow-making, to have and to hold,
from this day forward
kind of love? If you loved someone, wouldn’t you know it? Wouldn’t it scream at you? Or would it whisper, like the ripple of a new tide?

It didn’t matter what her feelings were. Loving Max was not in her plan and she simply would not entertain the possibility. Somewhere in Seattle, there was a restaurant with her name on it and a career waiting to be resurrected. She couldn’t waste her talents in Otter Bite. There were no gold spoons at the Wild Man Lodge! Not a silver one; not even copper. The best she could hope for was a Teflon spatula.

Daisy calmed her thoughts with a deep, slow breath. She was overreacting to a few words of indecipherable meaning from a man too groggy to know what he was saying. Max wasn’t the kind of guy who took a relationship seriously. It was as obvious as the hairs on his fabulous chest that she now burrowed her fingers into. Every now and again, she and he would end up in bed. A little way down the road, the two of them would part. She’d go back to her life; he’d stay in his. No harm, no foul.

Yep
, Daisy insisted, snuggling closer to Max. There was no other way for this to play out. In the cold light of morning, when she demanded monogamy and commitment, Max would make his dishonorable intentions known. And she would . . . what? Throw things? Storm from his house? Or maybe she should just quiver her lip and walk out. That, of course, would make Max feel guilty—surprisingly, an emotion Max was capable of after all. Then Daisy would have him right where she wanted.

Hello, cinnamon coffee—so long, campfire sludge!

Chapter Twenty-Nine

D
aisy woke, gasping for breath.

Invited in by the glass doors, the pale, misty morning made itself at home in the comfortable bedroom. Max was gone, the space where he’d been now cold. She lay in bed and wondered what had caused such an abrupt awakening.

She had been dreaming. Of the ocean. Of spoons. Of swimming in spoons. Of
drowning
in spoons. Bright, shiny, gold spoons. Daisy shuddered.
Be careful what you wish for
, she heard her mother say.

Shaking off her nightmare, she checked the clock on the nightstand, relieved that it was only 5:11. She had menus to plan, staff to train, a kitchen to organize. Lying around in Max’s bed would get none of that done. Especially if Max came back.

She stretched from her fingers to her toes, then eased out of bed in search of her clothes.

Max settled in his favorite chair with a cup of coffee and the morning newspaper. Unfortunately, the
Anchorage Daily News
never arrived in Otter Bite until afternoon, so his news was yesterday’s. Not that he cared; it was the ritual he liked. And the satisfaction of doing exactly as he wanted. Of being in complete control. Surrounded by evidence of his success. The king of his castle. Who now had a queen.

An unexpected blip on his screen. Lifting the corners of his mouth, softening his eyes, melting his granite jaw. He almost felt
goofy
. Not something he particularly enjoyed.

But today, everyone was going to benefit. Today was
be nice to everyone
day—even Fitz, who was slated for Max’s sermon on
pilots who booze, lose
.

Max liked the kid. He reminded him of him. But the whiskey on his breath last night told Max all he needed to know. He would give him one chance to clean up his act. If Fitz chose to kill himself, he wasn’t going to take any of Max’s clients with him.

But that was later. Right now he had a woman in his bed and he wasn’t going to waste that. He put the newspaper aside and sipped his coffee, reflecting on the first time he saw Daisy Moon. Selling off her possessions. Looking tired and worn, her hair wild—the same hair he now loved to spiral around his fingers—but with a spark in her kryptonite eyes that had snagged him, if only momentarily.