Spring River Valley: The Winter Collection (Boxed Set) (12 page)

Max peeked into the portrait room. His client smiled at him, but her expression seemed a bit tight. He couldn’t blame her for losing her patience. The babies had gone from giggles and grins to those wrinkled up faces he’d come to know heralded a bout of serious, red-faced crying. If he was lucky, he had five minutes to get one good shot before the infants’ good humor evaporated completely.

“Let’s see, you’ve insulted me twice already in this conversation. Why should I help you?”

“Because you haven’t had a date in six months, and Audrey is very pretty, and you owe me a favor for taking
Nana to the dentist last week.”

She had him there. Not that he didn’t love their shared grandmother, but he
had
stuck Cassie with senior chauffeur duty last week. “Pretty? What’s that code for?”

“She’s hot, okay. Brunette, pretty hazel eyes, very outspoken and smart. You’ll like her.”

A cranky sound emanated from the portrait room. Max cringed. “Okay. Because I owe you. When and where?”

“Tonight, seven o’clock, dinner at Colette’s. I’ll pay you back for the dinner unless you want to see her again.”

Max rolled his eyes. Cassie and her matchmaking. He’d never said much about his cousin’s penchant for meddling in other people’s love lives, but then again, she’d never tried to drag him into her little Cupid act before. “Cash only, plus tip.”

“Fine, cash and tip. Her name is Audrey Desmond. She’ll be wearing a red coat.”

“All right. I’ll be there. I’ll pick up my money tomorrow morning.”

“Only if you don’t want a second date.”

Max smirked. He really wasn’t looking for a date, but a free meal was a free meal. “I’ll pick up my money tomorrow morning.”

Thick black smoke billowed up into the night sky above Colette’s Pub, visible only because heavy gray snow clouds obscured the stars. Audrey stood shivering among the crowd of diners who’d been evacuated from the restaurant due to a kitchen fire that broke out only moments after she’d arrived.

Blue lights from the assembled police cars clashed with red lights from the hook and ladder truck that blocked half the parking lot. The screech and static of emergency radios filled the air along with the smell of burnt barbecue ribs and charcoal-broiled burgers. Her stomach rumbled.

She wasn’t sure which was worse, that her date had already been fifteen minutes late when the staff of Colette’s herded everyone into the parking lot to escape the cloud of smoke rolling out of the kitchen, or that now, jumbled up with dozens of other patrons, she had zero chance of finding him even if he was here somewhere.

“And this makes twenty. I’m
so
done with dating,” she muttered into her cupped hands then blew on them to warm up her gloves. A light snow had started to fall, which might have been cozy to watch from inside a nice, warm restaurant, but out here in the freezing February wind, it just added insult to injury.

Besides that, she couldn’t even go home since all the emergency vehicles were blocking the exit onto West Denton Ave. She’d have to wait until the fire department cleared the scene and moved their truck to even get into her car.

Her cell phone rang, muffled by the pocket of her coat. She fished it out while watching another plume of smoke shoot skyward from the vents in the roof of the pub. This wasn’t looking good at all. “Hello?”

“Are you the girl in the red coat and the white beret?” The unfamiliar voice had a smoky, sexy quality, but nevertheless, the question disconcerted her.

“Who is this?” She looked around the crowd of huddled couples and families and shivering waiters but didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious.

“I’m sorry, Cassie gave me your cell number. I just got here, and I can’t get in the parking lot because of the fire truck, but I think I can see you standing at the edge of the crowd near a blue Lexus. Is that you?”

“Um…” She checked the nearest car. Blue Lexus. Plus he’d already gotten her description right. “Yeah. Who are you?”

“I’m Max. Max Shannon. I’m sorry I’m late. There was an accident on the Lakeside Bridge, and I’ve been stuck in traffic. I just pulled up and saw the mess here. What happened? Is anyone hurt?”

“No, it’s just a kitchen fire.” Audrey craned her neck to make out a car pulled to the side of the road on West Denton. She couldn’t see the driver, but she assumed this had to be her date.

“I guess we should pick someplace else for dinner.”

She sidled through the crowd, heading toward the parked car. “Sounds like a good idea, but I can’t pull out of here. My car’s blocked in.”

“Meet me over here, I’m flashing my lights.” Sure enough the headlights of the car in question blinked on and off. Audrey edged toward the street, dodging puddles of melting snow and running firemen. When she reached the car on West Denton, a gray Honda, the dark tinted passenger side window rolled down.

Audrey peered in. “Max?”

“Hi. Get in, Landry’s Dock is just down the street, if you like sea food.”

“Uh…” She did like sea food, and she loved the Dock, but she had to draw the line at hopping into a strange car with a man she only knew from a somewhat stalkerish phone conversation. She didn’t think Cassandra would have fixed her up with a deviant, but then again, of the deviants she’d met in her life, each one had been better than the last at appearing normal on the surface.

By the dim overhead light in the car, she could just make out Max’s features. She registered a sexily stubbled jaw, a strong chin and dark brows. Black hair curled around his upturned collar and fell across his forehead in a careless wave, the kind it took a salon a couple hundred dollars to emulate. He certainly didn’t look like a deviant, but when her gaze strayed to the lumpy blanket covering an irregularly shaped pile of something in the back seat, she lifted her gloved hands off the window frame.

He must have noticed the change in her expression, and he looked in the back. “Oh, that’s not a dead body back there, honestly. It’s a couple of tripods. They don’t fit in the trunk, and I needed to bring them home from my studio.”

“Tripods?”

“I’m a photographer. I guess Cassie didn’t have time to tell you much about me.”

“She said you worked in construction.” Suspicious. Behind her, the horn of the fire truck blared, startling her to take a step closer to the car.

“That was the other…guy.”

“The other guy?”

He made a face. “The one I’m not supposed to tell you about.”

Audrey glanced at the bumpy shape in the back seat again. It could certainly have been a body—the body of the guy Max wasn’t supposed to tell her about. “Maybe we should reschedule this.”

“Look.” He reached back and yanked the blanket away, revealing a jumble of aluminum rods held together by plastic hinges. Tripods.

She let out a breath. “Okay. But what other guy?”

“Look, I wasn’t supposed to say, but why don’t we go get some dinner and I’ll explain? It’s freezing out, you’re shivering, we can be at Landry’s in two minutes.”

Audrey glanced back at the fire truck and the police cars. “All right, but if you don’t mind, I’m just going to call Cassandra and check you out.”

He shrugged, a bemused smile on his face. “Okay.”

Dialing with her gloves on wasn’t easy, but she managed to reach Cassandra’s voice mail. She slumped against the car while the cheery voice of the matchmaking cupcake girl asked her to please leave a message after the beep. “Cassie, it’s Audrey. Please call me about Max. I’m going to Landry’s with him.

She hung up and glanced back to the car. “No answer.”

“You realize, if I was an axe murderer, I’ve have taken her out first, right?”

“Bye.” She started to walk away, but he pulled up alongside her.

“I’m sorry. I was kidding. How many axe murderers do you know who willingly give away their secrets?”

“Actually one or two.”

“Okay, this isn’t the ideal date. I get that.”

“For me, this is par for the course.” Why hadn’t Cassie called her back? All she needed was confirmation this wise cracking nut case was indeed her date.

“I don’t mind if you want to walk to Landry’s but you’ll be an ice cube by the time you get there. Or we could wait here until the fire truck moves so you can get your car. It’s your call.”

Audrey considered it. Her feet had gone numb, and her nose was starting to run from the cold. By the time she got to sit down at a table, she’d probably look like she had the flu and feel like Frosty the Snowman. “All right. I’ll go with you. But if you turn out to be an axe murderer, I’m going to be really pissed.”

He shrugged. “Either way, dinner’s on me.”

Great. She didn’t remember asking to be fixed up with a comedian. Cassie would pay for this one. Audrey reached for the passenger door handle, and a second later she saw nothing but blackness.

* * * *

Max stared at the empty space outside his passenger side window for a full minute, completely perplexed. Hadn’t he just been speaking to the sexy brunette in the white beret? Now she was gone, as if she’d been snatched away by aliens. “Hey?” he called. “You still out there?”

“Agh.” The muffled response didn’t bode well. He hit the car’s emergency brake and flung open his door. He hadn’t been moving. Had he somehow managed to run the girl over?

He slipped twice on a patch of black ice before he reached the passenger side of the car where she lay in a heap next to the front tire. “Agh.”

“Oh
, my god. Are you okay?” He braced himself on the side of the car and reached over to help her up. In her parka-like coat, she looked like a giant half-squashed cherry tomato. Tire grease and road dirt marred the brilliant red and smudged the pristine white of her gloves which she’d used to try to break her fall.

“I think so. My ankle twisted, and I hit my head on the ground.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry.” He hoisted her up, and she clung to him while she poked at the back of her skull.

“Ow.”

“Come on, get in the car. They’ve got an ambulance in the parking lot. Someone should take a look at you.”

“I’m fine.” She slipped again, and Max wrapped his arms around her to hold her up, not sure if the ice, her ankle, or her possible concussion was to blame.

“Is that the nurse talking or the girl who doesn’t want to get into my car?”

“Both.” She leaned on him, though, and slowly they made their way to the parking lot, step by step. Fortunately, one of the EMTs on the scene, who had nothing to do but hang out in case one of the firemen got hurt, noticed the odd couple hobbling along and rushed up to them.

“Do you need help, ma’am? What happened?”

“She fell by the car on a patch of black ice. She hurt her ankle and hit her head.”

“Quinn?”

“Audrey?” The EMT ducked down to get a glimpse of her face. “What the heck are you doing walking on a night like this?” He took over from Max then and helped her limp to his rig.

“I wasn’t walking. I was trying to get into the car, and I slipped. I’m fine. In this coat I could jump off a ten-story building and not get hurt.”

The EMT pulled her smudged beret off and started feeling around in her hair. “Unless you landed on your head. Does this hurt?”

“Ow. No. Not really that bad.”

“So you two know each other?” Max hung back, watching the EMT poke and prod his supposed date.

“Oh, Max, this is Quinn Preston. We work together at the hospital. Quinn, Max Shannon. We were supposed to be having dinner here tonight.”

“Nobody’s going to be having dinner here for at least a week. Follow my finger.” Preston waved a finger in front of Audrey’s nose. She tracked it, but if truth be told, she looked a little queasy.

“Was there a lot of damage?” Max asked. The smoke seemed to have cleared, and the fire truck was lurching out of its spot, clearing the way for exhausted, cold, hungry customers to finally leave the parking lot.

“Grease trap fire. They can’t re-open until they get it repaired and inspected, but aside from a lot of soot, the place will be okay. Nobody got hurt, that’s the important thing.”

“I didn’t know you were on duty tonight, Quinn. Where’s Tanner?”

“I’m filling in for Joe Donato tonight. Tanner’s
teaching a class. Can you put weight on your foot?”

She stood experimentally. “Umm, ow. Not so much, but it’ll be okay. I just need to go home and get this boot off.”

“It’s your right foot. You shouldn’t be driving,” Max said.

The EMT agreed. “The good news is, I don’t think you have a concussion. I can take you in for a scan if you want.”

“Ugh. No. Really. I’m fine.”

“You know the drill about head injuries.” Preston handed her hat hack to her. “I can let you go only if you promise to go to the ER if you have any symptoms. You know what to look out for, right?”

“Quinn, I’m a nurse.”

“I have to ask. Max, are you going to be with Audrey for a while? She shouldn’t be alone for the next couple of hours.”