That Special Smile/Whittenburg (11 page)

That line of reasoning lasted for two weeks before Sylvie admitted it was frayed from constant repetition.

Max
was
doing what he pleased and she wasn’t content.

Because it pleased Max to spend time with her, wherever she chose to be. At first he gave, and Sylvie accepted, such blatant excuses as,
Since Juliette has a date with Benton, we may as well keep each other company a
nd,
My television gets lousy reception on that station. Do you mind if I watch the movie with you?

After the first week, though, he didn’t bother with excuses. He simply was always around.

* * * *

“Of course I like him, Juliette. That isn’t the point.” Sylvie sat on the bed and watched as Juliette dabbed a touch of scent – about a hundred bucks’ worth, Sylvie guessed – behind her ears.

“Then what is the point, Sylvie? You like Max. Max likes you. What could be better?”

It was the kind of logic that gave Sylvie a headache, but like it or not, there was an element of truth in Juliette’s argument. And, unbelievably, Juliette seemed to realize it too.

“That’s it, isn’t it, Syl? The reason you want me to cancel my date with Benton tonight is not because you want to spend time with me, but because you
don’t
want to spend time with Max.”

Sylvie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Jules, it’s been over two weeks since you met Benton Prestridge and, every night since, he’s been here or you’ve driven there. And when you couldn’t manage either of those options, you spent your time texting and talking with him on the phone. I’m not asking for equal time, just one evening.”

“To talk business.” Juliette stared hard into the mirror as she slipped an earring into place. “I know you, Sylvie. You want to get started on the plans for the dress shop. Well, I do too. But Benton says ...”

Sylvie thought it prudent to tune out the rest. Juliette could justify anything. Especially when she was in love.

Sylvie could only blame herself for bringing up the subject of Max and his more or less constant presence. And the truth was, if she were really distressed by the amount of time he spent keeping her company, she would have put a stop to it.

But she did like him.

Max was good company. Easy to be with and capable of intelligent conversation, a commodity in short supply around Juliette’s house most any time, but especially lately. If Juliette opened her mouth, Benton’s name popped out.

And Max’s almost constant presence kept Sylvie from being lonely. But, perversely, she resented it. Loneliness made her vulnerable.

And Max, in the most innocuous ways and with the utmost charm, was taking advantage of that.

“I knew right away that you and Max would hit it off.” The sentence dangled while Juliette pursed her lips, retouched a spot with glossy pink lipstick, and narrowed her eyes to examine the overall effect. “Do you think this is all right?” She turned to Sylvie, her blue eyes harboring serious doubts. “Benton has never said anything specific, but I know he doesn’t like bright lipstick.” Her dimples appeared with mischievous delight. “He prefers wash-and-wear shades that don’t stain his shirt collar.”

“I’m glad to hear he’s still wearing a shirt on your dates.”

Juliette wrinkled her nose. “Just because you and Max are – ”

“ – are planning to run away together and live on nothing more than mad, wild love, on some deserted beach in California is no reason for you to change your plans.” Sylvie slid to the end of the bed and smiled benignly at her sister.

“You’re absolutely right, Sylvie Anne. I think I hear Benton’s car. He has the absolute best timing!” Juliette walked to the bedroom door, where she stopped, pirouetted gracefully, and allowed the mischief back into her eyes. “Send a postcard as soon as you’re settled in, Syl. I can see it now: Max, wrapped in terry cloth, standing beside a tiny, just big enough, grass hut.”

“Forget the hut, Juliette, it will be an old Victorian house that you will vaguely remember as being yours.”

“That isn’t nice, Sylvie. But I swear on the key to my teenage diary that we’ll spend tomorrow working. There, how’s that?”

She looked so pleased with herself that Sylvie didn’t have the heart to tell her how, exactly, that was. With a sigh she stood. “Good night, Juliette. Have fun.”

Juliette became suddenly serious. “Listen, Sylvie, anytime you need to talk. About Max. Or … or anything at all. I don’t mind. In fact, I probably get more out of these sisterly chats than you do.”

Of that, at least, Sylvie was certain.

* * * *

“It’s a phase, Max.” Sylvie locked the door and stepped back to admire the stained glass inset, as she did each time she entered or left the old Victorian house. She was leaving now, having spent the day steaming, scraping, and squinting at a section of wallpaper, trying to decipher the original color and print. Renovation was definitely a challenge, one she hadn’t planned on tackling alone. “Juliette will get tired of Benton’s strict ideas about how the world should run. Or he’ll get bored with her impulsive disregard for schedules.”

“That’s probably why he canceled his afternoon appointments and took Juliette to the War Eagle Arts and Crafts Show,” Max agreed, tongue in cheek. “Lucky thing I’m not bored with you, Sylvie. I might have taken you to War Eagle.”

She frowned her lack of appreciation for his sense of humor. “Lucky for you, I had work to do. Not everyone…,” she said with a pointed look. “…can afford to idle away the day dispensing unsolicited advice.”

He held his hands, palms up, as he waited for her to join him at the bottom of the stairs. “Not everyone knows someone so desperately in need of advice.”

“I thought we agreed not to discuss Juliette’s lack of interest in restoring this house.”

“
You
agreed, Sylvie. I cast my vote for not discussing Juliette at all.”

He touched her arm as they turned together and began walking down Main Street toward home. Max touched her often, and Sylvie had finally stopped protesting. It wasn’t, she reasoned, anything serious. His touch, as well as his occasional goodnight kiss, was too casual to make a protest worthwhile. He would only tease her, ask her why it bothered her, and that was a discussion she did not want to have.

“Then why are we having this conversation?” she asked.

He grinned. “Because you think if you keep talking I’ll forget that you owe me dinner.”

“I seem to owe you dinner three out of four nights.”

“And I do appreciate it. If you weren’t such a lousy card player, I might starve.”

“If I weren’t so easy, Max, I wouldn’t let you win in the first place.”

His smile tightened a bit at the corners. “You’re many things, Sylvie Anne, but easy is not one of them.”

* * * *

Max entered The Attic through the back door and sniffed the unmistakable aroma of brewing coffee. Miriam, as usual, had come in early.

“Hi,” she said as she pushed aside the doorway curtain that separated the workroom from the rest of the store. “I didn’t expect to see you so early. Guilty conscience?”

He took off his coat, hung it on a hook, and turned to look at his assistant. Miriam Rogers was a former schoolteacher from Albuquerque who had retired to Eureka Springs with her husband. She’d begun working with Max the first month he’d opened the store and he’d thanked his lucky stars for her ever since. Her personality was as bright as a newly minted penny and her cheery common sense was worth more to him than he could ever pay her. She was tall, slender, elegant, and ageless. And she knew more about him than he’d ever willingly confided to his own mother.

“You’re looking great, Miriam. Must have been a wild weekend at War Eagle.”

“Wet is the word, Max. It was rainy, muddy, and awful, not necessarily in that order.” She placed a narrow strip of lace on the workbench and retrieved a pencil from behind her ear. “If I hadn’t seen Henry Casey and Grace and Greta Amos, it would have been a wasted trip. I sold one doll, one wooden truck, and told some woman the history of the Crescent Hotel. Can you believe that?”

“Sounds like a typical arts and crafts show to me. You can stop making the circuit of the annual fairs anytime you want, Miriam. We don’t have to have those contacts and sales we needed early on. You know as well as I do, that we have enough orders now to keep us solvent until I’m eighty-four. Maybe longer, if we don’t throw any wild parties.”

“You know me, Max. I like to complain about the craft shows almost as much as I like to attend them. Where else can I get together with old cronies like Henry and the Amos sisters? Where else would anyone consider me an authority on the Crescent Hotel? I know you don’t need the exposure, but I suppose I do. However, if I come down with pneumonia this week, I’m sending you the doctor bills.”

Max settled onto a stool and studied the tiny porcelain parts of a ready-to-be-assembled doll. It was going to be Merlin, a part of the King Arthur’s Court series of limited edition dolls. It was a project that Max had envisioned years before and had finally begun sculpting. But now he couldn’t seem to remember where he’d left off.

Sylvie, although she wasn’t anywhere around, was distracting him.

“How are things at the restoration site?” Miriam asked, divining his train of thought as intuitively as Merlin might have divined King Arthur’s.

“Progressing,” he answered. “Sylvie says there’s no point in delaying the work simply because of a legal technicality. The lien, according to Prestridge, is just an inconvenience and will be dismissed as soon as the Erikson-estate dispute is settled. I suppose Sylvie’s right to continue the renovation, one way or another, it will have to be done.”

“So that’s how you spent your time while I was holding an umbrella at War Eagle.”

He shrugged a sheepish admission. “How did you guess?”

She made a broad sweep of the room with one hand. “You never leave the workroom this neat, Max. You didn’t even open the shop while I was gone, did you?”

“No one was in town, anyway.”

“Save your reasons for Sylvie. It would suit me fine if you closed for the season today and devoted all your energy to ... other things.” Bending her head, Miriam let the sentence fade as she began to pin the lace to a tiny satin costume. “I suppose Juliette and Benton are still an item?”

“You suppose right, Miriam. Sylvie swears it’s just a passing infatuation, but I think it’s serious. And every day Juliette goes off and leaves something else for Sylvie to handle. I don’t know how she manages to keep her cool.”

Miriam smiled around the pins she held between her lips. “Sylvie assumes responsibility regardless of the circumstances. Besides, she has you to counteract the frustration she must be feeling toward her sister.”

Max lifted Merlin’s slender hand and examined the detail against the light. “I guess Sylvie does have me.” A weighty frustration began pressing on his good humor. “The question is, what is she going to do with me?”

Miriam’s laughter rang out rich and mellow. “Oh, I think the question is, what do you want her to do?”

* * * *

Max thought a lot about that during the next few days. He’d begun the relationship with Sylvie – if it could be called a relationship – because he was restless and she offered a challenge. Someone new to talk with, to argue with and to tease on occasion.

Nothing complicated.

He had thought Sylvie would add a touch of laughter, a bit of spice, to an otherwise uneventful season.

And she had.

Totally, it seemed, against her better judgment.

And that, he decided, was what both puzzled and intrigued him. Sylvie enjoyed the time they spent together as much as he did. She even admitted it, but there was an element of reserve, as if she were waiting for the other shoe to drop.  As if she expected him to tell her it was all a joke, that he’d just wanted to see how far the game could stretch before they both had a good laugh about it.

Max didn’t understand her reaction, but he knew the game had progressed far past the point of laughter.

At least, for him.

Not that there had never been a point at which he could have laughed about his relationship with Sylvie. He’d fallen hard for her early on.

If he were honest, he’d have to admit he’d felt the immediate snap of attraction the first second he’d seen her standing on his front porch. And the heart-deep knowledge that this woman was the right one.

Finally.

But he didn’t know how to reach past her protective layer of sophistication, and he wasn’t sure what to expect if he did. He did know that, despite the reservations she had about his sincerity, she was attracted to him. And he knew that eventually her attraction would take a serious turn. Until then, Max would simply have to wait and see what developed.

* * * *

“Did you miss me?” Max sank onto the couch, cupped his hands at the back of his head, and settled his canvas-clad feet on the corner of the coffee table.

Sylvie frowned at the scene of contentment and pushed his feet off the edge so she could get past him and sit at the other end of the couch.

“Actually,” she said. “I did miss you. Spending Thanksgiving at Dad’s is always a trial, but add the world’s most devoted couple, Juliette and Benton, and it becomes a real endurance test. I wished several times that you’d been able to come with us. There were moments....” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Honestly, you wouldn’t have believed the conversation during Thanksgiving dinner. I think that’s when I missed you most. I certainly needed your sense of the ridiculous then.”

Just the idea that she had associated a feeling of need with him was encouraging. He wished he had spent the holiday in Oklahoma with the Smiths, but he’d gone to his sister’s in Louisville. And he’d missed Sylvie, more than he’d thought possible.

He glanced over at her. She appeared relaxed and comfortable. Max wondered what she would do if he leaned across the cushions and kissed her. A long, sensuous, serious kiss. He’d like to think she would respond, but he could more easily imagine her pushing him away with a laugh and a quit-kidding-around scold.

“How was your holiday?”