The Boss's Proposal (7 page)

“And Damon?”

“Damon has other ways of keeping me quiet.” Cady gave a bawdy wink. “I showed up because I needed a fresh victim.”

“Lucky me. Well, vent on. And if I can help in any way, let me know.”

“Help me find a dress,” Cady responded instantly.

“Not if you're going to go running around the dressing area in your underwear.”

“Seriously, Max, I need you. You've got the shopping gene.”

Max frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know.” Cady flapped her hands. “I go into a store and nothing fits and it's all ugly and overpriced. You go in and walk out with a pair of beautiful, fully lined designer wool pants that were originally three hundred dollars and then got marked down, then priced at half off and put on the sale rack and with the store coupon and the two-for-one offer, you got them for a buck fifty.”

“And you think that happens by accident?”

“I think it's an inborn talent, like having good balance or being double-jointed.”

“Practice, darling.” Max patted her hand. “It's a matter of practice.”

Cady sighed. “I just want to look nice for him.”

“I've seen the way the man looks at you,” Max said. “You could wear a gunnysack and be beautiful for him. He's crazy about you.”

“You think so?” Cady beamed.

“I know so.”

She shook her head. “It's funny, until Damon came along, I'd about given up on the whole bunch
of them. I figured I'd never get married. But you always told me it was just a matter of finding the right guy. You always said the right man could change everything.”

“Really,” said a voice behind them. “That's interesting.”

And Max turned up to see Dylan standing there.

 

He wasn't going to let the phone call get to him, Dylan had told himself when he'd walked away from Max's office. He certainly wasn't going to wonder who she was talking with or plumb to see if she had plans that night. It was none of his business. He didn't like jealousy. He didn't want any part of it.

The problem was, jealousy seemed to want to be part of him, lodging in him like a splinter he couldn't quite get rid of.

He'd done his best to focus on work, reviewing drawings, writing elements of the proposal, fielding meeting requests. Finally, when he found himself getting up once too often just to circle the office and get rid of his restlessness, he'd decided to go out—take a walk down to the waterfront, grab a sandwich on the way back. A change of scenery would do him good.

Of course, the last time that he'd gotten a change of scenery from the office, he'd walked away with an itch that he'd yet to get rid of. The last thing he needed to do was make it worse by stopping by Max's office. Instead, he'd headed straight out, only to see
Max sitting with another woman at the café just outside the doors of the building. And that quickly, the splinter was gone.

The itch, however, remained.

Max looked up at him. “Can't I get a break from you for even a minute?” But the corner of her mouth curved up as she said it.

It gave him the urge to kiss her. Again. “Admit it, you missed me.”

“How can I miss you when you won't go away?”

He cocked his head at her. “So you think the right man can change everything, huh?”

“Emphasis on ‘right,'” she said.

The other woman at the table cleared her throat.

And Dylan was delighted to see Max's cheeks redden. “Ah, Dylan, this is my sister, Cady. Cady, this is Dylan. He's running a project I'm working on.”

“When she lets me,” he added.

“She can be bossy,” Cady agreed as they shook hands.

Max gave her an accusatory look. “Whose side are you on?”

“The same side as all right-thinking people,” Dylan told her.

Cady looked from one to the other and smiled widely. “Dylan, would you like to join us for lunch?”

Max threw her a murderous stare. Cady smiled blandly.

“He's going somewhere,” Max told her.

“It'll keep.” Dylan pulled out a chair, enjoying himself. “By the way, the reason I came over was to tell you our two o'clock meeting shifted to one.”

“Maybe we should just get the check now,” Max suggested as the waitress approached.

“We've got plenty of time,” he told her and ordered coffee. “Besides, I haven't even gotten a chance to talk to your sister. Are you here visiting, Cady?”

“Just for the day. I'm up from Grace Harbor.”

“That's practically commuting distance.”

“You know it?”

“Sure. When I was a kid, my parents and I used to stop there when we sailed down the coast. There was a restaurant by the marina that made killer clam strips.”

“That's ours,” Cady broke in delightedly. “I mean, my family's. My parents own the inn and the restaurant, and my cousin owns the marina. We grew up there.”

“No kidding.” He looked at Max in amusement. “I guess that makes you a small-town girl.”

She gave him a haughty stare. “As much as growing up in Portland makes you a big-city boy.”

Dylan's coffee appeared and he took a swallow. “Is it as beautiful there as I remember? It used to be a very small town, very green, not a ton of houses.”

“That sounds about right. It's built up a little bit more than it used to be,” Max said. “Nothing stays the same.”

“You're right. Things have a way of changing on
you, whether you want them to or not.” Something in the way he looked at her made Max think he was no longer talking about Grace Harbor.

She shook it off. “The inn's definitely different. There's a Michelin-starred chef in the kitchen now.”

Cady grinned. “Yeah, he does deconstructed clam strips—a shucked clam next to a little pile of cornflakes. Makes it look fancy enough that he's got people happily dropping fifteen bucks for it.” She shook her head. “This restaurant gig, it's a racket.”

“I'll have to remember to drag my parents down to Grace Harbor when I come back to visit in August.”

“Come down this time,” Cady countered. “We're having our annual Fourth of July clambake this weekend.”

“I'm sure Dylan has better things to do,” Max interrupted.

“I'm sure Dylan doesn't.” He returned her dirty look with a sunny smile. “My parents have a long standing date with some friends down in Florida, so I was just going to hang out. A clambake sounds just about right.”

“Maybe you can get a ride down with Max.” Cady's eyes danced with mischief.

“Maybe I can,” he agreed. “What do you say, Max?”

Gritting your teeth too hard could break them,
Max reminded herself. “Why, of course, Dylan, I can't think of a thing I'd rather do.”

“Then I guess it's a date. Are you going to have fireworks?” he asked.

“Of course,” Cady told him.

“Might get kind of interesting, all that fire,” he said, gaze on Max.

“I always find a bucket of cold water puts it right out,” she said silkily.

“You don't want to get too cocky about that. Just about the time you think you've got them all doused, you find out one's still smoldering. And that one usually winds up making the biggest bang of all.” He rose. “Cady, it was very nice to meet you. I should be getting back. And, Max—” he paused “—I'll be looking forward to our ride.”

T
here was always something in the air the day before a holiday weekend started, Max thought as she crossed the office. An undercurrent of excitement, or anticipation. Even she felt it, despite knowing that she'd be working the next day, and the next, until the proposal was finished.

The price of dedication, she thought to herself as she knocked on Dylan's open door.

Dealing with him was the price of dedication, too.

At the sound of her knock, he pushed back from the desk and swiveled the chair to look at her, taking his time. Max's cheeks warmed. It was the casual Thursday before a three-day weekend. With the
temperature set to spike in the high eighties, she'd chosen a sleeveless turquoise dress that buttoned down the front. It wasn't from her office wardrobe but it was still fairly demure, or so she'd thought when she'd pulled the outfit from her closet that morning. Now, the above-the-knee hemline seemed far too short.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked.

His teeth gleamed. “Always.”

“About the proposal,” Max reminded him.

“That, too. I have good news, I think. I've gone over the plans and we can include your meditation garden. The only problem is that it's going to have to go on the grounds outside of the addition.”

“I see.” She didn't, not really, but she figured she'd hold off for the time being.

“We can't do the balcony gardens—there's just not enough room—but patients can see the outside garden from both the rooms and the infusion center. Plus, anyone who's able to get out of bed could always go down to it.”

Assuming they could dress. Assuming they weren't tied to IVs and equipment. Assuming it wasn't cold or raining or worse.

Max took a breath. “I'm glad you agree that the garden concept is important. It's really going to—”

“Hold on a minute.”

She blinked. “What?”

“What's in your hand?” He narrowed his eyes as
though looking more closely. “Is that butter you're holding?”

Max rolled her eyes. “I was not about to butter you up.”

Dylan leaned back and folded his hands behind his head, propping his feet on the desk. “Really? Because it sure sounded an awful lot like you were starting in again.”

The corner of her mouth tugged. “What I was going to say is that I think having the gardens outside the infusion center and the rooms is really important for these patients but if we can't do it, we can't do it.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Okay, what have you done with her?”

“Who?”

“Max McBain. I know you've done something with her because she sure as hell would never have been so direct, let alone accepted that she couldn't get her way.”

“You know, with just the right push, I bet that chair would go right over backward,” Max told him pleasantly.

“That's not very friendly.”

She tilted her head. “You're my boss. Just how friendly do you want me to get?”

His eyes darkened. “Careful asking me a question like that in the office, darlin',” he drawled.

She made a move toward the chair and he sat up
quickly. Max laughed. Just then, there was a rap on the door frame.

It was Hal. “Stop by my office in about five minutes, you two,” he said briefly. “I want a quick status update on the project.”

Max and Dylan looked at each other as Hal walked off. Dylan shrugged. “When the bossman calls…”

A few minutes later, they sat in chairs before Hal's desk. He glanced over from his computer. “The proposal deadline is a week from tomorrow. How are things going?”

“Making progress,” Dylan said. “We'll be ready.”

Hal smiled briefly. “I've been hearing less shouting, so I figured it was a good sign.”

Max counted herself fortunate that he wasn't aware of the other things that had been going on between them.

“We're finalizing the exterior concepts,” Dylan told him.

“We've got basic renderings going of everything he's working on, which we've been updating as we go,” Max said. “The sample floor plans are done, and Eli and Grant are working on the animations.”

“All the bells and whistles?” Hal asked. “You know the other two teams aren't going to miss a trick. Make sure our guys include sound effects, and I want the motion to be so realistic it gives them vertigo.”

“We'll do our best to make sure that everybody on the committee is swooning afterward,” Max assured
him with a smile. “As far as the paperwork goes, Mindy's on the case. She'll get the packets bound and keep us on schedule the day of.”

“Mindy was probably General Sherman in a previous life,” Hal told Dylan. “She'll send you out the door on time and with the right documents in your hands, and God forbid if you cross her. When's the design review, again?”

“Monday morning,” Max said.

“Kind of late in the process.”

“It would have been tomorrow but we've got the holiday and we're not ready today.”

“We'll still have four days to address any comments or ideas that come up in the review,” Dylan reassured him. “We'll have enough time.”

Hal smiled faintly. “You should know that you never have enough time.”

“We do still need to make a decision about the art for the meditation gardens,” Dylan said.

“Is there a problem?” Hal asked. “I thought you were using that Glory Bishop.”

“Jeremy Simmons was. I'm not so sure.”

Max frowned. “Why not? She met Fischer and Sherwin at the gala. They liked her work.”

“I'm not convinced she's the best choice.” Dylan shrugged. “She's not all that well established. I like the idea of metal sculpture but what I saw at the benefit was mostly Calder knockoffs.”

“If you take a look at her portfolio, she does far more than mobiles.” Max kept her voice cool,
resisting the urge to leap to Glory's defense. This was not the place for personal feelings. Of any kind. “It makes sense to stick with Glory. BRS has used her on at least five projects I can think of in the past. Besides, we've got most of her part of the proposal set.”

“If your Mindy is as good as she sounds, she can pull together a CV and some photographs on a new artist by next Friday,” Dylan countered. “And using Glory Bishop because you used her before is the worst possible argument. The last thing we want to do is walk in pushing an artist they've seen already all over town. It'll make them question whether all of our ideas are tired.”

“Make up your mind, either she's not established or she's overexposed,” Max said tartly.

“Maybe she's both,” Dylan shot back. “I'm not going to—”

“Enough.” Hal's voice was sharp. They both subsided and looked at him. “Have you met with her or reviewed her portfolio?” he asked Dylan.

“Not yet,” he admitted. “I've been focusing on the building.”

“Then do your legwork. Go out to her studio, talk to her, make a decision. But you'd better do it fast because you don't have a lot of time. Anything else?”

They looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Good.” Hal turned back to his computer. “Then get to it. The clock's ticking.”

 

“Just how far out of town does she live, anyway?” Dylan grumbled as he drove up the narrow country lane. Overhanging oaks dappled the pavement with shadow. Split wood fences lined the road on either side. Beyond lay green pasture and in the distance, a white farmhouse.

“We're almost there,” Max told him. “You'll know when.”

And then he saw them, a trio of exuberant white figures standing out in the field, except that they were doing anything but standing. Cartoonishly proportioned with outsized heads and hips and tiny feet, they looked like dancers caught in an instant of celebration, pirouetting, rising on one toe, or throwing their arms out ebulliently, their long hair streaming.

“You were asking before about whether we danced in the moonlight to celebrate the solstice,” Max said.

“I was thinking more of live people.”

“They're alive, too, just in their own way.”

Closer to the house, he saw more sculptures, this time abstract, freeform pieces of metal and stone, or stacks of geometric shapes in primary colors, sharply vivid against the summer green grass.

He turned into the drive, rolling to a stop in the graveled yard that lay before the clapboard farmhouse.

The scene was bucolic, with the red and white barn, the fences, the green of the pasture and the
enormous oaks that stood at the edge. Purple and red pansies nodded in the flower boxes on the porch railings and a marmalade cat lay curled up on the cushions of the glider. A pair of red hens scratched around in the dirt.

It was the perfect farm scene, except for the incongruous sight of a figure in a welding helmet and fireproof apron cutting into the bottom of an overturned water trough with a blazing torch.

“The artist in residence, I presume?” Dylan asked.

They stepped out of the car and into the warmth of the afternoon.

“Glory,” Max called and shut her door. When Glory didn't respond, she gave an earsplitting whistle.

Dylan whipped his head around to stare at her. “Was that you?”

Max grinned. “One of my many talents.”

“I can hardly wait to discover more. You'd come in really handy in Manhattan.” He ran a hand down her arm.

Just then, Glory turned toward them, switching off the welding gun and setting it aside. In a practiced move, she pulled off her helmet, then removed the earbuds from her music player. “Wow, is it one-thirty already?”

“Closer to two,” Max told her.

Glory shoved her thick gloves in the pocket of her welding apron. “No wonder I'm hungry. I've been out here since about ten. I was supposed to get
finished and cleaned up before you got here, but…” She wiped her hands on her jeans and stuck one out toward Dylan. “Glory Bishop.”

“Dylan Reynolds,” he said, shaking it.

Glory studied him a moment, flicking a glance at Max. “So,” she asked Dylan, “you're running the show?”

“In a way.” He turned toward the water trough. “Are you attaching anything or just cutting away metal?”

“Cutting. It looks like hell now but it'll be gorgeous when it's done. Although it won't do a damned thing to hold water, will it?” She grinned. “Oh well, you know what they say about eggs and omelettes.”

Dylan looked up from the water trough. “I like the pieces in the field. The white ones, especially, make quite an impression. They're like a celebration.”

“Ah, the dancers,” Glory said. “That's because I started making them on the first really warm day we had after a nasty winter.”

“If you can make inanimate materials show joy, what about hope or strength?” he asked. “Do you have ideas about how to do that?”

“You mean for the hospital? It'll depend on what I come away with after I visit the place and talk to the people. I don't like to get too far ahead of myself. I have been thinking about it, though. I've made some sketches.” Glory swiped her forehead with her arm. “Hey, guys, I'm dying in all this gear. Is it all right if I run in and change really quick? I'll get the sketches
and bring us something cool to drink while I'm at it. No, stay out here in the shade,” she advised, as they moved to walk in with her. “There's no AC inside. At least out here, you've got a breeze. Look at the sculptures, if you want. They beat the hell out of portfolio photographs. A couple of pieces down here are portraits,” she added as she darted up the front steps to the house. “See if you can figure out which one is Max.”

Dylan watched the house's front door slam and turned toward the gate to the field.

“You aren't really going to go out there, are you?” Max asked.

“With a challenge like that, how can I not?”

The grass in the pasture was calf high, dotted with tiny pale yellow and lavender wildflowers. A fat bumblebee buzzed on a zigzag path as though drunk with the heat. Nearby, one of Glory's mobiles sat high above them on a metal post. Only one of its vanes moved in the quiet air, shifting lazily an inch or two to the side. Farther on, red metal cubes the size of milk crates were piled into an irregular stack like the building blocks of some careless child.

Dylan turned to glance at Max. “I assume this isn't you, right?”

When she just stuck out her tongue at him, he grinned and kept going.

Ahead of them, a piece of rough carved granite rose up and curved slightly into a crude point. The edges of a series of blue glass discs projected out of it,
each a few inches below the next. With the overhead sun, the discs cast blue shadows over the rock, making it look like streaming water, as though it were the front of a wave.

“Not you, either, but nice,” Dylan said, turning to her.

Max slanted a look at him. “How do you know any of them are me? She could've just been joking.”

“She wasn't. You have the sort of face that would fascinate an artist.” He reached out and caught her chin. “Oh, not so much because it's beautiful but because it's interesting. Your face changes with every minute, every thought, every shift of the light. It's like watching a waterfall.”

She could feel her pulse speed up. Strong yet gentle, his fingers spread warmth into her skin. There was something hypnotic in the tone of his voice. And she found herself helpless to do anything but watch him as he stepped closer and slipped his fingers into her hair. “Like silk,” he murmured. “Almost as soft as your skin.”

He leaned in toward her and she felt that shiver and roll in her stomach as she waited for the touch of his mouth on hers. Instead, he brushed a kiss over her forehead. “Almost as soft,” he repeated.

And walked on. Max stood for a moment, lips parted. He hadn't really done that, had he—mesmerized her with just a few words, left her standing dumbfounded and waiting for his kiss?
Get your
guard up.
She gave her head a quick shake like a dog shaking off water, then turned after him.