“You don’t think I’m –” I started but I got another squeeze in two places.
“No, I don’t think you’re anything but what you are and most of that’s good.”
I felt the pressure release in my insides, the warmth seeping through but my eyes still narrowed when I asked, “Most of it?”
“Duchess, remind me never to get you that riled. You’re a handful when you’re angry but you’re hell on wheels when you’re seriously pissed.”
I was beginning to get slightly “pissed” when I heard faraway laughter coming from my phone. Then my eyes got wide and I jerked the phone to my ear.
“Mom, God, I’m so sorry, I forgot –”
She was still laughing when she cut me off by asking, “He calls you Duchess?”
Max was watching me talk and suddenly I was self-conscious. “He calls me that because he thinks I have an accent.”
“Sweetie, that’s because you do.”
“I don’t have an accent!” I snapped at Mom, Max threw his head back and laughed and he did it loud.
I glared at him.
He just kissed my forehead through his waning laughter, let me go and went to the fridge.
“Oh my,” Mom breathed in my ear, “he’s got an amazing laugh.”
She was right about that too.
“Mom –”
“I like him.”
I felt my eyes get wide again and I reminded her loudly, “You’ve never even met him!”
Max, his hand curled around the filled creamer, turned to me, lifting the creamer, shaking his head and looking like he wanted to laugh again. At the creamer, my conversation or something else that struck him funny, I didn’t know and at that moment didn’t care.
“I still like him,” Mom said in my ear.
“Mom –”
“I like the way he talks to you.”
I liked that too.
Still, I said, “Mom –”
“And it sounds like he was there when Lawrence was being Lawrence.”
“He was.”
“The whole time?”
I thought about it and realized he was, the whole time. Except for the first few moments, Max quickly dressed and was with me the instant he could get to me. He had my back the whole time, part of it literally.
“The whole time,” I said more quietly.
“And he called Lawrence the d-word,” Mom told me and I couldn’t help it, I giggled and so did Mom.
“Yes, he did,” I said.
“You’ve got to like a man who thinks Lawrence is the d-word.”
She was right about that too.
“Mom –”
“What’s he doing now?”
I watched as Max poured coffee.
“Making me coffee.”
“Steve does that for me too,” she told me contentedly. “Brings me a cup in bed nearly every morning.”
I looked at the floor and said, “That’s sweet Mom and I’m so glad you have that now. Anyway, enough of this. How’s Steve? Is he doing okay?”
“He’s Steve, never has a bad day, God love him.”
“And you do too,” I said softly.
“Yes, sweetie, lucky I woke up and saw what life had on offer for me.”
“Mom –”
“Hope, today, you woke up too.”
“Mom –”
“Have coffee with your mountain man hunk,” she urged. “I’ll let you go.”
I sighed and looked up when I saw Max’s bare feet on the floor close to mine. When I looked up, he was putting a mug of coffee on the counter by me, his eyes came to mine and he took a sip from his.
I looked at my coffee and it appeared to be just how I liked it.
I sighed again.
Then I said, “Thanks for listening, Mom.”
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she assured me more firmly than I would have expected, considering she’d sounded hysterical not minutes before at the prospect of my father being in town.
“I know,” I assured her back.
“Tell him I love his house. It’s beautiful.”
I looked away and murmured, “I’ll tell him.”
“Love you, sweetie.”
“Love you too, Mom, bye.”
“Bye.”
Then I touched the screen to end the call.
“You’ll tell me what?” Max’s deep, gravelly voice called and my eyes to him.
I put down the phone, picked up my coffee and took a sip then said, still feeling self-conscious, “She likes your house.”
“What?”
“She thinks it’s beautiful.”
“How does she know what my house looks like?”
“I gave her the website.”
He grinned. Then he lifted his hand and tucked hair behind my ear.
This gesture was so sweet, it made more warmth flood through me at the same time it caused me to shiver and the clashing sensations caused me to go temporarily insane enough to blurt, “She likes you.”
His hand dropped and his brows drew together. “What?”
“Nothing,” I muttered then started to move way, saying, “You want break –”
But I was drawn back with an arm hooked around my waist.
When my head tipped back to look at him, Max asked, “She likes me?”
I decided the safest explanation was, “She likes that you call me Duchess.”
“That’s a weird thing to like.”
“Mom’s a bit nutty.”
“Not surprising,” he mumbled then he went on when my eyes started to narrow. “She turn into a hellion when she’s pissed too?”
I thought about this then I answered truthfully, “Yes, probably worse.”
“Steve her man?” Max asked and I nodded. “Poor Steve,” he muttered and I grinned.
His face changed, it was that soft I liked so much but there was something more, something much more and I felt the change somewhere deep, private and I held my breath for what was coming next.
He drew me even closer so our lower bodies were touching and he asked, “You okay?” I nodded but his arm gave me a squeeze. “Nina, I’m serious here, that was an intense fuckin’ scene. You okay?”
From nowhere I understood what else was in his face and when I understood it I realized why I didn’t recognize it. The only male who’d ever looked at me like that was Charlie and he was my brother so he was supposed to look at me like that in times like these.
It communicated a fierce sort of protection covered over with a tender mixture of worry and affection.
I couldn’t bear the hope it made me feel so I couldn’t witness it anymore. I dropped my head and fell forward so my forehead was resting on his chest and I curled my fingers on his bicep.
“I pretty much hate my Dad,” I whispered to his chest as his hand slid from my waist, up my back, to wrap around the back of my neck.
“Reason why, darlin’. I’m now gettin’ why you don’t talk about him.”
I nodded, my head moving on his chest then I admitted, “I hate it that you saw me that way, too.”
He gripped my neck and used it to pull me back.
When I looked at him, he asked, “Why?”
“It’s unattractive,” I answered, my voice soft and there was a tremor in it I couldn’t control which denoted a fear I didn’t want to admit but I still couldn’t hide. “And it isn’t nice.”
His hand at my neck gave me a squeeze, he put his coffee mug down and circled me with his other arm.
Then he ordered, “Put your arms around me, baby.”
I decided sharing time was over, so I suggested, “Max, we should make breakfast.”
He gave me a steely look that said clearly he wasn’t going to repeat his order so on a sigh I put my mug down too, pushed my hands under his arms and wrapped them around him.
“There was nothing unattractive about what I saw.”
“But I lost my temper,” I explained.