Yep, good spelling and big words always keep ’em coming back.
But, in fact, whatever Max may have done this afternoon, he was back.
Daisy stared as if seeing Max for the first time, resisting the urge to smooth the dark hairs from his forehead and touch his scarred temple. The way she was feeling, it was better not to wake him. Better if he stayed on his side of the cabin and she on hers. Better if she put her heart in its holster and backed away slowly before anyone got hurt.
Ever so delicately, she lifted the book from beside his hip, holding her breath when Max briefly stirred. Then she set the paperback on the nightstand beside his wallet—wallet?—before switching off the bedside lamp. Only light slivers from behind the partially closed bathroom door intruded on the darkness. She turned toward the light.
“Hey,” came the groggy voice. “Where y’ been?”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Come sit.”
“I was just going to get ready for bed.”
“I took a pill. For my knee,” Max mumbled, as if he understood her reluctance. “I’m harmless.”
Daisy doubted Max would ever be harmless—especially in the dim light with his hair appealingly mussed and his torso invitingly naked—but she sat down on the bed anyway because she wanted to.
“What time is it?” he asked, sounding more coherent.
“About ten.”
“Ten? Where’ve you been?”
“I ran into Steve Keller.”
“Who?”
“Y’ know, one of the security officers.”
“Oh,” Max answered, as if he wasn’t really sure. He sat up and stuffed a pillow behind his back.
“I had drinks with him.”
“Really?” Max suddenly seemed very awake. “Why?”
Daisy eased back at what sounded like, not jealousy, but disapproval. “Why not? He’s nice. He’s not married. He’s cute. And he asked me.” And you were escorting the breakfast blonde out the door, Daisy thought, but decided not to play that card.
“Isn’t he a little old for you?”
“That’s Stone. I had drinks with Keller.”
“Isn’t he a little young?”
“He’s thirty-one. It’s hardly a May-December romance. And it was only drinks. Why are you picking on me?”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might be worried about you?”
“No, actually, it didn’t.”
“Well, I was. And I didn’t like it.”
“Really.”
Daisy sounded unimpressed. Max leaned forward. “Am I missing something here?”
One Mississippi, two Mississippi. “Where’d you find your wallet?”
“Uh . . . over there,” he said ambiguously. “You were right. It fell out of my pants pocket.”
“Lucky you found it. It’s awful to lose important things.”
After a few moments of uncertain silence, Daisy started to rise.
Max grabbed her wrist. “What’s wrong?”
“What could be wrong?” She pulled from his grip.
“I don’t know, but I’m pretty good at sensing these things.” Sarcastically said.
“I’m just tired—”
“Then come to bed.”
“I can’t sleep in those sheets.”
“You can sleep on top of me.”
“Where thousands have been before . . . ?”
“Not thousands.”
Even in the dim light, Daisy saw his playful, cocksure grin.
“And you were there this morning and you didn’t seem to mind.”
“I did mind,” Daisy said. “But apparently not as much as you.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You fled the cabin like it was on fire. Doesn’t really inspire confidence for an encore.”
Without apology, Max said, “That’s because we were unexpected; you were unexpected. But now I know what to expect.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure I know what to expect.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t like being juggled.”
His brows lifted. “Juggled?”
“You know what I mean.”
They held each other’s gaze for a silent moment, the light from the bathroom casting alluring shadows, then Max said, “Look, Daisy, this thing happening between us, well, it’s a little nutty if you ask me, and certainly nothing I would’ve planned.” When Daisy looked pained, he hastened to add, “but I’m up to my neck in it now and juggling is not my intention.”
“Up to your neck in it? Wow. Be still my heart.”
“Hey,” he said, his tone edged with anger, “I’m not making a bunch of poetic promises I won’t keep. I don’t know what’s happening tomorrow. I sure as hell never saw this coming. Did you?”
He had her on that one. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected this conversation, let alone the reason for it.
Max leaned closer. His voice was soft and seductively sincere. “Moments like this don’t come around all that often. Don’t throw it away because you’re afraid it won’t come again.”
Her heart pounded; Daisy was sure Max could hear it. Should she mention the blonde? She didn’t want lies, yet she feared the truth. Although neither would change what she really wanted at this moment that didn’t come around all that often. But could she actually live in the moment, without any thoughts beyond?
She leaned toward him, breathing in the great outdoors—the cedar, the wood smoke, the musk—drawing her in, crumbling her resolve.
Max lifted her chin with his fingers. “Permettez-moi de vous aider à se déshabiller.”
Daisy twitched back. “You . . . speak French . . . ?”
“In a dozen different ways.”
His words alone caused a spasm. Daisy gave up the air in her lungs and seemed unable to find more. Her eyelids dropped, her lips parted. Her accusation was on the tip of her tongue . . .
I saw you with the blonde.
But the words never made it past her lips, which were otherwise engaged with Max’s mouth.
“Midori and rum,” Max noted, after a long, lusty kiss. “Remind me to thank Keller.”
With ease—and as Max had promised—he relieved Daisy of her clothes, and soon he had her between the sheets, pinned beneath him, their lips rhythmically coupled, locked in a moment Daisy thought for sure she could live in forever . . .
His good knee parted her thighs.
. . . Except, of course, she couldn’t . . .
His fingers milked one nipple.
. . . Because none of it was real . . .
Her pelvis reached for him.
. . . It was all an illusion . . .
He teasingly pulled away.
. . . Max Kendall was an illusion . . .
She struggled against his retreat, gripping his back, feverishly seeking consummation, her emptiness screaming for him.
. . . And he would disappear like a magician’s rabbit . . .
He slowly rocked against her until the sensation very nearly drove her insane.
. . . But before he vanished, Daisy Moon was getting hers. In French. “Maintenant. MAINTENANT. MAINTENANT!”
“Mmmm, bébé, restez calme,” Max murmured against her lips. “Ce n’est pas un sport de sang. Vos ongles . . .”
Her eyes fluttered open. Oblivious to the intensity of her grip and the bite of her fingernails, she now forced their release as Max had asked. “Désolé.”
He looked into her face and smiled. “This go-around we’re doing it the old-fashioned way. One . . . slow . . . inch . . . at a time.”
That she didn’t need in French. Or English. Or words. She only needed what Max promised for this one moment. “Shut up and do it.”
And he did.
And he did.
And he did.
And he did.
And he did.
And he did.
And . . . he . . . did.
Chapter Eighteen
“You lied.”
“Probably,” Max muttered, his eyes closed. He lightly stroked Daisy’s naked back as she cuddled up against him. “Be more specific.”
Daisy gently burrowed her fingers beneath the silky hairs on Max’s chest, lifted and burrowed again. “You said you were harmless.”
He sighed, long and heavy.
Daisy lazily breathed in the rugged scent of him layered with her own soft scent, and basked in the thousands of pheromones sprinkling the air like fairy dust.
Max affectionately pressed her to him and in a low, sexy, sleepy growl, said, “You wouldn’t want me if I were really harmless.”
Daisy stopped her burrowing and scrunched her brows. Mulling that over. She lifted her head. “That’s not completely true.”
Max groaned. “Can we debate this tomorrow?”
“It is tomorrow.”
“No, it’s today.”
“But today is tomorrow.”
Max opened his eyes and dipped his chin toward Daisy. Light from the bathroom metamorphosed the darkness into a dreamy ambience. “Babe—”
Her insides flip-flopped. No one had ever called her babe. Never mind that Max undoubtedly called every woman babe. Probably ’cause he couldn’t remember names. She still liked it. A lot.
“—I’m really tired and my knee is killing me.”
“I thought you took pills.”
“One pill. It wore off.”
“Tell me where they are.” Daisy started to rise. “And you can take a couple more.”
“I don’t need them.” Max pulled her back. “I’ll be fine.”
“There’s no reason for you to be in pain.”
“They really knock me out. Just stay here and I’ll fall asleep soon enough.”
Daisy tried to get comfortable beside him, but couldn’t quite. After a few minutes, she said, “The thing is . . . I can’t sleep in these sheets.”
“You’re sleeping on me.”
“Yes . . . but eventually I’ll be sleeping in these sheets.”
“You’ve been in these sheets for the last two hours.”
“Yes . . . but I was distracted.”
“I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”
They lay together a few more minutes, Daisy really wanting to move, but Max’s embrace keeping her from it.
“Max . . . ?”
“Oh Lord.” He took back his arm and flung away the sheets. With a groan, he dragged his leg over the side of the bed and sat up.
A momentary fear gripped Daisy. “Where’re you going?” She sat on her haunches and immediately felt the ghost of his erection.
“I’m taking drugs. I need something to dull the pain of this ridiculous conversation.”
“I’m sure you mean that in the kindest of ways.”
Max grabbed a pillow and playfully heaved it toward her. “Just put your damn sheets on the damn bed.”
Daisy clutched the pillow to her bare breasts as Max hopped toward the bathroom and his shaving kit within.
Maybe now was a good time to try—yet again—to rid herself of this aversion she had to community sheets. After all, they’d probably been washed in very, very, very, very hot water, and bleached on top of that.
“They’re clean,” Daisy quietly insisted. She placed the pillow against her cheek. “They’re clean,” she told herself again. She breathed. Again. Her brows collided into a knot. She breathed more deeply.
“What’re you doing?”
Daisy spun her head toward Max, who stood in the bathroom doorway.
“I thought you were changing the sheets,” he said.
“I am.”
He shook his head. “Do you really think now is the time to work on your sheet phobia?”
“It’s not a phobia.” Daisy watched Max grab his jeans from the vanity stool. “It’s an aversion. If it were an actual phobia, I wouldn’t be able to be in these sheets at all. Why are you getting dressed?”
“I’m going for ice.” He grabbed the plastic bag he had used earlier to ice his knee.
“I can—”
“No! You change the sheets.”
“Are you coming back?” She instantly cringed at how needy she sounded.
His hand on the door handle, Max turned toward her. “We’re on a ship, Daisy. Where the hell would I go?”
It wasn’t exactly the reassurance she’d hoped for. But what bugged her more was that she needed reassurance. And yet . . .
When the door closed behind him, her nose went back to the soft cotton, sniffing like a bloodhound. Was she worrying over nothing? But the gnawing in her gut—and the perfume on the pillow—told her otherwise.
Chapter Nineteen
While the sunrise fought rain clouds, Daisy made her way through a ship beginning to awaken; she was surprised, but nonetheless relieved, to find the purser’s office already open for business.
“Twenty-four seven,” the young man said. “In case of emergency.”
Daisy stopped rolling her suitcase and set it on end. She put Elizabeth’s carrier on the cropped-pile carpet. “I’m Daisy Moon.” She addressed the man she didn’t know—Dobbs, according to his lapel pin. “I should have a thousand dollars in cash and a credit card in your safe, please.”
Dobbs thumbed through his clipboard of notes and papers. “Here it is.” He looked up. “Could I see some ID? Driver’s license, passport?”
“My driver’s license was stolen, but I do have my passport.” Daisy retrieved the thin leather-look book from her purse.
Dobbs compared the photograph with the flesh-and-blood woman before him, then he closed the document and smiled, returning the passport to Daisy. “Are you leaving the Columbia in Wrangell, Miss Moon?”
“Yes. I have a job waiting for me in Otter Bite, but I need to get to Anchorage first.”
“You can certainly get to Anchorage from Wrangell, but it will take a few planes to do it.”
Daisy had figured as much, and the thought didn’t thrill her, but it was better than wondering who Max Kendall would next have between her sheets. And they were her sheets—technically, if not morally—because it was her bed in her cabin. Bought and paid for by her. She still couldn’t believe that Max had actually invited another woman into that bed after he and she—
“It will take me a few minutes to get this for you,” Dobbs told her. “I have to locate the officer on duty.”
“No problem.” She took a seat as he left.
Daisy glanced around the neat and orderly office, remembering the first time she’d come here in a panic. “Some trip, huh, Elizabeth?” she said to the turtle, who was buried beneath a mound of moss in her carrier. “Well, pretty soon we’ll be on our way and this will all seem like a bad dream.”
Daisy yawned and stretched her neck this way and that, trying to purge a bad night’s sleep. Of course she’d put her sheets on the bed—no way she was getting back into those other sheets after she knew what had happened. It creeped her out. Even now. Just thinking about it caused unhappy goose bumps.
Which was why, when Max was safely in a three-pill drug-induced slumber, she left the bed and took a shower.
She’d considered confronting him about the breakfast blonde—and surely the source of the perfume—but then she decided on another tactic. A tactic that Max himself had undoubtedly employed a time or two. That meant, of course, that she’d have to forego her righteous indignation along with the satisfaction of nailing that bastard—
Daisy breathed, trying to release her anger.
Instead, Max would always remember Daisy Moon and wonder why . . .
So early this morning, after several hours of restless dozing, Daisy got dressed and packed. She wrestled with keeping Max’s passport just to make things really difficult for him, but then relented in her fantasy for revenge, and used the envelope she’d gotten in Ketchikan to hide her prior snooping.
With Max’s documents tucked safely back into his duffel and Elizabeth in her carrier, there was only one
thing left to do.
She had to sacrifice her sheets, of course, what with Max still asleep in them. But they would only remind her of Max, whom she never wanted to waste another thought on. Plus, she could buy sheets in Anchorage. A new, clean, fresh, never-used set that didn’t remind her of anyone.
She’d eased first Elizabeth and then her suitcase out of the dark cabin and into the bright hallway. She had lingered in the doorway, a block of light spilling into the cabin, to look at Max one final time, almost wishing he’d wake up just so he could see her walking out, but in the next instant she felt ambivalent. Before she could talk herself out of it, she turned and shut the door on Max Kendall.
“Sorry for the delay,” Dobbs said, returning. He handed Daisy a small manila envelope and asked that she verify the contents. She smiled at the valuable piece of plastic that would take her away from all her recent mistakes and to a new beginning in Otter Bite. The crisp $100 bills were just icing on her cupcake.
“I guess you’ve had a tough time,” Dobbs commented, as if he wasn’t quite sure of the details.
“Mistakes were made,” Daisy said, figuring he could get his answers elsewhere.
“If you could just sign this receipt . . .”
Daisy happily scribbled her name and then asked for two envelopes, which Dobbs obligingly gave her. Digging into her purse, she found near the bottom her small notebook and pen. Pulling them free, she quickly tallied the numbers. The total came to $122. Back to her purse, to the inside pocket where she kept her lip gloss and emery board, and where she now kept her money—or rather the money from Max—since she no longer had a wallet. She pulled out all the bills and began sorting on her lap.
She would return the $200 he’d given her for Ketchikan, less what she paid for his last night’s dinner, of course, although technically the money had been a gift, so she could rightly keep it. And Max was getting her cabin.
“Let’s see,” she mumbled to herself. “Two nights without me . . . two nights with me is half that . . .” She scribbled on the paper: Less the $200. Taking the high road, but counting the $100 she’d taken from his wallet as payment for her sheets.
Spooning Daisy Page 15