“Whenever you say that, we end up naked.”
He chucked softly. She was right. “Unfortunately, this time will have to be different. I’m still on duty until I return the car and get out of my uniform.” He brushed a wayward strand of auburn hair away from her face to tuck it behind her ear. “Why did they come here in person?”
“I refused to take either of their calls.”
“Who was that?”
Amanda understood what he was asking. “An ex-boyfriend.”
“Your mother said something about an engagement.”
“In her dreams.”
“Why would she want you to marry Carlos?”
“Because Carlos and his family have money. Not just money, but old money. And I guess my mother thinks money is more important than love. No, I don’t guess; I know.”
It almost surprised Max that she didn’t agree with her mother’s philosophy. But then he couldn’t help but notice how much she had matured since coming to Manning Grove—it seemed as though months had put years on her. “You dated?”
“All through college. But after I caught him cheating with my best friend twice, I kicked him to the curb.”
Carlos didn’t deserve her. Max might not be rich and he may be a “blue-collar” worker—the witch had said it like it was an insult—but anyone could see that he was a better catch than Carlos.
If he was trying to be caught.
He changed his train of thought. “What’s your degree in?”
“Business administration. That was something else my mother controlled. She insisted I major in that. She hoped I’d meet a rich businessman.” She sighed. “I wanted to major in fashion design. That’s why I ended up bartending after college instead of taking advantage of my degree. It was fun and it pissed her off.”
That was so like his Amanda, giving as good as she got. His Amanda…
“So would you have come to your father’s funeral if you had known?”
“Of course! We may have never been close—one more thing my mother controlled—but he was still my father. When I found out that my mother never gave me the message… I’m sure Dolores expected that a mother would tell her daughter that her father died. It wasn’t Dolores’s fault.”
“You know, after all my years of being a cop and a Marine, I’ve never heard anything so downright cruel.”
Amanda turned wide, glassy eyes to him. “It was, wasn’t it?”
His heart skipped a beat. He reached out and, with his thumb and forefinger, carefully turned her face up to his.
This woman took his breath away.
He searched her face.
“Max,” she whispered.
He brushed his lips across hers. And again. Her lips parted, giving him complete access. Their tongues danced with each other. He buried his hands in her hair in his attempt to bring her even closer.
He kissed the corners of her mouth, then pulled back slightly before he totally lost his head. “I’m glad to hear that love is more important to you than money,” he murmured against her lips.
“And why is that?”
How could he answer that? Why was he getting so soft? He couldn’t. He wasn’t.
Max disentangled their arms and jumped to his feet. “I have to get back to the station. I’ll grab us takeout and stop back. I’ll get Marc to drop Greg off after the shift.”
As he left the house, his feelings smacked him across the forehead like a two-by-four.
He was done. Toast.
Chapter Sixteen
The melodic tone started out soft; then the longer it went, the louder it got. It took a few seconds for Amanda to locate her cell phone, but she finally found it under Greg’s NASCAR pillow that was haphazardly tossed on the couch.
She had no doubt that her brother had been playing with her phone again. She was going to have to hide it from now on. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get a bill next month with costly calls to Italy on it. Like last month’s.
She looked at the caller ID. She didn’t recognize the number, but she was familiar with the area code. Florida.
“Hello?”
“Sweetie…”
Her stepfather’s voice was unmistakable. “Hello, Norman.” She waited on bated breath to find out why he would be calling her. Especially after what had occurred the last time she saw her mother. “What’s going on?”
Maybe he wanted to smooth things over. Her stepfather would do anything for Anne. Amanda just couldn’t figure out why.
“It’s your mother.”
Of course it was. Here it comes…
“She’s not well.”
…the guilt trip. “What, is she still upset about what happened when she showed up here and tried to take over my life again?”
“No. Well, yes, she’s upset about that. But no, that’s not why I’m calling. Your mother is sick.”
Amanda paused. “What do you mean? She looked fine when she was here.”
And that was only a month ago.
“She is really sick, Amanda. The doctors have sent her home. They are out of options.”
Amanda’s hand trembled. She sat down on the couch. “Yeah, right.” She didn’t believe it. It was another one of her mother’s ploys. It had to be.
“Sweetie, have I ever lied to you before?”
Honestly, she could say that her stepfather had never lied to her. Her mother had only been married to him for a little over two years, however, and she had been gone for at least six months of that time. She really didn’t know what he was capable of. After all, he did marry Anne. That wasn’t saying much for him.
“It really is serious?”
“I wouldn’t have called you otherwise. You need to get down here right away.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I’ll let her explain when you get here. Hurry home. She’s asking for you.”
The guilt screws tightened. She was torn. It could be a trap, but what if it wasn’t? Could she live with herself if she didn’t go and something terrible happened to her mother?
Would it be unreasonable to ask for medical reports as proof before forking out over four hundred dollars for a last-minute flight south?
Amanda sighed. “Okay, I’ll be on the first flight I can get.”
She hung up before her stepfather could even say good-bye.
She scrolled through her cell phone contacts until she found who she was looking for.
She dialed the Bryson’s household.
“Ma. It’s Amanda.”
“Amanda, honey! How are you?”
“Sorry for the sudden call, but I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Of course, what’s wrong?”
“My mother is very sick, and I need to go down to Miami. Can you do me a big favor and keep Greg and Chaos until I get back?”
“Of course! We would love to.”
Why couldn’t her mother be just like Mary Ann? Loving and open…trustworthy?
“He’ll need to be picked up at day care. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.”
“Honey, it’s no problem. We have nothing better to do than watch these trees grow. We welcome the company since the boys are out of the house.”
“Thank you. Greg will love it. I’ll drop a suitcase for him off at the day care on my way out of town.”
“Godspeed, Amanda. Don’t worry; we’ll take good care of that boy.”
“I know you will. Thank you, Ma.”
After a quick call to the day care, Amanda hung up the phone, then sprinted up the stairs. She had to pack three bags, one for her, one for Greg, and another for Chaos. She was already despising the long four-hour drive to the airport.
Amanda felt lucky to find a flight that evening from Philadelphia that was not fully booked and had a short stopover in Atlanta. With relief, she landed in Miami without incident. She hated flying.
Even though it was after midnight, the unusual sweltering heat hit her as she stepped out of the terminal and hailed a cab. She used to
love this heat. Now it seemed miserable. Humid. Oppressive…
It was a forty-minute ride to her mother’s gated community. The guard didn’t recognize Amanda in the backseat but waved the cab through anyway.
As they drove through the neighborhood, she was startled to find herself disgusted at the waste of money sunk into the oversize homes. She had never felt this way before. Now, living in Manning Grove, the excess was obvious. No one needed all of this to live a happy life.
As the cab rounded the horseshoe-shaped brick driveway and pulled up to the meticulously groomed front yard of the 10,000-plus square-foot home, she wondered why such an expansive residence would be needed for only two people. Two people who were hardly home anyway.
And what sickened Amanda the most was that this was one of the smaller homes in the neighborhood. The Manning Grove house where she lived with Greg was about the same size as her mother’s garage.
As she leaned over to pay the cabbie, one of the house staff ran down the front steps to grab her lone bag out of the trunk.
“Miss Amanda?”
“Yes.”
“Follow me. Your father is waiting for you.”
“He’s not my father,” she muttered under her breath.
She knew it would do no good to point that out to the staff, as they probably didn’t give a damn anyway. She followed the uniformed—another ridiculous expense—fortyish man into the immense foyer.
Her stepfather, dressed in a robe, greeted her with a quick kiss on the cheek and a weak pat on the back. Amanda’s thoughts went to Ron Bryson’s crippling bear-hug greeting last Christmas. She had felt more at home there as a guest than she did at this house.
“You made it down here quickly. If I’d have known you were going to get down here tonight, I’d have sent a car.”
Her mother was supposed to be sick and possibly dying. Of course she came quickly. “Well, you said it was urgent.”
“It is. It is, my dear.”
“Where’s Mother?”
“In bed. She’s sleeping. Why don’t you go settle in your room and get some rest. You can see her in the morning.”
Amanda looked at her gold-and-diamond Bulova watch—so out of place in Manning Grove, but actually very conservative in her new setting. It was almost two a.m.
“Okay. You’re right. I don’t want to disturb her sleep right now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Amanda hiked up the winding stairs before her stepfather could land another mushy peck on her cheek.
She found “her” room and noticed one of the staff had already delivered her luggage. Her mother had designated this bedroom as Amanda’s when they bought the house, even though Amanda had never lived there. Wishful thinking by her mother. She looked around and noticed with disgust that someone had strategically placed pictures of Carlos all over the bedroom.
She couldn’t sleep with Carlos’s dark liquid eyes staring at her from every direction, so she went around and slapped all the frames facedown. After that, Amanda undressed and, with a long, exhausted sigh, crawled into bed.
She was beat.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hello! Just in time for supper.” Mary Ann went over and tilted her face toward him. Max obediently leaned down to let his mother kiss him.
“Smells good; what are you cooking?”
“Honey-dipped chicken.”
Max’s stomach growled in response. “Wow, what’s the occasion? You haven’t made that in a long time. You claimed that it was going to put Pop in the grave.”
Mary Ann waved a hand at her son. “Well, we have a guest.”
“Oh?” Max’s eyebrows lowered, pinning together. “Who?”
“Wait. You don’t know?” An emotion crossed his mother’s face, but she schooled it quickly before Max could get a read on it.
He glanced at the farm slab-topped table and noticed an extra place setting. “Should I?”
Had they invited Amanda over so they could feel them out on their relationship? Amanda was supposed to be keeping that on the DL from his mother. She had promised.
His father’s booming voice preceded Ron into the kitchen. “Dinner done yet, woman?”
Mary Ann smiled at her husband’s term of endearment.
“This boy and I are hungry; we’ve been working hard all day shaping those trees.”
Ron stepped through the kitchen doorway and stopped. “I thought I saw your truck out there. There’s always room for one more at the table.” Ron turned to look behind him and yelled, “C’mon, boy, get up to the sink and wash those grimy hands of yours before supper.”
Greg brushed past Ron. Max’s eyebrows shot up as he looked at the younger man in surprise. Greg had a torn shirt, more than one smudge of dirt on his face, his hands were completely covered in soil, and he smelled like a pine tree.
Not to mention, he looked like one too.
Max’s mother stepped up and began to pluck needles out of Greg’s shirt and his tousled hair. “What did you do? Wrestle with those trees? Now go wash up.”
Greg smiled and did as he was told, widening his grin at Max as he passed the larger man.
“Max…Max! I was trimmin’ trees.”
“I see that, pal.”
He turned to his parents, who stood next to each other watching Greg scrub his hands with soap and water, a wistful look on both of their faces. He could see their desperate desire for grandchildren.
Max frowned at their obvious train of thought and lowered his voice before asking, “What’s he doing here?”
“Max, I thought you knew. I thought she would have told you.”
“Amanda? What should she have told me?”
“That she had to leave town.”
Sudden panic squeezed his chest. This was the last thing he had expected. “What do you mean? For good?”
“No, silly bird! Her mother is sick. She had to rush down to Miami.”
He grabbed his cell phone off his hip to check for any missed calls or texts.
His phone was dead. Damn it. This wasn’t the first time, and he was tired of his piece of shit phone dying on him. He was going to get a new phone first thing in the morning.
He was sure Amanda had tried to contact him. She would have, right? Especially since things had been going great for them in the last month.
But, no matter what, he was glad that his parents had taken Greg in temporarily.
“When did she leave?”
“Late last night. Said she was taking a red-eye.”
He shook his head. “Is her mother serious?”
“Don’t know, Son. I thought you would’ve talked to her. She didn’t give us many details. Said she didn’t know when she’d be back. Sent a big suitcase along with the boy with enough clothes in there to last him a good month.”
A month. His mother was probably exaggerating.
Max ate dinner impatiently. He felt as jumpy as Greg. He didn’t even enjoy one of his favorite meals. He couldn’t get Amanda out of his head. He worried about her traveling alone.
Hell, he worried about her being anywhere near that conniving mother of hers and her lapdog, Carlos.
He hoped she was staying out of trouble.
Chapter Seventeen
Amanda spent the day by her mother’s side. Her mother was pleasant, quite talkative, and seemed well enough to watch all her daytime soaps.
She wasn’t acting sick. At all. The cook served all her meals in bed, and Amanda’s stepfather came in to fuss over her every once in a while.
Anne loved all the attention. Of course, she would.
That grated on Amanda. She couldn’t help but question whether her mother was “dying” like she claimed. She didn’t even look seriously ill. Anne hadn’t had so much as a little sniffle.
Anne had her appetite, had color in her cheeks, and certainly spent plenty of time on the phone, chatting with her country-club friends.
She drank lots of juice and took lots of trips to the restroom. Unassisted.
<
br /> Every time Amanda asked her mother what she was diagnosed with, she came up with a different excuse of why she didn’t know—or couldn’t pronounce—the name of the illness. But she knew that it was—or at least, could be—fatal. Funny how the doctor hadn’t even called once to check up on her mother. And no hospice? Right.
Not that she wanted her mother to die, but Anne looked healthy enough to her.
As she sat next to her mother’s bed—Anne cloaked in a shiny gold nightgown like a queen—Amanda was getting edgy.
She had wanted to return to Miami so badly, and now that she was here…she wanted to go back.
Not only did she unbelievably miss Manning Grove, she missed a big, frustrating man in a blue uniform. And Greg too.
Norman peeked his head around the bedroom door.
“Amanda, there is someone here to see you.” His head disappeared, and a moment later the door burst open. Squeals of delight echoed through the room, making Amanda grimace.
Her three girlfriends bounded into the room, taking their turns hugging her.
Amanda didn’t fail to notice her mother’s sly smile.
“Mandy! We’ve missed you.” Meghan.
“We’re so glad you’re home.” Allison.
“It’s about time you wise up and get back here to reality.” And Darcie.
“Yeah, come back to the real world.”
As the three women chattered away, Amanda just stood there looking at her friends in amazement. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Why, Amanda, we heard you were home. You should have called us! We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to get together. Hello, Mrs. Bingman.”
“Hello, girls! Come, come, have a seat.” She patted the plush mattress. “You can sit on the bed.”
The three women plopped on the edge of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” Allison asked.
“Much better, now that you girls are here.”
Amanda eyed her mother, ice spreading through her veins. She could no longer deny that she had been set up. Was it so bad that she had held out hope that one day Anne might act like a real mother? A mother who could love her daughter no matter what? Why did she do this to herself over and over? A cynical voice in her head answered: because I am a fucking fool!
Brothers in Blue: The Complete Trilogy: Brothers in Blue Boxed Set - Books 1-3 Page 19