Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1)

by Lori Handeland

His mouth dropped open. “How did that happen?”

  “The usual way. We seem to have a knack for it.”

  “But we…I… Uh.”

  “That’s what I said. But sometimes life just happens, no matter how we try to control things. At least I’ve learned that much. What’s meant to be will always find a way. Like us.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you found out?”

  “I wanted you to come back for love, not duty.”

  “But I was here all the time.”

  “I didn’t know that!”

  He picked her up and spun her around. “I love you. I love Max.” He set her down carefully, then bent and put his mouth to her stomach. “Love you, too.”

  Livy mussed his hair. “For a guy who couldn’t say the words, you’ve become awfully chatty.”

  “Once you know love just is, it’s all over the place.”

  “Dad!”

  Max ran up the walk. For a change he didn’t trip. Come to think of it, he hadn’t since his cast had come off. And Livy hadn’t found an open drawer or door for even longer than that. Maybe all sorts of good things were in store for them. Couldn’t hurt to believe.

  “I got a whole bag of candy. You want to count it with me?”

  “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” Garrett’s gaze hit on Rosie. “As soon as I take care of one thing. Ma’am, may I have your daughter’s hand?”

  “Garrett…” Livy began.

  “No. I’m going to do this right from the beginning. I might not be a gentleman by birth, but I can learn. Ma’am?”

  “You want my daughter’s hand? Does she want yours?”

  “Yes,” he said, with such complete confidence that Livy smiled.

  “Well, in lieu of a bride price I’m going to ask a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” Rosie looped her arm through his. “Come on inside, and let me explain.”

  Her mother and Garrett walked off, heads together. Livy had known they would love each other. Later she’d pry out of Garrett just what it was her mother wanted. Favors for Rosie often meant trouble.

  She gazed up at the stately gothic house that would soon become her home. She’d miss her old place, but it would always be right where she’d left it. Besides, home wasn’t where you laid your head; it was where your loved ones did.

  “Hey, Mom!” Max stood in the open doorway. “Coming?”

  “Sure, baby.”

  And for once, Max didn’t correct her. Livy passed her palm over her stomach, then headed for the door.

  Maybe magic did happen every single day.

  Epilogue

  Dawn spread over Savannah like the wings of sleepy red-tailed hawk. Misty morning dew touched the ancient city streets. Night would not descend on the city for hours upon hours.

  Max should not be up so early. His mom would have a hissy fit. But he wanted this day to last forever. Because today his mom and his dad were getting married in a family-only celebration.

  He went to his dad’s office and finished the story he’d written for their present.

  And so the lonely vampire and the even lonelier princess, who had a great little boy named Max, discovered that by some weird twist in time they were a family. They lived happily forever. No one had to worry about bad stuff, because being lonely and unloved was the worst. But together there was no more lonely, and in their family love just was.

  Max considered what he’d written. He’d figured out that there was no such thing as vampires, even though there were a few princesses. But the happily-forever part was true enough, and so was that bit about love. Might sound mushy, but his mom would like it and that was what counted.

  The phone rang, making him jump. Max wasn’t sure if he should answer, but the new machine his mom had bought, even though his dad had grumbled, clicked on and saved him the trouble of wonderin’ for long.

  “Garrett, I fail to see the humor in this gift.”

  Max recognized his dad’s agent, Andrew. The guy often left messages on the machine, and he talked so funny and fast Max loved to listen to them.

  “Now, a coffin was funny. You have to admit that—” Andrew’s sigh was almost completely drowned out by a loud honk-honk.

  Max started to laugh.

  “But what in Hades am I supposed to do with a goose?”

  The End

  If you enjoyed Leave It To Max, I would be honored if you would tell others by writing a review on the retailer’s website where you purchased this title.

  Thank you!

  Lori Handeland

  Read on for an excerpt from

  OUT OF HER LEAGUE

  Lori’s Classic Love Stories – Volume 2

  OUT OF HER LEAGUE

  Lori’s Classic Love Stories – Volume 2

  Chapter One

  ATTENTION!

  ALL MALES IN THE VAUGHN HOUSEHOLD

  THE RULES FOR THE UPCOMING SUMMER SEASON ARE AS FOLLOWS:

  THERE WILL BE NO MORE HOT WHEELS IN THE BATHROOM SINK

  TOOTHPASTE IS NOT TO BE USED AS FINGER PAINT

  SUBMACHINE GUN NOISES ARE NOT ALLOWED BEFORE 7:00 A.M.

  BROTHERS ARE NOT ENEMIES AND SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS SUCH

  Evie Vaughn chewed on the cap of her pen and surveyed the paper in front of her. Had she forgotten anything?

  She chewed harder and shook her head. No, the list looked good. Not too many items, but enough for the summer season.

  Evie smiled to herself, doubting that other mothers divided their years into seasons—but the process worked for her. Her job as a high school physical education teacher and extracurricular coach made her think in terms of seasons. It was a division she understood, as did her three sons.

  Evie stood and anchored the paper to the refrigerator with a magnet. Sounds of a war in the making drifted from the twins’ bedroom. She glanced at her watch—6:55 a.m. Rule number three definitely needed enforcement.

  “Mom! He started it.” The shout greeted her as she entered the first bedroom off the hallway. Danny, her youngest son by four minutes, his carrot-colored hair sticking up in numerous cowlicks, made a beeline for her leg. Yanking on her sweat suit, he turned an entreating gaze upward. “You don’t like it when we make war, and I told him.” He pointed a semi-grimy finger at his identical twin, Benji, who ignored them both as he blasted all the bad guys into another dimension with his own slightly cleaner finger.

  “Boys.” Evie disengaged Danny’s fingers from her leg one by one. “The new list of rules is on the fridge.” Groans replaced the machine-gun sounds as the twins clutched their middles and fell to the ground. “Adam!” she called. “Take your brothers into the kitchen and read them the new rules.”

  “I’m not dressed,” her seventeen-year-old shouted from his room.

  “Then get dressed. In ten minutes my car leaves for school.”

  She looked down at her sons, who were still playing dead on the floor. One still had on his Batman pajama bottoms; the other wore only Ninja Turtle underwear. With one week left before summer vacation, you would think they’d be used to getting dressed in time for school. She’d heard them arguing over cereal choices before the sun shone. What had they been doing since?

  Evie shrugged. She’d been too busy getting ready for work to notice. As long as no one was crying or bleeding, she counted herself lucky.

  “Ten minutes, boys,” she repeated. “And you’d better wash those hands, too.” She turned away, mumbling, “I know I gave them a bath last night. How did they get dirty between then and now?” As she returned to the kitchen, the frantic scrambling sounds that followed assured her all three boys were racing to get ready.

  Picking up her coffee cup, Evie leaned against the counter and took a moment to calm down. Every morning was the same—a flurry of activity to get out of the house and to the school on time. Raising three boys alone wasn’t easy, but she did her best.

  The death of her husband six years ago h
ad made Evie’s dream of a teaching degree a necessity. With the help of her parents, and the money from a small insurance policy, she’d earned her degree at a college near her home of Newsome, Iowa.

  When she was offered the position of high school physical education teacher in Oak Grove, a few hours east of Newsome, she’d jumped at the chance. Her boys would at last have a stable home in a good community, free of the memories of their father—his life and his death.

  With one dream realized, Evie found a new one. She wanted her children to have college diplomas. If she could land a varsity coaching position, she could put away enough money to send the boys to college. The events of the coming summer would make or break her dream.

  The sound of stampeding elephants in the hallway interrupted her thoughts. The elephants materialized into boys as the twins skidded into the kitchen, followed closely by Adam—tall, wiry and as dark haired as Evie herself.

  She smiled over her coffee cup as the two youngest stood in front of the refrigerator, their faces scrunching up in concentration as they tried to read her note.

  “The,” Benji said.

  “All,” Danny added.

  Adam ignored them both and read the rules, putting a hand on the shoulder of each brother as they started to argue.

  “But Mom, we have to put the Hot Wheels in the sink after we play with them in the tub, so they can drool off,” Danny stated, somewhat cleaner hands planted on his hips.

  “What does em-eny mean?” Benji asked, snatching his backpack from a chair.

  “Enemy,” Evie corrected automatically. “It means I’m sick of the fighting. You’re seven years old and in the first grade. I think you can try to get along with your brother.”

  Adam snorted. “Right, Mom. That’ll never happen. They were born to beat on each other.”

  Evie grabbed her duffel bag and handed Danny his backpack as she herded her three sons out the door. “I just don’t understand why you all can’t be nice to one another. I never had a brother or sister. I would have loved one.”

  “That’s the problem, Mom. You don’t understand. They like to fight.”

  Evie sighed. Adam was right. Benji and Danny lived and breathed conflict. But if anyone outside the family so much as glanced at one of them cross-eyed, they defended each other zealously.

  “Can I drive?”

  “Huh?” Evie gaped at Adam. He smiled, and her heart skipped a half beat. When he turned on the charm, Adam was the spitting image of his father, a fact that caused her no small alarm. While alive, Ray Vaughn had made countless lives miserable, her own and her sons’ at the top of the list. He had used his good looks and charm to get his way, regardless of the consequences.

  “Mom?” Adam asked. “Are you all right?”

  His eyes, warm, brown, concerned, peered into hers, and Evie relaxed. Adam resembled his father only superficially. Ray had died before he could totally ruin his sons, and Evie had spent the past six years fixing the damage he had managed to accomplish.

  “Sure,” she said, and tossed Adam the keys. Because of the size of Oak Grove, driver’s education was just offered once a year. Therefore Adam, despite being seventeen, had gotten his driver’s license only a week earlier. Evie still wasn’t used to the change. Her throat tightened as she watched him shepherd the twins into the back seat, then climb behind the wheel. Somewhere along the way he’d become a young man—and she’d been too busy keeping the family afloat to notice.

  Blinking back the unaccustomed wetness from her eyes, Evie got into the battered Ford station wagon. The twins were already arguing about who had fastened his seat belt first. Evie tuned them out and concentrated on the road.

  The high school stood on a flat stretch of land just a few miles from their house, with the grade school and the middle school on either side. Adam dropped the twins off at the front door of Oak Grove Elementary, and the two raced inside without a backward glance. Then he made the short trip to the high school teachers’ parking lot and pulled into Evie’s assigned space. He handed her the keys with a grin.

  She smiled back and was about to compliment him on his driving, when a flash of red at the corner of her vision made her turn her head. A car skidded into the lot. Before she could warn Adam, he opened his door to get out, and the vehicle—an expensive, foreign sports car—scooted into the parking space next to them, slamming into the door.

  Evie instinctively grabbed for her son, but he shook off her protective hand and stepped from the car. She jumped out her side and hurried around to survey the damage.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed as she took in the mangled driver’s door, which tilted crazily, held only by one bent hinge. She winced when she considered the price of a replacement compared with her insurance deductible.

  Then the door to the offending sports car opened with a whoosh of expertly oiled hinges, and Evie’s head snapped in that direction. “I’ll handle this,” she said to Adam, shushing him when he would have argued.

  She stomped around the back of the red car and stood there, foot tapping in impatience, while she waited for the owner to make an appearance.

  Tennis shoes the size of small boats hit the ground. Evie stared at them in amazement as the rest of the body followed. Her gaze traveled up, up, up along the black jeans and body-hugging black T-shirt, until she met the eyes of the giant in front of her—ice blue framed by bronzed skin, short, silver-blond hair belying the youth of the face.

  Evie couldn’t stop staring. She’d never seen such a large man in her life—or one so striking. Even though she was petite and used to looking up to most people, this man made her neck ache.

  He stalked to the front of his car. Evie followed and watched as he bent over and squinted at the damage, which appeared minor from her point of view, then slowly straightened and returned to stand in front of her.

  “What are you kids doing in this lot?”

  Evie frowned. “Excuse me?”

  The man sighed irritably and slammed his car door. Evie jumped at the sound. “This lot.” He pointed at the sign directly in front of her car. “The teachers’ and visitors’ lot. Shouldn’t you kids park somewhere else?”

  Evie stifled a laugh, certain this giant would not be likewise amused. This wasn’t the first time she’d been mistaken for a student. When she wore her sunglasses, as she did now, the telltale lines around her eyes were hidden, creating a more youthful appearance.

  “I think you’ve made a mistake—” she began.

  “No, you have, honey. And your boyfriend, too.” He glared at Adam, who stared back without flinching. “Did you just get your driver’s license, kid?”

  Evie’s amusement died at the man’s condescending tone—and she had never taken well to being called “honey” by a stranger. She silenced Adam with a wave of her hand and stepped in front of the mountainous man.

  “Listen, mister, you’re the one who came tearing in here about fifteen miles over the speed limit. This is a school zone. And you hit our car. So if anyone should be asking about a driver’s license, it’s us.”

  The man looked down at her, and Evie could have sworn she saw a flash of amusement in his cool blue eyes before he frowned and stepped past her to assess the damage. The sight of their demolished door deflated his anger, and his shoulders moved on a silent sigh.

  “Hell,” he muttered, and reached for his wallet. Turning back to them, he ignored Evie as though she didn’t exist and pulled out several bills, which he handed to Adam. “I’m sorry about the car, son. She’s right. I should have been more careful. But let me give you some advice. You’ve got to stand up for yourself in this world. Don’t ever let a woman do it for you. Once you lose control in a relationship, it’s tough to get it back.” After a wink at Evie, who stood speechless, he walked into the school.

  “Of all the nerve,” Evie sputtered. “Who does he think he is?”

  Adam laughed. “I don’t know. But he thought you were my girlfriend.”

  Her son’s continued laughter
drew Evie’s attention away from the school. “Hey, it’s not that funny. I’m only thirty-five.”

  Adam eyed the money in his hand, and the laughter stopped. “Mom? Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” He held out the bills.

  Evie took them and gasped. Five crisp, new, one-hundred dollar bills lay in her palm.

  She looked from her son’s wide eyes, to the fire-engine-red car, to the front door of the school. Then she crumpled the bills. “Who is that guy?”

  *

  BOOK LIST

  Sisters of the Craft Trilogy

  IN THE AIR TONIGHT

  HEAT OF THE MOMENT

  SMOKE ON THE WATER

  The Phoenix Chronicles

  ANY GIVEN DOOMSDAY

  DOOMSDAY CAN WAIT

  APOCALYPSE HAPPENS

  CHAOS BITES

  IN THE BEGINNING (e-short story)

  DANCES WITH DEMONS (novella)

  Short story set in the Phoenix Chronicle World

  HEX APPEAL (anthology) – “There Will Be Demons”

  Nightcreature Novels

  BLUE MOON

  HUNTER’S MOON

  DARK MOON

  CRESCENT MOON

  MIDNIGHT MOON

  RISING MOON

  HIDDEN MOON

  THUNDER MOON

  MARKED BY THE MOON

  MOON CURSED

  CRAVE THE MOON

  SHADOW OF THE MOON (e-short story)

  FIFTY WAYS TO KILL YOUR LARRY (ecollection) – “Blame It On the Moon”

  Short stories and novellas set in the Nightcreature World

  STROKE OF MIDNIGHT (anthology) – “Red Moon Rising”

  MY BIG, FAT SUPERNATURAL WEDDING (anthology) – “Charmed by the Moon”

  NO REST FOR THE WITCHES (anthology) – “Voodoo Moon”

  Shakespeare Undead Series

  SHAKESPEARE UNDEAD

  ZOMBIE ISLAND: A SHAKESPEARE UNDEAD NOVEL

  Paranormal novellas

  WHEN MIDNIGHT COMES

  DATES FROM HELL (anthology) – “Dead Man Dating”

  MOON FEVER (anthology) – “Cobwebs over the Moon”

  Contemporary paranormal novel

  D.J.’S ANGEL