She shook her head and stood. When she leaned against the archway, she crossed her arms. “As soon as I get a chance, I’m going to pray for you.”
“What?”
She laughed at his feigned look of innocence. “You know what? Since it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to behave like an adult, I think I’ll take a beer.”
“All right. Now we’re talking.”
The phone rang just as he handed her a bottle.
“Excuse me,” he said, and picked up the wall unit in the kitchen. “Yeah.”
“I thought you were coming back to the hospital?” Lieutenant Scardino’s voice came over the line.
“Sudden change of plans. I’ll have to tell you about it later. How’s he doing?” Out of the corner of his eyes, Max watched Kennedy move away from the kitchen to give him his privacy.
“He’s awake and doing good.”
Max detected a note of sadness in her voice. “That’s definitely good to hear.” He hesitated, not knowing how much he could or should say. “How are you holding up?”
There was a long pause and he suddenly wished that he had ripped out his tongue.
“I’m not sure,” she answered in a wavery voice. “In the back of my head, I always knew something like this was a possibility, but I never prepared myself for it.”
“No one can. But, hey, Dossman is a strong man. If he made it this far, he’s going to be fine, right?”
“That’s what the doctors are saying.”
The line fell silent again, but he sensed that she wanted to say more. When she finally spoke, her tattered emotions rattled her vocal cords. “I love him, Max.”
His heart squeezed and he wished that he could be there for her. “I know.”
He listened as she tried to pull herself together, but she was doing a lousy job of it.
“I’d better go now,” she said, sniffing.
“Are you sure? I’m a good listener.”
“Nah.” She sniffed again. “I’ve already said too much. Where’s Ms. St. James?”
“Here.”
“You’re joking?”
“No. She’s sitting in my living room as we speak.”
“Did she talk?”
“Of course not. I’m never that lucky.”
“What’s your next move?” She was starting to sound more like herself again.
He glanced around to make sure that he was still alone. “I don’t know. I’m pretty much playing this one by ear.”
The line fell silent again.
“I don’t like how this is playing out. I feel that we’re walking into a den of lions with blindfolds on,” she said.
“Keenan is just a punk. I’m on it.”
“I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this one.”
“You, too?” He exhaled. “Dossman and I believe that Keenan and his gang are just hired hands—puppets, if you will.”
“You have anything to support those hunches?”
“Not a damn thing.” He listened to her weary exhalation.
“Do me a favor,” she finally said.
“Name it.”
“Be careful.”
He smiled. “That goes without saying.”
“And—”
“There’s more?” he asked.
“Yeah. Make sure you get Ms. St. James to talk.”
“You can count on it.” He hung up, and then glanced back toward the living room. The small voice of his conscience preached about doing the right thing. She was vulnerable, he knew, but he had a job to do.
Entering the living room, he groaned when he saw her holding the file he’d left on the coffee table—the file that detailed everything he’d learned about her.
She looked up, stabbing him her glare. “Some light reading?”
“I call it working overtime.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, closing the folder and tossing it back down onto the coffee table. “I forgot that Tommy and I are just another job for you.” A cynical smile curved her lips.
Max locked gazes with her and took a swig of his beer before responding, “I’m a cop, Kennedy. And, believe it or not, I’m on your side. I thought I proved that much tonight when I saved your life.”
She looked away. “Maybe,” she said, and then took a swig of her own beer. “Maybe.”
He walked over to the La-Z-Boy and dropped his weight into the seat. “I’d say that I was the least of your problems. Wouldn’t you?”
Kennedy took another sip of beer and thought about Keenan, Tommy, her job, her classes, and had to admit she had little room on her list of troubles.
“Have you heard anything more about your partner?” She wanted to change the subject, plus she was genuinely concerned.
He nodded. “Actually, that call was from our Lieutenant. She says he’s awake now and the doctors believe he’s going to pull through.”
That was a load off her shoulders. Kennedy sat on the edge of the leather couch, continued to nurse her beer. “You’re trying to figure me out,” she stated.
“What gave me away?” His lips gave a small hint of a smile.
“Your eyes,” she answered honestly. She could feel herself relaxing under the influence of alcohol.
“Damn,” he said, but didn’t look sorry at all.
She smiled. “Half the time I don’t know whether to take you seriously or not. You have a habit of coming off like a professional comic.”
“Ah.” His smile became disarming. “Let me give you a hint.”
When he leaned forward in his chair, she followed his lead.
“Always take me seriously.”
A strange, yet familiar yearning fluttered in the pit of her stomach, and a sudden haze clouded her head. She frowned, uncertain whether it was the beer or the intriguing man that affected her. She had a sinking feeling that it was the man.
“You want another one?” he asked.
Kennedy looked up, confused. “What?”
“Drink.” He pointed to her empty bottle. “You want another drink?”
She blinked. When had she finished it? “Sure.”
Max got up and went into the kitchen. As he walked away, she took her time assessing him. His gait was confident, graceful, and he didn’t have a bad butt, either.
Her smile widened.
Moments later when he returned, she took in his direct profile. She looked at his shoulders and remembered their comfort. His chest had been rock hard and his abdomen was like a chiseled six-pack.
“You must work out a lot,” she said, accepting the bottle he offered.
Max cocked his head. “Were you checking me out?”
Heat blazed up her neck and scorched her cheeks. “I…uh…”
He nodded, then winked. “Yeah. You were checking me out. How did I score?”
Belatedly, she shrugged and tried to lie convincingly. “Maybe a six.”
“Tough crowd.” He laughed and returned to his seat.
Her embarrassment lingered as she watched him blatantly assess her.
“I think I’ll give you a nine. I’m not so hard to please.”
She took a deep gulp from the uncapped bottle. A low rumble of laughter met her ears.
“It sure doesn’t take much to embarrass you,” he noted.
She shifted.
“What’s the matter? Surely you’ve had plenty of guys tell you that you’re beautiful.”
She shrugged but said nothing.
He cocked his head again. “No?”
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose so?” He shook his head. “Go figure. A beautiful woman who doesn’t know she’s beautiful. Hats off to you. You’re a rare one, Kennedy.”
“Thanks.” She laughed. “I think.”
They fell silent again, but she could still feel his gaze.
“What is it now?”
“Just thinking,” he said.
“About what?”
“About when was the last time I had a woman here—at this time of night—weari
ng my clothes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Only if you’re not offended.”
She laughed, probably a bit too loud. “Oh, you’re good.”
“You think so?”
Kennedy nodded. “Tell me.” She leaned forward and he followed suit. “Is seducing me part of the job—overtime maybe?”
Hurt stabbed his expression, as he answered in a clipped voice, “No.”
She straightened. “It never hurts to ask.”
“Is that right? Okay then, let me ask you something.”
Warning bells chimed in her head. “Shoot.”
“Would you like me to seduce you?”
Chapter 20
Kennedy didn’t respond. In fact, she practically forgot how to breathe as she drowned in the liquid pools of Max’s eyes. Sensations spread through her body, each wondrous in their own right.
“Excuse me?” Had she heard him right?
Max’s eyes never left hers. “I asked if you wanted to be seduced. I’m only asking because you’ve been acting odd ever since you’ve arrived here.”
“I have not,” she denied indignantly.
“No? Who was jumpy when I mentioned being shown to the bedroom? You’ve been blushing excessively, not to mention, gawking at my butt.”
Color drained from her face. How did he know she’d been staring at him? A wave of humiliation wiped out the wondrous sensations. Had she subconsciously given him mixed signals throughout the evening? She looked at the bottle she was holding. Or couldn’t she handle her alcohol?
“I’m sorry,” she said, placing the half-empty bottle on the coffee table. “Maybe it’s time for me to go to bed.”
His gaze finally deserted hers and, for a brief moment, she could have sworn that she’d read disappointment in his eyes.
“Aren’t you going to answer my question?”
His intense gaze returned to her.
Yearning bloomed, confusing her even more. It would be all right to admit a mild attraction, the small voice in her head encouraged. What was the big deal? He was a man and she was a woman.
“It’s a ridiculous question,” she said instead.
“Of course it is.” He winked, and then took another swig of beer.
Unable to shake the feeling of being the butt of some untold joke, Kennedy crossed her arms and asked her own question. “What would you have said if my answer was yes?”
“Race you to the bedroom.” He winked again, his face exploding in a smile.
She laughed, mainly because it seemed like the right thing to do. When she leaned over to retrieve her beer, her gaze returned to the manila folder that held the details of her life.
“Find anything interesting?”
Max followed her gaze. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Oh? Like what?”
He shrugged. “Like, you’ve experienced quite a bit of tragedy for someone your age.”
It was her turn to shrug and rely on a quote her grandmother had often said. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
“No one could accuse you of not being a strong woman. Especially after everything that you’ve been through in the past week.”
Even through the alcohol-induced haze, she knew what he was trying to do. “Yeah. I’ve been harassed by the police and then caught in the middle of a police shoot-out at a baseball game.”
“An interesting spin on events.”
“It’s the way I see them.”
His leveled gaze seemed to evaluate her. “Sure you do.”
She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say any thing further.
“What helped you to cope?”
Kennedy’s gaze fell and a familiar sadness embraced her like an old friend. “My son.” She nodded in remembrance. “He’s all I have left. He’s my will to live, to be the best person I can be. I don’t expect you to understand. You don’t have children.”
When she looked up again, she was surprised to find that Max’s gaze was no longer on her. He seemed to be transfixed by something beyond her. Impulsive, she glanced in that direction, but nothing was there.
“I have a son.” His voice broke.
She was sure that her expression showed her surprise.
The butterfly smile he gave her looked pained. In fact, his entire demeanor had changed.
“I even had the house with the white picket fence, a wife and a dog.” He tilted up his bottle and drained the remaining contents in one long gulp. “So don’t think you’ve cornered the market on pain and loss.”
Kennedy blinked, surprised he’d allowed his mask to crumble before her. As she stared at him, she clearly saw her vulnerability, as well as his strengths, and they both unnerved her.
The alcohol gave her courage to ask, “What happened?”
He remained quiet for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to reply.
“She broke my heart,” he finally responded.
Raw pain dripped from his words and seemed to infect the air. When his gaze returned to hers, it was as if they both stood naked before one another.
“Did you love Lee Carsey?” he asked.
“With all my heart,” she responded without hesitation.
He nodded. “It’s good to have loved, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said in a broken whisper. It was good to have experienced love, she reaffirmed. It was the one thing that could make you glow like the sun and that would allow you to hope, dream and embrace everything that life had to offer. Yet, at the same time, it completely terrified you: terrified you to lay it all on the line with the possibility of coming up empty…like she had.
“I don’t think I could do it again,” she said, numbly.
“Why is that?”
“It takes too much of you. Hurts too much when—”
“When it’s snatched away,” he finished for her.
Their eyes met, plunging them into a deeper level of intimacy.
“What about you?” she asked. “Are you willing to risk it all for love again one day?”
He frowned as he thought about it. “I don’t know. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said no. Better yet, hell no.”
She smiled. “So you’re a romantic?”
He shook his head. “More like an optimist. Who knows, maybe my partner is rubbing off on me. He’s constantly telling me there’s someone for everyone. I think he’s the romantic.”
“An optimistic cop. That sounds like a contradiction to me.”
Max’s deep laugh proved contagious, and helped erase the remaining tension that lay between them.
“You know, our sons are approximately the same age. Little Frankie is five.
“Franklin Dwayne Collier, II. We named him after my grandfather.”
Max’s pride in his son was clear. She draped the extra-large pajama top more securely over her legs as she pulled them from the floor and tucked them beneath her. “You have a good relationship with him?”
“As close as one weekend a month will allow?”
She shook her head and waited for him to return to the subject.
“My wife.” He caught himself. “Make that my ex-wife. She decided that she loved someone else after seven years of marriage.” His gaze trapped hers. “That someone, of course, was my best friend.”
His gaze captured hers.
Sympathy was the last thing he needed, she realized, but she couldn’t keep the emotion from showing in her expression.
“Hell, I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this,” he said, his voice a mixture of wonder and regret.
She thought about it for a moment, and then smiled. “Maybe we’re becoming friends.”
He nodded and smiled, too. “Maybe we are.”
Chapter 21
After their talk, Kennedy lay awake for a long while in Max’s bed, staring up at the ceiling—alone. She had nervously made calls to area hospitals, and then some that weren’t so local to make sure neither Tomm
y nor the Warners had been admitted following the trouble at the ballpark.
When she came up empty, she felt reassured that they were safely on their way, but she wasn’t sure enough about it to sleep.
How easy it would be to walk up to Max and confess the past week’s events. It was what she wanted to do, but something in her gut told her to hold her only bargaining chip for just a little longer—long enough to get Tommy safely out of the line of fire.
As she thought back on their discussion, she was amazed by how much they had in common, yet at the same time how different they were. She shook her head. She wasn’t making any sense.
Closing her eyes, she tried to will herself to sleep, but to no avail. Instead, a pair of rich dark eyes stared at her from behind her lids. She smiled at the kindness and honesty. Slowly, her mind crystallized every detail of Max’s face.
Who could ever have been crazy enough to break that man’s heart? From what she knew of him, he was a strong, caring and funny man. She had a feeling that when he loved someone, he gave his all…expected the same in return.
For some reason, she tried to conjure a picture of what Little Frankie would look like—despite the fact that she had never seen a picture of the boy or his mother. The result, of course, was a tiny replica of Max.
The image thrilled her.
Kennedy’s eyes flew open. What on Earth am I doing? She sat up and glanced around the dark room, assuring herself that no one had seen her smiling and hugging the pillow like some crazed teenager.
It was one thing to be attracted to Max. Heck, she couldn’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t be, but it was something else entirely to be dreaming about the man’s child.
Maybe Wanda was right. All she needed was to get laid. And hadn’t he offered?
Kennedy cradled her face in her hands as she tried desperately to pull her mind out of the gutter. Maybe she had sustained a head injury during the chaos at the stadium. At least that would explain her strange reaction to Maxwell Collier.
If not, it only meant one thing: she was horny.
Grabbing a pillow, she buried her face in it to stifle her scream of frustration.
Max frowned toward the hallway when he heard Kennedy toss and turn during the night. It wasn’t surprising she couldn’t sleep after the day’s harrowing events. After they’d talked, he did feel like he’d come away with a better understanding of her.
All I've Ever Wanted Page 11