by Jillian Hart
“I take it your mom set the bar low when it came to men?”
“Low? If it were any lower, we could have seen the Great Wall of China.”
“Understood.” He saw what she didn’t say. He’d seen it enough as a cop. “Then you’ve probably raised your bar pretty high to compensate.”
“I don’t know. When I find someone who can top it, I’ll let you know.” She blushed, a hint of pink rosying her face.
That was pretty much the answer he was expecting. Chances were, he wouldn’t measure up to that high-set bar. So, why didn’t that stop him from appreciating her amazing beauty? How she could look radiant in a plain pink sweater and simple tan skirt captivated him. Her loveliness couldn’t be found on a magazine’s glossy page or enhanced with any amount of makeup. As striking as she was, her true loveliness shone from the inside, like a pearl’s luster in perfect light.
“How about you?” She turned those stunning violet eyes on him. “Why aren’t you looking for your soul mate?”
“I don’t believe in soul mates. Doesn’t exist.”
“Of course they do.” She looked crestfallen. “Or why else would there be books and movies about it?”
“Hype to part the consumer from their hard-earned dollars.”
“I saw that smirk. You’re not fooling me, buster. Otherwise, why else would people fall in love and get married?”
“Loneliness, mostly.”
“Even you don’t believe that.”
If anyone could make him believe in the concept of soul mates, then it would be her. Yep, that was a change, too. Steam bathed his face as he took a sip of tea. The minty heat scorched his tongue, taking his mind off what was happening to his heart. “Some days I find the idea of true love more unlikely than on others.”
“Are those the days you go out on dates?”
“Funny.” He scanned the room, alert. “No, I keep hoping there’s someone out there for me, but I’m not sure there is.”
“Surely you’ve tried to find out.”
“I did. Once I thought I had found her.” His confession rang low, and he hoped none of his emotions from that time were coming through. He liked to think that was well behind him. “I met Nancy in church.”
“In church?” Her forehead crinkled adorably in disbelief.
“You say that like you’re surprised. I’m a believer.” When she crooked one eyebrow in question, he chuckled. “All right, I believe in God. Just not true love. Anyway, Nancy was one of those innocent types. Pure goodness.”
“You fell in love with her.”
“I fell hard.” He winced, not daring to take a look at the woman by his side. “I fell too hard. I thought she was perfect. My world revolved around that girl.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” She took a sip of her tea. “I can see that about you.”
“Yeah?” That young man didn’t exist anymore. The one who could put all his belief in a woman. In anyone. He had loved with every fiber of his being, with every inch of his life. For all the good it had done him. He’d been stupid. He’d been fooled. He’d been gullible, believing in her goodness, one trait that hadn’t really existed. He could still taste the bitter wound on his tongue and feel it in his soul. “I actually almost asked her to marry me. Hard to believe that, huh?”
“Not in the slightest.” Her tender tone drew his gaze. He fought it, but it did no good. It was as if his spirit turned toward hers, like darkness finding its light. His throat filled right along with his heart. He had never felt so revealed. As if she saw him, the real man he was, the guy behind the tough cop facade and lone-wolf defenses.
Maybe that’s why he found himself opening up. The story he’d done his best to forget through the years tumbled out like rocks rolling down a steep hill. “She said I kept her at a distance. I didn’t let her in. The job was a big part of it. Constant calls. Constant late nights. Problems that I couldn’t let go of at shift’s end. I was nineteen years old, wet behind the ears, just out of the academy and still figuring out my way.”
“What happened?”
“She betrayed me. She broke my heart into bits. Don’t think I ever figured out how to put it back together again.”
“I read somewhere once that pain is God’s way of growing your heart. That when it heals, it’s stronger and better, capable of more love and compassion.”
Yeah, he figured she would believe something like that. She wasn’t just a storybook princess on the outside, but on the inside, too. She gazed up at him with honesty so pure, he lost his breath.
Careful, he thought, you can’t let her get to you like that. Sometimes a man needed to believe in goodness. Sometimes a man saw too much of the bad side of humanity and what people were capable of, and it clung to him like soot. He’d been wrong before. Very wrong. He grimaced, thinking of Nancy. It was his experience that goodness was too fragile to survive long in the real world. That good on this earth wasn’t as strong as evil.
“How did she betray you?” Her question was little more than a whisper.
The reaction within him went off like a bomb. “Nancy was good at pretending to be something she wasn’t.”
“Do you mean, lying?”
“Yep. Not long after we broke up, I came home one night. I was just getting out of my car when I heard footsteps running down the street. It’s residential. Quiet kind of neighborhood, so I think, maybe it’s teenagers out running around before their parents figure it out. So I wasn’t paying any more attention than that. Then I was shot in the back. It was her old boyfriend. You see, when we first started dating, they were broken up, but he didn’t let go. Kept stalking her. A couple buddies and I set him straight, told him to leave her alone.”
“And he came after you?”
“After she went back to him. What she didn’t tell me, was that he was a drug dealer, and she’d had a prior problem with drugs. She hid it well for a while. “He might have thought he was hiding his pain as he shrugged his shoulders, like it was nothing. But he didn’t fool her.
“That had to be devastating.”
“It was rough, but I got through it.”
But not over it. That was easy to see. “At least the man who shot me wasn’t anyone I knew. It wasn’t personal. I always used to think that made it worse, like the world was more unsafe or something, but it’s not true. Betrayal like you went through has to be worse.”
“A bullet is a bullet. Bet you didn’t think we would have that in common.”
“No. I didn’t.” Unspoken understanding passed between them. The helplessness and fear, the fight to recover and heal. It was a difficult journey. She could see how deeply he had been hurt. He may have recovered physically, but emotionally, a person never was the same after something like that. Some emotional wounds would always scar.
“The thing that got to me the most, was that she had this other life separate from me. She was in contact with him. I guess she saw him frequently toward the end. She kept so many secrets. I didn’t see any of it. I thought she was the sweetest woman, and I was wrong. I never want to be that blind again.”
“Or to trust anyone so much?”
“True. That doesn’t mean I’m not tempted now and then.” Dimples chased away the hint of his shadows, making him stronger than ever in her view. “We’re a pair. Both of us distrustful. Can’t find anyone to date.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Uh, need I remind you how we met?” A hint of humor flickered in his perfectly blue eyes. He drained his cup. “I distinctly remember it was one of your date-failure moments.”
“Okay, so it was doom. That doesn’t mean I can’t hold out hope that eventually I will have the perfect date with the absolutely right guy.”
“Hope is risky. It might work out, or you might be disappointed.” Still that smirk and that glint of amusement on his chiseled granite face. “I personally avoid hope of any kind. I’m not a risk-taking guy.”
“I won’t let go of my hope. Nothing can make me. G
od said His purpose was to give us hope.”
“Yes, He did.”
Being this near to him was like being in a gravity vortex. If she was precariously balancing on the edge of a cracking glacier, then he was the gravity ready to grab her feet and pull her down into a ten-thousand-foot free fall. She pushed away from the wall, trying to get distance from him and finished the dregs of tea in her cup. “I have to keep hoping that maybe next time it will be the right guy. The one who will sweep me off my feet and will be my lifelong true love.”
“And carry you off to his castle?”
“Well, after the wedding. Sure. I’m a traditional girl.” She tossed her empty cup into the garbage can, doing her best not seem as if she wasn’t falling down that mountainside. “I suppose you don’t believe in true love, either?”
“No, but I wish you luck finding it.” He strolled over to her, gravity vortex and all. He tossed the cup into the can. “I hope he comes with a fancy castle and a happily-ever-after just for you.”
“I’m not interested in a fancy castle, but I do hope you’re right.” She thought about her past, her turbulent childhood and the endless string of men parading through her mother’s life. She wanted something better. If that were possible. So, why did it feel as if gravity had won, the glacier had crumbled apart and she was falling through midair?
Max is not right for you, Bree. She began to switch off the hot plate for the tea water and the coffee pot, needing something constructive to do. Something real, because she was having an emotional vertigo moment. She’d lost balance, she’d lost perspective, beginning to pine after this amazing man who was wrong for her in every way. Sure, at first glance he had been her dream man come to life. Aside from the fact that he wasn’t interested in her, there were plenty of reasons it couldn’t work.
She grabbed the stack of unused cups and stuffed them back into the box under the cloth-covered table. Reason number one: too cynical. Reason number two: doesn’t believe in true love. Reason number three: being near him is like an emotional free fall. Reason number four: he’s everything I want and everything I’m afraid of all at the same time.
“You never told me how it’s working out with the car situation.” Did he move away? No, he came closer, apparently unaware of the effect he had on her. “Have you received your check yet?”
Her spirit seemed to brighten and lean toward him, another proof of his force-field effect. She stacked up the unused paper napkins, hoping he didn’t notice that her fingers kept fumbling. “It came in yesterday’s mail, but I’m still car-less. Face it. My car wasn’t worth that much, so the check isn’t extravagantly high. What can I get for that kind of money? I need a vehicle that is in good condition, but not a breakdown waiting to happen. What are the chances of finding it?”
“So you haven’t started looking?”
“Oh, I’ve looked. Online mostly. I’m not liking what I see. The right thing will come along, I’m sure of it.” She wrapped up the napkins and slipped the package into the box. “It’s going to take time.”
“Your hope is showing.”
“Yes, I know.” She felt his magnetism; she didn’t have to look up to know he was leaning against the wall again, dangerously close, his gaze zeroed in on her like she was a crime he was trying to solve. Great. He was probably thinking she was a negotiating wimp—and he wouldn’t be wrong. “I’m praying on it, and I’m sure it will work out.”
“Until then you’ve got your bike, right?”
“Right, when I can’t borrow Brandi’s truck.” Could she resist looking at him?
No, of course not. Mostly because she wanted to see the stretch of his smile, the carve of his dimples and the stalwart, solid look of him, the kind of man who did no wrong, a man who faced his responsibilities, who stood tall for what was right.
Okay, she wasn’t just falling for him. She had fallen, hard and fast at terminal velocity. Oops. Why else was she singing his praises? This was a serious disaster in the making. She focused on putting away the paper plates next and concentrating on the task, when all she wanted was to bask in his smile and make him laugh so she could hear the low-throated rumble. Yep, she was in serious trouble.
“If you need car-shopping advice, let me know.” Everything about him shouted “casual” as he jammed his hands into his bomber jacket pockets. His tone, his gestures, his face, it was all impartial, as if he were a cop offering a lost driver directions. “I know a few people.”
“A few people?” She curled her slender fingers around the back of a wooden chair and peered at him, as if trying to see deep inside him. “Who are you, and just who do you know, Detective Decker?”
“People.” He adopted a Jimmy Stewart accent. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Hold on to your heart, Bree. And do it now. If she didn’t, she was going to start making a list of all the ways Max was right for her. That would only lead to total romantic disaster. She might not be the most worldly girl in the world, but she knew that no way was Max offering to help her because he was falling for her. No, this was purely platonic. A gesture of friendship and because he was that kind of a man. He made a difference. He helped others. He did the right thing.
So, why was she nodding? Why couldn’t she hold back the fateful words? “Sure. If you have the time.”
“I do. Great. Give me your cell number.”
She rattled it off, watching as he punched keys on his phone, adding her to his electronic phone book.
Should she do the same? What had become of her phone? She checked both skirt pockets. Empty. Where was her purse? She must have lost all common sense when Max had strolled into the bookstore because she’d obviously left it somewhere. He dominated her view, and it took effort to turn away from him. She was shocked to realize the store was nearly empty. That Marcus and a few other guys were folding up and stacking the chairs, and Lil was wheeling closer with a bag in her lap—her handbag, thank heavens.
“I hate to interrupt.” Lil rolled closer. “It’s always nice to see young people getting acquainted.”
By getting acquainted, Bree knew what Lil meant. She had a mother’s glimmering hope that shone from her like the bold rays around an eclipse. Lil didn’t stop there. “I have to confess I was doing a little detective work on my own. I learned from Marcus—what a nice young man—that you and Bree have been out to pizza together. The things I have to learn second hand.”
“Did Marcus mention that he was there, too?” Max interjected before she could explain, his easygoing manner and charm flawlessly dazzled as he took Lil’s offered hand in his own. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. It’s been a long while since I was in the company of so many lovely ladies.”
“If you’re trying to get on my good side, it’s working.” The older woman dimpled, pleasure chasing away the lines on her face. “I also hear that you’re raising your brother. That kind of commitment to family can be hard to find these days.”
“I don’t think you can call it commitment.” He looked uncomfortable with the praise. He was a modest sort, Bree realized. And that was another thing for her reasons-to-like-Max list that she wasn’t compiling.
Or at least, trying not to.
“Mostly no one else would take Marcus, so I got stuck. Couldn’t help it. It was unavoidable. Now I’ve grown fond of the kid, so it’s hard to get rid of him.”
She was so not fooled. She could see what Max didn’t say, what he was uncomfortable saying. This was a man who had scars, too. Who had learned, just like she had, that it was safer not to let your feelings show. Safer not to let anything or anyone appear to mean too much to you.
“Here’s your bag, sweetie.” Lil handed it over with a smile. “Now, never mind me, you two. I’ve got to track down my daughter. I don’t know where she’s gotten off to. Go back to your talking. Nice to meet you, Max.”
“And you, ma’am.” He nodded once, perhaps a sign of respect, as Lil rolled her wheelchair in the direction of the checkout counter. “I can see why yo
u’ve adopted her.”
“She’s the best.” Her phone was right where it belonged, lost in the bottom of her bag. She handed it over.
“I’ll send you a text sometime tomorrow. I’ll have a bead on a car for you by then.” Max didn’t bat an eye, there was no hint of his emotion as he punched in his phone number. From the thick dark hair swirling over his strong forehead, to his deep-set eyes and the stoic expression and stubbornly set jaw, he simply made a girl want to sigh.
“Are you sure you’re good with this? You’ve played the shining knight a few times now.”
“My armor isn’t shining. Never was. It’s tarnished and dinged, trust me. But I’d like to help you.” Impossible to read the glance of emotion as he pressed the phone into her palm. His touch was callused and a few moments too long, almost as if he didn’t want to move away. “Here comes Marcus. I’d better drag him away. It’s past his curfew.”
“It’s nine o’clock.”
“Yep. I look forward to seeing you again.” Max strolled away, wide shoulders set, back straight, warrior strong.
The pang of emotion in her heart resonated through her, radiating out like waves in a pond as she watched him open the door for his brother. The chimes overhead jingled cheerfully and he stood before the threshold, framed by light. He lifted one hand in a brief wave, his last farewell. Affection deepened his true-blue eyes and zinged through the air between them. Something had changed. Everything had changed.
He strode through the threshold and into the dark, leaving an image in her heart that did not fade.
Chapter Nine
The chimes over the bakery’s front door tinkled a merry welcome as the door flew open, bringing with it blustery wind and tenacious sunshine. Brianna turned from her work at the back counter to greet the new customer. It was Colbie, looking fresh and lovely in an olive-green coat, white cable-knit sweater, jeans and suede boots.