You Dropped a Blonde on Me

by Dakota Cassidy

  If so, end date.

  And that’ d be damned convenient, wouldn’t it, Maxine? Then you could skip right over the part where you’re supposed to start taking chances and experiencing new things. There isn’t a chance in the world for awkward or anything else if you don’t stick around long enough to find out.

  Maxine placed a hand on his arm, savoring the crisp hairs sprinkled over it. “Can I ask you something? I mean, before this date, or whatever we’re calling it, goes any further.”

  “It’d make me feel all warm on the inside.” He used his index finger to make a circle around his hard belly, evoking a shiver from her she had to fight to keep from becoming visible.

  “Do you think that I only married Finley for his money? Or just because my husband was rich, I was self-absorbed and selfish? You know, the typical ex-trophy wife stigma? That because my life was pretty damned cushy, I was a snob? Do you think because I once had a maid I can’t clean a toilet on my own? I mean, in the interest of honesty and all. And you can tell me the truth. I can take it.”

  Campbell’s pause made her stomach flop. His pensive gaze made her clutch her hands back together again. Shit. It was bound to happen. Everyone else thought simply because she’d married an older man, what she’d really wanted was to sit on her ass surrounded by silk and Dom until he kicked the bucket.

  She’d lived with that for a long time with many of Finley’s colleagues, employees, and friends due to the fact that she’d been so young when she married him. When she’d left him and moved to the village, she’d heard the gossip about her supposed gold digging getting what it deserved. So why wouldn’t Campbell think that, too? She just hadn’t realized how disappointed it would make her to hear it. Maxine winced in preparation.

  But Campbell placed his big hand over her clenched fingers. “Nope. I think you just never went outside your circle. Never stepped outside the box because it was safer inside. But I think now that someone’s stolen your box, you’re seeing they come in lots of different sizes, and you’re looking to find the right one to pack yourself back up in. You’re just trying them on for size.”

  This sounded much like the candy store reference her mother had made earlier. Another thought to make note of. Campbell was very astute and understanding. Either he was a helluva player, or he innately had an understanding many men wouldn’t. “You have no idea what I’d do for a box to call my own.”

  His chuckle was rich. “Oh, I can imagine. Remember, I live with my dad now, too.”

  “But that’s by choice—to help him out. My situation’s much different. I can’t choose to not live in my mother’s box because as broke as I am, my new residence really will be a box instead of just a metaphoric one. You have job skills. I have ex-wife skills. There’s a big difference.” So big.

  He let his hand drop from her now relaxed fingers, twisting his body to lean back against the window. “I dunno. You seem to be using some of those ex-wife skills to your advantage.”

  Really? Campbell’s complimentary words made her preen. Just a little. “Explain that, would you? How does my ability to match the curtains to a couch equate skills that’ll translate to a real job with real money?”

  “You’re pretty good with people. You definitely took on that crowd of skeptical grouches at bingo like a pro. The seniors loved you.”

  “Before or after Mrs. Griswald nailed me in the schnoz?” She rubbed her nose for emphasis, still sore and bruised from the night before.

  His laughter filled the space between them, revealing his perfectly straight teeth, and easing the coil of tension in her belly once more. “You had them in the palm of your hand before that. Now I think they want to form a gang and call Mrs. Griswald out on your behalf with lead pipes and heavy rocks.”

  Maxine cringed. Mrs. Griswald was informed she couldn’t return to bingo for a month as a cooling-off period. “I don’t want them to shun her. Just take away her weapons of mass destruction.”

  “The point here is working with the elderly as well as you do is a marketable skill. You’re really patient, Max. You’re always kind even when I know you want to tear your hair out follicle by follicle because you’ve repeated yourself over and over to Mr. Kowalski when he forgets to put in his hearing aid. You’re more than just a pretty face, Max Henderson. You have plenty going on. You just have to figure out what to do with it in the real world.”

  Yeah. Good thing, too, because her pretty face was rapidly taking a nosedive toward Tampa. Yet, without warning, that was okay. Her shoulders lifted in a sigh that rang forlorn. “I’ve decided I don’t like the real world.”

  “You liked the fake, plastic one you lived in better?”

  Maxine thought before she became excited, and sensed he was teasing her. She decided to take no offense when she replied, “I liked the plastic money to pay the not-so-fake bills.”

  Campbell turned off the ignition and gave the dashboard a slap of his hand. “Well, not so rich anymore girl, why don’t we see if we can take your mind off your troubles for a little while?”

  “With coffee?”

  He slid out of the truck and leaned back in on the steering wheel with another smile. “Nah. Something much better.”

  Maxine gripped the door handle with white knuckles. “But you said we were having coffee.” How did you have coffee in the woods? Just because everyone liked Campbell didn’t mean he wasn’t a rapist—or . . . Oh. God.

  “And we will,” Campbell replied, reaching under the driver’s seat and producing a silver and black thermos. “But not before we do something else. So stop gripping the handle on the door like I’m Charlie Manson and c’mon, Chicken Little.” He shut the door, walking around to her side of the truck, popping the door open.

  Again, as though Campbell knew holding his hand out was offering her the chance to take another step deeper into this mysterious dating pool, he wiggled his fingers at her.

  Maxine gazed up at him, shimmying out onto the hard ground, unable to avoid the brush of their thighs when she clasped his hand. “I just want you to remember, if you have serial killer thoughts about me, I wouldn’t want to be you if my mother gets her hands on you. She does have that big purse that looks like a Samsonite and feels like she has a ton of bricks in it. She’d render you brain dead in twenty flat.”

  Campbell’s free hand chucked her under the chin. “I’ve no doubt she can take me.”

  “Just so we’re clear.”

  “Crystal. Now get it in gear or it’s going to be dark and you’ll miss my most excellent surprise.” With a tug, he was pulling her down a small slope of dirt and fallen leaves and into a clearing with a big shed.

  A shed that could probably house a body—or ten.

  And no one within screaming distance for at least three miles.

  Eek.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Note from Maxine Cambridge to all ex-trophy wives: When approaching your first date in eons of datelessness, do yourself a solid, put a kibosh on the bitter and overly sensitive crap, okay? You’ll never get another date that way, and even if you don’t really want one right now, trust me, your desperate libido will come calling with thunderous fists to knock at your hormonal door. Won’t you be sorry you hung on to your baggage then? Instead, love yourself enough to leave all excess baggage not directly related to your date on your layover in Boise.

  Max clung to Campbell with a giggle of nervous excitement, leaving him feeling ridiculously manly-man. “I’ve never done this before,” she said in his ear.

  “Just keep your arms around me. I promise to keep going slow,” he reassured her over his shoulder, revving the engine again with a twist of his wrist. Her eyes, wide and green, gleamed back from behind the clear plastic visor of her helmet. A lot like the old Max’s once had during a particularly good football game or when she finally understood a concept in chemistry.

  If she knew how often he’d pondered those eyes back in high school, alluring with a smoky hint of amber to them, she’d get off this bike
right now and never look back. It was probably better she didn’t know what he’d thought back in chemistry class at Riverbend High.

  Her perfume wafted to his nostrils when they took another slow turn around the track he’d spent so long perfecting. The delicate press of her breasts against his back, the way she fought not to lean into him when they took a corner, all intrigued him.

  His father had warned him just before he’d left to pick up Max to take things slow. She was in a fragile state of mind, Garner’d said.

  Fragile didn’t quite cover where Max was at, and once more, he found himself doubting whether he should go in guns blazing.

  But what was life without a blazing gun?

  You only went round once. It was a fact that had stared him in the face, vivid and ugly, not too long ago. There’d be no holding back anymore, but after her overreaction to his comment about where she was in her life, Campbell realized maybe he could rein it in for the sake of the long haul.

  Max was skittish, unsure, and clearly very vulnerable. All major no-nos when in pursuit of one’s wildest passion. Realistically, now that he was back on his feet and in the game, he should be looking for grounded and stable.

  Max Henderson had caught him by surprise with her self-deprecating sense of how she thought she appeared, who she really was. She was neither grounded nor stable.

  But he liked.

  Despite all the warning signs, he still wanted in. Maybe it was the challenge she presented because she was at a point in her life when the pieces needed picking back up, and he identified with that. He knew what the end of a marriage felt like. Though his circumstances had been different than Max’s, the end of his marriage to Linda had left him raw and grudging for some time.

  Though that sort of understanding was common among the divorced, it didn’t explain the return of the tightness in his chest each and every time he saw Maxine.

  It didn’t explain the desire to protect her from that asshole Finley by way of fist and bones shattering with a satisfying crunch when he punched the shithead in the mouth for being such a dog. Neither did it explain the peculiar sense of coming home he’d felt when she’d finally placed her hand in his. There’d been trust in that gesture—one he didn’t want to break. One he also didn’t understand.

  What needed doing now was to explore this without scaring her off.

  So, whoa, Barker, he chided when they came to a stop right back where they’d begun. A swing of his leg later and he was helping Max off the back of his dirt bike.

  Her smile from behind the helmet kinked his gut. Max pulled the helmet off, shaking her hair out, the scent of her shampoo, maybe something peachy, drifting on the warm breeze. He liked the new color she’d dyed it. It made her eyes greener, and gave him a little pat on the old ego that she hadn’t dyed it until just now. He allowed himself a little smug and assumed she’d done it in honor of their date.

  “That was pretty great,” Max said on a laugh, which if he wasn’t totally clueless, held a hint of carefree.

  Good. He wanted her to forget she was broke. Forget she was in the middle of a divorce. Forget the worry he saw lining her eyes when she spoke of Connor, and just enjoy. His smile was Cheshire. “Yeah. I think so. Let’s go have that coffee. It should still be warm.” They pushed the bike back to the shed, rolling it in and stacking the helmets. He pulled the door shut, clicking the padlock back in place.

  Campbell’s hand automatically went to her waist to guide her back along the stone-littered path to the very cluster of rocks where he and his high school band buddies used to drink beer they’d snuck from Andy Randall’s dad’s basement fridge. The swell of her hip against his hand, the indentation where it met her waist, gave him an unfamiliar jolt, almost making him stop in his tracks.

  Max swung around and pointed to the smooth rocks under a cluster of pine trees. “Here?” she said with a frown he wasn’t sure held distaste or uncertainty.

  “I know it’s not exactly Tavern on the Green, but I couldn’t convince them to boot a paying customer’s reservation for little old me. Not even when I threw your name around,” he teased.

  Her creamy cheeks flushed a pretty red. Those hands went right back to fidgeting. “I wasn’t—I mean—I—”

  Campbell climbed onto a rock, giving her a tug. “I was joking.” He watched her chest rise and fall, heaving a breath.

  “Sorry. The ridiculously sensitive thing again.” Pulling her legs up to her chin, she wrapped her arms around them in protective mode.

  “Coffee’ll rid you of all sensitivity. Especially mine. It might rid you of your taste buds and put hair on your chest, too.” He splashed the thick, dark liquid into the thermos’s cap, handing it to her before taking a swig.

  Max waved a dismissive hand. “That’s okay. I like it strong, and who couldn’t use a little hair on their chest. It’s just one more place to shave and adds to my list of fun things that happen to your body when you’re pushing forty-one.” And then she was blushing again, putting a hand over her mouth with a grin. “I just don’t know when to can it. As an FYI, when I’m nervous, I ramble.”

  There was something to be said for Max and all this blushing. This time, the crimson crept down along her neck to the prim opening of her shirt, encasing her full breasts. Nice. “Do I make you nervous?” he asked, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. He didn’t feel nervous at all. Just relaxed. At ease. Totally.

  “I guess it’s not you as much as this . . .” She spread her arms.

  “This?”

  “Yes. You know, the dating thing. I haven’t been on one in a long time.”

  “I get it.”

  “I find it strangely curious how much you get.”

  Campbell guarded his next words. Despite all the sharing he hoped she’d do, he wasn’t ready to return the favor yet. “I get what it is to go out on a date after a long cooling-off period.”

  Hypocrite, a voice in his head mumbled.

  The bob of her head was of complete understanding. “I’m not afraid to admit I almost backed out on you. There was a moment or two earlier when I thought me and my mother’s toilet were more likely to have a date than me and you.” She grinned that infectious grin, dimples and all, over the rim of the thermos cup.

  Honesty was always okay by him. “I’m way more fun than a toilet, but I can see how a big, strapping guy like me might intimidate a woman.”

  Increment by increment, Max was relaxing, too. It showed in the way she let her legs unfold, the ease in her tight jaw. A jaw he was fighting hard not to nip. The breeze, humid and cloying, lifted her hair from the nape of her neck, giving him an enticing peek of her moist skin. Laughter, easy and light, trickled to his ears as she let her head fall back on her shoulders and took a deep breath of the humid air.

  Her shy eyes fell to the thermos cup when she put it to her lips, lips Campbell couldn’t take his eyes off. A drop of liquid lingered at the edge of her mouth, and his thumb went automatically to wipe it away, savoring the plump feel of it against his skin.

  It was her sigh, lilting, breathy, that did him in. Cupping the back of her head, he took the thermos’s cup from her trembling fingers and set it aside, pulling her close. When she didn’t resist, neither did he. Forgetting his earlier hesitation, Campbell inhaled her scent, pressing his lips to the shell of her ear.

  Max’s shiver encouraged him to continue, passing his lips in small nibbles over the silken flesh of her throat. Still, she said nothing. She made no loud protests, she didn’t even squirm, but the enticing way she melted into his body left his jeans far too tight, and restraint became an effort.

  The picture she presented, her eyes closed, her hands on his shoulders with a light press of her palms was making him crazy. In an effort to keep from frightening her, Campbell made a quick decision. “Max?”

  “Campbell?” She shuddered as she said his name.

  “I’m going to kiss you. Any objections?”

  How could she object when he
was doing that delicious thing to her neck with his yummy lips? Maxine was no longer at one of her old high school hangouts, but a newfound utopia where Campbell’s lips weren’t just a memory she relived against her pillow every night. She was all Siskel and Ebert two thumbs up for the real thing. “Not at the moment.” That was true. Her earlier fears were slip-sliding away in the sensual path Campbell was taking along her jaw, moving with an agonizing pace toward her mouth.

  “Then prepare for the best kiss of your life,” he said against her lips.

  Maxine heard the teasing tone in his voice, but there was no joking when he placed his mouth on hers, drawing her tighter to him by curling his arm around her waist. A wisp of a moan fluttered from her throat as his tongue slipped along her lower lip, drifting across the flesh with a single stroke.

  Campbell moaned, too, low and husky, when her arms went up around his neck, curling into his thick hair. His lean into her, pushing her downward as his mouth took full possession of hers, left her glad they were sitting down. The very idea that his body, long, hard, and so muscled, could be flush to hers had her almost gasping with anticipation.

  When the moment came, more than a few of her sleeping hormones cried uncle. Nay, they screamed from the endless pleasure Campbell’s body tightly fit to hers brought. The ridge of his cock, hard against her thigh, pulsed, making her want to writhe against it.

  There was no way to prepare for the kind of need he created deep in her belly. The space between her thighs grew wet, achy while his tongue dipped in and out of her mouth. She drew him closer, not quite conscious that his lips had left her mouth and were now traveling down to the pearl buttons of her shirt. Her breasts ached in anticipation of that hot tongue licking her tight nipple when he captured a button between his lips and popped it open, leaving the tops of her breasts exposed underneath her lacy bra.

  Maxine struggled to get closer, to absorb the shivers of delight he gave her when he cupped her ass and drew her leg high around his waist. The clop of her sandal against the rock didn’t distract her at all. Campbell’s hand at her breast, kneading it through her bra, did. A nipple slipped free of its confinement and he took it in his mouth, tugging sharply on it.