The stomp of Mona’s feet on the kitchen floor left Max with her bitter words ringing in her ears.
Suck it up, Princess.
Like it was that simple.
Princess.
Hah.
“So he’s refusing to pay for Connor’s college education?”
Each and every time she heard that, she wanted to punch something. “Yep. If I sign those divorce papers, I’m divorced and Connor’s never going to see the college of his dreams. Not on my income.”
“And if you don’t sign the papers?”
“If I know Finley, this will go on and on until I do what he wants.”
The hard line of Campbell’s jaw tightened. “You’re not going to do what he wants.”
He didn’t question it. He’d clearly already decided she had more of a backbone than she really did. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted truthfully. “Could we talk about something else? This is my problem, not yours.”
“I want to help, Max.”
“Please,” she said, her eyes weary from the argument with her mother and the battle she’d waged all day in her head about what to do next. “Let’s just be together, okay?”
Campbell pulled Max into his embrace, nuzzling her neck, tugging the corners of the flimsy blanket he’d brought tighter around them. “Have it your way, but tomorrow’s a new day, and you’re only putting off the inevitable.”
Her sigh was of relief. “Thank you.”
“You know, truck beds are hard on an old man’s back.” He rubbed his bare flesh for emphasis with the hand that had just driven her insane with lust.
Max giggled, gazing up at the stars in an inky sky. “You should be my ass right now. I think it has ‘Chevy’ branded on it.”
He slid down, nipping at her right ass cheek. “This isn’t a Chevy.”
Her hands went to his shoulders, reveling in the hard muscle with a squeeze. She hissed when he parted her flesh, swiping at her clit with a hot tongue. “Maybe we should get an air mattress.”
“Hmmm,” he moaned, vibrating the most intimate part of her. “Or I could just get my own apartment.”
Max froze beneath him. “You’re leaving the village?”
Acknowledging the obvious panic in her voice, Campbell slid back up along her length. “If I did, we could make love on a real live bed instead of sneaking off to the woods in my truck. I have to laugh at that, you know. Don’t you see the irony in both of us, grown adults, mind you, reduced to sneaking away in a truck to be alone?”
A small piece of this new rock she’d found began to crumble. Max had to force a light tone and keep the clingy tucked away. “But what about Garner?” Yeah. That was good. Use one situation to avoid talking about the real issue.
He palmed the back of her head, kissing the tip of her nose. “Honey, my father’s getting better and better all the time. And we can’t go on like this forever.”
Why not? Why couldn’t everything just stay like it was? Was there a rule that said anything had to change?
What would her day be like if Campbell didn’t pick her up and bring her to the village office for work? What would her day be like if she didn’t fill a thermos with coffee made especially for him? What would it be like if he didn’t bring her favorite sandwich of bologna and cheese with mustard and mayo on it? What would trips to Home Depot to buy supplies for the office be if Campbell wasn’t there to help her choose the best Shop-Vac for the village’s money? What would a morning not wondering if Campbell would like her new perfume be like?
And whoaaaaaaa.
Holy shit. What had happened to the woman who wasn’t ever going to allow her universe to revolve around a man ever again? Yet, here she was doing it—all over again. What would it be like if Campbell wasn’t her every stupid thing, she mocked in her head.
“Talk to me, Max,” Campbell said, his tone taking a serious edge. “I see the wheels spinning. So say it. We promised we’d talk.”
No, no, no. She’d rather die than admit she didn’t want him to leave the cozy world they’d created within the confines of the village. She’d rather have her skin peeled off one layer at a time than turn into a jealous shrew.
Jesus. Not once in her marriage had she ever been jealous until Finley started cheating. Then she’d turned into a suspicious lunatic who was always a mess on the inside.
She was not going back to that place. She would not be that woman again. That woman was ugly and paranoid. “No, you’re right. It would be nice to have some alone time that doesn’t include us getting chapped lips.” Max forced a cheerful tone, but Campbell wasn’t buying it.
“I’d like to think you mean that, honey, but you’re a crappy liar.” Grabbing the bottle of wine they’d purchased on the way to their old high school hangout, he offered her a swig.
Max took it without hesitation, taking a huge gulp and wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. She handed the bottle to Campbell for him to dispose of. Cool air blew across her forehead, sending goose bumps along her arms. Composure. It’d be nice if it happened. Like now.
When all else fails, what are you good at, Maxine Cambridge? Hiding. So stow away your misgivings by shoving them under your blankie and fake it. At all costs, keep your stupid to yourself. Summon up the old beauty queen smile and bullshit your way through.
Giving Campbell a nudge, Max shot him a saucy grin. “I am not a liar, Mr. Barker. Now shut up and let’s get back to what you started.”
Her lips found his, needy, desperate to drown herself in Campbell and forget her never-ending doubts. His arms instantly went around her, placing her on his naked lap.
Max’s hands went to his cock, circling the hard shaft with both hands, running them along the satiny skin. Leaving his lips, she skimmed his chest with her mouth, tasting his heated skin, encompassing a nipple, licking at it until the skin was rigid and tight. She found her way along his abs, kissing each hard rung, luxuriating in the crisp hairs that led a trail to his cock.
Campbell’s hands wound their way into her hair, groaning when she took her first lick of him. It was purposefully slow, lingering along the hot pulse at the base while she cupped his balls. One thrust of her mouth downward, and she stilled, letting the salty taste of his shaft fill her mouth.
His hips bucked upward at a sharp angle, driving between her lips, groaning as she swirled her tongue around him, sucking, licking, driving him to the edge she now knew by just the feel of him.
“Woman,” he muttered with a warning she’d grown familiar with, the mixture of a growl and a husky demand that she stop. Campbell pulled her from him, dragging her upward until she sat on his lap. The crisp hairs on his upper thighs scraped against the backs of hers in delicious friction as she waited for him to slide a condom on.
Campbell’s hands went around her waist, planting her directly on his cock. As she sank downward, he controlled her glide, delaying final contact in increments of hot, slick pleasure. Maxine leaned back a bit, thrusting her breasts upward, bracing her hands on his thighs, rocking to the rhythm he’d created.
Her sigh fell into the wind that was no longer cold when he cupped her breasts, tweaking her nipples to fine points. His mouth closed over one. Hot, greedy, he suckled at her until heat rose and fell between her thighs.
Campbell gasped when she rose up then thrust back downward, lifting her hips, gyrating against him until all she could feel was his mouth on her and his cock, hard and hot between her legs.
There was nothing else but this when he made love to her. Nothing distracted her. Nothing stole all of her senses in one breathtaking fell swoop like when Campbell plunged inside of her.
It was all-consuming, deeper than any experience she’d ever had, and it allowed her to lose herself in nothing but her need for him.
When he slipped a finger between her folds, rubbing her clit, Max came with a heave forward against his chest, burying her hands in his hair, clinging to Campbell while he climaxed, too.
Her head rested on top
of his for support, her shoulders shook from the effort to take air into her lungs. Campbell smoothed her back, warming her now cooling flesh.
Max shivered, but not from the chilling air. From the fear that one day this would all be over and Campbell would never make love to her again. Never smile with her again. Never share a pizza with her again. Never watch Yard Crashers with her again. There were too many nevers involved here.
God.
She wanted to scream her frustration out loud. It was so unfair that she was falling in love yet couldn’t trust how she’d begun to feel about this man. She couldn’t trust that she trusted him because Max Cambridge shouldn’t ever be trusted in the man-picking department.
Oh, Jesus and all twelve. Her mental admission left her panicked, shaky.
No.
It didn’t have to be this way if she could just call up all the horrible things Finley’d done to her. If she could just remember what it was to be thrown out like day-old bread, she might manage to keep her fear of losing him at bay.
How could Campbell have made her forget? How could he possibly erase where she’d been and make it seem as though falling in love with him would be just fine?
It didn’t work like that.
It couldn’t.
“Hey up there. That’s my hair you’re latched on to, honey. I’m pretty proud it’s still my own,” Campbell teased.
“Oh!” Max smoothed his hair back, loving the feel of it between her fingers despite herself. “Sorry. I was lost in the moment.” And she hoped that statement would suffice.
A glance at his watch and Campbell said, “We’ve been lost for four hours. I hate to break this up, but we’d better get back. You have an early meeting tomorrow and I have a Jacuzzi to fix at the pool.” Kissing her chin, he handed her the sweatshirt he’d brought for her.
Max dressed in silence, accepting Campbell’s help when he lifted her from the truck bed and helped her into the cab. The ride back was quiet, though Campbell didn’t look as though he suspected where her silence stemmed from.
He held her hand like he always did whenever they were together, caressing it while they drove. Pulling into her mother’s driveway, he put the car in park and winked at her. “C’mere,” he said, his smile secretive.
She slid across the seat and smiled up at him.
“I have one last thing to say before we say good night. Just because you take me into consideration in your life now does not mean I own you, honey. And don’t run scared because I’m considering getting an apartment, Max. The only thing it changes is that we’ll have more privacy than we know what to do with. All the small things that have become a routine for us are all of the things I think about, too. You’re not alone in that. It makes us a couple, not slaves. Couples do those things, and when they begin as couples, they spend time thinking about each other because the relationship is new.”
But what about when it was old and fraying around the edges? What happened then? What happened when one person stopped thinking about the other all the time? What happened when the other person went off and found the cutest big-canned number they could lay their hands on in their swanky new apartment building?
“It also means you way like me. And who can blame you? I am damned cute. Now give me a kiss, woman, and get some sleep. If we keep behaving like teenagers and keeping these late hours, someone’s shower’s going to end up hooked up to their toilet.”
Turning into his arms, Max scrunched her eyes closed to fend off tears. She could never pinpoint if his uncanny perception of her thoughts was a real thread they shared, or if he was just damned good at pretending he understood her, pretending he cared about what she was so afraid of. Instead of giving in to the waterworks, she gave Campbell a warm kiss, filled with all the things she almost wished she didn’t feel for him. It would make things so much easier when it was over.
“Night, Max,” he said in the tone that always made her fight a girlie sigh.
Calling on her old beauty queen days, she summoned the biggest, toothy smile she could muster. “Night, Campbell,” she returned, hopping from the truck and making a beeline for her mother’s.
Where she’d live while Campbell went off and got an apartment.
And some furniture.
Because all swinging bachelors needed furniture.
“You waiting up for me, old man?” Campbell teased Garner upon his arrival home. “You need a good night’s rest if you’re gonna stop all this slacking you’ve been doing while I do all your dirty work.”
“Hah!” his father guffawed. “I was just catching some of that Craig Ferguson. Sit down and talk to me, son.” Garner slapped the couch with the newspaper he held.
“About?”
“About your girlfriend. You two’ve been pretty hot and heavy for the past few weeks. I haven’t asked questions because I don’t want to pry.”
Campbell raised an eyebrow of skepticism. “You do, too.”
“Okay. I wanna pry, but I like seeing you so happy. Can’t ever recall that smile on your face before Maxine. So, how’s it going?”
His smile was broad, shadowed only by the idea that Max was getting ready to run again. Each bout of her freak-outs had longer periods in between, but she was due—especially after tonight’s conversation.
He knew her fear well now. Saw it in her eyes, tagged it for what it was. If anything in their routine changed, she’d concoct some cockamamie story to explain it. A story that more than likely had to do with him and women with big breasts. She’d missed her calling. She would’ve been an incredible writer. “It’s goin’ pretty good, Dad.”
Garner’s head bobbed in appreciation for his son’s good fortune. “Yep. Means she’s due to pitch another one of those fits pretty soon.”
He barked a laugh. “That she is. It’s uncanny how well you know the female mind.”
A wrinkled hand raised in the air. “Bah. I just know she’s been through a tough time. Max doesn’t trust herself and her instincts yet. She’s fallin’ for ya and she’s afraid she’s wrong about you. I don’t know what she thinks she’s wrong about, but she thinks it all the same. So you ready for it?”
There had to come a time when Max trusted him. Trust took time. He realized that, but if his words and actions weren’t enough, what would be?
Yet now, after spending so many hours filled with just her, he couldn’t imagine ever walking away.
“I’m sure going to try and be ready, Dad.” For now, it was the only answer he had.
Garner patted him on the shoulder with a heavy hand. “Just be sure you make the right decision when that time comes.”
Campbell sat for a long time after his father went to bed. The ominous dread he’d toyed with earlier was returning full force.
Try as he might, he just couldn’t shake it off.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Note from Maxine Henderson to all ex-trophy wives on uber sucking it up: Helmet? Check. Chest plate? Check. Sword of justice? Check. The sad fact is, sometimes the mediation of a divorce turns into a battlefield. They say war is hell. Make sure it doesn’t end up being your own special hell. Fight for your rights. Fight for your children’s rights. Put on your battle gear, ladies. It’s. On.
Len dialed Adam’s phone number with a smile on her face, frowning when his voice mail answered. “Adam? It’s Len. I know we left on—on bad terms, but I owe you an apology. Maybe we could meet, um, for lunch and just talk. Call me.”
Lunch was a big step for her. Public dining. Surely Adam would see she was extending an olive branch?
Yet as the hours passed, and he didn’t return her call, she became less and less like his lover, and more and more like the stalker she’d once accused him of being after calling him a total of twenty times.
That was when she finally saw the big picture. She’d blown it.
Sky high.
As Len stared at her computer screen long into the night, she toyed with the mouse, scrolling the list of Adam Baylors on Google without a
point. Like anything would’ve changed since she’d last searched for him on the Internet. The only contact she had was his cell phone number. Hell, she didn’t even know where he really lived or if he even lived in New Jersey. He’d been the Holiday Inn hottie, and she’d spent a whole lot of time cultivating his role as such, refusing to make small talk, staunchly avoiding any and all personal questions.
And what if she never saw him again? Her stomach lurched. Adam had made it clear, in no uncertain terms, he wanted in on whatever she chose to do about her potential pregnancy, but what if that was all just bullshit and he’d disappeared for good?
The notion didn’t sit right with her, though it was certainly a possibility and would definitely absolve her of any guilty feelings she might incur for treating him so callously.
So why couldn’t she summon up some relief? This was almost how she’d seen the end with Adam. Well, not quite, but it was an end, something she’d planned on since it began.
So what the hell?
Here’s what the hell. You. Blew. It. And now you’re sorry and you want to take it all back.
Boo to the hoo, honey.
“Can I ask you something, kiddo?” Max and Connor sat on her mother’s back porch, side by side in rocking chairs, watching the early-autumn sunset.
“You can always ask.”
Max nudged his shoulder with hers. She’d been thinking about this question for the last two weeks, while she battled her insecurities over Campbell, and she planned her next move with Finley. “I’m serious.”
He grinned while he texted Jordon. “Sure, Mom.”
“Do you think I’m weak?”
“Weak? You mean like do I think you eat enough Wheaties?”
“No. That’s not what I mean at all. I mean, do you think I’m not doing everything I can to get what’s fair for you without creating a bigger gap than already exists between you and your father?”
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