by Jule McBride
As Lo’s eyes adjusted, she discerned hints of the owner’s eccentricities, too—weird diamond-shaped windows on either side of the front door, dark exterior shutters with geometric cutouts, and low-slung, wrought-iron fencing with skinny posts that squiggled. Nature had taken over in a mess of shaggy, jagged hedges and craggy trees that dwarfed the cot tage, and ribbons of riotous weeds curled beside the porch and over a walkway. Rolled newspapers were everywhere.
No wife here, Lo decided. No woman in her right mind would marry the owner of this tumbledown place.
The driver sighed. “Waiting for me to carry you over the threshold?”
Her heart wrenched. Thanks for reminding me of weddings. “Hardly.”
With that, she grabbed her belongings, scooted across the seat and got out. As she slammed the door, she snarled, “And thanks for the ride.”
Then she glanced around as Jack Bronski left her in the dust. Except for the cottage, the suburban neighborhood looked so normal that it broke her heart. Yeah, if only Albert Einstein would rescue her with a time machine. If only she could turn back the clock.…
“And murder Sheldon in cold blood.”
Less than an hour ago, Lo was just one marriage proposal away from her own little house in the suburbs. Now she was a wanted, unwed woman—with nowhere to turn but a stranger’s porch.
It was pitch-dark. Envelopes were crammed into the mail slot in the storm door. When Lo opened the screen, letters and packages that had been trapped between the two doors—everything from preapproved credit cards to coupons—tumbled onto the welcome mat.
Impulsively, Lo lifted the mat—and couldn’t believe her eyes. There was a key and a note from a Realtor. Apparently, Lo’s mystery man, Max, had bought this place but hadn’t yet claimed it. And since he hadn’t, she thought, maybe he wouldn’t show tonight A sudden chill zipped down her spine. But what if something bad has happened tothe man…?
She stared warily from the dark, forbidding windows to the key, then glanced guiltily over her shoulder. Was this breaking and entering? Or just too good to be true?
She had a zillion things to think over. She’d been so sure her missed periods were due to the stressful Dreamy Diapers and Nice Nappies merger that she was a full four months pregnant and totally unprepared. Then there was the matter of the SEC—and proving her innocence. Not to mention revenge.
There was no way she’d let Sheldon get away with this.
Lo stared hard at Max Tremaine’s front door. “It’s just for an hour or so until I map out a plan of attack.”
Feeling decided, she shoved the key into the lock. Then with a swift twist of her wrist, she turned it until a click sounded in the buzzing spring air.
As she pushed the cottage door inward, a droll smile ghosted over her lips. “Hey, Max, honey,” she called in an ironic singsong, “I’m home.”
And then Lo waltzed inside the place as if she owned it.
2
Many Months Later.…
“YOU SURE you’re Max Tremaine?”
Max was—and he was in no mood. Propping an elbow on his army green duffel, he merely grunted from the back seat of the darkened Town Car. When he lifted his eyes and caught his own intense hazel gaze in the rearview mirror, he barely recognized himself—not the tanned skin or tousled, shaggy, sunstreaked hair or stubbly jaw.
Only his khaki bush hat and safari jacket were familiar. He’d been wearing the damn clothes for months. And as soon as he got home, he decided, he’d burn them. When his eyes met the driver’s-a front-seat photo IDed the guy as Jack Bronski—Max finally nodded.
“Yeah, I’m Max.”
The Bronski fellow squinted hard in the rearview. “You’re sure?”
If Bronski kept it up, Max might start to doubt it himself. He fought not to roll his eyes. “Sure I’m sure.”
Then, feeling vaguely guilty, he wondered if Bronski was a fan. Since Max’s stories for the NewYork Times were most often described as “boundlessly creative and exuberantly human,” people sometimes expected Max to be more polite.
Hell, sometimes Max was.
But lately he’d been stuck in yet another tiny, war-torn hellhole. And the place had soured his mood. In fact, maybe his mood had soured five months ago-just after movers had phoned to say that the boxes containing Max’s possessions were in the new digs in Connecticut. He hadn’t even had a chance to unpack before his editor had begged him to cover a Miss Georgia Peach beauty contest. After that, he had returned to his old apartment for all of ten minutes before he found himself on another flight, this time bound for South America.
He’d written a quick story on the plane about a woman named Lo Lambert who’d been involved in a Wall Street scandal, then he’d wound up covering months of mountain skirmishes—until he’d been thankfully beaten within an inch of his life and left for dead. Thankfully, because Max had been so sure he’d be on the next flight back to the good ole U.S. of A. But no such luck. Until his release last night, he’d been poked and prodded in a makeshift border hospital for yet another month, after he’d recovered from his physical injuries. It had taken that long for a doctor to deliver the brilliant diagnosis that Max was suffering from stress.
No joke.
For months, all Max had wanted was to move into his new cottage. Otherwise, there wasn’t a thing wrong with him. And now his editor—overcome with guilt, no doubt—had ordered him to take time off to battle the stress. Trouble was, Max liked stress.
Hell, maybe he even loved it.
Nevertheless, he’d already put his boundless creativity to work by imagining a few diversions. Like finding a hot-blooded American woman who was willing to share his homecoming night.
Then tomorrow, maybe he’d shave and get a haircut.
Or work on his cottage.
And, of course, he still had to track down the subslime who’d been systematically stealing his identity.
Last night, when Max returned to the cantina where he’d been picking up his mail, he’d found urgent notices from countless credit card companies. As near as he could tell, a guy had broken into the Connecticut cottage months ago, rifled through the mail, then written away in Max’s name for preapproved credit cards. The thief was still using them, too.
Even worse, the fellow had probably gassed up and stolen Max’s prized red 1967 Corvette convertible, since there was an Exxon bill. He probably had a heavy girlfriend, too, since there were receipts from women’s wear stores named Extra! and Sixteen Plus.
Max had called the cops last night, but between language barriers and bad connections, he’d gotten nowhere. Besides, the crimes had been going on for months, so Max figured another day wouldn’t matter.
But now he was home and he’d have to face the music—or mess. No doubt the cottage would be overrun with weeds. God, how he loved to travel, though, he suddenly thought. He just dreaded these homecomings. Even under normal circumstances, they were bad—the dark house, the stacks of mail, cruising the Yellow Pages for pizza joints that delivered late.
Pizza.
No, what Max really wanted was a roasted bird with all the trimmings. It was the tail end of June, but homecomings always made him think of Thanksgiving.
And turkey.
His stomach growled. Hell, even if it was Thanksgiving, his folks were in Montana. His kid sister, Suzie, would cook a bird.but then she’d be all kissy-faced with her fiancé, Amis. And that would depress Max further. No, tonight Max was going to be phoning for takeout, then probably showing some cop his empty carport and pointing to a grease spot where his Vette used to be.
Vaguely, Max wondered if the cop might turn out to be a curvy redhead who happened to like double cheese, green peppers and olives. Somehow he doubted it. Cracking his window, he stared into the dark at the trees in full bloom. As usual, he’d been on the road too long and missed another change of season.
“You sure you gave me the right address?” Jack Bronski asked again.
Max glanced toward the windshi
eld. “Yeah, I’m—”
He didn’t finish. His cottage was lit up like Christmas. It looked so inviting that his heart actually skipped a beat. The ever irresponsible Suzie must have been watching the place, just as she’d promised. Maybe she’d even brought him a late dinner.
But no, that sure didn’t seem like Suzie. She always promised to watch his humble abodes—then never showed. Besides, she hadn’t even known he was returning tonight.
When Bronski stopped, Max scrawled his unreadable signature on the car voucher, grabbed his duffel and got out. Cautiously, he went through the wrought-iron gate. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, they turned watchful. Everything looked so right…that it had to be all wrong. His yard was just too perfect, a showcase of suburban know-how-mowed and raked, with a weeded walk and pruned hedges. Squinting, he tried to remember if he even owned a lawn mower.
Then, silently, Max traversed the walkway—his senses on alert, everything intensified. Glancing at the diamond-shaped windows that bracketed each side of the front door, he. realized new louvered shutters covered them. Shoot, he’d wondered how to shade those weird windows. Curtains wouldn’t have worked. He’d asked Suzie, but she’d merely grinned and offered him a can of black spray paint So, who’d bought the shutters?
Suddenly it hit him.
The guy who’d broken into his cottage could still be inside. Had he been here all these months?
No way.
Glancing around, Max considered calling the cops from one of the nearby brick houses. Then he remembered that one of his neighbors, Dotty Jansen, was a cop.
But what if Suzie had kept a promise for once in her life? Calling the police on his own sister probably wasn’t the best way to introduce himself to his new neighbors. If only all the windows weren’t either shuttered or hung with curtains.
Stepping off the sidewalk, Max was suddenly aware of the evening silence. Twigs and summer-dry grass snapped beneath his boot heels as he crept around back to the kitchen’s Dutch door. The upper half was glass, so maybe he could see inside.
No dice. The window was hung with tasteful gray beads. Not bad looking, Max decided, but he’d never seen them before. The window dressing wasn’t to Suzie’s taste, either, which probably ran to old bed sheets. At least, he realized with relief, his candyapple red car was sweetly tucked into the carport.
Ditching his duffel on the back porch, he glanced around again. Was the guy really inside? Quietly opening the screen door, Max gingerly tried the storm door’s knob.
“Locked,” he muttered. Bracing his shoulder hard against the wood, he got ready to shove his way through if the other guy resisted. Then Max lifted his fist and pounded.
After that, everything happened in a flash.
The door swung open and Max fell through it, into the air-conditioned kitchen. While he struggled to regain his balance, he suddenly noticed the knife. It was long and sharp, its gleaming silver tip pointed straight at his heart. Pretty, well-shaped fingers with red-painted nails curled tightly around the handle, making a vision of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction shoot through Max’s mind. The next thing he knew, he was being assaulted—but by the heady scents of bacon and basil. Not to mention turkey and dressing and freshly baked bread—all of which smelled so heavenly that Max wanted to drool.
Instead, he held on to common sense—and kept his gaze glued to that knife. Ever so slowly, the glinting blade lowered. Keeping his body steeled for fight or flight, Max let his eyes follow the blade’s descending arc—until he found himself staring at a woman’s stomach. And then he inhaled sharply.
Because it was a very pregnant woman’s stomach.
She’s as big as a house, he thought indignantly. Then a wave of brotherly affection made him feel murderous. Oh, Suzie, I’ll kill Amis for you. I swear I will.
Forgetting the knife entirely, Max stared up at his sister’s face. But it wasn’t Suzie! And in his whole life, Max had never been more glad he wasn’t related to a woman.
Whoever she was, she was an angel.
A redhead; too. And Max had a real soft spot for redheads. Beneath her kelly green maternity jumper, the top buttons of a crisp white blouse were unfastened, making Max imagine the golden fleck-like freckles that probably covered the milky skin of her ample chest.
But Lord, was she humongous. Definitely larger than a size sixteen, at least around the middle. One more second and Max was sure he’d have to redecorate his kitchen.as a stainless steel maternity ward. He was imagining himself delivering a kid on the dining table when he realized it was set for dinner.
For two.
And Max sure was hungry.
Well, maybe he wasn’t in mortal danger. His eyes swept over the lace tablecloth, china and sterling silverware his mother had given him. When he registered that a radio on the counter was tuned to seductive instrumental music, the room slid strangely off kilter.
Emotions warred within him. First, he wondered how the woman had known he was craving turkey. Then, still smelling the roasting bird, his stomach growled loudly and he salivated like one of Pavlov’s dogs. After that, he felt vaguely queasy, since nothing more than that flash fantasy about delivering the stranger’s baby made him faint. And then there was the woman.
Just one look and Max couldn’t care less that she might be robbing him blind. But he had to get a grip. She was in his house, cooking up a feast as if she owned the joint.
Max realized he still hadn’t moved a muscle, unless raising his eyebrows in the direction of her belly counted. Nor had the woman so much as cleared her criminal throat. Telling himself he’d better take control of the situation, Max lifted his eyes to her face again—only to find himself drowning in the sweetest green-eyed gaze on the planet. His mouth, which had been watering for turkey, now watered for her.
Yeah, he definitely wanted to give this delectably curvy crook every possible chance. So, rather than light right into her, he very calmly crossed his arms and waited for her to explain just what exactly she was doing in his kitchen.
She stared back sternly, as if he’d done something wrong.
A guy had to admire her spunk. Watching how her luscious red-lipsticked lips pursed like a schoolmarm’s, Max felt suddenly edgy. With every ounce of his wild, crazy, adventurer’s soul, he wanted to kiss her—whether she was a stranger or not. He could actually feel how those pursed lips would turn pliant and moist and…
You’ve been out of the country too long. Still, Max hadn’t met a single Hot Lips Houlihan in that damn South American hospital. And shoot, as sweet as this lady looked, just how dangerous could she be?
Wait a minute. Max frowned. Where was the guy he’d expected to find? Max glanced past her, scanning the terrain for a malevolent male presence.
Nobody.
When his gaze returned to hers, she merely licked those velvety soft, enticingly bee-stung lips, clearly oblivious to what the gesture did to him. “Look,” he began, “I’m—”
“Late!”
Max’s ears were still straining toward her voice-it was dangerously deep and throatily seductive-when he fully registered what she’d said. He was so taken aback that his response was barely a whisper. “Late?”
Her head bobbed up and down. And then, as if recovering from her own rudeness, she quickly dusted her knife-free hand against her jumper and thrust it out. “Hi there! I’m Max.”
Max—the real Max—made his living by manipulating words for the New York Times. But in one fell swoop, this woman had stripped him of all intelligent vocabulary. Finding his voice, he muttered, “You’re Max?”
When she leaned further forward and grabbed his hand, her shake was extremely dignified and firm. “Maxine Tremaine,” she clarified, lowering her voice conspiratorially, as if to say she certainly understood his confusion. “But everybody just calls me Max.”
Max found his mental dictionary and riffled through the pages. Still, all he could come up with was, “Everybody?”
“Neighbors, friends…you know.”
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No, he didn’t know.
But he sure meant to find out. He watched in morbid fascination as—knife still in hand—the stranger spun on her heel and charged back toward his kitchen sink as if she were a warrior riding into battle, sword held high. Did she really expect him to follow?
He wasn’t sure which he felt more—furious or intrigued. He knew he should grab the nearby wall phone and call the cops, but he kept his eyes on her back, lifted his duffel from the porch, then stepped inside his kitchen again and shut the door.
She shot him such a sweet glance over her shoulder that he was sure she’d get cavities. “I know it’s June,” she said, sighing, “but I always love turkey and dressing.”
Me, too.
“I’ll be done in just a sec,” she added.
It took everything he had, but he somehow kept any trace of irony from his tone. “No problem.”
As he watched her pull a cutting board from a cabinet and begin rinsing and dicing radishes, vague discomfort stirred inside him. Obviously, she was well acquainted with his cottage—better acquainted than he was, in fact
“Go ahead and put down your bag.” She glanced over her shoulder and nodded, making her silky, touchable dark red hair swirl around her face. “I just want to finish our salads.”
Our salads? When the heady aroma of bacon assaulted him again, Max instinctively put down his duffel. Stomach grumbling, he decided he’d rather talk to the police after he’d eaten.
Unless the woman intended to poison him. Well, he just wouldn’t eat anything she didn’t sample first. Had his editor informed Suzie of his return? Max suddenly wondered. Was this one of Suzie’s friends—someone who assumed she was expected? Maybe she’d introduced herself as Max Tremaine as a joke.…
“You’re a friend of Suzie’s, right?”
She quit dicing the radishes. “Suzie?”