by Laura Moore
“Your loss,” he said with a shrug.
“I’ll be sure to clear my schedule next time.”
“Do that.” His tone was petulant. “So word has it you got yourself a shack in the Hamptons. Great place to party.”
Max tensed. Open Windhaven to Chris Steffen? No way in hell. He’d seen the condition of the suites after one of Chris’s late-night raves. Heavy metal rockers caused less destruction. “I’m having a lot of work done on the place. It’s nowhere near ready yet.”
Chris snorted. “Nobody goes out there now, bro. The place is empty. We’ll come and check out your new digs in the warm weather. Elena loves the vibe at the Sloppy Tuna.”
Max had forgotten how much he hated it when Chris started in with the “bro” crap. “Sounds great. Have fun with the guys and say hi to Elena.”
“Later, bro.” Chris stepped away to round up Andy and Glenn.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Max pulled out his phone and called his assistant, Fred, to arrange a flight from Logan to East Hampton. If he got there early enough, he might catch the elusive Dakota Hale.
“Damn it, I really do not need this now,” Dakota muttered, no longer able to pretend that the funny noise coming from her left front tire was caused by Windhaven’s gravel drive. She pulled over onto the narrow strip of grass, careful to avoid the split rail fence that lined this section of West End Road. On the other side of the fence, gnarled pine trees hid the neighboring properties from curious eyes.
The left front tire was so flat, the rubber pooled blob-like on the asphalt.
“Damn,” she repeated. It was Friday afternoon. During the off-season, the posh, high-octane Hamptons took on a sleepy, small-town mentality, with many of the local businesses closing early. Who knew if anyone would answer at Joe’s Garage, or how long it would take for a mechanic to come out? She was only a quarter of a mile from Max’s, but no brawny carpenters remained back there to lend a hand. Dakota had sent her and Astrid’s crew off and then stayed an extra hour to put everything to rights.
Whom could she call? Rae and Marcos weren’t an option. They were house-hunting in North Sea, an area that lay between Southampton and Water Mill and ended at the shores of Peconic Bay, looking at a cute little ranch that had just had a price decrease. Rae’s promotion and raise had come at the perfect time. Housing prices dipped in the fall, when owners realized their chances of a sweet sale had left on Labor Day with the last Range Rover heading west on Route 27.
Lauren was teaching. Besides, her tire-changing skills were as pathetic as Dakota’s.
The garage it was. With an aggrieved sigh she pulled out her cell. At least she had reception.
She was searching for the number in her contacts when she heard the rumble of an approaching car. The fire-engine-red blot grew larger and then sharpened into low-slung lines and outrageously sexy curves.
She knew that Maserati.
Embarrassment and excitement warred within her as the car slowed and then pulled up so its hood faced the Land Cruiser’s. Its orange hazard lights began flashing. Max climbed out, and her grip on the phone tightened.
His overcoat was open, revealing a dark gray suit, the flash of a red tie, and a stark white shirt. Both he and the Maserati belonged on Park Avenue, Rodeo Drive, or the streets of Milan, where the sleek power of car and driver could be admired.
An empty country lane hardly fit the bill…not that she wasn’t doing enough admiring for a multitude. She glanced down at the phone’s screen.
“Car trouble?”
“Flat.” She gave a jerk of her chin in the direction of the sad-looking tire. “I’m just calling the garage now. I have a client’s dog waiting for his afternoon walk—”
“You got a spare? A jack?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll change the tire.”
“Oh no!” She looked up, certain the horror she felt was stamped on her face. “Really, that’s not necessary.”
“It’s Friday. Rush hour. Even though it’s off-season, the roads are busy. I can have your tire changed before the mechanic arrives.” Shrugging out of his coat and jacket, he slung them over the surfboard resting on her roof.
“Wait! You can’t—”
“Want to bet?”
“Excuse me?”
“Want to bet?” he repeated. “Go ahead, call your garage. I bet I can change your tire and have you back on the road before the tow truck arrives. Tell you what, to sweeten the pot, I’ll pay the garage, win or lose.”
“I—I can’t bet you.”
“Why not?”
She stared, dumbfounded.
“Come on, humor me. I’ve been locked away in a conference room with a bunch of guys. I need something fun to do.”
She shook her head, marveling at his notion of fun. “Fine. I’ll take your bet.” She moved her thumb over the call button. “You ready?”
At his quick grin, she pressed the button and then brought the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. And ring. Finally, the recorded voicemail message came on. On the off chance that someone might be checking it, she gave her name, number, make of car, and location, explained that she needed her tire replaced ASAP, and then hung up.
While she’d been leaving the message, Max had gone to the back of the Toyota and popped the rear door. He’d already found the jack and the lug wrench and had laid them by the front tire. Now she heard heavy scraping noises and then a thud as the spare landed on the road. Then he was rolling it around the car and she bit her lip to keep from sighing aloud. He’d removed his tie and unbuttoned his collar. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to his elbows.
He glanced up as he stopped the tire a couple of feet from the tips of her Uggs and asked, “What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
A woman would have to be blind not to look. “Can’t help it. The Hamptons are known for amazing sights, but this is a rarity. Private equity types aren’t often spotted changing tires, particularly not when dressed in—” She paused and hazarded a guess. “Hugo Boss.”
“Armani, actually.” He dropped to his knees.
With a squeak of alarm she ran to the back of her truck, grabbed a couple of the towels from the stack stored there, and sprinted back to him. He already had the hubcap removed and the lug wrench fitted over a bolt. The man worked fast.
“Here,” she said, dropping them by his crouched form. “We should at least try to save your trousers.”
“Thanks.” Amusement laced his voice. “It’s true, I’ve never worked on a car in office clothes.” He dragged the beach towels so he could use them as a kneeling pad and returned his attention to the wheel.
The white of his shirt was brilliant and the material fine enough to reveal the play of his muscles as he steadily turned the wrench. Her eyes traveled down, taking in the taut line of his butt and quad muscles. Dear Lord.
“So what was your meeting about?” she blurted out.
“Bought a company for five hundred and fifty million.”
“No wonder you needed to do something fun and exciting like change a tire.”
“Yeah.” The smile he flashed over his shoulder was like a blast of warmth in the rapidly cooling afternoon. The first nut loosened, he placed the wrench over the next one and began working those back muscles again.
She cleared her throat. “You, um, seem to know what you’re doing.”
“Changing a tire’s basic. But yeah, I used to spend every weekend working on cars. I’ll never forget my first Mustang—a GT Shelby.”
The heat was back and he wasn’t even looking at her. She cleared her throat. “I think you’re supposed to reserve that tone for encounters of a different kind.”
“Sex, you mean? Not too different from the rush you get handling and working on a classic Mustang.”
“I’ll try to remember that when I need a new hobby.”
He huffed in laughter.
�
�But here I’d pegged you for a Tesla kind of guy, ’cause it’s all about high-tech innovation and the new new thing.”
“Nope. I’m a Detroit boy. I like my cars to roar and my women to moan.”
With nothing but a light breeze blowing, the gasp that escaped her sounded loud. If the brief kiss they’d shared was anything to go by, he probably wasn’t exaggerating or weaving fantasies to compensate for being a dud in the sack.
She glanced at him. A grin creased his cheek.
Oddly, his remark didn’t repel her. With a guiding life principle being to avoid any resemblance to Piper, she was usually turned off by sexual banter, passes, and blatant come-ons. Somehow, though, her set of rules didn’t apply where Max was concerned.
But just because he was different, just because he could make her body flush with awareness, or with a casually provocative line have her envisioning them wrapped together in a garden of earthly delights (specifically this one, scented with pines and sea air), just because maybe—okay, yes, definitely—he might well possess the power to wring moans from her, it didn’t mean she was going to join the ranks of women who’d succumbed to that penetrating blue-gray gaze and gorgeous body.
No siree, her instinct for self-preservation was stronger than that.
Her heart thudding, she told herself to ignore the comment and to stop picturing all the ways he might make her moan.
“So, this working on cars. You did this back in Michigan?”
There was the slightest pause before he replied, “Yeah.”
“How did you get started?”
“My dad. He lived and breathed automobiles. On the weekends he’d hunt the used-car lots for classics, clunkers, anything with four wheels that caught his eye, and then he’d bring them home and rebuild them from the inside out. Even after Dad was promoted to management—he’d started out on the assembly line—and moved us to a house in Mason, where the schools were better for Rosie and me and they had a good youth football program, there was always a car on the blocks in the driveway. I started helping him with them as soon as I could hold a ratchet.”
“That sounds like a great childhood,” she said, barely suppressing the envy that filled her at the mention of a father, a caring and involved one at that. And Max had a sister named Rosie. How lucky he was.
“Yeah, it was.” He must have yanked too hard on the wrench, because the nut he was working on went flying. With a low curse, he shifted to catch it, but it had already bounced out of reach.
She followed it and, picking it up off the pavement, passed it to him, their fingers tangling for a moment. A warm shiver danced through her.
Nothing in his expression revealed that he’d felt anything from that brief contact. With a terse “Thanks,” he returned to loosening the nuts. This time a grim efficiency fueled his movements.
How to account for the quicksilver shift in his mood? Was it caused by talk of his father? Dakota thought of the conversation they’d had at Gen and Alex’s when she’d asked if his parents were the type to cling like burrs. He’d shut down then, too. Despite the affection in his voice when he’d spoken of learning about cars from his father, she had a sinking feeling something wasn’t right with Max and his family.
Her cell rang, interrupting her thoughts. “Hello?”
“This Dakota Hale? It’s Danny from Joe’s Garage. You called about emergency roadside service?”
“Oh, yes.”
She looked at Max. The wheel nuts loosened, he’d positioned the jack and begun cranking it, raising the front end of the car off the road. Hastily she turned away from the sight of his broad shoulders working rhythmically. She didn’t want the garage repair guy to get the wrong idea if her voice went breathless. “Yes, I did. But I’m okay. Someone’s helping me.”
“That’s good, because our guy’s out on a call. There’s an accident on Route 27 outside of Bridgehampton. But come in tomorrow morning, and we’ll get that tire repaired or replaced for you.”
“I will. Is ten o’clock okay? Thanks.” She ended the call and turned around. “Looks like you’ve won the bet. The tow truck is out on another call.”
The car’s front end now suspended, she watched him remove the damaged tire, replace it with the spare, and then lower the jack until the wheel touched the ground. After tightening the lugs, he stood. “Glad I could be of service.”
Picking up the towels and tools, she followed him as he rolled the damaged tire to the back and lifted it into the cargo space. “Thanks,” she said. “And congratulations on winning the bet so impressively. I hope I can return the favor someday.”
He shut the rear door and turned to her. “You can. Teach me how to surf.”
The request came out of left field. “You want to learn how to surf?”
“Yeah. I noticed you always have a board on your roof rack, so I figure you must go out fairly often. I asked Alex for confirmation. He said you’re hard-core. I’d like to have some lessons.”
Teach Max to surf? Not a good idea at all. Surfing was her thing, her special, private way of finding her balance in the world. It was where she forgot about the exhausting dysfunction of her family and the demands of her more trying clients. Some of her friends surfed, but as a rule, she didn’t invite outsiders to share that special time and magical place with her. She definitely didn’t want Max, her too-handsome and too-intriguing employer, out on the ocean with her.
Rattled, she stammered, “I, uh, know some great people who can take you out and show you the basics.”
“I’d like to have you.”
His easy tone didn’t fool her. He wasn’t going to back down.
“All right,” she said, trying hard not to show how very not all right it was. “Once the weather warms up, I’ll take you out.” By the time June rolled around, he’d have forgotten this sudden whim.
“I was thinking tomorrow.”
That startled a laugh out of her. “The water’s cold. And the high for tomorrow is—”
“The forecast is for forty-three degrees. I checked.”
“I go out early in the morning. It’ll be a lot colder than that.”
“I’ve bought a wetsuit. It has an attachable hood if I need the extra warmth. But being from Michigan, I’m used to the cold.”
Michigan, the land of roaring cars, moaning women, car-tinkering fathers, and cold.
“How about a board?” she asked. From the knot in her stomach, she already knew the answer.
He checked his watch. “It should be here in half an hour.”
Should she be surprised that he’d planned everything so meticulously? Not really. During the past few weeks she’d cobbled together a sense of how he operated. This kind of strategic planning must be one of the reasons he was so good at brokering all those deals she’d read about—and the one he’d signed this afternoon. He’d anticipated every angle and every out that she would seize and had blocked them.
Okay, then. Many people thought surfing was wicked cool and that in a few rides they’d be on their way to becoming the next Laird Hamilton. Then they tried their first pop-up, and their second and third…until it was like a GIF: pop up and fly over the board and into the water. And that was as far as the “surfing” ever advanced. It was possible that for all his impressive muscles, Max might be one of those rank kooks.
Clinging to the hope, she decided to be gracious in defeat. “I like to be on the water for the sunrise, but we’ll need the light to do a few drills. Be ready to go at six-thirty.”
Some people might call Max conceited, but he truly couldn’t remember when a woman hadn’t wanted to go out with him. Girls liked him in junior high, passing him notes in the hallway and giggling and batting their eyelashes when he walked by them in the cafeteria. He played football, was cute, and wasn’t a complete tool. Enough said. High school heated things up several notches. Thongs and the wonders of Victoria’s Secret push-up bras replaced notes written in purple sparkly ink. Casual brushes as girls walked by him and “spontaneous”
hugs replaced clusters of girls giggling at a distance. Make-out sessions progressed several plays beyond a taste of cherry-glossed lips.
Senior year he was captain of the football team, which effectively conferred celebrity status in a football-crazed state. His cellphone rang constantly. His popularity drove Rosie nuts. She called them his “dopies.” Shyer than he was, his sister was happiest reading or writing in her journal in a quiet corner of the library or hanging in the art studio with her artsy friends.
Sisters were born to be ignored. He loved shutting her out when she tried to get in his head with her sweet girl wisdom, knowing it infuriated her like nothing else. He’d been such an adolescent prick.
Then the accident happened. Everything changed overnight. Summer was shrouded in a dense fog of grief and guilt. Their house, once filled with laughter and buzzing with activity—school, football practice and games, Rosie’s art and drama classes—was still, suffocating, and silent, save for the weeping behind closed doors.
He could have deferred college, but he needed to escape the sight of his mother and father’s ravaged faces as they sat and stared into the middle distance. He couldn’t bear knowing he’d caused his mother’s heart to shatter, couldn’t live with his father’s relentless, accusing anger. More, he needed to escape that house so he wouldn’t have to walk past the pretty room next to his, with the pink curtains their mom had sewn and the posters of the foreign cities Rosie had dreamed of visiting. He needed to leave so that he could forget what he’d lost.
A hole wasn’t supposed to weigh anything. Unless it was a black hole, and his felt as massive as any measured by astronomers. He carried it around with him wherever he went. For the past sixteen years, he’d been trying to fill that vast space inside him.
It was why he always needed more. Another win, another deal, another thing to lift him up.
When he’d been crouched next to Dakota’s flat tire, working the tools, his hands relearning the motions, his mind had flashed back to that golden halcyon period when his family had been intact. He’d remembered how it had been with his father, the two of them lying on creepers beneath one of his junkers, streaks of grease on their hands and forearms, the smell of oil filling their nostrils as his dad taught him how to replace an oil pump. For a second he’d remembered how it had been when he wasn’t despised.