by Loree Lough
So which was it? Did he want his freedom or didn’t he?
It was a question he’d better think about, long and hard, and soon.
She came into the room carrying a pie plate in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. “It’s decaf,” she said, putting them on the end table beside him. She pulled a napkin-wrapped fork out of her pocket, handed it to him.
“Looks terrific,” he said. And it did, too—golden-brown crust, perfectly sliced cinnamony apple wedges. “Thanks.”
She patted his shoulder. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.” And with that, she hurried off.
Her sisters soon joined her, followed by Nadine and her daughter-in-law and Max’s cane-toting mother. A minute passed before Nadine’s son said, “Amazing how much noise women can make, isn’t it?”
Reid laughed. “Much as I hate to admit it, Adam, you make a good point.”
“Why, I didn’t even notice the racket, ’til the racket-eers were gone,” Robert joked.
Nate came over, sat on Max’s knee and pointed tentatively at the pie. “You gonna eat that?”
“No,” he said, sliding the plate toward him. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks, Dad!” On his knees at the coffee table, Nate gobbled a few bites and smacked his lips. “Mmm. Delicious. Lily’s a good cook, too.”
Meaning, Max thought, in addition to her other qualities and talents. And there were plenty, all right. He glanced around the room again, at the faces of the contented, cheerful men whose lives had been made better because they’d chosen the right women. Must be nice, he thought, starting every day knowing there was someone beside them—a partner to share life’s ups and downs, its joy and sadness.
When these guys left for work every morning, each took with him the knowledge that his toil had a purpose, that the responsibility of caring for his loved ones wasn’t a burden, but a pleasure. And when he came home again at night, someone would be waiting, and she’d welcome him home with a warm hug and a warmer kiss.
But he wouldn’t turn on the TV because he’d much rather sit in the kitchen pretending to read the news paper, watching as she puttered, checked the done ness of things, hummed to herself, all while looking pretty in the gold Xs and Os bracelet he’d bought her. And somewhere along the way she’d press her soft hands to his face and smile sweetly, and after another delicious kiss, tell him she’d baked his favorite pie for dessert. And even though it wasn’t really his favorite pie, he’d eat it, because—
Whoa. How had he gotten involved in the scene?
Max checked to make sure he hadn’t drooled. Wouldn’t have surprised him at all to find that he had! You’re losin’ it, pal. He’d better get a grip soon.
He wondered exactly what would happen if he didn’t get a grip. Would he get down on one knee, take Lily’s hand in his, slide a diamond on her finger? Or would he simply tell her, in plain English, that he thought they’d make a perfect pair? Nodding to himself, Max thought, Yeah, that was definitely more his style.
He sat back and stared at the TV screen, where two NFL teams were going at it on the field. At the moment, he couldn’t remember who wore green and yellow and who wore purple, but he sure could identify with the guy who’d fumbled the ball!
Max couldn’t remember feeling more confused. Couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt this addle-brained. What was going on?
Who was he kidding? He knew what was going on. If love could do this to a man, he didn’t know if he wanted any part of it.
Then again, that whole little kitchen scene he’d just dreamed up had been awfully nice….
“What’s your problem?” Robert asked him. “You look kinda green around the gills.”
Max tried to smile. “Ate too much, I guess.”
Robert nodded at the pie plate. “Good thing Nate likes your mama’s pie.” He wrinkled his nose. “I love her more than life itself, but…”
Max shuddered. “I’ve been chokin’ the stuff down since I was a boy. Maybe one of these days I’ll screw up the courage to tell her I’d rather eat raw muskrat.”
The men laughed, each sharing a similar story.
“Why do we do it?” Adam asked. “They’re sure quick enough to find fault.”
“Not Georgia,” Robert said.
“Never heard a word of complaint from Cammi,” Reid agreed.
Lamont shrugged. “Nadine’s pretty good at takin’ it on the chin. If she has a beef, she hasn’t shared it with me.”
They looked at Max. “Well?” Robert said.
He cleared his throat. “Well, what?”
Groaning and laughing, the men shot “cut it out” and “oh brother” his way. “You know what we’re talkin’ about,” Robert said. He extended his hands, palm up, wiggled his fingertips. “Give.”
Give what? Some concocted story that made him part of the group? He wasn’t part of the group! He and Lily were friends.
Max remembered those kisses they’d shared on the front porch earlier. Okay, so they were good friends. That didn’t mean they were a couple, that they’d spent enough time together, alone, to discover one another’s faults, or lack of them.
“Yeah,” Adam said, “give.”
“I—I, uh, well…”
He felt like the stuff between the proverbial rock and the hard place: There sat Lily’s father, looking his grizzly best. Her brother-in-law Reid mirrored the expression. Even his future stepfather sat on the edge of his seat. Max didn’t know whether to be amused or angry, because why did any of them care one way or the other!
“Sorry,” he said, shoulders up and hands out, “we just don’t have that kind of relationship.” For Lamont’s benefit, he quickly added “Yet,” though for the life of him he couldn’t say why.
Before the night was over, he might just find himself in the middle of a “what are your intentions toward my daughter” conversation. And to be honest, Max didn’t think he was ready for that. Didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for that. If he was smart, he’d start looking for reasons Lily wouldn’t be good for his life, instead of compiling a long, unwieldy list of reasons she would. But then, if he was smart, would he be here, feeling uncomfortable because he had no story to tell?
Nate looked up at him, licking the caramel-colored goo that holds apple pie together from his lips. The boy smiled, saying with his expression that he thought his dad was awesome. He could see himself having a couple more kids, just like this one, who’d look up to him that way…
“That pie was great, Dad. Thanks.” Nate got to his feet and picked up the plate and fork. “I’m gonna take this to the kitchen, so Lily won’t have to come back for it.”
Suddenly, the others began collecting china and silver and heading for the kitchen. He only hoped the boy wouldn’t tell Lily he had eaten the pie she’d baked especially for Max, because it might hurt her feelings. He winced. He didn’t want that.
Now everyone gathered in the kitchen.
Everyone but Max, that is.
He sat, slumped in the chair that matched Lamont’s, staring at a commercial geared more to humor than to selling a product. But he wasn’t getting the intended joke. His mind was such a muddle, he wasn’t getting much of anything. Resting his head on the chair’s back cushion, he slapped both hands over his face.
“Not feeling well?”
Lily…
Max opened his eyes, tried a smile on for size. It didn’t fit, but he kept it on, anyway. “Hey. I didn’t hear you come in.” Did his cheeriness sound as phony to her as it did to him? Max hoped not.
“It’s a talent,” she said, perching on the arm of his chair.
He noticed suddenly that she held a dessert plate in one hand, a silver fork in the other. Uh-oh, he thought, it was just as he had feared: Nate spilled the beans.
“I understand Dutch apple isn’t your favorite pie, after all.”
Funny, she didn’t sound hurt.
“Seems a shame to go without dessert.” She leaned across him to put the pl
ate on the end table. “I want you to know,” Lily added, smiling exactly the way he’d pictured her in that daydream a little while ago, “I think it’s sweet, the way you’ve been eating something you don’t like all these years, just to spare your mom’s feelings.” She leaned in again, pressed a kiss to his temple. “Do me a favor?”
He glanced at the plate. Chocolate cake. Looked homemade, too. He’d only picked at his dinner, and Nate had eaten his pie… Max licked his lips and forced himself to meet her eyes. “Favor? Sure. Anything.” This time when he smiled, he meant it.
“Don’t ever do that to me, okay?”
He frowned, shook his head. “I’m not following you.”
“Don’t ever pretend you like something, just to please me. I’d much rather really please you.”
She tilted her head when she said it, flirty-like. And her smile went from sweet to kind of mischievous. Max didn’t quite know what to make of that.
Mmm…so therein lies the rub, he thought. She thought of them as a couple, too. That’s what you get, idiot, for kissing her like you meant it.
But he had meant it, hadn’t he?
“Promise?”
Promise what? Promise he meant it? Or promise not to say he liked pie if he didn’t? By now, he honestly didn’t know for sure, but Max nodded, feeling like one of those back-car-window doggies. “Sure. I promise.”
Earlier, he’d assessed the changes in Lamont, thought that if love could change a man that much, maybe he ought to try it. Maybe you ought to think again, he decided. Because this whole “love” thing was turning him into a bumbling, babbling, half-wit.
“Do you like chocolate cake?”
His gaze darted to the thick wedge beside him. “Well, yeah!” He laughed and grabbed the plate. “Who doesn’t?” His mouth began to water because now he could smell the delicious richness of it.
“You’re not just saying that, to be nice….”
She tilted her head again, and suddenly he didn’t know which sweet treat had started him salivating. “I’ll be honest,” he started, using the fork as a pointer, “I don’t know if I want to jam this whole thing into my mouth at once, or kiss you.”
Lily tipped her head back a bit and laughed. She gave his shoulder a playful shove. “The cake will get stale if you don’t eat it soon, but there’s plenty of time for—” she wiggled her eyebrows “—for the other.” With that, she hopped off the chair arm and walked toward the door.
Max stuffed a forkful of cake into his mouth. “Aw, man,” he said around it. “This is terrific.”
She stopped long enough to say, “Glad you like it.”
“Homemade?”
“Yup. My mama’s recipe.” And she disappeared around the corner.
“Max,” he said to himself, slicing off another bite of the cake, “your boy’s right…the girl can cook.”
And she genuinely enjoyed cooking for him. If he told her how he felt, Lily would reciprocate. Max knew that, as well as he knew his own name. As the fudgy frosting melted on his tongue, he realized he’d better get his head together. It wasn’t fair to Lily to string her along. She deserved the best, only the best. No doubt she’d be good for him, for Nate.
But Max had been on his own a long time, doing things his way, in his own good time. Could he change? Could he open up and welcome her into his world?
Did he want to?
He ate another chunk of cake. Yeah, he did.
Those kisses on the porch echoed in his memory again. She was like no woman he’d ever met. Honest and straightforward, hardworking, with—how had Lamont put it again?—a heart as big as her head.
With a heart like that, she could put up with any nonsense he and Nate might dish out. But what about her? What could he and Nate offer Lily?
That’s what he needed to ask. It was only fair, after all, to force her to peek over the legendary “fence,” see that the grass might not be as green as it seemed, especially considering she’d been looking over there since junior high.
Did he love Lily?
Yeah, big time.
Was he in love with her?
Definitely. No doubt about it.
Enough to spend the rest of his life with her?
The question echoed in his mind, a moment, another…
Enough to spend the rest of my life with her?
That welcome-home kitchen scene he’d conjured earlier flashed in his head—beautiful, loving Lily at the stove, singing a tune under her breath, telling him “I’ve made your favorite.”
Suddenly, the fantasy grew. Two more kids in the kitchen with Nate, laughing, running in circles around a high chair, where a baby squealed with delight, banging a big wooden spoon on the tray. In this version, Lily’s stomach was swollen with child…his child. She wanted to name this one after his dad, if it was a boy. It’s only fair, she was saying, since he’d let her name the last one Rose, for her mom.
It didn’t have to be an illusion. It could be every bit as real as the cake crumbs on the plate in his hands.
Did he want that?
Max stood. Like his son, he’d take the plate to the kitchen, to spare Lily having to come fetch it. He saw her the minute he stepped into the family-crowded, brightly lit room, bent at the waist to wipe cake crumbs from Nate’s mouth. She took the boy’s face in both hands and rubbed her nose against his, then kissed his forehead. And the kid responded by wrapping his arms around her waist.
Yeah, he wanted that. Wanted her, more than anything.
Lessons his dad had taught him rang in Max’s head. A man can’t take his happiness at the expense of others. Do what’s right, even if it hurts. Earn what you want.
That last bit of advice reverberated. Max nodded, realizing that had been the missing puzzle piece. Lily had loved him for what seemed like forever, but what had he done to earn it?
Nothing.
All the more reason to love her, because she’d handed over her heart, and would hand over her life if he asked her to, without so much as a hint of “what’s in it for me?”
Well, there ought to be something in it for her. Had to be something for her.
He’d make a point of spending more time with her, let her get to know the real Max Sheridan—not the one she’d been looking at all these years over that legendary “fence.”
Scary concept, he thought, because what if Lily discovered he wasn’t anything like the Max she’d fantasized about since girlhood?
It was a risk he had to take, for her sake.
And if things worked out as he hoped they would, it was how he’d earn her love.
Chapter Nine
Lily loved spending time with Max and Nate. They’d been together a lot lately. Twice, sometimes three times a week, they’d drop by to watch her feed the animals. Nate warmed to the monkeys, and they to him, so she allowed him to feed them fruit and vegetables. She found herself drawn to Georgia’s Diner, too, and not for the food!
Now, she sat at the counter while Max whistled off-key, flipping burgers as Andy watched over him like a mother hen. Did he like helping out in the diner as his mom recuperated? Or would he rather be back in Chicago, rubbing elbows with rich, powerful clients at the accounting firm?
It wasn’t the first time the questions had come to mind, but things always seemed to prevent her asking them. Things like…did the Windy City remind him of his marriage to Melissa, her suicide?
Lily might have asked him now, if the phone hadn’t rung.
His peaceful expression turned stony and stern when he recognized the caller’s voice. His tense tone told her the conversation wasn’t going well; the abrupt way he hung up meant the news hadn’t been good.
He slapped a hand to the back of his neck and kept his back to her for a moment. She heard his heavy sigh, saw his shoulders sag. “Max,” she said quietly, “what’s wrong?”
He turned slightly, but not enough so that she could see his face. “Nothing.” Then he added, “Everything.”
When he faced her, it
seemed he’d aged ten years, right before her eyes. She wanted to comfort him, to ease his mind. But a hug didn’t seem the medicine he needed right now.
She patted the stool beside her. “C’mere, tell Lily all about it.”
For a second there, it looked like he might decline. But soon he was beside her, both elbows leaning on the red-speckled Formica counter. “I’ve been gone too long,” he said, his voice a gruff whisper. “It’s time to go back.”
Lily’s heart ached, just thinking of him being so far away. But hearing that would only add to his stress, so she laid a hand on his forearm.
“I took a leave of absence when Mom broke her leg. Extended it when she had the operation.” He heaved a deep breath. “Truth is, I’ve stayed far longer than she needed me to. She’s been up and around for weeks, now.”
“Well, maybe she could handle the cash register, but that’s about it.”
Feeble excuse to keep him here? Lily asked herself. Probably, but if feeble was all she had, she’d use it.
“The other partners are demanding a decision. Soon.”
She studied the lines of his strong, masculine profile, and it pained her to see the worry lines beside his mouth, beside his eyes. What had put them there? Dread at the thought of going back…or the thought of staying in Amarillo forever? Lily swallowed hard, terrified of the answer. “How soon?”
He folded his hands on the counter. “They want an answer by the end of the week.”
“Saturday? That’s awfully fast.”
“I wish.” He blew a silent whistle. “End of the business week.” He looked into her eyes. “Tomorrow,” he said, and stared straight ahead.
He may as well have said “The End.” These few months had been the happiest of her life because Max had been a part of them.
Lily wished she knew what he needed to hear, what he needed her to do right now. Telling him to stay for her sake was out of the question, because this was a guy who’d forced down who knows how many slices of Dutch apple pie rather than hurt his mother’s feelings. It would be just like him to quit the firm if she told him the truth—that it would break her heart if he went back to Chicago.