Carl let out a low huff.
“And Carl’s exhausted,” he added and got a ghost of a smile from Rory. “If we get rooms, we would get some sleep and hopefully the roads will open up at daylight.”
“Daylight,” she repeated softly, staring out the window. “So we won’t make it home by dawn.”
There was something in her voice. Emotion. Deep emotion. “Better than going back to San Francisco though, right?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Rory? Stay or go?”
She closed her eyes. “Stay.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Do you want to call home? I’m sure there’s a phone in there we can use.”
“It’s too late,” she said softly. “They go to bed early. It’s okay, I’ll call them in the morning. I don’t want to walk up the whole house.”
“Okay. Wait here with Carl for a sec, I’ve gotta go try to bribe them into letting him stay as well, otherwise I’m stuck in the truck.”
“We’re stuck in the truck,” she said, reaching to pet Carl.
We. Shit. He hoped to God he had enough cash on him to bribe whoever was in that motel, because the close quarters inside the truck would kill him long before dawn.
Chapter Seven
MAX DIDN’T WAIT for an answer; he just slid out of the truck and strode purposefully toward the small motel. Rory watched him go, his gait confident, those broad shoulders squared against the wind.
“He never second-guesses himself, does he?” she murmured to Carl, her own shoulders slumping.
Carl, who’d climbed into the driver’s seat the second Max had vacated it, licked her chin.
“He’s also still not thrilled with me, kiss or no,” she said.
Carl whined and sniffed at her bag, probably hungry for another PB&J.
“At least it finally makes sense now, given what I cost him.” She sighed. “I really blew it, Carl.”
He whined again and bumped his face to hers. She hugged him tight, burying her face in the short but soft fur at his neck. “I knew you’d forgive me.”
Back then she’d really believed turning in the video had been a victory. Her first. She’d actually won at something, gotten the upper hand.
But she’d been wrong. It’d been a terribly selfish thing to do, leaving Max to pay the price, and what was worse, she hadn’t even realized it because she’d been blinded by her need for revenge.
She really hated that.
She startled when Max opened the door and wind and snow blew in. “Let’s go,” he said.
“They’ll take Carl?”
“Had to pay double, but yeah.” He grabbed their two bags and tossed her the leash. “You got him?”
For some reason that made her feel slightly better. Though he had good reason to hate her, he didn’t, not if he trusted her with Carl. Maybe he’d finally really hear her apology. “Max?”
He turned to her, impatience on his face. There were snowflakes clinging to his perfectly long, inky black eyelashes, and his jaw was tight.
She bit her lower lip. “I just want to say how sorry I am that—”
“Not now.”
“Then when?”
His laugh was humorless. “Rory, it’s ten fucking degrees and it’s coming down sideways out here. You’re shaking so hard your teeth are going to rattle out of your mouth.”
“I don’t care.” She reached out and grabbed a fistful of his jacket to hold him still. “I’m trying to make everything okay, Max. Don’t you get it? I really need everything to be okay. God, just once in my life, I need that. I can’t live with all this past stuff in my head anymore, I’m going to lose my mind.” She gripped his jacket tighter and put her face in his. “So I’m going to tell you I’m sorry and you’re going to listen to me, dammit!”
He hadn’t so much as blinked as she basically yelled at him but she thought maybe there was the slightest softening in his hard eyes. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay.” She let out a breath and nodded. “Good.”
“You ready to go inside now or do you need to yell at me some more?” he asked.
She choked out a laugh and got out of the truck.
The lobby of the motel consisted of a desk and a love seat that looked like it’d seen better days. So did the paint on the walls and the floors. The wide-screen TV though, that was brand spanking new and the twentysomething guy in front of it waved them through a hallway without taking his eyes off his show. “Last two rooms on the right,” he said, glancing over, his gaze slowing a little as he took in Rory. “They connect if you want them to,” he added slyly.
Rory stumbled but Max caught her and nudged her along without comment.
To their connecting rooms.
She didn’t say a word as they stopped in front of the first door. Max handed her a key and waited until she unlocked it.
“Try to get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll come for you when the roads are open and clear.”
“You kissed me.”
“Yeah.”
“You kissed me like you liked me,” she said.
He just held her gaze as snow flew all around them.
She drew a deep breath. “Max, the girl who made that video, she isn’t the same woman standing here in front of you. You have to know that.”
Max dropped his head and stared at his boots for a beat before meeting her gaze again. “Look, maybe we could go in our rooms and take showers to recover from the snow apocalypse, and then take some time to think things through like rational people. Would that work for you?”
She paused and then nodded.
A very slight bit of humor came into his gaze. “You sure?” he asked. “Because if you want to go back outside in this crazy-ass storm and yell at me on Christmas Eve some more, that works too.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to her door. “The rooms connect.”
“Yes.”
She glanced at him. “You going to knock first?”
He studied her for a long moment and then stepped into her a little bit, enough to make her breathing hitch and her heart skip a beat. His fingers stroked a rogue strand of hair from her temple. “Worried?”
Yes. She was worried that he wouldn’t come over at all.
“Listen,” he said. “Let it all go for tonight, okay? I mean what’s the worst that could happen—you wake up and go back to worrying in the morning? Because maybe life’ll surprise you and everything’ll be fine.”
She gave a rough laugh and he smiled. “It could happen,” he said.
“Not in my world.”
His smile faded. “There’s a first time for everything, Rory. Shut and lock the door. You know where to find me if you need me.”
He said this lightly but she had a feeling he was hoping she wouldn’t need him. Which was fine. She didn’t need anyone, thank you very much. So she did as he said. She shut and locked her door and stared at the small but neat room. She set down her duffle bag and then eyeballed the connecting door to Max’s room.
The walls were thin. She could hear him unlocking his door and then the padding of Carl as he trotted in.
“Stop,” Max said and Rory froze.
“Don’t drool on the windows.”
Rory had to laugh at herself and then imagined Carl at the window, up on his back legs so he could see out into the night.
“You wouldn’t believe the security deposit I had to put down for you,” Max said, tone warning, “and I want it back, every penny.”
There was a thump. Probably Max’s duffle bag hitting the floor. And then the interior door, her connecting door, rattled a tiny bit.
He’d unlocked his connecting door, she realized as her heart took a good solid leap.
He wanted her to be able to get him if she needed him.
“Don’t even think about the bed,” Max said. “I’ve got dibs. I’m taking a quick shower first. Don’t eat anything while I’m gone, you hear me?”
There was a silence and then the
sound of a door shutting and water coming on.
Max in the shower.
A thought that gave Rory a hot flash. The guy went to the gym. He ran. He kicked ass at work. He was all solid, lean muscle, and knowing he was stripping down and stepping into a steamy hot shower had her pulse rate in overdrive.
She tried to remind herself that he didn’t like her very much but she had to admit, his actions toward her didn’t support that theory. He’d given her a ride. He’d looked out for her, finding her an alternate ride when his truck had failed them. He’d gotten her a motel room. He’d been protective, if not exactly the “gentle” that Willa had asked him for, and he’d certainly been kind.
And then there’d been the kiss that had led to a make-out session for the record books. Just thinking about it had her nipples hard again and started that tingle in her thighs.
She liked him, she really liked him.
And she always had.
“Dammit,” she whispered.
Get some sleep, he’d said. But she knew she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
She’d cost him a scholarship.
She’d ruined his life.
No, she wouldn’t sleep. Not until she knew she’d done her best to make things right.
Chapter Eight
MAX STOOD IN the shower, hands flat on the tile wall, his head bent so that the hot water could beat down on him.
My family and I have a rocky relationship. I’ve flaked on them, a lot. I’m . . . undependable. I wanted to change that this year. . .
It pissed him off that Rory’s family didn’t see her for the incredible woman she was. She deserved support from them. Shaking his head, he turned off the water and grabbed a towel.
I’m still not leaving you out here alone in this storm on the side of the road . . .
He still couldn’t believe how amazingly fierce she’d been, standing there in the crazy storm, teeth chattering and still, refusing to leave him alone.
Not the sign of a flaky woman, one who didn’t care about anyone other than herself. In fact, she was the exact opposite of that.
Running the towel over his wet head, he stepped out of the bathroom and heard a sharp gasp.
Definitely not Carl.
Lifting his head, he met Rory’s shocked gaze as it ran down the length of his nude body.
“Um,” she said.
He arched a brow. “Didn’t hear you knock.”
“Um,” she said again but didn’t, he couldn’t help but notice, look away.
He walked to the duffle bag on the floor, squatted low, and rifled through for a clean pair of jeans. Straightening, he pulled them on and turned back to her.
She blinked. “You’re . . . commando.”
“And you found your words again.”
She rolled her eyes so hard he was surprised they didn’t come out of the sockets. “I’m just discombobulated because we didn’t get home,” she said just defensively enough to make him grin.
“And here I thought it was me naked.”
“Fine,” she said, blushing. “Maybe it was a little bit you naked.”
“Yeah, if you could not use ‘little’ and ‘naked’ in the same sentence about me,” he said and smiled when she found a laugh.
“Okay, I want to start over.” She took a deep breath. “I cost you your college education.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Yes, you should have. I still can’t believe I didn’t know.” She shook her head, looking devastated. “No wonder you hated me all this time, and now you’re stuck with me on Christmas Eve and I don’t even have a present to give you in the morning.”
He choked out a low laugh. “I never hated you, Rory.”
A lot crossed her face at that. Hope. Relief. “No?”
“No.” He hesitated, something he rarely did. “Look, if we’re sharing and all that, then there’s some things you should know.”
Her gaze locked on his and held. “Like?”
He sighed. “It’s true that back then I was pissed off. I was angry at the world, actually, and also going out with girls I wouldn’t look twice at now because I was a first-class ass, but I’m glad it all happened the way it did. I wouldn’t change it.”
“You wouldn’t?” she asked, her fingers tightly entwined together, knuckles white.
Shaking his head, he stepped toward her and took her hands in his, gently applying pressure until she loosened her fingers so he could clasp them in his. “I’d have ended up in Michigan,” he said. “It’s fucking cold in Michigan.”
She snorted. “It’s fucking cold here.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not in this room it’s not.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Max—”
“My point is that I love San Francisco,” he said. “I love my job, my place, my friends. My life there is good. Great, actually.”
She let out a long, shaky breath. “Thanks. You didn’t have to say that.”
“Yeah,” he said, letting his hands come up to her arms. “I did.”
She met his gaze, her own honest and earnest and remorseful. “I really am so very sorry. What I did was selfish, and worse, I never even gave a second thought to the mess I left you in. It was all about me trying to get revenge on Cindy, but you got screwed over so much more than she did.”
True. He’d been dumped by his very angry coach, humiliated in front of the entire town, and his family had been shocked and disappointed in him. He hadn’t gotten over it for a damn long time, certainly much longer than anyone cared about the damn video. And he’d been confused too, because he’d liked Rory. She’d been quiet but nice. And funny. He’d never seen her as one of the mean girls. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “What did you mean, you wanted revenge on Cindy?”
She gave him a questioning look. “You knew that she accused me of being the one to break into her dad’s office. She said that she’d seen me do it, that I was the one stealing money from the coaches’ bags, among other things.”
“No,” Max said slowly. “I didn’t know that.”
“When I actually caught her at it, she turned it around on me,” she said softly, her eyes on his. “I was suspended.”
“I knew you’d been suspended for stealing something from the school but I didn’t know what.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t steal anything. And she kept getting me in trouble, one thing after another, making things up so I came off as unreliable in case I tried to turn her in.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d like to say I dumped her for being a bitch but the fact is, I didn’t care what she was like. You should have turned her in regardless.”
She just looked at him.
“Oh.” He let out a low laugh. “Right. You did. You videoed her and got me as well.”