The Cora Carmack Box Set

  She said, “Please? I’ll do all the talking, and I’ll end it as fast as I can. I can pay you!” I raised an eyebrow, and she continued, “Okay, I can’t pay you, but I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want.”

  Somehow I had a feeling that she wouldn’t have said that last part to someone who didn’t look “nice and sweet.” Since that part of my brain was currently indisposed, I had a good idea of what I wanted.

  “I’ll do it.” Her whole body relaxed. She smiled, and it was gorgeous. Then I added, “In exchange for a date.”

  She pulled back, and those full red lips puckered in confusion.

  “You want to go on a date with me?”

  “Yes. Do we have a deal?”

  She looked at the clock on the wall, cursed under her breath, and said, “Fine. Deal. Now give me your scarf.” She didn’t even give me a chance to move before she started tugging it off my neck.

  I grinned. “Taking off my clothes already?”

  One side of her mouth quirked upward, and she looked at me in surprise. Then she shook her head and wrapped my scarf around her own neck. It covered up her delicate birds and the smooth, porcelain skin of her chest, broken only by the thin black lines of her tattooed tree. She grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped off some of her bright red lipstick.

  “All my parents know is we met in the library. You’re nice and sweet and wholesome. My parents are crazy conservative, so no jokes about me taking your clothes off. We’ve been dating for a few weeks. Nothing complicated. I haven’t told them anything else, so it should be pretty easy to sell.”

  With practiced hands, she started smudging off some of the dark that lined her eyes. She pulled her hair forward so that it covered the array of piercings in her ears.

  “What about you? What do you do?”

  “I’m an actor.”

  She rolled her eyes. “They’ll hate that as much as they hate me being a musician, but it will have to do.”

  She kept fussing with her makeup and smoothing down her hair, looking around like she wished she had a hat or something to cover it.

  I placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “You look beautiful. Don’t worry.”

  Her expression froze, and she looked up at me like I was speaking Swahili. Then her lips pressed together in something that was almost a smile. I was still touching her shoulder when a woman at the front of the store called out, “Mackenzie! Oh, Mackenzie, honey!”

  Mackenzie.

  She didn’t look like a Mackenzie.

  She took a shuddering breath, and then stood to face the woman I supposed was her mother. I rose with her, and let my arm stretch across her shoulder. She seemed frazzled, which was funny, because up until now confidence was practically running out of her pores like honey.

  I mean, she’d asked a complete stranger to pretend to be her boyfriend. She had seemed fearless. Parents were apparently her Kryptonite.

  I looked at the middle-aged couple approaching us. The man was balding with wire-rimmed glasses, and the woman’s hair was graying at her temples. The hands between them were intertwined, and their outer arms were reaching forward like they expected their daughter to run up for a group hug. She looked like she’d rather run off a cliff.

  I smiled.

  This . . . I could do.

  I gave her shoulder a squeeze, and said, “Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Boo boo bear! Oh, honey, what atrocious thing have you done to your hair? I told you to stop using those dyes out of the box.”

  Mackenzie was biting down on her lip so hard as her mother pulled her forward into a hug that I was surprised she didn’t draw blood. Her father took over, and she had to let go of my hand. I stepped to the side, and reached a hand out to her mother.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Mrs.—”

  The words were already out of my mouth before I realized I had no idea what Mackenzie’s last name was. Hell, I hadn’t even known her name was Mackenzie.

  Her mother took my hand and was looking at me with her head cocked sideways, waiting for me to finish my sentence. I saw Mackenzie wiggle out of her father’s hug next to me, her face full of slowly dawning horror.

  Damn it.

  I put on my best smile and said, “You know, I’ve heard so much about you from Mackenzie that I feel I should just call you Mom.” Then I moved in for a hug.

  4

  Max

  HE WAS HUGGING MY MOTHER.

  A total stranger. I could only handle a few hugs a year from her without feeling smothered, and he was wrapped up in her boa constrictor arms for three, four, five seconds.

  It was still going.

  And it was a full-on hug, not one of those awkward side ones that I gave my dad.

  Jesus Christ, her head was tucked under his chin. His chin!

  The seconds seemed to expand into lifetimes, and his wide eyes caught mine over my mother’s head. From the way my mother was latched on, he was never going to get free. It was like one of those sad stories where a little kid smothers a cat because he hugs it too hard.

  He laughed and patted her on the back. Unlike my laughs around my parents, he managed to pull it off without sounding like he was being held at gunpoint.

  Finally after a nearly TEN-second hug, she released him.

  At ten seconds I would have been hyperventilating. Then again, she probably wouldn’t have let go of me after ten seconds. I’m convinced she thinks if she could just hug me long enough, she’d squeeze all the devil’s influence out of me.

  He stayed there, still in hugging-range, and said, “It’s so wonderful of you both to make this impromptu trip. Mackenzie won’t say it, but she misses you both terribly.”

  I cringed when he called me Mackenzie, and my mother beamed. I didn’t know if her aversion to Max was just because she thought it was a boy’s name or if calling me by a nickname reminded her of Alexandria . . . of Alex.

  She looked at me over his shoulder, and there were tears in her eyes. Fifteen seconds and he had her crying fucking tears of joy. Were my ex-boyfriends really all that bad in comparison to him?

  Okay, so I had made the mistake of introducing them to Jake. He’d insisted on them calling him by his nickname . . . Scissors.

  But that was a low point! And it had mostly been to piss them off. Not all of them had been that bad. My pretend boyfriend turned to my father and said, “Sir, I’m Cade Winston. You’ve raised an amazing daughter.”

  My father shook his hand and said, “Really?”

  REALLY. He said really.

  No, “Thank you” or “I know.” It took him a full five seconds before he smiled . . . like me being amazing was his doing. He said, “It’s nice to meet you, son.”

  They’d already married me off.

  I needed to sit down.

  I didn’t even say anything as I moved toward the table, but my pretend boyfriend, Cade, must have some kind of weird sixth sense. He was at my side in seconds, pulling out my chair for me. My parents stayed standing a few feet away, staring, like they wanted to preserve this picture of us in their memories forever.

  Cade grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together. His skin on mine caused a jolt of electricity to run up my arm. It shocked all of the exasperated thoughts out of my head, and I sat staring at him as my parents stood staring at us. Mom pulled out a handkerchief. Maybe someday I’d be able to look back and laugh at the ridiculousness of this moment. Maybe someday I’d also get on a subway car that didn’t smell like urine. The future had much to look forward to.

  Finally Dad turned to Mom and said, “Let’s get some coffee, Betty. Cade, Mackenzie, we’ll join you in a moment.”

  I waited until my parents were in line, and then I turned on him, barely containing the urge to do physical harm.

  “What the hell was that?”

  His brows furrowed, his head turned to the side, and our hands were still laced together. Why hadn’t I pulled my hand away yet?

  “I was meeting your parents
.”

  I tried to hold on to my anger, but really boys should not have such gorgeous eyes and long lashes. An unfamiliar heat crept up my neck, and I knew I was blushing.

  I was not a blushing kind of girl.

  I ripped gaze away from his face, and then my hand out of his. My voice was shaky and all my anger had fled when I said, “More like ruining my chances of them ever liking one of my actual boyfriends.” It was easier when I wasn’t looking at him. My thoughts became clearer. “I mean, you hugged my mom. Hugs are like crack to that woman.”

  “I’m sorry. You didn’t tell me your last name, so I improvised.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. He had done a pretty good job, and my parents seemed convinced and happy. He was clearly good at this kind of thing. That should have made me less nervous. It didn’t. I still felt like I was going to go into cardiac arrest at any second. “Just . . . don’t hug her again.” Heaven forbid she start expecting me to follow his lead. “I just need to survive this without them getting suspicious. No need to go for the Oscar. And the last name is Miller.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry, Mackenzie.”

  The name grated against my ears. It had been years since someone besides my family called me that, and somehow I hated it even more now. I was almost snarling as I said, “Don’t call me Mackenzie. It’s Max.”

  My anger didn’t faze him at all. He paused for a second, and then smiled. “Max. That fits you much better.”

  Damn him. He had this way of extinguishing my anger that was so beyond frustrating. He put his arm around my chair and turned toward me. My personal bubble popped like a frat boy’s collar. Between the arm on my chair and the one resting on the table in front of me, I felt surrounded by him. His caramel-colored eyes were right there, and the scent of cologne, spicy and sweet, wafted up to my nose. I should have pulled away. I should not have been looking at his eyelashes again. He leaned in, and the stubble on his jaw brushed my cheek. Warning sirens blared in my mind, even as I closed my eyes. He whispered, “Your mom is coming back. I’m sorry. No more hugging, I promise.”

  His lips were still by my ear when my mother returned. He was pretending. He wasn’t putting the moves on me. He was just trying to keep my mom from hearing. That’s all. The warning sirens quieted, but I still felt ill at ease.

  Cade stood and pulled out my mother’s chair for her while my father waited on their drinks. I closed my eyes and tried to sort out the mess of my thoughts.

  Mom asked, “So, Cade, Mackenzie tells me the two of you met at the library.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Cade spoke first.

  “Oh, yes. That’s right. Max”—he shot a quick smile at me—“actually helped me find the book I was looking for. I was looking in the entirely wrong section.”

  Mom’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched. “Is that so? I wasn’t aware she knew her way around a library. When she was younger, we could barely convince her to read anything unless it was one of those lyric sheets that came with a CD. Normal children you can bribe with candy to do their homework. Not our Mackenzie.”

  I ground my teeth to keep from popping off about just who the normal one in our family was. Cade didn’t miss a beat. “Well, it was a book on music composition I needed for my paper, so I got lucky in finding an expert. She was exactly what I needed.” He looked sideways at me, and the arm around my chair moved to my shoulder. “She still is.” This guy had the strangest affect on me. A really small part of me wanted to swoon at that cheesy declaration. Most of me wanted to vomit. Not that it mattered, since this was all pretend.

  It did the trick for Mom though. She aww’ed loudly and forgot about how much she hated my interest in music.

  “Paper?” she asked. “Are you in school?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m getting my master’s from Temple University.”

  Jiminy fucking crickets. What happened to not overdoing it?

  “Master’s degree?” Mother’s face lit up for a moment, and then dimmed. “In music?”

  “No, ma’am. Acting, actually. I was writing a paper on the use of original music in theatre.”

  “Acting? Isn’t that nice.” Mother’s smile stiffened. Finally, something my mother didn’t love about this guy.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s what I love. Though I’m also interested in teaching on the collegiate level.”

  “A professor, how wonderful!”

  I give up. In the war for my parents’ approval, I’d lost to a complete stranger.

  Dad returned with two mugs of coffee, and asked, “What are we chatting about?”

  Mom didn’t give either of us a chance to answer before she exclaimed, “Cade is getting his master’s degree to become a college professor. Isn’t that just fantastic?”

  Mom could qualify for the Olympics in selective hearing.

  “That does sound nice.”

  Cade said, “Thank you, Mr. Miller.”

  Dad paused in blowing on his coffee to say, “Oh please, call me Mick.”

  MICK?

  I had a nightmare like this once. Though, in that one I was naked. I wish I could say knowing it could be worse made things better, but it didn’t. Cade grinned easily, and relaxed back into his chair. He looked so calm, almost like he was enjoying this.

  “Of course, Mick, thank you. So how was your trip?”

  Dad huffed. “Terrible. Airports are the armpits of the universe. They treated your mother and I like we were terrorists, making us take those X-ray things. Probably gave us cancer. I say we get rid of them and go back to train travel. It takes longer, but it sure would be simpler.”

  And so began the crazy.

  Cade said, “You know, I’ve only taken a train once, but I thought it was a really enjoyable experience. I’ll have to try it again sometime.”

  Trains. I kept reminding myself that it could have been worse. If my father had tried to talk trains with Mace he probably would have assumed my dad meant the perverted kind of train. That would have been disastrous.

  “Enough about us. I want to hear more about you. Why has our baby girl been keeping such a nice boy a secret from us?”

  Cade looked at me, and I glared at him. Now I get to talk?

  He laughed, and squeezed my shoulder. His fingers stayed there, distracting me as he spoke. “I can’t speak for Max, but I think we just wanted to keep it between us for a while. Take it slow.”

  And there were the magic words. I didn’t do long relationships, and I’d take things slow when I was dead. Life was too short. I think my three months with Mace was one of my longest relationships, and we were already talking about moving in together. Good thing we hadn’t done that yet.

  My parents hated my tendency to move too fast. By the time they finished their cups of coffee, my parents would probably be begging to trade and have Cade as their child.

  “What about hobbies?” my dad asked. Probably looking for someone to go golfing or play tennis with him. Lord knows none of my previous boyfriends had.

  Cade shrugged. “School takes up most of my time. I also volunteer once a week at ASAP, it’s an after-school program for at-risk youth.”

  Unfuckingbelievable. Mace didn’t know the meaning of “Hey, I don’t want your hand on my ass in public,” and this guy didn’t know the meaning of “Lay off!”

  I leaned over, placed my hand on his thigh, and pinched. His thigh was strapped with muscle, and he didn’t even jump at my pinch. He put his hand over mine, and flattened my palm against his leg. I tried to pull away, but he held it there, his large, warm hand pressed mine into his hard thigh. Now it was me who needed to be pinched because I was looking at my hand on his leg, and thinking too much about the skin that lay beneath the material of his jeans. I’d forgotten why I was upset in the first place.

  I shook my head and smiled at my parents; splitting my lips to show teeth felt like cracking open concrete. “Listen, Mom and Dad, Cade and I really have to get going. I didn’t know you guys were coming or I would have r
earranged my schedule.”

  Dad hefted himself up from the table, and tugged his pants up higher. “Oh, no worries, Pumpkin. We’re staying at a hotel not too far from you in the nicer part of town.”

  Meaning my place was a dump. Which it wasn’t, it was just in Chinatown, and Dad felt uncomfortable when all the signs weren’t in English.

  Mom joined him, “Besides, we’ll see both of you tomorrow for Thanksgiving!”

  “Oh, Mom, I really don’t think Cade can—”

  “Nonsense. I heard him say over the phone that he was free, and I won’t take no for an answer. No more hiding this nice, young man from us. You clearly adore each other, and sooner or later slow becomes an excuse like any other.”

  We did not adore each other.

  My eyes caught on the line of his jaw, but I forced my gaze away.

  We didn’t.

  I didn’t care how handsome this guy was or how warm his hand was on mine.

  “Mom—”

  “Mackenzie Kathleen Miller, don’t you argue with me. Now, Cade.” She fixed her eyes on him, and it was her maniac stare, the one like the picture on my cell phone. “Tell me you’ll see me tomorrow, and then go talk some sense into my daughter.”

  Cade looked at me. I knew what he was going to say, and had no way to stop him, short of tackling him (which was either a very good or a very bad idea).

  “Sure, Mrs. Miller. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Excellent.” She leaned down and placed a kiss on his cheek. “What happened to calling me Mom?”

  5

  Cade

  There was a moment of silence after Max’s parents left that reminded me of those few shocked seconds right before a car crash. Your brain screams at you to step on the breaks, but it takes too long for your body to follow through. It was in those quiet seconds that Max smiled a slow, sinful smile.

  Then slapped me.

  It didn’t hurt. Not really.