“Mom!”
“Sorry.” She deepened her voice, going for serious. “Goodbye, Thomas.” Shaking her head, she replaced the receiver just in time to see Max coming down the stairs, taking them one at a time. He hurt, she knew. She tried to wish he hadn’t strained himself kissing her senseless after taking that fall, but couldn’t find the selflessness required. Her body still purred and it had only been a kiss. Yeah, and the Grand Canyon was just a hole in the ground. She shivered despite the heat of his kitchen and turned for the stove, giving him relative privacy to limp to the table.
“You get through okay?”
She could hear the strain he tried to hide, then saw it in the lines around his eyes when she turned around to face him. “Yes, thanks. Tom will enjoy having the apartment to himself for a few hours. That translates to scarfing down potato chips in the living room, having the remote all to himself and putting his feet in all the places his size-thirteen shoes are not supposed to be.”
Max remembered Caroline’s son and once again wondered where the boy got his height. “And you’re sure he’s just fourteen?”
She threw him a wry glance. “Fairly certain as I happened to be there when he was born.” She reached for two bowls of salad and set them down on the table. “You have exactly ten different kinds of salad dressing.” Her dimples winked at him. “David told me about the shopping trip from hell. Your mother must have had coupons for every brand in the store.”
“Ranch is fine.” He watched in appreciation as she reached high into his pantry, her fluid movements throwing her breasts into prominence. He arched his brows and told himself to cool down. Hah. “So what’s for dinner?”
“Breaded chicken with potatoes and cold pasta salad. I found the pasta salad in the fridge.”
“Ma made it.” He watched as she tossed the chicken in the batter she’d mixed and set it sizzling in a frying pan on the stove.
“She takes care of you.”
“Yes, when I let her.”
“Tom says the same thing. I guess mothers never stop being mothers.”
Even when their sons break their hearts, Max thought, then banished it away. Ma had forgiven him years ago. He would focus on the future, not the past.
“I saw your home gym in the living room,” Caroline commented, casually. “It’s really nice.”
Max shifted in his chair, controlling the wince. “Thanks, I use it every day. Doctor’s orders.”
“I remember.” She closed her eyes, muttering a curse when the oil popped and blistered her skin.
Max watched her stick her finger under a stream of cold water. “There’s a first-aid kit under the sink,” he remarked. He’d picked up on her distress in the parking lot after she’d told him about being in a lot of hospitals. Now he sensed the same apprehension as she quickly applied a dab of bacterial cream to her burned finger.
“Thanks. That was careless of me.” She threw a jaunty grin over her shoulder that didn’t reach her eyes. “But don’t worry. I won’t sue you.”
“Have a seat, Caroline.”
Her eyes registered surprised apprehension, but she quietly obeyed, taking up her fork, toying with the lettuce in her bowl.
“I want to tell you a story.” He’d made the decision in the split second he saw the fear cloud her eyes even as she’d smiled at him. He wanted her to trust him with the truth. He could think of no better way to earn her trust than to give her the gift first.
Her gaze fixed on the table. “About a boy on a dirt bike?”
He reached out and covered her hand with his own, gently forcing the fork to clatter back into the bowl. “Yes. Look at me, Caroline.” And he waited until she lifted her eyes, and again he thought of the sea. A very turbulent sea. “Five years after the dirt bike birthday, I graduated high school and went off to college on a basketball scholarship.” He’d surprised her, he thought, as her eyes flickered. But she said nothing, so he continued. “Played starting guard for four years at the University of Kentucky.” He thought back to the boy he’d been, the regrets too many to count. “All I ever wanted to do was play basketball. I ate, drank and breathed it. And I was good.”
He stood with some difficulty and walked to the stove and turned her chicken so it wouldn’t burn. “I was very good and very cocky.” Wishing for the cane he’d left upstairs, he moved across the kitchen, one hand on the countertop for support. “You want wine with this?”
She shook her head. “Water will be fine.”
“My father was a farmer and drove a cab at night. We were a good Catholic family. Five mouths to feed.”
“Only five?”
He turned and leaned on the counter, smiling at her wry wit. “There were others, but Ma either miscarried or they died soon after birth. My parents contributed nine souls to the parish in all. Ma was always philosophical about the ones she lost. She has an amazing faith.” And he loved her for that. The realization warmed him even as he set his teeth to continue his story. “Anyway, there were five of us and Pop had to work double to keep us in clothes and shoes.”
“And dirt bikes,” she said softly and he knew she understood how truly momentous that gift had been.
“And dirt bikes. Pop always wanted to be a history teacher, but he never got to go to college. He was determined all of us would go to college and one of us would be the history teacher.”
“He picked you.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t interested. The tug of fame had me and I wasn’t inclined to fight the pull. I loved the limelight, loved the adulation, the applause. I loved to play ball.”
“You were young, Max.”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Caroline,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended. “You weren’t there. You can’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be terse. I knew my dad wanted me to play, but he also wanted me to have a backup … just in case. I thought he was a foolish old man, too unsophisticated to understand the real world, stuck on a farm in Illinois. He didn’t understand the world of fast money, fast cars.” A ghost of a smile mocked. “Shoe deals. None of that mattered to him. He loved his family, though, and he and Ma wanted me to be happy.”
“So you played ball. Sweet sixteen, final four?”
“All four years. We were good.” He shook his head, remembering it all. “We were also stupid. My buddies degreed in cop-out majors, because we weren’t there to study. We were there to play.”
He watched her brows furrow. “But your resume said you majored in history at UK.”
“I did. Made it through by the skin of my teeth. I showed up to class for the tests or if my girlfriend at the time was in the same class. I didn’t care about it. I think that hurt Pop more than if I’d majored in basketweaving instead. To have the opportunity and not use it …” He sighed as he pushed himself away from the counter and placed two glasses of water on the table.
“So I graduated with the highest honor I could think of, MVP of my senior season,” he said, his tone mocking. “Second round draft pick for the Lakers. I was on top of the world.”
“And your father?”
His laugh was without mirth. “Pop was so proud of me, he should have busted with it. He was worried, I could see, but proud just the same. He and Ma just didn’t understand my life.” His voice dripped with sarcasm, all for himself. His jaw went taut. “I moved to LA, took up with a fast crowd. I didn’t make it home that first year, but I sent money. Paid off Pop’s mortgage.”
Caroline sat watching his face darken at that last revelation. Tentative, she tilted her head forward and verbally tiptoed. “So that wasn’t a good thing?”
He glared at her and she could feel the turmoil that churned in his gray eyes, gone harder than steel. “I hurt him. Sending him money when all that mattered to him was me. Paid off his mortgage like it was a big fucking deal. We fought over it. I thought he was ungrateful. He thought I didn’t love him anymore.” His voice wavered and he cleared his throat. “God, that hurt. I never would have hurt my father, but
I did.”
He’d taken his seat again, but his gaze was fixed on a point behind her. She slid her hand under his palm, linking her fingers through his. And said nothing.
“It was David that brought me back. He’d saved his money from a part-time job and flew out to LA.” The lips that had kissed her so thoroughly thinned to a mere line. “Found a pretty major party going on at my place. He was so disappointed in me. I was so pissed at him. Arriving unannounced like that.” Then a glimmer of a smile lit his eyes. “The party broke up soon after he got there. Wasn’t much use in anyone staying once Dave had thrown all the booze out the window. He pretended to be a priest, of all things. Told my so-called friends they’d burn in hell.” A chuckle rumbled deep down. “He should have stayed in LA. He would have had an Oscar by now.”
He glanced over at the stove. “I’d get up to turn that again, but I don’t think I’d make it to the stove without my cane.”
Caroline jumped to her feet, took the food off the stove and set it aside. Maybe she’d have an appetite later. Taking her seat, she nodded. “Go on.”
“So I went home with Dave and made up with Pop. Pop and I came here to Grandma’s to be alone. Away from the others. He cried.” Max stared down at his hands. “I’d never seen my father cry before that day, even when Ma lost the babies. He sat right here at this table and cried. And told me he loved me. That he was proud of me. That was probably the most profound moment of my entire life. And I have that”—he swallowed hard—“as the last thing my father ever said. On our way back home I slid on some ice and drove my car into a tree and down into a ditch.” His hands splayed flat against the table and he flinched when Caroline placed her smaller hands over his.
“And he died.” She could say it for him. At least that much she could do.
“Yes. Thank God it was instantaneous. It would have killed Ma if he’d suffered.” He drew a great breath, then let it out quietly. “There were many days I wished I’d died with him.”
Her heart tightened. “You were hurt in the accident.”
“I was hurt. My back was broken and I was paralyzed. My career was over. My father was dead and my mother was a widow.”
“And you blamed yourself.”
“Oh, absolutely.” He turned his hands over and steepled his fingers with hers before lacing them and holding on. “It was my fault. Even if it wasn’t, it was. Still is.”
“And?”
Max raised his gaze to find her eyes brimming and lifted their joined hands to brush at her lower lashes, sending the tears streaming down her face. “Don’t cry for me, Caroline.”
She shook her head. “I’m not crying for what you are, or even what happened to you. I’m crying for what you felt, laying there in a hospital bed. Alone because you thought you had to be.”
Astonished, for a moment he could only stare. She’d hit the truth squarely on the head, a truth he’d never disclosed to another soul since the night he left his mother without a husband and his brothers and sisters without their father. “Exactly right,” he said slowly. “I was more alone then I’d ever been in my life. And ready to give up.”
Caroline tried to pull her hand free, but he wouldn’t let her go, so she sat and sniffled until he put a napkin in her hand. “But you didn’t give up. What happened?”
“David happened. He wouldn’t let me give up. He pushed and prodded and nagged until I went to rehab just to shut him up. It took a long time just to be able to support my own weight and still I was in a wheelchair.” He took a huge swallow of the water at his elbow. “I decided to finally do what Pop wanted.”
“You went to Harvard and got your Ph.D.” Her tears well under control, she regarded him inquisitively. “How did you get into Harvard if your grades were so bad at UK?”
“Well, I stretched a little there. I never studied, but I managed A’s most of the time. B’s sometimes.”
“And that was by the skin of your teeth?” she asked, faintly amused.
“For me, yes. I used to get straight A’s in high school without lifting a finger. Used to make Ma so mad at me. ‘You’ll never learn any responsibility, Max,’ she’d say.”
“She was wrong.”
“And you’re being kind,” he returned with a smile and watched her eyes smile back. “So, yes I went to Harvard with my resident roomie, David. He went to make sure I did my exercises and all my rehab. Gave up some of the best years of his life to get me walking again.”
“I’d bet he considers it one of his greatest investments. He seems like a remarkable person.”
“He is. He liked you.”
Pleasure filled her eyes. “I’m glad. I’d like to meet the rest of your family someday.”
The merest glint of a grin tilted his lips and some of his sadness drained away. “Then come here on Saturday. All my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews will be here. It’s supposed to be a surprise party.”
“Then how do you know about it?”
“Ma let it slip yesterday. I have to promise to look shocked.” He let his jaw drop and his eyes bug out. “How’s this?”
Her airy laugh filled the room and the pendulum of his emotion swung from melancholy to basic greed in a heartbeat.
“I’d say leave the acting to your brother,” she responded, rising to salvage their dinner, then shrieking her surprise when he pulled her onto his lap.
Startled, Caroline stiffened when panic grabbed at her, but the fear was fleeting, simply melting away when his mobile mouth took charge once again, sending her deep into the heat of him. She lifted her arms around his neck and freely relinquished any thoughts of dinner or tragedies, allowing herself to absorb the wonder of being so desired by such a man. And that he desired her could not be disputed, the evidence currently pulsing against her hip. His tongue traced the seam of her lips and resistance never entered her mind. She hummed her satisfaction as he claimed the interior of her mouth as decisively as he’d seized her lips. He twisted, surrounding her, one arm around her waist and the other firmly grasping her upper arm as he pushed the back of her head against his shoulder and … plundered.
He couldn’t get enough, was the only thought that slipped through the dark haze. He’d explored every inch of her mouth, inside and out, turned her lips plump and pouty and it still wasn’t enough. His hand kneaded the softness of her arm but it was a poor second to the sensation he craved. Her full breasts pressed against his chest, the pebble hardness of her nipples taunting him through the barrier of their clothing. To hold her breasts in his hands had long surpassed mere wanting. It had become a blind compulsion and his fingers dropped her arm of their own accord, splaying across her ribs until his thumb and forefinger bracketed the full underside of one breast. Her quick gasp made him hesitate.
The damned telephone made him stop.
Swearing under his breath he lifted his head, drawing in great gulps of air, feeling as though he’d run a four-minute mile. She struggled in the circle of his arms.
“The phone,” she panted.
“Let the machine pick it up,” he growled.
“I can’t. It might be Tom. He’ll worry.” She struggled again and he opened his arms with a scowl. Testing her balance, she gripped his shoulder with a trembling hand. Stifling a giggle at his glare, she drew a breath and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
Max watched her face light up and felt his disgruntled attitude dissipate. It was hard to be angry when she was so happy.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Hunter …. All right, then. Phoebe.”
Max winced in mild dread as Caroline’s dimples appeared in full relief. She was laughing at him, he thought, eyes narrowing. Revenge would be … sweet. The thought cheered him immensely even as his mother chattered in Caroline’s ear.
“He’s already invited me, but thank you.” Blue eyes danced at his discomfort. “I’m looking forward to meeting the whole Hunter clan.”
Chapter Ten
Hickory, North Carolina
 
; Thursday, March 8
8 P.M.
“Step aside. Sir!” The “sir” was tacked on, more afterthought than any show of respect.
Winters pressed his back against a wall to avoid the oncoming gurney with its accompanying team of trauma medical personnel. A nurse in bloody scrubs brought up the rear, running just behind the gurney holding an IV bag high in the air. The gurney with its entourage disappeared behind double swinging doors. A sobbing woman ran up to the doors wringing her hands.
“Mrs. Daltry, please!” Another nurse wearing a smock covered in teddy bears caught the sobbing woman by the shoulders. “You can’t go in there. You need to let the doctors do their job.”
“Please,” the woman sobbed. “She’s my baby.” She hunched forward, and the nurse put a comforting arm around the woman’s shoulders. “She’ll be so afraid. I don’t want her to be afraid.”
“She’s getting the best possible care,” the nurse soothed. “Let me find you a place to rest. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, just Lindsey. Oh, God, there was so much blood. How can she lose so much blood?”
“Sshh.” The nurse stopped by an uncomfortable-looking chair. “Sit and try to calm down. Is there anyone I can call for you?”
“No, there’s no one.” Dazed, the woman sunk into the chair. “No one,” she whispered.
With a sympathetic look back the nurse walked to the station, then assumed her position behind it. Winters looked both ways before crossing the hall and approaching the nurses’ station. He cleared his throat and the nurse with the teddy-bear smock looked up.
She was in her mid-thirties, her dark brown hair dappled with gray. She’d be pretty enough if she dropped twenty pounds. Her name was Claire Burns and she’d worked in the orthopedic ward at Asheville General for ten years, up until she transferred four years ago. Importantly, she’d been there the same summer as Mary Grace. She was sixth on the list of hospital personnel provided by Randy Livermore, kid hacker extraordinaire. The first five had turned up nothing. He had some high hopes for Nurse Burns.
She was married to a Hickory-based CPA who’d met her at a charity fundraiser five years ago. She’d been working a booth, selling kisses for a dollar. The CPA contributed over a hundred dollars to whatever cause she was working for that day. They’d conducted a long-range relationship and he’d finally popped the question, married her and moved her to Hickory. They wanted to have a baby, but they’d been totally unsuccessful and had applied for adoption. They always kept their lawn mowed and never left their trashcans out on the street after garbage pickup day. She had very, very chatty friends both in Asheville and in Hickory. He doubted she’d be pleased at the information he’d obtained without even trying. Her tweezed brown brows rose in greeting.