Trading her pleasant condominium in Atlanta for this place had been an impulsive decision. Her father had criticized her for putting whimsy ahead of logic, and her mother had given her a “That’s nice, dear” in between social events. Typical. She never counted on them for support.
Betty tugged the blanket up to her nose and frowned in drowsy thought. She had learned to take care of herself at an early age. She’d survived some tough times. Max Templeton was in for a shock if he thought she was a pushover.
She tried to force him out of her mind even as the memory of his hot, skilled mouth made her stomach drop. She didn’t want to dream about his kiss, or the way his arms had felt around her, or the dark, dashing figure he had cut in his black outfit.
She’d always pictured marines as being stern, straitlaced, and humorless. How could cheerfully lecherous Max Templeton be the man who, according to Grace, had gone to Vietnam as a sergeant but come back a first lieutenant, having won a battlefield commission for saving his platoon during an ambush?
Recalling his cool, lethal power as he’d dragged her from the cave, she knew there was more to him than she’d imagined. Betty frowned sleepily. She’d imagined a great deal. There was too much to him, too much that was tempting.
She’d just begun to doze when her ears caught the sound of a vehicle coming up the narrow gravel road. Betty climbed from bed and ran to the window. A silver half-moon showed the rock-spewing arrival of a Jeep traveling too fast. It roared down her drive between an old meadow on one side and forest on the other, then slid to a stop a few feet from the overgrown nandinas at the edge of the front walk.
Betty watched in consternation as a tall dim figure vaulted from the Jeep and strode toward her front porch. By the time she threw a heavy robe over her pajamas and ran down the staircase, the visitor was knocking loudly on the front odor.
She switched the porch light on and pulled back the white blanket that covered a window near the door. Max Templeton. Of course.
Three
He was dressed in hiking boots, loose tan trousers, and a woolen poncho of bright yellow, white, and red.
Betty opened the door wearily and frowned up at him. “Don’t tell me. You’re testing a Mexican-bandit theme for the wedding parlor. Nice serape you’ve got there.”
He ran a hand over his ruffled brown hair and gave her a grim look in return. His face had its share of mature lines and creases, emphasized now by his tense expression. There was nothing playful about him. “The sheriff is looking for three men who just robbed Ralph’s.”
“Ralph’s? The all-night convenience store up at the intersection?”
“Yes. A deputy was on patrol nearby and he chased their car this way. It ran off the road a few yards to the south of your driveway, and the three of them headed into the woods.”
Betty pulled the soft-blue lapels of her robe closer over her throat. “And they haven’t been caught yet?”
“No.”
“How did you—”
“I was playing cards with the night dispatcher at the sheriffs office when the call came in.” He glanced down the porch at the tall living room windows that until recently had been boarded over. “You need new windows with better locks. These things are flimsy.”
“I know that. I’m having them replaced.”
“I’ll be right back.” He walked to the Jeep, pulled something large and bulky out of the front passenger seat, and carried it back to the porch. It was a sleeping bag. “Got a couch?”
“Wait a minute—”
“Don’t tell me to go home. I’ll just sleep on the porch and make you feel guilty. Let me come in. It’s windy out here.”
“How do I know that you aren’t making this little drama up?”
A wicked, melodramatic laugh rolled from his throat. “I have more subtle ways of luring unsuspecting women into my clutches. If you want to confirm my story, call the sheriffs office.”
“All right. I will.” She continued to block the doorway, her defenses on alert against the teasing smile. But his eyes looked tired, and his attitude was ruffled, like his hair. He seemed harried, not devious. “Come in.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you.”
While he locked the front door, she went to a phone perched on a stack of cookbooks on a heavy rosewood table, practically the only furnishing in the downstairs rooms. She switched on a lamp and called the sheriffs office, where someone named Ray Jay told her that, yes, three armed men had robbed the convenience store and were being hunted near her property.
“Is Max Templeton there yet?” Ray Jay asked.
“Uhmmm, yes.”
“I’ll call if we get more information.”
“Thank you.”
Feeling guilty, Betty put the phone down and turned slowly to look at Max. He lounged against the arching frame of the living room entrance, watching her, his expression neither smug nor rebuking. Betty nodded to him. “I apologize.”
“Accepted.”
“As you can see, I have practically no furniture.”
He rubbed the toe of his hiking boot along the scarred oak floor. “Nice finish. Looks like the cavalry rode through.”
“At least twice.”
“A hard, cold floor. I’m glad I have an air mattress.”
“Max, you don’t owe me—”
“And I didn’t ask for anything in return, now did I?”
They traded a somber, searching gaze. Her instincts told her to ignore the jolt of desire that ran through her. He could be gallant all he wanted, but he simply wasn’t the kind of man she’d let herself covet. Still, the look in his eyes was making her knees weak. “How about a cup of hot chocolate with a shot of bourbon in it?” she asked.
“Are you going to have one?”
“Yes. The hot chocolate, not the bourbon.” I have to keep a clear head.
“Then I’ll take a virgin hot chocolate too.”
“I’ve never heard it put quite that way before.”
“I’ve always had a colorful vocabulary.”
“I know. You used it on me in the woods the other day.”
“In the marines you learn a lot of interesting ways to communicate with people.”
“What did you do—teach grunt-speak to the troops?”
He bowed slightly. “I was an intelligence officer. I commanded an antiterrorist team. I hope you’re suitably impressed.”
“Frankly, I am.”
“Does this softening of your heart mean that I can visit your restaurant without fear?”
“Don’t push your luck.” She gestured toward his sleeping bag. “Use some of that hot air and blow up your mattress. I’ll get the hot chocolate.”
“I’ve owned sabers that weren’t as sharp as your tongue.”
She curtsied. “Thank you.”
In the kitchen, distracted and tense, she nearly dropped the two mugs she removed from the cardboard box that contained a spartan set of stoneware dishes. Standing at the sink under a bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling on a cord, she filled the mugs and put them in the microwave oven. A sink, a microwave oven, and a small rented refrigerator—that was her kitchen.
“The uncluttered look,” Max said from the doorway.
She jumped. “You walk softly.”
“And carry a big stick.” He had removed the poncho, and she saw that he wore a loose black pullover with his trousers. Again she was captivated by his big-shouldered, long-legged body. It was built to intimidate enemies and win friends. No terrorist with a sane mind would want to make this man an enemy. No woman would turn down a chance to make this man a friend.
He reached behind his back and retrieved a large automatic pistol. His expression a little coy, he nodded to her. “My stick.”
“I can’t remember when I’ve seen a bigger one.”
“Oh, you probably say that to all the boys.” He crossed the large kitchen to a peeling yellow door with an upper section of glass panes. He flicked the switch for the back-porch light and glanc
ed out, the pistol grasped casually in his hand.
Betty watched him with reluctant fascination. He was so unlike any man she’d known before. Animal vitality radiated from him; he had a hard, dangerous look, but when he switched the light off and turned to wink at her, his face once again impressed her with the elegant strength in its lines. And his eyes, those light-green eyes, held both humor and unabashed sensuality.
“The microwave just buzzed,” he told her.
“Oh.” Feeling foolish, Betty pivoted and removed the mugs of water. She dumped instant hot chocolate into them from paper packets and stirred the mixture with a communal spoon. “Nothing fancy. If I could find my other spoon, I’d let you use it.”
“Why are you living like this?”
Betty almost told him the truth. Having invested most of my money in the early career of the next superstar of pop music, I am now broke.
But she didn’t need more humiliation in that area of her past, so she merely smiled and said, “I want to have several contractors bid on the remodeling job. There’s no point in moving my things to the house until the work is finished.”
“Why did you move in so early?”
“I was anxious to get my restaurant started in town. I have a lot of catering jobs scheduled during the next few weeks, too, so I’m trying to keep everything floating during the transition.”
“What kind of catering jobs do you do?”
“Everything from family reunions to corporate parties. All casual. Barbecue is definitely a casual food. I’ve catered private picnics for the rich and infamous who have homes over on Lake Lanier, and I’ve catered public hoedowns for some of the state’s biggest politicians.”
“You have a big staff?”
“Nope.” She handed him his mug. “Right now I have no staff at all. But I can handle the catering, except for the really big jobs, by myself. With barbecue, you just set it up, set it out, and keep the refills coming. You don’t need much help serving the food.”
“But what about the restaurant?”
“I’ve hired a manager for that. Andy Parsells. Do you know him?”
“You got Andy to leave the Hamburger Barn? He’s been the head cook there as long as I can remember.”
“He was making a crummy salary, and he had no medical benefits or pension. Plus he likes my reputation. He knows I’m headed for the big time.”
“Hmmm. With a location in Webster Springs?”
“There’s a lot of tourist traffic here because of the mountains and Lake Lanier.” She sipped her hot chocolate and looked at him proudly. “People will drive up from Atlanta just to eat at my restaurant, because I’m going to sell the best barbecue in this part of the country. And if they don’t come to my restaurant, they’ll at least buy my barbecue sauce, because I’m planning to market it. Eventually, I’ll go national.”
Max leaned against a cracked countertop and laid the gun down beside him. He cupped his mug, and his big hands swallowed it, made it look delicate. “You must have a damned good recipe for your barbecue sauce.”
“You bet. There’s nothing else like it. The recipe has been guarded by the Quint family for at least two generations. My grandfather, William, passed it along to my father. My father made it famous among our friends and neighbors. And he gave the recipe to me on my eighteenth birthday. When you taste it, you’ll know you’ve never had anything better.”
“I’m afraid not. My grandfather made the best barbecue sauce in the civilized world. I remember it from when I was a kid. People used to beg him to make it.”
“Brag, brag, brag,” she taunted mildly.
“Don’t worry. The recipe was lost when he died. You’re safe.”
“My, oh, my,” she deadpanned. “I can relax.”
They were interrupted by the uneven thudding of Faux Paw’s feet on the stairs. Several seconds later she ambled into the kitchen and stopped to eye Max curiously, her stubby tail twitching.
“Hello, mutant,” he said pleasantly.
Betty knelt and stroked Faux Paw’s head. “Ignore him, sweetie. Takes one to know one.”
“Where did you get this creature—from a pet shop in the Twilight Zone?”
“My mother is on the board of directors at the Atlanta Humane Society. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work for the society myself. When Faux Paw’s owner dumped her there, I was first in line to adopt her.”
“Do I get the impression that you’re part of the Atlanta blue blood scene?”
Betty stood, smiling sardonically. “I’m only blue-blooded on Mother’s side of the family. I’m a Quint on the other side, you know. Pioneer stock. Nouveau riche. My father made his money selling real estate to Yankees.”
“Damn! A scalawag who sold the home place to carpetbaggers!”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Not quite. He’s a southern gentleman with a keen business mind, that’s all. I inherited it, if I do say so myself.”
“So what was it like growing up half blue-blooded and half nouveau riche?”
“Oh, just the usual. Vacations in Europe, season tickets to the symphony, weekends spent playing tennis at the club. I dated boys who had Roman numerals behind their last names.”
“Boys with names like ‘Snedley Beausquart the Fourth,’ ” Max said slyly.
“They weren’t that pompous.”
He crossed one ankle over the other and regarded her with half-shut eyes, making her feel so awkward that she lowered her gaze and pretended to study her mug. He chuckled softly. “So why haven’t you done your duty and married a Snedley by now?”
“Most of the Snedleys were boring and narrow-minded.” She took a swallow from her mug, raised carefully guarded eyes to his, and said flatly, “So I caught myself a free-spirited musician. Or he caught me. I’m not sure which.”
“Hmmm. You married him?”
“Oh, no. We were too cool to get married. At least he was. We had an … an understanding, you see. Unfortunately, I understood that one day we’d get married, and he understood that one day he’d get a recording contract and move to Los Angeles.”
“Alone?”
“Oh, he asked me to come along. But I was tired of being a ‘significant other.’ I had started to feel like an awfully insignificant other.” Betty kept her expression neutral, but feelings of resentment rose inside her again, directed at Max and his carefree attitude. “I spent a lot of years telling myself that marriage didn’t matter. Well, I was lying to myself. It does matter, at least to me.”
Abruptly she shook her head and looked heavenward. “Aaagh! I’m spilling my guts to a man who thinks weddings are a joke!” She leveled a hard gaze at Max, daring him to deny it.
He didn’t take the dare. “They are a joke.”
“Why?”
“Because about half of all marriages end in divorce. Because a lot of people only get married out of loneliness, or because it makes sex convenient, or because their parents brainwashed them into believing that there’s something wrong with them if they don’t want to get married.”
“You can’t tell me that you’ve never loved a woman and thought that it would be nice to spend the rest of your life with her.”
“You’re right. But I can tell you that I’ve never seriously considered getting married. I live in the present. Marriage is based on fantasizing about the future.”
“I bet a lot of women have left you, hmmm?”
He chuckled coldly. “In the marines I was transferred to a new base every two or three years. I did most of the leaving, whether I wanted to or not.”
“You don’t sound heartbroken.”
“Sorry.” He drained his hot chocolate and reached around her to set the mug on the counter. “How heartbroken are you over the musician? Deathless love should have made you follow him to L.A. Maybe you didn’t love him as much as you think you did.”
Betty straightened with ominous dignity. He was wrong, of course. “Don’t foist your cynical attitudes on me.”
“A little def
ensive, are you? A sign of inner turmoil. Uncertainty? A niggling intuition that I’m right?”
“It doesn’t really matter what you think of my reasons. I moved here to start something new, something permanent. I’m not going to waste any more time on men who aren’t interested in that.” She half-turned and plunked her mug down on the counter.
“I’m permanent. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good. It’ll be interesting to hear all the gossip about your romances. One day I’ll tell my grandchildren that I knew you when you were young, and you haven’t changed a bit. There’s something to be said for creating that kind of legacy.”
He had gone very still. Either he was angry, or he was calculating his next move. Regardless, his towering, silent scrutiny made her struggle to ignore the poignant mixture of regret and resentment in her chest.
“We’ll see,” he said softly.
Betty tried to laugh. It came out as a huffing, high-pitched, anxious sound, and she kicked herself mentally. She shook her head and looked at him pensively. “Why don’t you and I call a truce and be friends? And I mean just friends. That way we won’t keep on disappointing each other.”
His dark expression lightened with amusement and speculation. “So you’ve been hoping for something from me? What is it? I hate to disappoint you.”
She held up both hands. “Oh, no. You’re not drawing me into a word game.”
“I already have. But relax. Let’s be friends.” He came forward a few steps and held out his right hand. His eyes glimmered with laughter. “Shake?”
“You have more smooth moves than a greased snake.”
“You should have been a drill sergeant. You’ve got a way with words. What are you afraid of—a simple handshake?”
She clasped his hand firmly. They shook. He stroked the center of her palm with his fingers as he drew away, and she cursed him silently because his touch made her breath shorten and her skin grow hot. Betty turned away, hoping that he couldn’t read her reaction easily.