Sexy/Dangerous

  Kaitlin gave Max the number and she wrote it down.

  “Thanks for letting me know about the house,” Max added sincerely.

  “No problem.”

  “Again, my condolences on your loss.”

  “Thanks.”

  Max clicked off. Kaitlin’s description of the house’s damage was disturbing. If it was as bad as she’d made it sound Adam probably had to find someplace else to stay. She wondered if she should call him. After all they’d been through together, she was naturally concerned, and a part of her wanted to hear his voice badly, but other parts were jumping up and down shouting No!

  Max bit the bullet and called him. While it rang, she took in a few deep breaths. On the fourth ring she was kicked over to his voice mail. She thought about what she could say, but her thoughts and emotions were so jumbled, she couldn’t get it together. In the end she cut the connection and silently wished him well.

  Adam and Lauren spent the evening at the concert Ray had come into town for. They had a good time watching the show from backstage. It had been years since Adam had seen his pops perform. The pipes weren’t as tight and his range wasn’t as wide, but he could still bring down the house with the signature ballads the women loved.

  “Nice show,” Adam said to her as they drove home in the Escalade.

  “The man can still sing, I give him that.”

  “He could be singing just to you, if you’d let him.”

  She remained quiet for a moment, and he could tell she was thinking back. “Your mama’s too old for heartache. The first time around almost killed me, remember?”

  He did. The divorce became final a few months after Adam’s fifteenth birthday. It was a painful time for everyone involved. “He still sending you flowers for your birthday?”

  “My birthday, your birthday, his birthday. Lord, that man.”

  Adam heard the wonder laced through her chuckle. “You still love him?”

  “Never stopped.”

  They were at the curb in front of the house. “Well?”

  She turned his way. She knew what he was asking. “I don’t know, babyboy. We’ll see.”

  He nodded. It was all he could ask.

  Upstairs in the guest room that had once been his bedroom, he checked his calls. When he saw her number, he went still. Max. All sorts of emotions flooded him. It had been nearly a month since they had seen each other last, and in that time the memories hadn’t dimmed. He wondered what made her call. He checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. He knew she was a night owl, and so, taking the chance that she was still up, he hit redial.

  When she picked up, he said, “Max?”

  “Hey,” she said softly. “How are you?”

  Hearing her voice made his need for her swell inside with such intensity he had to close his eyes and wait for the sharp sensations to subside. “Doing okay. How’re you? How’s your shoulder?”

  “Good and good.”

  He smiled.

  Silence.

  Adam kept his tone light. “I see you called.”

  “Yeah, I did. Just checking up on you. Kaitlin gave me your new number and told me about the house.”

  “They hit it pretty good. I’m looking for a new place.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “At my mother’s. Outside Chicago. You?”

  “Texas.”

  Adam wanted to talk with her until sunrise. “So things are okay?”

  “Yeah, they are. How’s the work going?”

  “Pretty good. Still dealing with the NASA thing. A couple of other projects in the pipeline, but finding a new place to live is at the top of the list.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Silence.

  He asked, “How are the dogs?”

  She said, “Fine. My mother’s spoiling them worse than Portia, though. Always does. She calls them her granddogs.”

  “Tell them I said hello.”

  “I will.”

  Silence rose again.

  She broke it by saying. “I didn’t want anything when I called. Just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “Glad you called.”

  “Me, too. Well, I should let you go. Take care, Adam.”

  “You, too, Max.”

  And it was over.

  Down in Texas, Max held the now silent phone against her heart and looked up at the moon. Hearing his voice brought back all the memories she’d been trying to run away from. Lord, she missed him.

  JT stepped outside to join her. “You okay?”

  Max said solemnly, “Yeah.”

  “Was that him?”

  Max nodded.

  JT said softly, “We’re a mess, you know that?”

  Max smiled.

  “I’m going back to L.A. in the morning. You want to come? We could do some major shopping and call it retail therapy.”

  Max grinned. “Nah. Think I’ll hang here for a little while longer.”

  Jessi said, “Okay.”

  “I’ll take you to the airport in the morning, though.”

  “That’ll be cool.”

  After a few moments of silence, JT said, “I’m going to bed. Don’t be out here all night.”

  “I won’t. Good night, Jes.”

  “Night, Max. See you in the morning.”

  Three days after JT flew out, Max made a few calls. There was a job in Singapore with her name on it, if she wanted it. She agreed to the terms of the contract then made the necessary arrangements to fly out the next morning.

  Her mother drove her to the airport. Michele held onto the leashed Ossie and Ruby while Max took the bags out of the back of the Navigator.

  Once she had everything on the curb, Max held her mother tight. “I’ll see you, Mama.”

  Michele squeezed her tight, then whispered emotionally, “Come back to me. Okay?”

  “I will. Don’t worry.” But Max knew her mother would worry despite her reassurances and it tightened her heart.

  Michele said a final good-bye to her granddogs, then wiping at the tears filling her eyes, gave Max a parting smile, a wave, and drove away.

  Max watched until the Navigator left her sight, then she and the dogs headed for the airport check-in and the plane ride back to her life.

  Twenty-one

  In Singapore, Max and her dogs joined a team of shadows hunting down a gang of smugglers trafficking in ancient Cambodian artifacts. Most of the stolen goods were being plundered from temple sites in Thailand and from the fabled temples of Angkor Wat in nearby Cambodia. Among the hundreds of items missing were stone statues of the Buddha, handrails from nine-hundred-year-old Buddhist structures, and busts of mythical angels, known as apsaras, being sold on the down low in the West for sixty thousand dollars apiece. Most amazing to Max were the reports of entire stone walls, beautifully carved and decorated with symbols of the Buddhist faith, stolen from the temples, even though some of the slabs weighed as much as ten tons. The antiques were sent from Cambodia, then via Singapore on to Thailand. From there they were shipped to buyers in the United States and Europe.

  It was a grueling investigation. The Cambodian countryside where most of the smuggling originated was thick with heat and insects. Max didn’t know who was more miserable, the people on the team or her dogs. Ruby and Ossie were especially susceptible to the bloodsucking beasties that swarmed over them, looking for lunch, but as always, they were troopers. The team spent many days hacking their way through heavy vegetation to check out temple sites inaccessible by car, with long climbs through the sometimes mountainous terrain, but were finally successful in making a bust.

  They’d received a tip that took them to the home of a prominent Danish businessman in the city of Ayutthaya, the former capital of old Siam, located a few hours drive from Bangkok. Apparently, the Dane’s wife, angry over her husband’s affair with one of the couple’s female servants, had gone to the authorities and dropped a dime. Max and her people raided the house the next day and hit the jackpot. The home and a storag
e structure behind it were filled with antiques.

  That night, Max stood in her hot, cheap hotel room in Bangkok and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face and arms were covered with bites. Her legs bore the scars of leeches and her tied-up hair was through. She was so tired and so ready to go home she could have walked. Ossie had scratched himself raw in some places because of all the bites, and Ruby hadn’t fared much better. It was the end of August. They’d been on this mission for eight weeks, and she was glad it was finally over.

  She’d also come to a decision. After eight weeks of fighting through jungle, eating government-issue prefab food, and sleeping on the ground, it was time to find some other way to pay the bills. She no longer had the head for what she was doing. The decision hadn’t come to her as an epiphany but over the course of the job. The long days were no longer filled with excitement, as they’d once been. It had been stone hard work, and on those steamy hot nights when it had been too uncomfortable to sleep, she’d had time to evaluate her life. She thought about the look of worry in her mother’s eyes. She thought about JT’s sisterly fears, and she thought about Adam. She hadn’t spoken with him since leaving the States, and the void of not having him around was still open and raw. In the past, working had always been good at banishing whatever ailed her, but not this time. The more she worked, the more she thought about him, what he might be doing, and if he’d found someone else to spend time with. Basically, she had the same symptoms JT had described, and like JT, she had come to the conclusion that in spite of her previous denials, she was very much in love.

  Max turned from the mirror and plopped down onto the thin mattress on the wobbly bed. Tomorrow she and the dogs would be flying out of Southeast Asia for the long trip home. Once there, she planned to make a few phone calls to cement her decision to back away from the Life, then call Adam.

  Adam looked at the beautiful golden-skinned woman seated across the table from him and wished he were elsewhere. He’d met her a few weeks ago at the gym where he worked out, and she’d seemed nice enough, not to mention that her height and build reminded him of Max. They’d had a few conversations, a couple of coffees at the Starbucks next door to the gym, and when he asked her to dinner, she’d shyly agreed. Apparently, the shyness had been an act. She’d been talking nonstop since he picked her up at her apartment. He knew all about her hospital administrative job and why she couldn’t stand working there—apparently, they were hassling her about being fifteen minutes late to work every day. He heard about her family, and that she was suing her sister for credit card theft. Last but not least, he was given a too-vivid description of why the men her girlfriends were dating were all dogs.

  “You know, I Googled you,” she said then. Her name was Shanté.

  “Really?” he said, trying to be polite. Luckily, he could see the light at the end of the tunnel. They were having dessert and he wanted her to hurry up and finish her cheesecake so he could take her home.

  “You’re really famous, Adam. When you said you were a chemist, I thought you might be like this other brother I dated a few months ago. He claimed to be one, but turned out to be a janitor at a water treatment plant.”

  Adam had no idea what to say to that, so instead he took a bite of his apple pie à la mode and waited to hear what she’d say next.

  “That thing you invented must have made you a lot of money. Probably set you up for life.”

  Adam studied her. Here we go. “I’m okay,” was his only response.

  “Good-looking brother like you needs a steady woman.” Then she asked in a sultry voice, “You wouldn’t happen to be holding auditions tonight, would you?”

  Adam told the truth. “No. I’m flying to D.C. in the morning. Need to turn in early.”

  “I don’t have to stay all night, you know,” she offered with a sly smile. “Do a little bit of auditioning tonight and a little bit after you get back from D.C.”

  “Thanks for the offer and I’m real flattered, but I’ll have to pass.”

  She took offense. “What? You gay?”

  Adam looked around, and when he caught the eye of his waiter, raised his hand and said, “Check, please.”

  After dropping her off, Adam drove home to his new condo in a downtown Chicago high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan. There was valet parking, a 24/7 grocery, an on-call maintenance crew, and maid service, to name a few of the amenities. For all the money he paid, he thought it should have come with season tickets to every sports franchise in town, too, but he liked the place. It was large without being cavernous, spacious but welcoming. He’d purchased furniture, art for the walls, new electronics—including a flat screen for his media room, and one for his bedroom—then settled in to enjoy it.

  That had been in late June, and now in late September he had to admit that he felt like a changed man. After having spent the last ten years holed up in his lab hunched over his work, he’d forgotten how much energy there was to be found in big cities like Chicago, and how revitalizing that energy could be. The people, the myriad offerings of food, entertainment, and sports, all worked together to spur his decision to take a hard look at his life and make some adjustments.

  He’d decided to take a year off. No labs, no work, no nothing but what he wanted to do. Because of the prototype and his other patents, if he never worked another day in his life he could still live to the fullest and pay his bills. With that in mind he was going to kick back and try and figure out how he wanted his future to play out. Did he want to start a new project? Teach? See the Great Wall of China, maybe? He could cruise around the world if he wanted, or join a dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. He had given himself the permission and the freedom to do whatever he wanted in the next twelve months, and he planned to take full advantage.

  He walked to the windows and looked out over the dark lake. Where’s Max? In the last two months the question had gone from a roar to a whisper, but it was still there, haunting him, coming to him in the middle of the night. Where’s Max? Adam didn’t know. Back in July, he’d tried calling her, but her number was no longer active. He’d called Portia a few days later to talk to her about putting their proposed collaboration on hold. At the end of their conversation, when he asked about Max, all Portia would say was that she and the dogs were out of the country.

  Tomorrow he would be flying to D.C. to attend the state dinner promised by the President, then receive the medal Adam still didn’t think he should be getting. Max was supposed to be getting one, too, but he had no idea if she was still abroad or back in the States. He’d find out soon enough. One part of him hoped she would be there, if only to see her and reassure himself that she was okay. Another part, still fixated on a relationship that would never be, hoped she’d sent her regrets instead.

  Max flew into D.C. for the dinner a day early so she could handle some business and so her mother, who’d never been to the nation’s capital, could see the sights. Leaving JT and Michele to explore the Smithsonian after lunch, Max hopped into a cab and directed the cabbie to take her to the White House.

  Her credentials got her through the security checkpoints and she was soon standing outside the Oval Office, waiting for her appointment with the President. When her time came, a female aide ushered her in then left her alone. When she came in, he stood and said affectionately, “Ah, Lady Storm.”

  “Afternoon, Mr. President. How are you?”

  “I was fine until I heard you were resigning.”

  Max gave him JT’s line. “Even Pam Grier got too old to play Coffy, sir.”

  “And a pity that was, too. Though she did look good in Jackie Brown.”

  Max chuckled. “Your wife know you have a thing for Ms. Grier?”

  He nodded. “Just like I know she has a thing for Denzel.” He then motioned her to a chair. “Have a seat. The Thai ambassador sends his regards for the excellent work.”

  “I’m glad we were able to get it done.”

  Once they were settled in their seats and comfortable, she ask
ed, “How’d the South African thing play out?”

  “Last I heard, the government was still rounding up the conspirators. They have recovered quite a few weapons, too. Planes, stingers, and a huge cache of counterfeit U.S. Treasury bills. They’re keeping us posted.”

  “Good. What about the renegades?”

  “We’re rounding them up, too. Some will be given a chance to resign, others we plan to try for treason.”

  Max was glad to hear that.

  “I’ve signed your resignation request, but you know I didn’t want to. We’ll miss you a great deal.”

  “I appreciate that, and truthfully, I won’t mind being called every now and then if you get in a pinch.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. So, what are your plans?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what happens when I meet up with a certain scientist again tomorrow evening.”

  He looked surprised. “Really?”

  Max nodded.

  “That’s interesting. Anything I can do to help?”

  Max smiled. “I think I have it covered.”

  “Well, if anything comes to you, give us a call. His stepfather has agreed to perform for us, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t. My mother’s going to have a fit. She loves him. My sisters and I grew up listening to his songs.”

  “He and his ex-wife have confirmed.”

  A young female aide stuck her head in the door and said quietly, “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but the senators are here for their two o’ clock.”

  “Thanks, Linda.”

  Linda withdrew and the door was closed again.

  Max stood. “Let me get out of here so you can do some work. Thanks for everything, sir.”

  He stood. “You’re welcome. Your country appreciates your service, Max.”

  The former lady Marine gave the general a crisp salute.

  He returned it sharply, then Max headed out.

  Adam gazed around the ballroom and felt like Where’s Waldo in a celebrity magazine. Everywhere he turned he saw the famous in science, film, literature, and music. Now that he no longer lived underground, he could connect faces to who they were and what they were known for: like the brother across the room whose directing won him an Oscar this year, and the blond sister in the tasteful green gown whose hip-hop CD was riding the top of the charts. It was a heady, eclectic gathering, and Adam, nursing a small cognac, was impressed and honored to be there. A jazz group was playing background to the all voices and the visiting of the guests, and the music fit the atmosphere seamlessly.