He ate his food, not really tasting any of it anymore. He guessed he smiled when he was meant to smile, and responded when he needed to smile, because by the time they’d finished eating and Jeremy slid his bank card to the waiter before Max could even get his hands on the check, not even Max’s sister was giving him any more curious looks.
“Here.” He pulled several twenties out of his wallet and tossed them on the table next to his brother-in-law’s elbow.
He saw Jeremy start to wave away the money, but Max gave him a hard stare. Jeremy was an orthopedic surgeon and a Fortune. He could buy and sell Max dozens of times over. But Max paid his own way now.
Fortunately, his brother-in-law seemed to take the unspoken hint and pocketed the cash along with his credit card when the waiter returned it.
There wasn’t even any need for him to hang around. Emily had her own car. And she and his sister were talking a mile a minute as if they were long-lost friends. Max caught snippets of their conversation. Talking and laughing about college and graduate degrees.
“Think I’ll call it a night,” he said abruptly.
The colored lights hanging around the courtyard reflected softly in Emily’s glasses when she turned toward him. It was only his own wishful thinking that she seemed to show some disappointment. “Do you want to set up a time now for me to meet with you again at the office, or should I call you in the morning? The only thing I have on my schedule is a conference call, but I’ll be finished with that by ten.”
“Call.” He realized how terse he sounded. “I don’t know what’s on my schedule from Tanner for tomorrow yet,” he added.
Her soft lips pressed together a little, but she smiled and nodded. “Okay. Thanks for dinner.”
“Sure.” Before she could say anything else, he leaned over and gave his sister a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t even consider a kiss for Emily—on her cheek or elsewhere. Not in front of his sister. Not when he’d already overstepped the lines of “business.”
He just gave a general wave meant to cover the whole table. “See y’all later.” And then he headed out of the restaurant.
Emily chewed the inside of her cheek, watching Max stride out of the courtyard. She suddenly dropped her napkin on the table. “Would you excuse me, too?” she said quickly to her cousin and his pretty wife. “I forgot to mention something to Max.”
“We’ll see each other again soon,” Jeremy said easily. Kirsten was nodding.
Emily smiled hurriedly and grabbed her purse before quickly following the path that Max had taken. When she reached the parking lot, she spotted him already at his truck and she broke into a trot to catch up to him. “Max,” she called as he unlocked his door. “Would you wait a minute?”
He turned to wait.
She felt breathless when she reached him and knew it wasn’t owed entirely from her sprint across the parking lot. But now that she’d caught up to him, she felt completely tongue-tied. “Thanks for dinner.”
“You already thanked me.”
“I know, but … I—” She broke off, shaking her head a little. “I just really enjoyed myself.”
“Catching up with your cousin?”
“No.” Seemingly of its own accord, her fingers touched his arm. Which was strange, because she wasn’t generally a touchy sort of person. “Well, yes, I mean it was good to see Jeremy. Of course. And your sister. She and Jeremy seem so perfect for each other. I meant I really enjoyed dinner with you.”
His right eyebrow lifted slightly. “You were pretty quick to add more company.”
Her lips parted. “She’s your sister. How could we not invite them to sit with us? Would you rather have had me be rude?”
“I’d rather have had you to myself,” he said bluntly.
That dark and sensual something that had wakened while they’d danced reared again, clenching hard inside her belly. “I’d have liked that, too,” she admitted and gave a little blessing to that margarita or she’d never have had the guts to say the words aloud. “Maybe we could do this again,” she added boldly. “Have dinner. Just … just the two of us.”
The parking lot was too dark for her to see the expression in his eyes. “Maybe.”
Maybe was just another word for no.
She swallowed hard and while she still had some nerve, leaned up and pressed her lips to his cheek. “That’s for being there after the tornado that day,” she said when she went back down on her heels.
He watched her for a moment that was so tight she felt almost sure that he was going to kiss her back.
Really kiss her.
But he didn’t. He just nodded and pulled open his truck door. “You know your way back to your sister’s from here?”
“Yes.”
“Drive carefully.”
“You do the same.” Her voice was faint.
He started up the truck engine and she backed away several feet and watched him drive away.
She wasn’t sure what had just happened.
All she knew was that she felt shaky.
And ridiculously disappointed.
“You were out late last night.”
Emily looked up from the coffee she was pouring into a mug when Wendy padded silently into the kitchen the next morning. “Not terribly.”
“It was practically ten.” Wendy reached around her for a coffee mug of her own. “What were you doing?”
Mildly amused, Emily filled her sister’s mug and replaced the pot on the coffeemaker’s burner. “Maybe I was going wild and crazy like my little sister used to do.”
Wendy made a face. “Ha-ha. Your idea of wild and crazy is leaving the house without a bra on under your tailored shirt.” She twisted her hair up in a deft twist and stuck a clip in it that she pulled out of the pocket of her silky red robe. Then she poured some cream into her coffee and carried it over to the kitchen table that sat in a sunny little alcove. She sank down onto a chair and stretched out her long, shapely legs before sipping her coffee with catlike pleasure.
Emily just shook her head. Her sister could roll out of bed and look like a magazine spread for lingerie. She, though, would have to fuss with her hair for two hours just to get some semblance of style into the stubbornly straight strands and she’d have had to have some serious surgery to gain some of the curves that Wendy came by naturally.
And sad to say, Wendy had her pegged when it came to the whole “wild and crazy” thing.
“You’re the kind of woman who makes women like me feel like dish rags,” she muttered.
Wendy rolled her eyes. “So says the epitome of strikingly beautiful Nordic blondes,” she returned. “I know why I’m feeling sleepy this morning. Because my beautiful daughter woke up twice last night. But what’s got you so cranky this lovely morning? Anything to do with whatever mischief you were getting up to last night?”
“I’m not cranky. And there was no mischief. I had dinner with Max Allen.” Emily sat down across from her sister and sank her nose into her coffee mug. “This decaf stuff is for the birds.” She got back up and added a hefty dose of cream to it.
“Not cranky my hind end,” Wendy observed. “Open up that plastic container there next to the stove. Maybe you’ll find something in there that’ll help.”
Emily