Carolina Heart (9 page)

Happiness pooled inside him. “The reality is better.” He kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for coming over.”

She snuggled deeper into his heat. “What are friends for?”

Something rippled across his contentment like a disturbance on the surface of a pond. He could almost see the posted warning sign:
DANGER. DEEP WATER HERE
. He waded ahead anyway. “Is that what you’d call us? Friends?”

“I think so. The new, improved version maybe. You know, like the commercials?” She intoned in a fake announcer’s voice, “Still friends. Now with benefits.”

He didn’t laugh. “And that’s what you want.”

She lay very still. “What I want doesn’t matter. It’s what I can have.”

He pushed down his own disappointment, trying to read her body’s cues, wishing he could see her face. He’d been inside her. He was good at observing detail, at drawing conclusions from the available evidence. But he didn’t have a clue what she was thinking right now. “Forget what you can have. Tell me how you feel.”

She caught his hand and pressed it to her breast, trying to recapture their earlier playfulness. “Very friendly.”

Her breast was soft and heavy in his hand, the nipple a tight knot against his palm. But he would not be distracted.

“Cynthie.” Gently, he turned her in the circle of his arms, waiting patiently until her gaze lifted to his. “I’m falling in love with you.”

A quiver ran through her. “Don’t. You’re not. I’m just . . . I was your high school crush. Guys always have a thing for their high school crush.”

He kept his eyes steady on hers. He was hurt. Part of him wanted to retreat behind the wall of his family’s well-bred politeness. But he couldn’t let her dismiss his feelings for her as the by-product of teenage hormones. “You can tell me what you want. What you’re afraid of. But you can’t tell me how I feel.”

The quiver spread to her lips. “I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes. It’s time for the next step. I don’t want to wait until your car battery dies or I get food poisoning to sleep with you again.” He waited for her response. When she didn’t say anything, he kissed her forehead. She smelled so good, sweet and spicy, like cloves and sex. Like Cynthie. “I don’t want to be the friend you have sex with sometimes. I want to be your . . . ” His mind considered and discarded terms.
Boyfriend? Lover?
Neither one was big enough for his emotions. “I want us to have a regular relationship,” he said finally. “Like any two rational, healthy adults who could have a future together.”

“It’s not only our future. I have to think about the girls,” she said.

It wasn’t just the girls, he thought. Something else was holding her back. But how could he reassure her fears when he didn’t understand them?

He thought of pointing out to her that he could make all their lives easier. He had money. He was more than willing to spend it on her daughters. But she didn’t need him to rescue them. She didn’t need him at all.

“We can go as slow as you want. As slow as they need,” he said. “But I’m ready to be part of your life. And I want you to be part of mine.”

“I DON’T GET
it,” Meg Fletcher said to Cynthie.

The two women sat at the kitchen table of the Fletcher family’s bed-and-breakfast while the girls—Hannah and Madison and Meg’s niece, Taylor—played with the puppy outside.

“You’ve got this sweet, smart, sexy guy who’s totally crazy about you,” Meg continued. “He likes your kids, he has a job, he doesn’t live with his mother. I don’t see an issue here. Unless he’s, like, I don’t know, a meth addict. Or has the bodies of his six ex-wives stashed in the attic.”

Cynthie smiled, wiggling her toes inside her ugly black server’s shoes under the table. It was a treat to sit down in the middle of the day, to share coffee and confidences with a girlfriend. But even Meg’s teasing couldn’t chase away her lingering insecurities. “No drugs. One ex-girlfriend. And she’s out of the picture.”

“And how long have you been dating?”

“We’re not exactly . . . ” Cynthie met Meg’s eyes and gave up the pretense. “Three months.”

“So?”

“So, he invited me to this big fund-raiser for the aquarium. For the exhibit expansion he’s been working on? Cocktails, dancing, semiformal, he said.” Cynthie twisted her coffee cup in her hands, her stomach knotting with nerves. “All the board of directors, everybody in his department will be there. Maybe even his parents.”

“Well, that’s a good sign. He wants you to meet his friends. His colleagues.”

“I can’t go.”

“For heaven’s sake, why not?”

All her old self-doubt rushed in at her, all the times she’d been told she wasn’t smart enough, good enough, deserving enough. “It’s movie night at the kids’ school.”

“They can go with Taylor,” Meg said promptly.

“We wouldn’t be home until late.”

“Then they can spend the night.” Meg shook her head. “Still not seeing a problem here.”

Cynthie sighed. For all her Harvard education, Meg could be really dumb sometimes. “It’s like, if our lives were a high school movie, Max would be the cute nerd, you would be the brainy girl who lands the captain of the football team, and I would be the girl who gets knocked up under the stadium bleachers.”

Meg laughed, but her eyes were sympathetic. “News flash for you, pal. High school was over for us a long time ago.”

“In my head, I get that. But in my gut . . .” Cynthie pressed a hand to her jumpy stomach. Her gut was Jell-O, quivering between terrifying panic and an even more terrifying hope. “Max and I are from totally different worlds. He’s so far out of my league, we’re not even playing the same game.”

“Forget your head and your gut,” Meg advised. “What does your heart say?”

“My heart is a great big scaredy-cat,” Cynthie admitted. “Meg, he says he’s falling in love with me.”

“Wow. The big
L.
And what did you say?”

“Nothing. I’ve got all these feelings for him churning around inside me, here.” Cynthie thumped her chest with her fist. “But when I open my mouth, they get stuck. And every day I don’t tell him how I feel, it’s like a brick in this wall I’m building between us.”

Meg pursed her lips. “You’re afraid of being hurt. That’s natural.”

“I think I’m more afraid of letting him down,” Cynthie confessed. “He’s so good to me. He deserves someone who fits into his life. Who won’t embarrass him. What if I can’t be the person he needs?”

“Isn’t that up to him to decide?” Meg asked gently.

From the sunlit backyard drifted the sound of the girls’ laughter, interspersed with the dog’s happy barks.

“You can tell me what you want. What you’re afraid of,”
Max had said, in his quiet, unyielding voice.
“But you can’t tell me how I feel.”

“Look, I’m not in any position to tell you what to do,” Meg said finally. “But I do know that sometimes in life you have to take risks to get what you want.”

Great. Cynthie stared into her coffee mug as if it held a fortune-teller’s tea leaves. She could either end up hurting Max by turning him down, by continuing to push him away.

Or she could take a risk and maybe break her heart.

She shook her head. No choice at all, really.

“I’ll need to borrow a cocktail dress,” she said.

Meg grinned. “That, I can help you with.”

*   *   *

“YOU
look really pretty, Mom,” Hannah said from her position on Cynthie’s bed.

Cynthie gave a half twirl in front of the mirror, admiring her reflection in Meg’s dress. The sequined silver sheath flashed and clung, fitting like fish scales before flaring above the knee. “Thanks, sweetie. I feel pretty.” She grinned and then winced as her matching rhinestone sandals rubbed her toes. “Like Cinderella, only with big feet.”

Unfortunately, while she and Meg were almost the same size, their feet were not.

“You should wear your cowboy boots,” Madison volunteered. “The good ones.”

Cynthie shot her a doubtful look. Yes, the Lucchese boots were the most expensive footwear she’d ever owned, a one-time extravagance left over from her wild days, studded and tooled and now relegated to the back of her closet. But she was trying to fit in with Max’s colleagues tonight, not stand out.

Madison shrugged. “You always tell me I should be comfortable. Better than hobbling around all night.”

She did say that. Along with,
Be yourself.
And,
It’s what’s inside that counts.

But was she really supposed to set an example over shoes? What would have happened to the fairy tale if Cinderella had rejected the glass slippers?

The broken doorbell thunked.

Hannah ran out of the room to answer. Cynthie heard her mother’s murmur and then Max’s deep voice.

Her heart beat faster as she hurried through the rest of her preparations, gave a last tug, a final tweak. Taking a deep breath to stifle the butterflies in her stomach, she smiled at Madison in the mirror. “Pumpkin time.”

Madison smiled back. “You do look pretty.”

A wave of love suffused Cynthie’s chest. “Thanks, baby.”

Max was standing by the trailer door, chatting with her mama and Hannah, his lanky athletic body in a charcoal gray suit over a black T-shirt. The unfamiliar clothes made him appear tall and lean and unattainable, like a fifties movie star. He glanced up at her entrance, his gray eyes widening, darkening, taking her in.

Her heart rioted.

“Wow,” he said. “You look beautiful. Like a mermaid.”

Her smile spilled, too wide to contain. She felt herself glowing. She stuck out one foot. “Not quite.”

His gaze dropped to the cowboy boots beneath her sparkly hem before he laughed.

*   *   *

CYNTHIE
had worked parties before, weddings on the beach, family reunions and corporate retreats at the golf and tennis club. She was used to white linen tablecloths and spectacular views, to men in suit jackets and women in heels staggering over the sand.

But the aquarium at night was magic, its columns wrapped in fairy lights, the glassware on the tables reflecting the green and blue glow of the tanks, fish flashing, drifting, and darting above and behind the circulating guests. Live music filled the air, floating through the gallery, a band playing covers of beach music that Cynthie’s mother had danced to.

She caught her breath in wonder. “It’s prom.”

“‘Enchantment Under the Sea,’” Max said dryly.

“Is that from
The
Little Mermaid
?”

His gray eyes glinted with humor. “
Back to the Future
.”

She took his arm, smiling at her mistake. “Okay, I am such a mom. And you are such a geek.”

It took them forever to make their way through the galleries as Max stopped to introduce her to chattering knots of people. Like the marine life in the tanks behind them, the guests formed their own sort of food chain, Cynthie thought—the patrons, sleek and gray and confident as sharks; the bright, busy academics, focused on the food; the scuttling servers.

“Your friends are nice,” Cynthie said as they left one group.

“They like you.” Max replaced her wineglass with a fresh one from a passing waiter. “You made everyone feel comfortable.”

Her grin escaped. “You mean, superior.”

He shook his head. “You’re a good listener. I’ve noticed it before. You ask questions.”

“Because I don’t understand what they’re talking about otherwise.”

He guided her through the crowd. “You understand as much as most of the donors. The difference is that they won’t admit what they don’t know.”

Cynthie relaxed into the touch of his hand on the small of her back, basking in his approval. “Because they want to look smart to all their friends. But when you’re in food service, you figure out pretty quick that nobody cares what you know as long as you get their order right.”

His hand tensed on her hip. He looked over her head, his face suddenly wiped of expression.

She craned her neck, trying to follow his gaze. “What?”

“Hello, Mom. Dad.” He spoke over her head, his voice perfectly neutral. “May I introduce Cynthie Lodge? Cynthie, these are my parents, Dr. Oscar Lewis, Dr. Dorothea Bell-Lewis.”

His parents? Here?

She turned, giving them her best what-can-I-get-for-you smile. “Hi.” They didn’t look scary. A well-upholstered woman in a plain black dress covered by an embroidered shawl, a tall, lean man with grizzled gray hair. “Nice to meet you.”

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Max said.

His father raised unruly gray eyebrows. “We
are
patrons of the aquarium.”

You’re his
parents
,
Cynthie thought. “It’s so nice of you to come tonight,” she said. “To support Max.”

They all looked at her like she was speaking Mandarin. Unless they spoke Mandarin. Someone—Sam?—had said Max’s father was a linguistics professor or something. “Because of his project,” she explained. “The oyster reef expansion?”

“Ah. Yes,” Oscar said. “You must be a colleague of Max’s from the university.”

“Um, no.”

“Where did you meet?” his mother asked.

“Here, actually. At the aquarium.”

Dorothea nodded. “You’re involved in the exhibit installation, then.”

“Cynthie is my date,” Max said firmly.

“Isn’t that nice.” Dorothea leaned closer, lowering her voice. “He’s had a terrible time since Julie left him.”

“Was that her name?” Oscar asked.

“We were actually quite worried about him,” Dorothea said.

Max shot her a surprised look, his brows lowered, as if their concern was news to him. He was so adorable.

“I can understand that,” Cynthie said.

“I doubt it,” Dorothea said grandly. “Only a mother can truly understand.”

“I have two daughters,” Cynthie said.

Oscar squinted at her. “You’re a Dare Islander, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thought so. I recognize the brogue.”

Linguistics expert, Cynthie told herself. “And you’re a dingbatter,” she said.

A moment’s frozen silence while she wondered if he’d understand the reference. If he’d get the joke or be horribly offended.

Max drew breath to speak.

And then Oscar barked once with laughter, and Cynthie exhaled in relief. “Ha. Very good. What did you say your name was?”

“Cynthia,” said Dorothea.

“Cynthie,” Max said.

“Good to meet you, Cynthie. Guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.” He met her gaze, a glint in his pale gray eyes. “Maybe a young one, too.”

Cynthie grinned.

Dorothea touched her husband’s arm. “I see the Parsons. We should say hello.”

“Right. Well, then.” Oscar cleared his throat. “Congratulations,” he said to Max, with another glance at Cynthie. “On the installation.”

“Thank you, sir.”

She bit the inside of her lip, containing her laughter until Oscar and Dorothea had moved out of earshot.

“God. I’m sorry,” Max said when they were gone. “I owe you one.”

“For what?”

“Subjecting you to that. Can I get you another drink? After a conversation with my parents, I usually need a drink.”

“I liked your parents.” And they had liked her. She hugged their unexpected approval to her like a secret. Maybe she could fit into his life. “I don’t need a drink. But I’ll take a shrimp if the server comes by again.”

“I’ll get you one.” He brushed her lips with his, a brief, social kiss that still set her senses humming.

“And then I want to dance,” she said, filled with an unfamiliar sense of her own power.

“You got it.” Another kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

She could offer to go with him. But after her successful evening, she didn’t want to appear clingy. She was fine here, surrounded by his friends and colleagues. Actually, she was great.

She admired his broad shoulders cutting the crowd—a surfer paddling out to catch a wave—before she turned to watch the couples on the dance floor. The band launched into a cover of “Under the Boardwalk.”

When a hand settled, warm and familiar, on her hip, she smiled, swaying into his touch.
Max
.

Or . . .

Her skin prickled.

Not.

The hand curved inward, slid down onto her ass. A man’s breath—not Max’s—filled her ear. “I didn’t know the aquarium hired cowgirls to cater these things.”