Carolina Heart (3 page)

Girls like Cynthie Lodge.

Max felt a pressure in his chest as if he were sixteen again, horny and hopeless and stupid with lust.

She’d looked so . . . grown-up when he ran into her yesterday, the same and not the same as the girl who had blindsided him in high school, with her warm smiles and casual kindness and soft green eyes. She still resembled his adolescent fantasies, even though the smile was cooler now, the eyes more guarded.

But his rational adult mind had registered the changes, the mermaid tattoo that twined about her arm, the generous breadth at breast and hip.

The child.

He wished she had returned his calls. He really wished he could leave her another message without coming across as some crazy, creepy stalker.

He must have been silent too long, because Greg peered at him, his good-natured face creasing. “Hey, I’m kidding. I know you’d never do anything inappropriate.”

“Thanks,” Max said.

“You’re a nice guy.” Greg paused. “Clueless, but nice.”

Max suppressed a wince. Julie, the last woman he’d been involved with, had said pretty much the same thing. Right before she moved out.

“You just need to get back in the saddle,” Greg said encouragingly. “Plenty of fish in the sea. Don’t let one bad apple spoil the bunch.”

Despite the mixed metaphors, Greg’s message came through loud and clear. Max was touched by his friend’s concern. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah? When was the last time you asked a woman out? Since Julie, I mean.”

“This week.”

“No shit.” Greg grinned. “Anybody I know?”

Max cleared his throat. “Ah . . .”

His cell phone rang.
Saved by the bell
.

He fished it from his pocket and then stared, transfixed, at the display.
C LODGE.

His blood pounded, thick and low. “I should take this.”

Greg settled his weight on the desk, as if preparing for a long stay. “Don’t mind me.”

Frustrated, Max raked his fingers through his hair. But he couldn’t risk letting the call go to voice mail. What if she hung up?

He turned away, cradling the phone to his ear, unable to control the leap of his heart or his voice. “Hi. You got my message.”

“I . . . Yes. The first one.”

“Right. Well, I only left one. I didn’t want you to think I was stalking you. Even if I kind of . . . Um.” Behind him, Greg made a strangled sound. Max took a deep breath. God, could he sound like a bigger loser? “Would you like to go? To the aquarium, I mean. Sunday?”

“I would,” she said. “But—”

“That’s great,” he said heartily before she could tell him no. “The tour’s at two. What time should I pick you up?”

“You can’t.”

“Right.” He was an idiot. Of course she didn’t want him to pick her up. She had children. She wouldn’t just invite a stranger to their home. “So, I’ll meet you there then.”

“I have to work Sunday. My shift starts at four.”

He had to keep her talking. He had to . . . “What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a waitress.” Her voice was slightly flat. Like that was the end of this discussion.

“Okay.” Maybe her hours weren’t flexible. Maybe her boss was a jerk. “We could go earlier.”

“But the tour starts at two, you said.”

His thoughts raced. “
That
tour, yes. But we could do something else. What time is good for you? Ten? Eleven?”

“I guess eleven. But—”

“Great. They’re treating some sea turtles in the lab. I bet your kids—Hannah—would like to see that.”

“Oh.” A new note in her voice. “She really would.”

He cleared his throat. “Of course you would be my guests.”

“Well . . .”

His heart beat faster. “Eleven, then? I’ll meet you by the front door.”

“I . . .” Her breath rushed out in what might have been a laugh. “Sure, why not? Thanks.”

He hardly knew what he said in reply. His blood pounded in his ears.

He ended the call.

Greg was watching him, forehead creased. “You’re taking your date to the aquarium?”

Max pulled his mind from the memory of Cynthie’s laugh, her lips, her eyes. Her tattoo. “Her and her kids. She has kids.”

“I worry about you, pal. You’re not going to score with a woman by taking her—and her kids—to look at a bunch of fish.”

“You like fish.”

“I’m an ichthyologist. It’s my job to like fish.”

Max smiled. “It’s not any old trip to the aquarium. I’m giving them a behind-the-scenes tour.”

“Yeah, because nothing says, ‘Have screaming sex with me’ like visiting the holding tanks. At least the regular exhibits would be dark.”

“I’m not looking to drag her into the shadows and make out. We’re not in high school anymore.” She wouldn’t have anything to do with him in high school. “Anyway, her kids will be with us.”

“How old are they?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about her, really, this new, grown-up Cynthie with her open smile and guarded eyes. She was divorced. She worked as a waitress. And she still tangled him up inside like a pelican in fishing line.

“Ten?” he hazarded. Hannah had looked about ten. He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Greg regarded him with pity. “If you believe that, you don’t know kids.”

No, he didn’t.

“Only child,” he reminded Greg. No brothers or sisters, no nieces or nephews.

“Just make sure the kids don’t take over the conversation. Ask her about herself,” Greg suggested. “Women like that. They think you’re interested.”

“I
am
interested,” Max said.

“Yeah, okay.” Greg eyed him doubtfully. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

Max rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension knotting there. “It’s a date. I’m sure I can figure it out,” he said.

He hoped.

*   *   *

IT
wasn’t a date, Cynthie told herself as she parked her aging minivan in the aquarium lot two days later. She flipped down the visor to check her hair in the driver’s-side mirror. A date was drinks or dinner or the movies, when a guy paid. This was more like a . . . well, like another field trip.

Maybe she should offer to pay for their tickets?

She met her gaze in the reflection. Her cheeks were awfully pink. And her eyes were shiny.

Hannah bounced in the backseat. “Come on, Mom, what are you doing?”

Good question. Cynthie knew better than to get all starry-eyed over a new guy. It never worked out. And every failure scraped away a little of her optimism along with a piece of her heart.

Besides, she had sworn off guys. For the girls’ sake.

She snapped the visor shut.

Twelve-year-old Madison slumped in the passenger seat beside her, wearing earbuds and a neutral expression.

Cynthie smiled at her brightly. “Ready to have fun?”

“Are we going home?”

Cynthie suppressed a sigh. Under the veil of hair and bored façade, Madison was a good kid, eager for approval, anxious for affection. Cynthie liked to think that her recent mouthiness was normal growing-up stuff, a sign of increasing confidence and independence. But sometimes she missed the little girl who used to cling to her. “Come on, Maddie. You used to love coming to the aquarium.”

“Sure. When I was, like, nine.”

“I’m nine,” Hannah said.

Madison spared her little sister a glance. “Exactly.”

Something was wrong. Even on her bad days, Madison was good with Hannah. “What’s the matter, baby?”

“I just don’t understand why you brought us.”

“Well, because Hannah is working on her aquarium report, and I thought it would be nice for us all to spend the day together.”

“You mean, spend the day with him.”

“Mr. Lewis is going to show us where they feed the sharks,” Hannah said.

Madison ducked her chin, hiding behind her fall of hair. “I don’t see why you have to drag us on your dates, Mom. It’s not like he wants us along. It’s humiliating.”

Cynthie’s heart squeezed. Madison was three when her father had lost his job cleaning and packing fish on the island. Cynthie had done her best to hold things together, had picked up a second shift as a cashier at the Piggly Wiggly to make ends meet. But after six months, she got tired of coming home exhausted to find Doug sitting on their couch, the house a mess and the baby crying.
You need to look for work,
she’d said.

So he had. On the other side of the state.

And he’d never looked back.

Cynthie was careful not to criticize Doug to their daughter, not to complain when the child support payments came late or not at all. But she knew Doug’s silence over the years—and her own erratic search for love—had primed their daughter for rejection.

The last thing Madison needed in her life now was another round of Meet Your Uncle Larry or Buddy or Phil.

“It’s not a date,” Cynthie said firmly. “It’s a tour.”

Madison slid her a glance. “Seriously?”

“A group tour,” Cynthie said. She absolutely had to pay for their tickets now. She’d find the sixty dollars somehow. If she packed all their lunches . . . If she didn’t pay the minimum balance on the credit card until the twenty-third . . . “There will be other families. Probably kids your age.”

“I doubt it,” Madison said. But she got out of the car.

They walked up the path to the aquarium entrance, Madison almost smiling, Hannah skipping ahead past the cascading fountain of bronze fish.

“Three tickets for the eleven o’clock, please,” Cynthie said to the fresh-faced girl behind the counter.

“You want admission tickets?”

“Tour tickets,” Cynthie said. “The eleven o’clock behind-the-scenes tour?”

“There’s a tour at two,” the girl said. “You want me to see if we still have spaces available?”

“Mom?” Hannah said, her voice rising.

Cynthie took a deep breath, conscious of Madison’s suddenly alert posture. “We have reservations. For the eleven o’clock tour. Cynthia Lodge?”

Unless Max had failed to make reservations. Unless he’d blown them off. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had failed to follow through on his promises to her and her daughters.

“Cynthie!”

She turned.

Max Lewis was striding toward them, tall and tanned and broad-shouldered, wearing cargo shorts and a wide smile.
Boy Genius to the rescue
.

Cynthie’s breath whooshed out as the tension she carried around inside her all the time—the voice that said,
You’re responsible, you fix this, it’s all on you
—relaxed.

He’d come. He hadn’t let her down. The girls weren’t going to be disappointed after all.

He loomed over them awkwardly—for one crazy moment she actually wondered if he might hug her—before he settled back and her imagination settled down.

He rocked on his heels, hands in his pockets, beaming. “Great to see you. Hi, Hannah.”

“Is that him?” Madison asked.

Hannah grinned. “Hey, Mr. Lewis.”

Madison looked at Cynthie. “Where’s the tour group?”

“Ah, I guess that would be you. Us,” Max said. “Hi, I’m Max Lewis, your tour guide.”

“This is my daughter, Madison,” Cynthie said.

“Nice to meet you,” Madison muttered. But her eyes, seeking Cynthie’s, told a different story.
You said this wasn’t a date,
they accused.

Cynthie swallowed. She’d never meant to lie to Maddie. But the truth was, she was attracted to Max Lewis, his steady gaze, his strong, tanned legs, his adorably mussed hair.

Her insides contracted in yearning and dismay. Maybe she’d been lying to herself.

MAX HAD PREPARED
for his date with Cynthie like a novice lecturer writing his first year’s lesson plans. He’d consulted with aquarium staff. He’d devised activities with Hannah in mind, based on his observations of the girl and his own memories of what had interested him as a child.

Satellite tracking of sea turtles? Check.

Shark pup nursery? Check.

Oyster spat monitoring project? Absolutely.

He had this one chance to get this right, to let Cynthie know him, to make her see him, to get her to, well . . .
like
him, he supposed. He was a teacher as well as a researcher. He loved his subject. He could do this.

But by the time they all trooped outside to see the submerged ceramic tiles used to monitor drifting oyster larvae, he was miserably aware that this date was going to exile him permanently to the Friend Zone.

Nerds did not get the girl.

He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, clearing his throat. “The tiles provide a hard substrate for the oysters to develop. So volunteers can collect data on spatfall, and we can use that data to track where the oysters are settling.”

“And that’s what you do?” Cynthie asked.

“That’s part of it,” he said. “My focus is more on adapting abandoned crab pots to restore our oyster reefs.”

And God, could he sound like a bigger geek?

“Like recycling,” Hannah said.

He looked at her gratefully. “Yes.”

“Well, that explains how you know Gil,” Cynthie said.

He nodded. “We’re partnering with local fishermen to drop the pots in different locations and depths to test where the oysters do best.”

“And then you eat them,” Madison said.

Cynthie grinned. “‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’ the Walrus did beseech. ‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach.’”

He stared, totally taken with her, her ease, her grace, her warmth.

She flushed. “It’s from a poem.”

“Alice!” Hannah said.

“I know what it’s from,” Max said. “Lewis Carroll. I’m just surprised . . .” He saw her blush deepen and stopped.

“I do read,” Cynthie said. “To the kids.”

“I’m sure you read. I just wasn’t sure I was making any sense,” he confessed. He smiled wryly. “I tend to go on a bit when I’m talking about my work. Not everyone is interested in saving the oysters.”

In saving the whales, maybe,
Greg had said.
Or swimming with dolphins. Not in restoring oyster habitats
.

“It’s saving people, too,” Cynthie said. “It’s saving jobs, isn’t it? For Gil and other fishermen. That’s important.”

She took his breath away. With one sentence, she put a human face on the gibberish he’d been spouting for the past forty minutes.

It was like being in high school again, anonymous, unnoticed, one geeky kid swimming against the tide of shoving strangers, totally out of his element, at sea. And then Cynthie would sail into view, a goddess, a senior, the one bright spot in his otherwise dreary year, and meet his eyes and smile. And for that one moment, he had substance, he was solid, he existed again.

She made him feel visible.

Before she moved on.

They began to stroll up the boardwalk toward the aquarium building, Madison hanging back, Hannah running ahead.

“Oysters have an incredible impact on both the environment and the economy,” Max said. “They’re not simply a source of food for humans and marine animals. Oysters clean our water. Their reefs provide protection for fish and stabilize against erosion.”

Cynthie tilted her head, smiling. “So when you were growing up, did you know you were destined to become Oyster Man, Savior of the Planet?”

He laughed, suddenly at ease. “No, when I was a kid I was mostly interested in splashing in puddles and poking things with sticks.”

“I have a kid like that.” She glanced at Hannah, who was hanging over the rail to peer at something in the water, and then back at him, that smile still teasing the corners of her mouth. “Your parents must be very proud.”

He shrugged. “I assume so.”

“You don’t know?”

They never said. He had given up trying to win their notice or approval years ago.

He held open the door to the building. “They’re very busy with their own research,” he explained. “We’re not a particularly demonstrative family.”

Cynthie walked past his outstretched arm. She smelled the same, like cloves and, very faintly, of cigarettes.

“But your dad . . .” She glanced up at him sideways, making his heart pound. “He’s a teacher, too, right? He must be happy you’re following his example.”

Max laughed ruefully. “Not according to my parents. As far as they’re concerned, I’m still playing in the mud and bringing tadpoles home in jars.”

Those soft green eyes held his. “Ouch.”

“No, it’s fine.” He swallowed. Bad enough he’d dragged her outside to inspect the oyster spats. He was not whining about his childhood. “Ah, here’s the kitchen.”

“It stinks,” Madison announced.

He looked at her, startled, and then realized she was speaking literally. The food preparation area did smell. He was too accustomed to lab smells and salt marsh smells to have noticed.

“No worse than the bait shop or the fish market,” Cynthie said cheerfully, rescuing the moment.

Rescuing him. She’d always been good at that. She’d saved his ass in high school.

And hurt his pride.

For a moment, the pain came back, a blur of blood and beer and humiliation.

She said something else. He barely heard, trapped by a memory.

“What?” he asked stupidly.

Her full lips quirked. “Are we going to feed the fish? Hannah was hoping we might get to see where they feed the sharks.”

“The viewing platform.” He nodded. “Absolutely. But first I thought we’d help prepare a meal.”

On cue, the door opened, admitting a blond-haired surfer dude with a big metal tray.

“Hi, Ben.”

“Hey, Dr. Lewis,” Ben said, which made Max feel about a hundred years old.

“Call me Max. We’re not in the classroom now.”

“Sure thing, Doctor . . . er, Max.” He smiled at Cynthie and her daughters. Maybe he smiled a little longer at Cynthie.

“Ben works here,” Max explained after he introduced them. “He’s going to show us what to do.”

Ben set them up at one of the long stainless steel tables, taking over the girls’ instruction with an ease Max envied.

Max looked over at Cynthie, her long hair tied back, little pieces escaping to slide down her neck. He was excruciatingly aware of the soft pale skin at the back of her neck, the siren tattoo curling around her arm, the rise and fall of her breath under the ugly lab apron. She was humming softly as she cut raw shrimp into neat, regular pieces, making the task look easy, making it fun, as if she had nothing better to do with her day off than chop bloody bits of chum.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think about how messy this would be.”

And smelly
. He winced. She would never go out with him again.

“It’s okay.” She smiled at him, revealing a single dimple in her right cheek. “I’m used to it.”

“The mess?”

“The gloves.”

He stared, uncomprehending.

“I’m training to become a dental hygienist. We have to wear these”—she waggled blue fingers at him—“to work on patients.”

Greg’s words drummed in his head.
Ask her about herself. Women like that. They think you’re interested.

I
am
interested.

Max cleared his throat. “How long is your training?”

“Two years.”

He raised his brows. “Big commitment.”

“I can do it.”

“Of course you can. It’s great that you’re going back to school. It just seems like a lot of work with everything else you’ve got going on.”

“My mama thinks I’m out of my mind. But . . .” She stopped. “You don’t want to hear all this.”

“Yeah, I do.” He’d never met her mother. But he understood parents being disappointed in their children’s choices. “Is she giving you a hard time?”

“Oh, no, Mama’s been a big help with the girls. She just can’t figure out why I want to clean teeth for a living when I could be bringing home a couple hundred in tips on the weekends.”

“Why do you?”

The dimple reappeared. “It wasn’t the uniforms, that’s for sure.”

He wanted to make her smile again. “I bet you look great in scrubs.”

“At least I won’t have any trouble picking out my clothes in the morning.”

He watched her carefully. “That’s one reason.”

“I just . . . I want to help people, I guess. I thought about maybe being a nurse, but I’ve had enough of working nights and holidays. In a dentist’s office, you get regular hours. Regular salary. Plus, you work in an office, people treat you with respect. Like that kid treats you.”

“You mean Ben? He was a student of mine. I recommended him for the internship here. And you just changed the subject back to me,” Max said on a note of discovery.

Cynthie bent her head over the cutting board. A corner of her mouth indented in a smirk.

“You can’t get away with that forever, you know,” he said. “Not in your job. Sooner or later, you’ll need to talk.”

“Are you kidding? Nobody wants to listen to their server. Mostly they want to tell you their troubles, complain about their lives, and order drinks.”

“Wait until you’re a hygienist,” he said. “Your patients won’t be able to do more than swish and spit. Or grunt. You’ll be forced to talk just to drown out the awful music.”

Their eyes met. Her smile escaped, wide and warm.

He grinned at her, triumphant.

*   *   *

CYNTHIE
snuck another look at Max as they stood outside the otter enclosure.

She was used to guys who talked about themselves, about what they drove or what they drank or how much money they made or didn’t make.

Max talked about the world she knew, sea and sand, mud and tides, but he invested every observation with urgency and importance, facts tumbling out of him like shells caught at the lip of the tide. She found herself smiling and nodding as he talked, conscious of every move he made, almost breathless when his arm brushed hers.

And even though she got distracted, she was caught in his passion for his subject. He kept stopping his flow to point things out, to gesture, to explain, spinning a net of words that pulled all the exhibits together somehow in a shiny, living, breathing ball.

He must be a very good teacher.

Cynthie wasn’t the only one infected by his enthusiasm.

Madison and Hannah crowded close to watch as the tech Ben fed the otters through a sliding door in the back of the exhibit. Hannah was on tiptoe with excitement, her hands smudging the thick glass. Even Madison was acting like her old self again instead of a preadolescent pain in the ass.

“Thanks,” Cynthie said quietly to Max. “For everything. I’m pretty sure feeding the otters wasn’t on the schedule.”

He looked down at her, making her aware of his height. His legs were very long. When was the last time she’d stood close enough to a man to notice his bare knees? Or the sun-warmed smell of his T-shirt, the scent of salt and man?

“Otters have a very high metabolism. They have to eat five times a day.”

She shook her head. “Not their schedule. Yours. We’ve taken up your whole morning.”

He shrugged those broad shoulders. “One of the advantages of my job is that I get to set my own hours.”

“That must be nice,” Cynthie said. Between work and school and the kids, she never had a moment to call her own.

“Was there something else you wanted to see?”

“No.” She smiled. “This has been great. The girls are having a great time.”

“What about you?”

“I’m having a good time, too,” she said honestly.

“Because nothing says ‘hot date’ like food prep at the aquarium,” he said wryly.

She smiled. This wasn’t a date. But for some reason, it was important that he understand the gift he’d given them.

“It’s fun just to be with them,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time we all hung out together without me fixing dinner or doing laundry. Without me nagging them about chores or homework.”
Without worrying about shopping for groceries or paying the bills.

One of the otters pounced on a hard-boiled egg.

Madison giggled. “Ohmigod, she’s so cute.”

“Ah, actually, she’s a he,” Max said. “All the exhibit’s otters are male.”

Cynthie looked at him sideways. “The aquarium doesn’t like girls?”

He smiled. “They’re simply following the divisions found in nature. Wild otters generally separate into two kinds of groups—mothers with their young, and small, rambunctious bands of males.”

“Sort of like humans,” Cynthie joked. “Growing up, it was me and my mom, and now it’s me and my girls.”

They strolled along the river gallery toward the swamp.

Max cleared his throat. “The girls don’t see their fathers much?”

Cynthie shook her head. “Doug—that’s Maddie’s dad—”

“I remember Doug,” Max said a little grimly.

“He lives in Charlotte. I think there’s another woman now. Another family, maybe. Doug doesn’t really keep in touch. Well, it’s been ten years,” she added, trying to be fair.