Carolina Heart (4 page)

“But you have a child together.”

She sighed. “Yeah. He keeps saying it’s too expensive to come visit, but I wish he would invite Maddie to stay sometimes. Not that I’d feel great about her going, but he’s still her dad.”

“What about Hannah’s father?”

She didn’t look at him, focusing her attention on the pond turtles on the other side of the glass. “Not in the picture.”

“Ever?” He sounded surprised.

He was a nice guy. She’d probably shocked him. Hell, she’d shocked herself, ten years ago.

“It was right after the divorce,” Cynthie said. “I was drinking too much and feeling kind of low, and some Marine came into the bar and, well . . . Nine months later, I had Hannah. He’s never seen her.”

Max frowned. “He still has a responsibility to pay child support.”

“Maybe he would. If I’d asked him.” Deliberately, she turned from the glass and met his gaze, refusing to hide, hating to lie. “If I’d known his name.”

Their eyes held. Her heart beat faster in defiance and something else.

There
.
Now he knew
.

And now, she knew from experience, he would run.

Or maybe he’d run later.

Guys like him—attractive guys in their early thirties, smart, employed, well-educated guys—they didn’t hit on women like her. Unless they planned on nailing an easy target.

“I told Hannah her daddy is a war hero who’s away serving his country.” Cynthie smiled lopsidedly. “It might even be true. My point is, I have a history of making bad decisions. I’m not looking to repeat myself.”

Hannah and Madison were on the other side of the room, peering at the alligators lurking in the shadows of the man-made cypress swamp.

Max cleared his throat again, the sound rasping against the softly falling water.

Here it comes,
Cynthie thought.

“You’ve got wonderful kids,” he said. “You’ve done a great job with them. You should be proud.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at him wide-eyed, her mouth opening and closing like she was a fish.

All her life, Cynthie had been judged. By her mother, her teachers, her customers, herself. And here was this man telling her she’d done good.

Was he for real?

“Mo-om.” Madison’s voice jerked Cynthie out of wherever she’d been drifting and into the air. “It’s almost one o’clock. I told Taylor I’d come over at two. We’re going to be late.”

Cynthie pulled herself together. Of course, Madison wanted to go to her friend Taylor’s. Taylor was good for Maddie. And her home was perfect. Her family was perfect. Her grandmother baked cookies every day.

“No, we’re not,” Cynthie said. She smiled at Max. “We should go. We need to let you get back to . . .”

Your life
.

And let me get back to mine
.

The thought left her oddly bereft.

“Your work,” she finished.

His light, intent eyes focused on her face. “It’s Sunday,” he said.

“Yes.” She swallowed. “My shift starts at four. But this was great. We really did have a good time. Hannah especially. Thank you so much.”

The girls, reminded of their manners, said all the appropriate things. Even Madison blushed and stammered thanks.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Max said.

His
manners, Cynthie noted, were excellent. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.”

She could argue. But she didn’t want to lose his company. Not yet. Anyway, it was good for the girls to see an example of a guy treating a woman politely.

They all trooped out to the lobby, Madison walking ahead, gradually establishing a proper teenage distance.

They emerged from the building into a flood of sunshine.

“I want to see you again,” Max said.

Cynthie blinked in the sudden brightness. “Why?”

His jaw squared a little. “Because . . . I like you. I always have.”

His earnest voice tickled at her brain, teased at her memory. Almost, almost, as if she’d heard those words before. From him.

She stared at him, wondering. And then shook the thought away.

“I like you, too,” she said. “But we’re not in high school anymore.”

He grinned. “Thank God.”

An answering smile tugged her mouth. “Yeah, okay. But the thing is, I have kids. Bad enough I have to dump them on my mom on the nights I work. I can’t ditch them to go out with you.”

“So we can bring them along sometimes. Do things together. Like today.”

Like a family.

For a moment, longing flooded her chest. Her eyes blurred. It would be so nice to have a man around. She didn’t miss Doug. She didn’t balk at hard work. She didn’t mind cutting the grass and paying the bills and figuring out how to replace the washer under the kitchen sink when the pipes leaked all over the peeling vinyl floor. But the loneliness, the sheer weight of being the Only One Responsible, got to her sometimes.

What would it be like to have an ally? Another grown-up to answer Hannah’s questions, to coax a smile to Madison’s face.

Girls need a masculine role model,
Cynthie thought wistfully. Maybe her own life would have been different if her father had stuck around.

And then reality reared its ugly head. Reality and regret. That was old Cynthie thinking. New Cynthie knew better.

Maybe Hannah was too young to remember or care about her mother’s string of boyfriends, the Men Who Couldn’t Commit and Did Not Stay. But Madison was more fragile. God knew what kind of damage Cynthie had already done to Madison.

She looked at them standing, waiting by the car. Madison had put aside her impatience to get home and was leaning over, teasing Hannah to make her laugh.

Love for her daughters swelled Cynthie’s heart, pushing out everything else.

She was all they had.

She needed to be enough for them. Good enough. Strong enough.

“Thanks, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m trying to get my life in order,” she said. “I don’t bring guys home anymore. My girls need me to put them first. They need to be able to count on me.”

“Of course they do. But what about what you need?” Max asked quietly.

Her throat constricted. She swallowed hard. “I need to be the person they can count on.”

He held her gaze for long moments. And then he nodded. “Right.”

She blew out her breath, relieved and deflated.

“So it will have to be lunch then,” he said. “Or coffee.”

Her pulse leaped, but she shook her head. “You’re not listening. I can’t go out with you.”

“You do occasionally stop to eat, right? During the day, when the kids are at school?”

“Sometimes,” she said cautiously. “If I have a break between classes.”

“Me, too.” His gray eyes gleamed, or maybe that was a trick of the sunlight. “Say, Wednesday? One o’clock?”

She felt herself softening, weakening, giving in. “Were you this pushy in high school?”

“Nope.” He smiled crookedly. “If I had been, maybe you’d remember me.”

Her face got hot.

“Just lunch,” he coaxed. “Just friends. Everybody needs a friend.”

What about what you need?
he’d asked.

Her heart quivered. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could let herself have this much. As long as she wasn’t taking anything away from the girls . . .

“Wednesday,” she said.

FIVE WEEKS LATER,
Max tore his gaze from the entrance to the student union and forced himself to focus on the papers in his lap. Cynthie was late.

He wasn’t worried, exactly. She had his cell phone number. She would have called if she wasn’t coming.

Unless she was blowing him off.

His fingers tapped the pages. He was not going to overreact. She was running a few minutes behind schedule, that’s all.

Okay, fifteen minutes. He couldn’t help the quick glance at his phone. Almost twenty. But he could wait. He was good at waiting. He’d had plenty of practice, standing around on the steps after school, waiting for one of his parents to remember to pick him up. Even Julie, when they’d lived together, had never been on time for anything.

Female prerogative, darling,
she would explain breezily, dismissing his concern and irritation.

Power trip,
Greg had said the last time she’d canceled dinner plans at the last minute.

But Cynthie wasn’t like that.
Single moms are good at time management,
she’d informed him once with a brilliant smile.
We have to be
.

She’d never been late for one of their dates before.

Max frowned, unseeing, at the neatly typed pages. Not that she would call this a date. He wasn’t sure he could call it a date, either. She wouldn’t let him pay for her lunch, not after the first time. But he’d bought drinks, bottled water for him, Diet Mountain Dew for her. He’d had time to learn her habits. For the last five weeks, they’d been meeting for lunch three days a week, squeezing in an hour between classes, snatching coffee and conversation in the well-lit, noisy, very public student center.

Cynthie had made it clear she wasn’t ready to take their relationship outside this building. Max wanted more. But if he pushed for more, he might lose even this.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Cynthie stood beside “their” table, her face flushed and smiling, her dark hair sliding from its messy ponytail, and all Max’s frustration dissolved in simple happiness.

“No problem. It’s good to see you.” He started to his feet, spilling papers to the floor.

“Oops.” She bent to pick them up, her head more or less level with his lap.

His body tightened at the attention.

“I’ve got that,” he said, embarrassed, stooping.

She glanced at a page before handing it to him. “‘Insufficient contribution of sink habitats to spawning stock,’” she read aloud. “Sexy stuff. Did you write this?”

She was so pretty, smiling on her knees before him, her green eyes alight with humor. Need balled in his gut.

He cleared his throat. “Ah, no. It’s a dissertation draft for one of my grad students. I promised I’d get it back to him this week.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your work.”

“You’re not. I just brought it along so I’d have something to do.” He shoved the pages into his backpack.

“Max . . .” Cynthie straightened slowly, her expression troubled. “You’ve got better things to do than hanging around wasting your time with me.”

It was an apology.

Or maybe a warning.

“I’m not wasting anything,” he said firmly. Certainly not this chance to see her, to be with her, again. “I like spending time with you.”

Her face glowed.

“Anyway, I’ve got to eat,” he added. “Have a soda. How was your class?”

“Thanks.” She slid into her usual seat across the table. “It was good. Better than good. We had a guest speaker today. An oral surgeon. That’s why I’m late.”

“Lecture run long?”

“No, I stayed after class.” She rummaged in her monster-size purse for her brown-bag lunch. “That’s the exciting part.”

She always brought her lunch from home. To save money, Max suspected. He’d taken to doing the same so that she wouldn’t feel awkward about the relative state of their finances.

Pulling out two squishy plastic packages, she laid one in front of him.

He looked from the package to her bright, expectant face. “What’s this?”

“Lunch.”

“I brought my lunch.”

She sniffed. “Hard-boiled eggs again, I bet, and an apple. I’ve seen what you pack. I made you a proper sandwich.”

Warmth suffused his chest as he stared down at her offering. “That was really nice of you.”

He peeled back plastic wrap, revealing a white, moist, lumpy, unappetizing square. He was pretty sure his eggs had more nutritional value. But he didn’t say a word.

“I hope you like chicken salad,” she said.

“Love it.” Anyway, he would love this chicken salad. Because she’d made it for him.

He took a hearty bite, and flavor exploded in his mouth, tangy, creamy, sweet.
Wow
. He swallowed. “Okay, I owe you one. This is really good.”

She grinned. “You don’t have to sound so surprised. It’s Mama’s recipe—Duke’s Mayonnaise and a touch of pickle relish.”

“Your mother is amazing.”

She tipped her head. “Your mom never made you chicken salad?”

He shook his head. Dr. Dorothea Bell-Lewis did not cook. She opened cans. And bottles of wine. And he was not so pathetic that he was going to discuss the imagined shortcomings of his privileged childhood with Cynthie, who grew up with nothing and never complained about anything. “Tell me about your class. What happened?”

“Well.” Cynthie swallowed a bite of sandwich. “This doctor came in today, Dr. Rice. He does a lot of implants, bone grafts, wisdom tooth extractions, stuff like that. Anyway, I asked some questions in class about postoperative care. So later, when I was leaving, he stopped me and asked if I was interested in a part-time job.”

“That’s great,” Max said. “You obviously impressed him.”

She blinked. “You think?”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Max said, echoing her words to him, and was rewarded when she laughed.

“It would be like a receptionist job, answering phones, making appointments. But he’d pay. And he said I’d have a chance to observe him.”

Max nodded. “Job shadowing.”

“Yeah.” Cynthie smiled her lopsided smile, revealing her dimple. “Not that I have time to pick up a second job.”

Max frowned. He didn’t like to see her dismiss an opportunity so easily. “What are the hours?”

“He said he could be flexible. He mostly wants somebody in the office when his regular staff takes lunch. Twelve to one-thirty, Monday through Friday.”

Max set down his sandwich, his appetite suddenly gone. “You could do that. You don’t have classes then.”

You have lunch with me
.

“I don’t know.” She crumpled her napkin. “I probably wouldn’t be any good. I don’t have any experience.”

He didn’t want to lose her company. But he couldn’t sit here and listen to her denigrate herself. “You’re a quick learner. Look at how well you’re doing in class. Anyway, the whole point of the job is that you’d get experience. Training.”

She collected her trash and his, stuffing it in her lunch bag to throw away. “I have to think about it. My schedule’s crazy enough already.”

“The job pays, you said. If you took it, you could cut back your hours at the restaurant. Maybe take a night off now and then to be home with your girls and do your homework.”

Her busy hands stilled. Her gaze fixed on his face, her eyes wide and shining.

Max shifted, uncomfortable. “What?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For making me feel like I can do this.”

Heat crept up his neck to his ears. He didn’t deserve her thanks. “I didn’t do anything.”

Except wonder, selfishly, how he was going to get through his days without her.

She shook her head, smiling. “Maybe it comes naturally for you. Maybe teachers have to be encouraging or something. But all my life, nobody’s ever looked at me the way you do. Made me believe in myself the way you do. It’s like I see this future for myself that nobody else sees. Except my friend Meg. And now you.”

She was killing him here.

“Glad to help,” he said gruffly. “Anytime.”

She stood with him to bus their table. “You’re a nice guy, Max Lewis,” she said softly.

She stepped in, standing on tiptoe to brush her lips across his.

Shock held him still. Her lips were so soft. Her breath was so warm. Her body was round and lush against his and he forgot where they were and what he was doing and kissed her back hard, sliding his hand up into her hair, taking her mouth with his.

He heard a rushing in his ears like the sound of the sea. He was drowning in her, so warm, so close, trembling in his arms, kissing him back, making him dizzy. His blood roared.

A sound intruded, hard, percussive.

Someone clapping, Max thought dimly. Some wise-ass student applauding them.

He raised his head. “I have to see you again.”

Cynthie licked her lips, her eyes dark and unfocused, so beautiful he almost lunged for her again. “When?”

“We could go out. Friday night. Dinner.”

“I . . .” Her pulse beat in her throat. He wanted to kiss her there, in the fragrant hollow below her jaw. He wanted to lick her skin. “I have to be home with the girls.”

“Then let me come over.”

She took a step back, folding her arms across her breasts. “You can’t. I can’t.” There was a shaky note in her voice almost like panic. “I don’t do that now. I won’t risk them getting attached to some random guy I’m dating.”

The words stung.
Some random guy
 . . . She meant him. After five weeks, that’s all he was. Whatever she said about his belief in her, she still didn’t trust in him.

“Are you sure it’s the girls you’re worried about?” he asked slowly.

Color flooded her face. She didn’t answer him directly. “It’s not that I don’t want to see you.”

“Right.”

“We can still . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Have coffee,” he suggested.

“If that’s what you want.”

“You know what I want.”

She raised her eyebrows.

Because, he realized with blinding clarity, all her life guys had been wanting things from her. Her smiles. Her attention. Sex.

And, yeah, he wanted those things from her, too. But that didn’t automatically make him an asshole. There were other reasons a guy could want her, more reasons than she could imagine or was ready to hear. He loved her optimism and her grit. He admired her cheerful determination to make the best of things.

And he needed her to want him, too.

“I want to spend time with you,” he said firmly. “When’s your first class on Monday?”

“Nine o’clock.”

“We meet at eight-thirty, that gives us half an hour for coffee,” he said.

Her smile bloomed. “I guess it does.” She met his gaze hopefully. “Friends?”

His heart squeezed like a fist. She asked for so little. He wanted to give her so much.

All my life, nobody’s ever looked at me the way you do. Made me believe in myself the way you do . . . Except my friend Meg. And now you.

Cynthie needed friends. She needed him, even if it was only for this.

“Friends,” he promised.