Some Like It Hot (3 page)

Their mutual father had left Max and his mother when Max was just a toddler. If Charlie Bradshaw had simply left town as he had when he ultimately deserted Jake and his mother, as well, things might have been different. Or if Max had had a different kind of mother...

He gave an impatient twitch of his shoulders. Because neither of those things had happened. Charlie was one of those men who was all about the current family. In Max’s case that had meant Jake and the second Mrs. Bradshaw. He’d seen the old man with them around town sometimes. It had been damn hard to miss, given the size of Razor Bay. So he’d witnessed Charlie acting the way Max assumed a dad should toward Jake, while
he
might as well have been the incredible Invisible Boy, so concealed had he appeared to be from his father’s sight.

Even with his mind mired in the past, he was aware of Harper across the table, and he tracked her movements as she reached for the pitcher of sangria. The container was still fairly full, the distance wasn’t optimum for her reach and he watched its weight immediately tip forward as she picked it up. Surging to his feet, he leaned across the table to steady the pitcher and slapped his free hand over hers on the handle to correct the forward momentum.

It was as if he’d grabbed the business end of a live wire. Heat streaked like lightning through his veins, and it wouldn’t have surprised him in the least if someone started slapping at his head and yelling that his hair was smoking. He wondered if she felt it, too, or if this began and ended with him. She’d gone very still, and those big eyes were locked on him and rounded in the same O as her lips. But, hell, that could very well be due to the sheer speed of the events from her reach for the pitcher, to its tipping, to him leaping to the rescue like a tattooed, beefed up version of Dudley Do-Right.

The instant the pitcher touched the tabletop again—this time nearer her where its entire weight wouldn’t be dangling from her hand with no arm muscle behind it for support—he yanked his hands clear. Thumped back into his chair.

He did his best to ignore the residual electricity zinging through him from the feel of her skin. Making a point of not looking at her again, he deliberately forced his thoughts back to the relative safety of his old animosity toward Jake.

His mom sure as hell hadn’t helped the situation. Not that he’d seen that at the time; it wasn’t until he was old enough and distanced enough to view the situation with an adult’s perspective that he’d realized if Angie Bradshaw had been a different kind of woman, he probably wouldn’t have suffered much damage from the desertion. Hell, he’d barely been two years old when Charlie had moved out. Most of the memories of actual time spent with his father had come through the home movies Charlie had left behind.

His mother, however, wasn’t a big believer in letting things go. Rarely had a day gone by that she hadn’t reminded him of what they’d lost. All he’d ever heard were acid-etched stories of the slut who’d stolen his father away, and of his little shit of a half brother who had gotten everything that should have been his.

It hadn’t helped that in school his half bro had been a serious student and run with the kids of Razor Bay’s movers and shakers, while
he
had pulled average grades, run with a wilder crowd and frequently gotten into trouble.

No wonder he was so fucked up when it came to the silver-spoon girls. They were simply the female version of Jake.

“Max?”

The sound of Harper’s voice snatched him from his stroll down memory lane, and as his awareness raced to catch up with his inner musings, he realized his name hadn’t been the first word she’d directed at him. Looking at her across the table, he felt the same crazy-ass clench of his heart he experienced every damn time he laid eyes on her.

And clearing his throat, he lied without compunction. “Sorry. I was thinking about work for a minute there. What did you say?”

“I was just asking what you did with the rest of your day off after I saw you.”

Okay, this was something he actually
liked
talking about. “I went out to Cedar Village.” He was surprised to see startled recognition in her eyes and raised his brows. “You’re familiar with it?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned, although I can’t remember where. It’s a...boys’ camp?”

Jake snorted, and Max gave her a one-sided smile. “Don’t mind him, he thinks it’s more like a reformatory. It’s actually a group home for troubled kids—boys. And, yeah, most of them have been in trouble. But, so was I at their age and—”

“Look how well that turned out,” Jake deadpanned.

He grinned at the sarcasm in his broth—
half
brother’s voice. “I know, damn good, right? For instance, unlike Mr. Shutterbug here, instead of playing with cameras, I have a real job.”

Harper was staring at him, and his smile faded, his self-consciousness resurfacing. But damned if he’d allow it to short-shrift his responsibility to the Cedar boys. He rolled his shoulders. “Anyhow, a lot of these kids come from dicked-up backgrounds—broken homes, substance-abusing mother or father or sometimes both. None of our boys’ parents are physically abusive, but some are purposefully neglectful, while others simply have to work killer hours just to put food on the table or hang on to their house. A few of the boys actually come from warm, involved families—they just lost their way for a while or fell in with the wrong crowd. In every case, they need the attention, the
stability
that the counselors out there provide.”

“Is that what you are—a counselor, as well as a deputy?”

“Me?” That startled another one-sided quirk of his lips from him. He shook his head. “Nah. I’m on the board of directors, but mostly I just hang out with the boys. But,
speaking
of my board position...”

Everyone except Mark’s youngest son and the woman named Sharon groaned, and Max laughed outright. “That’s right, boys and girls. It’s put-up-or-shut-up time. Our pancake breakfast fund-raiser is next Sunday. I know most of you have already bought tickets, but we also need volunteers to help man it. I just happen to have a sign-up sheet in my car.”

“Can we be excused, Jenny?” Austin asked, hastily pushing back from the table. His friends Nolan and Bailey followed suit. “We have to finish setting up the croquet stuff.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Max said. “You guys wanna be waitstaff or work in the kitchen?”

“Aw,
man!
Do we hafta?”

“We have several boys from the Village who’ll be working the event, but we could really use more help.” He looked his nephew in the eye. “These kids haven’t had the advantages you’ve had. It’s for a good cause.”

Austin sighed but nodded. So did his sidekicks. Max turned his attention to the adults.

“Don’t look at me,” said Sharon. “Those boys scare the crap out of me.”

“No, c’mon. They’re just kids.”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, they still scare me. I’ll buy a ticket, though.”

He knew better than to feel resentful on the kids’ behalf, but it took a little effort to say mildly, “Thanks, that’ll help. You want the eight or nine-thirty sitting?”

“I’ll take the eight.”

“You can sign me up to help,” Harper said.

Max’s head whipped around.
Oh, yeah, baby.
Sternly telling his libido it was out of line and to take a damn seat, he raised a brow. “Yeah?”

“Yes, sure. I have next Sunday off and it would be a good way to see the town in action. I’ll wait tables. I can get to know more people that way.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” He leaned back in his chair and looked around the table. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about, people. Harper and the kids just gave us a decent start here. So, how ’bout the rest of you?” He gestured with uncharacteristic expansiveness. “Step right up, ladies and gents. The line forms to the left.”

CHAPTER THREE

L
AUGHTER
,
DEEP
,
LOUD
and masculine, rolled out of the community center kitchen and across the counter where Harper had just picked up her industrial-sized platter of pancakes. She froze for an instant, and the chatter and clatter of crowded tables full of hungry pancake diners faded away as she searched the packed kitchen for the laugh’s source.

Not that there was any doubt as to whose large chest
that
had come out of. She’d only heard it once before, and God knew it hadn’t been directed at her. But no one who’d ever heard Max Bradshaw laugh would mistake it for anyone else’s. Even someone as new to Razor Bay as she was grasped it was a rarity. Hell, a simple grin from him at Jenny’s dinner party earlier this week had all but knocked her on her butt. His laugh was a steamroller that threatened to flatten her.

She needed to keep in mind that all this interest was one-sided. And, c’mon, how hard could it be to do so—she only had to remember Max’s assistance at Jenny’s when she’d tried to pick up the sangria pitcher from too far away and had nearly poured it all over the picnic table instead. His touch when he’d wrapped his hand around hers had all but electrified her—exactly the way it had the first time they’d met when she’d touched his bare forearm. It wasn’t possible for a man’s skin to be any hotter than anyone else’s. So why did her mind insist it was?

She gave her head a subtle shake. The answer to that hardly mattered, so there was no sense even going there. Because if she’d been electrified,
he
had shaken free so fast you would’ve thought she was toxic waste, and he without his hazmat suit. Charm had always come easily to her, but either her ability abandoned her around the good deputy or he was immune. Either way, her mad skills were wasted on him.

She located him now over by the gargantuan stove, standing head—and in most cases shoulders, as well—above the boys around him. He looked like a Hell’s Angel with those brown-ink tribal tattoos, his disreputably torn blue jeans and that brilliantly white, batter-splattered T-shirt that clung damply to his big shoulders and muscular chest. The faded blue bandanna tied around his dark hair only added to the image.

But his face was alight with whatever amusement had set him off, his teeth flashing a white bright enough to rival his T-shirt’s, and most of the teens gaped at him as if he were a rock star. Given the absorption with which she was staring at him herself, she could hardly blame them. If their interactions with the guy were anything like her own admittedly limited exchanges, they, too, were likely more accustomed to seeing him sober and serious.

Forcing herself to get back to the business at hand, she turned away to carry her tray over to one of the long tables in her area. “Who’s ready for more pancakes?” she demanded cheerfully.

And only glanced over her shoulder once to make sure that Max was no longer visible from this vantage point.

A largely male-voiced roar of enthusiasm from the patrons greeted her question, and she laughed and chatted up people as she dished out fresh stacks to everyone who indicated an interest.

“How’s the syrup holding up?” she inquired at one point and, being told that it was getting low, waved one of the teen volunteers over to exchange a full dispenser for the almost empty one. She summoned two other helpers as well to refill empty glasses from the pitchers of water and orange juice they manned.

“Megan, Joe, hello!” She forked pancakes onto the plates of two guests from the inn who had been in her guided kayak tour the day before. “I’m so glad you made it.”

Joe grinned. “Seriously good pancakes.
We’re
glad you told us about it.”

She laughed. The pancakes were decent but nowhere close to seriously good. But they were plentiful, and the atmosphere in the hall was loud, cheerful and fun, all of which she suspected contributed to the food tasting better.

She ran out of pancakes halfway through the next table and almost mowed down Tasha on her way back to the kitchen for another refill. “Oh, hey, sorry.” Reaching out, she steadied the other woman’s tray, which unlike her own was loaded. “I wasn’t looking where I was going—I was too busy marveling at the pancake-eating contest over there.” She indicated a table on the stage at the end of the cavernous hall.

“I know, it’s always kind of like watching jackals taking down a gazelle. You really want to look away, but find you can’t.”

“So this isn’t just an impulsive boys gone wild event? They’ve done this before?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s an annual event.” Tasha tipped her head toward the wiry little guy in the middle packing away an amazing quantity of pancakes. “Greg Larson will likely win. He almost always does. But every now and then, just often enough to keep things interesting, we have an upset.” She shrugged and looked at Harper. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m doing great. Upbeat crowds like this give me oomph.”

“Well, lucky you, Energizer Bunny.” The strawberry blonde gave her a weary smile. “I had a long shift at Bella’s last night that ran late, so I’m starting to wilt. And I’d sure like to know how the hell Jenny managed to weasel out of this detail.”

Harper shrugged. “She said there was too much to do at the inn.”

“Yeah, that’s the story she fed me, too.” Tasha raised her brows at Harper. “You buy that?”

“Not for a minute. Oh, not that the inn isn’t really busy, because it’s definitely jumping. But while I haven’t been around forever like you natives, I get the impression that Jenny thrives on the summer madness.” She looked askance at Tasha, who nodded her agreement.

Harper hitched a shoulder. “That being the case, and going by the fact that Jake’s not here, either, my guess would be that they’re sneaking some time together to make up for him being out of town.”

“Yep. That’d be my take, too.” Tasha really looked at Harper. “You know what? You and I should have a girls’ night one of these days. Jenny can join us if we can pry her away from Lover Boy, but right now she’s deep into that all-Jake-all-the-time stage, so I don’t hold my breath over that happening. What do you say? You in?”

“Absolutely.” One disadvantage to all of the traveling she’d done in her formative years was that she’d spent considerably more time with adults than people her own age. The upside, of course, was that it had resulted in far more sophisticated experiences than she likely would’ve received otherwise. But after the age of twelve she hadn’t had what most women would consider real girlfriends. Watching Tasha and Jenny together made her feel she’d been missing out.

“Good.” Tasha glanced down at her loaded tray. “I’d better pass these out while they’re still lukewarm. I’ll give you a call, okay? And this time I really mean it. I kind of let the yoga thing get away from me.”

Harper executed the particularly French shrug she’d picked up during the eighteen months she and her family had lived in Clermont-Ferrand. “Believe me, I know how that goes.”

They parted ways, Tasha plunging into the crowded room and Harper heading back to the food service counter that divided the hall from the kitchen.

She chatted up one of the boys on the other side while he refilled her tray with more pancakes. He’d just finished loading up when a horrendous crash of glass smashing to smithereens made them both jump as if someone had unexpectedly fired off a shotgun next to them. Her head swiveling in the direction of the sound, she focused in on two teenage boys standing in a quickly dissipating wreath of steam from the open door of a huge dishwasher. As she watched, one shoved the other.

“Look what you made me do, you dumb shit!” The shover gave the other, larger, teen another shot to the chest.

“Who the hell you callin’ a dumb shit, ass cap?” The bigger boy pushed back, making the first kid stumble back several paces. Following up his advantage, Big Boy dogged the retreating boy’s footsteps, thrusting his face into the other youth’s. “
You’re
the one who backed into me, you stupid fuc—”

“That’s enough.” Max’s deep voice cut through the obscenity, and suddenly he was just
there,
reaching between the boys to separate them. “Sometimes accidents are just accidents. Jeremy, grab the broom.”

“Why the hell do
I
have to sweep up his mess?” Big Boy demanded.

“Because we work as a team and I asked you to,” Max replied evenly, giving the teen a level look that had Jeremy slouching away. The remaining boy snickered.

Max turned to him. “I wouldn’t be too smug if I were you, because you’re not off the hook. Go get a dustpan and the mop. After you pick up the glass Jeremy sweeps, you can mop the area.”

“Hey!” The slighter boy adopted a belligerent stance. “
He
only hadda do
one
thing. How come I gotta do two?”

“Rules of the road, Owen.” Max’s voice was matter-of-fact yet somehow as calming as cool water poured over scorched earth. “Jeremy wasn’t wrong, you know—you picked up a huge tray of glasses, then backed up without once looking behind you. And the guy going in reverse is always at fault.”

“That sucks!”

Max reached out and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Maybe so. But rules are rules, kid. Go grab the dustpan and mop.”

The boy grumbled but did as he was told. Harper picked her tray up off the counter and turned away.

Great. Like it wasn’t bad enough that she already harbored a fascination for this guy. Why did he have to go and be good with kids, as well?

She didn’t understand this damn attraction; it was so not her general M.O. She’d never gone for the big, physical guys—she was usually drawn to older, more sophisticated men. But Max Bradshaw... Lord, whenever he was near she felt like a vampire trying to do the stay-on-the-straight-and-narrow-blood-bank thing.

All the while scenting a juicy vein.

And if that didn’t make everything more complicated, she didn’t know what did. Like things weren’t convoluted enough already...considering the job with The Brothers Inn wasn’t her sole reason for being in Razor Bay.

“You prob’ly better move, lady,” the boy who had refilled her tray suddenly said, shaking her out of her reverie.

“What’s that?” She blinked, then, following his gaze, glanced over her shoulder. Other volunteers, awaiting their turn, had begun stacking up behind her. “Oops.” She flashed them her friendliest smile. “Sorry.”

Picking up her tray, she threw herself back into dishing out pancakes.

When the last patron left, Harper nearly did, as well. She had wiped down her tables and straightened the chairs. And since she’d tucked her driver’s license into her back pocket so she wouldn’t have to deal with a purse, she was good to go.

But looking into the kitchen, she saw Max and his crew still hard at work cleaning up. She could see the boys had about reached their limit of volunteerism, and, with a quiet sigh, she rounded the end of the counter and crossed the kitchen to the teen who was about to carry a stack of plates on which he’d precariously balanced more glasses than was safe. He was the larger of the two boys Max had separated earlier, the one she’d privately labeled Big Boy.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” she said, reaching to pluck the glasses off the plates and efficiently stacking them into two towers.

“Thanks, lady.” The teen pulled an overhead cupboard open and shoved the plates in. He jerked his head to the cupboard next to his. “Glasses go in there.”

“I’m Harper.”

“Jeremy,” he said in a voice that didn’t encourage her to get chatty.

“Nice to meet you.” Stepping alongside him, she reached up to set the glasses in her right hand on the shelf. Apparently she’d stacked them just a little too high, however, for the bottom of the uppermost cup bumped the edge of the cupboard and began to tilt back toward her.

Warmth radiated against her back, even though nothing actually touched it. At the same time a suntanned, white-cotton banded biceps came into her peripheral vision, and Max Bradshaw’s deep voice said, “Hang on, let me take a couple cups off the top.”

It only took him a second, but that moment stretched languorously as a cat after a long nap, her senses bombarded with his heat, with the salty, slightly musky scent of him mixed with that of pancake batter and laundry soap. She eyed the up-close view of the tail end of his tattoos undulating from beneath his sleeve hem with the movement of his arm, then transferred her attention to the muscles and tendons that flexed in his forearm, his rawboned wrist and long hand as he swiftly slid a couple of cups from the stack she still held aloft, dropped them onto the one in her left hand, then removed four or five of those and put them in the cupboard.

“There you go.” He stepped back and Harper put the rest of the cups alongside the minitower he’d placed on the shelf.

Exhaling softly, she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Thank you. You seem to have a knack for rescuing me from glassware accidents-about-to-happen.”

He stilled for a moment, and something hot and fierce flashed in his eyes. Or perhaps she only imagined it, because in the next instant he gave her a faint smile, polite nod and a murmured, “My pleasure.”

Oh, trust me, it was mine, as well.

Probably a less than brilliant idea to go there, however, so she shook the thought aside and injected some starch in her spine. Then, seeing an opportunity and not shy about taking advantage of it, she turned to him fully. “Listen, I only work three-quarter time at the inn. I’d love to volunteer some of my free hours to Cedar Village.”

“Yeah?” He studied her through shuttered dark eyes. “What do you have to offer?”

“I don’t know. What do volunteers generally do? I’m pretty much a jack-of-all-trades. But what I really rock at is organizing activities. And fund-raising.” When he continued to simply look at her with level, noncommittal eyes, she shrugged impatiently. People usually jumped at her fund-raising skills. “If that doesn’t work for you, I could always just provide a woman’s touch.”

“I wouldn’t mind a woman’s touch,” drawled a blond boy who was swabbing down the counter a few feet away, and his tone told Harper he wasn’t thinking motherly thoughts.