Summer Kisses (266 page)

“They’re taller than they look when you’re driving beside them on the highway.” Roger rubbed the potbelly that was his biggest obstacle. “You’re going to have to boost me up.”

Max linked his hands into a stirrup and lifted when Roger put his sneakered foot inside. Roger’s landing on top of the barrel didn’t get them home free. Struggling to stand, he looked a bit like a circus elephant balancing on a performance pedestal. Even on tiptoe, he could barely reach the fire escape.

Just as Max decided to give up and call him back to the ground, the cameraman managed a one-handed grasp of the bottom rung and shinnied up to the next level.

“I got it, buddy.” He hoisted the camera onto his shoulder. “Man, oh, man, you’re not gonna believe what we’ve got here. This is better than your wildest dreams.”

Max’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. “What? Who can you see? What are they taking?”

“We’re takin’ everything but the Mayor’s new computer, and we might take that too,” came a gruff voice from behind him. “Too bad you and Fatso won’t be around to tell about it.” 

“Fatso?” Roger’s voice floated down from the rooftop like an offended archangel.

Max jerked his head to the left. A long-bladed knife sliced through the sensitive skin beneath his ear. Ignoring the sharp sting, he shoved an elbow backward into the mushy gut of a black-clad villain and hotfooted it down the alley. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another criminal slithering up the fire escape with the ease of a lizard.

“Take off, Rog!” He hoped the cameraman had an escape route he could handle across the damp roofs, but concern for Annabel crowded out every other thought. Max heard the thud of footsteps behind him as his own assailant rebounded from his tumble and rounded the corner.

She wasn’t visible in the alcove she’d melted into earlier. He hoped she had the sense to stay out of sight. If not, his best bet was to lead the scoundrel as far away from her as possible.

Max had combed the area carefully in the past week, preparing for just such an unlikely event as this. If he picked up some speed and made it around the next corner before his tail caught up with him, he could disappear into an old storm sewer while Swifty passed him by, then get a jump on him from behind. Maybe... Probably... Hopefully.

Swifty’s breath turned into a labored huff and puff. His pursuit flagged. The corner loomed ahead of Max. He made the turn and ran flat into Annabel... An Annabel holding a three-foot-long two-by-four over her head like an avenging angel.

Without slowing, he took her hand and pulled her along with him, desperately trying to come up with a Plan B. A brick wall up ahead sported an opening with a rusty, but unlocked metal gate. Pushing through it, he left the gate ajar and sent Annabel to one side while he positioned himself on the other. He motioned for her to crouch down. Pulling her stocking from his pocket, he gave her one end and gestured for her to hold it to the ground.

Seconds later, Swifty came lumbering through, wheezing like an asthmatic fish. Max and Annabel raised the stocking six inches from the ground, tripped the thief, and sent him lurching into a face full of mud and gravel. Max leapt forward and stomped on the hand with the knife, kicking the blade free.

The creep made a grab for Max’s ankle, but Annabel whacked him on the back of the head with the two-by-four, knocking him right out. Tossing the board aside, she dropped down and rammed her knees into the middle of the jerk’s back, forcing the breath from his lungs. She straddled him like a bareback rider, providing Max with an eyeful of thigh.

Terrified by the thought of Annabel so close to harm’s way, Max dropped down next to her and yanked the twitching and groaning thug’s hands behind his back. “Hold still, slime ball,” he ordered. “Get off him, Annabel.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Roughly, he bound Swifty’s wrists with the stocking. “Get off him,” he repeated as she remained in place.

Gripped by adrenalin and anger at Annabel for intentionally throwing herself into danger surged up inside him, his hands began to shake. He could only risk sidelong glances in her direction for fear he’d lose it completely and throttle her instead of the prone miscreant.

“Give me the belt off your raincoat,” he demanded through clenched teeth.

She looked soaked, bedraggled, beautiful, and delicious, and he was sporting wood again. All he wanted to do was drag her off somewhere and wrap himself around her. But now was
not
the time. Jeez, he was farther gone over her than he thought.

“I need your belt to bind his feet.” He gestured for her to hurry.

She moved to do so, but stopped with her hands hovering over the buckle. Sirens wailed in the distance, drawing closer by the second, and he heaved a sigh of relief. Roger must have managed to call for help.

“The thing is...”  She drew his attention to her long, bare legs as she shifted position. Unfastening the belt, the coat dropped open, and he knew what
the thing
was.

Even in the dark alley, under an overcast and dark sky, with very little ambient light, his mouth watered over the gleam of creamy skin. Her shiny purple panties and tank top darkened and glued to her skin as the rain cascaded down.

“You came out to get yourself into you didn’t know what kind of trouble dressed like every adolescent’s wet dream?” He quickly secured Swifty’s feet and helped Annabel stand.

“Adolescents dream about trench coats?” She lifted her chin defiantly, but he could have sworn if the light were better that he would have seen her blush.

“Covering nothing but your smokin’ hot body and sexy silk underwear? You betcha.” He didn’t want to hang onto his anger and terror, but worried that if he let go of it, his sense of relief would catapult him into hysterical laughter. Or unwise declarations. “Why didn’t you get dressed first?”

“There wasn’t time! When your caller hung up, I grabbed my coat, shoes, and keys to take off after you.”

That was either the bravest or the stupidest thing he’d ever known anyone to do. And she’d done it for him. Amazing.

He hugged her tight and kissed her, too, soaking up the relief of having her safe. And having her near. “I think I liked you better when you were afraid of your own shadow.”

“No, you didn’t.” Her voice muffled against his shoulder.

No, he hadn’t. He shook his head, unable to realign the image of the boring, predictable Annabel he’d known for the last three years with this new-and-improved, more tantalizing, determined version she’d morphed into in the last two weeks.

“No, but it was better for my heart.” A whole lot better. And safer. This daring balls-to-the-wall Annabel posed a definite threat to life as he knew it. He took her by the shoulders and stepped back, torn between shaking her and holding onto her forever. “In the future, you’ll have to land somewhere in the middle of timid and intrepid, okay? You scared me half to death.”

“Imagine how I feel.” Her fingers grazed the skin below his ear. “You’re the one bleeding.”

“It’s just a scratch.” He hoped. “Don’t worry about it.”

As a cop car pulled into the alley with lights flashing, duty called. He released her and drew the edges of her coat together.

“Button that thing up. Do you want to stay and run the risk of being mistaken for a hooker, or do you want to slip away now?”

Annabel let herself into her house slightly before dawn. Thank heavens she hadn’t been arrested for prostitution. It was a close thing until Max’s biker friend, Detective Dan Kirby, arrived on the scene.

He’d begun to question her about the night’s events, but after a few whispered words from Max, the detective let her go. When last she saw Max, he and Roger were recording a piece in front of the warehouse. Good to know Roger had managed to escape unharmed. Apparently, she’d walked into an ongoing investigation that would headline tomorrow’s news and result in some high-ranking political arrests.

Her pride in the role she played diminished now that she entered her empty house. She found everything there as she had left it. Silently mocking her, as if nothing special had happened.

And everything had happened.

Sex, crime, adventure. Love... maybe. Maybe not.

On autopilot, she drifted into the kitchen. But somewhere along the way her obsession with tidiness deserted her. With a sweeping glance at the mess she’d let Max make—helped him make, really—her heart flipped over.

Every dribble, every crumb, every splatter became proof of the incredible hours they’d spent together. Unwilling to erase the tiniest bit of tangible evidence, she turned off the light and trudged upstairs.

The scene in her bedroom depressed her more than the kitchen. The smell of sex clung to the room like a musky perfume. Damp and discouraged, she threw herself across the rumpled sheets and inhaled deeply.

Max had wallowed over every square inch of this bed, and she breathed deeply of the masculine scent. Closing her eyes, she absorbed his essence through every pore.

She’d take a shower then sleep in the guest room, after she soaked up a little bit more of him. In just a minute. Spreading her arms wide, she savored her body’s unfamiliar hum of bone-deep sexual satisfaction and adrenaline aftermath.

Mad Max Williams, a man of practically legendary lovemaking skills, had taken her to a level of sensuality she’d never experienced. His influence had spurred her to a new appreciation of sex and adventure. She should thank him for both. Were there Mylar balloons designed for such an occasion?

In lieu of a card or balloons, letting him go without demanding a commitment from him was the least she could do to show her gratitude. Max probably hated clingy, overly grateful women unable to keep a couple of explosive orgasms in the proper perspective as much as he hated celibacy.

The evening had been fun for both of them. Nothing more than sex as usual for Max.

She needed to remember that.

She could never let herself think the evening meant more than it had. Letting herself consider being in love with him caused her major palpitations.

Because he was leaving.

Soon.

And thinking she was in love with him would transform her from merely boring and lonely to downright pathetic. Easy prey for the first man who’d shown her any attention in three years. The first man who’d looked at her and seen something beneath the uptight persona and baggy clothes, something inside her that wanted to be so much more than a former wife, an almost mother, and a part-time documentarian.

She wanted no more half measures in her life.

If Max had been astute enough to see beneath the disguise, to see the woman she wanted to be, then someone else—someone who wanted to stick around—would be able to see that, too. Now that she knew the truth about herself, she could be the person Max had seen. Freer, softer, more flexible.

More
fun
, to use one of Max’s favorite words.

But that someone wouldn’t be Max, and Max was the one she loved.

Well, damn.

She tossed a pillow across the room. She hadn’t meant to admit that. Even to herself.

Seeing him leave would hurt, but she was glad she hadn’t let him wander in and out of her life as another lost opportunity. The time she’d spent with him thrilled her all the way down to her toes.
So, why the tears?

Covering her face with her hands, she cried wet, selfish tears, harder than she’d cried since she was eighteen and found out she couldn’t go to film school in New York. She wanted to rail against life and injustice, unfair responsibilities and lost chances, but decided it would take too much effort.

She banished the drama, wiped her eyes on a sheet corner and recognized a vague, disconnected feeling.
What next?
Sleep seemed out of the question. Might as well drown her misery and plan her future in a long tub soak.

Before she summoned the energy to get up, a cold splash dampened her toes. And then a drip-drop of water soon turned into a trickle. She jerked her feet aside, peering upward.

Damn. A leaking roof.

Right over her bed.

“Great.”

She went in search of a bucket, giving serious thought to the idea of selling the house. It was paid for, sure, but the upkeep comprised a pretty hefty amount each year. Carl had bought the house the year Carly was born, and Annabel didn’t know what the girl would think about giving up the only home she’d ever known. While Carl’s life insurance would pay for her four years at The Ohio University, the sale of the house would go a long way toward covering her medical school fees. That was probably another ticklish conversation they needed to have soon.

Annabel sighed. No point in adding one more thing to tonight’s worry list.

She’d lost an award, a lover, and part of her roof all in one evening. If this kind of luck held true, next, she’d lose her job.

After a long soak with a glass of wine and a boring book, Annabel stumbled to the kitchen in a dispirited fog. Too tired to attend yoga class, she lingered over multiple cups of tea instead. Watching the local news on her laptop, she kept her eyes riveted on the screen when Carly poked her head in the back door around ten o’clock.

“All alone?” the chipper teen asked.

Annabel merely nodded. The disastrous condition of the kitchen caught Carly’s attention.

“Holy guacamole, what happened in here?”

To prevent Carly from detecting any hint of the previous night’s sex-capades on Annabel’s face, she kept her focus on the news. “I fixed a midnight breakfast and was too tired to clean up afterward.”

“Honestly?” Carly peered around wide-eyed. “Are you sick? You never let
me
leave a mess like this.”

“And you can see why.” Annabel frowned at the mess around her. “In retrospect, it was a mistake.”

Carly moved the strawberry jam from the place Max had occupied the night before and sat down. “Thanks for texting me about the awards. We saw some Community First footage on the late news last night. You and Max looked awesome together.” She reached out and pushed the laptop’s screen down. “I’m sorry you didn’t win.”