Trust Me (16 page)

Max. She hurried to pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

“You’re putting in a long day,” he said, and the sound of his voice was enough to make her heart give a little jump.

She glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost six-thirty. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you at the house? It’s been the
usual chaos around here. I’m finishing up now, so I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. The dogs must be starving.”

“Nope. I fed them. The cats, too.”

“You fed the pets?”

“Even lacking an advanced degree,” Max said dryly, “I managed.”

“Thank you,” she said, surprised. “That was nice of you.”

“Not so nice. They were giving me funny looks.”

“Sad and hungry?”

“Speculative and hungry. Like they were calculating portion sizes if they divided me up.”

She laughed. “That, I don’t believe. You would be more likely to eat one of them.”

“That’s right. And they had better remember it.”

“I was thinking about where we should eat,” Carly said, trying to sound casual. After Sunday night, she had been trying to
come up with a way to see him again without looking obvious, but he had saved her the trouble. On Monday afternoon, he had
called and asked if she was free for dinner on Tuesday. She was, and she had spent the time in between thinking of little
else. She wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but yesterday evening, she had cleaned her apartment, washed her hair, and
stocked her refrigerator with everything that she needed to make Perfect Pasta Parmesan, on page 78 of her new Italian cookbook.

She took a breath. “It’s getting a little late, though, so maybe we should just skip the restaurant. I could make us dinner
at my place, if you don’t mind something simple.”

“Fine,” Max said. “I’ll meet you there. Twenty minutes, you said?”

“Um… give me thirty.” It was a longer drive to her apartment from the clinic than from Henry’s house, but if she hurried
and took her secret shortcut, she could get back in time to jump in the shower and put on her new dress. She had found it
that day during her lunch break, at a boutique just down the street from the clinic. Even on sale, it had been too expensive,
but she had tried it on anyway, then had been unable to resist buying it. It was black, slinky, and sophisticated, sort of
a New York look. It was exactly what she wanted, and she couldn’t wait for Max’s reaction when he saw her in it.

“Half an hour,” he agreed, and to Carly, that statement held all the promise in the world.

As it turned out, the city was repairing a water main on Carly’s shortcut, and by the time she navigated her way home, Max
was waiting outside her front door. He was dressed casually, for him, in a lightweight gray sweater and black pants, and she
felt a jolt of excitement as his eyes met hers.

“Sorry,” she said, feeling suddenly shy, and painfully aware of her crumpled T-shirt and smudged makeup. “I forgot to tell
you that I keep a spare key in the flowerpot.”

“You have bars on your windows, but you keep a key in the flowerpot? That makes sense.”

“The landlord put bars there, I didn’t. I don’t have anything worth stealing, as you’ve seen. Come on in.”

Inside her apartment, he glanced around curiously. “It looks different in here.”

“Does it?” Carly said innocently. It was a bad sign when a simple cleaning job provoked this kind of reaction. “Would you
like something to drink?”

“Water.”

“Fizzy or plain? There’s also iced tea…” She stopped herself. Her refrigerator was now stocked with an assortment of drinks,
and she suddenly wondered if she was overdoing it. The whole idea had been to make her offer to cook dinner appear spontaneous,
but it didn’t take a genius to notice that she was suddenly very prepared to receive a guest.
Well
, she thought,
so what? Men like it when women make the first move.
She had read that in
Cosmopolitan
, although she was afraid that it might only be true for the
Cosmo
cover models, who only had to smile in a certain way to give the impression that they were making a move. In her own case
… well, it seemed a lot less certain. And the fact remained that she smelled like a farm.

She sighed and turned to Max. “Would you mind if I abandoned you for a few minutes? I’m going to shower and change. The kitchen
is there—obviously—so just help yourself to whatever you want. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. This was not how she had envisioned the beginning of the evening,
she thought, frustrated. In her fantasy, there had been soft music, candlelight, and the enticing aroma of Perfect Pasta Parmesan
to greet Max when he arrived. She had intended to open the door looking ravishing, or at least clean, then to slowly seduce
him with food and conversation until he was overwhelmed by her feminine charms and unable to resist the desire to sweep her
into his arms. That was how it was
supposed
to be, but thanks to Princess
le chat lunatique
, the Department of Public Works, and the general fickleness of fortune, she was locked in the bathroom while Max Giordano—who
had most recently dated a sophisticated New York fashion editor—was probably sitting on her couch, wondering what the hell
he was doing there.

This might be a good time
, Carly thought dismally as she stepped into the shower,
to cut my losses.
She could climb out of the window and run away. Max would eventually get bored and leave, and then she could move on with
her life and try to forget that she had ever been interested in the kind of man who could get a last-minute dinner reservation
in San Francisco.

M
ax was sitting on the couch, wondering what the hell he was doing there. Being in Carly’s apartment made him feel as if the
rest of his life took place in a different galaxy, rather than just across the city, and the sense of disassociation made
him uneasy.

He drummed his fingers on his thigh and looked around. He had missed his run today, and his excess energy needed an outlet.
He stood up, walked the five steps required to get to Carly’s kitchen, and opened her refrigerator, looking for some kind
of distraction.

By the time Carly reappeared, almost twenty minutes had passed, and Max was engrossed in chopping and adding fresh parsley
to the pasta sauce now simmering on the old electric stove.

“You’re cooking,” she said, and it sounded like an accusation.

He looked up and did a double take. Her hair was loose, cascading over her shoulders, and she was wearing a short, tight,
black dress made of some silky fabric that plunged low in the front, exposing the generous swell of her breasts. It was the
kind of dress that invited the observer to imagine removing it, and it was such a startling contrast to Carly’s usual style
that Max found himself momentarily speechless.

She smiled shyly at him. “Even though we’re staying here for dinner, I thought I would dress up a little.”

Don’t you mean undress a little
? Max thought, and had to look away. The sight of her sent a shock of desire through him, and for some reason, that made him
angry. Was she trying to provoke him? If so, she was doing a good job, but he didn’t appreciate it. Taking Carly to bed would
be playing with fire, and he was the one likely to get burned. Something strange and profound had happened to him on Sunday
in the Martins’ olive grove. Carly had looked at him with her clear blue eyes, and he had— for one brief moment—forgotten
that he was alone in the world. It was like an old sports injury, so familiar that he no longer noticed the dull aching…
until it stopped. And when it had resumed, not long after he had returned to his silent hotel suite, the new awareness was
no blessing.

His fingers tightened around the handle of the wooden spoon. Carly’s perfect little bubble of familial love would always protect
her from the fallout of an affair gone wrong. He had no such buffer. With Nina, and the other women he had dated, he could
handle the risk. But with Carly? He shook his head. No. Some things were better left alone.

“Is something wrong?” Carly asked.

“Nope,” Max said flatly. “I hope you don’t mind that I started dinner.”

“Uh… no. Not at all. I see that you found everything that you need. It’s sort of a Parmesan sauce you’re making?”

“It
is
a Parmesan sauce.”

“Right. Well. It’s been a while since I went to the store, but I usually have the basic ingredients lying around. You never
know when you might want to toss together some pasta.”

Max didn’t answer. She had apparently forgotten, but on the kitchen table, her copy of
100 Easy Italian Recipes
was bookmarked at page 78 with a grocery store receipt from the previous night.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Carly said.

“I can’t cook,” Max said. “But I can put things together in a pan and stir. And then pour the results over a plate of pasta.
It’s a survival skill. Most men have it.”

“Oh, survival. I see. It’s not cooking, it’s just stirring stuff in a pan. A macho thing, kind of like bricklaying.”

“Right.”

“Except for one thing…” A mischievous note crept into her voice. “When I came in, you were chopping parsley, and I saw you
using the knife with both hands, doing that quick rocking motion… you know?”

“So?”

“So that’s a chef move. Nobody who doesn’t cook chops like that. You know exactly what you’re doing. Somebody taught you your
way around a kitchen, and I dare you to deny it.”

He didn’t. “My grandmother taught me. I also make a good lasagna, but she died before we got to the gnocchi. That old lady
knew her gnocchi, too. Best I’ve ever tasted.”

Carly didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “When was that?”

“A long time ago.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight. Ten. I lived with her on and off when I was a kid. My mother would leave me there for a few months at a time while
she went off to do whatever it was she did. Drink, mostly. Then she would show up one day to pick me up, and they’d spend
an hour screaming at each other. My mother kept threatening never to come back, but you can’t argue with free child care.”

“Oh,” Carly said in consternation, and Max took note of the expression on her face. This wasn’t even one of the bad stories,
and he wondered how she would react to some of the uglier realities of his past. Better not to find out, he thought. She was
indeed naive about some things—perhaps innocent would be a better word—and there would be nothing admirable in shattering
her belief that the world was a basically good place.

“When did she die?”

“I don’t know,” Max said, and saw that he would have to explain. “Sometime before I turned twelve. I only found out she was
gone when the social worker showed up.”

“To tell you?”

She still didn’t understand. “No,” he said. “To take me. My grandmother wasn’t around anymore, so my mother put me into foster
care.”

Carly quietly pulled out one of the wooden chairs beside the kitchen table and sat down. “I see,” she said. “I didn’t know
that. I had the idea that you had lived with your mother the whole time.”

“No. She couldn’t handle me, especially when I got older. Christ, by then, she was drinking all the time, and she couldn’t
even handle herself.”

“Who did you live with?” She looked anxious, as if it made some difference now.

“I ended up in a lot of homes. None of them lasted very long. I turned into a problem kid when I got into my teens, so it
was as much my fault as anybody’s.”
In some cases
, he thought.
But not all.

She seemed to sense that he was holding back. “I know a little about foster homes from our experiences with adopting my brothers
and sisters. There are a lot of kids out there, of course, and I started to hear some of the stories…” A shadow crossed her
face, and she looked sad. “Some of the situations were not as good as ours.”

That was putting it mildly. “That’s true,” he said.

“Did something bad happen to you?”

“Nothing specific,” Max said carefully, thinking of the afternoon he had spent huddled under a bed in a house in a nice suburb
of New York City, listening to his latest foster father beat the hell out of his latest foster mother. He had knocked her
to the floor, kicking her in the ribs and stomach as he screamed at her, and in between bouts, as she lay there curled up
and sobbing, she had seen Max in his hiding place. Her eyes had dully registered his presence, then she had turned her head
away. Not a word was ever spoken about it. If he were making a list of bad things, he thought now, that day would be on it.

“Max,” Carly said suddenly. “You don’t drink, do you?”

“Not unless I’m thirsty.” The pasta water was boiling, and he added the noodles.

“I meant alcohol, wise guy. I can’t believe it took me so long to notice. The other night, when we were at Mistral, I had
wine with my dinner, but you drank Perrier. And you didn’t touch Dad’s homebrew, either. I thought that some kind soul had
warned you against it, but I’ll bet that you just don’t drink.”