Trust Me (40 page)

That made no sense to Carly. “But if you hadn’t heard my message, then you had no reason to think that anything had changed.
So you came to help me, even though you still believed that I had tried to kill your grandfather? Why would you do that? I
thought that you hated me.”

“I tried to hate you,” Max said. He put the peas down, to Carly’s relief. “I kept telling myself that you’d been lying to
me, that the fact that I was in love with you had made me completely insane, that I couldn’t see the truth—”

She inhaled sharply.

“What’s wrong?”

“Say that again.”

He frowned. “I thought I couldn’t see the truth—”

“Not that.” Tears of a very different kind were suddenly hot in Carly’s eyes. She could feel a huge happiness rising inside
her like a helium balloon, but she needed to hear him say the words again. “The love part.”

Max’s expression cleared, and he reached out, his hand stopping just before he touched her, as if he thought that he might
hurt her. She leaned her face into his palm and felt his fingers curve gently over her bruised cheek. “I love you, Carly,”
he said, his voice rough with emotion. “My God, you have no idea how much. When I heard you through that door… screaming
…” He tensed at the memory. “I went crazy. Nothing could have kept me out. Nothing.”

“When… did you know?”

“That I loved you? Almost from the first day that I met you.”

Carly sniffled. “It couldn’t have been that very first day.”

“No,” Max agreed dryly. “It was definitely not that very first day. It was the day you yelled at me in the car and stormed
off into the park.” He nodded, remembering. “That did it.”

“Because I yelled at you? That’s a very strange reason to fall in love with someone.”

“It wasn’t because you were yelling, it was what you said. I remember looking into your eyes… It was a hell of a shock, Carly.
You were everything that I had never believed in until that moment. I knew it then, but it took me a lot longer to admit it.”
His face darkened. “And then, when the evidence kept piling up… pointing to you… I started to question myself.”

His hands clenched into fists in his lap, and he stared down at them. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a voice that Carly had never
heard before and never wanted to hear again. “By all rights, it’s you who should hate me. I don’t know how to find the words
to—”

“Stop,” Carly said, alarmed. “Max, no. How could I ever hate you?”

“Easily. I’m not the person you thought I was.”

“I didn’t mean that! Just like you didn’t mean what you said to me. Max, look at me, please.” She stood up and reached for
him, holding his shoulders, looking down into his eyes. “I love you,” she said softly. “Don’t you know that already? I’ve
loved you since that day in the olive grove when you kissed my hand. I told you that we wanted to make you an honorary member
of the Martin family, but the truth was that I wanted you to be all mine. My own family. The rest of them can get in line.”

His eyes held hers. “That’s the truth?”

“Yes. You’re everything that I’ve always believed in. I just never found it until I found you. And I’ll never leave you, not
for as long as you want me.” She smiled tremulously at him. “Um… do you have any idea of how long that might be? Just so
I know?”

“Always,” he said fiercely. And then his arms were around her, and he was pulling her down to him. She fell awkwardly into
his lap, laughing as he kissed her, holding him tightly.

“You want a family of your own,” he said, as if he was confirming it. “With me.”

Carly nodded. “You would be a good start.”

“And then?”

“Then we’ll expand. Anytime that suits you.”

“Now suits me. How long does it take to plan a wedding?”

“No time at all,” Carly said hopefully, “if we elope.”

Max shook his head. “Can’t do that. The Martins want a party.”

“What?” She straightened, dismayed. It was true, and she knew it, but she didn’t understand how Max could be so certain. “How
did you—”

“Your father told me.”

“
What?
When?”

“Last week. He took me aside and talked to me about your ex-boyfriends and what losers they were—”

“Oh, my God.”

“And then he clapped me on the shoulder and told me that you’ve always secretly dreamed of a huge wedding, and that he and
your mother want more grandchildren, and that someday, somehow, who knows? Maybe it would all work out that way.”

“This is unbelievable,” Carly said indignantly. “I’m going to kill him. I’m surprised that you didn’t get up and run screaming
down the road.”

Max shrugged. “I didn’t.”

“I never wanted a huge wedding,” Carly grumbled. “They want one. They’ve probably got it all planned, hoping that
someday
,
somehow
, I might bring home someone who isn’t a loser.”

“Took you long enough,” Max said.

“Very funny,” Carly said. “You’re starting to sound more like a Martin all the time. You’ll eventually get tired of them and
their wiseacre remarks, believe me.”

Max suddenly looked very serious. “I look forward to being around that long,” he said. “And just for the record, I don’t have
any problem with doing it their way.”

In truth, Carly didn’t either. It would be some time before Henry Tremayne was strong enough to leave the hospital, and they
could hardly have a wedding without him. And maybe the pets, as well. Yes, she thought, nodding to herself. Definitely the
pets—all of them. The Martins wanted a big wedding, didn’t they?

She looked into Max’s face, imagining their own children, gray-eyed like the Tremaynes, playing in the Martins’ meadow, watched
by Max, and Henry, and a dog named Lola.

Max must have seen something in her expression. “What do you think?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “I think,” she said, “that we can work something out.”

M
ELANIE
C
RAFT
does not have a houseful of pets at the moment, but shows early signs of becoming a cat lady in later life. She studied archaeology
at Oberlin College and the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and now lives near San Francisco. For information on her next
novel, please visit her website at
www.melaniecraft.com
.

More

Melanie Craft!

Please turn this page
for an excerpt
from
MAN TROUBLE
available soon
from Warner Books.

“
T
he Captain’s boy be no boy at all,” snarled Delancey. “And I’ll prove it to ye!”

Angeline gasped, stumbling as the first mate’s thick hand jerked her forward before the assembled crew. “No!” she cried. “He’s
a liar—”

“Liar, am I?” With one cruel motion, Delancey ripped her tunic from collar to hem, exposing the tight wrapping of bandages
that disguised her bosom. She struggled, spitting and swearing at him, but he made short work of the strips of cloth. A rumble
of astonishment ran through the crew at the sight of her milk-white breasts.

Delancey leered at her, close enough for Angeline to smell his stinking, rum-laced breath. “What do you say now, wench?”

“Very brave, Professor Shaw,” said a voice just behind Molly. “Are you finally throwing caution to the winds, or are you just
getting sloppy?”

Startled, Molly jumped, her leg knocking against the underside of the cafeteria table. Next to her laptop, a cup of lukewarm
coffee sloshed into its saucer. In a well-practiced move, her fingers hit the key combination to activate the computer’s screensaver,
and the page of text was instantly replaced by a bucolic scene of blue water and gently cruising tropical fish. Outside the
student union, the view was somewhat different. It was snowing again, not an unusual event in Belden, Wisconsin, in early
December. Through the tall windows, Molly could see a row of bicycles lined up haphazardly in a rack. Frosted with white,
they were slumped together as if huddled for warmth.

“Carter,” she said, without turning around, “didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to read over someone’s shoulder?”

Carter McKee came around the table and sat down opposite her. He was a small man, with rumpled brown hair, a rumpled brown
jacket, a blue bow tie, and a crooked grin that made him look more like a naughty schoolboy than a journalist. It was a look
that women—he claimed— found irresistible. Molly herself had never had any trouble resisting it, which was one reason why
they were still friends after so many years.

“My mother taught me to salsa dance,” Carter said, picking up Molly’s coffee cup. He sipped, grimaced, and quickly set it
down again. “She also taught me to mix a mint julep, and to rationalize the kind of behavior that might otherwise make me
question my morals. I don’t recall anything about shoulders, though.”

“You’re a snoop.”

“Me?” Carter said innocently. “You’ll feel terrible for saying that when you realize that I was being helpful. Think what
might have happened if one of your students had strolled by and seen his history professor madly typing ‘milk-white breasts’
into her laptop.”

“I wasn’t typing
madly
,” Molly said with dignity. “I was typing
steadily.
That’s different. You make me sound like some kind of crazed spinster.”

“Either way, I assumed that the mysterious Sandra—”

“Shhh!”

Carter lowered his voice. “I assumed,” he repeated, “that the mysterious Sandra St. Clair didn’t want to be unmasked by a
nosy freshman in the Belden College student union.”

“You’ve got that right,” Molly said. “We both know what would happen to me if the administration found out about this.”

Carter’s grin returned. “That would shake things up in this fossil pit.”

“Not funny! This is my career we’re talking about.”

“You think that your dean wouldn’t be happy to learn that one of his elite faculty members wrote the novel that the
New York Post
just called… what was it? A sleazy saga?”

“Swashbuckler,” Molly said grimly.

He chuckled with delight. “That’s it. ‘A sleazy swashbuckler, soaked with sin and shipwrecked by schlock.’ I love it.”

Molly groaned. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“Not the greatest review,” Carter said. “But you have to admit that it was an impressive use of alliteration.”

“There’s something very bizarre about having the
New York Post
accusing
me
of writing sleaze,” Molly said.

Carter shrugged. “Don’t tell me you were hoping for a Pulitzer,” he said. “You want credit for your brains, write an academic
book.”

“I did!
Maritime Wives:
a feminist analysis of the role of sea captains’ wives on eighteenth-century merchant ships. I lifted it straight from my
dissertation, and it sold forty-two copies, ten of those to my mother. I didn’t make a dime.” She paused, reconsidering. “No,
actually, I probably did make a dime.”

“I have a copy,” Carter said. “Your mother gave it to me. But I thought that money wasn’t the point with you professor types.
Aren’t you supposed to survive on the fruit of knowledge and the milk of reason?” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Or something
like that?”

“That’s after I get tenure,” Molly said. “Which will never, ever happen if anyone links me to
Pirate Gold.
They’ll take away my library card. I’ll be out on the street, holding a sign that says ‘Will deconstruct social theory for
food.’”

Carter looked exasperated. “Why do you need tenure? You wrote a best-selling novel, for God’s sake. Quit. Go buy a castle
somewhere and write another one. Enjoy your life. What’s so great about this place?” He gestured contemptuously around the
half-empty cafeteria.

“Are you serious? Do you know how hard it is to get a position at a school like this? I’m lucky to be here.” She paused and
couldn’t help adding, “And despite what everyone says, I earned it.”

“Are people still grumbling about that? It’s been three years. They should drop it.”

“Academics never drop anything,” Molly said. “There are feuds on this campus that go back to the 1940’s. When I’m seventy
and hobbling across the quad, they’ll be whispering, ‘There goes that Shaw girl. She had a very
influential
father.’”

“That,” Carter said, “is a chilling thought.”

“I agree. Which is why I’d like to distinguish myself in something other than the trashy novel field.”

“I meant that it was chilling to think that you might still be here when you’re seventy.”

“My father is seventy,” Molly said. “And he’s still here.”

“Exactly,” Carter said. His sour expression betrayed his opinion of Molly’s father, who—she knew from experience—returned
the sentiment. “And how is the great Stanford Shaw these days?”

“Fine,” Molly said. Her father, currently Belden’s emeritus professor of history, was the top god in the college’s academic
pantheon. He was the author of
The Chronicles of Civilization,
a dry nine-volume series considered to be among the finest scholarly works of the twentieth century, and although he no longer
taught regularly, he was a regular sight on campus. One glimpse of his noble white head was enough to raise the heart rates
of impressionable freshmen and to give everyone else the uneasy feeling that they were not living up to their potential.