“Oh.” She looked over her shoulder toward the gate, and her face grew even brighter red. “Sorry. It’s just that we’ve had a lot of trouble with people trying to sneak in. She wouldn’t have s
hot you, really.”
This wasn’t the reunion he’d been expecting. Not at all. This was…crazy. But then, he’d known he was fooling himself, hadn’t he? Oh, he hadn’t expected shotgun and mad-dog kind of insanity, but he hadn’t truly believed he’d find her snuggled into a cozy window seat, waiting for a homemade apple pie to finish cooling.
He’d warned himself not to come, but here he was. Max faced forward and resumed their walk, taking the food from her like the gentleman his mother had raised him to be.
“So I see you live in a haunted house.”
This time she smiled, and the tightness inside Max loosened by a few degrees. God, she was pretty. And soft. None of that had been affected by her crazy life. “I don’t live in the haunted part of it. I have the carriage house.”
“What a relief.”
“Max…thank you for coming.” Chloe took his hand, waking up nerves in it he hadn’t ever been aware of before. Like the nerves where her fingers slid in between his, setting off a shivery pleasure. Apparently, that part of his skin was incredibly sensitive. How could he never have noticed?
She smiled up at him again as they ducked around the corner. And God, she looked so happy that even with the dog and the shotgun and the crazy old lady, Max couldn’t believe he’d come close to telling his brother to forget the detour and drive straight to D.C. Chloe’s happy eyes were everything in that moment, and Max followed her into the dark alley without a whisper of hesitation.
She hurried him toward a wooden gate just as tall as the wrought-iron one, and Max braced himself for thorns and grasping vines. He was more than a little surprised when they emerged into a very normal backyard, lit by harmless porch lights. No giant spiderwebs. No creeping zombies. “Nobody uses the front,” she explained needlessly. “It’s just Mrs. Schlessing in the house now, and she doesn’t like people much.”
“You don’t say.”
“It’s private here,” she said, gesturing toward the backyard before she led him up a set of rickety wooden stairs. “This is my place. The paparazzi are gone for the night. Nothing ever happens here after dark. Not till now anyway. Er, not that I think we’re going to… Hey, here we are.”
She opened a huge wooden door. The window in it was shielded by a blue curtain.
Once he stepped inside, Max was surprised again. He’d still been expecting quaint, but he had no idea why. Chloe was living in an overstuffed dorm room. Moving boxes were piled along one wall, leaking the occasional extension cord or shoelace between the seams. The coffee table was made of wooden crates. Literally.
“Oh. It’s nice.”
She stiffened and slid her hand out of his. “I lived in a house before. A nice house. But I had to move out with no notice.”
“Sure, I understand.”
“I couldn’t move into my parents’ place. The photographers… It wouldn’t be right.”
“Come on. It’s great.” He gestured as if it were a grand loft and not a tiny 300-square-foot room. “Reminds me of living on the ship.”
“Right.”
“Are you hungry?” He held up the bag and gestured toward the little round table that marked the boundary between the kitchen half of the room and the living-room half. “You know, if you add some raised edges to the cabinets, your plates won’t slide off when the sea gets rough.”
“Oh, that’s funny.”
She smiled, but he’d hurt her feelings. He could tell by the tight distance in that grin. Regret hit Max hard. Yes, her life was a mess, but she was living the immediate aftermath of a personal disaster. He put the bag onto the table and turned to her.
“I’m sorry. You’ve got all this going on. I probably shouldn’t have come.”
The hurt deepened on her face, turning her mouth down.
Max shook his head. Where the hell was all his charm? He’d lost it somewhere back on that island. “But…I just wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
Why? Why, indeed? Some of it was out of a sense of responsibility. Some of it stemmed from worry. And some of it was just the truth. So Max chose to give her the truth, even though it felt as frightening as each time he set foot back on the ship. “Because,” he said. “I missed you.”
THE WORDS DIDN’T SLAM through her. They didn’t stop her breath and send her heart racing into overdrive. Instead, Max’s words slid over her skin like a question. A tentative touch. She waited to see what she would feel.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Was that weird?”