Lovers at Heart

by Melissa Foster

  HE FOUND REX at the stables, looking over Hope, the horse his father had bought for his mother when she’d first found out she was sick. In recent years, Hope’s red hair had faded and white sprouted thickly among the lightened patches.

  “The prince walks,” Rex teased. He wore a black shirt, stretched tight across his massive chest. Rex wore his hair longer than his brothers, down to his collar, and with his cowboy hat pulled low, accentuating the sharp angles of his jaw and Grecian nose, he was even more striking.

  “Good morning to you, too, brother dear.” Treat ran his hand along Hope’s back. She neighed, nuzzling her nose into his chest. “How is the old girl?”

  “She’s holding up okay, but she’s slowing down,” his father said.

  Treat hadn’t seen his father bending down by a bucket in the stall.

  “She’s thirty-three next January. I’m just keeping an eye on her. I never like our animals to suffer, and Hope here…”

  His father didn’t have to finish the sentence—was your mother’s. Treat and Rex exchanged a sorrowful glance.

  “You’ve done well by her, Dad. Mom would be proud.” Treat laid a hand on his father’s shoulder.

  “I know she is,” his father said. His father swore he still felt their mother’s presence around the ranch, and though Treat had never felt her—not for a lack of trying—he believed his father did.

  He remembered sitting in his room as a child, night after night, praying he’d feel whatever his father had felt, hoping against all hope, making promises with God. I’ll be good. I’ll never fight with my brothers again. I’ll help Dad forever. I’ll do whatever you want, just please, please let me feel Mom one more time. His prayers had gone unanswered, and now, as he thought of how painful all those early years without his mother had been—and how much he missed Max after just a few hours—he understood how devastated his father must have been.

  “Dad, would you mind telling me about when you and Mom met?” Treat watched his father’s eyes light up, and he caught that light and held on to it to lift his own spirits.

  “Here we go,” Rex said. “I’m gonna take Johnny Boy out for a quick ride while you two relive the good old days.” Rex headed for Johnny Boy’s stall.

  Rex always escaped when they talked about their mother, and Treat was glad to have his father to himself. Now he could talk to him man-to-man.

  “Your mother was so beautiful, sitting on her daddy’s fence, watching the horses, when my father and I drove up. I swear, Treat, when she turned and looked at me, something inside me fell into place. Even at fourteen, I knew she was the woman I was going to marry. I just didn’t know how to convince her of it.” He continued, reliving the stories that Treat had heard a hundred times before. His mother’s mother was Brazilian, her father a Colorado rancher. His father liked to remind him that his mother had gotten all of the beauty of her mother with the stubbornness of her father. “But her heart…” His father looked up and away, as though he could see her standing in the distance. “Her heart was as sensitive as a newborn bird. The wrong word, the wrong look, and that bullheadedness that had angered you a minute before would wash away as quick as rain makes mud. And just like that, you’d crush her spirit.”

  Just like Max. “What did you do then?”

  His father looked at him for a long time before he responded. Treat fidgeted under his gaze.

  “Son, I did everything I could; that’s what I did. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. My ego didn’t exist when it came to your mother, and Lord knows she knew it, too.” He laughed under his breath. “I swear that woman used it to her advantage.”

  Treat was too busy mulling over what his father had said to respond.

  His father stood and set a hand on his shoulder. “You wanna talk about her?”

  “Mom?”

  He shook his head. “The woman who’s got my son so tied up in knots that he’s coming to his daddy for relationship advice.”

  “Dad.”

  His father shook his head. “Don’t deny it, son. I’ve been there, done that. Ain’t no use pretending that noose around your heart doesn’t tighten every time you see whoever this woman is.”

  Family knows no boundaries. Treat was already formulating his plan. Every time he thought of Max, he had that feeling—the same one his father described—and he’d be damned if he was going to ignore it.

  Chapter Nine

  IT WASN’T UNTIL Max stopped to buy coffee on her way to the festival that she realized she’d left her purse in Treat’s vehicle. After she’d gone back to her apartment and changed the sheets, she’d tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Treat’s eyes looking back at her with so much emotion that it sent her running from her bedroom to the couch, where she’d tossed and turned all night.

  When she got to the office, Max consumed enough caffeine to hold her through the morning. Now her stomach was growling as loud as could be as she sat across from Chaz going over figures from the day before. The second day of the festival always ran a little smoother than the first. The staff was used to the procedures, and Max wasn’t called every ten minutes to handle an issue. She was always amazed at how much more responsibility the staff could handle after a single day of being thrown feetfirst into the fire, and she was thankful for the breathing room.

  “Wanna stop for lunch?” Chaz asked.

  “No. I’m fine.” All these numbers are blurring together, and I see Treat on every page.

  He closed the ledger and stood. “Nonsense. We’ve been at it all morning. Come on. We’ll go to Kale’s and grab a bite.”

  She pushed herself to her feet with a sigh.

  “What’s up with you today? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this tired.”

  I was this tired the two weeks after your wedding, but you were on your honeymoon. “I just didn’t sleep very well last night.” Or at all.

  “Stay too late at the party?” Chaz held the door open for her.

  She shrugged, avoiding real communication. They were graced with another warm afternoon, and Max knew that the beauty of the day was lost on her sour mood. She couldn’t think past what she’d felt for Treat the night before. She’d never initiated touching a man like she had with him, and oddly, she wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed by her actions. She’d wanted to do it—and that was the only thing that gave her pause. That was the buffer of the hurt he’d caused her in Nassau. What exactly that was, she couldn’t nail down.

  At the restaurant, she picked at her salad while Chaz caught her up on all of the new things the twins had been learning.

  Max’s phone vibrated, and she froze.

  “Aren’t you going to check that?” Chaz asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay, Max, spill it. You always check your phone. What is it that you always tell me?” He looked up, thinking.

  “If someone takes the time to text, you damned well better be kind enough to check it.”

  “Right,” he said. “That’s it. I seem to remember you drilling that into my head a few years ago.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t do a very good job, considering that I had to remind you about what I’d said.”

  Chaz’s phone vibrated. “Great, it’s probably an issue. Maybe our earpieces aren’t working?” He checked his text.

  She turned on her microphone and spoke to one of the staff members, then turned it off again. “Radio’s fine.”

  “This is from Kaylie, and I’m reading this word for word. Something must be wrong with Max. Not answering my texts. Check pls. So, don’t tell me I’m reading you wrong.”

  His cocky smile was too much for Max to try to dissuade. She was too exhausted to argue about if her head was or wasn’t on straight today. It wasn’t. And she blamed Treat.

  “I’m gonna go back to the office. I’m just tired; that’s all. Thanks for lunch.”

  “Okay,” he said hesitantly. “Max, is there anything I can do?”

  She shook her head and took
a step, then turned back. “Sure. Have them wrap my salad. Maybe I’ll eat it for dinner.” Alone, while I sulk.

  She was responding to her text from Kaylie when her earpiece buzzed.

  “Yeah?”

  “Max, got a guy down here says he’s looking for you.”

  She checked her watch. The deliveries weren’t supposed to come for another hour. “Patron, delivery, or sponsor?”

  “Hold on.”

  She heard a muffled conversation that she couldn’t make out.

  “He says none of the above.”

  Max stopped walking. Treat. “Um, is he really tall?” She held her breath. Please say no. No, please say yes. Oh God. Don’t say anything. Just let him go away.

  “Freakishly.”

  She closed her eyes as her heart raced, and every nerve in her body pulsed with the memory of his touch.

  “Max?”

  She touched the earpiece. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m busy. Send him away.” Then she remembered her purse. Damn it. She needed her purse. “Hey, does he have my purse?” she asked.

  “No. Hands are empty.”

  Confused, she headed for the office. “Send him away.” Where’s my damned purse? Why doesn’t he have it? What’s he doing if he’s not here to give me my purse? She clicked off the earpiece and read Kaylie’s text again.

  How was hottie?

  Didn’t end up seeing him, she texted back. Out of sight, out of mind. If she was going to make it through the foreseeable future, that’s what she’d have to strive for.

  THE AFTERNOON DRAGGED by in slow motion, with each issue taking twice as long as the last. By dinnertime, Max was exhausted, hungry, and in worse mental shape than she could ever remember experiencing. Is this what liking and hating a man at the same time feels like?

  She tried to eat her leftover salad, but even the sight of it turned her stomach. She guzzled more coffee and decided to duck into a theater for a few minutes. Maybe she could close her eyes and no one would notice. The minute her butt hit the only available seat in the theater, her earpiece buzzed. She hauled herself back out into the cool evening air.

  “Yeah?”

  “Max? Delivery for you.”

  “I’m not expecting any deliveries. Who’s the vendor?” She walked to the fence at the edge of the property and stared into the rear lot. There were no delivery trucks.

  “Forget it, Max. I’ll have someone run it up to the office.”

  “Thanks.”

  Chaz was texting when Max entered the office. She relaxed into the couch. Her head fell back and she closed her eyes. Chaz’s phone buzzed three times in quick succession.

  “Text fight?” she asked.

  Chaz sighed. “No.” He responded to the texts, and his phone continued to buzz several times in a row.

  She lifted her head and opened her eyes. “Anything I can do?” she asked.

  He finally put the phone down on his desk and looked at her. “Max, we’re so slow tonight. Why don’t you take off?”

  She snapped to attention. “What?”

  “You heard me. Just take off early. We’ve got this covered.”

  Adrenaline drove her to the edge of his desk. “What’s going on? I’ve never left a festival early, and you know we’re anything but slow tonight.” Max rubbed her temples. “You know you can’t handle it without me, either. So what the hell is going on?”

  “You’re exhausted,” he said.

  “Yeah, so? I’m tired, so what? I can still do my job. Look, I’m sorry if I overstepped my boundaries by being so worn out. I take full responsibility, but there’s no reason to make me leave early.” Shit. I’d better pull it together.

  When he didn’t respond, she said, “I love my job, Chaz. Have I done something wrong?”

  “Relax. No. Even when you’re tired, you do twice the work of anyone else.”

  Max felt unexpected tears pushing at her eyes. “Then what is it? Why do you need to get rid of me?”

  There was a knock at the door, and Max moved to answer it. “Hi, Mark. What’s up?”

  Mark was one of the temporary festival staffers. He carried an enormous white box into the office and set it on the table.

  “Just got this delivery,” he said on his way back out the door.

  “Were you expecting something?” Chaz asked.

  She shook her head and lifted the lid. The smell itself was enough to send her stomach into a flurry of desire—and not the sexual kind. Chaz hovered over her shoulder.

  “Sponsor?” he asked.

  “Probably,” she said, then dipped her finger into the thick chocolate frosting and licked it off. She removed the card that was taped to the inside of the box and opened it. “Maybe it’s from Café Deluxe, that new bakery sponsor. Oh my God, that’s delicious.”

  She arched a brow while she read the card aloud while grinning.

  “Max, I hope this helps ease the pain I’ve caused you. Dive right in...” Max lowered the note, unable to control her slack jaw or the rush of her pulse. Treat. She snapped the card shut as a flush warmed her cheeks.

  “O-kay, then. Someone did something wrong,” Chaz said. “It must have been an awfully bad thing to send you a cake big enough to feed an army.”

  I said I wanted to bury my face in chocolate cake. Damn it. Why do you have to make this so hard? She closed the top of the box. “Why don’t you take it home to Kaylie and the kids?”

  “Max.” Chaz shook his head. “I think that whoever sent this probably meant for you to have it. That’s not a cheap cake.”

  “It’s okay. He can afford it. He eats cake like this for breakfast.” And women like me for dinner.

  Chapter Ten

  TREAT HADN’T EATEN all day. He wasn’t surprised when Max refused to see him, but he wasn’t going to give up on them that easily. If nothing else, if she wouldn’t let him into her life, then at least she could let him really talk with her about his feelings and allow him to try and explain himself more effectively.

  He hoped the cake might sweeten her up just a little and bring that thick wall she’d erected between them down just long enough for her to listen, and to understand, even if only a little, to what he had to say. After talking with his father today, Treat was even more convinced that what he was feeling for Max was far bigger than like and was bordering on the one thing he’d tried to avoid his whole life.

  When he wasn’t trying to figure out how to make her listen, he was telling himself that it was okay to get close to her. That if he fell for her, she wouldn’t die like his mother had. But even as he repeatedly tried to convince himself that the fear was unfounded, he never really quite believed it.

  After all but the last two cars pulled out of the parking lot and the interior festival lights went dark, Treat waited in the cover of night for the back gates to open one last time.

  His pulse raced when he saw her walking beneath the glow of the lighted gate beside Chaz. Her shoulders were rounded forward, as though they were too heavy for her sexy little frame to support. Treat had the urge to run and swoop her into his arms, for her head to rest against his chest while he held her, safe and warm. Chaz carried the enormous cake box that Treat had sent, and when Chaz went to his car without giving the cake back to Max, his gut clenched.

  Treat went to Max’s driver's side door and knocked on the window, startling her into a scream.

  Seconds later, Chaz was running for him. Treat held his hands up. “Chaz, it’s me, Treat. I didn’t mean to startle her.”

  “Treat? What are you...”

  He watched understanding dawn on Chaz, while embarrassment consumed Max and caused her to cover her face with her hands.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to talk to Max, and I didn’t want to interrupt her at work,” Treat explained.

  Chaz looked at Max. “Max?”

  “It’s fine,” she answered.

  Chaz turned his back and leaned closer to Treat. “The cake? Impressive. Kaylie asked me to get Max to leav
e early for you. I tried, but you know Max.”

  I hope to get to know her even better.

  “Thank you. Sorry I had Kaylie try to get her outside for a bit,” Treat said, though he wasn’t really sorry.

  Chaz nodded. “Pretty damned romantic. You realize you’re setting the bar pretty high for us normal guys, right?”

  Treat smiled. He watched Chaz drive away, and a minute later, Max got out of her car. “You scared the crap out of me,” she said.

  “I know. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She crossed her arms, and he couldn’t help but smile at the way she was so obviously steeling herself against him. Chinking that wall into place.

  “Do you have my purse?” Her clipped words and crossed arms contrasted sharply against the hurt in her eyes.

  “I do,” he said.

  When he didn’t move, she said, “Well? Can I have it?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course.” How could he have forgotten? He retrieved the purse, and as she climbed back into her car, Treat gently touched her arm. “Max, all I want to do is talk. Nothing else. Please. I think I owe you that much.”

  “You owe me that much? Isn’t that a little arrogant?” she asked.

  “I thought it was better than saying you owed me anything at all, which you don’t.” He saw her resolve soften. “Please? Just take a walk with me? I’ll keep my hands to myself. I won’t let us get caught up in any hanky-panky.”

  She stepped from the car with a reluctant sigh. “Hanky-panky? I haven’t heard that since I was twelve.”

  “Maybe you’re hanging out with the wrong crowd?” Relieved that she’d at least stepped from the car, he offered her his arm.

  She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “Where would you like to walk?”

  Her refusal of his arm stung. She didn’t even want to touch him? At all? That was a very bad sign. But at least they were walking, and that was a start.