Some Like It Hot

by Susan Andersen

  “It is,” she agreed. “It really is. And I think now might be a good time to discuss something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

  “Do I need to put on my jeans for this?”

  She laughed. “Pants are optional.”

  “Okay.” He stayed right where he was. “Shoot.”

  “I’d like to make Razor Bay my home base.”

  “That’s great!” he said enthusiastically. But then his eyes narrowed, and he slowly straightened. “Define home base.”

  “You know that my job entails a lot of traveling,” she said. “But I’d like to make this the place I come back to when the jobs are done. And if you’re interested, then I’d like to come back to you. Maybe...live...together when I’m in town?”

  He merely looked at her for a moment. Then he gave a minute shake of his head. “No.”

  Her heart swooped toward her stomach. “What?”

  “No.” He rose off the bed, picked up his jeans and stepped into them without first locating his boxers. He looked at her with that give-nothing-away expression as he pulled on his shirt and started buttoning up. “Just once in my life, I want to come first in someone else’s. So, no. I’m not going to be your place marker while you buzz all over the world.” Fingers white with tension, he zipped up. “I want...more. More than it sounds like you’re interested in.”

  Beneath his stony delivery there was an unmistakable thread of withdrawal, a pulling away from her and into himself that set off a zing of panic.

  But she breathed through it and tried for reasonableness. “Max, I’ve put several years into this job, and I make a difference in people’s lives. Can’t we discuss it? Maybe come to a compromise?”

  “That would be the mature thing to do.” Eyes flinty, he swept up his shoes and socks. “But you know what, Harper? I’m feeling a little ripped off at the moment. So I think that’s gonna have to wait.”

  And turning on his bare heel, he crossed the small room and swung down the ladder.

  Seconds later, she heard the door bang shut.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE MOMENT MAX got home he walked straight to the cupboard where he kept the bottle of Jim Beam Sheriff Neward had given him Christmas before last. Hooking two fingers over the lip of a Wile E. Coyote glass, he carried it and the bourbon into the great room. He pulled a chair up to the unlit fireplace, contemplated turning it on, then said, “Fuck it,” and set about lowering the level in the bottle as if it were an exam he had to ace.

  He woke up in the chair the next morning with a killer crick in his neck, the Seven Dwarves hacking a path through his brain with their mine picks and the realization that his refusal last night to even consider Harper’s proposal could very well mean giving her up entirely.

  There was no way in hell he was prepared to do that.

  Had he really told her that he loved her, then in the very next breath admitted he wanted to come first in her life? Not that there was anything wrong with that. Love—at least as he understood it—should mean automatically putting your loved one first. He truly believed that. But while he’d wanted to see the theory put in action by her, apparently he hadn’t thought it applied to him to put her first, as well.

  Not to mention that whole fifties-era give-up-your-job-to-be-at-my-beck-and-call thing.

  “Shit.”

  He crawled out of the chair and shuffled into the kitchen where he knocked back three aspirin, then brewed a pot of coffee. When it was ready, he planted his butt back in the chair in front of the fireplace and, with a cup in one hand and the coffee pot for nonstop refills within reach of his other, he mainlined caffeine until his brain finally began to function.

  He killed off the rest of the pot, then climbed into the shower and stood under the screaming hot, pounding spray until the water ran cold. By the time he dried off and shaved, he’d figured out what he needed to do.

  Fifteen minutes later he was knocking on Harper’s door. Luck was on his side. She was not only at home, which he hadn’t been sure she would be since he knew she had things scheduled for the inn’s Razor Bay Days Sunday festivities, but her smile when she saw him was immediate and genuine. He took heart that maybe he hadn’t screwed things up entirely.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  “Hi. Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Opening the door wider, she stepped back, then closed it behind him when he followed her into the cottage. She looked up at him. “Would you like some coffee?”

  He couldn’t prevent his slight wince. “No. Thanks.” He shoved his hands in his Levi’s pockets. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night.”

  “It’s okay.” She cocked her head inquiringly. “I take it you’re ready to discuss my proposal now?”

  “Not exactly. But I think I might have an alternate solution.”

  Her face lit up. “You do?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty simple, really.” He ran a thumb down her cheek and smiled. “I love you. You love me. You also love your job. And that means you have to travel.”

  She nodded. “That’s all true.”

  “So how about I quit the sheriff’s department and travel with you?”

  Her expression froze. “Wh-what?”

  Okay, not exactly the reaction he’d hoped for, but he warned himself not to jump to conclusions. He hadn’t left room for discussion last night, and he was determined not to repeat the same mistake this morning. “I’ll quit—”

  The choppy swipe of her hand cut him off. “I actually heard that—it just...didn’t sink in properly. You’ll give up your job?”

  “Yes.” Okay, the idea pinched a little. But Harper was a thousand times more important than any job.

  “But you love it.”

  He shrugged. “I love you more.” He reached out for her, but she scrambled out of range. His gut iced over. “Harper?”

  “Oh, God, I can’t let you do that.” She executed a hand movement that was uncharacteristically jerky. “Max, I’ve seen the stress that my mom’s unhappiness with Dad’s traveling put on their marriage, and I won’t do that to you. To us. You should stay in Razor Bay. Stay with the job you love. I’ll come back to you. Every time. I swear that I will.”

  He felt something deep inside of him shut down. How often had he tried his damnedest to be enough for the people in his life? And how many times had he fallen short?

  Every damn time, that’s how many.

  Well, some things never changed, apparently. God, he was tired. Just suddenly really exhausted.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he said to the floor. “I can’t keep trying and failing.” He looked at her for the first time since she’d thrown his offer back in his face.

  And said goodbye in his head. “When your job is done—what, tomorrow, the day after?” He shook his head impatiently, because, really. Like he gave a good goddamn about the exact date. “Whenever it is, I think you should leave Razor Bay.”

  “What? Max, plea—” This time she was the one who reached out.

  He sidestepped her touch. “I don’t know what to do with a relationship where I’m relegated to the shelf like a kid’s toy. But I do know I can’t spend my life waiting for you to come back to play with me. So do us both a favor. Just leave Razor Bay.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded flat with finality. “And don’t come back.”

  Then, needing to remove himself to somewhere—anywhere—that wasn’t painfully within her proximity, he turned on his heel and, without a backward glance, walked out on the woman who’d lifted him to the greatest heights imaginable.

  Only to send him crashing on his own back to earth.

  * * *

  FOR SEVERAL LONG moments Harper stared dumbly at the door that closed behind Max, too stunned to react. This was the second time in less than twelve hours that he’d walked out on her, and when her ability to think finally kicked in, she really wanted to be furious with him for it.

  Because, really, could Max be any more dictatorial or contr
olling? For a moment she managed to drum up a decent snit, her posture stiff with righteous anger.

  “It’s my job, dammit,” she said to the door. “Not a series of pleasure trips where I bring my boyfriend along! And how long before you’re bored to tears and change your mind again and want me home where you can keep me—what, barefoot and pregnant?—like a good little Stepford wife?”

  Then she sagged so abruptly she had to feel her way to the couch to sit down. Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth, back and forth. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, GodohGodohGod.”

  She could whip herself into a frenzy of indignation, but she knew in her heart that wasn’t what Max wanted at all. It wasn’t about having her under his thumb. Max was the best man she’d ever known. A whole lot better than he should be, considering his upbringing. Certainly the people who should have gone out of their way to make things special for him—if only on occasion—never had.

  And he wanted her to leave town and never come back? She couldn’t seem to draw in a deep enough breath to satisfy the basic need for air.

  He’d offered to give up everything for her, and she’d panicked, just like she did whenever she thought about not traveling. The first was almost a guarantee that he’d end up resenting her. And the second? Well. You quit moving, you die. God knew, that was all but tattooed on her psyche.

  As it turned out, she hadn’t had the least idea what true panic felt like until she’d looked into his eyes...and watched the light that had burned there for her extinguish.

  “But you know what?” she whispered, unwrapping her arms from around herself and straightening her spine. “He doesn’t have to give up his life here. And you don’t die.”

  Her father had never meant his saying literally, but somehow she had twisted it around until she’d convinced herself that it was the gospel truth. The real gospel, however, was that she could travel until the end of her days and never feel a fraction of the satisfaction she’d felt these past few months in Razor Bay. That came from being loved by Max and making friends like Tasha and Jenny and even Mary-Margaret, and got an assist from working at the inn and with the boys of Cedar Village.

  Determination slowly edged her panic aside. She’d acted like an idiot and pushed Max past his limit. But he’d been a bit of an idiot himself. And damned if she planned to give him up without a fight just because he said so.

  She wiggled her feet into her flip-flops and looked around for her purse. She had no idea where he had gone, but, by God, she would find him.

  She was not losing him.

  A knock sounded at the door just as she unearthed her purse from beneath the coffee table. Hope exploding, she raced for it and whipped it open. “Oh, thank God you came ba—” She stilled in shock. “Mom?”

  Gina Summerville-Hardin, tall and elegant in flowing ivory silk that contrasted beautifully with her glowing, deeper-brown-than-Harper’s complexion, smiled at her as if it weren’t the least bit unusual that she should turn up on Harper’s porch. “Hello, darling.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You haven’t been returning my calls, and I can’t abide knowing you’re angry with me. So I came to tell you face-to-face why I took so long informing Cedar Village about us giving them the grant.” She smiled gently. “And I wanted to tell you a few things that I don’t believe you understand about your father and me.”

  “Mom, truly, any other time, that would be lovely. But this isn’t a good—”

  “Please, Baby Girl,” Gina said, and the stark need in her eyes stopped Harper. “Just give me ten minutes. Five, even.”

  “All right.” She stepped back. “Come in. Can I get you something to drink?”

  Gina passed her, trailing an elusive whiff of Clive Christian’s 1872 perfume. She looked around, clearly taking in everything regarding her daughter’s little cottage with one comprehensive glance.

  Then her mother turned her attention back to her. “A glass of water would be nice.”

  “How did you get here, Mom?” Harper crossed to the little college dorm-sized refrigerator and took out the quart bottle she used to store chilled water. “Sea-Tac airport is nearly a hundred miles away.”

  “But like every other airport in the world, it rents cars that come equipped with a GPS.”

  “So, you drove?” She splashed some water into a glass and carried it back to her mother. “Yourself?”

  “Darling, I set up households all over the world and broke them down again in order to move on to the next one. Why on earth would you think an hour and a half’s drive would throw me in a tizzy?”

  For the first time in a long time, Harper recalled more than just her mother urging her father to quit traveling. She remembered Gina directing everyone’s packing, remembered her making the moves fun. “You used to play music while we packed. And you’d dance from box to box.” In another first, during the century it felt like since Max’s departure, a small smile curled up the corners of her lips. “Daddy used to say you could really shake your thang.”

  Gina smiled reminiscently. “Your father used to say a lot of things. And despite what you seem to believe, we were madly happy together.”

  “But you were always trying to get him to quit moving.”

  “Oh, always, schmalways, Harper. I brought it up maybe every third move. And your father invariably sweet talked me out of my objections.”

  “But you guys fought!”

  “You can’t possibly believe married couples don’t on occasion.”

  “Of course not—I’m not a child. But you have to admit that you and Daddy never fought about anything except that.”

  “That’s not quite true, but since it was the only subject that truly got us all hot under the collar, I’ll agree it’s close enough. There were times when I was weary unto death of moving from country to country while virtually being an ex-pat from my own.” She reached over and touched the back of Harper’s hand. “But, darling, I loved your father much more than I ever disliked all the moving.”

  “Oh, God.” A sudden rush of tears filled her eyes. “That’s what Max said.”

  “Max?” Gina blinked. Then her posture, already impeccable, subtly straightened even more. “Max Bradshaw? The deputy?”

  “Yes. He offered to give up everything to travel with me, but I argued that he loved his job—which he does.” She looked at her mother. “But he said exactly what you did—I love you more.”

  “So...you and the deputy?”

  Harper’s tears dried up. “Don’t worry, Mother,” she snapped. “He won’t be joining the family. You’ll be happy to know I panicked and drove him away.”

  Gina’s delicate brows furrowed. “You’re no longer a teenager, Harper Louisa—don’t you think it’s time you quit putting the worst spin on everything I do and say? Happy is never my first reaction when I hear my daughter is panicking. And why would you think the idea of him joining the family would worry me? Which I assume to actually mean bother me.”

  “Please. You’re always talking about how I must meet so-and-so’s doctor/engineer/CEO son.”

  “That’s true,” her mother agreed easily. “I long to see you settle down with someone who thinks you hung the moon.” She smiled tenderly. “With a man who makes you want to hang it for him. My friends’ sons are the only men I know in the correct age bracket. God knows your brother’s friends are too young—and in more than mere age.”

  Harper snorted.

  A little smile tugged the corner of Gina’s lips. “Would you like to know what made me put off informing Cedar Village that we’d approved the grant?”

  “Yes!” Because she’d never understood it. For all the differences she and her mother had had, she’d never known Gina to be anything but professional when it came to the foundation.

  “Your voice changed whenever you mentioned Deputy Bradshaw’s name.”

  Harper blinked. She gaped at her mother. “What?”

  “Your voice changed. You savored the vowels in his name as
if they were made of crème brûlée. And I wanted to give you more time with him.”

  “But I’d already agreed to stay in Razor Bay until next week.”

  “I didn’t say it was well thought out.” She shrugged one elegant shoulder. “In my zeal, your work ethic slipped my mind, and I worried you’d get wanderlust and take off for a new adventure. I messed up, Baby Girl. But I vow I did so with the best of intentions.” She looked at Harper. “So you two had a fight?”

  “I screwed up so bad,” she said, then gave her mother a rueful look. “It must run in the family.”

  Ignoring the aside, Gina went straight to the heart of the matter. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I was about to hunt him down like a hound after a fox when you arrived.”

  “Go.” Her mother waved her away. “Don’t worry about me, I can entertain myself. Go make amends. And after you do, bring your young man back to introduce to your mama.”

  * * *

  AFTER MAX LEFT Harper’s cottage, he drove aimlessly through several of the little blink-and-you-miss-them towns outside of Razor Bay. Finally, thinking to distract himself with the boys, he headed for the Village.

  That didn’t work out quite the way he’d hoped. He simply hurt too much, was too distracted and just couldn’t immerse himself in their doings the way he usually did. It didn’t help that both Owen and Malcolm separately asked if he’d seen Harper.

  Ground glass in his intestines couldn’t have made him bleed more inside. It took every shred of willpower he possessed to answer levelly that Razor Bay Days plans at the inn were keeping her busy.

  He was wrung dry by the time his group dispersed either to meet with a counselor or go to class. When the last boy disappeared through the doorway and the sounds out in the hallway began to die down, he bent forward in his chair to brace his elbows on his thighs. Dropping his head onto his fists, he dug his knuckles into his forehead where a headache throbbed.

  God, what was he going to do? He couldn’t wrap his mind around living day after day after day with the kind of pain he felt right now. And one thing was certain. He had to get the hell out of here. As long as his mind was stuck in the never-gonna-get-to-hold-Harper-again rut, he was no damn good to these kids.