Second to None Read online

  “Cool.” The doorbell rang, and Izzy jumped off her stool. “That must be Violet. I’ll let her in.” She raced away with Windy trotting along behind her.

  “Check the door camera first!” Izzy had a tendency to open the door without knowing who was outside, so Emily had installed a security camera with a view screen right beside the door.

  “It’s Violet,” her daughter shouted as Emily started to follow her.

  “Okay,” Emily called back, turning around and shoving the bacon into the oven.

  As she wiped her greasy fingers on a paper towel, sadness and anticipation twisted her heart. What memories of Jake might Max choose to share?

  *

  “I like that top, Mommy,” Izzy said as Emily stood in front of her bedroom mirror in a state of indecision. She’d already settled on black wool trousers and black velvet flats. The top Izzy preferred was a festive red silk knit with a V neck. What gave it interest were the sleeves, which were pleated red chiffon that fell to her elbows and fluttered with every movement.

  “You can wear the ruby necklace Daddy gave you,” Izzy continued. “It will add some sparkle.”

  “Okay,” Emily said before she twirled her hair into a bun and held it. “Hair up or down?”

  Izzy tilted her head and considered the question. “Down.”

  Emily let her hair fall around her shoulders and picked up her brush. “You want to style it?”

  Izzy nodded, so Emily sat down on the bed and let her daughter smooth her hair into waves. “Do you want me to French braid your hair?” Emily asked when Izzy was done.

  “Can we try it and see how it looks?” Izzy asked.

  As Emily tamed Izzy’s curls into a neat braid down the back of her head, she thought how much she loved these girlie moments. That’s why she never allowed anyone to interfere with their Saturdays together. She didn’t mind sharing them, but she wasn’t going to separate herself from her daughter on their one special day.

  Izzy inspected the effect of her hairdo with her lime-green dress and royal-blue tights before she nodded. “Could you clip some blue bows down the braid?”

  *

  At ten minutes till six, Emily straightened the folds of a green-and-red plaid napkin, shifted a water goblet on the poinsettia-embroidered tablecloth, and moved the crystal salt and pepper shakers to the other end of the table.

  Windy sat in the archway, watching Emily down her long slender nose.

  “Yes, I’m nervous,” Emily murmured to the dog.

  “What, Mommy?” Izzy was in the kitchen, inspecting the chocolate pecan pie.

  “Just talking to Windy.” She walked over to stroke the dog’s silky fur. “What’s a billionaire genius going to think of our little home?”

  The truth was that Emily thought the house looked cozy and welcoming. The Christmas tree stood in the corner of the living room, wearing its shiny ornaments and twinkling multicolored lights. Flames flickered in the marble-manteled fireplace, sending light dancing over the garlands of greenery draped around the doors and brass sconces. The heavy blue velvet curtains were drawn against the dark chill of the winter night. These Victorian town houses were meant for Christmas decorations.

  The doorbell rang, making Emily jump.

  “Do you want me to answer it?” Izzy shouted from the kitchen.

  “I’ll get it,” Emily said. “Why don’t you come in here and keep Windy with you, just until I’ve gotten Mr. Varela’s coat put away?”

  Emily signaled the well-trained dog to stay as Izzy scampered into the dining room. Taking a deep breath, she smiled down at her daughter and walked to the narrow front hall. When she checked the video screen, she swallowed hard. Max stood in the circle of light on the front stoop while snowflakes drifted down onto his broad wool-covered shoulders. He held a huge bouquet of flowers and a leather wine tote that was large enough for several bottles. His dark hair gleamed in the warm yellow light cast by the overhead fixture while shadows accented the strong, clean planes of his face. Her blood pulsed a little faster in her veins as she imagined tracing along his jaw with her fingertip. Or her lips.

  She yanked open the door to stop her wayward thoughts. “Come in, Max.”

  As he stepped inside, his shoulders appeared to span the width of the hallway, filling the small space with his powerful male presence. A gust of outdoor air blew in with him so that snowflakes swirled around his head. He blazed like a force of nature barely contained within her walls.

  A vibration burrowed deep inside her as she responded to the pure magnetism he exuded.

  He set the wine tote on the floor and separated the flowers, holding out the larger bouquet to her. “For you. Some springtime in the midst of winter.”

  It was a spectacular collection of exotic lilies, roses, and flowers she didn’t even recognize, all in brilliant jewel tones. “What a treat! Thank you so much,” she said, inhaling the glorious scent of the lilies.

  He held up the smaller version. “For Izzy.”

  Her heart did a little flip in her chest. If the man was trying to charm her by being sweet to her daughter, he had succeeded. “She adores bright colors, so you chose exactly the right flowers.”

  He laughed, a deep rumble that made her want to bathe in the sound. “You mentioned that she has a strong fashion sense, so I went with bold.”

  “Let me take your coat.” She put the flowers gently on the steps that led up to the next floor while he unwound his claret-colored scarf and shrugged out of his overcoat. He wore a pale gray sweater of some fine-knit fiber that her fingers itched to touch, and charcoal-gray trousers that broke over black loafers. He’d pushed the sleeves of his sweater halfway up toward his elbows to reveal the hard curves of well-muscled forearms with a dusting of dark hair. She longed to touch there, too.

  When Emily took his heavy coat by the collar, her fingers brushed the silky lining. It still held the heat of his body, and she felt a shiver of pleasure flutter over her skin. She fumbled at the wooden hangers in the coat closet, finally managing to unhook one from the rod.

  She hung the coat and turned to find him watching her. “You look beautiful,” he said, his eyes dark pools in the dim light. She had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze.

  “So do you,” she said, her voice holding a husky edge that she couldn’t quell.

  “Mommy, guys don’t like to be called beautiful.” Izzy’s voice dispersed the charged atmosphere surrounding them.

  Max squatted so he was on Izzy’s eye level. “I don’t mind it at all.” He held out the flowers. “Your mom said you like bright colors.”

  “I got flowers?” Izzy practically squeaked as she accepted the bouquet and buried her nose in it. “They smell good, too. Thank you, Mr. Varela.”

  “You’re—” He straightened abruptly and took a step back. “—welcome.”

  Emily tried to figure out what had made him react so strangely, but all she saw was Izzy sniffing her posies and Windy standing beside her, watching the stranger with interest.

  “I guess I should introduce you to Windy,” Emily said. “She was my aunt Ruthie’s dog, but she allowed us to adopt her.”

  “She’s . . . very pretty,” he said, but he made no attempt to pet the collie mix. Instead, he picked up the wine tote and held it in front of him. “As promised, I brought wine.”

  Still puzzled by his response to Windy, Emily reached out. “I’ll take it.”

  “It’s heavy,” he said, keeping a firm grip on the tote. “I’ll carry it wherever you want it.”

  Emily scooped up her flowers from the steps and led the way into the living room, preceded by Izzy and the dog. She was halfway to the archway that opened into the dining room when she realized Max had stopped.

  He stood in the doorway, scanning the room Emily had inspected fifteen minutes before. “You always make a house into a home,” he said. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “It even smells like a home.”

  Emily felt a little glow at the compliment. “M
y mother said I was a nester.”

  “Now I’m picturing you with twigs sticking out of your mouth,” Max said, his deep voice carrying an undercurrent of amusement.

  “It’s been known to happen during intense craft-making sessions.”

  Max smiled as he strode across the worn Oriental rug to catch up with her. Deep creases at the corners of his mouth emphasized the sensual fullness of his lower lip. That was another part of him that she wanted to touch, and not just with her fingertip. Would it be wrong to kiss him good night so she could trace his lips with her tongue? A ripple of yearning shimmered through her at the thought.

  Yet she needed to remember that he was more than a dinner guest. Despite his insistence that she shouldn’t worry about any conflict of interest, he was the donor who had made a major gift to the center.

  “Come on in the kitchen and we’ll get the wine opened and the flowers in a vase,” Emily said more firmly than was necessary. In fact, she was talking to herself to ward off the power of her attraction to Max.

  Izzy had already found a pitcher to put her flowers in. “Don’t they look pretty?” she asked, adjusting a rose to a more satisfactory angle.

  “It’s good to hear you like them,” Max said, swinging the wine tote onto the counter.

  “You have a really dope voice,” Izzy said.

  “A what voice?” Emily asked in stern tones.

  “I mean a really amazing voice. Sorry, Mommy.”

  Max raised his eyebrows. “I’m relieved. I was concerned that I sounded like someone stupid.”

  Izzy giggled. “The kids at the center say ‘dope’ when they mean cool. Well, at least when an adult isn’t around. Mommy makes them use good grammar. She says they need to know how to speak properly if they want to get good jobs. But you have this rumbly voice, kind of like Darth Vader, except you’re a good guy.”

  “First I’m an idiot and now I’m the greatest villain of all time.” He shook his head, but Emily could see the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I’m not sure I want to stay for dinner.”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?” Izzy asked. Without giving him time to answer, she said, “If you don’t want to eat dinner, you should at least stay for dessert. Violet and I made chocolate pecan pie.”

  “You’ve convinced me to suffer through dinner in order to earn the pie.”

  “Grown-ups don’t have to eat their vegetables before they can have dessert.” Izzy jumped down from the stool, startling Windy so the dog skittered toward Max.

  The smile vanished from his face as he sidestepped around the small center island, so it was between him and Windy. Emily was beginning to think that he didn’t like dogs. Which made no sense.

  “Izzy, would you put Windy in my room? We don’t want her begging while we eat.”

  “But she doesn’t—”

  Emily gave her the look that said Obey Mom at once, so Izzy called Windy, and the two padded off to go upstairs.

  “I get the feeling that Windy doesn’t beg,” Max said with a wry twist of his mouth.

  “You seem uncomfortable with her.” Emily fiddled with her flowers before she looked at him again. “I’m puzzled. If you don’t like dogs, why did you fund the K-9 Angelz project?”

  He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “My feelings about dogs have nothing to do with the benefits I believe your project can offer to the children at the Carver Center.”

  “So you really don’t like dogs?” Emily tried to keep the shock out of her voice, but she wasn’t sure she’d succeeded. “Didn’t you and Jake develop vests for the military working dogs?”

  Max nodded and looked away. “I don’t dislike dogs. I just haven’t spent much time around them.” He shrugged as though shaking off some unwelcome thought and brought his gaze back to her face. “By the way, how’s Diego’s rescue dog doing?”

  She was even more impressed by his generosity now that she knew he wasn’t a dog lover.

  “It was touch and go, but the little fellow is going to make it. Which reminds me that we need to straighten out the billing. You can’t pay his medical expenses.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s my responsibility.”

  “On the contrary. The dog will clearly become part of the K-9 Angelz project. Therefore, its care is part of my funding.”

  She threw him a dry look. “You gave Carla your personal credit card. That’s not coming out of the grant money.”

  “For God’s sake, a pair of my shoes costs more than the vet bill will.” His exasperation showed in the way he raked his fingers through his hair. “Consider it a Christmas gift to Diego. Something tells me the boy doesn’t get many of those.”

  “I—”

  “No,” he barked, his hand lifted in a gesture of utter refusal.

  She knew better than to argue with that tone. “In that case, thank you. I’ll let Diego know of your generosity.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I want him to know that there are many good people in the world.” Max looked as though he was going to object again, so she handed him a corkscrew. “Why don’t you open a bottle of whatever you’d like to drink? I’m not sure there is a prescribed wine to complement macaroni and cheese.”

  His face relaxed. “You honored my request.”

  “I hope your memory hasn’t exaggerated its flavor.”

  “So far my memory hasn’t exaggerated a single thing.” That low voice and the intent look that went with it made her nerve endings jitter with excitement and a touch of uneasiness. She felt as though she had waded into deep waters. He pulled out the cork with a soft pop and poured the pale wine into the two stemmed glasses she’d set out on the counter. “You favored the white at Laurent,” he said.

  Amid all the changes in courses and glasses, he’d paid attention to which wine she drank the most of. Another thrill of nervous elation ran through her, making her breath come a little faster. She picked up her glass and held it up in a toast. “To old times.”

  “And new ones.” His voice lowered as he touched his glass to hers.

  She avoided his gaze by staring into her glass as she took a gulp of wine. He was making his intentions clear. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He was making his interest clear. She wasn’t at all sure what his intentions were.

  She picked up the Asian meatballs she’d prepared for hors d’oeuvres. “Why don’t we sit by the fire?”

  He took the platter from her and started out the door, leaving her nothing to do but carry her wine and stare at the muscles of his back as outlined by the gray sweater. And his butt, under the drape of his wool trousers. Carla had a point about him being hot.

  Max set the platter on the low table between the two armchairs facing the fireplace. Izzy came clattering down the stairs, grabbed a floor cushion, and settled in front of the table. “I love these,” she said, snagging a meatball and popping it into her mouth.

  Emily sat in one chair while Max claimed the other, stretching out his legs toward the fire and crossing his ankles. The fire’s reflection danced on the polished surface of his loafers. He rested his elbows on the puffy rolled chair arms, the wineglass dangling from his fingers. She heard him let out a long breath as he sank into the crushed-velvet upholstery.

  “Long day?” Emily asked him.

  “Long month,” Max said.

  “Is it okay if we talk about what you and my dad did when you worked together?” Izzy fastened her blue eyes on Max. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Some people don’t like to talk about dead people.”

  Emily groaned internally as she threw an apologetic glance at Max. “Izzy, you shouldn’t—”

  Max held up one hand to stop her. “I’d be happy to talk about your father. He was a great guy and a very brave man.”

  Izzy nodded.

  “I told her that you and Jake worked on body armor together,” Emily said, to give him a little help.

  “So you understand what body armor is? It�
�s clothing that’s very strong so a bullet can’t go through it.” Max put his wine down on the table and leaned forward. “But just because a bullet can’t go through it doesn’t mean that you can’t get hurt when a bullet hits the armor. Because the bullet hits extremely hard.”

  Izzy nodded again.

  “So we tested the body armor on dummies, like the mannequins in store windows. We wanted to make sure that no bullets would ever go through it before a real person used the armor. We proved that it would stop the bullets, but there was no way to tell how much it hurt when a bullet hit the armor and bounced off.”

  Emily found herself so entranced by the bass of Max’s voice that she leaned forward, too.

  “Which meant we needed a real person to test it on,” Max continued. “I’m not a soldier, so I didn’t understand what it means to be a leader in the Marines like your dad was, so I just up and asked your dad’s company for a volunteer. Remember, this person had to be willing to get shot at, and he or she didn’t know how much it would hurt. I was amazed when every person in the company volunteered. But your father gave them this look that made them go silent and stand at attention. Then he gave me an even more serious look and said, ‘I’m the commander. I test the armor first.’”

  Max stared into the fire, and Emily knew he was seeing that moment in his mind’s eye. She was well acquainted with the look Jake would level at his men, the one that had made many a strong soldier go pale. She also knew that Jake always took the most dangerous assignment, always went first into a dicey situation, and always took care of his men. It didn’t surprise her at all that he’d tested the body armor on himself first. However, the knowledge hadn’t stopped her from being furious when he had shared that information with her.

  “Your dad strapped on the prototype—that means the first set of body armor we made—and then barked, ‘Novak, you can shoot straight about half the time. You take the shot.’ Then he walked to the end of the field we’d been using for the tests and stood with his feet apart and his arms behind his back. At ease, as they call it in the Marines. Then Novak walked up beside me, swung up his rifle, and aimed it at your dad.”