Carolina Heart Page 4

  “You mean Ben? He was a student of mine. I recommended him for the internship here. And you just changed the subject back to me,” Max said on a note of discovery.

  Cynthie bent her head over the cutting board. A corner of her mouth indented in a smirk.

  “You can’t get away with that forever, you know,” he said. “Not in your job. Sooner or later, you’ll need to talk.”

  “Are you kidding? Nobody wants to listen to their server. Mostly they want to tell you their troubles, complain about their lives, and order drinks.”

  “Wait until you’re a hygienist,” he said. “Your patients won’t be able to do more than swish and spit. Or grunt. You’ll be forced to talk just to drown out the awful music.”

  Their eyes met. Her smile escaped, wide and warm.

  He grinned at her, triumphant.

  * * *

  CYNTHIE snuck another look at Max as they stood outside the otter enclosure.

  She was used to guys who talked about themselves, about what they drove or what they drank or how much money they made or didn’t make.

  Max talked about the world she knew, sea and sand, mud and tides, but he invested every observation with urgency and importance, facts tumbling out of him like shells caught at the lip of the tide. She found herself smiling and nodding as he talked, conscious of every move he made, almost breathless when his arm brushed hers.

  And even though she got distracted, she was caught in his passion for his subject. He kept stopping his flow to point things out, to gesture, to explain, spinning a net of words that pulled all the exhibits together somehow in a shiny, living, breathing ball.

  He must be a very good teacher.

  Cynthie wasn’t the only one infected by his enthusiasm.

  Madison and Hannah crowded close to watch as the tech Ben fed the otters through a sliding door in the back of the exhibit. Hannah was on tiptoe with excitement, her hands smudging the thick glass. Even Madison was acting like her old self again instead of a preadolescent pain in the ass.

  “Thanks,” Cynthie said quietly to Max. “For everything. I’m pretty sure feeding the otters wasn’t on the schedule.”

  He looked down at her, making her aware of his height. His legs were very long. When was the last time she’d stood close enough to a man to notice his bare knees? Or the sun-warmed smell of his T-shirt, the scent of salt and man?

  “Otters have a very high metabolism. They have to eat five times a day.”

  She shook her head. “Not their schedule. Yours. We’ve taken up your whole morning.”

  He shrugged those broad shoulders. “One of the advantages of my job is that I get to set my own hours.”

  “That must be nice,” Cynthie said. Between work and school and the kids, she never had a moment to call her own.

  “Was there something else you wanted to see?”

  “No.” She smiled. “This has been great. The girls are having a great time.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m having a good time, too,” she said honestly.

  “Because nothing says ‘hot date’ like food prep at the aquarium,” he said wryly.

  She smiled. This wasn’t a date. But for some reason, it was important that he understand the gift he’d given them.

  “It’s fun just to be with them,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time we all hung out together without me fixing dinner or doing laundry. Without me nagging them about chores or homework.” Without worrying about shopping for groceries or paying the bills.

  One of the otters pounced on a hard-boiled egg.

  Madison giggled. “Ohmigod, she’s so cute.”

  “Ah, actually, she’s a he,” Max said. “All the exhibit’s otters are male.”

  Cynthie looked at him sideways. “The aquarium doesn’t like girls?”

  He smiled. “They’re simply following the divisions found in nature. Wild otters generally separate into two kinds of groups—mothers with their young, and small, rambunctious bands of males.”

  “Sort of like humans,” Cynthie joked. “Growing up, it was me and my mom, and now it’s me and my girls.”

  They strolled along the river gallery toward the swamp.

  Max cleared his throat. “The girls don’t see their fathers much?”

  Cynthie shook her head. “Doug—that’s Maddie’s dad—”

  “I remember Doug,” Max said a little grimly.

  “He lives in Charlotte. I think there’s another woman now. Another family, maybe. Doug doesn’t really keep in touch. Well, it’s been ten years,” she added, trying to be fair.

  “But you have a child together.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. He keeps saying it’s too expensive to come visit, but I wish he would invite Maddie to stay sometimes. Not that I’d feel great about her going, but he’s still her dad.”

  “What about Hannah’s father?”

  She didn’t look at him, focusing her attention on the pond turtles on the other side of the glass. “Not in the picture.”

  “Ever?” He sounded surprised.

  He was a nice guy. She’d probably shocked him. Hell, she’d shocked herself, ten years ago.

  “It was right after the divorce,” Cynthie said. “I was drinking too much and feeling kind of low, and some Marine came into the bar and, well . . . Nine months later, I had Hannah. He’s never seen her.”

  Max frowned. “He still has a responsibility to pay child support.”

  “Maybe he would. If I’d asked him.” Deliberately, she turned from the glass and met his gaze, refusing to hide, hating to lie. “If I’d known his name.”

  Their eyes held. Her heart beat faster in defiance and something else.

  There. Now he knew.

  And now, she knew from experience, he would run.

  Or maybe he’d run later.

  Guys like him—attractive guys in their early thirties, smart, employed, well-educated guys—they didn’t hit on women like her. Unless they planned on nailing an easy target.

  “I told Hannah her daddy is a war hero who’s away serving his country.” Cynthie smiled lopsidedly. “It might even be true. My point is, I have a history of making bad decisions. I’m not looking to repeat myself.”

  Hannah and Madison were on the other side of the room, peering at the alligators lurking in the shadows of the man-made cypress swamp.

  Max cleared his throat again, the sound rasping against the softly falling water.

  Here it comes, Cynthie thought.

  “You’ve got wonderful kids,” he said. “You’ve done a great job with them. You should be proud.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She stared at him wide-eyed, her mouth opening and closing like she was a fish.

  All her life, Cynthie had been judged. By her mother, her teachers, her customers, herself. And here was this man telling her she’d done good.

  Was he for real?

  “Mo-om.” Madison’s voice jerked Cynthie out of wherever she’d been drifting and into the air. “It’s almost one o’clock. I told Taylor I’d come over at two. We’re going to be late.”

  Cynthie pulled herself together. Of course, Madison wanted to go to her friend Taylor’s. Taylor was good for Maddie. And her home was perfect. Her family was perfect. Her grandmother baked cookies every day.

  “No, we’re not,” Cynthie said. She smiled at Max. “We should go. We need to let you get back to . . .”

  Your life.

  And let me get back to mine.

  The thought left her oddly bereft.

  “Your work,” she finished.

  His light, intent eyes focused on her face. “It’s Sunday,” he said.

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “My shift starts at four. But this was great. We really did have a good time. Hannah especially. Thank you so much.�
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  The girls, reminded of their manners, said all the appropriate things. Even Madison blushed and stammered thanks.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Max said.

  His manners, Cynthie noted, were excellent. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to.”

  She could argue. But she didn’t want to lose his company. Not yet. Anyway, it was good for the girls to see an example of a guy treating a woman politely.

  They all trooped out to the lobby, Madison walking ahead, gradually establishing a proper teenage distance.

  They emerged from the building into a flood of sunshine.

  “I want to see you again,” Max said.

  Cynthie blinked in the sudden brightness. “Why?”

  His jaw squared a little. “Because . . . I like you. I always have.”

  His earnest voice tickled at her brain, teased at her memory. Almost, almost, as if she’d heard those words before. From him.

  She stared at him, wondering. And then shook the thought away.

  “I like you, too,” she said. “But we’re not in high school anymore.”

  He grinned. “Thank God.”

  An answering smile tugged her mouth. “Yeah, okay. But the thing is, I have kids. Bad enough I have to dump them on my mom on the nights I work. I can’t ditch them to go out with you.”

  “So we can bring them along sometimes. Do things together. Like today.”

  Like a family.

  For a moment, longing flooded her chest. Her eyes blurred. It would be so nice to have a man around. She didn’t miss Doug. She didn’t balk at hard work. She didn’t mind cutting the grass and paying the bills and figuring out how to replace the washer under the kitchen sink when the pipes leaked all over the peeling vinyl floor. But the loneliness, the sheer weight of being the Only One Responsible, got to her sometimes.

  What would it be like to have an ally? Another grown-up to answer Hannah’s questions, to coax a smile to Madison’s face.

  Girls need a masculine role model, Cynthie thought wistfully. Maybe her own life would have been different if her father had stuck around.

  And then reality reared its ugly head. Reality and regret. That was old Cynthie thinking. New Cynthie knew better.

  Maybe Hannah was too young to remember or care about her mother’s string of boyfriends, the Men Who Couldn’t Commit and Did Not Stay. But Madison was more fragile. God knew what kind of damage Cynthie had already done to Madison.

  She looked at them standing, waiting by the car. Madison had put aside her impatience to get home and was leaning over, teasing Hannah to make her laugh.

  Love for her daughters swelled Cynthie’s heart, pushing out everything else.

  She was all they had.

  She needed to be enough for them. Good enough. Strong enough.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m trying to get my life in order,” she said. “I don’t bring guys home anymore. My girls need me to put them first. They need to be able to count on me.”

  “Of course they do. But what about what you need?” Max asked quietly.

  Her throat constricted. She swallowed hard. “I need to be the person they can count on.”

  He held her gaze for long moments. And then he nodded. “Right.”

  She blew out her breath, relieved and deflated.

  “So it will have to be lunch then,” he said. “Or coffee.”

  Her pulse leaped, but she shook her head. “You’re not listening. I can’t go out with you.”

  “You do occasionally stop to eat, right? During the day, when the kids are at school?”

  “Sometimes,” she said cautiously. “If I have a break between classes.”

  “Me, too.” His gray eyes gleamed, or maybe that was a trick of the sunlight. “Say, Wednesday? One o’clock?”

  She felt herself softening, weakening, giving in. “Were you this pushy in high school?”

  “Nope.” He smiled crookedly. “If I had been, maybe you’d remember me.”

  Her face got hot.

  “Just lunch,” he coaxed. “Just friends. Everybody needs a friend.”

  What about what you need? he’d asked.

  Her heart quivered. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could let herself have this much. As long as she wasn’t taking anything away from the girls . . .

  “Wednesday,” she said.

  FOUR

  FIVE WEEKS LATER, Max tore his gaze from the entrance to the student union and forced himself to focus on the papers in his lap. Cynthie was late.

  He wasn’t worried, exactly. She had his cell phone number. She would have called if she wasn’t coming.

  Unless she was blowing him off.

  His fingers tapped the pages. He was not going to overreact. She was running a few minutes behind schedule, that’s all.

  Okay, fifteen minutes. He couldn’t help the quick glance at his phone. Almost twenty. But he could wait. He was good at waiting. He’d had plenty of practice, standing around on the steps after school, waiting for one of his parents to remember to pick him up. Even Julie, when they’d lived together, had never been on time for anything.

  Female prerogative, darling, she would explain breezily, dismissing his concern and irritation.

  Power trip, Greg had said the last time she’d canceled dinner plans at the last minute.

  But Cynthie wasn’t like that. Single moms are good at time management, she’d informed him once with a brilliant smile. We have to be.

  She’d never been late for one of their dates before.

  Max frowned, unseeing, at the neatly typed pages. Not that she would call this a date. He wasn’t sure he could call it a date, either. She wouldn’t let him pay for her lunch, not after the first time. But he’d bought drinks, bottled water for him, Diet Mountain Dew for her. He’d had time to learn her habits. For the last five weeks, they’d been meeting for lunch three days a week, squeezing in an hour between classes, snatching coffee and conversation in the well-lit, noisy, very public student center.

  Cynthie had made it clear she wasn’t ready to take their relationship outside this building. Max wanted more. But if he pushed for more, he might lose even this.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Cynthie stood beside “their” table, her face flushed and smiling, her dark hair sliding from its messy ponytail, and all Max’s frustration dissolved in simple happiness.

  “No problem. It’s good to see you.” He started to his feet, spilling papers to the floor.

  “Oops.” She bent to pick them up, her head more or less level with his lap.

  His body tightened at the attention.

  “I’ve got that,” he said, embarrassed, stooping.

  She glanced at a page before handing it to him. “‘Insufficient contribution of sink habitats to spawning stock,’” she read aloud. “Sexy stuff. Did you write this?”

  She was so pretty, smiling on her knees before him, her green eyes alight with humor. Need balled in his gut.

  He cleared his throat. “Ah, no. It’s a dissertation draft for one of my grad students. I promised I’d get it back to him this week.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt your work.”

  “You’re not. I just brought it along so I’d have something to do.” He shoved the pages into his backpack.

  “Max . . .” Cynthie straightened slowly, her expression troubled. “You’ve got better things to do than hanging around wasting your time with me.”

  It was an apology.

  Or maybe a warning.

  “I’m not wasting anything,” he said firmly. Certainly not this chance to see her, to be with her, again. “I like spending time with you.”

  Her face glowed.

  “Anyway, I’ve got to eat,” he added. “Have a soda.
How was your class?”

  “Thanks.” She slid into her usual seat across the table. “It was good. Better than good. We had a guest speaker today. An oral surgeon. That’s why I’m late.”

  “Lecture run long?”

  “No, I stayed after class.” She rummaged in her monster-size purse for her brown-bag lunch. “That’s the exciting part.”

  She always brought her lunch from home. To save money, Max suspected. He’d taken to doing the same so that she wouldn’t feel awkward about the relative state of their finances.

  Pulling out two squishy plastic packages, she laid one in front of him.

  He looked from the package to her bright, expectant face. “What’s this?”

  “Lunch.”

  “I brought my lunch.”

  She sniffed. “Hard-boiled eggs again, I bet, and an apple. I’ve seen what you pack. I made you a proper sandwich.”

  Warmth suffused his chest as he stared down at her offering. “That was really nice of you.”

  He peeled back plastic wrap, revealing a white, moist, lumpy, unappetizing square. He was pretty sure his eggs had more nutritional value. But he didn’t say a word.

  “I hope you like chicken salad,” she said.

  “Love it.” Anyway, he would love this chicken salad. Because she’d made it for him.

  He took a hearty bite, and flavor exploded in his mouth, tangy, creamy, sweet. Wow. He swallowed. “Okay, I owe you one. This is really good.”

  She grinned. “You don’t have to sound so surprised. It’s Mama’s recipe—Duke’s Mayonnaise and a touch of pickle relish.”

  “Your mother is amazing.”

  She tipped her head. “Your mom never made you chicken salad?”

  He shook his head. Dr. Dorothea Bell-Lewis did not cook. She opened cans. And bottles of wine. And he was not so pathetic that he was going to discuss the imagined shortcomings of his privileged childhood with Cynthie, who grew up with nothing and never complained about anything. “Tell me about your class. What happened?”

  “Well.” Cynthie swallowed a bite of sandwich. “This doctor came in today, Dr. Rice. He does a lot of implants, bone grafts, wisdom tooth extractions, stuff like that. Anyway, I asked some questions in class about postoperative care. So later, when I was leaving, he stopped me and asked if I was interested in a part-time job.”