She tilted her head. The curtain of straight hair fell like a dark-chocolate waterfall, and her comment emerged half flirtatious, half factual. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Max laughed outright. She was something.
He leaned forward, folded his arms on the bar and said, “That may be luck…or just bad taste in drinking establishments.” He’d lowered his voice so the regulars—who were all ears at the moment—wouldn’t hear. Smiling into the amused brown eyes, he added, “If you need anything else, just whistle.” Briefly his gaze dropped to her scarlet lips.
Taking his bar towel and his shot glass, Max turned away from temptation. Smart move, he congratulated himself, expelling the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
So long, gorgeous, he thought, not without regret, certain his evening bartender, Dave, would arrive before she was ready for her second drink.
Damn.
D.J. realized she was staring after Maxwell and mentally shook herself. Raising the drink he’d set in front of her, she was shocked to see that her hand actually trembled.
Well, for Pete’s sake! she thought disgustedly.
The man had thrown her totally off course. And she never lost focus when she was on a job. Never, never!
Taking a sip of the drink she had ordered simply to fit in, D.J. grimaced and tried not to cough. She wanted Maxwell’s attention again, but not because she was gagging at his bar.
Setting the drink aside, she looked up to watch Max confer with another man who’d entered the area behind the bar. Facing her direction, the second man was in the process of tying an apron around his waist when he saw D.J. His eyes glinted with clear, un-complicated interest, and he hitched his chin toward her. Max glanced back.
D.J. caught her breath. If you need anything else, just whistle.
Her lips slipped into pucker mode, but Max turned away again before she could generate any sound.
After another few words with the bartender, who had obviously come to take his place, he called goodbye to the regular customers and left.
D.J. stared after him in dismay. He was leaving? At…she checked her watch…barely four-thirty? That was not the plan.
So much for a knock-’em-dead dress and killer shoes whose only victims at the moment were her poor, pinched toes.
Sticking her thumbnail between her teeth, she started chewing. Dang, she hated failure, even little failures. Granted, she could spend the evening pumping the guys at the bar for information, but that would be admitting that Max Lotorto had gotten the best of her on the very first day.
She took her thumb out of her mouth as the new bartender headed her way, an inviting smile on his classic hottie face. D.J. smiled only vaguely in return. Grabbing her purse, she took out several dollars, tossed them on the bar next to her barely touched drink and stood.
You snooze, you lose, Daisy June.
It was a plain fact that no one got anywhere by mulling her options over and over. Sometimes you had to act first, mull second.
If you need anything else, just whistle….
As she sauntered from the bar, D.J. puckered up and blew.
Max walked the seven blocks from his work to his home with a sense of purpose, thinking only about the night ahead. As much as he could, he kept his mind on images that were safe, like the inch-thick Black Angus sirloin and the ice-cold Olympia beer—still the best beer—that figured heavily in his evening’s plans. And a muscle-relaxing soak in a tub that would, he decided, be as steaming hot as the brewski was cold.
And a cigar. Yeah.
A smile curved his lips. One of the mellow Cuban beauties he’d ordered off the Internet for his birthday.
If his plans seemed more suited to a phlegmatic retiree than a thirty-two-year-old virile male who could just as easily have been planning a night of outrageous sex, well, so be it. The one thing Max did not want to think about tonight—not even for a little while—was the lady in red. Too tempting. Too complicated. Strictly off-limits.
For the past several months women had ranked low on Max’s list of priorities. Not that he would lack for female company if he wanted it. On the contrary, he knew that women were never very far away.
What he’d lacked in his life up to now was purpose. He’d made money; he’d traveled the world. He’d played hard with few regrets when the mood struck. But he had never felt a driving reason to get up every morning, to be responsible all day, to live for something larger than his own interests.
He had a reason now. He had four.
Unconsciously Max increased his pace, anxious to end the day and begin the evening.
Turning up the cracked cement path leading to his front door, he felt his shoulders begin to relax for the first time all week. To say the past three months had been chaotic was an understatement. Every day he’d felt like he was juggling balls that refused to stay in the air. As of yesterday, though, thanks to a goddess named Ella Carmichael, Max had finally been able to restore order to his home life. Tomorrow he would begin in earnest the extensive remodel he planned on the restaurant and bar he had recently purchased, but tonight…
Max grinned. Ah, tonight his biggest dilemma would be deciding whether to eat first or take his bath. Fitting his key in the front lock, he turned the knob and opened the door to his sanctuary.
“Give me back my wizard wand or I’ll zap you with my laser stick!”
The shrill demand rent the air, slapping Max in the face like a stun gun.
“No! It’s mine. You stole it from me, you poo-poo doo-doo brain!”
“You’re not allowed to call me that! You’re a poo-poo doo-doo brain, you poo-poo doo-doo brain fart head.”
The arguing mounted rapidly in both urgency and volume. Max raised his hands as two small but surprisingly strong bodies hurled themselves at his legs with enough forward momentum to shatter his kneecaps. His breath hissed between gritted teeth as he held back the curse that wanted desperately to explode free. Small hands flailed about his legs. Max tried to grab at least one of them.
“Whoa!” he commanded when he trusted himself to speak without swearing. “Knock it off!” His demand went unheeded. Taking full advantage of his baritone, he hollered over the din. “What is going on?”
A pair of deceptively angelic faces surrounded by ruffles of blond curls looked up at him, for this one moment, silent. Then Sean’s hand shot out, pointing at his twin brother, James. “He did it!”
And the quarrel raged again.
Max clamped a hand over the mouth of each twin. “Where’s Mrs. Carmichael?” He’d hired the stalwart nanny three days ago because she had assured him that no domestic challenge was too daunting. She would easily—but with great love, of course—put order to the chaos that had become his life. Today was her first day, and upon waking this morning, Max had felt a degree of gratitude he’d never quite experienced before.
Slowly, with trepidation, he let go of James’s mouth first. James was generally the more amenable twin, but you couldn’t be too sure. Max looked at him with what he hoped was warning in his eye. Don’t mess with me, kid. Just give it to me straight.
“She’s in the kitchen, cleaning up the dinner.”
Cleaning up the dinner. Max’s brows swooped together. So, that’s what he smelled. “Did it burn?”
James shrugged.
“Where are your sisters?” Before the boy could answer, the steel-haired dynamo who’d promised him a miracle marched out of the kitchen.
“Good, you’re home.” Built like a small tank in orthopedic shoes, Mrs. Carmichael