LYNETTE LOVED HIM. Not that Claire was surprised. When her grandmother heard the story of how Max had walked in while she was firing Frank Carmondy she laughed her earthy laugh. It was good to hear that sound after seeing her despair the previous day, but then Lynette was never one to stay in the dumps.
“It’s not funny, Grandma. I am pretty sure Frank Carmondy was stealing from you.”
“And he’ll have to pay back whatever he stole. Maybe go to jail.” Lynette was settled in an oak chair at her big, round kitchen table. It was where all important family business was conducted. “But I bet none of that would hurt his pride as much as getting fired by a little snip of a thing like you.”
Very conscious that Max was there with them, Claire argued, “I am not a little snip of a thing. I’m a grown woman.”
“When Frank first started working here you were, what, eighteen? He won’t take kindly to the fact that it was you, a young woman, the granddaughter of the man who hired him, who gave him the boot.” She cackled again, blue eyes twinkling. “Lord, I wish I could have seen his face.” She stopped laughing. Looked Max over with her shrewd old eyes. “So, we lost one troublesome male and got ourselves another one, did we?”
“I’m here on approval, Ms. Lundstrom,” he said. “If you don’t agree to hire me, I’ll get the boot too.”
She chuckled again. “Well, he’s smooth, I’ll give him that,” she said to Claire. “Good-looking, too. Looks like that Spanish fellow I like. What’s his name?”
“Javier Bardem?”
“No. The other one.”
“Antonio Banderas?”
“That’s it. You Spanish, Max?”
“Argentinian. Well, my parents are. I was born in the States.”
“Speak Spanish?”
“Yes. Also Portuguese and French.”
“Could be handy with international passengers. If we ever had any.”
She tapped her fingers against the arm of the chair. Her gold wedding ring was the only jewelry she wore. “How’d he do on the flight test?” she asked Claire.
“He’s got good hands and feet. Knows his way around a plane.” If he was uncomfortable with listening to them talk about him, Max gave no sign of it.
“Where you living?”
“I was going to look for a place in town.”
She shook her head. “Tough to find accommodation. The rentals are awful and overpriced. You’d better have the caretaker’s old quarters here on the property.”
“Grandma,” Claire said. “Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
“I think that the sooner Frank Carmondy knows there’s a man living on the property with us the better. He’s got a temper on him, that one. Better he knows we’re not unprotected.”
Claire wondered what her grandmother was doing. The woman had been flying bush planes back when Betty Crocker was learning to cook. She’d faced down grizzlies, blizzards, drunken prospectors, lecherous passengers and she’d never once felt the need for a man’s protection. Lynette could still shoot the O out of a Coke can at fifty feet. She’d taught Claire how to do the same. She did not need to be protected from a blustering bully of an ex-employee.
But Claire wasn’t about to get into all that with Max sitting there, so she said, “It will take a couple of days to clean out the old place and get it habitable. There’s a hotel downtown that will put you up for a few days.”
He turned those liquid brown eyes her way. She suspected he heard subtext the way other people hear regular conversation. He nodded. “That’s fine. I flew in. Is there a taxi?”
Before she could speak, Lynette said, “Claire will drive you into town. We pride ourselves on Northern hospitality.”
Claire smiled through gritted teeth and decided she and her beloved grandmother were going to have a serious talk before too long. She strongly suspected there was some very unsubtle matchmaking going on. As she’d told her grandmother on many an occasion, simply because Lynette had married another bush pilot didn’t mean Claire was going to follow suit.
She even made a point of dating men who kept both feet on the ground most of the time. She’d gone out with the town’s only dentist, a tugboat captain and a mining engineer. All lovely, interesting men. Didn’t matter. Lynette checked out every new bush pilot as though she were measuring him for his wedding tux.
“Come on,” she said to Max. “I’ll drive you into town.”
“Did I pass the interview?” he asked as they headed to the old Yukon. The SUV was pitted with rust and caked with dust, but it was still as serviceable as when she’d learned to drive on it a dozen years ago.
“Are you kidding? She didn’t just hire you. She practically adopted you. She never invites anyone to stay on the property.”
She hiked herself up into the driver’s seat. Max threw his duffel into the back and climbed in beside her.
“Is that a problem for you?”
She gazed at him. She was a pretty good judge of character and, if you didn’t count Carmondy, she’d say her grandmother was even better. Her instincts told her that she could trust Max Varo. “No. It’s not a problem.”
They headed past the Cessna she knew was his.
“You brought your own plane?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Like an old cowboy would bring his own horse.”
She smiled. He must have saved for years to afford his own plane. She sensed he was as avid a flyer as she was. And that her grandmother was completely smitten.
As they rattled down the road she saw him looking out the dirt-specked window, at the runway, the ocean. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“See if you still feel that way in January when the mercury dips below zero. That’s when you find out if Spruce Bay is for you or not.”
He glanced over at her. “And is it? For you?”
“Honestly? I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Oh, sure, I love a trip to New York or L.A. to go shopping and eat in great restaurants, but I’m always glad to come back. Spruce Bay is in my blood.”
Though it might not be in her family much longer if she didn’t figure out how to save the business.
She pulled up to the Spruce Bay Inn. “This is the one I recommend. It’s the priciest, but the beds are firm, the restaurant’s good and they have Wi-Fi.”
He turned to her and said, “Have dinner with me.”
“What?”
The term Latin lover flitted through her mind when he turned the full force of those eyes and that charm on her. “Have dinner with me, tonight.”
“I can’t have dinner with you. I’m your boss.”
“No. You’re not. First, I don’t start work until tomorrow. Second, Lynette told me she is my boss.”
“I don’t—”
“I understand if you prefer not to be seen with the hired help.”
“It’s not—I’m not a snob!”
When he smiled that slow, come-to-bed smile, she knew he had her. “I’m new in town. I have a lot of questions and I hate eating alone.” He shrugged. “That’s part of my heritage.”
“It’s just dinner,” she told him.
“Of course.”
She glanced at her watch.