rom the rear of the house, Baby darted through the living room and entry, barking as if he were on the hot trail of a cat. He ran between Lola’s feet, through the door, and hopped around on his back legs in front of Max.

Lola straightened as Max bent down and picked up her dog with his free hand.

“Hey, B. D.,” he said, and held him up for inspection. “What in the hell are you wearing?”

“His silk tank.”

“Uh-huh.” He turned him to the side. “Except for that sissy shirt, he looks pretty good. Any problems since he’s been back?”

Lola chose to ignore the disparaging fashion commentary. “His vet said he has a slight bladder infection and his immune system is a little weak, but he’ll be okay as soon as he finishes all his medication.”

Max glanced up from Baby. “What about you? How are you, Lola?”

Now, there was a question. Her heartbeat a little too hard in her chest, and she suddenly felt a little short of breath. She spread her arms wide as if she were perfectly fine. “I went into the office today.”

“I like your hair.”

“Thank you.” She brushed several loose curls behind her ears and looked behind him at the black Jeep parked by her curb. “Is that yours?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“I figured you for a guy who’d drive a Hummer.”

His quiet laughter filled the space between them as Baby yapped and licked Max’s chin. “Hey, now, mutt,” he said, and once again held Baby up and away from his face. “Settle down before you have an accident.”

“He’s just excited to see you.”

Max set the dog on the porch, then slowly rose to his full height. He looked down at her through the dark lenses of his sunglasses. “And what about you, Lolita? Are you excited to see me?”

The sound of her name on his lips cut through her like sunshine on a foggy day, but she didn’t know if she’d go so far as to say she was excited. She was too upset with him to be excited. She tilted her head and drawled, “I’m likely to go mad and bite myself.”

“Can’t have that,” he said through a smile. “Maybe you should invite me inside, just so I can make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”

Well, since he was here anyway. She took a step back. “Come on in.” As she moved to the kitchen, she heard him shut the front door and follow. Baby raced ahead to his dinner, and Lola took a bottle of red wine from one of the grocery bags she’d set on the counter.

“I saw you on television Wednesday,” Max told her as he entered the kitchen.

She shook her head and reached for two glasses. “I looked horrible.”

“You could never look horrible.”

He was being kind and they both knew it, but when she glanced up at him, he looked serious. He’d taken off his sunglasses and those gorgeous blue eyes of his looked back at her as if he meant every word. “Wine?”

“No, thank you.”

“That’s right. You’re a beer drinker.”

“Yes, like your daddy’s branch-water cousins.” He handed her the thin box he held in his hand. “I didn’t know if you’d want to see me, so I thought I might have to bribe you with this.”

She took the present and shook it. “Why would you have to bribe me?”

“After everything, I didn’t know if you’d be out for my blood.”

She tore away the paper and ribbon and couldn’t help her smile. A ridiculous little glow lit up her chest and went a long way to cool her anger. Unlike gifts from other men in her past, it wasn’t expensive or lavish. “Thank you,” she said. “No man has ever given me a toothbrush before.”

“It’s an Oral-B, just like your old one.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“I figured I owed you.”

“Yes, you do. I’ll cherish it always.” She set the toothbrush next to the groceries on the counter, then pulled a Waterford vase from the glass-fronted cupboard. “You know, I probably shouldn’t want to see you,” she said as she filled the vase with water. “But Baby and I still suffer the lingering effects of Stockholm syndrome.”

“Stockholm syndrome? Don’t you have to be kidnapped to suffer from Stockholm syndrome?”

She turned off the water and looked over at him, at the light from the ceiling shining in his hair. At him standing in her kitchen filling up her senses with the sight of him and the barely detectable scent of his cologne. She’d been wrong about the bruises. Blue still smudged one corner of his eye. “Are we going to debate that again?”

Max shook his head and leaned a shoulder into the refrigerator. “So, how long do you and your dog think you’ll be suffering?”

She placed the vase on the counter, then began to arrange the flowers she’d bought at the market. It was so strange having him here, in her condo, talking to her in her own kitchen instead of the galley of the Dora Mae. Yet at the same time, it didn’t feel strange at all. As if she’d known him all of her life. Further proof that maybe she really was going crazy. “I can’t speak for Baby, and I’m not sure about myself.”

“Through dinner?”

She looked up from a peach tulip. “Are you buying?”

“Of course. I thought we’d grab a steak and talk about your plans to get your naked photos off the Internet.”

She’d already put her new plan into motion. “I called a private detective, and I meet with him Monday.”

“Hire me instead.”

He couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d told her she should hire him to fly her to the moon. “Are you offering to help me?”

“Yes.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Sure.”

If there was anyone who could shut down Sam’s site and get those photographs back, she was sure it was Max. Mad Max. The man who ate cobras and rescued drowning dogs. Saved her from drug runners and blew up yachts. Max the hero. She felt her burden lighten and an accompanying little tug at her heart. “How much?”

“For you, I’ll work extremely cheap.”

“How cheap?”

“We’ll talk about it over dinner.” He took the tulip from her, touched the end of her nose with the soft petals, then stuck it in the vase. “I’m starving and I think better after I eat.”

One of last things Lola felt like doing was putting her shoes back on. “I really don’t feel like going out, but I’ll let you cook me dinner here.”

He hooked the top of the sack with his finger and looked inside. “What ya got in there?”

“A few vegetables. Milk, chicken, hamburger, and some other stuff.”

“A king-sized Snickers,” he said as he pulled out the candy bar.

“Of course.”

He dropped it back into the sack. “Do you have rice to go with that chicken?”

She pointed to a cupboard above her. The bottom shelf was filled with food staples, the top two shelves with some of the foreign cookbooks she never used. “Up there.”

Max moved behind her and reached over her head, his chest brushing her back as he opened the cupboard and pulled out a bright red box. The touch was nothing, just a slight brushing of fabric, but it sent goose bumps up her back.

“Minute Rice?” he said just above the top of her head. “I can’t make arroz con polio with Minute Rice.”

Lola placed her hands flat on the counter. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to lean back into the solid comfort of his chest. To have him wrap his arms around her and melt into him. To close her eyes and let him take her mind off everything. To once again feel the warmth and strength of being with him.

“What’s arroz con pollo?” she asked.

“Chicken, rice, spices, a little tomato sauce, a little beer and peppers.”

Before she could give in to the urge, he put the box back in the cupboard and moved to the end of the counter, putting distance between them. It felt to Lola as if he were trying to put more than physical distance between them. It was as if he were purposely keeping a professional arm’s length, and she got that strange feeling again. The feeling of being suspended in air and waiting. “Can you barbeque?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” He took a package of chicken out of the grocery bag. “Lola?”

She frowned and stuck a rose in the vase. “Yes?”

“You never really answered my question.”

She thought she’d answered them all and looked up. “Which one?”

“How are you doing?” His gaze poured over her face and hair. “Really?”

“I’m okay.” She turned her attention back to the flowers and selected a beautiful closed tulip. “Everything is a bit weird, but I’ll get back into the swing of things. It was just my first day back to the office, so I wasn’t—”

“I’m not asking about your work.” He placed his fingers beneath her chin and brought her gaze back to his. “I’m asking about you.”

His light touch raised the hair at the back of her skull and little tingles tickled the hollow of her throat. She set the tulip down on the counter and looked into his familiar blue eyes. Into the face of the only person who might understand—even what she herself did not understand.

“I don’t know how to feel. I know that I’m supposed to be glad I’m home, and I am glad. But at the same time, I feel like something has changed and I don’t know what it is. My house, my job, my life, all look the same, but they... I don’t know. It all feels different. Disorienting. Weird.”

His brows lowered, he dipped his head a little, and peered into her eyes. “Are you having any sort of flashbacks or difficultly sleeping?”

“No.”

“Any bad dreams?”

“I dreamed I couldn’t get Baby out of the animal shelter.”

“Hmm. How about dreams of death or dying?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Jumpy?”

“No.”

“Afraid?”

“Not since I’ve been back.” She shrugged. “I’m just having trouble concentrating.”

He placed both his hands on the tops of her bare arms. “It sounds like you might be a little shell-shocked. It’s not uncommon with people who have gone through something traumatic. Maybe you should see somebody.”

“A psychiatrist?”

“Yeah.”

No, she didn’t want to talk to a doctor. She’d been through therapy before. Several years of it, and it had helped her then, but this didn’t feel like anything she needed a professional to help her through. She only wanted to talk to Max. Just the touch of his warm palms on her arms made her feel better. Just as it had the night of the storm and the night they’d made love.

“Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?” He laughed. “No, I’m afraid of what he’d find.”

“Like maybe you’re as crazy as a bullbat?”

“Definitely.” He slid his hands down her arms to her elbows, and again she had to fight the urge to lean into him. “Have you been eating?”

She’d been having a bit of trouble with that. She’d been having to remind herself to eat, but she’d been there before and knew the routine. It was nothing she couldn’t handle. Nothing she couldn’t conquer, and nothing she wanted to talk about. “Why all the questions?”

“I need to know you’re okay.” He dropped his hands to his sides, taking the warmth of his touch with him. “In my life, I’ve done some things I’m not especially proud of, but I’ve never screwed up the life of an innocent woman. I did that with you, and I’m sorry.” He looked into her eyes as if he could read her mind. “I want to make sure you’re going to be all right, and I want to help you get those photographs off the Internet. I owe you that much.”

He made it sound as if the only reason he’d come was because he felt responsible for her. As if he were here because he felt he owed some unpaid debt. As if she were just another job he needed to finish before he checked her off his list and eased his conscience. “You don’t owe me anything. I can hire someone to help me with Sam. And you didn’t have to drive all the way down here from Alexandria just to make sure I’m okay. You could have called to do that.”

“I’m on my way to Charlotte.”

“Oh.” She’d been a stop on his way to somewhere else, and she was embarrassed at how horribly that hurt.

“I would have come anyway.”

“Why?”

“You and I have been... a... we...” He struggled for the right words, just as he had the afternoon on the Dora Mae when he’d tried to clean up his language for her. “1 thought we were getting along better. More friendly, anyway.”

Yes, she’d say making love was more friendly. She wondered what he was really getting at. If he was getting at anything at all. With Max, it was hard to tell. “Are you trying to say you want to be friends?”

He folded his arms across his chest and rested his weight on one foot. “Friends is good,” he said, although he didn’t look particularly happy about the prospect. “We can do that.”

The man who’d stood on her welcome mat, looking at her as if he were sizing her up for his next meal, had not come for friendship. But the man in front of her now reminded her of the Max who’d told her she could walk around naked and he wouldn’t feel a thing. “Have you ever had a woman friend?”

“No.”

“Are you sure you can handle just being friends with me?”

“Sure.”

She stuck a tulip into the vase and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Because I remember several times when you kissed me and, before I knew it, your sneaky hands had unbuttoned my clothes.”

“I can keep my hands to myself,” he assured her. “Can you?”

“Not a problem.”

He tilted his head to one side and studied her beneath lowered brows. “You sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“ ‘Cause I remember you sticking your hand down my pants and grabbing my balls.”

Lola’s mouth fell open and Max smiled. She’d forgotten he could be so rude. “Well, that’s only because I thought I was going to die. Since I don’t plan to ever be in that situation again, your... your... body is safe.” She tilted her chin up. “Yes, I think we can be just friends,” she finished. But could they? How did she really feel about Max? Confused, mostly. And how did he feel about her? She didn’t have a clue.

“I’ve never had a man friend before. Well, not a friend who wasn’t gay anyway, so this could be interesting.” She put the rest of the flowers in the vase and wondered if she and Max could be friends after everything they’d been through. Just friends? Perhaps, but she had her doubts. She didn’t know if she could really be friends with a man who had sexually knocked her socks off.

“Okay,” she said, “why don’t you put the chicken on the barbeque in the backyard, and I’ll go change?” She moved past him but stopped in the doorway. “Do we call each other buddy now?”

“No, you call me Max, and I’ll call you Lola.”

Smoke bellowed from the electric grill as Max lifted the lid and flipped the chicken. He brushed barbeque sauce on the breasts and thighs and eyed Baby’s doghouse, or rather his dog castle. It sat in a covered part of the garden, surrounded by pink and purple plants heavy with blooming flowers, and looked like something fairies would live in. It was light blue and lavender and had little flags on the corner towers. It was about three-by-four feet and had a drawbridge for a door. Next to the inside of the condo, it was about the sissiest thing he’d ever seen.

On the drive south, Max had wondered what Lola’s home would look like, and he hadn’t been far off. Fluffy pastels the color of cotton candy, doily-covered pillows on the dark purple leather sofa, and lace curtains. White carpeting and flowers on the wallpaper. It was the kind of stuff that could suck out testosterone and shrink a guy’s nuts if he wasn’t careful.

Max looked down at the dog by his feet and pointed to the castle with a pair of tongs. “Doesn’t that make you feel like a little fairy?”

Baby barked and his eyebrow twitched.

“If you’re not careful, you’ll be wearing pink toenail polish and little pink bows on your ears.”

“Baby is secure in his masculinity,” Lola said as she walked through the French doors and out onto the brick patio.

Max shook his head and flipped a chicken leg. “Sugar, your dog has had all of his juice sucked out of him. Probably the reason he has such a big chip on his shoulder.” He glanced over at Lola, but further comment died on his tongue. She moved toward him with a glass of wine in one hand, a bottle of Samuel Adams in the other. She wore a pair of lose-fitting jeans shorts that hung low on her hips, and a white T-shirt. But not just any T-shirt. It was so tight it fit her like shrink-wrap, and across her big breasts, in neon green, were the words eat me in St. Louis.

“Nice shirt.”

She looked down at herself and smiled. “A friend of mine opened a restaurant in St. Louis a few years ago, and this is what he named it,” she said, and handed Max the beer. “Charming, isn’t it?”

“A boyfriend?”

“No, Chuck is gay. I did a little free advertising for him at the time, and he catered a party for me. The restaurant went out of business, but I still have my eat me shirt. It’s one of my favorites, but of course, I don’t dare wear it anywhere.”

Of course not. Just in front of him. Just to make his eyes ache and his brain seize. Just to make him wonder what she’d do if he tossed her on the ground and took her up on the invitation.

“How’s the chicken?” she asked.

Max tore his gaze from her shirt and looked at the grill. This friends thing was not going to work out. He took a big swig of beer before he answered. “About ten minutes more.”

“I’m almost done with the salad. Do you want to eat inside or out here?”

His grip tightened around the bottle and he wondered if she was torturing him on purpose. “Outside.”

She smiled up at him, all innocent, as if she didn’t know the chaos she created just by breathing. “I’ll set the table out here, then.”

Max watched her walk into the condo, his gaze moving down her back, over her butt, and down her long legs. Coming here was a mistake. He’d known it even as he’d loaded his Jeep that afternoon.

Turning his attention back to the grill, he flipped a thigh. He’d used the trip to Charlotte as an excuse to see her, plain and simple. He didn’t have to be anywhere until Monday morning, and in fact, he had a round-trip airlines ticket stuck in his suitcase. He’d booked the flight several weeks ago in anticipation of his business in Charlotte. There had been no need for him to make the long drive—except to see Lola. He’d had to see for himself that she was all right. Not knowing had been driving him crazy and keeping him up at night.

Baby dropped a squeaky toy at Max’s foot, and he picked it up and tossed it for the dog. It landed in some phlox, and Baby dove into the bushes and disappeared. He glanced about the backyard, at the ivy growing up the high fences and the profusion of roses. At the little bench seat beneath a magnolia, and he asked himself what he was doing here.

She’d been right. He could have called and determined that she was all right. Just as he could have called one of a dozen guys he knew who could take care of her problem with her ex-fiancé. He did not have to involve himself. This was her life, her home, her world, and he did not fit. He would never fit. He was Max Zamora. Black operative, existing within a world he understood. Living the only life he knew. The only life he’d ever wanted.

But even if he had ever wanted more from life, he knew it was not in the cards for him. Lola was not for him. She was a fantasy, and how long would the fantasy last? Until his beeper went off and he’d have to leave in the middle of the night? Would she be satisfied with a kiss good-bye and no explanation?

No. She wouldn’t. No woman would. And how could he begin to imagine a life with her, when the chances were extremely good he would make her a widow before she turned forty? Max was not a fool; he’d been lucky, but in his profession a man’s days were numbered. He was not afraid of dying, but he was of leaving someone behind. How could he expect any woman to settle for that kind of life? Especially a woman like Lola who could do so much better.

Lola moved through the French doors and set a white platter next to the grill. “Max, there’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about since the night we fled the island,” she said as she moved to the table sitting in the corner of the patio. “But so much was going on, I didn’t get the chance.”

“What’s that?” He took a drink of his beer and watched her shorts slide up the backs of her legs as she spread a red-checked tablecloth.

“Did you blow up the Dora Mae?”

“Yep.”

“How?” She moved to the other side of the table and looked up at him. “It was dark and I know you had some sort of rifle. Did you shoot the fuel tanks?”

“No. I’d loaded some dynamite with blasting caps and shoved them inside one of those condoms aboard the yacht, then I taped it in the O of Dora. When we were far enough away, I shot it with a.50-caliber round. The second explosion was the fuel tanks going up.”

She smiled and tiny creases appeared in the corners of her eyes. “My hands were shaking so badly, I could hardly hold on to the steering wheel. And it was so dark, how did you manage something like that?”

“Practice,” he said. “Years of practice.”

She shook her head and threaded matching cloth napkins through little rings that looked like watermelons. “Well, you are one coolheaded guy. When those engines wouldn’t start and those bullets started hitting the water, the blood drained from my head and I about passed out.”

“You looked like you were going to pass out.” He put the chicken on the platter and closed the lid to the barbeque. “You did great, though.”

“No.” She shook her head and set flatware beside two red plates. “I was so scared I was numb, but you... you weren’t scared at all.”

She was wrong. He’d been afraid. He’d been more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. Not for himself, but for her. He moved to the table and set the platter in the center beside two lit candles that looked just like pears. “I’ve learned how to deal with fear,” he told her. “I don’t let it interfere with want I need to do.”

“Well, I don’t ever want to learn how to deal with fear, because I don’t ever want to be shipwrecked and shot at ever again.” Lola walked into the house and returned in less than a minute with salad and a basket of sliced French bread. “Once we got to the base that night, where did you go?”

Max held out her chair for her as she sat. “The naval station right next door to the Coast Guard base. Within an hour I was on my way to D.C.”

“Oh.” A little wrinkle appeared on her forehead as she placed a barbequed thigh on her plate. “I tried to wait up for you.”

He sat next to her and spooned salad into bowls that resembled hollowed-out heads of lettuce. He handed one to her, then spread his napkin in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said, just as he had all the other times, with all the other women whom he’d disappointed over the years.

“No, I don’t want you to be sorry.” She chose a piece of bread, then handed him the basket. “You never said you would come and see me, so there is nothing for you to feel sorry about,” she said, but he didn’t believe her, not really. She took a big bite of salad and washed it down with her wine. “What sort of business do you have in Charlotte? Is there some hostage situation that the rest of us don’t know about? A spy conference?”

“Nothing that exciting, I’m afraid. Duke Power has hired me to come and check out their security.”

“Why? Is there a terrorist threat?”

“No. They’ve hired me because that’s what I do. I’m a security consultant.”

She stared at him. “You mean you have a real job?”

“I have a real job and a real company.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “Here,” he said, and handed her his business card.

As she ate a piece of bread, she studied the card. “Z Security. Are you the Z?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He dug into his chicken. “That’s me.”

“You have a real job, yet you do all that secret agent stuff on the side? Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why would any man in his right mind risk his life when he has another job? His own business.” She set the card on the table. “Why would you choose to get shot at and beat up when you don’t have to? Is it the money?”

“No, but the money is very good.”

“Are you insane, then?”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Probably.”

“Because I don’t think normal people like to get shot at, Max.”

“I don’t like to get shot at, Lola,” he said, and reached for his beer. “But it comes with the job.”

“But that’s just it, you have a real job. You don’t have to be involved with drug lords or blow up yachts.”

“I know I don’t have to.” He stabbed another piece of chicken and put it on his plate. He’d had different versions of this conversation before. With other females. Although Lola was the only woman who knew what he did for the government, the only one who knew the dark side of what he did, it always came back to the same basic thing. Why couldn’t he just settle down and live a normal life in the suburbs and raise two children and drive a minivan? He had no answer other than the truth. He just wasn’t that kind of guy.

He glanced up and caught her staring at him. The sun had begun to set, and light from the candles flickered across the table and onto her plate and hands. A light breeze tousled her new blond curls, and her brows were lowered. “What?”

“You like it, then. You like the fear biting the back of your neck and stealing your breath. And not knowing if you’re going to live another day.”

“I like what I do, yes,” he answered.

“No wonder you don’t get romantically involved with anyone. I imagine it would be very hard to have a serious relationship with a woman when you have to leave in the middle of the night to save the world. Especially when you don’t know when or if you’ll return home again.” She shook her head and took a big bite of her chicken.

He reached for his beer and watched her over the bottle as he took a drink. He wondered if she was being sarcastic, but she didn’t look like it. “Relationships are hard in my line of work, yes,” he said, which was an understatement. Relationships were impossible.

She nodded. “Mine, too. It’s hard when I don’t know if a man wants to be with me for me, or just wants to be seen with me.” She sat back, her eyes wide. “Wow, that sounded really conceited, didn’t it?”

He laughed as candlelight flickered across her lips. “Yeah, it did, but I imagine it’s true.”

“It’s just that if a person gains any sort of notoriety, for any reason, there are people who want to use you to get their face in the media. To get attention. They don’t like you, they just want to be seen with you.” She ran her fingers through the top of her hair and combed it back off her forehead. “Remember John Wayne Bobbitt? His wife cuts off his penis, and all of a sudden he’s famous, or infamous, rather, and surrounded by strippers and porno queens. And you know those girls wouldn’t have paid him one lick of attention if he hadn’t been on all the talk shows getting his fifteen minutes of fame.”

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and was filled with such indignation, he had to laugh. “Maybe John Wayne has a good personality. Maybe he’s a great guy.”

The corners of her mouth turned downward. “Max,” she said as if she were talking to someone with half a brain, “he’d made his wife so mad, she took a knife and...” She paused to make a slicing motion with her hand. “Looped off his penis.”

“Damn.” He sucked in air between his teeth. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said, but she didn’t look sorry at all. The corners of her mouth turned up and she flashed him a white smile. “I guess I got carried away. My other friends and I talk about stuff like that.” She sat forward and took a bite of her salad. “What do you and your friends talk about?”

Nothing that he would share with her. “Sports.”

“That’s boring. I bet you talk about women.”

He thought it wise not to comment, and instead concentrated on his meal.

“Come on. You can tell me. We’re friends, remember?”

He shook his head and swallowed. “Forget it. If I told you, we wouldn’t be friends.”

“That bad, huh?” Instead of letting it go, she dug in like a tick. “I’ll tell you what women talk about if you tell me what men talk about.”

Growing up, there had never been a female influence in Max’s home. His father had had several off-and-on relationships, but never anything permanent enough to have an effect on him. The single women Max had known seemed to talk mostly about their work and past relationships, while his friend’s wives talked about the agonies of childbirth. And while Max was mildly curious to know what women talked about when men weren’t around, he figured this conversation would likely blow up right in his face. “When was the last time you spoke to your ex-fiancé?” he asked, changing the subject.

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Let’s see. The last time I spoke with him was when I offered him money for those photographs. The last time I saw him was in court a few months ago. He showed up wearing an Armani suit and Gucci shoes. I’m sure he paid for his suit and shoes from the money he’s making off me, and I just wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and choke him.”

Max wanted to choke him, too. To pick him up by the throat until his feet dangled off the ground, but not so much because of the suit or shoes or Internet site. No, but because Lola had loved him. Jealousy, thick and potent, churned in his gut. Max had never been jealous over a woman, and he didn’t like it. “Didn’t he have money before the Internet site?”

“When I was with him, he did. But he’d invested heavily in tech stocks, and when the market went south, so did his money. Which is the main reason for the site. Sam loves money.” She shrugged. “And he hates me.”

“Why does he hate you?”

“Because I broke off the engagement three months before the wedding. He couldn’t handle it. I think mostly because I was an accessory to him.”

He pushed his empty plate aside. “Is that why you broke off the engagement?”

“No, I didn’t see that part of the relationship until I was out of it. I broke it off because when I decided to get out of modeling, he wasn’t supportive of my decision. In fact, he tried to sabotage my recovery. He wanted the thin bulimic Lola.” She spread her arms. “That’s not who I am anymore.”

Maybe not, but she looked good to him. So good, he had to concentrate on his next question. “Where does Sam live?”

“He used to live in Manhattan, but when he lost his money, he was forced to move. The last I knew, he was living in Baltimore and working for himself. Now he makes a living day trading, and running lolarevealed.com.” She finished her chicken and pushed her plate aside. Candlelight flickered across her face and the front of her shirt. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know yet,” he answered. Roses and magnolia scented the night breeze, and Max once again wondered what he was doing sitting in Lola Carlyle’s backyard, listening to the sound of her voice, while her dog jumped and snapped at fireflies. Usually, on Friday and Saturday night, he played pool or darts with his buddies in dark bars where the beer was cold and the bullshit thick. Where you could throw peanut shells on the floor and fistfights broke out on a routine basis. “I’ll have to make some inquires. Find out exactly where he lives and if he still works out of his home. His schedule. Where he goes and what he does.”

“He’s fanatical about baseball. If he is still in Baltimore, then I’m sure he has season tickets to the Orioles.”

“I’ll make sure.”

“Are we going to spy on him?”

“We?”

“Yes, I’m part of the plan.”

“No, you’re not.”

She leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “Max, I want to help get him.”

He pulled his hand from hers and closed his fist over the lingering warmth of her touch. What was it about her that made him say yes even as he meant to tell her no? It was more than her beautiful face and body, although sometimes it was hard to get past the packaging to see what lay beneath. But he had seen it many times.

The last night they’d been together, he recognized it for what it was. Lola was a warrior. She was a warrior with big breasts, a nice ass, and soft lips that begged to be kissed, but she was a warrior at heart. She wasn’t very good at it, but deep down where it counted, she was a fighter just like Max. “You have to do exactly as I tell you, Lola. No letting your emotions getting involved. The minute you do, we’re caught.”

“I won’t.” Through the darkness and the flickering candle, she smiled.

“All I want to hear from you is, ‘Yes Max.’ ”

She frowned but agreed. “Okay. When do we get started?”

“When I get back from Charlotte.”

“What time do you have to leave tonight?”

“I don’t have to meet with the Duke people until Monday morning. I’m going to grab a room somewhere here and head out tomorrow.”

“It’s only about a two-and-a-half-hour drive. What are you going to do until Monday morning?”

“Research the area,” he lied. When he’d thrown his suitcase in the Jeep, he hadn’t had a plan, just some vague idea of seeing Lola, maybe spending some time with her, making sure she was going to be okay. And yes, he’d hoped to end up naked, face down in her cleavage.

“You could stay here. I have a guest bedroom.”

Okay, so there was probably no hope of rolling around naked in her bed, but that hadn’t been the only reason for his trip. He could keep his hands and all other parts to himself. He would behave, but he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would actually sleep. “That sounds great.”

“Good. I haven’t had a friend sleep over in years. It’ll be fun.”

He reached for his beer and grumbled, “Depends on your definition of fun.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Lola rose and collected the dishes. She moved behind Max’s chair, and when he would have stood, she placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get this,” she said, and leaned over him. Her stomach brushed his back, and if he turned his head, his nose would be buried in the side of her breast.

“Let’s do something really fun tonight.”

Oh, yeah. He could think of several fun things to do. The first began with eating off her eat me shirt. “Like what?”

“Let’s pop popcorn and watch Pride and Prejudice. I have the A&E video. It’s six hours long, but I’ll fast-forward to the good parts.” She patted his shoulder. “And tomorrow is my family reunion on my daddy’s side. I wasn’t going to go, but now that you’re here, we can go together.” She gave him a little squeeze. “You’re going to love it.”

He closed his eyes. Jesus, she was torturing him on purpose. She was getting back at him for tying her up last week and threatening to drop-kick her dog off the Dora Mae.