Lola Carlyle Reveals All

Chapter 11

Lola arrived at the Florida Lower Keys Medical Center sometime around two in the morning. It was the first time in days that she knew the exact hour. She was assigned a private room so she could be observed through the night. Her arms and legs felt too heavy to lift, and she wondered why she didn’t feel like jumping up and down. She’d waited for this moment since Saturday night. She’d been through hell, fought to survive, and all she felt was numb. This time, more than just the tips of her finger and toes tingled with little feeling.

Overwhelming lethargy had started soon after she and Max had sped from the island, and it had only gotten worse with each passing hour. She’d figured it probably had something to do with her adrenaline rush eating up the last bit of her energy. That, and she’d only had one decent meal in the last several days.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d been aboard the drug runners’ boat, but once she and Max and Baby had boarded the Coast Guard cutter, she’d been examined by the onboard EMT, and he’d determined that she suffered from dehydration, mild hypothermia, and exhaustion. The exhaustion part she could have diagnosed herself. That one was a no-brainer, but the hypothermia and dehydration surprised her. Especially the dehydration, since her bra and panties were still wet from her swim in the ocean.

While she’d been given an IV and forced to lay flat on her back in the sick bay, Max had been somewhere on the bridge, chatting it up with the commanding officer. She’d been alone, but at least she’d still had Baby with her then.

By the time they reached the Key West Coast Guard Station, she’d felt worse instead of better. She was so exhausted she couldn’t think straight. An ambulance had been waiting for her, and she’d been place on a gurney, still wearing the blanket Max had given her.

Someone had taken Baby from her arms, and she argued to keep him with her, but to no avail. She’d been assured that he would receive food and water and excellent medical attention at the local animal shelter.

Max could have done something to keep Baby with her. He could have intimidated them with just a scowl, but he was nowhere to be seen. Lola was horribly weak and disoriented, and as she’d watched everything being done to and around her, she couldn’t quite connect the events.

Her gaze fell on military and medical personnel, but nothing was in the least familiar. She looked past the bright lights shining down and bouncing around the station. She controlled nothing that was happening to her, and she looked for Max. Sure that if she could just find him, he would make everything okay. But she didn’t see him anywhere.

Finally, as Lola was being loaded into the ambulance, she caught a last glimpse of Max. Standing on the edge of a pool of light, he lifted his hand in an abbreviated wave before he climbed into a waiting car. Tinted windows swallowed him up and then he was gone. Unexpected panic knotted her stomach, and she reminded herself that she was okay now. She was safe, and she didn’t have to depend on Max. She didn’t need him anymore.

So, why did it feel as if she did? Even now, as she lay in a warm hospital bed snug as a bug, why did she think she needed him so badly?

“How do you feel?” a nurse in a mauve and turquoise splattered smock asked as she took Lola’s pulse.

Confused, she thought. “Tired.” She scratched at her neck. “And eaten alive.”

“I’ll get you some calamine,” the nurse told her as she let go of her wrist.

Shortly after Lola’s arrival at the medical center, her family had been notified and she’d been told her parents were on their way to Florida. “I can go when my parents get here, right?”

“You’ll have to ask the doctor about that.” She wrote something down on Lola’s chart. “The kitchen is closed, but we keep some snacks in the refrigerator down the hall. If you’re hungry, we have pudding and juices and sodas.”

The confusion and the hunger eating her stomach reminded her that all she’d eaten that day was some cheese and crackers. Her hands and feet were cold and she felt hollow, as if she were collapsing. These sensations were not new to her, they were old and familiar, but for the first time in a long time, she heard the familiar urging loud and clear. The seductive voice that told her if she didn’t eat tonight, she’d lose three more pounds by tomorrow. “I’m actually starving, so I’ll take anything you’ve got.”

“I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you.” The nurse smiled and turned for the door.

“Is there anyone waiting to see me?” Lola asked, stopping her.

The nurse stuck her head out and looked up and down the hall. “No. A sheriff was here earlier, but it looks like he left.”

Lola knew about the sheriff. He wanted to ask her questions about the past several days, but she’d put him off until morning. At first he’d been persistent, but he’d finally relented. She figured it must have been because she looked as bad as she felt, but frankly, she didn’t care why. She really was tired, but more than her exhaustion, she wanted to talk to Max before she said anything. “Have you seen a tall man with black hair and a black eye?”

“No. I think I’d remember someone like that,” the nurse said, and her white rubber clogs squeaked on the linoleum as she left the room.

Lola scratched at an insect bite on her throat, then she picked at the tape covering the IV needle in the back of her hand. The nurse brought her some vegetable soup, a piece of bread, pudding, and a Coke. When she was through eating, she pushed aside the tray table and thought about Max. She wondered where he’d been taken and when she would see him again. She didn’t have a doubt that he would come to see her before he left the state. They’d been through too much together for him to leave without speaking with her. He’d saved her life and they’d made love. And yes, she knew it wasn’t love for either of them, but it had been an intimate connection that she would never regret. Or forget, especially since he’d been the only man she’d ever had to practically beg for sex. Well, if not beg, she’d certainly had to convince him, for goodness’ sake.

Lola tried to stay awake, sure he would come to her soon, but exhaustion overtook her. As she slept, she dreamed she went to the animal shelter to spring Baby and both of them got trapped inside. In her dream, she pounded on the door and called for Max, but he never arrived.

The sound of a familiar, soft southern voice woke her from her dream. “Lola Faith?”

Her lids fluttered open and she looked toward the end of her hospital bed. She looked into her father’s sunken bloodshot eyes. They were red and watery, as if he hadn’t slept for days. His usually ruddy cheeks were pale, the worry lines on his forehead more pronounced.

Beside him stood her mother, a silk scarf covering her usually perfect bubble of blond hair. One side of the bubble was flat and fuzzy bangs stuck out from her forehead. Bags pulled at the bottoms of her eyes, and her lips were colorless.

Lola burst into tears, and not teeny, wimpy tears, either. Big painful sobs-like the time she’d been eight years old and her daddy had accidently left her at the Texaco. She’d been scared to death when she’d discovered he was gone, and overwhelmed with relief when he’d returned for her ten minutes later. She felt the same way now, at age thirty, only seeing how much suffering she’d caused them made it worse. They both looked like they’d aged ten years since she’d seen them a week ago.

Her mother rushed to the side of her bed and wiped Lola’s tears from her cheeks. “You’re going to be just fine now. Your mama and daddy have come to take you home.”

“They took Baby away from me,” she cried. “An-and put him in the shelter.”

“We’ll get your Baby back.” Her daddy patted her knee though the hospital bedding. “Then you’re going to come home to stay with us for a few days.”

Lola had a million and one things to do. She had a business to run. Yes, she had competent people who could run it in her absence, but Lola Wear, Inc., belonged to her. She wanted to speak with sales and marketing and get the early numbers on the new catalog. They were gearing up for a trade show in three months and she wanted to see the preliminary sketches for their booth. But as she looked at her parents and saw the strain on their faces, she figured they needed to pamper her in order to reassure themselves that she was okay. And perhaps she needed that, too. “Will you make your special macaroni and cheese with the cut-up weenies?”

The corner of her mother’s mouth trembled when she smiled. “And I’ll make you a Karo nut pie.”

Through her tears, Lola smiled, too. Her mother was one of the few people she knew who called pecan pie Karo nut pie. For the first time since she’d left, she finally felt like she was home again, but there was one thing that kept her from truly enjoying her return. One thing missing.

Max. She didn’t have a clue where he was or why he hadn’t contacted her.

“We’ve all been sick with worry,” her mother said. “The Carlyle family reunion is this weekend, remember? I know everyone will be thrilled to see you.”

Lola felt a sudden ache just behind her eyebrows. She’d survived a storm at sea and drug runners, only to face the horrors of Aunt Wynonna’s green pea casserole. And this time she would have to face the horrors alone, because Max had gone MIA.

At the naval air station in Key West, Max was provided a secure phone line to Washington. The fact that General Winter answered was Max’s first inkling of the trouble he was in. The second was the Pavehawk helicopter that picked him up immediately and flew him from the air station to the Pentagon.

At the Pentagon, security showed him to an office on the fourth floor. In the daylight, he knew it had a great view of the Potomac and the Jefferson Memorial. The view of the brilliantly lit monument wasn’t too bad at night either.

Usually Max met the general in a small planning room in the dark recesses of the basement. This was only the second time Max had been invited into this office. Given that and the lateness of the hour, he knew he was in trouble and prepared himself for a royal ass-chewing.

General Richard Winter sat behind his big mahogany desk, a computer monitor on one corner, a bronze eagle on the other. Max stood before the general at rigid attention. For a half hour, while his tired bones fused, he explained what had taken place since he’d left for Nassau the previous Saturday. Well, maybe not everything. He’d left out a few personal details concerning his behavior with Lola.

The general listened, then launched into a tirade. General Winter was as bald as a bowling ball, had big bushy eyebrows, and wore bifocals. He was the only man Max had ever met who could go on an apoplectic tear without blinking. It was uncanny and designed to inspire fear in men.

“This was supposed to be by the book, Max. Your directive was clear!”

“When the information I’m given is fucked up, there is no book. And as far as I’m concerned, there is only one directive. Get the job done and get the hell out, sir. I did not fail. The intel I was given failed me.”

Whether the general agreed, Max would never know. He continued to blister Max’s ears, though, calling him every name in the book. A few he liked so much he repeated them again and again. His clear favorites were shit-for-brains and asshole. When he was finished, he expected Max to cower, as most men did when faced with such verbal intimidation. He should have known better.

“That’s what I like about you, General Winter, sir,” Max said through a smile. “You take the time for sweet talk before you screw with me.”

From behind the lenses of his bifocals, the general finally blinked. “At ease, Zamora,” he ordered, and Max sat across the deck in an uncomfortable chair-which he figured was the general’s intent. “This is not a joking matter,” he continued, but his voice had lowered a few decimals. “You commandeered a yacht with a civilian on board.”

“I explained that my vision was unclear, and I thought I was the only one aboard.”

“The fact remains that you shanghaied a famous underwear model and have been out of communications for four days. Stranded in the Atlantic, you say.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve created a goddamn incident the government will be hard-pressed to deny.”

“How is that, sir?” he asked, even though he could guess.

“The minute Miss Carlyle was confirmed missing, her disappearance was reported by every news media in the country and half of Europe.”

Yep, that had been his guess.

“Now they’re all going to want her story. She’ll probably be invited to appear on the goddamn Letterman show.” The general leaned forward and stared at Max. “You’ve spent time with her. What approach do we use to keep her quiet?”

“She’s a smart woman. She knows about the Cosellas, and I’ll remind her that she doesn’t want to be tied to anything that happened in the Bahamas. I’ll talk to her.”

“Negative, Max.”

“She’ll listen to me,” he said with a lot more certainty than he felt. Because the fact was, now that she’d had some time away from him to think, he wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t want to press charges against him.

“I want you to stay away from Ms. Carlyle and completely out of this, Max. The bureau is handling the situation.” General Winter stood. Subject closed. Meeting over. “I believe you have something for me?”

Max stood and reached behind him. From the small of his back, he pulled out the map and the ledger he found on the powderboat and tossed the map on the desk. “You’ll find four of Andre Cosella’s drug runners at those coordinates.”

“Dead?”

“I don’t believe so.” Next, he tossed the ledger on the desk. He’d taken a good look at it while still aboard the go-fast. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out what he had and what it meant. The ledger recorded dates, times, position of drug drops, descriptions and quantities, and the names of the rendezvous vessels. It was all written down in plain Spanish, and he’d chosen to pacify the general with this information instead of handing it over to the Coast Guard.

After the public relations the military had suffered recently, this was a plum opportunity to redeem itself to the American people. If they didn’t screw it up-which was always a possibility when dealing with pencil-pushers. “I think you’ll find that interesting, sir.”

General Winter glanced through the bound leather book, then looked up. “This is the reason I put up with you, Max,” he said as he hit a button on his intercom. “You have more lives than a damn cat and more luck than the Irish. Now get out of here and get yourself checked out.”

Max refused the general’s order of medical attention and was escorted from the room by security personnel. He rode an elevator to the VIP parking lot, where a black Cadillac waited for him. Once inside the backseat of car, he leaned his head back and finally relaxed for the first time since he’d sat in the galley of the Dora Mae, eating red snapper with Lola. He didn’t let himself relax completely, though, fearing he’d fall asleep if he did. The lights of D.C. sped past the windows, and the sound of the tires on wet pavement filled the interior of the car, letting him know that it had rained. The sights and sounds were familiar ones and reminded him he was home. Almost.

After a short fifteen-minute drive, the Cadillac pulled up in front of Max’s two-hundred-year-old townhouse in Alexandria. Now he was home. Finally. Max stepped from the car and tapped on the roof. The Caddie sped away, its tires splashing in inky puddles of water. The lights on the outside of the townhouse shone as they’d been programmed, but four days’ worth of the Journal were flung on his porch. Since he hadn’t anticipated being gone more than a day, he hadn’t suspended service.

He didn’t have a key. He didn’t need one. When he’d purchased the townhouse three years ago, he’d designed and installed his own security system.

An exterior and interior keypad controlled the motion detectors, the exterior lights, and the locks on the doors. Max walked up the steps to the front door, flipped open the keypad, and punched in his code. He picked up the soggy newspapers and moved through the dark house to the kitchen. Beneath the sink, he pulled out the rubber garbage pail and dumped the papers into the empty trash bag.

Pale moon, and light from the back porch, poured in through the window above the sink, lighting patches of forties-red countertops, cabbage-rose wallpaper, and his chrome coffee-maker. Except for the security system and the new pipes he’d had installed in the two bathrooms, he hadn’t quite gotten around to remodeling the townhouse like he’d always planned.

Without turning on the lights, he walked up the stairs to his bedroom on the second level. The hardwood floors creaked beneath his weight, and he sat on the edge of his mattress to unlace his boots. He’d been awake for forty-eight hours, and unbidden, memories of Lola rose in his head. Images of her bathing on the swimming platform of the Dora Mae. Kissing her on the aft deck. Holding her in his arms as the storm threatened to swamp the yacht. Touching and kissing her bare breasts, then making love to her as the sun set over an uncharted tropical island somewhere in the Atlantic. Hot memories and images flowed through him and he was too tired to fight them.

He took off his clothes and stood completely naked. Light from outside crept in around the shade covering the window. It striped the floor and lit up an edge of the dresser. Max stepped over the heap of clothes and reached for a battered St. Christopher medallion hanging from one corner of the mirror. He raised his arms and placed the gold medallion around his neck. It had belonged to his father, and the cool metal was familiar against his chest.

The crisp bedsheets brushed his skin as he slid between them, and he wondered if Lola slept well wherever she happened to be. The last he’d seen of her, she’d looked pale and exhausted, and he imagined she’d been kept for observation in the hospital.

He thought of calling Key West to check on her condition. Then he thought better of it. It would be best to make a clean break. To stay out of her life. Not because General Winter had told him to, but because even as the responsibility of Lola and her dog had weighed him down and choked the air from his throat, he’d come to crave it. There was something about the warmth of her eyes. The way she’d looked at him. The way she’d shared her life and her body. Something that expanded his chest. A place deep inside he hadn’t known for certain existed within his soul. Something reckless that made him ditch his better judgment and make love to her while ignoring the danger of that wild rash act. Something that consumed reason and caution and made him crave it all over again.

He’d saved her from drowning, and he’d saved her from drug runners. He hadn’t been so lucky. He hadn’t been able to save himself from her.

It was definitely best for both of them if he stayed away. She did not belong in his life, and he certainly didn’t fit into hers.

One of the good things that came out of Lola’s disappearance was all the press it generated. The same day the news of her disappearance was reported, her Lola Undercover line of delicately embroidered merry widows and silk nighties with cut-out roses and matching thongs had sold out and were now on back order. During those four days, catalog sales had topped projections by sixty-three percent.

Business was thriving. Life was good, and even the Enquirer was taking a break from calling her a heavyweight. Now the cut line read, Buxom Lola Finally Found. She’d take buxom over heavyweight or Large Lola any day.

The Enquirer had generated a story about her supposed elopement with a strange man she’d met in the Crystal Palace Casino. Another tabloid speculated that she’d been in hiding because of a plastic surgery blunder, but Lola’s favorite was a report that she’d been abducted by aliens and was living in a small wilderness town in the Northwest.

All of the speculation had given her more press than she could have bought, and they’d had to increase production of the Cleavage Clicker to meet demand.

The Lola Wear, Inc., offices were spread out over a ten-thousand-foot space in one of five old renovated tobacco warehouses in downtown Durham. The once-crumbling district had been transformed into an upscale eclectic blend of retail business, offices, and apartments. Lola had chosen to lease the space not only because it fit her needs, but because it was a part of her history. She had a connection here. A lot of her relatives had worked in the same warehouse, cranking out Chesterfields until the layoffs of the late seventies. Sometimes, on especially humid days, Lola could almost smell the sweet scent of tobacco leaves.

Anxious to get back to her life, she’d returned to her home and to her work the Friday after she’d been plucked from the Atlantic. But by two in the afternoon, she wasn’t so sure she should have come in. It had taken the entire morning and part of the afternoon for Lola to be brought up to speed on what had taken place since she’d last checked in the Saturday before. Now she was so tired she just wanted to curl up and take a nap.

Instead, she shut the door to her office, letting everyone know that she wanted some time to herself. Every few minutes someone had popped his or her head in her office with a flimsy excuse or question. She knew they were just reassuring themselves that she was truly alive and back at work. It was sweet, but a bit overwhelming.

She was planning to launch a new line of no-wire seamless bras and panties this spring, and she had the sketches of promotional booths for the spring trade show in Madison Square Garden to look over. The line of microfiber lingerie had been created by the lead designer, Gina, and had huge market potential. The high-tech fabric breathed and moved with the body and had only one drawback. The bras could only support up to a C cup, although the company that held the patent on the material claimed support up to a D. Lola herself had tested the validity of the claim and had been less than satisfied. Lola Wear, Inc., would have to add an underwire in all seamless bras over a C cup.

She sat behind her desk in her brushed leather chair and slipped off her red Manolo Blahnik pumps. She spread her toes in the thick area rug and studied the sketches. But the more she looked at them, the more she got the feeling that something was wrong. Something slightly off that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Her eyes blurred and she rubbed her temples. She had a headache, and she’d started her period that morning and had cramps. Maybe that was her problem. Whatever the cause, it felt so strange to be in her office once again, almost as if her real life was back on the Dora Mae, and that her life here wasn’t real. When the facts were the complete opposite. This was her life. This was real. Floating aboard a disabled yacht, surviving a storm at sea, and escaping in a drug runner’s boat-that was not her life. The horrible tangle of emotions she had for Max, the terrible feeling that she could not survive without him, was still there, right there on the peripheral of her consciousness, like a flash of light she couldn’t quite catch, or a snatch of conversation she couldn’t quite hear.

Yet there were times when she awoke and wondered if she’d dreamed of her time with Max.

Without him beside her, there was nothing to let her know that the time she’d spent with him was real. Nothing but the twisted branch of lignum vi-tae still circling her ankle. The purple flowers gone, only a few leaves remained to remind her of the afternoon he’d put it there.

Most of the time she felt confused and suspended in air. Waiting. Waiting to hear from him, and every time the telephone rang, and it wasn’t him, she was left crushed and disappointed.

She glanced about her office, at everything she’d chosen in it. Everything from the lavender-and-blue-striped drapes to the English primroses planted in miniature teapots placed at exact angles on the whitewashed sideboard and on the corner of her Louis XIII desk.

She’d chosen the ceiling fan that gently circulated the air about the room and the cream damask Queen Anne chairs. The colors and patterns blended and worked to create a soft feminine space. Everything was exactly as she’d left it, yet everything was different.

Her legs were a nice golden brown from her time searching for rescue vessels aboard the Dora Mae, and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to wear panty hose, something in the past she’d always viewed as just plain tacky. Her clothes felt different, too. Her red sleeveless dress fit her looser than normal about the hips, and she couldn’t stand to wear shoes. But it wasn’t her lack of panty hose or the shoes or that she’d lost weight. It was something else.

A light tap rapped against Lola’s door just before her office manager, Rose McGraw, peeked around the corner.

“Do you have a minute?”

Lola dropped her hands. “Of course.”

“I need to get your okay for these purchases,” she said, and placed a manila folder on the desk.

Lola opened the folder and glanced over the list of office supplies. Her first question to herself was, Why is Rose bothering me with this? The answer came almost before she finished the question. Because you like to control all aspects of your business, everything from strategies and goals to paper clips. She closed the folder before she’d even begun to look it over. She’d hired good competent people, and the business she’d started herself didn’t need her so much anymore. It had taken getting stranded on the Dora Mae to see that she didn’t need to control everything.

“This looks fine,” she said. There had been a time when buying supplies had been tight, but those days were long past. She didn’t need to hold so tight anymore. “You’re a competent woman. That’s why I hired you. You don’t need me to okay printer ink and copying paper.”

A comical mix of confusion and relief washed across Rose’s face. “Are you sure you don’t want to look it over?”

“I’m sure.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Rose asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

“You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

Rose didn’t know the half of it. No one did. No one knew the real truth. No one but her and Max. The first few days she’d stayed at her parents‘, she’d confided a bit to them. She told them that Max had been with her on the Dora Mae, but she hadn’t told them everything. She hadn’t mentioned that he’d kidnapped her. She’d left out a lot of the details because they were worried enough without knowing she’d almost died three times in the space of those few days.

The story she’d given to the press had only been a light version of the truth. The day she’d been released from the hospital, she’d stood before reporters and told them she’d been stranded on a tour boat in the Atlantic. Nothing more.

“I’m fine,” she answered Rose, but she wasn’t sure that was true, or rather it was true, only a different truth than she was used to. Which made no sense and meant she’d obviously lost her mind. This time Lola managed a more genuine smile. “Thank you.”

The heels of Rose’s pumps echoed on the hardwood floor as she left the room. She shut the door behind her, and Lola put her elbows on the desk and held her face in her hands.

Even before her release from the hospital in Key West, she’d been visited by two very official-looking gentlemen who’d impressed upon her the need for secrecy. They’d appealed to her patriotism and self-preservation. They could have saved themselves the trip and a lot of breath. She wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t need the FBI or CIA or anyone to tell her that her life might depend on her keeping the details of where she’d been, what she’d seen, and whom she’d seen it with to herself. She knew she couldn’t talk about it to anyone. No one but Max, but she couldn’t talk to him because she didn’t know how to reach him, and he hadn’t contacted her.

Lola blew out a deep breath and reached for her desk calendar. Before she’d left for the Bahamas, she’d written out her schedule for the next four months. The days were filled with meetings and lunches. Some of them important, some of them trivial. None of them life-or-death.

She looked up. Maybe that was it. Maybe her life just felt anticlimactic now. Now that she was no longer in danger and had no need of a big strong man to save her, perhaps her life just felt dull.

At ten past three, Lola grabbed her shoes and matching red clutch and headed for her three-thirty appointment at her favorite day spa/beauty salon. Once there, she got a deep muscle massage and a herbal wrap, her eyebrows plucked, fingernails cut and buffed to a shine, and she had little white and yellow daisies painted on her pink polished toenails.

When her nails were finished, she looked at herself in the mirror and ordered her hair cut- short. She chose highlights the color of butter to be woven throughout, and when she was through, loose blond curls touched the back of her neck and the tops of her ears. The cut made her eyes look huge and dramatic. She ran her fingers through the soft curls and smiled. For some reason, she felt like herself, whoever that was.

The second she drove her BMW into her garage, Baby let out a series of yaps from inside the condo. He jumped up and down when she walked in and followed at her heels as she set several sacks of groceries and a bouquet of peach tulips and white roses on the kitchen counter. Today, Baby was dressed in his bad to the t-bone tank, and she took him into her arms and scratched between his ears. “What do you think of the hair?” she asked. He licked her cheek and wiggled with excitement. “You’re such a stylin‘ dog, I knew you’d like it.”

The telephone rang, and it wasn’t until she recognized her mother’s voice once more reminding her of the Carlyle family reunion that she realized she’d been hoping it was Max-again. But it wasn’t, and her disappointment blossomed into anger.

Her anger stayed with her during the five-minute conversation, and when she finally hung up, she stepped out of her red shoes and carefully slid the lignum vitae off the back of her heel. She wanted nothing more than to forget Max Zamora, and she placed the twisted branch on top of her refrigerator.

She fed Baby his special low-fat food and set his special Wedgwood plate on the hardwood floors she’d had installed shortly after she’d signed the mortgage.

She’d purchased the condo a year ago, paying a little over half a million for it, and all because she and Baby had fallen in love with the backyard. It resembled a small English garden, with a fountain of a nymph on a clamshell, and had plenty of space for the doghouse/castle she’d had built for Baby.

She’d been less impressed with the interior and had it gutted and redecorated with the same vibrant shades of lavender, pink, and green that were found outside. Like her office downtown, it was feminine, a bit fussy, but cozy.

On her way upstairs to change out of her red dress, the front doorbell rang and she retraced her steps. She expected to see her daddy standing there, relief softening his worried brown eyes as he saw for himself that his thirty-year-old little girl really was all right.

She swung the door open and froze, a half-formed welcome for her overprotective father on her lips. It wasn’t who she expected, or rather it was who she’d expected days ago. At the sight of Max standing on her welcome mat, funny little butterflies fluttered about in her stomach and just beneath her heart.

His familiar face stared back at her, only cleanshaven and the cut on this forehead was now just a thin red line. The masculine lines of his jaw and cheekbones were more perfect than she remembered, perhaps because the bruises had disappeared and the swelling was gone. But his mouth was just the same. Wide and perfect.

A pair of black Ray Bans covered his eyes, but she didn’t need to see them to know they were the color of the Caribbean. And she didn’t need to see them to know he slid his gaze down her body. She felt it clear to the soles of her feet. It touched her here, lingered there, the warmth of it pooling everywhere. He wore a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of chinos. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up his forearms, and he’d strapped on a silver wristwatch.

In one hand, he held a thin box about the length of a pencil wrapped up in pink paper and ribbon. The last time she’d seen him, he’d given her a brief wave before getting into a car and speeding away.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “I like your toes,” he said.

Lola didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Throw her arms around him and kiss him all over his handsome face or punch him on the jaw. He hadn’t even bothered to call since they’d been back. She’d expected better, especially since they’d made love. Then again, she’d had to cajole him into it, and if that wasn’t galling enough, she wasn’t certain she wouldn’t do it again.

Years of practiced restraint and generations of southern pose and breeding came to her rescue. She leaned a shoulder into the doorjamb, folded her arms beneath her breasts, and raised a brow. “Are you lost?” she inquired, as cool as a frosty glass of Coca-Cola.

The other side of his mouth slid up. “No, ma’am. I don’t get lost, just a little blown off course occasionally.”