Читать книгу Postcards From…Verses Brides Babies And Billionaires - Rebecca Winters - Страница 38

THREE WEEKS LATER, Maddy frowned at the front page of Le Monde as she stood at the kitchen table, trying to translate the main story.

“What does méchant mean again?” she asked.

Max was at his workbench, adding some shading to his latest sketch.

“A big cigar. Or, depending on the context, a cruel man.”

“So helpful. Not,” she muttered under her breath.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said confidently.

Maddy was not so sure. She’d learned all the ballet technique phrases in French because she’d been passionate about her craft, and she’d picked up enough menu and incidental French to get by over the years. But actually remembering and understanding the grammar and syntax of another language seemed like a Herculean task, especially when she had no idea how to conjugate a verb in her own language, let alone a new one.

“I learned English when I was a kid,” Max reminded her as he crossed to the kitchen table. “A new language is not so hard.”

Warmth washed through her as he stood behind her, sliding his arms around her. For a delicious moment she savored the heat of his strong body, letting her weight rest back against him.

Three weeks of him, of this, and she still couldn’t get enough. Three weeks, and she couldn’t remember what it was like to not want Max, to not crave his touch. How had she ever looked at him as only a friend?

“That’s different. Your mind was young and nimble. Mine is nearly thirty and stiff and arthritic,” she said, only half joking.

Max laughed, the sound vibrating through her body. She felt the brush of his fingers as he pushed her hair out of the way to bare her neck. Then he kissed her, his tongue moving in lazy circles against the tender skin behind her ear.

“Mmmm.” She’d been modeling for him and was wearing one of his old T-shirts and nothing else. She felt his erection pressing against her backside through the thin fabric.

“It’s a wonder you ever get any work done,” she said, rubbing herself against him shamelessly.

“I know. I consider it a miracle. Maybe I should give Yvette a call again.”

He’d chosen to use Maddy instead of Yvette for the rest of his sketch studies. Every day Maddy modeled, and every day their sessions inevitably turned into lovemaking. Sometimes Max took her when she first disrobed, his eyes hard with desire as he walked toward her. Other days, like today, he waited until he’d captured the poses he wanted before giving in to the need they both felt.

She smiled with anticipation as one of his hands slid inside the baggy neckline of the T-shirt seeking her breasts. The other moved down her body to cup her backside.

His hands massaged her and she closed her eyes.

He knew exactly what to do to make her wild.

She moaned as he dipped his fingers between her thighs, widening her stance to invite him in. Delicate, teasing, he delved into her intimate folds.

She held her breath as he slid a finger inside her, then another.

Instantly she was on fire, her heart racing, her body clamoring for him.

“Max.” She reached behind her, finding the stud on his jeans and popping it open.

In seconds he was free of his underwear, his erection rubbing against the lower curve of her backside. She leaned forward, hands stretched before her on the table, back arched, butt high, offering herself to him. He didn’t need to be asked twice. He slid home in one smooth thrust.

“Maddy,” he groaned.

She tilted her hips, encouraging him to move. He obliged and within seconds they were both gasping, their bodies tense with approaching orgasm.

He curled his hands into her hips and pumped into her hard and fast. She quivered, her head dropping forward bonelessly as she came, her inner muscles trembling around him. His own orgasm followed hard on the heels of hers and she felt him shudder as it gripped him.

She collapsed flat onto the table, the smell of fresh newsprint strong in her nostrils. Opening an eye, she saw she was sprawled across Le Monde.

“What’s so funny?” Max asked.

“Maybe I’ve been going about learning French the wrong way,” she said.

He laughed. “I can think of worse ways to learn a language. Maybe I will whisper it to you while we make love. Perhaps that will help your recall.”

The thought of Max speaking soft French words in her ear while he rode her sent a shiver up her spine.

“You like that idea, do you?” he asked.

She could feel him growing hard inside her again.

She’d never had a lover like him. Insatiable. Knowing. Tender and passionate. Earthy and imaginative. It was possible he’d ruined her for any other man.

The thought made her stomach dip. One day—probably soon if her track record was anything to go by—this fling with Max would be over and she would be forced to stop basking in the here and now and think about the future. About a life without dancing, and a life without Max.

“J’aime te faire l’amour, Maddy,” Max murmured as he flexed his hips.

She felt the slow, delicious slide as he stroked into her. She closed her eyes and concentrated fiercely on how good it was, how good they were. As always, everything else slipped away. The future could wait another day.

“Tu te sentez si serrée at chaude.”

She grasped the edge of the table as one of Max’s hands slid around her rib cage to find her breasts.

“Quand je suis a l’interieur de toi—”

They both tensed as a knock sounded at the door.

Max swore. “Perfect timing,” he said with heavy irony.

“It’s Charlotte,” she said, suddenly remembering. “She mentioned she was going to drop by this morning.”

“Of course it’s Charlotte. It’s been a whole day since we saw her last,” he said.

She laughed, then gave a little gasp of loss as he withdrew from her.

“Blame my sister. I plan to,” he said.

His obvious frustration was flattering and funny.

Charlotte knocked again, longer and louder this time.

“For Pete’s sake, stop jumping each other and answer the door,” she called.

Maddy reached out to tag Max’s arm. “You’re it,” she said, taking off at speed for the bathroom.

“Hey!”

“Tell her I won’t be a moment,” she called over her shoulder as she shut the bathroom door.

She could hear Max laughing ruefully behind her. She had a smile on her face, too, as she hastily pulled on underwear, a black turtleneck and jeans. She secured her hair in a low bun on the back of her neck and decided she was presentable.

“Let me guess. You were busy ‘working,’” Charlotte was saying as Maddy joined them.

“Something like that.”

Max was making coffee and Charlotte stabbed a sisterly finger into his chest.

“I don’t know what’s worse—worrying about you being single or worrying about you and Maddy wearing each other out.”

Max laughed. “You’ll be the first person I call from the hospital.”

“How delightful for me,” Charlotte said.

She caught sight of Maddy and her face lit up.

“Maddy!” She drew Maddy into a hug, kissing both her cheeks warmly.

After a rocky start, she and Charlotte had decided they liked each other. Maddy had had several more dancing sessions with Eloise, and Charlotte was warmly grateful for the pleasure her daughter found in the experience. Underneath all the stress and tiredness of managing two children on her own, Max’s sister was as charming as Max himself, and Maddy had quickly discovered she liked having a female friend who discussed more than the freshest gossip from the ballet world or the effectiveness of the latest diuretic tablet or corn pads.

As Charlotte began to regale them with an update on Richard’s search for a new job, Maddy felt the weight of Max’s stare. She glanced over, and sure enough he was watching her, one hip propped against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. He looked very serious—brooding, almost. As soon as she made eye contact with him he smiled and the moment of intensity was gone, leaving her wondering if she’d imagined it.

“I can’t believe I’m going to voluntarily subject myself to this, but tell me what you two are up to this afternoon,” Charlotte said, crossing her legs and raising an eyebrow in inquiry.

Over the past weeks, Maddy and Max had developed a routine of sorts. Most mornings she sat for him, then he worked on his sketches and other projects until midafternoon. After that he took her out into the city, showing her his Paris. So far they had toured Père Lachaise, explored the tangled streets of Montmartre, visited the Picasso museum and wound their way through the city via the secret covered corridors that made it possible for a pedestrian to walk under cover from Montmartre all the way across the city to the Palais Royal.

She didn’t kid herself that their excursions were for any other reason than to entertain and distract her from her evercircling thoughts. Max shared a bed with her—he knew she woke in the night sometimes, grief welling up inside her for the life she used to live. She never let herself cry, because it never made her feel any better. Still she couldn’t stop herself from remembering and regretting and mourning.

Pointless. A huge waste of time. But she couldn’t stop it. She’d spent almost her whole life wanting to be a ballerina, striving, enduring—and now it was all over. It was going to take some time to adjust. She kept thinking that if only she had known, consciously, that this was going to happen, she could have savored her last season, stored up memories, made each moment on stage count. But she hadn’t. And she couldn’t go back and change anything. It was what it was.

Maddy looked to Max. “We haven’t decided yet.”

“I was thinking the Rodin museum,” he said.

“I find it hard to believe that there won’t be a picnic associated with this expedition,” Charlotte said archly. “Or at least a visit to a bonbon shop or a patisserie.”

Maddy laughed. “Max, you see how predictable we are?”

“I can live with it,” he said.

“You’re going to make me fat.”

He loved feeding her all the things she’d denied herself for so many years. Chocolates. Éclairs. Macaroons. She’d nearly cried when she tasted her first passion fruit and chocolate macaroon from Pierre Hermé in St. Germain last week. Max had bought one for her every day since.

Charlotte stood and collected her handbag.

“Before I forget—Richard wants to go back to Côte d’Azur again this summer, and it looks as though we can get the same house,” she said to Max. “What about you? Do you have plans to go away?”

“Not yet,” Max said.

Maddy knew that the city basically shut down for the month of August as Parisians headed for the coast for their summer holidays. Charlotte had already told her that good holiday houses were as scarce as hens’ teeth, so it didn’t surprise Maddy that she was planning ahead.

“You and Maddy should come with us. There’s a private apartment attached to the back of the house—it would be perfect for you two,” Charlotte said.

Maddy looked at Max, not sure how to handle the question. August was months away. She didn’t even know if she would be here next week. More importantly, she didn’t know if Max wanted her to be here, either. It was one thing to have great sex, as often as possible, but it was another thing entirely to start making plans together.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But thanks for thinking of us.”

Charlotte started to say more then shrugged. “Fine. But if you change your mind, the offer is still there.”

She kissed them both goodbye then left, letting in a blast of chilly air before the door closed behind her.

Maddy found herself focusing on the hem of her sweater, fiddling with a stray thread there rather than risking eye contact with Max. She was hurt by Max’s easy rejection of his sister’s offer. Was he so certain she would be gone from his life by summer?

Even as the thought circled her mind, Maddy kicked herself. She couldn’t hang around Max’s apartment, existing on the fringes of his life for six months, even if he wanted her to. She had her own life to live—whatever that might turn out to be.

“If you keep picking at that, it’s going to fall apart.”

She glanced up to find Max standing close to her, his gray eyes unreadable.

“I know.” She released her grip on her sweater.

Something of what she’d been thinking must have shown on her face, because he cocked his head to one side as he studied her.

“You didn’t want to go to Côte d’Azur, did you?” he asked lightly.

“Of course not. It’s ages away. I’ll probably be teaching Pilates at Bondi Beach by then,” she said.

There was a small pause before he smiled. “I thought you were going to be a personal trainer.”

Over the weeks, they’d made a game out of cycling through the various professions most dancers wound up in once they’d retired. So far, they’d toyed with Maddy becoming a ballet mistress, an arts administrator and a personal trainer.

“That’s so last week,” she said with mock disdain.

The moment of odd tension was gone as they bantered back and forth. Max helped her into her coat and she wound his scarf around his neck, ensuring he’d be well protected from the wind.

Hats and gloves on, they walked to Rue de Rivoli, stopping along the way to buy a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese and a bag of grapes. Max led her to what had become her favorite picnic place, the small park at the very tip of the Isle de la Cité, the home of Notre Dame. Despite the fact that the garden had been reduced to a bunch of twigs sticking out of gravel at this time of year, Maddy loved it and dragged Max to it as often as possible.

“It’s a terrible cliché, coming here, you know,” he told her as they sat on a bench and tore their bread into chunks. “Perhaps the most clichéd picnic venue in Paris.”

“I don’t care. It’s close to the river. I don’t know what it is about the Seine, but it makes me feel good whenever I see it,” she said. She raised her face to the sun and closed her eyes, savoring the weak warmth.

“Are you homesick?” he asked quietly. “Winter in Sydney’s nothing like this.”

Maddy considered the question as she smeared Camembert on her bread.

“I miss the light from home, if that makes sense. It’s so bright and clear in Australia. I can see why the Impressionists went crazy with all that hazy, dazy light in their paintings over here in Europe. Everything is much softer, gentler.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “I have photographs from when I was living in Sydney. They’re so bright they almost hurt my eyes.”

She smiled, then saw he had bread crumbs caught in his scarf. For some reason, seeing him sitting there wearing his so-phisticated scarf and superbly tailored coat and Italian shoes with crumbs down his front made her heart squeeze in her chest. How could a man be so devastatingly attractive yet so boyishly appealing at the same time? Suddenly she remembered something one of Max’s girlfriends from long ago had once said to her. “It’s not his good looks or his body or how smart he is that really gets me. It’s those gray eyes of his. They always look as though they’re about to laugh at me.”

Maddy realized she was staring and forced herself to look away.

This is a fling, Maddy. Don’t go getting ideas. Remember your track record with men.

But Max wasn’t like any of the other men she’d slept with. He understood her. He knew her. They knew each other. And she no longer had to share her time between dance and the man in her life. Max could have her night and day, week in, week out. If he wanted her.

Maddy gazed out at the river. She knew what a psychologist would say she was doing—using this thing with Max to divert herself from the hole dancing had left in her life. Max distracted her with sightseeing and gastronomic indulgences, and she rounded the job off by fixating on what was happening between them, building it up into something it probably wasn’t, and probably never should be.

It wasn’t fair to Max that she latch onto him to stop herself from going under. He deserved a hell of a lot more than that.

Beside her, Max crumpled the empty bread wrapper into a ball.

“Come on. Art awaits,” he said, standing and holding out a hand.

She let him pull her to her feet. He was an amazing man. The best. And she had to be careful not to abuse his generosity and kindness by overstaying her welcome. She had to make sure she left before the sex palled and she became a burden instead of a friend in need.

Max tucked her arm through his and led her off the island and onto the left bank. As they walked, he pointed out his favorite buildings and told her a little about their histories. Being Paris, the stories were all colorful and drenched in blood and revolution.

She let herself be wrapped in his warm charm. It was wrong to lean on him so much, but right now she wasn’t quite sure how to stand on her own two feet. Soon, she would find a way to be strong again.

The Musée Rodin was in a stately old mansion with spacious, highly manicured grounds. Like so much of Paris, it was beautiful and elegant and Maddy looked around admiringly as Max bought their tickets.

He grew quiet as they walked into the first room. He stopped in front of each sculpture, no matter how small, his eyes caressing the curves and planes Rodin had created.

“This is like a church for you, isn’t it?” she said quietly after they’d toured the ground floor and were climbing the stairs to the second level.

“He changed the world,” he said simply. “Breathed life into sculpture again.”

Finally they wound up out in the gardens, standing in front of two enormous cast bronze doors; the entire surface of them was writhing with figures, animal and beast, bursting from the surface into three dimensions. Torsos twisted, arms lifted beseechingly, legs flailed in torment. Appropriate, given the piece was titled The Gates of Hell.

Maddy’s eyes were wide with awe as she cataloged the detail, the sheer breadth and scope of the work.

“This is…amazing,” she said.

“Yes.”

He turned on his heel and started up the gravel path leading deeper into the garden. She knew from consulting the map that there were no more sculptures in that direction, but she followed him anyway. At the far end was a fountain, dry at present, and he sat on its rim and stared at his loosely clasped hands.

She sat beside him, tucking her own hands into her pockets for warmth. After a few minutes, Max started talking.

“The first time I came here was with my grandfather. I bitched and moaned all the way because I wanted to ride my bike with my friends instead. But my grandfather was determined to introduce me to a bit of culture. Then I walked in the door and saw the first sculpture and I stopped dead in my tracks.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “My heart was pounding. I wanted to close my eyes. The sculptures seemed so dynamic and powerful they scared me. My grandfather didn’t say a word. He took one look at my face, then led me from room to room. I think we were here for over three hours, that first visit.”

Maddy watched Max’s face as he went on to talk about the art they’d seen, smiling now and then at his passion, the way he gesticulated so energetically as he tried to evoke an image or underscore his meaning.

“I’m probably boring you into a coma,” he said after a while. “Blink for me. Prove to me that you’re not catatonic.”

She laughed. “You’re not boring me. I’m learning a lot. I’m basically ignorant about almost everything in the world except for dance, you know. I didn’t even know how a bronze was made until you explained it to me. I love listening to you talk about art.”

He rolled his eyes and she nudged him with her elbow.

“I do! You get all French and you get this light in your eyes.”

“Like a crazy man.”

“Like a man who’s found his passion,” she said.

He shrugged self-consciously.

“I’d give anything to be like you. To have something else I loved as much as dancing,” she said.

The words were out before she could edit them, and she bit her lip.

“That sounds so greedy, doesn’t it? I’ve had all these years of dancing at the top of my game, and you didn’t even get to really explore your dancing career. Now you’ve got a second chance to do something you love and I’m sitting here grouching about how jealous I am.”

“Stop giving yourself such a hard time for being a human being, Maddy,” he said.

“I just wish there was something—anything—that I wanted to do,” she said.

The despair that crept up on her in the dead of the night threatened, and she curled her hands into fists inside her pockets. All her life she’d lived through her body, but now her most evocative, finely honed tool of self-expression, therapy, exercise and solace had been taken away from her.

“Come here,” Max said.

He tugged on her arm until she allowed him to pull her into his lap so that she sat straddling him.

“Something will come up,” he said, as he had said so many times over the past few weeks. That, and variations of give it time, don’t rush yourself. She knew he was right. She only wished whatever it was would get a wriggle on. She needed something to hold on to, stat.

In the interim, she clung to Max as he kissed her.

Their bodies quickly grew heated beneath their coats. Max tugged off his gloves and slid his hands under her top and onto her breasts. She sighed into his mouth as he squeezed her nipples gently. Under the guise of ensuring she was warm, he opened his jacket so that she nestled inside the flaps. She swallowed with excitement when his fingers found the stud on her jeans.

“Max. We’re at a museum,” she whispered, even though she was slick with need.

“I can’t think of a better place for it. Think of it as performance art.”

She bit her lip as he pulled down her fly and slid his hand inside her panties. She felt him brush through her hair, then he was gliding into her heat.

“So wet, Maddy,” he murmured, kissing her neck.

“I wonder whose fault that is?”

His clever middle finger found her and began to stroke her firmly. She clenched her thighs around his hips and gripped his shoulders. At the far end of the walkway she could see a tour group turning onto the gravel path.

“Someone’s coming,” she said, trying to pull his hand away.

“I know,” he said.

She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Not me. Real people. Tourists,” she said.

She bit her lip again as he upped the pace.

“We’d better be quick then, yes?” he said.

Useless to pretend that the danger, the illicit nature of what they were doing wasn’t a turn-on. Desire built inside her and she gasped as her climax hit her. Max kissed her, swallowing her small cry.

By the time the tourists arrived at the fountain, he’d buttoned her jeans again and she had her flushed face pressed against his neck.

“Don’t think there won’t be payback,” she said when the tourists had gone. “Sleep with one eye open, because you are going down, mister.”

“And that is supposed to be a punishment, Maddy?” he said, sounding very French as he laughed at her.

She tapped him on the nose with her finger.

“Mark my words—you’ll get yours.”

“Oooh,” he said.

They stood and slowly walked back to the museum.

Max slid his arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. A warm glow spread through her—and it had nothing to do with the orgasm he’d just given her. She loved that she could make him laugh, and that he’d talked to her about his art and that even after three weeks, he still seemed to desire her. She loved his tender touch and his endless patience and kindness and optimism.

As they walked past a window, Maddy caught sight of their reflection, saw the small, private smiles on their faces, the way they were twined around each other as though they couldn’t bear to not be touching.

They looked like a couple. Lovers, in the full meaning of the word.

Don’t turn this into something it isn’t, she warned herself. Don’t mix great sex with your grief and gratitude and his kindness and come up with something that doesn’t exist.

She forced herself to release Max on the pretext of adjusting her scarf. Then she forced herself to shove her hands into her pockets to resist the lure of putting her arm around him again.

It seemed like an awfully long walk home.

A WEEK LATER, Max lay in bed, his arms behind his head. He could hear Maddy puttering around in the kitchen below, and he smiled to himself.

“How are you doing?” he called out.

“Fine. Stay there,” she warned.

She’d promised him pancakes for breakfast when she’d rolled out of bed twenty minutes earlier.

“And not those thin, ungenerous French excuses for pancakes, either,” she’d said on her way down the stairs.

Charlotte had made a valiant attempt to interest Maddy in haute cuisine, but finally they had both agreed that simpler fare was more Maddy’s thing. So far, she had mastered scrambled eggs, pancakes and a chicken and vegetable soup.

He made a bet with himself over what would go wrong this time. Something always did. Maddy had a knack for creating drama in the kitchen.

He was about to head downstairs to ensure he had a ringside seat when the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” he called, reaching across the bed to take the call.

“Bonjour,” he said into the phone.

There was a slight pause before someone spoke.

“Ah, bonjour. Ah, non parle français, pardon moi. My name is Perry Galbraith. I’m looking for Madeline Green.” Perry’s accent was broad and flat, as Australian as they came.

“Sure. I’ll get her,” Max said.

He frowned as he levered himself up off the bed.

Who the hell was Perry? And why was he calling Maddy in France?

“Maddy. It’s for you. Some guy from home called Perry Galbraith,” he said.

There was a surprised silence.

“Perry? I hope everything’s all right.”

She climbed the stairs to take the call. He resisted the urge to demand more information. Because he desperately wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, he pulled on some clothes and forced himself to walk away and give her privacy.

He’d started work on his first sculpture five days ago and progress was slow but sure. He was opening a new slab of clay in preparation for the day’s work when Maddy joined him ten minutes later.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I think so. Perry’s my neighbor. I e-mailed him and asked him to collect my mail for me. He was worried about a letter that he thought might be an overdue bill.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah. I’ll jump online later and take care of it. I told Perry to forward the rest of my mail onto me here. I hope that’s okay?”

The tension banding his shoulders relaxed.

She wasn’t going home. Not yet.

“Of course. My home is your home, Maddy, you know that,” he said.

“I should have thought about my bills. I’ve been so disorganized. Just letting the days drift away.”

Her face was very serious. He’d woken in the night to find her lying beside him more times than he could count, stiff with anxiety as she stared into the darkness. She was worried about what to do with the rest of her life—and he didn’t have any answers for her. He’d busted his ass over the past four weeks, doing his best to keep her busy and entertained and distracted. He hated seeing her sad, couldn’t bear the broken, deserted look she got in her eyes sometimes.

He wiped his hands on a rag and approached her.

“It’s only been four weeks,” he said, putting his arms around her. “You deserve some time to get used to your new reality. You’ve earned it.”

She pressed her cheek against his shirt.

Even as he spoke, he wondered how self-serving his advice was. How much of what he was saying was for Maddy, and how much was about keeping her close, extending their time together, building the connection between them so that she might begin to see him as more than a friend and a warm body to bump against?

Hope springs eternal.

Whoever had coined that phrase had known what he or she was talking about. Max had already had more of Maddy than he’d ever imagined he’d get. To crave more, to allow himself to imagine her as part of his life, a permanent fixture in his bed and his apartment…

It was asking for trouble, being greedy. Setting himself up for a mighty, mighty fall.

And yet he couldn’t stop himself from hoping. The past four weeks had been the best of his life. Sexually, emotionally, professionally—it was all coming together. If only there wasn’t the growing sense that the clock was ticking, that one day soon Maddy was going to make a decision about her future—and it wouldn’t include him.

He had no idea how she felt about him. He knew she desired him. Her body told him that every time he looked at her or touched her. One kiss, one stroke of his hand on her skin was enough to make her heavy-lidded and hungry for him.

He knew she enjoyed his company and appreciated his sense of humor. She liked his family, despite the rocky start with his sister. But she’d never said a word or done anything to give him reason to believe that what was happening between them was anything more than a new aspect to their already established relationship. They were friends—and now they were friends who slept with each other.

She pressed a kiss to his jaw and stepped away from him.

“I’m a coward,” she said, pushing her hair over her shoulder. “I know I should stop treading water, but I can’t quite make myself do it just yet.”

Treading water.

Right.

While he was building castles in the air, Maddy was keeping her head above water.

His jaw was tight as he reached for his clay cutter and began slicing thin, uniform slabs from the block.

“I’d better get back to those pancakes,” she said.

She turned away, then turned back again.

“I meant to mention—I saw in the paper that more tickets have been released for Madonna’s concert next month. I saw her a long time ago in Sydney. She was so fantastic. You should definitely go if you get the chance.”

He looked at her.

“Come with me,” he said, sick of all the uncertainty. He’d played it safe when his sister mentioned the August holidays but the concert was mere weeks away. If Maddy couldn’t commit to that, then he was kidding himself well and truly.

She looked arrested, then thoughtful. Then she frowned.

“It’s more than a month away, Max.”

“So?”

“That’s a long time for me to hang around your neck.”

He couldn’t tell if she was serious or joking. Whether she was looking for an easy out or if she was genuinely concerned.

“Maybe I like having you around my neck,” he said, striving to keep things light. “Maybe I think you’re better than a winter scarf for keeping out the cold.”

She studied him before she smiled.

“Okay, let’s go. But you have to tell me the moment I start getting on your nerves,” she said.

“Scout’s honor,” he said, holding up a random number of fingers.

Another month to look forward to. Four weeks more of Maddy.

Anything could happen.

“Very convincing. Remind me not to ever get lost in the bush with you,” she said, laughing.

Her eyes were bright with amusement, and soft color warmed her cheeks. All of a sudden words were crowding his throat, demanding to be said.

Words like I love you and Don’t ever leave.

Words that filled his head, swelled his chest.

He dragged his gaze away from her, forced himself to concentrate on the cool, smooth, slippery texture of the clay beneath his hands.

It’s too soon, he repeated to himself for the tenth time that day. Too soon.

But maybe, one day, he would reach the tipping point where he risked more by staying silent than by speaking out.