“Maybe you could stop calling me ‘Duchess’,” I suggested.

“Maybe I couldn’t,” he returned, came toward me, picked up the gallon jug, splashed a huge dollop of milk in my mug, making coffee and milk plop up and out on the counter then he turned back and poured, without measuring, a bunch of milk into the instant oatmeal.

“My name is Nina,” I told him.

“I know that.”

“Maybe you can call me Nina.”

“I’ll call you that too.”

“Rather than Duchess.”

He’d put the milk back in the fridge and walked back to me, grabbing the bag of sugar, his eyes came to me before he turned toward the oatmeal. “You want a little pitcher for your milk, you’re definitely a Duchess.”

I decided to let it go. In about half an hour he wasn’t going to be calling me anything because I was going to be in a rental car and on my way to Denver.

“Whatever,” I muttered and took a sip of coffee.

Then I watched as he spooned sugar in the oatmeal. One spoon. Two. Three. Four.

“Is that for me?” I asked on a rush when he dipped in for spoon five.

His torso twisted and his eyes came to me. “Yeah.”

He was making me oatmeal and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I muttered, “Um, I think four sugars will do it.”

Two would do it, actually one would have done it, but I’d settle for four.

“Your wish…” he muttered right back but he sounded amused.

I decided to let that go too.

He put the oatmeal in the microwave started it up and then headed back to the skillet. He flipped his eggs expertly then using the fork, pulled the bacon out and, without draining the grease off, he put it on a plate I hadn’t yet noticed. The plate already had two slices of toast slathered in butter and grape jelly.

Before I could stop myself, I announced in a wistful voice, “I miss grape jelly.”

His head twisted toward me and he had an expression on his face that looked like he thought I was funny at the same time he was slightly confused. “You miss grape jelly?”

I took a sip of cranberry juice, surveyed the microwave but didn’t answer. Talking to him was taking a lot of concentration and energy, neither of which I had at that moment. It was weird, he was acting like I’d been there a year, like we were chums, like he didn’t practically throw me out of his house two days ago, like he liked me.

You didn’t tease someone you didn’t like. At least that was what my mother told me years ago when I’d come home, complaining that all the boys teased me. She said boys teased girls they liked and, one thing I learned in life, my mother was rarely, if ever, wrong.

Max decided to let it go too and dumped his eggs on the plate, turned off the burner, moved the skillet to a different one and came to stand in front of me. He held his plate aloft and started eating.

“You need to rest today,” he told me while eating.

“Yes,” I agreed and I would rest that day but I’d do that once I found a hotel in Denver.

He munched bacon before he bizarrely informed me, “In the wall outside the bathroom upstairs is the TV. You just slide open the doors. Same below it to get to the DVD player. Got some DVDs down there. Remotes are in the nightstand.”

I stared at him as he forked up some egg. “Sorry?”

“You want to use the computer, the password is Shauna444.”

“Um…” I mumbled then repeated, “Sorry?”

The microwave beeped, he set down his plate and turned to the microwave, saying, “That’s with a ‘U’.”

I wasn’t following. “A ‘U’?”

He opened the microwave, got my bowl, walked back to me, opened a drawer, dropped a spoon in the bowl and put it in front of me.

“Shauna. With a ‘U’. S-h-a-u-n-a. Then 444. All together.”

“But –”

“Computer’s in the roll top,” he went on, picking up his plate and a rasher of bacon then his eyes went beyond me to the window before he took a bite.

“Max, I think –”

“You bought enough food to feed an army. You should be good for lunch.”

Oh my God. Did he think I was staying there?

“Max –”

He looked back at me. “You should go bland; make sure you’re over it. Wouldn’t be good to have anything rich in your stomach if you have a relapse.”

“Maybe we should –”

I heard a car door slam, I stopped talking and twisted on my stool to look around. Outside, parked beside the Cherokee, was one of those sporty mini-SUVs and making it sportier, it was red. Bouncing up the steps was a young woman with a mass of thick, gleaming, wavy, dark brown hair. She was wearing a baby pink, poofy vest with a sky blue thermal under it with what looked like tiny, pink polka dots on it. She had on faded jeans and they were tight. She also had on fluffy boots with big pom poms at the front that swung around as she bounced up the steps. She was pretty. Very pretty.

No, she was adorable. The epitome of a snow bunny.

And she was very, very young. Way younger than me. Way younger than what I suspected Max was.

I was thirty-six, he had to be my age, maybe older, maybe younger, but not by much either way.

She looked twelve. Though since she could drive, maybe she was sixteen.

She stopped on the porch and gave an over-exaggerated, over-cheerful wave in our direction, bouncing up on her toes. Even overdone, the wave looked adorable too, like it came natural to her, which it probably did since she was likely a cheerleader.

Good Lord.

“Becca,” Max muttered, I looked at him and he folded a piece of toast in half and said. “I’m gonna be gone awhile.” Then he took a bite out of the toast and turned toward the sink.

“I –”

“Hey!” A bright, cheerful, young, female voice called from the doorway.

I turned to look and Becca was inside, closing the door then she bounced toward the bar, her boot pom poms swinging wildly.

“Hey Becca,” Max greeted.

“Hey Max,” Becca called then she looked at me and said, still bright, still cheerful, still young, “Hey there.”

“Hello.”

“You must be Nina,” she announced and I couldn’t be sure but I think I gawped.

How did she know who I was?

Her eyes went around me. “She’s pretty,” she told who I suspected was Max since he was the only other person there then she looked back at me and her eyes fell to my chest before she declared, still bright and cheerful and also somewhat loud, “I dig that top! Where’d you get it? I gotta have one.”

“I –”

“You can shop, Bec, but it’d be a miracle you find that top,” Max told her and she looked at him when he finished, “and be able to afford it.”

I looked at Max and said, kind of snappish mainly because of the way he’d said what he’d said, “It wasn’t that expensive.”

“Since she’s gotta get on a plane and fly to England to buy it, that makes it expensive,” Max returned.

He had me there.

“England,” Becca breathed but she did it brightly and cheerfully.

“Um… yes,” I said to her.

“I forgot, Max told Mindy you were English.”

Mindy? Who was Mindy? And why was Max telling her about me?

“I’m not English,” I told Becca.

“I love your accent.” She kept breathing.

“I don’t really have an accent.”

“It’s so cool!” she cried, her eyes going to Max. “Isn’t it cool?”

“It’s cool,” Max agreed but he didn’t sound like he thought it was cool, he sounded like he was trying not to laugh.

I was going to look at him to see if he was trying not to laugh and maybe ask what was so funny when Becca kept my attention.

“Oh my God. I’d so love to live in a different country,” Becca declared. “You are so lucky.”

Me? Lucky? England was beautiful but…

“Though, I’d wanna live somewhere where it doesn’t rain,” Becca decided.

“It does that,” I told her, “quite a bit.”

“If I lived there, how long would it take me to get an accent?” she asked.

“Um… I’m not sure,” I answered.

“I’d have to practice,” she declared.

I thought of a bright, cheerful, bouncy American cheerleader going to England and practicing an accent. Then I tried not to wince.

“I’m gonna get my boots,” Max said and I saw he was rounding the counter.

“Max,” I called but he didn’t stop.

“Be back in a sec,” he said, not even turning.

“So are all the clothes in England as cool as that top?” Becca asked me.

“Um… not exactly,” I replied then asked, “Can you hang on a second?” I had one finger pointed up then I jumped off the stool and hurried after Max who’d disappeared up the spiral staircase.

When I made it to the bedroom he was sitting on the bed tugging on a boot.

“Max –”

He cut me off. “Extra sheets in the closet.”

“Okay, but –”

He tugged on the second boot. “I don’t know how long this’ll take, make yourself at home.”

“I’m leaving,” I said quickly, his head arched back and he looked at me.

“What?”

“I’m going to Denver.”

“No you aren’t,” he replied and his answer, which was firm, unyielding and also surprising, made me blink.

“I’m not?”

“Nope,” he said as he stood and he seemed very tall and very big. He was, of course, very tall and very big in the kitchen too but the kitchen was a brightly lit open space. The loft wasn’t a brightly lit open space. It was more like a brightly lit, intimate cocoon. His very tall, very big body seemed to fill the loft, leaving very little room for me.

“But… I am.”

He walked to me and I resisted the urge to retreat mainly because the spiral staircase was behind me and I’d already spent two days sick in his house, I didn’t want to break my neck there.

He stopped a foot away from me and said, “You aren’t.”

I shook my head and asked, “Why?”

“You need to rest.”

“I’ll rest in Denver.”

“Drivin’ to Denver isn’t resting.”

“Okay, then I’ll get a hotel in town and spend the night there, drive to Denver tomorrow.”

“You aren’t doin’ that either.”

“Why not?”

“Because you aren’t.”

I was beginning to get angry. I didn’t often get angry mainly because I’d made my life so that not much happened to me to get angry about. But I was definitely beginning to get angry right then.

“Why?” I asked.

“Nina, I gotta get this done, I don’t have time for this.”

He didn’t have time for this? Time for what?

“Time for what?”

“Time to spar with you.”

Now I wasn’t angry, I was confused. “We’re… sparring?”

“You’re off, you were better the other night.”

“Better at what?”

He didn’t answer me, instead he repeated, “I gotta go.”

“Max –” I started but he began to walk around me so, instinctively, my hand shot out and my fingers curled around his bicep.

He stopped but my body had frozen and my eyes had dropped to his arm.

My fingers were there, holding what felt an awful lot like steel. Niles didn’t have steely biceps. Niles had soft, fleshy biceps. One would think steely biceps didn’t feel nice but they didn’t only feel nice, they felt nice.

“Nina,” Max called and I jumped and yanked my hand away.

“I want to thank you, for being so nice about me being… sick and, um… everything, but really, I have to go.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, because.”

“Because why?”

Was he crazy?

I didn’t get it. Why did he want me to stay? Two days ago he didn’t want me to stay. Why were we even having this conversation?

“You’re home,” I reminded him.

“Yeah?”

“And, well, we can’t share the house.”

“Why not?”

I didn’t have an answer for that because it was such a bizarre question, I figured there was no answer.

Then I did, so I said, “I don’t know you.”

To that, he grinned and it was a grin that made me highly uncomfortable but in a weirdly good way.

“Duchess, I’ve seen you mostly naked.”

At his words I still felt uncomfortable though no longer in a good way, weird or not. I also felt my eyes get big, I felt my cheeks get hot and I felt my heart start pounding.

Then I felt my blood pressure rise.

“Yes, this is true. You’ve seen that against my will,” I reminded him.

“It wasn’t against your will.”

I leaned forward and snapped, “I was unconscious!”