Kate Hoffmann - The Sexy Devil

Max shoved the football into Dave’s lap and stood up. “Nope, there’s no need. I’ve got everything under control.”

He walked along the pier toward Angela. Everything wasn’t under control. There were still a lot of questions that needed to be answered. And he was running out of patience.

ANGELA PICKED A CARD, then showed it to the two girls. “Blue,” she said. She moved her Candyland marker to the next blue square. “I’m winning. You better watch out.”

Brittany grabbed the next card. “No, it’s my turn,” Bethany cried.

“She’s right,” Angela said. She glanced over at Max and he smiled at her, then cocked his head toward the door. Angela nodded and a moment later, Max squatted down next to the coffee table. “I’m going to steal Angela away for a little while,” he said. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on. We’re going for ice cream.”

“Me, too!” Bethany cried, scrambling to her feet.

“Take us. We wanna go,” Brittany added.

“No, it’s late,” Max said. “And it’s almost bedtime for you two. We’ll go tomorrow, I promise. But tonight, Angela and I want to go by ourselves.”

“I bet they’re going to get naked again,” Brittany whispered as she and Bethany walked off.

“Mama says they weren’t naked. They had their swimsuits on.”

As they stepped outside, Max slipped his arm around her shoulders. “We may have scarred them for life.” When they got up to the driveway, Dave’s SUV was parked behind the BMW. Max pulled her along to the road. “We’ll walk into town. It’s only a mile. And it’s a nice night.”

The winding road through the woods was quiet, with only the occasional rabbit or squirrel to interrupt the silence. “My family used to come up here when we were kids. We’d rent a place on the other side of the lake. It was just a small cabin. My folks would stay inside and we’d get to sleep in tents. I tried to buy the place when I was looking, but the family that owned it didn’t want to sell.”

“This place is nice,” she said.

“I remember how much fun it was up here, the freedom we had. My folks would go to bed early and we’d be out until all hours of the night, prowling around in the woods, playing in the water, walking into town.”

As they approached town, the sky grew a bit brighter from the lights. The ice cream stand was a beacon in the dark, neon outlining the facade. The parking lot was crowded with cars and kids. “We came here for ice cream almost every day. Back then a cone was just fifty cents. The place hasn’t changed at all. What do you want-cone or bowl?”

“Bowl,” Angela said.

“Chocolate, vanilla or strawberry?”

“Strawberry,” Angela said. “With just a tiny bit of chocolate on the side.”

Max nodded. “I learn something new every day.

I would have pegged you for a pure chocolate girl.”

He walked up to the window and placed their order.

A few moments later, he returned and they found a seat at a table beneath a tall maple tree.

“This is nice,” she said, licking a bit of ice cream off her spoon.

“It’s nice to be alone again. I feel like we haven’t been able to talk all evening. I’m sorry about Dave and the kids showing up,” Max said. “I had no idea they’d be here.”

“It’s not a problem. I kind of like it. It’s a real family vacation. Lauren was saying that she was happy to see you using the place. She said the family likes having you around.”

“Tell me more about your family,” he said. “Where did you grow up?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere and Angela coughed, a blob of ice cream catching in her throat. Suddenly, a blinding headache pierced her temple. “Ow,” she said. “Brain freeze.”

Her discomfort distracted him for a moment and Max reached out and rubbed her forehead. “Just breathe real deep,” he said.

When the ache subsided, she took another bite of her ice cream, letting it melt in her mouth. “Around Chicago. The suburbs.”

He stared across the table at her, his spoon poised in midair. “Which suburb? There are so many.”

She glanced up at him, trying to read the odd expression on his face. Did she really want to spoil this wonderful weekend with a fight? “Does it make a difference?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think it does. This is my last question, Angie. The one I was saving?”

Angela took a ragged breath. He knew the answer already, she could see it in his eyes. Somewhere along the line, he recognized her, remembered her or simply figured out she was hiding something. “You know, don’t you? You know exactly where I grew up.”

Max nodded. “Yeah. I do. You’re from Evanston.

We went to high school together. And college, at least for the two years I was there. And you know that next Saturday we’re supposed to meet at a barbecue?”

Angela nodded. “At your parents’ house. Your mother and my mother are tennis partners. My mother called me the day after we’d met to invite me.”

“A little strange, isn’t it?”

A tiny smile curved the corners of her mouth. “But you don’t remember me, do you. Don’t worry, I wasn’t very memorable. I blended into the walls.”

He stood up and they started their walk back to the cabin, still eating ice cream as they strolled. “Why didn’t you mention this when we met?” Max asked. “Why weren’t you just honest with me?”

She sent him a sideways glance, wondering how honest she ought to be. There was a bit more to her story than just a high school crush. “Maybe I wanted you to think I was beautiful and alluring and a little bit mysterious. Maybe I didn’t want you to remember the plain, nervous girl I used to be.”

“I wouldn’t have remembered that girl. We’d never met.”

“But we have,” Angela said. “A number of times.”

“When?”

“You bumped into me during freshman orientation for high school. You said sorry, and then walked away. And once, I handed you a book you’d dropped in the library. And you sat in front of me for a whole semester in physics class.”

“That’s it?”

She shook her head. “I once interviewed you for the college newspaper. It was right after they started scouting you for the pros. You’d just done that calendar for the athletic scholarship fund.”

“Oh, my God, that’s it,” Max said. “That’s where I knew you from.” He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “When I saw you at the bar that night, I felt as if we’d met before, but I couldn’t remember when. That was it.”

“There was one other time. A few years ago. I was at a sports bar in Evanston, waiting for a table and you were there. And…you looked at me. Across the bar.”

An odd expression, and then one of slow realization crossed his face. “I remember that. I remember how I felt when you looked away. There had been this connection and it shocked me. I’d never had that happen before. Not since then, either.” He paused. “That was you?”

“That was me,” she said.

“I should have introduced myself. I was tempted, but I was with-”

“Another woman,” she said. “Several, I think.”

“My sister,” he said. “I think Lauren and Dave were there, too. It was around Christmas and I was home for the holidays.”

“It’s probably better you didn’t come over. I would have babbled something stupid and you would have walked away wondering who’d let me out of the asylum for the night. I would have been that stupid, silly girl who watched your every move and went home at night dreaming about kissing you.”

“What?”

Now that she had the opening, Angela didn’t want to stop. It was time to tell him everything. Or almost everything. “You might as well know the rest of the story. I had a crush on you in high school. And in college. In fact, that’s why I went to Northwestern. I was supposed to go to Sarah Lawrence, but when I heard you were going to Northwestern instead of straight into the minors, I followed you there. I know, it sounds pathetic, and it really was.”

Max stared at her, his gaze fixing on her mouth. She wanted him to kiss her right then, to reassure her that nothing had changed between them, to put a stop to her clumsy explanations. In all the moments they’d shared over the past week, she’d never felt quite so vulnerable. “A crush?”

“I suppose this changes everything,” Angela said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I’m not the person you thought I was. I’m not exciting or interesting or even the tiniest bit mysterious. I’m just a girl from your hometown who was once hopelessly infatuated with you.”

“How long did the crush last?”

“I don’t know. Six years. Then you went into the minors and I decided to move on.”

“So, you were in love with me and I was just going about my life without ever knowing you had these feelings? You were watching me and dreaming about me and hoping I’d talk to you and-”

“You can stop now,” Angela said. “I’m going to crawl off into the woods and die.” Now that she’d completely humiliated herself, she needed the conversation to move to a new subject. “This is really good ice cream. The sign said it was custard. What’s the difference between ice cream and custard? I never could figure that out.”

“And that night, in the bar, when we met,” Max continued. “That was it. That was probably the last chance for us. If I hadn’t come over to talk to you, you would have left and we never would have met.”

“Well, there’s always your parents’ barbecue,” she said.

“I would have found an excuse not to go,” Max replied.

He seemed a bit stunned by her revelation, by the series of coincidences that had brought them together. Angela knew she ought to continue, to tell him about the Web site and the interview for the book, but he’d already been given too much to absorb. Maybe tomorrow.

Max drew a deep breath, then nodded. “I guess we were lucky.”

“How is that?”

“I was lucky. To have finally recognized what I’d been missing all those years.”

A blush warmed her cheeks. He didn’t seem angry, or offended, or deceived, just…bewildered. A bit amazed. “You’re not angry that I wasn’t honest from the start?”

Max shook his head. “Nope. Hey, I know I have a reputation. Maybe if you’d admitted everything up front, I might not have been…intrigued. But you have me now. And you’re stuck with me.”

Tears swam in Angela’s eyes. “Really? You’re not going to dump me because I’m Angela Weatherby, former Evanston High School wallflower.”

Max hooked his finger beneath her chin and drew her closer, then dropped a kiss on her lips. “As long as you don’t drop me because I’m Max Morgan, former jackass and serial seducer from Evanston High School.”

“Deal,” she said.

“So I guess we’ve told all our secrets and we’re officially in a relationship,” Max said.

She swallowed hard. “I guess so.”

Max dipped his spoon into her ice cream. “You know that means that we can share our ice cream. Can I have some of your strawberry?”

Right now, Max could have anything he wanted, Angela mused. Her heart, her soul, her body. Everything she wanted to believe about him was proving true. He was kind and honest and romantic. And she was falling in love with him all over again.

MAX PACED BACK AND FORTH in front of the fireplace. The night was warm and all the windows in the cabin had been thrown open to catch the breeze. Outside, the trees rustled and he could hear the gentle lap of water on the shore.

He loved nights like this, when everything was so still. He glanced over at the rack that held a selection of fishing poles. He could sit on the end of the pier and fish, but Max suspected that it wouldn’t put thoughts of Angela out of his head. They’d be leaving for Chicago in the morning and he wanted to share this place with her, to show her what her life might be like with him in it.

Instead, they’d been sent off to separate bedrooms, for the sake of the children. Angela was in one room with Brit and Beth while he’d been given another room with Davey, his three-year-old nephew. Of course, Dave and Lauren took the big bedroom, with the comfortable bed, the bed Max should have been sharing with Angela.

Max opened the closet and pulled out a pair of sleeping bags and set them next to the door. If they couldn’t sleep together inside the cabin, then they’d sleep together outside.

He walked down to the pier and tossed the sleeping bags into the boat, then jumped down into the cockpit. The aft seat folded out into a comfortable lounge, almost as wide a bed. He unzipped the sleeping bags and laid them out, then surveyed his work in the pale moonlight. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was certainly better than what they’d been given.

If Max had had his way, they would have driven back to Chicago as soon as Dave and Lauren arrived with the kids. But Angela had insisted on staying and she seemed to enjoy the time with his family, even if it meant playing endless games of Chutes and Ladders and Candyland with the girls.