Hot Rocks

“Absolutely perfect.”
    “I’m not.” He didn’t care for the twinge of guilt. It was a sensation he overcame or avoided. Worse, there was worry tangled with it. What would she think, how would she react when she found out just what his flaws were?
    “I’m selfish and single-minded,” he told her. “I—”
    “Selfish men don’t wander into antique stores looking for a gift for their mother, just because.”
    The twinge became a pang. “That was impulse.”
    “See, a surprise. Didn’t I just say I love surprises? Don’t try to convince me you’re not perfect. I’m too happy with you right now to think anything else. Uh-oh, now I’ve got you thinking.” She ran her hands down his back, gave his butt a friendly pat. “Is she trying to turn this into more than fun and games?”
    “That’s not what I was thinking. And it already is more than fun and games.”
    “Oh.” Her heart tripped, but she kept her eyes steady on his. “Is it?”
    “That’s what I wasn’t expecting, Laine.” He lowered his head, touched his lips to hers. “Makes things a little more complicated.”
    “I don’t mind complications, Max.” She framed his face with her hands. “We can worry about what this is, or isn’t, what it’s going to be, tomorrow, or we can enjoy it. And each other. The one thing I know is when I woke up at home tonight, I was happy because I knew I wanted to be with you. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”
    “Happy?”
    “Satisfied, content, productive and happy enough. But not dance-around-the-house happy. So about the only thing you could tell me that would make this too complicated for me is that you’ve got a wife and a couple of kids in Brooklyn.”
    “I don’t. They’re in Queens.”
    She pinched him, hard, then wrestled him over onto his back. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
    “It’s my ex-wife who lives in Brooklyn.”
    She straddled him, tossed her hair back. “You’ve been busy.”
    “Well, you collect corkscrews. Some guys collect women. My current mistress is in Atlanta, but I’m thinking of branching out. You could be my Maryland tootsie.”
    “Tootsie? It’s always been one of my driving ambitions to be someone’s tootsie. Where do I sign up?”
    He sat up, wrapping his arms around her and just holding on. Complications, he thought. He couldn’t begin to list them. So he’d just have to deal with them. So would she. But not tonight. Tonight he was going to take her at her word and just enjoy.
    “Are you going to stay awhile? Stay awhile, Laine.”
    “I thought you’d never ask.”
     
     
     
    “Don’t go.” The moment the words were out of Max’s mouth, he realized he’d never said them to a woman before. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, sexual exhaustion. Maybe it was just her.
    “It’s after three in the morning.”
    “Exactly. So come on back to bed. We’ll just spoon up here and snooze for a couple hours, then order breakfast.”
    “That sounds wonderful, but I’ll need another one of those rain checks.” She wiggled into the dress, forgoing underwear. And erased all thoughts of snoozing from his mind.
    “Then just come back to bed.”
    “I have to go.” She chuckled, dancing out of reach when he made a grab for her. “I need to go home, catch a couple hours’ sleep, change, run back into town and pick up Henry, take him home, then go back into town to the shop.”
    “If you stay here, you could pick up Henry on the way home and save yourself a trip.”
    “And provide the gossip mill with enough grist to run it until next Christmas.” She was small-town enough, in the woman she’d created, to be concerned about such things. “A woman strolls out of a hotel in the morning wearing this sort of dress, eyebrows raise. Especially in the Gap.”
    “I’ll lend you a shirt.”
    “I’m going.” She stuffed her lingerie into her purse. “But if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight . . .”
    “Name the time and place.”
    “Eight, my place. I’ll cook.”
    “Cook?” His eyes blinked slowly, twice, then seemed to glaze. “Food?”
    “No, I thought I’d cook up an insidious plot against the government. Of course food.” She turned to the mirror, pulled a tiny brush out of her bulging purse and swooped it through her hair. “What do you like?”
    He just stared at her. “Food?”
    “I’ll think of something.” Satisfied she was as good as she was going to get, she dropped the brush back into the purse and crossed to