Spooning Daisy (10 page)

“It’s a little tight in here,” he explained, using the door as a shield for his lower extremities. “I’m just trying to make room.”

Daisy didn’t move, as if Max’s nudity hadn’t registered. The door closed and she stared a few seconds longer, thinking about the dark, downy whorls covering Max’s chest; they merged in the center then trickled down the valley between his washboard abs and disappeared behind the door.

That was interesting
, Daisy thought. His chest lingered in her mind and the stars begat a question. Why
five
? She brushed the scene aside and tried to hop back on her train at the spot where she’d jumped off.

Oh yeah. Her current situation.
Between a rock and a hard place
.

What happened with Max tonight would determine whether she went crawling back to Seattle and the Lobster Shack, or marched on to Otter Bite and the Wild Man Lodge.
No
, she couldn’t go back. If she didn’t go on, if she quit now, she’d be forever haunted with bad luck, consumed in the bowels of misfortune, shunned like a leper in the abyss of hell—

“Yes, you’ve proven your point,” Daisy said to her melodrama. The less dramatic point was, she had to do something to break this seemingly endless cycle of horrible things happening to her.

It would take a grand gesture—

The bathroom door opened again. This time Max’s splint came through the crack. It was abandoned outside the door by the wall while the arm and hand retreated inside the bathroom. The door shut.

Daisy waited for the next act, but instead she heard the shower spray.

Okay
. Rock and hard place . . . grand gesture . . . Max Kendall . . .

She got off the train, tossed her magazine aside, and crawled to the edge of the bed, where she considered Max’s duffel bag and his plastic splint. She looked up at the door; behind it Max was in her shower.
Max in her shower
.

How in the world had Max Kendall finagled his way into her shower? Yes, she knew she offered it to him, but that’s not what she meant. Just thinking about all the coincidences that landed him there boggled her mind. Life was certainly good at taking the long way.

If they hadn’t run into Jason that night at Mama Mia’s, would this scene have played out three weeks ago? That’s where Max was headed that night at the bar. She remembered his kiss, how he put his fingers to her lips, how he suggested he put her to bed, his blue eyes inviting. She was a little rusty, but she was pretty sure that was foreplay.
Pretty sure
.

It made no sense that Max was in her shower now, after everything that had happened. So why was he?

Scrambling from the bed, Daisy kneeled by the duffel bag, wishing that she’d learned a little more about Max from her attorney. But, at the time—never expecting to see Max again—she hadn’t wanted to know anything about a man who could be so mean as to sue her.

She leaned near the bathroom door, listening to the water, then returned her attention to the bag; she unzipped and spread the canvas. Surprisingly, the contents were neatly stacked, with the flannel shirt he’d worn into her cabin loosely folded on top. She rummaged through the clothes, searching among the shirts, sweaters—taking a moment to feel the silky, steel-blue one—cotton-knit jockeys, socks, jeans, and T-shirts. She smiled at the Señorita Largatija T-shirt Max had been wearing at her garage sale, looking freshly laundered and ironed—in spite of the stain—and neatly folded. Maeve Kendall, Daisy assumed. She kind of liked Maeve, or maybe it was admiration for any woman, mother or not, who held sway over Max.

Back to her search, she stopped when she hit the cowboy boots at the bottom. That fit the profile of a rogue; she ended her trespass and zipped up.

Another glance at the door, another listen for the shower, and Daisy hit the end pockets. What exactly she looked for she wasn’t sure; maybe just some clue to the man whom Fate had dropped in her cabin.

Stuffed in the end pockets were three paperback novels, two Louis L’Amour and one Stuart Woods. Not that she expected Deepak Chopra. She quickly thumbed through the pages for anything hidden between. Switching to the lone side pocket, she unzipped, her heart thumping as the clock ticked down on her available time. A wallet and a manila envelope. Why hadn’t she looked here sooner? She’d make a lousy detective.

She grabbed the cognac–colored wallet first, appreciating the expensive leather, still gleaming but with worn corners. Credit cards and ID stacked neatly inside, their top edges peaking from the pockets. She didn’t really have time for this, but she finagled one of the IDs from its sheath.
Pilot’s license.
Flying—the bane of her existence. Daisy stuffed the plastic back in. She spread the currency sleeve and was taken aback by all the bills. Dozens. All with the same portrait of Ben Franklin.

She could take one or even two and Max would
probably
never know. She tugged at a single hundred. Only a loan—if she didn’t need it, she could give it back. She
would
pay him back, once she got to Haines and a bank. If not there, she would send him a check when she got to Otter Bite.
Oh hell
, Daisy swore, swiping the bill and tucking it in her jeans pocket.
All is fair.

Stuffing the wallet back into the side pocket, she then grabbed the envelope. She squeezed the brass wings together, lifted the flap, and dumped the contents.

Passport; two envelopes, one green, one orange; itinerary; and ticket carbons for the M/V
Columbia
and another set of tickets for the M/V
Tustumena
between—

Daisy did a double take.

Valdez and Otter Bite . . . ?

As valuable seconds ticked away, her brain scrambled for what this could mean.
The truck’s final destination?
And then what this could mean for her.

Setting aside the tickets, she grabbed the green and the orange envelopes she suspected were get-well cards. The green envelope contained a card signed
With all our love, Mother & Da,
and had a religious theme with rhyming verse and lilies. The other card had a photo of a basset hound on the front, and inside the single word
Heal
. But the real message was in the handwritten words . . . and the heart dotting the I’s.

If you need anything, just whistle. Love, Tina

Well, doesn’t that just figure
? Daisy stuffed the card back into the envelope. Only a couple of business envelopes remained—cream-colored expensive stock. The return address was printed with the name and address of Max’s attorney, Clyde Standish.

No stamp on the envelope; the flap was unsealed. She pulled out a set of pages in a fold.

The shower
. Daisy leaned toward the door. There was no sound of water. How long had it been off? And how long before Max opened the bathroom door? If he caught her going through his things, he’d never take her to Valdez in his very new, very expensive, very red truck. Pushing her luck, she quickly unfolded the letter.

Mr. Max Kendall
c/o Royce Raymond, Esq.
1407 W. 2nd Ave.
Anchorage, AK 99503

Daisy stared at the Anchorage address.
Jiminy Christmas
, how many lawyers did Max have? What did that mean,
in care of
? Maybe Max filtered all his legal entanglements through his attorney in Anchorage. Maybe Max traveled. Maybe Max was between homes. Maybe Max didn’t want anyone to know where he lived . . .

That fits
, but it didn’t explain his ticket to Otter Bite on the M/V
Tustumena
—as it so happened, the same date as her departure, assuming she got to Valdez in time to make that date. Daisy started reading.

Dear Mr. Kendall:

Based upon our recent discussion, I am withdrawing the complaints filed with the court on 3 May against Ms. Daisy Moon and instead

A bump against the inside of the bathroom door. Her heart drummed in her ears as Daisy quickly fumbled the letter back into its envelope, stuffing it, along with its unread mate, into the manila envelope. She scooped up the remainder of items and poured them inside with the letters.

“Are you all right?” Daisy called, zipping up the evidence. She scrambled to her feet as the bathroom door cracked open.

Max poked his towel-draped head through. “Did you say something?”

“I heard something hit the door. Are you okay?”

“My knee. I lost my balance.” His eyes reflected suspicion at Daisy’s concern. “I should probably put my brace on.”

Daisy looked down at the brace and saw Max’s passport, the words
United States of America
in gold script peeking out from beneath his duffel bag.

“I’ll get it,” she volunteered, stepping on the writing and grabbing Max’s brace.

The door opened wider and specters of steam escaped into the cabin. Wearing jeans, but bare from the waist up and still suspicious, Max took his splint from Daisy. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“All right, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” Daisy smiled. “I’m just being helpful.”

“Exactly.”

Her smile waned. “Just because you and I have some . . . unfortunate history—”

“Unfortunate history?” Max rubbed his head with the towel, then slid the thick white cotton from his head and let it drape his naked shoulders. “That’s an innocuous way of putting it.”

Amusement sparked her eyes at the sight of Max’s damp, tousled hair, poking this way and that like a punk rocker. “Look, what happened at Mama Mia’s wasn’t my fault. I know you think it was, which is why you’re suing me . . .” Daisy paused, giving Max the perfect moment to confess that he’d withdrawn the lawsuit.

“I told you, it’s business.”

She huffed. Why was Max continuing this charade? “My point is,” But there was no way she could argue to the contrary without making her own confession, “just because stuff happened
that wasn’t my fault
doesn’t mean I’m completely unsympathetic. I got hurt, too.”

“That’s what happens when you throw beer at an angry drunk.”

“He grabbed me!”

Max leaned toward her. “He was
drunk
. You were taunting him and then gloating about it. That’s not how to walk away without a black eye.”

Daisy leaned forward. “He was flaunting his floozy.”

“Tina isn’t a floozy. If anything, she was trying to get him out of there. And did I mention he was
drunk
?”

“Well, I was a little drunk, too! I had just chugged
two
Midori-’n’-rums because
someone
was too cheap to leave the restaurant.”

“I am
not
cheap. I didn’t understand what was going on. Why the hell didn’t you tell me your ex was there?”

“Because it seemed soooo—”

“What?”

“—pathetic.”

Max flinched at the unexpected response; at Daisy’s unexpected vulnerability.

“I mean, you’d already seen my meltdown at the garage sale. And there was Charity’s lie about the tree chipper. And then the golf clubs. And I confessed about losing my job. You knew too much about me that wasn’t very . . . flattering. Having to leave Mama’s because of Jason and Tina wasn’t something I wanted you to know.”

His blue eyes softened. “Believe it or not, Daisy, I would’ve understood.”

“Right, like you’ve ever run away from an ex.”

“God, no. But I can understand how a woman like you—”

Her left brow came perilously close to shooting off her forehead.

“What I mean is, a woman like you who has committed herself to a man and . . . is no doubt faithful, and then finds out her fiancé isn’t . . . well . . . Retreat is a good option . . .”

“Oh, please, stop.” Daisy rolled her eyes at his pathetic backpedaling. “Dry your hair. You look like a punk rocker.”

Max finger-combed his waves. “Your feelings . . . wanting to run . . . it’s really not pathetic.”

“But
you’d
never do it.” She shooed him away. “Just drop it.”

Max hesitated, then pulled the bathroom door closed.

Daisy fumed. The man was insufferable. The way he described her as being
no doubt
faithful made her sound like some Victorian throwback. Unlike Tina, who hadn’t a single Victorian inclination. And just how many exes did Max Kendall have? Probably one in every port—

Daisy shot her eyes to her foot and bent to grab Max’s passport.

The bathroom door opened. Daisy practically catapulted up, whipping her guilty hand behind her back.

Max looked at her, flashed on his bag, and then returned his eyes to her. “I hate to ask a favor,” he began after another glance at his bag. “But my hair dryer isn’t working. Can I borrow yours?”

“Sure.” Daisy curled her lips into a smile so contrived even she wouldn’t buy it.

“Anytime soon?”

“I’m, uh, trying to remember where I put it.”

“Suitcase, maybe?”

“Noooo . . .”

“A drawer?”

She shook her head. “Doubtful.”

“Closet?”

“Maybe.” She scrunched her face as if wrestling with a real dilemma. “Why don’t you go back into the bathroom and when I find it, I’ll knock.”

Max stepped forward, Daisy stepped back.

“I need my bag,” he said, bending to reach it. “Which, by the way, is where I normally keep
my
dryer.”

“Yeah, but your dryer is broken.”

“Okay.” He stepped back into the bathroom with his bag. “I’ll be waiting in here.”

“Okey-dokey.”

The door latched.

That damn, damn, damn passport!
Of all the things not to put back in his bag. What if he needed it? What if he had a trip planned? Even crossing the border into Canada required a passport.