Page 49 of Be My Baby

Max sucked in a pained gasp.

“What is it?” his mother asked.

He held his hand out flat. The paler band of skin was still there, that would take ages to go, but his wedding ring…

“Oh, shit.”

His mother looked at his hand, at the tell-tale pale strip. He tried to get some air into his suddenly tight lungs, his chest tight and painful. She slid onto the chair beside his and rubbed his back.

“Just breathe, Max.”

“I took it off. Last night. I-I…” He shook his head. How could he have been so stupid? “I thought it was time to…” He closed his eyes and hung his head. “It won’t be…”

She kept rubbing his back.

Somehow that just made it worse.

*

Millie watched Maxshake his head from her position in the doorway to the living room. She’d stayed the night on the sofa. She knew Mary had reservations about her and Max, he’d told her so she could decide when and how she interacted with his family. It hadn’t changed how they’d treated her, though. Mary would be polite if it killed her, she was simply that type of person. Knowing his father supported them had certainly helped her insecurities toward them, and Darby had thawed considerably in the last few weeks. Mary’s surprised and worried eyes caught hers over the top of his bent head.

He’d taken off his wedding ring? Why?

Her stomach churned. Maxneverdid that, never took it off.

“We’ll find it, honey. We’ll ask Harry—”

“You saw how hot that fire was! There’ll be nothing left,” Max whispered.

Nothing left of his life over the past ten years.

Millie slapped a hand over her mouth so that she wouldn’t make a sound and disturb him. Tears stung her eyes. All of Lucy’s pictures. All the little things she’d done to make Max’s upstairs apartment into a home. Their wedding album.

All gone.

Millie stepped backward as quietly as possible. Max didn’t need her intruding. He’d just lost everything, regardless that he could rebuild the Cow itself. She was an outsider. She wasn’t needed here.

Her heel came down on the floorboard in the middle of the hallway and it creaked loud enough to startle the dead.

Dammit!She’d forgotten about that damned board.

Max’s head jerked around to face her. He sat up straighter and it looked like he tried to smile, but failed.

“Millie. Hey.”

Relief at his expression weakened her knees and she grinned widely at him. “Hey, yourself.” She gestured behind her. “I can leave…?”

Max leaned back in his chair and scraped a hand around his neck. “You don’t have to do that.” He sent her another smile. This time it worked. “I’d rather you stayed.”

Millie came into the room and sat down on the opposite side of the table and smiled at Mary when she set a cup of tea down in front of her.

“Thank you.”

Mary nodded and patted her shoulder, walking past and leaving them alone. Millie turned to Max and bit her lip.

“I know it’s early days and I hope you don’t think I’m interfering, but I had a thought just before.” She breathed deeply, unsure how he’d take her next words. The Cow had only burned down the night before. It was all too raw, too painful still. “I know you’ll want to rebuild. The council town planning department archived the original building plans of a lot of the old places around town. Anything that had historical significance. They were collecting them when I first started working for Trey, way back when. I had to help facilitate some of the petitions. That was before you bought the Cow.” She leaned forward. “They might have the Cow’s original blueprints. Or, if not the blueprints, something similar.”

Max’s eyes lit up. The far-away, empty look, which had entered them the night before as he’d watched his life turn to ash, fading a little.

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