Page 27 of Driven By Desire
“If we aren’t speaking hypothetically though, I don’t think Krish is either of those things.”
The mug dropped back into the sink with an earsplitting crash. Spinning around, Max gaped at him. “How? What?”
He took another sip of coffee and waited for her to finish sputtering. When she sank into the seat opposite him, he eyed her stupefied face over the top of his glasses.
“You didn’t think I was an idiot, did you?”
Shaking her head dumbly, Max reached over and stole his mug of coffee. “No but I didn’t realize you even knew-“ Breaking off, she fortified herself with an extra-large gulp of coffee.
“I don’t get him.” Frustration and pent-up anger had her choking on the words. “One minute, I think we have something special and the other he’s telling me we can’t have a relationship.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Why, what?” She groused around another sip of coffee. God, she really hated coffee but if she wanted tea, she’d have to make it. Again. Giving the hob a look of deepest loathing, she drained her father’s mug and pushed it to the side.
“Why the two of you can’t have a relationship?” Her father’s gentle question brought her back to the conversation.
“No.”
“Really?” Raising an eyebrow at that, Brian rose to slide slices of bread into the toaster for breakfast. “He didn’t strike me as the particularly reticent type, especially when it came to voicing his opinion.”
Flushing slightly, Max walked over to help. Grabbing a frying pan from a cupboard, she lit the stove and plopped it down on top. “I didn’t let him.”
A small smile lit his lips at the low mumble. Moving Max aside, he poured a little oil in before saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.”
“I didn’t let him.” The words were accompanied with a slam of the fridge door that had Brian turning to eye his daughter sternly. Shamefaced, Max muttered, “Sorry.” Handing the eggs she’d pulled out to him more carefully, she moved around her father to start setting the breakfast table.
“So he wanted to explain his concerns and issues to you and you wouldn’t let him.” Cracking the eggs in to the pan, he started to scramble them with an expertise that Max envied but could never hope to emulate. “And now you’re grumbling that you don’t understand him. Am I the only one seeing the flaw in the logic here?”
Silence had him turning around to find his daughter staring at the plates in her hand like she’d never seen them before. Giving the eggs one last swirl in the pan, he transferred them to a bowl before retrieving the plates from Max’s still motionless figure.
“Max? Breakfast.” Settling himself in a chair, he gestured her over. He waited until she was seated before asking, “Do you want a future with this man?”
Keeping her eyes on the plate of eggs in front of her, Max answered cautiously, “I’d like to explore the possibility of one, yes.”
“I never thought I’d raised you to be a shy, retiring, Victorian miss. This meekness is terribly out of character.”
Choking on her mouthful of eggs, Max gasped, “I’m out of character? Shouldn’t you be pontificating at me like a good, responsible father?”
Chuckling, Brian sampled his eggs. Added salt. Gazing fondly at his taste bud lacking daughter who had already cleaned her plate and was reaching for seconds, he said, “Sweetheart, if you wanted me to fish someone out of the arranged marriage pool, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to even go about something like that. You and I both know you’re going to have to find yourself someone.”
Grinning, Max bit into her toast. They ate their way through breakfast in companionable silence. Since her father had cooked, she was on clean-up duty. Rolling up her sleeves, she piled the dishes in the sink and got to work. Her father settled down at the breakfast table with the crossword. A wave of affection swept over her as she watched him frown at the paperin ferocious concentration. Here was her one constant. Her anchor in the chaos and confusion that she often floundered in.
“What’s a five letter word for a fast, lean sailboat?’ The question jolted her out of her musings.
“Sloop?”
Grunting in acknowledgement, he scribbled it in. She was almost done with the dishes when he finished his crossword and stood to get ready for the day. Turning with one hand on the door, he said, “Max?”
“Yeah, dad?”
“I like him.”
Wiping the last spoon with all the careful precision required in neurosurgery, Max asked, “Why?”
“He’s steady. In life, you can do a lot worse than steady.” Whistling softly to himself, he let the door swing shut behind him.
Steady. Yes, he was. When he wasn’t rocking her world with those searing, passionate kisses. Steady, decent, reliable and with so much love inside him for the people who mattered to him. She wanted to be one of them. Desperately.
