Page 27 of Second to None
When he reached for the handle of the dishwasher, Emily grabbed his wrist. “Nope, you’re a guest.”
For a moment, she felt his pulse beat against her fingertips, making her own stutter and speed up. Max didn’t move, so she held on to him, her fingers looking small and delicate against the swell of muscle in his forearm. When he lifted his gaze to hers, she was reminded of the way the firelight had reflected heat in his eyes. Except here in the kitchen, there was only the steady electric light of the brass fixture over their heads.
“You let me load the dishwasher seven years ago,” he said.
“Things were different at Lejeune.” He wasn’t a billionaire with a charitable foundation that had made a major donation to fund her project.
“I’m the same person,” he said.
She shook her head as she listed just the differences she could see. The strength of his jaw, the honed muscle of his shoulders, the confidence in his stride, the expensive fabrics of his clothing. “You were ... younger then. So was I. We’ve both changed.”
He lowered his gaze to their hands. “Some things have changed.”
She let go of his wrist as though she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Yet there was no reason to feel guilty about touching him.
As she started to move away, he captured her hand. “Change can be good,” he said.
*
Max put his fork down on his empty dessert plate and sat back in the dining-room chair. “Izzy, if you become a chemist, the world will mourn the loss of a great pastry chef.”
Izzy broke into a grin, revealing a gap where a tooth was missing. She was a cute kid with Jake’s blue eyes and Emily’s tip-tilted smile. Her personality veered more toward Jake’s outgoing, what-you-see-is-what-you-get nature, but maybe that was just the frankness of childhood. Of course, Emily had been less guarded seven years ago; loss had wrapped a shell of reserve around her.
“Violet says that baking is chemistry,” Izzy said, “so maybe I could be both. As long as I get to design my own chemist clothes.”
The little imp was smart, too. “I may ask you to designmychemist clothes,” Max said.
Emily gave a snort of a laugh. “I’m picturing you in orange-and-purple polka dots.”
“Mo-o-o-m, I wouldn’t put polka dots on Mr. Varela’s clothes. He’s more stripes.”
Max imagined a lab filled with Izzy-created hazmat suits. It would brighten the place up. The thought reminded him that his lab would be in Chicago, and he shifted in his chair. “I was hoping for plaid,” he said.
Emily laughed and turned to Izzy. “Okay, sweetie, you’re excused to go watch your movie. You don’t have to clear the table.”
“Yay!” Izzy scooted out from her chair and walked over to Max. “It was nice to meet you. Thank you again for my flowers.” Then she stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. The innocence of the gesture pulled at something in his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been kissed by a child.
As she trotted across the living room, he said, “She’ll be baking pies for presidents and kings one day. Or else she’ll be CEO of V-Chem.”
“She’s also considering Supreme Court justice or fashion designer,” Emily said with a wry smile. “Do you remember those days when anything seemed possible?”
He turned his empty wineglass by its stem. He remembered coming home to find his mother and father sitting in some junker of a car with all their meager belongings already loaded because they’d gotten evicted yet again. “My memories tend in the other direction. I was willing to do anything at all merely to change my life. I didn’t aspire to the heights Izzy does.”
“And yet you climbed those heights,” Emily said. “You’re beyond successful.” Then she shied away from the topic. “By the way, you didn’t mention to Izzy that you put on the body armor right after Jake and had Novak shoot at you, too. Jake told me.”
What even Jake didn’t know was that Max had taken the body armor to a shooting range the day before Jake’s test and braced himself while a retired police sniper had fired at him. Voluntarily staring into the black hole of a gun barrel pointed at him was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. However, there was no way he would let anyone risk using his creation before he’d tested it himself. It was like a chef not eating his own cooking. Max had the sudden thought that Izzy would always eat her own cooking, which made him smile.
“I can tell by that smile there was something more,” Emily said. “What else didn’t you mention?”
Max shook his head. He didn’t want to look into the past anymore tonight. “Just recalling some of Jake’s more unrepeatable comments on what it felt like when the bullets hit him.”
“You know, it’s nice to talk about Jake with someone who knew him well. Up here no one but Aunt Ruthie had ever met him. And now she’s gone. Thank you for indulging Izzy and me with the stories,” Emily said, her eyes liquid pools of tears. But she was smiling—a soft, nostalgic smile.
Not the way he wanted the conversation to head. He reached for Izzy’s plate to stack on his, but Emily said, “Let’s leave all this and sit by the fire. I can tidy up later.”
“I can carry a few dishes into the kitchen to save you the work,” he said.
“No, let’s have some port—or brandy, if you prefer—and stare into the flames.” She rose and dropped her napkin on the table.
