Fortune's Perfect Match Read online

“And you’re not nervous?”

  “Ask me on Thursday.” His lips tilted. “Brandi claims I’ll be fine. I’ve sailed through all the practice tests. As long as I keep myself focused, I feel prepared.”

  Focus. She supposed things kept coming back to that particular point for a reason. She was supposed to be brilliant at remaining focused. “And after you have your instrument rating? What then?”

  “Then I see what the day brings. Keep working for Tanner if I’m lucky. Register for more college classes.”

  Her brother-in-law had told her just that morning that he was extremely satisfied with the work Max was doing. But Max was already touchy about the fact that she was related to Tanner. Telling Max that Tanner had spoken to her about him wouldn’t help, even if what Tanner had said was completely positive. “Why wouldn’t you keep working for him?”

  Max just gave a grimace. “At this point, I’ve learned it’s dangerous counting on much of anything. Lost a good job a few years ago and it had nothing to do with me personally at all.”

  She frowned, feeling like something was slipping right through her fingers, and she wasn’t even sure what it was, much less how to stop it. “Doesn’t all that uncertainty get to you?”

  “It’s not uncertainty. It’s just life. My life, anyway.” He shrugged. “Gotta roll with the punches. Clichéd maybe, but still true.”

  “So you’ll take college classes that you may not even really be interested in?” The idea was a little bewildering. “For what purpose?”

  “Keep inching toward a business degree. Sooner or later I’ll get there, even if I’m fifty by that time.”

  She studied his face. Saw determination but not much of anything else. Certainly not the sheer confidence or passion that was there when he’d flown them to that little airfield. “That sort of perseverance is admirable. And it’s not that I have anything against business degrees—” she had an MBA of her own “—but if flying is what sets you on fire, why not pursue that?”

  But he still didn’t answer. Just tugged at a lock of her hair and gave that wry smile of his. “Think you’re the one Tanner should have on his payroll pushing his flight school.”

  She swallowed her mounting frustration and let the matter drop. “Well, he doesn’t need me when he’s got you. I’m just handy for some extra ideas.”

  “Speaking of which, we’ve still got to get together about the website and stuff.”

  “Right.” Even though she was perfectly willing and happy to show him everything she could, she still couldn’t help wishing that he would talk instead about getting together for entirely personal reasons.

  Only it was becoming increasingly evident to her that he was not going to do that.

  Maybe what happened between them hadn’t mattered as much to him as it had to her. Or maybe that’s just what she deserved when she hadn’t been completely forthright with him about her intention to become a parent.

  She turned slightly toward the parking lot. “Give me a call when you have some time in your schedule.”

  “Hey.” He caught her hand, pulling her back around. “You’re not running off that quick.”

  Just that easily, her heart started flitting crazily around inside her chest. “You wanted to get to your paperwork,” she reminded.

  “I have to get to it,” he corrected. His knuckles nudged her chin until she was looking up at him. Only when she was, did he nod. “Better.” He pressed a soft, lingering kiss on her lips. When he lifted his head and stepped back, she felt positively weak-kneed. “Be careful driving back to Wendy’s.”

  She nodded wordlessly. She simply didn’t know what to make of the man or the feelings he roused in her. She turned again toward the lot where her car was only one of a few still parked there. She wasn’t even halfway when her feet started dragging.

  She couldn’t leave like this.

  She had to say something. Anything that would let him know that whatever happened in the future, this day had mattered to her.

  She stopped and whirled around. “Max—” But all of the urgency that had bubbled up inside her went flat.

  She’d expected to see him still watching her, but her eyes didn’t find anything behind her at all except the office door swinging closed.

  She exhaled, clutched the daisies to her chest and turned once more toward the car.

  She didn’t even realize until she was nearly at Wendy’s home that there were tears sliding down her cheeks.

  Chapter Ten

  “Well? How was it?”

  Emily kept her gaze on the screen of her laptop sitting open on the kitchen table in front of her and continued rapidly typing out her usual Monday morning briefing to her assistant, Samantha, and the rest of her staff back in Atlanta. “How was what?”

  Wendy huffed and yanked out one of the kitchen chairs, sitting down across from Emily. She propped MaryAnn’s diapered bottom on the table and wriggled her bare little feet. “Auntie Emily is playing dumb,” she told the baby. “And Mommy isn’t buying it for a second.”

  Emily finished typing her sentence and looked over the computer at her sister. “I am working here.”

  “Then go do it in an office somewhere if you don’t want me interrupting,” Wendy returned rapidly. “Otherwise, this is my kitchen and I get to ask whatever questions I want.”

  Emily sighed, pressed the command to send her lengthy message and closed the laptop. She looked at her sister. “It’s getting on your nerves, me staying here like this.”

  Wendy’s brows pulled together. “Now you’re really being dumb.” She reached across the table, squeezing Emily’s hand. “I feel like this is the first time you’ve ever really recognized me as an adult. And I love having you here.”

  Emily eyed Wendy. “MaryAnne or not, you and Marcos are still newlyweds.”

  Wendy smiled slyly. “Believe me. We still manage to act like newlyweds whether you know it or not.”

  Emily groaned a little. “I don’t want to know about your sex life.”

  “Well, I want to know about yours.” Wendy covered MaryAnne’s ears and grinned. “You slept with him, didn’t you, you slept with Max yesterday.”

  The house had been empty when Emily arrived home the evening before; both Marcos and Wendy at Red and MaryAnne being minded by Victoria, one of their cousins who’d also recently transplanted herself to Red Rock. “There wasn’t any sleeping involved,” Emily murmured.

  Wendy crowed, took MaryAnne’s little hands in hers and clapped them together. “Yay,” she said into her daughter’s giggling face. “Yay!”

  “I seriously think you need to remember what’s appropriate content where your daughter is concerned,” Emily deadpanned.

  Wendy just smiled more widely than ever. “Teaching MaryAnne to cheer,” she assured. “So she’ll know what to do when Marcos takes her to her first ball game. Isn’t that right, my beautiful girl?” She clapped MaryAnne’s hands together and the baby chortled and kicked her legs wildly.

  Emily watched them, the ache inside her a physical thing. “How soon can you take a home pregnancy test?”

  Wendy’s eyebrows skyrocketed as she quickly looked at Emily. “I think a day or two after your first missed period. At the earliest. As I recall, a week is the preferred wait. Why are you asking? Dr. Grace is going to test you in a few weeks anyway, isn’t she?”

  Emily nodded and pushed restlessly away from the table. She went to one of the cupboards and pulled out a coffee mug, only to put it back and pour herself a glass of water, instead. “I just think maybe my hormones are…running amuck. And you did say that when you were pregnant, you were, well, more easily—” She broke off.

  Wendy was grinning, clearly relishing Emily’s inarticulate moment. She held up one finger. “Horny,” she said. “But just hold that thought, would you? I have got to call Jordana. She’ll never forgive me if she’s not in on this.”

  “Wendy!”

  But her sister was already carrying MaryAnne out of the kitchen, obviou
sly set on her mission.

  She wished she’d never opened her mouth and wondered how on earth she could work herself out of it.

  The short answer was, she couldn’t.

  Barely ten minutes later, she was facing down both of her younger sisters. And Jordana, whose six-months-pregnant stomach was testing the limits of the sleeveless yellow T-shirt she was wearing, sweet, shy Jordana, was even more merciless than Wendy had been.

  “You think the only reason you had such a spectacular—” she glanced at MaryAnne, who was now sitting happily in her playpen waving a plastic block around her head “—time with Max, is because you might be pregnant?”

  Emily crossed her arms, her chin lifting defensively. “Well, couldn’t it? I’ve never, I mean never felt like that with anyone else.”

  Wendy covered her eyes, muffling her laughter and leaning back in her chair so far that Emily thought she might tip over. Of course, Emily could always push the chair leg and make her tip over. The thought was more than a little tempting.

  Jordana was laughing a little, too, though her gaze was a whole lot more sympathetic. “Do you ever consider that it might be the man himself you were reacting to? Maybe you really like Max more than you want to admit.”

  “Of course I like Max! He’s intelligent and funny and doesn’t give himself nearly as much credit as he should.” Emily paced the length of the kitchen cabinets, handed MaryAnne the block she’d tossed out of her playpen, and paced back again. She plopped down on her chair. “If I hadn’t liked him I wouldn’t have…you know.”

  “She wasn’t wearing a bra under her blouse,” Wendy told Jordana as if Emily weren’t sitting right there. “She was still wearing her robe and pj’s when you and Tanner were here for breakfast. But when she left the house to meet him, she was wearing that white peasant number of mine that I bought a few years ago in Milan.”

  “Ah.” Jordana’s gaze slid back to Emily. “So…you went flying with Max already thinking it might lead to a close-up visit with the horizontal.”

  “I did not,” she denied, completely without a speck of truth, whatsoever. “I just borrowed the blouse from Wendy because she has some prettier things than I do.”

  “Sexier things,” Wendy corrected.

  Jordana nodded, plucking at her own simple maternity top. “Well, that’s true enough. She always paid more attention to her wardrobe than we did.”

  “I just didn’t want to look like I was going to a business meeting at FortuneSouth,” Emily muttered.

  “Well, you succeeded,” Wendy assured humorously.

  Emily gestured at Wendy. “And if you’d have had a strapless bra that would have fit without me having to use a few boxes of tissue as stuffing, I would have worn one!”

  “Anyway,” Jordana interrupted, “as I was saying, maybe you really like Max more than you want to admit.”

  “And I’ve already admitted I liked him,” Emily said impatiently.

  “What Jordana’s trying to tactfully suggest is that you might be falling in love with Max,” Wendy said bluntly. “Which frankly, I could have told you days ago.”

  Emily’s chair scooted back with a screech as she shot to her feet. “That’s ridiculous.”

  She saw the look her sisters exchanged.

  “Is it?” Jordana asked quietly. “Emily, in all of my life, I’ve never seen you so worked up over anything. Not even getting our father to recognize that you were more than capable of heading up the advertising department at FortuneSouth.”

  “Worked up.” Emily latched on to the phrase. It not only described the way Max made her feel, it would explain her crying the whole drive home from the airport, even though she’d had nothing to cry about. “That’s it exactly. That could be pregnancy hormones. Right?”

  Jordana’s lips parted. She was eying Emily as if she’d lost her mind.

  “For heaven’s sake, Emily,” Wendy exclaimed. “Would you just look beyond this mommy project of yours for a few minutes?”

  Emily’s chest felt tight. “But all I want is a baby!”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t have more,” Jordana pointed out gently.

  “With Max?” Emily laughed, and even to her own ears it sounded a little wild. “I can’t even tell him about my plans because he’d bolt. He still hasn’t gotten over giving up Anthony.” She pointed at Jordana. “And he doesn’t even think he should see me at all because you’re married to his boss.”

  “Obviously he doesn’t think it really hard, considering he’s taken you out several times.”

  “Not several times,” Emily argued.

  “Red.” Wendy immediately took up Jordana’s point and held up her hand, ticking off her fingers.

  “That was business.”

  “You danced,” her youngest sister fired back. “That ain’t business, honey child.” She ticked off a second finger. “Etienne’s.” She ticked off a third. “Pizza at his place.”

  “That was the same night as Etienne’s,” Emily reminded.

  “Two meals,” Jordana said quickly. “I’d say that counts as two dates.”

  “Particularly when she didn’t come in until after midnight,” Wendy added. “Plus, she was wearing his clothes! And then flying yesterday.” She held up her four fingers and waved them triumphantly over her head, much the same way that MaryAnne was waving her plastic blocks. “It would take most people six months before they’d spent as much time together as you and Max have.”

  “And that’s not adding in the hours you’ve spent with him at the flight school,” Jordana added.

  “For business,” Emily reminded doggedly.

  “Yeah, but Tanner’s commented a few times about how cozy the two of you have looked, hunched together over Max’s computer in that cramped office of his.”

  “He’s the one who wanted me to meet with Max!”

  “And we all know he never expected you to put in more than a few hours with him. Instead, you’ve spent days with him.”

  Emily could feel her molars clenching together. “Just because the two of you are head over heels gaga for your husbands does not mean that I am head over heels for Max.”

  “Who in your entire life have you dated more than twice?” Jordana asked, starting to look a little impatient herself.

  Emily pressed her lips together. Because the truth was, besides Max, she’d never dated anyone more than twice, including the other two men she’d slept with. And considering her particularly explosive experiences with Max, it made her vague recollection of those other men so anemic in comparison they might as well have never existed.

  “What good would it do to fall for him?” she asked her sisters. “He’s never going to let himself fall for me!”

  “Ah, honey.” Jordana got up and pretty much waddled around the table. She cupped Emily’s cheek. “Why on earth wouldn’t he?”

  Emily stared at Jordana. “I just want to know if I’m pregnant,” she complained huskily. “That’s all I want to know.” She was afraid that was all she could deal with right now.

  “But you’re just going to have to wait!” Wendy got up from the table, too, and came around to stand next to Emily. “So in the meantime, couldn’t you please at least entertain the idea that the connection you feel to Max has everything to do with him, and nothing to do with that vial of Ivy League, Mensa-quality sperm you picked out? What you’re feeling could be caused by emotion,” Wendy pointed out, as if she were talking to a child, “and not pregnancy hormones.”

  Emily stared back at her sisters and slowly shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted with painful honesty. “My mommy project, as you call it, is something I can control. If step one doesn’t work, I move on to step two. And three and four and five.” She had every option already outlined, right down to having the paperwork for foreign adoptions all ready to be filed, if she exhausted every possibility of conceiving, herself.

  “Emily,” Jordana said, “your single-minded ability to pursue something is as scary as it is im
pressive. But love doesn’t work that way. And maybe, just maybe, the reason why you’re feeling so panicked about Max is that somewhere in that overachieving mind of yours, you’re realizing that fact yourself. You can’t put your heart in a spreadsheet, honey. You can’t sit down and outline steps one and two through five or five hundred to help you negotiate your way through loving someone.” She lifted her shoulders, her brown eyes steady and filled with an abiding confidence that had only been there since she and Tanner had fallen in love. “For that, you’re just going to have to put your heart out there.”

  Emily felt a burning deep behind her eyes. “And if I end up the only one with my heart dangling in the breeze?”

  “That’s a chance we all take.”

  She looked at her two sisters. Live-wire, creative Wendy, who was the perfect complement to Marcos’s Latino passion. And gentle, brilliant Jordana, who was clearly yin to Tanner’s former military yang.

  Could she ever be that sort of perfect fit for Max, and he for her?

  The thought was more terrifying than she wanted to admit.

  Not because she didn’t want it.

  But because, no matter what she told her sisters, she was starting to suspect that she did.

  “How am I going to get through the next few weeks until I can take that test?”

  Wendy shook her head slightly. Shared a frustrated look with Jordana. “While there are times when I really envy your ability to focus on the future, I can tell you that you need to stop looking so hard at what’s up ahead and start enjoying what’s going on in the here and now.”

  “See what the day brings?” Emily murmured. Max’s words.

  Wendy and Jordana both looked surprised. Then relieved. As if Emily had finally grasped some of their point.

  “Exactly.”

  * * *

  The day didn’t bring Max. Nor did the next.

  Emily did everything she could think of to fill her days. To do that whole “live for the moment” thing and stop worrying about what she couldn’t control. She took MaryAnne for walks in her stroller, found a pretty park and held her on her lap as she sat in one of the swings, swaying back and forth. She called a Realtor and visited several condominiums, and even a pretty house on a hill that was near Max’s neighborhood and already possessed a wonderful little nursery. She dealt with matters at the office, and sat in on conference calls, made notes and decisions. She called her mother and listened to Virginia Alice’s lilting voice as she described every detail of a garden party she was throwing for one of the charities she supported. She even tried her hand at making a batch of pastries with Wendy in the kitchen at Red while the rest of the restaurant was still and quiet.