Page 4 of Maximus

“Tex sent me.”

“What do you look like?”

“You trying to piss me off?” Max returned.

“No, of course not. I don’t know you. A girl can never be too safe.”

“Right. Is that why you leave work with your head bent looking at the pavement instead of your surroundings? Is that why you help mothers load groceries into their cars, uncaring it could be a ploy to kidnap you? Or, maybe you’re being safe when you don’t notice a man following you to an old woman’s house and he sits across the street and waits for you to leave for thirty minutes, and you still don’t notice. Yeah, Eva, you can never be too safe.”

“Forgot to tell you, he’s been in town a few days shadowing you.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

A chill ran down my spine. Tex wouldn’t go through all this trouble unless he was seriously worried.

“You on the phone with Tex?” Max asked from behind the still-closed door.

“Yes.”

“He tell you why I’m here?”

“Yes.”

“Then open up.”

“I don’t think I want to. You don’t sound very nice and you kinda scare me.”

“Lady, this is me being nice. I’m here to protect you, not play fucking games. Open the damn door.”

“Now I really don’t want to.”

“Eva, open the door. Max doesn’t have a lot of patience,” Tex said in my ear.

“Great,” I hissed.

I unhappily unbolted the door and opened it.

Then my breath caught, my body tingled, and awareness seared through me.

Fire and ice. That’s what Max was. Ice-cold blue eyes that still somehow glittered with fire. And there wasn’t a damn thing friendly about the way he looked. Which was odd because if he hadn’t been frowning at me with narrowed eyes, he would’ve looked like a Southern California surfer boy. Not that I’d ever been to California, and there certainly hadn’t been any surfers in Alaska where I’d grown up. But, I’d seen enough movies to know that Max Brown looked like he should be on the cover of a DVD case for a surf movie.

Did people even buy DVDs anymore, or Blu-rays for that matter? Weren’t all movies just streamed—

“Eva?”

“Shit. Sorry. I was…um…”

“Daydreaming.”

Now it was my turn to narrow my eyes on him. “No, I wasn’t,” I snapped.

“Right,” he drawled. “Is Tex still on the line?”

“Shit,” I muttered, the phone still up to my ear. “Sorry, Tex. Max is here.”

“Gathered that, Eva. Please let him in. Talk to him and I’ll call you back within the hour.”

“Fine.” God, I sound like an ungrateful bitch. “Sorry. Thank you for your help. I’ll wait for your call.”