Chapter 5 #2
Once again, she considered telling him the truth about Max being a prince.
But something held her back. Maybe she was afraid that the more people who knew, the easier it would be for someone to slip up and let the word out.
Since Max seemed so determined to keep his trip private, the least she could do was protect his secret.
She’d just washed her face and put on her pj’s when a knock sounded on the front door of her cottage.
The dozen or so employee houses were small but well built, with one bedroom off the great room and kitchen.
They were furnished with all modern appliances, supplies, and furniture.
The home had been sufficient for her and allowed her to stay close to the staff and the lodge so that she could make herself available for any needs that arose after hours.
After quitting school and returning from Colorado Springs with her tail tucked between her legs, she’d gotten tired of everyone dissecting her life and trying to figure out what had gone wrong and what she should do next.
She’d needed to step away and have some breathing space and had moved into an employee cottage.
As much as she loved her family, she liked having her own place, liked taking breaks from her brothers’ well-meaning meddling in her life, liked feeling responsible and grown-up, even though her family still treated her like a child sometimes.
She pulled an oversized sweatshirt over her pj’s and made her way to the door. As she peeked out the peephole, she drew in a quick breath at the sight of Max standing on her front stoop in the porch light.
She’d left his cabin an hour or so ago. What was he doing here now?
Had Tyler been right to be cautious? Did Max expect more from her?
As soon as that thought came, she shoved it aside. She could read people easily. Max was a good and decent guy. Her time with him today had proven how kind he was.
She opened the door. “Max? Is everything all right?”
He’d had his hands crossed behind his back and now brought them around to reveal a basket.
Inside was a French silk pie. She’d called the kitchen as soon as she’d arrived at her cottage and asked them to deliver one to Max.
It wasn’t a double chocolate, but it was homemade by their pastry chef and was excellent.
His expression was sheepish. “I was hoping you might consider joining me for a piece of pie.”
“It’s yours. You won it fair and square.”
“You deserve it too.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Please. I would love to have some help eating it.”
Winzig stood a dozen paces away in the shadow of another employee cottage.
“I’m sure Winzig would be happy to help you. And Braun—”
“Braun is too busy at the moment with his fantasy football league Zoom call.”
“Braun is in a fantasy football league?”
“What you call soccer.”
“But Braun?” The expert cashmere-scarf knitter? He was in a fantasy football—soccer—league?
Max cocked his head. “Are you doubting me?”
“I guess I didn’t expect him to have that interest.”
“Perhaps people are not always what they seem to be.”
Was he referring to himself?
“And Winzig”—Max nodded in the man’s direction—“claims he does not like French silk pie.”
Emberly released a pretend horrified gasp. “I guess you really do need some help.”
He bowed slightly. “I would be greatly honored to have your assistance.”
She knew she ought to tell him no. It was getting late, and she was ready for bed.
But after being ushered away from his cabin earlier by her brother, she couldn’t squelch the frustration that had been festering.
She was a twenty-five-year-old woman, for crying out loud.
She could decide for herself when to go home for the night.
And she could also decide that she wanted to eat pie with a man at 11:00 p.m.
She glanced behind her to her living room with the one sofa. She didn’t dare invite Max in. Not only was it against their ranch policy to bring guests into their living quarters, but she didn’t let other men—except for family—into her cottage. That had included Ryan when they’d been dating.
Her gaze shifted to the lodge through a thick strand of spruce that hid the employee cottages from the sight of the guests. They could eat at one of the patio tables behind the lodge. But the temperatures had dropped, and they would grow cold too easily.
She could take him up to the dining room. Even though it closed at eleven, she had keys to get in.
She reached for her coat and boots. “Let’s go eat pie.”
His lips curled up into a slow smile, relaxing his features and making him look more youthful.
As they walked to the lodge, he didn’t seem in a hurry and even stopped a couple of times to admire the waterfall in the moonlight. It was especially pretty in the winter, with parts of the cascading water having turned into sheets of ice.
When they reached the dining room, only a few of the staff were still there doing closing tasks.
In spite of her bravado, she didn’t want word getting back to her brothers about her late-night, pie-eating rendezvous with Max.
It wasn’t worth their censure. So she detoured into one of the private dining rooms and led him through the dark to a moonlit table near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river and waterfall.
While Winzig positioned himself outside the door, she and Max sat across from each other with the pie between them and ate right from the dish.
He had the thermos of decaf coffee she’d had delivered with the pie, and they sipped coffee out of crystal goblets, the only thing they could find in the room.
The conversation with him flowed easily, as it had the rest of the day.
He amused her with pranks he’d pulled during his college years, including letting mice loose in a classroom, tying the president’s shirt and pants to a flagpole, and hiding alarm clocks in dorm rooms and having them go off in the middle of the night.
She entertained him with stunts she’d participated in with her brothers while growing up, like the time they’d herded and trapped a bear in the corral, only to have it barrel through the fencing, breaking it into pieces.
When he mentioned a past girlfriend named Sarah, she asked him about his dating life.
He admitted to dating lots of women in his younger years, but over recent years, he’d been too busy with work and family responsibilities.
He claimed he wasn’t in a serious relationship, and when she pressed him for why he wasn’t yet married, he offered vague answers that made her realize it was a sensitive topic, one that he didn’t want to explain.
In turn, he asked her more about Ryan. She shared about all the things she’d thought they had in common and how they’d seemed like such a perfect fit.
Max was such a good listener that she found herself telling him about the McQuaid legacy of love, how the men in her family were lucky because they had inherited the ability to fall in love fast, furious, and forever with a passionate, deep, and enduring love that was totally consuming.
Her dad and mom had that kind of love. Tyler had found his legacy love with Kinsey. And Brock had done the same with Venus.
“I admit,” she said softly as she leaned back in her chair, “I wish I’d inherited the legacy of love too.”
“Perhaps you have.”
“No. It’s been passed down through the men.”
He twisted his empty goblet absently. The pie in the middle was almost half gone, their forks abandoned.
She wasn’t sure how long they’d been sitting there. Maybe an hour or more. She hadn’t glanced at her phone to check the time, but she guessed it was well past midnight.
“I cannot accept your reasoning, Emberly.” Max spoke in a low voice too. “A legacy of love is not a physical trait like eye color. Even if it were, why would the women in the McQuaid family not also have the gene?”
She shrugged. “From the way my dad explains it, the men have always been the ones to go particularly love-crazy over just one woman. He’s never mentioned that happening to the McQuaid women.”
“Then ’tis possible.”
“It didn’t happen with me and Ryan.”
“Perhaps you have yet to meet the one man who makes you love-crazy.”
She’d never considered the possibility that she might have the legacy of love running through her veins. But what if she did?
“Besides,” Max continued, “maybe the legacy is something that is passed on more through actions and example than by blood.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t know exactly how the legacy worked. All she knew was that it was something important among the men in her family.
“If your dad saw the way his dad passionately and deeply loved his wife, then he had an example of love to imitate.”
“I think you’re partly right. But I also believe that some people inherit a more emotional and passionate nature.”
“And you did not?”
“I don’t think so. Not in the same way as my dad and brothers.” She sighed. She’d always wanted to have the kind of marriage her parents had, but she’d despaired of finding someone who would ever measure up to her dad.
Max sat back in his chair and studied her through the moonlight. His eyes were especially dark and brooding at the moment. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and pressed his lips together.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Just be honest with me, Max. I can take it.”
He hesitated. “Very well. I believe you are making an excuse.”
“How so?”
“You are resigning yourself to mediocre relationships instead of accepting that relationships will only be—what did you say—as love-crazy as you are willing to make them.”
Was Max right? Had she resigned herself to a less-than-happy love life? At this point, she still wasn’t interested in any love life at all. Even though it had been months since her breakup with Ryan, she had no desire to get involved with anyone else.
“What about you and Sarah?” she asked. “Was that a mediocre relationship?”
He dropped his gaze to his goblet. “My situation is entirely different.”
“Oh, so you don’t have to work hard to make a relationship work?”
“I have pressures you cannot understand.”
“Now who’s the one making excuses?”
“No.” He pushed back from the table and stood abruptly. “You do not know what you are talking about.”
“Explain it.”
His body had grown visibly tense and his expression withdrawn. “You have no right to order me to do anything.”
“I see. You can lecture me on my relationships, but no one’s allowed to do the same to you?”
“I was not lecturing you.”
She stood now too, and hugged her arms to her chest. The room had grown colder, but it was his attitude that had decidedly lost its warmth. Should she try to reclaim the camaraderie, perhaps apologize?
But she hadn’t done anything wrong—only asked him to be as honest and vulnerable as she’d been with him. Did he think that, because he was a prince, he could require more of her than of himself?
If so, he was mistaken. He might be able to take that superior attitude with his subjects. But she wasn’t his subject. She was her own person with her own life and her own needs. She wanted to tell him as much, but in doing so, she would reveal that she knew about his royalty.
“I suppose it is getting late . . .” Max said as he stepped away from the table.
“Go ahead. Go.” She waved at the door. “But just so you know for the future, don’t dish out advice that you can’t stomach in return.” She couldn’t stop herself from at least speaking some of the truth.
He paused. Then he nodded before stalking across the room and out the door. She heard him speak tensely with Winzig before his footsteps lightly padded away.
When the hallway door to the stairwell clicked closed, she released a sigh and began to pick up the table, placing the pie, goblets, and thermos back into the basket.
As she started across the room through the darkness, a shadow stepped away from the door, and she let out a gasp. Winzig filled the doorway, and he didn’t look happy. “I will walk you home,” he said in accented English.
She was tempted to reply in German and tell him to go back to the prince and do his job—which he clearly wanted to do, even though it appeared that Max had ordered him to make sure she made it safely back to her cottage.
She didn’t need a protection agent any more than she’d needed Kade earlier. But it was kind of Max to show concern.
Perhaps she had become overly familiar with him.
After all, she’d never spent so much time with any one guest before.
His leaving so abruptly was a reminder that Max was only visiting the ranch and she was nothing more than his personal concierge.
She couldn’t forget it. And now that she’d offended him, maybe doing her job would be easier.