Lola dropped her hands. “Of course.”

“I need to get your okay for these purchases,” she said, and placed a manila folder on the desk.

Lola opened the folder and glanced over the list of office supplies. Her first question to herself was, Why is Rose bothering me with this? The answer came almost before she finished the question. Because you like to control all aspects of your business, everything from strategies and goals to paper clips. She closed the folder before she’d even begun to look it over. She’d hired good competent people, and the business she’d started herself didn’t need her so much anymore. It had taken getting stranded on the Dora Mae to see that she didn’t need to control everything.

“This looks fine,” she said. There had been a time when buying supplies had been tight, but those days were long past. She didn’t need to hold so tight anymore. “You’re a competent woman. That’s why I hired you. You don’t need me to okay printer ink and copying paper.”

A comical mix of confusion and relief washed across Rose’s face. “Are you sure you don’t want to look it over?”

“I’m sure.”

“Are you feeling okay?” Rose asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

“You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

Rose didn’t know the half of it. No one did. No one knew the real truth. No one but her and Max. The first few days she’d stayed at her parents‘, she’d confided a bit to them. She told them that Max had been with her on the Dora Mae, but she hadn’t told them everything. She hadn’t mentioned that he’d kidnapped her. She’d left out a lot of the details because they were worried enough without knowing she’d almost died three times in the space of those few days.

The story she’d given to the press had only been a light version of the truth. The day she’d been released from the hospital, she’d stood before reporters and told them she’d been stranded on a tour boat in the Atlantic. Nothing more.

“I’m fine,” she answered Rose, but she wasn’t sure that was true, or rather it was true, only a different truth than she was used to. Which made no sense and meant she’d obviously lost her mind. This time Lola managed a more genuine smile. “Thank you.”

The heels of Rose’s pumps echoed on the hardwood floor as she left the room. She shut the door behind her, and Lola put her elbows on the desk and held her face in her hands.

Even before her release from the hospital in Key West, she’d been visited by two very official-looking gentlemen who’d impressed upon her the need for secrecy. They’d appealed to her patriotism and self-preservation. They could have saved themselves the trip and a lot of breath. She wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t need the FBI or CIA or anyone to tell her that her life might depend on her keeping the details of where she’d been, what she’d seen, and whom she’d seen it with to herself. She knew she couldn’t talk about it to anyone. No one but Max, but she couldn’t talk to him because she didn’t know how to reach him, and he hadn’t contacted her.

Lola blew out a deep breath and reached for her desk calendar. Before she’d left for the Bahamas, she’d written out her schedule for the next four months. The days were filled with meetings and lunches. Some of them important, some of them trivial. None of them life-or-death.

She looked up. Maybe that was it. Maybe her life just felt anticlimactic now. Now that she was no longer in danger and had no need of a big strong man to save her, perhaps her life just felt dull.

At ten past three, Lola grabbed her shoes and matching red clutch and headed for her three-thirty appointment at her favorite day spa/beauty salon. Once there, she got a deep muscle massage and a herbal wrap, her eyebrows plucked, fingernails cut and buffed to a shine, and she had little white and yellow daisies painted on her pink polished toenails.

When her nails were finished, she looked at herself in the mirror and ordered her hair cut- short. She chose highlights the color of butter to be woven throughout, and when she was through, loose blond curls touched the back of her neck and the tops of her ears. The cut made her eyes look huge and dramatic. She ran her fingers through the soft curls and smiled. For some reason, she felt like herself, whoever that was.

The second she drove her BMW into her garage, Baby let out a series of yaps from inside the condo. He jumped up and down when she walked in and followed at her heels as she set several sacks of groceries and a bouquet of peach tulips and white roses on the kitchen counter. Today, Baby was dressed in his bad to the t-bone tank, and she took him into her arms and scratched between his ears. “What do you think of the hair?” she asked. He licked her cheek and wiggled with excitement. “You’re such a stylin‘ dog, I knew you’d like it.”

The telephone rang, and it wasn’t until she recognized her mother’s voice once more reminding her of the Carlyle family reunion that she realized she’d been hoping it was Max-again. But it wasn’t, and her disappointment blossomed into anger.

Her anger stayed with her during the five-minute conversation, and when she finally hung up, she stepped out of her red shoes and carefully slid the lignum vitae off the back of her heel. She wanted nothing more than to forget Max Zamora, and she placed the twisted branch on top of her refrigerator.

She fed Baby his special low-fat food and set his special Wedgwood plate on the hardwood floors she’d had installed shortly after she’d signed the mortgage.

She’d purchased the condo a year ago, paying a little over half a million for it, and all because she and Baby had fallen in love with the backyard. It resembled a small English garden, with a fountain of a nymph on a clamshell, and had plenty of space for the doghouse/castle she’d had built for Baby.

She’d been less impressed with the interior and had it gutted and redecorated with the same vibrant shades of lavender, pink, and green that were found outside. Like her office downtown, it was feminine, a bit fussy, but cozy.

On her way upstairs to change out of her red dress, the front doorbell rang and she retraced her steps. She expected to see her daddy standing there, relief softening his worried brown eyes as he saw for himself that his thirty-year-old little girl really was all right.

She swung the door open and froze, a half-formed welcome for her overprotective father on her lips. It wasn’t who she expected, or rather it was who she’d expected days ago. At the sight of Max standing on her welcome mat, funny little butterflies fluttered about in her stomach and just beneath her heart.

His familiar face stared back at her, only cleanshaven and the cut on this forehead was now just a thin red line. The masculine lines of his jaw and cheekbones were more perfect than she remembered, perhaps because the bruises had disappeared and the swelling was gone. But his mouth was just the same. Wide and perfect.

A pair of black Ray Bans covered his eyes, but she didn’t need to see them to know they were the color of the Caribbean. And she didn’t need to see them to know he slid his gaze down her body. She felt it clear to the soles of her feet. It touched her here, lingered there, the warmth of it pooling everywhere. He wore a white dress shirt tucked into a pair of chinos. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up his forearms, and he’d strapped on a silver wristwatch.

In one hand, he held a thin box about the length of a pencil wrapped up in pink paper and ribbon. The last time she’d seen him, he’d given her a brief wave before getting into a car and speeding away.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “I like your toes,” he said.

Lola didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Throw her arms around him and kiss him all over his handsome face or punch him on the jaw. He hadn’t even bothered to call since they’d been back. She’d expected better, especially since they’d made love. Then again, she’d had to cajole him into it, and if that wasn’t galling enough, she wasn’t certain she wouldn’t do it again.

Years of practiced restraint and generations of southern pose and breeding came to her rescue. She leaned a shoulder into the doorjamb, folded her arms beneath her breasts, and raised a brow. “Are you lost?” she inquired, as cool as a frosty glass of Coca-Cola.

The other side of his mouth slid up. “No, ma’am. I don’t get lost, just a little blown off course occasionally.”

Chapter 12

From the rear of the house, Baby darted through the living room and entry, barking as if he were on the hot trail of a cat. He ran between Lola’s feet, through the door, and hopped around on his back legs in front of Max.

Lola straightened as Max bent down and picked up her dog with his free hand.

“Hey, B. D.,” he said, and held him up for inspection. “What in the hell are you wearing?”

“His silk tank.”

“Uh-huh.” He turned him to the side. “Except for that sissy shirt, he looks pretty good. Any problems since he’s been back?”

Lola chose to ignore the disparaging fashion commentary. “His vet said he has a slight bladder infection and his immune system is a little weak, but he’ll be okay as soon as he finishes all his medication.”

Max glanced up from Baby. “What about you? How are you, Lola?”

Now, there was a question. Her heartbeat a little too hard in her chest, and she suddenly felt a little short of breath. She spread her arms wide as if she were perfectly fine. “I went into the office today.”

“I like your hair.”

“Thank you.” She brushed several loose curls behind her ears and looked behind him at the black Jeep parked by her curb. “Is that yours?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“I figured you for a guy who’d drive a Hummer.”