Chapter Seven

	"OK, 'fess up!" Mikki's voice was excited across the phone line.  "What's this
about you, dressed to the nines, and getting all cozy down at the river behind
Charmaine's with Michael Cunningham? And I have it on very good authority, so don't
try to deny it!"
	Max groaned into the phone. "News travels fast! Is nothing sacred around this
town?"
	"Not when it involves you," Mikki assured her.  "So?  What were you doing with
Michael Cunningham?"
	"We were having dinner, if you must know."
	"Dinner? Down by the river?"  Mikki's tone did nothing to hide her scepticism.
"Getting ready for desert is more like it, from what I hear."
	"I'm sure Jake exaggerated it all," Max said dryly, and Mikki chuckled.
	"Aha! So you admit it!" Mikki exclaimed, as if some major revelation had been
made, then she laughed again.  "But Michael Cunningham?  How did you manage
that?"
	"I don't know, you tell me!" Max said.
	"Me?"  Mikki was confused, and Max laughed out loud at last. 
	"Mikki, you're the one who set us up.  He called me weeks ago to book the date. 
Your neighbour's friend's nephew or something?"
	"My what?" Mikki was temporarily lost, then suddenly she gasped as her memory
flooded back.  "Oh! You mean Mrs. Anderson's niece’s cousin!"
	"Whatever," Max chuckled. "I couldn't keep track of what the connection was."
	"You mean it was Michael Cunningham?  God, Max, I had no idea!"
	"To tell you the truth, neither had I.  He introduced himself to me just as Michael,
and I didn't even know his last name until he introduced himself to Jake."
	The two friends laughed together as Max recounted a condensed version of the
events of the evening.  What she didn't tell her friend was that she'd called Jake the
minute she got back home, but he hadn't answered.   Now she knew why, of course. 
He'd dropped by Reese's to tell everyone she was making out with Michael Cunningham
behind Charmaine's!
	"And for your information," Max added. "We left right after Jake came along. 
Michael brought me home like a complete gentleman, said goodnight at the door, and
left, with my virtue intact."  Then she paused, and asked the question she'd been itching
to ask since she'd realized Jake had gone to the Kincaide's.  "So is Jake still there?"
	"He left a few minutes ago.  In fact, I got on the phone as soon as he was gone.
Why?"
	Max tried to sound casual.  "I just wondered if he was still spinning tales about
me," she said with a chuckle.  "He's good at that, you know," she said, although there
was no sign of anger in her voice, and she carefully changed the subject to Maddy.

	Jake sat in his truck outside Max's apartment and frowned.  She was in there,
that much he knew. He could see the light on in her living room. At least he knew she'd
made it home.  What he didn't know was whether or not she were alone. He looked
around in the dark but since he had no idea what Michael Cunningham drove, he didn't
even know what he was looking for. 
	His frown grew deeper as he glanced toward  the lighted window again. For all he
knew, Max and Cunningham could be in there finishing what they had started down by
the river at Charmaine's.  And he supposed if they were, it really wasn't any of his
business, which made him curse out loud and shift in his seat.  He was her friend, but he
wasn't her keeper!  Okay, so he felt it his duty at times to look out for her where other
men were concerned, but she'd asked him to help her escape from Ethan, and she'd
expressed a dislike of the way James acted.   This time it was different.  This time she'd
given him no indication that she wasn't perfectly happy with the way her evening with
Cunningham was progressing.  In fact, she'd looked just fine.  Hadn't she?
	He shot a glance at the window again. Would it hurt to just go check on her? If
everything turned out to be fine, he could just leave.  But suppose she'd invited
Cunningham up for coffee and  he was taking her invitation as more than she'd meant
it? A timely visit from a friend might be just what was needed.  
	Who am I kidding? Jake groaned and rested his head no the steering wheel if his
truck.  Max was a big girl.  She jogged regularly, played basketball, and even lifted
weights occasionally.  She even taught basic self defence to her students.  If
Cunningham made advances she wasn't willing to accept, she'd  be more than capable
of defending herself against him.  And if he were in there with her right now, Jake would
just be making  a fool of himself if he showed up at her door spying on her.  He already
felt like a fool for sitting outside her place just  thinking about it!
	"Jake?"
	He nearly jumped out of his skin as Max's soft yet questioning voice reached him
from just inches away.  He swung around to find her standing beside his truck looking at
him, and felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over him. 
	"Uh — Max!  Hi,"  he said, plastering a silly grin on his face.   She looked at him
curiously.
	"Jake, what are you doing out here?"  she asked, waving her hand absently
around the general vicinity of his truck.   "I looked out the window and I was sure it was
your truck parked out here.  How long have you been sitting out here in the dark?"
	He struggled to come up with a viable explanation to give her instead of blurting
out 'oh, I've been here for at least fifteen minutes, spying on you to see if you were
having a good time with Michael Cunningham'.  When nothing came to him, he grinned
even wider and shrugged. 
	"I was in the area and I thought I'd drive by just to see if you were home safe."
	She still looked confused.  "In the area?  I just talked to Mikki, she said you'd just
left her place.  They live on the other side of town. And so do you."
	"Yeah, well, uh —  I had to come over this way to pick something up so, you
know — "  his voice trailed off and he shrugged, hoping she wouldn't pursue the issue. 
He should have known she would.
	"Pick something up? At ten o'clock at night?"
	He tried to look surprised as he glanced at his watch.  "Is it that late already? Oh
my, how time flies!  I guess I'd better pick that — that thing up in the morning."
	Max shook her head at him in disbelief.  Jake was acting strange, but she wasn't
going to concern herself with that right now.  She was more worried about what he was
thinking.  "So, you weren't going to come in to see if I was home?"
	"No, no," Jake shook his head a little too quickly, trying to sound unconcerned. "I
saw your lights on, so I knew you were home."  But when Max just stared at him he
swallowed hard and blurted out his next comment. "I didn't want to interrupt anything if
you had company."
	"Jake!"  Max's brows shot up.  "That's it, isn't it?  You wanted to find out if I'd
brought Michael back home with me! Why you — you — " she glared at him, but even in
the moonlight he could see the glint in her eyes that told him she wasn't really angry with
him. "You're nothing but a snake, you know that!   How long have you been sitting out
here waiting to see if he'd come out?"
	Jake squirmed in his seat, and she laughed.  "That is what you were doing, isn't
it, Jake? You were spying on me!"
	"I was not!" he snapped back at her, then kicked himself for how defensive he
sounded.   Pouting, he glanced sideways at her.  "Well, I wasn't really spying.  I just —
well, after what happened with that Ethan guy — I just wanted to make sure you were
Okay."
	In the silence he saw her start to smile.  "So, you going to some in for a cup of
coffee?" she asked, almost winking at him.  He looked at her, about to refuse before he
made an even bigger fool out of himself, but she reached for the door handle on his
truck and nodded towards the building. "Come on.  I want to talk to you about tonight
anyway.  I want to explain."
	"You don't have to explain anything, Max," he said, as he got out of the truck and
followed her to the door. 
	"Yes, I do.  It'll make me feel better." She smiled back at him, and when she
looked at him like that, Jake decided he was in no state to argue.  Things had just gotten
completely out of hand since she asked him if he thought she were sexy, and the best
way to keep his dignity was going to be to just keep his mouth shut!
	And so he said nothing and just leaned on the counter in her kitchen and waited
for her to pour the coffee into an oversized mug she'd taken from the top shelf of the
cupboard.  He'd been in this kitchen before, lots of times.  He'd even helped her wash
dishes here. This time he couldn't take his eyes off the woman as she moved around
the kitchen getting the coffee ready.  He couldn't get the image of that deep red,
strapless dress out of his mind.  She wasn't wearing it now; she'd changed into plaid
boxer-style shorts and a T-shirt.  The shirt only reached to her waist, however, and when
she'd lifted her arms to reach the cup from the cupboard, he hadn't been able to keep
his eyes off her bare midriff. 
	"What are you looking at?" she asked, with a chuckle, when she caught him
staring at her.  
	"Nothing," he said, and hoped she hadn't noticed the croak in his voice.  She
laughed and shook her head, handing him his mug. 
	"You know, I didn't even know that Michael was a Cunningham until he told you
so tonight,"  she sat at the kitchen table and cupped her coffee mug with both hands.
	"No way!" Jake raised his brows. 
	She shook her head.  "He only ever introduced himself as Michael."
	"But you were on a date. How do you date a guy and not know his last name?"
	Max laughed. "I guess this is a first, huh?  At least for me!  Mikki set us up, it was
a blind date through somebody her neighbour knows or something.  She didn't even
know his last name either!  She cracked up tonight when I told her this was the blind
date of her doing."
	Jake took a sip of coffee and watched her over the rim of his mug.  Clearly she
wasn't finished talking. She had that look in her eyes that he knew meant she was deep
in thought and  trying to decide how to approach the rest of what she wanted to say.  He
sipped and waited. At last she lifted her eyes to him looking very apologetic. 
	"I'm sorry I backed out on you at the last minute tonight," she said.
	He raised his brows again.  His instinct was to razz her about it incessantly but
the look in her eyes silenced him.  "It wasn't a big deal, really."
	"Oh, but it was!" she insisted.  "You're my friend, we count on each other, and
we'd made plans.  I feel really bad about what I did.  It's just that, when he showed up at
the door I was in such shock, I didn't want to hurt his feelings by letting him know I'd
forgotten all about the date."
	Jake sputtered in his coffee.  "Forgotten?"  he asked in curious disbelief.  This
was getting more and more interesting every minute!  Maybe he was going to have no
choice but to start teasing her about this after all!
	She was the one pouting this time.  "Yes. Completely forgotten.  He'd called me
weeks ago, and we'd set it up to go out tonight, but when he showed up I wasn't ready.  I
answered the door in scruffy old jeans and a T-shirt and I just kind of stared at him
wondering who on earth he was and what he was doing standing there at my door."
	Jake threw back his head and laughed, unable to hold back any longer. "That
must have been a sight!  Wish I'd been a fly on the wall for that.  What did you tell him?"
	She shot him a glance that told him she didn't appreciate his laughter, but deep
down inside he knew she didn't mind it at all.  "I didn't let on that I'd forgotten!  Once I
realized who he was, I told him I'd been delayed getting home and I'd go and get ready."
	"Kept him waiting, huh?  Good first impression."
	Max chuckled. "I've never gotten ready for anything so fast before in my life!  I
was ready to go in ten minutes flat!"
	Jake studied her.  He imagined her bare shoulders, and long slender legs, and
the dark red dress.  He pictured her hair, and how beautiful her face had looked.  That
she could have created such a transformation in less than ten minutes didn't surprise
him at all.  This woman  could do anything.  But as he looked at her the way she was
dressed now,  he knew she'd have looked beautiful even before she'd changed.  
	"So he was impressed then."
	"I suppose so," she said, casually.
	"You suppose so?  Max, how could he not be impressed?  You fly into your
bedroom   in rags and come out ten minutes later looking like a Goddess and you don't
think that would impress him?"
	Max blushed and giggled.  "Come on Jake, I didn't look like a Goddess!"
	You did to me, he thought, but didn't say a word.  He merely lifted one eyebrow
and sipped on his coffee.  She wrinkled up her nose, but her smile radiated across her
whole face.  At last he set the mug down and took a step toward her, crossing his arms
across his chest. 
	"So, you dumped me instead of him, because you didn't want to hurt his
feelings?"
	She swallowed, and looked at him with a hopeful expression.  "That's about it. 
Jake, I knew you'd understand once I explained it to you later.  Of course, I didn't expect
you to come jogging along the Grange River just as we were standing there, either. 
That was a little awkward."
	"Was it?"  he asked, one side of his mouth curling upward.  "Just a little?"
	Max caught sight of a smoky haze in Jake's dark eyes and felt her breath catch
in her throat.  He was playing with her now, she knew, like a cat played with its prey. 
"Yeah, just a little," she said, breathlessly. 
	His lip curled more.  "Then I must have been off my game tonight.  I meant it to
be much more than a just little awkward."
	She gasped as she stared at him, then blushed when he winked at her.  "You
snake!" she said,  laughing, and tossed a pot holder at him.  He broke into a full grin and
caught the offending item easily.  "You were making it very difficult for me."
	He nodded.  "Turn about is fair play," he announced, taking another step closer.
	"Turn about for what?" She asked.
	"Why, for asking me if I thought you were sexy, my dear!" he said, the laughter
now flooding his eyes.  "In case you didn't notice, I took quite the tumble off the treadmill
with that one!  It was the last thing I ever expected to come out of your mouth!"
	She stared at him, then as the image of him tripping to the floor came back to
her, she began to laugh.  "Oh Jake! I'm sorry!"  She brought one hand to her mouth and
held her stomach with the other as she shook her head and laughed. 
	"Oh, so now you laugh at me for it!" he said, but he was laughing with her.  "You
never thought it was funny before this?"
	She shook her head again.  "I guess I wasn't paying much attention.  It was kind
of funny, wasn't it?"
	"Yeah," he agreed, looking down at her.  When she looked up, their eyes met,
and the pause that followed seemed to last forever, until she blushed and looked away. 
	"So, what were you really doing sitting outside my place tonight?" she asked at
last. 
	He sighed.  Since it seemed to be the night for confessions he might as well tell
her the truth.  Or at least a good portion of the truth anyway.  "I just wanted to make sure
you were home safely," he said softly.  "I suppose I had no right to be, but I was worried
about you."
	Jake was completely unprepared for the look he saw on her face when their eyes
met again.  The laughter was gone, replaced by something that resembled appreciation,
he supposed.  Whatever it was, it drew him to her like a magnet, but he stood solid.  
After all the thoughts he'd been having about her since she'd asked him that damn
question, there was just no way he was going to get any closer to her than he was. 
Already the two paces between them seemed way too close! The room seemed to close
in on him and he told himself to back away, but he couldn't move.
	And then it happened.  Max got up off her chair, crossed those two paces, and
threw her arms around him.  And he was completely unprepared for that too!  For a few
seconds he just stood there with his hands suspended in mid air.  Instinct had been to
wrap his arms around her like hers were around him, but he'd stopped himself just in
time.  The thing was, now his hands hovered there and he was left feeling stupid and
didn't know what to do about it. But when she pressed her cheek against his shoulder
and whispered something about him being 'the best', his resolve broke, and his hands
found themselves resting firmly against her back.
	As soon as his arms closed around her, Jake felt her snuggle even closer to him,
and  he knew that the longer she stayed there the more likely he was to make a move
he was going to regret. He stood perfectly still and listened to her breathing.  He was
waiting for her to pull away again, lift her head to smile at him, and make some joking
comment about something. 
	But she didn't, and before he knew it his arms tightened around her. He let out a
sigh of defeat, and closed his eyes, taking in the scent of her hair.  He was a lost man,
and he knew it.  The future was in her hands, and all he was capable of doing was hope
that she moved soon.