He reached up to ruffle her short, dark curls. “Yours smells better than hers did.”
She pulled back, looked at him with narrowed eyes. “How do you know how hers smells?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “I don’t want to play the comparison game.” It hurt, simple as that. She looked down before he could read the hurt in her eyes.
Witt put his hands to her cheeks and forced her to look at him. She winced with the pain of his touch.
“He’s dead, Max. Does any of this shit matter now?”
Her heart lodged in her throat as his blue-eyed stare reached right down inside her. Swallowing was hard, speaking worse, but she did. “Maybe I want it to matter.”
Maybe she didn’t want to let go. The idea of being truly alone was beyond terror.
Witt put a palm to her face, brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “When are you gonna let him rest, Max?”
Never.
If she told Witt that, he’d leave, too. Forever.
Max closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. Then she told him what he needed to hear, what, if she were honest, she needed to do. “I know I have to choose. Just don’t make me do it here and now. Let me do whatever it is I’m supposed to do in Lines.” She raised her gaze to his and whispered, “But please be here for me.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m not going anywhere right now.” It wasn’t his promise of forever, but she’d take whatever he offered. Witt tunneled his fingers through her hair. “Let’s concentrate on something else.”
Yes, anything else. Like the mystery surrounding Cordelia.
“What kinda books you like to read?”
Her eyes snapped open. Books? He wanted to know what she read? They were in the middle of a ... what? An argument about her late husband? Visions and disappearing sisters and old girlfriends? A bizarre quest? Yet the king of frugal discourse wanted to talk about what she read?
A deep breath. Okay, he had a point. Talking about books was better than thinking right now. “I bet you read mysteries.”
He sat on the bed, patted the mattress beside him. “Hate mysteries. Got mysteries day in and day out.”
Max perched next to him. “Then what do you like?”
“Joseph Conrad. Jack London. Adventure stories.” Literary stuff and far above Max. “Bet you like romance.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding.” She raised her chin. Too late, the flush of embarrassment had risen in her cheeks.
He smiled, damn him. He’d discovered her occasional secret vice. “All right, maybe once in a while.”
He snorted. “All the time.”
“What else am I supposed to do with no DVD player?”
His tone changed, gentled. “Like the happy endings, don’cha?”
Her heart started to thud. “There’s no such thing.”
He searched her face. “I’ll give you a happy ending.”
He’d try. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for them. And she wished he’d quit saying stuff like that. It made her go sappy.
“We ought to be talking about Cameron’s sister and this BJ guy.” Which was easier than talking about happy endings that happened only in books and dreams. She ended the getting-to-know-you gig abruptly.
That meant they were back to Izzie, and she couldn’t think about Izzie, not without seeing Cameron’s handwriting in her mind’s eye, on a letter addressed to another woman.
She shook her head. Don’t think about it. Witt was right. It was long past being an important issue. All she had to do was remember that.
Witt’s hands slid down her arm. His touch should have left a trail of warmth. Instead she was cold, too cold for a room where she’d pushed the temperature up to eighty. Talking happy endings hadn’t helped.
Scooting forward on the edge of her bed, Witt leaned his elbows on his knees. “Let’s brainstorm then,” he said in a whisper, as if attempting seduction.
Max poised for flight despite her earlier begging.
Cordelia’s story according to Izzie had been simple, small town, and sordid. The father ran away with a bimbo who worked for him. Well, not exactly ran, but left the family. Cameron would have been eleven or twelve years old at the time.
Max clucked her tongue. An image of Cameron’s ruby stick pin popped into her mind. His father hadn’t left it to him, as in a will and death. He’d left it behind in the detritus of a failed marriage. Why had Cameron led her to believe otherwise?
“What?” Witt broke in.
“BJ Hastings,” she started, though the man had nothing to with why she’d made the noise. “Hastings isn’t his real name.”
“Calvin Hastings, Evelyn’s father. Hastings was Evelyn’s maiden name.” The man followed her thought patterns right back to that obituary they’d read. As if they had one mind.
Like Cameron. Stop thinking about him.
“Evelyn was so pissed, she dumped his name. Damn, we should have asked Izzie what it was.” She eyed Witt critically. He was the cop; he should have thought of that.
He held up his hands innocently. “Never said I was perfect.”