“Thank you, Max. I feel better now. We all care about Tori, and this friendship seemed to come up rather suddenly...”
While she might have been direct in asking about his business, the way she trailed off now let him know she wanted him to fill in some details about their friendship. “I’m not sure sudden is the right word. I simply hadn’t crossed paths with her before. We met at the diner and we enjoy each other’s company.”
“That’s good.” She ate a few bites of stew, giving him a brief reprieve.
It was tempting to tell her that Tori was helping him in his quest to go on a date. She would be reassured that he had no nefarious intentions toward Tori and it would explain why she’d been spending time with him all of a sudden.
But he’d heard about Rose Davis and he was definitely familiar with Fran Benoit. He suspected if he said he was wife-hunting and those two women put their heads together, he’d be subjected to a matchmaking campaign that would steamroll over him and he’d end up married to somebody’s cousin’s daughter’s best friend before he knew what hit him.
He figured this was best treated like a police interrogation. Answer only the questions asked of him and, if it looked like it was going south, run like hell.
The door opened and Josh walked in. He’d taken off the thick sweatshirt he was wearing and his boots before he saw Max. When he frowned, Max just waved and went back to eating his stew. It was almost gone, so he picked up the bread and starting sopping up the broth.
“Rosie,” Josh said, “I told you to mind your own business.”
“And I told you to not to have food fights with Sarah. I guess neither of us listens worth a damn.”
Josh looked at the baby as if she’d ratted him out and Max chuckled. “She threw a Cheerio at me and I ate it.”
“That pisses her off.”
“I know that now.”
“Paige is the sweetest woman I’ve ever met, but that child right there is a mini-Liz. We’re all going to lose sleep during her teenage years.”
“You all turned out fine,” Rose said. “And she will, too. Won’t you, pumpkin?”
Sarah squealed and threw a Cheerio at Josh.
“What she needs,” Rose said, “is a pack of cousins to help her run off the excess energy. Liz is doing her part, but she can’t have a whole pack.”
Josh shook his head and picked up the Cheerio which, under Rose’s watchful eye, he threw in the garbage can. “Your daughter’s not having a whole pack, either. Not with me, anyway. Unless one or two is a pack.”
Max licked the last of the bread crumbs from his fingers and knew he’d made the right decision not to tell Rose he wanted a wife. This was not a woman who knew how to watch from the sidelines.
“Thank you for lunch, Rose,” he said. “It was delicious, but I really should get back to work.”
“Of course you should. Those bodies won’t bury themselves.” He was surprised when she kissed him on the cheek. “You’re welcome to stop by anytime, you know. There’s always something in the goody jar.”
He said goodbye to Josh and Sarah, then escaped to his car. Once he was on the road home, he laughed. Rose was quite a woman. It would be easy to be offended by her, except he suspected, since he was a member of the community and a friend of Josh and Katie, that she’d be just as quick to rush to Max’s defense if she thought he needed her.
It wasn’t a bad feeling.
*
Tori had always liked her aunt and uncle’s home. It was nothing special—a small ranch on the outskirts of town—but it was a house full of love and laughter. Or so it had always seemed during childhood visits.
She stopped by early Wednesday afternoon when she knew Uncle Mike and Gavin would both be working. Todd would be getting out of school soon, but he had a part-time job helping out at the hardware store and wouldn’t be home until later in the evening.
“This is a nice surprise,” Jilly said when she answered the door. “I was just going to brew a cup of tea. Do you want one?”
It wasn’t her favorite drink, but it was Aunt Jilly’s thing, so she nodded. “That would be great.”
Tori sat at the kitchen table while Jilly put more water in the kettle and prepared another cup.
“There’s been some talk about you around town lately,” her aunt said.
“If it’s scandalous, it’s not true. I’ve done nothing scandal-worthy. Not in public, anyway.”
Her aunt laughed. “No, nothing scandalous. But interesting, I guess.”
“About Max Crawford and me?”
“That would be the talk.”
“I’ll tell you why, but you have to keep it to yourself. I don’t want Max to be embarrassed.”
“And it gets more interesting by the second. I’ll keep your secret.”