Chapter 11

“Mommy, Diego’s here with Mario.” Izzy had her hand hooked around the door frame as she swung herself halfway into Emily’s office. “He’s the first K-9 Angel. I hope he likes his crate and his new bed. Don’t you want to come see?”

Emily had heard the buzz of excitement but figured it was just the kids prepping for the upcoming holiday party. They got very hyped up because they’d concocted the holiday-themed snacks, under the supervision of the center’s chef, and they were encouraged to invite their parents to sample their creations. In addition, there were the gifts for every child to take home, thanks to the generosity of the community merchants.

Usually she loved the week leading up to the party, but her parting with Max three days earlier overshadowed the festive mood. Except for an outing with Diego, she’d holed up in her office, pleading paperwork and planning to get K-9 Angelz up and running. Which meant she needed to haul herself up and celebrate the arrival of their first dog, who would be convalescing at the center.

Her one bright moment had been taking Diego to the pet-supply store the day before to buy all the things necessary for making Mario comfortable in his new home. She’d felt a flash of joy at seeing the boy’s usually solemn face wreathed in smiles while he chose a bright red leash and collar, shiny silver bowls, and a chewy toy. She pictured the same happiness on the faces of the other children when they met their dogs at the local animal shelter and brought them back to the center. Her heart should have danced, but it was too battered.

Because right now she just felt sorry. For herself, because Max’s absence gnawed at her far more than it should, considering how brief their time together had been. Maybe he was right that knowing each other seven years ago allowed them a closeness beyond the usual. For six days, her world had sparkled with a sense of exciting possibility. Now it was flat and dull.

She felt sorry for Max, because he’d looked ashen when she’d told him she wasn’t going to attempt the stresses of a long-distance relationship.

She even felt sorry for Izzy, who wanted to hear more stories about her father from Max. Seeing how disappointed her daughter was when she told her Max was moving reinforced Emily’s conviction that she’d made the right decision.

It didn’t feel right, though. Especially when she lay in her bed in the middle of the night, remembering how it felt to have Max’s hands on her skin. Feeling the heat flare low inside her. Wondering what it would be like to snuggle up against his hard, warm body and fall asleep at night, only to wake up cradled in his arms the next morning.

She smacked her palms on the arms of her desk chair and shoved herself to her feet. “Let’s go!” she said, taking Izzy’s hand and heading for the main lounge.

Izzy pulled her through the crowd of kids and staff. Diego sat on the floor beside the bed where the little dog lay, his splint wrapped in bright purple tape today. The boy allowed one kid at a time to approach and pet Mario. The dog’s tail thumped nonstop as he basked in the attention. As Izzy and Emily got to the front of the crowd, Diego waved away the next kid in line.

“Ms. Emily, don’t . . . doesn’t he look mad fine?” Diego beamed.

“He looks so fine that I hardly recognize him.” The former stray’s black coat shone now that he’d been bathed and fed regularly. Mario’s brown eyes were clear and alert, and he had the happy attitude of a dog who knew he was loved.

She knelt to smooth her palm over Mario’s head. “This is a banner day. As Izzy pointed out, Mario is our first K-9 Angel.”

Diego’s grin could have lit the whole building as he raised his voice to address his audience. “You hear that, yo? Mario be the first one!”

The kids responded with a chorus of “Facts, yo. That be crazy. You dead-ass?”

Emily let the slang flow without correction. Diego deserved to enjoy the moment. Watching him made her glad Izzy had dragged her out of the office.

But it also reminded her that Max was the reason Mario could be here. The blanket of wretchedness settled over her again.

She fought her way out from under it to smile at Diego. “I’m so proud of you for rescuing Mario. We wouldn’t have this happy, beautiful dog here without you.”

“I learned it from you,” Diego said. “You would have done the exact same thing.”

Emily had to swallow a surge of tears at his faith in her. “Thank you.” She didn’t tell him that she didn’t have anywhere near as much courage as he did.

“Can I pet him?” Izzy asked.

Emily stood and moved away to make room for her daughter. Forcing herself to stop wallowing, she walked around to inspect the holiday decorations the children had created. The artificial tree stood in the corner adorned with ornaments made from Popsicle sticks, uncooked pasta, tinfoil, and every other material the kids’ inventive minds could come up with. There were wreaths fashioned from cutout paper hands in the black, red, and green of Kwanzaa. A nine-candle menorah of blue-and-silver-painted wooden blocks stood next to a seven-candle Kwanzaa kinara. A nearly life-size Santa Claus made of fabric and stuffing lounged in one of the chairs. Paper chains in all the holiday color combinations draped the walls and windows.

And now they had their first canine resident. Her heart twisted with regret. She wanted to text Max to tell him what his support had already done for the center and how excited the other kids were about getting their own dogs. However, she hadn’t heard from him since Sunday night, and she figured it was better that way.

A clean break.

*

That night Emily was in her pajamas and brushing her teeth when she heard the ping of a text arriving on her cell phone. Her heart wobbled in her chest as she reminded herself that Max would not be texting her ever again. So she finished her bedtime washing up before strolling over to her bedside table to pick up her phone.

The text was from Diego.

Really cold here. Heat is broke again. Don’t want Mario to get sick.

“Not now!” The holiday party was only three days away. Even more problematic, the holiday break from school started next week. Most of the kids counted on being at the center all day when school was out of session.

But her most immediate concern was Diego, who couldn’t remain in the unheated building all night.

She tapped out, Come to my house. Bring Mario with you. Windy will share her dog stuff so you don’t need to bring anything else.

She threw on her clothes before dialing the repairman’s emergency contact number.

“Hey, Emily, that old boiler done conked out again before I could get you a new one?” Coleman asked.

Hearing his gravelly voice calmed her. “With its usual terrible timing.”

“Yeah, old man winter has settled in. I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

“You’re the best.”

“Tell my wife that.”

She laughed and hung up before going to tell Izzy they were having company, something her daughter considered a high treat.

*

The next morning in the furnace room, Coleman stood in his usual stance of hands on hips while he shook his head. “It’s well and truly dead this time.” His words came out in puffs of frozen vapor.

Emily shoved her gloved hands in her coat pockets and fought off panic as she stared at the exposed innards of the dead furnace. “So what do we do now?”

“I’ll put heat wraps on your pipes and hope to keep ’em from freezing.”

“But what about a new boiler?”

“I told you, I can’t get nothing this big in before the holidays.”

The panic was rising in her throat. “Doesn’t someone rent emergency replacement boilers? This must happen to other buildings.”

He shook his head again. “Other buildings replace their boilers before they reach this point. This is what you call a catastrophic failure. I’m real sorry.” He looked at her. “I’ll make some phone calls, but I don’t want to get your hopes up. You should probably be finding another place for the big party.”

That’s when she knew what she had to do. There was only one person who could solve this problem. The man with an executive assistant who could get anything done on short notice.

She squeezed her eyes closed as a tangle of emotions tightened in her chest. She’d already burst into his office to beg for his help once. How much worse was it to ask again after breaking up with him?

At least this time she could pay for her favor . . . using his foundation’s money.

She grimaced at the irony.

“Does that estimate you sent me have all the information on it that I’d need to order a new boiler?” she asked Coleman.

“Yes, ma’am, it does. But the earliest delivery date I could get on the equipment is ten days from now.”

“If I can get it sooner, I promise you will be in charge of the installation,” Emily said.

Jogging up the steps to her office, she pulled up the estimate on her computer. Then she took a deep breath and dialed Max’s cell phone, hoping he didn’t simply ignore her call.

It went to voice mail, and she dropped her head onto her desk in frustration as the recording told her to leave a message. “Max, it’s Emily. This is not personal. I need your help with an emergency at the center. But we can pay for it, thanks to you. Please call me as soon as you can.”

She disconnected and stared down at her phone’s screen. Would he delete the message without listening to it? Should she call his office number as a backup?

No, she would send an e-mail with Coleman’s specifications attached. If he didn’t respond to that, either, she would know he wanted nothing more to do with her.

In the meantime, she needed to borrow every space heater she could get her hands on.

Three hours later, when she was praying the circuit breaker didn’t blow as she plugged in the fifteenth space heater, her cell phone rang.

The caller ID said V-Chem Industries, so she hurried into an empty study room and closed the door before she answered.

But it wasn’t Max. “Ms. Wade? This is Pauline Bennett, Mr. Varela’s administrative assistant.”

The one Emily had shoved past to get into Max’s office. She nearly groaned out loud. “Thank you for calling me, Pauline.”

“Mr. Varela asked me to tell you that he’s been able to locate the item you requested, and it will arrive at one o’clock today.”

Emily nearly dropped the phone. “Oh my God, thank you so much! I can’t believe it. This is fantastic news.”

“A crew will be coming at the same time to install it.”

Emily thanked Pauline a few more times and then danced a jig in the corner of the room. As the relief and excitement died down, desolation rolled over her. Max wanted to avoid her so badly that he wouldn’t even call to relay the good news himself. That was a kick in the gut.

Such a kick that she actually put her hand on her stomach, because it physically hurt.

A clean break indeed.

*

At one o’clock, Emily and Coleman stood on the sidewalk in front of the Carver Center, both of them shivering despite being bundled up in down coats, wool scarves, and ski mittens. She and Coleman had blocked off several empty parking spaces with orange cones so the delivery truck would be able to pull up right in front of the center.

“Maybe they got stuck in traffic,” Emily said, peering down the street to see nothing but a few cars.

“Ms. Emily, it’s barely one now. Why don’t you go back inside and wait?”

“Why? It’s not much warmer in there,” she said. She’d turned off most of the space heaters since right now the kids were in school buildings where the heat worked, thank goodness.

Coleman chuckled. “You got me there.”

Five minutes passed. The thought of the space heater in her office was beginning to tempt her as her nose and fingers went numb. But the deep growl of a heavy truck’s engine vibrated in her ear, and she spotted a big platform hauler turning onto their street. Behind it came a van marked Pisano Brothers Heating and Cooling Systems. And then another van and another, until five matching vehicles were trundling down the street behind the truck.

“Oh my God, there’s not going to be enough parking,” Emily said, laughter bubbling up in her throat as worry slid off her shoulders. Max might not want to talk to her, but he didn’t hate her so much that he wouldn’t send in the cavalry. She stepped out into the street to wave like a madwoman.

“Pays to know a billionaire,” Coleman said, moving the cones. As the truck drew closer, he whistled. “Ms. Emily, there are two units on that hauler. You’re gonna get a dual-zone system.”

Dismay halted her waving. “That’s going to be more expensive, isn’t it?”

“Not if your billionaire foots the bill.”

“I can’t let him do that.” Returning to the sidewalk, she resigned herself to cutting back on the wish-list items once again.

The truck pulled into the parking space, and the driver’s door swung open. A man wearing a black ski jacket and jeans leaped down and turned.

“Max?” Emily stared, feeling that kick in the gut in a different way. “Why are you driving the truck?”

His face was lit with satisfaction. “I used to drive the big military vehicles at Lejeune. Illicitly, of course. I wanted to see if I still remembered how. But now I have to let someone who knows what he’s doing work the crane.”

“I don’t understand. Your assistant called me. Not you.”

He grimaced. “I was still working out some details.”

Two men were attaching steel cables to an HVAC unit while the crane swung into place over it. A third man was deep in conversation with Coleman.

“I didn’t expect you to come.” She looked into the face that was even more dazzling in person than in her dreams.

He took her shoulders. “Nothing could have kept me away,” he said. “Wait for me.” His hands fell away, and he was striding over to the clot of men around Coleman. The circle opened instantly to include him.

Emily just stared at his profile while he talked, her emotions spinning like a tornado.

She jumped when a man took her elbow to lead her aside. “You need to get out of the way, Miss. They’re taking the unit off the truck.”

The truck’s engine revved as the crane lifted the unit off the flatbed and swung it onto a rolling cart the men had also taken off the truck. The doors of all five vans slid open to discharge a battalion of men in blue coveralls who swarmed around the unit, the truck, and the men consulting with Max.

Emily climbed a couple of the center’s front steps to avoid being engulfed, but she kept her eye on Max’s dark head. He’d said to wait, so she was going to.

Because he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to speak to her, would he?

The consultation broke up as Coleman and one of the Pisano Brothers honchos strode to the service entrance to the basement. The rest of the blue coveralls streamed after them, rolling the furnace in their midst, leaving Max alone in the middle of the sidewalk, looking up at her.

“You waited,” he said.

She nodded, her heart flipping. In his casual clothes, he looked more like the grad student she remembered.

“Coleman says you have some space heaters inside,” he said.

“Right. It’s cold.” She’d forgotten. “Let’s go to my office.”

She turned to walk up the rest of the steps, hearing his footfalls just behind her, his presence sending sparks of heat through her. That needed to stop.

He held the door and followed her up the inside stairs.

“That’s an impressive number of HVAC installers,” she said to fill the silence.

“Sal Pisano wants to get the job done fast. He’s got another commitment today.”

“I don’t think I can afford whatever amount it took to move us to the front of the line, but I’ll pay the regular price for the system.” With the Catalyst Foundation’s money, but that’s what it was for.

“We’ll discuss it later.” His tone was sharp, so she didn’t pursue it.

When they reached her office, she waved him in, closing the door to keep the warmth generated by the heater inside. She stripped off her mittens and unwound her scarf. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Don’t. It’s a bribe.” He unzipped his jacket and tossed it on the chair. Underneath it he wore a plaid flannel shirt in shades of dark red and green. It tempted her fingers to trace the lines over his biceps.

“A bribe?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and gave her a rueful smile. “When private jets didn’t interest you, I realized I was going about this all wrong. You didn’t want things for yourself. You wanted things for the kids. Your call was my golden opportunity to give you a meaningful gift.”

This wasn’t making sense. Did he mean a farewell gift? “It’s wonderful, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re moving to Chicago.”

“That’s the detail I was working out.” Shoving his hands in his jeans pockets, he stood with his legs braced wide. “I figured there wasn’t much point to having all this money if I didn’t have anyone to share it with. So MatCorp and I did a trade that allows me to stay here to do my research.”

Joy swelled in her chest, making it hard to breathe. “What did you have to give them in return?”

“I’m paying to set up the lab.” He grinned. “With part of the money they paid me for V-Chem Industries.”

“Oh my God, we’re two of a kind. I was going to pay you for the HVAC system with the money from your foundation.”

In two strides he was in front of her. “That proves that we belong together,” he said.

The focused desire in his eyes was so intense that she had to look at the top button of his shirt. “Or that we’re a bad influence on each other.”

He took her hands. “There’s nothing I’d like more than for you to lead me astray.”

“Max, you’ve given up an awful lot.” She lifted her gaze to his face as guilt clutched at her. “What if this doesn’t work out?”

“Then I’ll have a state-of-the-art lab in the greatest city in the world.” The teasing light vanished from his face. “You know better than I do that there are no guarantees in this life, except for loss. If I stay here, I might lose you, but it will be my own damned fault. And it’s worth the happiness I’ll have with you before that happens. Whereas if I went to Chicago, it’s certain that I would lose you for no good reason except some business deal. The thought of that ripped my guts out.” She saw his chest expand as he took a deep breath before saying, “Because I love you. Not just six days’ worth, but for seven years.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this for me.” Her head was spinning with his logic and his declaration.

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.” He actually looked worried.

“Oh, Max.” She shook her hands loose from his and raised them to frame his gorgeous face. “If we break up tomorrow, this moment, this joy, would make it worthwhile. But I plan to spend many, many days and nights leading you astray.”

She pulled his head down so she could kiss him, pouring her delight into the touch of their lips. “I love you so much,” she murmured against his mouth.

His arms swept around her, crushing her against him while he kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyebrows, her cheeks, before returning to her mouth. “I might do some leading astray as well.”

“As long as we both end up in the same place, that works for me.”

“Right now, the place I want to end up is inside you,” he said, his low voice rumbling beside her ear.

Her toes curled in her boots as his words spiraled downward to her belly, leaving a trail of fire behind them. “My office door locks.” She felt his body go tense and smiled. “However, I’m wearing long underwear.”

He was already striding to her door, where he punched in the lock and lowered the shade on the glass window. “If you think long underwear will even slow me down, you don’t know much about my determination.”

“Just don’t tear it.”

His jaw muscles flexed. “Woman, you are putting some very astray ideas in my head.”

And in her own. She gave him what she hoped was a seductive look. “Shall I clear off the desk?”

“Allow me.” He pushed her laptop to one side and then swept his forearm across the other side, sending pens, papers, and knickknacks flying.

Before she could object to his treatment of her possessions, he grabbed her waist and set her on the desk.

He took her head in his hands, holding it so she could see the emotion flaring in his eyes. “This is where I want to be,” he said. “You are my home.”