Chapter Sixteen
“What are you guys doing hanging around out here in the sun?” Maddy asked as she walked up to the group of residents gathered at the front entrance—some of them in wheelchairs, some using walkers, and all looking more excited than a bunch of kids on Christmas morning.
“We’re waiting our turn,” Charlotte said. “I’m next.”
“Your turn for what?”
“A motorcycle ride.”
“Excuse me?” Maddy said with a gasp, looking around for a motorcycle. She looked back at Charlotte. “Who’s giving rides?”
“William.”
“Killkenny?” she squeaked.
Elbridge chuckled. “It seems the boy went out and bought himself a bike a few days ago. And it seems the women,” he said, waving toward Charlotte, “have all decided they want to be biker babes when they grow up.”
“Oh, Maddy, you just wait until you see it,” Charlotte said. “It’s candy-apple red, it looks like it just beamed down from outer space, and the air literally rumbles when he revs the engine.”
“The leather jacket he got at the dealership is thicker than the one we ordered for him, and he also got two matching helmets,” Janice said from her wheelchair, pulling the brim of her bonnet down as she squinted against the sun. “But I told him we could have gotten them cheaper on the Internet, and to check with me first before he buys any other accessories.”
Maddy felt her panic growing and scanned the parking lot again, then looked toward the road. “Who’s on the bike with him right now?”
“Lois,” Charlotte told her. “She said it’s been over thirty years since she’d ridden on a motorcycle, but that she figures it’s like riding a bike.”
Maddy turned wide eyes on Elbridge. “But William can’t keep his truck on the pavement,” she whispered. “You told me yourself that he keeps oversteering.”
Elbridge started to say something but stopped when the sound of a downshifting engine rumbled the air. Maddy spun around just in time to see the idiot who had passed her earlier pull into the parking lot—a tiny woman on back wearing a candy-apple red helmet and a leather jacket that looked ten sizes too big for her, clinging to William as if her life depended on it.
He made a loop around the parking lot and came to a stop in front of everyone, took the bike out of gear and revved the engine a few times before he shut it off, dropped the kickstand, and pulled off his helmet.
Maddy immediately ran over and took hold of Lois. “Let me help you,” she said, wrapping an arm around her waist as the older woman set one foot on the ground and wrestled her other leg over the bike. But then Maddy had to continue holding her when she realized Lois was unsteady on her feet as she fumbled to take off her helmet with trembling hands.
“Here, let me get that for you, Lois, my sweet,” William said, reaching under her chin and unsnapping the strap.
Maddy was expecting to see terror-filled eyes, but when the helmet came off, Lois Manning was beaming from ear to ear. “Holy hell, William, you certainly know how to show a girl a good time.”
“It’s my turn now,” Charlotte said, taking the helmet and shoving it down over her head. “Hurry up, give me the jacket, too.”
“Wait!” Maddy cried, having to lift the visor to look at her. “Charlotte, I don’t think . . . I wish you . . .” She looked into the older woman’s excited eyes and blew out a sigh. “Does Doris know you guys are out here taking turns on a motorcycle?”
“She had the first ride,” Elbridge said. He shook his head. “Didn’t seem to care that she was wearing a skirt and heels. Apparently the woman has a wild streak.”
Seeing that Lois was steady on her feet now, Maddy grabbed hold of William’s shirtsleeve and pulled him a good distance away from everyone. “What are you doing?” she hissed, turning her back to the residents. “William, they can’t be riding a motorcycle at their age, especially not with . . . look, it’s not that I don’t think . . .” She took a calming breath. “How long have you been riding motorcycles?”
“Three days, if ye count since sunrise this morning.”
“Three days?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you a turn right after Charlotte.”
“Three days? William, you can’t even keep your truck on the pavement!”
Apparently not realizing she’d just insulted him, his grin widened. “When I saw the ad on the television, I realized a motorcycle was what I should have. It’s exactly like riding a horse, Maddy; I get to use the weight of my body to guide it, and there are fewer buttons to deal with.”
Maddy could only gape at him, utterly speechless.
He suddenly clasped her face in his hands and leaned down and kissed her rather robustly, obviously on a motorcycle adrenaline high. And instead of stopping when the claps and whistles and catcalls started behind them, he wrapped her in his arms, tucked her head into the crook of his elbow, and kissed her senseless.
She finally had to poke him in the ribs so he’d at least let her breathe, but her reprieve lasted all of two seconds before he started kissing her again.
The whistles and clapping increased, although the whistles were hoarsely blown wind and the catcalls had turned downright bawdy.
Well, bawdy for eighty-year-olds.
Maddy gave up and dropped her purse on the ground with a dull thud—ignoring William’s flinch—and wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him back.
Well hell, if she’d known that was all she had to do to make him stop, she would have done it sooner. Because the moment her tongue started dueling with his, he lifted his head and smiled down at her.
She frowned up at him. “I don’t believe I’ve said yes yet.”
“I don’t believe you’ve said no yet, either.”
“William, a motorcycle is the most dangerous vehicle on the road.”
“Nay, Madeline, not for me. The moment I sat on one at the dealership, it was like slipping into a second skin.” He kissed the tip of her nose then smiled down at her again. “I won’t let anything happen to your residents, lass. I didn’t let the speedometer go over seventy, and I made Lois lift her visor at every Stop sign so I could see how she was doing.”
“William, you’re going to have to help me up!” Charlotte called out. “Come on, you’ve got the rest of your life to kiss Maddy. Dr. Petty’s coming this morning, and I want my turn before he gets here. If he sees me riding a motorcycle, he’ll have a coronary, and then I’ll have to break in a whole new doctor.”
“Oh, go on,” Maddy said, giving his chest a pat as he finally let her go. “Your biker babe is getting impatient.” She reached down and picked up her purse, and started walking with him back to the bike.
It really was a beautiful motorcycle, although it looked more like a rocket with two wheels attached. It was obviously designed for speed more than riding double, and Maddy believed William would feel more in control if it was like riding a horse.
He swept a positively giddy Charlotte into his arms and carefully set her on the tiny piece of leather that passed as a backseat. He immediately slipped his leg over the bike and plucked his helmet off the handlebar. “The rule book said I have to wear one of these blasted things until I’ve had my license for a year, but the damn thing is more of a hindrance than a help and keeps rubbing my whiskers,” he muttered, slipping it down over his head.
Maddy lifted the visor and then tapped the dial where she assumed the speedometer was. “Forty, William,” she said, figuring if she lowballed his speed, he wouldn’t do more than fifty. “You keep it under forty miles per hour.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he solemnly agreed, although his eyes were smiling. “Are ye ready, Charlotte, my sweet?” he asked, turning to grin back at his passenger.
Charlotte wrapped her arms around his waist tightly enough to choke a horse, her squeal of delight drowned out by the rumble of the starting engine. He put it in gear, kicked up the kickstand, gave Maddy a nod, and slowly—and very smoothly—drove off.
It was as she watched them pull onto the road that she had a thought. “Omigod, he’s not allowed to carry a passenger on a provisional license, is he?”
“No,” Elbridge said with a chuckle from beside her. “But then, William told me he’s decided simply to ignore any rule he doesn’t like.”
“He does seem to have acquired that habit,” Maddy said with a laugh, taking hold of the back of Janice’s wheelchair. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get out of this sun before Dr. Petty finds half his patients looking like cooked lobsters.”
Having spent a good portion of the morning following Dr. Petty on his rounds, Maddy finally sat down at her station to go over everyone’s chart and reread her notes. Then she wrote several memos to Paula, the weekend day nurse, highlighting any changes in meds or treatments. After placing the last chart in the file stand, she leaned back in her chair with a sigh, glancing up at the clock to find that she had twenty minutes before her appointment with Elvira.
Eve might think she was neglecting herself by not going to a salon in Oak Harbor or Ellsworth, but Elvira was one of the great perks of this job. Doris also had Elvira do her hair and even brought her husband in for haircuts. Heck, the whole staff had their hair done at the River Run Nursing Home, creating a win-win arrangement for everyone, especially Elvira. The woman really was good, and Maddy suspected that feeling needed was more rewarding for Elvira than the generous tips everyone gave her.
Maddy noticed the mail crammed in her purse down by her feet, and pulled it out and started thumbing through it. She tossed the bills into one pile, tore up the credit-card offers and other junk mail and tossed them into the recycle bin, and put the catalogs in another pile to let the residents browse through.
She stopped when she reached an envelope from the University of Maine addressed to Richard Lane. God, she hoped it was a letter saying his bill was paid in full; with grants, scholarships, and a small student loan, he shouldn’t owe them another dime. Maddy used a letter opener to slice along the top, pulled out the single sheet of paper, and frowned as she read it.
And then she reread it several more times.
It took her three tries to stuff the letter back into the envelope because she was shaking so badly. She shoved the envelope into her purse and then picked up the phone and called Midnight Bay’s harbormaster, making up some lame excuse for why she needed to know the minute Trace Huntsman’s boat docked. As soon as she hung up, she went over and locked her purse in the medicine cabinet, and then headed down the hall to her appointment with Elvira.
But she slowed as she approached Hiram’s room and stopped outside his door. Taking a calming breath and plastering a smile on her face, she walked in. “How are you feeling, Mr. Man?”
It took him a few moments, but Hiram finally stopped staring out the window and looked over at her, his eyes still somewhat distant. “I’m feeling a wee bit more tired than usual.” He gave a weak snort. “Dr. Petty said I’m entitled, considering I wore out my body working in the woods for sixty years. But that man don’t know squat. All those years logging the forest are what’s kept me moving this long.”
Maddy smiled, realizing that more than one of the residents had begun using the term wee ever since William had started visiting. “He also said that if you’re not back up to snuff by tomorrow, maybe you should consider going to the hospital in Ellsworth for a few days,” Maddy reminded him.
He shook his head and patted the bed beside him. “Ain’t nothing they can do to treat old age in a hospital.”
Maddy sat down with a sigh, feeling as old and tired as Hiram.
He took hold of her hand. “You know how I said I’ve been hanging around so long because I’m afraid to die, Maddy girl?”
“I remember,” she said, a lump rising in her throat. She reversed their grip. “And at the rate you’re going, you’re going to outlive me.”
He shook his head again. “I don’t think I got any fight left in me.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I know you didn’t like it this morning when I made sure that do not resuscitate order is still on my chart, but will you . . . if the end turns out . . .” He looked down at their clasped hands. “I’m scared, Maddy. I’ve told you my father got kicked in the head by a horse, and that I watched him linger in pain for nearly a week before he died.” He looked at her. “I was seven, and I remember sitting on the front-porch steps that whole last night, covering my ears to block out his screaming.”
Maddy forced a smile, rubbing her thumb along the back of his large but withered hand. “That was over eighty years ago, Hiram. You have my word; you won’t feel any pain when . . . your time comes. We have medicine we can give you now that they didn’t have back then.”
“I don’t want to scream, Maddy,” he whispered. “I don’t want all my friends to hear me carrying on and scare them like I was.” His frail fingers tightened again. “I don’t want you crying, either, you hear? And you don’t let everyone get all depressed like they did when Amos died. This place was like a funeral parlor for weeks.”
“How about instead of a wake, we have a party?” she suggested, determined to lighten his mood. “We’ll have the kitchen bake an apple spice cake with cream cheese frosting in your honor and put balloons and streamers up all over the place.”
He gave a weak snort. “You want to throw me a party after I’m dead?”
“Okay, then; I’ll rally the troops and we’ll start planning, and Monday afternoon you’ll wake up from your nap to a surprise party.”
“It ain’t a surprise if you just told me.”
Maddy rolled her eyes with a laugh and stood up. “I had to tell you; surprise parties are the leading cause of heart attacks after the age of ninety.”
He made a harrumphing sound and settled back on his pillow. “I love you, Maddy girl,” he whispered, closing his eyes with a sigh.
“I love you, too, Mr. Man,” she whispered back, covering him with a light blanket and then going to the window and drawing the shades.
“I told William I was afraid,” Hiram said just as she started to leave.
She stopped in surprise. “You did? But I thought that was our little secret?”
“I didn’t mention the screaming part; I just told him I was scared of dying because I don’t know what comes next. And you know what he told me? William said there ain’t nothing to be afraid of, because it ain’t any different than being born. He said there’s people on the other side who’ll take care of me until I get adjusted to being dead, just like there’s people here to help babies grow up to be adults. He said being born and dying are the exact same thing, only we’re going in the opposite direction.”
“And so you’re not afraid anymore?”
“Not about dying, I ain’t—just about screaming.”
“I promise, I won’t let you scream.”
“But what if I start in dying at night or on a Saturday or Sunday?”
Maddy pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “I can be reached anytime and anywhere, and everyone has instructions to call me even before they call Dr. Petty. I will be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Mr. Man.”
He closed his eyes again and snuggled into his pillow. “Okay then; I guess that makes me all set to die.”
Maddy stared at him for several painful heartbeats, then quietly walked out the door and headed to the shampoo room down the hall—though she held on to the handrail because everything was quite blurry.
Seeing that Charlotte, Lois, Janice, and Elvira were inside waiting for her, Maddy took a minute to compose herself and wiped her eyes with her hands. She finally walked in, sat down in the shampoo chair, and then actually flinched when Elvira settled the cape over her shoulders.
“Mem said you better go show her the minute you walk out of here,” Lois said. “Hey, have you been crying?”
“Land sakes, girl,” Charlotte said. “I’ve never seen anyone more scared of change than you are.”
Maddy gave them all a hesitant smile in the mirror. “I know. But thankfully I have you to give me a good kick in the butt when I need one.”
“You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?” Elvira asked as she pulled Maddy’s ponytail free and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Of course she is,” Janice answered for her. “Just make sure she doesn’t end up looking tacky, like some of those overprocessed brassy blondes who do their own hair.”
“Yes, not too heavy on the highlights,” Lois added. “She needs to look like her hair’s only been kissed by the sun.”
Charlotte giggled. “Not like William just kissed her, or she’ll be solid blond!”
Elvira quickly ran a brush through Maddy’s hair and then wove it into a long braid down the back of the cape. Maddy stared at herself in the mirror and flinched again when Elvira picked up her scissors.
Lois patted her shoulder. “You close your eyes, sweetie, and when you open them again, you’ll see a whole new woman looking back at you in the mirror.”
Maddy closed her eyes and felt her other shoulder get a pat. “And no peeking,” Charlotte said. “Or we’ll tape your eyelids closed. It’s taken months of badgering, but you’ll soon see how right we are.”
Maddy heard Janice’s wheelchair move closer, and then felt her arm being patted. “You’re going to look just like a movie star, Maddy,” Janice said.
“No,” Lois said, “she’s going to look like a princess. And Prince Charming is going to gallop in here, sweep her up in his arms, and ride off into the sunset.”
“No,” Charlotte contradicted. “He’s going to put her on the back of his motorcycle and zoom her off to his castle and then carry her up to his tower bedroom.”
Still keeping her eyes closed because she was afraid they really would try to tape them shut, Maddy snickered. “Or maybe Prince Charming is going to take one look at me and hop on his bike and speed off into the sunset all by himself.”
All three women patted her at once, only not quite so gently this time.
Maddy felt a tug on her thick braid and took a shuddering breath when the cold steel of Elvira’s scissors touched the back of her neck. “I-I hope this doesn’t take too long,” she said, trying to distract herself from the feel of the blades sawing through her hair. “I have an errand I need to run just . . . as soon . . . as Prince Charming gets back from his driving lesson with El-bridge,” she stammered, her voice trailing off as a bead of sweat slipped down her cleavage.
And suddenly, she felt rather dizzy and weightless at the sound of the scissor blades clinking shut when they ran out of hair.
“You going to that new shop I heard about in Oak Harbor?” Janice asked. “To buy some pretty new underwear because your red bra got ruined?”
Pouncing on this new distraction, Maddy opened her eyes to glare at Lois in the mirror. “You told them my bra was cut?”
“No,” Lois said, her own eyes gleaming. “You just did. I only told them the underwire wore through.”
“No peeking!” Charlotte yelped, stepping over to the counter. “Elvira, where’s that tape you use to make those curls on Mem’s cheeks?”
“They’re closed!” Maddy cried, snapping her eyes shut again—but not before she’d watched Elvira set fifteen year’s worth of her hair on the counter.
“I found the tape,” Charlotte said. “And if I see you peeking again, I’m using the whole roll.” She patted Maddy’s arm. “Trust us, dear. This is for your own good.”
Maddy forcibly relaxed her muscles, figuring it was too late to turn back now. Both Katy and Doris came in occasionally to check on her progress over the next hour, and even Samuel came shuffling in, the old man giving a chuckle as he declared she looked like a television antenna with all the foil on her head.
But Maddy kept her eyes closed the entire time, wondering what had possessed her to finally give in to the women. She reached under the cape to touch Willy Dragonheart on her chest, deciding it might have had something to do with William.
Or she might be trying to shove little miss knocked-up Sissy Blake off her high horse, as well as make Billy the Bastard do a double-take.
Then again, maybe she was doing this just for herself; after all, there was nothing like a new hairdo to make a girl feel twenty-seven instead of seventy-seven.
“Maddy,” Katy said, from what sounded like the doorway. “The harbormaster just called to say your cousin’s boat is heading into port.”
“Did he say how many boats are ahead of him at the co-op?”
“Three. He figures they’ll be tied up at the dock for almost two hours.”
“Katy!” Maddy called out, not knowing if the girl had left or not, as she still refused to open her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Are William and Elbridge back yet?”
“Nope. But Elbridge told me his granddaughter is stopping by this afternoon, so they should be back soon.”
“What time is it now?”
“It’s a quarter past one. I have to go; I need to change Mem’s bed before she falls asleep in her chair. Don’t forget to come show us your new do.”
“It’s after one?” Maddy yelped, opening her eyes. “You guys all missed lunch!”
Charlotte jumped up with the tape in her hands, and Maddy snapped her eyes shut. “They’re closed!”
Not that it mattered, because Elvira had turned her chair away from the mirror as she began working her fingers through Maddy’s hair to blow it dry, apparently not trusting her not to peek.
“We didn’t miss lunch; we’ve been taking turns going to the dining room,” Lois said loudly over the dryer. “Elvira took her turn while the bleach set up.”
“What, you felt you had to leave someone on guard at all times?” Maddy loudly drawled. But then she stuck out her lower lip. “Nobody brought me back anything.”
“It would have tasted like bleach,” Janice said with a laugh.
“Okay, ladies,” Elvira said, shutting off the dryer. She pulled off Maddy’s cape and turned her chair a hundred and eighty degrees. “Presenting Miss Madeline Kimble, River Run’s sexy new head nurse!”
Maddy opened her eyes and blinked at the woman staring back at her in the mirror. She reached up and touched the loose, highlighted curls cascading around her face. “Did you give me a perm, too?” she whispered, blinking again.
“No, sweetie. I told you there were curls under the weight of all that hair.”
“Oh, Maddy,” Charlotte said, also touching her hair. “They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful. Just look how those soft curls make your big brown eyes sparkle.”
“You look just like your daughter,” Lois said in an almost reverent whisper as she walked up beside Maddy to stare in the mirror. She shook her head. “You’ll never get into a bar now, no matter what card you show. You don’t look a day over sixteen.”
Maddy couldn’t stop staring at herself. “I-I didn’t look this good in high school,” she whispered, shaking her head and watching the loose curls flutter back into place.
“So are you going to take our advice more often now?” Lois asked.
Maddy eyed her curiously. “Advice about what?”
“Everything” Charlotte said, waving her hand. “Remember what William said—we have several centuries’ worth of collective wisdom.”
“To begin with,” Lois continued, glaring at Maddy in the mirror, “you’re going to start letting us pick out your clothes.”
Maddy stood up to look at Lois directly. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“You might look like a sixteen-year-old, but you have to stop dressing like one.” Lois swept her arm in the general direction of Maddy’s body. “You don’t need to jack up your boobs so high that you look like you’re choking, and a little less leg showing leaves something for a man’s imagination.”
“And makes them eager to undress you,” Charlotte added.
Maddy narrowed her eyes at the women. “Did William put you up to this?”
“Put us up to what?” Lois asked innocently. “To suggesting that you start dressing like a sophisticated young woman instead of a teenage tramp?” She snorted. “Of course not. William’s a man, isn’t he? He’d just as soon you wear pants low enough in the back to give you a second cleavage.”
“Or that you wear nothing at all,” Charlotte added. She grabbed Maddy’s arm. “Come on, let’s go show you off.”
After one last glance at herself in the mirror as they led her away, Maddy quickly found herself at the center of a parade that made its way to every room in the nursing home—including the kitchen—where she would then have to twirl like a ballerina, shake her head to make her curls move, and let everyone touch her new hairdo. It was when she was on display in the sitting room, performing for the day campers, that she spotted William and Elbridge pulling into the parking lot.
“I have to go,” she told everyone, bowing repeatedly as she backed out of the room. “I have an important errand to run.”
She ran down the hall, got her purse out of the medicine cabinet, raced to the shampoo room, and grabbed her braid off the counter. She stuffed it into her front pocket and ran outside just as Elbridge and William were getting out of William’s truck.
She waved at Elbridge heading inside as she rushed up to William. “I know I’m contradicting myself, but can I borrow your truck? I have an errand I need to run.”
William stood stone-still, staring at her in stunned silence.
Maddy nervously touched her hair, just now remembering her new look and realizing she’d shocked him.
“Ye cut your hair,” he whispered, also reaching up and touching one of her curls. “And it’s blond in places.”
“I . . . um . . . I’ve been planning to cut it for months,” she whispered back, uncertain whether or not he liked it.
He let go of the curl and gently feathered his fingers through her hair, letting them slowly glide all the way through before doing it again. And every time his fingers came to the end of the curls that stopped at her neckline, he would linger to rub them between his fingers.
Unable to tell what he was thinking, she wet her lips and his gaze dropped to her mouth—even as his fingers continued moving through her hair, sending salacious shivers down her spine.
“The truck?” she asked hoarsely. “Can I borrow it?”
“Hmmm.”
“Can I borrow your truck to run my errand? I’ll have it back in an hour.”
Wow, she’d impressed herself, getting out two whole complete sentences.
Which seemed to be more than William could do; he just grunted.
His gaze lifted from her mouth, stopped briefly at her eyes, then continued up to her hair again, where he watched his fingers slide through her curls.
Maddy felt herself starting to melt—and it wasn’t from the blazing sun. “C-can I have the keys, please?”
His fingers stopped and wrapped around the back of her neck, and he pulled her forward as he leaned in—only instead of kissing her, he brushed his lips over her hair.
“I-I’ll only be gone about an hour,” she managed to croak, her insides clenching and her legs turning to rubber.
He grunted again.
Or maybe it was more of a guttural moan.
“And before you take off on your motorcycle, could you go visit with Hiram, if he’s awake?”
Wow, another whole sentence.
“Maddy! The harbormaster just called back to say Trace’s boat is off-loading,” Katy shouted from the entrance.
Maddy tried to remember why she cared.
William straightened away with a sigh.
She placed her hand on his chest when she felt herself sway toward him, and looked up to find him running his eyes through her hair now.
“Well, Maddy?” Charlotte shouted from the entrance. “Does he like it?”
She was pretty sure she nodded.
Since he wasn’t handing her the keys, she slowly backed away, bumped into the mirror, and then worked her way to the door handle. “Um . . . are the keys in it?” she asked, even though she couldn’t remember why she needed them.
Please stop staring at me so I can breathe, she wanted to shout.
Maybe . . . maybe she should stop staring at him.
She groped for the door handle, pulled on it, and the interior buzzer went off the moment the door opened.
Which meant the keys were in the truck.
So Maddy got in, too.
But her purse nearly made her fall back out when she sat on it.
It would probably help if she watched what she was doing instead of watching William watch her. She pulled her purse free and tossed it onto the passenger seat, then pulled the seat belt around and clicked it shut—all without taking her eyes off him, the loud ding of the key buzzer keeping pace with her thumping heart.
You can do this! she silently screamed, groping for the key and pulling it out just enough to stop the infernal beeping. Stop looking at him! Just close the door and start the truck, and go . . . somewhere.
Somewhere important, she thought.
She was also pretty sure that she had a time constraint.
But there was something else nagging at the back of her mind; something she was supposed to do first.
“Maddy!” Charlotte shouted from the entrance. “If you’re going to the docks, bring me back some rock seaweed so I can make us some more face cream.”
Fairly sure she nodded again, Maddy finally managed to close the door and turn the ignition at the same time, starting the truck as she continued to stare at William staring at her—his marine-blue eyes gleaming in the hot August sun.
She groped at the window buttons when she suddenly remembered the something else she needed to do. She rolled down the rear window, realized her mistake, and rolled down her window.
“Um, are you still interested in that favor you asked for yesterday?”
His eyes grew guardedly intense, and he nodded ever so slightly.
Maddy took a deep breath. “Then . . . yes.”
She’d intended to say more; something cheeky that she’d thought of last night as she’d lain in bed staring up at her ceiling. But when his eyes went from intense to downright dangerous—though he remained utterly still except to nod again—Maddy reversed the button and rolled her window back up.
She adjusted one of the vents to blow directly on her flaming face, pushed down on the brake, pulled the gearshift into drive, and slowly pulled away—not daring to glance out the window at him again.
She did look in her rearview mirror when she reached the road and saw William still standing there in the middle of the parking lot staring after her—his cuffs rolled up his sexy arms and his large, masculine hands balled into fists at his sides.