Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

M ax walked back in, trouble if I ever saw it, but I still thought, Hello, Friend. Then I'd almost laughed when Max had looked at me after Poppy's "no," helpless in the face of her certainty. Welcome to the club, buddy.

It was probably foolhardy of me to have invited him to dinner, but he had helped us, and his dog was hurt, and there hadn't been anything in his wallet that linked him to Junior, like a keycard to the same hotel or something, and he probably wasn't going to kill us, so I said, "Dinner will be ready in a minute."

He looked down at Maggs and sighed again, and I knew he was bowing to the inevitable.

"Thank you," he said. "So who was this guy who hit you? Junior? He wanted to evict you?"

"That's what he said." I went to the fridge to get the salad I'd made earlier. He frowned as I came back to the table with the greens, so I added, "He said he was Ozzie's son and he owned this building and everything in it now that Ozzie, the owner, was dead, and we had to get out." I looked around the ancient kitchen and thought, Home, and realized I wasn't going to give it up without a fight. Wasn't possession nine points of something ?

"What name did he give?" Max said, sounding serious, not just chatting.

"Joseph Oswald-Stafford. Junior." I waited for a reaction like Coral's, but there wasn't one so I shook my head. "I think he was scamming me."

"He wanted you out of the building?"

I nodded. "I thought maybe he wanted me out so he could search the place. He was looking around a lot. I have no idea what for. This place is crammed with junk." I took a deep breath, thinking about tonight, what I'd do if Junior came back for his wallet and whatever else he wanted in this place, what I'd do if he really could make Poppy and me get out. "I'm really . . . worried right now."

He looked at me, wary, and I realized he was probably afraid I was going to freak out on him again.

"It's okay," I told him. "I'm not going to go weird on you again. I'm not a crier, that was a one-time thing after a couple of bad days. That kind of thing doesn't do any good, and I apologize sincerely for inflicting it on you. I'm just having a bad week." I plastered on my Cheery Boost smile. "The good news is, I make excellent lasagna! Everybody likes lasagna, right?" He just stared at me like he wasn't buying it, so I lost the smile. "Wash your hands and I'll set the table, and we'll eat."

He nodded and went to the sink to wash his hands.

I checked on the garlic bread and when I turned back, he was looking at our cat on the shelf above the window, who was, of course, staring down at all of us with the basic cat trifecta: suspicion, skepticism, and regret.

"That's William," I told him. "Poppy brought him home a couple of years ago, really skinny." I looked up at the cat, huge now. "He's put on some weight since then. He's a Maine Coon. They're supposed to look that way. Poppy wouldn't let an animal get overweight."

Stop babbling about the cat, I told myself, but Max was making me nervous, surveying the kitchen, and I tried to look at it through his eyes: old-fashioned yellow walls and cream molding and open shelves and worn blue linoleum with that big bay window in back where Poppy sat cross-legged, combing the snarls out of his dog's coat.

Shortly after we'd moved in, I'd shoved the end of the long kitchen table into the bay window with visions of sunny breakfasts, but five minutes later, Ozzie had shoved the table back into the center of the room. "Never sit in front of a window, Rose," he'd told me. I'd been so grateful to have a roof over my head and a guy protecting me who just wanted a cook and store clerk in exchange that I had nodded and hadn't sat in front of windows for nineteen years.

I looked at Max now, gaunt and probably starving, and he reminded me of Ozzie: taciturn and solemn and still. Maybe that was why I was starting to trust him. He gave off Ozzie vibes. I didn't have a choice anyway, Poppy wanted his dog, so she'd collected him like she'd pulled our cat William out of the woods: Max and his dog were too thin and too serious and too tired and the dog too injured, so of course she'd tried to lure him home to save him. She was right, too. This was a dog who needed antiseptic and a man who needed lasagna.

I bent to check on the garlic bread—it just needed to be heated through, it wasn't baking—and when I straightened from the oven, I would have sworn he'd been looking at my rear end, but all he said was, "What's in this place that was worth hitting you for?"

I shrugged. "You know how people are, always hoping to find something amazing in junk shops. Wine with dinner okay? I plan on drinking heavily."

He shook his head. "I haven't had anything to drink for a long time and it would wipe me out, so I have to pass. But don't let that bother you."

He smiled at me then, and I went still for a minute because that smile . . . Unexpectedly warm, it cut right through the grim like a hot knife through butter.

Very hot knife.

Very attractive man.

Coral would have had him naked on the table by now. Probably in the window .

"So, milk?" I said, and he nodded, and I went to stick my head in the refrigerator to cool off before I said something stupid.

It was that kind of day.