Spooning Daisy by Maggie McConnell Page B

The door closed and she stared a few seconds longer, thinking about the dark, downy whorls covering Max’s chest; they merged in the center then trickled down the valley between his washboard abs and disappeared behind the door.
    That was interesting , Daisy thought. His chest lingered in her mind and the stars begat a question. Why five ? She brushed the scene aside and tried to hop back on her train at the spot where she’d jumped off.
    Oh yeah. Her current situation. Between a rock and a hard place .
    What happened with Max tonight would determine whether she went crawling back to Seattle and the Lobster Shack, or marched on to Otter Bite and the Wild Man Lodge. No , she couldn’t go back. If she didn’t go on, if she quit now, she’d be forever haunted with bad luck, consumed in the bowels of misfortune, shunned like a leper in the abyss of hell—
    “Yes, you’ve proven your point,” Daisy said to her melodrama. The less dramatic point was, she had to do something to break this seemingly endless cycle of horrible things happening to her.
    It would take a grand gesture—
    The bathroom door opened again. This time Max’s splint came through the crack. It was abandoned outside the door by the wall while the arm and hand retreated inside the bathroom. The door shut.
    Daisy waited for the next act, but instead she heard the shower spray.
    Okay . Rock and hard place . . . grand gesture . . . Max Kendall . . .
    She got off the train, tossed her magazine aside, and crawled to the edge of the bed, where she considered Max’s duffel bag and his plastic splint. She looked up at the door; behind it Max was in her shower. Max in her shower .
    How in the world had Max Kendall finagled his way into her shower? Yes, she knew she offered it to him, but that’s not what she meant. Just thinking about all the coincidences that landed him there boggled her mind. Life was certainly good at taking the long way.
    If they hadn’t run into Jason that night at Mama Mia’s, would this scene have played out three weeks ago? That’s where Max was headed that night at the bar. She remembered his kiss, how he put his fingers to her lips, how he suggested he put her to bed, his blue eyes inviting. She was a little rusty, but she was pretty sure that was foreplay. Pretty sure .
    It made no sense that Max was in her shower now, after everything that had happened. So why was he?
    Scrambling from the bed, Daisy kneeled by the duffel bag, wishing that she’d learned a little more about Max from her attorney. But, at the time—never expecting to see Max again—she hadn’t wanted to know anything about a man who could be so mean as to sue her.
    She leaned near the bathroom door, listening to the water, then returned her attention to the bag; she unzipped and spread the canvas. Surprisingly, the contents were neatly stacked, with the flannel shirt he’d worn into her cabin loosely folded on top. She rummaged through the clothes, searching among the shirts, sweaters—taking a moment to feel the silky, steel-blue one—cotton-knit jockeys, socks, jeans, and T-shirts. She smiled at the Señorita Largatija T-shirt Max had been wearing at her garage sale, looking freshly laundered and ironed—in spite of the stain—and neatly folded. Maeve Kendall, Daisy assumed. She kind of liked Maeve, or maybe it was admiration for any woman, mother or not, who held sway over Max.
    Back to her search, she stopped when she hit the cowboy boots at the bottom. That fit the profile of a rogue; she ended her trespass and zipped up.
    Another glance at the door, another listen for the shower, and Daisy hit the end pockets. What exactly she looked for she wasn’t sure; maybe just some clue to the man whom Fate had dropped in her cabin.
    Stuffed in the end pockets were three paperback novels, two Louis L’Amour and one Stuart Woods. Not that she expected Deepak Chopra. She quickly thumbed through the pages for anything hidden between. Switching to the lone side