“Yes, sweetie, lucky I woke up and saw what life had on offer for me.”
“Mom –”
“Hope, today, you woke up too.”
“Mom –”
“Have coffee with your mountain man hunk,” she urged. “I’ll let you go.”
I sighed and looked up when I saw Max’s bare feet on the floor close to mine. When I looked up, he was putting a mug of coffee on the counter by me, his eyes came to mine and he took a sip from his.
I looked at my coffee and it appeared to be just how I liked it.
I sighed again.
Then I said, “Thanks for listening, Mom.”
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she assured me more firmly than I would have expected, considering she’d sounded hysterical not minutes before at the prospect of my father being in town.
“I know,” I assured her back.
“Tell him I love his house. It’s beautiful.”
I looked away and murmured, “I’ll tell him.”
“Love you, sweetie.”
“Love you too, Mom, bye.”
“Bye.”
Then I touched the screen to end the call.
“You’ll tell me what?” Max’s deep, gravelly voice called and my eyes to him.
I put down the phone, picked up my coffee and took a sip then said, still feeling self-conscious, “She likes your house.”
“What?”
“She thinks it’s beautiful.”
“How does she know what my house looks like?”
“I gave her the website.”
He grinned. Then he lifted his hand and tucked hair behind my ear.
This gesture was so sweet, it made more warmth flood through me at the same time it caused me to shiver and the clashing sensations caused me to go temporarily insane enough to blurt, “She likes you.”
His hand dropped and his brows drew together. “What?”
“Nothing,” I muttered then started to move way, saying, “You want break –”
But I was drawn back with an arm hooked around my waist.
When my head tipped back to look at him, Max asked, “She likes me?”
I decided the safest explanation was, “She likes that you call me Duchess.”