“I’m not hiding from the gossip,” Keiley assured her.
“Keiley, listen to me.” Max leaned forward, her green eyes compassionate. “You’re one of my best friends and I know you. I know what you told me about your past with your dad, and I know how gossip hurts. You’re hiding.”
“Not from the gossip.” Keiley breathed out roughly the minute the words left her lips.
Damn it. The last thing you did was give Max a lead when she was in protective mode. The other woman was like a protective mother wolf when it came to her friends.
“Then what?” Max frowned. “What the hell is going on, Keiley?”
“Keiley has picked up a stalker, Max,” Mac said from the doorway as he, Jethro, and Joseph walked into the room.
Silence filled the kitchen.
Joseph moved around the table, pulled out the chair beside his wife, and sat down beside her, his arm going around her as Mac sat down beside Keiley and Jethro moved to the refrigerator.
“Mac just explained everything to me, Max,” Joseph told her, his voice soft as Max stared back at her in horror. “It’s an old case that Mac was working on. It’s followed him here.”
Jethro sat out three beers as Keiley stared back at Max. Then she shot Mac a disapproving frown. “I could have handled this, Mac.”
“Oh, listen to Superwoman here.” Max threw her hand toward Keiley as her green eyes glittered damply. “You could have handled it. Well, God bless your heart.”
Keiley winced. It was never a good thing when that comment came out of Max’s lips.
“Now, Max.”
“Don’t you ‘Now, Max’ me, Keiley McCoy,” she snapped. “I’m glad you’re handling it so damned well by yourself because honest to God, I just felt my heart fall to my stomach and it’s not in the least comfortable buried down there.”
Keiley’s lips twitched. That was Max, dramatic to the end.
“I could have handled telling you myself,” Keiley explained. “Mac and Jethro are taking care of things, Max. It’s going to be okay.”
“That bitch, Delia,” Max muttered then. “She’s a viperous little wannabe slut with no way out from beneath her mommy-in-law’s eagle little eye. You know she’s doing this because she wants in Mac’s pants. Right?”
“She’s welcome to try.” Keiley shrugged. “I just can’t promise she’ll have a hand left when I get finished with her.”
Max sniffed as an unwilling laugh roughened her throat. “Don’t make me laugh, Keiley. I’m too horrified to find any amusement in this.”
Then her gaze shifted to Jethro as he took his seat on the other side of Keiley.
“I liked the idea of the ménage better,” Max sighed, staring back at Keiley sadly. “That sounds like a lot more fun.”
She had no idea just how much more fun it was.
“Mac, is there any way we can help?” Joseph asked then.
“Stay away,” Mac warned him. “I don’t want him to find another victim to focus on, Joe. And keep your ears open. I don’t like the way this rumor of a ménage has suddenly flared up. See if you can hear where it started.”
“I can find that out.” Max glared back at Mac. “Trust me, Delia can’t keep a secret, and I know she’s behind this. I’ll find out where it started or if she just started it on her own.”
And Max could do it. The woman was a dynamo. She could widen her green eyes with naive innocence and play the clueless Southern belle with just the right touch of realism. False realism, but it worked.
“See what you can find out for me, Max.” Mac nodded as Keiley glanced over at him. “And don’t say anything about the stalker. I’d like to keep this quiet if we can.”
That was all it took. Maxine might give the appearance of flightiness, of cluelessness, but it hid a mind as sharp as a razor and a loyalty as deep as the oceans.
“Of course we’ll keep it quiet.” Max stared at Mac as though he had lost his mind. “You think I want Delia Staten to get her hands on this information? She would find the bastard and help him out.”
“Max,” Joe chastised gently.