"How old is Kayley?" Jake asked.
"Six."
Well, dammit.
They arrived in front of the big two-story house four blocks from the square. The front looked fine, but even a few inches of shift could make the house a disaster waiting to happen.
"n.o.body goes in but me," Max said as he pulled a high-beam flashlight from his bag.
"I"m going with you. It"ll be faster," Jake said. He also pulled out a flashlight and some rope.
"Just give me a minute," Max told him.
"If that little girl"s in there, it"s not gonna matter if you think the place is unstable," Jake said. "I"m going in there to get her."
G.o.d save him from his heroic cousins. Max sighed. "Fine."
"Stay here," Jake told the boys. They nodded, eyes wide.
Jake and Max headed for the front door. Max scanned the structure, looking for obvious signs of problems. The front door seemed to be level and shut tightly. There were no cracks or obvious shifts on the porch, doorway, or the windows on this side of the house.
"So far, so good," Max commented. He checked the door, but it was locked.
He glanced back at the boys. "How"d she get in?"
"From the back," Brody said.
Max and Jake exchanged a look, then headed for the other side of the house.
They rounded the corner and instantly realized that things were not as they seemed. "I"d like to edit my a.s.sessment of the situation," Max said.
"Glad we have your expertise here," Jake said wryly. "Otherwise, how would we know when a house is structurally unstable?"
While the front of the house had looked untouched, it was the only part of the structure where that was true. The back and one side of walls were gone. The roof had been lifted off, and the remaining inner walls of the house slanted precariously. Windows were broken; furniture, clothing, and belongings were scattered; and most of the second floor was resting on the first.
"Dammit." Max started forward.
Jake was right behind him.
Thirty minutes later, Max and Jake escorted all three kids back to the church, where they were supposed to be playing until their parents came to pick them up. Kristin and Tim were already there when the kids went running in through the front doors. Tim grabbed up all three of them at once in a huge bear hug, holding them tightly, his eyes squeezed shut.
Max felt as if something had punched him in the chest. His ribs ached, and his lungs wouldn"t expand. He rubbed a hand over the tightness, working on not actually tearing up over a man hugging his kids. Max had seen this stuff before. Every disaster he"d ever worked had moments like this. This was the good stuff. The stuff that made the hard work and heartache worth it-when things worked out, when things were good, when hope and happiness prevailed.
But d.a.m.n if today it wasn"t hitting him a h.e.l.l of a lot harder than usual. He"d seen families reunited. He"d seen people pulled from wreckage alive and well who should never have survived. He"d seen people find personal items that had been scattered more than six miles away. Heck, he would never forget the scene of an old man reunited with his dog after almost a month. But today was different. Today his heart actually hurt with how much he wanted a family and a home and personal belongings and a dog that meant this much to him.
Maybe because it was Chance. Maybe because he was getting older and losing his edge.
Or maybe it was Bree.
Maybe it was because he now knew he could have everything from the woman he loved except a home and family.
A few minutes later, Jake and Max were making their way back to the square, ready for whatever was next.
"You okay?" Jake asked as they crossed Main Street.
"Why do you ask?"
"You"re limping."
Max swore. "Shut up."
"I notice that you don"t really limp. Unless you"re in Chance."
"Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"Shut the f.u.c.k up."
Jake chuckled.
They walked another block before Jake said, "You looked like you were having some trouble back there. And I don"t mean your knee."
Max sighed.
There were four people in the world who would have noticed that-Jake, Dillon, his mother, and Bree.
"Just got to me," he said. "Seeing Tim with the kids. It was a weird moment."
"It was a good moment," Jake said.
Max nodded. "Yeah." Of course it was.
They walked another half block, and finally Max asked, "You want to have kids, right?"
"Sure," Jake said. "Eventually."
There. It wasn"t strange for Max to want that.
"But it"s weird to think about having them anyplace but here," Jake said after another moment. "I can"t imagine them not growing up with your kids and Dillon"s kids."
Max thought about that. Jake was right. That did seem weird. "I guess it"s weird for me to imagine anyplace else being home long term for me."
"But we"ve all already been gone for ten years," Jake said. He stopped by his truck, parked along the curb on the east side of the square. He tossed his bag onto the pa.s.senger seat. "Time"s getting away."
Max felt a jolt of awareness go through him. Jake was right. Of course he was right. It wasn"t as if Max didn"t know that it had been ten years since they"d lived in Chance. But hearing Jake say it like that made Max really think about how fast that time had gone. He"d been wrapped up in work. He"d been busy. He"d been living a life that he could easily enjoy for another ten years. But really, he"d been killing time. Until it was time to come home.
It wasn"t as if he didn"t like his life. He was proud of the things he"d accomplished, was rewarded by his work, and played as hard as he worked. But deep down he knew that he"d always thought of Oklahoma as temporary.
He"d been killing time until he could get over Bree and handle living in the same town, full-time, without it hurting too much. Or until she left Chance.
Max felt irritation course through him. Why did he have to be so hung up on her? Why did she want a s.e.xy, hot affair now? Five years ago, he would have taken her up on every single bit of that. They could have been sharing sleeping bags and f.u.c.king like bunnies in Steamboat and the Florida Keys.
Dammit.
Now she wanted that, while he wanted to settle down, have kids, and get a dog.
He stomped to his own truck and threw his bag in the back. "f.u.c.k."
"You need a beer," Jake observed.
Max tipped his head back and stared up at the sky. The cloudless, clear sky. Where had this sky been on Sat.u.r.day when everything in his world was about to get turned upside down? "Actually, the last thing I need is something to take away my inhibitions."
Jake c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Is that right? What would happen without your inhibitions?"
"Bree would find out that the locker room earlier was just a warm-up."
Jake whistled. "Thought you weren"t going to have any more sugar?"
"Thought you were going to leave Avery alone."
"Touche." Jake sighed. "I don"t think leaving her alone is an option."
"Yeah." Max knew exactly what he meant.
"Coffee instead?" Jake asked.
"I gotta try to sleep tonight," Max told him. Though he was pretty sure that wasn"t going to happen.
"So I"ll just pray for you, then." Jake gave him a grin.
"You"re a prince," Max told him, lifting his middle finger.
Jake laughed and headed back for his truck. Max got behind his wheel and started for his mom"s house.
But at the corner of Vine and Fifth, he had to fight not to turn down the street and roll into Bree"s driveway.
He deserved more. Even if she felt like everything he wanted.
Two days later, Bree approached the door to A Bar, as eager to see Kit as she was to sit, relax, and have a drink. A Bar was the only bar in Chance and was actually named Sorry Mom, We Bought a Bar, the name the twin-sister owners had decided on when they told their mother their dream, and she said, "Can"t you do something more important with your life?"
It was also where the people of Chance came to get out of their beat-up houses and away from the mess for a while. The sa.s.sy sisters had invented a couple of new drinks, too-the Storm Warning, which was spiked lemonade, and Liquid Lightning, the ingredients of which were a secret. Instead of ignoring the tornado, they were facing it head-on and trying to poke some fun at it.
Bree knew that Kit had been here all day in the back party room, with the kids whose parents were busy with cleanup. It was essentially a makeshift day care, but Kit had decided to get involved and turn it into a sort-of therapy session as well. The kids got to talk about the tornado, ask questions, and have some fun, rather than watching their parents and the workers go through their personal belongings and tell them that no, they hadn"t found their favorite book or toy. They were doing tornado-themed crafts, eating tornado-themed snacks, watching The Wizard of Oz, and playing games around a huge tornado made of chicken wire, tissue paper, and twinkle lights.
It was great for the parents and great for the kids.
It was exhausting for Kit.
If anyone needed a drink, it was the town shrink.
Bree pulled the door open and stepped inside. She smiled, and greeted the people just inside the door. There was quite a crowd already, and Bree had to push her way to the bar.
She scanned the room and saw Kit sitting at their usual round table. Bree waved, and Kit pointed at her empty gla.s.s. Bree grinned and nodded.
"Two of the Liquid Lightnings," she told Becky, one of the sister-owners who was tending bar tonight.
"Kit"s was a martini," Becky said, filling a shaker.
"She needs something more than that, don"t you think?" Bree asked.
Becky laughed and served up the specialty drink in, of course, hurricane gla.s.ses with twisty straws.
With a drink in each hand, Bree made her way to where Kit was sitting.
"I don"t-" Kit started.
"You drink one of "em or I"m drinking both," Bree told her before she even got out her full protest.
Kit eyed the gla.s.ses as Bree sat down. Bree took a drink from one of the straws. "Good stuff."
"I just-"
Bree took a drink from the other straw. "Really good stuff."
Kit sighed and reached for one. Because she knew Bree would absolutely down them both, given the chance.
Kit hadn"t started lecturing Bree on her increased liquor intake lately, but Bree was sure it wasn"t far away if she didn"t let up a little.
Her mind immediately went to Max. He was the only thing she could imagine being better than liquor at making her feel good.
Maybe she should tell him that. He needed to have s.e.x with her to save her liver.
She chuckled lightly. He"d probably do it, then. Max was always taking care of her.
"What"s funny?" Kit asked.
Bree focused on her best friend. Oops. She knew better than to let on that she was thinking about something interesting that she didn"t want Kit to know about. Her friend was like a bloodhound when it came to emotional turmoil.
But why wouldn"t she want Kit to know about this? She was a professional-in mental health and all things Bree.
Bree picked up her gla.s.s and took a long draw on the straw. "You need to fix me."
Kit took a tiny sip of her drink. "Fix you? What do you need fixed?"
"I am incredibly attracted to Max, we"re best friends, we"re working together, and now we"ve had a major breakthrough. He let me do more at the work site, and it was awesome. We finally talked about his knee, kind of. And we had really hot s.e.x in the boys" locker room at the school right before I went over to Maggie"s." She drank again as she watched Kit process all of that.
It had now been two days since all that had happened, and Max had been avoiding her, a.s.signing her to work on one of the farm buildings yesterday and today with a crew from Kingston rather than with him.