Nora Roberts - Remember When

Chapter 11

It was the same clerk at the desk of the Red Roof, but Max could see the lack of recognition in his eyes. The simplest, quickest way into Willy's last room was to pay the standard freight.

"We want one-fifteen," Max told him.

The clerk studied the display of his computer, checked availability and shrugged. "No problem."

"We're sentimental." Laine added a sappy smile and snuggled next to Max.

Max handed over cash. "I need a receipt. We're not that sentimental."

With the key in hand, they drove around to Willy's section.

"He must've known where I live. My father did, so Willy did. I wish he'd just come to see me there. I can only think he knew somebody was right behind him-or was afraid someone was-and figured the shop was safer."

"He was only here one night. Hadn't unpacked." Max led the way to the door.

"Looked like enough clothes for about a week. Suitcase was open, but he hadn't taken anything out but his bathroom kit. Could be he wanted to be ready to move again, fast."

"We were always ready to move again, fast. My mother could pack up our lives in twenty minutes flat, and lay it out again in a new place just as quick."

"She must be an interesting woman. Takes mine longer than that to decide what shoes to wear in the morning."

"Shoes aren't a decision to be made lightly." Understanding, she laid a hand on his arm. "You don't have to give me time to prepare myself, Max. I'm okay."

He opened the door. She stepped into a standard motel double. She knew such rooms made some people sad, but she'd always found them one of life's small adventures for their very anonymity.

In such rooms you could pretend you were anywhere. Going anywhere. That you were anyone.

"As a kid we'd stop off in places like this, going from one point to another.

I loved it. I'd pretend I was a spy chasing down some nefarious Dr. Doom, or a princess traveling incognito. My father always made it such a wonderful game.

"He'd always get me candy and soft drinks from the vending machines, and my mother would pretend to disapprove. I guess, after a while, she wasn't pretending anymore."

She fingered the inexpensive bedspread. "Well, that's a long enough walk down Memory Lane. I don't see any dog in here."

Though he'd already done a search, and knew the police had been through the room, followed by housekeeping, Max went through the procedure again.

"Don't miss much, do you?" she said when he'd finished.

"Try not to. That key might be the best lead we've got. I'll check out the local storage facilities."

"And what you're not saying is he could've stashed it in a million of those kind of places from here to New York."

"I'll track it back. I'll find it."

"Yes, I believe you will. While you're doing that, I'll go back to work. I don't like leaving Jenny there alone very long, under the circumstances."

He tossed the room key on the bed. "I'll drop you off."

Once they were back in the car, she smoothed a hand over her pants. "You'd have disapproved, too. Of the motel rooms, the game. The life."

"I can see why it appealed to you when you were ten. And I can see why your mother got you out of it. She did what was right for you. One thing about your father..."

She braced herself for the criticism and promised herself not to take offense.

"Yes?"

"A lot of men in... let's say, his line, they shake off wives and kids or anything that resembles responsibility. He didn't."

Her shoulders loosened, her stomach unknotted, and she turned to send Max a luminous smile. "No, he didn't."

"And not just because you were a really cute little redheaded beard with light fingers."

"That didn't hurt, but no, not just because of that. He loved us, in his unique Jack O'Hara way. Thanks."

"No problem. When we have kids, I'll buy them candy out of the vending machine, but we'll keep it to special occasions."

Her throat closed down so that she had to clear it in order to speak. "You do jump ahead," she stated.

"No point in dragging your feet once you've got your direction."

"Seems to me there's a lot of road between here and there. And a lot of curves and angles in it."

"So, we'll enjoy the ride. Let's round one of those curves now. I don't need to live in New York if that's something you're chewing on. I think this area's just fine for raising those three kids."

She didn't choke, but it was close. "Three?"

"Lucky number."

She turned her head to stare out the side window. "Well, you sailed right around that curve. Have you considered slowing down until we've known each other, oh, I don't know, a full week?"

"People get to know each other faster in certain situations. This would be one of them."

"Favorite childhood memory before the age of ten."

"Tough one." He considered a moment. "Learning to ride a two-wheeler. My father running alongside-with this big grin, and a lot of fear in his eyes I didn't recognize as such at the time. How it felt, this windy, stomach-dropping rush when I realized I was pedaling on my own. Yours?"

"Sitting on this big bed in the Ritz-Carlton in Seattle. It was a suite because we were really flush. Dad ordered this ridiculous room-service meal of shrimp cocktail and fried chicken because I liked them both, and caviar, which I hadn't yet acquired a taste for. There was pizza and hot fudge sundaes. An eight-year-old's fantasy meal. I was half sick from it, and sitting on the bed with probably a hundred in ones he'd given me to play with."

She waited a beat. "Not exactly from the same world, Max."

"We're in the same one now."

She looked back at him. He looked confident and tough, his clever hands on the wheel of the powerful car, his sun-streaked hair unruly from the breeze, those dangerous cat's eyes hidden behind tinted lenses.

Handsome, in control, sure of himself. And the butterfly bandage on his temple was a reminder he didn't always come out on top, but he didn't stay down.

Man of my dreams, she thought, what am I going to do with you?

"Hard to trip you up."

"I already took the big stumble, sweetheart, when I fell for you."

Laughing, she let her head fall back. "That's sappy, but somehow it works. I must still have a weakness for a guy with a quick line."

He pulled up in front of her shop. "I'll pick you up at closing." Leaning over, he gave her a light kiss. "Don't work too hard."

"This is all so strangely normal. A little pocket of ordinary in a big bunch of strange." She reached out, feathered her fingertips over his bandage. "Be careful, all right? Alex Crew knows who you are."

"I hope we run into each other soon. I owe him one."

***

The normal continued through most of the day. Laine waited on customers, packed merchandise to ship, unpacked shipments of items she'd ordered. It was the sort of day she usually loved, with plenty to do but none of it rushed.

She was sending things off with people who enjoyed or admired them enough to pay for them, and finding things in the shipping boxes she'd enjoyed or admired enough to want in her shop.

Despite it, the day dragged.

She worried about her father and what reckless thing he might do while the grief was on him. She worried about Max and what could happen if Crew came after him.

She worried about her relationship with Max. Mentally examined, evaluated and dissected it until she was sick of herself.

"Looks like it's just you and me," Jenny said when a customer left the shop.

"Why don't you take a break? Put your feet up for a few minutes."

"Happy to. You do the same."

"I'm not pregnant. And I have paperwork."

"I am pregnant, and I won't sit until you sit. So if you don't sit down you're forcing a pregnant woman to stand on her feet and they're swollen."