Taking Chances: Tangled Up Part 28

Even if it meant changing everything she'd thought she knew about Max. And herself.

"Kit." She grabbed her friend's arm as Kit started past her as the meeting broke up.

"Hey." Kit gave her a big smile that faded quickly into a frown. "You okay?"

Bree lowered her voice. Max was still lingering with Jake and Frank. Dillon had already left, and Shelby had linked her arm with Avery's and was leading the fire chief out. Avery rolled her eyes at Bree as they went past.

"I think so. I've decided to go after Max."

Kit didn't look shocked. "Good."

"Good? That's it?" Where was her brilliantly insightful friend when she needed her? Bree frowned. "How about some advice?"

Kit laughed. "You don't need advice, Bree. Just go for it."

"No. I told you last night about how Max thinks I'm not the right girl for him. The whole can't-settle-down thing." She'd called Kit as soon as she'd gotten home from A Bar. Well, as soon as she'd swung by the store, picked up some ice cream-Sweet Cream Dream, thank you very much-and was in her pj's on the couch with a spoon.

Kit put a hand on her arm and looked her directly in the eye. "Bree, stop letting Max tell you who you are. Yes, he knows you and has for a long time. But his feelings are in the way of him seeing everything about you. You tell him who you are for a change."

Kit let that sink in for a minute, then she gave Bree a gentle smile, hugged her quickly, and said they'd talk soon.

Bree nodded, her eyes on Max. She needed to tell him who she was.

She felt her heart flip. Excitement. Antic.i.p.ation. Nerves. She recognized this feeling well. She'd felt it dozens of times with that guy right by her side.

But this time it was all about Max. There were no mountains, no special equipment here. No parachute-literally or figuratively.

And maybe that was how it should be.

CHAPTER NINE.

Max opened his parents' front door Friday night to find Bree on the porch.

"Hey," he greeted, gripping the door frame as everything in him strained to pull her into the house and press her up against his mother's living-room wall.

The last two days of work with her had been h.e.l.l on earth.

At the same time, they'd been some of the most satisfying and fun he'd had in a long time. Bree was an enthusiastic student, and she was smart and never shied away from a challenge.

And she looked d.a.m.ned good in her jeans and tool belt. The tool belt that now had a hammer hanging beside the pockets full of candy.

"Hey."

She gave him a smile that grabbed him right in the heart. He'd seen it before. It was the one that said she was happy and excited and there was no place she'd rather be. Of course she was usually standing on the top of a mountain or about to punch the gas.

Now she was giving it to him from his mother's front porch.

"What's up?"

"I brought you something," she said, holding up a gift bag.

"You got me a present?"

"Not exactly."

He waited for her to go on.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" she asked.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"Don't worry about getting naked with me in your mom and dad's house. I'm not taking my clothes off tonight," Bree said.

Part of him wanted to tell her that he could definitely get her out of her clothes if he wanted to, but he bit his tongue on that. Instead he said, "So you won't be staying long?"

There was a flicker of something, maybe hurt, in her eyes at that, but she lifted her chin a moment later and said, "Oh, I'm staying. I know your mom is out at Gigi's with her sisters putting some stuff together for the Bronsons' visit, and your dad is helping get the orchard cleaned up."

Max nodded. The Bronson family would be staying at the farm, in the guest rooms at the main house, during their visit. Several women were doing some meal preparation as well as cleaning and a.s.sembling welcome packs. Max and his crews were putting the buildings on the farm back together, but the farm itself-the pumpkin patch and the strawberry fields and the orchard-needed work, too. It was a good thing the sun stayed up until past nine this time of year. They needed all the daylight they could get.

"I'm glad you're not out there with them," Bree said. "You've been working your a.s.s off and deserve some downtime."

"Not exactly downtime," he said. He wasn't dirty and sweating and doing manual labor, but he was working. "I'm catching up on some stuff from Oklahoma City. E-mails, reports, that kind of stuff."

She smiled at that. "Great. I'll keep you company."

She stepped past him without invitation, but Max could hardly barricade the door. For one thing, it was his mother's house, and she loved Bree. Jodi would never keep Bree from coming into her house, and if Jodi found out Max had, she'd yell. And no one could yell like Jodi Montgomery Grady. Avoiding that was always a good idea. For another, he didn't want to keep Bree out. He wasn't sure he wanted to let her in, either, but saying no to her was an impossibility. He'd learned that a long time ago.

Of course, any hope of getting his work done was gone now. He wouldn't be able to concentrate on e-mails with Bree around. She was the best kind of distraction. He loved to talk to her. She was witty and intelligent and interesting, and the way she said whatever she was thinking was one of his favorite things about her.

But now he was toast.

Not because of the locker room or the bar parking lot the other night, but because of the way she'd lit up when Jake told them about the training center. Max had seen the way she'd responded to Ashley's interest in her mentoring. The look of wonder and excitement had made him want her even more than her tight jeans and white tank tops did.

But that was only a spark compared to the blaze he'd seen lighting her up in Frank's office.

d.a.m.n.

If he'd been kind of in love with her all this time, that meeting had pushed him over the edge.

There was no way he'd be able to concentrate on anything but Bree and all the complicated, intense, amazing, painful things she made him feel.

Out on work sites, it had been okay. They'd had work to concentrate on and other people milling about. But here, now, it was just them.

It was a good thing this was his mother's house. He'd already have her naked if they were at his place. Or hers.

She didn't live that far away, in fact. They could . . .

He shut that down immediately.

She headed for the living room where Max had his laptop set up on the coffee table, files spread out, his report for Hays, Kansas, pulled up on the screen.

Bree plopped onto the couch in front of his computer. She grinned at him. "Come open your present."

So it was a present. That was . . . weird.

It wasn't weird that she'd gotten him something. They exchanged gifts on birthdays and at Christmas. Always had. When they'd been seven, she'd given him potato chips. Not even a full bag. The last half bag of her favorite potato chips. With a bow on it. Even as a seven-year-old boy he'd understood the significance of her sharing half of her favorite chips with him. It was funny how twenty-some years later, when he saw those chips in the store or a gas station, he thought of her. And smiled.

But this was weirder than the chips, because there was no occasion. And the bag was nowhere big enough to hold the new climbing boots he'd been not-so-subtly hinting about wanting.

He took a seat beside her but made sure there was some s.p.a.ce between them. He took the bag and set it on the floor between his feet.

"Why a present?" he asked.

"I've actually had it for a while. This seemed like a good time to finally give it to you."

"Why is that?"

"Just open it."

She looked excited, and maybe a little nervous. That was sweet. And curious. Bree very rarely got nervous.

Max pulled the wad of tissue paper out of the top of the bag. "You had a gift bag and tissue paper?" he asked. That, too, was weird. Bree wasn't big on presentation or frills. If she'd gotten him the boots, she would have handed them to him in their original box, no wrapping.

She laughed. "Kit had them."

Ah, that made sense. No doubt Bree had told Kit about this, and Kit had correctly guessed that Bree wouldn't wrap it if Kit didn't give her the supplies. Max had to grin at that. Bree was . . . Bree. You knew what to expect and got what you saw.

He hesitated over that thought. Bree was the most . . . unwavering person he knew.

"Come on," she urged.

He pulled the black rectangle from the bag. It was a picture frame. He turned it over and, for a second, couldn't breathe.

The photo in the frame was a bright, beautiful flash of lightning in a dark night sky. Over Chance.

He looked at her. "Wow. This is amazing. Where did you get it?"

Her grin was huge, her eyes sparking, and Max almost forgot what they were talking about.

"I took it."

"You took this photo?" He looked back down at the photo. It looked professional. It was gorgeous.

She was practically bouncing on the couch cushion. "Yes. Late last summer. You would not believe how long I had to lie there and wait to get that shot. I got a lot of other ones, too, but this is the best, for sure."

He shook his head. "Wow, I'll bet. And you did it." Being still and waiting wasn't something Bree did well. She even had a rule that she wouldn't wait more than thirty minutes for a table in a restaurant.

"I did it," she echoed, her smile proud.

"Why?"

Her smile faded, and she turned on the cushion, tucking one foot underneath her. She just looked at him for a long moment. Then she said quietly, "For you."

"What do you mean?"

"I took it for you, for your birthday. That shot was on your birthday. Remember how last year you weren't here for your birthday because you had that seminar to teach?"

He did remember that. Of course. But that was almost a year ago. "Yeah, I remember."

"Everywhere we've gone, I've taken pictures, but just with my phone's camera. And they're great, for looking back and remembering. But I was getting frustrated because the photos were just not capturing the beauty and the awesomeness of it all. So I decided to invest in a good camera, and I took a cla.s.s at the community college in Grand Island, and I learned to take pictures. I've even done some of the developing myself."

Max watched her face, aware of the way his chest tightened at the tone in her voice. She was excited about this and proud of it, he could tell. But she was also nervous telling him about it for some reason.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"I wasn't very good at first. I wanted to practice before I showed you anything."

He frowned slightly and turned on the cushion to face her. "You don't have to be good at stuff before you tell me about it, Bree."

She pressed her lips together for a moment, as if contemplating what she was about to say. "I know that, actually. Or I think I do," she finally said. "But I'm not good at . . . not being good at stuff. That comes from growing up always wanting to impress my dad. He would teach me new things, and I'd go through them with him the first time, but then I'd go practice before the next time. It's why I always bugged you and Dillon and Jake to play ball with me or ride dirt bikes and snowmobiles and stuff with me. I practiced with you guys before I was out with my dad the next time. Then he was always really impressed by how great I was doing so quickly." She stopped and swallowed, her gaze on the photo Max still held instead of on his face. "It's carried over with you as we've gotten older and not seen each other as much, I guess. I didn't really realize it, but you're right. I don't let you see me not do something well. I always want you to be impressed."

Max's heart thudded in his chest, and he had to clear his throat before responding. "I've always been impressed by you, Bree. And that doesn't come from the things that you do. It's who you are. I think you're amazing. You can . . . let me in."

She looked up. "Okay."

The thudding turned to pounding. "Okay?"

"I'll let you see me less than amazing."

He couldn't stop the smile. "Not possible."

She gestured to the photo. "I thought, at first, that was why I didn't give you the photo last year. I thought it wasn't as good as it could be, so I was going to try again. But that's not why I held on to it."

Something inside of Max tightened. It felt like antic.i.p.ation, times a thousand. "Then why?" he asked, his throat tight.

"Because it's romantic."

The tightness intensified.

She gave him a small yet nervous smile. "It's exactly what you said the other day-it's a gift that means something special to the person you're giving it to and says something about you, too. That photo is something I planned to get especially for you. After you taught me about lightning and thunder and clouds that summer, I knew that a photo like this, over Chance, would be the perfect gift. I wanted to take it myself. And I had to sit out there for hours to get it right. You know I don't sit still very well, and waiting is hard for me. But it was worth it." She stopped and took a big breath. "But then, after I'd done it and had it framed and everything, I realized it was . . . big. Too big. That wasn't just a friendly birthday gift. And I chickened out. I didn't really know why, or how to explain it, until you said that stuff about romance." She wet her lips and looked up at him. "I couldn't give it to you before now because it was romantic, and I wasn't sure either of us was ready for that. Even if it was mostly subconscious for me."

Max tried to swallow and couldn't quite get it done.