Mad About Max. Penny McCusker

likes of which no ballet dancer could have duplicated and no one in Erskine would have believed her capable, she raced to the peg across the room, grabbed her art apron off the hook and slipped it over her head, tying it and turning just as sixty pounds of eight-year-old launched himself into her arms.

      “Hi, Sara—I mean, Miss Lewis,” Joey said, his arms tight about her waist.

      Sara’s heart melted, all her self-consciousness draining away. “Hi yourself, Mr. Devlin.” She hugged Joey back, then let him go, her smile coming more easily and sincerely as she welcomed the students and parents streaming into the classroom. This was where she belonged, where she felt competent and confident, no matter what.

      She didn’t look at Max again, didn’t have to assure herself that he’d found a way to cover that damning swatch of red pleather sticking to his shirt button. If anyone saw it and figured out why she was wearing a paint-blotched apron, he’d be just as embarrassed as she would.

      “Hey, Sara—” Joey tugged on her sleeve, too, just in case his exuberant words didn’t get her attention.

      “Hey, Joey.” She ruffled his sandy-brown hair, so much like his father’s. Max Devlin had it all in the looks department—sun-bleached hair that made her hands itch to brush it from his brow, sparkling blue eyes and a smile that always made her breath catch. His son was going to be just as big a heartbreaker when he grew up.

      “Dad let me sleep over at Jason Hartfield’s last night.”

      “Good for you.” And for Max, Sara thought as she hunkered down. Joey was the only family Max had; he rarely let the boy out of his sight for anything other than school. She was glad he’d realized that Joey was old enough to go farther afield than the old bunkhouse she rented on their ranch. And that he’d been wise enough to let him go. “Did you have a good time?”

      “The best. We went hiking and had a bonfire and stayed up late watching scary movies and eating popcorn. It was almost ten o’clock before Mrs. Hartfield made us turn off the light.”

      “Ten o’clock. Wow,” Sara said, suitably impressed. “And I’ll bet you were still up at five in the morning to help Jason with his chores ’cause that’s the kind of friend you are.”

      He blushed, his grubby tennis shoe tracing the ribbons of color wound through the dark blue background of the new carpeting. “It was no big deal,” he mumbled. “Hey, did Dad tell you he gave me a colt of my own? He says I’m old enough now.”

      He was growing too fast, Sara thought, her heart aching with love and pride, and a slight pang at how quickly time was passing. Not long ago he’d been a toddler she’d sung lullabies to, then a preschooler with such an appetite for knowledge that she’d had to teach him to read so she wouldn’t spend every spare minute reading to him. She’d battled back the same tears of pride and joy on his first day of school, and every milestone since, that she was experiencing now.

      If there’d been any justice in the world Joey would have belonged to her instead of a woman who wanted fame and fortune badly enough to trade in a good man and a wonderful son for minor roles in B movies. But life didn’t work that way, and Sara counted herself lucky just for the blessings she’d been given.

      Joey tugged on her sleeve, waiting until she focused on him again. “I named my colt Spielberg, Sara. He’s six months old and Dad’s going to help me raise him. I get to feed him and brush him—Dad says that’s so he’ll get used to me and start depending on me. And when Spielberg is two, Dad’s going to help me saddle-break him.”

      “What a lucky kid you are.” Sara smiled and nudged him with her elbow, eight-year-old style, so he wouldn’t get embarrassed again. “If you want, I’ll lend you my video camera and you can document the whole thing.”

      Joey’s eyes widened. His fondest wish was to become a movie director—which explained the colt’s name. “Would you really do that?”

      “Absolutely. The camera just sits around most of the time, and I know you’ll take good care of it.”

      “If he doesn’t, I’ll ground him for life,” Max said as he came to stand beside his son. He put one hand on Joey’s shoulder and reached the other out to her.

      Sara took it, let him help her to her feet, then hung on to him when she wobbled unsteadily.

      “You okay?” Max asked.

      “My foot’s asleep,” she lied, letting go of his hand even though she had the perfect excuse to keep holding it. Most of the adults in the room were watching avidly, and she wasn’t about to give them any more entertainment than she had to. “Joey was just telling me about Spielberg—the horse, not the director.”

      “Yeah,” Max chuckled. “I guess he caught the movie bug from his mom. You sure you want to hang that name on him, pal?”

      “Yep,” Joey said matter-of-factly, then changed the subject between one breath and the next. “Hey, Sara—”

      “Miss Lewis,” Max corrected, his deep voice sending shivers down Sara’s spine.

      “Sorry, S—Miss Lewis. Dad and me’re going to the church hall for ice cream after the Open House. Are you coming, too?”

      “Um…” Sara usually avoided the town dances, ice-cream socials and potluck dinners, afraid she’d do something clumsy and wind up ruining everyone’s time. She glanced at Max and knew that he knew what she was thinking. His sympathy made her want to cry, though it felt more like frustration than gratitude. “I don’t think so, Joey.”

      “But everyone in town will be there, Sara. You can drive over with Dad and me in the pickup.”

      “Sara has her own car,” Max pointed out.

      “That would be dumb when we’re all going to the same place,” Joey said.

      Max shrugged and gave Sara a resigned smile. “I think Joey wants you to come have ice cream with us.”

      Not as much as she did. The three of them in the cab of Max’s pickup, headed to a town gathering, was like a picture of heaven to her. Like they were a real family… “I’ll think about it,” Sara said, knowing she’d already given it way too much thought for her own good. That dream was so big a part of her life that she was very careful not to indulge herself too much, in case she stepped over the line between fantasy and reality.

      “Okay,” Joey said, his face lighting up when he spied the Hartfields coming in the door. “Jason’s here,” he said, all but dancing with excitement, then catapulting across the room to greet his friend before Max had time to do more than nod.

      Sara glanced over at Max, whatever she’d been about to say incinerated when she caught him staring at her apron—right about the place where that little diamond-shaped hole in her skirt would be. Which reminded her…She let her gaze drift up, casually, to where the matching bit of red pleather was, or should have been.

      “I tucked it down below my waistband,” Max said by way of explanation. “The shirt is so tight on the back of my neck I feel like it’s trying to saw its way through my spine, but what’s a little paralysis compared to a lady’s honor?”

      Sara risked a glance at his face. He was smiling, his eyes sparkling like the sun on water.

      She looked away before she did something stupid, like tell him just how desperately she loved him. “Thank you,” she managed to choke out.

      “No problem,” Max said with the same kind of offhanded shrug his son used so often. “You getting a cold?”

      Sara cleared her throat and kept her eyes off him so it wouldn’t tighten up again. “I guess I must be.”

      “You should go home early, fix yourself a whiskey, lemon and honey and tuck yourself into bed with a hot-water bottle.”

      “That sounds like just the cure.”

      “Dad!”

      “Gotta