Penthouse Suite (12 page)

“I’m really sorry, Max. Their offer isn’t that much higher, but I’ll have to take it. Of course, we still have to wait for the mortgage holder to agree to the sale, so I’ll be able to stall the signing until you get back. That’s all I can promise.”

Max had cut short his meeting and caught the next plane back to Panama City. Red would throw the traditional party to introduce the new owner to the Association, so at least he would get to
meet the buyer. Though Max didn’t know what good that would do.

The offer had appeared unexpectedly, at a time when Max was away, so that he couldn’t keep a finger on the activities on the Strip. The entire deal must have happened fast and undercover. Max didn’t like it—not at all. If he hadn’t been so involved with Kate, he might have known more.

Kate. Even now she filled his thoughts. At the airport bookstand on the way out of New York Max had picked up a book called
Television and Movies Today
, a complete line-up of profiles on the stars. For the rest of his flight, he managed to keep his mind off Kate by studying the anthology of actors. With any luck he’d be able to pull a few stars out of the hat to match Kate’s repertoire.

On board the plane, Max began to question his wisdom in ordering roses sent to Kate. They might have embarrassed her, flowers from the boss. He’d have done better to come up with something more warmhearted, like the corsage Andy Hardy took his date, Polly, for the senior prom. The odd-looking sailor costume Shirley Temple was wearing in the chapter about child stars reminded Max of the boat festival being held Sunday morning in the bay. Kate would love seeing the charter boats parade through the harbor for the Blessing of the Fleet.

When he deplaned at Panama City’s airport, he phoned the hotel florist shop and ordered more flowers, this time daisies, lilies, snapdragons, and baby’s breath. On the card he wrote:

Kate tied her hair back and wiped her face before turning to her maintenance cart. For two nights she hadn’t slept well, and she was uncharacteristically tired. Thank goodness Max was still out of town. At least she didn’t have to face him yet. She’d thought that with time she’d be able to find an answer to the impossibility of a romance between a maintenance worker and the man at the top. She hadn’t.

The long-stem roses he’d sent had been a complete surprise. She’d been thrilled and a bit embarrassed, knowing that the staff must be wondering about their relationship. The staff wasn’t alone. She felt as if her insides were doing push-ups. Every so often, without warning, she lapsed into some kind of flashback of Max.

Max Sorrenson was a permanent part of the Carnival Strip, and she was a gypsy. After another week and a half, she’d take her paycheck, repair the car, and be gone. That was the sensible thing to do, and Max of all people would appreciate her being sensible.

Why, then, was being sensible so hard for her? She’d already learned that her intentions of doing the practical thing flew right out the window when Max touched her.

Gradually over the last few days she’d come to the conclusion that this had to be a case of opposites being attracted to each other. Max would
have figured that out by the time he returned, and they’d go back to where they’d started.

Just as she was beginning to get herself together, the second bouquet came and sent her into orbit again. Time and distance obviously wasn’t the answer. She didn’t have an answer. Fortunately, she had three television sets to check and all the air-conditioning units on the fourth floor. Somehow she’d get through it. It was after lunch when the beeper attached to her belt went off. She dialed the desk.

“Kate, we have a problem.”

“Can you drop everything and go down to three-twenty-six?” Helen Stevens’s voice was frantic. “It’s Jody, one of the kids helping out for the summer. I can’t make any sense out of what he said.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve water,” Kate said, thinking about the problems she’d been involved in so far.

“I don’t think so. He’s babbling something about Mrs. Wilson’s birdcage.”

Kate quickly agreed to check on the situation. Making one last adjustment to the television set she was working on, Kate replaced its panel and took the stairs one flight down to the third floor. When she opened the door to room 326, she gasped in horror. A vacuum cleaner lay open on the floor. The bed was covered with a murky mound of purple-gray soot. Dust motes swirled through the air as Jody pawed through the heap, throwing debris everywhere like a dog digging for a bone.

“Goodness. What are you doing, Jody?” Kate
recognized the youngster as the high school student who normally worked around the pool.

“Kate, I think I’m in big time trouble. Pleeeeez! Help me. Like I’ve got to find it, or I’m out of here.”

“Find what?” Kate held her breath and moved closer to the bed, eyeing Jody’s frantic action. “Are you looking for buried treasure or digging a foxhole?”

“I’m looking for Mrs. Wilson’s canary.”

“Her canary? You mean there’s a bird in the middle of all that muck?” Kate quickly dug in beside Jody. Between the two of them they raised a dust cloud that would have triggered a pollution alert. And then she heard it, a pitiful sound, not from the muck on the bed but from somewhere behind them. She glanced around, “Jody, it’s up there.”

The bird had apparently managed to free itself from the emptied bag of dust while Jody had been on the phone. It was now tottering precariously on the edge of the wall mirror.

“Wow!” Jody grabbed for the small mound of moldy feathers, which panicked and flew. The bird fluttered toward the door just as it opened.

“Hey, Kate, I’m saved! It’s alive.”

The bird flitted erratically toward the opening.

“Oh no! Close the door, dude. Don’t let it escape!”

“Dude?”

The door slammed.

The distinctive masculine voice left no doubt as to who the “dude” in the doorway was.

Max was back.

Everything went into slow motion. Jody threw a towel at the canary, but missed the bird. The towel draped over Max’s head. The bird whirled
and darted toward the window. This time Kate snared it with a washcloth and dropped it into her uniform pocket. She looked up to see Max holding the towel in his hand. Jody was probably looking at time in the Big House. Maybe life.

“I hate to ask,” Max said.

She was wrong, Max’s voice was trembling with controlled amusement.

“Are you two talking about a major jailbreak, or do we just need a visit from the exterminator?”

“Neither, Mr. Sorrenson,” Kate said quietly, trying to still the panic of the tiny creature she was holding. “Just a little accident. Mrs. Wilson’s canary escaped.”

“I see. It set off a smoke bomb to escape detection?”

Max could have dropped the stern employer act, but before Jody he’d automatically reverted. Now he was standing there worrying about a bird, when all he wanted to do was take Kate in his arms. He suddenly glared at Kate, the last thing he’d intended to do.

Kate couldn’t decide whether he was angry or just going through the motions because Jody was present. He would have to find her at her worst. If her face looked like Jody’s, they were both a charcoal color. No doubt she looked like a refugee from the garbage dump. Then she caught sight of a tiny quiver at the corner of his mouth, and she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was kiss Max senseless.

Max hadn’t thought far enough ahead to know what he would do when he got back. He’d justified his abrupt departure from New York by saying he had to get back to check on the sale of the Showboat and he’d finish his work on the way.
Yet, from the time he’d boarded the Florida-bound plane, he hadn’t even opened his briefcase.

From the airport, he’d taken a taxi to the hotel and had cornered Helen Stevens at the front desk. He fabricated some ridiculous story about uniform sizes to ferret out Kate’s location. Now he’d found her, and she wasn’t alone. He gritted his teeth and tried to restrain himself from jerking her away from the pile of whatever that gray stuff was and stripping that uniform from her body so that he could touch her.

“It’s my fault, sir,” Jody said stepping forward valiantly, his young voice wavering as he tried in vain to control its high pitch. “Mrs. Wilson asked me to clean her bird cage.”

“I see. One small canary caused this mess?”

“Oh, no, sir. The bird didn’t do this. I did. I mean, I thought I’d just remove the end and use the vacuum hose to clean the bottom of the cage. That way I wouldn’t spill seeds on the carpet.”

“And?” Max prompted, focusing his frustration on Jody. What he wanted to do was seal off the room and never use it again. All he could do was glower at the boy who was gamely trying to explain the situation.

“I’m sorry, sir. How was I to know that the suction was strong enough to yank the little bird up? There was a whoosh, and it was gone.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Sorrenson,” Kate finally said quietly. “But we have a bird to take care of now. We can discuss this later. Jody, we need warm towels and a hair dryer. Let’s go to the laundry.”

Kate brushed past Max into the hall. She was walking away from him.

The thought that she was leaving shocked Max
into action. Even with her face smeared a shade of mummy gray, she was beautiful.

“No. This way,” Max interceded calmly. “My suite is closer. “There’s a portable dryer, towels, and an empty cage.”

“But …” Kate started to protest, took one look at Max’s face, and swallowed her words. She’d considered their next meeting, dreaded it, anticipated it, fantasized about it. Now he’d returned at the worst possible time. The bird in her pocket was probably suffocating, and she wasn’t doing much better. The bird had to come first. She could wait. Kate followed Max. Jody was one step behind.

Max held up his hand, bringing Jody to a stop. “You clean up this room. If there’s one speck of dust anywhere, you’ll be selling hot dogs at the Burger Doodle.” Max took Kate by the arm and closed the door firmly behind them, leaving Jody to repair the damage.

The elevator door opened as soon as the button was pushed, and Kate realized after a moment that Max had programmed it to wait for him.

“Kate, I—”

“Max, I—”

“You first—”

“No, you.”

Tension hung between them.

“Ah, hell.” Max hit the button that brought the elevator to a lurching stop and leaned over. “I’ve thought about kissing you for the last few days, and I don’t care if you do look like a bag lady, I’m not going to wait another minute.”

“Wait—your suit. You’ll get dirty.”

“I always did like gray.”

Kate couldn’t help herself. He had such kissable
lips. She groaned silently and she felt as if her heart had lodged in her throat. Max had to hear it thudding. It was pounding so hard that guests could probably hear the sound vibrating down the elevator shaft like a drumbeat in a silent jungle. Closing her eyes, she let her mind whirl away as her thoughts lost definition, changing into pure sensation.

Max put one hand behind her head to steady her and took her chin in his fingertips, holding her for the longest time before he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. His tongue invaded her mouth and sensation rocked him like a sudden burst of heat from a blast furnace. His hands held her immobile beneath the onslaught of his kiss. For a moment she allowed herself to respond, giving herself over to him freely with passion before stepping away.

“Max, stop. Please. There’s a bird that’s practically comatose in my pocket. I think we’d better take care of business, hadn’t we?”

“What is there about you, Kate, that makes me forget about my responsibilities? You have me tied in knots, and I’ve never been this way before. It’s incredible.”

Then the bird chirped and they both stared at each other in dismay. Kate pulled away and shook her head.

“We have to clean the bird and warm it. It’s probably in shock. I have to wash it, and I know that that will drop its temperature even more. I did some plumbing work for a veterinarian.”

“On-the-job training. I should have known,” he said warmly. He touched the elevator button, and the machine began to rise.

As he opened the penthouse door, he was smiling.
He couldn’t seem to help himself. Even the shadowy imprint on the front of his white linen jacket didn’t disturb him. He simply slid the jacket off and let it fall to the floor as they walked.

In a few minutes, Kate was sitting on the edge of the tub in Max’s bathroom, cleaning the bird’s eyes and beak with a damp cloth. “I need warm towels, Max, and the hair dryer.”

“Towels coming up. The dryer is on the counter behind you.” Max picked up two towels and headed for the kitchen. Kate heard the sound of the microwave and smiled. She wet a second cloth and completed the washing procedure. Once she was satisfied, she turned the hair dryer on low and began to fluff the bird’s feathers.

Max brought the warm towels and laid them on the tub beside Kate. “Why is it so still?”

“Shock does that to birds. Sometimes they die for no reason, other than fear.” By the time she’d finished drying the bird, it had already begun to chirp more loudly. Kate took one of the warm towels and carefully wrapped the tiny creature.

Max watched Kate’s gentle ministrations with awe. She must have been a good nurse for her mother—compassionate, tender. At the same time, she had to be tough as nails to take on a man’s job. Some woman, this jack-of-all-trades who was prepared to be everything to everybody who needed her, as long as it wasn’t on a permanent basis.

“Max, you said that you had a cage up here?”

“Oh, yes. In here, in the bedroom. Once I had a cockatoo. Dorothea thought I might be lonely and want someone to talk to.”

“Did you?” Kate followed him.

“Maybe, but it wasn’t a bird I needed.”

Kate placed the bird in the ornate cage in the
corner and covered the cage with the second towel. “What happened to it?”