The Rogue (The Moorehouse Legacy #4)(26)

He thought of Mad growing up in this environment. She was too vibrant for all this control. No wonder she preferred the sea….

Well, and then there was her half brother who’d drive anyone off the side of a continent.

Funny, Spike thought. When he’d decided to come to help her out, it hadn’t really mattered why she and her half brother didn’t get along. Now, he wanted to know the why of everything about her.

“You better hurry or you’ll miss breakfast.”

He turned at the sound of her voice. She was standing on the terrace wearing faded jeans and a navy blue polo shirt. Her dark hair was shining in the morning sun and she looked even better than she had in all those dreams he’d had last night.

His heart tripped over itself and fell into his gut. “Hey.”

She focused on the gardens beyond him. “Enjoying the view?”

Now he was. “Quite an estate you have.”

“Oh, it’s never been mine. First it was my father’s. Now it’s Richard’s.”

Spike walked around the deep end of the pool so they weren’t talking over all the water. And the closer he got to her, the more he remembered what she felt like against him.

She smiled at the towel around his neck. “I’m serious about changing fast. If you want food, you better get a move on.”

“How about going out for breakfast with me?” He really didn’t want to sit at a table with her and her half brother and get served by the butler. He wanted her relaxed. At ease. Talking. “There’s got to be somewhere around here that serves pancakes.”

Her smile was slow. “I think I can find you something you’ll like.”

They were on the Harley fifteen minutes later and heading into town. Because it was early, they had the streets mostly to themselves and for Spike, the day seemed to overflow with possibilities.

But then having the woman you wanted on the back of your bike would do that to a guy.

The place she took them to was barely big enough to house the long line of Saturday morning sweet roll shoppers at its counter. The little café had only six tables the size of chessboards off to one side and not even room for a coat rack. Cinnamon permeated the air and so did the down-home smell of baking dough.

“Everyone gets their scones and muffins here,” Mad said as they wended in and out of the dozen or so folks standing in front of an Order Here sign. “But they also do great Belgian waffles, which is close to pancakes, right?”

“Absolutely. I was just after the maple syrup, anyway.”

As they sat down, Spike tried to keep his grin to himself. The great advantage of having two tall people at one little table was that knees touched. Feet brushed. Ankles found ankles.

“Sorry,” she said, retracting her legs.

“Don’t pull back on my account,” he all but growled.

Her eyes shot to his and they both froze. In less than a nanosecond, all he could think about was throwing her over his shoulder and taking her somewhere very private. He even eyed the door.

Whoa…men really were awful, weren’t they?

“Hi, can I get you some coffee?”

As the waitress slid long sheets of mint-green paper onto the table, Spike closed his eyelids and cracked his neck.

Damn it, he was tight as a steel cable. All over.

“That’d be great,” he said to the woman. Although the last thing he needed was more stimulation.

The menus were printed with the words Summer Breakfast Selections at the top and they listed all manner of carbohydrates.

Spike just stared a hole in his without tracking much of anything. He was too aware of every move Mad made across from him: the way she pushed her hair over her shoulder, played with the collar of her polo, shifted in the chair and recrossed her legs.

When the coffee landed, the two giant cups made him wonder where the food would fit on the table. Mad took hers up with relish, sighing as she sipped and he ordered the waffles.

“What about you?” he asked.

She lowered the fat, crockery mug. “This is perfect. Well, maybe two of these.”

He frowned, then just figured she wasn’t a breakfast person.

“Mind if I ask you something personal?” he said after the waitress had left.

Mad rested her coffee on her knee and smiled at him. “Not at all.”

“Did you grow up with Richard? I mean, was he in the house a lot?” Because Spike couldn’t imagine the guy had been any easier to deal with back in the good old days. Richard had no doubt only been a smaller, higher-pitched version of what he’d become as an adult.

“Yes, I grew up with him. His mother and my father divorced when Richard was six. Back then, kids usually stayed with their moms, but there was no way Richard Maguire, Sr. would have that. Much later, I heard that Father paid the woman a lot to get her to relinquish her parental rights.”

“She just walked away?”

“As far as I know, neither Richard nor Amelia has seen her since.”

“That’s cold—wait, you have a half sister, too?”

Mad picked up her mug and held it in front of her mouth. “Yes.”

“What about your mom?”

“She was Father’s second wife and she was taken away from us too soon. I was four.” Mad took a long sip, a little whistling noise coming out from between her lips as she drank. Then she said, “But at least I have some memories of her.”