Taking Home the Tycoon (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 9)

“I’m an observant man. I recognize a survivor when I see one.” No matter how comfortable he’d made himself, he’d always carry the memories of foster care with him. He’d always recognize the souls that had been tried by fire. For a fraction of a second, a collage of memories pushed themselves on him—the ammonia-cleaner smell of the group home, the nights spent in an alleyway instead of a bed.

“Recognize? That’s an interesting word choice.” She leaned forward, homing in on the one word that betrayed so much about his life. The life he never spoke of.

He was losing control of the conversation. Time to steer it back to her. “Tell me about your parents.”

“They’ve retired in Arizona.” Her face closed off, her smile not reaching her eyes any longer. “I was an only child and had an easy, lucky traditional childhood. They love me.”

The normal sparkle in her tone was absent, nothing at all like the glimmer when she talked about her children. There was more to this story. Much more. “And...?”

“That’s it.” She waved away his question.

“There’s always more to the story.”

Chewing slowly, she set aside her fork, then swallowed and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. Weighing her answer? “My parents didn’t approve of me marrying Jeremy. They didn’t want me moving away. They didn’t like how much I was on my own with the children.”

“That’s the military lifestyle.”

Shadows shifted through her green eyes, like lush grassy earth being darkened by clouds covering the sunshine. “They thought he should have served his country for his enlistment commitment and then gotten out.”

He clasped her hand in his, squeezing lightly and grazing up to her elbow and down again. “I’m sorry they couldn’t have been more supportive of your choices.”

“Me, too.” She watched the movement of his caress along her arm, but didn’t stop him. “They wanted me to move to Arizona to be near them for help after Jeremy...died.”

The heaviness of her tone gut-punched him.

“Why didn’t you?” A bold question, but Max had never been one to mince words or avoid the uncomfortable aspects of life. He wanted to know, wanted to be there for her.

“They want to parent my children, not be grandparents.” Her gaze rose swiftly and her throat moved, hard. “And I really can’t bear to live my life hearing them say if we’d listened to them, he would still be alive,” she said emphatically.

“That’s... God, I’m sorry.” The words weren’t enough. He knew that. It was all he had for her, though.

She shook her head. “Thank you, but no need. The past is the past.” She gripped his hand once, firmly, before letting go and leaning back. “So, survivor, tell me about your parents.”

So she wasn’t going to let his misplaced word go. He would share the streamlined version. Better than the detailed crap, for sure. “Parent. I never knew my father. My mother was a junkie and I went into the foster system young.”

“Max, I’m so sorry. I feel...ungrateful for what I had.” She looked down at her plate, her hair obscuring her features.

Nope. He wasn’t letting her go down that path. His turn to shake his head. “Don’t. This isn’t about you. This is just my story of how I became me. My mother fought for custody, I’ll give her that. But she didn’t fight to get clean, so she eventually lost her parental rights. By then, I was too old to be a cute, chubby adoptable baby or toddler. And I was definitely too much of a delinquent pain in the ass to stay in with one foster family for any length of time.” He kept a don’t-give-a-damn grin on his face, but his voice felt rusty in the telling, given how few times—never, actually—he’d shared so many details from his past with anyone.

“So you went from foster home to foster home until you were eighteen?” She gripped his hand.

“I was in the LA foster system. It’s full. I ended up in a group home, which made it easier for me to slip out and do my own thing.”

“What was your own thing?”

He grinned. This was the part he didn’t mind talking about. This was his moment of rising. The way he’d come into his own. “Computer hacking. Nothing big-time illegal.” For the most part anyway. More like, well, boundary pushing. “I helped people out with cyber and home security, made some money, pulled myself up and out of my less-than-affluent circumstances.”

“You’re more than a survivor. You turned your journey into something amazing.” She set aside her spoon, her dessert only half-eaten, and as if by habit, nudged the plate toward him.

In case he might want to finish the rest?

Had she done that with her husband? Max sure as hell didn’t intend to ask and wasn’t going to give her time to question the action. He simply dipped his spoon into the sorbet, his eyes on hers. That electric spark was pushing them together.

“Max?” she whispered, her voice husky. “We were talking about you building your business.”

He swallowed, and shrugged dismissively. “So I made some money. I was lucky to have a brain for computers.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Her thumb stroked along his wrist as she studied him through narrowed eyes, her lashes long.