Free Demon Can’t Help It by Kathy Love

wrong with him? Why did her desire to make a difference, and his utter disinterest in doing so, bother him? He shouldn’t be giving it another thought. So she was a “save-the-world” type. He should be just hoping that meant she’d be more than generous in bed. And he’d make her feel very, very fulfilled.
    Maksim cut off a piece of the bread, offering it to her. Jo accepted with a mumbled thanks.
    They both ate silently. Maksim focused on Jo; she focused on her bread, her water, anything but him.
    “Did you like living in D.C.?” he asked, grasping for any topic of conversation when he realized she wasn’t going to speak first. And seduction just didn’t work when the person you were trying to seduce was more attentive to a piece of French bread than you.
    “I did, yes.”
    She didn’t continue, and Maksim knew there was more to the story than her short response was revealing. But as had been the case since meeting this woman, he couldn’t read her features. Had she left simply for a change? Or had she left because she had to leave?
    Somehow he didn’t think prying would get him any further toward what he wanted from her. Still he did wonder, was it something that had happened back there that made her dark eyes appear melancholy so often?
    “Did you grow up there?” he asked, avoiding the more interesting question of why she left.
    She shook her head. “No, I actually grew up in a small town in western Maine.”
    “Was that nice? It must have been beautiful—and cold. I like cold.”
    She smiled at that. “It is very beautiful—and definitely cold.” The topic of her hometown seemed to be a good and safe one, because she continued, warming up to the subject of her childhood and life in Maine, talking even as the waiter left their lunches.
    “So you pick blueberries with a rake?” Maksim asked in between bites of his crawfish étouffée, after she told him about her multiple summers spent doing something called “blueberry raking.”
    “No,” Jo said with an impish smile. “You pick blueberries with your hands. You rake blueberries with a rake.”
    Maksim smiled back, enjoying her relaxed demeanor. The way her lack of wariness allowed her dark eyes to glitter with humor and delight. The way she used her hands to tell her story, animated, uninhibited. The way her smile made her whole face light up. No melancholy, no reservation.
    And he wouldn’t delve back into why he liked all those things so much. He was enjoying himself too much to over-analyze.
    “Okay,” he said slowly, trying to comprehend such a strange thing to do as a job. “So you use this rake, and what? Rake them into a pile?
    “No!” Jo laughed. “I’ve already explained this twice.”
    Maksim shook his head, giving her a perplexed look. “I just can’t imagine there isn’t a better way to get blueberries.”
    “Well, there isn’t. You use this rake, which has tines and a metal back. You slide the tines under the bush and pull up.” She imitated the action to clarify. “The berries come off in the rake and gather at the metal back.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Jo laughed again, the sound rich and warm, circling around him like the fit of a perfectly tailored suit. “Yes!”
    Maksim laughed, too, realizing he wasn’t even pretending to enjoy her story like he so often did with women he planned to seduce. He liked her company—how odd.
    “I think you’ve made this up,” he said, grinning.
    “I haven’t.” She smiled, too, as she speared pieces of her salad and popped them into her mouth. She chewed merrily.
    He watched, feeling something—so strange. A tugging at his chest, at his gut.
    She took another bite of her food, clearly enjoying it.
    “I like a woman who likes food as much as I do.” Maksim almost groaned at his comment. If he did know one thing about human females, they did not like men—or anyone, really—to remark on their eating habits. Especially that they liked food.
    Jo finished chewing, and Maksim