Free Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) by Lori Handeland Page B

house down the street. Livy caught at his
arm and got nothing but cast. Touching that thing was like stroking
a gravestone. “Let’s go home.”
    His face scrunched. “But I wanna visit Mr.
Stark.”
    “I figured that out, since you’re once again
where you’re not supposed to be when you’re not supposed to be
there. Didn’t I ground you?”
    He hung his head and kicked a stone off the
sidewalk. “I wasn’t gonna be long.”
    “Oh, that makes all the difference.”
    In the way of children, he stuck a knife
right in her weak spot.
    “Usually I’m home a while before you get
there on Wednesdays, anyway.” Then he twisted it a bit. “It’s not
like you’re there waiting for me.”
    Guilt, guilt, guilt, pulsed in Livy’s
head. She did her best, but she always seemed to come up a few
hours short. ‘‘If no one’s home, you’re supposed to go to Mrs.
Hammond’s. How many times have we discussed this?”
    “But Jenny always wants to play house.” He
gave an exaggerated shudder. “And I have to be the husband. She’s
always saying she loves me, and when she does that I just want to
run away as fast as I can.”
    Like father, like son.
    She really had to stop thinking that way or
she’d let something slip. Taking hold of Max’s unfettered hand, she
tugged him in the direction of home. He held back, and Livy halted.
Max stared at her from eyes so like his father’s she had to force
herself not to look away.
    “He’s a writer,” Max said, as if that
explained everything. “For a job.”
    As fascinating as a dead bird is to most
boys, being a writer must be to Max. Ever since he’d been old
enough to hold a crayon, he’d drawn anything that came into his
head, and once he could write words, he wrote stories that were far
too advanced for a boy his age, causing both pride and concern to
war within Livy whenever she read one.
    “He’s a writer, but he’s also a stranger.
What have I told you about strangers?”
    “But—”
    “ What have I told you?”
    He recited the creed. “They might look nice
and talk nice, but that’s their job. They could grab you and take
you and you’ll be gone forever-more.”
    “And?”
    “Then I’ll wish I’d listened to my mom.”
    Livy hated scaring him, but truth was truth.
The world was screwed up. “I want you to stay away from Garrett
Stark.”
    “But—”
    “No buts. That’s final.” She took his hand,
expecting the grudging acquiescence she always got when she put her
foot down.
    Instead, Max yanked away and backed out of
Livy’s reach. “He’s not a stranger. If he was gonna take me
away, he’d have done it when I snuck in his house.”
    “You what?” Livy shouted.
    A soft gasp made her look up, to find the two
little old ladies Garrett had frightened earlier strolling toward
them. Max scuttled behind her as Livy stifled a groan.
    The Kendall twins—Miss Violet and Miss Viola—
had been her granny’s best friends. Savannah pure-breds and
southern gentlewomen, they often tried to get Livy to cease her
unladylike lawyering and settle down.
    “Olivia Frasier, your grandmama would be
horrified to hear you shouting like a fishwife in public.”
    Miss Violet’s genteel voice matched her peach
afternoon dress as well as her winter-white shoes matched her hat
and her gloves. The summer-white accouterments had been neatly
packed away after the Georgia-Florida football game, no doubt; just
as any lady in southern Georgia knew it was inappropriate to wear
panty hose until that age-old rivalry had been played out for the
season.
    “Or shouting anywhere at all, for that
matter,” Miss Viola continued.
    Her dress was autumn orange, the accents a
perfect taupe. The sisters were identical in face, body and voice.
The only way to tell them apart was by the shade of their hair.
Miss Violet’s was black streaked with gray, while Miss Viola’s was
gray streaked with black.
    “I’m sorry,” Livy said. “But there are times
when shouting is