Free Spooning Daisy by Maggie McConnell

shoulder. “At home, it will be easier to put in your insurance claims and get new credit cards. That’s hard to do at sea.”
    Daisy inched her eyes above her fingers. “But my job . . .”
    “I’m sure your employer will understand. In the meantime, Ms. Moon, Purser Smith will accompany you to sick bay for something to help calm you.”
    “I . . . I would rather just go to my cabin. At least I still have that.”
    Cabin? Max stopped outside the door. Of course, she had a cabin. The woman was a nitpicking control freak. She’d probably booked passage a year ago. Too bad she wasn’t as particular about the men she dated—present company excluded. Max peeked around the jamb, instantly regretting it. God , was Daisy pathetic, with her eyes puffed and her face splotchy and her nose shiny red like his new pickup. And hair falling this way and that. But she did have a cabin. Which meant she had a bathroom and a shower and—thank his lucky stars—a bed.
    He didn’t know how, Max decided, peg-legging like a pirate down the corridor, but by hook or by crook, he was getting into Daisy Moon’s bed.

Chapter Nine
    W hat now? Daisy wondered at the persistent knocking. She dragged herself off the bed and opened the door. “Oh, great.”
    Max held up two plump white paper bags and cocked his head. “Is that a black eye?” he asked of the mottled shadow beneath her right eye.
    Daisy looked at the bags, then at Max. “Yes. And . . . ?” She shot a questioning glance to the bags.
    His brow furrowed. “From . . . that night ?”
    “Yes, and . . . ?”
    “I brought lunch.”
    Daisy’s green eyes brightened, then quickly narrowed. “Why?”
    “Because I’m a decent guy.”
    “Yeah. That explains the lawsuit.”
    “That’s business.”
    “It feels personal.”
    “Do you want the food or not?”
    Daisy hesitated. It was either swallow her pride or swallow Elizabeth’s dog food. She took the bags. “Thank you,” she grumbled.
    “You’re welcome.”
    “Anything else?” she asked when Max remained.
    “I thought maybe I’d join you. Unless you have another date. Jack the Ripper?”
    Daisy clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes into venomous slits. “After my date with you, anyone would be an improvement.”
    “That explains Dr. Bricker.”
    “As a matter of fact, it does.”
    Max huffed. He felt like shutting her up by telling her she looked like she belonged in Les Misérables , but he didn’t want the door slammed in his face. “Can I come in, Daisy? Please.” The please felt like a root canal.
    Daisy huffed right back at him. “Is that really necessary?”
    “If I go, the food goes.”
    “I guess being a decent guy has its limits.”
    Max lifted his brows.
    “Fine.” Daisy stepped aside.
    “It must be hell being you.”
    “And what does that mean?”
    “All that pride, all that self-righteousness . . .” Max nudged her suitcase a few inches, then helped himself to the sofa. With a satisfied moan, he eased into the cushions and relaxed his imprisoned leg.
    “I certainly am not—”
    “For someone up an ocean without a Lexus you could be a little nicer.”
    Daisy clutched the bags of food to her chest. “I am nice. I’m exceedingly nice. I’m one of the nicest people I know—”
    “—And then you’ve got that indignant, Victorian thing going on.”
    “Victorian?” Daisy screeched, before deciding better of sparring with Max. Setting the bags on the small vanity, she spread them open one at a time. “I don’t see how you’re in any way qualified to discuss me .”
    “I have the battle scars, remember?”
    She looked squarely into his eyes. “You think you have battle scars? Sweetheart, you don’t have a clue.”
    Maybe it was the intensity of her expression or the electricity in a pair of eyes that had intrigued him from the start—or maybe it was the sultry, hard-edged, Angelina Jolie way sweetheart had flowed across her lips—but whatever combination it was, Max thought he