Turn It Up

Chapter Sixteen

Tasha’s stomach was going to ache for the rest of the day from laughing so hard.

“And then there was the time—”

Tasha held up a hand in an attempt to restrain her sister-in-law’s enthusiasm. “Maxy, you’ve got to stop. Your brother is going to kill you for giving me all this dirt on him.”

Maxine waved a hand and took a sip of her coffee. “He knew it was going to come out eventually. You need the background when you want to tease him down the road. Or tease your kids about how much like their father they are.”

Her heart thumped out a rapid beat at the thought of a whole family with Maxwell. She hid her smile in her teacup. The demons of doubt were still there, rattling at her mind, but she’d promised herself to try to trust. Try to maintain a positive attitude toward their relationship, and so far, it was working. Still, it had only been a few days—it wasn’t going to be easy to put aside years of apprehension so quickly.

She glanced up at Maxwell’s sister, grinning at the shining expression on her face. It was much easier to remain positive when she was around someone like Maxy, who seemed to take on everything with a wholehearted blur of excitement. All that shared energy had to be either invigorating or positively nauseating.

Today, Tasha was going for the energizing side of the equation.

“Tasha, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She leaned back in the chair, and a strange sense of déjà vu stole over her. They were back at the Sugar Shack—the same shop where Maxwell had first proposed to her. With her belly swelling before her, she felt a whole lot better this time round than the last.

“When did you move out on your own?” Maxine asked.

Tasha thought about it for a minute. “I left for college and never moved back.”

“Like Junior.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t really have a place to go home to, so I had to leave. Your brother chose to move out.”

Maxy sighed. “And I chose to stay home. When I did move out last year, I moved in with my friend Valerie.” The bright shining smile faded as Maxine wrinkled her nose.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing terrible. I just think I’d like to be completely on my own for a while, but I don’t know that it’s the right thing to do.”

Ahhh, it began to make sense. “Since you’re never on your own now?”

Maxy’s wry expression combined with her nodding acknowledgement. “Bingo. I love my family, but if you’ve noticed? The Turner clan can be overwhelming at times.”

There was no holding in her laughter. “Um, I noticed. But why not move out? I mean, you’d have to find a place you can afford, but if you’re not too fussy, you can do it. You should have seen my first apartments. Tiny things, but they were my own.”

Maxy waggled her head. “I know it makes sense, in a way, but right now Valerie needs a roommate, and there’s no real reason to move out.” She shrugged. “It’s something that’s been going through my mind, I guess. I’ll think about it a bit more.” Maxy popped straight up in her chair, all her concern shedding off like droplets from a raincoat. “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”

Oh, to have her sister-in-law’s energy. “I have two final projects to complete. Once they’re done I’m off indefinitely—which will give me time to have this baby and hopefully get my brain back before I have to jump back into the work fray. Not to mention getting the house done. Max and I are meeting there this afternoon.”

“It’s nearly finished, right?”

“Getting closer.” Thank God. She’d never have dreamed that the house building would take longer than the baby building. “I’m used to drawing up the plans and that’s the end of it. Since I took on the contracting to save money, the delay’s partly my fault. The latest estimate is a month to completion. There’s still no flooring down—and the guys laying the tile are running behind—and until that happens, it won’t feel real.”

“It’s going to be beautiful when it’s done, though.”

Tasha smiled. “I’m looking forward to being able to move in. What are you up to?”

“I’m heading over to the house to have lunch with Gramma. Do you want to get together later this week? I can help you with the secret room.”

“Shhh.” Tasha held up a finger to her lips. “Not a word about that. I don’t want Max to find out before I’m ready to tell him. I’m still figuring things out.”

Maxy leaned back in her chair and pretended to pout. “Fine. Then I’ll help with the baby’s room. I saw the most adorable set of curtains the other day. Oh, and I found a bib with Samantha on it, and I bought it for you.”

Tasha laughed softly as she reached to squeeze her hand. “You’re going to be the best auntie ever, you know that?”

Maxy grinned. “That’s the plan. Have I told you how pleased I am that you guys aren’t going to add her to the hoard of people in the area with a Max in their names?”

“That was more at your brother’s insistence than mine. Said he’d invent a new computer game or something to create our own legacy fund to save her the chore of being another Max Turner. I’m happy not to have to follow the tradition, because the only Max name I like, you’ve already got.”

They rose to their feet and Maxy hugged her tight, kissing her cheek lightly before leading the way out of the Sugar Shack. “Give my love to Junior when you see him.”

“I will.”

A flash of regret stole over Tasha as she slipped into her car. Maxine had become a good friend, someone she trusted to have her best interests at heart. It still hurt not being able to share this kind of planning with Lila, who had totally cut her off, ignoring all attempts at contact, even leaving family events early to avoid her.

How could two people in the same basic family, Lila and Maxy, have such different approaches to life? Such different responses to her? Tasha thought about it the entire drive over to the house, and the only conclusion she came to was that whatever caused it, she sure liked Maxy’s reaction better than Lila’s.

Max stared at the computer screen unseeing for another full minute before he gave up, rubbing his eyes and wandering out of the back bedroom. Complaining seemed foolish, but was it possible for him to stop getting additional business? He’d been inundated with new requests for both web designs and advertising proposals, and every one of them was a referral from someone he really shouldn’t turn down.

The doorbell rang, and he hurried across the room to open the door.

“Maxy? Hey, what’s up?” A quick check of his watch showed the entire afternoon had disappeared and he had only thirty minutes before he had to meet Tasha. He was still on a high from the whole time-to-call off-the-prenatal-rules event.

People who said guys couldn’t get emotional needed their heads examined.

His sister slipped around him, pulling off her light jacket. “I need to talk to you. About important things.”

He pointed to the living room and sat across from her. “Are these like business things, or should I be getting scared?”

Maxine’s face flushed, and she fidgeted and wiggled like she was a little child waiting for their birthday cake to arrive. “Gramma wants to sell the house. She can’t. There’s no way she can let someone else have that place. It’s way too important to the family, all that history and tradition tied up in the place and suddenly it’s going to belong to strangers? I don’t want that to—”

“Whoa, slow down. Who told you this? About her selling the house?”

“She did.” Maxine stood and paced a few steps. “She said she’s getting too old to take care of it by herself, and that she’d like to have regular company. She’s been looking into a few of the local seniors housing that have room. If she puts up the house for sale and someone new buys it, all those years of tradition will be lost. We can’t let that happen. What are we going to do?”

With every sentence her voice rose slightly higher. Max scrambled to calm her. He’d never seen his sister so agitated. “I thought that house was a part of the Turner Legacy. I’m sure of it, in fact.”

She pulled to a sudden stop and whirled on him, her forehead creased with a frown. “What does that have to do with the legacy? I know we’ll be getting money because of having the Max in our names, but the house?”

“The house is a part of it.” He spoke quickly, rubbing her arms with his palms. “There was some kind of clause stating it can’t be sold if there are Turners of age to inherit. I’m not exactly sure—it’s a long time since I saw those papers, and I was pretty young back then. Let me go find out the details, but if I remember right, you, me and…Maximilian might be the ones eligible for inheriting.”

She took a steadying breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I would just hate to see that place not a part of the clan. But…how would that work if there are three of us to inherit? Are we supposed to all live in it together? That’s not going to work.”

Max pretended to think for a second, putting on a serious expression. “Well, it is a pretty big place. Tasha and I could take the main floor, you get the second, and we’ll stick old Mill up in the attic rooms like a bat. He’d like that. Suits him too.”

She stuck out her tongue at him and stepped away before giving him a sheepish smile. “Thanks for calming me down, but I’m still concerned.”

“I promise to do what I can to make sure the house doesn’t need to be sold.” He thought about the mortgage he and Tasha had on the new house, and how little they actually owed due to her scrimping and his college windfall. His ability to make this work was far better than his sister knew, but he wasn’t going to share that information until he’d had a chance to talk it over with Tasha. “We’ll be able to figure it out.”

Maxine nodded, then twisted her fingers together. “There is something else.”

“Is this like…personal?” Her body language screamed it was personal.

“Sort of.” She blinked up at him with her big innocent eyes. “How did you know you and Tasha were in love?”

Oh man. She was still seeing Jamie. Old Twinkle Toes hadn’t gotten any better with time, not as far as he was concerned. “Are you asking because you think you might be in love?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think I am, but I’m curious. Is it really something heart-pounding and unmistakable?”

“Hell, yeah.” His instant response brought a chuckle from her, and as they laughed together, he scrambled to find the words that would both encourage her and discourage her from looking for love with the wrong guy, i.e. Jamie the wishy-washy. “It’s not only heart-pounding, it’s butterflies in the stomach and shivers up the spine.”

“Sounds like a bad medical condition,” she teased.

He thought about Tasha, and the way she was trying to open up and let him completely into her life. The last week had been different. That ghostly wall hadn’t appeared even once, and everything in him wanted to jump up and down and rejoice. “Terminal, for sure.”

Maxine rose and paced toward the windows, turning back slowly. “So, if there’s nothing like fireworks, it’s probably not love?”

He hated to say it, but he couldn’t leave it at that. “Now you’re being silly. Even in romantic love there’s more than the physical thrill. There’s thinking about them all the time, and wanting the best for them. Wanting to be with them, like the way sitting in the same room as Tasha can make me happy. Are you telling me that you feel fireworks when you hug Gramma? Or Mom and Dad?”

“Of course not.”

“But you love them, and me, and the cousins and the aunts and—”

She laughed. “Okay, enough. Yes, I love the whole lot of you. Some more than others, and you, only at times.”

He winked. “You know what love is, sis. If you’re looking for fireworks, you’re probably asking about sex, and that’s one discussion we are not having.”

The instant flush over her cheeks was amusing. “No, I don’t want to talk about sex with you. Don’t worry.”

“If you need to talk about that, chat with Tasha. Only make sure I’m working in a faraway place, and I’m wearing headphones.” She wrinkled her nose, and he tweaked it with a laugh. “Hey, I need to go now, if I’m going to make my date with Tasha.”

She smiled as she picked up her coat and headed for the door, him right on her heels. “I had coffee with her this morning. Things are going really well for you guys, aren’t they?”

He nodded as they waited for the elevator. “It’s been the most incredible year of my life.”

“I always thought you guys would be good together. I’m glad.” There was a little note of longing in her voice and he impulsively hugged her. He wanted to tell her to give it a while, but he knew what it felt like to be waiting for the right person.

Now if only Tasha would admit he was the one for her.