Lovers at Heart (The Bradens, Book One: Love in Bloom Series)

Chapter Three, Lovers at Heart

Chapter Three

“WHAT THE HECK was that all about?” Savannah asked.

Treat couldn’t believe his eyes. Max. After all these months, he’d thought he had squelched the need she stirred within him, but seeing her standing on that car like she could command the world—all wrapped up in an adorable five-foot-five, one-hundred-ten-pound frame of brown-haired beauty—all those urges came rushing back. Treat saw right through those jeans and that T-shirt. He’d seen the sexy woman beneath, the one she tried so hard to ignore.

Damn it. How could he have been so stupid? And now Savannah was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, and he wasn’t so sure he hadn’t.

“Nothing. I thought she was someone I knew.” What the hell was Max doing at the festival—standing on top of a car? Of course Max was there, he realized. The other groom in his cousin Blake’s double wedding had been Max’s boss, Chaz Crew. Chaz owned the festival. One phone call six months earlier would have told him everything he’d ever wanted to know about Max, but he hadn’t made that call. His only goal had been to forget her—and now Treat wanted to know more.

“That was more than nothing, bro.” Savannah flashed a sly smile. “Let me tell Connor I’ll catch up with him, and we’ll go grab some coffee and chat.”

Treat couldn’t put anything in his stomach if he wanted to. It took every bit of his focus not to run after Max’s car, or ask the security guard where he could find her. He didn’t want to make a scene, and it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk to him. He was frozen, locked into place between what he wanted to do and how quickly Max had fled. The thundering of his heart was too strong to ignore, and now, with the hope of forgetting her gone, he accepted what he had feared all along—the thundering was his heart's way of telling him not to let her go.

TREAT BRADEN. Oh God, Treat Braden. Max drove as fast as she could into the underground garage that was reserved for the festival’s staff. She slammed her car door shut and paced the concrete floor. What is he doing here? Is he doing this just to torture me? Is this some sort of game to him? She thought she had hated him enough after the way he’d treated her that she’d become immune to even the sight of him. But the way her heart melted with one look from his piercing dark eyes convinced her she was wrong.Boy, was she wrong.

Get a grip.

A voice came through her earpiece. “Max, I need you by Marquee One.”

Damn it, Chaz. Now? “Be right there,” she said into the earpiece. There were thousands of people milling about. What were the chances she’d run into Treat again? Not much, she decided. She felt a pang of disappointment, then chided herself for it.

Max hurried to Marquee One and flipped through her planner to make sure there were no issues with it that she hadn’t taken care of. She found Chaz staring up at the large sign.

“Max, come here.” Chaz motioned her over with a flash of his pearly whites. His hair had lightened from the sun during the summer, and he still carried a copper tan, giving him the look of a twenty-something surfer rather than the thirtysomething director and owner of the festival. “Look at that. What do you think?”

She squinted at the sign, having no idea what she was supposed to be seeing.  Maybe she just couldn’t focus because her heart had yet to settle down. “What?”

“That there.” He pointed again.

“Chaz, sorry, but you’ve lost me.” She pushed her earpiece to her head and answered another request. “Yeah, no problem, Grace. Sure.”