Rogue by Danielle Steel Page B

friend and not his father, and then inquired about the girlfriend he'd had with him the previous summer. Blake looked at him and laughed.
    “You've missed two since then, champ. I was just telling your mom. I got dumped last week. So it's just me this time.” Sam nodded at the explanation, and glanced at his mother.
    “Mom doesn't have a boyfriend either. She never goes out. She has us.”
    “She should go out,” Blake said, smiling at both of them. “She's a very beautiful woman, and one of these days you guys are going to grow up.” It was exactly what Maxine's father had said that day after lunch. She had another twelve years until Sam left for college. She was in no hurry, despite everyone else's concerns. He asked Sam about school then, not knowing what else to say, and Sam told his father he had been the turkey in the school play. Maxine had emailed Blake the pictures of it, as she always did of important events. She had sent a slew of them to him of Jack at his soccer games.
    The children wandered in and out, chatting easily with their parents, and getting used to Blake again. Daphne looked at him with open adoration, and when she left the room, Maxine told him about the incident with the beer, just so he was aware of it, and didn't let it happen when Daphne was with him.
    “Come on, Max,” he chided her gently, “don't be so uptight. She's just a kid. Don't you think restriction for a month is a little over the top? She's not going to turn into an alcoholic from two beers.” It was the kind of reaction she expected from him, and not one she liked. But she wasn't surprised. It was one of the many differences between them. Blake didn't believe in rules, for anyone, and least of all himself.
    “No, she isn't,” Maxine said quietly. “But if I let them have beer parties now, at thirteen, where are we going to be at sixteen or seventeen? Crack parties when I'm out seeing patients, or heroin? She's got to have limits, and respect for boundaries, or we're going to be in deep shit in a few years. I'd rather put the brakes on now.”
    “I know,” he sighed, the blue eyes looking brighter than ever as he glanced at her sheepishly. He looked like a boy who had just been scolded by his mother or teacher. It was a role Maxine didn't like, but had had with him for years. She was used to it by now. “You're probably right. It just doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. I did a lot worse at her age. I was stealing scotch out of my father's bar at twelve, and selling it in school for a hell of a profit.” He laughed and so did Max.
    “That's different. That's business. You were an entrepreneur at that age, not a drunk. I'll bet you weren't drinking it.” He was not an excessive drinker as a rule, and had never done drugs. He was just wild in every other way. Blake was allergic to boundaries of any kind.
    “You're right.” Blake laughed harder at the memory. “I didn't do that till I was fourteen. I was more interested in staying sober and getting the girls drunk that I went out with. That seemed like a much better plan to me.”
    Max shook her head, laughing at him. “Why is it I think that hasn't changed?”
    “I don't need to get them drunk anymore,” he confessed with a shameless grin. They had the strangest relationship, like great friends, more than people who had been married for ten years and had three children. He was like the crazy pal she saw two or three times a year, while she was the responsible one, bringing up children and going to work every day. They were night and day.
    Dinner arrived promptly at nine o'clock, and everyone was hungry by then. He had ordered it from the best Japanese restaurant in the city, and it was prepared in front of them, with all kinds of flourishes and exotic touches, and a chef who flamed everything, chopped up the shrimp and flipped it in the air and caught it in his pocket. The kids loved it. Everything Blake did or organized was spectacular and different. Even