Protecting What’s Mine: A Small Town Love Story

by Score, Lucy

  She wasn’t in peak physical condition. Not after weeks in an air cast and her most recent bruises and scrapes. But she would never be an easy mark.

  Her internal warning system formed out of necessity when she was a child. She learned when her mother was safe to approach and when it was smarter to stay hidden in her room. As she got older, it evolved. It warned her of sketchy guys in dirty bars, and it had signaled a red alert seconds before the chopper carrying her and a patient experienced engine failure, forcing an emergency landing in the desert.

  Protocol. Training. Those were what made her a survivor instead of a victim.

  She couldn’t be in real danger. Not here in the midst of families waking up, getting ready for school and work. She wasn’t in a war zone anymore. Her life didn’t have to be a delicate balance of life, death, and adrenaline.

  She jogged casually toward the tiny park half a block from the middle school. Trees and playground equipment meant cover. A place to hide and observe.

  She’d nearly made it to the cedar-chipped playground when she heard a whistle.

  “There’s my girl!”

  Mack whirled around and bent at the waist in relief as Linc, in jogging pants and a long sleeve tee, grinned at her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He held up his watch. “Got off a couple minutes early and thought I’d catch up with my girl.”

  “Hi,” she said when he picked her up off her feet and spun her around.

  “Hi yourself, Dreamy.” He let her slide down his body in a sinfully decadent move that was not safe for public consumption. She kissed him lightly on the lips.

  “You can be my running buddy,” she told him.

  “I’m all for that as long as it doesn’t jeopardize my position as your naked orgasm buddy,” he teased.

  “You know, if we run fast enough,” she mused. “We could have dirty shower sex before you go to bed and I go into the office.”

  “I knew I loved you for a reason.”

  “So Thanksgiving…” Mack began.

  “Here’s the plan. We’ll host at my place, which is a little tight, but then I’ll be on my turf when your foster dad is like, ‘What are your intentions toward Mackenzie?’” Linc mimicked.

  She laughed as they turned the corner. “You’re insane.”

  “My sisters are already primed to sing my praises. I compiled a Top Ten list of my best rescues, and they’re under orders to deploy them if anything starts to go south.”

  “Nothing is going to go south, you weirdo.” Mack laughed. “You’ll love Dottie and Win, also Violet. They’re good people, and they want me to be happy. And you and your gigantic cock, heroic personality, and sweet, beautiful dog will win them over in seconds.”

  “I approve the order of my virtues.”

  They turned down another street, closing in on home and that shower.

  “Do you think Sunshine would like a little brother or sister?” she mused.

  “Human or canine?”

  “Canine. For now.”

  “We should involve her in the decision, but yeah. I think she’d love another dog.”

  “And if we get another dog, we might have to talk about living arrangements,” she said, biting her lip.

  He loved his gas station. It suited him to the ground.

  “Race you to the stop sign,” he said, nodding toward the end of the block.

  Mack took off. Even two months stale, she beat him by two paces.

  He slung an arm around her shoulder, and they walked toward home. “About these living arrangements.”

  “My place isn’t mine.”

  “Plus, it’s a shoebox.”

  “There is that. And your place is an ode to the bachelor lifestyle,” she pointed out. “Not that I don’t absolutely love your gas station.”

  “Of course you do,” Linc said amicably. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “But we’re going to need more room for dogs.”

  “And maybe other things…small people type things.” Mack felt her heart catch in her throat. She was expressing a desire—poorly—but she was still attempting it.

  Progress.

  He beamed down at her. “We’ll find the right place for our menagerie of dogs and small people type things,” he promised.

  “And a big shower made for after-run shower sex?”

  He stopped her on the sidewalk. “Dreamy, anything you want. All you have to do is ask. I’ll do anything in my power to give you everything you want.”

  56

  “Yes, you can have dinner in five seconds. Geez. Just let me unlock the door,” Mack said to Sunshine as the dog whimpered and tap-danced next to her at the front door.

  It was three days to Thanksgiving. Linc was still working B shifts at the station, and Mack had taken over primary parent duties where Sunshine was concerned. She’d taken the dog to the clinic today. Sunshine had whiled away her day snoozing on a pet bed in Mack’s office and entertaining patients in the waiting room.

  She pulled the keys out of her bag and frowned in the dark at the knob. The brass finish was scraped and scratched. It struck her as odd. She didn’t remember it being that way.

  The dog bolted inside as soon as the door was open, and Mack followed her. The lights were off, and the living room had a chill consistent with an empty house on a winter day. But still… There was something off. It nagged at her.

  She hadn’t left that book on the floor, had she?

  And the pillows on the couch looked different.

  Sunshine was busy nosing around the perimeter of the room, some mystery scent catching her attention.

  Mack put her bag down inside the door and flicked on the lights.

  It had been a long day thanks to flu season. Dehydrated patients and exhausted caregivers had kept them hopping all day long. She was probably just imagining things.

  In the kitchen, things looked the same. Except for that coffee mug in the sink. Mack hadn’t had time for tea that morning. She’d gone through a drive-thru on her way to the clinic.

  Maybe Linc had been here on some boyfriendy mission. Maybe he’d helped himself to a cup of coffee.

  Sunshine’s snuffling at the back door caught her attention. The worn sliding door was unlocked and askew on its track. There was a tiny pile of wood shavings on the floor.

  “Shit,” Mack muttered.

  She dialed Linc.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he answered.

  “Hey. Were you in my house today?”

  He shifted gears from playful to serious. “No. I slept at my place, worked out, and then came straight to the station.”

  “I think someone’s been here.”

  “Mackenzie, go to my place and wait there,” he said.

  “I don’t think they’re still here,” she complained.

  “My place. I’ll be there in five minutes. Go now and stay on the phone.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

  “And you’re underreacting.”

  “Fine. Sunny, come on.” The dog trotted into the kitchen, a dust bunny stuck to her nose. “We’re going to Daddy’s house.”

  She could hear Linc saying something to someone on his end and then the slam of a car door. “I think we’re overreacting,” she insisted, opening the garden gate and stepping into his backyard.

  “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

  She heard a faraway siren. “You better not be coming in hot. I’m fine. I’m walking into your house right now,” she said, opening his back door.

  “Are you in? Is the door locked?”

  Mack rolled her eyes at the dog and mouthed “overreacting.” She flipped the deadbolt. “I am officially locked inside.”

  The sirens cut off.

  Linc arrived two minutes later and found Mack sipping tea on his couch, her feet pulled up under her, Sunshine wriggling on her back on the floor.

  “Don’t you feel silly now?” she said as he barreled in through the door.

  “Nope.”
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  A police cruiser pulled up in front of Linc’s place.

  “Oh, come on, Linc. The police?”

  Deputy Hiya Tahir climbed out and adjusted her belt.

  “You are overreacting,” Mack said in exasperation.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said mildly as he gave her a hard, reassuring hug.

  * * *

  A search of Mack’s house revealed several missing items. A bottle of wine, a pair of small diamond studs that her foster parents got her for her graduation from med school, and two-hundred dollars in cash that she kept in an empty box of K-Cups in the kitchen cabinet.

  The weak lock on the back door had been jimmied open, and Mack could see Linc’s wheels turning.

  “No other damage that I can see,” she said as she perused her bedroom under Deputy Tahir’s watchful eye.

  “Where’s your sketchbook, Dreamy,” Linc asked, peering into the drawer of her nightstand.

  “It’s right…it should be right there,” she said, frowning. The charcoal pencils were there, the eraser. But no book.

  “Is it missing?” the deputy asked.

  “Why would someone take that?” Mack asked half to herself. She peered under the bed in case she’d mislaid it.

  That tickle between her shoulder blades was back. Something was wrong.

  “Dr. O’Neil, do you know anyone who would mean you any harm?” Deputy Tahir asked.

  “You mean besides the Kershes?” Linc put in.

  “We’ll ask any questions that need asking, chief,” Deputy Tahir said.

  “Someone broke in here,” Linc said succinctly. “You think asking questions is going to keep Mackenzie safe?”

  “Linc.” Mack laid a hand on his arm. “I am safe.”

  “I want you to stay at the station with me tonight,” he said, his jaw hard.

  “I’m not staying in a firefighter fart factory.”

  “You’re not staying here alone.”

  “Sunshine and I will stay at your place. Final offer.”

  “I want drive-bys,” he insisted.

  “We’ll have patrol come by every hour,” the deputy offered. “It’s probably just kids being stupid. But it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

  Mack waited until Linc walked Deputy Tahir to her cruiser before pulling out her phone.

  “Well, look who it is. The daughter who disowned me,” Andrea sniped when she answered the call.

  “Where’s Wendy?” Mack said flatly.

  “What does it matter? Are you going to try having her arrested again?”

  “Where is she, Andrea?”

  “Andrea? I’m your mother. You will show me the respect I deserve!”

  “When you’ve earned my respect, I’ll be happy to give it to you. Where is Wendy?”

  “She’s in the shower getting ready for work.”

  “She has a job?”

  “Don’t pretend you know us, Kenzie.”

  “Don’t call me Kenzie.”

  “I need money, Ken—Mackenzie.”

  “That’s no longer my problem. You’ve done nothing but lie to me and use me. Those checks weren’t for you to support a boyfriend and the sister who has meant me nothing but harm.”

  “Wendy has had a rough time since Powell died.”

  “She locked me in a room for two days when she was ten years old.”

  “That’s just sisters being sisters. You’ve always been too sensitive, Kenzie.”

  “And you’ve always been a lying alcoholic with no intention of changing.”

  Mack hung up as her mother sputtered more lies, more excuses into the phone.

  She didn’t have to listen anymore.

  A minute later, Linc stalked back inside. “Come on,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To buy that goddamn video surveillance system I shouldn’t have let you talk me out of.”

  57

  The day before Thanksgiving, Mack sat gingerly on her office chair and quickly transcribed her notes from her last patient appointment into the portal.

  Her lips quirked when she added the note, “Keep up the great work!” Seventy-four-year-old Jimmy McGuire had come in for a long-overdue physical after a come-to-Jesus from his pal Leroy Mahoney. Together, the two fishing buddies had decided to start walking and take a stab at a pescatarian diet. Jimmy had already lost five pounds in two weeks, and Mack was betting his inflammatory markers and cholesterol would be drastically different when he repeated the bloodwork in three months.

  With a few minutes to herself, she opened her new handy-dandy home security app on her phone and snickered while she rewatched the backyard camera’s recording of the middle of the night backyard patrol by Linc and Sunshine. Both security officers paused to take a piss synchronized on the lawn before they returned to her bed.

  Men.

  Her desk phone buzzed. When she reached for it, the chair lurched under her in warning.

  She steadied it—and herself—before answering the phone.

  “What’s up?”

  “You have a couple of walk-ins out here,” Tuesday announced chipperly.

  “As in plural? Flu or pink eye?”

  Tuesday laughed. “Neither, but you’re definitely going to want to see this.”

  Mack eased out of the chair, then gave it a quick kick for good measure.

  She was just tucking a sticky note that said “Order a new fucking chair” into her coat pocket when she rounded the corner at the front desk.

  “Surprise!”

  Mack gaped at Dottie, Win, and Violet Nguyen, who were grinning at her like a JC Penney family portrait. “You guys are early,” she exclaimed even as she was wrapped in Dottie’s strong hug. It always lasted a beat longer than Mack expected, and it always made her feel…safe.

  “You look so official,” Dottie squealed. She was an inch or two shorter than Mack and wore her hair in a short, curly, face-framing ’do. The woman loved turtlenecks and themed earrings. She was rocking both today.

  Win, dressed in podiatrist casual Dockers and a checkered button-down shirt with Nikes, nudged Mack. “You hear about the podiatrist who was having a bad day?” He wiggled his eyebrows over his silver-rimmed glasses.

  Mack pinched her lips together. The man took dad jokes to a new low, combining them with lousy podiatry jokes. “I did not.”

  “He started the day on the wrong foot.”

  “Dad!” Violet rolled her eyes. She was shorter than Mack and had the slump-shoulder posture and amused smirk of a teenager. She was going through a cute Nirvana/Seattle-grunge phase and experimenting with eye makeup and flannel.

  Mack laughed. She couldn’t help it. “That’s terrible.”

  Win pulled her in for a hug. “You look good, Dr. O’Neil.”

  Her bruises had finally faded enough to be hidden under a coat of makeup—thankfully. She had no real need to walk the Nguyens through the latest and final ordeal with her family. They’d witnessed enough of that history. It felt like it was finally time for them all to focus on the future.

  She slung an arm around Violet’s shoulders and gave the girl a squeeze.

  “Nose stud, huh?” Mack asked, tapping the tiny heart-shaped stud in Violet’s nose.

  “Awesome, right?” It kinda was.

  “It suits you.”

  “Tuesday, would you mind taking a picture of us together?” Dottie asked, pulling a hefty, practically antique digital camera out of her purse and handing it over.

  Tuesday eyed the dinosaur with apprehension and fascination. Dottie was big on pictures. Some of the kids she and Win had fostered didn’t have a photographic history of their childhoods. So the Nguyen’s made sure to document every moment they could for the kids who came into their lives.

  The first time Mack had seen the Nguyens as an adult, Dottie had presented her with a photo album of her ten weeks with them. To this day, it was the only photo album Mack owned. Her mother had left behind Mack’s baby pictures somewhere along the way, eit
her in a half-empty apartment or in one of the long line of “uncles’” homes.

  “I can take a bunch on my phone, do some fun filters. I can text them to you,” Tuesday offered. She’d spent fifteen minutes of her lunch break explaining photo editing apps to Mack earlier in the week.

  Violet snorted, then hugged her mother, who probably had only understood every other word in that sentence. “You can text them to me or Mack. We’ll get them to Mom,” the girl offered.

  “Get over here, Mack,” Dottie insisted, putting an arm around her and Violet. Win squished in next to Mack.

  “Everyone say ‘duck lips,’” Tuesday sang.

  “Duck lips!”

  Mack mentally added “Get Dottie a smartphone for Christmas” to the sticky note in her pocket.

  They smiled cheesy smiles and let Tuesday play Annie Liebovitz before Dottie invited Tuesday, Freida, and Russell to join them for “one of those selfies.”

  While she oohed and aahed over Tuesday’s photographic expertise, Win stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and made some wistful comments about lunch. Next up would be jokes about hypoglycemia as well as twenty questions about local restaurants and their signature dishes.

  “Go,” Russell said when Mack looked at him.

  “We’re closing early anyway. Take your family to lunch.”

  Family. The word used to stick in her throat. They weren’t hers. Not legally or biologically. But damn it, in her heart, in the place that it counted the most, Dottie and Win were the best parents she could have asked for.

  “Why don’t you see if your manfriend can join us?” Dottie suggested brightly.

  “Linc? Oh, he might be busy.” The plan had been for Mack to have a fun takeout dinner with the Nguyens tonight while Linc worked the night shift. They’d meet him officially tomorrow.

  “It sounds like you’re scared to introduce him to us,” Violet mused. “So does that mean you’re ashamed of us or him?”

  “It has to be him,” Dottie said, playing along. “We’re amazing.”

  They were.

  “You can call him on the way to the diner,” Win suggested as he peered over Freida’s shoulder while she walked him through the local dining options. “What kind of specials do they have on Wednesdays? Oh, lookie here. They’ve got their specials online.”