by Ruby Laska
“What’s so funny?” His back to her, Amber noticed a stiffness to his shoulders. Well, of course. They were both on edge, given the unfortunate moment on the steps. They would both have to work hard to pretend it had never happened.
“It’s just—ironic, I guess. I mean, there was a time when we didn’t have two dimes to rub together, when we thought a Miller in a long-necked bottle was the height of sophistication. And now...”
“Yeah. I guess we both managed to rise up a few notches, eh?”
He worked for a moment in silence, taking things from the refrigerator and cabinets. Then he joined her at the table, placing a large pottery platter between them. In dishes glazed brown and celadon were purees in deep, exotic colors, nestled among crisp flatbread.
Amber raised a brow quizzically. “Am I to understand that you, a man who used to have trouble boiling a hot dog, actually made this yourself?”
Mac colored slightly, grinning self-consciously, and Amber helped herself to a taste.
It was wonderful, earthy and cool and unfamiliar.
“Roasted eggplant,” Mac said, pointing. “And that’s something I’m experimenting with, tapenade...” His voice trailed off. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded.
“Nothing.” In an apologetic little motion, Amber shook her head back and forth. “Nothing, it’s wonderful, but I just—I just didn’t expect you to have changed so much. To know how to cook and decorate a house. To be running a huge, successful business. I mean, it’s not that I’m not happy for you. I guess there’s a part of me that thought you would be just as I left you, way back when.”
“Just as you left me,” Mac repeated softly. “So we’re back to that again. There isn’t ever going to be a perfect time to discuss this, Amber. But we have to. Need to.”
For a moment there was a charged silence between them, as Amber slowly lowered a crust of bread to her plate.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she said in a ragged voice. “When I came here tonight, I told myself it was just to talk about our plans for the park, to convince you to consider our proposal. But in truth, I think I had planned to tell you everything, the rest of what happened that night so long ago. But...I’m sorry, Mac. I just can’t.”
“Yes you can!” Mac’s hand crashed down on the massive table, causing the fragile glassware to jump. Amber’s head snapped up, wariness painted in her eyes. He hadn’t meant to frighten, to threaten, but he wasn’t going to let the subject go again.
Sitting across from him, in his home, surrounded by his things, Amber looked a little adrift, like an animal cornered in unfamiliar territory. Her hands tapped out her anxiety like a code, her slender fingers tracing a path on the worn surface of the table. Maybe he could take advantage of her uncertainty to coax answers out of her.
If he could just keep his temper under control. The rage he’d worked years to tamp down where it could do no damage, now threatened to burst free. With enormous effort he stuffed it once again, and breathed deeply.
“Amber,” he went on, more softly, “When you came to me that night, you told me that my father threatened you.”
Amber’s eyes flashed at the memory. “He told me in no uncertain terms that I could never see you again.”
“It was no secret that my folks didn’t approve of you...of us. But that never stopped us. We always said nothing could come between us.”
“Well, I guess we were wrong. Mac, I really don’t want to...”
“I’ve gone over it a million times since then,” Mac continued. “I’ve regretted that I didn’t just go with you when you asked, but it just didn’t seem right. Hell, I didn’t even know if that old car would have gotten us fifty miles out of town. And you were asking me to throw everything away.”
“I thought you would have come. I was wrong,” Amber whispered, her voice barely audible.
Mac shook his head impatiently. “But I knew there had to be more to it. Since when did we ever listen to my folks? Since when did anyone ever scare you? Amber...what was it you weren’t telling me? Did you meet someone else?”
Amber’s head snapped up, surprise and anger flashing in her eyes.
“Are you accusing me of lying to you?”
“Did you stop loving me?” He had to ask the question, even though he knew the answer. It was a fear that had once haunted him, but had vanished now that he had seen Amber again, kissed her, tasted a hunger that matched his own.
She greeted his query with a baleful glare, but she didn’t deny it.
But Mac had a much more pressing anxiety, one that until tonight he had never been able to voice out loud.
There was one possibility that came to him long after she had gone. One so painful to imagine that it, too, had been banished to the recesses of his mind. As much as it tore at him to revisit it now, it was the one explanation that might hold the answer to Amber’s betrayal.
Reaching across the table, Mac took the tips of Amber’s fingers in his own large hands and stilled their nervous dance. His thudding heart made it difficult for him to find his voice.
“Amber.” He paused, searching for the right words. “Were you...were we going to have a baby?”
“No!”
The shock that registered on her face, the vehemence in her voice, were real. Mac, watching carefully, was convinced. Something in him relaxed then.
The fear he’d never named slipped away, and in its absence, he realized how big it had really become.
Mac loved children with a passion rare in men who aren’t fathers. Charlene’s children were like a niece and nephew to him, and the hours spent at their birthday parties and holiday dinners and taking them to movies and ball games had cemented his status as favorite uncle. So often, though, as he tossed a ball with Buddy or helped Louise catch fireflies on a summer night, his heart caught with the fear that he might never have children of his own.
And always, always, the hidden part of his mind had wondered if the thing that was so awful that it had driven Amber away had been a baby.
“How...why would you think that?” Amber said, her eyes wide with astonishment. “We always were careful—”
“Things happen,” Mac said sharply. “Accidents.”
“And you think I wouldn’t have told you?” Spots of color rose high on Amber’s cheeks, and a dark cloud passed in her eyes. “How could you think that? I told you everything. Have you forgotten? Every single dream I ever had, every time I was afraid or lonely or sad I shared it with you.”
“Yes,” Mac said slowly, drawing the word out. “We shared almost everything.”
And there it was on the table again, the final betrayal. He waited to see if she would open up, but when the fire went out of her eyes it was replaced by the impenetrable screen again, the bland, imperturbable smile that was the one feature of Amber’s that Mac despised.
Mac turned his hands palms up in a gesture of capitulation, and rested them on the table. Another day would pass without him knowing any more, but even so a measure of peace had settled in him, knowing Amber had not been carrying their baby.
“All right,” he said, forcing a smile. “You win. I give up. It’s early, neither of us seem to have plans tonight, and dinner’s on the stove. Let’s make the best of the evening, shall we?”
Amber hesitated, and slowly the anxiety melted from her. “All right,” she said in a voice so small he had to strain to hear it. “I don’t know if I can stand another hamburger platter from the Sunset Diner.”
Smoothing a few loose strands of hair back into place, Amber stood to clear the dishes. “This was delicious,” she added, though she’d taken only a few bites.
“Ah, wait until you try my home-made spice rub on a good piece of Texas beef. Heaven on earth, if I do say so myself. Hey, sit back down. You’re the guest here.”
Amber took her seat as commanded, and watched Mac work. He’d let go of his anger so quickly. Another new skill he’d picked up over time. In some ways, Mac was a ve
ry different man than the one she’d known. Gone was the boy she’d loved with all her heart, and in his place was this man who measured his thoughts before speaking, who kept his quiet wisdom to himself, who wore his sadness deep in the azure sea of his eyes.
Mac had changed. Nothing was the same. So why was her reaction to him the exact same heart-pounding, dry-mouthed shameless desire she’d felt so long ago?
When he touched her moments before, it was as if his unspoken thoughts flowed through her fingertips into her body. He wanted her.
Would he be different...making love?
“Music?”
Mac’s voice jarred her from her train of thought, causing a flood of crimson to rise to her face. Thankfully he kept at his work without turning, opening a hidden cabinet.
“Yes,” she said weakly. “If you like.”
He flicked a switch in a panel recessed in one wall of the kitchen, and music began playing softly, Patsy Cline’s soulful voice filling the room.
So, some things hadn’t changed, after all. Patsy Cline was where Mac had always retreated when he was feeling especially down. When something went wrong at home, one of his mother’s cruel tirades or a rebuke from his father, he played the old CDs over and over, holding Amber’s hand in the car as they drove aimlessly around town.
But now he was concentrating on his work in the kitchen, slicing rolls and setting out silver, and his long frame was loose and at ease.
“Mac...”
“Mmm hmm?”
“Nothing. Just—”
Just what? How do you say you’re sorry, when you can’t say what you’re sorry for? As determined as Amber had been to tell Mac the truth when she arrived, once again she had lost her resolve.
It’s because I’m not ready for this night to end.
That was the real truth, wasn’t it? Amber took a deep swallow from her glass, welcoming the dark warmth that settled into her body as the wine did its work.
Exhaling slowly, Amber struggled to find the words. Your father...
That’s how the story would have to begin. There was no other way around it. Amber scanned the stone mantel, and sure enough, there was a large photo of his father staring down from a polished wooden frame. He was wearing a suit, something Amber had never seen him in years before, and his face was thinner and older. Oddly, the camera had seemed to catch him in a moment of uncertainty; perhaps it was the unfamiliar clothes that caused the usual scorn to be absent from his eyes, replaced by a look that was almost vulnerable.
Amber flinched involuntarily and turned away. It was only a memento of the man who had raised Mac, who had driven him to become a man, and yet it suddenly seemed to fill the room.
A little more wine. Perhaps that would help. She rose and joined him at the counter, topping off her glass from the bottle.
“Do you miss your father a lot?” she asked without looking at him.
Mac paused, and slowly set down a sharp knife on the counter.
“Do I miss my father. What a question. Yes, I do. I think of him every day. When I put my foot in the door of the shop, no matter how much I change the place, no matter how big the letters spelling my name on the door, I still feel like I’m a kid again, walking in to a long day’s work. And I half expect to see my father inside, in his old green coverall, sitting on that stool of his and cussing a blue streak at some poor fool.”
He turned and faced her, so close she could feel his warm breath on her forehead. “All those years...and I never got around to telling my father that I loved him. Of course, I learned that from him. He wasn’t a man who was comfortable with any kind of display of affection. Though living with my mother, who could blame him?”
Amber said nothing, afraid to speak, wanting Mac to continue. This was more than he had ever said about his father before.
“Sorry,” he amended. “Dumb joke. Still, I lived for a few words from that man. Do you know, the day I turned sixteen, I waited all day long for my old man to say something about it. I remember that day because Dad had me scrubbing boats that were set to store for the winter. And I had to do it in the yard, and I was freezing, and I could barely feel my hands any more as I lugged that bucket around. All day, and finally I gave up. When we were closing up the shop, my Dad turned to me and said ‘Reckon your mom’ll have a cake or something.’ That was it, his way of wishing me a happy birthday.”
“Oh, Mac,” Amber said softly. He didn’t dare look at her, couldn’t handle the tender release her sympathy offered.
“I could tell he wanted to say something more...but he just couldn’t. As hard as he tried, that was the best he could come up with. He was right about the cake, too,” he added with a short laugh. “She picked it up at the grocery store at the last minute. A leftover no one else wanted. I knew because it had pink frosting.”
“I’m sorry,” Amber said simply. She lifted her small hands to his face, cupped his jaw softly. “So sorry,” she repeated.
And this time she held on.
CHAPTER SIX
Pink frosting on a forgotten boy’s birthday cake. Amber’s heart ached for the boy who’d longed for his parents’ love. Once she’d been there to fill the void, but now she was gone, and the boy had become a man who hid his hurt well.
But not from her. From Amber, Mac could hide nothing, and she found herself responding, reaching across the chasm of fourteen years and wanting so desperately to heal his hurt. The story she’d come to tell him was put away, locked back in her mind. Its power to wound him further made Amber determined to forget it.
Her touch held concern, sadness. But when her fingers found the planes of his face, warm and rough from a day’s growth of beard, those emotions were replaced by others.
Dangerous ones.
Pull away. Take your hands off him, turn and walk out of here. Don’t look back.
But her heart would not be commanded.
Her fingers began a slow exploration, traveling up to find the creases at the corners of his eyes, wondering again if they were from laughter or worry. She traced his lips lightly, and a low groan answered her touch.
“Amber.” Mac’s voice was tight, choked. “What the hell are you doing? We said—”
“I know what we said....now hush.”
Perhaps it was the wine. Or a giddy sense of freedom once she’d made up her mind to forget her plans to tell him what had happened so long ago. Or a simple desire to give, to soothe, to heal through her touch.
Amber began to feel bold, reckless. She marveled as her hands continued their exploration, down his throat, easing under his collar, finding the muscles hard and tensed underneath.
At seventeen, Amber had lost herself in a first kiss with Mac, following his lead, meeting his tender probing with new-found response. She learned from him, learned how lips and teeth and tongue can turn a simple embrace into something dangerously close to ecstasy.
She continued to learn, always following, waiting for Mac’s tentative lead. He never pushed. When the time seemed right, he questioned silently, offering new pleasures with a tug at a button, a caress that strayed beyond known territory.
And always, always, he stopped at the first sign of her discomfort. Through the long, delicious dance over the course of a year, he led her slowly higher and higher until finally, on her eighteenth birthday, he loved her as a woman, and she met his release with cries of her own, cries of joy.
But always she followed.
Now, for the first time, Amber found herself leading, exploring, as she unbuttoned one button and then another so she could slide her hands around Mac’s chest, burying her face against his pounding heart.
It was reckless, she knew. And promised hurt.
But it felt so right, so irresistibly right.
“You told me it would be a mistake,” Mac whispered hoarsely through clenched teeth. His senses were so heightened that he could feel her eyelashes flutter against his skin. He grasped at her hair, looping the silky strands through his fingers, meaning to pull aw
ay.
Instead, he found himself lifting her face to look at him. “I want you. God, how I want you,” he managed to say. “But—”
Amber silenced him as she met his lips with her own. In a single fluid motion their bodies met and melted together, the sensory memories taking over where logic and reluctance left off. Amber arched into him, sinking back against the counter as her thighs gave way to his weight. He cradled her close, running his hands down her body to cup her hips in his hands.
Amber parted her lips to the explorations of his delving tongue, answering with urgent thrusts of her own. She snaked a hand through his hair, her nails scratching his scalp, the sharp sensation heightening his passion all the more. She lifted her chin, led his probing mouth across her cheek, her throat.
She had never felt such raw hunger. Mac’s beard scratched her skin, but she pulled him even closer. Her back arched against the counter as he supported her with one hand, the other sliding down the cotton of her dress, reacquainting himself with the contours of her body.
Hot. His touch was so hot, raining sensation down on her. She moaned softly and abandoned her attempts to loosen his shirt to help him in his own task as he eased down the zipper of her dress. Shrugging out of the cotton fabric, she grasped his shoulders, feeling the muscles rippling as he bent his head to taste the swell of her breasts in the ivory satin of her bra.
Suddenly he stopped, lifting his head. Apprehension seized her, a screaming ache of desire as she prayed he wouldn’t abandon her now.
But in an effortless motion he scooped her up in his arms, as though she were weightless.
“Not here,” he whispered. “I want to love you upstairs, where we can hear the rain on the roof.”
“Oh, yesss...”
He took the oak stairs two at a time, and carried her through a broad-beamed doorway into his bedroom. A wide open window let the misty air trail in, and as Mac laid her gently down on a soft featherbed she felt her skin tingle and her nipples harden in response.
