Love Far from Home Box Set

by Lyon, Annette

  The driver got out and straightened into a towering figure well over six feet tall. This was a man. A tall, broad-shouldered man. A hot man with dark blond hair poking out from under his hat.

  This wasn’t MacKenzie, then. Just a man who happened to be driving one of the most common cars on the road. Who coincidentally wore the kind of very hat MacKenzie had said to look for. An odd coincidence, for sure. She stopped by a flower pot and checked her phone as if that was what she’d meant to do all along. A moment later, she sensed more than saw the man walk over and stop a few feet from her. But Tristan kept her eyes glued to the letter tiles of her game, even though she had only vowels.

  “Excuse me, Tris — I mean, your name isn’t Tristan, is it?”

  He knows my name? Her creep-o-meter went to high alert as she slowly raised her face, but seeing him turned the alarm right off. He seemed genuinely confused — and decent.

  He eyed the green suitcase and yellow shoes. When he saw her face, his mouth opened slightly in surprise. “You are Tristan.”

  “You... can’t be MacKenzie, can you?”

  “Yup. Alyssa is unbelievable.” He chuckled dryly, took off the hat and ran a hand through his slightly overgrown hair before tugging the hat back on. “Should I call her first to tell her she’s nuts, or do you want that honor?”

  “Um...” Tristan said, but then had no idea how to answer. “Hang on.” She clicked away from the game and went to her texts to message Alyssa, begging for some kind of clarification — and assurance that her friend didn’t really expect her to get into a car with a man big enough to bench-press twice her body weight without breaking a sweat..

  Nice to look at was one thing, but there was a reason Tristan had never used a dating app or any other online dating method. And now Alyssa had tried to set her up with a guy without telling her? Not only had Tristan been set up, but for a day-long road trip. She imagined hours and hours of death metal, misogynistic jokes, and body odor.

  With his thumb, MacKenzie navigated to a contact on his phone, selected it, then held the phone to his ear. “You don’t have to feel obligated,” he said to Tristan as it rang. “Really. I’d be happy to have you come along, but I don’t expect a woman to go on a trip with a guy she doesn’t even know if it would make you uncomfortable in any way.”

  “Thanks,” Tristan managed, still unsure what to do.

  You already agreed to go with Alyssa’s friend, she reminded herself. You just assumed the friend was a woman. Would Alyssa really expect you to go with someone she didn’t trust?

  She thought back through their conversation and realized that Alyssa hadn’t used she or her when referring to MacKenzie, and she hadn’t corrected Tristan when she’d used the same words. With anyone else, Tristan would have chalked it all up to a simple misunderstanding. Tristan might have let it slide as a mistake if it weren’t for MacKenzie’s clear expectation of meeting a guy named Tristan, only to find a woman instead.

  Alyssa was ever the optimistic-matchmaker.

  When MacKenzie started talked to Alyssa, he didn’t look annoyed or worried — more incredulous. His side of the conversation didn’t communicate much, and Alyssa wasn’t replying to Tristan’s texts... likely because Alyssa was on her phone, talking to MacKenzie.

  Tomorrow held the potential for taking Tristan’s magazine to the next level in readership and prominence. But she had to get to Vegas for that happen, even if it meant being stuck in a car all day with a guy who probably whistled as he drove.

  I guess I’m going with him. Please don’t let him be a whistler, she thought. I’d choose even body odor over that.

  “Yeah, right,” he said to Alyssa. He listened for a second and then laughed, belying the irritated tone of his words. “Will do. Talk to you later.” He hung up and turned to Tristan.

  She avoided looking at his face but couldn’t avoid the sensation of his very large presence or the pleasant scent of his cologne. Turned out that BO would not be a problem. The familiarity of the scent made alarm bells go off in her head. She’d smelled it before. While walking through a department store? No. It brought back feelings of attraction. Maybe an ex-boyfriend had worn it. She quickly eliminated that option too, remembering in a flash the three colognes they’d worn. This one was different — better.

  “So, did you actually work with Alyssa?” She needed to know how much of Alyssa’s ploy had been a lie. “I mean, you know her — you have her number and everything — but I’m wondering now how much of what she told me about you is true.”

  “I did work with Alyssa,” he said. “I was in the graphics department, mostly designing book covers. Two years ago, a friend decided to start a media agency, so I quit to become his partner, and it’s really taken off.”

  “I assume MacKenzie is your last name — unless she made that up,” Tristan said as she narrowed her eyes. “What’s your first name?”

  “Alyssa’s pretty sneaky. I thought running into two Tristans in one day was unusal.”

  Feeling on edge, she held a hand up. “Wait a minute...” Any time she thought she had a mental foothold on things, the rug seemed to be pulled out from under her again.

  “Gotta give her credit, though,” Mac said. “She did you my real name, even though my Mom is the only person who uses it. To everyone else, my name is the just the first syllable.” He stopped speaking and looked at her expectantly.

  His words hung in the air as Tristan digested them. The truth seemed just out of reach, but then it dawned on her, she felt as if the sun were glaring in her mind’s eye. She knew who she was looking at. “M— Mac?” she ventured, feeling glad that she hadn’t slipped and called him Loki.

  Mac, short for MacKenzie. Duh. Alyssa, you are so dead.

  With his lips pressed together and hands in his pockets, he rocked forward onto his toes, back to his heels, and forward again. “Yeah,” he said sheepishly.

  Tristan gestured up and down his body, which she tried not to pay too much attention to — and failed. “I didn’t recognize you without...” How can I put it?

  “The costume’s sculpted body armor?” he asked with a teasing tone. “I should really find a way to incorporate that stuff into my daily wardrobe — I’d look so much buffer.”

  She almost pointed out that his costume hadn’t sculpted his arms at all, which looked plenty cut, and that his chest was already nicely shaped — facts easily visible, thanks to the navy T-shirt stretched across his torso. But her brain decided to function enough this time to come up with an equally honest observation that wouldn’t make her look too ridiculous.

  “I was going to say,” she began, “that I didn’t recognize you without the hair. That was one really good wig.” Her mind spun as she tried to reconcile in her head that the guy before her was the guy she’d drooled over in speed dating. She sat on the edge of one of the hotel’s giant flower pots. Her brow furrowed. He came over and sat beside her, saying nothing, as if he knew that she needed a minute to sort through it all.

  “So… Mac is short for MacKenzie.” Hearing herself say the words made them more real.

  “Yeah. Guess both sets of our parents had serious issues with naming children.”

  Looking up, she caught a glint in his eye and couldn’t help but laugh with him. For her entire life, people had mentioned that, gee, she had a guy’s name, as if they were the first ones to ever notice. Had Mac been teased as a kid for having a girl’s name? Probably, seeing as how he went by a masculine nickname.

  What a strange and unexpected reason to feel kinship with someone — a guy who looked really, really good with both light and dark hair, short and long. He understood from personal experience what having an androgynous name felt like and they’d both been tricked into this by Alyssa.

  Mac thumbing toward his car. “I don’t expect you to trust some guy from Comic Con that you met two minutes ago... not counting the two and a half from speed dating. I was planning on driving to Vegas on my own anyway. So company would be nice, but I�
��ll also be fine by myself.”

  “Thanks for understanding,” Tristan said, appreciating his insight more than he could possibly know. Being a woman in today’s world meant automatically assuming a certain level of danger; a smart woman took precautions. “But Alyssa is my best friend. She said she trusts you. That’s good enough for me.” She adjusted her purse on her shoulder. Hoping to add a little levity, she added, “I mean, it’s not like you’ll toss me out of the car in the middle of the desert and drive away or anything.”

  “Nope,” Mac said with a shake of his head. “And I’ll be extra careful to say nothing against your English degree so you’ll have no reason to abandon me in the desert either.” He flashed a cheesy smile, all teeth.

  Tristan rolled her eyes and laughed. “Let’s get on the road.”

  He put her suitcase into the trunk as she took the passenger seat and settled her big purse on the floor. The trunk closed with a thunk, and a moment later, Mac got in and buckled up. He tossed the Mickey Mouse cap into the backseat. “Let’s do this,” he said, starting the car up. He glanced over, noticing that she had her phone out again. “Everything okay?”

  “Yep,” Tristan said. “Just giving Alyssa a piece of my mind.”

  “We should pull a prank on her,” Mac said as he pulled onto the street. “I’m sure, between the two of us, we can come up with something really good.”

  She admired his profile as he drove. “I like the way you think,” she said as they headed for the freeway on-ramp.

  Chapter Four

  They reached the freeway in minutes, and with the light traffic of a Saturday afternoon, they flew past one exit after another. With her phone clutched in one hand, Tristan kept eying Mac out of the corner of her eye. Neither of them had said anything for several miles.

  Should she break the silence? If so, what should she say? They’d spent only — she checked the clock — six minutes in the car.

  Too early to suggest a road-trip game like Slug Bug or the alphabet game. Assuming she’d ever feel comfortable enough to suggest one.

  The radio played a song that Tristan recognized vaguely as being from the 80s, and almost commented on it, but caught herself. What if he didn’t like this kind of music like she did? The song ended, and another 80s song came on. Clearly, this was an oldies or classic rock station. She knew this song — Who didn’t? — and, its undeniable cheesiness aside, loved it. Her foot even tapped to the music. Feeling self-conscious, she stopped it.

  But then Mac’s thumb started tapping the steering wheel to the beat. A moment later, his head bobbed too. Tristan smiled to herself and deliberately looked out the window so it wouldn’t be obvious that she’d noticed, although she let her foot move to the rhythm of the drums again.

  Hey, if Mac has no qualms about enjoying Rick Astley, I won’t either. Soon her fingers kept time against the door handle. To her, the silence felt warmer, less strained. She was more comfortable; maybe that’s all it was.

  She’d never forget her first time seeing the mountains this close to cities her first time, where entire neighborhoods climbed the bottom of the mountain. The valley made her feel safe, encircled by mountains on all sides. The sight amazed her every time she visited.

  She almost commented on the landscape to Mac, but her cell buzzed, interrupting her train of thought. A quick glance at her phone made Tristan roll her eyes. The text preview showed the whole message: an emoji of a face with a wide grin, as if Alyssa knew full well that she’d gotten away with something.

  “Anything important?” Mac glanced at her then focused back on the road.

  “Just Alyssa.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Mac raised one eyebrow. “She sent a blank text?”

  “She didn’t say anything with words,” Tristan clarified. “Just sent an emoji.”

  “Of...”

  Tristan clicked the screen back on and held it up so he could see it. He let out a single chuckle.

  Tristan nodded. “Yep. She thinks her attempt at matchmaking is downright hilarious.” She blushed, wishing she could redo the last three seconds. “I mean—”

  Matchmaking? She silently groaned. You seriously said matchmaking. Are you insane?

  Another text came in, making the screen light up again. Tristan knew it would be from Alyssa again and didn’t want to look at it, but her eyes were drawn to her phone anyway.

  “What did she say this time?” Mac obviously knew Alyssa well enough to assume she’d keep texting.

  “Another emoji,” Tristan said. “Technically, several.”

  Bite your tongue, she thought, not wanting to tell Mac about the rows of red hearts and kissy faces Alyssa had sent. Time to put her phone into Do Not Disturb mode. No more interruptions from Alyssa. But before she could type in her pass code, Mac snatched the phone from her hands.

  She yelped in surprise. “Hey!” she said, trying to grab it back. “That’s illegal, you know.”

  He’d already held the phone out and quickly looked at it then back at the road. “It’s illegal to manipulate a phone while driving. I didn’t touch the screen.”

  “But you were reading a text.”

  “Two lines of identical emojis doesn’t really count as reading, though, does it?” He grinned and held out the phone for her. She took it and swiped the last message to reply when he spoke up again. “What are you going to say back?”

  “Uh...” Her brain short-circuited again. Preferably, she could think of something smart and funny to say, then she’d suggest something equally funny to send to Alyssa. Instead, all she came up with were several colorful emoji combinations to send Alyssa — but not when Mac might see them.

  Getting tongue-tied wasn’t like her. Of course, she typically spent most of her time with her laptop, and many of the people she interacted with were online or over the phone. She rarely had to be within touching distance of a hot guy — forget about spending the rest of her day with one.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Tristan finally said. Boring, but truthful.

  “Hmm.” He sounded amused, and then he chuckled. Something about it assured her that he was laughing with her. The sound was warm and round and inviting. She felt as if she could almost see the cogs turning in his head as he thought.

  “What?” she asked, wanting to know what he was concocting.

  He changed lanes and set the cruise control. “What do you say we mess with her?”

  Tristan adjusted her position to see him better “What do you have in mind?”

  “She thinks she’s pulled one on us. What if we go along with it and completely freak her out?” He waggled his eyebrows. As he went on, his voice took on a movie-trailer quality. “Two strangers set up by a devious friend embark on an all-day road trip. But their friend didn’t count on the two of them falling head over heels... in love.”

  “That would be hilarious,” Tristan agreed. “But I’m not that good of an actress.”

  “You can do it,” Mac said confidently. “Practical jokes are the best, especially when you know your mark is going to flip out.”

  “You do a lot of practical joking, then?”

  “You could say it’s a part-time hobby. When I worked up here, I pretty much drove Alyssa out of her mind.” He nodded with satisfaction. “Good times.”

  Past conversations with Alyssa returned to Tristan’s memory, including the one from today’s lunch. “Were you were the Nameplate Bandit?”

  “Hah!” Mac said, obviously delighted. “I didn’t know she gave me a name.”

  “Oh, I know all about you,” Tristan said. “How Alyssa had to hunt down her nameplate every day. Did you known she slid it out and took it home with her?”

  “Of course,” Mac said. “It wasn’t hard to steal it during the day. She wasn’t always at her desk.”

  “You really do know how to mess with someone. She spent a lot of hours looking for her nameplate.”

  “More often than not, she ga
ve up in defeat,” Mac said. “And I ended up giving it back to her in a way she didn’t expect. She had a bunch made up, but eventually I took them all. It was great.”

  “She’s talked about you a lot,” Tristan said. “The few times she did find one, she made sure to tell me about it. I felt like I knew you on some level, but I always assumed that you had a huge crush—” She cut herself off awkwardly.

  Way to open your mouth and insert your foot.

  “Nah, that’s not my style,” Mac said with a shrug. “Back then, I had a girlfriend. But my job was slowly killing me — searching through thousands of stock photos for eight hours a day, every day will do that to you — and Alyssa was the perfect target.”

  “The few times she found one, it was a time for celebration. Let’s see... I remember hearing about her finding the nameplate in various file cabinets, behind a painting, above a ceiling tile—”

  “That one might have been my favorite, second only to slipping it three inches deep into the lobby planter. Oh, and maybe inside the diaper changing table in the ladies restroom. Don’t ask me how I managed that one.”

  “Oh, wow,” Tristan said. “I hadn’t heard about that one. I do remember hearing about the photocopier, the ceiling directly above her chair, under her chair...”

  “Good times,” Mac said. “How could I stop, when her reactions were always so big?”

  “Even though I felt bad for her,” Tristan said, “I have to admit to being impressed — you were tenacious and creative.”

  “Why, thank you,” he said with a faux-solemn nod. “Luckily for me, she never figured out how I took her nameplates and rarely found the hiding places until someone else pointed them out to her. Plus, she never got really mad. Annoyed, sure. But it never lasted long.”

  “Alyssa’s pretty great that way.” A pang of missing her friend came over Tristan, along with the renewed realization that it might be months before they saw each other again. But playing along with Mac to pull a prank on Alyssa would help pass the time and ease the ache. She held up her phone. “She pulled one on us, so let’s pull one on her.”