Keep On Loving you

by Christie Ridgway

  “That was all here, Zan.” She let a beat go by. “Are you sure instead of looking for beauty you weren’t escaping something else?”

  Zan wasn’t touching that remark. Instead, he served up the food and took a seat at the small table with Mac. When his knees bumped hers, she swung her feet around to the other side of the chair, which caused her to half turn away from him.

  She went quiet and tense again.

  Shit.

  But instead of pressing her for conversation, he let her play with her food—she didn’t eat much, even though he thought the nachos were damn good—and then let her clean up her kitchen. She made it so pristine it was as if they’d never eaten there. It was as if Zan had never touched a thing in the place.

  He wondered if that was the point.

  Shit.

  After that was done, he topped off her wine, swiped a beer for himself and turned off almost all the lights. In the shadowed living area, he sat on the couch and patted the cushion beside his. “Take a rest, babe.”

  “I think maybe I’m tired enough to go to bed now.”

  He stood up. “Sure. It looks big enough for both of us.”

  Mac promptly sat down on the other end of the couch.

  Zan narrowed his eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “We’re not going to sleep together anymore,” she said, making it sound like a dare.

  Okay, she was definitely wound up. Taking his seat again, he made another assessment of her. “Whatever you say, baby.”

  She glanced over at him. “Whatever I say?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Please don’t make such a fuss about it,” she snapped in a snotty tone. “I hate to see you broken up like this, Zan.”

  Definitely wound up.

  “Hey, I understand you’re in a mood. You had a shock today. You were afraid you might lose someone you loved.” The person who held all Mac’s hope.

  At that, she curled into herself again, her feet on the bottom cushion, her arms curled around her knees.

  He gentled his voice. “You could talk about it, honey.”

  “I don’t want to,” she whispered. “I want to put it from my mind.”

  Too bad it wasn’t that easy. “It stays with you, Mac. You know that.”

  “I don’t know that. I only know that I’ve got to stay strong. I’m Mac Walker, female head of the family, keeping it all together.” She said that last to her knees, with her forehead pressed to the caps of them. “Mac Walker, female head of the family, not thinking about all that might go wrong.”

  “Mac...” He slid down the sofa, getting within touching distance.

  “Don’t,” she croaked out when he reached a hand toward her. “Don’t make me break.”

  At least that’s what he thought she said, though it might have been “Don’t make me weak.” Shit.

  She was the least fragile woman he knew, but right now he wanted to wrap her in cotton and rock her like a child. If he had the power, he’d make her universe filled with sunshine and smiles, clean snow and perfect sunsets.

  It was a powerful yearning.

  “How do you handle it?” She was still talking to her kneecaps.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You lost people you love. What’s your coping mechanism? You never speak of it, of them.”

  She had that right. Mentioning his family by name to Brett the other day was one of the rare times he’d addressed the subject.

  “What’s your way to handle that loss?” Mac insisted. “It almost broke me, just thinking something had happened to Poppy.”

  “Babe, you wouldn’t be able to handle it my way.” She had too many people who loved her and counted on her, so she couldn’t just cut herself off. “I’m not sorry about that—it’s just true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She wasn’t looking at him, which made it easier to explain. “Maybe because of when it happened to me—at such a young age—or how I lost them all at once, but I cope with my losses in a manner that can’t be your manner.” He’d never stated it so baldly. He’d never thought it through so clearly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I cope by keeping separate. That’s not an option for you. You can’t keep distant from your family. They would never allow it.”

  “But you can keep distant?”

  “I do keep distant, you know that. I don’t have real family any longer and getting too close to other people is out for me because...because I just won’t. I won’t care deeply because I learned the danger of it young and avoiding that danger became ingrained early.”

  “You cared about us,” she whispered. “You cared about me.”

  “Not enough, right?” He had to be truthful. “I left. I left you all.” Before he could be left. “To me, loving means loss.” It was always the end game. The fucking price.

  That he didn’t intend to pay ever again.

  Something that he said got to Mac. One moment she was curled into that frozen ball, and the next her shoulders began to shake. Every part of her began to shake and seeing that knocked something loose inside Zan, too. He needed her in his arms.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, starting to move into her.

  She swung toward him, too, crawling into his lap and clinging. He held her but her arms came around him, too, and her face was pressed to his neck as silent sobs racked her body.

  “Mac...” he said, whispering it against her hair. Glad for the breakthrough that was releasing her from all that tension.

  “Oh, God,” she said, her lips moving on his skin.

  And as he held her tighter it came to him. This was no true release. While she seemed to be crying, her eyes were actually dry.

  “Oh, Zan,” she said now.

  And then he suspected something else—that these non-tears were not just for herself...but for him, too.

  He hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with that.

  * * *

  MAC MADE BREAKFAST in her kitchen, Zan doing his part with monitoring toast and watching the eggs and bacon while she poured juice and set the table. A few days ago, this domesticity might have made her heart ache just a little. This morning it was much more than a twinge because now she was absolutely, completely, a million percent convinced it was just an illusion.

  Not that for any complete minute since his return had she really believed they could have something again, that he could be the man in her kitchen and in her bed and with her forever—because, duh, he’d left before, when he’d wanted to go out on a stinkin’ high—but the night before he’d destroyed even the merest second of time when she might have fooled herself into playing with the possibility.

  To me, loving means loss.

  Her mini breakdown after he’d shared that hadn’t been as cathartic as she might have wished. When she’d stopped shaking, they’d climbed into her bed and she could have sworn she’d drop right to sleep, worn out by everything she’d felt since Brett’s initial call.

  But she’d heard the echo of Zan’s voice—To me, loving means loss—in her head, causing her to toss and turn until Zan had hauled her close to him and effectively stopped all her movement by throwing one thigh over hers and his arm across her belly. After that she’d fallen asleep, only to wake up to find herself wrapped around him—Zan on his back, her head on his shoulder, her legs tangled with his.

  Angry at herself for her unconscious need to be close, she’d slid out of bed and headed straight for coffee, intent on waking herself up...and up to the fact that despite knowing she was in love with him, it didn’t change a thing. As much as she wanted to wail and weep and even scream at the man for doing this to her again, she had to keep control of her emotions or else she’d find herself flying apart.

  “You’re q
uiet,” Zan said, as she dished up the food. “Still worried about Poppy?”

  Mac shook her head. “Ryan texted. She texted. Shay texted. London texted. Jace texted. The whole round-robin of assurances that Pop’s on the mend and everyone else is feeling good about that fact.”

  You can’t keep distant from your family. They would never allow it.

  Truer words and all that, but being part of a family circle didn’t give her the partner that her siblings had found. And she doubted she’d ever find that special person.

  Because being in love with Zan felt like something she’d never, ever get over.

  Damn it.

  She set the plates down on the small kitchen table with a loud thunk, then yanked out her chair.

  Zan’s brows rose as he took his own seat. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Of course not,” she said from between her teeth. “Why would I be mad at you?” I loved you, you left me. I loved you again, you’re leaving again.

  With another wary glance at her, he forked up some eggs, chewed. “I got a call from the real estate agent yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  “You were right. She thinks my grandfather’s house will show better with the furniture that’s in place. It’s enough to have the personal stuff out. The pieces that are left keep it from being too cavernous.”

  “Awesome,” Mac said, gaze on her plate. Stay cool, stay cool, stay cool.

  “No more sorting and packing.”

  “Right.”

  He cleared his throat. “So there’s really nothing left for me to do here—I can do all the rest remotely.”

  Her heart jolted and her fingers spasmed on her fork. “Soon, then?” she asked, staring at her food.

  “Not until after Poppy and Ryan’s wedding. I can’t miss that.”

  “Okay.” She tried to take in a full breath. “What’s your plan when you leave?” she asked, hoping for a casual tone.

  “I’m not sure.”

  That moved through her, pain joining the anger. If he had a purpose, she thought news of his leaving wouldn’t hurt quite so much. But he was going just to...go.

  Poking the tines of her fork in a fluff of scrambled eggs, she spoke again. “As long as you keep your promise.”

  “Mac, I’ll wait until after the wedding, but I’m going to have to tell your family about the cabins.”

  “Not that promise.”

  “What other one is there?” He sounded puzzled.

  Mac’s head came up. “You know. The one about your emergency contact.”

  His gaze slid away from hers. Then he cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah. That.”

  Her face went hot from the burn rising from her belly. The anger tasted like smoke in her throat. “You lied?”

  “I didn’t lie,” he said quickly. “I didn’t respond and you came to your own conclusion.”

  Mac shot to her feet. “You don’t get to do this again.”

  He eyed her cautiously. “Do what?”

  “Go away without a forwarding address or some other way to reach you.”

  “I won’t have a forwarding address, Mac.” Now he stood and grabbed up their plates. “Calm down.”

  “Calm down?” She stalked behind him as he moved toward the sink and her voice rose. “Did you actually say, ‘Calm down’?”

  Zan slid the plates on the counter and then turned to face her. “What’s the big deal? I’m not going to have an emergency, okay? No one will need to make contact on my behalf.”

  “This is not just about you,” she hissed, her fingers balling into fists.

  “Yeah?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Explain to me who it’s about, then.”

  Oh, he thought he was the king of cool. She wanted to slap that aloof expression off his face. “This is about those of us who consider you a brother of the heart.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” he asked, frowning.

  Hah. She’d gotten to him, she could see, and it took her ire down a notch. “Just yesterday Poppy was all keen on the idea of you keeping your grandfather’s house. She thought it would be great to have you visit here on occasion, since you seemed to be getting tight with Brett again.”

  “Brett doesn’t need me.”

  Zan’s offhand manner set her temper to smoking again. “Maybe not today. But other times we’ve had...struggles that it might have helped to share.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What kind of struggles?”

  She threw out an arm. “I don’t know! Struggles!”

  “Did you have struggles?”

  Was he trying to be an idiot? “Hello? Three broken engagements!”

  Zan continued to study her. “This is about something other than that. Something else. Something else about you.”

  Careful, careful, careful. She didn’t want him guessing she was in love with him. “It doesn’t matter what it’s about.” Turning away, she snatched up the egg pan and dropped it into the sink. “That’s not the issue.”

  His hand clamped on her shoulder and he spun her toward him again. “What happened to you after I left? What would you have shared with me if I’d been here?”

  My life, you stupid man. She tried breathing through the anger, but it was growing, ten years of banked fire now, finally, beginning to flame.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  Tectonic forces had built her beloved mountains. She felt the same kind of pressure inside her now, causing fractures in the rock guarding her most long-held, her most well-buried secret. As she tried to hold it back, her body began to shake.

  “Mac?”

  “You don’t want to know.” Her arms wrapped around herself.

  “For God’s sake,” he said, sounding impatient. “Just tell me.”

  She managed to hold it in another second, but then the truth burst from her mouth. “I thought I was pregnant!”

  He stared. “What?”

  “You heard me.” Her breath bellowed in and out of her lungs. “I thought I was going to have your baby and you weren’t around to share in all that might have meant.”

  “Mac...” He looked stunned. “I didn’t know.”

  “Of course you didn’t know,” she shot back. “I couldn’t tell you. That’s the whole damn point. I never heard from you unless you count 117 flipping flimsy pieces of paper.”

  He shook his head, then shoved his hands in his pockets. “What happened?”

  “After you left, I missed two periods.” Later, she’d concluded it must have been her body’s response to her grief over losing him. “It turned out to be a scare, but that’s what I was, Zan. Scared. Scared out of my mind.”

  He jerked back as if he’d been hit by a blow. Then his hands came up and he pressed the heels of them to his eyes. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.” His body collapsed against the counter. “I let you down.”

  “You did let me down.” Hell no, she wouldn’t sugarcoat it. Hell no, she wasn’t going to try to make him feel any better. “But you know what? It turns out I learned from that.”

  “Learned what?”

  To guard her heart. To be impenetrable and unsentimental. And though in the secret depths of her soul she’d found herself longing for that partner her siblings had found, during the past ten years another lesson had been taught.

  “It turns out I learned I don’t need any man to keep me up.”

  * * *

  ZAN SLAMMED THE side of his fist against the door to Ryan Hamilton’s house. Then he did it again. As he raised his hand a third time, the door swung open and Brett stood on the other side of the threshold, guarding it like a sentry.

  “Hell, Zan,” he said, brows climbing toward his hairline. “Trying to raise the dead?”

  No, because they’d never gone
to rest. They stood on his shoulders weighty and cruel, it seemed now, because their presence had caused him to desert Mac, his Mac, without a way to find him.

  She’d thought she’d been pregnant. Eighteen years old. Pregnant.

  And he’d been unavailable, no help to her at all, which meant that when it came to her “trust issues” they were largely on him.

  Brett should beat the shit out of him.

  Instead of inviting that, Zan pushed his way past the other man. “Everybody here?”

  “Uh, yeah. Pop got home this morning. The rest of us are over for dinner.”

  He found Poppy ensconced on the couch in the family room, propped up on pillows and covered with a blanket. Her head lifted when he strode in. “Hey!” she said, and her smile added, “brother of the heart.”

  Zan took the pain of that, then presented her with the vase of flowers he’d picked up in the village. “For you.”

  She smiled again, then glanced around the room. “Look, everybody, for me.”

  Angelica came forward to help her place them on the coffee table next to a steaming cup of tea. Shay and Jace and Mason were gathered around a chessboard on a game table near the fireplace. London stood nearby, phone in hand.

  Ryan wandered in from the kitchen with two beers, one of which he passed to Zan. The other he presented to Mac, who was sitting at the end of the couch near Poppy’s feet and who appeared to be completely focused on the magazine in her lap. Her silky dark hair swirled around her shoulders and framed her face that looked too pale for his liking.

  “Stay for dinner,” Poppy said. “We have oodles.”

  “I’ve got things to fix,” he told them, ignoring the invitation, unsure if they’d want him at the table when he was finished.

  “Fix?” Brett asked, his expression puzzled.

  “Say.” He glanced at Mac, who still wasn’t looking at him. That morning, she’d stopped speaking to him after her revelation, and, reeling, he’d climbed into his car.

  For a visit with his grandfather’s—well, now his—lawyer.