Rick’s father was still the one threatening to buy up half of Lincoln Park—a place very dear to Mac’s heart. He sighed, knowing there was nothing he could do about that.
“What are those for?” Mac asked him, pointing toward the candle in his hand.
Despite those very welcomed glances, Mac seemed a bit distant, physically. As she walked toward him, she took the long way around the kitchen island, almost as if she didn’t want to walk by him.
He lit the last candle and set it in the middle of the table with the other three. “Ambiance,” he answered. “And in case we lose power.”
Mac looked away from him, her gaze out the window. All that was visible were lights from the other homes. Clouds covered everything else.
“Do you think that will happen?” she asked, sounding concerned.
“We should be prepared.”
“You really are a boy scout, aren’t you?”
She looked so cute in her flannel shirt. She’d pushed up the sleeves and tied the long tails together. It wasn’t a complete Daisy Duke look, but when she reached up to turn off the light over the stove, Rick caught a good two inches of her bare skin. The temperature under his collar went up a few degrees.
“Well, everything smells good,” Rick said, trying to stay busy. “Now let’s see if it tastes good.”
Mac walked to the table, carrying two hoagie rolls. “Hand me your plate,” she requested, then proceeded to spread a thick layer of the pork inside one of the rolls and top it with pickles and tomatoes. She added about a tablespoon of barbecue sauce to the top half of the roll and garnished the plate with one banana pepper.
Rick stayed standing until Mac was done making her own sandwich. It was the same as his except for one thing. “No sauce for you?” he asked after they both sat down.
“It doesn’t need it, because there’s already some cooked with the meat,” she said, pressing her roll together to make it more mouth-friendly. “But I knew you would want the extra sugar.”
Rick did like his food especially sweet. Mac had made a comment when he added additional sugar to his Starbucks hot chocolate. He was touched she remembered that about him.
He moved the sandwich to his mouth, more than prepared to tell her it was good even if it tasted like the bottom of Charlie’s Army boots.
“Whoa,” he exclaimed with a full mouth. “It’s delicious.” And that was no lie.
“Right?” she said, smiling, taking another bite. “It’s my new specialty.”
She was considerate and funny, sexy as hell, and she could make a killer sandwich. A smart man would marry her for less. As he chewed, Rick’s mind began to drift. His eyes slid to her. She had just taken another bite of sandwich and was running her tongue along the corner of her mouth, licking off some barbecue sauce. When she looked up at Rick, she winked.
He wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life just like this, sitting across the table from Mac.
Chapter Seventeen
“What are you working on?”
Mac looked up from the notebook she’d been scribbling in. She was sitting on the floor, her back against the couch, writing by firelight. “I’m jotting down some things to say to my classes,” she said. “Things like ‘life’s not fair,’ and ‘sometimes really crappy things happen.’ Stuff like that.”
Rick put down the book he was reading but didn’t say anything for a minute. He was sitting on the other end of the couch behind her, next to a lamp, the only illuminated device in the room. When they weren’t talking, the only sounds were the wind outside, the crackling fire, and the odd caw of nature. Whenever Mac would flinch and whirl toward the window in alarm, Rick would snicker and make some kind of animal growl. Hilarious.
“Are you talking about Lincoln Park?” he asked.
Mac closed the notebook and stared straight ahead at the fire. “It’s not looking good,” she said. “You know that.”
Rick was quiet behind her, and then: “I think you should give a speech.”
“What?” she said.
“That’s your vocation, isn’t it?”
She turned around to look at him and found him lowering down to the floor a few feet away from her. He leaned his back against the couch, their legs extended toward the fire, side by side.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Wasn’t it your idea to come to the paper last fall and have me write the stories about the budget cut at the high school?” He was smiling a little now.
She narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t all my idea.”
“It was a brilliant thing to do.”
Mac couldn’t help feeling a rush of pleasure, hearing Rick praise her like that.
“You got the community involved,” he added. “The topic was out there, and people were talking about it for months.”
“So?” she asked, looking at his pensive profile. She quite liked the way the firelight caught the cut of his jaw. “What does my giving a speech have to do with anything?”
Rick bent his knees and sat forward. “You should have an event at Lincoln Park. The vote is Thursday night. Have it earlier that afternoon.”
“What?”
He turned to her. “Show the city how much the park means to the people of Franklin.”
Mac thought about it for a moment, feeling a little bubble of excitement in her stomach. “Like a demonstration?”
Rick chuckled. “It might be best to call it a friendly gathering,” he corrected. “No picket signs, no yelling.” He sat back. The way he was looking at her made something else bubble under her skin. “Just you,” he continued, his voice a little softer, “with a microphone, and about a hundred of your students.”
Mac stared off into the distance. Damn, it was a brilliant idea.
“Do you really think I can do it?” she asked. “Plan an event like this in five days?”
The way he was smiling at her, he didn’t need any words. He believed in her, and something about that was the highest praise she could imagine.
“If I recall correctly,” Rick said, “you told my mother you were an expert at organizing things exactly like this. Wasn’t it: more caviar for the masses?”
He grinned. So did Mac. She couldn’t believe he remembered that.
“I’ll even put something in the paper about it,” he added.
“Really?” Mac exclaimed, dropping her notebook and turning all the way around so her body was facing him. But her excitement tanked just as quickly. “No.” She shook her head. “That’s sweet, but you shouldn’t. I know you’re not comfortable taking sides in your…position.”
In cases like this, Mac knew that Rick would be a very powerful ally. But that’s not what she was thinking about as she looked at his hands, one clasping the other knee. The same hands that had chopped wood and defrosted a Snickers bar and driven them safely through a blizzard. The same hands that held hers when they walked into a room together and she felt out of place.
“I’d do it for you,” he said quietly.
He really did believe in her, even at the risk of his job. How could she ever properly tell him how much that meant to her?
When he turned toward the fire, the way the line of his jaw led into the muscle in his neck hit Mac in the solar plexus.
Oh, no, she thought, but it was a pathetic thought, completely worthless. She’d been attracted to him since day one. Even after convincing herself he was the wrong man for her, over and over, she knew it was still always there, like a low-grade fever. She’d been falling further for him all day, burying it under a storm of sarcastic remarks and arguments, all the while getting to know the real him, how equally stubborn and exasperating and kind and magnificent he was.
Walls had crumbled down, until there was nothing left to separate them.
The next thing she knew, she was on her hands and knees, crawling over. In front of him now, she put a hand on each of his bent knees. He blinked, his blue eyes reflecting firelight. She leaned across his legs, her lips
making contact with his.
“Thank you,” she whispered after one kiss. That was as far as her plan had gone. After this, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
Then she realized Rick hadn’t moved. Hadn’t breathed. She was still leaning over his knees, her face hovering right in front of him. And he wasn’t reacting in the slightest. Had he even responded to the kiss? Had there been any kissing back? Mac felt a rush of mortification sweep up her body when she realized that no, there hadn’t been.
She’d taken Rick by surprise, made a very inappropriate move, and he was so completely not attracted to her that he wouldn’t even take advantage of the fact that they were sitting next to a romantic fire in a cabin in the middle of a storm.
“I…” she whispered, about to back away and then go stick her face in the snow.
Before she could say another word, Rick reached out, took her face and drew her in, his lips pressing against hers. Relief washed over Mac as she leaned into him. The kiss was sweet and strong and Mac felt her skin heat up under his hands.
This was where she should be, where she belonged.
Just as Mac had convinced herself that nothing in the entire universe could feel better than this, Rick wrapped his arms around her and pulled her forward so they were pressed together, and…oh man…was she ever wrong about that.
…
Rick’s muscles were straining as he enfolded Mackenzie in his arms, careful not to hold her too tightly. After waiting all this time, he was afraid he might never let her go. He could feel her heart pounding, and when she pulled back to inhale, the heat of her sweet breath on his cheek made him crazy. He kissed her again, cradling her against his chest, completely lost in happiness and relief.
When she’d crawled over to him—only moments ago—he’d thought she’d been about to tell him to mind his own business about writing in the paper about Lincoln Park. Instead, she’d given him the most wonderful, stunning surprise: she’d kissed him. Damn.
He could still feel the buzz, the rushing of hot blood from their initial contact, still feel that first thud of his heart when her lips touched his. After a minute, she’d looked at him, her big blue eyes shining, and then she’d…she’d said thank you.
What?
She was grateful to him, and it was late and there was a fire. Although he would have loved to, he couldn’t take advantage of that, even if her current behavior showed that she was more than willing.
With every ounce of strength, Rick pulled his mouth away from hers. “Um, you’re welcome,” he said, sliding his hands to her shoulders, then letting them linger on the sides of her neck for one selfish moment.
Mac gazed up at him, blinking.
His lips were literally throbbing for hers, but he managed to sit up. “It’s been a long day,” he continued, still staring into her eyes, unable to look away. “I think we should turn in now. I mean, you in your room”—he gestured toward the stairs—“and me in mine.”
Mac sat back, looking completely dazed, the back of her hair tangled from where his fingers had been. His heart pounded harder when she scooted away.
“Okay,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Good night, then.”
Rick stood up and turned off the lamp, needing to stay busy before he did anything else he would regret. In silence, they trudged up the stairs. Rick was behind Mac, but not too close. He walked her to the door of her room.
“Good night, Mackenzie,” he said. He couldn’t help pausing for a moment before he turned to go. The sound of her door closing felt like a knife to his heart.
By the time he’d made it down the hallway and around the corner, he realized he was the dumbest man alive.
You’re welcome? What in the good name of hell was that?
Yeah, the dumbest. That was all there was to it. She was there, in his arms. She’d offered him one kiss and then he’d grabbed her like a gorilla, when she had only been thanking him for offering to write about the park.
He racked his brain, trying to think of a time in human existence that could have been more humiliating.
Chapter Eighteen
Mac stretched out across the bed, leaned on one elbow, and stared at the wall. In the twenty minutes since she’d left Rick, her body hadn’t been able to uncoil. She rolled over and stared at the other wall. There was nothing to look at but the notches on the boards. She’d counted them five minutes ago. Sixty-nine. Hilarious. If she recounted and got the same number, she would have to ask Justine what that meant and then suffer potential Freudian humiliation.
She thought about turning on the TV, but the remote was way over there and she was way over here and she’d rather just keep thinking about Rick and wondering what would happen if she crawled out of bed and tiptoed to his room and finished that kiss.
He wasn’t even in a proper room, really. It was just a bed right around the corner. Only one door between them. One two-inch piece of wood and a few square feet of carpet. He was practically asking for it.
But, of course, she didn’t. She rolled onto her back and threw an arm over her eyes. There was no bright light in the room to block, but she felt better in the woe-is-me pose.
Then she heard a noise.
Scratching.
She sat up in bed.
It was coming from directly over her head. Or was it behind her? She couldn’t tell. The wooden floors and walls were making everything echo, distorting the location of the sound. Now it sounded like it was coming from outside her door.
She was about to scream for Rick when she realized what was going on. Ha-ha, very funny. He was playing a trick on her, trying to freak her out by making wilderness noises. He knew woodland creatures made her mildly terrified. Did he expect her to come running? What an ape.
When she heard the scratching again and saw a shadow move under her bedroom door, she rolled her eyes, flung back the blankets, and got out of bed.
The shadow was still moving as she crept to the door. When she flung it open, she gasped. Rick was standing there with a baseball bat.
…
Before she could make another sound, Rick put his free hand over her mouth and pulled her to his side. He was momentarily distracted by the feeling of her soft lips against his palm.
“Shhh,” he said. He felt Mac tremble and nod. Then her hands attempted to peel his hand off her mouth. “Shhh,” he repeated. Again, she nodded. He lowered his hand.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
He wanted to laugh. Hadn’t he just told her to be quiet?
“I heard something,” he whispered back.
“So did I. What is it?”
They both wheeled in the same direction when they heard a sound. It was close, at the end of the dark hallway. Rick lowered the bat. It didn’t sound like a person or a large animal. It might be something on the roof, in fact. This house had always had strange echoes.
When the scratching went from overhead to the opposite end of the hall, he moved around to the other side of Mac. “I’m going to turn on the hall light,” he whispered. “Don’t scream.”
She pressed her clenched fists over her mouth, her blue eyes huge like saucers.
“If you scream,” he continued, “you’re going to scare whatever it is. So don’t scream.”
She nodded, her eyes growing even larger. She looked like she was about to burst at any second. He sighed.
“Maybe you should wait in your room until I—”
“No!” She whispered the exclamation, but it was more breath than sound. And then she threw her arms around him, clinging to his waist. Enjoying yet another distraction, Rick rested his cheek against her hair while she pressed her face to his chest. “Don’t…” he heard her whisper. She was kind of clawing at him now, like she didn’t want to be touching the floor.
“Shh-shh,” he said, wrapping his free arm around her and giving her a little squeeze. “You’re fine.”
“What is it?” her low voice asked. His heart started to pound when he fe
lt her breath on his bare shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If you let go of me for two seconds, I might find out.”
Much to his regret, Mac did let go. He looked down at her face to make sure she really was all right. Her hair was a little tangled, and strands were clinging to her eyelashes.
She looked perfect.
And for not the first time today, Rick felt like a supreme idiot for letting her go.
“It’s probably only a field mouse,” he said. “Maybe a raccoon.”
She exhaled another exclamation, an impressively dirty one.
He put an arm around her again and moved his mouth down to her ear, trying not to snicker. He had the impression that she wouldn’t appreciate him laughing.
“They’re harmless,” he said.
“Then why do you need one of those?” She was eyeing the Louisville slugger in his hand.
“In case it gets startled. Or if it’s a bat.”
“Bat?” Her face was at his chest again and she was doing that clawing thing.
“Shh-shh. It’s okay,” he whispered into her hair, moving his hand up to hold the back of her neck. “We got this, Mac. We got this, baby, okay?”
She sniffed and nodded.
With a silent groan of regret, Rick dropped his arm.
As he took one step down the hall, he heard her gasp and she curled into his side, gripping his arm. He wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate.
“Why don’t you be the one to turn on the light?” he suggested. He could see her shaking her head furiously. “Shh, listen. It’s teamwork, see? You wait here, and when I give the signal, you flip on the light. Okay?” He needed to keep her busy. And himself. Otherwise he might be willing to stand in that hallway forever, him taking one step forward just to get her to claw at him again.
“I need you to be brave,” he added. “Like the tough, awesome, badass woman I know you are.”
Speaking of Love Page 13
