All Tied Up

by Alison Kent

  “He was my fun guy. The one who had time to play games with me when everyone else was too busy with their own lives, work, school, dating…all that stuff. But he just wasn’t there anymore. Mentally, emotionally. His depression nearly killed me. It came closer to killing him.” She grew still, standing there unmoving, unemotional, uninvolved in the moment and living in another time.

  A whisper of unease swept through Leo. He didn’t want to hear this, couldn’t bear to see her like this. “Macy—”

  “I stopped him, you know. From pulling the trigger.” Her mouth remained grim. “I walked into his office with my Monopoly board under my arm and he had a gun to his head. He never had been very good about locking doors.”

  Oh, no. No, Leo thought. His pulse beat in his temples. His skin grew clammy and the leather chair suffocatingly humid and hot. He didn’t know what to say, wouldn’t have been able to form the words if he had. And yet Macy appeared to be relating the story of a birthday-party disaster. Not that of a moment that altered her life.

  She frowned and went on. “I’m pretty sure it was for the life insurance, which never pays out in suicide, anyway, but then how clearheaded could he have been, unlocked door, gun to his head, kids all over the house?”

  And one small, very frightened kid in the same room. Leo swallowed his nausea. “You talked him out of it?”

  Shaking her head, Macy stared beyond Leo’s bare office window to the unusually bright February sky and the past. “I didn’t know what to say. Obviously, he didn’t either, because all he did was take the gun and put it away in his desk. Then I set up the Monopoly board and we played.”

  “We played until my mom came home from work and my sister called us to dinner. Then we played until it was time for me to go to bed. Since he wasn’t working much those days, we played every day when I got home from school. That way I knew he was safe. We’d close the door and talk for hours.”

  She smiled then, a softening of both lips and expression. “Well, he did most of the talking. I listened. It seemed to…relax him. After a few weeks, he started to laugh again.”

  Leo couldn’t help but believe that Macy’s father hadn’t worked much those days because of his state of mind rather than any slump in any business. “Did he talk to you about the gun?”

  “Nope. Never. Strange, isn’t it? The very reason we were there every day playing games, and we never talked about it.” Macy’s smile grew wistful, melancholy even. “We’ve talked about it since, but don’t forget—when it happened, I was just a little kid.”

  “A little kid, maybe. But not an innocent bystander.” And that made Leo angry with a man he didn’t even know for exposing his woman—yes, Leo Redding’s woman—to the unimaginable. “No one else found out what happened?”

  She straightened, smoothed both palms over her hair. “I think he finally told my mother. But this was later. Months, I guess. Maybe a year? I was still coming home from school and waiting for him to get home so we could play. He was back to long hours, and a lot of days I’d fall asleep in his office chair, waiting.”

  “And worrying if he didn’t show,” Leo stated. Small in stature, huge in heart, his Macy was.

  “Yes. I worried. I knew he was…better, for lack of a more clinical term. I could see it in his face. But to wake up alone in that room? To hear nothing but my own breathing?”

  She paused, her deep breath tightening Leo’s own chest.

  “I knew where he kept the key to the gun drawer. So I’d check. Every day, I’d check. One day he caught me.”

  Leo couldn’t have moved if a stick of dynamite had sizzled beneath his seat.

  “That was the only time I ever saw my father cry.” Macy wrapped both arms around her middle and held herself tightly. “He pulled me up into his lap in that huge leather chair and he hugged me. His tears ran from his cheeks to mine and we cried together. The next day he took me with him to sell the gun.”

  Leo blinked. What had he missed? “And that was it?”

  Macy gave a little shrug. “That was it.”

  “That was asking a lot from a kid, don’t you think?” A kid who equated playing games with emotional safety. A woman who, despite having studied psychology, still did.

  “I never said it made any sense.”

  Leo pushed up his glasses and dragged both hands down his face. Why hadn’t he seen any of this side of Macy, her strength, her practicality, while they’d lived under the same roof? Or while he’d had her in his bed? All this time he’d had no idea who he was dealing with.

  Or who he loved.

  She picked up her clutch purse from the abandoned chair, wrapped the lace shawl around her shoulders, prepared to go. “Anyway. That wasn’t really about the scavenger hunt, but you probably figured that out. I like you a lot, Leo. No. I more than like you. But I don’t want to go there just yet.

  “I could probably change who I am, but I don’t want to. I’m happy being me, which is more than a lot of people can say. If that doesn’t work for you…well…” She nodded toward his desk. “There’s a lot to be said for chocolate.”

  13

  “YO, MACY. Not much in the mood for fun and games tonight, are we?”

  Macy downed at least a quarter of the first of the many strawberry-kiwi wine coolers she knew she was going to need to make it through game night before giving Eric Haydon the time of day.

  “What makes you say that? It’s game night, isn’t it? Of course I’m in the mood for fun and games.”

  Eric wrapped a hand around the bottle Macy held by the neck and pried it from her death grip. “I told you last month. I can judge your game nights by the feed bag you strap on. C’mon. Look at this spread. Booze and chocolate?”

  Sitting to Eric’s left, Macy stared down the length of the table set with platters of orange slices and bananas and what berries she’d been able to find, pound cake and banana bread and jumbo marshmallows, bottles of cherry brandy and amaretto and Grand Marnier, a carafe of coffee, a pitcher of cream, and twelve individual fondue pots, gentle heat from burning tea lights keeping the melted chocolate soft and warm for dipping.

  At least eleven of the pots had the melted chocolate soft and warm for dipping. Leo had probably eaten the bar she’d delivered yesterday afternoon, never mind about dessert for game night. He’d probably been giving her lip service when he’d told her he’d try to drop by. He’d probably decided she was a total nutcase and not worth the time of day or night.

  But the rest of her usual crew, the friends she could count on to accept her for the Peter Pan she was and love her anyway, weren’t the least bit shy about dipping in. Including Kinsey and Doug, who’d shown up expecting to get started on a new game and weren’t particularly disappointed to find a wrap party of last month’s scavenger hunt under way.

  Bottom line, Macy didn’t understand Eric’s problem. “I was in the mood for dessert. So sue me.”

  Eric arched devilish blond brows over eyes too sparkling blue for a woman’s peace of mind. The fact that she even noticed gave Macy hope that walking out of Leo’s office hadn’t been the end of her life. Then again, no eyes had ever come close to doing for her what Leo’s did, and so she pouted.

  “Looking at your face,” Eric said, “I’d say what you’re in the mood for is a pity party.”

  “Like I said, sue me,” Macy groused, and skewered banana, banana bread and another chunk of banana bread. Then she groused because the guilt of emotional overeating didn’t pack the same punch, what with her industrial-strength metabolism waiting in the wings.

  Chocolate dripping and pooling onto her plate, she opened wide and inhaled the entire mouthful, listening to the chatter down the length of the table while she chewed.

  Her guinea pigs were busy sharing their findings. Eric and Chloe, in fact, were doing their best to out–embarrass each other with tales of discovering ticklish spots and erogenous zones with not a stitch of clothing removed—or so they claimed. Macy had a feeling that if they hadn’t already, they�
��d be tumbling into bed any day now. Who knew if or when they’d finally tumble out?

  The table talk turned to nudity then, which got Ray into more than a bit of trouble. He quickly shut his mouth after revealing that Sydney avoided tan lines by sunbathing in the buff. Macy didn’t think tan lines had been a question on anyone’s list, but she didn’t have the energy to put Ray, or better yet, put Sydney, on the spot.

  Either Ray had invested a lot of effort in the game or the man was incredibly and eerily observant, because there wasn’t an item on his scavenger hunt list that he hadn’t nailed to guarantee his win. Which came as a complete shock to Sydney, who denied having revealed more than half of the items and demanded to know Ray’s secret, and his source.

  And then suddenly Ray was everyone’s best friend as the rest of the group jockeyed for invitations to come along on his cruise. Ray made no promises and accepted the onslaught of attention with good grace and a grain of salt. And then the attention shifted from what Ray knew about Sydney to what Sydney knew about Ray.

  Sydney hesitated to share, almost as if she didn’t want Ray to know she hadn’t equaled his effort. Or that she had but was reluctant to reveal her shared interest. And Macy was sure it was interest. The tension between the two was thicker than the chocolate and hot enough to suck the fire from every burning candle in the room.

  At least she hadn’t ruined everyone’s life, Macy thought, swirling the tip of her tongue through the chocolate coating the marshmallow she held. Though the story of Jess and his chest-shaving scar would no doubt haunt him until his dying day. Judging by the look in his eye, however, Macy had a feeling Melanie would be forced to ante up a little payback.

  And indeed, she was relating her own experience as a high-school freshman in a new town where, as Mel Craine, hair cut short and breasts bound, she tried out for and made the junior varsity football team before the school year started and her ruse blew up in her face.

  But it was when Anton, whose fondue pot was filled less with chocolate than it was with cherry brandy, interrupted Mel’s high-school story to let everyone know that Lauren had been voted the girl most of her male classmates wanted to sleep with, that the party finally pooped. Macy had a mind to let him sleep it off in the alley behind the warehouse, but Lauren was quick to his rescue.

  Ray and Jess flanked Anton as the entire group headed as one to the loft’s parking garage, where the guys belted Anton into the passenger seat of his Jag and Lauren insisted on seeing him home. Anton mellowed at that, and apologized, and the group dispersed with promises to be back next month, Sydney threatening bodily harm if Macy didn’t get her column pulled together by deadline.

  Macy had never been so glad to see a game night come to an end. She would’ve breathed deeply to settle her frazzled nerves, but the garage was too full of exhaust fumes and her stomach too full of chocolate—not a good combination.

  So she leaned against the side of the Jaguar while Lauren stood in the wedge of the driver’s open door, screwed up her nose and pulled a face.

  “I’m sorry tonight turned out so sucky. Game night is usually such a blast.”

  Macy heaved a big sigh. “It wasn’t all that sucky. I just wasn’t in the mood. But it was fun to see Ray win.”

  “And to see Sydney’s sangfroid.”

  “You think they could…” Macy let the thought trail off.

  Lauren picked it up with a shrug. “Yeah. I do. Though with the way things are between Sydney and her father, I’d hate to think she’d use Ray to get back at Nolan.”

  “You think she would?”

  “Maybe not consciously.”

  “Lauren?” Anton called from inside the car.

  Lauren inclined her head. “I’d better get him home. He won’t be worth knowing if he loses all that booze and chocolate in the Jag.”

  Macy shuddered at the thought. “Listen, I know I rag on Anton, but I don’t think he’s worth giving up on. I want y’all to work things out.”

  “I know you do.” Lauren smiled. “Just like I want you and Leo to get your act together.”

  “We don’t have an act to get together.” Macy warded off Lauren with an index-finger cross.

  Lauren grabbed both of Macy’s hands and squeezed. “You are full of so much crap and if it wasn’t for your stupid rules I’d knock it out of you.”

  “Okay. I’m full of crap. Can I have my fingers back now before you break them off at the knuckle?”

  Lauren let her go. “Listen. I was going to stay in Anton’s guest room, but he’ll be fine. A few hours of sleep and he’ll be back to his usual belligerent self. Let me get him settled in and I’ll catch a cab back and help you clean up. We can talk.”

  “No. You stay. He may want you there when he wakes up and realizes what an ass he was tonight.”

  Lauren hesitated. “I would like to stay in case he needs me…. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  Macy shook her head, shooed Lauren into the car. “Are you kidding? With all that chocolate and alcohol waiting upstairs? And no man to ruin it for me? I’ll be peachy. Just peachy.”

  THE WHIR OF THE ELEVATOR caught Macy contemplating the long table of leftover chocolate. No, no, no. She would not drown her sorrows in the remaining Ghiradelli. She would not lick the fondue pots clean.

  She would not give Eric Haydon the satisfaction of having called her on the pity party. She would not waste another minute whining to herself or to Lauren about that other man, that esquire, who didn’t deserve the time of day.

  And she would not let her best friend spend the rest of the evening baby-Macy-sitting, when Lauren had issues to work on with Anton.

  Intending to head Lauren off before she stepped a single foot into the loft, Macy moved from the table to the elevator. But when the big boxy car ground to a stop, when the gate rattled and creaked open, Lauren was the last thing on Macy’s mind.

  Because standing inside the metal cage stood Leo Redding.

  He leaned against the back wall, feet crossed at the ankle, head down in a study of the floor. Macy felt a strange mix of emotion—elation, annoyance, a forced indifference—and then he looked up.

  And the tingle of hope curling her fingers around a fondue fork, her toes inside her leather clogs, centered in the pit of her belly and exploded in the direction of her heart.

  He stepped out of the elevator, into the loft. The gate creaked and rattled closed. Macy stood still, fists at her hips, waiting. Leo reached back and hit the switch, sending the car to the ground four stories below.

  She took a step in reverse, her rear end coming into contact with the back of the red-and-yellow plaid chair. She parked her butt on the edge and made an attempt to give him a dismissive once-over, but he made the pots of chocolate look like so many rainy-day puddles of mud.

  Oh, good Cupid grief. Who was she kidding? She was head over heels in love.

  “You’re too late. The party’s over.” A double entendre if she’d ever uttered one.

  Leo frowned, patted at his navy blazer, reached inside the breast pocket and pulled out the chocolate bar. He looked up from the candy and into her eyes. “Am I too late for dessert?”

  Macy fought the urge to present herself as dinner, dessert and the evening’s entertainment. “I’m not sure there’s much left to dip but oranges. Maybe a few crumbs of pound cake. There’s plenty of booze.”

  “Booze and chocolate,” he said, and smiled. “Sounds like my kind of party.”

  Oh, why hadn’t she left well enough alone, way back when? His smiles now came too easily and often. “Tell that to Eric. He was complaining that I wasn’t serving fun food.”

  One brow went up. “Since when did you start listening to Eric Haydon?”

  “Oh, that would be…never. I do my best to tune him out.” Pushing off from her perch, she stood and held out her hand because it was the only safe move she could think to make. “So? Do you want dessert or not?”

  He surrendered the pound of candy and followed where she led�
�which wasn’t far, only half the width of the loft away to the table. Once there, Macy found the lone unused fondue pot. She found her lighter, as well.

  She settled into the closest chair before unwrapping the chocolate bar and breaking it into chunks, dropping each one into the ceramic bowl with a clunk that echoed in her belly. Then she lit the tea light.

  Leo eased down into the chair across the table as the candle flamed. “So? Who won?”

  “Won?” she asked, trying to figure out the dynamics of entertaining a man one had slept with before one’s emotions were involved, when sleeping with the same man now was both out of the question and the thing one wanted more than life itself.

  “The scavenger hunt.”

  “Oh, right.” Duh. “Ray won, much to Sydney’s dismay.”

  “He did good on his list, then?” Leo asked, crossing his arms and leaning his chair back on two legs.

  Macy nodded, smiling, staring down into the pot of fondue. “One hundred percent right on.”

  “And Sydney?”

  “Hard to tell. She didn’t have much to say after finding out she’d been so thoroughly made.”

  “Hmm.” The chair came down. Leo leaned forward, joined Macy in a study of the melting candy. “What about Lauren and Anton? They still toughing it out?”

  Macy offered a one-shouldered shrug. “He got drunk. She drove him home. Just another day in paradise. But they’re working on it.”

  “Lauren’s got a good head on her shoulders. And Anton’s no slouch. They’ll get it together.”

  “Hope so.” That was about all Macy could manage to say, wondering as she was if she was sitting across from the same man who hadn’t expressed two words of concern about Lauren and Anton in the past.

  “What about Eric? And Jess? Did they make much of a dent in their lists?” Leo inclined his head toward the pink and blue papers haphazardly scattered at the far end of the table. “Or did Chloe and Mel run ’em over?”

  Okay. This was getting weird. Especially since soccer was Leo’s only connection to any of Macy’s men, and the women he only knew as clients. What was his sudden interest? “Jess got Melanie back in a big way for the chest-shaving story. And who knows about Eric and Chloe? Those two deserve each other and all the trouble they can cause.”