Saying I Do (Stewart Island Series Book 8)

by Tracey Alvarez

  “Why didn’t you send the e-mail anonymously? I’d never have known it was you.”

  Her green eyes met his and locked. “I couldn’t. You deserved better than an anonymous e-mail. That’s not who I am.”

  No, he was beginning to see it wasn’t—that she wasn’t who he’d always thought.

  He crossed to the table to lean against it, a foot from where MacKenna sat. The flowery-lemony scent of her grew stronger, curling around him, pulling him into her orbit. He kept his arse pressed to the table edge and his gaze fixed on the industrial sewing machines lined up along the opposite wall. He swallowed hard, consciously avoiding taking another trip back in time to when he’d lashed out at her. “You never told me any of this when I turned up at your shop four and a half years ago.”

  She pressed her lips together in a thin line and tucked her hands under her thighs. “You were already suffering. I figured it was better for you to blame me a lot than hate yourself a little.”

  His heart gave a little twinge as it thudded against his rib cage. He pushed away from the table and stood in front of her, palms planted either side of her hips, her denim-clad knees awfully close to the family jewels.

  But she didn’t raise her knee. No. She lifted her gaze to his, and at that intimate distance, close enough to see the tiny flecks of gold in her irises, close enough to catch the whiff of raspberries in her fast little breaths, he could no longer deny he wanted to be in her personal space. Wanted to dominate that personal space and kiss her so desperately he cursed himself ten times over for being a stupid, gormless git.

  It was a Hallmark moment. Her looking at him, with wide eyes and a parted mouth. Him looking at her, needing to taste the fullness of her slick bottom lip but knowing he’d want to continue kissing her until he’d miss the last ferry—and that wouldn’t be the worst of his problems. The problem was one kiss wouldn’t be enough.

  He asked a question instead. “Why would you do that for a complete stranger?”

  Steel doors immediately slammed down in her gaze, her lush mouth thinning. “For the same reason you’re asking me to interfere in your sister’s life, I’m guessing. You don’t want someone to go through something so painful if you can prevent it by speaking up.”

  Back to why he’d paid MacKenna a visit in the first place. He straightened and got out of her personal space before he kissed her anyway, and to hell with it.

  “You’ll do it, then?” he asked, pacing away from her and spinning back. “You’ll make my sister, Kerry, a wedding dress but talk her out of using it?”

  “Whoa.” A time-out, T-shaped hands and a frown from MacKenna. “Back it up. You want me to what?”

  That’s right, he’d gotten distracted by Reid’s appearance and hadn’t explained his masterful plan. “Go through the motions of making Kerry her dream dress—consultation, first fitting, etcetera—and work your anti-matrimonial magic while you’re doing it. Convince her to break off the engagement, or at the very least, delay the wedding indefinitely. I’ll pay for your time, of course.”

  MacKenna hopped off the table, Ugg boots thumping on the floor. “Anti-matrimonial magic? I’m not a magician, and that’s a bloody big favor to ask.”

  He’d thought more along the lines of a spell-binding witch, but anyway… “Do this and I’ll consider us even Steven.”

  “I won’t do it. It’s cruel.”

  “Crueler to let her marry a man she barely knows.”

  “I’m sure he must be a good guy if your sister wants to marry him.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Joe said and rolled a shoulder. “We haven’t been introduced.”

  She went all hands on hips. “Shut the front door. You mean you haven’t even met your sister’s fiancé, and you’re trying to break them up? That’s a douche move.”

  In other circumstances, he’d agree. A feckin’ douche move. But when he thought about this Aaron guy dimming the light and laughter in Kerry’s eyes, taking advantage of her open, trusting nature, bullying her into forgoing bloody steak, for Christ’s sake. Joe’s gut folded in on itself.

  “The guy’s already trying to have a say in what she does and doesn’t do. I know Kerry. She’s never tried to hide one of her boyfriends from the family before. Can’t you see there must be something fishy about him if she’s nervous about my reaction to her getting married?”

  “Or maybe she knew you’d overreact,” she said. “She’s a grown-ass woman who can make up her own mind.”

  You mind our Kerry because you’re the eldest. He could hear his mam’s voice ring in his ears. She’s the only sister you’ll ever have, and your job—your only job—is to keep her safe.

  It didn’t matter whether he was fourteen or thirty-four, or that Kerry was a grown-ass woman. His job, as her big brother, was still to keep her safe.

  “It’s not a terrible thing to give her an outsider’s perspective and to make her think about waiting a while before she jumps into the deep end. I’m scared—bleedin’ terrified, MacKenna—that Kerry’ll be hurt worse than I was.”

  Yeah, it was a low blow, even for him. But playing the emotion card was working. MacKenna’s gaze softened, and her fists slid off her hips.

  “She’ll murder you in cold blood if she finds out what you’re up to.”

  “She would,” he agreed. “But she won’t guess anything’s up; I told her you think I’m a complete wanker.”

  With a huff of either amusement or agreement, MacKenna strode past him to the front door and yanked it open. “I do.”

  Joe took his time strolling over, the icy wind blowing in from the street cooling his jets, so to speak. “Saying ‘I do’ already, Mac? Seems a bit premature.”

  She rolled her pretty eyes at him. “As does you calling me Mac. Only people I like call me Mac, and I really, really don’t like you. Now get out. I’ll think about taking on your sister as a client.”

  He got out, but he strolled back to his car with a smile on his face. He’d be calling her Mac soon enough.

  A week after Joe’s arrival on MacKenna’s doorstep and the subsequent about-to-kiss-then-abort-kiss moment, which she’d probably imagined, Mac paced the hardwood floor of Next Stop, Vegas. She paused at a long, lacquered table, upon which sat artfully arranged mannequin busts displaying quality costume jewelry, along with two pairs of her most popularly ordered wedding shoes—and once again made minute adjustments to their position.

  She sniffed at the crystal vase of fresh white roses delivered by a local florist every week then moved on to the two full-sized mannequins clothed in a couple of her gowns for hire in the window display. She straightened the slight train on one, which must’ve been nudged by an earlier client when she moved toward the row of gowns on a rack along the far wall. Mac smiled, her gaze skimming over the hire-gowns. She had such an abundance, she couldn’t display them all at the same time. Next to it was a separate rack of gently worn, on-consignment gowns that clients with a slightly bigger budget but who still couldn’t afford an original MacKenna Jones design could choose from.

  Every bride deserved a dress to make her feel beautiful, no matter what her budget. That was the party line she trotted out to her assistants, Maddy and Laura, to Reid, and to whatever design school student on work experience they had temping for them at the time. What she really meant was: If you’re crazy enough to believe you’re gonna love one man forever, you might as well mark the occasion of your public declaration of insanity by looking fabulous.

  “Boss? You okay?”

  Laura appeared in the archway between the shop front and the changing room and fitting area. Dressed like Mac was, in a slim-fitting, tailored white shirt and charcoal-colored pencil skirt, Laura twisted the knotted blue scarf at her throat. Unlike Mac, Laura kept the sleeves of her shirt rolled down to hide the silvery cutting scars of her troubled teenage years from sight—at least she did during work hours. In private, those scars were Laura’s badges of honor. The scared but tough street rat had grown into a survivor and
one of Mac’s closest friends. Not so close that Laura knew about the whole Joe thing, though.

  Mac pasted on her everything’s fine smile to counteract the frown crumpling her manager’s face. “Just a little tired.”

  “And nervous about meeting this client?” Laura looked over her funky blue-rimmed glasses down her nose at Mac. “Because that’s like the third time you’ve rearranged the accessory table.”

  Not much got past Laura, which made her a huge asset to Next Stop, Vegas.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mac said, giving her reflection a quick once-over in one of the shop’s mirrors. “Haven’t you got work to do, employee?”

  Laura gave a soft snort—then, “Wowza! Is that this morning’s client and her fiancé?”

  Sure enough, outside the plate-glass shop windows stood a woman glaring up at Joe, who stared down at her with what Mac suspected was his I’m not budging counter glare.

  “Kind of.” Mac squished a grin as the brunette—her profile a feminine version of her big brother—squared her shoulders preparing for battle. “That’s my client, Kerry Whelan, and her pain-in-the-ass brother, Joe.”

  Just then, Mac’s new client’s pain-in-the-ass brother flicked a glance away from whatever lecture he endured, and looked at Mac. Familiar, amused, and with the beginnings of an intimate connection, Joe’s gaze only lasted a two-second beat, but it set heat unfurling deep inside her that caused her knees to wobble. Just a little bit.

  Mac squared her own shoulders—the sooner she got this meeting over with, the sooner she could figure out a way to live with her conscience after doing what she’d somehow agreed to do. Plant some seeds of doubt, she told herself firmly. That’s all. And if nothing grew in that fertile soil, then Joe couldn’t blame her for not trying.

  Laura’s laughter from beside Mac made her jump.

  “What?” She tore her gaze from Joe—looking annoyingly delicious in the same stone-colored jeans he’d worn to the rugby game at Holly’s, but this time teamed with a dark blue cable-knit sweater, which made his eyes look even more bedazzling than usual—and elbowed her friend in the ribs.

  Laura took a side step out of further elbow range.

  “You.” She giggled again. “Now I know why you’re so nervous. You’re lit up like Guy Fawkes Night after that smoldering little exchange. Is that the Joe who came around the other night and got all snarly with Reid?”

  “You two are such gossips.” And Mac wasn’t lit up like anything; she was just…trembling. Her hands were trembling, and her stomach felt as if she’d inhaled a few fluttery insects. Sheesh.

  “Yep. So is he that Joe?” Laura was relentless. “The Joe who’s put you in a cat-in-a-room-full-of-rocking-chairs mood for the past week? Joe, the one you keep changing the subject about whenever Reid tries to get you to talk about him?”

  Mac sighed and folded her arms, tucking her trembling fingers into the crooks of her elbows. “Yeah, he’s that Joe. Now shut up; they’re coming in.”

  Gone was Kerry’s belligerence as she swept past Joe who held the door open. Her eyes sparkled as they lit on Mac standing awkwardly in the center of the shop.

  “You must be MacKenna,” she said. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve lusted after your gowns ever since I saw one in a bridal show—they’re incredible, and oh, forgive me, I’m nattering on like a fangirl.”

  “Thank you, and no, you’re not,” Mac said. “It’s lovely to meet you, too.”

  And strangely, it was. Kerry had an energy, a charismatic aura that immediately made Mac feel at ease. Even with her big brother looming behind her as he shut the shop door and strolled to Kerry’s side.

  “Just how many years have you dreamed about getting hitched?” Joe asked mildly then switched his hot gaze to Mac.

  That look was anything but mild, and in fact appeared loaded with a combination of emotions that felt like a bomb ready to explode.

  Kerry rolled her eyes. “Ignore my brother, the matrimonial grinch. He doesn’t believe in love and happily ever after.”

  Another thing Mac and the Grinch had in common, then. But she wouldn’t admit that straight out of the gate. Finesse, that was the key.

  “He obviously hasn’t found the right person,” Mac said coolly—but she didn’t dare look at Joe while she said it.

  “Exactly what I’ve been telling him. The eejit.” Kerry hooked her arm through Joe’s.

  The move gave Mac a quick flashback—Joe, standing in her shop with another beautiful woman clinging to his arm—but there was nothing proprietary or smug in Kerry’s gesture, just easy affection and the knowledge that her brother loved her enough to put up with the teasing insult.

  “I prefer the term ‘sensibly skeptic.’”

  Joe grinned down at his sister with a return of that easy affection. It ramped up the buzzing in Mac’s stomach. Throwing up her morning bowl of bran flakes over her trying-but-not-trying-to-impress high-heeled black pumps wouldn’t make a good first impression.

  Growing up an only child, Mac had always envied her friends with brothers and sisters. She couldn’t imagine having someone in her life who would always have her back. At least, not counting Holly, Reid, Kaitlyn, and Laura. But having great friends wasn’t quite the same as having a person who’d been raised in the same house with the same parents and had the same neuroses she had.

  “You’re staying, Joe?” she asked.

  Kerry sighed. “Yep, he is. I hope you’ll make this as painful as possible with lots of talk of lace, sweetheart necklines, strapless bras, and the like.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Mac gestured to the archway behind them. “Follow me.”

  She led them past the boutique’s sectioned-off dressing room and the open space opposite, which contained three comfortable armchairs facing a bank of full-length, angled mirrors and a low pedestal for the bride-to-be to stand on. The room beyond the fitting room was where she did all her consultations for made-to-measure gowns. MacKenna opened the door into the consultation room and stood aside so Kerry and Joe could enter.

  Bolts of fabric lined one wall—silks, satins, organza, tulle, and other luxury fabrics in shades of white and cream. Sample books of swatches of other colored fabrics sat on the shelf beside them for clients who wanted something other than the traditional or for bridesmaid dresses, which Next Stop, Vegas could also provide. On the other wall, Mac had pinned up sketches and photos of previous gowns she had made. At one end of the small room was a comfortable couch and chairs, before which sat a huge coffee table loaded with more sample books of fabrics, sketches, and bridal ideas.

  Joe headed for an armchair and slumped into it, his glazed expression identical to many fathers of the bride who’d had the misfortune to be dragged into wedding gown shopping. Kerry, on the other hand, looked like all her Christmases had arrived at once. She buzzed from sketches to fabric, touching, examining, and firing nonstop questions at Mac the whole time.

  “What sort of wedding are you thinking of?” Mac asked as Kerry oohed over a selection of lace. “Small and intimate?”

  Before Kerry could answer, Joe barked out a laugh. “Not if our mam has any say in it. It’ll be in a packed church in front of a priest for our Kerry, with all the clan getting pissed on Da’s beer afterward at the reception.”

  Kerry’s enthusiastic smile slipped a notch, and her eyes narrowed at her brother sprawled on the armchair, his gaze still fixed on the ceiling in a picture of utter boredom. He’d done nothing but make sly innuendos from the moment Mac and Kerry had started talking.

  “Will your man be wearing a suit, then, Kerry? Cover up that ink, eh?”

  “Are you sure you need four bridesmaids?”

  And when Kerry made a throwaway comment about “only getting married once,” Joe’s cynical grunt had his sister’s mouth pinching into a tight bud.

  “Kerry, why don’t you have a look through these designs, and make some notes about what you like and don’t like?” MacKenna guided Kerry to the sofa and handed her a
folder and a notepad and pen. “Joe and I will go into my office to discuss payment.”

  “We will?” Joe slumped farther into the chair, propped one foot on her coffee table, and folded his arms.

  “Yes, we will. Right now.”

  In case the man was dense enough to miss the I’m about to stuff this bolt of white organza down your throat if you argue tone in her voice, Mac crossed over to where he sat and knocked his foot off her coffee table.

  “Move your ass,” she mouthed with her back to Kerry.

  Joe stared up at her for a beat then slowly uncoiled from the chair and stood. Even in her five-inch heels, she still found herself nose to collarbone. Mac clenched everything south of her belly button in order not to take a giant, wobbly step backward. Or a half step forward, to press her lips against the strong column of his throat and the pulse bumping rapidly there.

  Crap—she was losing bucketloads of brain cells by the second, sniffing up some pheromone-enhanced scent of his cologne with an undertone of riled-up male. She made a tactical retreat and whirled away, reaching the door before she risked checking to see if he’d followed.

  He hadn’t.

  Instead, his gaze appeared to be fixed squarely on her…butt. Which caused a number of little chain reactions inside her, none of them professional, and none of which she wanted him to know about. Damn, she wished she’d kept her thick puffer jacket on this morning.

  “Are you coming?” She injected as much command into her voice as possible, hoping the tremble in her vocal chords would be neutralized.

  Kerry flipped a page in the folder and scribbled something on the notepad. Joe gave his sister one last glance and strode across the floor. Mac opened the door so fast she nearly yanked off the handle, and she shot toward the opposite side of the hallway into her office-cum-storage room.

  She headed straight for the sound system that piped music throughout the shop—classical for some clients, schmaltzy ballads for others, and for those with a glimmer of humor, her selection of tongue-in-cheek, eighties rock. She raised the volume of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” and faced Joe. He’d followed her into her office and leaned against the closed door, all bad attitude and rumpled hair sticking up on one side since he must’ve shoved his fingers through it at some point in the last thirty seconds.