Saying I Do (Stewart Island Series Book 8)

by Tracey Alvarez

  She squinched her eyes shut tighter, taking stock. Sore muscles, as if she’d completed a three-hour Pilates session, if that session involved an intense vaginal workout. Warm covers over her, ruling out the shower stall and bathroom floor. Warm, slightly hairy skin under her knee. Warm hand cupping her butt. Warm skin that smelled of clean soap under her cheek that rose and fell and sighed. And warm, thick, morning wood under her palm.

  Definitely in bed. Definitely still with Joe. She cracked open an eyelid to the sunlight streaming in through a gap in the bedroom drapes. Definitely morning. She eased her hand off his goods before little Joe woke up for real and wanted some morning after action. Squeezing her core muscles—ouch—Mac untangled herself from Joe and slid to the side of the bed. No more action for her. And not because she was a prime candidate for honeymoon cystitis.

  She glanced over her shoulder as she carefully lowered her bare feet to the floorboards. Her core muscles gave another squeeze, this time involuntary. Joe was romance-novel-cover perfect, his big body sprawled on the white sheets, the duvet Mac had wriggled out of still draped low over his hips. His chest and ripped abs moved in deep, even breaths, and she ached to drop a line of kisses down from the strong column of his throat to the thin trail of crisp dark hair that disappeared under the covers. The arm that’d kept her tucked against him lay lax, his fingers curved as if still cupped around her. She wanted to lace her hands with his, climb onto all that smooth tanned muscle, and give him a pre-breakfast treat he wouldn’t forget. She wanted to so fundamentally she’d turned on the mattress edge and was leaning back across to—

  No. She stiffened, waiting as his chest rose and fell again, a small crease of a smile ghosting his lips. Was he dreaming of her? Or was he merely sleeping the deep sleep of a sexually satisfied male. It didn’t matter. She needed to leave.

  Mac tugged the duvet higher over Joe’s chest to keep the room’s chill at bay and shivered as she tiptoed out into his kitchen to gather her scattered clothes.

  Five minutes later, she power-walked through a sunny winter morning while cursing her stupidity in not setting an alarm on her phone the night before. Setting an alarm could’ve helped her avoid a walk of shame at twenty past eight on a Saturday morning when evidently every damn person in Oban was out and about.

  “Mac, Mac! Hi, Mac!” Enthusiastic shouts from Zoe and Jade, Ben and Kezia’s daughters, as they and their dad lugged a cooler and studded boots toward the playing field for rugby practice.

  A puffed, “Hey,” from Carly and Kip, Due South’s bartenders, as they jogged past.

  “Kia ora, MacKenna.” A wave from Reverend Dave as he strolled back toward his church with a steaming meat pie from Russell’s grocery store. “Breakfast of champions,” he told her, probably misinterpreting her horrified stare at crossing paths with a man of God for a criticism of his dietary shortcomings.

  Mac rushed down the side of the Southern Seas B&B, calculating whether she’d have time to catch the 9:00 a.m. ferry if she stopped for a quick shower first. She rounded the house corner and skidded to a halt.

  Holly sat on a garden bench, bracketed by two scowling sea lion statues, neither of which looked anywhere near as fierce as her cousin. Her arms were folded across her chest, her knees crossed, one sheepskin-lined boot tapping to an inaudible, fast-beat soundtrack. Death metal, if the frown on Holly’s face was any indication.

  Mac continued along the path, a shiver speeding down her spine, which was in direct opposition to the flare of heat crawling over her scalp. She halted a safe distance away from Holly’s tapping foot, just in case she was inclined to plant it in Mac’s butt. Holly quit the tapping and leaned back, lacing her hands around her knee and slicing into Mac’s still-sex-addled brain with a righteous stare that scanned her from bed-hair to boots.

  “Noah,” Holly stated when her gaze finally returned to Mac’s face.

  Mac went squinty-eyed at her cousin. Involving the island cop because Mac had snuck into Oban without telling Holly? Overkill, much?

  “Or maybe Zach,” Holly continued with a head tilt and a press of a finger to her lips.

  Zach? Part-time bartender, part-time fry cook at the takeaway caravan. Why would Zach get involved with—

  “But more likely Noah, as you don’t usually go for guys who say ‘dude’ and ‘sweeet’ and Noah’s all dark and broody with irresistible, I’m unavailable vibes.”

  Rubbing her eyes and yawning wide enough to separate her jawbones didn’t make Holly’s words any less confusing. Mac stared at her little cousin for two drawn-out, silent beats. “I’m sorry; there’s not enough caffeine in my system for this conversation to make sense.”

  “How rude,” Holly said with a smile that wouldn’t look out of place on a piranha. “The man whose bed you crawled out of this morning didn’t offer you coffee?”

  Sex-dulled synapses began to fire again. Mac’s nose scrunched. “You think I slept with Zach? That’s just wrong—the man’s barely legal.”

  “He’s twenty-three, and, no, I think you got that rat’s nest hair, inside-out-back-to-front tee shirt, and up-all-night-boinking glow from whatever guy you snuck over to Oban for. My guess, Noah Daniels.”

  Mac’s chin dropped to her neck, her gaze zipping down. Dammit, there was a clothing label sticking out from the neckline, which in her hurry she hadn’t noticed was chokingly tight. She dug the B&B keys out of her jacket pocket and unlocked the door.

  “I need coffee.” She ducked inside, ignoring the smug condemnation from the whale-ish eyes staring at her from around the room, and especially from the orca on her unslept-in bed.

  Holly followed her. “Holy crap, no wonder you didn’t want to bring the boink-fest here!”

  She toed off her boots and flung herself on top of the duvet, wriggling until her long brown hair with the plum-colored streak trailed down over the side, and she was looking at Mac upside down. “You gonna tell me? Or do you want me to list every single male in Oban, including Old Smitty and Laurie, which, incidentally, doesn’t bear thinking about, but I will if you don’t start talking.”

  Mac hit the switch on the electric kettle—next to a collection of whale-printed mugs. “I spent the night with Joe.”

  “Joe Cameron the fisherman who lives at Butterfield Beach? Or Joey Scott, the guy who never takes his baseball cap off and thinks no one knows he’s balding?”

  “Joe Whelan,” Mac said.

  “You and Doctor Joe?” Holly’s voice soared an octave. “Having claw-his-eyes-out, angry sex?”

  “What makes you think we had angry sex?”

  “Uh, hello. Even dummy me can spot the two of you don’t exactly get on,” Holly said with an upside down eye roll, followed by an upside down smirk. “Now I see why. Ssssexual tenssssion.”

  “Mmmmph.” Mac reached for a whale mug. “Something like that.”

  Holly rolled over and propped herself up on her elbows. “Spill.”

  So while the kettle heated and Mac felt a little like the proverbial frog who gets boiled alive and doesn’t know until it’s too late, she told her cousin the sanitized version of the past four weeks. Leaving out the bits about her and Joe’s checkered history and going along with his plan to stop his sister’s marriage.

  “So you’re together now,” Holly said.

  Mac scooped instant coffee into two mugs from a whale-shaped canister.

  “You and Doctor Joe. Huh.” Holly smiled.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Yeah, exactly like that.” Holly sat up, grinning from ear to ear. “Once is a hook-up, twice is an oopsie, three times is a relationship. And since you’re here with me instead of there with him, one can assume you’re shitting yourself about feels being involved.”

  Mac poured boiling water over the coffee granules and stirred. Added milk, stirred some more. Kicked herself for all the times she’d teased Holly about her love life or lack of it when they were younger.

  “Well?” Holly asked. “Am I right?”

 
“Yeah.” Mac blew out a breath and carried their coffees over to the room’s small table and chairs. “Guess I like him. Guess I might like him a lot.”

  Holly padded over to join Mac at the table. “Aww, listen to you, being all gushy over the cute boy next door.” She picked up her coffee and blew on it, giving Mac a slitted stare over the rim. “You want me to go deliver a little note with a multiple choice, asking how much he likes you back and some doodled love hearts?”

  “Shut up. I don’t doodle.” But Mac’s heart still gave a little sideways leap.

  “But your heart’s involved?”

  “It’s a little bit involved.” A little bit more than she was comfortable with. Hence the walk of shame when she’d really wanted nothing more than to stay wrapped in Joe’s arms.

  “And you’re scared.” Holly cocked her head, but it wasn’t really a question.

  They’d been close growing up, and Holly was witness to her Auntie Cheryl’s revolving relationships both at family gatherings and from Holly and Mac’s long, angsty teenage conversations. And Holly had been there when Mac lost her collective shit minutes before she’d been about to marry Richard.

  “Yep.” The fluttery, shivery bubbles returned to her stomach, and she took a quick sip of coffee to try to drown them. Scared was an understatement.

  “You don’t usually get scared about a guy.”

  “No.”

  “You were never scared with Richard.” Holly scrunched up her face. “In fact, you were scarily calm and vocal about how he was perfect for you. Up until, well, you know.”

  Holly had been Mac’s bridesmaid, so, yeah, she knew.

  “Is it some kind of omen when you’re terrified that you’re going to fall too hard, too deep for the guy and end up a broken mess at the end of it?” Mac asked.

  “I think it means Joe’s forcing you out of your emotional comfort zone.”

  “I don’t like being out of my emotional comfort zone.”

  “I know, sweets.” Holly sent her a small smile. “But that’s what relationships are all about. And who says you’ll end up a broken mess at the end of it? Who says it’s going to end?”

  Experience. Both her failed relationships and her mum’s three marriages. Love was fleeting and unreliable—if it even existed. Mac’s jury was still out on that one.

  “I’m a pessimist,” she said. “You know I don’t believe in happily ever after. Just happily for now or happily until his leaving the toilet seat up drives her nuts, or happily until he’s tired of the nagging and once-a-month coitus.”

  Holly snorted. “You’re in the business of happily ever afters, so at least some teeny-weeny, incy-wincy part of you believes in true love—in real love.”

  An image popped into Mac’s mind of her and Joe in his kitchen after they’d made love the first time last night. He’d pulled on his jeans and slipped his sweater over her nakedness, kissing her once more with a tenderness that’d stolen her breath. Then he’d continued to make her dinner, while they’d talked like old friends—one topic flowing effortlessly into another. There’d been an ease there, a simple, comforting connection of two people who’d denied they were lonely for too long. They’d curled up together on Joe’s squishy sofa in front of a roaring fire with their dinner plates and watched TV, Joe bitching about New Zealand’s favorite soap opera while Mac had laughed and hidden the remote. It hadn’t been perfect, but it’d been perfectly real.

  Holly’s small smile transformed into a smirk. “You know I’m right. And you know you’ve got to pull up your big girl panties and go back there and talk to him.”

  Damn, Mac hated when her little cousin was right.

  “Shut up, and drink your coffee, Hol.”

  Waking alone hurt.

  It wasn’t a huge shock when he’d rolled over to rouse Mac with a kiss and an offer of breakfast in bed and found she’d done a bunk, but it still hurt. And that put him into a foul man-sulk as he hauled his arse into the shower to clean the sweet smell of her off his skin.

  Later, dressed in jeans and yesterday’s sweater—because he evidently enjoyed torturing himself with her scent—he stomped around his kitchen, cooking a full Irish. Because he bloody well deserved it and to hell with the cholesterol. Bacon, pork sausages, a bit of black pudding, and some leftover potatoes he’d browned in the pan. All were keeping warm in the oven while he fried up a couple of eggs. He’d just popped two slices of thick brown bread into the toaster when someone knocked on the door. He poked his head out of the kitchen with a narrowed glare, but the door wasn’t revealing any clue as to who’d be outside his place at nine thirty on a Saturday morning.

  The likeliest suspect would be Ford, who’d an almost psychic link to Joe when it came to a full Irish breakfast. Only Ford was coaching the kids’ rugby team today. That left a medical emergency—unlikely, since no one had called. Or West, who could also sniff out a cooked breakfast, especially when his wife, Piper, wasn’t involved in the making of it.

  Or…

  “Joe?” A female voice called from the other side of his front door. “Are you in there?”

  Mac. His dick twitched, and his heart gave a little quickstep around his chest—body parts that were more than happy to forgive her for bolting this morning. He pressed his lips together and stepped into the hallway, wondering if she could hear the eggs popping in the frying pan from outside.

  “I brought coffee.”

  He took another step, deftly avoiding the middle floorboard that creaked when stepped on.

  “And three of Erin’s muffins.”

  Joe stopped on the door’s other side, his pulse now throbbing through him. He heard a papery rustle, and against his will, the annoyance he’d carried since he’d found her gone lifted like morning mist. MacKenna had run, but she’d come back again.

  “I’ve got banana and walnut, raspberry and white chocolate, and something with chocolate chips in it; I can’t remember.” Then an annoyed sigh. “Dammit, Joe. Let me in.”

  Joe flung open the door. Mac, with paper bags in one hand and takeout coffees in a cardboard tray in the other, tipped forward since she was balanced on one foot to kick his door. He caught her by the shoulders to steady her then plucked the cardboard tray out of her hands before she slopped coffee down the front of her pretty white top.

  “I don’t need your muffins,” he said. “I have black pudding.”

  Her nose scrunched up, and she tossed her hair—loose and shower damp—over her shoulders. “You won’t get a good morning kiss from me after eating that gross stuff.”

  He grinned down at her. “Liar,” he said. “A bit o’ pig’s blood and oatmeal won’t deter you from kissing me for long. Come and have breakfast with me.”

  She gave him a saucy eye roll and brushed past him, strolling down the hallway to his kitchen as if she owned the place. Well, if a hostile takeover of his heart was her plan, she was doing a grand job.

  “I really don’t like you very much,” she said over her shoulder.

  “I know,” he said, trailing after her. “But you come bearing coffee and muffins, so I guess my imminent disembowelment is no longer in the cards.”

  Years of practice instilled in him by his mam meant there was plenty of extra food to feed an unexpected crowd. While he dished out two plates of steaming-hot manna from heaven—minus the black pudding for the squeamish woman setting two places at his dining table—they didn’t speak. But strangely, it wasn’t a fraught silence, it was more like a stillness of spirit that came over him when their eyes met over the table and she smiled at him. A hopeful, almost shy smile.

  “I’m glad you came back, MacKenna,” he said as they sat down to eat.

  She picked up her fork, turning it over and over in her palm. “Under the circumstances, you should probably call me Mac now.”

  “Isn’t calling you Mac reserved for people you like?” He kept his tone light and full of teasing, but his damn heartbeat kicked up a notch again.

  Because while the push
and pull, chase and run, catch and release had been fun, and would continue to be fun, he was beginning to need more. Some sort of confirmation that showing up on each other’s doorsteps for hot sex wasn’t the only thing they had. Some sort of assurance that he wasn’t the only one aware of the heat between them and wondering if jumping in would leave him burned beyond recognition.

  “Shut up. I like you. I like you a lot. And I sound like a teenage girl. Crap.” Her chest rose and fell on a choked laugh. She laid down her fork and reached across the table to lay her hand over his. “I’m sorry I ran off this morning.”

  “Want to clue me in on why?”

  “I had a dream last night.” Her mouth twisted, and she withdrew her hand, picking up her takeout coffee and taking a sip, her throat working overtime.

  “Ah. One of those dreams women have that their guy is shagging a cheerleading squad. They wake up pissy and hurt, and the guy has to deal with tears and being whacked with a pillow.”

  “That’s so sexist. Don’t guys ever dream about that kind of thing?”

  “Of course. I dream about shagging cheerleader squads all the time. Do you own some pom-poms?”

  Mac snorted out a laugh then fell silent, her gaze zipping down to her plate.

  “Tell me about it,” he said gently.

  Her shoulders hunched, and he thought she wouldn’t answer. Or she’d brush him off with a flippant lie. But she straightened her spine and met his gaze.

  “It was one of those muddled-up memory dreams I have every so often. About my parents separating when I was little. Only I saw it through the eyes of an adult, as if I were spying through the walls when they told me Dad wouldn’t live with us anymore. I’d arrived home from school and found Mum and Dad waiting for me in the living room. For a moment, I thought Dad being home so early from work was a good thing…that something special would be happening like an unexpected holiday. I was young, so I didn’t notice Mum’s eyes were swollen and red, or that Dad didn’t look at her once the whole time they were talking to me. He hugged and kissed me and told me he’d be by on the weekend to take me for ice cream at the park, then Mum told me to go unpack my schoolbag and put my lunchbox in the kitchen as I did every day. As if it were a normal day.”