“They were all terrible prospects!” Rhino said.
“And I’m trying to make a point, here,” Dozer continued. “Tess says this is all her fault, but I wonder how that could be, considering she had zero experience and the stud-man over here has more experience than anybody in this room. I mean, who do you suppose was in control of that situation?”
“I was!” Tess said.
“Not likely.” Dozer started toward Mac again. “And I’m itching to land a few punches.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Hammer said.
“Might as well get it over with,” Rhino added.
Tess grew desperate. She couldn’t have her brothers beat up the man she loved. She lowered her voice to deliver her ultimatum. It had always worked for her mother, so maybe it would work for her. “If you do this, I’m through with all of you,” she said.
They turned to her with expressions of disbelief.
“I mean it. No brother of mine would gang up on an innocent man. And Mac is innocent.”
“Hah!” Dozer said.
Rhino stroked his chin and gazed at her. “Does he mean that much to you, Tess?”
Trapped. There was no answer except the truth. Tears of frustration pushed at the back of her eyes. “Yes, dammit, he does.”
Rhino nodded. “Then maybe you ought to stay home and marry him instead of traipsing off to New York.”
But he doesn’t want that, she longed to say. Instead, she swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat and lied. “Just because you care about someone and don’t want them hurt doesn’t mean you’re ready to give up your dream for them. My dream is to experience some other place besides Copperville, and I finally have the chance to do that.” She blinked to hold back the tears.
Rhino studied her for a while longer. “Well, I guess that settles it. We can’t very well beat up on Mac and make our sister cry, now, can we?”
“I wouldn’t cry.” She sniffed. “I just would never speak to you again.”
Tim frowned and came over to put a hand on her shoulder. “You look like you might cry.”
She sniffed again and glared up at him through swimming eyes. “Well, I won’t.”
“We’ve got another thing to think about,” Hammer said. “Is this information going to leave this room?”
“No.” Rhino fixed each of his brothers with a stern look. “Nobody tells. Not even your wives. Got that?”
Everyone nodded.
Tess gazed at them all with a heavy heart. She wanted this little scene over with. “Don’t you all have a darts tournament to play?”
There was a moment of silence. Finally Rhino broke it. “Guess we do. Come on, Mac.”
“Thanks,” Mac said, “but I think I’ll take a pass.”
“Like hell you will.” Hammer grabbed one of Mac’s arms.
“Yeah.” Dozer grabbed the other one. “You don’t think we’d leave you here, do you?”
“I’ll make it even plainer,” Rhino said. “Unless Tess changes her mind and decides to marry you, I don’t want you around this house again. You may have gotten away with it all summer, but the party’s over, buddy. The Blakely brothers are back on duty. Now let’s go play some darts.”
Tess watched with great misgiving as they escorted Mac out of the house. “You do understand I meant what I said,” she called after them as Dozer demanded Mac’s keys so he could drive Mac’s truck. “If you hurt him, I’ll find out, and there will be hell to pay.”
“We won’t hurt him, Tess,” Rhino promised as he climbed into his truck. “We just won’t let him within ten feet of you ever again.”
15
MAC WISHED the Blakely brothers had started swinging at him once they were out of Tess’s sight. A nice little brawl would have been an improvement over what was happening at the Ore Cart. As he sat at the bar and nursed a beer, he wondered if they were trying to get him to throw the first punch. He wasn’t about to do it.
He felt numb, which was another reason he’d love to get in a fight just so he could at least feel something and know he was still alive. But he wouldn’t be the one to start it. Like someone in shock staring down at a gaping wound, he should be feeling tremendous pain knowing that he’d never hold Tess in his arms again. He had no doubt he would feel that pain eventually. But the reality of losing his best friend and the love of his life hadn’t hit him yet.
“Hey, Benedict Arnold, you’re up.” Hammer pulled the darts he’d just thrown from the board and handed them to Mac, points out.
Mac took them, gazing stoically at Hammer as one of the points seemed to accidentally dig into his palm. “Thanks.”
“Whoops, did I stick you with that dart? Jeez, I’m sorry, man. Oversight on my part.”
“No problem.”
“Check where he’s putting his feet,” Dozer said. “A guy like him could edge over the line to get an advantage.”
“I’m watching him,” Rhino said. “All the time.”
Mac clenched his jaw and threw the darts. He sensed that the brothers were testing him, trying to get him to crack. If he challenged them, either by starting a fight or leaving the bar, that would be the end of the relationship. If he stayed and took everything they had to dish out, the day of forgiveness might eventually come.
Unfortunately he was starting to win the damn darts tournament. Throwing darts felt exceedingly good right now. He’d give anything to be out on the field throwing a football right now. He could probably heave it seventy yards with no problem. He deliberately made a bad toss of the dart.
“Hey, lover-boy!” Dozer called out. “Having a little trouble with your concentration?”
“No doubt,” Rhino said. “The boy has a lot of things on his mind. No wonder he hasn’t been winning at poker this summer.”
“I still can’t believe it,” Tim said. He of all the brothers seemed more hurt than angry. “I can’t believe you’d sit there every Wednesday night like always.”
“Sort of makes you lose your faith in your fellow man, doesn’t it, Tim?” Hammer said.
Mac threw his last dart dead in the middle of the bull’s-eye and turned to face the brothers. He gazed at them and pain started sneaking into his heart, like the pinpricks after an arm or leg has fallen asleep. Nothing would ever be the same. Nothing. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
They returned his gaze silently.
Finally Tim spoke. “Would you marry her if she wasn’t going to New York, Mac?”
He saw nothing wrong with telling them the truth. “Yes.”
Rhino made an impatient noise deep in his throat. “Then why the hell don’t you get her to stay?”
“I don’t think I could,” Mac said.
“You could,” Rhino said. “She might pretend she’s one of those women who takes her fun where she finds it, but she’s not. We always figured she’d fall hard for the first guy she got involved with because she’s not the type to take sex lightly, no matter what she says. That’s the main reason we’ve been protecting her all along. She could have wrecked her life with the wrong guy.”
“Maybe I’m the wrong guy.”
Hammer drained his glass of beer and set it down on the bar with a loud click. “Maybe. I can’t say I’d relish having a lying son of a bitch for a brother-in-law.”
“He didn’t exactly lie,” Tim said.
“No, it’s more like he betrayed our trust,” Rhino said. “Now, that’s not good, but I’m telling you, Tess has probably lost her heart, just like we thought she would when she became involved with someone. I think you need to convince her to stay here and marry you, Mac. It’s the only answer.”
Mac considered the idea, and for a brief moment hope gleamed in his heart. He knew Tess loved him. If only she’d given him some indication that she didn’t really want to go to New York…but she hadn’t.
He took a deep breath. “You’re right, I might be able to convince her to stay. But I can’t do it. All her life she’s talked about leaving small-town life behind and
experiencing the excitement of a big city. She could easily start blaming me for taking that away from her.” He should know. Despite how much he loved his parents, he couldn’t completely eliminate the resentment that cropped up whenever he thought of how they’d tied him to the ranch.
“Hell. You have a point.” Rhino gazed at the floor. “I hate this. I purely hate it. If you were some other guy, we could all have a great time taking you apart.”
Mac laid the darts on the bar. “Have at it.”
“We can’t beat you up, Mac,” Tim said. “Not after the way you said you were sorry, and that you’d marry Tess if you thought it would work out.”
“Maybe it would work out,” Dozer said. “Maybe she’d forget about this big-city thing after a while. Like the sofa Cindy wanted. She thought she’d die if she didn’t get it, but we couldn’t afford the darn thing. Then after she got pregnant she forgot about the sofa.”
Mac’s smile was sad. “I wish you were right, Dozer. But I’ve listened to Tess go on about this for years. You guys got so much recognition with your football that she felt overshadowed most of the time.”
“Yeah, but she was in those plays,” Tim said.
“I know, but Copperville folks don’t get as excited about plays as they do about football games. You know she once considered trying to make it on Broadway.”
Rhino groaned. “We were all having a heart attack over that plan, too.”
“That Broadway idea was because of us?” Dozer asked.
“In a way. It would have made a splash. At any rate, thinking about a career on Broadway got her hooked on the idea of New York, but she finally realized she didn’t want to act for a living, so she decided to get a job in New York as the next best thing. Because no one else in the family has done anything remotely like that, it’ll be her badge of honor. I think she needs to go.”
“I can’t believe she’s been jealous of us, when she was so smart, pulling down A’s all the time,” Hammer said.
“Pulling down A’s doesn’t rate a picture in the paper. Don’t get me wrong. She’s proud as heck of all of you, but she wants her own claim to fame. This is it.”
Rhino stroked his chin. “You seem to know her pretty well.”
Hammer coughed. “A little too damn well, if you want my opinion. Why didn’t you just tell her you wouldn’t do it, Mac?”
“I should have. God, I know I should have. But she seemed so determined to make this happen. She was considering Donny Beauford.”
A strangled noise came from Rhino, and Dozer choked on his beer.
“God bless America,” Hammer said. “Beauford?”
“I’d ten times rather have Mac than Beauford,” Tim said. “Make that a hundred times.”
A silence fell over the brothers as each of them seemed to be contemplating the horrors of Donny Beauford with their sister.
“I guess it had to be somebody, sooner or later,” Tim said at last.
“We knew that,” Rhino said. “But we wanted to make sure it was the right guy.”
“I’ve been wondering about something,” Mac said. “How were you planning to supervise Tess’s dating life once she moved to New York?”
Rhino grinned. “We had a special picture made of all four of us and we planned to give it to her as a going-away present.”
“And we had the photographer squat and point the camera up, so we all look huge,” Tim added.
“We’re going to tell her to keep it right by her bedside to remind her of her family,” Dozer said. “Any guy who sees that might think twice, especially if we pay a few surprise visits to New York now and then.”
Mac shook his head. “Amazing.”
“We might not have to worry so much now,” Rhino said. “If we want to look on the bright side of this disaster, Mac might have done us a favor.”
Hammer glared at Mac. “I can’t buy that.”
“Think about it,” Rhino said. “You know how she is once she settles on someone or something. Like a little bulldog. If she’s carrying a torch for Mac, she won’t be interested in any of those city slickers.”
Mac thought that was one of the best things he’d heard all night. Unfortunately it didn’t change the fact that Tess would be leaving and he would be staying. His life was about to become very empty, more empty than he could imagine. So if he wanted to keep his sanity, he wouldn’t even try to imagine life without Tess.
TESS KNEW that her last two weeks in Copperville would be rough, but she hadn’t understood the half of it. She ached from wanting Mac, but she’d expected that. The need for him was always there, a subterranean current that sometimes bubbled to the surface and threatened to drown her. But the moments she hadn’t expected were worse—moments when her first impulse was to share some little detail of her life with Mac, until she realized she could no longer do that.
There was the time she rescued Sarah’s kitten from a tree, and the hysterical sight of Mrs. Nedbetter riding around on her new mower, even though she had a postage-stamp lawn. Tess would hear a good joke or read an article about a new technique for breeding horses, and pick up the phone. And then the truth would hit her. No matter what he’d promised about always being friends, their friendship was dead.
The most exquisite torture of all lay ahead of her. Her parents’ anniversary party was no longer a surprise—surprises seldom worked out in Copperville. Once the secret was out, her family had decided to combine an anniversary barbecue in the park with a going-away party for Tess. Most of the population of Copperville would be there…including Mac.
By the day of the party, Tess had packed most of her belongings, including many of her clothes. Too late she realized that the only thing she hadn’t packed that was festive enough for the event was her daisy-patterned dress. Mac would probably think she’d worn it on purpose. The only reason it still hung in her closet was that she hadn’t gotten around to stuffing it in the bag of discards she’d collected to give to charity.
As she zipped the dress, she realized that the pearl necklace she’d continued to wear probably would be another red flag for Mac. For the past two weeks she kept meaning to take it off for good, although she couldn’t make herself give it away. But each time she’d reached for the clasp so she could put the necklace back into her jewelry box, she’d decided to leave it on a little longer.
Putting the necklace away seemed so final, as if that would sever the last tie with Mac. Besides, her mother had mentioned how nice she thought it was that Tess was finally wearing the lovely gift Mac had given her. Her mother might notice the necklace was gone and comment, Tess decided. Better to leave it on. Mac would just have to deal with it.
She arrived at the park early to help her brothers and sisters-in-law with the preparations. They worked steadily for two hours in the heat, tying balloons to lampposts, firing up the barbecue grills and chasing rambunctious children. Tess welcomed the sweaty, frantic activity and pushed thoughts of Mac to the back of her mind.
But her pulse started to race right on schedule when he backed his truck up to a ramada and started unloading the kegs of beer that had been ordered for the party.
“Guess I’ll go help him,” Rhino said.
“Don’t sample the wares until we’re finished here,” Joan called after her husband.
Tess kept sneaking glances at the two men as they laughed and joked with each other while unloading the kegs. Pretty soon Hammer, Dozer and Tim wandered over and joined them. Everyone acted like the best of buddies, and she began to hope that her brothers had made a temporary peace with Mac. Once she wasn’t around, they might be able to put the whole incident aside.
“Hey, Dozer,” Cindy called over to the group. “Time for you and Tim to start cooking. People are beginning to arrive and the anniversary couple will be here any minute.”
“Coming,” Dozer said.
Deena continued tying the last of the balloons on an adjacent ramada. “Hammer,” she called. “I need you to check on Jason and Kimberly at the swing
s. Suzie’s been playing with them over there, but I’ll bet she could use a breather.”
Hammer headed toward the swings. “Jason, let Kimberly have a turn, son!”
Tess pretended not to notice that Mac had tagged along as Tim, Dozer and Rhino approached the table. Instead, she concentrated on filling a large wading pool with ice to hold the salad bowls. She’d never followed through on her plan to use ice during lovemaking with Mac, but ice never failed to remind her of the passionate adventures they’d shared this summer.
“Cindy, which cooler did you put the hamburgers and hot dogs in?” Dozer asked.
“The red one,” Cindy said.
“Which red one?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Cindy got Dozer by one arm and Tim by the other and propelled them over to a nearby ramada. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Tess dumped the last bag of ice in the wading pool. “This is ready, Joan.”
“For what?” Mac asked.
Tess glanced at him and could tell by the challenging look in his eyes that he’d meant for the question to rattle her. It did. Her cheeks warmed. “We, uh—”
“It’s for the salads, so you don’t get poisoned by the mayonnaise,” Joan said briskly.
“That’s not all it’s for.” Rhino grabbed a piece of ice and slipped it down the back of Joan’s dress.
She shrieked and scooped up a handful of ice, pelting him with it as she chased him across the park.
And just like that, Mac and Tess were alone.
He picked up an ice cube and tossed it up and down in his hand. “We never did get around to this, did we?”
Her throat felt so tight that she couldn’t speak. She shook her head.
“Guess we never will.” He tossed the ice on the ground and moved closer. “How are you doing?”
“Okay.” She risked one look into his eyes and glanced away again. Too potent. She cleared the huskiness from her throat. “How about you?”
“Okay. I thought about calling you to see how you were holding up, but I thought that might make things worse.”
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