by Cindy Kirk
Totally delusional—Mac ruthlessly shut down the memory—that’s what you were.
The step creaked again—a sound that immediately caught Mac’s attention because she wasn’t the one standing on it this time.
She whirled around and her eyes locked on the man standing less than three feet away in the doorway of the gazebo.
Ethan Channing had just stepped out of her dreams and into her life.
Ethan wrestled down his irritation as the young woman in the gazebo turned to face him.
His mother had threatened to hire a professional wedding planner even though Hollis insisted that she and Connor wanted to keep things simple.
A word that wasn’t in their mother’s vocabulary. Neither was the word no. Ethan loved the woman dearly, but this was exactly the kind of thing she would do. There was no getting around it. His mother was a steamroller in Ralph Lauren and pearls.
Still, it didn’t give Ethan license to shoot the messenger. A very attractive messenger—even if she was looking at him the way a character in a cheesy horror flick would look at the ax murderer who’d just stepped out of the shadows.
“Sorry.” Ethan took a step backward, lifted his hands to show her they were ax-free. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
If possible, the woman’s big brown eyes got even bigger.
Now she was staring at him as if she knew him . . . and that was when it occurred to Ethan that he knew her too.
“Mac?” He tested the name cautiously, still not trusting his eyes. Until she nodded.
“Ethan . . . um . . . hello.”
He couldn’t believe it. Mac Davis—the scrawny, freckle-faced girl who’d perched on the bleachers taking stats or handed out water bottles during halftime—had been a fixture at every football game. But the nickname no longer seemed to fit.
Ethan’s gaze swept over her, confirming that some mysterious metamorphosis had occurred over the past ten years. Mac’s hair, once the color and consistency of copper wire, had deepened to a rich mahogany. It spilled over her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face that Ethan would have, if pressed, once described as cute. He would have been wrong. Mackenzie Davis was . . . beautiful.
The coach’s daughter. All grown up. The thought made Ethan smile. Until he realized that Mac wasn’t smiling back. She was inching toward the doorway of the gazebo.
“Excuse me. I have to take some photos while the lighting is still good.”
This was probably his cue to let her go with a polite nod. But at the moment Ethan felt more curious than polite. “Photos?”
“For the Register.” Mac held up a digital camera as proof.
“You’re a photographer?”
“Reporter. I have a lot of competition, though, because everyone in town tries to do my job and they don’t ask for compensation.”
It was such an accurate description of Red Leaf’s thriving grapevine that Ethan couldn’t help but grin. “You moved back here after college?”
“Last summer. Before that I was an intern at the Milwaukee Heritage.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“It wasn’t that.” Mac hesitated. “The . . . timing wasn’t quite right, so I came back.”
Ethan suspected there was only one reason why Mac had passed up an opportunity to work for a prestigious newspaper like the Heritage and returned to Red Leaf. “Coach? He’s doing okay?”
“It depends on which one of us you ask.” The shadow that skimmed through Mac’s eyes landed like a punch in the center of Ethan’s gut.
Ben Davis had been more than Ethan’s high school football coach and mentor; he’d been a friend. A friend Ethan had lost touch with over the years because he’d been consumed with being the best, and it had affected his priorities. Coach had always claimed he was more concerned about producing good men than good football players. In that respect he’d failed the man twice.
“What happened?” Ethan was almost afraid to ask.
“A heart attack, but you know my dad. He acts like all he did was stub a toe. Dr. Heath warned him to slow down a little, but Coach and I can’t seem to agree on what that means.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“No offense, Ethan”—the gold sparks in Mac’s eyes told him she’d taken offense—“but if Coach won’t listen to me, what makes you think he’ll listen to you?”
“He won’t have a choice.” The words slipped out before Ethan could stop them. “I’m taking over Dr. Heath’s practice at the end of the month.”
“Taking over . . .” Mac choked. “Doctor . . .”
“Channing.” Ethan smiled. “But that’s strictly off the record for now.”
A doctor.
What perfect timing. Because Mac was pretty sure her heart had stopped beating the moment Ethan Channing stepped inside the gazebo.
“You look a little surprised.” He tipped his head, and the silky swatch of ink-black hair he’d never quite been able to tame dipped over one eye.
Surprised wasn’t quite the word Mac would have chosen.
And his smile . . . Mac hadn’t realized it was etched as deeply in her memory as the initials EC were etched in the wood less than three feet from where he stood.
Oh. No.
She shifted to the left, blocking the bench from view. At least she hadn’t been stupid enough to carve her initials next to Ethan’s the night of the homecoming dance. Ninety percent of the girls who attended Red Leaf High School had had a crush on the star quarterback, so any one of them could have been the culprit.
“I didn’t know Dr. Heath was leaving.” Or that Ethan had followed in his father’s footsteps and pursued a degree in medicine. But then again, not asking questions when she called home from college had been part of Mac’s “leave Red Leaf behind” campaign.
“A group of medical missionaries who are opening a clinic in Haiti asked Dr. Heath to partner with them. He contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would consider taking over his practice.” Ethan’s smile surfaced again. “That’s off the record, too, by the way. He wants to tell his patients before a formal announcement is made.”
After Dr. Heath told his patients, Mac knew a formal announcement wouldn’t be necessary. The news would be all over town before the next issue of the Register went to press. Ethan’s father and Frank Heath had been close friends as well as colleagues, and after Monroe’s death, Dr. Heath had kept the clinic going on his own.
Now Ethan planned to take his father’s place.
Mac had assumed he’d returned to Red Leaf for Hollis’s wedding. The thought of seeing Ethan on a regular basis caused her heart to stall all over again.
“Do you and Coach still live next door?”
“Yes.” The same house. The same room.
The only thing that wasn’t the same was that Mac refused to fall victim to Ethan Channing’s irresistible charm. Again.
“I really should get going.” She tried to duck past him but Ethan snagged her elbow.
“Careful. That’s stinging nettle.” He guided her around an innocent-looking plant sprouting between the steps. “I’m beginning to think a controlled burn might work better than a bottle of weed killer. I can’t believe how neglected the place looks.”
That’s what happens when you don’t come back for ten years, Mac wanted to say.
After Dr. Channing’s funeral, it was as if the family had cut all ties with the town. Ethan’s mother closed up the house the summer after he graduated, but when no FOR SALE sign appeared in the yard, everyone expected the Channings to divide their time between Chicago and Red Leaf.
The house had remained empty all summer and during football season. Over Christmas break, it had been Willie Meister’s plow truck Mac saw in the driveway, clearing a path that no one used. No one returned the following summer, either. Or the one after that. Mac finally stopped looking out the window when she heard a vehicle rumble past.
An empty house didn’t stop people from reminiscing about the family, though. The name
Channing was stamped on gold plaques all over Red Leaf, from the door on the library’s addition to the playground equipment in the park. Photographs of Hollis in her cheerleading uniform still lined the walls of the high school, and even now when Mac went to a football game, someone inevitably mentioned how Ethan had led the Lions to victory over the Lumberjacks during the play-offs his senior year, breaking several state records on his way to the end zone.
No wonder Grant wanted to make Hollis’s wedding front-page news. It was like the royal family returning to Balmoral Castle.
A thought suddenly occurred to Mac. “Are you . . . staying at the house?”
Ethan looked confused by the question. “Of course.”
Of course.
Red Leaf suddenly felt even smaller.
“I know it’s kind of big for one person, but it’s completely furnished.” Ethan bent down to pick up a pinecone and sent it sailing into the trees with the practiced skill of someone who still tossed around a football now and then. “Mom claimed the stuff wouldn’t fit in our condo, but I think it gave her an excuse to leave Dad’s collection of antique fishing reels and the bearskin rug behind.”
One. Person.
Mac swallowed hard. By now she expected there would be a beautiful, accomplished Mrs. Ethan Channing and two-point-four equally beautiful, accomplished Channing children.
She slowed her steps in order to put some distance between them and scanned the property for another “before” shot that would satisfy her editor.
“Do you know where the ceremony is going to take place?”
Ethan stopped so abruptly she almost plowed into him.
“Ceremony?” he repeated.
“Hollis’s wedding.”
“That’s why you’re here?” Ethan didn’t raise his voice, but something in his tone set off a warning bell in Mac’s head.
“I told you I was taking pictures for the Register.”
“I thought you were getting some nature shots. An eagle. The sunset.” Ethan gestured toward the lake. “How did you even find out about the wedding? It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“A secret?” Grant hadn’t mentioned that. And it didn’t sound like Hollis, the girl who’d flirted with the editor of the school newspaper just to get her picture on the front page. Every week. “My editor received an e-mail with the details this morning.”
“Who sent the e-mail, Mackenzie?” he asked softly.
Mac hiked her chin and forced herself to look him in the eye. “I . . . I can’t say.”
Ethan took a step closer, invading her personal space. “It was my mother, wasn’t it?”
“A good reporter never reveals her source.” Even though Ethan’s cologne, a woodsy, masculine equivalent of truth serum, was in the process of breaking down her resistance.
“Never?” A slow smile drew up the corners of his lips. “That sounds like a challenge to me.”
Mac silently disagreed. Keeping her head on straight and her heart in line with Ethan Channing working in Red Leaf—and living next door—that was going to be the challenge.
“Mom did what?”
“Contacted the Register about the wedding.” Ethan held the phone away from his ear and braced himself for the fallout.
“I can’t believe it! She knows how Connor feels about his privacy!” Hollis wailed. “We chose Red Leaf because we wanted a quiet place to exchange our vows.”
Of course their mother knew that. But she had obviously decided that when it came to her only daughter marrying Connor Blake, a little publicity was better than no publicity at all.
“It will still be quiet.” Even without the newspaper story, Ethan couldn’t guarantee privacy, not in a town the size of Red Leaf. “I doubt you’ll have to worry about paparazzi hiding in the trees.”
Just beautiful, brown-eyed reporters . . .
“Ethan? Are you listening to me?”
“Of course I’m listening.” And thinking about Mackenzie Davis, something Ethan had been guilty of doing quite a bit over the past twenty-four hours. Their conversation the night before had ended in a stalemate, but Ethan was already looking forward to the next one.
“You think I’m being silly, don’t you?” Fortunately, Hollis didn’t wait for his response. “Things have been a little . . . stressful . . . lately. Connor’s agent wants him to be more accessible to the public, especially now that the producer is already talking about a sequel to Dead in the Water.”
“Answering a few questions and smiling for a photograph or two won’t put a damper on your wedding day.” Ethan tried to put his sister’s mind at ease the way he had when they were kids. By giving her a hard time. “The holes in the roof of the boathouse are another story.”
He was rewarded with a gurgle of laughter. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Are you kidding? You’re my favorite sister.”
“I’m your only sister.”
“A minor technicality.”
“I guess I should call Connor and break the news that our secret wedding isn’t a secret anymore.”
“Once you explain that none of the Register’s subscribers live outside the county line, he’ll be okay with it.”
“I know.” Hollis sighed. “I just wish Mom wasn’t so determined to give me the wedding of her dreams.”
Now it was Ethan’s turn to laugh. “Don’t worry. She’s too far away to hijack your wedding plans.”
“She has a cell phone, and she’s not afraid to use it. What we need is a distraction.” Ethan could almost hear the wheels turning in his sister’s head. “You could tell her that you’ve been thinking about turning down the offer from Midland Medical. That would take the attention off my wedding.”
Confession time.
“I’m not thinking about it anymore,” Ethan admitted. “I called Dr. Langley this morning and let him know I accepted another position.”
He’d confided in Hollis about Dr. Heath’s offer, but the shriek that followed his announcement was a clue she hadn’t expected him to accept it. Not when he’d worked so hard for a place in Dr. Langley’s ER. “What made you change your mind?”
“Dr. Heath mentioned how difficult it is to find doctors who are willing to relocate to small towns.”
“So you’re saying Red Leaf needs you?” Hollis teased.
“Maybe.” Ethan watched a bald eagle circle lazily over Jewel Lake. A few months ago he’d been so focused on his work, he probably would have missed it.
Ethan had missed a lot of things until God—and a patient he’d referred to as “Bed Two”—got his attention.
Red Leaf might need him, but Ethan had a feeling he needed Red Leaf even more.
“It’s all about harmony in the relationship.” The sequined hem of Sybil Greene’s caftan dusted the floor as she swayed in front of the microphone.
Mac was beginning to feel a little seasick.
“Are you getting this down?” a voice hissed in her ear.
“Got it, Mrs. Baker.” Mac minimized solitaire on her tablet and tapped out the word harmony.
“If you practice these methods, I promise you’ll have amazing results.” Sybil gestured toward the PowerPoint screen with the practiced grace of a game show hostess and an awed hush fell over the room.
The local garden club had invited the self-proclaimed “plant matchmaker” to speak at their monthly meeting. Sybil claimed if you put certain plants together, they brought out the best in each other. Halfway through the lecture, Mac had come to the conclusion that it was pretty sad when a vegetable was able to maintain a successful relationship and she spent Friday and Saturday evenings alone.
Not that Mac wanted to be in a relationship. Number one, looking after Coach and working full-time at the newspaper didn’t leave her much time to socialize. Number two, it didn’t make sense to invest her time and energy in a relationship when she didn’t plan to stay in Red Leaf. And number three—
Ethan’s face popped up and Mac held back a sigh.
No matter how much time had gone by, Ethan’s face had a tendency to pop into her thoughts at the most inopportune times. Like when she was out on a date. Or watching a football game. The dates were few and far between anyway, but football? When your dad coached the sport? Kind of difficult to avoid.
There’d been moments of weakness when Mac let herself imagine what would happen if she saw Ethan again. But none of the possible scenarios that had played out in her mind had prepared her for the reality.
Ethan had smiled at her. Smiled. As if he was genuinely happy to see her. Which led Mac to one simple conclusion, and she didn’t need a PowerPoint presentation to prove it. Recognizing someone didn’t necessarily mean you remembered them. Or a promise you’d made.
Which only made it more aggravating that she hadn’t been able to forget him.
Applause erupted around the room, signaling the end of Sybil’s presentation.
Mac worked her way up to the podium, winding through the mob of enthusiastic gardeners who’d surrounded the platform like groupies at a Newsboys concert.
After snapping a few photos, Mac snagged a lemon bar from the dessert table and jogged across the parking lot to her car.
Eight thirty. More than enough time to make some popcorn—no butter, no salt—and watch a movie with Coach, but not enough time to sneak onto Ethan’s property and take the photographs her boss had requested.
Grant had been waiting at Mac’s desk when she walked into work that morning, armed with a double shot of espresso and a dozen pastries she’d picked up from the Sweet Bakery. The espresso to counteract a sleepless night—Mac blamed Ethan for that—and the pastries for Grant’s bad mood when he found out she hadn’t completed her assignment.
“Where are they?” The editor hadn’t so much as glanced at the white cardboard box balanced in Mac’s hands.
“I, um, haven’t taken them yet.”
“It’s our front-page story, Mac! I need those pictures by tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll have them.” Unlike some people, Mac kept her word.
“Great!” Grant grabbed a blueberry Danish. “You come through on this and maybe I will let you interview the senator.”
