by Amy Knupp
He refused to let Mackenzie lift any of the suitcases into the back, and she had to admit the hint of chivalry was hot. She was all about equal rights for women and doing for herself, but she was travel weary and exhausted from packing to move for the past week, and there was no getting around it—Drake made a pretty picture with his long-sleeve tee that couldn’t hide those significant biceps as they flexed with the effort. She stood back and watched him. She might not be officially mooning over him, but she would always appreciate an enticing view.
The man had filled out stupendously well.
The high school version of the star first baseman had been a treat to look at, but this version was even better. He was tall, over six feet, and his shoulders were wide, hips narrow, arms and chest nicely sculpted. And that butt… Was there anything more beautiful than a just-right baseball player’s ass?
“No U-Haul necessary,” Drake said with a sparkle in his eyes as he closed the back and led her to the front passenger door.
Mackenzie climbed inside and took in top-of-the-line everything, from the sound system to the stitched leather seats to the features. Carefree and not hurting for money, she amended in her mind.
“Where to?” he asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.
Mackenzie swiped at her phone and pasted the address from her email into her map app. She said, “Head toward 40,” then told him the address and the area of town.
“That’s a decent neighborhood to live in,” he said. “Older but well-maintained and safe.”
“I know the area well though I haven’t seen the apartment in person. It’s owned by the father of one of Ez’s friends. The main selling point is that he agreed to do a short-term lease without charging me higher rent.” Because of that, she would make it would work, in spite of whatever problem it had tonight.
Drake touched the dash screen a couple of times, and she realized he’d connected it to her phone via Bluetooth as he pulled up the map and address. Her ancient Camry hadn’t even had a backup camera.
“Why short-term?” he asked as he backed out of the spot and headed for the toll booth. “I was under the impression you were moving back for good.”
“The plan is to buy a house in three to six months.”
His brows went up on his forehead. “Big commitment.”
“It is,” she said with an exhale. “I’m so unbelievably ready. I’ve moved more times than a military kid in my life, and I just want a place that’s mine for good.”
“You guys did move a lot.”
“It was my mom,” Mackenzie said, and the sadness that always came with thoughts of her mother surfaced, diminished with the years but never gone. “Bless her, but she was not a stay-in-one-place kind of person at all.” Though she had, thankfully, kept them in Nashville for every move while they were kids.
“I was sorry to hear about her death. I felt awful that I missed everything.”
Her mom had died in a boating accident in the Bahamas, where she’d lived, when Mackenzie was nineteen. Drake had been on a remote trek somewhere, she vaguely remembered.
“Thank you. We were okay. I know she loved us, but Ez and I weren’t super-close to her, you know? She was the type who was always searching for something better, happier, whatever. Better man, better job, better apartment.” Mackenzie said it without any bitterness or anger. She’d made peace long ago with her mother’s weaknesses and took comfort that she’d apparently died doing something she enjoyed, in a place she’d raved about, with a man she loved.
“Growing up, it got to the point I was almost afraid to unpack.” She frowned, wishing she was exaggerating. By Mackenzie’s eighteenth birthday, her mom had moved them nine times. “In LA, I wanted to stay put while I saved a down payment, but I’ve moved eight times in the last seven years.”
“That’s a lot even for someone like me who likes to shake things up frequently.”
“There were solid reasons every single time, but it’s been a little crazy.”
“So you’re ready to settle down,” he said as he pulled onto the freeway entrance ramp.
“I’m ready for some stability,” Mackenzie said, making a point to distinguish between that and settling down, because settling down made it sound like she wanted a husband and a puppy and a kid or two, and those were not on her list, not in the immediate future. She didn’t equate the man part to stability in the least. “It kills me to have to spend three to six months in an apartment, but this move back happened so fast there was no way I could buy a house beforehand.”
“Now you’ll have time to look,” Drake said.
“It’s a priority.”
Drake un-synced the climate control and set his side a couple of degrees cooler than hers. “Feel free to adjust this to whatever you need, and there’s a button on the side by the door if you want the seat heater on. It’s probably colder than California here.”
It was. Even though she’d pulled her flannel shirt over her tee, the March wind chilled her, and she was grateful for the heat, which she felt within a few seconds of flipping the switch. Buying a car was also on her to-do list in the very near future, and she wondered if she could afford heated seats. She might have to prioritize them.
“The family business must be doing well,” she said with a grin. “These are some nice wheels.”
“I assume it is,” he said, shrugging as he turned onto the entrance ramp to the interstate.
“You do work for North Brothers Sports, right?” Had Ezra told her that or had she assumed?
As Drake merged with traffic, he couldn’t be more nonchalant when he said, “I don’t work in the corporate office.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m in retail. Right now I’m in the golf department, but I’m thinking I’ll move to outdoor in the next couple of months to keep it interesting.”
She stared at him, processing, trying to come up with a response. Drake North, who she was pretty sure had graduated from college, whose family had founded North Brothers Sports, sold golf gloves and clubs? And he drove a new Jeep that had to have cost a pretty penny.
Okay. He’d always been a people person, she guessed. To each his own. “So…full-time retail?”
He shook his head. “I’m also a personal trainer. I currently work at a gym a buddy of mine owns.”
That made more sense. “You studied exercise science,” she now remembered. “How long have you been doing that?”
He seemed to be calculating in his head as he zipped into the left lane and sped up when he found a big enough gap in traffic. “Close to seven months this time. I did the same job at a couple of different gyms when I first graduated. Spent some years coaching high school baseball in between.”
“You’ve had a lot of jobs,” she said.
“A few,” he said with a megawatt smile. “I like to stay busy and mix it up often. Job, apartment, vehicles.” He shrugged. “Variety’s a good thing.”
“So you’re basically on the bottom of the family business? And you’re fine with that?”
“It’s by choice. I love my family’s company and will probably always work there. I like the freedom to rotate through the departments at will. I get some privileges that allow me to bounce around, like full benefits and a share of profits. My dad took care of us all, and I’m grateful for that.”
She wasn’t judging, just trying to understand. She tended to give her all to her job and had worked her way up to being the owners’ right-hand employee. She hoped to work at her company for many more years. It was hard to imagine such a laid-back attitude toward her career. And yet clearly Drake was happy with his life and his variety—and his lack of commitment to anything. Obviously, he had enough money to do what he wanted—she was pretty sure Ezra, at some point, had referred to each of the North brothers having loads of it thanks to those owners’ shares.
“What about you?” Drake asked. “Ez said you’re moving here for your job, but he didn’t say what you do.”
“I’
m a honeymoon planner. I work for a company called To the Stars,” she said. “We plan high-end niche honeymoons for the uber-rich.” With a laugh, she added, “You could probably be a customer. Any wedding bells in your near future?”
He sent her a get serious glance and gave an exaggerated shudder as he turned his attention back to the road.
She laughed again, not thinking too hard about the flash of satisfaction at learning he didn’t have a serious girlfriend. Of course he didn’t. He was the type that basically screamed commitment-phobe. “I’ve seen a lot of your type who’ve succumbed.”
“What’s my type?”
“The guy everyone loves, who goes out all the time, with a different woman each night, likes to have a good time but keeps it light with everybody.” It was an educated guess based on his reaction and the tags on his social media, and he didn’t deny it, which told her she’d guessed right. “Those are the guys who fall the hardest.”
“So, uber-rich in LA,” he said, blatantly ignoring her assessment. “You work with any famous people?”
“Celebrities are a large percentage of my clients,” she said. “Actors, musicians, producers, in addition to businesspeople and entrepreneurs.”
“Anyone I’ve heard of?”
She listed some of the biggest Hollywood names she’d worked with, and Drake whistled.
“How’d you get into that?” he asked.
“It was a right time, right place, knowing the right person kinda thing.”
“What time, place, and person would that be?”
Mackenzie leaned back and let the heated leather seat cradle her tired body, closing her eyes. “When I was a freshman, my roommate’s older sister had recently started To the Stars, and she was looking for cheap part-time help. I fell in love with the job and, over the next two years, started spending more and more time working, building up referrals from happy customers. It was my dream job that I didn’t know existed.”
“You must be good at it.”
“I can hold my own,” she said. “By junior year, I was making more money than I’d make in the field I was studying, so I quit school.”
“What were you studying?”
“Journalism. I was a celebrity freak growing up, and my goal was to write about famous people. But planning honeymoons, working with Hollywood stars in that capacity, I saw there’s an adversarial feeling toward the press, even the writers from reputable companies that they had a good relationship with. My job makes me a valued partner instead of someone who intrudes on their privacy.”
“You offer them a service they need.”
“During one of the most exciting times in their lives,” she agreed. “I lucked into it and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“That’s a pretty cool gig,” Drake said. “So why are you moving away from your clients?”
“I’m opening up a Nashville branch. I have two clients here currently, and on a trip back to meet with them, the idea struck me. I know this city and love it, and there’s a lot of potential here. I put together a proposal, and Cora and Kent, the owners, jumped on it.”
“And houses are easier to buy here.”
“Based on what I’ve seen online, a lot easier.”
“So who are your local clients?” he asked.
“Tomorrow I’m meeting with a brand-new one. Ellie Grant. She’s marrying—”
“Thomas Maywood,” Drake finished for her.
“You keep up on Nashville celebrity news,” she said.
“It’s hard not to know about two of the biggest country stars getting hitched. Isn’t the guy supposed to plan the honeymoon?”
“I’ve worked with brides, grooms, couples, even friends and relatives who were paying for the honeymoon as a gift. I’ll work with whoever wants a dream honeymoon.”
“You get some weird requests?” he asked.
“It’s never boring.”
“Like what? Tell me some of the stranger ones.”
While she never revealed specifics of who did what, she could tell countless anonymous stories from the past. “I had an older gentleman, a billionaire CEO with a much younger bride, who wanted goat’s milk, honey, and rose water added to their bathwater each night, saying it had aphrodisiac powers. Plus bowls of shelled pistachios—they had to be imported from Turkey—scattered around the suite. Also a sex-drive booster.”
“But only if they’re from Turkey?” he asked as he exited the interstate.
“All pistachios are supposedly aphrodisiacs, but the Turkish ones taste superior, or so I’m told.”
“So you arranged those details?”
“Yes, sir. With a smile. That was an easy one.”
“I bet you have tons of good stories.”
“You wouldn’t believe some of them if I told you,” she said as she checked the map on the dash screen. “We’re getting close to my apartment.”
“What do you think we’ll find?”
She took her phone out to make sure she hadn’t missed a text from Nadine. She hadn’t. “Maybe a plumbing emergency. That would suck.”
“I was thinking a roach infestation.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Maybe a dead mouse in the walls, stinking up the place.”
“Roof blew off in a storm?” she said, making it a game while hoping everything they said was worse than reality.
“Lead paint in the bedroom,” Drake said, grinning. “Don’t lick the walls.”
What they saw when they pulled up minutes later, though, had them shocked into silence as they both gaped with their jaws dropping.
Chapter Three
“Your destination is on the right.”
Mackenzie barely noticed the message from the map app that rang out over the Jeep’s premium sound system. She was too caught up on the tow truck, the fire truck, two police cars, and— Was that car really sticking out of the side of the building?
A dozen or so onlookers were clustered along the sidewalk in the distance, looking casual, not too concerned, but to her, the scene was concerning. Especially if that was her apartment that had the Buick jutting out of it.
As soon as Drake stopped the Jeep alongside the curb, half a block down from the action, she pushed the door open and slid to the ground and gawked. There was no other word for it.
Two cops stood to the side, engrossed in conversation, their arms crossed, expressions relaxed, as if the emergency was over. The tow truck driver came around the Buick, looking like he’d pulled a car out of a building a thousand times, and spoke to the cops.
Drake came up alongside her. “Looks like you won’t be moving in tonight.”
“Probably not tomorrow either,” she said, thinking humor was better than letting her tired body crumple to the grass and break into tears the way she wanted to. One of her suitcases had an air mattress in it and a pump and brand-new sheets, and she’d been counting the minutes until she could set up her makeshift bed in her new home and collapse in contented exhaustion.
The front right corner of the car had gone through the sliding glass door. It wasn’t very far into the building, but the glass from the sliding door was shattered, and one of the posts supporting the second-story balcony, where she’d planned to put a comfy outdoor chair and table, had been taken out.
“I hope everyone’s okay,” she said as she skimmed her gaze from one emergency worker to the next, looking for the best person to approach. Before she could head toward the two officers, she heard her name being called.
She turned to the right to see a short blond forty-something woman approaching them in a jog. “Are you Mackenzie?”
“Yes. Nadine?”
The woman offered her hand. “That’s me. It’s nice to meet you, though I wish the circumstances were different.”
“Looks like you’ve had an eventful evening,” Drake said.
“Well, hello.” Nadine’s attention snapped to Drake, and her words came out like a purr as she peered up at him. “Eventful is one w
ord for it, for sure. And you are…?”
“Drake.” In spite of the chaotic scene around them, Mackenzie didn’t miss the friendliness in the appraising look he gave Nadine. Mackenzie mentally rolled her eyes. She would swear flirting was hardwired in his veins.
“Pleasure. I manage the property and live in that end unit,” Nadine said, pointing, her gaze lingering on him for an extra second, and Mackenzie had to wonder if there was, indeed, a hint of invitation in that statement or if she was just overtired and imagining it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Nadine from the end unit. What the heck happened here?” Drake said, nodding toward the car.
“Was anyone hurt?” Mackenzie asked.
“I’m happy to say everyone’s okay. It was a classic case of texting and driving. The driver happened to be texting Shelly, who lives in that end apartment right there”—Nadine pointed at the end opposite from hers, which looked to be just two units away from the one with the Buick lawn ornament—“asking for the best place to park, when a dog darted by and startled her so badly she hit the wrong pedal. She popped up the curb, across the few feet of grass, and, well, the rest is plainly visible.”
“Teenager?” Drake asked.
“Senior,” Nadine answered. “As in citizen. Shelly’s grandmother. She’d just arrived after driving all the way from Alabama.”
“That’s awful,” Mackenzie said. “But she wasn’t injured?”
“A little shaken and a lot embarrassed. Once the police had what they needed from the woman, Shelly took her to the twenty-four-hour donut and coffee shop a couple of blocks away to aid recovery.” Nadine shook her head as all three of them watched the tow truck driver stride to his truck, apparently ready to move in and take the car away. “Needless to say, your apartment won’t be ready for a few days.”
“A few days?” Drake said, frowning. “That doesn’t look like it’ll be done in a few days.”
Mackenzie could see his point, but she wanted to believe they’d prioritize repairing it. It didn’t look like the damage extended much beyond the exterior and mostly just the door.
