MacKenzie's Lady

by Dallas Schulze

  "Holly? Are you all right?"

  She shook her head, hoping to shake some sense loose. "I'm fine," she told him huskily. She cleared her throat and stepped back. "Come in. It's a surprise to see you. How did you know where to find me?"

  He followed her into the living room, his gaze skimming over the beautiful antiques that filled it before settling on her. "I've known where you were since you got here."

  "Oh." There didn't seem to be much to say in answer to that. Mac shook his head in response to her gesture toward one of the chairs. He stood facing her and she was made vividly aware of his size. He loomed over her, filling the big

  room with his presence. She ran out of words and just stared, drinking in the sight of him. She didn't want to know why he had come or why he hadn't come weeks ago. Not right now. Because right now, all that mattered was that he was here.

  Her eyes started at his feet and traced a hungry path over faded denim that clung to long legs and a dark-blue T-shirt that molded the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulders. His face looked older than she remembered. New lines etched his forehead and bracketed his mouth. The summer sun had deepened his tan, and the vivid blue of his eyes stood out against the warm brown of his skin.

  Holly realized that he was studying her with every bit as much interest as she had shown in him and her hand went instinctively to the gentle swell of her stomach, which was concealed beneath the gauzy maternity top. His eyes darkened at her gesture before lifting to meet hers.

  "You got what you wanted. You're pregnant. Is it mine?" She drew in a sharp breath of pain, the cool indifference of his voice as wounding as his question.

  "Of course it's yours!" Her eyes were wide with hurt and indignation, but Mac shrugged as if the question were perfectly natural.

  "Well, you were so damn set on having a baby, how was I to know that you didn't find somebody else to give you what you wanted?"

  She swallowed hard, keeping her voice level. "I thought you said you've known where I was."

  He shrugged again. "I knew where you were; I didn't know every move you made. And you did tell me that you were not pregnant."

  She winced, remembering that lie, among others. "It's your baby," she said flatly.

  He stared at her in brooding silence for a moment and Holly returned the look uncertainly. What did he expect from her now? His hand came out to press lightly against her belly, feeling the slight rounding that cradled his child. She held her breath as his fingers moved over her. Shock waves of sensation moved through her body. With just that light touch, Mac brought back so much that she had been trying to forget.

  "When are you due?" She stifled a sigh that was half relief, half regret as he withdrew his hand, pushing it 'nto one of his pockets as if to keep from reaching out to her again.

  "The doctor says around the middle of January, give or take a week." His eyes narrowed and she wondered if he was calculating that she must have gotten pregnant one of the first times they made love. Should she tell him what had happened? Her eyes flickered over his face and she decided that now was not the right time; he was obviously not ready to listen.

  "Are you well?" She almost smiled at the odd formality of his question.

  "I'm healthy as a horse."

  He nodded, his eyes drawn to her stomach again, as if fascinated. She was intensely aware of his scrutiny, and she tried to appear nonchalant as she sank down onto the arm of a softly overstuffed chair. She didn't want to advertise the fact that her knees were reluctant to support her weight.

  Silence built between them and he seemed in no hurry to break it. Finally Holly spoke. "Why are you here, Mac?"

  He ignored the question and asked one of his own. "Why Michigan?" He turned away from her as if it bothered him to look at her, focusing his gaze out the window.

  She hesitated a moment and then shrugged. There was no reason not to answer him. "I thought I needed to get away for a while. Maryann knew about this house-sitting job and Michigan seemed as good a place as any."

  She looked at his wide back, noting the bunched muscles in his shoulders. "Why are you here, Mac?" She repeated

  the question, almost afraid to hear the answer. He turned to look at her before answering.

  "We're going to Las Vegas."

  She frowned. "Las Vegas? What are you talking about?"

  "You're going to marry me." The statement was flat, without emphasis, but Holly felt exactly as if she had been kicked in the solar plexus.

  "What?" She shook her head, trying to figure out what she must have missed, but he repeated himself in the same flat tone.

  "You're going to marry me. I've got reservations for a flight thai leaves this afternoon. We're flying to Las Vegas and we'll be married there."

  "Have you gone crazy?" she asked incredulously. "You can't just walk in here out of the blue and announce that we're getting married."

  There was not a trace of warmth in his blue eyes. They were cool and hard with determination. "I'm not crazy and I'm not joking. That's my baby you're carrying and you're going to marry me."

  "You can't show up and start giving me orders." She was sputtering with surprise and indignation, and her protest did not sound particularly original or effective, but she couldn't come up with anything better in her stunned condition.

  "I'm not going to argue with you, Holly. You're coming with me, even if I have to haul you out of here bodily. And don't think I wouldn't do it."

  She slid off the arm of the chair and into the seat with a bump, staring up at him disbelievingly. This was not the easygoing man she had known in Los Angeles. This was a hard-eyed stranger whose attraction held a touch of fear.

  "You're actually threatening me?" She could not reconcile this with the man she thought she knew.

  He gestured impatiently. "I wouldn't hurt you. I wouldn't have to. I could take you out of here without putting a single bruise on you. But I'd rather you didn't force it to that. It would be better if we could start our marriage off on a more amicable note."

  "More amicable! Good Lord, you don't ask for much, do you?" Her eyes darkened with anger as she looked up at him. She wanted to get up and face him on a more even level but the trembling in her legs told her that she would be better off staying where she was. "You walk in here and coolly announce that you're going to marry me and that if I don't agree you're going to use brute force to make me and then you talk about starting our marriage off on a more amicable note!" Her voice rose in disbelief. "You're nuts," she added flatly.

  "That's my baby you're carrying, Holly." His eyes blazed with the words, and she realized that his calm exterior was a paper-thin facade. Beneath it Mac was seething with emotion.

  "You used me to get that child and I'm damned if I'm going to just walk away and forget about it. I'm going to have a say in my child's future. You will marry me."

  "Even if you did force me to go with you, what good will it do? You can't force me to say 'I do' once you get me to Las Vegas." Despite her best intentions, her voice quavered slightly.

  "You'll agree. Your own conscience will force you to say 'I do.' You owe me this baby."

  The whiteness of her face seemed to touch a core of gentleness in him. He dropped to one knee in front of her, but he did not reach out to touch her.

  "I wouldn't hurt you, Holly." His husky voice softened, but it failed to conceal the iron determination behind his words. "That's my baby. You got what you wanted out of our relationship; all I want is a right to my child. I'm not thinking in terms of something that will end once the baby is born. I'm willing to try and shape a workable marriage with you. I won't make any demands on you, but that's my baby and it will have a father."

  Her eyes searched his face, trying to read something in his features that she could not hear in his voice. He spoke of wanting the baby. Did he want her, too? Or was she nothing more than a vehicle to give him access to his child? Had he loved her? He hadn't said the word—except when faced with losing her the day she found that file—
but there had been so many times when she had seen the emotion in his eyes. Or had that been only wishful thinking?

  Mac knelt before her, saying nothing, letting her consider his words. His outward calm ran barely surface-deep. Inside, he was such a mass of confusion that he felt almost sick. It had taken him almost two months to decide that he didn't have any option but to come after her. Almost two miserable months during which he had all but destroyed his record at the agency.

  He'd had himself pulled from the Reynolds case immediately. Not only had his prime target—Holly—disappeared, but he couldn't even try to keep his professional distance on this one anymore. Ken had worked himself in deep enough that he stayed in his persona as Reginald C. Naveroff, art collector with flexible morals.

  Mac had been given a two-week vacation and then assigned to a desk, the only relief coming when he was called out to back up Ken. He understood and appreciated Chief Daniels's reasoning. He still had enough wits left to realize that he was in no condition to be functioning as an agent. But paperwork gave him too much time to think. And thinking was the last thing he wanted to do.

  In a short time Holly had managed to destroy the calm, impenetrable cloak he had been pulling around himself ever since Vietnam. He had survived the jungles of Southeast Asia and the cement jungles of Los Angeles for as long as he had by never letting anything get too close. When people got close, somebody ended up getting hurt.

  After Holly dropped her verbal bomb and left him, he had found himself barely able to function. Nightmares interrupted his sleep, dreams of Holly carrying a tiny blanket-wrapped infant lost in jungles both natural and man-made, endlessly calling his name. He could never get close enough to touch her. She would fade away as his tired feet drew near, only to reappear somewhere else, calling to him and holding out the child. The cycle would repeat itself until he woke, sweating and exhausted.

  Ken had shown up a week after Holly left, concerned that Mac had missed two appointments. He had done a good job of concealing his reaction to the unshaven, unkempt man who greeted him with a snarled command to get out. It had been Ken who had forced him to pull himself together.

  Sitting at a desk, doing endless reams of paperwork, Mac had gradually begun to think that he could survive this. If he had survived everything else, he could handle this. And then he began to question what had happened. And the more he thought, the more he found it hard to accept the idea that Holly had cold-bloodedly used him to father a child.

  She had been hurt when she found out he was investigating her brother. He couldn't blame her for that. What if she had just lashed out instinctively, wanting to hurt him as she'd been hurt? She had no way of knowing just how effective her particular choice of defense would be with him.

  The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Hurt, even a deep hurt such as she'd been dealt, could be healed if he could just talk to her, make her see that he'd done what he had to do, that there hadn't been an option.

  He had accessed her files from the computer, looking for her current address, and found the notation that the subject had been seeing an obstetrician on a regular basis. The words had danced in front of his eyes. She hadn't been lying. She really had been using him. Rage such as he'd never felt before had boiled up inside him. He was not going to lose this child.

  He dragged his thoughts back to the present when she spoke.

  "You say you want to marry me because you want the baby to have your name, but there's more to a marriage than just being a parent. And if there's hostility in the rest of the relationship, that's not going to make for a very stable home for a child." She glanced up into his face before dropping her eyes back to where her hands lay clasped in her lap.

  She couldn't believe that she was actually considering this insanity!

  "I've already told you that I'm willing to work to make it a good marriage. We got along well enough until you found out what I do for a living."

  "You mean before I found out that you were investigating my brother!"

  He shrugged. "Whatever. I don't see why we couldn't get along again. I make a reasonably good living." He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair, half turning away from her. "I spend a fair amount of time away from home. I can make it a point to spend even more. I can't promise to stay out of the way once the baby's born, Holly. I want this child every bit as much as you do and I'll want to spend time with him or her." His short laugh held bitter humor. "Who knows, in my line of work, I may not be around long enough for us to drive each other crazy." He didn't look at her as he spoke, so he missed seeing the color drain from her cheeks. "If it reassures you any, I'm not working on your brother's case anymore. I'd become too personally involved with it. I lost my objectivity."

  "What are they investigating him for?"

  "I can't tell you. He's not suspected of murder, and that's all I'll say." He gestured sharply with his hand, swinging around to pin her to the chair with the harsh brilliance of his eyes. "I don't want to talk about your brother. I want to have your decision. We can make it work, Holly. Say yes."

  Why, he really cares what my answer is, she realized, feeling a flicker of warmth unfold at the thought. For all his tough talk and his obvious anger, he wanted her to say yes without a fight. He cared, at least a tiny bit.

  She dropped her eyes away from his serious expression, unconsciously stroking her hand over her stomach as she tried to think clearly. She had been concerned about the gap being fatherless would leave in her child's life. Mac was offering not just a name, but a real father for the baby. He would be a good father, one who cared.

  But there was more to consider than the child. Could she live with Mac without knowing what he felt for her? Could she bear it if the day came when she had to accept the fact that he could lever love her as she loved him? On the other hand, he had said that he was willing to work at making their marriage a good one. Could she turn her back on the chance that, once they were married, they could work their way through the obstacles between them and develop a relationship all the stronger for having been tested?

  Really, what was there to debate? It was a choice between guaranteed nothing and a chance to have everything. She had to take that chance.

  She raised her head and smiled faintly, struggling to control her trembling lips. "All right. I accept your proposal."

  ❧

  Holly turned the narrow gold band on her finger and leaned against the wall next to the window. Married less than an hour and Mac had already disappeared to make a phone call. She supposed she was going to have to get used to that kind of thing. After all, her husband wasn't in an ordinary nine-to-five job.

  "Husband." She repeated the word in her mind and then said it out loud once or twice, trying to make it seem real. Her lips tilted faintly. It wasn't going to seem real until Mac was there to hold her in his arms and make it feel real. He had swept her onto a plane, not even giving her time to pack her things, and she had thought ruefully that it was the second time in recent months that she had left a place and left everything behind.

  The ceremony at the chapel had been brief and formal. Not really the stuff dreams were made of, but Holly didn't care. Mac was standing next to her and, for a few minutes, she indulged herself in a fantasy, pretending that they were marrying for all the right reasons. Reciting her vows in a trembling voice and hearing Mac's husky tones echoing them, she was suddenly confident that she had made the right decision.

  A brief knock on the hotel room door drew her away from the window and she crossed the room. "Who is it?" Surely it was too late for maid service.

  "It's Mac."

  Her brows arched in surprise and then came together in a frown. He had a key to the room; why would he be knocking? Unless he was just being extra considerate? Her fingers worked the latch and opened the door to him.

  He stepped into the room and leaned back against the door, watching her as she crossed to the mirror and picked u
p a brush. She began pulling it through her hair, more out of nervousness than anything else.

  "I just thought I'd stop by and make sure you had everything you needed."

  He didn't offer an explanation of the phone call, she noticed, and she knew better than to ask. His words registered as she realized that he was reaching for the doorknob. She hadn't had time to think about their sleeping arrangements, but she had assumed that they would be sharing a room, like any other couple. Despite the problems between them, she wanted their marriage to be a real one. How could they ever hope to work things out if they couldn't communicate on even that most fundamental level?

  Holly turned to look at him, her hair falling in tousled curls around her face. "Where are you going?"

  He cleared his throat, trying not to notice how incredibly desirable she was, trying to forget that she was now his wife. "I have a room on the floor above this one."

  "But I thought... I mean, aren't we..." she stammered to a halt. There was no subtle way to tell him what she had thought. Obviously he didn't plan on sleeping with her. She could hardly beg him to stay, not even if her pride would permit it. She managed a smile but she half turned away so that he could not read the hurt in her eyes. "Never mind. Goodnight, Mac."

  He hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. He should just leave it there, he told himself. Why look for trouble? He didn't want to stay, did he? But she looked so hurt.

  "Holly, I..." He released the knob and ran his fingers through his hair, disarranging it into dark waves. "It's enough that you agreed to marry me. I bullied you into this but I'm not going to assume that gives me the right to your bed." One corner of his mustache twisted in a rueful smile. "I'm not quite that much of a monster."

  Now it was her turn to hesitate. Pride told her to let him go. She moved to the small dresser and fiddled nervously with the few bottles she had set out there. The gleam of her wedding band caught the light. "I wouldn't think you were a monster."

  The words were so low that he had to strain to hear them. For a moment his heart stopped beating, and when it started again, it was with a slow, heavy thud that almost suffocated him. He didn't want her—she had destroyed that by using him. He couldn't possibly want her.