by Shirley Jump
“You love more than any other.” She smiled at him.
The sunflowers got another close study. “She’s my best friend. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh. That’s why you worry so much about breaking her heart. That’s why the mere mention of that Steve guy has you ready to break my bone china in half.” She wagged a finger at the rose-patterned cup.
Mack pushed his coffee to the side, folded his hands on top of each other and met Carolyn’s inquisitive gaze. “What’s all this about? You’ve never tried to shove Alex and me together before.”
“Oh, I’ve always been trying to do that. I’ve just never been this obvious about it.” She turned her cookie around, dunked the other half and gave Mack a grin. “And you are being a big fat chicken, if you ask me.”
“Hey. Aren’t you supposed to be the loving grandmother?”
“No, I’m supposed to be a crotchety old lady who says exactly what she thinks. And this old lady thinks you’re a fool for letting a little fear get in the way of the best woman to come along since Grace Kelly.” She shifted in her chair, causing her poufed white hair to bounce a little. “In fact, I happen to think our Alex is even more wonderful, more of a catch than the late princess.”
On Mack’s scale, Alex ranked light-years ahead of any princess, any woman who had ever adorned a magazine cover, a news story. But that didn’t mean she was destined to be with him. If anything, it meant the opposite. “Exactly why she deserves a man who’ll give her everything she wants.”
“And what does she want? In your opinion?”
“A house. A white picket fence. A dog.”
“She has a house. A carpenter who can install a fence. A carpenter who also owns a dog already.”
Mack scowled. “That doesn’t automatically make me Mr. Right. Steve is better for her. He’s…stable. Looking to settle down. He said as much to me.”
Even if Mack hated the thought of Steve kissing Alex. Taking Alex in his arms. Taking Alex to his bed—
God, no. He couldn’t go there. That image was torture.
“I haven’t met Steve yet, so I could be wrong, but I think you’re a good match. You always have been.” Carolyn leaned forward and laid a hand on Mack’s. “Not every marriage is like your parents’ or yours, you know. You could do even better the second time. You’re wiser now.”
Alex hadn’t introduced Steve to her grandmother? That was a clear sign she wasn’t serious. Mack let that fact stew in the back of his mind.
“Rationally, I know not everyone turns out like my mom and dad, Grandma. But in here,” Mack said, touching his chest, “in here, it’s another story. And I just can’t take a chance of hurting Alex. She means too much to me.”
“That, in my opinion, is exactly why you should be with her. That’s as elementary as daisies blooming in springtime.”
He rose and put his empty mug into the sink, the cookies churning in his gut with too much sweetness. “My wife left me, Grandma, not that she was ever happy to begin with. She walked right out the door after less than a month. I broke her heart.”
“So you try again. You learned your lessons. You do better the second time.”
He swallowed hard, his gaze going out the window to the manicured perfection of Merry Manor’s grounds. “Or maybe I do worse.”
Carolyn’s touch on his shoulder was soft. “You’re too hard on yourself. You always were.”
“Not as hard as I should be,” Mack said. “Not nearly as hard as I should be.”
Chapter Sixteen
The picture fluttered to the floor with the grace of a leaf dancing on the wind. It had slipped out from behind the kitchen countertop, a stowaway from years before, dislodged by Mack’s crowbar. Alex stared at the grainy color image as it circled and finally landed, trying to make sense of what she saw. Then it came into focus, and she realized it was an image from her past.
She bent and picked it up, the Kodak paper as thick as a postcard. “I remember this.”
Mack stopped working and looked over her shoulder. “Is that you?”
They’d been working for hours, sticking to construction only. To business as usual. It was a lot easier for Alex to do that than to come anywhere close to dealing with the simmering sexual tension between her and Mack.
Steve had been calling her, twice a day, and he was exactly the kind of guy she wanted. Pleasant. Dependable. Predictable. He wasn’t the kind who would upend her world and drive her crazy.
And if there was one thing Alexandra Kenner wanted, it was predictability. Except, every time she turned around, she got the complete opposite. Like now. A moment from her childhood that had slipped out innocently, and packed a hell of an emotional wallop.
Mack moved in behind her, his tall, solid frame providing a slight shadow. “You look so little.”
“Yeah. I was four, I think.” A rail-thin Alex with sleep-messed hair and purple feetie pajamas stood in front of a scrawny Christmas tree, holding a new doll and beaming into the camera. A threadbare stuffed white bear sat at her feet, temporarily discarded in favor of the present. Gosh, it seemed a hundred years ago now. How few pictures she had of her early childhood, either because her mother hadn’t saved any, or hadn’t taken them.
Who had taken this picture? Then she remembered. It had been Grandma Kenner on the other side of the lens. She’d been the one calling out the corny “Say Cheese,” grinning at the two younger generations before her.
Mack’s fingers clasped the other side of the picture. “You’re cute. All cuddly in those pj’s.”
“Gee, thanks. I look like a big purple Easter Bunny.”
“You look happy.”
“I was,” Alex said, as surprised by the memory as she was by the picture. Christmas morning, of course she would have been happy. But it hadn’t been the presents that had brought the smile to her face, it had been the quiet in the house, the three of them together. A family. A real family, like the kind Alex had created with her dolls. So she’d flashed that toothy grin at the camera, her joy practically pouring from every pore.
“I guess I never really studied pictures of my mother before. My grandmother has them out, all over the place in the condo, but I haven’t looked at them in a long time.” Now Alex stared at this one, as if searching for some clue she had missed. Some link to the jigsaw puzzle of her life, the one thread that would knot together this continually unraveling emotional rope in her gut. She thought about what Willow had asked her. About why she was tearing down the walls.
She’d told Willow it was because the house contained only bad memories. But here, in her hands, was evidence of a happy day. Was Alex’s memory faulty?
In the photograph, her mother was bundled in a pink terrycloth robe and sitting in a threadbare armchair in the corner. She was leaning forward, her chin in her hands, her hair also still mussed from sleeping, watching everything. And, most of all, smiling at Alex. The smile was unmistakable.
It looked exactly like Alex’s. And it was filled with something Alex had never seen before.
Pride.
“Your grandmother must have taken this,” Mack said.
Alex nodded, her throat thickening. She traced the outline of her mother’s face, the delicate cheekbones, the curve of her jaw. And as her fingertip ran down the last millimeters of the image of her late mother, she realized she was tracing her own features.
“You look just like her,” Mack said, reading Alex’s mind. His arm slipped around her, a hug she leaned into for one long second, then she pulled away.
“I never thought I did. I never thought I was anything like her.”
“Apparently you are. More than you knew.”
Alex curled her hand around the photo, pulling it out of Mack’s grasp, crumpling it. “No, I’m not. At all.”
Then she tossed it into the corner, throwing the picture as far away as she could. What was a picture, but one instant, one second out of a million? She refused to see that second as anything but what it was.
A pose.
“Hey, Alex, don’t you want to keep that?”
“No.” She shook her head, swiping at her eyes, until the blurriness was gone. Until she couldn’t see the resemblance anymore in her mind. Until she’d forgotten the picture, and everything it brought up. “I want to get to work.”
Mack opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something else, then shut it. Before he walked back over to the workbench, he put a hand on her shoulder, and gave her a soft smile. He was there, if she needed him. As always.
For a long time, they kept on working, the only sound between them the whine of the circular saw and the rhythmic pounding of the hammer. They had started replacing the windows that morning, after Mack had showed up with a truckload of them. Alex had asked how much they’d cost and he’d claimed they were “extras” from a job.
She didn’t believe him for a second. Once again, Mack was insisting on taking care of her. Irritation rose in her, undoubtedly fostered by finding the picture, but Alex didn’t care. She was tired of Mack trying to play hero every five minutes. She couldn’t very well rewrite her life if he kept getting in the way.
Alex put down her hammer and pulled a check out of her back pocket. “Here, take this.”
Mack stared at the slim piece of paper. “What’s this?”
“I went to the bank yesterday and mortgaged the house. It was paid off a long time ago, and I was able to get a loan against it. Not much, because this place apparently isn’t worth a whole lot, considering the state it’s in. But there’s enough to pay you for your work.”
He waved off the check. “I don’t want your money, Alex. And I won’t take it.”
She let out a gust. “What do you want? Because I won’t let you keep on working for free.”
He moved closer to her, and everything between them shifted as quickly as the wind. “I want you.”
Oh, she knew that. She’d known that for weeks. But sex only complicated things between them, and the last thing Alex needed right now was another complication. Her mind was a whirlpool, spinning with questions and emotions, and every time Mack got close, he launched another boat into the vortex.
“You have me,” Alex said, a nervous chuckle escaping her. “Free labor.”
The memory of his kiss, of that moment in his bed—that very, very good moment—burst to the surface of her mind. That night they had almost, almost.
“That isn’t what I’m talking about, and you know it.” Mack reached up and cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing a lazy, sensual pattern along her chin, tugging at her bottom lip.
Oh, she wanted to resist. She told herself to resist. But her heart began to race, and her eyes drifted shut, the desire surging through her body of its own volition, like August heat rising from black tar.
She opened her mouth, kissed the tip of his finger. A roaring thunder began to run through her, drowning out any sensible thought. Drowning out anything but Mack, and his touch, and how incredibly hot he made her.
She opened her eyes, pushed one sensible thought to the surface. “Mack, what if…”
“What if it was too good to resist?” His voice was husky, deep, almost a groan. He shifted closer, pressing his body to hers. The heat quadrupled, and desire pooled in Alex’s gut.
She’d had a taste of him the other night. A mere appetizer.
What would it be like to have the whole course? What would Mack be like, not as a friend, but as a lover? Would he be as tender and caring as he was when he’d carried her in to the guest bedroom? Or would he tease her like he always had? Would he be selfish like Edward, and leave her wanting at the end? Or would he make sure she’d climaxed, over and over again, before he’d reached his own peak?
Oh, he’d be good. Very good. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said softly, talking about more than just whether he was too good to resist.
He held her face and lowered his own to within inches. “Oh, Alex, don’t be afraid.”
Then he kissed her, and she forgot any reason not to kiss him back.
Her cell phone began to ring, loud and insistent, the volume turned up high so she could hear it above the power tools. The sound jerked Alex back to reality and she stumbled out of Mack’s arms. She fumbled the phone out of the holster and flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Alex, how are you?”
Steve. “Uh…fine. Just-just fine.”
“What are doing?”
No way was she going to tell him the truth. She rattled off something about doing an interview, then asked him about his workday, stepping outside as she talked. Lying. Guilt sank like a stone in her stomach.
She turned away from the house, away from Mack. From the disappointment in his eyes. A few minutes later, she and Steve ended the call and she went back inside.
“Prince Charming, huh?” Mack asked.
“He just wanted to see how I was.” A month ago, telling Mack about a boyfriend wouldn’t have made her as uncomfortable as a bug under a microscope, but now…
Now she’d rather talk about getting a colonoscopy than give Mack details about Steve.
“He’s a nice guy,” Mack said. “Real serious about you, from what he tells me.”
“Yeah.” She did not want to have this conversation. Especially not after kissing Mack five minutes ago.
She’d set out to straighten out her life, and all she kept doing was making a bigger mess of it. This was exactly why she needed a guy like Steve. Mack was perfect as a friend, and that’s where she needed to keep him. Yet, a part of her wondered why Mack kept pursuing her when he knew she wanted the white picket fence package.
And he didn’t.
Alex picked up a set of shims for the next windows and fanned them out in her palm. She snuck a glance at Mack, and then decided to test the waters, find out where the hell he was going with what had just happened. “Steve told me the other day that he wants to get married. He didn’t say he wants to marry me specifically or anything yet, but I get the feeling he’s the kind of guy who wants to settle down right away. He’s thirty, and is just as tired of dating as I am. And he’s not in-terested in having kids, just like me. I think it’s the accountant in him.” She let out a nervous laugh. “You know, he ran the numbers and it didn’t compute for him.”
Mack swallowed hard. His entire body seemed to turn to stone, and an invisible wall went up between them. “Then he’s everything you ever wanted, isn’t he?”
With a few words, Mack could have said he wanted the same thing. He could have told Alex that he was a man looking to settle down, too. That he wanted to take what had happened between them beyond the bedroom.
But he hadn’t.
“Yeah,” Alex said. “He’s perfect.”
Mack hoisted a new window into the opening in the front of the dining room. “Can you get me some nails for this?”
“No.”
He turned and looked at her, surprise on his features. “What?”
“Not until you talk to me. All our lives, you and I have been able to talk. About anything. But now, everything’s changed. We talk around what’s going on, but not about it. You need to tell me what you want, Mack.”
He put the window down on the floor, leaning it carefully against the wall. Then he dusted his hands together and pivoted, leaning against the framing, his arms crossed over his chest. “I want you to be happy.”
“That has to be the lamest thing I have ever heard.”
“What do you mean, the lamest thing? I’d say that’s nice.”
“You’re really that self-sacrificing that you’d just let me go, off into the sunset with Steve”—she waved toward the door—“because you want me to be happy?”
He pushed off from the wall and crossed to her. “Is that what you want? Mr. Predictable?”
“I want a man who is honest with me. Who tells me what he’s thinking. Not someone who kisses me, then acts like it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters, Alex.” He shook his head. “It matters more than you know.”
“Then what the hell is going on between us?” The volcano in her throat threatened to explode. Mack gave her these circular answers that did nothing but bring them back to where they started. “You have me so confused, I don’t know which way is up. You kiss me, you almost make love to me, then Deidre comes over, and you say nothing’s going on with her, and then you kiss me again. You’re as back and forth as your damn saw.”
“How do you feel about me?” he asked.
She blinked. “What do you mean, how do I feel about you? You’re my best friend, Mack.”
“Exactly. That’s all I am to you. A friend. I want more than friendship, Alex. If it hasn’t been clear as day, then let me spell it out.” He tangled his hand in her hair, his gaze locking with hers, unmistakable heat darkening his blue eyes. “I want to take you to bed, and make love to you until neither one of us can see straight. I want to wake up in the morning with you and then do it all over again. I want to kiss you so badly, it hurts. But what I don’t want is for you to look at me and think, ‘Damn, that was really good sex with my best friend.’”
“I don’t want really good sex with my best friend,” Alex said, her heart breaking as the words left her mouth, because for five seconds there, she’d thought—
No, she’d hoped, Mack had wanted more than just that.
“I want forever,” she said. “I want a man who wants to get married. Settle down.”
He released her and looked away. “I told you, I won’t do that again. Haven’t you seen already—from my disaster of a marriage, from my parents, from Renee and Tony—how badly that can go? I’m not going there again. I already ruined one woman’s life.”
“Then I guess we shouldn’t keep kissing.” A huge lump of disappointment sank to the bottom of Alex’s stomach. She told herself that was crazy. She had what she wanted—Steve, a man who was looking for exactly what she was—and Mack, her best friend, back in that exact role. Her world was righted.
If everything was as it should be, then why did she feel so crappy?
