by Shirley Jump
He could have yelled at her then, could have told her off for leaving him. Could have done a hundred other things than what he did. He pushed a smile to his face. “Why don’t you just say…hello?”
She glanced up and met his eyes, her wide blue ones filled with so many tears, they looked like pools. “Hello, Roy.”
“Hello, Emma.” His voice scraped by his throat. “I planted your flowers.”
A smile began in the middle of her face, then spread across her lips like honey. “I noticed.” She wrung her hands together, knuckles white with tension. “There’s so much to say. Where do we start?”
Roy released the doorknob and let the oak door swing wide-open. He nodded toward the kitchen. “There’s coffee brewing. Do you want to start with that?”
She nodded. Tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes, puddling on her cheeks. Roy hurried down the steps and over to his wife.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered, brushing the tears away with his thumbs, doing what he should have done years ago, trying to heal her heart, trying to tell her he loved her. “Don’t cry, Emma.” Then he took her in his arms and began with that instead.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mack waved the truck into the driveway, and said a silent prayer. It was the only way he knew how to prove to Alex that he meant what he’d said.
He loved her.
Of course, the last time he’d tried to prove that to her this way, he’d given her a ceiling fan that had gone over about as well as a bottle rocket without any gunpowder. But what was inside this truck wasn’t a ceiling fan.
And it packed a hell of a lot more bang for his buck.
The men climbed down from the truck, rolled up the back door, and started unloading the contents as Mack barked orders and stood watch, as anal-retentive as a Hollywood diva preparing for the red carpet. The stakes were higher here, though, and the appearances mattered even more.
“You do amazing work, Mack.”
He pivoted and found his mother standing in the living room, admiring the house with a proud smile that seemed to take over her entire face. His heart filled, and the anger he had felt in the True Value dissipated like puddles on a hot day. “Mom. How did you know I was here?”
“Your father told me.”
“You saw Dad?”
She nodded and crossed to him, her hand outstretched for part of the journey, then, when she reached him, her touch dropped away, as if she was still unsure whether he would welcome her. “We talked for hours. Believe it or not, but that man had a lot to say.” Another smile stole across Emma’s face, this one the same smile Mack had seen on Samantha’s face earlier.
And he knew—he knew his mother loved his father, despite everything. That love, it seemed, could weather any storm. “Dad talked? In multisyllable words?”
Emma laughed. “I know. He surprised me, too.”
“A man will do about anything,” Mack said, “for the woman he loves. Even change his ways. And he does love you, Mom. He told me he does.”
Her face softened, and now she did reach out, her delicate palm meeting his arm. “Are you okay with this, Mack? Because if you’re not…”
“I want you to be happy. You and Dad both.”
“Your happiness is more important, Mack. It always was.” She let out a sigh, and released him, then crossed to one of the new chairs and sank into the leather seat. “I thought you were old enough, that if I left, it wouldn’t bother you…” She lifted her head, caught his gaze. “But it hurt, didn’t it?”
A swell of emotion clogged Mack’s throat. “You did what you had to. I see that now.” He let out a ragged breath. “It’s torture to love someone who doesn’t love you back in the same way.”
“You mean Alex?” She glanced around the room, taking in the new furniture, the freshly painted surfaces. “This is her house?”
He nodded. “I’m finishing it for her. Getting it ready for her baby.”
“Because you love her.” The words sat there simply, the truth laid bare. He loved Alex, and she probably didn’t love him back the same.
He tried to work up a grin, but the smile hurt his face. “What can I say, I’m a hopeless romantic. Just like Dad.”
His mother laughed, and Mack joined her, their voices ringing in the house like happy bells. Mack opened his arms and welcomed his mother into a hug.
And for the first time since Emma had returned to Boston, she fully knew the sweet pleasure of being home.
Alex couldn’t park in her own driveway. “What the hell?”
She parallel parked along the sidewalk, then strode up the driveway, past the delivery van, and through the open front door. Two burly men passed her on their way out. “Enjoy it, ma’am,” they said, then headed off to the truck.
Enjoy what?
As soon as she entered the foyer, Alex halted and stared. The house was filled with furniture. Comfy, cushioned pieces that welcomed a person with a fabric hug. Thick area rugs in warm, rich colors. In the living room there was a low-slung coffee table holding a crystal bowl of fresh oranges and two matching end tables with delicate bronze lamps.
On the built-in shelves, there were books, lots of books. Paperbacks, hardcovers, the bright letters on the titles drawing Alex to the spines. Her favorite authors filled the shelves, their names greeting her like old friends. Propped up on a gold stand was a copy of The Season of Light by Willow Clark, flanked by the porcelain pig she’d bought at Theodora’s Tearoom. In between the books, there were flowers, little vases of fresh-cut flowers, providing a bright burst of color.
Mack. Who else would do this? But why?
Alex wandered the downstairs rooms, but didn’t find him anywhere. Finally, she grabbed the banister and headed upstairs. At the end of the hall, the master bedroom held a vast king-sized bed, topped with a thick white down comforter, seeming to beckon her to come in, take a nap.
But she didn’t go into that room. Instead, she turned right and entered the nursery. The walls had been painted a soft, neutral mint. The wall-to-wall beige carpet had been topped with a pastel area rug made of concentric building blocks.
Tears welled in Alex’s eyes, blurring her view of the new white crib that sat in front of the window, filled with thick blue and pink blankets, and more stuffed animals than one child could play with in a lifetime. Alex stepped inside, her throat thick, her heart swelling.
Chester lifted his head from where he was napping in the corner, beside a rocking chair draped with a knitted yellow blanket. A matching changing table hugged the wall, already fully stocked with diapers and wipes.
How had Mack done this? How could he pull it off? And again…why?
Alex drifted over to the window. Long sheer white curtains reached to the floor and drifted gently in the breeze. She fingered the delicate fabric, pulling them back, and peered outside.
She pressed a hand to her mouth and gasped. “Oh. Oh, my.”
There were flowers. Roses. Geraniums. Impatiens. Azaleas. A rainbow of Nature’s colors, exploding through the landscaping. They seemed to be everywhere, a graceful painting of floral colors curving around the small backyard, creating an oasis out of what had once been nothing but a pile of weeds.
“I couldn’t plant any tulips. It was too late in the season.”
Alex wheeled around, surprise still lodged in her throat. “You remembered, about the books, the curtains, the flowers.”
Mack grinned. The familiar smile she had known all her life and couldn’t imagine not seeing, not for one second. “Of course I did. I’ve known you since first grade, Alex. I know everything about you.”
“Everything?”
He crossed the room and took her in his arms, holding her so close her heart beat against his, their rhythms almost twins. “Absolutely everything.”
“But why…why would you do all this?”
He tipped her chin, caught her gaze with his own. “Did you ever wonder why my best friend is a girl?”
She laughed, at th
e change in subject, at the way he’d asked the question. “Now that you mention it, it is a little odd. Why?”
“Because no one listens to me like you do.” He cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing the outline of her bottom lip, his gaze soft on hers. “No one tells me when I screw up like you do. You’re the only one who can call me on all my faults, not that I have many, of course—”
“Of course.” She smiled.
“…yet at the same time make me feel like the greatest person on earth.”
“And drives you crazy?”
A grin spread across his face. “And drives me crazy.”
“But that doesn’t answer my question.” She looked around the room, still not believing all that she saw, the sheer completeness of what he had accomplished in a matter of a day. He’d thought of every detail, not in a way that Steve might have, but in a way that came from the heart, that spoke volumes of how much he cared, how much he’d wanted to create the perfect space for her to come home to. “Why did you fill this house with furniture? Create a nursery for my baby?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m in love with you, Alex. I’ve been in love with you for months. Maybe even years. It just took me a while to realize that. And not because you’re my best friend, but because you are the most amazing woman I have ever met.” His hands tangled in her hair, the touch tender, but firm. She inhaled the spicy notes of his cologne, holding the scent in her lungs, her heart. “You’re smart and beautiful and, yes, you drive me crazy, but you make me happier than anyone I have ever known. I did this, so that you would have a home. For you, for the baby. No matter what happens with us.”
“Oh, Mack—”
“Don’t,” he said, pulling back to press a finger to her lips, “don’t interrupt me until I’ve told you what I need to say.” He drew in a breath. “I know I’m doing exactly what you’ve always accused me of doing—taking care of you.”
She nodded.
“But I can’t help it. It’s the only way I know to show you that I love you, Alex. And I’m on a new campaign to do that as much and as often as I possibly can. A wise man once told me that the biggest mistake he ever made was letting the woman he loved most in the world walk away. Well, damn it, I’m not going to do that.”
Then he leaned down and kissed her, long and hard, so that when he pulled back, they were both breathless, panting, his heart thundering in his ears. Alex’s face was flushed, her eyes wide. He knew he read desire in her gaze, her touch, and he’d be damned if he’d let her pass it off as something else. “If that’s friendship,” Mack said, his voice low and dark, and filled with the rumble of want, “then I think we need to rewrite the definition in Webster’s.”
“No, that definitely wasn’t friendship.” Alex let out a shaky breath. “And neither was that night in the pool.”
“That night in the pool deserves a definition all its own.” He grinned. “So, we’re agreed that we’re no longer friends. But are we something…more?”
Alex looked deep into Mack’s eyes and knew, without one iota of reservation, that she couldn’t walk away from this man. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life, a lot of bad choices, but she wouldn’t do that here. She’d be a fool to let him go, to let one more minute pass because she was afraid of what might happen down the road…when she already had an amazing present right in front of her.
“You want to know why my best friend is a guy?” she asked, her arms stealing around his neck. She didn’t wait for him to answer, just barreled forward. “In the beginning, it was because you were stronger than me, and when I was little, I needed that. And, yes, at first, it was because you protected me, and made me feel safe.”
“I’ll always do that, Alex.”
She touched his lips, stopping him from speaking, too. “But I’m all grown-up and I need something different now. You were right, Mack, about me.” She leaned her head against his chest, a chest she had known all her life, and seen as a source of strength, of support. But now, after those nights in his arms, she knew his chest could hold her in other ways, warm her heart and body through to the bone. “Oh, Mack, I’ve been so afraid to love you.”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“Of getting hurt. Of being left alone.” She held on to him, knowing that if she let go, she wouldn’t say what needed to be said. “But most of all, I was afraid that if I changed anything between us, I’d lose you as my friend.”
“Alex, you could never lose me.” His grip tightened around her, as steady as a cement pillar. Birds chirped outside, and a sweet summer breeze whisked in through the windows, kissing at their skin. “I won’t let you go.”
“I know that now. I saw the truth in that picture.”
Confusion knitted his brows. “What picture?”
“The one you snuck into the box.” Tears welled in her eyes, threatened to spill onto her cheeks. Her voice clogged, but she kept going. “You knew me better than I knew myself. You knew I’d want to keep it.”
“I know. I did that a couple days ago, when I thought I was losing you. I wanted you to know you could always come home to me. He brushed a tendril of hair off her face. “It’s the first thing you learn in rebuilding houses, and even constructing new ones. No matter how you go about it, the past becomes part of the present, the foundation for the future. It’s like renovating this house. You have to use the footers you already have, and build the walls up from there.”
“Sort of like starting with the big, hulking man you already know, and creating a marriage around that foundation?” She smiled, teasing him. “Warts and all?”
Delight lit his eyes, and his grin widened. “You want to marry me?”
“Does your offer still stand?”
“It was never off the table, Alex. I’ll marry you today. Right now, right here.”
She laughed. “I think we should wait a little bit. Grandma will kill me if I don’t let her wear her new dress.”
“Then by all means, we’ll wait and make Grandma happy. But we won’t wait too long, because I want to make you my wife. I love you, Alex Kenner.”
“I love you, too, Mack Douglas.” His words sang in Alex’s heart. This was what she had been seeking. Who would have thought that the perfect man had been right under her nose all this time?
“I always thought all I wanted was a place to put a sofa. A house. And here, I have exactly that, a house. But I realized today that it would have never been enough because you…” She looked up at him, and smiled into his blue eyes, into eyes she had known for so long, she could have drawn them in her sleep. “You made it into a home. That’s what I needed, Mack. That’s what I wanted most of all.”
He shrugged off the words, as if what he had done today was nothing. “I bought you some furniture, planted some plants—”
“That isn’t what makes it a home, Mack.” She raised on her toes, placing a kiss on his lips. “Having you with me does. You and Chester, and…the baby. Us, as a family. Whether it’s here or anywhere.”
A smile spread across his face, breaking like dawn on the horizon, reaching deep into his eyes. “A family. You think we’re ready for that?”
“Who is? We’ll just do the best we can—”
“With the tools we have,” he finished.
“Exactly,” Alex said, and joy rose in her chest, seeming so appropriate in this house that had once held such sadness. Her happiness became a balloon, lifting the entire place with a helium of high hopes for the days ahead. By filling these rooms with love and joy, the last part of the renovation would be complete. Her mother, she knew, would be proud.
“There is one more thing,” Mack said, with a grin.
“What?”
“Pancakes. If I remember correctly, they were part of the deal with the kitchen cabinets.” He tiptoed a finger across her jaw. “You can make pancakes, can’t you?”
“For you?” She thought about that for a second. “I’m willing to try anything.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Mack swoop
ed her up into his arms and carried her out of the nursery and down the hall to the master bedroom. He paused, just at the edge of the bed. Anticipation pooled in Alex’s gut. “Wait. I remembered something else.”
“Mmm?” Alex managed, her mouth now on his neck, tasting the hot skin she had missed so much in the past few days.
“I believe there’s still an issue of payment for services rendered?” He nuzzled her lips, igniting a fire with nothing more than a preview of the kisses to come.
“Take me to bed, Mack Douglas,” Alex said, her laughter deep and throaty, but her patience wearing quite thin, “and we’ll see if we can settle on a figure.”
“With pleasure,” Mack murmured. “With pleasure.” And he laid his wife-to-be in the bed of their home.
But just before he made love to her, he took a moment and pressed his ear to her stomach, and listened to the rhythmic beat of the greatest miracle life had to offer, the one gift he’d never known he wanted until he’d received it.
A family.
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She picked up two rocks, bigger than the ones before, one in each hand, ready to fire them off, bam-bam—
“Hey! What’d that sign ever do to you?”
One rock had already flown forward, dinging the corner, leaving a permanent mark in the painted ivy border that danced around the edge. She jerked around, ready with her last piece of stone ammunition, half thinking of throwing it at the person who had interrupted her.
Until she saw who it was.
Oh, hell. Duncan Henry.
Of all the people she’d thought would leave Tempest on the first bus, Duncan Henry would have been at the top of the list. He was bound for bigger things, he’d always said, than this little spittoon of a town.
“So, are you mad at the sign or just looking for some target practice?” he asked.
“Darts,” Allie said, thinking fast, swiping at her face, erasing the tears as he approached. All six-foot-two of him, lean and rugged. Dark hair with piercing blue eyes set off by the blue in his shirt. He had a way of walking, of commanding each step, that flipped a switch in Allie. A switch she’d thought she’d turned off the minute she’d left Tempest.
