Can't Tie Me Down!

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  She cleared her throat and turned from him. “Make sure you stay on your side of the room, and don’t talk to me.” She grabbed something out of the chest of drawers and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Keir let out a gush of air and ran his fingers through his hair. That was the strongest reaction he’d had from Mairi in years, and it filled him with hope. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance they could get past their history and find a future together. Because this was it—this was his last stand. If he couldn’t get Mairi to give him a second chance, it was pointless hanging around in Arness. She was the reason he’d bought the garage; she was the reason he hung out there waiting for a glimpse of her, like a puppy waiting for its master to come home. He was pathetic, and he knew it. He would have known it even if his brother and cousins didn’t remind him every time they saw him.

  He sat on the bed and felt it sag in the middle. There were two piles of books on the nightstand between the beds. One was full of hotel management texts, the other had three old travel guides—South America, Asia and Africa. They were dog-eared and filled with markers. On the wall above Mairi’s bed was a map of the world. She’d pinned all the places she wanted to visit. Keir’s heart hurt at the sight. They’d talked about travelling together, before he’d screwed everything up. Instead of backpacking around Europe, he’d gone to jail, and Mairi hadn’t left Scotland.

  He rubbed his chest and lay back on the bed. There were damp stains on the ceiling. Something else he had to fix. He did what he could to keep the property up, but Mairi wouldn’t let him in the apartment half the time, and the other half he didn’t know what needed doing. He should have been more diligent. He should have turned her house into a palace. Maybe then she would have realized he still loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. She was it for him. If he had to give up on her, if he had to move on, he’d just be settling for whomever he married. And wasn’t that pathetic for him and his wife? But what choice did he have? If Mairi wouldn’t forgive him, he had to let go. No matter how much it ripped him apart to do so.

  The bathroom door opened, and Keir’s heart seized up. Mairi glared at him before stomping over to the dresser to dump her clothes on top. She’d changed into a pair of black boy shorts and a black vest with the word Death written in white across her chest. Her hair was in a messy knot on top of her head, and she wasn’t happy.

  “I’m going to sleep.” She stomped to the light switch. “If you snore, I will kill you.” She flicked the light off.

  The curtains were thin and the street lights shone through them, filling the room with a dull glow. Keir watched Mairi climb into bed and turn her back to him. Neither one of them relaxed. He didn’t know if it was possible.

  The silence stretched out heavily between them, and Keir bit back all the things he wanted to say. He knew it was too late for explanations, for excuses. Mairi wouldn’t listen, even if he managed to get the words out.

  “You ever going to forgive me?” Yeah, it was a dumb thing to ask, but he was feeling desperate and hopeless. This was the longest he’d spent with Mairi since things had gone belly up.

  “Probably not, no.”

  “If I could do it over, I would never have left you that night.” He didn’t know how many hours he’d wasted thinking about what he could have done, should have done. He’d been in a crappy position—stay with Mairi, and let his little brother go down for his stupid behavior; or look out for his brother and hurt Mairi. He’d chosen the former and paid for it ever since.

  “Nobody gets a do-over. We have to live with the decisions we make, no matter how dumb they are.”

  He didn’t need to be a genius to figure out she considered him one of her dumb decisions. “Up until I left, it was the best night of my life. You need to believe that. It was perfection.”

  The silence stretched out, and Keir thought she’d given up talking to him. “I thought it was as well,” she said at last, making his heart clench. “Until you ran out on me. You didn’t even hesitate. Your phone went off, and you grabbed your jeans and ran. I was inexperienced and feeling a little insecure, and you ran. Can you imagine how that made me feel?”

  “There were reasons—”

  “I know, your mates needed you to help boost a car.” Sarcasm dripped from her words. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m over it. I don’t need explanations. I don’t want them. I don’t want to think about that night. Or you.”

  Keir scrunched his eyes tight. What a bloody screw-up. There was no end to the fallout from his decision. One minute he’d been in heaven; making love to the woman who owned his heart, ensuring her first time was as special as it could be. The next, he was up before the judge, pleading guilty to stealing a car and recklessly driving it into a shop window. He’d refused to tell them who’d been in the car with him and had been given a year in prison for keeping his mouth shut.

  Only, he hadn’t been in the car at all. He’d run out on Mairi when his brother had called him in a panic. His brother who was looking at serious jail time if he reoffended. His brother whom Keir always looked out for. So, he’d run to help, and he’d lied. To Mairi, to the police, to the judge. He’d told everyone he’d been the one to steal the car and drive it through the window. It was his first offense and he thought he’d get off with a warning. He’d been wrong. And a year later, he’d gotten out of jail to find Mairi wanted nothing to do with him; he’d lost the most important thing in his life.

  The thing he was fighting to get back—Mairi’s heart.

  There was the hiss and screech of feedback from a speaker outside the window, and then a voice boomed out. “Mairi, my love, this one is for you.” Music started, and the guy began singing along to “When a Man Loves a Woman.”

  Mairi groaned loudly and pulled her pillow over her head. “Oh crap, they’ve got a karaoke machine.”

  As Keir listened to the lyrics of the badly sung song, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—because they were singing his song.

  Chapter 5

  Morning sun streamed through the cheap curtains covering Mairi’s bedroom window, and she opened her eyes to find Keir lying on the bed opposite, staring at her.

  “Creepy much?” she grumbled.

  “Morning, gorgeous,” Keir said. “I’ll make you coffee in a minute, after I tell you the good news and the bad news. Which do you want first?”

  She frowned at him. Why did he have to look so sexy? It was all kinds of wrong. The man didn’t have an inch of fat anywhere on his body. She knew this because he stripped off his shirt every chance he got, then flexed those bloody muscles of his in her direction. She wasn’t a saint. Her fingers itched to touch, and her lips itched to taste. Don’t even get her started on how much she wanted to bite. Her eyes slid down to his tattooed pecs. They were teasing her, daring her to nibble them. Especially the pec with the tattoo he hadn’t had when they were together, that tattoo she’d never gotten to taste, and it mocked her with the loss.

  Keir McKenzie was pure temptation. That was why she kept him at arm’s length and why she should never have allowed him to stay in her home. Because the longer she was around him, the more she let herself forget that he’d ripped out her heart and stomped it into the dirt.

  “Tell me the good news.” She tore her eyes from his chest. “I already know the bad news—you’re still here.”

  “Ouch.” He grinned. “You know, they say antagonism between two people is a sign that one of them wants the other but insists on fighting it.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “You got something you need to share, Rusty?”

  “Don’t call me Rusty.” It was the name he’d given her when they were a couple. It brought back memories of the times he’d teased her with a smile, or when he’d whispered it against her ear while he made her gasp for him. It also reminded her that Rusty was gone. She left the night Keir never came back to her. Now she was just plain Mairi.

  “I almost forgot how grumpy you are in the morning.” He smiled like it
was cute, which made her frown harder. “So,” he said, “the good news is I’ve shut the garage for the day, to dedicate myself to the role of your bodyguard.”

  Mairi pressed her face into her pillow and groaned. “Why is that the good news?”

  “Because the bad news is there’s a hot air balloon floating over Arness, with the words Marry Me, Mairi painted on it. The balloon’s attracted quite a crowd, and we now have people outside the building, sitting in deck chairs and eating picnic food. Looks like they’ve settled in for the day, which means when you set foot outside, you’ll be swamped by people. You need a bodyguard.”

  “I’m in hell,” Mairi said.

  “Only if hell is full of daisies,” Satan said. “You got another flower delivery. Apparently, someone posted on your Facebook page that daisies were your favorite. I thought it was irises, but what do I know?”

  “Nothing. You know nothing. And it isn’t my Facebook page. It belongs to the demon who hacked me. Now leave me alone. I’m going back to sleep.” She put her head under her pillow and prayed that when she woke, this whole mess would turn out to be another bad dream. Between listening to the men sing awful love songs over a tinny speaker, and the knowledge that Keir was half-naked and within touching distance, it had been a long, long night.

  “I need sleep,” she wailed.

  “You need coffee, then you need to deal with your fan club.”

  The sheets rustled as he climbed out of bed. She heard two footsteps, and then her bed dipped as he leaned over her. Mairi held her breath, aware of his hands either side of her head and his body caging hers. Even through her duvet, she could feel his warmth along her back. It took all of her self-control, and two fistfuls of sheet, to stop from turning over and pulling him to her.

  “I can make this all go away, Rusty,” the devil whispered to her. “Just say the word, and we’ll ride over to Gretna Green and say our vows. You’ll be Mrs. McKenzie by lunchtime.”

  Her heart thumped so loudly that she was afraid he could hear it. There had been a time when she dreamed of being Mrs. McKenzie. A time when she’d thought her future lay in Keir’s hands and that it was secure there. But that was before he’d proven her wrong.

  “Go away, or I’ll set my fake boyfriends on you.” Her voice was muffled through the pillow.

  He laughed, deep and low, the sound going straight through her body. “What are they going to do, gorgeous? Attack me with their plastic lightsabers? Bore me to death?” She heard him pull on his jeans and walk away. “You have ten minutes, and then I’m coming back to drag you out of bed.”

  “Wait a minute? What time is it?” Mairi had a sudden panicked feeling she was meant to be somewhere.

  “Eight.”

  And then it hit her. “Crap. I need to get up. It’s chemo day.”

  The air thickened, and she peeked out from under her pillow to see Keir standing beside her bed, looking scarily intense.

  “You’re having chemo?” His voice was low and strained, which had the weird effect of melting her heart—a little.

  “What? No. Weren’t you listening when I told Agnes?” Men! Did any of them pay attention when the topic didn’t directly involve them? “Not me. Gladys. It’s her last treatment, and I’m going with her to Glasgow. We normally take the bus. Any chance you could give us a lift, seeing as you’re hanging around anyway?” She would have smiled and batted her eyelashes to encourage compliance if she’d been more awake, but Keir wouldn’t have fallen for it anyway.

  He let out a sigh. “You drive me crazy. You know that? What time are we picking this Gladys up?”

  “Uh, soonish? The bus for Glasgow leaves at ten. But we don’t need to go that early. Can you phone Gladys and tell her to wait for us? And then wake me in an hour?”

  The duvet disappeared from her body in a whoosh, leaving her cold.

  “Keir!” Mairi tried to burrow under her pillow to escape the chill. “Put the duvet back.”

  “I don’t know who Gladys is to call her, which means you need to get that sexy behind out of bed. I’m making coffee. You’re getting up.” He stomped out of the room.

  When the door shut behind him, Mairi rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling. He thought her backside was sexy? She smiled, then remembered that she was angry with him and had been for the past six years. The man was messing with her head. Again.

  “Why me?” she moaned.

  There was no answer.

  ♦♦♦

  There was a knock at the interior door, the one leading down to the garage, as Keir made his way through the tiny apartment to the kitchen. He detoured to the door, hoping it wasn’t one of the fake boyfriends, because after a sleepless night in the same room as Mairi, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with more Star Wars trivia. He threw the door open and sagged with relief. It was his brother.

  “There’s a Wookiee outside,” Sean said as he sauntered into the flat, eyeing Keir’s bare feet and chest. “And you’re nearly naked. Does that mean you’ve managed to wear the fair Mairi down?”

  Keir snorted. “She’s driving me nuts.”

  “She always drives you nuts. That’s why you’re still hanging around in this one-horse town. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without Mairi driving you nuts. You’re made for each other. You’re a pair of drama queens.”

  Keir filled the coffee pot, leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “Thanks, your opinion means so little to me.”

  “Welcome. Is there coffee?”

  “You sound like Mairi. I’m making it.” He reached for the kettle. “I gather you met the boyfriends?”

  “Not so much met as observed them, like I was a scientist studying life on Mars.” Sean grinned widely as though the whole thing was entertaining. It wasn’t.

  Keir glared at him. “This isn’t funny. It’s annoying.”

  “It’s perfect. It’s your chance to show Mairi that you’re better than her other options. Those guys make you look good.”

  “Are you saying I need all the help I can get?” Keir said, aware of how sadly true that statement was.

  “Aye, but chin up, bro—even with your lack of skill, love finds a way.”

  The bedroom door crashed open as Sean was talking, and Mairi dragged herself into the kitchen. She smacked Sean on the back of his head as she passed. “It’s ‘life finds a way,’ numbskull. Not love. Malcolm would never have said love. He was a scientist.” She came to a halt in front of Keir. “Where’s my coffee?”

  He shook his head at her. She was dressed in jeans and a red tartan lumberjack shirt, and her hair was wild. She looked feral. His woman definitely did not do mornings. “It’s coming. Try not to go rabid and kill someone while you wait.”

  She glared at him, obviously deciding that the coffee would brew faster if she tried to kill him with the power of her mind.

  Keir let out a sigh and looked over her head to his brother. “Who the hell is Malcolm?”

  “Jurassic Park,” Sean said. “You need to watch something other than football.”

  “Why are you here, anyway?” Keir asked his younger brother.

  “That’s what I’ve been asking you all night,” Mairi said. “Is there coffee yet? I’m waiting for coffee. The coffee you promised me. Or is this coffee just another one of your lies? Like ‘I’ll be right back’ before you wander off in the middle of the night and end up in jail.”

  Sean turned a laugh into a cough that fooled no one. “At least you two are talking about that night. That’s progress.”

  Keir ignored his soon-to-be-deceased brother, reached behind him, grabbed a mug, filled it with oil-slick coffee and handed it to the beast. She grasped it in both hands and breathed deeply, and her eyes drifted closed. She almost looked as though she were in love. Over coffee. It was yet more evidence of life’s many injustices.

  “So why are you here?” Keir asked Sean.

  “I came to help you set up your website, remember?”

  “Uh, no.”<
br />
  Sean shook his head as he pushed past Keir to help himself to coffee. “No appreciation. And when I even brought breakfast with me.”

  “Breakfast?” Mairi’s head lifted as her eyes opened and focused on Sean. “What did you bring?”

  “Buns,” Sean said, looking a little nervous at the intensity of Mairi’s stare.

  “Buns?” Mairi looked around the room, as though the buns would present themselves. “What kind? Cream? Jam? What?”

  Sean rooted around in his messenger bag—or as Keir liked to call it, his handbag—and came out with a paper bag. He held it out to the beast. “Have at it,” he said.

  Mairi snatched the bag, turned and headed for the table. Ten seconds later, she was stuck into a cream bun and a mug of coffee—she was in her happy place.

  “I don’t need a website,” Keir said.

  This was something he’d told his brother several times. As a recently graduated computer graphic designer, Sean thought everyone needed a website.

  “Yes, you do. How else will people know when you’re open?”

  “They’ll phone me.”

  “Nobody phones anymore.”

  “Sure they do. They phone me to ask me to fix their cars. Or upgrade their bikes.”

  Sean stared as though Keir was a puzzle he couldn’t quite fathom. “It’s like you aren’t even in this century.”

  Mairi held out her mug. “More,” she demanded.

  Keir grabbed the pot and sauntered over to refill her mug. He’d learned early on when they were dating that there was no dealing with Mairi in the morning. She needed at least two hours to morph into a human being.

  “You’re getting a website.” Sean sat at the tiny table and took a bun. “Now tell me about the guys outside. What’s with the Wookiee?”

  Keir pointed his mug at Mairi. “He’s one of Mairi’s boyfriends, and he’s shy. Apparently.”