by Elle Casey
“What are you looking at?” I asked, pissed at him for being such a gossip.
“City slicker. What are you looking at?”
“A stupid wookie man-bear-pig who doesn’t know how to mind his own business.” I slid off the horse and caught myself before falling onto my butt. My legs were going to be really sore tomorrow from all the riding, along with my ass.
He laughed. “I know about wookies, but man-bear-pigs? What’s that?”
I was too frustrated to spar with him. “Go look in the mirror. I’m busy.” I clomped up the steps and left him to take care of the horse. He’d taken the reins so I assumed that’s what he was there for.
“You have to brush your horse out!” he shouted behind me.
“I’ll do it later!” I yelled back, banging the door behind me. I strode into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Maeve was there at the sink and it slowed me down considerably.
“Oh. Hi. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Maeve looked at me over her shoulder and smiled before going back to her task. “Where else would I be?”
I went over and leaned on the nearby counter. “I don’t know, actually. What do you do here?”
“Lots of things.” She was snapping beans in the sink. “Clean. Cook. Take care of the chicken and gardens.”
“Sounds … fun.” I was totally lying.
“Actually, it’s a very simple life but I find it relaxing and enjoyable. I can finish my work in half the day and that leaves the rest of it for personal pursuits.”
“Oh yeah? Like what kind of personal pursuits?”
“Crocheting. Painting. Book club. I do lots of things on the side of my work life.”
I sighed wistfully. “All of those things are things I wish I had time for.” This time I wasn’t lying. I was a total granny at heart.
She shrugged, never hesitating in her work. “So find the time.”
“Ha. That’s funny. Have you ever worked in a law firm?”
“Can’t say as I have.”
“Well, it sucks for free time. I work from six in the morning until sometimes ten at night or even later when I’m going to trial.”
“Sounds like you don’t even have time to breathe.”
I stared out the window into the back yard. “I don’t. I haven’t had time to breathe since I was fifteen years old.” The simple sad truth of that calmed me down completely. “I don’t know why I ever thought that was something I wanted.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. First off, you were young and you were doing what you needed to do to make the most of things. And second, you’re still young. You aren’t stuck doing what you don’t want to do. If your life isn’t working for you, change it.” She stopped with her bean-snapping and looked at me. “Nobody’s forcing you to stay where you are in life.”
“I am,” I said pitifully.
She smiled. “Well, my advice is to not let you stand in the way of your own happiness.”
“Yeah,” I said, blinking a few times as the words sunk in. “That is kind of dumb, isn’t it?”
“Not dumb. Safe. I get the impression you’ve lived a safe life.”
I chuckled bitterly. “For the most part, yes. And the one time I stepped out of the safety zone, I monumentally screwed up the lives of about five people.” I was tallying up the entire MacKenzie family as collateral damage.
“I doubt that.” She lifted a big container of beans out of the sink and put it on the counter. “Life has a way of working out, whether it’s following our plan or not. I have a feeling that you’re going to look back on that time you stepped out of your safety zone, as one of the best things you could have done for yourself.”
“I really wish you knew what you were talking about,” I said, before I realized how rude it sounded.
She laughed. “Trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Have you screwed up before? Like massively, awfully screwed up?”
She nodded. “Yep. We all have. It’s part of becoming a strong person.” She put her hands on her hips and faced me. “I’m a strong person, Andie. But it’s only because I’ve fought for it.”
“Shine not burn,” I said softly, my heart collapsing in on itself in my chest.
She nodded. “That’s right. We MacKenzie girls shine, not burn.” She pulled me into a hug. “You’re one of us, so you should know.”
I broke into tears, clinging to her like a drowning girl to a life ring.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
AFTER I’D CRIED MYSELF OUT and blubbered all over Maeve’s very understanding shoulder, I walked up to Ian’s room and fell into an exhausted sleep. I dreamed of huge groups of people witnessing my shame and condemning me for it. Visions of my mother’s boyfriend accusing me of being a slut tortured my already bruised sense of self-worth. Mewling cries escaped my lips as I pictured my bosses firing me for besmirching the reputation of the firm.
It was then that I felt a warmth come over me and the darkness slip away. Like a magic spell had been cast, I went from disintegrating to safe. Alone to protected. I shifted in the bed and realized I wasn’t alone anymore.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in a tear-scratched voice.
“Shhh, just go to sleep. You’re exhausted.”
“But what about dinner?” I wasn’t hungry, but I hoped to get rid of him. I didn’t deserve the care and compassion; I deserved to be punished.
“Dinner’s long over. If you want, we saved you a plate, but I think you should just sleep. I kept you out in the sun too long. Sorry about that, babe.”
“It’s not the sun.” It’s the giant crack in my heart that will never heal.
He kissed my neck tenderly. “No, it’s not the sun. It’s me. I wore you out with King Dong.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Shut up.”
“Fine.” He kissed my shoulder. “Go to sleep.”
“Go away and I will,” I whispered, already falling into the twilight sleep zone where nothing made much sense and shadows of memories swirled and danced.
“I’m not going anywhere…”
It was the last thing I remembered hearing before the sun streaming in the window woke me up. It was the morning of the picnic, dawning sunny and bright. My heart felt like ten pounds of lead in my chest.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“WAKE UP SLEEPY HEAD! I have a dress for you to wear today.” Maeve swished into my room wearing a pretty wrap-around dress covered in yellow flowers.
“What?” I sat up, my hair a rat’s nest on my head. Every muscle in my body let me know that it was sore and very unhappy about being overused the day before.
She held up a blue halter neck dress. “A dress. For you to wear. Mack bought it for you in town, along with these sandals.” She held up a pair of darker blue slip-ons in her other hand.
I stared at the dress’s simple lines, flowing material, and low neckline. It’s exactly what I would have picked myself if I’d done the shopping, perfect for a sunny day in Baker City. “I … can’t wear that.”
“Why ever not?” She looked at it critically.
“Because … what if it doesn’t fit?”
She draped it over a chair and put the shoes on the floor nearby. “He looked on the tags of your clothes. I’m sure it will fit. You have a beautiful figure.”
“Have you seen my butt?” I asked, swinging my legs out off the side of the bed and staring at the floor. Every square inch of my body was aching, from my scalp to the bottom of my feet. I’d never felt so wasted in all my life. No wonder Mack has such a killer body. What a frigging workout.
She smiled; I could hear it in her voice. “I happen to know that men like bountiful figures, so even though yours could stand a few more pounds on it, I think you’re going to do just fine with … the men of Baker City.”
I looked up at her, my expression broadcasting the shame in my heart. “I have some bad news about the picnic.”
She stopped in her fussing around
the room. “Oh yes? What’s that?”
“My fiancé, soon to be ex-fiancé, is on his way out here. I’m surprised he isn’t here yet. I’m pretty sure you won’t want either one of us at your party when that happens.”
“Nonsense. Any friend of yours is a friend of ours.” She moved some picture frames around on the dresser as if they’d be much better off being one inch more to the right or left.
“You don’t understand,” I explained. “He’s coming to take me back but I’m going to break up with him and go back on my own. I’m canceling the wedding. It’s going to be ugly.”
She turned her head and grinned at me. She actually grinned, like my life falling apart was funny. I frowned, wondering why she’d be so happy about it. Maybe I’d misjudged her friendliness.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. As soon as he gets a taste of Grandma Lettie’s beef brisket he’ll settle right down and stay for pie. And I’ve made pecan and apple, so he’ll be too full to give you a hard time.”
Now her happiness made sense. She hadn’t met Bradley yet.
I stood, shuffling over to the door. “You are living in a really nice fantasy world. Are you taking on immigrants? I’d like to move in.”
She smiled, walking past me out into the hallway. “You are always welcome in my fantasy world. Or my real one for that matter.” She left me, headed towards the stairs. “We could use your help downstairs whenever you’re ready. We have almost a hundred people on their way and we still don’t have all the tables out.”
“What?!” Guilt overwhelmed me. Here I’d been sleeping all morning while everyone else worked. What an asshole.
I heard laughter and then the voices of men shouting instructions to each other coming through the front door.
“Shit,” I said, going back to grab the dress and some underwear before running on tiptoes into the bathroom. Time to shower, shave, and get with the program, Andie. You can be an asshole and break everyone’s hearts later.
I caught a glimpse of Mack coming up the stairs as I closed the door. I locked it and waited for him to come close. When the sound of his footsteps stopped outside the door I spoke, using my most commanding tone. “Don’t even think of sneaking in here again, Mack. I know you’re out there. I have to shower and shave so I can help.”
“I wouldn’t dream of interfering in that.” He was messing with me, I could tell. I held onto the lock just in case he was trying to jimmy it open. “I just came up to see if you needed anything else.”
“No. I’m fine.” I bit my lip, wrestling with myself, embarrassed and touched that he’d gone out of his way for me. “And thanks for the dress. And the shoes. That was … very thoughtful.”
“I’m a thoughtful guy. I’ll be downstairs waiting for you.”
“Don’t wait for me,” I said, resting my head on the door.
“Don’t make me wait too long this time,” he said, ignoring the double meaning in my words. Or maybe he was giving me some of his own. His mouth was just a door’s width away. I could picture his full lips and the feel of his tongue on mine. I rested my hand against the wood, knowing I could just let him in and feel him inside me once more before it was all over. The temptation was driving me insane.
“Why can’t you just let me go?” I asked, almost pleading. This was the dumbest place in the world to be having this conversation, but that was just par for the course with me, I guess. Careless does as careless is.
“I can’t let you go because you’re mine. And because I can’t stand to see you sad. I’m going to fix that. You sure you don’t need me in there right now? I could cheer you up real quick, I promise.”
I could picture the devilish smile on his face, and I couldn’t help but respond in kind.
“I might be wallowing in misery, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be dead-ass lame and not help with your family’s once-a-year family picnic. Stop trying to distract me.”
“That’s the spirit. Grandma Lettie’s coming with her beef brisket, you know.”
I giggled. “So I heard.”
“Well hurry up, then. Those tables aren’t going to put themselves out.”
My heart was soaring over the teasing we were enjoying together. He made the atmosphere that had threatened to suffocate me ten times lighter, and his attitude made me believe that life could be so much simpler and uncomplicated if I just said yes to what he was offering.
I was tempted to open the door and yank him in with me, but the sound of his whistling near the stairs stopped me. It was better that we didn’t do anything else to make my leaving any harder. My hand dropped away from the door and I turned around, sighing.
Stepping into the warm shower, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. I might be facing an apocalyptic event with Bradley showing up in the middle of everything and forcing a very public, very ugly breakup, but at least for now I had a pretty new dress to wear and a famous beef brisket to look forward to. What the hell is a beef brisket, anyway?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE FIRST GUESTS FOR THE MacKenzie’s annual picnic and rodeo began arriving around eleven in the morning. A party rental company had set up three large tents earlier to provide shade not only for the guests but also for the band that was in the process of setting up to entertain everyone with eighties rock classics. The food was set out on a long banquet table, and as people arrived, they added their dishes to the offerings. Nearly a hundred people stood in groups, laughing, smiling and talking
I found myself standing alone when several of the guests and family moved as one big group towards the front of the house. Most of my focus was on Mack and the jeans that hugged his amazing rear end and the black t-shirt that stretched across his thick back. He had his best cowboy hat on today, a light cream color with a thin black band around the top. Just looking at him had me going warm in all the wrong ways and in all the most inappropriate places. This picnic was going to last forever with him there torturing me like that, just out of my reach … the perfect male, so close and yet so far.
I took a deep breath to calm my libido down a notch or two. That’s all I could manage with him looking like he did today. It was going to be a helluva long picnic.
A huge cadillac that looked like it was built in the sixties drove up to the front gate and parked before going all the way through. Curious, I wandered over, keeping my distance from the MacKenzie clan and the many townspeople who’d already arrived. The driver’s door opened and then shut, but I didn’t see an actual person getting out. It wasn’t until she made it up to the front of the car that I realized why.
“Grandma Lettie, I presume,” I said softly into the empty air around me. Maeve and Angus fawned over her, and she accepted their hugs and kisses with some of her own. She stood less than five feet tall and had wispy bluish-gray hair that floated around her head like a cloud. Ian took the car keys from her and moved the huge vehicle off to the side, parking it out of the way.
The group of welcomers moved with her in my direction, and I shifted off to the side to give them room to get by. Mack was carrying a big oval pan with a lid on it that had come from her trunk, and I could tell by the way his muscles were bulging under his t-shirt that it was heavy.
As they drew near, Maeve leaned down and spoke in her ear. The older woman’s head shot up and her eyes searched the area until they landed on me. She pointed with a bony finger in my direction and the whole group shifted trajectory, no longer headed towards the banquet table but towards me instead.
My heart began beating faster and sweat beaded up on my lip. I quickly swiped it away and stood as tall as I could before she got near. I felt like I was going before the appellate court judges with a crappy case file in hand and no pants on.
“Who’s this young lady?” she asked when she was about four feet away, her watery blue eyes taking my measure. Her expression gave me no clue as to what she was thinking.
I held out my hand and stepped forward. “I’m Andie. It’s nice to meet you.”
&n
bsp; She took my hand in a surprisingly strong grip and squeezed. “Nice to meet you, too. I hear you’re part of the family.”
My heart stopped for a few seconds and then raced to catch up. “Ummm … yes … I guess I am.”
I could feel Mack’s gaze burning into me, but I kept my eyes locked on the old woman. Her baby blue housedress matched the white cardigan over her shoulders and white patent leather low-heeled sandals perfectly. Her hair had obviously been done special for the occasion. Even though she wasn’t much bigger than a hobbit and had more wrinkles than a year-old raisin lost in the back of the pantry, she was still intimidating as hell.
“How do you like it here so far? I was told you’ve been here a few days.” She kept a grip on my hand, so I did the same with hers, not wanting her to feel like she was hanging onto a dead fish. I kept my fingers wrapped softly around her delicate, birdlike hand, marveling in the strength I could sense there.
“I’ve been here two days, actually, and I like it a lot. It’s gorgeous here.” I wasn’t shining her on, either. The beauty that Maeve had spoken of on my first night was obvious to me now. I would miss it greatly when I left.
“This place gets into your bones and never lets you go.” She continued to hold my hand as she turned. “Come on over here with me and show me what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done?” My voice went up an octave, wondering if she was talking about what I thought she was talking about. How does she know about me and Mack?
“The food, darlin’, the food.” She gestured to the banquet table covered in dishes with foil on them. “What’d you make? What’s your specialty?”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, I didn’t make anything. Maeve did it all.”
“Don’t you cook?” She looked a little bit outraged, and it was hard not to smile at her reaction.
“No, not really. I never learned.”
“Well, what about your mother? Didn’t she cook?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. My mother didn’t do a whole lot of anything other than act as a human punching bag for life’s biggest losers, but I wasn’t going to tell Grandma Lettie that. I had a feeling she’d ask why my mother hadn’t cut their testicles off.