by Elle Casey
“But it’s barbarian,” I exclaimed, watching as Mack landed a solid punch to Bradley’s cheek, snapping his head back and making him stumble.
“Sometimes it’s the fastest, easiest way for them to figure things out.”
“Maybe for Mack, but not Bradley.” His Brooks Brothers shirt was getting destroyed, already covered in ground-in dirt and grass stains. One of his loafers was off his foot and sitting on the outskirts of their fighting ring. I’d never seen him lose his temper, ever. It’s why he was still a part of my lifeplan, or had been before I’d come out here.
She snorted. “Sorry, sweetie, but even I can see that city boy’s a scrapper. He’s had plenty of fights of his own, I can promise you that.”
Once I paid closer attention, I realized she was right. Mack was winning, but Bradley wasn’t going down easy. Every time I thought it was going to be over, Bradley came back at Mack again and caught him unawares. They were almost evenly matched, but in the end, it was Mack who had the stamina and strength to win out.
Angus, Ian, and Boog moved in to separate them when they were doing more hugging than fighting. Both of them were bleeding in the face and across their knuckles, and neither one of them could stand up straight anymore.
Maeve squeezed me once before letting go. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get your men cleaned up.”
“They’re not my men,” I said petulantly, embarrassed she saw them that way.
“They are until you officially let them go.”
I followed behind her reluctantly as the men led the fighters up the front steps and into the house. I’d thought the scene outside in front of everyone was embarrassing, but something told me this one was going to be worse. Now it was just the close MacKenzie family there to witness my shame. There would be no buffers and no running away this time.
Chapter Forty-Five
WHEN I GOT INTO THE kitchen, Bradley and Mack were seated at the dining table. Maeve put together two ice packs and handed them over, letting them do their own dirty work of tending to their bruised faces and egos.
I walked over quietly and stood in front of the table, staring at each of them in turn.
They looked at each other and then at me. No one said a word until Angus sat down at the head of the table and gestured to the seat next to him. “Have a seat, young lady.”
He sounded so much like an imposing father figure, I couldn’t ignore his order. I pulled the chair out and sat down. I looked him right in the eye, waiting to hear my sentence.
He smiled. “Don’t look so glum, little one. You have two good looking, strapping young men willing to fight for you sitting right here at this table.”
A watery smile made it to my lips. “That’s part of the problem, I think.”
His smile didn’t leave. “All you have to do is look them in the eye and tell them how you feel. I’m right here for you.” He reached out and put his giant hand over mine, enveloping my small fingers in his warmth. My heart spasmed painfully in my chest.
I nodded, taking a deep breath and lifting my eyes first to Mack and then Bradley. They were still angry at each other, but when they looked at me, their expressions softened.
My life flashed before my eyes, just like I’d read about it happening to people who were having near-death experiences. As I sat across the table from the two battered and emotionally broken men, I saw myself as a teenager, crying helplessly in my room after suffering a beating with a belt. My mother was cooking in the kitchen and pretending like it hadn’t happened, like I hadn’t just been beaten down like a piece of trash by a man who treated women like possessions. A piece of me knew she was relieved it was me suffering his ire this time and not her. It made me hate her and at the same time drove me into myself, as I realized finally that I was truly alone in the world. My father was long gone, and now I was motherless too. I had to come up with a plan. A good one. Something that would get me out of this pit of a life and back to a place where I could find love and maybe even a haven from the anger that surrounded me everywhere I went.
And so the lifeplan had been born. I picked up a pencil that day and wrote the outline down, and over the course of several months refined it until it was perfect. It got me out of that miserable place with excellent grades that translated into full scholarships to college. I disappeared from my mother’s toxic influence and entered a world of my own making. A carefully crafted script brought me friends and more success in college and then acceptance to law school. Step by step, I followed that plan until I took a couple days off to go to Las Vegas. It was the first time I’d gone off-plan in ten years and look where it had gotten me.
I looked at Bradley, a man I had thought I knew who now I suspected I really didn’t. Where had he learned to fight like that? And he’d mentioned mistakes he’d made, things he’d done that I would probably be asked to forgive him for. He was supposed to be my husband, but he really wasn’t husband material. Not when I suffered from feelings of regret every time I looked at him.
I looked at Mack. A man I didn’t quite know as well as I should but who I wanted to know more of. He had honor, strength, and patience like I could never imagine possessing myself. He shouldered blame when he didn’t need to. He went out of his way not to hurt people. And the light shining out of his eyes told me that he really cared about me. Maybe if I was lucky some day, he could really learn to love me.
Mack’s hand slid out across the table and waited for mine, his palm opened up.
“Andie?” Bradley sounded vulnerable, which was a first in my experience. I looked at him, begging him with my eyes to let me go. He cast his eyes down, sighing heavily. “Go ahead. I know what you want.”
I looked at Angus and he just nodded, encouraging me.
Maeve was standing behind me, so I twisted around to see her. She nodded too, a tear slipping out of the corner of her eye.
I swallowed my fear and reached my trembling hand up out of my lap, putting it in Mack’s. The balm of love coated my heart with its healing magic when he closed his fingers around mine. He looked over at Bradley as he put his ice pack down. He held out his free hand. “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to screw everything up for you. But she was mine first, and I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Bradley stared at Mack’s hand for a few seconds before taking it and shaking it hard. “The best man won. Nothing I can do about that.”
His words of defeat made my heart ache for what I’d done to him.
“I’m so sorry, Bradley. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear it.”
He stood, his chair scraping out behind him. “I know. Listen, I need to get going. I have a plane to catch.”
“You can stay here until tomorrow if you want,” offered Maeve.
“No, thanks. I don’t think that would be a good idea.” He waved at me with a weak flick of his hand and then he was gone.
After he left, Grandma Lettie came in and stood where he’d just been.
“So. We got things worked out?” She looked from Mack to me.
“No, not exactly,” Mack said, pulling his hand from mine.
My face went white as all the blood drained from my head and a wave of dizziness almost took me down. I saw it coming now. The big break up. The humiliation. The end. The end of me.
He reached into his front pocket and slid out of his chair at the same time. “I was going to wait and do this later, but I guess now’s as good a time as any.”
He went down onto his knees next to my chair and put his hand on the arm of it, pushing it out so that I was facing him.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, crying all over again. I was so confused I had no idea what was going to happen next.
He held up a small, black velvet box and smiled, his split lip starting to bleed again. I took a napkin from Maeve and dabbed at it, smiling through my tears as I tried to stave off the heart attack I could feel coming.
“Andie. Crazy girl. I met you two years ago and I fell in love with you. The minute you threw
that drink on me, I knew I was done.” He opened up the box to reveal a sparkling square-cut diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds that were all set in a band of diamonds. I’d never seen so much light flashing out of a piece of jewelry in my life.
“Wow, that’s a beaut,” said Grandma Lettie in a hushed voice.
He responded to her but his eyes never left mine. “I had to get her something that would remind her of where we met. All those lights … remember Andie?”
I nodded, unable to speak. Only sobs could come out.
“I thought we were already married, but it doesn’t matter to me that we’re not. I feel married to you and I want to be married to you. If you’ll do me the honor, I’ll take you to the courthouse on Monday and make it official.” He pulled the ring out of the box and held it up. “I bought this the other day when you came into town. I was going to give it to you since we never had a chance to get one before. But now, I guess it’s an engagement ring.”
He took my left hand in his, holding the ring right at the end of my finger. “So, what do you say? Will you marry me? Will you join Clan MacKenzie?”
“Shine not burn?” I managed to say.
He smiled, making his puffed up black eye look even worse. “Yes. Come with me so we can shine together.”
EPILOGUE
The musicians were playing the prelude to the wedding march, and I was poised at the end of the aisle, my arm wrapped tightly through Angus’s. My bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath trembled in my hand. A little tuft of purple troll-doll fluff stuck out from between some of the flowers.
“You okay there, sweetie pie?” he asked, looking splendid in his black tux.
I nodded, looking out over the small crowd of people seated in white chairs on either side of the aisle I was about to walk down. Most of them were still strangers, but I knew in time they’d be like family to me.
“I’m glad you agreed to let your mom come.” He looked pointedly at the left side of the aisle, near where Candice and Kelly were standing and holding their bridesmaid flowers.
I looked at the thin woman sitting in the front row wearing the purple dress. She was a stranger to me, but she didn’t want to be. She’d gotten healthy and was happily single, no longer looking for a man to guide her through life.
“It was Mack’s idea, not mine.” I still wasn’t sure it was possible for my mother and me to put the past behind us, but I was willing to try for Mack’s sake.
“He’s a good man. He’ll do right by you, I’ll see to it.”
I smiled. “I’m glad I’m getting you as my father-in-law. It’s like a special bonus package deal.”
He patted my hand that rested at his elbow. “We’re both kind of lucky, aren’t we?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We are.”
He gestured down the aisle with his chin. “You ready to do this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Angus and I walked to the end of the aisle and waited for the beginning of the music. When it came, we took slow, measured steps up the walkway, the short train behind my dress swishing along the white runner that had been laid down over the grass in the back yard. An arbor covered in flowers waited for me, and under it was the man I would marry for the second time, only this time it would be official in the eyes of the law. Standing next to him was his younger brother and the hulking form of a man-bear-pig.
Mack wore a tux with a bolo tie and a black cowboy hat. He’d never looked so stunning, his bright blue eyes drawing me in from all the way down the aisle. He kept them locked on me, never looking away, never wavering. Just like his love for me, they shined like beacons, leading me out of darkness.
We reached the altar and Angus put my hand on Mack’s arm. “Take good care of her son, or you’ll have to answer to your mother and me.”
Mack nodded. “I wouldn’t expect or want anything less.”
Angus took his seat next to Maeve who was quietly dabbing tears from her eyes and holding Ruby’s hand. Ruby wore a bright red dress and her best hat, little berries and a bird dangling off the side. She pursed her lips at me and nodded slowly. Her approval made me happy. I knew I’d made her proud.
“Do you have your vows?” asked the priest.
I shook my head no, but Mack nodded.
“What?” I whispered at him, confused.
He reached into his pocket with a grin and pulled out a bar napkin.
A flashback hit me like a freight train. The bar napkin…
“That’s…” I pointed at it, remembering the bar we’d drank our last cocktails in.
He nodded. “These are the vows you wrote with me that night.”
“You kept them?” I whispered, tears coming again. I’d thought I was fresh out of the damn things after a week of talking and crying and laughing, but here they were again, threatening to destroy the makeup job Candice had done an hour or two ago.
“Of course I kept them. Memories are important.” He shook the napkin to unfold it and nodded at the priest. “We’re ready.”
My mind flashed through memories that were finally coming in a huge rush, unblocked by the magic bar napkin. Mack and I had left the hotel room after having crazy monkey sex and had walked the streets of Vegas arm-in-arm and hand-in-hand, reveling in the lights and the noise and the crowds of happy people. All the while we kissed and hugged and laughed with the emotions that were overwhelming us. We found a corner of a busy street and just sat on a bench and talked and talked and talked about our dreams and our pasts and our hopes. We joked about having kids together and what we’d name them. And then he suggested that we go get married, getting down on one knee right there on the dirty sidewalk, and I said yes. We kissed the entire way there and the entire way back.
“Andie?”
Mack’s voice snapped me out of my trance.
“Yes?”
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Go ahead with your vows,” said the priest, nodding at Mack.
Mack grinned at me and began to read.
“I, Gavin MacKenzie, sexy cowboy man of Baker City, Oregon … being of sound mind and hot body … do hereby declare that I love you, Andie Marks, lawyer extraordinaire, and want to be married to you until I’m so old, I either die or my pecker falls off.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered, my face flaming red.
Candice snorted and someone out in the crowd giggled.
Mack continued. “I will have sex with you whenever you want, and I will always give you the option to be on top if that’s what will make you happy. Blowjobs will always be optional but appreciated.”
I dropped my head and bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud. This was nuts. I hadn’t realized until this moment just how off-plan I’d gone that night with Mack, but it was strangely liberating. Mack had set me free somehow, his love unlocking the door to my heart and freeing me to just be myself.
“I will change diapers when called for, both for our children and for you when you’re old and decrepit. I will never spit in public or burp too loudly or say mean things about your friends.”
Candice nudged me with her flowers. “Good one,” she whispered.
“And finally…,” his voice went softer, “I promise never to raise my hand against you in anger or tell you that you’re useless or threaten to hurt people who you love. Ten-four, over and out, happily ever after. Those are my vows.”
I was crying before he got to the end. I’d written the promises of a drunken fifteen year old falling into her first love. I could see myself … a silly girl writing on a bar napkin as she wandered the lonely road of the past, following the beacon of light that she saw as her future. A future with Mack.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I looked out into the crowd to see how badly I’d embarrassed my soon-to-be husband, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. My mom was sobbing quietly into a handkerchief while Maeve wrapped an arm over her shoulders. Grandma Lettie was nodding her head like she was a
revival meeting. Praise the Lord.
“And now for your vows,” said the priest looking at me.
“I … didn’t write any. I didn’t know …”
“Just say whatever you want,” said Mack. “Or you can use these.” He waved the napkin between us.
“No thanks,” I said, unable to keep the grin from my face. I cleared my throat. “I can do this.”
“I know you can.” He leaned over and kissed me tenderly.
“Hey, no kissing until after,” said Kelly, tapping me on the shoulder with her flowers.
I pushed Mack away gently and cleared my throat. “Okay. Vows. Take one.” I looked at Mack, trying to express with my eyes how much I loved him in that moment. “I promise to be faithful to you. To always listen to you when you want to talk. To have sex whenever you want, wherever you want.” His eyebrows went up at that, and I continued, a smile refusing to leave my face. “I promise to learn how to cook a mean beef brisket, to rope a calf, and ride a horse. I’ll stick around for as long as you’ll have me. And I promise to be as good a mom to your kids as I possibly can.”
A tear came out of each of Mack’s eyes and his lips quivered just the slightest bit. “Thank you.” He mouthed the words before turning to face the priest.
“Well, I guess that about does it then,” said the man in front of us. “Does someone have the ring?”
Ian leaned in and handed the gold bands to Mack. Mack gave me his and held out mine.
“Please place the bands on your future spouse’s finger.”
A wave of warmth washed over me when Mack slid the band over my knuckle and settled it onto my finger where I knew it would reside until the day I died.
He closed his fingers over mine as I finished pushing his ring onto his finger.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride, cowboy.”
Mack grinned and bent down, blocking my view of the guests with the wide brim of his hat. “I love you, Andie MacKenzie,” he said, as he lips came up against mine.