Saying I Do (Stewart Island Series Book 8)

by Tracey Alvarez

  A muscle bunched in his jaw, and the corner of his mouth ticked up. “I’m beginning to think I jinx you.”

  Instead of answering verbally, Mac pointed the finger of her other hand at him and said “you do” with her eyes.

  “That’s unhygienic, you know,” he added. “Your finger’s covered in germs.”

  Mac chose a different finger to extend and swiveled her wrist. The crease in the corner of Joe’s mouth grew deeper, and his eyes danced blue fire as if he was about to laugh out loud.

  The door to Reid’s room swung open and he leaned against the frame, bare-chested with a collared shirt in each hand.

  Oh damn. Reid! She’d forgotten he was still there.

  “Which one, black or tan?” Reid looked straight at Mac, the relaxed grin on his face disclosing he was unaware they had company.

  A series of small sounds—a scuff of shoes, a hiss of indrawn breath easily identifiable, even above the opening riff intro from Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”—and Joe lurched away from the table. Mac’s eyes flew wide at the bristling animosity pouring off his squared shoulders and clenched fists.

  “You,” he said. “You fuckin’ prick.”

  Chapter 6

  Four and a Half Years Earlier…

  MacKenna the spy.

  It had a nice ring to it, and it gave her something to do—imagining herself as a super sleuth complete with sexy black catsuit and a fedora—while she sat in a corner booth of the bar, sipping a Diet Coke. Finnegan’s was semi-crowded, but Mac had no idea how busy this bar got, as it wasn’t one she and her friends frequented. Fortunately, because otherwise her first spy mission might not work. Especially if an ultra-observant bartender saw through her disguise.

  Across from her table, Sofia and her three girlfriends giggled over their third glass of bubbles. Mac had positioned herself perfectly, her smartphone able to film Sofia’s three-quarter profile without being obvious. It just appeared as if Mac were fascinated with whatever she was looking at on her phone.

  And as for Mac herself, that’s where the spy part came in, thanks to her friend Kaitlyn, who was active in Invercargill’s community theater. She’d arrived on Mac’s doorstep two hours ago, juggling her huge make up kit, a garment bag, and a black wig cut Jackie-O style. Kaitlyn had dressed Mac in a frumpy corporate suit, sculptured her face with a myriad of makeup products, positioned the black wig, and added the finishing touch of schoolteacher glasses. By the time Kaitlyn finished, Mac didn’t recognize herself in the mirror.

  “You sure she won’t make me?” Mac had asked, grimacing as she smoothed down the sides of the baggy beige jacket.

  “Hell no,” Kaitlyn said with a wry grin. “I wouldn’t recognize you in that get up, and I’ve known you since you stole my first boyfriend.”

  An old and dearly affectionate argument. Mac took the bait, because sparring with Kaitlyn was less scary than the prospect of what she was about to do.

  “We were seven, and he was only your boyfriend for two days. I lasted only half of that before Suzy Brown caught his eye.”

  “Men.” Kaitlyn brushed lint off Mac’s shoulders. “Fickle bastards. Are you sure about this?”

  Mac had hesitated for a few beats, doubt racing through her system. Then she’d remembered the unguarded affection in Joe’s eyes as he’d looked at Sofia—and the glint of hurt in Mac’s dad’s sometimes when she mentioned her mother’s name.

  “I’m sure.”

  Two hours later, Mac waited and watched, and although Sofia had glanced in Mac’s direction once or twice, the woman’s flat stare had passed over her with dismissing indifference and lingered, instead, on a couple of guys at the bar.

  So far, MacKenna the spy was nailing it.

  At five past nine, the bar door swung open, and Reid strolled in. By strolled, she meant swaggered, because the man was six foot three of tailored hotness in a charcoal-colored wool suit that molded perfectly to his frame.

  She’d texted him earlier to update him on everyone’s positions, so he didn’t glance toward Mac’s and Sofia’s corner. He strode to the bar. A few patrons ambling around stopped and stared. Not only because of his height and good looks, but because Invercargill was a countrified town where university students and farmers and middle-class locals frequented the bars. Finnegan’s was a little more upmarket than the town’s average watering hole, but a guy who looked as if he’d stepped out of GQ was still a rarity.

  Mac glanced toward Sofia’s table, but she couldn’t see the expression on the redhead’s face since the woman had craned around in her chair, flagrantly staring at the bar. Looked as if she’d noticed Reid’s entrance.

  Mac discreetly hit record on her phone.

  She captured Sofia and her friends giggling together and shooting constant eye-fucking glances over at Reid, who was ordering a drink. She captured the moment Sofia slid off her engagement ring and dropped it into her purse, and she hoped her microphone was strong enough to pick up Sofia telling her friends, “When he comes over, don’t you dare tell him I’m engaged.”

  Mac hoped her phone recorded it all, but her stomach dipped in a sickening roll as Sofia laid a hand on Reid’s arm, her laughter a pretty peal cutting through the piped-in music and general bar noise. She leaned in closer, her breast accidentally brushing Reid’s arm as she indicated the table behind them. He followed Sofia over, taking a chair on the opposite side of her so his bulk wouldn’t block Mac’s line of sight. She paused recording as Reid slathered on the charm, inventing the persona of Benjamin Woolf, a wealthy investment banker—a persona so fragile that if Sofia and her friends hadn’t been so enraptured with their visual strip search of him they would’ve noticed the gaping holes in his story. Mac figured Sofia wouldn’t make a move on Reid until they were alone, so she ordered another Diet Coke and fished out a tattered paperback romance novel with a bare-chested hunk on the front and opened it to a random page, pretending to read.

  Twenty minutes later, following some discreet signal Sofia had given to the three other women at her table, her friends started making “got to run” excuses and collecting their belongings. Mac tucked the paperback back into her purse and pretended to take a call on her phone, watching as the three women giggled their way out of the bar, leaving Reid and Sofia alone. Sofia took advantage of this to edge closer to Reid, so Mac hit the record button again. If Sofia was ever going to make her move, now was the time. Because the woman was so caught up in Reid she’d be unlikely to notice a mariachi band parading past, Mac slid over the booth seat, getting closer to Sofia to capture the conversation.

  “I’m a little bit tipsy,” Sofia confided with another winsome giggle.

  “I’m happy to drive you home.”

  Sofia did the boob brush again. “I’d rather go back to your place and screw your brains out.”

  And she said it not in an inside voice. MacKenna nearly dropped the phone, but Reid didn’t blink an eye. His mouth curved into a smile that would make most women voluntarily lose their panties.

  “I like a woman who knows what she wants,” he said. “But don’t you have a boyfriend or someone special waiting for you?”

  “No boyfriend, no special someone,” she said.

  “Good. Because I wouldn’t want you screaming some other guy’s name when I make you come for the third time.”

  Sofia squirmed on her chair. Even though Mac couldn’t see her face, she could imagine the other woman’s pouty expression as she said, “Only three times, Benjamin? I’m disappointed.”

  Reid, following his script to the letter, just chuckled. “Go take off your panties. I’ll bring my Aston ’round front and meet you outside.”

  Aston…nice touch, Reid. The man drove a Toyota. He was enjoying this fantasy a little too much, though Mac could tell by his body language that he’d rather screw a rattlesnake than mess with Sofia.

  Sofia stood and grabbed her purse from where it hung on the back of her chair. “I won’t be long, wolfie. I can’t wait for you to
eat me all up.”

  Mac was pretty sure she threw up a little Diet Coke in her mouth as Sofia strolled away from the table. Reid shot her a glance and made a quick finger-down-his-throat gesture. His part was complete in this revolting charade. He got up from the table and strode out of the bar, making a clean getaway. Mac collected her purse and hurried after Sofia.

  The main area of the two-stall women’s restroom was empty, only the stall nearest the wall occupied, which she assumed was Sofia. Taking a chance as the lock rattled and the stall door squeaked open, Mac hit record. She aimed her phone at the mirror, and managed to capture the perfect icing-on-the-cake reflection of Sofia stuffing black panties into her handbag.

  Busted.

  Sofia’s eyes widened as she noticed Mac and her phone, then narrowed abruptly. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  The sweet had dropped from her earlier syrupy tone, replaced with what Mac suspected was the real Sofia.

  “Collecting evidence.” Mac slipped the phone back into her handbag and stood her ground.

  “Evidence of what?” Sofia jutted out one arrogant hip, slapping a perfectly manicured hand on it. “That you get off recording women in public toilets?”

  Mac peeled off her black wig and stuffed it and her fake glasses into her handbag. “Evidence that you don’t deserve a good man like Joe Whelan.”

  “What?” Sofia’s brow crumpled, then smoothed as her cold gaze scanned Mac’s bundled-up blond hair. “You’re the bridal shop girl? How dare you spy on me?” She stabbed an imperious finger at Mac. “Delete that recording.”

  “Too late. I’ve already e-mailed the X-rated conversation you had with Mr. Woolf to myself. And if you don’t break things off with your fiancé as kindly as possible during the next seven days, I’ll forward it on to him.”

  Sofia’s flushed face blanched to porcelain. “You wouldn’t.”

  “If you knew anything about me, Ms. Douglas, you’d know I most certainly would.”

  “But, but…”

  Mac could almost see the Machiavellian wheels spinning in Sofia’s head, as if her baby-smooth skin were transparent.

  Then came a triumphant smirk. “I’ll tell everyone you did a shitty job, and no one I know will buy one of your ugly dresses again. No. One.”

  “I can live with that,” Mac said. “While you’ll have to live the rest of your life with her.” She nodded toward the mirror. “Seven days.”

  Mac left the restroom without looking back and headed out of Finnegan’s. She wondered if Sofia would go home, or if she was deluded enough, self-destructive enough, to freeze her ass off waiting for an Aston Martin to whisk her away into the night.

  Chapter 7

  The man who’d starred in Joe’s nightmares for weeks after Sofia left, stared at him with bewilderment for two beats, then a flicker of sympathy for another, before his guard came up and his face went expressionless.

  So many thoughts jostled for domination in Joe’s brain it felt like his head had exploded and his hair had caught fire.

  What was the man from that video doing in MacKenna’s house?

  Did that mean…? That Joe had been so caught up with his broken heart and dented pride he’d just assumed MacKenna had stumbled onto his fiancée’s intended infidelity and recorded it? That MacKenna knew the guy in the video, and she’d set up the whole thing?

  An icy dousing of shock flushed away the sudden heat of anger. For a moment, he flashed back in time to opening the door to his home and finding a nearly empty wardrobe, a cleared out bathroom counter, and a note left on his pillow that said: I’m sorry, I don’t love you and I never did. The wedding is off; please don’t contact me. Sofia.

  He’d sat in shock for hours until the house grew dark and silent around him. Eventually he’d roused enough to open his laptop and check Sofia’s Facebook profile, where she spent most of her spare time. Her relationship status had changed to “single.” He switched back to his profile and stared at the words “in a relationship.” Not anymore. Though instead of updating his non-relationship, he read his e-mails and stumbled across one from Invercargill Bridal with an attached video. Curiosity got the better of him, and he’d watched every bit of the five minute thirty-two-second footage of Sofia proving how much she didn’t love him.

  “Joe, please. It’s not Reid’s fault.”

  MacKenna’s hand clamped on his forearm—as if that could restrain him if he’d really intended to thump the shirtless prick. Reid? Was that his name? Joe eyeballed the bigger man. Oddly, it was the idea that MacKenna was fucking this guy that raised his blood pressure more than the idea that she’d set him up back then. She had, as he’d pointed out earlier, done him a favor as far as Sofia was concerned.

  His gaze flicked between MacKenna and Reid, and the other man’s smirk raised Joe’s blood pressure all over again. And against all logic. Reid was likely a victim of the tiny blond bombshell’s overpowering sex appeal and a brainless robot in the whole affair. A small part of Joe couldn’t blame him—if he had access to MacKenna’s bed every night, he’d be a brainless robot, too.

  “You? And him?” The words gushed from him even as he snapped his teeth together to cut off any further questions. Like how long they’d been sleeping together.

  “It was my idea, Joe, not his,” MacKenna said. “I asked him to be a honey trap for Sofia.”

  Thankfully, she’d misunderstood his outburst. Reid’s smirk, however, transformed into a toothy smile.

  “I think your doctor friend is trying to figure out how often we bump uglies,” Reid said.

  MacKenna cut Joe a sharp look. “Were you?”

  Absolutely. “Of course not. It’s none of my damn business who you bump uglies with.”

  For feck’s sake, Joe. Stop running yer gob. He cleared his throat and shrugged off her hand that still rested on his forearm.

  MacKenna’s eyes narrowed to slits of seaweed green. “No, it’s not. But FYI, because contrary to what you think of me, I don’t play games; Reid and I are just friends.”

  Friends. Just grand. Their familiarity in each other’s company indicated they knew each other well. They had a shared intimacy, whether as lovers—as the green pit of jealousy in his gut suggested—or as friends, as MacKenna insisted. He tried to grind the pit in his gut away, reminding himself again that he wasn’t interested in the woman, but the stubborn thing remained.

  “Friends with some pretty amazing benefits,” Reid said. “Right, sweet cheeks?”

  MacKenna’s lethal gaze swiveled past Joe to where Reid continued to smirk. “Like a roof over your head and paid employment, all of which could change in an instant if you keep continuing down the trying-to-piss-me-off road.”

  “I’m officially tired of this conversation, carsick from your ‘road,’ and about to puke on your upholstery.” Reid held up the coat hangers again. “Black or tan?”

  “Black. Now go back to your room, get ready, and leave.”

  Reid stepped back into the room he’d appeared from—his room, Joe deciphered from MacKenna’s outburst—without sparing him another glance.

  Before Reid shut the door his brow crumpled into a sharp V. “Mac, I can stay in tonight if you want.”

  Because he didn’t trust Joe to be alone with MacKenna? He studied Reid’s face as he, in turn, studied MacKenna. And Joe saw nothing in the man’s gaze other than a concerned, deep affection. Joe had let himself get distracted by MacKenna’s closeness and his undeniable flare of attraction toward her. The one thing he’d learned in his years as a GP—often the first call for patients unless they were direly ill—was people stretched the truth. Or as Gregory House, the arsehole doctor from the TV series, had succinctly put it: everybody lies.

  Before Sofia—or BS as he liked to refer to it in his mind—he’d honed his skill of picking up the little tell tale signals from patients when they weren’t being straight with him. This skill must have dulled during the time he’d been in love, since Sofia’s lies had come as su
ch a shock. But with MacKenna and her relationship with Reid?

  “It’s cool, Bean,” MacKenna said gently. “Go wow the ladies.”

  Reid shut the door with a laugh. MacKenna crossed to the pattern making table and picked up a remote, turning down the music. Then she faced him, raising an eyebrow in question.

  “He loves you,” Joe said.

  “He does,” MacKenna agreed. “And I love him. He’s my family, as is Laura, who lives upstairs in the bedroom next to mine.”

  “And he works for you?”

  “Best damn machinist I’ve ever met. I’m lucky to have him.” MacKenna cocked her head. “You’re wondering about his part in the video I sent you?”

  She folded her arms across her chest, emphasizing the swell of her breasts beneath the sloppy wool sweater—which he now suspected was probably one of Reid’s. The thought didn’t make Joe feel any friendlier toward the guy, because he had the daft notion of wanting to see MacKenna wearing one of his sweaters…and nothing else.

  “I asked him to help that night, and he did, as a favor to me,” she continued. “Trust me, he didn’t sleep with Sofia, and he never would’ve left the pub with her.”

  After the video clip ended with Sofia caught in a bathroom mirror stuffing panties into her handbag, he’d just continued to stare at his laptop screen. He’d wondered, briefly, if Sofia had ended up sleeping with the guy in the clip. He’d crashed on a mate’s couch the night she’d gone out, ready to get up with the guys at 3:30 a.m. to watch the All Blacks play in London. When he’d arrived home Saturday morning, he met an unusually distracted fiancée, but he figured her mood was due to being neck deep in last-minute wedding details.

  MacKenna jumped up to sit on the table, swinging her Ugg-boot-covered feet. “You weren’t even meant to see that footage; it was a back up plan if Sofia didn’t break your engagement like I told her to. But then I heard through the grapevine that you and she were still together. I knew you’d never believe me if I just told you what I’d seen, and Reid insisted that sometimes a guy needed to be punched in the nose by reality in order to shatter his rose-colored glasses.”