Temporarily me, he added silently. Because as much as it pained him to admit, he’d nowhere near scratched his itch enough.
Reid gave a rumbly sound, which could’ve been interpreted as either approval or disapproval.
“You got a thing for her?” Joe asked then glanced again at the purple tea. “Or are you, you know, batting for the other team?” He cleared his throat, which would hopefully dislodge his foot stuck in his mouth.
Reid followed Joe’s gaze down to his mug. “Seriously? You think I’m gay because I drink tea?”
“That’s not tea. Tea is black and strong and milk optional. That’s hot flower water.”
Reid chuckled and tugged on the tea bag string a couple of times. “Most people assume I’m gay because I sew wedding dresses.”
“Well, there’s that.”
“That, and you’re wondering why I’m not tapping Mac, whose house I so conveniently live in.”
Joe’s back teeth clicked together, his spine stiffening. “She’s beautiful and smart as hell, and don’t fucking talk about tapping her. She deserves more respect than that.”
“She does,” Reid said. “And more respect than a man who’d do a runner from her bed at three in the morning.”
“I wasn’t running. I’m not running. She kicked me out to grab our clothes before you or Laura saw them. Plus, I was hungry.” Right on cue, Joe’s stomach gave another violent rumble.
Reid stared at him for a long moment then cut him a sharp grin. “Wore you out, did she?”
“Something like that,” Joe admitted. “I don’t suppose you’ve got something other than peanut butter and bananas to go on a sandwich.”
“There’s more manly ham and sliced roast beef in the fridge,” Reid said. “Help yourself.”
Joe stepped around the counter into Mac’s kitchen and opened the fridge, removing the ingredients for a fine slap-up meal. “You’re not gay, then?”
“Nope.” Reid didn’t bother turning around.
“And you’re not with MacKenna?” Joe added, slicing the fresh home-made loaf of bread still on the cutting board.
“We wouldn’t be having this frank, open, and nonviolent conversation if I were.”
Joe snorted and cut a second slice. “I could take you, big guy.”
“Not with those wussy doctor hands.”
“Coming from the guy who spends his day playing with silks and satins.”
“Keep telling yourself that, mate.”
They went back to amicable silence while Joe continued to construct the mother of all protein snacks with ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and roast beef.
“Mac’s helped me through some dark shit in the past,” Reid said out of the blue. “So on the rare occasions she asks me for help, I step up.”
Joe added the top layer of bread to his masterpiece and returned the sandwich ingredients to the fridge. His stomach twisted, remembering the awful things he’d said to her that day long ago. “I didn’t appreciate her help at the time. I said things I shouldn’t have.” He sucked in a breath and stared over at the staircase that led to Mac’s bedroom. “Things I regret.”
Reid swiveled on his barstool. “What are you gonna do about it?”
“Are you asking what my intentions are?”
“She’s my family.” His fingers clenched around the mug. “You got sisters?”
“Just the one.”
Reid drained the last of his flower water. “Then you’ll know why I’m asking you to stop thinking with your dick. Mac’s not as tough-skinned as she appears. Something to consider when you get back on the ferry in a few hours’ time.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Reid left the kitchen and gave the pile of clothes a wide berth.
“Reid?” Joe said before the other man reached the stairs.
Reid turned back, a wary look on his face.
“My mam taught me to knit when I was eight. It’s a skill I’ve never lost. The Christmas after Sofia left me I knitted my whole family scarves to keep my mind busy and my fingers away from my phone. Being gifted at sewing shows an eye for detail and fine motor skills, nothing more.”
Reid sucked in his cheeks, and his eyes danced. “Are you hitting on me, man?”
Joe grinned. “Not even a little bit.”
“Good. Because if I were gay, you’re not my type.” Reid disappeared down the stairs toward the ground floor.
Silence descended in the room, and Joe was hyperaware of Mac naked in her bed above him. He picked up his sandwich and sniffed, his appetite suddenly waning. He could nap on Mac’s uncomfortable-looking couch then slip out at dawn to wait at the ferry terminal. Eat, nap, and leave before he got any more entangled with the woman. That would be thinking with his brain and his conscience.
Or…
He could take the sandwich upstairs and work on his appetite by waking up MacKenna with a kiss that’d curl her toes. He’d even share his hard-won snack, since fair’s fair, and he wasn’t a completely selfish wanker. At least not about food.
Didn’t he deserve just one night of thinking with his dick?
Joe tucked their clothes under his arm, flicked off the lights, and carried his sandwich upstairs to her room. He dropped the clothes inside the doorway and glanced up to see Mac sprawled on the side of the bed he’d claimed after their sexual acrobatics. She had her face smooshed into the pillow, as if she’d been sniffing his scent and had drifted off. Her long hair spread out in a silky fan over her bare back, the straight sweep of her spine and the rounded curve of her arse barely covered by the top sheet. She’d kicked the duvet down to the bottom of the mattress in her sleep, and her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink with a defined pillowcase crease on the one he could see.
Mac’s not as tough-skinned as she appears.
Joe placed the plate on the nightstand, stripped, and eased underneath the sheet, careful not to bump any of her outstretched limbs. One green eye fluttered open, and her nose crinkled.
She boosted herself onto an elbow and stared past him to the nightstand. “Is that for me?”
His stomach protested his generosity, but how could he deny her anything? “All but a couple of bites.”
Mac wriggled into a seated position with a laugh, modestly tucking the sheet around her bare breasts. “Let’s make a deal. Half a sandwich each and you rock my world again one more time before dawn.”
He sat up and drew her close for a lingering kiss. “Now that’s a fair exchange,” he said.
Chapter 9
Four and a Half Years Earlier…
Joe sat on the edge of his bed and stared into the open maw of their wardrobe. His wardrobe now. His. Because Sofia had removed all her clothes and enormous collection of shoes, and left his few shirts and pants and wedding-cum-funeral gray suit that took up less than a quarter of the space.
Except for the clear plastic garment bag at the far end of the wardrobe that contained Sofia’s wedding dress. The only thing she’d left behind. She’d taken her engagement ring, likely because she could pawn it off for cash. He never wanted it back anyhow, not after he’d seen how easy it’d been for her to slip it off her finger.
His eyes stung as he continued to stare at the dress, his vision blurred by the nonstop rewind-replay of the video in his head. Sofia had planned to cheat on him. Sofia had cheated on him before, of that he was almost certain.
Joe marched over to the wardrobe and hauled out the garment bag. Feck it—no more sitting around. He needed to do something. He caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror. Red-rimmed eyes, five days’ growth on his jaw, teeth bared in a rictus grin. He looked wrecked. He felt wrecked, like seaweed flung onto a beach after a storm. And then pissed on by a passing dog.
Turning on his heel, Joe stalked out of the house and tossed the garment bag into his car.
Fifteen minutes later, he flung open the door to Invercargill Bridal. The bell above tinkled as his glance whiplashed around the room. It was empty.
“Be right with yo
u.”
Joe recognized the woman’s voice coming from behind the archway. MacKenna, that was her name. MacKenna Jones. He hadn’t paid her much mind during the one and only brief meeting they’d had. In passing he’d thought her attractive in a girl-next-door way but definitely not his type. Joe gritted his teeth. No, his type was a woman who so bedazzled him with her beauty and fake adoration that he couldn’t tell his arse from his elbow.
The click of heels sounded, and MacKenna stepped around the arch. “Sorry about that, I—”
She stopped so fast her upper body swayed forward, her eyes widening as they locked on to him. “Oh.”
Her gaze zipped down to the garment bag draped over his arm.
“Dr. Whelan.”
He made a slow, deliberate one-eighty, and flipped over sign in the window so the “Closed” side face outward. He turned back to see MacKenna’s jaw had sagged.
Whatever she saw on his face as they continued to eyeball each other had her shuffling half a step back, her hand bunching into a fist against the side of the archway. If she’d been a bank teller, he imagined she would’ve hit the silent alarm.
“I’m not threatening you. I want to talk without interruption, and it won’t take much of your time.”
“Ohhh-kay,” she said.
Her throat worked as she edged out of the archway and scuttled to safety behind a display cabinet of glittery bridal things. He didn’t care to examine the glittery things to decipher their purpose, so he tossed the garment bag on top of it.
“I’m returning this.”
She winced, swallowing hard. “Of course. I’ll issue a full refund. It’s the—” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Is that your normal business practice when a man returns his unfaithful fiancée’s wedding dress? A refund?”
Spots of color appeared high on her pale cheekbones. “I haven’t encountered a situation like this before since I only took over the store six months ago, but I’m prepared to refund your money just the same.”
He’d gone over a couple of different scenarios in his mind on the way there. Having her refuse to take the dress back was the most likely one. After all, with the cost of materials and the hours she’d spent making the damn thing, why would she—let alone any new business—voluntarily suffer a two-thousand-dollar loss? He’d imagined a satisfying exchange of heated words, a vent to the frustration he’d been otherwise unable to express. He hadn’t expected her to cave like a cheap suitcase and look at him with big, woeful green eyes.
“I don’t want a refund. Keep the dress, do whatever you please with it—throw it on a bonfire next Guy Fawkes Night—I don’t care. I just wanted it out of my house.”
Her mouth puckered. “I’m not going to burn it.”
“Use it for rags, then. Turn it into a feckin’ doily.” He braced his palms either side of the garment bag and leaned in. Yep, he was acting the arsehole, but his blood had riled being back in this shop. Back with the only other woman who knew too well what a fool Sofia had made of him. “I. Don’t. Care.”
“You do care,” she said. “The hurt’s written all over you.”
“And you can tell how gutted I am from knowin’ me all of five minutes?”
“I saw the way you looked at her.” Her eyes softened, and her shoulders drooped. “You loved her, and she betrayed the promise she made to you. It’s only normal to feel—”
“Don’t you dare tell me how I feel. Don’t you dare offer me your bloody condolences. Just tell me why you did it.”
She told him. About overhearing Sofia’s phone conversation during her final fitting. About making the decision to spy on Sofia with her friends and how Mac knew she’d need proof before he’d believe Sofia was unfaithful. About giving Sofia an ultimatum, and how when it didn’t look as if Sofia would leave, Mac had sent them both the video footage.
MacKenna’s small fists were wrapped around the garment bag’s coat hanger by the time she’d finished. His mouth dry, his heart slamming over and over like a door caught in the wind, Joe met her gaze.
“Those are the events as you see them, but I want to know why you thought you had the right to interfere in my life.”
“I had no right. But I was worried, so I did what needed to be done.” MacKenna blinked her long, dark lashes. “Isn’t it less painful to be left at the altar than suffer a marriage built on lies?”
“Not quite a correct analogy since we didn’t quite make it that far—” His jaw hardened to concrete, and he leaned in even closer until they were nearly nose to nose. “You’d need to ask Richard Woodley on a scale of one to ten how much less painful it is to be dumped on your wedding day, now, wouldn’t you?”
The color blanched from MacKenna’s face, and she jerked backward as if static electricity had zapped between them.
“How do you know about Richard?” she asked.
“A research scientist isn’t the only one who knows how to research. I found an archived copy of a marriage announcement in a local rag with Google. A bit of digging among some of my gossipy older patients revealed how the bride did a bunk on her wedding day, and that less than three months later, her broken hearted groom moved to Christchurch with another girl. Guess you weren’t quite the catch you thought you were.”
MacKenna folded her arms, her eyes narrowing to long-lashed slits. “You Googled me?”
Her indignation was the last straw. “Yes, you conniving little bitch. I figured out exactly why you did what you did. Don’t try to fool me with some bullshit about not wanting me to be hurt. You were jealous of the way I felt about Sofia—couldn’t stand that someone could love her that much and not you. No, you didn’t break Richard’s heart by leaving him at the altar. The man dodged a fuckin’ bullet when you stood him up.”
“You think I was jealous? That I wanted you for myself?”
“Either that or you’re a cold-blooded sociopath.”
“The only thing I want is for you to leave,” MacKenna said. “Get out, and take the dress with you, before I throw you out on your ass myself.”
An empty threat and she knew it. But he’d said his piece now, and his shoulders were lighter for it. So without another glance at MacKenna Jones, Joe turned and walked out the door.
Without the feckin’ dress.
Chapter 10
Two weeks after Joe had left her in bed with a kiss and sandwich crumbs, Mac welcomed his sister back into Next Stop, Vegas. Kerry had already returned once where they’d agreed on the perfect design for her gown. Mac had taken Kerry’s measurements, and Kerry had insisted—okay, pleaded with Bambi eyes—that Mac come to lunch with them after the first fitting today.
Mac led Kerry down the hallway to the dressing room. Inside hung the mock-up of her dress, constructed of a plain, light-weight cotton. Mac would pin it to fit Kerry’s body perfectly then Reid would use the modifications to make the necessary adjustments to the pattern. Then Kerry’s dress would be cut from the ivory charmeuse she’d chosen and Mac and Reid would get to work.
“It’s gorgeous,” Kerry breathed as Mac lifted the dress from the coat hanger.
Mac chuckled. “This is just eight-ninety-nine a meter cheap cotton. Wait until you see the real thing.”
“Wait until Aaron sees the real thing.” Kerry didn’t wait for Mac to leave the room as most brides did; she just shimmied out of the wraparound knit dress she wore and stood in her underwear, wriggling her fingers for the dress like a two-year-old spotting a cookie.
Mac stared. Um, overfamiliar much?
Kerry’s eyebrow lifted, and she glanced down at her strapless white bra and granny-like briefs. “What? Friends don’t let friends hang about half naked. Y’told me to dress in what undergarments I’d wear on the big day.” She pinged the waistband of the panties. “Spanx, my friend. Can’t beat it.”
No, no, no. They weren’t friends. A friend didn’t try to sabotage a friend’s engagement. Mac swallowed hard and handed
over the mock-up.
Kerry stepped into the cotton shell and tugged it up. Mac moved behind her with her wrist pincushion and set about doing her job. She listened and made appropriate noises while Kerry chatted about work, her friends, and the venue they were considering putting a deposit on.
“I know this is a little odd,” Kerry said, “but when Joe said he knew you, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.” She laughed, tilting her head so her gaze met Mac’s in the mirror. “And I’m so glad we met and even more glad you’re coming to lunch with us today. Even though Aaron’ll be there, it’d help no end, knowing I have your support since Joe’s still so against me getting married.”
Way to make a girl feel like the biggest conniving bitch in the world.
“He’s just worried about you.” Mac added another pin to a side panel so it sat smoothly against the waist without puckering. “Getting married is a big step.” She’d listened to Kerry chatter earlier about the hunt for another apartment she and Aaron would move into after their wedding. “You could always just continue living together for a while.”
Kerry rolled her eyes. “No, we Whelans are the marryin’ type. All or nothing.”
So Joe was the marrying type? A shiver skimmed down Mac’s spine, but she shook it off. Wasn’t as if she fit the bill as the type of woman he’d be interested in as a long-term prospect. Sure, Joe had paper-thin excuses for why he’d arrived at her doorstep again for the past two Friday nights in a row. Once she’d dealt with the weekend wedding stuff, they’d spent the rest of the two days tucked up in her bed. And in bed, she fit the bill. In bed, they could forget their differences for hours at a time and just enjoy each other. Her heartbeat kicked up, every pulse point in her body throbbing in anticipation of seeing him again today.
“Even your brothers?” Mac asked, super casual like.
Kerry’s reflection beamed at her.
“Well,” she said, in the tone of a woman warming to her favorite choice of gossip. “There’s my twin, Kyle, who never came across a pretty girl he didn’t want to shag or get his face slapped for trying. Ma pretends not to notice all the different women in the selfies he posts on Facebook. Da thinks it’s a riot. Then there’s Luke. He’s three years older than Kyle and me, and he’s all dark and broody—a real Heathcliff wandering the moors type, mourning for his lost Cathy. Or in Luke’s case, his high-school sweetheart he married at eighteen. Poor Sasha. Three months after the wedding she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. She died just before Christmas. God rest her soul. She and Luke weren’t married even a year.”
Saying I Do (Stewart Island Series Book 8) Page 12