“Wait.” She blinked, and her tears dried, her gaze determined, as though the spirit he had become used to seeing in her when she worked the bakery had reemerged. “Don’t go. Not until I’ve at least explained what happened all those years ago. Why I had no choice but to give up your father.”
Foreboding dried Mac’s throat, and he straightened before returning to his seat. “There’s plenty of time. You don’t have to—”
“I do. I can’t let you walk out of here when you were brave enough to tell me who you are. You’ve seen me with my customers, with the residents...” Her pleading gaze bored into his. “Am I wrong to guess you’ve thought me a charlatan? Someone who gave up their baby yet embraced the Templeton community as though the people here are my family?” She shook her head, her jaw tight. “Of course you have. As would I, had I been in your shoes.”
“Marian—”
“The people here are my family, Mac. Each and every one of them.” She rolled her eyes. “Even the ones who are a pain in the butt, or who come in here asking for my advice and then go off and do the complete opposite.” She smiled. “They’re all my children. They’re every single child that could have been mine. When George brought me here, he changed my life by making me a part of this fabulous community. I’m home, Mac...and it’s wonderful.”
He leaned back as some of the tension in his shoulders dispelled. “I get that.”
“Do you?” She raised her eyebrows, her expression questioning. “Really?”
“Yes. Templeton is pretty unique.”
“In what way is it to you?”
He sighed. “Maybe it’s not so much the town, but the people. I’ve never considered a small place as somewhere I’d like to live. I thought I was a city guy through and through, but during the time I’ve spent here...” He shook his head, unable to find the right words to explain how quickly Templeton—and Kate—had gotten inside him. “It’s made me want to hang around a while longer. See if it’s somewhere I might want to live permanently.”
She smiled softly, her eyes glinting with mischief. “Kate’s pretty fabulous, isn’t she?”
Warmth hit his cheeks, and he met her smile. “Yeah, she is.”
“Well, let me tell you what Templeton has done for me. Just like your father looked for me, I looked for him on and off for years.”
“I know. You signed a register to say you’d be willing to be contacted by him if he ever wanted that.”
She nodded. “As my search came up empty over and over again, I assumed I wasn’t meant to be anyone’s mother and learned to live with that.” She smiled. “But when I met my George and he brought me here, I finally understood I was meant to find George and mother the youngsters in the Cove instead. I’ve been blessed, Mac. Truly.”
“I can see that just by looking at you. You’ve got a special kind of light.” He leaned forward. “A light I’d like you to share with my family, your family, if you ever want to.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she nodded. “Thank you, but first you need to know why I gave up your father.”
Mac leaned back. “Okay.”
She briefly closed her eyes before opening them again. “I was barely sixteen when I fell in love with a man three years my senior. He promised me the moon, and I believed him. Eventually, over months, he segregated me from my family and friends. Made me believe school was a waste of time and I didn’t need an education. He made me believe I needed nothing but him.” She smiled sadly. “Just another thing my George proved wrong about love. When George brought me here, he didn’t keep me to himself. He encouraged me to join in with everyone, let them get to know me. Told me I was too good, too smart, too wonderful for him to keep to himself.” Pride shone in her soft brown eyes. “That’s a real man, Mac. A man willing to share a woman with the rest of the world. Show her off and trust she won’t go too far or forget him. That’s a good man. A brave man.”
Mac’s mind turned to Kate. God, he’d want to share her with the whole world if she was his. No one like Kate should ever solely belong to one person. “I understand.”
“Good.” She grinned. “Then you’re a real man, too. Anyway...” She inhaled. “Eventually, I ran away with this man. His abuse started slowly. Name-calling turned to shoving, shoving to slapping, slapping to...” She swallowed. “You get the picture. For years after I found the courage to leave him, I couldn’t understand how the hurting happened. Believed I let it happen. These men are clever, Mac. Very, very clever. They groom and then charm and then, once you’re entirely theirs, they pounce.”
Mac screwed one hand into a fist, the other gripping the side of his seat. “What happened to you wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”
She huffed a laugh. “Good Lord, I do now, and woe betide any man who raises a hand or a curse word to me, or any one of my children in this town. I’d come down on him like a ton of bricks. Mark my words.”
The fire in her eyes relaxed Mac’s fingers. “And then I guess you got pregnant.”
“Yes, and that baby gave me all the fight I needed to leave. There was no way on God’s earth that man would hurt my baby. I went home with my tail between my legs, but I hid the pregnancy from my parents.”
“You hid it? How is that possible?”
She smiled softly. “It’s possible, believe me. I never got too big, and bigger clothes were easy enough to find in the charity shops. You need to understand, my parents were devoutly religious. I was desperate. I had nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to.”
She shook her head, her chest rising as she inhaled. “Maybe my parents knew and decided to ignore it. I don’t know, but if they did, I’m convinced they would have cast me out. All I knew was, I needed nourishment, a place to sleep while I carried that precious babe. When the pains started, I took the bus to the hospital and gave birth. Having finally gotten away from my boyfriend, the decision was mine what happened next. I knew there was a chance my ex might look for me, and I wanted my child far, far away from him, where he could never hurt him.” A tear rolled over her cheek. “The rest, you know.”
“And your parents? Did they forgive you?”
“No.”
Sickness gripped him. “Never?”
“Never.”
The heartbreak in her eyes escalated Mac’s growing care for her and, once again, he stood and wrapped her in his embrace. His heart hitched when she moved her hand to his arm and smoothed her fingers back and forth. “It was a long time ago, and it seems to me, looking at you, my baby boy soared and did good. Real good.”
Mac rested his chin on her head and smiled. “He sure did.”
“I spent many years alone, drawing comfort and friendship from anyone and everyone I met. At the grand old age of fifty-six, I met George, the true love of my life. We were at a mystery readers’ conference, and I don’t think we stopped talking from the moment he sat down beside me until two weeks later when I threw caution to the wind, packed up and came to live with him in Templeton.”
“You left your whole life? Just like that?” Mac raised his eyebrows, “I’m not sure I could be that brave. You were that certain about George?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “As I think you are about Kate.”
The bakery door opened, and Mac stepped away from Marian. He turned and met the protective gaze of a man around Marian’s age. Mac forced a smile, suddenly nervous and put out his hand. “You must be George. Mac Orman.”
Slowly, the man came forward and gripped Mac’s hand, his gaze wary. “I am, and what exactly are you doing with your arms all around my Marian?” His focus switched to his wife. “Are you all right, my love?”
Marian stood and swiped her fingers under her eyes. “Never better. Now why don’t you grab my purse from out back while I see Mac to the door?”
George released Mac’s hand and looked again between him and Marian. “Mac. Aren’t you th
e young man I heard got up on stage at the fund-raiser the other week?”
Mac nodded. “The one and only.”
“People have been saying you’ve got some good playing in you.” George smiled. “Fine playing, in fact. You planning on staying in town a while?”
“I—” he looked at Marian “—don’t know.”
Marian came forward and clasped his elbow. “Of course he is. For one thing, the boy is halfway to falling in love. Why would he leave now?”
George chuckled and took Mac’s hand in his. “If my Marian says you’re halfway to falling in love, son, you’re already all the way there.” He dropped Mac’s hand. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
Mac watched George wander toward the back of the bakery and huffed a laugh. “You’re made for each other.”
“Yes, we are.” Marian steered him toward the door. “Now go and find Kate.”
Mac stopped, his smile dissolving as he looked into his grandmother’s eyes. “You really want me to stay around a while longer?”
She cupped his jaw in her hand. “Yes. Just give me some time to get my head around the fact I have family and tell George, okay?”
He nodded, hesitated and then gently kissed her cheek before heading through the door. Once outside, he turned back. Marian smiled, her hand touching the place he’d kissed.
Chapter Twenty-One
KATE STARED FROM the travel bag on her bed to the open doors of her wardrobe. Even though she’d arranged to see Ali a week from now, the need to do something to prove to herself that she was consciously moving forward meant Kate would take her time packing—over a whole week—to keep her vow at the forefront of her mind.
If it took seven days to convince herself that losing Mac and, possibly Marian, in one fell swoop was for the greater good, so be it. If they came together it would do so much to bolster Kate’s belief that hurt and pain led to bigger and better things. That losing her baby, experiencing heartbreak and betrayal, had made her stronger, wiser and better able to help herself and others. That was something she could most definitely live with.
Strolling to her chest of drawers, she pulled a drawer open and extracted a couple of T-shirts and some underwear. Her hands shook as she laid the garments in the bag. The thought of not seeing Mac again had such a frightening effect on her. She didn’t know him, not really, so why did she feel as though she’d known him her entire life?
Abandoning her packing, she walked from her bedroom into the kitchen, where she’d purposely left her phone so she’d stop looking at it every five minutes. She picked it up.
No missed calls. No texts.
How was she going to get through this next week? Maybe it would be best for her to go to the bakery tomorrow morning and grab her usual bacon roll and coffee. Brazen it out with Marian, let her say whatever it was she needed to say. Whatever the outcome, Kate would know where she stood with at least one of the two people she cared so much about.
As for Mac...
The peal of her apartment intercom bounced from the walls. Kate stilled, hope painfully rising in her chest. “Please, God...” she murmured, her eyes tightly closed. “Please let me talk to him one more time.”
She opened her eyes, walked to the door and pressed the buzzer. “Hello?”
“Kate, it’s Mac. Can I come up?”
His rich, smooth voice slipped down the line and straight into her heart.
Her breath hitched. “Of course. I’ll leave the door open.”
She buzzed him in, replaced the receiver and opened the apartment door. Then she rushed around her living room, stuffing the DVD cases of Love, Actually and Notting Hill under the couch. She didn’t want him to know she’d been considering blubbering over two of the best romantic comedies of all time later that night.
Grabbing her coffee mug, she hurried into the kitchen area and tossed it into the sink, the clang of china against porcelain making her flinch. Calm down. Calm down. She took a few breaths and then reached for a bottle of red wine from her rack. Just as she pulled two glasses from an overhead cabinet, Mac’s footsteps sounded outside her apartment door.
Still holding the glasses, she turned and prayed her smile didn’t look as manic as it felt. “Mac. Hi.”
He closed the door behind him, his eyes on hers. “Hi.”
Kate crossed her arms, her sadness things hadn’t worked out between them squeezing her heart. His expression didn’t speak of sunshine and flowers, happy reunions and undying declarations of love. She swallowed. “Wine?”
“Sure.” He walked slowly through her apartment, taking off his jacket before tossing it on the arm of her couch.
Her hands trembled as she unscrewed the wine and filled the glasses. She wanted him so badly it hurt. Why did she feel the moment he stood too close, she’d burst into tears? It was the idea of losing him once she’d found him. It was the notion of being alone again when she no longer wanted to live that way. She wanted to live with Mac.
When she smelled him, she turned. “Oh.”
He stood so close, flecks of silver showed in his brilliant blue eyes. He took the glasses from her and put them on the counter. Her heart raced as he drew his study slowly over her face and lingered on her mouth before lowering his lips to hers.
Her body turned to traitorous mush as she leaned into him, a whimper escaping into his mouth. She kissed him, her fingers moving over his shoulders into his hair as she urged him closer. Heat washed through her as her body lit with arousal and her mind whirled.
Please, God, let this mean he wants me. Let it mean he’s not leaving.
His hands moved to her waist and, with one fluid motion, his lips left hers, and he sat her atop the counter. Instinctively, she opened her legs, and he stood in between them, his gaze burning into hers. “I told Marian about my dad. About me. Dana and the kids.”
“And?” Kate hardly dared to breathe, afraid he might step away from her when she wanted him this close forever. “What did she say?”
He smiled gently, the seriousness in his eyes melting to something infinitely softer. “She wants me to hang around a while longer.”
Kate’s heart jolted. “Really?”
“Yes.” He pushed a stray curl from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “If that’s okay with you, too.”
She swallowed. “Of course it is.”
“Only...”
“Only what?” Panic sped her heart. Didn’t he know, couldn’t he sense, how right it was for him to be here? For them to be together to learn more about one another...to love more about each other. “Only what, Mac?”
He inhaled a long breath and released it. “Marian needs time to process this.”
Confusion whirled through her as the light in his eyes dimmed and his brow furrowed. “And that’s not okay?”
“I’m worried once she’s thought about everything, once she’s spoken to her husband...” His hands still gripping her waist, he tipped his head back for a long moment before dropping his chin. “I’m worried she’ll ask me to leave. To go far away where she won’t have to see me. The trouble is, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that. Not now. Not now I’ve met you. I’m falling in love with you, Kate.”
Relief pulsed through her, and she grinned. “I think I might be falling in love with you, too.”
He huffed a laugh, dropping his forehead to hers before pulling back. He kissed her again. Long and deep, his fingers digging deliciously into her flesh to bring her closer. Then he drew back. “You make me strong. You make me imagine a happy future. Something I never thought would ever exist for me ever again. You’re healing me, Kate.”
She leaned closer and kissed him, tears burning her eyes. “And you’re healing me. I’m going to see Ali next week so we can finally put the past where it belongs. Now I’ve found the closure I was looking for...in you. In you and everything you’ve d
one with Marian since you came here. You’ve made me see how things can be if you don’t run away or pretend they never happened. Things happen, and we have to face them.”
“And from now on, I want to face them with you. I’ve taken my room at the Coast. I can stay there until Marian knows what she wants to happen next. After that—”
“You can move in with me.” The words burst from her mouth so quickly, heat burned her cheeks. She blinked. “If you want to, that is.”
He laughed and kissed her again. “Oh, I want to. I want to very, very much.”
She smiled against his mouth. “Shall we go to bed?”
“Absolutely.”
Wine abandoned, Mac lifted her from the counter, and Kate’s breath caught as she wrapped her legs firmly around his waist, her hands gripping his broad shoulders. She dropped kisses to the tendons in his neck, the stubble of his jaw, drew his bottom lip between her teeth and enjoyed every ounce of happiness that swirled through her.
Kate pulled back and looked deep into Mac’s eyes. All she knew in that moment was the man holding her was the man she wanted to be with. Always.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
KATE STARED TOWARD the Oceanside’s door, her foot bouncing on the floor. Where were Marian and George? Where were Dana and the children?
Mac slid his fingers over her thigh and gripped tight. “Stop. They’ll be here.”
She faced him. He stared back at her, a smile playing at his lips. She sighed. “How can you be so relaxed about this?”
“How can I not? In the last three weeks, I’ve spent time with you and I’ve spent time with Marian. George knows who I am and has welcomed me. Marian can’t get enough of hearing stories about me and my family. About Dad. Nothing can go wrong.”
A Stranger in the Cove Page 22