Oliver had to unwind a loop to allow them to walk in single file along the bush path. He kept her laughing all the way, comparing them to a couple of Buddhist teachers he read about a few years ago who made it a practice to never be more than fifteen feet from each other at all times. She suggested they were more like a line of elephants walking trunk in tail and Oliver produced one of the best elephant calls she’d ever heard from a non-elephant.
“You’re freakishly good at that,” she said.
“I have many pointless gifts.”
Gravel crunched underfoot as they left the sandy path and started toward their houses, Oliver matching his stride to hers.
“Sorry for the slow pace,” she said, glancing at his much longer legs. “The spirit is willing, the body not so much these days.”
He was silent a moment.
“Does it hurt?”
She wasn’t surprised by the question. She’d lost the natural swing of her hips with her injuries and was well aware that her walk appeared stiff and ungainly.
“Walking on its own doesn’t hurt. My hip is compromised, though, so things don’t move around as easily as they used to. Which isn’t to say that learning to walk again was a lot of fun. Still, it was better than the alternative.”
There had been a few days following the accident when the swelling on her spine had been so severe there had been a question mark over her ever being able to walk again.
“Can I ask what happened?”
Another not-surprising question, but one she still wasn’t comfortable talking about. Recalling the scene, however briefly and succinctly, tended to resurrect the entire experience. Still, they had been swapping horror stories.... “We had an early morning call-out for a location shoot. I was driving to the location to meet the crew. The weather was terrible, it was still dark, the road was wet... I came around the corner and there’d been a landslide. I hit the brakes, but it was way too late.”
“Jesus.”
For a second she was lost in the memory, the world a dark, scary place, death screaming toward her at sixty kilometers an hour. Then she blinked and the sky was once again blue overhead, the wind chill on her cheeks, Oliver at her side.
“I was lucky someone came along a few minutes later and called for help. Probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise,” she said matter-of-factly.
They’d arrived at the houses and he turned to face her.
“Scary stuff.”
“Yeah. I guess the downside of a long recovery is having an excess of time to think about it—repeatedly. I like to think I’ve mostly desensitized myself—” a slight exaggeration, perhaps “—but who knows. I definitely make a point of noticing and appreciating the small stuff these days.”
“I bet.” He unwound the scarf and handed his end to her. “Thanks for sharing your bounty.”
“I’ll pass your compliments on to my niece.”
“Tell her it’s the warmest half scarf I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing.”
“Will do.”
Neither of them said anything for a beat. Mackenzie glanced toward her house. It was cold out here and she wanted to be inside, but she didn’t want to stop talking to Oliver. He was easy company, fun and fast on his feet. She wondered what he’d say if she invited him in for coffee.
“I suppose I should finish sorting through the back bedroom,” he said.
“Sure.” She shortened Smitty’s leash to signal that the canine love fest was about to end. “I’ll see you around, okay? Thanks for the walk.”
“Yeah, you, too.”
She started up her driveway, very aware of the fact that Oliver still remained in the street, watching her. She concentrated fiercely on her stride, trying to make it as smooth and effortless-looking as possible. She didn’t want him pitying her.
It occurred to her that a year ago she would have been more concerned about the size of her ass than the way she walked. Amazing how the world could tilt on its axis and things that had once seemed so vital could be rendered so insignificant.
She allowed herself a quick glance over her shoulder when she reached the porch. Oliver was still there, crouched beside Strudel as he attempted to brush sand from her damp coat. He was talking to her and shaking his head and Mackenzie wished she could hear what he was saying. Something funny, no doubt.
She was staring—again—and forced herself to go inside. Mr. Smith headed up the hallway at a leisurely trot, clearly tuckered out after his romp. She didn’t immediately follow him. Instead, she stood in the foyer, hand pressed to her belly, trying to understand what was happening to her.
Somehow, she’d gone from acknowledging Oliver’s attractiveness to being attracted to him. A thin line under ordinary circumstances, perhaps, but at the moment it seemed a huge leap. For months she had been nothing but a body, a collection of bones and muscles and organs that the doctors had stitched and stapled and screwed back together and that she had nurtured back to strength. She hadn’t thought about sex or desire or men or anything even close to it. She’d been sexless, essentially, and she hadn’t even noticed.
Then Oliver had arrived less than a week ago and she’d caught herself feeling nervous and primping and dressing to please him, even when she’d suspected he was happily married. Now he was unhappily on the verge of divorce and her awareness of him as a man had expanded exponentially.
Which meant...what, exactly? That she was horny? That she was lonely? That he was an attractive man and that her libido hadn’t been crushed in the accident after all?
Without really thinking about it, she lifted his end of the scarf to her nose and inhaled. She smelled wool and ocean and something with hints of sandalwood and musk. Oliver’s aftershave.
She remembered the way his shoulder had bumped against hers as they walked, how good it had felt to find the rhythm of another person’s stride and match her own to it. How good it had felt to be connected, intimate.
He’s a mess. And so are you.
Hard to disagree with the logician in her head. Bunching the scarf in one hand, she made her way to her bedroom and returned it to the cupboard. The odds were strong she wouldn’t see him for a while now, anyway. Which would be a good thing.
Apparently.
* * *
OLIVER SAT AT his aunt’s kitchen table, warming his hands around a mug of coffee. If he was a smoother guy, more practiced in the art of seduction, he would have somehow inveigled Mackenzie into inviting him to her place and right now he’d be sitting at her table, warming his hands on her mug and doing his best to make her laugh some more.
But he wasn’t practiced, and he hadn’t pressed his advantage. Instead, he’d retreated. Not exactly Art of War tactics.
He sipped his coffee and thought about how she’d had to stand on tiptoes to loop the scarf around his neck. His soon-to-be ex-wife was almost as tall as him, and he’d always believed that he preferred women of stature. But there was something about the sleek compactness of Mackenzie’s body.... She may have been broken by the accident, but she’d clearly worked hard to regain what she’d lost and she was lean and toned and perfectly proportioned. He kept catching himself wondering how it would feel to throw her over his shoulder and take her off to have his way with her.
Good, he suspected.
It was absolute knuckle-dragging caveman stuff, of course. Embarrassing to admit even in the privacy of his own fantasies. And yet there it was.
Mackenzie brought out the caveman in him.
Which is why you’re drinking coffee with only a wet dog for company. Right?
He grunted and pushed back his chair, taking his empty mug to the sink. Sometimes, the voice in his head was way too much of a smart-ass.
He spent the afternoon clearing out the bedroom, stopping only in the early evening. He bought himself a pizza for dinner and ate it at home in front of the fire, booting up his laptop to check his email and make sure everything was going well at the studio. They’d hired a freelance sound engineer to cover hi
s absence, but there were a couple of queries from Rex that were easily resolved. Apparently, his world hadn’t fallen apart because he’d absented himself from Sydney for a few days. Go figure.
Perhaps inevitably, his thoughts turned to Mackenzie again as he took the empty pizza box to the kitchen.
She was an interesting woman. An admirable woman. A lot of people would have been defeated by the blow she’d been dealt, but she’d come out fighting. He glanced toward the window. He could see the French doors into her living room from here. He wondered what she was doing. Then he wondered what she’d do if he showed up with a bottle of wine.
He could take Strudel and say she’d been pining for Mr. Smith. Not the most sophisticated approach ever, but it would probably work.
He returned to the living room and reached for his guitar.
Mackenzie made him laugh, and she made him think, and she got him out of his own head. She also made him want things he probably shouldn’t be wanting so soon after his breakup with Edie. He was in no state to start a relationship with someone. Even on a very casual basis.
He picked at the guitar, fiddling with a harmony that had been sitting in the back of his head for a few days now. Just for fun, he dropped it down a key, and suddenly a couple of other ideas he’d had fell into place. He played until the notes ran out, then went over it again, listening and feeling his way through the music.
Before he could think it to death, he grabbed his phone, opened the dictation app and recorded everything he’d come up with. He felt a disproportional degree of satisfaction as he played it back. It was probably nothing, just a funny little harmony that no one would ever hear except himself. But still...
He continued to tinker with the song, making adjustments, coming up with a bridge. He played it through one last time, humming along in parts.
It needed lyrics, of course. He had no idea what they would be. Yet. But they would come, eventually. With the melody providing a backdrop to his days, the verses would slowly form—especially when he wasn’t thinking about the song. That had always been the way songwriting worked for him. When he and Edie had written together, the process had moved faster because she’d always pushed him, forcing the lyrics even when he’d wanted time to let the music settle into his bones. She’d been the one to keep abreast of what was on the charts, casting their songs into a popular mold to produce something commercial and catchy. He could hardly complain about the method—it had earned the band two platinum singles and a bestselling album and a slew of awards after all—but he’d never enjoyed it and he’d never believed in it.
He sat with the realization for a moment, examining it from all sides and understanding that it was a fundamental truth, something that had come straight from his gut. Edie had always been about success first and the music second. That had never been the way he worked, however, and he’d always felt shoehorned into a role that didn’t suit. Didn’t matter how many times they’d come up with good songs—and there was nothing wrong with the band’s repertoire—Oliver had never felt a sense of ownership and connection with that music.
He strummed a few chords of his new composition, enjoying the way the sound bounced off the hard surfaces in the room. Enjoying the thought that this was his song, and he was going to let the lyrics come to him in their own time. Because he could. Because there was no one but him to please now.
It was a liberating thought. The first he’d had since finding the receipt all those months ago.
Writing music was better without Edie.
Hard on the heels of that thought came another: What else might be better without Edie?
His hands stilled on the strings. So much of his current anger and hurt stemmed from the fact that he’d convinced himself he’d been perfectly happy and content in their six-year marriage. But what if, in the same way that he’d always told himself he liked writing songs with Edie, he’d also convinced himself he was happy, too?
He stared into the abyss of the question for a full sixty seconds before standing and putting his guitar in its case. It was late and he was tired. And—possibly—he wasn’t ready to answer such a revealing question just yet.
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Mackenzie was standing in the dairy aisle of the local supermarket when she looked up to see Oliver enter the store. Ever since their walk she’d been alternating between attempting to come up with a bulletproof excuse to “bump” into him again and chastising herself for being so desperate. She wasn’t entirely sure which side was winning the battle, but the moment she saw Oliver she abandoned the Camembert versus Brie debate she’d been engaged in to focus on him. She watched as he grabbed a shopping basket and exchanged greetings with the woman at the checkout. He wore a red-and-black-plaid flannel shirt with old, soft-looking jeans and a pair of well-used hiking boots. A black T-shirt was visible at his neckline. He hadn’t shaved so his jaw and cheeks were bristly with the golden-chestnut whiskers that had caught her attention during their first meeting.
He looked wild and untamed and a bit dangerous, like a cowboy who had ridden into town from parts unknown. He said something to the woman at the register that made her laugh. When he moved away she followed him with her eyes, a slightly wistful expression on her face.
Mackenzie pressed her lips together. It was galling yet oddly comforting to see someone else swayed by his undeniable hotness. Really, Oliver shouldn’t be allowed out without a warning hanging around his neck. He clearly had no idea how charming he was, and now that he was single he would wreak havoc among the female population wherever he went.
He added a couple of cans of tomatoes to his basket, then glanced up and caught sight of her.
“Mackenzie.” He lifted his hand in greeting, his wide, undeniably genuine smile doing wonderful things for her feminine ego.
Stupid, starved, foolish ego.
He joined her, his easy stride eating up the distance between them. She refused to regret the fact that she was once again without lipstick, her hair covered by a black beanie that made her look even more like a twelve-year-old boy than she usually did. If twelve-year-old boys had crow’s-feet.
“Perfect timing. I was going to stop by later to ask if you wanted to come over for dinner,” he said. “I found a fishing rod in the closet so this morning Strudel and I braved the elements to see what bounty the ocean had to offer.”
“And?”
“Let’s just say it wasn’t the miracle of the loaves and fishes, but we have enough for two adults with good appetites and a couple of canoodling dogs.”
“In that case, dinner sounds great. I can bring a salad if you like.”
“Great idea. I’ll see what I can rustle up for dessert. How do you feel about chocolate mousse?”
“Covetous,” she said.
“Even if it’s store-bought?”
“Absolutely.”
Her gaze was drawn to the V-neck of his T-shirt. A scattering of golden-red hairs peeked over the top. She shifted her focus to his face, oddly disturbed by the sight.
“How’s the sorting going?” she asked, switching her basket from one hand to the other.
“I’ve finally made it to the kitchen.”
“Is this good or bad?”
“Let’s just say Aunt Marion must have attended a lot of Tupperware parties in her time.”
“Ow.”
“On the bright side, the women at the secondhand shop know me by name now.”
“Well, that’s something.”
He glanced toward the door. “I should keep moving. I left Strudel in the car. Always makes me feel like a bad parent.”
“I know what you mean. I’ll see you tonight.”
He didn’t move off immediately. Instead, he reached out and tweaked her beanie.
“Like your hat.” His cognac eyes glinted with mischief as he walked away.
She realized belatedly that she was standing in the aisle staring after him like an excited schoolgirl.
It’s called dignity, my dea
r. You might want to reacquaint yourself with the concept.
She turned back to the dairy case and grabbed a package of Brie and a round of Camembert. What the hell. She added a block of vintage cheddar for good measure, then worked her way up and down the aisles of the small store, occasionally catching glimpses of Oliver as he did the same. She heard him talking and laughing with the guy behind the deli counter, caught him brooding over the ice-cream freezer and wound up at the checkout three people ahead of him. She was acutely aware of him in her peripheral vision as she waited for the woman to ring up her purchases. She gave him a small, cheery wave as she collected her bags.
“Seven o’clock. Be there or be square,” he said.
“A fate worse than death.”
There was a bounce in her step as she carried her groceries to her car. Not because she thought his asking her over to dinner meant anything—she hadn’t been rusticating out here on the peninsula so long that she’d forgotten the subtleties of socializing with the opposite sex—but because she found him interesting and stimulating and good company. No more, no less.
Rather convincing argument if she did say so herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SIX O’CLOCK FOUND Mackenzie dressed in her black jeans and a soft cashmere sweater with crossover ties that wrapped around her waist. She’d given in to vanity and was brushing mascara on when a knock sounded at the front door. Mr. Smith immediately bolted from the bathroom, his claws skittering on the floorboards.
“One of these days you’re going to ricochet up the hall like a pinball,” she called after him.
She could see a tall, broad silhouette in the glass panel as she approached and she lifted a hand to her hair. She hadn’t had a chance to repair the damage the beanie had caused yet. Plus, she’d applied mascara to only one eye.
The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance) Page 10