The most troubling question? Was she prepared to give up the relationship she was establishing with her dad, for the ups and downs of romantic love? Would her father do the same thing for her?
“Macie?”
Her head snapped up and she looked at Velma. “Sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”
“I imagine. Well, I don’t want to add to that burden, but I’m afraid I have no choice.”
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Whoa. Was Velma going to fire her?
“Don’t look at me like that, squirt. It ain’t nothin’ bad. I’ve been crunching some numbers, and I think I can afford to hire another part-time cook.”
“Okay.”
“You’re probably thinking; how’s that affect me? I’m just gonna say this straight out: I want you to stay in Canyon River. Part of the reason—well, most of it actually—is pure selfishness on my part. I like you. I like what you’ve done for this place on a number of levels. The other part is: I think you like it here—at the diner and in Canyon River—
and you need an excuse to put down roots. Or at least you need a reason to try to put down roots.” Velma’s eyes softened beneath her glasses. “You ain’t never had what most of us have taken for granted. I know you’re curious on whether it’s worth it, or if it’d be just another heartache. I look in those pretty hazel eyes and I see wisdom beyond your years.”
Macie managed to swallow the last of her beer over the lump growing in her throat.
“Here’s what I propose: I’ll pay you a decent salary. You’ll be the head cook, and we’ll mix it up so you’re working all shifts.”
“You want me working breakfast, lunch and dinner?”
“No, I’m sayin’ it’d be smart to sprinkle your good recipes and sunny personality around all the main meals. On my days off, I’d want you out front doin’ my job.”
“Schmoozing the regulars and belittling the help? I’m so all over that.”
Velma smiled. “See? We’re on the same page. I think it’s some kinda cosmic sign.
Besides, you are young enough that if after a year it don’t work out, you can move on.
What do you have to lose?”
“Nothing, apparently. But I need to think about it. Not just a couple of days, but a couple of weeks, okay?”
“Sure thing. You’ll still be workin’ here while you’re tryin’ to make a decision?”
“Yeah. And I’d appreciate it if we could keep this between us. Just us. There’s already a million pros and cons in my head. I don’t need anyone else adding their opinion.”
“Consider it done. And remember, I always close down for ten days at the end of this month. Gives me time to regroup after the summer months and gear up for the fall.”
As Macie drove back to the Bar 9, she knew Velma’s offer complicated matters in her life, rather than providing a clear solution.
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When she reached for the door handle to the camper, she noticed a piece of paper taped by the window. Her heart beat hard as she unrolled the scroll.
At the top was a sketch of a rodeo clown. Crying as a bull, which looked suspiciously like a caricature of her father, gored him in the butt. The words I’M SORRY
took up the entire middle of the page. Below that, he’d written: I miss you. Come see me when you get home, doesn’t matter what time. We’ll talk.
Do normal couple things. And have pie. A helping of humble pie for me, darlin’ ~ C ~
Macie stared at the paper for the longest time. She whispered, “Carter McKay, you are such a dumbass.” And right then, she had no doubts that she was indeed, completely, madly in love with him.
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Chapter Thirty-two
“Excuse me. Is this the studio of famous Wyoming artist in residence, Carter
‘shoulda been a cowboy’ McKay?”
Carter spun around and grinned. “Jack! You bastard. ’Bout goddamn time you got here.”
“You do realize I’m not living in Denver anymore and I had to fly in? I’ve been stuck in the rental car for five hours. Without satellite radio.” He dropped his duffel bag and scowled. “Can you please tell me why every single station around these parts plays nothing but that goat yodeling crap?”
“Hey, some of us like Western music.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a hick, so I expected that much from you.” Jack stalked over and grabbed him in a bear hug. “Good to see you, man, you look like shit.”
“Gee, thanks.” Carter gave Jack—all six-foot-four, two hundred odd pounds of him—a quick inspection. “You look a little tight-assed yourself. Wearin’ pinstriped underwear under your pinstriped suits these days?”
“Fuck off. Where’s the beer?”
“In the cooler by the door.”
“Cool. You care if we sit outside? I’ve been cooped up all damn day. Need some of that fresh mountain air.”
“Nope. I need a break anyway.”
Once they’d settled in lawn chairs with the cooler between them, and a cold beer in each hand, Jack sighed. “So where’s the fire?”
“What’d you mean?”
“Why was it so damn urgent I haul balls up here?”
Carter didn’t say anything for several minutes.
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“If it’s anything less than you telling me you’re dying, I’m going to beat your sorry ass into the dirt, McKay.”
Carter kept staring off into space, lost in the vast prairie and his guilty thoughts.
“Shit. I was kidding. You aren’t dying, are you?”
“No.”
“Then what?” Recognition dawned on Jack’s face. “It’s about a woman, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“You knock her up?”
Carter tossed his beer can off to the side of his chair and cracked a fresh one.
“Nope.” He downed half the contents. “I’m crazy about her. So crazy about her in fact, that I want you to do something for me.”
“What? Be your best man?”
“No. I want you to fuck her.”
Beer spewed out of Jack’s mouth. “Jesus Christ, Carter!”
“What?”
“You can’t just blurt out something like that…dammit.”
He waited.
“I don’t even know what the hell to say.”
“Simple. Say yes. It ain’t like we’ve never had a threesome, Jack.”
Jack stared at him. “True. But it’s been a few years and we were usually drunk. And neither of us gave a crap about the women who were bold enough to take us both on.
That last time, hell, we didn’t even bother to learn her name.”
Man. Had he really been that callous?
Yes. Maybe Carter was more like his wild brothers than he cared to admit.
“What’s really going on here, McKay?”
“Honestly?”
Jack nodded.
“You laugh and I’ll kick your ass, former linebacker or not.” Carter fiddled with the tab on the beer can. “This woman? I had impressions about her, almost like cognitive daydreams, before I ever met her. Drove me crazy, I kept tryin’ to work her likeness into www.samhainpublishing.com 225
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clay, and wood, or on paper. Nothin’ worked. Then I actually, physically met her. Yeah. I was a little freaked out about it. And she’s better in real life than in those dreams.”
“What’s her name?”
“Macie.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Seems like forever.”
Jack frowned. “She a cowgirl?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“You’ve always had a thing for sweet little country girls.” Jack scowled again.
“P
ersonally, I don’t understand the attraction. And I can guarantee you’ll never see me with a cowgirl. Never.”
Carter kept drinking.
“So. Is she from around here?”
“Sort of. Not really.”
“Okay, that’s vague. What’s she like?”
“She’s…damn. She’s everything. But she’s also damn young.”
“Like Jerry Lee Lewis young? Great balls of fire, you jonesin’ for a thirteen-year-old girl, McKay?”
“No, you fuckin’ pervert. She’s twenty-two.”
Jack looked at him. And laughed. Hard.
“What?”
“You’re all of twenty-six. How does that make her young?”
“I don’t know. It just does.” Carter drained his beer and reached for another. Now, why in the hell hadn’t he thought of that before now? Because most days he felt so much older than his chronological age?
“So let me get this straight: You called me, in a panic, dragged me to Wyoming, because you need me to fuck your new, young girlfriend?”
“It ain’t that crude.”
“Details, man.”
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“Fine. Macie has this fantasy of bein’ with more than one guy. She’s told me she’s had dreams about it. And I wanted to make her fantasy, her dream come true, since she made mine… Shit. I sound stupid. Like a fuckin’ sap. Never mind.”
Jack waited a beat. “Because she is your dream come true, isn’t she?”
Carter didn’t answer. He just drank steadily. Finally, he said, “Yeah. I’m thinkin’ she probably is.”
“Dude. You are so totally fucked.”
“Yes I am.” He passed out another round of beer. “So will you do it?”
Jack shrugged.
“She’s beautiful.”
No response.
“Sexy. Killer body.”
Jack shrugged again.
“She’s very adventurous in bed.”
He lifted a brow without comment.
“Anyway, I have an extra pair of boots and a hat around here somewhere. I can’t see you fittin’ into my chaps, but maybe that won’t matter to her.”
“She wants me to dress up like a redneck? With shitkickers and a big belt buckle and a stupid hat and a syrupy ‘Hey howdy, pretty little lady, can I ride you hard’ drawl? Oh hell no.”
Carter smiled. Spitefully. “Pretend you’re a sophisticated city-boy all you want, Donohue. But we both know you’re just a South Dakota plowboy with a fancy degree.”
“Insulting me isn’t helping your cause, Carter.”
Carter pretended not to notice when Jack changed the subject. He’d let it go. For now.
As darkness fell, they caught up and talked about Jack’s job with the architectural firm in Chicago and Carter’s upcoming art show. More and more beer cans piled up by his chair. Why was he getting drunk?
Liquid courage, man. You didn’t want to ask Jack for this favor because the thought of any man—even your best buddy Jack—ever touching Macie, makes you mad as a bucking bull. But you love her so goddamn much you’ll do whatever Amazin’ Macie wants to make her happy.
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Love?
Her?
Whoa.
Did he love Macie?
He’d have to close his eyes and think about that one.
“Hey, McKay. Wake up. A car just pulled in the drive.”
Dammit, if he could just grasp these important thoughts that kept spinning inside in his brain…before they spun away.
Carter had company.
Macie tamped down her disappointment. She hesitated as she climbed out of her vehicle, studying the two forms in the lawn chairs in front of a dwindling campfire.
“Carter?”
“Hey, shweet darlin’, howsh’s it hangin’?”
Sexy, low male laughter drifted from the other lawn chair.
Macie took another couple of steps and noticed the beer cans. A whole lot of empty beer cans. Beside Carter.
The man stood and thrust his hand out. “Hi. You must be Macie. I’m Jack Donohue.”
“Jacksh’s my beshtesht bud from college.”
Macie looked up at the man. Good God, he was a god. Firelight glowed behind him, making him look as if he’d been forged from steel. He was huge. Muscular. With a brawny chest, ripped biceps, big hands, and never-ending legs thick as tree trunks.
Longish coal-black hair framed his square face. He had a roguish smile boasting brilliant white teeth; a deep cleft in his chin, and eyes the color of green grass. Those same eyes were highly amused.
“Nice to meet you, Jack.”
“Ain’t she beautiful in firelight?”
“Yes, she is. Hang on. I’ll get you a chair.” Jack disappeared into the barn.
Whoo-ee. The beefcake was a gentleman to boot.
“Come over here and give me shome shugar, shugar.”
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Macie skirted the fire and looked into Carter’s face. He had a silly smile. And glassy eyes. She bit back a grin. He was unbelievably adorable. “Hey.”
“Hey. I misshed you, my shweet darlin’.”
“I missed you too.” She brushed the springy curls from his damp forehead. “What are you celebrating?”
Carter frowned. “I don’t remember. You probably.” He cupped his hands around her face and brought her mouth to his for a deep, wet, beer-flavored kiss. Even drunk the man knew how to melt her with his kisses.
She gradually removed her lips from his. “I won’t stay, since you have company, but I wanted to tell you thanks for the apology and the picture.”
“An apology for what? The pictures I’m paintin’ of you?”
“What are you talking about?”
From behind her Jack said, “He’s babbling because he’s been drinking for hours.
Hate to say it, but he probably won’t remember you were even here.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll remember.”
Jack said nothing.
Carter’s head drooped to his chest.
“Carter?”
No answer.
“Maybe we’d better get him in the house before he passes out,” Macie suggested.
“If you insist. Or we could just drag him into the barn.”
“So you claim you’re a good friend of his?”
Jack chuckled. “Don’t kid yourself, he would’ve done the same thing to me had the situations been reversed. In fact, he has.”
They tried to rouse the party animal but he wouldn’t budge. Carter wasn’t a small guy by any means, and Macie wouldn’t have been able to move him by herself. Luckily for Carter, Jack was strong enough to carry him in a fireman’s hold and deposit him on the sofa in the trailer.
Macie managed to get Carter’s boots off before he started to snore. She stripped him down to his boxers, tucked a blanket around him. On her way outside, she noticed he’d added a picture to his family collection. She peered at it and her breath caught. It was one he’d taken of her the first day she’d posed for him, a profile shot. The light turned her www.samhainpublishing.com 229
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skin a stunning shade of red-gold. Her lips were parted, almost in a smirk. She looked mysterious and…beautiful. Was this the way he saw her? Would his paintings reflect the same mood? Shaking such crazy, hopeful thoughts from her head, she returned outside.
Jack sat by the fire. “Got a minute before you need to take off?”
“I suppose.”
“Want a beer?”
Macie wrinkled her nose.
Jack smiled. “There’s Diet Pepsi in the cooler too, which is why I’m not in the same sad shape as McKay.”
She grabbed one and sat. “It’s the first time I’ve seen him drunk.”
“Wish I could say the same.�
�
“How long have you known him?”
“Three years. We met in Denver while we were in grad school.”
“Oh. Are you an artist too?”
“No. I’m an architect.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Carter tells me you’re posing for a couple of pieces for his art show.”
“I guess. I haven’t actually seen anything yet.”
“That’s nothing new. He’s usually pretty secretive about his work.”
Awkward silence followed. His eyes seemed to be following her closely too.
“How long have you known him?” Jack asked.
“Seems like forever, but since the beginning of summer.”
Jack frowned.
Crickets chirped. The fire crackled. A gentle breeze blew. The uncomfortable quiet lingered.
“Carter was right. You really are beautiful by firelight. I suspect you’d even be more dangerously beautiful in the dark.”
Macie froze.
“How serious are you about him?”
Her heart beat faster. “Why?”
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“Just curious.” Jack granted her body a visual examination that burned her skin hotter than the bonfire. “Just wondering if it’s an exclusive thing. Or if maybe you and I…”
This guy was Carter’s best friend? He was a total letch. Macie scrambled to her feet.
“No way. Not interested.” She stomped to her SUV.
“Macie. Wait. Sorry. I had to do that.”
She whirled on him. “Do what? Hit on me? When your friend is passed out not more than twenty feet away?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Carter is head over heels for you. I’ve never seen him like this and I had to make sure…Sit down and let me explain. I’m not going to make a pass at you, okay?”
She sat.
More sticky silence.
Macie said, “So, if I would’ve jumped at the chance at, well, jumping you, would you have told him?”
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