by JoAnn Ross
“It was strange,” he said, sounding as far away as that day. “The swells rise up and carry you down, and keep you there until you’re pretty sure you’re never going to breathe again and you can’t see another soul, or even the ship, until you manage to kick your way back up to the top.”
“How long were you out there?”
“They said about two hours, but it seemed like forever. Finally, this whaleboat, which was a little wooden boat they used to ferry sailors on and off ships in those days, showed up alongside and they took me over to the Minneapolis, a heavy cruiser that was part of the fleet.
“There were all these guys, leaning over the railing, pulling us onboard. Ollie was the one who got me onto the deck, where my legs seemed to have gone out on me, I guess from all the treading water I’d done, so I lay there flopping around like a dead fish.”
“No surprise there. And you became friends.”
“And shipmates. The Minneapolis saw action in near every battle of the Pacific, winning seventeen battle stars.”
“Impressive,” Mac said, having no idea what that meant, but Charlie’s pride was evident.
“Sure was. She also brought troops back to the West Coast at the end of the war.
“But I didn’t know all that was going to happen that day. All I could do was watch with the others as the admiral sent the Phelps out to sink the Lexington. It took five torpedoes to finally send her down, which was a shame, because she’d performed valiantly, but giving her a decent burial was sure better than the way they sold the Minneapolis to some rich metal company for scrap.”
The spark of anger, born from what must have been long-smoldering embers, seemed to bring Charlie the rest of the way back to the present. “Twenty-seven hundred and thirty-five men survived that day. Another two hundred and sixteen were killed.
“It’s them I’m going to be in that parade for,” he told Mac. “There’s not that many of us old-timers left and the ones who weren’t lucky enough to make it home need to be remembered. And if I get confused again, like I guess I did today for a spell, it’s your job, as family, to straighten me out and make sure I get there to honor them. You and your Annie.”
“She’s not my Annie,” Mac said.
“So you say.” Charlie winked. “But I’m putting fifty clams on the line that says otherwise.”
“You’re not talking steamer clams.”
His grandfather had always been a gambler. Fishing was, itself, a dicey occupation and he’d always enjoyed the poker games down at the VWF.
“You know better than that.” He grinned like the Charlie who’d welcomed Mac into the family by tossing him into the bay. Mac had learned it was a Buchanan summer tradition. “I’m talking dollars, boy. And believe me, you’re going down.”
41
Mac returned to find Emma sitting up in bed, finishing off a bowl of tomato soup and crackers. The bed was covered with all sorts of stickers and papers and various other things.
“Annie brought me all this cool stuff,” she said, crunching a cracker.
“That’s way cool. But it’s Ms. Shepherd.”
“She said I could call her Annie. Because she’s my newest best friend.”
“‘Ms. Shepherd’ is so stuffy,” the woman herself, who was anything but stuffy, commented.
“How are you feeling?” Mac asked his daughter.
“Okay. My wrist was beginning to hurt again, but Annie gave me some more medicine. She said that my bones will heal faster if my body isn’t fighting pain.”
“That’s what the doctor at the hospital said,” Mac agreed. “Why don’t you let me take that tray into the kitchen and talk to Annie for just a minute?”
“Okay. Then you can come back and help me make my scrapbook from all the pictures you took for me at the hospital.”
“Thanks,” Mac said when he and Annie were out of hearing. “I really appreciate all you’ve done.”
“I told you, it’s no problem.”
“Yeah. It is. I dumped a lot on you and for all I know you don’t even like kids.”
Annie wondered if he was serious. “If I didn’t like children, I’d be in the wrong business,” she said mildly. “Preserving childhood memories brings in nearly as much income as my vacation photo business. And kids are always coming by for stickers. I love them. And Emma’s adorable, Mac. She’s bright and funny, and talented. You should be really proud of her.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said.
“I think you had more to do with it than you’re giving yourself credit for. Having her mother leave couldn’t be at all easy for a little girl. Then with moving here and having to start a new school and make friends . . .
“Well, she seems amazingly well adjusted.”
“Dad says kids her age handle divorce in chunks. I figure she must know Kayla’s never coming back or she wouldn’t be so set on finding a replacement mother.”
Knowing that she currently topped that list had Annie struggling to think of something, anything, to say, but Emma rescued her.
“Daddy,” a voice called from the bedroom, “are you coming? I want to get started on my scrapbook.”
“In a minute, peanut,” he called back. “How much do I owe you?”
“For what?”
“For all those things you brought.”
“Don’t be silly. You bought enough the other day to pay my electricity bill for a month. I just grabbed some theme papers and stickers for this occasion. They’re a gift.”
“Well, thanks. For them and for staying with her.”
“That was a delight. And easy, since she slept most of the time you were gone.”
Annie didn’t add that Emma had insisted she lie down on the bed with her, and she knew that Mac’s scent, from his pillow, was probably now permanently embedded in her mind.
“Are you going to be able to work tonight?”
“I don’t go in to the station until after she goes to sleep. So, since Dad called to let me know he’ll be back in the next hour or so, we should be fine.”
“Good. Well, then, I’d best get going.”
“I’m sorry we missed lunch. Or whatever.”
“Another time,” she suggested.
“Definitely,” he agreed. “Wait just one minute.” He held up a finger, then left the room and was back in seconds.
“She’s asleep again,” he said in a low voice.
“That’s good. She needs her rest. Plus it gets you out of scrapbooking.”
He leaned closer. His lips came so close to her ear she could feel his breath. “There is that.”
Then he tangled a hand in her hair, sliding the other down her back, cupping her butt as his mouth covered hers and he kissed her deeply, thoroughly, letting loose the pent-up hunger as his tongue tangled with hers and he ground her against an impressive erection that couldn’t entirely make up for the lost hot sex she’d so meticulously planned for at lunch.
The only problem was, as an echo of a whimper came from the bedroom, it would have to do for now.
Instead of immediately releasing her, he dragged his mouth along her jawline, down her throat, to where her pulse was beating like a jackhammer.
“I’m not done with you,” he practically growled against her skin.
“I certainly hope not.” When she was sure she could stand on her own, she lowered her hands, which had seemingly taken on a mind of their own and somehow become splayed across his bare back, beneath the shirt of the blue dress uniform he’d worn to Ollie’s memorial service.
“Daddy,” the voice plaintively called out again.
“I’d better go see what she needs.”
“Absolutely.”
He picked up the purse Annie had dropped on the floor during the heated kiss and handed it to her. Then they stood there for another lo
ng, aching moment, the air between them thick with passion and things not said.
Not wanting to keep him from his daughter any longer, she slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and said, “Have a good program,” as she left the house.
“You going to call in?”
She shot him a flirty look over her shoulder. “Maybe.”
“We can talk dirty during the commercials.”
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as ready for all this as she’d begun to think, because she could feel the heat flooding into her face as she quickly glanced around, looking for any neighbors who might have overheard that, then escaped to her car.
A glance in the rearview mirror showed him still standing in the open doorway.
His words, specifically one significant word, came back to her as she drove to the shop.
Whatever.
She’d already set the scene for the whatever, having shaved her legs, slathered lotion on every part of her body, put on her hottest underwear, downloaded a must-have seduction playlist Kara had made up that both Maddy and Charity swore by, and with Maddy’s help, planned a seduction lunch.
All three women had insisted she serve oysters as a first course, but not knowing whether Mac liked them raw and deciding there wasn’t a man on the planet who wasn’t a fan of bacon, she opted, at Maddy’s suggestion, for smoked oysters wrapped in bacon. For the main course she’d intended to put together a pizza with the alder-smoked salmon, mushrooms, and thick white cheese sauce that Maddy had brought over. Dessert would be chocolate fondue with fruit.
As she’d planned the menu, Annie had realized once again how, although they’d shared so many things with each other, she didn’t know the little everyday details that most dating couples learned early.
Which was something they were going to have to work on. Because it was crazy and just plain wrong that she knew more about Charlie Buchanan than she did about his grandson.
Unfortunately the lunch would have to wait. Along with the whatever.
“Best-laid plans,” she murmured as she pulled into a parking space down the street from the store and tried to get her mind back into work mode.
42
Mac was going crazy thinking about that missed lunch. Not that he’d been all that hungry. Not for food, anyway. What he couldn’t get out of his mind was the whatever part of the afternoon.
He’d been on the air for half an hour and Annie still hadn’t called in. But he knew she was listening.
Time to make a move.
“You know that feeling, when you’re climbing the walls, which isn’t getting you anywhere but more and more frustrated?” he asked. “Well, Kenny Chesney sure as hell knows how it feels in this next one. For all the guys and gals out there lying all alone in a bed that’s gettin’ more and more cold, here’s ‘Come Over.’”
He didn’t have to wait long.
“That’s not fair,” Annie complained when he picked up the line.
“Hey, climbing the walls sure as hell wasn’t getting me anywhere. So, we’ve got four minutes and eight seconds. . . . What are you wearing?”
She laughed at that. “I am so not having phone sex with you.”
“It was just a simple question to pass the time. Which is now down to less than four minutes,” he reminded her. “Believe me, when we finally get together, sweetheart, I’m going to need a lot more than four minutes.”
“When?” she asked. “What happened to if?”
“Is there any question?”
“No. There should be, but—”
“Annie.” He loved saying her name. He’d also spent way too much time imagining her saying his while he drove her higher and higher.
No.
Make that screaming his.
“We’ve got complications,” he allowed. “And messy personal histories. But like the song says, we don’t have to fix each other.”
He counted the time clicking away in his head as she considered that for a good ten seconds that seemed like a frigging hour.
“No,” she decided. “We don’t. As for what I’m wearing, since you left me feeling all turned on today, it just happens to be an itty-bitty babydoll nightgown.” She paused to let him picture it. “I don’t like to feel confined when I’m sleeping.”
“What color?”
Five more seconds of torturous silence.
“Red,” she said finally. “With black lace. And a red and black lace thong.”
“Wouldn’t want you to feel confined.” Mac wondered if any deejay had ever been electrocuted by drooling into the microphone. “Too bad you’re all alone,” he said.
“I know.” She sighed. “But the only man I want in my bed just happens to work nights.”
“Maybe you need to find yourself a new guy.”
“Or maybe he just needs to learn to multitask a little better,” she suggested. “Not that he hasn’t had extenuating circumstances, so I don’t want to be too hard on him. . . .
“But like Kenny says in that song, it’s hard to sleep in a cold, cold bed.”
That did it. The thought of Annie Shepherd wearing something out of those Victoria’s Secret catalogs, which were banned by some commands, but the guys would pass them around in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway, made Mac groan.
Two minutes.
“I’m sorry about screwing up lunch today,” he said, wondering again how single fathers ever managed to juggle work, fatherhood, and a love life. And he even had his dad to help take care of Emma, which most guys—and women—didn’t. With the divorce rate being what it was, and so many of those people having kids, it was a wonder people managed to carve out enough time to get horizontal together to keep the population growing.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “But it isn’t as if you blew me off.”
“I really wish you hadn’t used that particular word,” he said.
She laughed. “Anticipation, they say, is a good thing.”
“It’s obvious you’ve never been stuck with a perpetual hard-on.”
“Ah, there comes the dirty talk I’m risking having recorded for posterity,” she said.
“The recorder’s off.”
“I certainly hope so. And, as it happens, it’s your lucky night, because I’m handing out rain checks. For a limited, one-time offer.”
“We both know one time isn’t going to be nearly enough,” he said.
She laughed at that. “You’re running out of time. I’ll see you on the Fourth.”
Which was, damn, still two days away.
“And you have an injured daughter to be with and I have work to do during the day,” she reminded him when he pointed that out.
Hell with that, Mac thought as he was left listening to dead air on the other end of the phone while Chesney finished up what had to be the ultimate booty call song.
As he queued up one of the Genarro’s funeral home “man with the plot; man with the plan” commercials, Mac came up with a plan of his own.
A plan for Annie and him to get lucky together.
43
As long and occasionally unsettling as her day had been, Annie couldn’t sleep. After Chesney’s “Come Over” sexual invitation, Midnight Mac just kept playing more songs designed to leave his middle-of-the-night listeners hot and bothered. Or jumping each other.
She was seriously considering taking the edge off all by herself. But she resisted. Because although she had no idea when Mac was going to get a break from his responsibilities to Emma, especially now that the little girl had been hurt, and would obviously be more needy, Annie wanted to experience every bit of passion she knew he was going to bring to their lovemaking.
Sex, she thought, correcting herself. That was all this was about. But sometimes, she considered as the digital dial on her alarm clock clicked past two thirty in the morning, and Faith Hill
and Tim McGraw were getting straight to the point, singing to each other about making love, sex was enough. Which had her wondering how the married couple ever actually managed to make love while living with three little girls on a bus.
At some point, during which Keith Urban had better things to do on a rainy Sunday than making the bed, Annie finally dozed off, but was awakened soon after by her phone ringing. Groping for it in the dark, she came fully awake when she read the caller ID.
“I’m calling to give you fair warning that I’m tired of waiting,” the all-too-familiar voice went an octave deeper than even his radio voice, melting every atom in her body.
“Okay.” She hitched herself up in bed, already turned on and expecting more sexy phone talk. “So, what’s your suggestion?”
“Open your front door.”
“What?”
“I’m on your porch.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I never, ever kid about sex. Look out your window.”
She pushed back the bedding that she’d washed yesterday morning with this very man in mind and crossed the room to the window. He’d backed away from the door, out from beneath the roof so she could see from the dormer window. Just looking down at him, leaning against the railing in the spreading yellow glow of the porch light, caused her temperature to spike.
“Give me two minutes,” she said.
“I’m really getting fed up with talking on a damn clock,” he countered. “Make it one. Or I’m coming in.”
Although she was certain he wouldn’t actually break down her door if she didn’t make it downstairs within his imposed time limit, and equally frustrated at not ever having enough time together, Annie grabbed a loudly protesting Pirate from the bed, tossed him into the guest room, shut the door, and hoped he wouldn’t keep complaining but would settle down on the handmade antique quilt that he seemed to enjoy ripping apart whenever she let him into that room.
Then she raced into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, ran a comb through the tangled curls that she’d barely managed to get to a mess slightly less wild than Medusa, raced down the stairs, twisted the lock, took a deep breath for calm, which didn’t work, and opened the door.