“He hasn’t changed,” Ruby said, as if she could read his thoughts. “Oh, he’s settled down, too much maybe—but he’s still the person you can count on in your corner, no matter what.” She shook her head. “Takes on too much responsibility for others, if you ask me, but I don’t know what this town would do without him.”
Had he made a mistake coming here? He’d been ready to gnaw his leg off to escape the limbo he was in, and Ian’s invitation had seemed like nirvana. To return to the place where he’d known a pure and simple happiness? Where he’d been blissfully ignorant of the true darkness in human nature he now knew only too intimately?
But he’d been a kid when he was here. What did kids know about the dark underbelly of life?
What could Ian and he have in common, really, given that Ian had stayed here in Mayberry and Mackey had seen too much of the world? He saw his action for what it had been, impulsive and spontaneous—not like him at all, not anymore. Yes, he’d been wild as a kid, but his years in the Teams had changed him.
He’d better put a time limit on this up front. He’d stay a day or two and get the lay of the land because Ian had gone to some trouble on his behalf. By tomorrow or the next day, he could say he’d gotten a call from his agent or something.
No way he could belong here, and returning had been a mistake. He’d be polite, but then he’d go.
Ian set Scarlett back on her feet, then looked out into the dining room.
When he spotted Mackey, that dimple he’d hated so as a boy popped into his left cheek as his grin widened. One more kiss for Scarlett, then he was striding across the floor, hand outstretched.
Mackey rose, and Ian pulled him into a backslapping hug. “Son of a gun, you made it!” Ian was over six feet, too, and he’d kept in shape, Mackey could tell.
“How the hell are you? Hey, Ruby.” Ian bent and kissed her cheek.
She rose from her side of the booth. “I’ll let you boys visit.”
“We can visit just fine with you here.”
“But no telling what kind of fancy dish my granddaughter could sneak in when I wasn’t looking. Best go look out for my menu. She can serve whatever she wants at the new place, but here…my word is law.”
Ian chuckled. “And she is shaking in her boots, I’m here to tell you.”
“I might be small, but it doesn’t take much dynamite to make things interesting.” She pinned him with her gaze. “You two set a date yet?”
“We’re working on it, Ruby.” Ian’s cheer became a little forced.
“Foolish for her to have a room at my place when you two never spend a night apart.”
“You said yes to Arnie’s proposal yet?”
Her eyes went to slits. “That’s different.”
“Pot to kettle,” Ian mused.
“Excuse me. I’ll just go get your lunch, Mackey.”
“Don’t rush off on my account. Who’s Arnie?”
“Never you mind. And you keep your tongue to yourself, Ian McLaren, you hear me?”
“I hear you, all right. But you haven’t answered my question.”
With a mutter, she flounced off.
“I don’t know who’s more hardheaded,” Ian said, watching her go. “But bloodlines breed true, that’s for sure.”
“Scarlett seems to like kissing you,” Mackey observed. “That is one beautiful woman you’ve got there—or do you?”
Ian gestured for him to sit and slid into the opposite seat in the booth. “I can handle Miss Scarlett just fine. She’s in my bed every night. The rest will come.”
“You sure about that?”
“Screw you, Mackey.” But he laughed.
A waitress arrived. “Mackey’s meal is already underway. Does Scarlett know what you want, Ian?”
Mackey’s head rose at the sound of his name. The woman was a tall, skinny blonde whose face looked a little familiar.
“Hey, Mackey,” she said with a lilt. “How is Hollywood? Do you know Jennifer Aniston?”
He glanced over at Ian, hoping for a save.
Ian’s expression was amused, but as always, he rose to the occasion. “Mackey is coy about his love life, Jeanette. A man of discretion.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s a new wrinkle. Mackey? Discreet?” She chuckled. “Tell me another one.”
Jeanette…Jeanette… Suddenly the image of a girl in shabby clothes rose in his mind. She’d had a bad crush on Ian.
“It’s never too late to reform,” he said, smiling up at her.
Her eyes widened. “Wild Mackey, reformed? Now you’re messing with me.” There was a bitter edge to her cheer. Life, it appeared, hadn’t been any more fair to the adult Jeanette than the girl, if she was still here and working as a waitress.
So he leaned closer. “People are wrong when they say that her hair is a weave,” he confided.
Jeanette’s eyes popped. “No kidding!” Then they narrowed. “I knew she wouldn’t do that sort of thing.” She nodded sagely. “Thanks, Mackey.” Her look turned coy. “We should get together sometime. Rattlesnake Inn is still open out on the San Antonio Road.”
Rattlesnake Inn. Well, hell. Good to know. “And this time we’re legal.” He winked at her.
She smiled back, then shot Ian a look of triumph.
Oo-kay. Apparently the crush wasn’t gone. He glanced over at his buddy, who only sent his gaze skyward.
“Jeanette—” called out Scarlett. “Order up.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she sneered. Her expression changed when she looked at Mackey. “Glad you’re back. The place could use some livening up.” One last simpering smile and she left.
“No love lost there?” he asked Ian. “She didn’t take it lightly when you abandoned her for the newcomer?”
His buddy actually blushed. “It wasn’t like that. I never encouraged her. I never even realized…”
Mackey winced. “Oh, ouch. Worse that you never paid enough attention to her.”
“Cut it out.” Ian glanced over. “She’s coming back.”
Jeanette arrived with a plate for Mackey. Chicken fried steak, a huge portion covered in gravy, along with mashed potatoes and green beans. “Here you go. You just let me know if you need anything at all.” Her tone was all sugar and invitation.
It was Ian’s turn to be amused at his expense.
“Uh, thank you, Jeanette. Looks like I’m squared away here.” He smiled at her and took up his utensils.
He cut off a bite of the steak, popped it in his mouth—
And moaned.
“How are you, really?”
“Quiet. I’m having a religious experience.”
Ian grinned. “Nothing like Ruby’s.”
“No kidding. Don’t even ask me to wait on you.” He applied himself to his meal for a couple of minutes, then, remembering his earlier resolve, he started building his case. “I’m fine. I may have to get back sooner than I thought.”
“Planning your exit strategy? Sweetgrass boring you already?”
Ian had always known Mackey too well. “The doctors are fussy old maids. I’m fine.”
Ian shrugged. “Whatever you say. But if you don’t have to take off right away, it would sure be good to have you around for a bit.” He snickered. “Jeanette would agree, I’m sure.”
Mackey didn’t deign to respond to that jab. “Ruby says you carry the town on your shoulders.”
“Ruby’s never shy of expressing an opinion.” He glanced out the window. “I guess it’s changed a lot, hasn’t it?”
“Looks like it’s on life support.”
Ian rubbed his forehead. “Been dying for years, but now Scarlett and I have some ideas. I hope we can save it. Ruby’s singlehandedly kept it alive all this time, but she can’t do it forever.”
“What happened to traveling the globe?”
Ian glanced away. “Didn’t quite work out, but I was just a kid back then.”
His meal arrived, and he dug in.
“Doesn’t seem ri
ght that I’ve seen a good portion of the world and you never got to,” Mackey said.
Ian shrugged. “But I wouldn’t have been here to meet Scarlett if anything had been different.”
“She’s really important to you?”
“She’s everything. And this land is in my blood.”
“How’s your dad?”
“Counting on seeing you. He’s…” He shook his head. “He’s frustrated not to be able to run the ranch, to do all he was used to accomplishing.”
“I hear that.” Mackey had a permanent itch beneath his skin, and it was growing worse with his inactivity. He’d had to escape all the nannies, and he didn’t look forward to getting back within reach of them. He seized on a distraction. “So who is Arnie?”
“Come to breakfast, and you’ll see.” Ian’s grin was wide. “He spends most every night with Ruby, but she refuses to acknowledge that they’re a couple. He’s a good guy who’s been asking her to marry him for years.” He shook his head. “No idea why he lets her get away with it.”
“But none of that applies to you, even though I can see that ring in your nose?”
Ian laughed. “Screw you, Mackey. You’re too busy doing the stars to understand what it means when you meet the one.”
Mackey studied him. “And you have, haven’t you? She’s it.”
Ian nodded. “After all these years…yep. I’m a goner.”
“You seem cheerful about it.”
“Love isn’t a ball and chain. You’ll understand one day.”
Not likely, Mackey thought. Not in the world he lived in, where marriages had the life expectancy of lettuce. “I’ll leave the one-woman man gig to you, bud. Not my thing.”
“Then I feel for you. There’s nothing like it.” Ian rose from the booth. “Now that you’ve all but licked the plate clean, let’s head for Rissa’s.”
“I’m picking up the tab.”
“Scarlett and Ruby both would smack your hand for trying.”
“Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Oh, you’ll pay next time, but today is on them.”
Mackey stepped around Ian and pitched his voice loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. “Forget him, Scarlett. Don’t marry this hick rancher. Let me sweep you off to the bright lights of Hollywood. You’re too good for him.”
Scarlett smiled. “Sorry. Been there, done that. In the real city—Manhattan.”
“You wound me, darlin’. But I don’t give up easily.”
“Get on with you, Mackey,” Ruby ordered. “Don’t you mess with my cook.”
“If you’d marry me, I’d throw her over in a heartbeat, Ruby.”
Her smile was wide. “Ian, get your troublemaking friend out of here before I take a wooden spoon to the both of you.”
“You two are killing me,” Mackey said. “Thank you for the best meal I’ve had in years.” He swept them an elaborate bow.
“Come on, Hollywood.” Ian slapped him on the back.
Mackey rolled his eyes. “Cut it out. It’s just a job.”
Ian’s face grew serious. “A dangerous one, apparently.”
“Only a fluke,” Mackey insisted.
“Uh-huh.” Ian detoured to the kitchen and stole one more kiss, which Scarlett returned eagerly.
When Ian left the kitchen, she waved at him over the pass-through. “Give Cousin Crankypants my love,” she called out.
Mackey saluted her and followed his friend.
“Am I gonna need a referee?” Mackey asked Ian as they walked to their vehicles. His Range Rover, even road-weary, gleamed beside Ian’s battered pickup, and he wondered how his friend was truly faring. Ranching had never been an easy life.
Ian chuckled. “Rissa’s fine. Fine as she can be, anyway, living with her dad.”
“Yeah…about that. Jackson’s old man is okay with me being here? He never thought much of me.”
“James is…James. He was always a hard man, and Mary’s death didn’t help. Then he threw Jackson out, and Pen left the second we graduated. Rissa had no choice but to stay, since she was just a kid then.”
“She’s not a kid now. Why hasn’t she left?”
Ian stared into the distance. “You should see her with a horse. She’s…magic.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Sounds fanciful, I know, but she is really something. Never seen a horse she couldn’t heal. People are starting to come to her from other places as word gets around.”
“So why hang around here if she has that kind of skill? She could make a fortune in someplace like California.”
“I don’t know. She’s pretty closed in. Had to be, I guess, to survive living with that old bastard. James and I get along fine, but he can’t be an easy man to live with. He’s slipping some, too, now, just not on top of his game anymore. The hands are turning to Rissa for answers.”
“Bet that makes the old man furious.”
Ian nodded. “She’s really…alone.” He looked at his friend. “If you don’t mind helping, she could sure use it, I think. Not that she’d ever ask.”
Mackey shrugged. “I might not be around long.” The more he heard, the more he was sure that coming here had been a mistake. The oasis of his childhood was, in reality, a town on the edge of dying, with everyone in it struggling.
Ian’s gaze on him was sharp. “She asked me why you came here. I don’t really know.”
Mackey stared over at the abandoned courthouse. “Not sure I do, either. Place has changed a lot.”
“It’s going to be better,” Ian said fiercely. He nodded toward the old stone structure. “I’ve got plans. So does Scarlett. I’ve finally got my dad on board to expand the organic beef part of our operation, and Scarlett is a world-class chef. She’s going to make that place a destination restaurant serving local foods, and we’ll make it into an events center for weddings and family reunions and such.”
Mackey’s brows rose. “Ambitious.”
His friend’s eyes were fierce. “We’re going to make it happen. I am not letting the sweat and blood of generations turn to nothing on my watch. Sweetgrass Springs is going to live and even prosper.”
Mackey held out his palms. “Not doubting you, buddy. That local food thing is huge in L.A., and other cities all across the country are adopting it. Sounds smart to me, just…” He glanced over. “Not to be nosy, but does anyone around here have that kind of money?”
Ian shoved his hands in his hip pockets. “I sure as hell don’t.” He grinned. “But Scarlett swears she has investors she can tap, customers of hers from New York.”
“What was the name of her place?”
When Ian told him, Mackey blinked. “I ate there once. Food was…amazing.”
Ian beamed. “That’s my Scarlett.”
“She might have a concept there, even if it’s risky, and listen, I’ve got some money saved up. I could pitch in,” Mackey offered.
“No—no way.”
“Why not? It’s not earning anything just sitting there. I don’t spend a lot—well, that’s a lie. I do, but I have plenty of toys.” He wasn’t even sure why he’d bought half of them.
“You like your work?”
“I’m good at it.” He didn’t let himself think about how none of it meant a damn, that the only time he’d felt really alive was on the battlefront with his teammates. “We’re losing the light. Shouldn’t we go? I can drive out to the Star Bar G myself. I remember where it is.”
“You sure? I do have stock to tend to, but—”
Mackey clapped him on the shoulder. “What? I need a nanny? I came here to escape from them.”
Ian halted. “You…uh, do we need to watch out for something? I mean, you got busted up pretty bad, right?”
“I’m fine. Just the occasional headache and a pain in the ass insurance company that won’t let me back on the job yet.” The dizziness and occasional lost minutes weren’t something he wanted to talk about. “Go on and play with your cows. If Cousin Crankypants or her dad Mister Nice Guy throw me out, I’ll be on
your doorstep before bedtime, all right? And tell your dad hi. I’ll get by to see him soon.”
Ian tapped the cell phone on his hip. “You’ve got my number. Call if you need anything.”
“Will do.” Mackey started to turn away, then hesitated. “It’s good to see you again, Ian. Really good.”
His friend’s face creased in a smile, and his dimple showed. He tipped the bill of his cap. “I’m glad you’re here. Don’t run out on us sooner than you have to, okay?”
Mackey touched his forehead in a two-finger salute. “There’s probably still some trouble we can get into.”
Ian was laughing as he got into his truck.
Mackey surveyed the boarded up windows and doors and thought his friend was in for one hell of a rough ride, reclaiming this place from oblivion. Even so, he envied Ian. He had a purpose, a reason for getting up every day.
Enough of that BS.
Mackey started his Rover and pulled out to go see how a redheaded tomboy had grown up.
Once out of town little was changed, and there was a reassurance in that, even as Mackey’s skin itched. Why the devil would anyone want to live where everybody moved at such a slow pace and life had such…sameness? For the first time since he’d conceived this ill-fated notion of returning, he recalled just how much the boy who’d lived here had itched for adventure, too. Had gotten into scrape after scrape because at the heart of him had always been a hole where his always-gone father and his weak, distant mother had left him empty.
The only times Mackey had been unaware of that missing part of him had been with the rest of the Four Horsemen at his side, intent on one hair-raising escapade or another. Or during his years with the Teams, when the bond of brotherhood had papered over the hole until he’d thought it filled.
But it wasn’t, he knew now. Even if he didn’t know what to do about it. Some people just had missing parts, and he was one of them.
And he hated introspection like he hated self-pity. Stop the whining, Crybaby-man.
He had a great life, all in all. Hot and cold running women, a great house on the beach, a thriving career going nowhere but up. He just had to get rid of these damn headaches and get steadier on his feet so he could return to it all. Convincing the docs first was key.
Texas Wild: The Gallaghers of Sweetgrass Springs Book 2 Page 3