“Well, we do count on you,” Matthew admitted. “None of us like losing.”
Luke scowled at him. “So not the point. Susie, you looked like you wanted to kiss him, right there in front of everybody.”
“If I hadn’t come over to help you up, I think you would have,” Matthew added. “Are you crazy? This has gone too far, Susie. Or it’s about to. That’s why we’re here, to stop you from doing something you’ll regret.”
“And you think I’d regret kissing Mack?” she inquired, her voice like ice. “Or is it sleeping with him that really worries you? Maybe falling in love with him? Well, I have news for you—it’s too late.” She avoided looking at either of her parents when she said it. She didn’t want to see any sign of shock on either of their faces, but she had to put a stop to this nonsense.
Matthew regarded her with alarm. “You’ve already slept with him? I’ll kill him. I swear I will. He should not be taking advantage of you. We’ve all told him that.”
Susie froze. “Excuse me? Who’s warned Mack to stay away from me?”
“We all have,” Matthew said. “Well, me and Luke, anyway. I think maybe Kevin and Connor have said something, too.”
Susie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “How dare you interfere in my life like that! If and when Mack and I decide we want to sleep together, believe me, it will be none of your business.”
“Then you haven’t slept with him already?” Matthew asked, sounding relieved.
She groaned at his persistence. “No, I have not slept with him, though I would have if I’d had the opportunity.”
“Then what?” Luke asked suspiciously. “You said it was too late. So, have you kissed him? I guess that’s not so bad. People kiss all the time and it doesn’t mean anything.”
“This is so not about kissing,” Susie declared. “It’s about all of you meddling in my business. Who I kiss or sleep with is none of your business. Haven’t any of you noticed that I’m in my late twenties? In most worlds that’s considered old enough to make my own decisions.” She turned toward her mother, who gave her a commiserating look.
“We’re just concerned, dear. None of us want to see you get hurt,” Jo O’Brien said gently.
Susie didn’t buy the sudden onset of parental or sibling concern. “Oh, come on, this thing between Mack and me, if there is anything, has been coming on for a long time. If you all were so dead set against it, why didn’t you speak up sooner?” she demanded, then waved off the question. “That’s irrelevant. I’m a grown woman. I get to choose my own dates.”
She looked to her father for support. Unlike her uncle Mick, her dad wasn’t known for meddling in his children’s business. They’d grown especially close since they’d been working together. He trusted her judgment. She knew he did. “Dad, you’ve been awfully quiet. Do you have an opinion about this? If you do, I’d like to hear it.”
He regarded her with an uncomfortable expression. “You have a good head on your shoulders,” he began. At a nudge from his wife, he faltered. “That said, this might not be the best time to consider getting closer to Mack. Circumstances have changed.”
Her gaze narrowed at his careful choice of words. The comment suggested he knew more than she did, perhaps even the very thing that Mack had so determinedly been keeping from her.
“Why not now?” she asked, keeping her gaze steady on her father. “What circumstances have changed? Has he run off and married someone else?”
Though she asked her father, it was her mother who responded. “He’s unemployed,” she said bluntly, startling Susie.
“He is?” she said before she could stop herself.
“There you go,” Matthew said triumphantly. “He didn’t tell you, did he? What kind of man keeps that kind of thing a secret from someone he cares about? It’s pretty significant news, don’t you think? It’s the kind of news friends share with each other.”
Susie couldn’t deny that. It explained a lot, in fact, especially the dark funk of a few days ago, the repeated comments about the timing for starting up a real relationship being all wrong.
She wasn’t sure exactly what she was feeling—anger at Mack keeping such a huge secret or pity over him losing something that mattered so much to him—but she did know this wasn’t where she needed to be. She stood up, grabbed her coat and her purse, then turned to her family.
“Sorry. I need to go.”
“You’re leaving?” Luke asked incredulously. “Nothing’s decided.”
“Believe me, I’ve heard everything I need to hear. Lock up when you leave.” She brushed a kiss across her mother’s cheek, then another on her dad’s. “Love you.”
Though they both looked worried, they didn’t try to stop her.
All the way across town to Mack’s, she stewed about being blindsided by news this monumental. She was torn between wanting to kill him for keeping her in the dark and wanting to hug him to take away the pain he must be feeling. No matter what, though, he should have told her. Her family was right about that.
Of course, she could guess exactly why he hadn’t: pride. Mack had a boatload of it. But friendship should have trumped pride. She would have helped or just listened, whatever he wanted.
Halfway to Mack’s, it sank in that maybe he simply hadn’t trusted her with the news, that he didn’t even think she had a right to know. It was also possible that he’d been embarrassed to tell her, especially after all the conversations they’d had about newspapers being a dying breed. He might have worried she’d gloat, instead of offering a shoulder to lean on.
Or maybe Matthew had been right for once in his mostly insensitive life. Maybe she didn’t really count as a true friend with Mack after all, not enough to be his sounding board in a crisis this big.
She pulled to the side of the road as she considered that possibility, then pounded a fist on the steering wheel in frustration.
A friend wouldn’t care about his reasons. A friend would charge right in and offer support. The woman who didn’t quite know her own place, however, hesitated.
And then, filled with too many questions and no answers, she turned around and drove back home, relieved to find that her family had gone. She’d have all the privacy in the world to wrestle with what she should be doing next…or with accepting the fact that she wasn’t the one who could do anything at all.
“You know the word is out about the newspaper letting you go,” Will said to Mack at lunch on the Monday after Thanksgiving. “Have you said anything to Susie?”
Mack grimaced. “No. How’d the word get around this fast, anyway? It’s not as if it was worthy of a big announcement on Entertainment Tonight.”
Will simply stared at him. “You really don’t get it, do you? We’ve always thought you had this rock-solid ego, but you have no idea how people talked about your columns, especially in this town. Everyone here has always been so proud of you, especially those of us who know what you overcame to get there.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Mack said.
Will shook his head. “I’m not, am I, Jake?”
“Absolutely not,” Jake agreed. “Which is why people noticed that you didn’t have a column about the Ravens in Saturday’s paper. Somebody else did. And somebody else also wrote about yesterday’s game. People have drawn their own conclusions. Speculation was running wild by the time I stopped by here for coffee this morning.”
“I hate to tell you, but the news gets worse,” Will told him, his tone dire. “On Saturday I stopped by the bookstore to pick up a book and ran into Susie’s dad. Jeff was there checking on some plumbing repair, I guess. Anyway, he cornered me and asked point-blank if I knew what was going on. Said he’d heard some talk about you losing your job. What was I supposed to do, lie?”
Mack sighed. “No, but you could have warned me on Saturday.”
“Don’t you think I tried? I called your apartment and your cell phone. Not only didn’t you answer, but I couldn’t leave a message because both voice mailboxes we
re full.”
“You should have come looking for me,” Mack said, knowing that the real fault wasn’t Will’s, but needing to blame someone. “Maybe there would have been time for me to get to Susie. I’m sure by now her dad’s filled her in.”
“No question about it,” Will said. “He told me he intended to do it if you didn’t. He was pretty insistent about that.”
“Call her now,” Jake said. “Better yet, stop by the management office. She’s probably there. You should tell her something like this face-to-face.”
“I’m not sure I’d be able to take it if she starts pitying me or saying I told you so,” Mack said, though he wasn’t sure that was his real concern. He was more worried that she’d lose faith in him, walk away before they ever got the chance he wanted for the two of them.
“Why would she say I told you so?” Will asked. “The woman’s crazy about you.”
“I told you a while back that she’s been warning me that I ought to be planning ahead,” Mack said. “I guess she’s read all the stories about newspaper cutbacks.”
“Well, I seriously doubt she’s going to throw that in your face,” Will said. “Susie’s not that kind of woman.”
Mack thought about the way their discussion had veered off on a tangent about sex the week before, about the way she’d looked into his eyes when he’d tackled her on Thanksgiving, holding his gaze until it had required every last ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from kissing her.
Then he thought about the fight they’d had on the beach when she realized he was keeping something from her. Now that she knew what it was, she was likely to be even more furious. He could even understand her point of view. He’d be livid—and hurt—if she kept a secret this huge from him.
“I’m not sure I know what kind of woman she is lately,” he said despondently. “She seems to be changing.”
“Well, she’s not mean,” Jake said. “We all know that. Talk to her, Mack, before this becomes some huge issue between you. If it gets blown all out of proportion, you’ll both wind up being miserable. Fix it now. That’s my advice.” He turned a sheepish look on Will. “Not that I’m the expert.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Will said. “Go. Fix.”
Mack sighed when they left him on the street, just a few paces away from the Chesapeake Shores Real Estate Management Company. He had a hunch both of his friends were sitting in their respective vehicles watching to see if he took their advice or chickened out.
Since he’d been humiliated enough lately, he sucked in a bracing breath and walked into the office, wishing he had even the first clue about what to expect or what to say to her. Susie might have a cheery, live-and-let-live demeanor most of the time, but facing her right now was no less intimidating than walking into a lion’s den. Something told him that whatever happened in the next few minutes would decide his future…and whether or not Susie was likely to be a part of it.
5
At the sound of the door opening, Susie glanced up from the contract she’d been reading for the past hour without one single word registering. An automatic smile had her lips curving up until she recognized Mack.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, her tone flat. To her chagrin, her pulse skipped several beats despite her mood. Apparently chemistry was slow to catch on to reality. Thankfully, Mack couldn’t possibly know all the conficting emotions churning inside her.
Mack winced. “I gather you’ve heard the news.”
“From my family,” she confirmed accusingly. “Why would you let me find out something that monumental from my family, Mack? How could you do that to me? You had to know how humiliating it would be.”
“Sorry,” he said, looking genuinely contrite. “Really. The honest-to-goodness truth is that I just couldn’t work up the nerve to tell you. I’ve dealt with my share of humiliation since this happened.”
On some level she understood his reluctance, the blow to his pride, but she couldn’t let it pass. Communication was the one thing they’d always had going for them. If they lost that now, she was afraid they were doomed.
“Mack, we keep saying we’re friends, but it doesn’t seem like it to me right now. If you can’t even tell me that you lost your job, then what kind of friendship do we really have? Is it some superficial thing that’s good for a few laughs? Am I just some woman you hang out with to keep from being bored?”
His expression pleaded for understanding. “Susie, this isn’t about you and me, what we are or aren’t to each other. I’m the one who lost a job that meant everything to me. Don’t try to make it about something else. I can’t fight that battle right now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to. This is like some huge turning point for us on so many levels. Can’t you see that?”
He sat down on the chair beside her desk. Though he obviously still didn’t want to have this conversation, he settled in, apparently ready to have the talk they should have had days ago.
“Okay, hear me out,” he said, a coaxing note in his voice. “This just happened a little over a week ago. I was trying to absorb the news, work through what it meant for the future.”
“Thus the funk,” she said.
“Exactly.” He regarded her earnestly. “I wanted to have a plan before you found out. I needed to feel as if I was in control of the situation.”
“Mack, I adore you, but you don’t think that fast.” When he was about to protest the insulting comment, she added, “What I’m saying is that you ponder things, think them through from every angle. It’s a good trait in many ways, but it’s not a fast track to decision-making. You had to know the gossip mill in this town would beat you to the punch.” She couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice when she repeated, “I should have heard this from you, not from my family, who heard it on the street.”
“Okay, you’re right,” he said apologetically. “I knew I was taking a huge risk, but I didn’t want to see that look in your eyes, the one you have right now.”
She couldn’t imagine what he meant. “What look is that?”
“You feel sorry for me. No man wants a woman’s pity.”
Susie rolled her eyes. It was such a guy comment. “I do feel sorry for you, but certainly not because I think you’re some kind of failure, if that’s what you mean.”
He shrugged. “More or less.”
“Well, here’s a news flash. I feel bad for you because I know how much that job meant to you. You live and breathe sports. That column was all tied up in who you are. It gave you a very public professional identity. Losing it has to be killing you.”
He looked vaguely relieved by her words. “That’s exactly it,” he said.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised that I get it,” she said wryly. “I’ve had a lot of years to figure out what makes you tick.”
He met her gaze. “I really am sorry about how you found out about this.”
She gave him an amused look. “Do you actually know how I found out? Not just that it came from my family, but the circumstances?”
“Your father filled you in?” he guessed.
“And my mother and my brothers,” she said. “They staged an intervention to warn me against getting involved with you right now.”
For the first time, he looked truly guilt stricken. “Geez, Susie, I am so sorry.”
“They forced me to consider for the first time that I must not mean much to you if you’d keep such a huge secret from me.”
“You know that’s not true,” he said emphatically, then studied her closely. “You do know it, don’t you?”
“Actually, no, I don’t. And to make this little intervention of theirs even more fun, Matthew also mentioned that he and Luke had warned you to stay away from me. Why on earth didn’t you tell me about that? I was horrified.”
He waved it off. “Trust me, it was no big deal. They were just being protective brothers.”
“Then what they said had nothing to do with why you and I, well…”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to put it into words. “Why we haven’t, you know, done anything?”
He blinked in apparent confusion, then caught on. “No,” he said quickly. “Hell, no. We’ve just had these boundaries between us. I guess I always knew the rules. Heaven knows, you were clear enough about them, made sure I understood that we had this totally platonic thing going on.”
Susie sighed. “Forget the stupid rules, Mack,” she snapped impatiently. “I’m sick to death of them.”
Looking a little stunned by her vehemence, he stood up and started to pace, then paused to meet her gaze. “We talked about this on Thanksgiving, Susie. Now’s not the time—”
“Who says?” she challenged.
“I do,” he told her. “And your whole family, for that matter. Didn’t you listen to what they said?”
“They don’t get a say.”
“I just think it’s for the best,” he insisted stubbornly.
Susie knew better than to push too hard right now, no matter how badly she wanted to. As she’d told him earlier, she sensed they were at a turning point, but with Mack’s career in turmoil, he wasn’t ready to make another life-altering decision. She had to respect that.
“Okay, then, let’s figure out what comes next for you,” she said briskly, letting the rest go for now. They’d get back to it. She made a promise to herself to be sure of that.
He paused in his agitated pacing and stared at her. “You sound as if we can do that between now and your next appointment,” Mack said, sounding vaguely disgruntled. “It’s not going to be that easy. Right now I’m thinking I might have to put out feelers, see what else is out there and then move to wherever I can find a job opening.”
Susie didn’t even attempt to hide her stunned reaction. “You’d leave Chesapeake Shores?” she asked in dismay.
He nodded, though he looked almost as miserable as she was feeling. “I might not have a choice.”
“No,” she said flatly, determined not to have things end between them before they’d even gotten started. And if Mack left now, they would surely end. Distance, especially with their undefined relationship, would kill whatever chance they had.
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