Mac extended his free hand toward Simon. “Mr. Maher.”
After a false start the man shook Mac’s left hand. “Mr. Oceanus.” He frowned at Olivia. “I was under the impression Inglenook was closed for the next few weeks.”
“It is,” Mac said before she could answer. “And I’m more Olivia’s employee than her guest.” He looked down. “If you’re looking for line, does that mean our surprise destination involves ice fishing?”
Simon choked back a snort. “If your destination’s a surprise, I hope you have a good sense of direction, Mr. Oceanus.” He smiled tightly. “Olivia’s been known to… lose some of her guests occasionally. Accidentally, of course.”
Oh, yeah: Simon Maher was not at all happy.
Mac gave a chuckle. “I believe Olivia is discovering I’m not exactly an easy person to lose. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Maher. Maybe I’ll see you on the lake this summer. Come on, sweetheart,” he said, turning with her still tucked against him. “Let’s find our kids so we can get going. I’m starved.”
He was even more surprised when she still remained complacent as they headed toward the back of the store. And he’d swear she brushed her cheek on his jacket—the one she had finally if reluctantly returned this morning.
“Mom!” Sophie said, spotting them as she rounded the end of an aisle at a run. The young girl slid to a stop, her eyes widening and her cheeks turning a lovely pink at the sight of Mac’s arm around her mother. “It’s not what you think,” she whispered, darting a quick glance at the woman and older gentleman at the counter. “I was coming in to war—to get you, only Mac decided we should all come in.”
Olivia finally stepped out of his embrace and took Sophie’s hand, and started leading the girl up the center aisle toward the door—her intrinsic grace a bit stiff.
“Olivia, aren’t you going to introduce me to your gentleman friend?” the woman at the counter called after her.
When Olivia merely kept walking, Mac gave a slight bow. “Mac Oceanus,” he said with a congenial smile. “I’m Olivia’s new employee. And this is my son, Henry,” he added when the boy ran up to him. “Henry, I believe this nice lady is Miss Maher. She and her brother, Simon, live just across the cove from us.”
Henry also gave a slight bow. “Madam.” He looked around and then up at Mac. “I couldn’t find her, Dad. She must have slipped out the back door.”
“It’s okay, son, I found her. She and Sophie have already gone to the truck.” He took hold of Henry’s hand, then smiled at the seemingly speechless woman. “If you will excuse us, my boss doesn’t like to be kept waiting and I don’t wish to get fired.” He gave a nod to the hugely grinning gentleman behind the counter, then turned and led Henry up the main aisle toward the door.
“Did you save her again, Dad?” the boy whispered up at him.
“I arrived just in the nick of time,” he said, squeezing his hand, “and once again rescued the poor damsel from the clutches of an unwanted suitor.”
Henry sighed. “This is becoming something of a habit for us, isn’t it?”
Mac swung him up into his arms with a laugh. “Well, son, not all habits are bad.”
Heaven help her, she was in trouble; feeling Mac’s in-the-flesh arm wrapped around her had been way better than his empty jacket. Olivia had known by his grip that he’d expected her to get all huffy for manhandling her like that, but honest to God, she’d been too busy enjoying being plastered up against his big strong body.
The guy didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Only instead of being hard with pumped-up muscle, Mac seemed more classically athletic; like instead of working out at a gym he just plain worked. He was quite tall—a good three or even four inches taller than Keith—and beautifully proportioned and amazingly supple, his stride loose and confident as if every muscle in his body were working in harmony without even trying.
Olivia finally tore her gaze away from the scene outside the ice shanty window and started unpacking the picnic basket. For their entire walk to the truck from the store, Sophie had sworn she hadn’t once mentioned the word boyfriend or girlfriend to Mac, yet the man sure had acted like a boyfriend.
And he’d called her sweetheart. Right in front of Simon. Twice.
Hell, her palms getting sweaty and her heart racing had been nothing compared to the perspiration she’d felt gathering between her breasts as she’d stood inside his embrace like an adoring, obedient girlfriend right there in front of God and Missy Maher.
And Ezra, the old poop, was probably still laughing his head off.
And now here she was smack in the middle of a frozen lake, hiding in one of Ezra’s fully equipped ice fishing shanties so she could openly stare at Mac, getting all hot and bothered again just watching him effortlessly handle the heavy, powerful auger drilling holes in the ice. And damn if that leather jacket didn’t look better on him than it did on her bed, just like it had felt better with a real live arm inside it.
Good Lord, being a lonely widow sucked.
Then again, being a lonely wife hadn’t exactly been fun, either. In fact, it ranked right up there with being a forgotten daughter. Sometimes Olivia wondered that if she had yet to find a single man who could love her enough to stick around, why was she expecting one to move mountains for her?
Maybe she was aiming too high. Maybe instead of waiting to be loved forever and ever, she should be focusing on having just the first one of those steamy affairs.
Yeah, to hell with her stupid rule of not fraternizing with the guests; why should the campers have all the fun? How many times in the last eleven years had she watched some of the single parents hook up with each other for a discreet little affair? Heck, some of them had obviously kept the relationship going, and even come back in subsequent years married to each other, suddenly needing Inglenook’s help to integrate their kids into a new family unit.
So why was it okay for the campers to sneak out of their cabins after their kids had gone to bed to meet on a moonlit beach, or in the gazebo, or down on the nature trail, or even in the backseat of their cars in the parking lot, yet it wasn’t okay for her? Hell, she’d even watched one couple—two obviously very coordinated individuals—do it right there in the middle of the cove, in the moonlight, in a canoe!
Apparently Missy Maher was a very light sleeper, because less than two days after that particular incident a state inspector had shown up, claiming Inglenook wasn’t licensed to run sex therapy programs.
In truth, a few of the single fathers had propositioned Olivia the first summer she’d stopped wearing her wedding band, only she’d still been too angry to consider their offers. And then as Sophie had gotten older and more aware, Olivia had been too afraid to let any of the men get close enough even to ask.
But Mac might not exactly be the best candidate for her first outing back into the world of dating, either. He seemed a little bit too… well, too male; too intense, too tall and strong and confident, and way too sexy for a woman who hadn’t had sex in more than six years.
Maybe Simon Maher was a safer choice.
Except Simon wouldn’t be leaving in the fall, so she’d have to go through all that awkward breaking-up business once she’d gained enough confidence to go looking for her next affair, and then she’d find herself running into an ex-lover in town all the time.
Hell, she was just like Goldilocks—only one bed had been too young, one was too old, and the one bed that was just right was too damn sexy.
“Sophie, we need to stop now. No, come back!” she heard Henry shouting. “The ice is getting thin. Stop!”
Olivia dropped the bag of chips and shot out the shanty door, heading after her daughter at a dead run when she spotted the girl chasing a runaway kite. “Sophie! Stop!”
The girl stopped and turned with a frown even as she pointed at the kite skimming across the frozen lake. “My string broke, Mom. I need to go catch my kite before it blows all the way to shore.”
“You don’t take one more step, young
lady!” Olivia shouted as she ran toward her, only to squeak in surprise when Mac caught her sleeve and brought her to a halt beside him and Henry.
“But it’s okay, Mom. See?” Sophie said, gesturing at the perfectly normal-looking lake between her and the kite sliding over the snow. “There’s no puddles or darkening or anything. Henry’s just not used to being on a frozen lake, so he doesn’t want to go that far. Look, there’s even fishermen over in the cove,” she added as she started walking backward.
“Sophie,” Mac said, stopping the girl dead in her tracks even as the hairs on Olivia’s neck prickled at the quiet authority in his tone. “You will come back to us now.”
Apparently Sophie felt it, too, because she immediately started toward them.
Olivia tried to go to her daughter, but Mac held her arm.
“Let her come to us,” he said quietly.
She looked around, trying to see what had made Henry decide the ice was getting thin. They were about a mile from shore, surrounded by at least five other parties of fishermen spaced maybe one to two miles apart. And she had watched Mac drill through almost two feet of ice to set their five fishing traps. “I don’t understand,” she said, more to herself than either of them. She looked at Henry. “What makes you think the ice isn’t safe over there?”
He gave her a quizzical look and then shrugged. “I just know.” He looked at his father. “I could sense it was getting thinner as we were running after Sophie’s kite.” He suddenly looked doubtful. “You can feel it, too, can’t you, Dad?”
“Yes, son, I feel it. There’s probably a spring welling up under the ice, making it thinner in that one spot.”
Olivia’s neck hairs stirred again. How could either of them possibly know that?
Mac crouched to sit on his heels, bringing his eyes level with Sophie’s as she came up to them, and smiled at her. “Henry and I will retrieve your kite when we head back to shore after our picnic. Until then, I’m sure he would enjoy sharing his.”
“We can take turns,” Henry said, turning to head back to the shanty. “Oh, look! We have a flag! We’ve caught a fish!”
Olivia started to take hold of Sophie, but noticing she was still shaking from her scare, she shoved her hands in her pockets instead. “Go on,” she said, nodding in Henry’s direction. “Go show him how to set the hook and pull the fish up through the hole. Just follow your tracks back,” she called out when the girl took off at a run. “Maybe we should finish our picnic on shore,” she said to Mac, glancing around again at what appeared to be a perfectly normal, solidly frozen lake. She looked at him. “There might be other places it’s not safe.”
“There’s just that one spot in this area,” he said as he stood back up. “But it does appear as if Bottomless is beginning to wake up from its winter’s sleep.” He placed his hand on the small of her back, urging her toward the shanty. “And Henry may have overreacted, Olivia; the ice covering the spring is still several inches thick. But I’m glad he had the sense to err on the side of caution rather than ignore his instincts.”
“But how could he possibly know?” She frowned up at him. “Or you, for that matter. There’s not one sign that anything is different in that area. Even a seasoned fisherman can’t judge how thick the ice is without cutting a hole.”
Mac gave her a somewhat arrogant smile. “It would appear my son’s been listening to me after all. Since he’s come to live with me, I’ve been teaching Henry that we all have the capacity to feel the world around us far better than we see it.”
Olivia stopped walking. “You mean like ESP or something? You’ve been telling Henry you have extrasensory perception? And that he does, too?”
“No more than you do, Olivia. Nor any more than anyone else does. Have you never felt in your gut that something wasn’t quite right?” He suddenly turned serious. “Tell me: The first time you met that bastard who attacked you, what was your initial impression of him?”
Olivia dropped her gaze to his chest, feeling her cheeks heat up. “There was something I didn’t like about him, only I couldn’t decide what.” She looked up. “But I don’t believe in being judgmental, so I gave Mark the benefit of my doubt.”
“So your gut was telling you something wasn’t quite right about the man, yet you ignored your instincts in favor of… what? Why did you hire him anyway?”
“I couldn’t very well tell him I’d changed my mind and that he had to drive all the way back to Georgia just because I didn’t like him.”
“You were nearly raped because you would rather not hurt his feelings than follow your instincts?”
“So just like Eileen, you’re saying it’s my fault Mark attacked me?” Balling her hands into fists in her pockets, Olivia stepped toward him. “Well, let me tell you, Mr. ESP: I’d rather have a big old sappy heart than no heart at all.” She spun toward the shanty, but he took hold of her jacket and pulled her back around.
He cupped her face in his large warm hands to hold her looking at him. “You are the embodiment of heart, Olivia,” he said quietly. “And I apologize for implying you had anything to do with your attack.” His thumb brushed across one of her scorching cheeks, and his eyes crinkled at their corners. “But I will not apologize for pointing out that our instincts are always stronger than our minds, or that I will still be reminding my son of that truth on my deathbed.”
He dropped his hands so suddenly Olivia barely caught herself from staggering forward as he folded his arms over his chest and smiled at her. “Maybe while you’re teaching me how to be a good father, there will be one or two things I can teach you. Would you not like to know your daughter will become a strong, confident woman for simply listening to her heart?” He canted his head. “What if she came to you one day and said a certain person made her uncomfortable? Would you tell her to ignore her instinct, or would you suggest she avoid that person?”
Olivia dropped her head with a heavy sigh. “I’d tell her to run like hell.”
“Would you like me to go drill a hole in the ice where Henry believes it’s thin?”
She snapped her gaze to his. “Why?”
“To see that even a young child knows enough to follow his instincts.”
“So now we’re back to Mark’s attack being my fault.”
His smile widened. “No, Olivia. We’re back to finding some way for you to follow your instincts without hurting a person’s feelings. Other than ducking out back doors, that is,” he said deadpan.
Of all the arrogant—Olivia turned on her heel and started marching toward the shanty again. Only instead of physically stopping her this time, his quiet laughter did.
Dammit to hell, she was not running away! She pivoted around and strode right back up to him, and when she got there she poked him in his big broad chest. “For your information, I was going to fire the idiot the minute we got back to Inglenook. So maybe his gut was telling him what was going to happen, and that’s why he got so angry.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I believe the bastard was too overwhelmed by your beauty to listen to anything but his raging hormones.”
Her jaw dropped in—was he serious?
He used his finger to gently close her mouth. “Ah, Olivia; the men in this town are idiots. It’s not your dead husband they should be afraid of, but you.”
This time Olivia managed to close her gaping mouth before he closed it for her. “What in hell are you talking about?”
“While you were in the store this morning, your daughter told us that Eileen said the men in Spellbound Falls wouldn’t ask you to dance at the Christmas party because they’re afraid they won’t measure up to your deceased husband.” He took hold of her hand, which she only now realized was grasping his jacket instead of poking it, and pressed her fingers between his warm palms. “Except that Simon Maher doesn’t seem to realize what a shrine you’ve become to the good people in town.”
“Excuse me?” she whispered. “They think I’m a shrine to the dead bastard?”
Of course he didn’t let her go, because she wasn’t holding a baseball bat.
Maybe she needed to get one of those taser-thingies instead.
Because judging by Mac’s very stillness, Olivia knew he’d caught her mistake, and this time she didn’t have any trouble reading that look in his deep green eyes.
Chapter Seven
Mac sat on the crystallized snow with his back against the shanty and his eyes closed against the sun, and decided he liked picnics. He’d never given much thought to dining outdoors in early spring, but he was finding it to be a rather pleasant experience—though that might have had more to do with his picnic companions than the time of year.
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