MacKenzie sighed deeply. Everything always happened for a reason, her grandmother had been fond of saying. Maybe there was a reason behind this, too, although for the life of her, she didn’t see one.
“Besides, looking back, maybe I didn’t really love him in quite that ‘forever’ kind of way.” Helpless to continue, she shrugged.
Ann laid a hand on her shoulder. “Things have a way of working out. You’ll see. If not one way, then another.” And then she paused just before leaving. Her eyes were drawn to the small oval at the hollow of MacKenzie’s throat. “Nice cameo. New?”
MacKenzie fingered it. So far, it was turning out to be a dud. “Yes, it is. Thanks.”
Ann nodded, then dug into one of the pockets of her lab coat. “If you need to talk, this is my private number.” Ann pressed a card into her hand before leaving the room.
MacKenzie was off the table in a blink of an eye. There was a show to oversee.
She didn’t remember the trip back. It was one huge blur, hidden behind the recurring mantra: You’re pregnant, you’re pregnant. Her head throbbed.
The call to Jeff was made the first chance she got, right after the program had wrapped for the day. Even as she tapped out the old, familiar number, she could feel the butterflies in her stomach going into high gear again. But it had to be done. There was no way around it. Jeff had a right to know. And she wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.
Jeff listened in silence as she choked out the words. When she finished, he was sympathetic and supportive, all the things that had attracted her to him in the first place.
And then he said, “Listen, Mac, if you need money to get this taken care of—”
“I don’t,” she said, cutting him off before he could say anything further.
“Then you’re keeping it?” There was a clear note of surprise in his voice.
Of course she was keeping the baby, she thought indignantly. How could she not? She’d always had a fondness for all creatures smaller than she was. She just wasn’t relishing the notion that her whole life would be replumbed and restructured.
Hormones mounting another rebellion in her system, MacKenzie didn’t like the way he dehumanized what was happening. “It’s a baby, Jeff, not an ‘it.’”
There was another long pause, as if he were choosing his words carefully. “I’m not interested in being a father, Mac.”
Something shut down in her. It wasn’t that she was expecting him suddenly to declare that he’d been blind and could now see and from here on in everything was going to be coming up roses for them, but she didn’t like the guarded way he was approaching this. As if she wanted something from him. As if he were bracing himself for some kind of shakedown.
Her voice grew more formal. “I know that. I just thought you had a right to know that there would be someone walking around with half your gene pool.”
She swore she heard a sigh of relief. When Jeff uttered the next words, he sounded more like his old self. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up papers making arrangements for child-support payments.”
For some reason, that just made her angrier. “I didn’t call you for that.”
“I know. But I want to do this. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up as if afraid that she might still hit him up for something.
She let the receiver drop back into the cradle within the small cubbyhole that was her office. And then left it at that. Left it with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach right beside the seedling that was her baby.
Her baby, not his, not anyone else’s. Hers, she thought with a sudden cloud of tears welling up within her eyes.
Grabbing a tissue, she blocked a wave of exasperation. There they went again, her emotions climbing onto the same roller coaster they’d been riding for the last week. Damn but she was going to have to get a handle on all this emotional stuff before she found herself being utterly derailed.
Somehow, she made it through the remainder of the day, avoiding Dakota’s probing questions and getting everything prepared for the next day’s taping. Instead of staying beyond six, the way she normally did, she made it out the first second she could.
Pausing only long enough to pick up the take-out food she’d ordered earlier, MacKenzie had every intention of going home and locking herself up in her apartment. She wanted to keep the world at bay for as long as she could. Heaven knew, this wasn’t something that she could keep a secret indefinitely, although there had been women who had managed just that because of minimal weight gain and a bevy of very wide, very loose clothing.
She doubted she’d be that lucky.
The same truck was still there when she pulled into the parking lot behind her complex. But this time it wasn’t blocking her space. The vehicle was stretched out over three empty spaces in guest parking. Some of the tenants with visitors weren’t going to be happy tonight.
Not her concern, she thought, guiding her Mustang into her spot.
The take-out bag still felt mildly warm, which meant that the food within the cartons was at least equally so, if not more. The thought of warm food was oddly comforting.
Until it hit her mouth, she thought wryly. After that, all bets were off.
She picked up her purse and shifted the bag to her other side. Approaching her apartment, she saw that the door to the apartment beside hers was wide open. She recognized a piece of furniture from the truck and tensed.
This meant that the guy she’d all but robbed of his manhood was going to be her new neighbor. MacKenzie caught her lower lip between her teeth. Talk about making a bad first impression….
Pausing, she peered inside the apartment but didn’t see him anywhere. She squelched the desire to go inside, not wanting him to add the word trespasser to his list of grievances against her. The living room was in a state of upheaval. There were boxes clustered everywhere. Had he been moving in all day? Of course he had. Most men were domestically challenged. Moving was a major event to them, right up there with wars and famine and flash floods.
MacKenzie knew she should be moving on before her mildly warm dinner became stone cold. But she’d been diagnosed as terminally curious as a child and couldn’t quite get her feet to move away from the doorway.
Was there a Mrs. New Neighbor somewhere? The signs she saw said otherwise. The furniture seemed definitely masculine, but then some women favored clean, unobstructed lines and minimal furnishings.
He was nowhere in sight.
“Hello?” she called out. When there was no answer, she raised her voice and repeated the greeting.
This time, she got a response.
Quade came walking out from the rear of the apartment. The moment he saw her, a note of tension invaded his otherwise impassive expression. She was carrying something in a brown paper bag and her offending purse/weapon was suspended from her wrist. Quade watched it warily, then raised his eyes to her face.
“Should I be grabbing a tray or something to deflect any more blows?”
MacKenzie laughed and flashed him what she felt was her best smile, the one she knew took in her eyes, as well as her lips. “Sorry about this morning.”
“Okay.” He said the word as if it were meant to terminate any further conversation.
By all rights, this was her cue to withdraw. But she didn’t like the idea of having someone living next door who bore a grudge against her. It didn’t take much imagination to see that was what was in the works here. What was needed right now was a little damage control.
MacKenzie thought of the take-out bag tucked against her side.
Because he’d turned his back on her and had begun tearing the tape off a box that was almost as tall as she was, she took a step inside the apartment.
“Hungry?”
He didn’t even spare her a look. “Why, you have some rat poison you want to unload?”
She could feel her back going up, but she forced her voice not to sound hostile as she asked, “Not very friendly, are you?”
This time, he di
d spare her a look. It was the kind of look that made men with black belts in karate take two giant steps backward. “In general I try to avoid people who try to castrate me.”
She didn’t own a black belt in karate, or any other color belt for that matter, but she had been raised with three brothers and had adopted feistiness as her middle name. “That was an accident.”
“And you apologized.” His tone was cold and gave no indication of what he was thinking, other than the fact that he didn’t want to be bothered right now and was dismissing her.
She dug in. “Yes, I did.”
“Apology accepted.” What did it take to get this woman out of his living room and his apartment? Did he have to physically carry her out? He went back to removing the tape from the box he had no intentions of unpacking today. “Mission accomplished.”
Suppressing a sigh, MacKenzie began to leave, then abruptly stopped.
No, damn it, she wasn’t going to add this to the list of things that bothered her. She was going to prove she was a friendly neighbor if she had to nail his hide to the closet door.
“After work I stopped at Sam Wong’s.”
He frowned as he looked at the contents within the box. It had been mislabeled. These things belonged in the kitchen. Okay, so maybe he would unpack a few things, he decided. “Good for you.”
Since he’d left himself open for a moment, she jumped right in. “They have the best Chinese takeout in the city.”
He began to drag the box into the kitchen, doing his best to ignore this woman who was bent on invading his apartment. It was akin to trying to ignore a jack-in-the-box that kept popping up at inopportune times. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She followed him into the small kitchen. The management had just had it painted a stark white that was all but blinding. She squinted slightly to compensate. “I bought more than I could eat for dinner.”
Digging into the box, Quade hauled out a stack of carefully wrapped dishes. His sister had packed them while trying to talk him out of moving. But it was something he had to do, at least for now. At least until the hole in his gut got smaller.
“Wasteful,” he commented.
She was barely two steps away from exploding. Why was he treating her as if she were some kind of leper when all she was doing was trying to be neighborly? “Would you like to share some?”
Putting the wrapped dishes on the counter, he finally looked at her. “Why would you share it with me?”
“Maybe it’s your sparkling personality I can’t resist.”
For a second, he looked as if he would chew her up and spit her out whole. But then he surprised her. He laughed. Just before he dug into the box again for a second stack of dishes. “Then I’d say you had a serious problem.”
“I don’t, but you might.” The bag was beginning to get heavy. MacKenzie leaned it against the counter. “Are you always like this?”
He hadn’t the vaguest idea what she was talking about. All he knew was that Carla had packed too many things. All he really needed was a single setting, not eight. That had been Ellen’s domain. She was the one who’d liked company. All he’d ever liked was Ellen.
“Like what?” he bit off.
“Like you’re Mr. Wilson and everyone else is Dennis the Menace.”
He stopped unpacking and gave her a long, penetrating look that ended with a glance toward her purse. “Only when confronted with Dennis.”
“Meaning me.”
Polite lies had never been part of his makeup. “See anyone else around?”
The way she saw it, she could either turn on her heel, tell him to go to hell and retreat into her apartment, or start over. Because she was an optimist at heart and hated the thought of anyone disliking her, she opted to start over.
Leaving her purse on the counter, she put out her hand. “I think we got off to a wrong start. My name is MacKenzie Ryan.”
He stood contemplating the extended hand for a moment, as if shaking it were a step he wasn’t prepared to take, then shrugged before slipping his strong, bronzed fingers around hers.
“Quade Preston.” He didn’t bother giving her his job title. The less he shared, the better. Dropping her hand, he turned away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
Oh well, she’d tried.
“On that sparkling personality, no doubt.” Turning on her heel, MacKenzie, her purse and her belated peace offering began to walk away.
She was almost at his door when she heard him say, “You need an oil change.”
MacKenzie stopped and turned around. Part of her thought that she’d imagined hearing his voice. “Excuse me?”
“An oil change,” Quade repeated. “Your car’s burning oil.” He shoved the half-emptied box aside. “Saw it as you pulled away this morning.”
MacKenzie ventured back into the room. “You’re a mechanic?”
He shook his head, walking out of the kitchen and past her. God, he was tall, she thought.
“Just observant. When was the last time you changed your oil?” His deep voice floated back to her out of the bedroom.
MacKenzie attempted to think. Car maintenance was one of those things that was strictly an afterthought with her. She knew that her father and brothers would have hooted about her negligence, but with everything she did, something had to go to the bottom of the list. In this case, it was the car.
“I remember that it was snowing.”
“Might be easier if you went by the odometer instead,” he told her, reemerging into the room. “Every three thousand miles is a good rule of thumb.”
She pretended to examine her digit. “My thumb doesn’t have any rules.”
And neither, most likely, did she, he thought. No surprise there. “I had a feeling.”
She decided to make another effort. “So, could I interest you in some Chinese?”
He’d grabbed a hamburger and fries at a fast-food restaurant when he’d gone to get gas for the truck, so hunger was not a problem at the moment. But the meal had come with a soft drink whose container could have been used to replenish a small lake. “I’d be more interested in your bathroom.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?” she said again.
He jerked his thumb toward the back, where his own bathroom was. “Super shut down the water coming into the apartment. Something about having to refit the pipe leading into the shower.”
She drew the logical conclusion, picking up on the last thing he said. “So you can’t take a shower.”
“Or anything else.”
She was very aware of the need for a bathroom. MacKenzie beckoned for him to follow her. “Sure. Come on in.”
Walking out, she began to search through her purse for her keys. As she approached her own door, the take-out bag she was holding against herself was in danger of spilling its contents at her feet.
Seeing it tilt, Quade took the bag from her. She flashed him a smile as she dug farther into her purse.
He eyed the potential weapon with respect and disdain. “Just what do you keep in that thing?”
“My life,” she replied.
He looked at the shape of the purse, which could have doubled as a portfolio case, something it once had been in her early days.
“Your life is large and flat?”
“Some days,” she told him as she finally located her keys. Drawing them out, she hunted through the cluster for the right one.
He noted that there were at least fifteen keys on the ring. “Just how many doors do you need to unlock?”
“You’d be surprised.” There was one for her apartment and one for her car. The other keys had to do with her place of work. “I’m an assistant producer.” She gave him a sidelong glance as she zeroed in on the right key.
MacKenzie saw that he did not look impressed. But then, she was beginning to doubt that there was anything on the face of the earth that might actually impress the tall, dark, sexy and solemn male standing behind her.
Chapter Three
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Finally finding the key for the front door, MacKenzie waited for Quade to politely ask exactly what she was the assistant producer of. But there was only silence at her back as she unlocked the door.
So she took the initiative. It wasn’t exactly a stretch for her, given her natural exuberance and impatience. “It’s for …And Now a Word from Dakota.”
Quade looked surprised by the piece of information she offered, as if it were a Frisbee that had come out of the blue and landed on his lap. “What is?”
Pulling her key out again, she opened the door. “The show where I’m the assistant producer.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, never heard of it.” And then, because he realized that probably sounded too abrupt, he added, “I’m not from around here.”
Interest sparked her eyes as she dropped the key back into the cavernous regions of her purse. “Oh, where are you from?”
Quade looked around. Her apartment was a theme and variation of his, only in reverse. And with a smattering of feminine touches to it. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I don’t when information’s volunteered.” She cocked her head, studying him. His expression was utterly impassive. What did he look like when he smiled? When he relaxed? Could he relax? He’d laughed earlier, but it had been too fleeting. By the time she’d looked at him, his smile—if it had ever appeared—had evaporated. “You’re not the curious type, are you?”
“I’d say you’ve got enough for both of us in that category.” Since MacKenzie looked as if she were waiting for some kind of a definite answer, he added, “But no, I’m not.” No, he thought, that wasn’t entirely accurate. “Not about people.”
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to follow his thoughts. “What are you curious about?”
Quade generalized, not wanting to open the door to any specifics. He found it easier that way. “Diseases.”
When he said that, she could envision him sitting in an easy chair, poring over textbooks with graphic photos. “That’s a little morbid.”
He’d never looked at it that way. To him it was his life’s work. Therein lay the irony. “Not when it comes to saving lives.”
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