Was he a doctor? Now that, she’d have less trouble believing. “Do you save lives?” she prodded when he said nothing.
He figured he’d been neighborly enough for one encounter. Hell, for all encounters until the end of the year. Maybe even beyond.
“Your bathroom?” he prompted, reminding her why he’d followed her into her apartment in the first place.
“Right through there.” She pointed off to the rear of the nine-hundred-square-foot apartment. “Right by the master bedroom.”
MacKenzie knew the term was a whimsical one inasmuch as it was the larger of the two bedrooms by perhaps a couple of square feet.
“Thanks,” Quade murmured, quickly making his exit before she went off on another tangent that required some acknowledgment from him.
MacKenzie stood where she was for a moment. If her new neighbor wasn’t so good-looking, he would have been a perfect blueprint for some kind of mad scientist. Withdrawn, uncommunicative. But he was good-looking and the sight of him brought posters for volleyball on the beach to mind. It wasn’t a large stretch of the imagination for her to see lean muscles beneath his T-shirt. He probably had one of those abdomens where you could count the number of ridges that went into making up what someone had told her was called a washboard stomach.
The man would be like catnip to the women in the area, she thought.
You’re swearing off everything male, from hamsters on up, remember? she reminded herself.
MacKenzie walked into her kitchen. With a shake of her head, she set down the take-out bag on the small table that was framed with four short, squat chairs.
There was no point in even thinking about him. Someone like the man presently using her bathroom undoubtedly had to be spoken for. Which was fine, because she wasn’t in the market. And even if she were in the market, she was pregnant, so that pretty much put the lid on all things social.
Still, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t be friendly. She could always be friendly. MacKenzie sighed, unconsciously running her hand through her hair. She was counting on friends to take her mind off the chaotic turn of events in her life right now.
Feeling her appetite waning even though she still hadn’t taken a bite of anything, MacKenzie took out a plate and utensils. Her hand hovered over the drawer as she wondered whether or not she should take out a setting for Quade, too.
He hadn’t said anything about staying. But feeding him his first night here would be the neighborly thing to do. On a whim, she took out an extra fork and plate.
MacKenzie heard the bathroom door open just as she finished taking the cartons out of the now-damp paper bag. Bunching the bag up, she tossed it into the garbage pail and turned in time to see Quade walk by on his way toward the front door.
He wasn’t staying, she thought and wondered where the wave of sadness came from. Was there something she could take to get her emotions to level off again?
Abandoning the kitchen, she crossed to the door. “You still didn’t say where you were from.”
He slid her a side glance. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why?” she prodded, “Is it a secret?”
Quade paused, thinking that perhaps he should have done a little research on his own rather than leaving the matter of finding him a place to live in the hands of a real-estate agency. Granted, this place was convenient, close to the laboratory and from the looks of it, rather a nice place to reside, as well.
But in truth, he didn’t require very much anymore and this apartment definitely did have its detractions, he thought, looking at the exuberant redhead with the ever-moving mouth.
“Are all the neighbors like you?”
She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant or how he meant it. “You mean inquisitive?”
Quade laughed shortly, although his lips never curved. “I was thinking of ‘nosy,’ but all right, we’ll go with your word.”
“Can’t speak for everyone,” MacKenzie allowed, “but the woman who lived here before you liked to take a healthy interest in what was going on and the people who came and went around here.”
He read between the lines. “By ‘healthy interest’ you mean everything short of strapping someone to a lie-detector machine and assaulting him or her with a barrage of questions?”
She grinned at that image and he thought to himself that the expression added extra wattage to the room. “Something like that.”
He supposed it wouldn’t harm anything if he told her where he’d lived before everything inside of him had died. “I’m from Chicago.”
She nodded, pleased by the step he’d taken. “I’m from Boston originally.”
But he wasn’t here to exchange information. He had no desire to get to know anything about any one of his neighbors, or the people he was going to be working with, for that matter. All he wanted to do was his work and wait for eventual oblivion, because that was what Ellen had left in her wake. A deep, vast hole that he found himself walking around in in slow motion.
The look in his eyes was meant to put the woman in her place. “I don’t remember asking.”
“No, I’m just volunteering.” Her smiling eyes met his. “Anything else you want to know?”
Quade frowned. He was wasting time here. “I didn’t even want to know that.”
Her smile didn’t wane. The man was clearly in need of someone to talk to before he became some kind of weird hermit. “Is that what’s called being brutally frank?”
“That’s what’s called minding my own business.” About to leave, he paused just for a moment. He had to ask. “I thought New Yorkers kept to themselves.”
“That’s just bad publicity by someone who never took the trouble to really get to know his neighbors.” Delivering the salvo, she looked up at him and smiled brightly.
Ellen used to smile like that, Quade realized suddenly. Realized, too, that it had warmed him just to see it.
Abruptly, he straightened, as if being rigid could somehow keep the memories at bay. “I’ve got to get back to unpacking.” He nodded toward the rear of the apartment. “Thanks for the use of the bathroom.”
“Any time.” She moved a little closer, matching him step for step. “Sure I can’t interest you in an egg roll or something? They’re small.”
“No, thanks. I already ate,” he told her. “I grabbed a burger and fries earlier.”
“Then you didn’t have dessert,” she said suddenly. She switched positions quickly, swinging around to look at the contents she’d just removed from the bag. She scooped up the first fortune cookie she came to and offered it to him. “Here.”
He was about to refuse, decided that it would just be wasting his breath, that he’d wind up with the cookie in some form or other no matter what he said. So he nodded instead and was immediately rewarded by having a fortune cookie thrust into his hand.
“Thanks.”
He looked as if he were going to shove the cookie straight into his pocket without looking at it. Where it was probably going to stay until he sent the pants to the cleaners. If he bothered taking it out then, MacKenzie thought.
She caught his wrist before he could get his hand into his pocket. He looked at her in surprise. “Aren’t you going to open it? I know you’ve got this ‘no curiosity’ thing going, but me, I’ve always love reading fortune cookies.”
He was all set to give it back to her. “Then you keep it.”
But she held up her hands, warding off the exchange. “No, bad luck to take a used fortune cookie. It’s yours now.”
He sighed, debating just leaving but he had a feeling she would pop up like toast in his place the next morning, asking what the fortune cookie had to “say.” Since she wouldn’t take it back, he was stuck.
Quade cracked open the cookie and pulled out the small white paper. “Destiny has entered your life,” he read, then crumpled the paper.
No, it hadn’t, he thought. Destiny had left his life. With the last breath that Ellen had taken. “Happy?” he asked.
�
�For now,” she answered truthfully.
Well, at least she didn’t try to lie. Quade nodded curtly at her as he walked out her door.
MacKenzie hurried after him, crossing the threshold. The sky looked as if it was going to rain at any moment. The air smelled pregnant with moisture. MacKenzie shook her head. She had pregnancy on the brain.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” she called after him.
The only acknowledgment she received was another quick, dismissive nod before he closed the door behind himself. She heard the lock click into place.
“Good-looking fella.”
Startled, MacKenzie bit back a squeal of surprise. She turned and saw that there was a short, slightly rounded older woman standing in the doorway of the apartment that was two doors away.
The woman had frosted hair cut short and looked to be somewhere in her late fifties, possibly early sixties. Her blue eyes were sparkling as they took in Quade. It seemed to MacKenzie that the woman was stroking the dog she was holding a tad too hard. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier, softly growled his displeasure until she finally stopped petting him.
Careful what you wish for, Dog, MacKenzie cautioned silently.
“New neighbor,” MacKenzie volunteered out loud, nodding toward Quade’s apartment.
Finding herself no longer hungry for food and in no mood for the solitude she’d told herself she’d been craving all afternoon, MacKenzie crossed to the older woman. The woman didn’t look the slightest bit familiar. MacKenzie would have remembered someone who could have easily been cast in the role of Mrs. Claus.
“I’m sorry, did you just move in, too?”
“Me?” One hand went to her ample bosom as the woman laughed at the idea. The sound was rich, bawdy and not entirely in keeping with the angelic-looking rest of her. “No, Cyrus and I have been here for ages.”
“Cyrus?”
“My dog.”
“Oh.” MacKenzie looked at the woman more closely. Nope, not familiar at all. “I’m sorry, I’ve got a very hectic, erratic schedule. I guess I just never bumped into you.”
The woman’s smile was almost cherubic. “No, you haven’t. Can’t say I wouldn’t mind ‘bumping’ into that young man, though.” The woman peered around MacKenzie, as if hoping to get another glimpse of Quade. But the door at his apartment remained closed. If he was going to be bringing up any more furniture or boxes, it wasn’t now. “He’s been moving in all day.”
MacKenzie nodded. “Yes, I know.”
Interest etched itself into the older woman’s soft features. “Do you also know his name?”
“Quade Preston.” MacKenzie liked the way that sounded. Strong.
The other woman seemed to be trying it out in her head, as well. She nodded at MacKenzie. “Very masculine sounding. Doesn’t look very friendly, but maybe that’s because he’s new,” she theorized. “Shy so often can come off as standoffish, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
MacKenzie considered herself shy, but she took just the opposite tack, trying to force herself to be as friendly as possible. Obviously it wasn’t working with her new neighbor.
As if someone had just snapped their fingers, the other woman seemed to come out of a self-imposed trance. She stopped looking toward the other apartment with a bemused expression on her face and faced MacKenzie instead.
“Oh, where are my manners?” The woman shifted the dog she was still holding to her other arm, putting out her hand toward MacKenzie. A thin layer of downy dog fur clung to her sleeve. “I’m Agnes Bankhead. Aggie to my friends.” Her eyes brightened as MacKenzie took her hand. “And I think we’re going to be friends—as long as you tell me your name.”
MacKenzie took an instant liking to the older woman. There was something about Aggie that reminded her of an aunt she’d had. Actually, Sara had been her father’s aunt, but so young at heart, she’d seemed years younger than her dad.
“MacKenzie.”
Aggie cocked her head, the ends of her short silver-gray hair swinging about her face. “Is that first or last?”
“My mother’s last, my first.” She’d been named after her mother’s people. She was also supposed to have been a boy. The name would have fit better. But when she was born, her mother had been adamant that the name be used. She hadn’t intended on having any more children. Ethan, the brother who’d arrived eleven months after MacKenzie, had had other ideas. “It’s MacKenzie Ryan.”
Aggie firmly shook her hand before releasing it. “Well, MacKenzie Ryan, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
MacKenzie was still amazed that this was their first encounter. You would have thought, living so close together in the same small complex, that their paths would have crossed at least once before. “How long did you say you lived here?”
“You’re wondering that because you never saw me before, right?” Aggie guessed knowingly. “There’s a reason for that. I worked at home.” She waved at hand toward her front door. “Glued to my computer, going blind. Until last week, my last job was freelance graphic artist.” She leaned her head in closer, as if sharing a secret. “Freelance is shorthand for fighting to keep the wolf away from the door. Most of the time, the wolf won.”
She stopped abruptly, looking up. The sky was a deep shade of gray layered over black. “Looks like more rain’s about to find us. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll finish this conversation?”
MacKenzie was more than happy to take her up on the invitation.
“I’d love to.” She followed Aggie and her dog into the cozy apartment. “So, what happened last week?”
Aggie closed the door and released the dog, who immediately trotted off to his favorite chair. A large dark blue recliner with an crocheted afghan spread over it.
“Last week I took a long, hard look at my life and realized that I was tired of hustling for clients. I decided that if I was going to hustle, I might as well do it for the kind of self-satisfaction that would make me feel loved.”
MacKenzie caught her lower lip between her teeth, afraid to venture a guess about the new career the other woman had chosen for herself. For one thing, Aggie’s choice of words sounded way too much like a description a former high-profile madam had given Dakota on one of the shows they’d done earlier this year.
Bright and vivacious, Aggie still looked a little old to be getting her feet wet in the game, although who knew? MacKenzie decided to play it safe and just ask.
“Such as?”
Aggie grinned from ear to ear, her expression catapulting her into her thirties, or thereabouts. “Stand-up comedy.”
MacKenzie stared at her. It took years to become a successful comedian. Years of one-night stands and playing in clubs that had more roaches than customers seated at the tables. She couldn’t have heard Aggie correctly. “Excuse me?”
The look in the sparkling blue eyes was knowing. And there was laughter in them, as well. “You think I’m out of my mind, don’t you?”
The last thing MacKenzie wanted was to offend the woman. Besides, who was she to judge anything? She’d judged that Jeff was the perfect man and look how wrong that turned out to be?
“No, absolutely not. I think everyone should try to make their dreams come true.”
“Just not at seventy-two.”
“Seventy-two?” MacKenzie echoed incredulously. “You’re seventy-two?” How could she have been that far off? Maybe being pregnant affected your vision, she thought.
“Uh-huh.” With one hand at her back, Aggie gently guided her into her cheery kitchen. Daffodils bloomed on the wallpaper, adding to the feeling of warmth in the room. “I know, I know, I don’t look a day over seventy-one. It’s all those genes I inherited from my mother.” Switching on the coffeemaker on the counter, Aggie poured in water and placed the pot under the spout. Hot water emerged almost immediately, making noise as it ran its course. “Of course, they’re a little old themselves, having been used by her, not to mention all those women who came be
fore her.”
After turning around, she paused to lean against the counter. “They tell me that my great-great-great-grandmother looked like she was fifteen when she was my age, but what can you do?” Crossing to the small pantry, she opened the door and reached inside. “Tea?” she asked, firing the question over her shoulder.
Maybe Aggie had something there, MacKenzie thought. The woman was certainly entertaining and amusing. Maybe she was unique enough to make it in this unsteady field she was thinking of entering.
“Um, yes, please.”
Taking out a small box of tea bags, Aggie placed the box on the counter in front of MacKenzie. The coffeemaker had finished turning cold water into hot. “Earl Grey, right?” Aggie took down a cup and saucer. “No milk.”
It was exactly the way she took her tea. And she was a tea drinker in a land of coffee consumers. It wasn’t often that she was offered her first choice right out of the box.
She looked at Aggie with no small amount of wonder. “How did you…?”
The water steamed as it descended over the tea bag. Aggie set down the pot and waited a moment, then raised and lowered the tea bag a total of five times before setting it before her guest.
“I’m just a wee bit psychic at times. That, too, came from my mother’s side,” she confided with pride. “She came to this country from Scotland as a young girl. A lot of people had the sight—that’s what they called it back then.”
“Of course they had no cable television, so I suppose they had to do something to entertain themselves,” she added. MacKenzie hadn’t begun to drink, so Aggie gestured toward the tea. “Drink it while it’s hot, dear. The nice tea will help to soothe your stomach.”
MacKenzie looked at her sharply. “What makes you say that?”
Aggie’s expression was the personification of innocence. “The baby’s been giving you trouble, hasn’t it, dear?”
MacKenzie’s mouth dropped open.
Chapter Four
“How did you—” Realizing that her question was an admission, MacKenzie gathered her wits about her and started over again. “I mean, why would you think I was pregnant?”
She’s Having a Baby Page 4