A great deal of time had gone by since then.
Still, he had to admit that whatever Aggie had done with the seemingly simple dessert, it was definitely worth sacrificing another fifteen minutes of his solitude.
Finished, MacKenzie smiled as she pushed away her empty dessert plate. She was tempted to have more, but something told her that if she did, she was in danger of exploding. She hadn’t eaten so much since she couldn’t remember when. If she kept it up, she’d be double her size in no time. Heaven only knew she was going to be larger soon enough.
“I don’t know when I’ve had a better meal,” she told Aggie. The latter beamed as she collected the three plates and utensils. MacKenzie glanced toward Quade, waiting to be seconded.
After a beat, Quade read the look in her eyes correctly and added his voice to the praise. “Me, neither.” Considering his sparse verbiage, his words were practically a testimonial.
Aggie deposited the dishes in the sink and returned looking extremely pleased. “Glad to have the opportunity to fill your bellies with a home-cooked hot meal for a change. Feel free to knock on my door anytime. There’s always bound to be something in the refrigerator worth heating up.”
He had no idea why, when Aggie uttered the last phrase, his attention was drawn to the petite woman sitting on his left.
The thought that MacKenzie might be worth heating up came out of nowhere, as if it had been spawned in some alien mind because it wasn’t the kind of thing he thought of, even on an irregular basis.
As a rule, his mind was focused on research, not reproductive glands. And yet, for some reason, as the evening had worn on, he found himself being drawn toward MacKenzie with small, precise waves of anticipation rolling over him, as if deep down he were waiting for something to happen between them.
He was just tired, he told himself, nothing more. Maybe Aggie had used some kind of ingredient he was allergic to and this was just an odd reaction he was experiencing.
Quade had to leave before Aggie found yet another excuse to keep them here. He rose to his feet. “It’s late. I’d better get going,” he murmured.
MacKenzie glanced at her watch. It was past ten and she had to be in early tomorrow. Where had the time gone?
“Oh God, me, too.” Gaining her feet, she kissed Aggie’s cheek and gave the woman a hug that came from the heart. “I had a wonderful time and thank you for everything.”
Pleasure danced in the woman’s bright blue eyes as she released MacKenzie. “Don’t mention it.” And then she turned toward Quade, beckoned him toward her. “C’mon, I promise I won’t bite. Remember, a hug is a good thing.” And then, as she embraced him, Aggie whispered in his ear, “You really do need to loosen up, dear. You’ll feel better for it.”
Quade stepped back, looking at her uncertainly. Aggie only smiled and winked.
Definitely a very odd woman, he decided, presiding over what had been a very odd evening for him. He’d spent more time in the woman’s house and company than he had in anyone’s for a very long time, his family included.
He wondered if Aggie was going to make a habit of waylaying him when he came home, the way she’d done this evening. Initially he’d tried to demur, but the woman had sweetly, albeit stubbornly, refused to take no for an answer.
Ultimately, he’d agreed to the woman’s invitation because, oddly enough, he was hungry, not to mention tired, and the thought of making the effort to call a take-out place had not appealed to him. To his way of thinking, Aggie had won by default.
But, pleasant though the woman might be, he was not about to let this happen again. He wanted nothing more than just to keep to himself.
Aggie escorted them to the door. Her kindly eyes washed over both. MacKenzie couldn’t shake the impression that the woman saw something that MacKenzie couldn’t.
But she was tired and her mind was wandering, she decided.
“Good night. See you two later,” Aggie said just before she closed the door.
You two. As if they were a set. MacKenzie shook her head. What was she doing, letting her mind drift like that? She was already part of a set. A mother-and-baby set. She had no intention of being part of anything else for a very long time. There was already too much on her plate.
The night air was damp as it wrapped itself around her. Or was it just that she was suddenly feeling alone? MacKenzie wasn’t sure and pushed the thought away as best she could.
She stifled a shiver.
“Cold?” he asked.
“I should have brought a shawl,” she admitted. “At least we don’t have a long walk home.” To her surprise, he took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “Is that the doctor in you coming out?”
“Seemed like the thing to do.”
The words were barely audible. And somehow sexy because of the low tone.
She shook herself free, wondering just what had come over her. Maybe it was knowing about the baby, about what lay ahead of her that made her feel vulnerable and open to impossible thoughts that hadn’t a chance in hell of ever happening.
Trying to rouse herself, she looked at Quade. “I meant what I said about talking to Dakota. I can almost guarantee that she’d been willing to help you get a fund-raiser together.”
“That would be good,” he commented, not knowing what else to say. He was acutely aware that, beyond the strains of the city that echoed all around them, he could hear MacKenzie breathing. It had a very odd effect on him.
Odd. That was the word for tonight, he thought again. Odd for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that for the first time since he’d found himself alone, he had become aware of another human being’s gender.
He quickened his pace, wanting to get home and shut the door on whatever it was that he was experiencing.
The last time MacKenzie walked across it, the pavement between his apartment and hers had been completely looking-glass smooth. How a crack came to be there she had no idea.
She had even less of an idea how the narrow, three-inch heel of her left shoe got caught in the small space.
What MacKenzie was very aware of was that one moment she was walking—the next she was pitching forward and about to fall.
Chapter Seven
Quade’s reflexes had always been razor sharp.
When he had been very young and given to optimism, he had wanted to become a professional ballplayer. At first he’d quietly join in any ongoing neighborhood game. His phenomenal hand-eye coordination, not to mention his batting prowess, was well known in the area and he became much sought after. His playing ability flourished and with it his daydreams.
Until an extremelys mature sense of reality struck, also at an early age, and he realized that the odds of reaching the majors were incredibly small. He put away his bat and glove and turned his attention toward more attainable goals. But his years of playing off and on served to keep his reflexes in top form.
His instincts were keen. Automatic.
When he heard the sharp intake of breath beside him, Quade reacted. Twisting, he caught MacKenzie before he even realized she was falling.
She felt like an idiot, a clumsy idiot.
But more than that, she felt something warm move through her, like a hot desert wind sweeping along the sand on a sultry day. Except that it wasn’t quite summer yet and New York City weather was obstinately clinging to memories of a clammy spring.
The lights in the courtyard were spaced so that an occasional shadow could creep in. MacKenzie found herself half in shadow, half in light and completely in the dark as to what was going on inside of her. Or why she felt like melting into the strong arms that had closed around her. He was her knight in slightly tarnished armor, saving her if not from a fate worse than death, then at least from a terribly embarrassing one.
For a second, it seemed as if time had stood still, even though her heart made up for it by hammering twice as hard as it was accustomed to.
Something was happening to her. And then she real
ized that her feet were off the ground. He’d caught her so fast, so hard, he’d lifted her into his arms.
Her face was inches from his.
His lips were inches from hers.
And something within her leaped out of nowhere, wanting to close the gap.
Begging to close it.
Their eyes met and held as if some force were compelling them to look at one another, unable to look away, unable to look anywhere else.
She wanted him to kiss her.
He was no one to her and she no one to him, but she wanted him to kiss her so badly. Right now, more than anything in the world, she wanted to feel desirable. Wanted to feel something for someone, even lust if that was all that was available.
She didn’t even try to explore why.
It didn’t make any sense to Quade. He’d all but become a monastic friar ever since he’d buried his wife and his heart in that churchyard over eighteen months ago. At first, to get himself from one end of the day to the other, he’d spent the day in search of his sanity. Most of the time, he couldn’t find it.
Then gradually, as he reclaimed his life, he began to look for a purpose, a reason to continue breathing in a world without Ellen. He’d found his purpose, his excuse for living, in his work.
It was enough.
Never in any of that time had he looked for a woman, for companionship, for that rare, head-spinning sense of belonging that he’d so fleetingly found in loving Ellen.
He’d come to think of himself as autonomous. Someone who had no need of companionship. So much so that his family had despaired about him, but he’d made his peace with his solitude. He didn’t need anyone to make him complete. Being in love had been just a small, wondrous part of his life, but it was over.
So why then did he want to close his arms more tightly around this woman? Why did he want to press his mouth against hers, taste her on his lips? And why, in heaven’s name, did he have this sudden urge to feel her softness against him?
All right, physical desires were a natural thing, but as far back as he could remember, he had never been one to be ruled by his hormones, not even during those wildly erratic stages of puberty. So why this sudden flash, this strong sense of attraction? Of desire, for lack of a better word?
It was a backlash, he decided, nothing more than a momentary glitch in time where all the things he’d felt during his years with Ellen had swept over him, demanding a resurgence.
There wasn’t going to be one.
Very slowly, Quade caught hold of himself and drew his head back. He released her even more slowly, peering at her to make sure she wasn’t going to sink to the ground or something equally unexpected.
“You okay?” he wanted to know. His voice was deep, low, like the distant rumble of thunder. The lightning had already struck.
“I’m fine,” MacKenzie lied, feeling like the survivor of some kind of emotional earthquake.
Struggling not to appear as shaken as she felt, MacKenzie looked down at her shoe. The heel hadn’t broken off. It appeared to be still intact. Which was more than she could say about herself, she thought ruefully. Again, she could feel the flush of embarrassment sweeping over her.
“Where did that crack come from?” she muttered, seeing it for the first time.
He shrugged dismissively as he made a calculated guess.
“Ground’s probably shifting. The subway’s not too far away from here.” He’d seen an entrance just on the next block. “The constant rattle of passing trains…” Quade’s voice drifted away.
“That must be it,” MacKenzie agreed quickly, wanting only to escape into her apartment and somehow put a lid on what was going on inside of her until she had it under control again. Hopefully soon. She took a deep breath, attempting to clear her head. “Thanks.”
He began to take a step back toward his own apartment. “For what?”
A tiny cloud of calm descended over her and she flashed a smile at him. “For having great reflexes.”
“Oh, that.”
He’d thought that maybe she was thanking him for not kissing her. Because unless the woman was utterly blind and clueless, she had to have seen that kissing her was exactly what was foremost on his mind.
What was still foremost on his mind, he admitted silently.
“Glad to have been there,” Quade heard himself responding.
Talk about a lame comeback, he thought, annoyed at his lack of wit and clarity. But then, language had never been a real tool for him. What he lacked in articulate skills, he more than made up for with his mental acumen. He was a thinker, not a talker.
MacKenzie stood before the door she’d unlocked but hadn’t opened yet, reluctant to go inside. Confusion ran riot within her. She was relieved that Quade hadn’t kissed her just then and yet, at the same time, she felt somehow bereft.
Cheated.
And then, while her heart still throbbed, impulse kicked in. Impulse that was responsible for so much that had happened in her life. Impulse had had her going to a college other than the one everyone else had expected her to go to. It had been at this other college that she’d met and hooked up with the woman who was to become her best friend in the world, not to mention the source of all her future job opportunities.
MacKenzie had always been a great believer in impulse.
So when it swept over her, reinforcing the feelings that were still vibrating inside of her, MacKenzie moved away from her doorway. She took the few steps to his, reached up and took Quade’s face in her hands and then kissed him.
Hard and quickly.
Leaving herself feeling like someone who had just been sucked into a vortex.
He was looking at her, a stunned expression on his face.
Was he dazed, as well? she wondered. Because God knew that was what she was feeling right now.
“That’s for saving me from scraped knees, injured pride and worse,” she told him, shoving his jacket into his hands.
With that, MacKenzie made her escape, quickly seeking safety behind her door.
Before she was tempted to kiss him again.
Because his lips had been firm, but yielding, and that one taste had definitely unraveled her, making her want to go back for more. Her pulse still hummed as she wove her way through the dark into the rear of the apartment and her bedroom.
She doubted she was going to get much sleep tonight, no matter what kind of a bill of goods she tried to sell herself about the origin of her impulse.
Quade stood stone still halfway between her door and his. Lost between stunned and something else, what he wasn’t quite sure of. All he knew was that after MacKenzie had surprised him with that kiss, he wanted to sweep her back into his arms and kiss her himself.
Really kiss her.
Transference, he told himself. That was all that it was. Transference.
That was what he was doing now, he told himself. Transferring all those residual feelings he was still experiencing, the ones with Ellen’s name on them that were still wandering around aimlessly inside of him. Without Ellen around, they had nowhere to go.
By now, he would have thought that they would have faded out of existence instead of haunting him like this. Or worse, suddenly aiming themselves toward someone else.
He didn’t want someone else.
He wanted to be left alone.
Loving someone was not worth the risk, the pain that was attached to it, its advent as inevitable as the sunset each evening.
Swallowing an oath, Quade let himself into his apartment and shut the door firmly behind him.
The following day, one thought gnawing away at her, MacKenzie tried to choose her time well and waited until Dakota was alone in her dressing room. Knocking softly, she paused before opening the door and peering inside.
“You busy?”
Dakota was sitting curled up on the small, dark brown love seat, a legal-size white lined pad on her lap. Glancing up, she flashed MacKenzie a smile before looking back to the pad.
�
�No more than usual. What’s up?”
MacKenzie shut the door behind herself. “Remember when you said the other day that if I needed something, I could come to you?”
In the middle of going over her notes for a rather tough interview she was facing on today’s show, Dakota abruptly stopped and looked up. There was an uncertain note in MacKenzie’s voice that she wasn’t used to hearing. MacKenzie usually barreled right through life.
“Anything,” Dakota reiterated, not knowing what to anticipate, except that whatever MacKenzie asked her for, she was going to say yes. She set the pad aside and patted the seat next to her. “What do you need?”
Sitting down like someone who expected to spring to her feet at any moment, MacKenzie began to feel Dakota out. “How busy are you?”
It struck Dakota as an odd question, given that MacKenzie was part of this process. Of late, life seemed to have thrown itself into the fast-forward mode. And it was only getting worse.
“Relative to what? Santa Claus fifteen minutes before he has to take off on Christmas Eve? I guess I’m a little less busy than that.” Dakota sighed, thinking of the schedule that she’d jotted down for herself that morning, the way she did every morning. Scheduling everything was the only way she’d found that allowed her successfully to juggle her flourishing career and her very new, very fulfilling home life. “I’ve got fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to spare between now and Easter,” she judged. “Why?”
“Then you probably wouldn’t have any time for a fund-raiser, would you?”
Dakota stared at her. Her eyes narrowed as her interest piqued. “This conversation is not going where I thought it was going. I thought you were going to ask me to be your birthing coach, or fund a college education for little who’s its, or—a fund-raiser?” she echoed, the full import of MacKenzie’s request sinking in. “A fund-raiser for who?”
MacKenzie began to backtrack. Every time she was excited, she tended to trip over her own tongue, which could never keep up with her racing mind. “Ever hear of Wiley Memorial Research Laboratories?”
There were a great many charities associated with the people who traveled in Dakota’s circle. “Yes, I’ve heard of them. What about the institute?”
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