Mackenzie’s only consolation was that during the two weeks her parents planned to stay in Charleston, maybe they could finally sit down and have a long heart-to-heart talk. Her parents had practically driven her crazy with the constant calling just to chat that had been going on since their celebrated wedding and their consequent move. Mackenzie knew they were just trying to make up for lost time, but the past was the past. What they all needed to do now was just move on.
Like her situation with Alec.
It had now been almost three months, and not once had he tried to contact her. She had hoped to glean some information from John once Alec called to have John settle his affairs, but to John’s surprise one of Alec’s fellow pilots called to say he would be handling Alec’s affairs instead. And the fact that Alec hadn’t called John only led Mackenzie to believe Alec was so determined not to see her again he wouldn’t even risk the chance that John might leak information on how Mackenzie could find him.
But time was an excellent healer, Mackenzie reminded herself, and she was pleased that Alec was beginning to be nothing more than a faded memory for her. She’d even had the resolve to keep him out of her dreams.
Well, at least most of the time.
And on those occasions when Alec did manage to slip beyond her mosquito netting to interrupt her peaceful slumber, Mackenzie simply relaxed and enjoyed their imaginary time together, telling herself the next morning that the feelings she’d had for Alec had never been anything more than a pipe dream anyway.
THE FIRST THING Alec saw when he regained consciousness, was a pair of huge brown eyes staring back at him. Unfortunately, those particular brown eyes belonged to a white-faced cow who was methodically chewing a tuft of fresh grass she seemed to be enjoying despite Alec’s presence.
He sat there for a moment staring at the bovine, but when his head slowly began to clear, Alec forced himself into action. Not only did he taste the blood in his mouth, but his left eye was already swelling to the point he could barely see through it. He winced when he took a brief look down at his bloody shirt, and the excruciating pain radiating up his left arm left no doubt that his arm was badly broken.
The smell of gasoline fumes, however, warned Alec that he couldn’t stay inside the plane a second longer.
Taking a deep breath, Alec eased his injured shoulder against the dented door of his wrecked plane, and breathed a sigh of relief when the door popped open without much effort. He finally managed to pull himself from the wreckage, causing his inquisitive friend to let out a loud moo before bolting toward the center of the meadow. It was then that Alec heard the noisy motor of a tractor. When it topped a small rise in the distance he began to shout for help.
“Over here,” Alec yelled, waving to get the farmer’s attention, but his flurry of movement sent a pain up his left arm that literally brought Alec to his knees.
Slumping to the ground, Alec cradled his injured arm against his side, relieved when the farmer waved back and steered the big John Deere in his direction. And as he sat there in a field a thousand miles from nowhere, Alec said a silent prayer of thanks that his life had been spared.
Surviving the crash had been nothing short of a miracle, but Alec’s near-death experience had left him with much more than a few aches and pains and a badly broken arm. When his life had flashed before his eyes, Alec had made himself a solemn promise. He promised if he did survive the crash, he wouldn’t waste another minute of the life he had left.
And as soon as Alec got himself put back together, he was going back to Charleston.
Mackenzie was going to marry him. It was as simple as that. And someday when Mackenzie was happily bouncing their grandchildren on her knee, Alec just might tell her how close he’d come to dying before he finally came to his senses and asked her to be his wife.
8
THANKS TO HIS SAVIOR farmer, a medivac helicopter had been called to transport Alec out of the wilderness and back to Portland for medical treatment. It was late Thursday night, however, before Alec was finally released from the emergency room and settled into his own private room on the orthopedic floor.
He now had two pins in his left arm and a cast that completely covered his shoulder. He had sixteen stitches in the top of his head. And he had a swollen black eye as proof that his mild concussion could have been much worse than it was. The medical staff had even given him the nickname The Miracle Man. And in a way Alec guessed he was a miracle man.
Rather than being guest of honor at his own funeral, instead he was a recovering patient who would soon be making plans for his wedding day.
“You try and get some rest now,” the pretty nurse told Alec as she checked his IV fluids and adjusted his covers. “And Josh said to tell you he’d be back first thing in the morning to check on you.”
Alec groaned slightly as he turned his head so he could look at the nurse with the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “You know my brother, Josh?”
The nurse sent Alec a coy smile and said, “I certainly know Josh now.”
“The jerk,” Alec grumbled aloud to himself when the nurse left the room.
Here Alec had been, facing possible peril under the surgeon’s knife. The Federal Aviation boys were having hissy fits trying to determine the cause of the plane crash. Disgruntled insurance agents were breathing down Josh’s neck like Godzilla. And what had his brother been doing? Josh, the big oaf, had been romancing the pretty redhead as though his love life, not his brother and the plane crash, was his first damn priority.
But was he really any different from Josh? Alec suddenly wondered as his pain medication kicked in again. Only by the grace of God was he still alive, yet Alec’s first thoughts hadn’t been about the extensive investigation that would be conducted over the plane crash. Nor had his thoughts been about the potential hassle Josh could have reaching a settlement with his insurance company.
No, Alec’s first thoughts had been of going back to Charleston to punch John Stanley squarely in the nose before he informed Mackenzie that she was going to marry him.
And Alec would be heading back to the sunny South just as soon as he was able to travel. Unless, that is, he could somehow convince Mackenzie that she should come to Portland instead. Of course, calling her up and playing on her sympathy because he’d just survived a life-threatening plane crash, was a little underhanded, and Alec knew it. But as Alec settled his head back against his pillow and closed his one good eye, he decided calling Mackenzie might be the perfect plan after all.
Besides, hadn’t he always heard that all was fair in love and war?
Wincing when the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth reminded him he also had several stitches in his lower lip, Alec kept smiling anyway, deciding he would have Josh call Mackenzie at her office the following morning and deliver the news that Alec had survived a near fatal plane crash. And if Mackenzie did rush to his bedside, as Alec prayed she would, Alec would then have her all to himself and safely out of John Stanley’s clutches.
“Just give me a second chance, Mackenzie,” Alec muttered aloud.
Because if Alec had anything to say in the matter, when and if the two of them did decide to return to Charleston, they would be returning together as husband and wife.
WHILE ALEC DRIFTED off to sleep that night pleased with his new plan, Mackenzie was trying to keep her eyes open. Angie, who was understandably plagued with a huge case of the prewedding jitters, had unfortunately decided to share her insomnia with a late-night call to her weary best friend.
“I know you think I’m being silly,” Angie rambled on, “but I have this overwhelming feeling that something is going to go wrong and spoil all of my perfect planning.”
Instead of answering immediately, Mackenzie glanced at her bedside clock, wondering how either of them were going to make it through Friday’s busy schedule if they didn’t get some sleep.
“We’ve gone over everything from start to finish, Angie,” Mackenzie said, not even bothering to suppress a loud yawn
, “and there isn’t even one stone we’ve left unturned.”
“I know, but….”
“Look,” Mackenzie said, trying to be as supportive as she could be at one o’clock in the morning, “the only thing that’s going to foul up your perfect planning is if you fall asleep during the wedding rehearsal or at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night. Now please. Hang up the phone so we both won’t be dead on our feet tomorrow.”
Angie breathed out a long sigh into the telephone. “You’re right. I know you are, but…”
“I just hope you won’t have dark circles under your eyes tomorrow,” Mackenzie threw in for good measure and actually heard Angie gasp at the thought. “I know you’re paying a fortune for that thief you call a photographer, but I doubt he can do a thing to touch up the pictures if you show up looking like last year’s corpse.”
Mackenzie heard another gasp before Angie reminded her for the fiftieth time that they had to meet John’s mother at nine o’clock sharp the next morning and go over the menu for the rehearsal dinner one last time.
“Thanks for being willing to chauffeur me around tomorrow, Mackie,” Angie said before she finally hung up. “I’ll be so nervous, I’d be a threat to society if I got behind the wheel of a car.”
“Which is exactly why I offered to take you anywhere you need to go tomorrow,” Mackenzie said with another yawn. “Now get some sleep, okay? And I promise I’ll be there to pick you up bright and early in the morning.”
Mackenzie felt like cheering when Angie finally broke their connection, but when she switched off her bedside light and snuggled back beneath the covers she found she was suddenly wide awake. Lying there, looking up at the moon shining through the skylight above her bed, Mackenzie cursed Angie for waking her up, then found herself mentally running back through the myriad upcoming events one last time.
She hadn’t dared admit to Angie that she, too, had the feeling that some type of impending doom was lurking just beyond the shadows. The feeling had overtaken her shortly before she left the office that evening, and as hard as she’d tried to shake the feeling off, Mackenzie’s sixth sense kept telling her that something was wrong.
But what?
They’d gone over the wedding plans to the point that everyone involved knew the details were carved in stone. That changing something even as trivial as a seating arrangement wouldn’t be tolerated under any circumstances. And even though common sense told Mackenzie that with a guest list of six hundred people there were bound to be a few little glitches here and there, nothing in particular immediately sprang to mind.
Telling herself it was only having to play hostess to her newlywed parents that was making her nervous, Mackenzie turned on her side and purposely closed her eyes. She’d only been teasing Angie about the potential dark-circles-under-the-eyes problem, but Mackenzie didn’t want to take that chance herself.
It was bad enough she would be under the scrutiny of six hundred people while she again played her ridiculous maid-of-honor role. But what she wasn’t going to do, was have them add a haggard-looking, aged, pitiful maid of honor to their unkind thoughts about her. Because if she were destined to always be the bridesmaid and never the bride, then Mackenzie intended to be the best damn looking spinster to ever float down the aisle before the honored bride arrived.
And they can take that to the bank, Mackenzie told herself, then buried her head under the covers and promptly fell asleep.
JOSH SEEMED RATHER surprised when he walked into Alec’s hospital room on Friday morning and found his bruised and battered brother totally alert and sitting up in bed.
“What took you so long?” Alec growled the minute Josh stepped inside the room. “That redhead you were romancing yesterday said you’d be here early.”
Josh frowned. “Hell, Alec, you knew I had to meet with the FAA and the insurance company this morning. Besides, it’s only noon.”
“Yeah, but it’s already three o’clock in Charleston and I’d hoped Mackenzie might make it here by tonight. Now, there’s no way she can get here until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”
“You mean she’s really coming?” Josh wanted to know.
“Hopefully,” Alec said, then motioned Josh closer and pointed to the phone beside his bed. “That is, as soon as you make the call and put the wheels in motion.”
Josh sent Alec a troubled look. “Me? You’re kidding. Right?”
“Ah, come on, Josh,” Alec begged. “Even if Mackenzie didn’t hang up on me the minute she heard my voice, me telling her I survived a plane crash wouldn’t be near as dramatic as my brother calling to tell her about the tragic accident.”
“Talk about desperate,” Josh scoffed.
“You’re right. I am desperate,” Alec agreed, wincing when the stitches in his lip gave a little tug at his sudden outburst.
“Desperate enough to pull a rotten trick like that?”
Alec frowned. “Yeah. I guess I’m desperate enough to do just about anything right now, Josh. So are you going to help me out, or aren’t you?”
Josh shook his head in disgust, but he reached for the phone when Alec handed it over. “Okay, lover boy, exactly what do you want me to say to this woman?”
“Be brief,” Alec coached. “Tell her you’re my brother. Assure her I’m all right, but tell her I survived a plane crash yesterday and that I’ve been asking for her. Tell her you just thought she’d want to know.”
“You’re one real sick puppy. Do you know that, Alec?”
“Maybe. But it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, Josh,” Alec said, with no visible signs of remorse. “Now stop trying to be my conscience and make the damn call.”
When Josh finally nodded in agreement, Alec dialed the number. “I’m calling her office,” Alec said. “Ask for Miss Malone.”
Josh took a deep breath and did as Alec instructed, but Alec tensed when Josh frowned and put his hand over the receiver. “Miss Malone is out of the office today,” Josh whispered.
“Tell the secretary it’s an emergency,” Alec whispered back.
Josh obeyed again, but his eyes grew wide with surprise when he looked at Alec and said, “The secretary says she’s sorry, but Miss Malone won’t be back in the office until after the wedding.”
“The wedding?” Alec yelled. “To who?”
Josh put his mouth back to the receiver and asked the urgent question, but when Josh turned to Alec and said, “Some guy named John Stanley,” Alec practically levitated off the bed.
“Hey? That’s not the same John…” Josh began, but he stopped midsentence when Alec slugged him on the arm.
“Tell her you need information about the wedding,” Alec ordered as his mind sped forward. “Find out when and where, Josh, and don’t hang up until you do, dammit.”
When Josh hung up, he looked at Alec and said, “Sorry, Bro. The wedding’s tomorrow at five o’clock. At the Stonehenge Cathedral on Meeting Street.”
Alec remained motionless for so long Josh reached for the pitcher on Alec’s bedside table and poured his brother a glass of ice water. Alec absently took the glass, but after he swallowed several gulps, he tossed the plastic cup to the floor and threw back his bedcovers.
“Now where the hell do you think you’re going?” Josh barked.
“I’m going to Charleston,” Alec said as he eased himself slowly out of the bed. And the fact that every muscle in his body screamed the second his feet touched the cold tiles of the hospital floor, didn’t deter Alec from his slow shuffle across the room.
“Are you nuts?” Josh demanded. “You’re in no condition to travel. The doctor said he wasn’t even going to release you for a couple more days. He wants to keep you here under observation.”
“To hell with the doctor,” Alec said as he wrestled with the IV pole he was pulling along beside him. “And do me a favor and go round up your girlfriend so she can unhook me from this tube I have in my arm.”
Josh stomped after Alec who had finally made it into the small bat
h that was only a few feet away from Alec’s bed. “And what do you intend to do when you get to Charleston, you crazy numbskull?” Josh demanded.
Alec frowned, more at the ghastly reflection staring back at him from the tiny mirror above the sink, than he did at Josh’s name calling. “There’s no way I’m going to let Mackenzie marry John Stanley, Josh. I made up my mind when I lived through the crash that Mackenzie is going to marry me. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Marry you?” Josh snorted. “What happened to all that bull about pilots making lousy husbands and fathers? What about that, Alec?”
“You’re right. It’s bull,” Alec answered as he pushed Josh out of his way. “Pilots get married and have families every day of the week.”
“And do you really think Mackenzie is going to be overjoyed to see you? That she’s going to give up her current groom so she can become the bride of Frankenstein?” Josh argued. “Face it, Alec, you look like hell warmed over right now. In fact, if I didn’t know you were my brother, I wouldn’t even recognize your stubborn ass.”
Even Alec had to admit that his appearance was frightening. Aside from the fact that his left arm was held out from his side in a grotesque position by his bulky cast, the entire left side of his face was purple and swollen beyond recognition. It also didn’t help matters that the left side of his head had been shaved because the moron who put sixteen stitches in his scalp had been too lazy to work around his once thick hair. And the stitches at the right corner of his mouth didn’t do much for his looks, either.
In fact, the stitches made Alec look as if he were wearing a permanent sneer. Which he would be wearing if he allowed Mackenzie to go through with the wedding and marry John Stanley.
“Listen, Alec. You need to be reasonable about this,” Josh spoke up, jarring Alec’s mind back into action. “Call Mackenzie if you have to, but give up this nonsense about trying to get to Charleston before the wedding.”
Feeling somewhat like a mummy as he dragged his bandaged self out of the bathroom and back across the room, Alec waited until he reached the bed before he closed his eyes and jimmied the IV needle slowly out of his arm by himself.
Driven to Distraction & Winging It Page 28