Messing With Mac

Now this. “Go away.”

“Yeah. Sometimes my family makes me bitchy, too.”

She lifted her head at that, ready to snap his head off, but he wasn’t laughing at her. He wasn’t even smiling.

Instead he just stood there, his eyes filled with an understanding she wasn’t ready to face. “I am most definitely not bitchy.”

When he just looked at her, she sighed. “Okay, maybe just a little.”

His lips slowly curved, but unlike what she might have expected, he didn’t say a word.

He was good at that, she’d noticed, not saying a word and yet conveying so much. “Oh, leave me to my bad mood.”

“I have a better idea.” He walked into her room like he owned the place, in his customary Levi’s and T-shirt, a pencil behind one ear and a set of plans rolled up in his hands, looking tall, leanly muscled and tough.

She wanted to be tough, but just looking at him made her feel soft. Feminine.

“Come on.”

Startling her, he set the plans on her bed, took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

He had her halfway out the door before she dug in her heels, not that that stopped him. She tried a hand to his back, but that only electrified her with the heat and strength of him. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

“Mac-”

The look he shot her was pure male frustration. “Look, you need a break, I’ve got an errand to run, and if you come along like a good little girl, I promise to buy you a lunch that will make you sigh in bliss.” His whiskey eyes and rugged features crinkled into an enticing smile. “Okay?”

Smiling. He was smiling at her. Her tummy fluttered. “What’s the matter with you today?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve avoided talking to me about anything other than business, and you’ve avoided physical contact like the plague.”

“Not like the plague.”

“What then?”

“Maybe more like…a good tall frosty beer at lunch.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Sure it does. You know the cool brew is going to go down like pure heaven, but afterwards, it’s going to impair your judgment.”

She narrowed her eyes, not flattered. “Hmm.”

He laughed. Laughed. “Look, maybe I’m doing this because I don’t like to see you sad.”

“I’m not-”

“Aren’t you?”

She stared at him, disconcerted that he could see right through her in a way no one else did.

“You going to tell me what’s up?”

“No,” she said automatically, because he didn’t really want to hear she was lonely and needed to be held. But just in case he was astute enough to see it, she examined the manicure she’d given herself last night.

“Ah.” His eyes lit with pure trouble. “You broke a nail.”

“I did not break a nail, nor would I fret over it if I had.”

A big fat lie.

“Then you’re having a bad hair day,” he decided with just enough bite that made her realize damn good and well he was just trying to goad her out of her mood.

Sweet of him, really, but she wanted to be grumpy at the world.

She wanted to be grumpy at him, too, for reasons that didn’t bear examining too closely. “Do I look like I’m having a bad hair day?” she asked.

He grinned, a stunning show of masculinity that made her mouth want to fall open.

She closed it tight.

“Now that, Princess, is a trick question. It’s like asking a man if your pants make you look fat. Damned from the get-go, no matter what I say.”

“Which proves my point,” she said. “Men are idiots. You could just say ‘you look great, honey.’ End of discussion.”

“You look great, honey,” he said, eyes hot, all teasing gone, just like that. “End of discussion.”

“Mac-”

“Just give me an hour,” he said softly, and ran a finger over her jaw.

Her heart sighed in a way it wasn’t used to. It’d been a very long time since a man had made her heart want to. “An hour,” she repeated, and followed him downstairs and into his truck.

She had the uneasy feeling she would have followed the irresistible man anywhere.

11

MAC HAD NO IDEA what had made him do the Boy Scout rescue with Taylor, but here he was, driving along on his errand to South Village’s town hall to check on permits, with her sitting beside him. His only defense…she’d looked as if she’d had the weight of the world on her shoulders, as if she’d been unbearably lonely.

It had tugged good and hard on the heart he’d thought dead.

Sap.

Whipping the truck into midday South Village traffic, he decided the next time she turned those expressive sea-green eyes on him, he’d just turn around and walk away.

The hell with walking, he’d run.

“Look at all these people.” Her face was turned to the passenger window as they passed a bookstore, a theater and two packed sidewalk cafes… The sidewalks themselves were lined with the lunch crowd. People were walking, in-line skating, jogging. “Everyone seems so…focused.”

She seemed wistful, a little envious even, which surprised him. “You’re focused,” he said.

Turning her head, she looked at him. “You think so?”

“You’re renovating a historical building. That takes focus.”

“No, you’re renovating a historical building. I’m just funding it.”

“By buying and selling antiques.” He shook his head. “Your talent for such things is amazing.”

“Really?”

She seemed so genuinely blown away by his statement that he looked at her, then wished he hadn’t. It was the vulnerable Taylor again, the woman who had fears and doubts, and was so human he wanted to haul her close and never let go.

That was the Taylor he needed to stay away from.

But she leaned in close, giving him an up-front and personal view of her with that very private expression. She had a smattering of light freckles across her nose. He’d never noticed them before. In her ears twinkled tiny twin diamond studs.

Sweet sophistication.

Sexy as hell.

And the most determined person he’d ever met.

He’d never met a woman like her.

“You don’t have to baby-sit me,” she said. “I’m really fine.”

“You’re a good liar, is what you are.”