Backfield in Motion (32 page)

“Get inside. Please.”

“Okay, but if you need me, I’m here.”

Mac had no idea why he was here. He’d saved
her ass and possibly her father’s by getting them out of the
backyard before the police came, but he’d shown up here for a
reason.

She hoped she was that reason.

* * * * *

With one exception, Bruiser had never been a
guy to back down from a fight or run from a problem. He faced his
problems head on, but Mac’s father needed face up to reality.
Bruiser just hoped Craig didn’t drag Mac down with him. Still, he
felt like a coward as he watched the entire thing play out in Mac’s
driveway through the slats in her blinds.

After a short conversation with Mac and her
father while Sonja and Ben looked on, the officer cuffed Craig, put
him in the back of the patrol car and drove off. Sonja and Ben cast
a last threatening glare at Mac and returned to their house.

Bruiser met her at the front door and
wrapped her in his arms. She melted into his body, clinging to him.
He held her tight, burrowing his fingers in her hair, intoxicated
by her fresh scent and the feel of her sexy body against his.

“You okay?” He spoke into her hair.

Mac pulled back, and Bruiser loosened his
hold. She looked up at him, her gaze oddly resigned. He’d expected
to see tears. Instead he saw defeat. “They arrested him for
violating the no-contact order and trespassing. It was inevitable.
I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”

“He needs help. He’s out of control.”

“Tell that to him.” Mac’s voice took on a
monotone he’d never heard from her. Weariness lined her face and
she had dark circles under her eyes. Her makeup had long ago worn
off. Even like this, she was still the most beautiful girl in the
world, and he wanted to make her smile again.

“Do you need bail money?”

“I can’t ask you for that.” She fisted her
hands in his shirt and gazed up at him. He liked how she clung to
him, as if he gave her comfort.

“Sure you can. We’re friends, aren’t
we?”

“I guess.” She frowned, as if he’d
disappointed her, and nodded. “I’ll take a loan. I don’t have many
other options. And God knows Dad doesn’t have any money.”

“You got it.” Bruiser slanted a grin at her,
hoping his signature smile would loosen her up a little. She was
wound tighter than his sister on a bad hair day.

“I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I couldn’t stay away.” He nuzzled her,
burying his face in her hair and inhaling her scent.

Mac pushed away from him, and he let her go,
even though his arms felt empty without her. She moved into the
kitchen, effectively putting the counter between them—her own
personal barrier. Bruiser understood barriers, and the emotional
barriers Mac put up were proving a challenge to tear down, while
Bruiser’s were about as stable as a rotten picket fence.

Bruiser slid onto a barstool in front of the
kitchen counter and took the beer she offered him. He lifted it to
his mouth, hesitated, and set the bottle down. “I guess I shouldn’t
be drinking this if we’re going to the police station. How about a
rain check?”

“After we get Dad home and tucked in for the
night in his own bed?”

“Yeah.”

Her smile lit up his life, warmed his heart,
and made his day. After the team’s loss earlier, he needed to come
home and see that smile.

Home?

God, how he’d missed that brilliant, sassy
smile of hers in the night that he’d been away. How he’d missed
her
. He tried to recall if he’d ever missed a woman as much
as Mac, or obsessed over a woman as much as Mac, or when he’d been
tied up in such knots over a woman as much as Mac. Not even his
ex-wife did it to him like Mac did.

That realization hit him in the gut like a
sucker punch from a prizefighter.

Maybe his marriage proposal had more to do
with him than with Elliot. He fought for balance; Mac made him so
dizzy he didn’t know which end of the field to run toward.

“What the hell was your dad doing?” He
leaned forward, chin resting in his hands.

“Trying to find evidence.” Mac sighed and
poured them both a cup of strong Tully’s.

Bruiser laughed. “What’s he expecting to
find?”

Mac glanced in the direction of Sonja’s
house and swallowed. “My brother.”

Bruiser processed that comment. “Why?”

She met his gaze. “Dad thinks he’s in the
garden, compost for the tomatoes.”

“Seriously?”

“Damn serious. He says you don’t get
tomatoes that look like hers without some incredible
fertilizer.”

“Dead bodies make good fertilizer?” Bruiser
rubbed his stomach. He felt a little queasy, and he wasn’t a
squeamish type of guy.

“The best, and to think I’ve eaten her
tomatoes back when we were still speaking, asked her how she
managed to have such a great crop, what her secret was. She just
laughed.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Mac leaned against the
counter, looking a little green herself.

Bruiser stood up and walked to the window.
He could just make out the garden in the distance. “Good place to
hide a body.”

“Especially considering when Will went
missing, she’d just started digging it up to plant it. The police
never had enough evidence for a search warrant.”

Bruiser swallowed and wondered how Mac could
live in this house knowing what might have happened next door. “I
guess we should get your dad.”

Mac nodded and Bruiser took her hand as they
walked out the door as if they were a real couple.

And perhaps they were.

* * * * *

A few hours later, they were on their way
back to Mac’s house. Her dad had been bailed out of jail and was
home in his bed. Gone was the obsessive gleam in his eyes, replaced
by defeat and absolute sorrow. Mac wasn’t sure which was worse.
She’d never thought she’d be thinking this, but she liked him
better when he was fighting. At least it gave him something to live
for.

Up until an hour ago, she’d been prepared to
tell her father that he couldn’t drag her into his schemes again or
his endless searches for information. But after seeing the look on
his face when they’d picked him up, she didn’t know what to do.

Bruiser walked Mac to her front door. She
hesitated with her hand on the doorknob, debating on the wisdom of
inviting him in. But wisdom was highly overrated.

“Do you want to come in?”

“Always.” His smile settled in her heart,
while his sexy blue-gray eyes wrote a love story in her dreams.

Love? The for-better or for-worse kind? Was
she ready to try for that? Was Bruiser? Elliot had already declared
his intentions and made it sound so simple. If only it could be.
She was far from sure, yet part of her screamed,
Go for the Hail
Mary and take the risk
. Risk was what made life worth living,
and she hadn’t lived her life in at least three years. She’d been
hunting for her brother, who’d be the last person on earth to want
this life for her.

Could she take that leap of faith with
Bruiser? Was he the right choice?

“What are you thinking?” He put a finger
under her chin and lifted her head. His gaze slid over her face, as
if memorizing every curve.

“I’m thinking I’d like you to come in the
house and finish that beer.”

Mac grabbed a beer for each of them and
steered Bruiser to the patio. It was a warm, late-summer night, too
good to waste by staying inside. They sat together on the love
seat.

She lit a few candles on the patio table,
strictly to drive away mosquitoes, of course.

“Elliot came over last night.” Mac watched
Bruiser’s reaction in the flickering candlelight.

“Mac, thanks for spending some time with
him.”

“I didn’t exactly invite him. He ran away,
but I took him back.” Mac repeated the entire conversation with
Elliot, leaving out the marriage part.

Bruiser lifted his troubled eyes to her.
“What do you think that means about the uncle looking at him
funny?”

“Could mean a lot of things besides the
worst-case scenario.” Mac hated the thought of brave Elliot living
with some kind of child molester.

“I need to get him out of that house.”
Bruiser said with renewed determination. He sat next to her on the
small wicker loveseat and took her hand. “What are we going to
do?”

“Elliot wants us to get married. Did you put
him up to that?”

Bruiser chuckled. “Nope, but he’s a smart
kid. What do you say? Wanna give it a shot?”

Wanna give it a shot?
What kind of
marriage proposal was that? It sounded like the kind a man gives to
a woman he isn’t marrying for love.

Bruiser rushed on, as if he had his foot in
the door and was going to bully his way inside. “I think we could
make it work if you made our family your priority.”

“And give up the search for my brother?”

“At least scale it back for your own good
and your father’s.”

“I don’t know if I could do that to him. You
saw him tonight. But what about you? Are you going to give up being
someone you aren’t? Bruce Mackey wasn’t the one who died all those
years ago. He deserves a life.”

“So do you.” Bruiser spoke so quietly she
barely heard his words.

“I know.” She met his gaze and let her guard
drop, squeezed his hand and took the risk. “Tell me about the
accident.” She needed to know that he trusted her. She could work
with that, build on it.

For a long time Bruiser stared at the candle
flame as if hypnotized, but he didn’t let go of her hand. Mac
waited, holding her breath.

Without lifting his head, he began to talk
in a quiet, unemotional voice. “We were goofing around. Brice was
always the charming daredevil, the attention slut, everybody’s
favorite. I was the quiet one, the thinker, the one who lived in
Brice’s shadow. So I swiped some of Mom’s cigarettes and a lighter.
I was showing off with them, letting Brice know I could be a
daredevil, too. Brice wouldn’t be outdone. He grabbed the
cigarettes, stuffed one in his mouth, and lit it. I chased him, and
he ran behind the gas barbecue and tipped it over, cracking the gas
line. There was a huge explosion. It knocked Brice all the way
across the patio, his clothes burst into flames. I ran to him and
tried to put the fire out with my sweatshirt. A neighbor heard the
screaming and came to help.

“They rushed him to the hospital with
second- and third-degree burns, his face all but melted off.”
Bruiser stopped for a moment, breathing as if he’d just done wind
sprints. “He almost died. The doctors induced a coma, did so many
operations I lost count. After nine months they finally released
him.

“Three months later, on the anniversary of
accident, we got into a huge fight. He told me he hated me because
every time he looked at me he saw the person he once was. He said I
cheated him out of his life. He went into mom’s bedroom and shut
the door. She kept a pistol under the bed. I’ll never forget the
sound of that gunshot.

“I ran in there, expecting him to start
laughing, teasing me for being such a wuss, but he was on the floor
and his blood was everywhere.” Bruiser gripped her hand so tightly
that it hurt, but Mac didn’t care. Pain and sadness shone in his
eyes, along with something else. Relief? Relief that he’d finally
gotten this childhood secret off his chest?

“So you’ve been living his life for
him?”

Bruiser looked up and nodded. No tears, no
anguish, just sorrow and uncertainty.

I’m so sorry.” Mac put her hand on his arm,
and he leaned his head on her shoulder. He’d told her his deepest
pain and it meant the world to her.

“You can see why I’ve kept it quiet all
these years. I felt responsible.”

“But you weren’t. It was an accident. He
made the decision. He blamed you because he was hurting and had to
lash out at someone. You’d proven you’d be by his side no matter
what so he knew you’d be there, despite the abuse he heaped on you.
Shanna said your parents couldn’t stand seeing their imperfect son
and that they laid a major guilt trip on you.”

“Yeah, they did. Brice couldn’t deal with
his friends shrinking away at the sight of him, strangers staring
at him and pointing. None of it. And he didn’t have support at
home. I tried but I was just a kid. Our mom was a single mother by
then and ill-equipped, monetarily and emotionally.”

“Guilt is a powerful motivator. I should
know. You can’t keep blaming yourself. Cut Bruce—the child—some
slack. While you’re at it, the adult Bruiser should cut himself
some slack, too. You’re a special person, Bruiser; let the world
see it, let them have the privilege of knowing what a generous,
caring man you are.”

Bruiser shrugged. “I suppose you’re
right.”

“It’s time to put Brice to rest and move
on.”

Bruiser’s eyebrows climbed at her
suggestion, and she knew exactly what he was thinking—that she
should talk.

“And you?” He nailed her with his stormy-sea
eyes. “I’m willing to take a risk, make some changes, and create a
better person out of tragedy. I just trusted you with my most
painful secret, and you aren’t offering anything in return.”

“My situation isn’t the same.”

“The guilt is the same, Mac; whether you
admit it or not, you’re living your life out of guilt, just like I
was.” Bruiser tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“If we could just get an answer to what
happened then Dad and I could both get on with our lives.”

“I don’t want to live with you gone every
evening and every weekend, putting yourself in danger, chasing
after the next rumor, or hunch, or tip.”

“I don’t expect you to wait. I just need a
little time to figure this all out.”

“Where do we go from here?” Bruiser
asked.

“I don’t know. I want to keep seeing you.”
Mac studied him, really looked at him. There was something there,
something permanent and lasting, a promise in his eyes she’d only
dreamed of, yet she was blowing him off.