Beach Lane (9 page)

The room was absolutely still while Brock thought about what they’d all said. “Okay, fine, but it’s not the main thrust of the book, and we’re not going to sensationalize it, is that clear?”

Mack nodded. “That works for me.”

The editor who’d brought them all together looked around the room. “Then we have a deal?”

Mack reached out and shook the player’s hand. “We have a deal. How soon can we get together?”

While everyone else left the room, Mack and Brock worked out a timetable that would enable Mack to meet the publisher’s deadline. It promised to be a time-consuming few weeks, but the challenge was more exciting than he’d expected it to be. He’d left the meeting anxious to get back to Chesapeake Shores to fill Susie in. Maybe they could even go out and celebrate tonight. He might even take out the engagement ring that was hidden in the back of his drawer. He finally felt as if his fortunes were turning around.

Now that he was back in town, though, he couldn’t seem to track down Susie. She wasn’t answering her home phone or her cell. Nor was she in the office. Not even Jeff was there to fill Mack in on her whereabouts.

Thoroughly frustrated, he popped into the bookstore. Shanna looked startled and vaguely uneasy when she spotted him.

“What brings you by?” she asked, sounding less than welcoming. Actually, she sounded as if she could hardly wait for him to be on his way again.

“I’m looking for Susie. Any idea where I might find her?”

“Have you tried her cell?”

He nodded. “She’s not at home, or the office, either.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t help,” Shanna said, avoiding his gaze.

During his years as a journalist, Mack had honed his skills at reading people. Shanna, bless her loyal heart, was lying through her teeth.

“I have the distinct impression that you know more than you’re saying,” he said, leaning across the counter to gaze directly into her eyes. “What’s going on, Shanna?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, clearly flustered.

“Sure you do. You know exactly where Susie is, but for some reason you don’t want to tell me.”

She hesitated, then turned an unexpected scowl on him. “If you were any kind of friend, you’d know what’s going on,” she said, an accusing note in her voice.

He was taken aback by her sudden anger. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, of course you have no idea, because you don’t ask questions. That way you can tell yourself later it was everyone else’s fault for not filling you in.” She stepped out from behind the counter and got in his face. “Do you love her, Mack? If so, now’s the time to step up and be a man.”

He stared at Shanna in shock. She was probably the least confrontational woman he knew, and she was clearly furious with him. He had absolutely no idea why. He knew, though, that he’d better find out in a hurry.

“Okay, slow down the train till I can get on board. What are you so angry about? And why are you taking it out on me? I haven’t even been around the past couple of days. If something’s going on with Susie, I know nothing about it because she didn’t tell me.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. She didn’t spill her guts to you, so you can wring your hands now and say, ‘Oh, so sorry, but I didn’t know.’”

“Didn’t know what, for God’s sake? Is Susie okay or not?”

“I don’t know. None of us know. The results aren’t back.”

Mack’s heart started pounding so hard, he was sure it would fly right out of his chest. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. “Results?” he asked weakly. “Shanna, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to flip out and start throwing things.”

His outburst had her regarding him with surprise. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

“Terrified,” he admitted. “You’ve made your point. I’m an insensitive jerk. Now please tell me what’s going on with Susie. I’m feeling a little desperate here.”

Suddenly, after accomplishing what she’d clearly wanted, she looked guilty. “I can’t,” she said.

He stared at her. “What do you mean you can’t? Do you know something or not?”

“I know, but Susie doesn’t want a lot of people fussing over her. She didn’t even tell me till last night, and then she swore me to secrecy.” She hesitated, then added, “I will tell you this much, though. You need to talk to her, Mack. And this time don’t let her gloss anything over, okay? Make her tell you the truth. Whether she’ll admit it or not, she needs you right now.” She frowned at him again. “And so help me, if you don’t step up, I will have Kevin take you out in the middle of the bay and dump you overboard.”

“Won’t be the first time,” he commented, though the moment definitely didn’t call for humor. It was obvious how worked up she was, and how worried. “Where is she?”

Shanna didn’t answer immediately, looking torn over having revealed so much already.

“I can’t tell you that, either,” she said eventually.

Mack stared at her, not comprehending. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve said too much already.”

“So help me, Shanna…” he began, only to have her expression completely shut down.

“You know Susie, Mack. Where do you think she’s likely to go if she’s hurting?”

That was the thing. There were plenty of people Susie might turn to. He’d always thought he would be one of them, but she hadn’t even been taking his calls since he’d gone to New York. He’d left half a dozen messages, and she’d returned none of them. Now he knew exactly how she’d felt when she hadn’t been able to reach him after he was fired.

“Never mind,” he said, understanding the position he’d put Shanna in. “I’ll find her.”

She gave him the first genuine look of sympathy she’d shown him since he’d turned up at the store. “I’m sorry, Mack. If it were up to me, I’d tell you. Susie’s the one who insisted that none of us tell you anything. I have to respect her wishes.”

“I get that. I really do,” he admitted. “It’s frustrating as hell, but I’m glad you’re in her corner.”

“Always.”

“I am, too, you know.”

Shanna nodded. “I think I get that now. Good luck, Mack.”

The minute he was in his car, he headed for Jeff and Jo O’Brien’s house. When he rang the bell, it was Matthew who answered.

“Is Susie over here?” Mack asked.

“Nope. I haven’t seen her for a couple of days,” Matthew said, his expression guileless.

Whatever was going on, Matthew was as clueless as he was, Mack concluded.

“Are your folks here?”

“No, they drove up to Annapolis for some kind of event Uncle Thomas is hosting for the foundation. I think Uncle Mick and Megan went, too.”

“Would Susie have gone with them?”

Matthew just shrugged. “No idea. Sorry.”

“Okay, thanks,” Mack said, thoroughly frustrated.

He sat his car and called Jake to see if Bree knew anything, then tried Will. He drew a blank with each call.

Where else would Susie go if she was sick or in trouble? The answer dawned on him at once. It should have been the first place he’d thought of. She was at her grandmother’s. She had to be.

Now he just had to pray that Nell O’Brien was feeling kindly toward him, because when it came to protecting a member of her family, she could be the fiercest person around.

9

“M
ack has been turning the town upside down looking for you,” Shanna told Susie when she arrived at Nell O’Brien’s cottage.

“He can’t have looked that hard. The town’s not that big,” Susie said, wrapping one of Gram’s quilts from Ireland more snugly around herself. She couldn’t seem to get warm, despite a blazing fire in the fireplace.

“It is when the O’Briens present a united front of silence. Your parents are in Annapolis tonight. Matthew and Luke don’t know anything. There’s no one who’ll give Mack a clue that you’re over here at Nell’s.”

For once the whole family-solidarity thing seemed like a good thing. “Yay, O’Briens,” Susie said halfheartedly.

Shanna merely frowned at the jest. “Of course, if he were half the reporter I’ve been told he is, he would have followed me straight here. He had to know I’d come looking for you the second he left the bookstore.”

“I don’t think his mind works like yours,” Susie said wryly. “Or maybe he doesn’t want to find me as badly as you think he does.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Shanna said, clearly losing patience. “You love this man. He loves you. This game you’ve been playing has gone on long enough. This is the big moment of truth, the turning point. You owe it to Mack to fill him in on everything that’s going on, not just with your health, but your feelings. Get it all out there and let him help you through this.”

Susie winced under Shanna’s impatient scrutiny. “Okay, I admit that I love Mack, heaven help me, but come on, Shanna, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that he loves me. And what do I have to offer him, anyway? The chance to watch me go through surgery and who knows what kind of treatments after that?”

Shanna looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Why on earth would you say something like that? First, right this second you have no idea if surgery will even be necessary. Second, you’re a wonderful woman. Any man would be lucky to have you. And everything Mack has done has been about how much he loves you. For heaven’s sake, Susie, he’s planning to start a newspaper so he can stay here to be with you. I’d say that alone suggests how devoted he is.”

Susie wasn’t convinced. Or maybe it was just the depressed mood she was in that made her doubt everything. “Who knows if that will ever happen,” she said glumly. “Did you know he went to New York to talk about a book deal? If that comes through, he could leave.”

Shanna looked startled. “He never mentioned any book thing to me. Isn’t that something you’d tell a bookseller, especially one who’s practically family? Maybe it didn’t happen. I still say he’s going to start a paper so he can be with you. If you didn’t matter to him, why would even consider taking such a huge financial risk? It would have been a lot simpler and more financially rewarding just to take another newspaper job in some other city. He’s had offers. A couple of really good ones, in fact. Kevin told me. Mack didn’t even go for the interviews. He turned them down flat because they were too far away.”

Susie hadn’t realized that. “Good papers or lousy papers?”

“Does it really matter? The point is that he chose to stay here, rather than leave you behind or ask you to make a move with him. He knows how much this town means to you.”

“But I have no idea what the future holds for me, or if I even have a future—”

“You will,” Shanna said, cutting her off. “Everyone has a future. We just don’t know how long it might be, which is why we need to live every minute as if it could be our last. You’ve heard that Tim McGraw song, haven’t you? All of us should live like we’re dying.”

“Now, that’s exactly what some man wants to hear. Make love to me because I could be dying and I really want to know what it’s like before I go.”

Shanna scowled at her. “Now you’re just being maudlin. What I
know
is that there are sparks between you and Mack. And it’s a crying shame that the two of you haven’t done anything about those. For a man who could get any other woman into bed with a single glance, he seems to be terrified to take that step with you. Want to know why that is? Because you really matter.”

“Nice spin,” Susie said, though she desperately wanted to believe Shanna was right.

“It’s not spin,” Shanna replied. “Change the dynamics, sweetie. Take a risk before it’s too late, and I don’t mean because you might be sick. I mean before you lose him. It’s time. Seduce the man.”

Susie stared at her incredulously. “Now? With everything completely up in the air?”

“No time like the present,” Shanna said.

Susie laughed. “As if I know how. I think three years of celibacy is proof enough of that.”

“Get Mack alone,” Shanna said. “Set the scene. Light some candles. Play romantic music. Something tells me the rest will take care of itself.”

“It hasn’t before,” Susie said disconsolately. “We’ve been alone plenty of times. We’ve even been in situations that were totally romantic, and nothing. Well, except for one kiss under the mistletoe.”

“And it was hot, wasn’t it?”

Susie blushed. “Well, yes, but—”

“It’s a start,” Shanna said, not letting her finish the protest she’d been about to utter. She reached for a bag she’d brought along. It couldn’t contain much, because it had been tucked inside her purse. “Maybe that’s because you weren’t wearing this.” She dangled a sexy scrap of black silk and lace in front of Susie.

Susie stared. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to cover, but obviously it wouldn’t conceal much.

“I would have gone for red,” Shanna continued, “but with your coloring it would have been all wrong. Now take this, go back to your own apartment and call Mack. Put the man out of his misery.”

Susie took another look at the lingerie. She tried to imagine herself wearing it, tried to envision the glint of desire it would stir in Mack’s eyes, but her imagination failed her. Besides, the timing was all wrong.

“I can’t do it,” she told Shanna. “Not until I have the test results.”

Shanna regarded her with sympathy. “I understand your instinct to wait, but I think it’s wrong. I think you need to know how Mack feels before you get those test results. Otherwise you’ll always wonder why he’s with you. I know you. You’ll convince yourself he’s only with you out of pity.”

“But it would feel like cheating to seduce him without telling him what’s going on.”

“What do you think is going to happen if you fill him in? Do you think he’s going to walk away from you?”

“He might. He likes things casual and uncomplicated.”

Shanna looked dismayed by her assessment. “Susie O’Brien, this is the man you love. Do you honestly think he’s that shallow? If so, why on earth would you want to be with him?”

“Okay, deep in my heart I certainly don’t think Mack is shallow, but right now I’m too scared to find out if I’m wrong,” Susie admitted. “I don’t think I could handle it if he turned his back on me. I need him. He’s my best friend, aside from you, of course.”

“Then he should be with you,” Shanna said stubbornly. She handed Susie her cell phone. “Let’s forget about the seduction for the moment. Obviously you need to resolve whether he’s the kind of stand-up guy you need in your life. Call him now. If you don’t, I will. I have a lot more faith in him than you seem to.”

Susie held Shanna’s unrelenting gaze, hoping she’d back down, but she didn’t. Susie sighed and dialed. He answered on the first ring.

“Mack, I need to see you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m at Gram’s.”

“Is he coming?” Shanna asked when Susie gave back her phone.

Susie nodded. “He said he’d just pulled into the driveway.”

Shanna smiled approvingly. “I guess the man is brighter than I was giving him credit for,” she said. “Or else he’s just determined to cover every base. That should tell you something about how much he cares for you.”

“You can go now. Your work is done,” Susie said wryly. “I can take it from here.” Even as she spoke, though, she stuffed the lingerie behind a pillow.

Shanna looked disappointed by the gesture, but she stood. “I’ll let him in on my way out. Tell him everything, Susie. Don’t sell him short.”

Susie felt as if her entire future were riding on this conversation with Mack, which was ironic since it was really riding on the outcome of the medical procedure she’d had yesterday.

When Mack arrived at Nell O’Brien’s cottage, he was surprised to see Shanna emerge and head straight for him, a scowl firmly in place. He matched it.

“Don’t you dare make me regret insisting that she call you,” she said fiercely.

“You were behind the phone call?” he said, surprised. “A couple of hours ago you wouldn’t even tell me where she was.”

“Because that’s the way she wanted it. I persuaded her she was wrong.” She gave him a long look. “I also thought maybe I’d lead you straight to her without having to spill her secret.”

He shook his head. “I should have guessed. It would have saved me running all over the place and making a bunch of wasted phone calls.”

“Then your instincts brought you here,” she said approvingly. “That’s a good sign.”

“I’m asking you one more time, Shanna. Please tell me what’s going on. I know something’s very wrong.”

She shook her head. “She’ll tell you herself. If she doesn’t, if she hedges, come see me. I don’t want to break her confidence, but I will if I have to.”

Mack knew she would never offer such a thing lightly. Something in her tone caused dread to once again settle in the pit of his stomach. “Maybe you should give me a clue here, so I don’t blow this.”

Shanna smiled sadly. “I don’t think you’re going to blow it, not if you love her half as much as I think you do. But for once, the two of you need to be really straight with each other. No more of these stupid games, okay? Promise me. They’ve gone on long enough.”

Mack nodded. It was the one thing on which they were in total agreement. He leaned down and impulsively pressed a kiss to Shanna’s cheek. “Thanks for being her friend.”

“You’re the friend she needs right now.”

Mack stared after her as she walked away, then drew in a bracing breath and went inside.

He found Susie at the kitchen table holding a cup of steaming tea. When she set it down, her hands shook. It was apparent she’d been crying, too. His heart clenched at the sight.

He pulled a chair closer and sat down facing her, then took her hands in his. Hers were ice-cold. “Tell me what’s going on. Please, Susie. I’m going a little crazy here.”

She lifted her gaze and he saw something he’d never expected to see in the eyes of this intrepid woman—genuine fear. “Susie,” he pleaded, “you have to talk to me.”

“I know,” she said, then fell silent. When she spoke again, her voice was heartbreakingly weak. “I’m scared, Mack. Really scared.”

He brushed a tear from her cheek, then another. “Tell me. Just start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

She hesitated for a very long time, but he waited.

“I’ve had some problems lately,” she said eventually. “A little pain in my abdomen, cramps, that kind of thing. The doctor’s run a couple of tests. He…” She swallowed hard. “He thinks it could be ovarian cancer.”

Mack’s pulse pounded. Cancer! He didn’t know much about ovarian cancer, except that it could be deadly. Symptoms often appeared only after it was too late. “Has the diagnosis been confirmed?”

Susie shook her head. “He keeps telling me it could be nothing more than a cyst, but the biopsy will tell the real story.”

He nodded slowly, trying to process all of this without panicking. “You need a biopsy. Okay. When?”

“I had it yesterday.”

As her words registered, he stood up abruptly, unable to keep his temper in check. “Yesterday? And you’re just telling me about this now? How long have you known about all this?”

“A few days.”

“Before I went to New York?”

She nodded.

“And that’s why you were acting so strange when I was telling you about the trip,” he guessed.

“I didn’t want to spoil it for you.”

“Spoil it!” he exploded before he could stop himself. “Don’t you know that you’re more important to me than any stupid book deal?”

She leveled a look into his eyes. “No, Mack, I don’t know that. How would I?”

“Because…” He thought of the ring back in his apartment. She was right. How could she possibly know how deep his feelings ran? “We’ve been together for three years now, Susie.”

“We’ve been
friends
for three years. You were very clear about that. There’s a difference, Mack, and you made sure I knew it.”

“Because those were
your
terms, Susie.
Your
rules.” He sat down and ran his hands over his head. “How have we made such a mess of things?”

“It’s not too late to fix things,” she suggested tentatively. “If you want to.”

Mack looked into her eyes, saw the undisguised longing there and understood with absolute certainty that she wanted exactly what he’d always wanted, a life together. Please, God, they would have time….

“Aw, Susie,” he said, scooping her into his arms.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, though she didn’t struggle to get down.

“Just into the living room. I want to sit in front of the fire with you in my arms and figure out where we go from here.”

She touched his cheek. “I can think of a better alternative,” she whispered in his ear.

He stared into her eyes. “Here? You want us to have sex for the first time in Nell’s house? Not a chance! She could be home any minute. Where is she, by the way?”

“She went to Annapolis with the rest of the family for Uncle Thomas’s big fundraiser. She won’t be back for hours.”

“I am still not making love to you in her house on her sofa,” he said, though the temptation was strong to do just that.

“We could go to my place,” she suggested hopefully. “Or yours.”

“I don’t think so. I think we need to work on our other communication skills first.”

She frowned at him. “When did you turn so stuffy?”

“When I fell for an impossible woman.”

“I am not impossible. In fact, at this moment I am very, very possible.”