Coming Home (46 page)

“Mac!” Smiling, Libby jumped up from her desk chair. “I didn’t know you were coming home!” She glanced at the woman in his arms whose shaft of long hair hid her face. “And bringing a friend. Don’t tell me you ran away and got married.”

“Not exactly. We had a little accident on the street.”

Libby glanced at the woman’s leg, saw the blood and went into paramedic mode. “Bring her in here.” She gestured to a sofa in her office.

“I don’t want to get blood all over your sofa,” the injured woman said.

Libby grabbed some towels and spread them out.

As Mac put down his passenger, her breast bounced against his arm, sending another burst of lust coursing through him. Her hourglass figure reminded him of the old pinup girl posters his father had in the garage when Mac was a kid. Betty Boop had nothing on this woman.
 

With her uninjured hand, she brushed the hair back off her pretty face.

“Maddie!” Libby cried. “What happened?”

Maddie gestured at Mac. “Someone wasn’t watching where he was going and knocked me off my bike, which is now totaled.”

Libby tied back shoulder-length dark hair and broke out an elaborate first aid kit from under her desk.

Mac hovered in the doorway to the small office. “Do you want me to call your work to let them know you’ll be out today?”

“Just tell them I’ll be late. I can’t afford to miss a whole shift.”

No way could she work today, but Mac wasn’t going to argue with her—yet. “Where am I calling?”

“McCarthy’s Gansett Inn, housekeeping department.”

Smiling to himself, he reached for his cell phone and dialed the number from memory. Maddie watched him, a startled expression on her face.

Keeping his eyes fixed on her, he asked for the housekeeping department. “Ethel? Hey, it’s Mac McCarthy.”

Maddie gasped from the double shock of hearing his name and having antiseptic applied to her gruesome cuts.

He whispered to Maddie, “What’s your last name?”

“Chester,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Little Mac McCarthy, you devil,” Ethel said. “How in the hell are you?”

“I’m great, how are you?”

“Can’t complain.”

“I wasn’t on the island five minutes when I knocked one of your housekeepers off her bike.”

“Still causing trouble, I see,” Ethel said with her trademark guffaw. “Which one?”

“Maddie Chester. She’s with me at the Beachcomber, and she’s hurt pretty bad. Libby’s patching her up, but I don’t think she can make it in today.”

Maddie scowled at him.

Ethel released a deep sigh. “All right, if you say she can’t work, I’ll cover her shift.”

“Thanks, Ethel. I’ll be over to say hello, but don’t tell my mom I’m here. She doesn’t know I’m coming.”

“She’ll be over the moon, honey. Good to have you home.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not what I told you to say,” Maddie snapped the second he ended the call.

“You really think you can clean today with your hand ripped to shreds? Not to mention your arm and leg?”

“He’s right, Maddie,” Libby said as she covered the ugly wound on Maddie’s leg with a large gauze pad. “It’ll hurt like heck in an hour.”

“Already does,” Maddie said with a wince.

Her face had lost all color, her mouth was twisted with pain and Mac hated that he had caused her suffering. Despite her killer figure, an aura of fragility surrounded her, with the notable exception of her hands, which were rough and obviously used to hard work.

“You’ll need to be real careful with that hand for a week or two,” Libby continued. “It won’t take much to cause a bad infection if you get something in those open cuts.”

Maddie closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the sofa. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “What am I going to do?”

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
The refrain played over and over as Maddie pondered the deep load of crap she was in—or rather, the deep load of crap Mac McCarthy had pushed her into. From the second she’d looked up to see him leaning over her in the street, he’d seemed familiar to her. But with her injuries demanding her full attention, she’d been unable to put a name to the distinctive face. The nearly twenty years since he’d led Gansett High School to the state baseball championship had transformed him from a handsome boy into a stunning man.

Jet-black hair that curled over his collar, bright blue eyes, broad shoulders, defined pecs. . . After the way she’d ogled him in school, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized him instantly. No, she’d had just enough time to call his parents bastards before she put two and two together to get Mac McCarthy.

Except for the dark circles under his eyes and the grayish tone to his complexion, the man was utter perfection. She knew from Mrs. McCarthy, who bragged about her five darlings incessantly, that Mac lived in South Florida. You’d never know it to look at him.

Back when he’d been five years ahead of her in school, he’d never even known she was alive. And now, the first time he saw her, really
saw
her, he got a full view of the bane of her existence—her overly large breasts. She wanted to die just thinking about it. Maddie wished she could either disappear or find a way to make Mac McCarthy and his big, hulking presence go away.
 

She opened her eyes. Still there. Still hovering. Still gorgeous. “You don’t have to hang out,” she said. “I can take it from here.”

“I’ll see you home.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It’s my fault this happened—”

“
I
hit
you
.”

“Because I stepped in front of you.”

“You got hit by the bike, Mac?” Libby asked, turning to him. “Let me see.”

Mac turned his leg to show a huge bruise forming on his calf.
 

Both women gasped.

“It’s nothing.” Mac stood and put his backpack on. “If you’re ready,” he said to Maddie, “I’ll take you home.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“I’ll carry you.”

“What if I live on the other side of the island?”

“I’ll get a cab.”

“I don’t need you to take custody of me! I’ll figure something out the same way I always do.”

Mac leaned in so his face was inches from hers. “You’re injured because of me, and I’m going to help you. Now, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. What’s it going to be?”

The air crackled between them as they stared each other down.

“You’ve got a lot of your mother in you, huh?”

He glowered at her. “Now you’re just being mean.”

“I’ve, ah, got to get back to work,” Libby said. “Come in for lunch while you’re home, Mac.”

“I will. Thanks for your help, Lib,” Mac said without looking away from Maddie.

When they were alone, Maddie said, “You think just because you’re a mighty McCarthy everyone has to do what you say, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what my family has done to piss you off, but since I haven’t lived here in almost twenty years, I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with me.”

She attempted to cross her arms in impatience and grimaced at the pain that radiated from her elbow. For a brief, sickening second, she wondered if she had broken it. Then it finally gave way and bent the way it was supposed to. All she could think about was how much money this lost day of work was going to cost her, if it didn’t cost her the job itself.

“What’s it going to be? I can stay right here all day.” He leaned against the edge of Libby’s desk. “I’m on vacation.”

Oh! He’s so sanctimonious and infuriating!
“Fine! If you have some sort of macho need to see this through to the gruesome finish, you can take me home, but for the love of God, take me out the back door so I’m not any more of a public spectacle.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Mac scooped her up and gave her a moment to get her injured arm and leg settled. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, releasing a long deep breath.

While she once again hid her face against his faded yellow T-shirt, he carried her through the lobby and out the back door. He smelled of sporty deodorant and laundry detergent, and his steady heartbeat echoed in her ear. Too bad he was a McCarthy. Otherwise, she might be tempted to forget about her no-men-ever-again policy.
 

Maddie directed him through a series of pathways behind the buildings that made up downtown Gansett.

“I used to play cops and robbers with my brothers back here.”

“I used to drag trash bags heavier than I was to the Dumpsters when my mother worked at these places.” She let her gaze travel up over the strong column of his neck to focus on his jaw, which seemed tense. Maddie wondered what it would be like to trail her lips along his whisker-sprinkled jaw. . .

He glanced down to catch her studying him. “What?”
 

Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. “Nothing.” After a long pause, she said, “Your leg has to be hurting. Why don’t you put me down? I can walk.” He surprised her when he did as she asked. The sudden weight on her injured knee sent pain shooting through her, and she cried out from the shock of it.

“Have we proven that you could use a lift?”

A surge of nausea took her breath away. “Yes,” she whispered. “Please.”
 

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, surprising her again with the tender gesture. “I’m really sorry this happened.”

Maddie ventured a glance up at him and swallowed hard, taken aback by his intense gaze. “I know you are.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to. It was an accident.”

“An accident that was my fault.” He lifted her carefully and once again gave her a minute to settle her injured limbs before continuing on.
 

Maddie directed him to her apartment over Tiffany’s studio.

“Isn’t this the Sturgil place?” Mac asked.

She nodded. “My sister Tiffany is married to Jim Sturgil.” As they reached the foot of her stairs, Maddie realized that her purse was still attached to the wrecked bike. “My bag! I never got it off the bike. My wallet, keys—”

“Take it easy.” He carried her up the stairs to her door. “I’ll track it down for you.”

Maddie tried to remember how much cash she’d had in her wallet. Twenty, maybe thirty dollars, but she needed every one of them. “The door isn’t locked,” she told him.

Somehow he managed to carry her, open the door and get her inside without causing her any additional pain. She watched him take a quick survey of the small space and felt her defenses rise. No doubt he was used to much better, but she refused to be ashamed of the home she’d put together for herself and her son.
 

His eyes landed and settled on the baby toys stacked in the corner. “You’re a mom?”

“My son Thomas is nine months old.”

He lowered her to the tattered sofa she’d bought at a yard sale. “Where is he?”

“My sister watches him during the day. Oh God. The kids.”

“Excuse me?”

“I take over for my sister at the daycare at three so she can teach her dance classes. She watches Thomas for me, and that’s how I pay her back.”

“I’ll do it.”

“What?”

“I’ll watch the kids for you. How hard can it be?”

“Have you ever even changed a diaper?”

“I’m sure I have. Some time.”

“Right. Look, I know you’re probably some sort of Boy Scout—”

“Actually, I’m an Eagle Scout,” he said with a proud smile.

“Of course you are, but you’ve really got to go now. Your family is expecting you—”

“They didn’t know I was coming today.”

Maddie wanted to shriek in frustration.
Why couldn’t he get the message and leave me alone?
And then it hit her in a wave of sickening despair. “It’s not going to happen,” she spat at him.

“What are you talking about now?”

“Get out of my cabinets!
What’re you doing?
”

“Looking for some painkillers and a glass.” He produced a bottle of medicine and a glass of water and brought both to her.

“Thank you,” she muttered after she swallowed the pills. “Now, please, just go, will you?”

But of course he sat on the coffee table, and Maddie prayed the flimsy table would hold his two-hundred-pounds-of-pure-muscle frame. “So what’s not going to happen?”

“I know what you’re after.” She wanted to smack the amused expression off his face.

“And what’s that?”

“You think if you’re nice to me that you’ll get something in return.”

Amusement faded to bafflement. “Like what?”

“Don’t be obtuse. I know you got a good look out there on the street, so you’re hanging around hoping to get your hands—among other things—on Maddie Chester’s famous breasts.”

He stared at her for a long, breathless moment. “That is so not true.”