Just My Type (3 page)

It was weird that he might have left. She headed for the front doors of the hotel as she wondered if he had his cell phone. She knew he wanted to continue what they’d started. Unless…

She stopped with her hand on the door leading outside and silently cursed her brother. What had he said to Mac? Had he punched him? Was Mac nursing a broken nose with blood down the front of his tux shirt requiring him to leave immediately? Was he in search of a steak for a black eye? Had Sam simply said

get the hell out and don’t come back
? The last was the most likely, but none were impossibilities.

Surely Dooley or Kevin would be with Mac, though, if he’d been hurt or ejected from the party.

Then again, maybe they felt the same way Sam did.

All of them were like big brothers to her. She’d known them since her brother had become a paramedic right after graduating from high school. They were definitely protective. But Mac was one of their own. They wouldn’t ostracize him. Especially when
she
was the one who’d started the whole thing.

Dammit. Yes, they would. Not forever, but they would definitely not be happy and would blame Mac.

They would think it was all his fault, that he should have known better, that he shouldn’t have encouraged her, that he should have seen the signs and put a stop to it all. Stupid as that was. They always expected a lot from Mac. Even looked up to him, in a way.

Mac was older than all of them. He was twelve years her senior and seven years older than Sam.

Dooley and Kevin fell somewhere in between. Mac was the unspoken leader of the group. He didn’t often exert his authority, but if he did, they would defer to him.

Which meant if they were mad at him, it would be eating him up.

Dammit, again.

Well, they’d all have to get over it. Including Mac.

She headed for his car, to be sure he hadn’t left. She needed to find him, and now it seemed even more imperative that it be without an audience of their friends and family.

The car was still there. Sara sighed.

Until she realized there was someone in the car. Two someones, as a matter of fact.

Her heart thudded, then cramped. As did her stomach. She was still a good fifty feet away, but she had a bad feeling about this. She did
not
want to go closer to that car. Yet, she couldn’t
not
go closer. She had to be sure it was Mac, for one thing. Kevin would never bring a woman out to the car, but Dooley would.

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15

Erin Nicholas

Which would still mean she didn’t know where Mac was. For another, her makeup bag and hair supplies from the wedding were on the passenger-side floor. The boys always let her sit in the front.

She was still thirty feet away when she started to get mad. Seriously.

She stomped to the passenger side—
her
side—of the car and yanked the door open. The first thing she saw was a breast. A naked, female breast. Pretty damned close to Mac’s face. Which was the second thing she saw. She quickly looked away from both.

She was going to be sick. And pissed off. And a whole bunch of other things she couldn’t even name at the moment. But all of that was going to have to wait until later.

Without thinking, she reached into the car and grabbed the woman straddling Mac’s lap by the arm and pulled. The woman protested, but Sara’s adrenaline overrode the woman’s verbal and physical objection. The woman tumbled out, onto her knees beside the car. Sara watched her get up and her blood boiled. She was pretty, young, blond and half-naked. Where Sara had seen only one breast initially, now both were visible and there was a lot to see. It was clear the straps hanging loose had once been tied behind her neck and the bodice of her dress had been pulled down to reveal the goods.

“What the fuck is your problem?” the woman demanded, not even bothering to cover up.

“I need my hairspray,” Sara said with a voice that was so far beyond enraged she’d circled back around to calm.

The woman’s eyes flickered over Sara’s hair.

“I don’t have your damned hair spray.”

Sara spun back toward the car, determined
not
to look at Mac. So she looked at his hand. Because it was holding the can of hairspray out toward her. She grit her teeth hard and said, “If you have anything hanging out, you’d better put it away.”

“I’m good.”

His voice sounded weird, but she absolutely could not, would not, look at his face.

“I need the rest of my stuff.”

He handed her the little quilted pink bag. “Who’s taking you home?”

“None of your damned business. Ever again.” She sounded completely composed, much to her surprise. She wanted to do bodily harm to someone. Or a couple of someones.

With the bag clutched tightly to her aching chest, she spun on her heel and practically ran back into the hotel, heading straight to the bathroom. She was grateful for her bag of supplies. She was going to need to repair her makeup after the tears stopped—
if
the tears stopped—and her toothbrush after she vomited.

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Chapter Two

“She
what
?” Mac stared at Danika.

“Went to the Caribbean,” Danika repeated very slowly, as if talking to someone stupid.

“What the hell for?” he demanded.

It had been six days since the fiasco at Sam’s wedding. In those days Mac had realized Sara hadn’t told anyone about the scene she’d found in his car. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was very strange. None of their friends would have thought anything about it. He was quite often half-naked with women in strange places. Sometimes all-the-way naked. That wouldn’t even faze any of them. They also wouldn’t expect Sara to be fazed. Or hurt by it. Or devastated, as he feared she really was.

Even though he’d set the whole thing up, to go exactly as it had gone, he still felt like shit. He
never
wanted Sara hurt. By anyone. He knew it had been the right thing to do. She had to be shocked into realizing nothing could happen between them, amazing kiss or not. Had he just tried to tell her that, it wouldn’t have worked. She would have tried to talk him out of it. And she would have succeeded.

He wanted her. He wasn’t going to lie—to himself, anyway—about that. But he couldn’t have her.

For a number of reasons. Not the least of which was Sam. And he wasn’t going to lie about that either. Sam knew him too well to be okay with Mac being involved with his sister.

But if Sara tried to get her way with some preconceived notion about them having a future together, she would be far too hard to resist. She was just sweet enough, and young and innocent enough, to believe one amazing-shake-the-world kiss was proof they should be together. So he had to convince her she didn’t want to be with him. That he was no good. That their kiss hadn’t meant anything to him. There had been only one immediately available and effective way to do that.

Her name was Brandi. And she was…effective.

He hadn’t planned it to go quite as far as it had. He hadn’t wanted Sara to see Brandi’s nipples, for instance. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted to see Brandi’s nipples. Once he’d asked her to go to the parking lot with him, a place she’d been before—with him—he should have known it would go fast and far.

Dammit.

Still, he certainly hadn’t been fighting Sara off since then. In fact, he’d seen her only once, at the Bradford Youth Center she and her siblings had run since their father’s death fifteen years before. Sara was the administrator, and all of their friends, including him, put in many volunteer hours. Not that he minded.

Erin Nicholas

It was the perfect way to spend time with Sara and not feel guilty about it. Besides, he liked the kids and felt good about the work they all did there.

Now that Sara wasn’t speaking to him it wasn’t quite the same.

So his plan had worked. Very, very well.

“Vacation,” Danika said.

Mac had to blink a few times before he remembered the question he’d asked about why Sara had flown off to a tropical island.

“With who?” Everyone she was close to was still here. He’d seen them all today.

Danika frowned at that. “We’re not sure.”

“Excuse me?”

Danika frowned at
him
. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea and I didn’t buy the plane ticket. We got the letter in the mail this morning. She left yesterday. It doesn’t say where she is exactly, when she’ll be back or who she’s with.”

“Well, excuse me for worrying.”

Danika’s eyes widened. “You don’t think I’m worried? Besides, I’m living with
Sam
. How wonderful is my life going to be when he reads this thing?”

“He hasn’t read it yet?”

“No.” Danika sighed. “I don’t know what to tell him. He’s going to
freak out
, Mac.” Yeah, and Sara definitely knew that too. “Does Jessica know?” Danika shook her head. “I told Ben. He was bad enough. He started calling airlines and a police detective friend of his. He’s acting like she’s been kidnapped. He was about to go storming off to find Jess until I made him think it through. He’s trying to find some more information out before he tells her so she doesn’t lose it.”

Mac scrubbed his hand up and down over his face and smooth skull. “Damn it to hell, son of a bitch.”

“So what do I do?” Danika twisted the napkin she held into a tight curl. “We just got married, but he’s going to want to go storming down to St. Croix. Jessica’s only six weeks pregnant—she doesn’t need this stress.”

“You don’t think someone should go after her? Be sure she’s all right? For God’s sake, Sara’s never been farther than Disney World and has never been…well, anywhere…alone.” Danika rolled her eyes. “Well, okay, now don’t be ridiculous.” He stared at her across the breakfast bar in her kitchen. “Ridiculous? About what? She’s hundreds of miles away, with God knows who, doing God knows what.”

“Maybe she’s never been that far before but she’s…”

He smacked his hand on top of the breakfast bar making Danika jump. “I don’t think you understand.

Sara literally never goes anywhere alone.”

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Just My Type

Danika narrowed very suspicious eyes at him. “Nowhere?”

“Rarely.”

“Work?”

“Hardly alone. There are fifty kids there with her every day who know her very well.”

“What about the drive?”

“Okay, she has thirty minutes alone a day.”

“Well, thirty there and back.”

Mac grit his teeth. “Okay. Sometimes. Sometimes she gives Kevin a ride home since he lives in the same building. Or one of us goes with her if she decides to give one of the kids a ride home.” Danika thought for a moment. “Grocery store,” she said triumphantly.

“Kevin takes her.”

“What?” Danika looked at him in obvious disbelief. “You’re kidding.” Mac shrugged. “Kevin lives one floor down. They go once a week.” Danika shook her head. “She’s twenty-five, Mac. This is crazy.” Mac didn’t care. “It works.” Sara had never complained and Kevin and the rest of the guys didn’t mind helping her out at all.

“Well, maybe she’s tired of it. Maybe she’s sick of all the pampering and being overprotected.”

“So instead of calmly saying, ‘Hey, everyone, can we talk about a few things’, she gets on a plane and leaves the country?” Mac exclaimed.

“Technically the Virgin Islands are United States territories…”

“I don’t give a damn!” Mac yelled.

Danika frowned at him, unimpressed by his outburst. “Look, this isn’t
my
fault.”

“There has to be a reason.” And he had a sick feeling in his stomach that he knew what that reason was. Sara had never rebelled before. She’d also never climbed on his lap and kissed his socks off.

Coincidence they both happened within a week of one another? He didn’t think so.

“There’s no reason in our letter.” Danika tossed the folded piece of paper onto the countertop between them. “It says, ‘I’m on vacation on St. Croix. I’m fine. I’m not answering my phone or e-mail. I’ll call you when I get home’.”

“Well, that’s a bunch of shit. She had to know we’d be worried,” Mac grumbled, rubbing an agitated hand across his head. “Dammit.”

“Maybe yours says,” Danika said.

“My what?”

“Your letter.” She looked at him like he was an imbecile.

His heart hurt. “I didn’t get a letter.” She hadn’t even left
him
a note. Not that she should feel obligated. He wasn’t family. But sonofabitch he was just as worried.

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Erin Nicholas

“Yeah you did.” Danika glanced around. “It came here. I’m guessing she didn’t have her address book with her.”

“It came here?” Mac repeated stupidly. “A letter?”

Danika rolled her eyes. Again. “Yes, a letter.” She moved a catalog and what looked like a bill.

“Here.” She thrust an envelope at him. It had a hotel insignia on it.

Mac stared at it for a moment. At least she’d stayed in a nice place before she got on the plane. He grabbed the envelope and tore it open, jerking the letter out in one move. He was filled with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. If Sara was finally going to call him all the names she probably owed him from Sam’s wedding night, he wasn’t sure he wanted to have it in writing. But if she was going to add in where the hell she was and why, then he needed to know.

Mac, I wasn’t going to write to you specifically, knowing that Danika would tell you everything from
their letter anyway
,
it began. Mac felt his chest tighten looking at her handwriting. He glanced at Danika’s letter. No hotel logo. So Sara had decided at the last minute to write him. She was thinking about him just before she left. Interesting.

But I finally had to write you too. Because there are things I want you to know that I can’t tell anyone
else.

That made him feel good. She could confide in him. She could tell him things no one else could know.

I know you are holding yourself back from me because you think I’m a kid. I’m going to show you
you’re wrong. When I come back, I’m going to be a woman you’ll pay attention to. Love, S