Trouble Maker: A MacKenzie Family Novel (The MacKenzie Family) (16 page)

It wasn’t one of those houses where you couldn’t sit on the furniture or where quiet was expected. He and his friends had tracked in muddy boot prints, the furniture had been well lived on, the floors scuffed, and an upstairs window broken from a poorly calculated game of indoor baseball.

He’d forgotten to call the house and let Izzy know he was having company for dinner. She’d been a staple at Hamilton House since long before he was born, and she’d decided to stay after the ranch had been passed to him. She said Master Beckett needed her a lot more than his parents did. And he thanked God every day she was there, because the house would probably fall in shambles around his ears without her.

Izzy oversaw the cleaning, cooked his meals, and she’d boxed his ears on more than one occasion growing up. And she looked like she wanted to box his ears right now.

“What do you mean you’re having company over for dinner?” Izzy asked, brandishing a wooden spoon like some would a sword.

Isadora Blackstone was a little sprite of a woman with coal black eyes and hair to match—though the hair had a little help from Clairol every few weeks. Her skin was the color of creamed coffee and her face was mostly smooth of wrinkles, due to the fact that she’d slathered it with Oil of Olay for more than fifty years. Her eyebrows were drawn on sharply with a black pencil and her lips were ruby red. She was maybe ninety pounds soaking wet, but when she got her dander up she was as scary as any giant.

“You think food just magically cooks itself and appears on your plate? Cooking for company takes planning and time. Especially if it’s a lady friend. You’ve got to make a good impression. Unless it’s that Hazel Trout. I’m not cooking for that little tramp, so if you’re thinking of parking your horse in that particular barn you’d better think again.”

Beckett snorted out a laugh before he could help himself and the spoon missed the tip of his nose by an inch. He congratulated himself on not flinching.

“I told you to stay away from that girl. I said, ‘Master Beckett, you keep your dallying with that girl out of my house. She sees herself as Queen Bee over Big Sky Ranch, and I’m already Queen Bee. There ain’t room enough for the both of us.’ Didn’t I tell you that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Beckett agreed quickly. She had told him that straight out, and he wasn’t going to argue. Everyone knew that Izzy ruled the roost at Big Sky.

She nodded sharply and stuck her head in the refrigerator, slapping items on the counter.

“Shoo,” she said. “Get out of my kitchen. You smell like you’ve been rolling in manure.”

“Pretty close,” Beckett said. “You’d think the cows would be smart enough to come in from the cold on their own.”

“Thank goodness they’re not. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have steak thawed out and ready to put on the grill for your dinner guest. Now go, before you stink up the whole house. I used the Pine-Sol today on the floors and I like to keep the lemon smell as long as I can.”

“I’m going,” he said, and grabbed an apple from the bowl to take with him while her back was turned.

Izzy’s bark was always worse than her bite, and by the time he was finished in the shower and dressed in jeans and a soft gray sweater that matched his eyes, the meal was cooked and warming in the oven until Marnie arrived. Izzy had made herself scarce, but left a note taped to the oven to remind him to be a gentleman and that she was going to bed for the evening because her reality TV show was on. She lived in the small guesthouse behind the garage.

When the doorbell finally rang, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He hadn’t really thought Marnie would actually come.

He hurried to open the door and then stared in surprise at the woman that stood on his doorstep. Her face was white as a sheet and she looked like she’d been rolling in the snow. White flakes crusted her from the top of her hat all the way to the top of her boots.

“What happened? Are you okay?” He reached out to pull her inside and he was surprised when she didn’t pull away from his grasp. She must’ve been in shock. Or frozen solid.

“I didn’t realize the weather was going to get so bad so quickly.” Her teeth chattered and he steered her toward the fireplace and the blazing logs that burned there. “I tried to call you and cancel, but I couldn’t get through. I think service is down. I didn’t want you to think I’d driven in a ditch somewhere and have you go out and look for me.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” he said, mouth twitching. “Did you walk here? I’ve never seen someone covered in this much snow from driving a car.”

“The windshield wipers on my van decided to stop working. I had to roll down the window so I could see where I was going. And then when I parked and got out of the van the wind blew my door open hard and I couldn’t get it shut again. When I pushed on it the wind decided to start blowing the other direction and it blew the door closed and me face first into the snow that built up next to the driveway.” She went to wipe the snow from her face and remembered she had her gloves on, so she peeled them off and laid them in front of the fire. “At least I think I parked in the driveway. It might be the middle of your front lawn for all I know.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you say that much at one time before. You must be thirsty.”

“You make me nervous.”

He burst out laughing at that. She’d told him that once before while on a certain Ferris wheel ride.

“Hand me your things and I’ll hang them up to dry. There’s fresh coffee or wine if you like.”

“I don’t drink,” she said.

“Anything at all? Or just drinks of the alcoholic variety? I’m not a doctor, but I am a cattleman, and I know that my cows have to have water to survive.”

“Are you comparing me to a cow?”

“It didn’t start out that way in my head,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “Maybe we should start over. Did you have a pleasant drive?”

Her mouth quirked and her eyes sparkled with laughter. Color was coming back into her cheeks and the tension went out of her body. “It was a lovely drive. Very picturesque. I would’ve taken pictures if my lens cap hadn’t frozen to the camera.”

“That’s nice then,” he said, hanging up her outerwear close to the fire. “Can I interest you in a beverage of the non-alcoholic sort?”

“I’ll stick with water for now. I’ve been told it’s a necessity for survival.”

“Whoever told you that was a genius. You should stick with him.”

“Only if he feeds me soon. It’s cruel to make a person smell something that delicious and not feed them.”

“Like the smell?” he asked, a wicked glint in his eye. “Izzy got a new air freshener. It always smells like steak in here. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Oh, well. Like I said, I only wanted to come by and tell you I wouldn’t be stopping by for dinner. I’ll be lucky to make it home at all if I don’t leave now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not letting you drive home on an empty stomach with no working windshield wipers. That would make me a cad.”

“I’d hate to damage your reputation.”

“My reputation has taken plenty of licks lately and managed to survive. And I hate to break it to you because I know you were hoping to ditch me tonight so you could run home and curl up with a good book, but you are well and truly stuck here for a little while. But I do promise to feed you and I promise to keep you out of the wine no matter how much you beg me to open a bottle.”

She looked at him out of serious eyes, her full lips still curved in a soft smile. “If I’m stuck, I’m stuck. Looks like I’m staying.”

The spit in Beckett’s mouth dried up and he had trouble swallowing. It wasn’t the words she said, but the way she’d said them. Her voice had gone husky and there was something in the way she looked at him that told him she’d known exactly where she’d end up for the night.

He arched a brow and said, “You knew all along you’d be staying the night here.”

“I also know that the steak in the oven will keep a good long while.”

“You’re going to have to tell me exactly what point you’re trying to get across, Marnie. I’m not as good as you are at reading minds.”

“I know. And I won’t read yours. I can promise you that.”

“It’s probably best you didn’t. I’ve been trying to figure out what you’ve got on under that bulky sweater since you took your coat off.”

“I didn’t have to read your mind to know that. You scare the hell out of me, Beckett Hamilton.”

“That kind of takes the edge off the foreplay we had going there. I don’t want you scared. I want you turned on.”

She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks, and she dropped down into one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace.

“I remember you always being on your best behavior with women, even when I was a sixteen-year-old girl. You were a gentleman. What happened to that?”

“I feel overly comfortable with you. And I want you a lot more now than I did when you were sixteen. I’ve waited for you for fifteen years. I figure if I’m not direct it’ll be another fifteen years before you let me kiss you again.”

“It was a good kiss,” she said, smiling.

“I’ve regretted every day since that I didn’t start kissing you sooner.”

“The timing of it didn’t matter. We would’ve ended up in the same place if Harley hadn’t come along.”

His lips pressed together and he went stone still.

“No, don’t blame yourself,” she said, getting up and crossing over to him. “There’s no reason pretending like the past didn’t happen. It’s something between us and we’ve got to both live with it. It’s part of the reason I kept telling you no all these weeks.”

He nodded. “I figured as much. I couldn’t protect you then. Why would you think anything had changed now that you’re back?”

“No, you’ve got the wrong reason altogether. I told you no because I very much remember that kiss and what I felt like when I was with you. I knew where we were headed, even if you didn’t completely know. I saw us together. Under a willow down by the lake.”

He nodded and said, “There’s a big willow a couple of miles from here along a secluded trail. I used to ride there when I was younger when I wanted to think. It was my thinking place.”

“You would’ve taken me there,” she said. “And I would’ve let you with all the trust and innocence a sixteen-year-old girl could have. I would’ve let you kiss me and love me and more. And we would’ve kept sneaking back there because we wouldn’t have been able to get enough of each other.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good reason to keep telling me no all these weeks. It sounds like a reason to say yes. We could’ve been under that willow when there was still grass beneath us instead of snow. It’s going to be damned cold now.”

She laughed and he grinned at her response. “What I’m saying is I needed to say no to make sure I could. I was in a relationship for a couple of years.”

“I know,” he said. “I saw the articles in the paper. You looked happy.”

“Not happy in the relationship. But happy in my career and fulfilled. He played off that. And I let him because for the first time in my life I was getting to do exactly what I loved and making a good living from it. I needed space from that after I came here.”

“I can understand that. It takes time to move on after you close a certain door in your life.”

“I spent a lot of years in therapy, you know,” she said.

“I’m glad. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you growing up. And that you were able to hide it from all of us.”

“At first I thought maybe if I’d been born different he wouldn’t have had a reason to beat me.”

“Some people don’t need a reason. He would’ve found a reason one way or another.”

“That’s what my therapist said,” she said, nodding. “He was just a bad person. There’s no cure for that. And it took me a while to admit to myself that part of me was glad the MacKenzies hadn’t been able to adopt me, even though I felt broken without them in my life. Even though I hated leaving you before we’d ever had a chance to get started.”

“Why were you glad?” he asked.

“Because for as long as I could remember my one goal was to have freedom. From my father and from Surrender. I was counting down the days until I could leave. I needed to know that I could survive on my own. And once I’d survived on my own I needed to discover that I hadn’t deserved what he’d done to me. I’m so fucked up, Beckett. Why would you want that?”

“Everyone’s got baggage, Marnie. Some more than others. But I’m sure your therapist also told you that having baggage doesn’t keep you from having the right to happiness. But you’ve got to play a part in finding that happiness.”

“I thought that’s what I was doing with Clive. I’d spent time on my own. Worked my way across the country and finally started a business of my own. I was ready for an adult relationship. I had it all. And then I found myself back in a situation where I was walking on eggshells all the time. The only thoughts in my head were doing things to please him so he’d be happy with me.”

The look on his face must’ve alerted her to his thoughts because she hurriedly said, “He wasn’t physically abusive,” she assured him. “He never hit me. But he controlled me. He owned me. But in the opposite way of my father. My father was always ashamed of my gift. He hated it and hated me because I had it and he didn’t. Clive was the opposite. He loved my gift. Loved that it brought attention to him and that his name was associated with mine. I was like a pet. And he never saw me as a woman or as someone of worth. And then I found out he’d forged papers so he was executor of everything I did. He literally owned me at that point, and I knew I had to get out before there was nothing left of me at all. I’m tired of being everyone’s afterthought. Of being something they need or want to use.”

“Wait a second,” Beckett said. “This guy lied and stole from you, and you just walked off without a fight?”

She sighed. “I don’t have a lot of fight left in me, Beckett. It was easier to walk away and start over. He can have what he wants. I’ve got my freedom again and that’s all that’s ever been important to me.”

“You’re crazy if you think a man like that is just going to let you walk away. I kept up with you over the years, Marnie. You’re worth millions. And if he owns your work, he’s going to keep coming after you for more because that’s a cash cow that’ll never dry up. Especially if you become a reclusive artist living in Nowhere, Montana, and your photographs become hard to find. Your prices will probably triple.”