“Well, good morning, sunshine,” said Angus, leaning against the counter and drinking what looked like a cup of coffee. He pointed to a machine next to the sink. “Help yourself. Mug’s are in the cabinet above.”
I shuffled over and got out a cup. “Is Mack around?” I asked, pouring myself a cup of dark coffee. Today I’d be skipping the cream and sugar; I needed straight-up harsh caffeine going right into my veins.
“Nope. He went into town.”
I spun around. “But … we had an appointment.”
Angus chuckled. “We don’t generally do appointments out here.”
“Okay, well we had an agreement to meet at nine so we could talk.”
“About your genealogy business?”
I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee. According to my sleepy brain, nodding wasn’t exactly lying.
“You can ask me questions if you want. I’m available for the next half hour, and I’m a MacKenzie.”
“Don’t you have cows to de-testicle?”
He laughed again. “Nope, not yet. I need Mack for that and he had to go.”
“Where did he go? Do you know when he’ll be back?”
Angus looked into his mug, frowning a little. “I’m not exactly sure.”
I could tell Angus was lying, but it was probably true that none of it was my business. I was just the girl trying to detach myself from Mack’s animal magnetism and get back to my real life.
“Is there any chance I could get a lift back to town so I could get my phone numbers and charger and things?”
“Actually, all your things are in the front hall. Boog brought them over early this morning.”
I put my cup down without saying a word and walked out of the kitchen towards the front door. My jaw dropped open at the sight of all my things sitting there on the floor. How in the hell…?
Angus stood behind me. “Got your car towed to the garage. You’ve got a bent axle. It’s gonna be a while before it’s fixed. Since you didn’t have any transportation, we figured you’d want to have your things while you’re here. Boog knows the girl at the reception desk, so she let him into your room.”
I spun around to face him, not even sure what I was going to say. The expression on his face made me stop the words that were about to fly out of my mouth. He looked … sad.
I frowned in confusion. None of this made any sense.
“Yup … so … I’m going to head out to the barn. Maeve’ll be in the kitchen in a few minutes. She just went to gather some eggs.” He left me standing there in the hall.
I kept everything where it was except my phone charger, which I brought up to Ian’s bedroom and plugged into my phone and the wall. As soon as there was enough juice to power the phone up, I checked my messages. There were four texts from Bradley, one from Ruby, and one from Candice. I didn’t even bother checking the ten voicemails. I checked Candice’s text message first.
Candice: I hear you’re out in Oregon??? Call me, bitch.
Candice: Okay, you know I was only kidding about the bitch thing, right? Call me. Bitch.
I smiled as I pressed her number. Bradley could wait. The office could wait. I hadn’t talked to my best friend in months.
“Hello? Is this really you?” Candice said, nearly yelling.
“Yes, it’s really me.” I didn’t realize until just then how much I’d missed her craziness.
“And you’re calling me from Oregon and Bradley’s not with you, right?”
“Yep, that’s right.”
“Squeeeeee!!!” The phone dropped and I heard a loud bang and then some rustling around. “Oops, sorry about that,” she said, now slightly breathless. “I just lost my shit for a second there. Did you break up? Are you running after twooo wuvv?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ruby told me everything. Come on, fess up. What’s he like? Did he flip his cowboy hat when you showed up?”
My heart was racing. “Hold on a second, Candice. How do you know all this stuff? No one knows about this, not even Ruby. All she did was make my travel arrangements.”
She snorted. “As if. Have you forgotten who you work for?”
“Umm… no.” What could my law firm have to do with any of this?
“Ruby. You work for Ruby. Ruby knows all, Ruby sees all, Ruby tells me all. Ruby has the password to your computer files, duh.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, putting all my frustration, worry, and feelings of helplessness into it.
“Are you pissed? Don’t be pissed at her. She was just doing you a big, fat favor, believe me.”
“What did she do?” The words would barely come out.
“Nothing. She just told me and Kelly what’s what so we could, you know, help if necessary.”
I rested my forehead in my hand. “Believe me, your help is the last thing I need.”
“Please don’t hang up,” she begged. “I finally got you back, I wouldn’t be able to take it if you dumped me again.”
“Dumped you?” I sat up again. She was making no sense.
“Yes. Dumped me.” She felt very strongly about this apparently. “Ever since you started dating that Bradley, you dumped all your friends. Or did you not notice that you have zero normal people in your life anymore?”