Chapter SEVENTEEN
IN OLIVER’S DREAM, he and Mackenzie were walking along the beach, joined together by Mackenzie’s crazy scarf.
It was cold but they were warm and she was laughing. Then his dream self reached for the scarf and started tearing at it. Mackenzie watched him, her eyes huge pools of sadness, but she didn’t say anything. When he’d finished, the scarf was severed and she drifted away from him, her eyes accusing now. Asking him why he’d destroyed something that was good, something that made them both happy.
He woke in a sweat, blinking rapidly to try to dispel the image of her standing alone on the beach.
He made his way to the bathroom and used a towel to dry himself off. Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Strudel padded into the room, her look questioning.
“Just a bad dream, sweetheart. You go back to bed,” he told her.
She stared at him fixedly for a moment, then crossed to the sink and settled at his feet with a heavy sigh. She’d been out of sorts, too, since they’d come home four days ago. Mooching around, off her food.
Did dogs miss each other the way people did? Did Strudel dream about Mr. Smith?
For her sake, he hoped not, because he missed Mackenzie so much his bones ached with it. It shouldn’t have been possible that someone he’d known for so short a time could have such a huge impact on his life. The fact remained, however, that he thought about her, he dreamed about her, he missed her, he craved her....
He’d had her, too, for the briefest of times, before he’d screwed it up.
He couldn’t think about that night without feeling anxious and panicky and ashamed all over again. He never wanted to be in that place again, so desperate and angry and out of control. He definitely didn’t want to inflict that kind of crazy on Mackenzie. Didn’t want her to see him flailing around in his own bullshit. Didn’t want her to know how nuts and scary it was inside his head sometimes.
He wanted only good for her, and he was not good. He was messed up and scared. He’d told her so, too, in the hardest, most revealing letter of his life. He figured it would be more than enough to convince her that she’d had a lucky escape.
And if it wasn’t, if she was feeling even close to as shitty and sad and lonely as he was...well, then he was an a*shole of the highest order. He’d had no business getting involved with her when he was so screwed up. He should have resisted the pull of attraction and turned his back on the sense of connection he’d felt with her. He should have barricaded himself inside his aunt’s place and worked through his crap on his own instead of inflicting it on her.
He tried to reimagine the past several weeks if he’d done just that. If he’d kept his distance. If he hadn’t kissed her after she listened to him spout off about Edie. If he had turned her away when she showed up at his door, determined to seduce him within an inch of his life. If they hadn’t shared all those dinners and open fires and nights in her bed.
He couldn’t. It was impossible to imagine himself not responding to her. Not being attracted to her. Not wanting her.
So maybe all roads led to him standing at his kitchen sink in the middle of the night, sweaty and anxious and full of regret. Maybe he’d always been destined to break her heart—and his own—because he’d met her at the wrong time, because he couldn’t handle the way she made him feel and the corresponding fear that came with all the good stuff. Fear that she would betray and hurt him the way Edie had. Fear that he would never be able to trust her or anyone. Fear that his divorce had broken something inside him and he’d never repair it.
He clicked his tongue and nudged Strudel gently. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”
Strudel heaved herself to her feet and followed him to the bedroom. She did her usual circle routine on the mattress before settling with her head resting over his feet, her big brown eyes watching him solemnly.
He closed his eyes, unable to bear her steady, loving regard. He didn’t feel very lovable right now.
His thoughts roamed as he lay in the darkness. To Flinders and back, but always circling around Mackenzie. Wondering what she was doing. How she was feeling. If Patrick had stepped in to console her.
Oliver hadn’t heard from her since he’d sent the letter. Which was the way it should be. He’d spelled out in no uncertain terms why he’d left and why it was best that he’d gone. There was no way she could fail to understand that she was better off without him.
Heartily sick of himself, he reached for his iPod and called up a playlist. He listened to the heartfelt lyrics of Crowded House and Paul Kelly and Peter Gabriel and consoled himself with the notion that maybe he’d get a decent song out of all this.
Pretty thin gruel.
The street outside grew noisy as the day started—car doors slamming, engines firing, the roar of the garbage truck. He contemplated getting out of bed, but there was no great rush. Rex didn’t want him back at the studio for another few days, since there was still time left on the freelancer’s contract.
Oliver had nowhere to go, no one expecting him, nothing to do. If he wanted to, he could stay in bed all day thinking about how he’d missed out on something amazing because he’d met Mackenzie at the wrong time and place in his life.
A car door slammed, followed by a single, low-pitched bark. Strudel stirred, lifting her head. She blinked, cocked her head, then leaped from the bed in a show of athleticism worthy of her pre-knocked-up days. Tail wagging furiously, she scrambled out of the bedroom and toward the front door.
He was still staring after her in bemusement when the doorbell rang.
Well, that explained Strudel’s antics, at least. Although she wasn’t normally so attuned to visitors.
He got up and grabbed the pair of jeans he’d flung over the end of the bed last night. He had a fair idea he was a far cry from his usual groomed self—unshaved jaw, bed head, stained T-shirt—but anyone who called this early could take him as they found him.
Strudel was whimpering and scratching at the door when he joined her, so excited she was trembling.
“Calm down. It’s probably someone selling raffle tickets.”
Then he opened the door and found himself looking into Mackenzie’s intense blue eyes. She scanned him head to toe a couple times, then a slow, tremulous smile curved her mouth.
“You’re alive, then. That’s a good start,” she said.
Mr. Smith was at her feet, enjoying an intense sniff fest with Strudel. Oliver tried to find something to say but his mind was a blank.
Mackenzie solved the problem by stepping forward and slipping her arms around him. She lay her head on his chest and held him tightly, her eyes closed. She felt so right, so good against him that he couldn’t stop himself from returning the embrace. She turned her head and pressed a kiss to his chest, her arms tightening around him even more.
After a long moment they both loosened their grip and Mackenzie took a small step backward and laid her palm along his jaw.
“How are you? Are you okay?” she asked.
There was so much tenderness and compassion in her touch and her voice that he was embarrassed to feel the prick of tears.
“I’m fine.”
Her gaze searched his intently. “Are you? Really? Because I’m not. I miss you like crazy. I think about you all the time. I want to know what you’re doing, how you’re feeling. I want to be with you.”
His heart did something weird in his chest, banging against his rib cage as though it wanted out.
“Mackenzie...”
“Don’t tell me that you don’t feel the same, because I know you do. I know you feel as connected to me as I do to you. I know you’ve been dreaming about me. I know you love me, Oliver, because I love you so much it hurts.” She blinked away tears.
“Don’t cry,” he said.
He couldn’t stand to see her unhappy. Especially when he knew it was his fault.
“Right now, that is not an option.”
“Nothing has changed, Mackenzie. Nothing I put in that letter has gone away.”
“I don’t care.”
He laughed, the sound hollow and hard. “That’s because you don’t know how screwed up I am.”
“I don’t care.”
She was so brave, appearing on his doorstep, her heart in her hands. Offering to take him on, no matter what.
“Maybe I’m not as strong as you,” he said quietly.
“Because it’s scary trusting someone again?”
He swallowed the last of his pride. She deserved the truth.
“Yes.”
She caught one of his hands in both of hers. Her eyes were brimming as she looked at him. “I understand. I understand that you need time. I understand that what happened between us wasn’t on your agenda. I understand that there might be some rocky times ahead, for both of us. But I’m still standing here.” She held his gaze, her chin tilted in challenge. “And I still love you. And I’m not going to stop loving you. It’s taken me nearly forty freaking years to find a man who makes me feel the way you do and I am not going to let that slip away because you want to spare me what you think are the worst parts of yourself.
“So be afraid. Be angry. Be jealous. Be possessive. Be whatever you need to be. But please, let me come along for the ride. I promise I will hang in there with you. I promise you that there is far, far more good between us than there will ever be bad. I promise you that your heart will always be safe with me. Always.”
Her hands were trembling as she pressed a kiss to the back of his hand.
“All I ask is that you don’t shut me out. Let me walk beside you. Let me be there for you. Let me love you.”
He’d never cried in front of a woman in his life, but apparently there was a first time for everything. He blinked and turned his head to wipe his face on his shoulder. Then he hauled her into his arms and held her so tightly his shoulders cracked.
“I love you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said fiercely.
“I know. I don’t want to hurt you, either. I figure if we’re both trying, if we’re both careful, we’re in with a pretty good chance. Don’t you think?”
She pulled back to gauge his response and he saw that she was crying in earnest, too.
“It kills me when you cry,” he said.
“I can’t even begin to tell you what it does to me when you do.” She captured his face in both her hands, brushing his tears away with her thumbs. “Don’t be afraid of me, of us, Oliver. Give us a chance.”
He wrapped his hands around the fine bones of her wrists. “Do you honestly think I have anywhere near the strength to walk away from you twice?”
She smiled. “Thank God.”
She kissed him then, her body straining toward his. He let go of her wrists and wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet as they kissed. She laughed against his mouth, her arms circling his neck.
“I love you, Mackenzie,” he said.
The words felt so good in his mouth.
“At the risk of repeating myself, thank God.” She kissed him, hard, then glanced over his shoulder. “What are the odds that there’s a bed in this house somewhere?”
“Very high.”
“What are the odds I might get to inspect it anytime in the next sixty seconds?”
“Even higher.”
She gave a whoop as he bent and picked her up in a firefighter’s hold.
“Oh, yeah. This was worth a trip to Sydney,” she said as he strode down the hall to his bedroom.
The dogs skittered after them, excited by all the noise, dancing back and forth. He turned into his bedroom and let Mackenzie fall onto the bed as gently as he could. Then he went to the door and whistled the dogs away from the bed.
“Outside, now,” he said.
Strudel gave him a wounded look before slinking into the hallway, Mr. Smith trailing after her. Oliver kicked the door shut and reached for the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it over his head.
Mackenzie propped herself on her elbows and watched him undress, her cheeks flushed, her hair spiky on one side.
“Worried about having an audience, huh?”
“Worried your dog will pick up some new tricks. He’s already got enough moves.”
He shucked his jeans and moved toward the bed, impatient to be skin to skin with her again. Needing the rightness of it.
“You missed me,” she said, her gaze dropping to his thighs.
“Like crazy. Take your clothes off.”
They undressed her together, his hands caressing each inch of skin as it was exposed. Finally they were lying chest to chest, hip to hip. The warmth of her supple body against his was like a benediction. He rubbed his cheek against hers and closed his eyes and simply lived in the moment, savoring her.
There were a lot of things that could go wrong between them. They still had to sort out who lived where. He needed to negotiate his divorce. She needed to rekindle her career.
A warm certainty came over him as he felt the rise and fall of her chest against his. It might get complicated. There might be days when there was more shade than light. But all of that was manageable. All that truly mattered was Mackenzie loved him, and he loved her.
He figured it was a pretty solid starting point. And then some.
“Those new tricks you mentioned...” Mackenzie murmured near his ear.
He smiled. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you patience is a virtue?”
“Virtue is highly overrated.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around him and proceeded to prove her point in the best possible way.