Chapter TWO
MACKENZIE REACHED THE PHONE just as it stopped ringing. She checked caller ID and swore when she saw Gordon’s number. She’d talked to Linda earlier and managed to convince her to prompt Gordon into calling. Linda had come through—and Mackenzie had been too busy dealing with Oliver What’s-his-name to take the call.
Unbelievable.
She hit the button to return the call and prayed that Gordon hadn’t already moved on to something else. She willed him to pick up as the phone rang at the other end. She was about to give in to despair when Gordon’s voice came over the line.
“Mackenzie.”
“Gordon. How are you?”
“Good enough. More importantly, how are you?”
“Getting there. Better every day.”
He grunted. She pictured him sitting at his desk in Melbourne, feet up on the corner, big belly straining at the buttons on his shirt.
“How are the headaches?” he asked.
“Better. Much better.” She didn’t mention the fact that she still struggled to spend more than a couple of hours at a time on her feet before her back started acting up and that she struggled to stay awake after eight at night.
“That’s good to hear.” He sounded distracted and she knew she wouldn’t hold his attention for long.
“Listen, Gordon, I’ve been wanting to talk to you because I know Philip’s contract is coming up for renewal.”
Philip had been brought in to fill her role while she recovered. An experienced producer, they’d been lucky to catch him between gigs.
“It is. Still got that steel-trap memory, I see.”
What she had was a heavily used calendar function on her iPhone, but he didn’t need to know that.
“So, have you spoken to him about renewing for a shorter term?” She wrapped her free arm around her torso, tension thrumming through her body as she waited for Gordon’s response.
“We haven’t had that conversation yet.”
“Right. Well, I wanted to suggest you go for three months. I’ll be more than ready to get back to it by then.”
Gordon sighed. “Mackenzie...our hands are tied here. You have to understand that.”
A chill ran down her spine. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “What does that mean?”
“It means we can’t afford to lose him. The show needs continuity. If he won’t consider a short term, we’ll have to look at something longer. It’s a shitty situation, I know, but he’s done a great job for us.”
Mackenzie bit back the urge to remind Gordon that she’d done a great job, too, in the three years prior to the accident. She’d increased the ratings by nearly thirty percent, streamlined the story department and used her influence with her ex-husband, Patrick Langtry, to persuade him to join the cast—a move that had led to another ratings bump. Gordon knew all that, though. It simply didn’t mean anything to him while she was sidelined.
There was a reason Hunter S. Thompson had described television as “a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.” The industry was ruthless, ratings driven and peopled with huge egos. God only knew why she’d spent the bulk of her adult life loving the hell out of it, but she had and it was where she wanted to be.
Once she was on her feet again.
“I’ll be back soon, Gordon. I’ve had some great ideas for the show, too. Something to really kick us into the new ratings period.”
“You don’t need to pitch yourself to me. I’m going to offer him a month-by-month contract. I’m not expecting him to be happy about it, and I know for a fact there are other production companies sniffing around. I’ll do my best, but you need to understand that, at the end of the day, we have to do what’s best for the show.”
Even if that meant giving away her position while she was on sick leave for injuries acquired while on the job. If she hadn’t been driving to that location shoot, she wouldn’t have had the accident. It was that simple.
She opened her mouth to remind Gordon that he was legally obliged to keep her job open for her, then closed it again without saying a word. Nobody ever got ahead at Eureka Productions by resorting to lawyers at ten paces. No one who worked behind the camera, anyway.
“Don’t worry, Mackenzie. You’ll be looked after. You’re still our little pocket rocket.”
Mackenzie bared her teeth. How she hated that offensive, patronizing nickname.
“Will you keep me in the loop?” It was a testament to her strong will that she managed to keep her voice even and her tone pleasant. No way would she give Gordon the leverage of an emotional outburst. If he recognized a weakness, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it against her. “Let me know how things go with Philip?”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
“Network negotiations must be coming up soon, too. Any indication they might go for the Christmas special again this year?”
“They like to play their cards close. Listen, Mackenzie, I’d love to chat but I’ve got a meeting in ten.”
“Sure. Thanks for the call, Gordon.”
“Look after yourself, sweetheart.”
Mackenzie dropped the phone onto the coffee table and sank onto the arm of the sofa.
Shit.
If Philip played hardball and pushed to have her job permanently, there was a very real chance that she would be out in the cold.
The thought was accompanied by a flurry of panic and a stab of pain behind her right eyeball. She pressed her fingers to her temple, squeezing her eyes shut briefly before searching for painkillers. Normally she tried to get by without medication. At the worst of her recovery she’d been on so many tablets she’d had a special dispenser to keep them all straight. She’d been fuzzy headed and a step removed from the world most of the time, and she’d fought with her doctors to reduce her daily intake to the bare minimum. These days, she avoided anything that came in a foil sleeve, even a humble aspirin. But she could feel the headache building behind her eyes and knew from experience that it would snowball into something ferocious if she didn’t nip it in the bud now.
Mr. Smith pattered after her as she made her way to the bathroom. Seeing him reminded her of her new neighbor and his concerns about the hole-riddled fence. She supposed she should be more worried, but Mr. Smith was ridiculously attached to her and he’d never run away before. She figured he was simply excited about having a little buddy next door. Once the novelty had worn off he’d settle down.
Still, she should probably look into having the fence repaired, as Oliver Golden-Stubble had suggested. Not that she wanted to pour her precious, limited energy into anything unrelated to her recovery, but if it had to be done, it had to be done.
She swallowed two painkillers. A noise started up outside as she chased them with a glass of water. Someone hammering—in what sounded like her backyard. She made her way to the picture window in the living room. The noise wasn’t coming from her backyard, but the neighbor’s. Oliver was out there, working away with hammer and handsaw. Repairing their shared fence, apparently. Obviously he hadn’t been prepared to wait until they could hire a professional.
She watched him work, arms crossed over her chest. She’d never been attracted to redheaded men, but there was no denying this man’s appeal. His hair was a deep chestnut, more of a reddish-brown than a true red. As for his body... She would have cast him as a love interest on Time and Again in a heartbeat if his audition had come across her desk. He had the kind of body women fantasized over—broad shoulders, deep chest, flat belly, tight, firm little backside...
He pushed his hair out of his eyes, then turned to say something to his dog. There was a smile lurking around his mouth. Both times she’d met him she’d had the sense that he was a man who laughed easily. One of those comfortable-in-his-own-skin men. She wondered idly if he was married. He seemed like a married man to her. Hard to put her finger on why, but she usually had good instincts about that sort of thing.
He glanced up, his gaze locking with hers across twenty meters of garden and fence. Feeling caught, she took an instinctive step backward, then realized retreating only made her look guilty and furtive. She forced herself to stand her ground and hold his gaze. After a beat, he broke the contact, refocusing on his work.
She escaped to the kitchen, feeling oddly rattled. She wondered how long he planned to hang around. She hoped it wouldn’t be for long. She didn’t have time for distractions.
The painkiller was starting to make the world go fuzzy at the edges, but it didn’t ease the panic left over from Gordon’s phone call. She returned to the living room and sat in the corner of the couch.
If she lost her job—
She clamped down on the thought. It wasn’t going to happen. She wouldn’t let it happen. That job was her life. No way was she letting it slip through her fingers.
* * *
OLIVER FIXED TWO of the holes in the fence before he’d exhausted the small stash of nails he’d had in his tool chest. He’d taken the precaution of packing it and a few power tools before he left Sydney, based on the assumption that Aunt Marion’s place might need a few hinges fixed. He hadn’t expected to be getting down and dirty on his first day.
There were still holes to patch, but he decided they could wait until tomorrow and packed his gear away for the night. He got takeout from the local Chinese restaurant and spent the evening staring into the fire he built, downing a six-pack of beer and feeling disconnected from the world in general. Since distancing himself from his old life had been the whole point of his trip, he figured he was off to a good start.
He woke to overcast skies and the realization that he should have turned on the water heater last night. An icy-cold shower left him shivering and pissy. He whistled for Strudel to get in the car then drove into town, wondering if he had a chance of getting the remaining holes in the fence repaired before it started to rain. Judging by the dark, moody-looking clouds overhead, probably not.
He spotted a small, soberly clad woman the moment he entered the hardware store. For a few seconds he thought it was his surly neighbor, then the woman turned and he saw she was much older than Mackenzie. Just as well. He wasn’t in the mood to be polite this morning. Not that Mackenzie seemed overly concerned about social niceties.
He remembered the look they’d shared across the fence yesterday as he trawled the shelves for nails. He’d felt her watching him before he’d glanced up. Not that he’d known he was being observed per se; he’d simply known that something was not quite right. And there she was, watching him from her window, a slim figure, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she studied him.
She was one of those people who had perfected the art of giving nothing away—expressionless face, emotionless eyes. She’d held his gaze, cool, unreadable. Assessing.
He made a rude noise in the back of his throat. She’d probably been congratulating herself on getting her fence repaired for free. Certainly she hadn’t seemed in a hurry to do anything about it when they’d spoken, and she hadn’t rushed out to offer her assistance yesterday, either.
Belatedly he recalled her scar and the labored way she’d gotten to her feet. Maybe she wasn’t in a position to offer her assistance, physically speaking. He immediately dismissed the notion as he remembered the lean strength of her body and the fact that she’d clearly finished a workout when he’d first knocked yesterday.
She probably simply considered manual work beneath her, in the same way that common courtesy seemed to be beyond her.
Aware that he’d let himself get bent out of shape over her once again, he concentrated on his search. By the time he’d completed a tour of the small store, he still hadn’t located the nails and he gave in and approached the elderly man behind the counter.
“If you’re looking for sandbags, we’re all out, sorry,” the salesclerk said before Oliver could open his mouth.
“I guess it’s just as well I’m looking for nails, then,” Oliver said, more than a little bemused by the man’s opening gambit.
“What sort?”
“I’m repairing a fence.”
“You’ll want bullet heads, then.”
Oliver followed the man to the far corner of the store and selected a carton of nails.
“Had a run on sandbags today, have you?” he asked as they returned to the counter, more to make conversation than out of real curiosity.
“People having conniptions over the weather report. Bloody drama queens, those people in at the weather bureau. Storm will probably pass out over the water and not even touch us. Same as usual.” The clerk shook his head, clearly unimpressed with modern science.
“Is there a storm warning?” Oliver glanced out the window. Sure enough, the sky had grown even more forbidding since he’d left the house.
“So they say. Probably worth clearing out your gutters and downpipes, but I wouldn’t go blowing up your water wings just yet.” The old man laughed at his own joke.
“Thanks for the tip.”
Oliver switched on the radio when he got to the car and scanned through the frequencies until he found a weather report. Sure enough, they were predicting heavy rain for the southern part of the Mornington Peninsula, with warnings of flash flooding and high winds.
Awesome. Was it just him, or was Flinders really rolling out the welcome mat? A rude neighbor, a decrepit fence and now imminent flooding. And it was only day two.
Since the rain was holding off, he decided to finish the fence repairs. Strudel kept him company, sniffing around his feet and generally getting in the way. Twice he had to push her aside when he was nailing a board in place. He was about to put her in the house to save both her and his sanity when she trotted off into the garden.
“Smartest thing you’ve done all day,” he muttered.
It wasn’t until he’d finished repairing the second-last hole that it occurred to him to wonder where she’d gone. He tucked his hammer into his tool belt and went looking. He spotted her the moment he rounded the shed. More accurately, he spotted them. As in plural. As in, two dogs, one silhouette.
“Hey!” he yelled, outraged.
He’d let Strudel out of his sight for five minutes and Doggy Juan from next door had taken advantage. Unbelievable.
Neither Strudel nor Mr. Smith paid him any attention, the two of them being very occupied with being humped and humping, respectively. Oliver searched for the garden hose. It took him half a minute to find it, and by the time he’d dragged it across the lawn Mr. Smith had finished and was simply standing beside Strudel, panting and looking pretty bloody pleased with himself.
“Don’t grin at me, mate. You’re in big trouble.”
“Mr. Smith? Smitty? Here, boy. Mama’s got a bone for you.”
Mackenzie’s voice floated over from her yard. Oliver scooped up her miscreant dog and strode to the fence. Holding the dog under his arm, he gripped the top of the fence and stepped on the cross rail so he could see into her yard.
“He’s here. Again.”
Mackenzie stood on the deck, once again dressed in expensive-looking workout gear. She frowned when she saw Mr. Smith in his arms.
“I didn’t realize—”
“No kidding.”
He waited until she’d crossed to the fence before lowering the dog into her arms.
“You might want to keep him inside until the fence is secure. Since he doesn’t seem good at taking no for an answer.”
She smoothed a hand over her dog’s head. “Sorry?”
“I just caught him humping Strudel.”
“Oh.” She had the grace to look embarrassed.
“Yeah.” He was aware that he sounded like an outraged parent. Frankly, he felt like one. Strudel was barely eighteen months old. Still a puppy, really. She wasn’t in the market for the kind of adults-only behavior Mr. Smith had dished out so enthusiastically.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was out.”
“You said that.”
Her eyebrows rose as she picked up on his tone. “I know that technically he shouldn’t have been on your side of the fence, but they’re only following their natural instincts. There’s no need to get all prissy about it.”
Prissy? Where did she get off calling him prissy after she’d shut her door in his face not once but twice and then let her reprobate of a dog run loose to do as he pleased?
He fixed her with a hard look. “Keep your dog out of my yard, okay?”
She set the dachshund on the ground and brushed fur off her body-hugging top. “It takes two to tango, you know. I bet Mr. Smith didn’t go where he wasn’t wanted.”
He opened his mouth to respond, then realized he was one riposte away from a schoolyard squabble. He released his grip on the fence and dropped to the ground.
“Keep an eye on your dog,” he said as he walked away.
The only response was silence, but he could practically hear her grinding her teeth. Good. She’d made him grind his teeth more than once in the past twenty-four hours. Turnabout was fair play.
Strudel once again shadowed his every move as he patched the last gap in the fence, taking every opportunity to lick his hand or rub up against his leg.
“Don’t go sucking up. You barely know the guy. A little bit of restraint wouldn’t have gone astray.”
Strudel eyed him uncomprehendingly and he reached out to scratch her behind her ear. How could he resist that face?
Once he’d finished with the fence, he dragged the ladder out of the shed and inspected the gutters. Sure enough, they were full of leaves and silt and he worked his way around the house, scooping dead leaves and who-knew-what-else out from the gutters. It was a disgusting, messy, smelly job, and by the time he’d reached the front of the house he was well and truly over it. He glanced at Mackenzie’s house as he cleared out the corner nearest her property, wondering if she’d heard the storm warning.
For a few seconds he toyed with the idea of passing on the information, then he remembered the superior way she’d looked down her nose at him while blaming Strudel for her dog’s bad behavior. He was all out of favors where she was concerned.
Once he’d finished the gutters, he checked the downpipes, then cleared the drain that ran across the top of the driveway. Both his and Mackenzie’s properties were on a slight slope, the street being higher than the house. If there was water runoff coming his way, he wanted to be sure it had somewhere to go, other than into his house.
He was putting the ladder away when the heavens opened, rain sheeting from the sky so intensely it stung when it hit his arms and face. Strudel at his heels, he bolted for the house. It wasn’t until he was washing off the dirt beneath a hot shower that he registered that he hadn’t thought about Edie or Nick once all day.
A new record.
Maybe walking away from everything and driving a thousand kilometers south hadn’t been such a crazy idea after all.
* * *
MACKENZIE HAD PLANNED to take Mr. Smith for a walk along the beach that afternoon, but the weather had different ideas. Instead, she spent some time online checking out the various chat groups and fan sites for Time and Again. She liked to dip her toe in occasionally to take the temperature and see how viewers were responding to the show. The uneasy feeling that had sat in her gut since her conversation with Gordon yesterday intensified as she read excited posts from die-hard fans. According to them, the past few months had been some of the best in the show’s history. Dramatic, exciting, romantic, funny...
It was hyperbole, written by fervent, biased fans. But it still made her feel edgy. She recorded the show religiously every night but hadn’t caught up with her viewing for a few days. Since she was on a roll with the self-torturing thing, she watched three episodes in a row. Every time something caught her attention—a change in the lighting, some alterations to a set, the thrust of a storyline—she stopped and reviewed the footage. Two hours later, she’d bitten her thumbnail down to the quick and the edgy feeling had become full-fledged anxiety.
Gordon was right. Philip was doing a good job. Possibly even a great job. She’d been aware of it before, of course—God, she’d even been foolish enough to be relieved that the show was in such good hands—but she hadn’t consciously registered how good his work was.
She stared at the darkened TV screen, rain slashing at the windows, Mr. Smith snoring at her feet. If Philip held out for a longer contract, the production company would be crazy not to give it to him. She’d give it to him if she were in Gordon’s position.
Please, please, please don’t let that happen.
She wasn’t even remotely hungry but she forced herself to make and eat dinner. In the good old days, she’d lived on Diet Coke, black coffee and take-out meals. These days, she made sure she gave her body what it needed to recover—organic vegetables, lean protein and all manner of virtuous things. She sat on the window seat in the living room and watched the trees thrash around in the rising wind while she ate her chicken stir-fry. The storm showed no signs of abating. Hardly unusual stuff for the Mornington Peninsula—she’d already endured several storms like this since she’d taken up residence in the beach house—but pretty spectacular to watch from the comfort of a warm, cozy house.
Her gaze was drawn to the golden light spilling from the house next door. It was strange to see it lit up after all these months of darkness. If her new neighbor hadn’t turned out to be such an uptight ass, she’d have welcomed the signs of life. But after this morning’s dressing-down, the only thing she’d welcome was his departure.
She made a rude sound in the back of her throat as she remembered the way he’d looked down at her from his position on the fence, telling her how to manage her dog and acting as though Mr. Smith was some kind of pirate king who had buccaneered his way into the neighboring yard and raped and pillaged its doggy occupants. Last time she’d looked, dogs were animals, with all the attendant urges and instincts of animals. Clearly Oliver was one of those uptight dog owners who policed their pet’s every move. No doubt poor Strudel lived a regimented life full of rules and regulations.
Poor Strudel. Probably those few illicit seconds with Mr. Smith were the most fun she’d had in a long time.
Mackenzie scooped the last mouthful of rice from her bowl and swung her feet to the floor. She wasn’t going to waste another second thinking about Mr. Uptight. Life was too short.
She was in bed by nine o’clock, listening to the rain drum against the tin roof. She drifted into sleep and woke to deep darkness and the sound of running water. For a few seconds she thought she’d left the tap on in the en suite bathroom, but it didn’t sound like a tap running. The rain was still thrumming against the roof and pelting the windows and a horrible suspicion crept into her mind. She threw back the covers. The ominous feeling intensified when she discovered Mr. Smith was missing from the hallway outside her bedroom. Not a great sign. She turned on lights as she moved through the house, checking first the open-plan living area at the back before making her way to the front.
She found Mr. Smith at the door, ears up, posture alert in full defcon-five watchdog mode.
“What’s going on, Smitty?”
He turned and gave her a darkly knowing look.
“That bad, huh?”
She opened the door—and froze.
Water rushed down her gravel driveway, a muddy brown torrent filled with leaves and gravel and other debris. Once it hit the paved area in front of her house, it had nowhere to go, and a lake was forming on her doorstep, the water already lapping at the bottom step.
Dear God, she was about to be flooded.
For a moment shock stole her capacity to think. She stared at the swirling, dark water, unable to comprehend what was happening. Then, suddenly, her brain snapped into action. There was a storm drain across the driveway. In theory, it should be channeling this deluge away from the house. Which meant it must be blocked. Maybe if she could unblock it, she could avert disaster.
Maybe.
She was barefoot, so she raced up the hallway, snatching her rubber boots from the laundry, along with her garden gloves and the yard broom.
She was soaked to the skin the moment she stepped beyond the shelter of the porch, sheeting rain turning her tank top and pajama bottoms into skintight apparel. Squinting against the downpour, she made her way to the drain. The problem was immediately apparent—gravel had washed down from the road and filled the grate covering the long channel, rendering it all but useless and creating a bridge for the water to reach the house. She pulled on the gloves and squatted, scooping the gravel away from the grate. She swore under her breath when she saw that as fast as she scooped, the rushing water replaced what she’d removed with yet more gravel.
She increased her pace, scooping the gravel away with cupped hands, pushing it between her legs like a dog digging a hole. After ten minutes it became painfully clear to her that she was rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Not only was the water faster than her, but also she could feel her energy flagging. She glanced over her shoulder and felt a sick jolt of adrenaline at the sight of the water lapping at the second step.
She abandoned the drain and returned to the porch, collecting the broom then wading into the fray. The water was already flowing around the house, rushing down either side, but not nearly fast enough to prevent the rising levels. But perhaps if she encouraged it on its way she could keep the water from invading her home.
Perhaps.
She began pushing the water toward the side of the house with the broom, gloved hands gripping the handle tightly. She worked doggedly, putting all her weight behind each push. Soon her arms were burning and she was panting.
And still the water kept coming.
She paused to catch her breath, despair filling her heart as the rain intensified.
She was going to be flooded. There was no way she could stop it. The best she could do was retreat inside to roll up rugs and move as many valuables as she could off the floor.
She lifted a hand to swipe the water from her face—an utterly useless, pointless gesture, just as all of her efforts had been useless and pointless tonight—then lost her breath as a figure loomed out of the darkness.
Tall and broad, his chestnut hair was plastered to his scalp, his jeans molded to his thighs, his T-shirt to his chest.
Her neighbor, Oliver-the-ass.
He surveyed the situation, then zeroed in on the drain. She started moving forward, intending to tell him that it was no use, that he couldn’t possibly beat the water. But he was already pulling the metal grate free, gravel and all, tossing it to one side to allow the water and gravel to surge into the channel beneath the grate.
He didn’t wait to see if his radical surgery had had the desired effect. He turned to her, jerking his chin toward the house.
“You got another broom?” he yelled over the sound of the wind and rain.
She blinked the rain from her eyes. Tried to get her brain to connect with her mouth. “Yes.”
He plucked the broom from her hands. “Go grab it.”
He was gone before she could say anything more, striding to the side of the house. He swept with long, powerful strokes, pushing water down the side path.
For long seconds Mackenzie simply watched him, dumbfounded, overwhelmed, grateful and terrified all at once. He glanced at her, obviously wondering what she was doing, standing there like an idiot, and for the second time that night she snapped into action.
Her legs felt rubbery, her back was starting to ache, but she spun on her heel and went to find the second broom.