“Because it’s . . . simple?” Mac guessed.
“Because it’s the laciest, puffiest, gaudiest dress you’ve ever seen.”
For all the changes she’d seen in Hollis Channing, the girl couldn’t do gaudy. “And you . . . like . . . it?”
“Mom picked it out.”
“But you just said it was going to be a surprise.” Remembering details was part of Mac’s job.
“Oh, it will be.” Hollis giggled. “I sneaked it out of Mom’s closet before we left.”
“You’re wearing your mother’s wedding dress?”
“Sometimes”—Hollis’s solemn tone was a counterbalance to the laughter in her eyes—“you do crazy things for the people you love.”
Things like delivering food in a snowstorm.
Mac couldn’t help but feel a pinch of envy.
“Change of plans, guys!” Hollis stood up and set the canoe rocking as she waved her arms to get their attention. “Time to go back!”
Connor and Ethan waved to acknowledge they’d gotten the message, but instead of heading to shore, they paddled in Hollis and Mac’s direction.
Hollis sat down. “Do you mind switching places with Connor for the trip back?”
“Switch places?” Panic flared inside Mac. “Why?”
“There’s something I have to talk to him about before we get to the house.”
Mac flicked a glance at the canoe cutting toward them through the water. Connor Blake might have the sculpted perfection of a leading man with his tawny hair and sapphire-blue eyes, but Mac didn’t experience even the tiniest blip in her heart rate when she looked at him.
But Ethan . . . well, she should carry one of those portable defibrillators in her pocket.
Which was why Mac had decided it would be better if she avoided him.
Unfortunately, avoiding Ethan didn’t seem to prevent her from thinking about Ethan. And thinking about Ethan had stirred up memories.
Only this time they weren’t painful high school memories.
They were memories of the way Ethan’s arms had tightened around her after he’d carried her over the touchdown line. The flash of heat in his eyes that raised the temperature in the air around them.
Dangerous memories now that Mac was so close to achieving her goal of leaving Red Leaf.
Hollis must have sensed her reluctance because she tilted her head. “Is there a reason why you don’t want to be in a canoe with my brother?”
“No.” Not one she could admit to, anyway.
Hollis dropped her voice as Ethan’s canoe drew closer. “I’m sorry, Mackenzie.”
Mac smiled. “For wanting to spend more time with your fiancé? I think that kind of goes with the territory.”
“For not being a very nice person in high school,” Hollis said in a low voice. “To be honest, I don’t think I was a very nice person until I met Connor. But love . . . it changes things.”
Ethan reached out to steady Mac as she climbed into his canoe. He wasn’t sure why Connor and Mac had switched places, but the situation couldn’t have worked out better if he’d planned it.
Although the saucy wink Hollis gave him behind Mac’s back when she and Connor’s canoe glided away made him wonder if his little sister didn’t have a plan of her own.
He steered closer to the shoreline and Mac frowned. “When you said detour, I didn’t realize we were going to portage the canoe.”
“We’re not.” Ethan peered over the side of the canoe. “Do you see that weed bed? Dad and I used to fish right here on Saturday mornings. We’d get up early and sneak out of the house before Mom and Hollis got up and—” Ethan’s throat closed suddenly, unexpectedly, sealing off the rest of the words. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Mac said softly. “Is that why you didn’t come back? Because there were too many memories?”
Ethan wished he could say yes, because that would mean he was a sensitive guy. The kind of guy who’d been guided by his heart instead of blind ambition.
The kind of guy a woman like Mac would respect. But she respected honesty, too, so Ethan told the truth.
“I didn’t want to come back,” Ethan finally said. “My plan was to graduate at the top of my class in medical school and get a spot on Dr. Langley’s team at Midland Medical.”
“What changed your mind?”
The only way Ethan could answer that question was by asking one of his own. “What do you remember about my dad?”
The tiny pucker between Mac’s eyes deepened. “When I was in first grade, I fell off my bike and skinned my knee. I saw your dad in the checkout line at the hardware store and I ran up to him to show him what happened.
“There were people in line but he knelt down right there and examined it, then he wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to me.” A memory warmed her smile. “It was a prescription for a hot fudge sundae.”