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“Have you ever known me to drink more than an occasional glass of wine?”
“No, but there’s a first time for everything,” he said. “Has somebody been talking to you, putting ideas into your head?”
He envisioned Will having some kind of heart-to-heart with her and getting her all stirred up to take charge of things. It would be just like him, since he knew Mack was having second thoughts about the whole proposal thing.
“Have you seen Will?” he asked suspiciously when she remained silent.
“I saw him earlier today, but he didn’t give away any of your closely guarded secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about. He and Jake are more tight-lipped than some international spy. I’m sure they could give lessons to the CIA.”
“Good to know,” he said with relief. Of course, that still raised the question of what had gotten into Susie tonight. Maybe he should invite her over and get to the bottom of this.
Then, again, given her reckless, unpredictable mood, that could be dangerous…for both of them.
“I’ll give you a call before Thanksgiving,” he said eventually. “We’ll make plans.”
“And in the meantime, what?” she demanded. “You’re going to be in hiding?”
“Something like that. Like I said earlier, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Whatever you say,” she said. “But don’t even think about standing me up on Thanksgiving. If you try to, I will come over to your apartment and drag you out, if necessary. I will bring my brothers, Will, Jake, whoever I need to, to get you to Uncle Mick’s—is that understood?”
Mack laughed. “What’s not to understand? I have to say, though, that this bossy side of you could take some getting used to.”
“Something tells me you’re going to have plenty of opportunities to do just that,” she said, her tone unexpectedly sassy.
She hung up before Mack could come up with an adequate reply. Whether it was alcohol or something in the water, this was definitely Susie as he’d never seen her before. Despite its emergence at the worst possible time, he couldn’t help being fascinated. He’d never before thought of her as having a devious bone in her body, but perhaps he’d been wrong. Perhaps intriguing him had been exactly what she’d been counting on.
On the day before Thanksgiving, Laila Riley sat in her office at the bank, staring out the window, her mood dark. The upcoming holiday weekend promised to be the most depressing ever. Her parents had decided to take a spur-of-the-moment trip to London. Her brother would be with Abby and the twins at the O’Briens, leaving her to do what? Nothing, as usual.
She glanced up as Jess O’Brien—Jess Lincoln, she corrected—walked into her office without being announced.
“Just as I suspected,” Jess said. “You’re sitting here in a funk.”
“Who says I’m in a funk?” Laila demanded, sitting up straighter and trying to look more cheerful. “I have a four-day weekend stretching out ahead of me. I have all sorts of plans.”
“Oh, really? To do what?”
“You know, the usual Thanksgiving holiday things. I’ll eat a little turkey, hit all the holiday sales on Friday and Saturday.”
“Let’s say I buy that for a single minute,” Jess said. “With whom are you having that turkey dinner? Your parents have already left for England, and Abby tells me you turned down their invitation to join us.”
“You can’t possibly shove another person around that already overcrowded table,” Laila said. “Besides, I’m getting tired of the pity invitations.”
Jess regarded her indignantly. “Since when has anyone in my family made you feel as if you were being included out of pity? It’s a well-known fact that we invite you for your scintillating personality.”
Laila knew what her friend was trying to do, and on some level she wanted to say yes. Spending Thanksgiving on her own would be more depressing than any of the other meals she’d eaten alone since she’d sworn off dating after the whole online dating fiasco, when she’d wound up being stalked and harassed.
“Look, I appreciate the invitation, but I’ll be okay,” she insisted.
“Okay, then, I’ll back off,” Jess said a little too readily. “On one condition.”
Laila regarded her with suspicion. “What condition?”
“You tell me what your other plans are—and they’d better be good. Frozen turkey and dressing heated in the microwave and eaten all alone doesn’t count.”
Defeated, Laila sighed. “What time is dinner?”
“Three o’clock,” Jess said, obviously happy over her victory. “Will and I will pick you up at two so you can help with the preparations. That’s part of the fun.”
“Says the woman who lets the chef at her inn fix all of her meals.”
Jess grinned. “I don’t want my husband to starve, do I? Or to die from my cooking?”
“Exactly what does your grandmother let you do to help prepare Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Last year I dished up the stuffing and the cranberry relish and put them on the table,” Jess said proudly. “This year I’m pouring the wine that Will picked out from the inn’s wine cellar.”
Laila laughed. “Well, I have no idea how I’ll compete with that, but since the standard’s pretty low, I suppose I won’t fall flat on my face. There’s bound to be some task at which I can excel.”
Jess grinned back, but then her expression sobered. “You do know we all love you like family and that you belong with us, right?”
Unexpected tears stung Laila’s eyes. “Thanks.”
“Don’t you dare cry,” Jess ordered. “Just be ready on time tomorrow.”
“Promptly at two,” Laila promised.
Maybe Thanksgiving wouldn’t turn out to be half as depressing as she’d envisioned after all. Or else, once again, she’d feel like a fifth wheel among all those exuberantly happy O’Brien couples.
3
Thanksgiving turned out to be one of those perfect fall days in Chesapeake Shores. The sky was a brilliant blue, the air crisp and cool. There were whitecaps on the bay, churning the surface to a froth.
It was, in fact, an ideal day for playing touch football, which almost all of the O’Brien men and the spouses of the women had gathered for on the lawn. Before heading outside, they’d claimed—as usual—that it was the absolute best way to work off the huge meal. The women knew better. It was a way to get out of cleanup. Not that there was room in the kitchen for another person to squeeze in, but it might have been nice if at least one of them had offered, Susie thought as she stood at the kitchen door staring at them.
She had a dish towel in one hand and a Waterford crystal goblet in the other. She’d finished drying the glass long ago, but she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Mack, who was in the thick of the game. Nor could she stop thinking about how well he fit in, as if he were already one of the family. Just the thought created a twinge of longing.
Her grandmother came over to stand beside her. Nell O’Brien was known for her insight and for her good sense. She also spoke her mind.
“He’s a good-looking one, isn’t he?” she said, her eyes alight with mischief.
“Who?” Susie asked.
Nell gave her a disbelieving look. “Don’t play coy with me, young lady. Mack, of course. You haven’t been able to keep your eyes off him all day. For what it’s worth, he seems to have the same problem.”
Susie felt a faint spark of hope. Surely her grandmother wouldn’t say what she knew Susie wanted to hear. Surely Nell, if no one else, would tell Susie the unvarnished truth. “Do you really think so, Gram?” she asked, unable to keep the plaintive note from her voice.
Gram gave her a chiding look. “Come now, girl. You know the answer to that as well as I do. I’ve seen a lot of men fall in love through the years. Mack looks as smitten as any of them. He’s looked that way for a long time now,” she added pointedly.
“I want to believe that,” Susie admitted.
“Then believe it,” Gram said briskly. “I’m glad you finally brought him around to join us for dinner. I was beginning to think you were going to let him get away. That would have been a real pity.”
“Mack’s not really mine to lose.”
“Nonsense!” Gram responded with asperity.
“No, it’s true. We’ve been friends a long time,” Susie said, a wistful note in her voice. “That’s as far as it’s gone.”
“But you want more,” Gram surmised. “You’re certain of it?”
Susie nodded. “I really do.”
“What’s stopping you from reaching for it?”
“Habit,” Susie said at once. “And fear. I’m afraid if we try and don’t make it, I’ll lose my best friend.”
“If Mack’s friendship is that important to you, you’ll find a way to make it work, even if having a more intimate relationship fails,” Gram said confidently. “One thing I know for sure—if you truly love this man and don’t try to have the relationship you really want with him, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. When you’re as old as I am, the one thing you know is that it’s too late to make up for the things you didn’t do.”
Susie hugged her grandmother, felt her frailty that was belied by her strong spirit. “You’re very wise.”
“I should hope so,” Gram said. “After eighty-some years, I hope I’ve learned a thing or two.”
Susie grinned. “Eighty-some? You’re finally admitting to being eighty?”
“At some point it was going to be obvious to anyone looking at this wrinkled old face that I couldn’t pass for sixty or even seventy anymore. Why not own up to the truth?”
“You’re going to be young when you’re a hundred and two,” Susie predicted.
“If I live that long, I hope it’s with my wits about me and the ability to work in my garden. Otherwise, what’s the point?” Nell’s expression turned wistful. “And I’d like to see Ireland one more time. If that doesn’t happen soon, I fear it will be too late.”
Something in her tone worried Susie. It was the first time she could recall hearing her grandmother come close to admitting that she didn’t have a whole lifetime left to her.
“We’ll make it happen,” Susie assured her, determined to find a way. If the others knew this was Gram’s dream, they’d want to make it come true before it was too late. “I’ll see to it.”
“Don’t you worry about an old woman’s daydreams,” Gram chided. “Concentrate on making your own come true.” She took the glass and towel from Susie’s hands. “Now go out there and get into that football game. You could always run as fast as most of the men in this family.” She gave Susie’s hand a squeeze. “Just be sure you don’t run so fast that the right man can’t catch you.”
Susie had always been a bit of a tomboy, but Mack hadn’t expected her to throw herself into the family’s touch football game with such enthusiasm. In fact, he’d been counting on her staying inside with all the other women, while the men blew off steam. He’d needed some distance. Being caught up in an O’Brien celebration had been a little bit like a fantasy for him. It made him yearn for things that right at this moment seemed out of reach.
Okay, it was more than that. His wish for her to remain safely inside might hint at a disgustingly sexist attitude, but it was also a matter of self-preservation. Being around her today had stirred up some totally unexpected responses. It was as if all that talk about sex the other night had taken root in his brain—or in his libido—and the only thing he saw when he looked at her was a desirable woman whose clothes he wanted to strip off.
Now she was out here in the yard in an old pair of snug-fitting jeans she’d apparently borrowed and some kind of soft, touch-me sweater in a shade of red that should have looked ridiculous with her hair, but instead simply looked daring and downright provocative.
Standing just to the left of one of her brothers, a former college quarterback, she had her hands on her hips, a spark of mischief in her eyes and the kind of challenging expression that was giving Mack all sorts of ideas that had nothing to do with football. He almost regretted playing for the opposing team, since playing behind her with a clear view of her delectable backside held a lot of appeal.
Trace suddenly nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, pay attention! You do know that you can’t wimp out and go easy on Susie just because she’s a girl, right? If they hand the ball off to her, you take her down. You know that’s what they’re going to do because they think you’ll go easy on her. Do not let them get away with it,” he commanded.
Mack frowned at him. “I thought we were playing a friendly game of touch football.”
“We were until ten minutes ago, when Susie joined their team. They’re out to win. So are we.” Trace looked him squarely in the eye. “Do I need to move Will into your position?”
“Will hasn’t made a tackle since grade school,” Mack scoffed. “Who are you kidding?”
“Hey!” Will protested. “The game isn’t always about brute force. Sometimes it’s about finesse.”
“Tell that to the National Football League,” Mack said. “I’m sure the commissioner will be interested in your point of view.”
Jake joined the huddle. “Are we going to play or not? We can’t let their bringing in a girl psyche us out. Susie’s been playing in these games for years. She can take care of herself.”
He paused and glanced at Trace. “How about your sister? Maybe Laila would want to play. She’s tall and it would even things up. It would freak Matthew, Luke and Kevin out if the shoe were on the other foot and we had a woman playing for us.”
Trace frowned. “I am not letting my sister get pummeled by that team. Laila was never the tomboy that Susie was.”
“Hey, it was just a thought,” Jake said defensively. “You don’t have to go all macho and protective on us.” He turned back to Mack. “Okay, then, you can’t let Susie get past you. The woman runs like the wind. Remember high school? She blew away every other sprinter in the region when she competed in track.”
Mack frowned at the whole lot of them. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, which one of us made all-American all through high school? No girl is going to get the better of me.”
“Not even Susie?” Trace asked doubtfully.
Mack gritted his teeth. “No, not even Susie.”
“Okay, then,” Trace said as their players fell into position.
“About time,” Susie’s brother Matthew taunted. “I was starting to think I had enough time to go back inside for more pie.”
He called a play, the ball was snapped and, sure enough, it was handed off to Susie, who made a remarkable move to her right to avoid Jake’s tackle. Mack streaked after her, picked her up off her feet and fell to the ground, cushioning the fall with his own body. Her expression startled, Susie stared into his eyes.
“You tackled me,” she said with an indignant huff.
“Just following directions,” he said. “You okay?”
She scrambled up. “Of course I’m okay, but this is touch football, you idiot.”
Mack stared at her. “I was told the rules had changed.”
She stepped closer until she was toe-to-toe with him. “Is that so?”
“Swear to God.”
She looked around at the other players, then nodded. “Okay, then. You won’t catch me off guard again, Mack Franklin, I promise you that.”
She stomped back across the yard to join her own team. Mack got the distinct impression he’d stirred up her temper in ways he couldn’t possibly envision.
Fortunately, the last play had been fourth down and his team had the ball back. He took the hike from center and started to run, only to have 110 pounds of fury cut him off at the knees. This time when he hit the ground, Susie rolled with him. She jumped up before he could catch his breath.
“Okay, now we’re even,” she said. “I feel better. How about you?”
He stared at her incredulously. “You’re a little crazy. You know that, don’t you?”
She grinned. “I’ve spent a lot of time being one of the guys. Don’t sell me short, Mack. I have moves you can’t possibly imagine,” she boasted, then grinned. “On and off the field.”
Suddenly heat flared in Mack’s belly. All of the moves he envisioned were in a bedroom, not in the middle of a yard with her entire family surrounding them. He reached out, snagged her hand and pulled her into his arms, then leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“Do not taunt me, Susie. You’ll be asking for trouble.”
Amusement lit her eyes as she stared right back at him. “You don’t scare me. You’re all talk. I have years of experience to testify to that.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“All talk,” she taunted again.
It was Matthew who walked over, gave his sister an odd look, then broke up the standoff. “Hey, guys, we’re playing football.”
Susie blinked and looked away, her cheeks flushed. Mack dropped his hold on her and walked back to his own team, not sure if he was more disconcerted by her taunt or infuriated by it.
Will and Jake were grinning. “This O’Brien holiday tradition has just gotten interesting,” Jake commented. “You might want to keep in mind, though, that Jeff and Mick are sitting right up there on the porch watching. I’m not sure how thrilled they’re likely to be if you decide to seduce Susie right here and now. I know Mick, especially, talks a good game, but at heart, they’re pretty old-fashioned guys.”
“Seducing Susie never crossed my mind,” Mack said with grim determination. Making her take back her words, now, that was something entirely different.
Jake rolled his eyes. “Just like I didn’t pine away for Bree all those years she was off in Chicago writing plays.”
Mack just stared him down.
Across the yard he overheard Susie’s brother Luke arguing heatedly with Matthew.
“You’ve got to stop giving her the ball,” he told Matthew. “She’s not exactly a secret weapon right now.”
Susie marched right up to her brothers. “I am in this game to win it,” she declared fiercely. “Give me the ball.”
Mack had to hide a grin at the family squabble. He could hardly wait to see how it turned out. His money was on Susie. She was determined to run the ball past him and score. That grit was another aspect of her never-say-die spirit that he enjoyed. At least until today, when she seemed determined to use it to drive him wild.
On their next two plays after they got the ball back, Matthew tried passing downfield to Kevin, but Connor broke up the plays. On the next play Susie took a handoff and tried sprinting around Mack’s blind side. He caught her by the waistband of her pants and tumbled to the ground with her.
“You are so annoying,” she grumbled, but she didn’t scramble away from him quite as quickly this time. In fact, as she looked into his eyes, she suddenly seemed a little out of breath. He didn’t think it could be blamed entirely on her run or their fall.
Mack reached over to brush a streak of dirt from her cheek. To his astonishment, his fingers trembled as he touched her skin.
His own breath hitched.
“Susie,” he murmured softly.
She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away, either. “Uh-huh,” she said in a distracted whisper.
“We should stop this before you get hurt.”
She blinked for a second, then punched him in the ribs. “Me? What about you? Or Will, or any of the others?”
Mack held her in place, his gaze never leaving her face. “You’re the only one I’m worried about.”
“Just because I’m a girl,” she said, as if it were a curse.
“Just because you’re the girl I care about,” he said. He hesitated, scant inches from her mouth. He could kiss her right here and now. He wanted to. One look into her blazing eyes told him that was what she wanted, too.
“Mack?” she said, a questioning note in her voice. “What’s going on here?”
“I wish I knew,” he said with frustration.
Before he could do something they’d both regret, he scrambled to his feet and held out his hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Now?” she said, regarding him incredulously. “You want to go for a walk now, in the middle of the traditional football game?”
“I do.”
She looked around at the speculative looks on the faces of the men in her family, then nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Grateful that she wasn’t going to give him an argument, Mack tossed the football back to Trace. “Count us out. We’re going for a walk on the beach.”
“In the middle of the game?” Matthew demanded, staring at his sister as if she’d betrayed him.
“Seems like as good a time as any to me,” she said.
Matthew turned to his brother. “Do you have any idea what is going on with her?”
Luke laughed. “Oh, yeah, and if you ask me, it’s about time.”
All the way across the endless expanse of Uncle Mick’s lawn and down the steps to the beach, Susie clung to Mack’s hand and cast sideways glances at his unexpectedly grim expression.
“Was there something you wanted to talk about?” she asked eventually, when the silence had gone on way too long.
“Not really,” he said. The soft sand made walking difficult, but he was eating up the distance as if he had some destination in mind.
“Are we going someplace specific?” she asked, glad for her track experience and long legs. She had no problem keeping up with him, even though she would have preferred a leisurely, romantic stroll.
“Nope.”
“Are we on a deadline?”
He scowled. “Of course not.”
“Then could we slow down? I know I ran track in high school, but I stopped competing years ago.”
He glanced at her. “Sorry,” he said, slowing his gait.
“Mack, if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t seem happy about going on this walk. Why did you suggest it?”
“Because I didn’t like what was happening back there.”
She studied him in confusion. “Me getting tackled?”
He shook his head. “I knew I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“Then what?”
He heaved a sigh, stopped and met her gaze. “I came within a heartbeat of kissing you.”
She blinked at the shock in his voice. “Would that have been so terrible? Do you think the world would have come to an end or something?”
“I can’t just start kissing you because I feel like it,” he said angrily. “Not after all this time.”
“Maybe you should leave that decision up to me. Maybe I want you to kiss me. Maybe I think we’ve been waiting way too long to start kissing like crazy.”
“No way,” he said adamantly. “Not now.”
“Why?”
“Because the timing’s all wrong.”
“Because we had an audience?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What makes you think I’ve ever cared what anyone else thinks?”
“Okay, then, if it’s not because you were afraid that Will, Jake, my brothers and all the rest of them would give you a rough time, what was going on?”
“I told you the timing was bad,” he practically growled. “Now leave it alone.”
“No,” she said fiercely. If he’d wanted, even for a second, to change things finally—and hallelujah for that—and she wanted to change their relationship, why shouldn’t they? They were both consenting adults, for heaven’s sakes. “I’m half of this equation, and I get to have a say in what happens, too.”
“Not now,” he insisted grimly.
“Are you worried because my dad and Uncle Mick were there? Do you not want the pressure of getting those two all worked up, because believe me, I get that.”
“It’s not that,” he insisted.
“Then enlighten me, because I am totally confused.”
“You just have to take my word for it that this isn’t a good time for us to be thinking about getting any more involved than we already are.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, stopping and looking directly into his eyes. “But I happen to think it’s way past time, so if there’s something I’m missing, you need to fill me in.”
“No,” he said. “Once I’ve worked everything out, we’ll talk. Until then, you just have to give me some space, Susie. I mean it. It’s the only thing that’ll work right now.”
She scowled at his edict. He’d obviously made yet another arbitrary decision and was expecting her to go along with it without argument. Well, not this time.