Mac sat staring at her bent head, feeling as if she had taken a sharp knife and gutted him. If he were to believe what she was telling him, then he had suffered through the fires of hell for years while she hid who she really was away from him. He still couldn’t quite believe that she had perpetrated such an elaborate cover to conceal what was going on in her life. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes in pain as he asked, “Who were the men who came home with you, then? Some of them were here all night. How do you explain that?”
“They were college kids that I paid to spend time with me. They did work around the house, watched movies, or played Monopoly.” She gave an embarrassed laugh before catching herself and falling silent once again. When Mac looked over at her, her head was still lowered and she refused to look at him. Somehow that angered him even further. She had ripped his world apart with her words, and she couldn’t do it to his face.
He jumped to his feet, feeling the anger ripple from him in waves. Without thought, he grabbed a glass vase full of flowers from the side table and hurled it against the wall. Ava was finally looking at him, her eyes wide in shock. He wasn’t the type of man prone to displays of anger, but she had just taken years of his life and told him that he had needlessly suffered because of a lie, or in this case, years of lies. He felt shattered at her underlying reasons, but somehow knowing that she’d suffered through years of pain when he could have been there, helping her to heal, slew him further. Mac was a quivering, raging mass of emotion and could no longer trust himself to be near her. He’d never physically hurt her, but he couldn’t guarantee that his words wouldn’t wound her just as deeply. He had to get away; he needed to breathe again.
Mac heard her calling his name almost as if in a tunnel as he stalked out the door and to his car. In the back of his mind, he felt bad for leaving her to clean up the mess he had made with the vase. But he just couldn’t stay there for one minute longer.
* * *
Ava stared at the door in shock, expecting Mac to come back. She waited, but it never happened. He was gone and from the look on his face, she wasn’t sure if he was ever coming back to her apartment . . . or to her. She’d never seen him so out of control before. She could handle his anger, even though it was foreign to her, but the hurt. . . . God, the hurt when he looked at her was devastating. Without warning, she felt her stomach start to churn and she bolted from the couch, just making it to the bathroom before the contents of her stomach released. She slumped back to the cool tile of the bathroom floor and stared at the ceiling. Dominic had been right—Mac had lost it when he found out about her ruse. Her gentle giant had cracked before her very eyes, and it had been all her doing.
She wasn’t naive; she knew Mac didn’t suffer fools gladly, but somehow she always thought she would be on the other side of that. Now it seemed that he was angry with her more often than not. Of course, the anger over her new reckless hobbies was much different from his anger today. He wasn’t just mad; he was a mass of seething fury. She had the shards of glass and water all over her living room to prove it.
Her anxiety levels spiked as she faced the very real possibility that she had finally driven Mac away for good. Could he ever forgive her for what she had put him through? In trying to hide her pain from him, she had caused him to suffer immeasurably. At the time, she was like a junkie trying to hide her shame from the world. She didn’t want people feeling sorry for her. For months after her rape, her brothers and Mac had treated her as if she were different. She had ceased to be the kooky sister and had turned into someone whom everyone wanted to tiptoe around. Conversations stopped when she walked into a room, and concerned eyes followed her every movement. Her very identity had died that day. In their eyes, she was broken. That impression didn’t change until the day that she’d decided to bury the old Ava under the persona of a new Ava. The new woman was cool, indifferent, something approaching normal. She wasn’t scared of anything, including men. Or so they had all thought. Maybe after worrying about her for so long, they all saw what they wanted to see. Did that make it right? No, even though at the time she thought she was doing what was best for everyone. Now she didn’t even know what choice she had other than to keep doing what she had been this past week. For, as crazy as it sounded, things had been more real with Mac than they had been in years. She only hoped he cared enough now to continue watching over her.
Chapter Twelve
Mac cursed loudly when he pulled into his driveway and saw Gwen’s car still there. He’d been gone for a couple of hours, but she had stayed? He was in a foul mood and his usual diplomacy was shot to hell. He needed to get her out of there—fast. The sound of his door slamming reverberated in the darkness as he stalked toward the driver’s side of her car, intending to send her on her way. He was surprised when the car appeared to be empty. Concern overrode his anger as he looked around the empty expanse of lawn, seeing no sign of movement. He walked up the steps to his deck, intending to grab a flashlight and go check the beach for her. Women liked doing crazy things like walking on the beach at midnight.
“So, you finally made it back. I was starting to think that I wasn’t going to be able to stay awake long enough to satisfy my curiosity tonight.” Mac’s head swung to the rocker in the corner of the porch where he could just barely make out an outline.
“Gwen? What’re you doing here?”
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, he could see that she was rocking lightly back and forth. “Just answering some questions that I had.”
Mac was beyond frustrated with the women in his life by this point. The last thing he wanted or needed was some long, drawn-out cryptic question-and-answer session. He didn’t want to take his anger at Ava out on Gwen, but damn it, he desperately needed some space. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Gwen, I’m sorry. I’m not in the best of moods right now. Let me walk you to your car and we’ll talk tomorrow, yeah?”
Ignoring his attempts to get her to leave, she continued rocking. “It was Ava tonight, right? The reason you rushed out of here like the world was ending?”
“Yes,” he answered warily, not sure where this was going.
“You know, the one thing that really confuses me about you, Mac, is I have no clue why you ever asked me out.”
The same alarm bells that sounded in most men’s heads when women said shit like what Gwen was saying were going off like high-pitched sirens. It didn’t seem to matter whether he was in the mood for a talk about his feelings or not, Gwen was more than prepared to force the issue. He could hear the underlying determination in her voice. Holy fuck. “You’re a beautiful woman, Gwen. Why wouldn’t I be interested?” He cringed when he ended his comment with a question. That was a dumb move.
“Thanks, Mac,” she said softly, “but I don’t think that even applies here. I suspect you’re looking for some meaningless sex to scratch an itch. So what I don’t understand is what’s made you hold back . . . from the sex part? I’m not the type of woman to sleep with every guy I go out with, but I think I’ve shown you after a few dates that I was interested in something physical between us. I mean, come on, Mac. You’re sexy enough that any woman would want you. I’m just curious to know why you always halted things before they got that far. Your body wanted me—you can’t fake that—but your head took you out of the game every time.”
This was it, Mac thought, the official hellish ending to a hellish evening. After having one woman tell him that she had pretended to be screwing random men for years, he had another asking him why he wasn’t screwing her. His head was throbbing and he just wanted to make some excuse and go inside. He couldn’t do that to Gwen, though. He owed her the truth. Walking closer to her chair, he squatted in front of her, halting the rocking motion of her chair. “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, Gwen. Believe me, that was never my intention. You’re right; my attraction to you has never been the problem. You know that Ava and I go way back. I’ve had feelings for her for years that she hasn’t returned. I needed to move
on with my life. It may not seem like it, but I was slowly doing just that with you until this last week.” When she flinched, he took her hand, nestling it in his larger palms. “No, I haven’t slept with Ava; I don’t want you to think that. There have just been things happening that have shaken me. I don’t know what I’m doing right now and that isn’t fair to you.”
She squeezed his hand back for a moment before leaning forward to trace the curve of his face. “No, it’s not. You’re a good man, Mac. I could see the conflict in your eyes the last few times we’ve been together and I know you have been desperately trying to figure out how to make everyone happy, including me. I don’t want to be your fallback plan, though and that’s clearly what I am.” With a soft laugh she added, “Even though I’ll probably kick myself later because, God, you are a catch, I think we need to move to the friends portion of our relationship and stop trying to make pieces fit together that don’t work.”
Mac looked at her sad smile and felt a pang of regret. He had enjoyed his time with her, but he knew that he had hurt her. Maybe that was why he had held back on having sex. In the back of his mind, he knew he’d never be able to commit and she deserved better than someone sleeping with her and walking away. Hell, she’d deserved better than everything he’d given her during their time together. He stood, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. They hugged for a few moments before he walked her to her car. He dropped a kiss on her cheek and stood watching her taillights as she left. He felt like a bastard as he turned toward his house, because along with sadness he felt relief that he no longer had to pretend to be moving on with his life—because even now, when he was close to hating her, it was always Ava who owned his heart.
Chapter Thirteen
Ava slumped dejectedly in front of her computer. She was searching the activities calendar on the Chamber of Commerce Web site for Myrtle Beach, but her heart wasn’t in it. Mac had been avoiding her for two weeks now and it was starting to really get to her. She knew from a happy Dominic that Mac and Gwen had called it quits and that Dominic was biding his time until he asked her out. She’d pointed out that he almost lost his opportunity by biding his time with her once before, but he let her know quickly that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. She insisted that she deserved some points for coming clean with Mac even if it hadn’t done anything other than drive them farther apart.
When her cell phone rang, she grabbed it eagerly and then felt a surge of disappointment when she saw Declan’s name on the caller ID. Ava tried to keep the depression from her voice when she said, “Hey, Dec.”
“Hey, Av. How are you?”
“Just great,” she answered, and winced at how absurdly high her voice sounded.
“Um—good. That’s good. Hey, listen, I need a favor. Are you busy today?”
Something about his question made her want to laugh hysterically. Ava wanted to ask him if staring at her walls and reading more self-help magazines qualified, but Brant usually handled her sarcasm better than Declan. Brant would just start reeling off suggestions to solve her problems. Declan would throw the phone to Ella and run the other way. “Not so much,” she said instead.
“Cool. Do you think you could pick Ella up today from Suzy’s and stay with her until I get home from Charleston this evening? I’m meeting the rest of the guys there and dropping Ella off to spend the day. Suzy offered to let her stay at her house, but Ellie gets so tired that I know she’ll be ready for bed early.”
“Um . . . sure.” Ava knew that Jason and Gray had recruited some of the others to take a trip to Charleston and look at some new office space there. Truthfully, she thought it was also a chance for the men to have a guys’ day out, under the guise of business. Suzy had invited all the women over for a day on the beach, but Ava had declined, preferring to mope around at home. “I’ll swing by there around four, and we can stop for dinner somewhere on the way home.”
Declan sounded relieved as he said, “Thanks, sis. It pisses Ella off, but I don’t want her being alone right now so close to her due date. She can barely reach the steering wheel in her car over her stomach, so she has no business driving.”
Ava smirked as she heard Ella yelling in the background. “You better go take care of that,” she teased her brother as he said a quick good-bye. She loved the man he had grown into. He still had hard edges, but his life revolved around his wife and now his family. She only hoped that someday she’d know how it felt to be a part of something like that.
She was mulling over that thought when she saw a large ad on the local Web site. cALLING ALL BEGINNERS! SET YOURSELF FREE, LEARN TO SURF TODAY! Bingo! There it was, her next hobby. Since the whole disaster with the hang gliding meeting, there was no way she could go back there again. The guy who bothered her might have just been a harmless creep, but she couldn’t take any chances. The idea of setting herself free as the ad promised sounded appealing as well. Also, the training class was located just a mile from Mac’s house, so there was a good likelihood she’d run into him during one of his daily runs along the beach. She quickly filled out the online registration form and clicked SEND before she chickened out. She could swim, so what was the worst thing that could happen? Her thoughts went to Emma and the death of her sister, Robyn, in a surfing accident and she froze. Oh God, there was no way she could tell Emma about this. For a moment she was prepared to abandon the idea. It said beginner, though, so surely it was perfectly safe.
* * *
It was a little after four when Ava pulled into the driveway of Gray and Suzy’s large, but surprisingly homey, beach house. Mac lived only a few miles down the road, so she was very familiar with this part of town. When she walked up the pathway and rang the doorbell, Suzy opened the door wearing tiny white shorts and a blue halter top. “She’s on the couch asleep,” Suzy said with a grin and gestured toward the living room.
Ava moved through the spacious entryway into a large room with vaulted ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. She had visited a few times for various barbecues, but she never failed to gawk at the beauty of the ocean showcased to perfection by the tall windows. “Yeah, Declan said she would want to go to bed early, but I kinda thought it would be after dinner.” Looking around the empty room, she asked, “Is everyone else already gone?”
Suzy nodded. “Beth and her son Henry were the last ones other than Ella, and they left a few minutes ago. I don’t know why Ella didn’t just agree to stay. As you can see, she’s perfectly at home here.”
Ava smothered a smile as Ella snored softly, blissfully unaware of being watched. As she was wondering whether to wake her or not, Ella suddenly jerked before jumping from the couch faster than anyone with a belly her size should have been capable of. Both Ava and Suzy stared at her in surprise. Ella rubbed her back and started chanting, “No, no, no, oh God, no!”
“Els, what the hell?” Suzy asked, looking confused.
“Maybe she’s talking in her sleep,” Ava suggested, staring at her sister-in-law.
“Oh, Suzy, I’m so sorry,” Ella moaned. “I must have peed on your couch.”
At Ella’s words, Suzy and Ava looked to where Ella was pointing and a puddle of liquid was visible against the tan leather. Ava had to give Suzy points for composure as she only looked mildly green before saying, “Er—it’s okay. I mean shit happens . . . or pee, I guess in this case.”
Ella looked horrified and on the verge of tears before her expression froze. It was startling to see someone go blank in the blink of an eye; hell, it was rather alarming. “Ella?” Ava moved forward, putting her hand on the other woman’s arm. “Is everything all right?”
Then Ella said something that put the fear of God into Ava. “I . . . I think I might be having contractions.”
Suzy jumped forward as if shot from a cannon. “Oh, fuck balls! Your water broke, didn’t it?”
Ella started laughing, causing both Ava and Suzy to panic. “Stop!” Suzy shouted. “My God, don’t move.” Pointing to Ella’s belly, she adde
d, “And try not to wiggle that thing—like at all.”
“But shouldn’t she sit down or lie down?” Ava asked, not knowing what to do next. Suddenly, it hit her, and she pulled her phone from her pocket. “We need to Google it. Google will tell us what to do!”
“Screw that,” Suzy said. “We need nine-one-one. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got no plans to pull a baby from Ella’s vajajay today. Call for help now!”
“Guys, guys . . . guys!” Finally, Ella’s yelling got through the argument that Ava and Suzy were having. “You just need to take me to the hospital. This is my first baby, so I’ll be in labor for hours. Now someone please call Declan and then let’s go by my house and get my suitcase.”
Suzy looked at Ava, clearly perplexed. “Why is she so calm?”
“Maybe she’s on something,” Ava whispered back.
When Ella’s stomach rippled alarmingly, they all held their breath. Ella took several deep breaths before suddenly glaring at them. “I’m not on anything, but if you two would get your fingers out of your asses, I might get to the hospital and get some drugs. Now move!”
They gaped at her, before jumping into action. With a hand on each of Ella’s elbows, they helped her down the steps and to Ava’s car. “Um—aren’t your clothes wet?” Ava asked.
“And your point is?” Ella snapped before throwing open the door.
“Never mind,” Ava squeaked out, running around the front of the car and to the driver’s side. Suzy stood next to the car uncertainly. Ava jerked a thumb at the backseat. “Oh, hell no, you’re not getting out of this. Get in!” Suzy bit off a curse before getting in behind Ella.