Maid for Love (9 page)

Linda didn't believe in a mother having favorites, but Mac had always been special, a son any mother would be proud of. Watching him pitch his team to the state championship his senior year remained among her fondest memories. When he suffered the injury that ended his professional baseball aspirations, her heart broke right along with his.

And then he picked himself up, refocused on his education and emerged with an engineering degree that led to his current career as the co-owner of a thriving business. Along the way, she'd hoped and prayed he would meet a woman who'd complement and support him as he continued along his successful path.

That certainly wasn't going to happen once the local woman she had in mind for him heard he'd stayed overnight with Maddie Chester. He'd just made his mother's plan to find him a suitable wife on the island a lot harder than it would've been otherwise.

The phone rang in the kitchen. Hoping it might be Mac, Linda rushed inside and groaned when she heard her sister's voice. "Hello, Joan."

"Why didn't you tell me Mac was coming home?"

"Because I wasn't sure which day he was getting here." No way would she admit he hadn't bothered to share his travel plans with her. Joan would take too much pleasure in hearing that.

"Teensy just called. Her grandson delivered lobsters to Mac at Maddie Chester's apartment."

Linda suppressed a groan. Three hundred pounds on her slimmest day, "Teensy" was the island's biggest gossip. If she knew Mac was shacking up with Maddie, everyone else knew, too.

"And get this," Joan said, clearly enjoying the scoop, "Mac answered the door
in nothing but a towel
!"

Linda would kill him. "He knocked her off her bike and hurt her badly. He's helping her until she recovers. There's nothing more to it than that."

"Teensy's heard they looked
awfully
cozy."

When she was finished with Mac, Joan would be next on her hit list. "Honestly, he's been in town for eight hours. What do you think could be happening when she's bruised and bloody from falling off her bike?"

Joan's chuckle infuriated Linda. "Use your imagination. He's a red-blooded man, and she's always willing. A few scabs won't slow her down."

"That's just unkind, Joan, and beneath you." It really wasn't, but Linda had no desire to start World War III with her sister. "Mac is doing an honorable thing by helping her. I don't appreciate you making it into something dirty."

"Don't get pissy with me. I'm not the one who answered the door in a towel."

"I have to go. Big Mac's home, and he's hungry."

"Before you run away, I heard from Josh today. Ellen's expecting again! We're having a regular baby boom in our family."

Linda wondered if a head could actually explode. "Congratulations. That's wonderful. They sure do stay busy, don't they?"

"Lucky for me. Talk soon."

Linda slammed down the phone with a swear word that never usually left her lips.

"Well, good evening to you, too, my love." Big Mac kissed her forehead. "What's got you all fired up?"

"
Your
son!
That
woman and Teensy." Linda banged around the kitchen fixing him a plate of the spaghetti and meatballs she'd eaten earlier. "How could he answer the door wearing only a towel?"

Big Mac plugged his cell phone into the charger and turned back to her. "What's that you said? Teensy answered the door wearing only a towel?" He made a face of supreme dismay. "I just lost my appetite."

"Not
Teensy
! Pay attention, will you?
Your
son answered the door at
Maddie Chester's
apartment wearing
only
a towel! And he's buying her
lobster
!"

"God, what a swine. Where did we go wrong with him?"

"
You don't get it!
It'll be all over town by morning that he's sleeping with her! Then who will want him?"

"Any woman would be lucky to land him."

"No one wants a guy who's been with the easiest girl in town."

"Lin," he said in his disapproving tone. "She's a nice girl."

"With a reputation that would make a porn star blush." Linda plopped his plate down on the table. "I need to fix this. Fast."

"Linda… You know how these things always go. Remember when you fixed Sophie's cousin up with Grant when she was visiting LA?"

Linda stared at him, incredulous. "How is that my fault? Sophie failed to mention her little cousin had just been sprung from the psych ward."

"Then there was Debbie's niece, who you sicced on Adam…"

"When I asked him to show her a good time in New York City, I never said he should spend the whole weekend in her hotel room. And if
she
didn't know she had chlamydia, how was
I
supposed to know?"

"Of course Tina's songwriting sister wasn't exactly the one for Evan."

"Tina never told me that her sister was more interested in boozing her way through Nashville than in songwriting. But Evan figured it out."

"Not before she puked in his new truck."

Linda scowled at him. "Whose side are you on anyway?"

"Yours, love. Always."

"Coulda fooled me."

"These meatballs are exquisite."

"Don't go using that McCarthy charm on me. I know all your tricks."

"So matchmaking isn't your thing. You have many other talents. Such as making meatballs that melt in my mouth."

"Mac needs a wife. He'll be having babies in his forties at this rate."

"Maybe if you'd been a little sweeter to his friend Roseanne when we were in Miami this winter, he might not be shacking up in town tonight."

Hands on hips, Linda faced off with him.

"What? I'm just saying…"

"
She
is
all
wrong for him. I had her number in five minutes. His head was turned by the way she looks, but he'll figure her out soon enough—if he hasn't already."

"Let's face it, babe. There's not a woman out there who'll ever meet your standards for any of those boys."

"That's not true! I want them to be happy. I want them to have what we've had all these years. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Aww, honey, of course there isn't." He reached for her hand and drew her onto his lap. "But you've gotta let them get there in their own way and in their own time."

"I've tried that, and now I have four sons in their thirties who have no intention of ever settling down and having families. They'll
regret
that later, Mac. You know that as well as I do."

"Maybe so, but they'll be
their
regrets."

"I don't want them to miss out on love." The thought of it broke her heart. "Where would you be today if I hadn't saved you from yourself?"

His big laugh rang through the kitchen. "God only knows."

"See? That's all I want for them, too."

"Promise me you'll leave Mac alone while he's home."

Linda hesitated. How could she promise that?

He drew back from her so he could see her face. "Linda…"

"Fine! I'll leave him alone." She intentionally didn't use the word "promise" and made sure he couldn't see the fingers she crossed behind his back.

Mac gathered up the trash bag full of lobster shells and followed Maddie's directions to the garbage cans. He tossed the bag into the can and turned to go back upstairs when the flare of a cigarette lit up the darkness, illuminating Tiffany's face.

"What're you doing hanging around here?" she asked.

"I'm just trying to help your sister."

"I can help her. Why don't you go back where you belong?"

"And where's that?"

"In your big white house overlooking your North Harbor kingdom."

"It's not my kingdom."

"Whatever you say."

"What've I ever done to you or your sister?"

"Not a damned thing."

"So then what's your beef with me?"

"I have no beef with you. I have a beef with guys
like
you who brag to your friends that you had a go with one of the Chester sisters."

"That's not my style."

"What isn't? Having a go with the trashy girls or talking about it?"

"Maddie's not trashy." Mac grew to dislike this bitter, unhappy woman more with every passing second. "Why would you say that about your own sister?"

"It's not me who says it. Did she tell you where our mother is right now?"

"My sister did."

"I'm sure she took great pleasure in that. Did she tell you how my mother got there?"

"No."

"Ask
your
mother about that."

"What does she have to do with it?"

"Ask her." Tiffany raised a handheld baby monitor to her ear. "Talking in her sleep."

"Where's your husband?" Mac had known Jim Sturgil in high school but not well.

"Another good question."

"Look, I don't know why you're so pissed at me—"

"You wouldn't, but if you screw with my sister, you'll deal with me."

Mac had never known two more jaded women. "I just want to see her back on her feet."

"Noble of you. Truly."

"What would you have me do? Walk away and leave her to fend for herself after I caused her injuries?"

Tiffany ground out her cigarette. "I'll be watching you."

"Thanks for the warning."

She left him standing in the dark. He saw her enter her house through the sliding door on the back porch and took a moment to get himself together before returning to Maddie's apartment.

"Did you have trouble finding the trash cans?" she asked.

"No." He skimmed his fingers through hair still damp from the shower. "I ran into your sister."

"What did she say?"

Mac shrugged. "Nothing worth repeating." He debated for a second but had to know. "What did my mother have to do with putting your mother in jail?"

Maddie gasped. "She
told
you that?"

"Is it true? Did my mother have something to do with it?"

Maddie seemed to weigh her words carefully. "It was a combination of things."

He lowered himself to the coffee table, forcing her to look at him. "Tell me."

"My mother passed a bad check at the hotel bar, and yours reported her."

"For a first offense?"

"Third." Maddie's eyes dropped to her lap, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "Your mother didn't have a choice."

Mac covered her good hand with his and squeezed. "I'm sorry."

"She's been courting disaster for years now. It was bound to happen eventually."

"And you've tried hard not to make the same mistakes."

"For all the good it's done me. I'm always one step ahead of disaster."

He linked his fingers through hers and was pleased when she let him. "I'm incredibly drawn to you, Maddie."

Her face flushed again. "Don't say things like that. You don't mean it."

"I
do
mean it."

Bringing their joined hands to his lips, he kissed the back of hers and decided not to push the issue. He had a feeling that too much too soon was
not
the way to woo this stubborn woman. "What do you say we clean up those cuts?"

"I was hoping you'd forgotten about that."

"No such luck."

"I'd love to take a shower. I feel gross."

He tucked a shank of honey hair behind her ear. "You don't look gross. In fact, you look quite lovely."

"You don't need to say that stuff to me. It's not going to get you anywhere."

"And where is it that you think I want to be?"

She replied with the scathing look he'd grown quite fond of during their day together.

"Why don't we deal with this thing you're worried about right now?"

"What're you talking about?"

"You think I'm only doing all this so I can sleep with you, right?"

She had the good grace to appear embarrassed by his frank assessment. "It's crossed my mind."

"Then let me put your mind at ease—we won't sleep together until you tell me you want to." When she began to protest, he rested his fingers over her lips. "Until you say these words: 'Mac, make love to me,' I swear it won't happen. I can't promise I won't try to kiss you again, because I really liked kissing you. But anything more than that? It's all you."

"Can I talk now?" she asked.

Mac smiled and removed his fingers.

"I'm not used to people without ulterior motives."

"I'm sorry you've been mistreated in the past, but not all men are lousy pigs."

She studied him with eyes utterly lacking guile, and his heart stuttered in his chest. "They aren't?"

Without breaking the intense eye contact, he shook his head. Reaching out to caress her cheek, he leaned in to kiss her lightly. "I can't resist you."