Second Chance With the Rebel: Her Royal Wedding Wish (10 page)

As much as she genuinely enjoyed hearing about the building of his business, it hardly struck her as intimate.

“The other thing was, when you bought a canoe from me, you became part of a community. I kept in touch with people, put them in touch with other people who had purchased stuff from me. Eventually, it got big enough I had to do a newsletter and a website, a social-media page and all that stuff. I didn’t realize I was setting something in place that was going to be marketing gold.”

Was there something a little sad about him regarding the building of relationships as marketing gold?

“They didn’t just buy a canoe. They belonged to something. They were part of Wild Side. Everybody wants to belong somewhere.”

“It’s kind of ironic,” Lucy said. “Because you seemed like you didn’t have that thing about belonging.”
Even to me
.

“I guess I never found anything in Lindstrom Beach I wanted to belong to.”

She looked swiftly out the window.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said stiffly. “It was just a little summer fling. I’m sure you moved on to bigger and better things. I mean, that’s obvious.”

“It’s true I’ve become a successful businessman. And it’s true I seem to have found my niche in life. But I’ve never been good at the relationship thing, Lucy. I have not improved with time. People want something I can’t give them.”

Was it a warning or a plea? She turned back and looked at him.

“And what is that?” she asked.

“They want to connect on a deep and meaningful level,” he said, and there was that grin, devil-may-care and dashing. “And I just want to have fun.”

She was not sucked in by the smile. “That sounds very lonely to me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m looking for someone to rescue me,” he said, rather seductively, teasing.

Lucy turned back to the window and studied the panoramic views, water, earth and sky. He had always been like this. As soon as it started to go a little too deep, he turned up the wattage of that smile, kidded it away.

“Aren’t you going to try and rescue me, Lucy Lin?” he prodded her.

“No,” she said, and then looked back at him. “I’m going to get you a cat.”

“I killed my last three houseplants.”

“Wow. That takes commitment phobia to a new level. You can’t even care about a plant?”

“Just saying. The cat probably isn’t your best idea ever.”

She sighed. “Probably not.” Then she realized they were in an airplane. It wasn’t as if he could jump out. She could probe his inner secrets if she wanted to.

“You always seemed kind of set apart from everyone else. It seemed like a choice, almost as if you saw through all those superficial people and scorned them.”

“I don’t know if
scorn
is the right word,” he said. “I’ve always liked being by myself. I’ll still choose a tent in the woods beside a lake with not another soul around over just about anything else.”

“It sounds to me like someone hurt you.”

His face was suddenly remote.

“It sounds to me as if you don’t trust anyone but yourself.”

He didn’t even glance at her, suddenly intently focused on the operation of the plane, and the instrument panel.

“I’m sure my father didn’t help any. I’m sorry about the way Lindstrom Beach treated you. And especially my father. When you told me how he threatened you, said he was going to set you up as a thief, I was stunned. I was more stunned that you let it work. That you let him drive you away. I always figured you for the kind of guy who would stick around and fight for what you wanted.”

“And I figured you would say something to your old man in my defense, but you never did, did you?”

All these years that she had nursed her resentment against Mac, and it had never once occurred to her that she had hurt him.

“That summer,” he continued quietly, “I’d never felt like that with another person. So close. So connected. Not alone.”

Lucy felt as if she couldn’t breathe. It was the most Mac had ever said about how he was feeling.

“And the fact it was you, the rich girl, the doctor’s daughter, loving
me
. Only, it was like you weren’t the rich girl, the doctor’s daughter. You stepped away from that role. You were so real, so authentic. And so was I around you. Myself. Whatever that was.”

“Why didn’t you at least ask me to go with you, Mac?”

“When you didn’t take a stand with your dad, I guess I already knew what you would tell me later. That in the end, you would never fall for a boy like me. It would be too big a stretch for you. And unfair even to ask it.”

But she was surprised by the pain, ever so briefly naked in his face. He had trusted her, and she had let him down. She could see his trust had been a most precious gift.

Lucy tried to explain. “It was only when it was obvious you were going, and you weren’t going to ask me to go, that it was not even an option you had considered, that I said that.
I could never fall for a boy like you.”

He glanced at her, searching. “It cut me to the quick, Lucy. It made me so aware of everything that was different about us when I had been living and breathing everything that was the same. I guess before you said that, I thought we’d keep in touch. That I’d phone and write. And maybe come back to visit.”

Now was the time to tell him that she hadn’t meant it as in he wasn’t worthy of her. She had meant it as in he was too closed, he couldn’t be vulnerable with her.

“Mac, I’m so sorry.”

But he suddenly looked uneasy, as if he had already revealed more about himself than he wanted to, been as vulnerable as he cared to get. Some things didn’t change, and she did not feel she could repair that hurt caused all those years ago by trying to clarify it now.

He must have felt the same way.

“It’s all a long time ago,” he said with an uncomfortable shrug. “Look where it led me. Hey, and look where we are. We’re almost there. Look out your window. We’ll be passing right over the Pacific Ocean in two minutes, and then making our approach to the Vancouver Flight Centre at Coal Harbour.”

His face was absolutely closed. If she pursued this any farther, she was pretty sure if he had a parachute tucked behind his seat he was going to strap it on and jump.

They still had the trip home! And maybe he needed a rescuer, even as he kidded about it. She didn’t know how long he was going to stick around, but she had him for today.

Maybe, just for today, neither of them needed to be lonely.

“It’s only been two hours! It takes four or five times that long to drive here from Lindstrom Beach!”

“I know. It’s great, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she said, and suddenly felt a new willingness to let go, to embrace whatever surprises the day held for her, to embrace the fact that for some reason fate had thrown her back together with the man who had left her pregnant all those years ago. Who had hurt her.

And whom she had hurt, too. Were they being given a second chance? Could they just take it and embrace it without completely rehashing the past? Lucy found herself hoping.

“Are we landing?” Mama demanded from the back.

“Yes.”

She put her puzzle book away and fished through her bag. She drew out her rosary beads.

“Hail Mary...”

Whether it was Mama’s prayers or his expertise, or some combination of both they landed without incident and docked at one of the eighteen float-plane spaces at the dock.

A chauffeur-driven limousine was waiting for them, and it whisked them by the Vancouver Convention Centre to the amazing Pacific Centre Mall.

He pressed them into a very posh-looking store. The salesclerks in those kind of stores always recognized power and money, even when it came dressed as casually as Mac was.

“My two favorite ladies need to see your very best in evening wear,” he said.

The clerk took it as a mission. Lucy and Mama were whisked back to private dressing rooms. Mac was settled in a leather chair and brought a coffee.

“Would you like something to read? I have a selection of newspapers.”

He shook his head, but after Mama and Lucy had modeled the saleslady’s first few selections, he wandered off. Lucy assumed he was restless, and didn’t blame him.

Lucy had grown up with privilege, but even so, it had been Lindstrom Beach. She had never worn designer labels like these. She and Mama were in awe of how good clothes fitted, the fabric, the drape of them. Of course, even if she weren’t on an austerity program, she would never be able to afford dresses like these. Even so, it was so much fun to try them on.

Mac came back, a dress over each arm. “The black for Mama, the red for you.”

“Red,” she said, and wrinkled her nose. “You know I’m not flashy, so you must be afraid of losing me in the parking lot. Do you have any idea what dresses like these cost?”

“The saleslady asked for my gold card before she’d even take those down for me.”

“I shouldn’t even try it on,” she said, but heard the wistfulness in her own voice.

“You’re trying it on.”

“What can I say? You know I love it when you’re masterful.”

And so she did. She wasn’t going to buy this dress, and she certainly wasn’t going to allow him to buy it for her, but why not just give herself over to the experience?

Mama went first. Lucy and Mac had “oohed” and “aahed” over the selection of designer dresses that had been brought out for Mama so far, but the one he had chosen was the best. Simple, black, silk: it was classic. Lucy and Mac applauded as Mama modeled, as if she had been on the runway all her life. She sauntered down the walkway between the change rooms, hand on her ample hip, turned, winked, flipped the matching scarf over her shoulder.

The salesclerk, Mac and Lucy applauded. Mama beamed. “This is it.”

It was Lucy’s turn. The clerk came into the fitting room with her to help slide the yards of red silk over her head.

Even before she looked in the mirror, Lucy could tell by the way she felt that this dress was the kind of dress a woman dreamed of.

The clerk stared at her. “That man has taste,” she said.

Lucy turned and looked in the mirror. The dress had slender shoulder straps and a neckline that was a sensual V without being plunging. It had an empire waistline, tight under her breasts, and then it floated in a million pleats to the floor.

She came out of the dressing room.

“Walk like a queen,” the clerk said.

That’s what Mac had said, too, when he had forced her to go to the yacht club.
Walk like a queen.
In a dress like this it was easy enough to do.

When Mac saw her, his reaction was everything she could ever hope for.

She had never seen him look anything but in control, but suddenly he looked flustered.

“You,” he said hoarsely, “are not a queen. Lucy Lin, you are a goddess.”

She could not resist walking with swaying hips, spinning in a swirl of rich color, tossing a look over her shoulder. She licked her lips and winked.

She was trying to add a bit of levity, but Mac, for once, did not seem to find it funny.

After she had taken off the dress, Lucy came out of the dressing room, feeling oddly out of sorts. What woman tried on a dress like that and then felt okay when she walked away from it?

She went and waited outside the store while Mac bought Mama the black dress to wear at the gala.

Mama was hugging her package to her and chastising him in a mix of German and English about spending too much money on her. But they could both tell she was utterly thrilled.

They went for a fabulous lunch at a waterfront restaurant, and then, almost as if the whole thing had been a dream, they were back in the plane.

They were home before supper.

He helped her get down from the plane, then they watched Mama waddle happily across the yard with all her bags.

“Thank you for a beautiful day, Mac. It was like something out of a dream. Honestly.”

He finished mooring the plane. He turned back to her.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s it. The whole show. I’ve shown you everything I do for fun. And you still haven’t shown me. You said there was something.”

“Oh.” She felt doubtful. And then she decided to be brave. What if, by showing him, she eased that loneliness that he wore like a shield? Even for a few more hours?

“Let me make some phone calls. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Phone calls to arrange fun,” he said. “Skydiving? Horseback riding? I’ve got it! Bungee jumping!”

“I’m afraid I’m going to be a big disappointment to you, Mac.”

Or maybe to herself. Because once again, even though he had given nothing, she had made a decision to be vulnerable. She would show him that thing she did that made her feel so alive.

And he most likely wouldn’t understand that there were ways a person could not feel lonely.

And how could that be anything but a good thing if he didn’t understand how connected this one thing made her feel? She could have her world back the way it had been before he landed again.

Only, she had a feeling it was not going to be quite that simple.

* * *

Mac picked up
the phone on the first ring in the morning.

“Are you ready for your big outing, Mr. Hudson?” Lucy asked. “Be ready in ten minutes.”

“Should I be dressing for bungee jumping or horseback riding?”

“Actually, whatever you wear normally will be okay.”

That could be anything from a wet suit to a suit suit, so Mac just put on some khakis and a sports shirt with the little kayak emblem on it.

He tried to take a clue from what Lucy was wearing and came to the conclusion it would be nothing too exciting. She might have been dressed for a day clerking at the bookstore. She was not the goddess he had seen in that dress yesterday.

And wasn’t that a mercy?

Still, as they got in the car, he was so aware of her. Aware he liked being with her.

“We’re going to Glen Oak.”

They picked up coffees and conversation flowed freely between them. They talked of Mama and house repairs, the swiftly approaching gala and last-minute details, he made her laugh by doing an impression of Claudia receiving her free tickets to the gala, which he had delivered personally.