The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance) (11 page)

“I was lucky someone came along a few minutes later and called
for help. Probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise,” she said
matter-of-factly.

They’d arrived at the houses and he turned to face her.

“Scary stuff.”

“Yeah. I guess the downside of a long recovery is having an
excess of time to think about it—repeatedly. I like to think I’ve mostly
desensitized myself—” a slight exaggeration, perhaps “—but who knows. I
definitely make a point of noticing and appreciating the small stuff these
days.”

“I bet.” He unwound the scarf and handed his end to her.
“Thanks for sharing your bounty.”

“I’ll pass your compliments on to my niece.”

“Tell her it’s the warmest half scarf I’ve ever had the
pleasure of sharing.”

“Will do.”

Neither of them said anything for a beat. Mackenzie glanced
toward her house. It was cold out here and she wanted to be inside, but she
didn’t want to stop talking to Oliver. He was easy company, fun and fast on his
feet. She wondered what he’d say if she invited him in for coffee.

“I suppose I should finish sorting through the back bedroom,”
he said.

“Sure.” She shortened Smitty’s leash to signal that the canine
love fest was about to end. “I’ll see you around, okay? Thanks for the
walk.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

She started up her driveway, very aware of the fact that Oliver
still remained in the street, watching her. She concentrated fiercely on her
stride, trying to make it as smooth and effortless-looking as possible. She
didn’t want him pitying her.

It occurred to her that a year ago she would have been more
concerned about the size of her ass than the way she walked. Amazing how the
world could tilt on its axis and things that had once seemed so vital could be
rendered so insignificant.

She allowed herself a quick glance over her shoulder when she
reached the porch. Oliver was still there, crouched beside Strudel as he
attempted to brush sand from her damp coat. He was talking to her and shaking
his head and Mackenzie wished she could hear what he was saying. Something
funny, no doubt.

She was staring—again—and forced herself to go inside. Mr.
Smith headed up the hallway at a leisurely trot, clearly tuckered out after his
romp. She didn’t immediately follow him. Instead, she stood in the foyer, hand
pressed to her belly, trying to understand what was happening to her.

Somehow, she’d gone from acknowledging Oliver’s attractiveness
to being attracted to him. A thin line under ordinary circumstances, perhaps,
but at the moment it seemed a huge leap. For months she had been nothing but a
body, a collection of bones and muscles and organs that the doctors had stitched
and stapled and screwed back together and that she had nurtured back to
strength. She hadn’t thought about sex or desire or men or anything even close
to it. She’d been sexless, essentially, and she hadn’t even noticed.

Then Oliver had arrived less than a week ago and she’d caught
herself feeling nervous and primping and dressing to please him, even when she’d
suspected he was happily married. Now he was unhappily on the verge of divorce
and her awareness of him as a man had expanded exponentially.

Which meant...what, exactly? That she was horny? That she was
lonely? That he was an attractive man and that her libido hadn’t been crushed in
the accident after all?

Without really thinking about it, she lifted his end of the
scarf to her nose and inhaled. She smelled wool and ocean and something with
hints of sandalwood and musk. Oliver’s aftershave.

She remembered the way his shoulder had bumped against hers as
they walked, how good it had felt to find the rhythm of another person’s stride
and match her own to it. How good it had felt to be connected, intimate.

He’s a mess. And so are you.

Hard to disagree with the logician in her head. Bunching the
scarf in one hand, she made her way to her bedroom and returned it to the
cupboard. The odds were strong she wouldn’t see him for a while now, anyway.
Which would be a good thing.

Apparently.

* * *

O
LIVER
SAT
AT
his
aunt’s kitchen table, warming his hands around a mug of coffee. If he was a
smoother guy, more practiced in the art of seduction, he would have somehow
inveigled Mackenzie into inviting him to her place and right now he’d be sitting
at
her
table, warming his hands on
her
mug and doing his best to make her laugh some
more.

But he wasn’t practiced, and he hadn’t pressed his advantage.
Instead, he’d retreated. Not exactly
Art of War
tactics.

He sipped his coffee and thought about how she’d had to stand
on tiptoes to loop the scarf around his neck. His soon-to-be ex-wife was almost
as tall as him, and he’d always believed that he preferred women of stature. But
there was something about the sleek compactness of Mackenzie’s body.... She may
have been broken by the accident, but she’d clearly worked hard to regain what
she’d lost and she was lean and toned and perfectly proportioned. He kept
catching himself wondering how it would feel to throw her over his shoulder and
take her off to have his way with her.

Good, he suspected.

It was absolute knuckle-dragging caveman stuff, of course.
Embarrassing to admit even in the privacy of his own fantasies. And yet there it
was.

Mackenzie brought out the caveman in him.

Which is why you’re drinking coffee with
only a wet dog for company. Right?

He grunted and pushed back his chair, taking his empty mug to
the sink. Sometimes, the voice in his head was way too much of a smart-ass.

He spent the afternoon clearing out the bedroom, stopping only
in the early evening. He bought himself a pizza for dinner and ate it at home in
front of the fire, booting up his laptop to check his email and make sure
everything was going well at the studio. They’d hired a freelance sound engineer
to cover his absence, but there were a couple of queries from Rex that were
easily resolved. Apparently, his world hadn’t fallen apart because he’d absented
himself from Sydney for a few days. Go figure.

Perhaps inevitably, his thoughts turned to Mackenzie again as
he took the empty pizza box to the kitchen.

She was an interesting woman. An admirable woman. A lot of
people would have been defeated by the blow she’d been dealt, but she’d come out
fighting. He glanced toward the window. He could see the French doors into her
living room from here. He wondered what she was doing. Then he wondered what
she’d do if he showed up with a bottle of wine.

He could take Strudel and say she’d been pining for Mr. Smith.
Not the most sophisticated approach ever, but it would probably work.

He returned to the living room and reached for his guitar.

Mackenzie made him laugh, and she made him think, and she got
him out of his own head. She also made him want things he probably shouldn’t be
wanting so soon after his breakup with Edie. He was in no state to start a
relationship with someone. Even on a very casual basis.

He picked at the guitar, fiddling with a harmony that had been
sitting in the back of his head for a few days now. Just for fun, he dropped it
down a key, and suddenly a couple of other ideas he’d had fell into place. He
played until the notes ran out, then went over it again, listening and feeling
his way through the music.

Before he could think it to death, he grabbed his phone, opened
the dictation app and recorded everything he’d come up with. He felt a
disproportional degree of satisfaction as he played it back. It was probably
nothing, just a funny little harmony that no one would ever hear except himself.
But still...

He continued to tinker with the song, making adjustments,
coming up with a bridge. He played it through one last time, humming along in
parts.

It needed lyrics, of course. He had no idea what they would be.
Yet. But they would come, eventually. With the melody providing a backdrop to
his days, the verses would slowly form—especially when he wasn’t thinking about
the song. That had always been the way songwriting worked for him. When he and
Edie had written together, the process had moved faster because she’d always
pushed him, forcing the lyrics even when he’d wanted time to let the music
settle into his bones. She’d been the one to keep abreast of what was on the
charts, casting their songs into a popular mold to produce something commercial
and catchy. He could hardly complain about the method—it had earned the band two
platinum singles and a bestselling album and a slew of awards after all—but he’d
never enjoyed it and he’d never believed in it.

He sat with the realization for a moment, examining it from all
sides and understanding that it was a fundamental truth, something that had come
straight from his gut. Edie had always been about success first and the music
second. That had never been the way he worked, however, and he’d always felt
shoehorned into a role that didn’t suit. Didn’t matter how many times they’d
come up with good songs—and there was nothing wrong with the band’s
repertoire—Oliver had never felt a sense of ownership and connection with that
music.

He strummed a few chords of his new composition, enjoying the
way the sound bounced off the hard surfaces in the room. Enjoying the thought
that this was
his
song, and he was going to let the
lyrics come to him in their own time. Because he could. Because there was no one
but him to please now.

It was a liberating thought. The first he’d had since finding
the receipt all those months ago.

Writing music was better without Edie.

Hard on the heels of that thought came another: What else might
be better without Edie?

His hands stilled on the strings. So much of his current anger
and hurt stemmed from the fact that he’d convinced himself he’d been perfectly
happy and content in their six-year marriage. But what if, in the same way that
he’d always told himself he liked writing songs with Edie, he’d also convinced
himself he was happy, too?

He stared into the abyss of the question for a full sixty
seconds before standing and putting his guitar in its case. It was late and he
was tired. And—possibly—he wasn’t ready to answer such a revealing question just
yet.

* * *

T
WO
DAYS
LATER
, Mackenzie was standing in the dairy aisle of the local
supermarket when she looked up to see Oliver enter the store. Ever since their
walk she’d been alternating between attempting to come up with a bulletproof
excuse to “bump” into him again and chastising herself for being so desperate.
She wasn’t entirely sure which side was winning the battle, but the moment she
saw Oliver she abandoned the Camembert versus Brie debate she’d been engaged in
to focus on him. She watched as he grabbed a shopping basket and exchanged
greetings with the woman at the checkout. He wore a red-and-black-plaid flannel
shirt with old, soft-looking jeans and a pair of well-used hiking boots. A black
T-shirt was visible at his neckline. He hadn’t shaved so his jaw and cheeks were
bristly with the golden-chestnut whiskers that had caught her attention during
their first meeting.

He looked wild and untamed and a bit dangerous, like a cowboy
who had ridden into town from parts unknown. He said something to the woman at
the register that made her laugh. When he moved away she followed him with her
eyes, a slightly wistful expression on her face.

Mackenzie pressed her lips together. It was galling yet oddly
comforting to see someone else swayed by his undeniable hotness. Really, Oliver
shouldn’t be allowed out without a warning hanging around his neck. He clearly
had no idea how charming he was, and now that he was single he would wreak havoc
among the female population wherever he went.

He added a couple of cans of tomatoes to his basket, then
glanced up and caught sight of her.

“Mackenzie.” He lifted his hand in greeting, his wide,
undeniably genuine smile doing wonderful things for her feminine ego.

Stupid, starved, foolish ego.

He joined her, his easy stride eating up the distance between
them. She refused to regret the fact that she was once again without lipstick,
her hair covered by a black beanie that made her look even more like a
twelve-year-old boy than she usually did. If twelve-year-old boys had
crow’s-feet.

“Perfect timing. I was going to stop by later to ask if you
wanted to come over for dinner,” he said. “I found a fishing rod in the closet
so this morning Strudel and I braved the elements to see what bounty the ocean
had to offer.”

“And?”

“Let’s just say it wasn’t the miracle of the loaves and fishes,
but we have enough for two adults with good appetites and a couple of canoodling
dogs.”

“In that case, dinner sounds great. I can bring a salad if you
like.”

“Great idea. I’ll see what I can rustle up for dessert. How do
you feel about chocolate mousse?”

“Covetous,” she said.

“Even if it’s store-bought?”

“Absolutely.”

Her gaze was drawn to the V-neck of his T-shirt. A scattering
of golden-red hairs peeked over the top. She shifted her focus to his face,
oddly disturbed by the sight.

“How’s the sorting going?” she asked, switching her basket from
one hand to the other.

“I’ve finally made it to the kitchen.”

“Is this good or bad?”

“Let’s just say Aunt Marion must have attended a lot of
Tupperware parties in her time.”

“Ow.”

“On the bright side, the women at the secondhand shop know me
by name now.”

“Well, that’s something.”

He glanced toward the door. “I should keep moving. I left
Strudel in the car. Always makes me feel like a bad parent.”