The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance) (25 page)

“Okay. Um...sorry. You’ve caught me on the hop here a little,”
she said. “Can I ask what’s changed? Because yesterday I thought things were
going pretty well.”

He’d been lovely, making her breakfast and holding her hand on
the beach and making her laugh. She’d felt precious and cherished and, yes,
loved, and she’d finally acknowledged to herself that she was in love with
him.

And now he was on the way to Sydney.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

“It’s hard to explain. Last night...wasn’t good.
I
wasn’t good. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready
for you.”

She attempted to push aside the fear crowding her thoughts and
listen to him, to understand. “Because of Edie? Because of the divorce?”

“Because of everything. I’m not ready to take anything on faith
right now, you know? Last night made that pretty clear. You have no idea how
close I came to jungle crawling beneath your window so I could find out what was
going on between you and your ex.”

There was bitter humor lacing his words.

“You thought something was going on with me and Patrick?
Because nothing happened. There was nothing going on.”

He’d seemed so cool when he’d bowed out and left them to talk.
Utterly at peace with the fact that her ex-husband had shown up out of the
blue.

That was before Patrick had inveigled his way into staying
first for dinner and then the night, of course. She closed her eyes as it
occurred to her how it must have looked when Patrick’s Ferrari remained parked
in front of her house all night.

“I wasn’t exactly rational,” Oliver said. “Which is pretty much
my point. You don’t need me in your life right now, Mackenzie. And I can’t
handle you.”

She was holding the phone so tightly her fingers ached.

“Nothing happened with Patrick, Oliver.” It was worth
repeating. In fact, she’d repeat it ad nauseam until Oliver finally heard what
she said. “He had too much wine with dinner and I put him to bed on the couch.
End of story.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Mackenzie.”

“Of course I do. I care about you. You care about me. You
absolutely have a right to know that even though my ex-husband stayed the night,
he didn’t do it in my bed.”

“Okay.”

He sounded so...distant. A million miles away. How could they
have gone from him holding her against his heart while he slept to being a
universe apart in twenty-four hours? How could she have been planning her life
around him at four in the morning and now he was on the road to Sydney? It
didn’t feel possible.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mackenzie.”

Tears burned her throat. She tried to find something to say
that wasn’t a plea.

“Can we at least talk about this?”

“I’m still on the road. But I’ll call you when I get home.”

“Okay.”

“Stay well, Mackenzie.”

She couldn’t get anything past the lump in her throat. The next
thing she knew, she was listening to the dial tone.

She stood frozen for a long moment, utterly stunned by how
quickly things had turned. Then reality caught up with her as key parts of their
conversation hit home.

I’m not ready for you... I can’t handle
you, Mackenzie...I’m not ready to take anything on faith right
now.

Oliver was walking away. He’d stormed into her life like a
freight train, riding to her rescue, enduring her antisocial rudeness, reminding
her that there was more to life than rehab and producing a TV show. He’d made
her feel sexy and desirable and alive again. He’d reignited her long-buried
passion and dreams. He’d made her feel full of possibilities.

And now he was pulling the pin. Because he wasn’t ready for her
and because he thought she didn’t need him in her life.

“Bullshit,” she said, the word rising from her belly on a wave
of disbelief. She slapped her hand on the counter.

Bullshit he wasn’t ready for her. And bullshit she didn’t need
him. She needed him like she needed air. She needed him like she needed heat and
light and laughter. She needed him so much it hurt.

When he called again, she would tell him. She would apologize
for what had happened with Patrick, and she would let Oliver know in no
uncertain terms how she felt about him.

Until then, she was—somehow—going to have to hang on to her
patience and her sanity and not panic. Because this was not over. Not by a long
shot.

Because she needed something to do to keep the anxiety at bay,
she pulled everything out of the hall cupboard. She worked methodically,
refolding linen, pairing pillowcases with sheet sets, culling ragged towels and
putting them aside for the ragbag. She couldn’t stop thinking about last night
as she worked, about what it must have been like for Oliver. She’d been so
stupid,
so unthinking. If she’d only stopped to
consider the situation for a moment, she would have understood that Patrick
barging in and attempting to take over would have sent up all sorts of flares
for Oliver.

After all, not six months ago, he’d discovered his wife had
been having an affair for almost as long as they’d been married. With a man
she’d been involved with beforehand.

Mackenzie couldn’t even begin to comprehend what the discovery
of his wife’s betrayal had done to Oliver’s sense of trust. Edie’s breach of
faith had been so profound, so all-encompassing....

And last night, Mackenzie had blown off her plans with Oliver
because Patrick had conned his way into her house. Worse, she’d foolishly,
blindly, agreed to let Patrick sleep on the couch, and she’d missed Oliver’s
phone call....

God.

She felt sick, thinking about what must have been going through
Oliver’s mind as he sat next door while she pandered to Patrick’s ego. What he
must have been imagining, or trying not to imagine.

Somehow she managed to make it through the afternoon. As the
light started to fade from the sky, she began pacing by her phone, willing it to
ring. She should have asked where Oliver was so she’d have some idea when he
might arrive in Sydney. As it was, the best she could do was pace and fret and
chew her nails to the quick.

When he hadn’t called by seven she called him and got voice
mail. She left a message for him, but when he hadn’t called back by nine
o’clock, she knew he wasn’t going to.

So, what, that’s it? He drives off into
the sunset and you’re supposed to nod and chalk up the best few weeks of
your life to experience and move on?

It was much easier to be angry than to give in to the horrible
despair lapping at her ankles.

He’d made promises to her. Not verbal ones, perhaps, but his
body had made promises to her every time they slept with each other. He’d made
love to her with a single-minded intensity and cradled her afterward as though
she was important to him. He’d told her she drove him crazy and that this wasn’t
only sex and that he wanted them to keep seeing each other when he went
home.

He’d made her believe that they’d found something special
together despite the geographical challenges and the flux in both their
lives.

And now he was retreating at a million miles an hour and not
returning her phone calls.

If only Patrick hadn’t turned up on her doorstep yesterday. If
only she’d told him to leave the script and she’d call him when she’d read it.
If only she’d insisted that Oliver come over for dinner, or that she’d gone to
him when she’d finished with Patrick.

If only.

Sick at heart, angry, confused and hurt, she went to bed. She
lay awake for a long time, having imaginary conversations with Oliver where she
said all the right things and he responded in all the right ways and the
horrible, hollow feeling in her stomach went away.

I don’t want this to be the end. How can
this be the end?

It was her last thought before she fell asleep. The first thing
she did on waking was check her phone to see if there was anything from Oliver.
There wasn’t. Short of bombarding him with phone calls until he picked up or
getting on a plane and confronting him in person, she was out of options.

She was on the verge of giving in and making another call when
she heard the sound of the mailman’s motorcycle out in the street. Mail was a
rarity for her, since she handled most of her bills online, but sure enough, the
mailman stopped at her letter box.

The back of her neck prickled with prescience and she shoved
her feet into the nearest pair of shoes and made her way up the driveway in her
pajamas. There was a lone envelope in the box and she knew before she picked it
up that it was from Oliver.

He was too good a man, too nice a man to simply cut her off at
the knees. So he’d written her a letter and caught last night’s mail and now she
was supposed to read it and accept his decision and move on.

She stared at his sloping, elegant handwriting for a long
moment, then she walked slowly to the house. She set the letter on the counter
and crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the envelope some more.

She felt as though she was standing at a crossroads, two
unknown paths stretching before her. The path where she curled up in the corner
and accepted that what had happened between her and Oliver had been nothing but
a beautiful bubble that had been destroyed by the intrusion of reality on one
side. And the path where she clung to the reality of her feelings for Oliver and
his for her and chose to believe that even though there were so many odds
working against them, they were meant to be together.

For some reason, Patrick’s words from yesterday echoed in her
mind.

You never believed in us like that. You
always held back. Always.

It hit her then that she’d never held back with Oliver. Right
from the start she’d given him nothing but honesty. She’d been brave with him
and she’d been bold and she’d chosen to believe in them.

She still chose to believe in them.

Which meant that, really, there was only one path before her.
She would have be brave and bold again to take it. She would have to pursue love
with the same kind of fearless zeal she employed in her working life. She would
have to put herself out there in every possible way.

She took a moment to appreciate the depth and breadth of her
decision. Then she picked up the envelope, opened it and read Oliver’s letter,
because she wanted to know what ground she’d be fighting on when she went to
find him.

His letter made her cry, because, as always, he’d been honest
to a fault. He apologized for his hasty departure and explained that at the
time, it had felt as though he didn’t have a choice. He told her in painful,
exposing detail how paranoid and anxious he’d been, sitting on his side of the
fence knowing that she was alone with her very charming, very handsome
ex-husband.

He told her that in the short, in the perfect weeks he’d known
her she’d made him feel as though the sun had come out from behind the clouds in
his life. He told her that she was beautiful and sexy and clever and courageous
and that he wanted her to be happy and to find the next thing in her life that
would make her smile. And he told her that that thing could not be him right now
because he was too messed up, too angry, too scared to be any good to
anyone.

Finally, he told her that he did not expect her to wait for
him, because he knew that he had hurt her by leaving the way he had and that he
understood that a man only had one chance in life to get it right with a woman
like her.

“Oliver...you foolish, beautiful man,” she whispered when she’d
finished.

Then she wiped the tears from her face and went to pack.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
N
O
LIVER
’
S
DREAM
, he and Mackenzie were walking along the
beach, joined together by Mackenzie’s crazy scarf.

It was cold but they were warm and she was laughing. Then his
dream self reached for the scarf and started tearing at it. Mackenzie watched
him, her eyes huge pools of sadness, but she didn’t say anything. When he’d
finished, the scarf was severed and she drifted away from him, her eyes accusing
now. Asking him why he’d destroyed something that was good, something that made
them both happy.

He woke in a sweat, blinking rapidly to try to dispel the image
of her standing alone on the beach.

He made his way to the bathroom and used a towel to dry himself
off. Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Strudel
padded into the room, her look questioning.

“Just a bad dream, sweetheart. You go back to bed,” he told
her.

She stared at him fixedly for a moment, then crossed to the
sink and settled at his feet with a heavy sigh. She’d been out of sorts, too,
since they’d come home four days ago. Mooching around, off her food.

Did dogs miss each other the way people did? Did Strudel dream
about Mr. Smith?

For her sake, he hoped not, because he missed Mackenzie so much
his bones ached with it. It shouldn’t have been possible that someone he’d known
for so short a time could have such a huge impact on his life. The fact
remained, however, that he thought about her, he dreamed about her, he missed
her, he craved her....

He’d had her, too, for the briefest of times, before he’d
screwed it up.

He couldn’t think about that night without feeling anxious and
panicky and ashamed all over again. He never wanted to be in that place again,
so desperate and angry and out of control. He definitely didn’t want to inflict
that kind of crazy on Mackenzie. Didn’t want her to see him flailing around in
his own bullshit. Didn’t want her to know how nuts and scary it was inside his
head sometimes.

He wanted only good for her, and he was not good. He was messed
up and scared. He’d told her so, too, in the hardest, most revealing letter of
his life. He figured it would be more than enough to convince her that she’d had
a lucky escape.

And if it wasn’t, if she was feeling even close to as shitty
and sad and lonely as he was...well, then he was an asshole of the highest
order. He’d had no business getting involved with her when he was so screwed up.
He should have resisted the pull of attraction and turned his back on the sense
of connection he’d felt with her. He should have barricaded himself inside his
aunt’s place and worked through his crap on his own instead of inflicting it on
her.

He tried to reimagine the past several weeks if he’d done just
that. If he’d kept his distance. If he hadn’t kissed her after she listened to
him spout off about Edie. If he had turned her away when she showed up at his
door, determined to seduce him within an inch of his life. If they hadn’t shared
all those dinners and open fires and nights in her bed.

He couldn’t. It was impossible to imagine himself not
responding to her. Not being attracted to her. Not wanting her.

So maybe all roads led to him standing at his kitchen sink in
the middle of the night, sweaty and anxious and full of regret. Maybe he’d
always been destined to break her heart—and his own—because he’d met her at the
wrong time, because he couldn’t handle the way she made him feel and the
corresponding fear that came with all the good stuff. Fear that she would betray
and hurt him the way Edie had. Fear that he would never be able to trust her or
anyone. Fear that his divorce had broken something inside him and he’d never
repair it.

He clicked his tongue and nudged Strudel gently. “Come on.
Let’s go back to bed.”

Strudel heaved herself to her feet and followed him to the
bedroom. She did her usual circle routine on the mattress before settling with
her head resting over his feet, her big brown eyes watching him solemnly.

He closed his eyes, unable to bear her steady, loving regard.
He didn’t feel very lovable right now.

His thoughts roamed as he lay in the darkness. To Flinders and
back, but always circling around Mackenzie. Wondering what she was doing. How
she was feeling. If Patrick had stepped in to console her.

Oliver hadn’t heard from her since he’d sent the letter. Which
was the way it should be. He’d spelled out in no uncertain terms why he’d left
and why it was best that he’d gone. There was no way she could fail to
understand that she was better off without him.

Heartily sick of himself, he reached for his iPod and called up
a playlist. He listened to the heartfelt lyrics of Crowded House and Paul Kelly
and Peter Gabriel and consoled himself with the notion that maybe he’d get a
decent song out of all this.

Pretty thin gruel.

The street outside grew noisy as the day started—car doors
slamming, engines firing, the roar of the garbage truck. He contemplated getting
out of bed, but there was no great rush. Rex didn’t want him back at the studio
for another few days, since there was still time left on the freelancer’s
contract.

Oliver had nowhere to go, no one expecting him, nothing to do.
If he wanted to, he could stay in bed all day thinking about how he’d missed out
on something amazing because he’d met Mackenzie at the wrong time and place in
his life.

A car door slammed, followed by a single, low-pitched bark.
Strudel stirred, lifting her head. She blinked, cocked her head, then leaped
from the bed in a show of athleticism worthy of her pre-knocked-up days. Tail
wagging furiously, she scrambled out of the bedroom and toward the front
door.

He was still staring after her in bemusement when the doorbell
rang.

Well, that explained Strudel’s antics, at least. Although she
wasn’t normally so attuned to visitors.

He got up and grabbed the pair of jeans he’d flung over the end
of the bed last night. He had a fair idea he was a far cry from his usual
groomed self—unshaved jaw, bed head, stained T-shirt—but anyone who called this
early could take him as they found him.

Strudel was whimpering and scratching at the door when he
joined her, so excited she was trembling.

“Calm down. It’s probably someone selling raffle tickets.”

Then he opened the door and found himself looking into
Mackenzie’s intense blue eyes. She scanned him head to toe a couple times, then
a slow, tremulous smile curved her mouth.

“You’re alive, then. That’s a good start,” she said.

Mr. Smith was at her feet, enjoying an intense sniff fest with
Strudel. Oliver tried to find something to say but his mind was a blank.

Mackenzie solved the problem by stepping forward and slipping
her arms around him. She lay her head on his chest and held him tightly, her
eyes closed. She felt so right, so good against him that he couldn’t stop
himself from returning the embrace. She turned her head and pressed a kiss to
his chest, her arms tightening around him even more.

After a long moment they both loosened their grip and Mackenzie
took a small step backward and laid her palm along his jaw.

“How are you? Are you okay?” she asked.

There was so much tenderness and compassion in her touch and
her voice that he was embarrassed to feel the prick of tears.

“I’m fine.”

Her gaze searched his intently. “Are you? Really? Because I’m
not. I miss you like crazy. I think about you all the time. I want to know what
you’re doing, how you’re feeling. I want to be with you.”

His heart did something weird in his chest, banging against his
rib cage as though it wanted out.

“Mackenzie...”

“Don’t tell me that you don’t feel the same, because I know you
do. I know you feel as connected to me as I do to you. I know you’ve been
dreaming about me. I know you love me, Oliver, because I love you so much it
hurts.” She blinked away tears.

“Don’t cry,” he said.

He couldn’t stand to see her unhappy. Especially when he knew
it was his fault.

“Right now, that is not an option.”

“Nothing has changed, Mackenzie. Nothing I put in that letter
has gone away.”

“I don’t care.”

He laughed, the sound hollow and hard. “That’s because you
don’t know how screwed up I am.”

“I don’t care.”

She was so brave, appearing on his doorstep, her heart in her
hands. Offering to take him on, no matter what.

“Maybe I’m not as strong as you,” he said quietly.

“Because it’s scary trusting someone again?”

He swallowed the last of his pride. She deserved the truth.

“Yes.”

She caught one of his hands in both of hers. Her eyes were
brimming as she looked at him. “I understand. I understand that you need time. I
understand that what happened between us wasn’t on your agenda. I understand
that there might be some rocky times ahead, for both of us. But I’m still
standing here.” She held his gaze, her chin tilted in challenge. “And I still
love you. And I’m not going to stop loving you. It’s taken me nearly forty
freaking years to find a man who makes me feel the way you do and I am not going
to let that slip away because you want to spare me what you think are the worst
parts of yourself.

“So be afraid. Be angry. Be jealous. Be possessive. Be whatever
you need to be. But please, let me come along for the ride. I promise I will
hang in there with you. I promise you that there is far, far more good between
us than there will ever be bad. I promise you that your heart will always be
safe with me. Always.”

Her hands were trembling as she pressed a kiss to the back of
his hand.

“All I ask is that you don’t shut me out. Let me walk beside
you. Let me be there for you. Let me love you.”

He’d never cried in front of a woman in his life, but
apparently there was a first time for everything. He blinked and turned his head
to wipe his face on his shoulder. Then he hauled her into his arms and held her
so tightly his shoulders cracked.

“I love you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said fiercely.

“I know. I don’t want to hurt you, either. I figure if we’re
both trying, if we’re both careful, we’re in with a pretty good chance. Don’t
you think?”

She pulled back to gauge his response and he saw that she was
crying in earnest, too.

“It kills me when you cry,” he said.

“I can’t even begin to tell you what it does to me when you
do.” She captured his face in both her hands, brushing his tears away with her
thumbs. “Don’t be afraid of me, of us, Oliver. Give us a chance.”

He wrapped his hands around the fine bones of her wrists. “Do
you honestly think I have anywhere near the strength to walk away from you
twice?”

She smiled. “Thank God.”

She kissed him then, her body straining toward his. He let go
of her wrists and wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet as
they kissed. She laughed against his mouth, her arms circling his neck.

“I love you, Mackenzie,” he said.

The words felt so good in his mouth.

“At the risk of repeating myself, thank God.” She kissed him,
hard, then glanced over his shoulder. “What are the odds that there’s a bed in
this house somewhere?”

“Very high.”

“What are the odds I might get to inspect it anytime in the
next sixty seconds?”

“Even higher.”

She gave a whoop as he bent and picked her up in a
firefighter’s hold.

“Oh, yeah. This was worth a trip to Sydney,” she said as he
strode down the hall to his bedroom.

The dogs skittered after them, excited by all the noise,
dancing back and forth. He turned into his bedroom and let Mackenzie fall onto
the bed as gently as he could. Then he went to the door and whistled the dogs
away from the bed.

“Outside, now,” he said.

Strudel gave him a wounded look before slinking into the
hallway, Mr. Smith trailing after her. Oliver kicked the door shut and reached
for the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it over his head.

Mackenzie propped herself on her elbows and watched him
undress, her cheeks flushed, her hair spiky on one side.

“Worried about having an audience, huh?”

“Worried your dog will pick up some new tricks. He’s already
got enough moves.”

He shucked his jeans and moved toward the bed, impatient to be
skin to skin with her again. Needing the rightness of it.

“You missed me,” she said, her gaze dropping to his thighs.

“Like crazy. Take your clothes off.”

They undressed her together, his hands caressing each inch of
skin as it was exposed. Finally they were lying chest to chest, hip to hip. The
warmth of her supple body against his was like a benediction. He rubbed his
cheek against hers and closed his eyes and simply lived in the moment, savoring
her.

There were a lot of things that could go wrong between them.
They still had to sort out who lived where. He needed to negotiate his divorce.
She needed to rekindle her career.

A warm certainty came over him as he felt the rise and fall of
her chest against his. It might get complicated. There might be days when there
was more shade than light. But all of that was manageable. All that truly
mattered was Mackenzie loved him, and he loved her.

He figured it was a pretty solid starting point. And then
some.

“Those new tricks you mentioned...” Mackenzie murmured near his
ear.

He smiled. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you patience is a
virtue?”

“Virtue is highly overrated.”

She wrapped her arms and legs around him and proceeded to prove
her point in the best possible way.