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“She believes my family will be eager to force me to marry her quick to put an end to the scandal.”
“She doesn’t know the MacDougals very well, does she?”
“No, she doesn’t. Her father has had dealings with mine over the years, so she knows our bottom line, but that’s about it. Unfortunately my family is eager to get me to settle down, but not because of any scandal. They want me to start doing my part in increasing the Clan MacDougal.”
Harrison shook his head. “There’s a little more to it than that, I think.”
Before Mac could refute it, Marie came toward the table and set a huge, heavenly smelling pancake, complete with two little pancakes for ears, chocolate chips for eyes, and sliced strawberries forming a smiling mouth. Too bad he didn’t feel like smiling back. He did give Marie the smile and the thanks she deserved, though, as did Harrison when she served him a heaping plate of fluffy scrambled eggs.
They both dug into their breakfasts and ate in silence for a while.
Mac offered, “I apologize for dragging you into this on such short notice.”
Harrison answered around a mouthful of eggs. “No sweat.” He swallowed, then added, “I’m sorry I won’t be around right off.”
After Mac polished off his pancakes, he said, “Spending time with your son is important.”
“It is. And I love it.” Harrison pointed his fork at Mac. “I highly recommend it, Mac.”
The dark pain started creeping back out of its hole. He’d planned to head down that road once with a girl he had met in college who had shown him how to really live life. But he’d screwed up in the worst way possible. Knowing he would never be going down that road now, Mac steered Harrison elsewhere. “Finding out you have a son must have been a real shocker.”
“That, my friend, is an understatement. But I wouldn’t change anything for the world.”
“That’s great. And I really appreciate you letting me stay here. I wouldn’t have imposed, but I had to get away someplace where no one would find me. And I have to admit, the whole paternity thing put me in mind of you.”
“No problem.”
“I just hope my family, or the press, for that matter, doesn’t find me before it’s obvious that Stephanie isn’t pregnant.”
“Your family believes her?”
“I doubt it. But they see this as an opportunity. And that’s one thing a MacDougal can never pass up.”
Harrison made a noise in the back of his throat. “That’s the truth, if you’re any indication. Talk about the perfect predisposition for a corporate raider.”
Mac shrugged. “I suppose it’s the same spirit that moved my ancestors to relieve the British of all that burdensome loot on the way to resettling the clan in America.”
“It was probably rightly theirs, anyhow.”
“My, but you have turned into the romantic, haven’t you?”
Harrison’s eyes focused on something behind Mac, and he said on a sigh, “You have no idea.”
A husky, feminine voice said, “Ashley told me we have a guest.”
Mac turned and met the smiling, rich brown gaze of a very pretty woman with long, light brown hair. A towheaded little boy propped on her slim hip gave him a curious stare. Mac knew immediately who they were. Between her looks and the kid being the spitting image of his father, it was no wonder Harrison was so proud.
The ache didn’t bother to creep this time. It jumped straight on his neck and tried to choke him.
Mac rose to greet them as Harrison made the introductions around the last of his scrambled eggs. “Juliet, this is Mac. Mac, this is my better half, Juliet Rivers.”
She smiled, transforming herself from pretty to flatout beautiful. “Now, I don’t know what they teach at Harvard, but I’ve learned at community college that one plus one equals two, Harrison.”
Mac liked her instantly. “And this little guy doesn’t need an introduction. Hi, Nathan.”
Rather than getting all shy as Mac expected him to, Nathan smiled a toothy smile and pointed at Mac’s shirt. “Dirt.”
Juliet laughed. “Oh, you two will get along just fine. I’m so sorry that Harrison booked our trip the same time as your visit. Usually Ashley keeps him from slipping up like this.”
Mac came to his friend’s defense. “It’s not Harrison’s fault.” Unsure of what Juliet knew of his situation, Mac said tentatively, “Besides, since I’m here to help with the mill…” He drifted off when Juliet raised a curious brow.
Mac looked to Harrison, who shook his head. “Sorry, bud. She knows.” To Juliet he said in a low voice, “We’re saying Mac is an Environmental Specialist come to help me out at Dover Creek.”
“Why all the Mission Impossible rigmarole?” she asked.
Mac cleared his throat. “I’d rather as few people as possible know the truth.”
Her shrug said whatever. “As few being…?”
“Just you and Harrison.”
She glanced at her husband. “Dorothy?”
Harrison looked to Mac, but he shook his head, still certain the fewer who knew, the better. Besides, it’d be that much less grief he’d have to suffer from those who might think his family was right.
Harrison sighed. “As far as I can remember, Grandmother has never met Mac, and she has no reason to know who he is or why he’d be here.”
Juliet’s eyebrows went higher. “And Ashley?”
Mac vigorously shook his head.
Harrison concurred. “Definitely not Ashley. You know how she feels about duty to family.”
Juliet smirked. “You’ve got a point, there.” She set Nathan in a booster chair fastened to one of the seats.
The two-year-old immediately started banging on the table with his fat little hands and chanting, “Dirt, dirt, dirt.”
Mac looked away.
Juliet said, “Okay, whatever you boys want to say is fine. I’ll just keep my yap shut.”
Mac blew out a relieved breath, wishing again that he’d thought things through a hell of a lot more. “Thanks, Juliet. I appreciate your help.”
“Is there anything I can help with?” Ashley offered as she came through the kitchen, a ringing cell phone in her hand.
With stricken expressions, all three of them hurried to assure her there wasn’t.
Ashley held the phone toward Mac. “Your bike was ringing.”
“Uh, thanks.” He glanced at the caller ID and fought a groan. This was his business phone and only his executive assistant, Bishop, was supposed to have the number. Damn it, had they gotten to him, also?
Knowing that simply turning the phone off as he was inclined to do would raise Ashley’s suspicions, he excused himself.
By all that was tartan, he prayed that Ashley’s rigid sense of propriety, the same sense that would keep her from being more than a distraction to him while he was there, had kept her from checking the display, also.
M. MACDOUG. Ashley tapped a French manicured nail against her teeth and tried to pinpoint the stirrings of recognition the name on Mr. Wild’s cell phone caller ID generated. She hadn’t purposefully looked at the display, but always checking her own before answering had created a habit.
Mac distracted her from her mental run through her Rolodex by heading toward the nearest door—the one leading to the wine cellar—his phone still ringing in his hand. She watched until he disappeared through the door, closing it tight behind him. She looked at Harrison and Juliet to gauge their reactions to Mac’s odd behavior.
Harrison shrugged and took a swig of his coffee.
Juliet grinned and quipped, “That cellar’s good for all sorts of things.”
Harrison choked on his coffee. He quickly set his cup down and grabbed his wife to pull her in his lap and whisper something in her ear. Blaming the tugging sensation deep in her chest on her happiness for her brother’s state of wedded bliss, Ashley rolled her eyes at their antics and went to the refrigerator to grab a muffin. Thanks to their unexpected guest, her schedule no longer held time for her usual breakfast of granola, yogurt and half a grapefruit.
Marie rounded the island toward her. “Can I get you your breakfast, now?”
Ashley waved her off. “That’s all right, Marie, I’ll get it.”
The refrigerator door blocked her view, so she only heard Mac emerge from the cellar.
He grumbled something to the effect of, “Family, what a pain in the—” then broke off when he caught sight of her stepping back from the fridge to close the door.
Her curiosity running rampant, she offered, “Is there something I can be of assistance with, Mr. Wild?”
“Mac,” he corrected absently as he shook his head in answer to her question. “No. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
She was seized by the strangest need to show off with something she was very good at and to ease the troubled look in his golden-brown eyes. “Harrison and Juliet will vouch for my ability and willingness to handle most any situation,” she pressed.
Harrison made a noise that sounded shockingly like a snort. “Better known as meddling.”
Juliet came to Ashley’s defense with a crude, yet effective, elbow to the ribs.
Ashley satisfied herself with the simple reminder by saying, “I don’t meddle, Harrison, I manage.” A skill that had finally earned her the only things she had ever wanted—an indispensable presence in the family business and her father’s love, given in the only way he seemed capable, through his approval. And taking over after her mother’s death had helped them all.
To Mac she explained, “For example, right now I’m putting together Nathan’s christening ceremony and celebration. But I’m certain I could find time to help you if something has come up within the Wild family.”
Harrison started to cough and choke, again. Hopefully he wasn’t coming down with something before his trip.
Mac glanced from his friend to her, the corner of his mouth quirked, but he reiterated, “Really, everything is fine in the—” he coughed, too “—Wild family.”
Harrison regained his breath and said to Mac, “Speaking of Nathan’s christening, you should come. Since the, ah, circumstances around his birth were what they were and my name wasn’t originally on the birth certificate—” he glanced at Juliet and she gave him her patent shrug “—we’re having his name legally changed to Rivers and making a big deal of the christening ceremony. It would mean a lot to me to have you there.”
Mac visibly blanched. “I…” He ran a hand through his long and incredibly thick hair, drawing Ashley’s gaze to the unruly mass and the bunching muscles in his mud-splattered arm.
She jerked open the refrigerator’s door and stepped toward the sanity-returning blast of cold air.
After a moment of heavy silence, Mac finally said, “I’m sorry, you guys, but I can’t.” He gave a sheepish sort of grin. “I don’t have any decent clothes. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want some bozo in Lycra or zip-off pants at my kid’s shindig.” He looked down at himself. “Just like I’m sure Marie doesn’t want Pigpen in her kitchen. I’d better go get cleaned up.”
Juliet hopped off her husband’s lap and offered, “I’ll find Donavon and we’ll get you settled.”
Mac let loose a heavy breath. “Thanks, Juliet. Harrison, if I happen to hit a bed and the bed hits back hard enough that I don’t wake up until you’re already gone, have a great trip. I’ll catch you when you get home.”
He glanced at Ashley, an unreadable expression on his face. For the first time she noticed the bruised-looking circles smudging the tanned skin beneath his eyes and the heaviness with which he moved as he followed Juliet out of the kitchen, as if all those muscles were suddenly hard to lug around.
Then he smirked at her. “Don’t catch a chill, sunshine.” The rough edges of his deep baritone raised the goose bumps on her skin in a way that the open refrigerator had failed to do. She started guiltily and slammed the fridge shut.
She looked at Harrison to see if he had noticed her foolish behavior, but he was watching Mac leave the room.
Harrison shifted his gaze to hers. “He was a very good friend to me in school, despite what he went through.”
She raised her brows. “What did he go through?”
“He lost someone very important to him.”
A pang of sympathy coursed through her heart. Surprisingly it seemed she and Mr. Wild had something in common, after all.
Before she could ask who he’d lost, Harrison added, “I’d really like to have him at my son’s christening, Ash.”
In other words, make it happen.
She would. It was what she did best.
Even though she’d prefer to keep the apparently wounded Mac Wild as far from her family, and thus her consciousness, as possible, she gave her big brother a reassuring smile.
Thanks to her wandering gaze, at least she wouldn’t be making a total guess when she gave the tailor Mac’s inseam measurement.
Chapter Three
Mac rounded yet another corner in the U-shaped mansion and decided that sometimes no sleep was better than just a little. While about half the size of MacDougal House, with a pretty simple layout, the long hallways of the Rivers’s home had him sufficiently lost on his way to the pool.
He shoved his long bangs away from his face, only to have them spring forward into his eyes again. He shouldn’t have gone to bed for what turned out to be a five-hour nap with his hair wet, but he’d been so dog-tired that he’d barely dried off from his shower before he’d hit the sack. He usually kept his hair shorter so he never had to think about it, let alone mess with it. But barbers had been in short supply on his last scuba diving trip, and when he returned, those in Stephanie’s camp had started hounding him about marrying her to the point that he hadn’t wanted to take the time to have his hair cut. He’d avoided sitting still in one place long enough to give any of them an opportunity to harangue him about settling down.
Mac rolled his bare shoulders beneath the towel he’d slung around his neck, fighting the tension he’d thought he’d outrun on the cross-country flight last night. Needing more than ever to dunk his head and burn off some steam swimming laps, he lengthened his stride until his black, slip-on soccer slides slapped against his bare heels, certain he’d find the back staircase at the end of the hall that one of the maids had told him about. Supposedly it would dump him right by the door to the heated outdoor pool.
An odd tapping sound snagged his attention and he glanced into the open doorway on his right as he walked past. He jammed it into Reverse, nearly stepping out of his loosely velcroed single strap slides, until he was standing in the doorway of a room awash in muted pinks and smelling of rose potpourri. Ashley Rivers, hair still perfectly repressed and cream suit still buttoned up tight, sat at a delicate and feminine Queen Ann desk in what should have been the sitting room area of her bedroom suite.
He could see the four-poster bed, buried beneath mounds of white lace and pillows, through an open door to her right. His blood automatically started pumping in preparation. Man, this woman main-lined his libido.
She was typing away on a keyboard as she stared intently at a computer’s flat-screen monitor. Sitting next to the monitor was the biggest Rolodex he’d ever seen in his life. The room even sported a file cabinet. The fact that she’d turned part of her private quarters into an office didn’t surprise Mac. From the short time he’d known Ashley, he figured her the all business, no fun type.
Knowing full well Ashley Rivers was trouble and that he should just keep on going, he instead grabbed the ends of the towel around his neck and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb all casual-like. A perverse, hitherto unexplored aspect of his personality wanted to get back at all the Stephanies in the world, even in such a small way as, say, being an annoyance.
In his best come-here-often voice he said, “Well, hello, sunshine.”
She started and glanced up. Her brow-marring expression of concentration changed into a pretty flush. He felt a jolt of satisfaction when her gaze traveled over him from head to foot and her eyes widened at the sight of him clad only in loose black swim trunks and black, foot massaging soccer slides. He indulged himself by pulling down on the towel to flex his biceps and pecs. Her flush turned into a raging blush.
Goooaaal!
