Heartbreak, Tennessee (10 page)

Which, now that he
thought about it, was exactly what he felt like.

As distant thunder
rumbled, his two beagles flapped their tails against the floor, too lazy and
well-fed to even rise from their comfortable spots on the braided rug under the
rough-hewn pine table. Their wagging tails seemed to reprimand him for feeling
sorry for himself.

“Yeah, all right, you
old mutts,” he grumbled back. “I guess you two fleabags
are
better than nothing.” He took a break from tending the stove to
bend and pet them, looping their long, soft ears around his fingers as they
rolled their eyes in an ecstasy of affection.

They were good-natured
animals, and they’d been with him for ten years. He’d bought them a couple of
months after his father passed away, attempting to find a patch for his sense
of loss. Originally meant to be hunting dogs, they’d quickly found their place
into Mac’s heart and home when he never quite got around to taking up the
sport.

Suddenly they both
rolled to attention, black-rimmed eyes shining and alert as they sat up. A
second later Mac heard it too, a car approaching on the gravel drive leading up
to the house. 
”Okay, guys, earn your keep,” Mac said. “Go give ‘em hell.”

It was kind of a joke,
though he had no one to share it with; the two spoiled beagles were more
interested in drowning visitors with affection than with guarding his home. Luckily,
no one ever dropped by against whom Mac needed protecting. His friends usually
showed up with nothing more sinister on their minds than watching a game and
drinking a few beers.

Mac returned to the
stove, idly wondering who it was. He tried to remember if there was a game on
TV that night, but drew a blank. Oh well, at least he was prepared to feed a
crowd. There would be plenty of the pepperonata he was preparing to go over
grilled steak sandwiches on his home-made rolls. Icy bottles of ale waited in
the fridge, and there were fresh strawberries Mac had picked up at the farm
stand.

He turned the heat off
after giving the savory dish a final stir. Tossing a handful of dog biscuits
out the open back door, he deftly closed it after the dogs loped out to find
the treats. Mac had never managed to train the dogs not to run into the road,
and a close call with a delivery truck convinced him to fence the back yard to
contain them.

He went out the front
door to see who’d arrived, just as a bright red Mercedes coupe pulled up in
front of the house. Sun glanced off the door, momentarily blinding him with its
intensity, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened them
again, Amber was making her way up the steps.

She was the last
person he expected. Indulging his misery through the long afternoon, his mood
had sunk through feelings of embarrassment to numbed dissatisfaction with
himself. He’d done a pretty good job of convincing himself she was swept into
the arms of her big-city lover by now, his attentions merely a
quickly-forgotten annoyance.

But the shy, tentative
smile on her face told him otherwise.

She’d changed into a
short red dress, its simple lines doing little to hide the curves underneath. The
sweep of red hair framing her face had taken on a bit of a curl in the
humidity, and Mac noticed a few wayward strands, some sticking to her neck,
some springing disobediently outwards. It was as if her old, impetuous spirit
lurked somewhere inside, and was trying to make itself known again.

Enough so, at any
rate, that the woman who’d dismissed him so coolly before taking a call from
her lover, was now with a few feet of him, and approaching rapidly.

Amber was coming to
him. A vague sense of rightness, of homecoming, settled onto Mac, quelling his
anxiety. Emboldening him.

As she took the final
step without hesitating, Mac did not step aside. Instead he took hold of her
shoulders gently, and searched her face intently, not knowing exactly what he
expected to find there.

What he saw was not
the guilt of a woman leaving behind her lover for a clandestine meeting. Or the
challenge of a foe ready to settle an ancient, jealously guarded hurt.

Instead, reflected in
her eyes was the same brew of emotions he felt himself: longing mixed with
regret, a desire to trust tempered by the hard-won wisdom of years.

And then, in the
second when he meant to release her, to turn and step aside so she could enter
his house, his hands somehow missed the commands from his mind. Even as he
tried to release her, the damp warmth of her bare shoulders electrified his
fingers. Acting, it seemed, of their own volition, they slowly, softly traveled
down the smooth expanse of her arms, lightly caressing the freckled soft skin,
finally coming to rest at her hands. His large, work-worn hands folded hers
perfectly, two cool treasures which he brought to his lips.

A first kiss in so
many years, tender and naive, his lips resting for only the briefest second on
her fingers before glancing away.

The second kiss was
not nearly so innocent.

Letting go of her
hands, he cupped her chin and tilted it so she could not look away.

He mumbled her name before
she melted into him and their lips met in a surge of passionate energy.

He had acted without
thinking, but even so, he tried to break off the kiss. And could not. When he
felt her arms reach around him, tentatively and then grasping his back and
pulling him closer to her, so that their bodies met in a smooth curve, he knew
he was lost.

Mac burrowed his face
into the hollow of her neck, inhaling her scent, a faint groan escaping from
deep inside, where desire had been stoked to a full burn. Murmuring her name
like a prayer, he ran a hand through her hair, the strands soft and slippery in
his fist.

His hand traveled
down, over her back, the curve of her waist, coming to rest on the flare of one
hip. He pressed her to him, and she met the pressure with her own gentle
thrust.

Amber threw her head
back and held Mac to her neck, responding with a gasp of pleasure as the
stubble of his beard grazed her soft skin. He raised a hand to her throat and
let his fingers travel down, grazing, delighting in the touch, tracing a path
to her breast.

A slim gold chain
caught on a loose thread at her neckline, and as he eased it out of the way he
felt the slender circular pendant it held.

Without breaking the
embrace he fingered it briefly—and then stopped, recognition blazing
through his muddied consciousness.

The ring, the one he’d
given her to wear around her neck until they day they married, the day he put
it on her finger.

Pulling his body away
from hers, he sought her eyes, questioning without words. But Amber moved more
quickly. She clapped a hand protectively on the pendant and took a step back.

“Is that—”

Amber said nothing for
a moment, her hand rising and falling lightly as it rested against her chest. She
stared at a spot near the top button of his shirt. Her shallow breaths and rosy
flush gradually faded, and Mac could sense that she was struggling to regain
her composure.

“I’m sorry,” she said
finally, ignoring his unfinished question. “I shouldn’t have allowed that to
happen.”

She touched her
throat, pink from contact with the rough surface of his jaw.

“You think it was a
mistake, then.” Mac spoke without betraying his emotions. A mistake. The moment
that had passed between them had been like a chemical reaction, an explosion in
a laboratory when two volatile elements combined. He could no more have stopped
himself than he could have sprouted wings and flown, but he could sense already
that the wall was back up between them, reinforced by another layer of
complications.

Her resolve was no
doubt deepened now, as well. Mac cursed himself and put another step between
them, so that he was standing in the frame of his front door.

“Of course it was a
mistake.” A faint trace of regret tinged Amber’s voice. She stared down at her
shoe, a linen espadrille that wasn’t made for country roads. But she didn’t
appear to notice the dust marring the fabric.

“I only came here to
talk about business. We can do it later. I should go.”

“No.” Mac’s voice was
hoarse, and he coughed self-consciously. He wasn’t ready for her to leave. It
had begun wrong, all wrong, and he meant to make it right. “I mean, at least
have dinner with me. Please. Nothing more.”

Amber followed him
into the house, her feet cautious on the wide pine boards. She masked her
surging emotions in her careful steps, eyes down on the ground, as her heart
slowly stopped pounding.

She should have stayed
on the porch, saying what she had to say in that space that was at least
somewhat neutral. After the kiss—and she couldn’t allow herself even to
think about that—the air had somehow seemed thicker, impenetrable. Mac
must have felt it too, because he backed away from her and his expression
turned guarded.

But there was, she
realized, no neutral territory for the two of them. Sheer proximity caused a
reaction, an electricity in the air. It was there, this dangerous attraction,
in the cab of his truck. It was there in the clamor and bustle of his shop when
she went to visit him. It was there when he showed up in Sheryn’s hotel room,
even as she turned away from him and tried to concentrate on Dean’s voice.

Mac turned and offered
her a hand. She realized from his concerned expression that he mistook her slow
progress for momentary weakness. But rather than accept his hand and his touch
a second time, she straightened and took a few firm steps, striding past him
and into the heart of his home.

Even though the
windows were opened wide to the late afternoon sun and there was no air
conditioning, it was much cooler inside. A fan spun lazily in the beamed
ceiling high above their heads, sending air currents chasing each other around
the room. The walls were solid, built of huge logs the size of a man’s torso. Their
color was a rich, warm, honey, and they glowed from a carefully hand-rubbed
finish. No attempt was made to hide the knots and imperfections, which were
simply finished smooth and left to add their own character to the broad walls.

A house of wood and
stone and hard work. It could so easily have been an unwelcoming place, a
masculine retreat, like the cover of a hunting and fishing magazine. But that
was not at all the effect Amber felt as she allowed herself to take it all in,
turning in a circle as she inspected the place.

There was evidence of
careful thought in the house’s appointments. The windows were bare of curtains,
letting the light slant in onto the wide pine boards of the floor and the
hooked and braided rugs tossed here and there. More furniture similar to the
style Mac had chosen for his office, was arranged in comfortable groupings
around a stone fireplace so enormous she could have stood up in it with her
arms extended to either side. Lamps of burnished iron with ochre shades cast a
soft glow on an oversized russet-colored sofa, where a book and a pair of
reading glasses had been tossed carelessly.

As if someone were
having trouble concentrating.

Amber knew that
feeling well.

Off the main room, a
kitchen was in full view, separated only by a huge dining room table. Stairs
led up to unseen rooms above, the bedrooms, no doubt.

“It’s...wonderful,
Mac,” Amber said. And she meant it. Far from the ascetic bachelor existence she
expected, Mac had made a home for himself, a beautiful and comfortable place.

A sound from outside
caught her attention, an eerie wail, followed by a second one. “What—”

“Oh,” Mac said,
grinning sheepishly. “That’s just the dogs. They’re a royal pain in the ass,
but I’ve somehow got kind of attached to them. I can just leave them out there
while we have dinner. They’ll hush in a minute—they’re just dying to see
who came to visit.”

“Oh, let them in!”

Amber loved animals,
and one of her chief regrets at the fast-paced lifestyle that she and the
Sawyers lived was that it left no way to have a pet. It wouldn’t be fair to
keep a dog or cat when she was gone for days at a time.

“If you’re sure,” Mac
shrugged, and opened the back door.

A blur of black, brown
and white bolted through the door, tumbling to a stop at her feet. Whimpering
with excitement, the dogs wagged their whole bodies and made small whining
noises.

“Oh—they’re
darling!” Amber bent to pet the plump dogs, gazing into their chocolate brown
eyes and stroking their soft white chins. “And they’re so good. They’re not
jumping at all.”

“Yeah, well. They’re
just lazy. For a while there Heather and Randy were my only company and I’m
afraid I might have spoiled them beyond repair.”

“Heather and Randy...”
Amber felt her mouth go dry and she slowly straightened. Mac’s chuckle died on
his lips and he clamped his mouth shut. Turning, he made a sharp sound and
gestured towards the kitchen, and the dogs slunk back under the dining room
table, where they rested their chins on their paws and continued to gaze
adoringly at Amber, their tails thumping the floor.