Heartbreak, Tennessee (6 page)

“Mac!” she said, “I
swear, that could be the same pair of shoes you used to wear when this was your
Dad’s place.”

Then she clapped her
hand over her mouth, crestfallen. In one little sentence, she’d broken all the
rules she’d set for herself: she was going to avoid the past like the deadly
threat it was, and especially any reference to
his
place in it. And in
front of his employees, no less.

He looked unruffled,
though—until he reached out to take her hand. He held it a second too
long, and she saw a cloud pass the blue sky of his eyes, a slight tremor in the
wide, easy grin.

She’d have given
anything to know what was running through his mind.

“I guess I never
outgrew my Jack Purcells,” he said. “Listen, Amber, I have to finish up
something I was working on,” he went on, his voice soft enough that the other
people in the big workroom couldn’t possibly hear, over the noise of machinery
and the music.

“It’s really no
problem,” Amber said, covering her nervousness with a series of small gestures,
straightening her collar and smoothing her hair and adjusting her purse on her
shoulder. “I only had a few minutes, I just thought I’d stop by and see the
shop since I probably won’t get another chance.”

“Oh...so what do you
think of the place?”

He regarded her
openly, setting her hands in motion in another round of nerve-quelling
movements. Of all her features, her hands were the ones she cared for the most
attentively, with frequent manicures and regular slatherings with expensive
scented lotions. Her nails were short but perfectly shaped, painted a shell
pink. On her wrist was a simple gold watch, a gift from the Sawyers.

There was a reason for
this one vanity she allowed herself. A part of her felt that it made up,
somehow, for the years when her hands were ragged and red from plunging into
buckets of ammonia to clean other peoples’ floors; from scraping plates in restaurants;
from scrubbing her own tiny apartments over and over to make them seem a little
nicer than the dumps they were. She’d made it. Through all the hard work she’d
reached a level of financial independence and comfort she only dreamed she’d
attain, and her hands were her badge of achievement.

Still, all the
manicures in the world weren’t enough to plug the hole, the emptiness that had
been a part of her life ever since she left Heartbreak—and Mac—behind.
And now she was staring that demon in the face, and rather than nostalgia or
sadness or even indifference—all the emotions that would be all right—she
was feeling something very different. A heat inside her, starting in her
abdomen and arcing up to her heart, was burning so strong it rose off her face
in waves.

“It’s...so different,”
she said weakly.

“I suppose you could
say that.” Mac’s expression was hard to read, tentative and impassive. Then, he
touched her again, his hand resting lightly on her arm, as he smiled once more.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Give me five minutes. Come sit in my office and
relax and call your boss, and tell her something came up, and then we can do a
proper job of catching up.”

“But -”

“Surely you have a few
minutes for an old friend,” he said, his eyes locked on hers, deep and
searching.

Before she could
reply, he took her hand again and led her, unresisting, past the gamut of
admiring glances and down a cool, dark hallway in the back of the shop.

CHAPTER
THREE

Mac stared at the
wrench in his hand as if he’d never seen it before, and then wiped it with a
cloth before setting it aside. His claim that he needed to finish up his task
had been a bluff, a way to steal a few moments to compose himself. He was well
aware of the stares of his employees, but he’d squelched their comments with a
single, no-nonsense glare. He had known these men long enough—some
practically his whole life—that they would read his expression accurately
and give him the space he needed.

Still, stalling for
time wasn’t going to help. It certainly wasn’t putting his cascading emotions
in order. For so long he had battled to gain control of them, and having
reached adulthood without succumbing to any obvious vice, he’d thought he’d
finally mastered his heart and his desires.

No. No, no. The long,
angry scar on his heart had been sliced open again the moment he’d seen Amber
in Buzzy’s, and now the poison had spread through his system, causing pockets
of emotion to flare like forest fires dangerously close to raging out of
control.

Anger. Anxiety. Desire.
They battled for control of his mind, even as he struggled against them. Deliberately
he set the heavy wrench down on the bench and strode down the hall. Whatever
the demons that waited, he intended to face them head on.

Amber was sitting in
one of the big rough-hewn ash chairs in his office, her lithe body looking
small and vulnerable on the oversized woven cushions. He followed her gaze
around the room, and for a moment paused to imagine what she must be seeing and
thinking. It must have been quite a surprise to her. This room, once his father’s
office, was the one room whose walls he hadn’t moved when he tripled the size
of the original structure. It had seemed to contain a little bit of his father’s
soul, and he wanted to preserve that, keep it there to remind him that hard
work had gotten him where he was.

At the same time,
though, he’d changed every surface, every stick of furniture. In his father’s
day it had been a large cinder block-lined cell, the walls stained with
cigarette smoke, cold in winter and hot in summer. His father had stacked paper
wherever there was space; invoices and catalogs and mail cluttered the desk and
filing cabinets. There’d been just one spare chair, a straight-backed wooden
one. It had supported many trembling employees receiving reprimands through the
years. And sweaty-palmed salesmen and factory reps, delivering their pitches in
the face of his father’s grim demeanor. The floor had been tiled with cheap
linoleum, and the only decorations on the walls were faded calendars from tool
companies.

All of that—gone.
Mac had taken considerable trouble to create a place where he and his employees
would be comfortable. His management style was loose, cooperative; several
comfortable chairs and a twig coffee table created a comfortable seating area
for impromptu discussions. Since many workdays found him in the office long
after everyone else was gone, the room bore his mark more than any other place
in the world, even his home. Watercolors of white-tailed deer, bobcats, and
wild turkey, native to the area, lined one pine-paneled wall. On another hung a
pair of quilts stitched in traditional Appalachian patterns, and local pottery
graced the end tables.

“It’s lovely,” Amber
said. “You always appreciated beautiful things. I’m...glad you’re able to enjoy
them now.”

“The business has
treated me well,” Mac said simply. He crossed to the window, a large one he’d
installed to replace the tiny, dusty panes that had lit his father’s desk. Cranking
it out, he reached on the sill where he kept a pitcher of sun tea brewing. Taking
sliced lemon and ice from a mini fridge hidden in a wall of knotty pine
cabinets, he poured them each a tall glass.

“I’m impressed again,”
Amber said, and he looked quickly to see if she was being sarcastic. The
tiniest lines at the corner of her eyes reflected gentle humor, and he relaxed
and lifted his glass.

“A bachelor learns a
few tricks,” he said.

She lifted an eyebrow
slightly. He couldn’t help noticing how her movements had changed. Gone were
the ebullient gestures, the unrestrained laughter or spontaneous flashes of
anger and irritation. Her movements were graceful now, but compact, as though
she were preserving her energy for a secret dance.

At eighteen, she’d
worn her emotions painted clearly on her features; her eyes expressed volumes
before she ever spoke. Now they were veiled, her lips set in a cautious
expression. Only her hands gave her away: their quick movements, the long,
pretty fingers flashing signals of which, he was sure, Amber was unaware. Right
now the fingers of one hand thrummed softly on her glass, while the other hand
smoothed invisible wrinkles from her long ivory skirt, and he read a
nervousness that matched his own, as well as hesitation.

To trust, perhaps?

A wave of pain caused
him to tighten his grip on his own glass.
Trust
.
His trust in Amber had been absolute, until the night when she came to tell him
the one thing he couldn’t accept. He’d sent her away, unable to hear another
word of the story she told, a story of betrayal from the one man who would not—
could
not—let him down. And the
next day she disappeared forever, without a word of explanation save for that
one letter.

“To your return,” he
said gruffly, and before she had a chance to protest, went on, his voice his
only tool to keep her from objecting and possibly leaving. He felt as though
her presence were so ephemeral, and wanted—needed—to hold on to it
a little longer. “Ordinarily I’d toast with something a little stronger,” he
said. “But tea will have to do. For now.”

Amber hesitated, as if
she wanted to disagree, but apparently changed her mind. She took a sip of her
tea, and Mac nearly missed the tiny tremor in the hand holding the glass.

Draining his own
glass, he chose a chair close to Amber rather than the one behind his desk. He
wanted to be close enough to inhale her scent, read her expressions without
giving her a chance to turn away.

He wanted to settle
something.

As Mac slid into his
chair, his knee dangerously close to her own, Amber fought to master
conflicting urges. She wanted to push her chair away, to put some distance
between the two of them. Mac was not good for her; as sure as it had been a
mistake to come here, it was worse for her to stay. To share a cool drink with
him, as though she were an old friend just catching up on the news, passing the
time on a slow-paced summer day.

As if she ever could
be that.

She’d once promised to
marry him.
Intended
to marry him. Wanted
nothing more than to be Mrs. Lawrence McBaine, whatever challenges that
brought. Eighteen and twenty had once seemed plenty old enough to join their
lives, and they had known each other’s hopes and dreams by heart.

How she’d relished the
thought of telling her mother the news, sharing the joy she felt. For years her
mother had looked forward to creating a gown for Amber, the most beautiful
wedding dress in the world. Like the gown Cinderella wore to the ball, she’d
promised a dreamy ten-year-old Amber as she hemmed skirts and fitted jackets
and monogrammed tea services for the ladies of Heartbreak, working at her
sewing machine with a mouthful of pins while her daughter sat nearby, coloring
pictures and daydreaming.

And Fran. Telling Mac’s
mother would be pure pleasure. How she longed to wipe that pompous,
self-important little smile right off the woman’s face. Amber had never shared
her feelings about Fran with Mac. No matter how many times he confided in Amber
how miserable his mother made him, with her social aspirations and pretensions,
Amber did not want to further the chasm between them, so she kept silent about
the snubs he never saw, the cruel comments when he was out of earshot. Fran was
quick to point out whenever Mac failed her, when his boots were muddy or his
fingernails faintly ringed with black oil no matter how hard he scrubbed. But
that was nothing compared to the comments she reserved for Amber.

Amber had long ago
given up hope that Fran would soften when she saw how she and Mac cared for
each other, but that didn’t mean she’d stoop to the woman’s depths. The day she
wore Mac’s ring would be revenge enough.

As for his father, Amber
had never had any reason to think that Pete cared one way or another about her.
He never granted her more than an occasional nod or grunted greeting, never
indicated that he gave her a second thought, so Amber expected the news of
their engagement to be accepted indifferently as well.

She’d been dead wrong
about that.

“Amber,” Mac said,
bringing her out of her memories. His voice was full of pain and the smallest
tinge of old, tired fury. “What the hell happened?”

Amber let her gaze
drop to her hands, suddenly still in her lap. Mac was not a man to mince words.

Maybe it was time to
have this talk. After all, she would be leaving within a few days, and it would
cost her nothing to settle an old hurt. Maybe it would even help her close that
chapter of her life once and for all.

But she’d seen the
look on his face when he told her his father was dead. Seen the pain and loss
that was fresh after all these years. His father’s memories were all that were
left.

Suddenly exhausted,
she sighed softly.

“Nothing, Mac. I just
decided it would be better if I left. Let it go.”

“
You
decided?” The surge of rage in his voice caused her to jerk her
chin up. “You decided to throw everything away, and never even bothered to tell
me? You owed me a little better than that.”