Keep On Loving you (9 page)

“What kind of bad news?” Mac asked, narrowing her eyes until they were slits of icy blue.

The gaze was sharp enough to jab some sense into him. Coming clean, right here, right now, wasn't the thing to do. More thinking time was necessary. And perhaps he should first divulge the issue to a different Walker altogether.

“The bad news is also the actual mess,” he lied, hoping she'd buy it. “Three stories of dust and furniture and other stuff that needs to be dealt with.”

“Zan—”

“Let me show you what I mean,” he said, heading out of the kitchen and toward the staircase. “I know you said you'd looked around, but surely you didn't see all of it.”

He could feel her and her suspicions trailing behind him.

“Zan...” she began, and then a distinctive melody intoned—the bell.

He continued toward the front door, ready to kiss whoever it was on the other side. A gray-haired, middle-aged man stood there, in dark pants and a white shirt with the embroidered logo of a courier service.

His eyes went wide as his gaze shifted behind Zan. “Mackenzie?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Zan saw a strange look—discomfort? embarrassment?—cross her face. He turned back to the delivery person. “Yes?”

It took moments to sign for the package and to guess it was more materials pertaining to his grandfather's estate. Through the manila envelope it felt like paperwork, anyway. Most likely proof of things he owned that he'd never wanted.

The courier was lingering on the front step, his gaze once again shifting to Mac. “Jeff's doing fine,” he told her.

“That's, um, great,” Mac said, hunching her shoulders and shoving her hands in her jeans pockets. “I'm glad to hear that.”

“Jeff's dating a woman who works for the county,” the man added. Before she could respond to that, he switched his gaze to Zan. “Alexander Elliott, huh?”

“Yes.” Zan sent a questioning glance to Mac, who was staring at the toes of her sneakers.

“I've heard about you.”

Still puzzled, Zan nodded. “Okay.”

“I didn't move my family here until about eight years ago, but everybody's heard of Zan. Of Zan and Mac. Mac and Zan. The two of you...legend.”

“Uh, okay.” It was true that their community had taken an interest in their young romance from the very start.

“My son, Jeff, he knew about the Zan and Mac legend, but that didn't stop him from—”

“Isn't it time you get on with your deliveries?” Mac said, halting the flow of the man's words. “You have some sort of time guarantee, right, Wes?”

The older man was silent a moment, then gave Zan a once-over before opening his mouth again. “Mac's a good woman, you know. Hardworking. Loyal to family. Could have any unmarried man in a hundred-mile radius. And nobody really blamed her, not me and Jeff's mother, not even Jeff himself, when—”

“Let me just walk you back to your van, Wes,” Mac said, interrupting again and bustling past Zan to link arms with the older guy. She chattered away at him as she drew him off the porch and back to his vehicle.

Bemused, Zan watched the show, wondering just what had prompted her need to hurry the courier on his way. When she jogged back up the steps as the van drove off, he studied her face. Once upon a time he would have known every expression. Or, more likely, once upon a time she'd been much easier to read.

He sighed. “You really did grow up, didn't you?”

“We haven't all been here, in stasis, just waiting for your return, Zan.”

God, had that been his expectation? “That would make me an arrogant SOB, wouldn't it?” Then he held up a hand. “Don't answer—instead, tell me more about the adult Mackenzie Marie.”

“She still hates when you call her that,” she said with a little smile.

He tugged on the ends of her hair as if she were ten. “Tough.”

“What about that tour?” she asked.

Remembering that had been his earlier intent, he led the way up the stairs, opening doors of unused rooms and pointing out the shelves of books that would have to be packed up, the closets that were jammed with who-knew-what, the neglected baseboards and the cobwebs taking over the corners.

In a third-floor space, they passed a narrow mattress set on an iron bed and covered with a faded quilt on their way to the set of mullioned windows that provided light and a spectacular view of distant mountains.

Mac stared through them for a long moment. “This is a room for daydreams,” she mused and drew a fingertip over the glass, tracing a design in the accumulated dust.

“What are yours?” Zan asked, studying her profile. God, she was beautiful. That hadn't changed.

“You remember my snake charmer ambitions.”

He shook his head. “I mean now.”

She continued to draw designs. “I don't have any.”

“No?” He tucked her hair around her ear so she couldn't hide behind it. “I find that hard to believe.”

At his touch, she'd stilled. Now she dropped her hand, though her gaze continued to focus on the distance. “Poppy's our dreamer these days. Not that she wasn't always, of course, but she's got this vision for the cabins, and one by one Shay and then Brett have adopted it as their own.”

Oh, hell. Zan sucked in a deep breath. “You don't see it as they do?”

She shrugged. “It's hard to make a go of any business. But Poppy is really bent on this new income stream for the family.”

“Excuse me...” He cleared his throat. “But, um, I get the impression that Poppy and Shay... Well, the men they're marrying look to have plenty of money.”

She turned her head and just stared at him.

“I don't mean to imply they're
marrying
for money—”

“This is about the
Walkers
. A
Walker
business on the last of the
Walker
land.”

A
Walker
business on the last of the
Walker
land.
Zan was hip-deep in muck now. There was no way he couldn't tell her. Putting it off another moment would only submerge him completely in shit.

Reaching out, he took her hands in his and turned her toward him. “Mac, honey.”

She tried tugging free. “Show me the rest of the house.”

“Not yet,” he said, then hesitated. “Mac, we need to talk.”

Her face took on a pinched expression. “The last time you said that to me, you told me you were leaving the very next day.”

He looked away, closing his eyes as he remembered making that decision. Until there was less than twenty-four hours left for them to be together, he hadn't let her know his flight was booked, his plans ironclad.

At the time, he'd told himself it would make leaving easier on her if it wasn't drawn out. Now he wondered if it hadn't been for him. If given more time to look into her tear-drenched eyes, he would never have left at all.

But going...that had seemed an imperative.

As was this conversation.

Unwilling to put it off even as long as it would take to get downstairs, he guided her over to the small bed and pulled her down to sit beside him.

“You're scaring me, Zan,” she said and yanked her hands from his to twist her fingers together in her lap. “Did you...” Her throat moved as she swallowed, hard. “Did you come home to die?”

“What?” He stared at her. “
No.
Where'd you get that idea?”

Her laugh was shaky. “Sorry. It was just something ridiculous that Poppy said. I guess it stuck in my head.”

“About Poppy...”

Mac's brows came together over her small, straight nose. “About Poppy...?”

Crap. Was there any way to soften this? “I met with my grandfather's attorney this morning. We went over everything.”

She was still frowning. “Everything?”

“It was all left to me. His estate. His holdings. The whole wad, including cash and properties.”

“You told us that at Oscar's the other morning.”

“Yeah. Right.” He grabbed her entwined hands and cupped them in his. “God, Mac, how I wish I didn't have to tell you this.”

“All those years ago...” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “You said those exact words, too.”

Then, the color had drained from her cheeks, leaving her mouth pink and her eyes a blue that was drowned in tears. His gut tightening, he brought her fingers to his mouth and brushed his lips over her knuckles. “Here's the thing, Mac. My grandfather...it turns out he owns the Walker land.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“I found out today my grandfather owns the Walker land,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes.

She blinked again. “The mountaintop? Well, I guess I'm not unhappy about that. It's good to know it's no longer in Victor Fremont's evil clutches.”

Zan nodded. “The mountaintop he did get from Fremont. Apparently he gave him an offer he couldn't refuse.” Then he pulled in a long breath. “But...but my grandfather also ended up with the rest of it, Mac. It started with an agreement your dad made with him years ago.”

Her body froze. “An agreement...?”

“The other parcel, Mac.” He squeezed her cold hands in his. “The cabins parcel.”

“The cabins parcel,” she repeated, as if she needed to say it to absorb the truth.

“I can lay it all out for you,” Zan said. “Show you the paperwork.”

“Dad was terrible about that kind of thing—paperwork.” Her voice sounded wooden and her words came out slowly. “Brett's been complaining about it for years. So many things we couldn't find.”

“I suspect some of what came about was because my grandfather was actually trying to do your family a favor—at least that's what the lawyer believes. To be honest, it's complicated and intentions have been lost in the fog of time and because the principals have all now passed on—including the original attorney. I'm working with his grandson.”

She frowned. “This isn't making sense. I know we've been paying the property taxes.”

“Yes,” Zan said. “Originally, my grandfather loaned your father money, using that land as collateral on the loan. Your family held on to the deed and your dad paid the annual property taxes as well as a small amount against the loan to my grandfather each month.”

“A small amount,” Mac repeated.

“It wasn't very much,” he admitted. “And before your dad died—what was it, about eleven, twelve years ago?—he'd already missed a big balloon payment that was part of the deal. The loan was a couple of years in arrears at the time of his death.”

She rubbed at her forehead. “Why didn't we know about this?”

“My grandfather either forgot about the loan or opted not to call the note—and I'm guessing the latter—maybe because your father and then your mother passed away and also maybe because of my longstanding friendship with your family. I think he might very well have considered that money a gift and didn't mean there to ever be a transfer of the property.”

“But we hardly knew him.”

Zan shrugged again. “Anyway, it boils down to this. Because he didn't clear up the situation before he died, we don't have any choices. The estate must be settled. Due to that missed balloon payment, the property rights have legally been reverted and will be recorded at the county to show that the parcel...belongs to me.”

“To you.” She pulled her hands from his again. “Really?
Really?
The last of the Walker land belongs to
you
?”

Watching her closely, he nodded.

A beat passed, and then she fell back on the mattress, threw her forearm over her eyes and...

Laughed.

Right away, Zan knew there was no humor in the sound. It was a wretched noise, as miserable as the sobs she'd let loose all those years ago when he'd told her he was going down the hill.

Feeling like shit, he could only watch as her shoulders shook with more bleak laughter. When it finally petered out, however, he only found the ensuing silence more unnerving.

“Mac...” he started, wondering what the hell he could say.

Her body jerked back to a sitting position and she looked at him, dry-eyed and lioness-fierce. “This is how it's going to go.”

“How?” he asked, cautious.

“You can't tell anyone else.”

“Mac—”

“Not yet, I mean.” She bit her lower lip so hard it flooded with color and she grabbed his forearm in a tight grip. “Poppy... We have Shay's wedding and then hers in less than a month. The cabins have been Poppy's project for so long, and it would take some shine out of her if she finds out before she marries.”

“Mac—”

“Poppy's got to shine, Zan,” Mac insisted, her fingers clutching him harder and shaking him a little. “On her wedding day,
Poppy's got to shine
.”

“Okay.” The frantic note in her voice stabbed at him. He'd talked to the lawyer. Surely that particular red tape could be left untended for a few more weeks. “Okay.”

“You mean it?”

He swept her hair from her forehead with his free hand. “Yes, baby. Yes.” Mac's urgency bothered him, but he had no trouble agreeing. It would have to be sorted out sooner than later, but no way wouldn't he give her this.

“You promise?” she asked, her gaze roaming his face as if to assess his truthfulness.

It killed that she'd doubt him for a second. “I promise, sweetheart. Of course I promise.”

Then she dropped his arm and flopped back to the mattress, as if emotion had wrung the bones and muscle right out of her. His heart moved in his chest. Lying down beside her, he tried gathering her in his arms.

She resisted, pushing him away, which reminded him again of that day he'd told her he was leaving and how she'd fought against his offer of comfort. Now, like then, he brought her back, three times, until her energy seemed depleted. Her head dropped to his chest and he palmed the back of her silky hair. They breathed together.