Run to Me

Chapter 3

The night air was still warm, fragrant with pine when Mac arrived at eight-thirty. Erin felt more than a little awkward when he knocked and waited to be admitted into his own home. Or maybe she was uneasy because darkness was falling, Christie was already asleep…and the last look they’d shared had been laced with tension. She mentioned her initial reservation as Mac walked inside.

His boots thudded softly as he crossed the large circular rug on the hardwood floor. “For the time being, this is your home,” he answered. “I’d never invade your privacy by just walking in.” He glanced around as he stepped into the office off the foyer and clicked on the small gooseneck lamp atop the computer desk. “Is Christie asleep?”

“Yes. She crashed around seven-thirty.”

“How does she like her bed?”

“She loves it—but she’s not in it.”

“No?”

She watched him frown at the collection of boxes he’d shuttled from the spare room to this one. Then, digging in, he moved a maple chair to the computer area and began stacking the boxes in the far corner of the room. Every movement showcased the powerful flex and play of his back muscles through his white polo shirt.

Erin gave herself a mental shake and answered his question. “She has fun lining up her dollies and stuffed animals on it for their naps, but I think she feels more secure sleeping with me right now. She’ll adjust. She always does.”

Mac slanted her another of those critical looks, then left the pile of boxes to turn on his computer. He motioned Erin into the office chair while he pulled the spare maple one close. Tiny blips of excitement danced along her nerve endings as he dragged his chair even closer, and the shifting air carried a scent to her that was part fresh citrus and all musky man.

“It’s pretty standard,” he said. A dozen bright icons appeared on the monitor. “Click on the telephone icon to connect to the Internet, then when the search engine comes up, you’ll see another icon on the task bar. Click on the little mailbox, and you’re in.” He paused. “Go ahead.”

When his e-mail page came up, he reached across her, the dark hair on his forearm brushing her arm. With a few quick keystrokes, he entered his password and set the computer to remember it. Then he sank back in his chair. “Okay, my password’s saved, now you can use it whenever you want. All I ask is that you use the start button to park it before you shut it off.”

“I will. That’s the way my laptop’s set up, too. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Do you want to post a message now?”

She shook her head. No, she wanted to write to Lynn, but she didn’t want him anywhere in the vicinity when she did it. She needed privacy when she contacted people from her past. She was fairly certain she could contact Lynn safely using Mac’s e-mail address. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll do it later.”

“Sure.” With a few more keystrokes, he shut it down, then turned to her as if to say something more. Erin felt her pulse quicken as their gazes locked and the temperature in the small, intimately lit room inched up several degrees.

Abruptly she pushed to her feet. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t sure what was going through his mind, but she knew what was happening in hers, and it was dangerous to remain sitting here. But while putting some distance between them was the best solution, she couldn’t ask him to leave his own home. “I made a cinnamon coffee cake earlier if you’d like to have a slice.” At least that would move them to the kitchen table where the lights were brighter, and they’d be sitting a respectable distance from each other.

The look in Mac’s dark eyes told her that he’d sensed the change in temperature, too. “Coffee cake?” he repeated, slowly coming to his feet, too, and towering over her.

She nodded. “My thank-yous were getting repetitive, so I thought I’d express my gratitude with food. There’s fresh decaf to go with it. If you want.”

Abruptly, Erin shook her head in frustration. “I’m sorry. I’m not doing this very well. I seem to be playing hostess, but this is your home and I—” She pressed a finger to her lips, then removed it. “I’m just not sure what the protocol is at this point.”

“I’ve already told you, for now, it’s your home. Tell you what. If you’ll stop feeling uncomfortable about living here, I won’t feel uncomfortable if I have to get something from my rooms or check my own e-mail.” He smiled a little as he headed for the door. “As for the coffee cake, I know I’ll be sorry, but I have to pass. As I said earlier, I don’t like leaving Amos unattended for long periods of time. My not being here this morning when you arrived was a fluke. I got a call and had to take care of something at the store.”

“Of course,” she murmured, following and still embarrassed, hoping he didn’t think she’d been offering more than cake. “I’ll bring it to the house tomorrow morning and you can both enjoy it.”

“Sounds good,” he said, stepping out on the porch. “Thanks.”

It was fully dark now, a few stars and a sliver of moon shining through the thick pines, but light from inside spilled through the windows. Mac paused beside the door, his expression troubled.

“There was something else I wanted to talk to you about tonight. Amos’s PT.”

Concerned, Erin stepped out on the porch, too. “I asked him how it went, and he said it was fine—that he’s getting stronger every day.”

A skeptical tone entered his voice. “He also told you that we fired the first housekeeper because she was interested in more than doing laundry and baking cookies.”

“And you said that wasn’t true. Why was she let go?”

He considered the question for a long moment before he answered. “One night Amos had to use the bathroom during the wee hours, and she made him feel ashamed for needing her help. Sometimes it takes him a while to get his bad leg moving—it stiffens on him. He was depressed for days afterward because he couldn’t handle a simple thing like using the toilet on his own.”

Erin felt a rush of sympathy. “Oh, Mac, how awful for him.”

“Yeah. It meant a lot when you said you wouldn’t have a problem with that sort of thing.”

It had? At the time, he’d barely acknowledged her statement. “What about his physical therapy? Isn’t it going well?”

“It is, and it isn’t. He’s getting better—and he wants to get better. But he’s not doing the exercises Vicki gives him as often as he should. It’s slowing his recovery.”

“How can I help?”

Mac released a burdened breath. “I can’t tell you how much I hoped you’d say that. The exercises she gives him can easily be done while he’s lying on his bed or sitting watching TV—exercises to strengthen his leg. Having said that, he’s also getting too fond of his recliner. We need to get him up and moving.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” she replied decisively.

He wasn’t convinced. “It won’t be easy. He’s a world-class crab when he’s forced to do anything. He climbs all over me when I suggest it.”

“Then Christie and I will make it so much fun, he won’t mind.”

Mac cocked his head, obviously amused. “Forgive me, but how do you propose to do that?”

Erin smiled, feeling a sudden kinship with the tall man looming over her. Dealing with Amos would be like dealing with Christie. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d had to improvise to get some cooperation from her. “I don’t know yet. This is still new territory. But we’ll think of something.”

“Understand, I’m not asking for miracles—and of course, we’ll increase your pay.”

“Don’t do that. Helping him exercise will make me feel a little less like I’m taking advantage of your hospitality. Believe me, I’m getting a lot more out of this arrangement than you are.”

“No more than anyone else we would have hired.”

That wasn’t so, but she could hardly explain. She didn’t know him well enough to explain. She would never know him well enough. Suddenly that made her a little sad.

“You know,” he murmured, “I had my doubts about you when I saw how young you were. I wanted someone older. Someone we knew.” The night song of the crickets played in the darkness, wrapping them in another kind of intimacy, an intimacy that was somehow more potent. “I figured you’d be just one more woman who needed a job and phoned it in.”

“I’d never do that.”

He nodded as though he knew that now. Then he paused, reached out…and stroked her face.

Erin stood breathlessly as his index finger trailed down the slope of her cheek to her chin. It was the gentlest of touches. It was no more than a whisper against her skin, and it was hypnotic because she’d never been touched so tenderly before. Her nerve endings thrummed as he tipped her face up to his.

“You honestly care about people, don’t you?”

“I try,” she whispered, knowing this was inappropriate, yet unwilling to stop it. He was good and decent and so toe-curlingly sexy and attractive…and it had been so long since a man had shown any interest in her as a woman. So long since she’d wanted any man to show interest.

Mac’s head dipped slowly and surely toward hers, his voice taking on a husky rasp, his warm breath bathing her lips. “You can’t imagine how refreshing that is, Terri.”

The crash of a thousand cymbals couldn’t have jolted her more.

Erin backpedaled away, her pulse and heartbeat banging triple time. She wanted to say something, but suddenly, didn’t know what it was. Was there a correct thing to say at a time like this? Apparently not, because her lips weren’t moving and not a sound was coming from her throat.

Mac swore beneath his breath and expelled a ragged blast of air. “Well,” he said with obvious self-loathing, “that wasn’t the brightest thing I’ve ever done. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She did. It was the same thing she’d been thinking. “There’s no need to apologize,” she managed, working to bring her popping nerve endings under control. “Nothing happened.”

“No?”

Yes, it had. But confessing that she’d wanted that kiss, too, was begging for trouble. Worse, if he hadn’t called her Terri just then, she might have let him do a whole lot more—and that was a staggering realization for a woman who’d come to dread sexual contact.

“Okay,” she amended, “gratitude happened. You needed to talk about your granddad’s illness, and I was a convenient sounding board who said what you needed to hear. Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was stronger now, but a jittery warmth still pinged through her bloodstream. “Good night. And thanks again for letting me use your computer. I promise not to blow it up.”

The moon was a faint light, but she could still see relief in his eyes, hear it in his voice. “If you blow it up, we’ll get it fixed. See you in the morning.”

“We’ll be there at eight.”

Mac stalked back to the house, thoroughly fed up with himself. Good God, where was his mind? She was Amos’s housekeeper, not a woman they’d brought in for his use! He checked on Amos, then strode down the sloping hill to the barn, his nerve endings still bouncing around like jumping beans. He’d groom Pike. He needed to do something to work off his tension, and cold showers sure as hell didn’t turn him on—or off.

Clicking on the light in the tack room, he grabbed a brush and currycomb, and a moment later was murmuring to the horse and taking the comb through Pike’s tangled mane. The gelding bumped a nose at him—probably to tell him it was almost nine-thirty, and the rest of High Hawk had retired to their TV sets or beds by now.

“Yeah, I know,” Mac grumbled, stroking the chestnut’s white blaze. “But I won’t be hitting the hay anytime soon. Mind keeping me company for a while?” The horse nosed into his hand again. “Good. Then let’s get you spruced up. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Unfortunately, as he combed and smoothed, his thoughts were elsewhere. He couldn’t get those darkblue eyes out of his mind, or that hair she insisted on tying back tight to her head. It was beautiful hair…hair that should be hanging loose around her face. Hair that would feel like silk against a man’s chest.

He scowled as his libido got squarely behind that thought and started a new response south of his belt buckle. He hadn’t felt a gut-gnawing attraction like this since Audra. Half of the free world knew what a colossal mistake that had been. But early on, he’d been so blinded by her wide smiles and teasing eyes that he couldn’t see how different they were. Way too different for the “opposites attract” thing to work. And who in hell ever decided that having absolutely nothing in common was a sure path to falling in love and staying there?

But he had loved her. Deeply. Madly. Stupidly.

Pike shifted and stomped in his stall, and Mac realized the grooming process had gotten more energetic than he’d intended. “Sorry, boy,” he muttered. “It’ll be just another minute, then I’ll go bug Gypsy and Jett, and let you get some shut-eye. One of us should sleep tonight.” And he doubted it’d be him.

A half hour later Mac trudged up the stairs to his room, grabbed a pair of running shorts, then retraced his steps. He’d shower in the new bathroom, the one off the laundry room he’d had installed while Amos was in rehab. The upstairs pipes rattled, and he didn’t want to wake Amos.

Only the glow from a night-light shone through the partially open doorway. Mac entered, flicked on the overhead light…and stared.

He would never get used to seeing the grab bars and supports around the tub and toilet, or the long bar against the wall. Ditto the shower curtain, which provided easy access instead of the glass doors Mac had originally suggested. For some reason, tonight it all made him feel lousier than usual.

Stripping, feeling his mood plummet, he turned on the water, waited a few seconds, then stepped inside.

Dammit, the strong man who’d raised him was getting old. Amos, who’d taught him to ride bareback and shown him how to topple paper-cup pyramids by flicking rubber bands off his fingertip.

Amos, who’d once hoisted eighty-pound feed bags with ease and now sometimes needed help getting to the bathroom.

Mac’s throat tightened as he scrubbed the soap over his chest and arms, lathering away the smell of horse-flesh, seeing his granddad as he was the day he opened his door and his arms to his daughter’s ten-year-old son. Except for college and four years in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, he’d been with Amos for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years! And his grandfather had always been as strong as an ox.

Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to see the telltale signs of aging as the years passed, or face his granddad’s mortality. Amos was all he had in the way of family, other than an aunt, uncle and a couple of cousins in Texas.

Shelving the soap, Mac braced his hands against the front wall and let the heavy spray beat his hair down to his brows. Let it beat his shoulders and back.

There was nothing like a healthy dose of reality to ground a man. Suddenly his need to jump Terri Fletcher’s pretty bones wasn’t nearly as important as it was a while ago.

Wednesday and Thursday were busy but mostly satisfying, Erin decided, because Mac made himself scarce, arriving home only an hour before she took Christie back to their quarters. He didn’t exactly ignore her, but he was distant—cordial in a stranger-to-stranger way as he discussed various local topics during dinner. His reserve didn’t include Christie, however, and he joked and played with her until she giggled uncontrollably, warming to him in a way she’d never done with Charles. And that was fine with Erin. They needed to keep their distance now that they both recognized the attraction simmering beneath their socially correct behavior.

On Friday afternoon a violent storm came out of nowhere.

“Just open them doors and move outta the way, pronto!” Amos shouted to her from the porch. “They’ll come in fast!”

“I will!” she yelled back over the howling wind and rain. Erin pulled Amos’s hooded poncho more tightly around herself and ran toward the barn, rubberized canvass flapping. The rain was coming down in sheets.

She’d been aware of the rain, but she hadn’t known it was a problem until thunder jolted Amos from his post-PT nap, and he’d sat bolt upright, insisting he had to get the horses back in the barn. “Lightning spooks ’em so bad, they’ll beat down the fences!” he’d persisted. But no way could he manage the task, so that left Erin to manage the situation. Thankfully, Christie was still napping.

A new bolt of lightning ripped and crackled through the dark thunderheads, and the earth trembled. Erin ran faster, seeing the horses now. Grouped together at the far side of the long corral, they skittered anxiously, ran in circles—whinnied and tossed their big heads.

Yanking open the barn door, she hurried inside and passed the stalls, blinking and wiping the rain from her face as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. It was only a little after four o’clock, but the weather and dense cloud cover made it look more like eight.

Striding up an aisle lined with hay bales, she spied the wide doors that opened onto the corral and rushed toward them. Lightning flashed again and lit up the barn. Fumbling with the latch, Erin threw open the double doors to the raging wind and rain, then blanched as the horses picked up the movement and, wheeling, thundered directly for her.

Heart slamming into her throat, she hugged the wall, afraid to breathe as they ran inside, the darker horse nearly losing its footing on the wet straw. Then, just as Amos said they would, they slowed, calmed and found their respective stalls.

Bracing herself, she hurried into the rain again to snatch the door rings, lost her hood in the wind, then yanked the double doors shut and relatched them. Rain still punished the shingled roof, but with the doors closed, the barn was a little quieter now.

Relieved that she hadn’t been trampled, Erin turned around.

Adrenaline jolted her as her unsuspecting gaze collided with Mac’s. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and rain streamed down his face and dripped off his chin to his soaked shirt.

“You’re drenched,” he growled, reaching overhead to click on a bare-bulb light. He whisked the rain from his face. “What in hell are you doing down here?”

She shot him an affronted look. What did he think she was doing down here? “The storm was spooking your horses. The only way I could keep your grandfather from bringing them inside—rather, attempting to bring them inside—was to do it myself.”

Mac swore, exasperated. “Where’s Christie?”

“At the house. She’s asleep on the sofa.” Erin reached beneath the poncho and plucked her baby monitor from her waistband. Toddler snores flowed from it, though they were almost drowned out by the pouring rain and the low sound of Amos’s TV program.

Then suddenly what he’d said and the critical tone he’d used pushed her annoyance to anger. “Did you think I’d leave her wandering the house alone with a man who’s recovering from a stroke? How nice. You barely speak directly to me in two days, and when you finally do, you practically accuse me of negligence.” She pushed past him. “I have to get back to her.”

“Terri, wait.” Mac grabbed her hand. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just concerned. And Amos should have realized that I’d come home and take care of the horses when I saw that a storm was brewing. They would’ve been okay until I got here.”

“He was sure they’d break through the fence or hurt themselves.”

“They would have been fine,” Mac repeated.

Erin took a few seconds to compose herself, then nodded. “All right. I’ll know that next time. And I’m sorry I overreacted about Christie, but I’d never put her at risk. She’s my whole life. Now I have to go. I don’t want her to wake up, be afraid of the storm and find me gone.”

“I’ll drive you. The truck’s right outside.”

“What about the horses? Shouldn’t you—”

“I’ll get some of the water off them after I take you back.” She felt another jolt when he reached behind her neck to pull Amos’s floppy hood up over her wet hair. “We’ll pick up Christie, then I’ll take you both down to the house so you can change. You’re soaked to the skin.”

“That’s okay. I haven’t started dinner yet.”

“We’ll order takeout.”

“Mac, I have chicken thawing.”

“It’ll keep.” With a hand on her back, he guided her to the open doors at the front of the barn. Rain was still coming down, and thunder rumbled overhead.

Something must have struck him funny then, because the skin beside his dark eyes crinkled and he started to laugh.

“What’s so entertaining?” she asked, thinking about being annoyed again.

Mac fingered her dripping hood and the long wet bangs that stuck to her forehead and sides of her face. “I was just thinking that you’ve done enough today. If you did any more, we’d have to give you hazard pay.”

Grinning, he gestured through the pounding rain to the truck he’d parked close to the doors. “Okay. Run for it, Terri Fletcher.” And suddenly she was grinning, too.