The Other Side of Us - By Sarah Mayberry Page 0,16
surprising strength. “You can’t be outside in an electrical storm. It’s dangerous.”
As if to punctuate her words, the sky split in two again, a fork of lightning spearing across the darkness. She flinched, her grip tightening.
“Inside!”
He glanced toward her porch, where water still lapped at the bottom step. If they stopped what they were doing, there was a very real chance she would be inundated.
“Don’t worry about the house,” she yelled.
He let her tow him toward the porch. She released him as they gained the shelter of the eaves and they stood side by side in the relative dry, watching the water rush down the driveway to join the miniature lake in front of them. Lightning lit the world again, a huge, jagged line that cut through the darkness, and he was suddenly glad that she’d insisted they seek cover.
“You’re insured, right?” he asked, looking at her.
She had her arms wrapped around herself, and goose bumps peppered her skin. She nodded, her face very pale.
“You’re freezing,” he said.
“So are you.”
“You should go inside.”
“And miss the floor show?”
“If it means missing out on pneumonia, sure.”
He could see her reluctance to abandon her post. He didn’t know Mackenzie from a bar of soap, but his gut told him she wasn’t the sort of woman who gave up on anything easily.
“You can’t do anything until the electrical storm passes,” he said.
Her mouth flattened into a stubborn line for a second or two, then she nodded. “Come on, then.”
He paused on the doorstep to toe off his sodden sneakers then followed her inside, Mr. Smith hard on his heels. Mackenzie stepped into the first room on the left—a home gym with some kind of specialized equipment, from the look of it—and returned with an armful of towels.
“Thanks,” he said when she offered him one.
Water pooled on the floor around him. He blotted his face and hair, then started in on his T-shirt and jeans. She did the same, briskly toweling her hair before moving on to her chest and arms.
There was an odd intimacy to the moment—the two of them alone in the narrow, dimly lit hall, tending to the needs of their bodies. It didn’t help that now they were inside he was very aware of the fact that her pale gray tank top had become semitransparent with the rain and he could see the dark shadows of her areolaes through the thin fabric. To make things worse, her nipples were hard from the cold, too, an almost irresistible combination for any self-respecting heterosexual male.
He forced his gaze away and registered the vicious-looking pink-and-red scar that ran down her left shoulder and along her upper arm to her elbow. It was so unexpected he found himself staring. He remembered the scar on her scalp and put two and two together—clearly, something very serious had happened to her. Recently, too, if the pinkness of the tissue was anything to go by.
He became aware that Mackenzie had finished drying herself and lifted his gaze to look straight into her eyes.
Busted. Big-time. Heat singed his cheeks. He tried to find the words to explain why he’d been gawking like a five-year-old, but before he could open his mouth she turned away.
“There’s brandy in the kitchen.”
She disappeared up the hallway, Mr. Smith trotting after her. Oliver followed her to an open-plan kitchen/living room at the rear of the house. He saw that she’d draped her towel around her shoulders, effectively covering her injury. Between avoiding ogling her breasts and getting busted ogling her scar, he was feeling more than a little awkward, so he made a big deal out of checking out the room while racking his brain for something to say.
The kitchen was white and modern and pristine, the furniture in the living area a mixture of creams and whites and raw wood. Only the stack of magazines on the coffee table and the vase of half-dead flowers on the mantel saved it from being magazine-shoot perfect.
“This is nice. Much better than Aunt Marion’s place,” he said.
She opened a cupboard and pulled out two tumblers. “Scotch or brandy?”
He didn’t drink either, but if ever an occasion called for the lubricating effects of alcohol, this was it.
“Scotch, thanks.”
She poured a generous amount into each glass then handed one to him.
“Thanks for your help. I appreciate it,” she said, lifting her glass to him in an informal toast. “Above and beyond the call of duty, especially since we hardly know each other.”