The Other Side of Us - By Sarah Mayberry Page 0,48
of her head. This scar had enabled the surgeons to repair her fractured skull and stop her brain from swelling and damaging itself. Without it, she would be lost. Pure and simple, the best part of herself—the very essence of Mackenzie Williams—damaged beyond recognition or recall.
She let her hands rest on her belly again, palms flat. Probably it was only human to be self-conscious about the changes her injuries had wrought in her body. After all, most women had been trained and indoctrinated from a young age to find fault with their own appearance. It was practically a national pastime. But she’d worked hard for this body. She’d fought alongside the doctors to keep it alive. She’d struggled against pain and expectation to become strong again. She’d survived and thrived in this body, and she refused to be ashamed of it.
A surge of defiance curled her hands into fists. If she wound up getting naked with Oliver and he balked at her scars, then so be it. He would have revealed something about himself that it would be important and good to know before she made the mistake of allowing him inside her body. And if he didn’t...well, she’d cheated them both out of what had promised to be an amazing experience when she ran away from him tonight.
Next time, she promised herself. The next time Oliver kissed her, she would hang on to the pleasure and push away her doubts and insecurities. She would see this thing through.
Except, of course, that Oliver is about as likely to kiss you again as fly to the moon on the back of a winged pig.
She closed her eyes as she remembered the expression on his face after she’d retreated from him. A man would have to be pretty damned insensitive or just plain deluded to risk that kind of rejection again—and Oliver was neither of those things.
Which meant if she was ever going to kiss him again, she would have to be the one to initiate it.
She made a sound in the back of her throat. As much as it ran against the grain to admit it, the thought of taking the initiative with Oliver, of being the aggressor, made her feel dizzy with anxiety.
She stared at the ceiling, momentarily filled with despair. Not so long ago, making a move on a man like Oliver would have been an exciting challenge. Right now, it seemed scary and fraught with peril. Everything after the accident had been hard, but she hadn’t expected sex and desire and romance to fall under that heading. Perhaps stupidly, she’d assumed that that part of her life would work as it always had. She was nearly forty, after all. Hardly an ingenue.
Maybe it really is a case of simply not being ready. Maybe you need to give yourself a break. Maybe being nervous and scared and self-conscious is only a stage you need to go through, like all the other stages of rehab.
She sighed and rolled onto her belly. Sometimes, the sensible voice in her head was simply too damn cool and rational and pragmatic.
Burrowing her head into the pillow, she closed her eyes and once again sought the oblivion of sleep.
* * *
OLIVER WOKE with the knowledge that he needed to apologize to Mackenzie at the top of his mind. For five minutes he lay in bed constructing the right words and phrases in his head, then he rose and headed for the shower. The sooner he got his self-appointed mission out of the way, the better.
It wasn’t until he was dressed and in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil that he registered it was still dark outside.
He checked his phone. It was barely six o’clock. Awesome. Now he would have to cool his heels for a couple of hours while he waited for a more civilized time to call on his neighbor.
“Come on, Strudel,” he said, grabbing the flashlight from his tool kit and heading for the back door.
He strode through frost-damp grass to the shed and tucked the flashlight under his arm while he struggled with the lock. It gave grudgingly and he opened the door and played the beam around the dusty interior. He immediately realized how futile his task was—there was no way he could effectively sort through the dark, overcrowded space with only the aid of a flashlight. He’d have to wait until daylight and bring each piece out onto the lawn to assess it properly.