The Other Side of Us - By Sarah Mayberry Page 0,88
prefer to drop that kind of money on a 1959 Les Paul standard guitar—but he was man enough to feel a twinge of envy as they approached the Ferrari. Sleek and low, it looked as though it could break the sound barrier and then some.
“Does he often show up like this?” he asked.
“Patrick isn’t big on planning. So, yes. He probably woke up this morning and remembered I existed and decided he must see me right now, this second, for whatever reason.”
Mackenzie sounded more amused than annoyed, as though she’d long ago reconciled herself to her ex’s peccadilloes.
Oliver stopped at the top of Mackenzie’s driveway. She came to a halt also, throwing him a questioning look.
“You don’t need me hanging around, getting in the way,” Oliver said.
He did his best to sound casual, as though her ex-husband dropping into her life unexpectedly wasn’t a big deal to him, because he knew it shouldn’t be. But the truth was that he was feeling more than a little rattled.
He knew she had a life beyond the cottage and Mr. Smith and the time they spent together, in the same way that he had a life that involved the studio and all the other elements that made up his day-to-day. But until this moment that other life hadn’t seemed real to him. Mackenzie had seemed utterly his, accessible and attainable, their relationship a clean and simple meeting of minds and hearts. They’d been living in a cozy little bubble, sharing their beds and cooking meals together and monopolizing each other’s time and energy.
And now the real world had intruded, in the form of a Ferrari-driving ex-husband.
“You don’t need to disappear because Patrick is here. We’re not changing our plans to accommodate him.”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think he’ll be thrilled to sit around drinking hot chocolate with some strange dude from next door after driving all this way to see you,” he said.
“Mackenzie. Thank God. I was about to call the police and tell them to launch a search party.”
Oliver turned to see a tall, dark-haired man striding toward them, a broad smile on his face. For a moment he didn’t quite believe what his eyes were telling him, because the blue-eyed, ruggedly handsome man bearing down on them had twice been voted Australia’s most popular actor and could usually be found smiling from the magazine racks at the supermarket.
Not once in any of the conversations he’d had with Mackenzie had she mentioned the fact that her ex was the television actor Patrick Langtry. She’d simply referred to him as Patrick.
“I checked around the back, just in case you’d fallen down an old mine shaft or into a wormhole to another dimension or something,” Patrick said as he covered the final few feet.
“Patrick—”
Mackenzie barely got the word out before she was scooped into a bear hug, her face crushed against her ex-husband’s shoulder. Patrick loosened his grip enough to drop a kiss onto her mouth before letting her go again.
“You look great, Mac. Really fantastic. My God, when I think of how you were last time I saw you... Those doctors are miracle workers,” Patrick said.
Oliver shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. It was either that, or give in to the need to reach out and forcibly move the other man back a foot or so out of Mackenzie’s personal space.
“Can I talk now? Is it safe?” Mackenzie said, her expression wry.
“Go right ahead,” Patrick said easily.
Mackenzie gestured toward Oliver. “First off, this is my friend Oliver. Oliver, this is Patrick. He doesn’t usually talk quite this much but I’m guessing he’s had too many coffees on the road here.”
“Three. But who’s counting? Good to meet you, Oliver.”
Oliver found himself the focus of Langtry’s intense pale blue gaze as they shook hands.
“Yeah, you, too.”
“You a local, Oliver, or down here visiting with Mac?” Patrick asked.
“Patrick. Does the phrase ‘none of your business’ mean anything to you?” Mackenzie said.
Again, she seemed more amused than irritated.
“What? I’m being polite. Making conversation,” Patrick said, smiling and shrugging helplessly as though he had no idea what he’d done wrong.
“Oliver is here from Sydney to sort out his aunt’s estate,” Mackenzie said.
“Not Marion? When did she go?” Patrick appeared genuinely dismayed.
Oliver felt an unreasonable niggle of irritation that not only did this handsome, charismatic guy feel free to kiss and manhandle Mackenzie and call her Mac, but he also knew Marion.
“She died at Easter last year,” Oliver said. “Pneumonia.”