The Other Side of Us - By Sarah Mayberry Page 0,95
too much pent-up emotion pushed down inside him. Too much ugliness. He was nowhere near ready to trust again. Nowhere near ready to place his heart and happiness in the hands of another human being. Even if that person was Mackenzie, whom he admired and loved and desired.
Maybe especially if it was her, because if she failed him, if she was even now lying sated in her ex-husband’s arms...Oliver couldn’t guarantee his own sanity. He really couldn’t.
He didn’t have it in him to risk that kind of betrayal and unhappiness again. Not at the moment. Maybe that made him a coward of the highest order, but so be it.
He turned away from the window and walked to the kitchen. Even though he’d put the fire screen in place, he wanted to be sure the fire was out so he poured a jug of water onto the ashes. Smoke and steam billowed up the chimney. Once he was satisfied that the fire was extinguished, he went to the bedroom and packed his bag. It didn’t take long, no more than ten minutes. It took a little longer to collect his tools from around the house, but within half an hour he’d checked the shed, locked the back door and the windows and loaded the car. His mind carefully, thankfully blank, he ushered Strudel into the backseat, then went to secure the front door.
The car engine sounded loud in the stillness of the early hours. He reversed into the street and drove away, not once looking back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MACKENZIE WASN’T SURE what woke her. A sound out in the street, maybe Mr. Smith moving around out in the hallway. She sat up in bed, blinking in the darkness. Only then did she register the dark outline of a figure in her bedroom doorway.
“It’s just me,” Patrick said. “It’s bloody cold out on the couch.”
“Then grab another blanket from the hall cupboard. You know where they are.”
“I was thinking I could maybe get in with you. Share some body heat.”
She didn’t need to see his face to know that he was wearing his winsome, cheeky little-boy-lost expression. She wasn’t exactly surprised by his approach. She’d been expecting it from the moment he’d pointed out that he’d drunk too much wine with dinner to be safe driving home.
“As if, Patrick.” She didn’t bother hiding her exasperation.
“We’ll just spoon, I swear. I know you’ve got something going on with what’s-his-name next door.”
“Go spoon with Smitty on the couch. He’s good at the kind of spooning you’re talking about, by all accounts.”
She waited for him to go, but instead he entered the room. The bed sank as he sat on the corner.
She sighed heavily and reached out to flick on the bedside light.
He was wearing nothing but his jeans, the fly wide-open, his hair mussed and endearingly ruffled. His body was camera ready, with clearly defined abdominal muscles and hairless pectoral muscles.
She guessed she was supposed to be overcome by desire at the sight of his gym-honed physique. Or something like that.
She pulled the covers higher so that her shoulders were warm. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Patrick.”
“Okay. I respect that.” He studied her, his expression pensive. “I miss you, Mac. That’s really why I came down today. I wanted your advice, but I miss you.”
Not so long ago, she might have been moved by his confession, even though she understood that it came from a place of self-interest and was bound to end in nothing but unhappiness for both of them. Tonight, she felt nothing beyond a tinge of sadness that Patrick still clung to something that had never worked.
“Did you miss me when I was in hospital? When I was in rehab for all those months?” she asked.
“I know I was a shit, not coming to see you. But you have to understand, seeing you like that...it was bloody hard, Mac. I didn’t feel as though I had anything to offer you. So I stayed away, because I figured you didn’t need to take on my grief and whatever as well as your own.”
“Big of you.”
His gaze dropped to the floor. “You’re angry with me.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I am. But mostly disappointed. At the very least, I thought we cared about each other as friends.”
“We do. Jesus, there’s no one else in my life like you, Mac. You’re up there on a pedestal, all on your own.”
“And yet you couldn’t put aside your own stuff to be there