“Like you needed another two last summer so you and El could have a week at the beach? And—”
Linda burst into tears again. This time Mac didn’t beat her head against the desk, but simply laid it there.
“You won’t help me? You won’t help your own mother? I suppose if they put me out on the street, you’d just look the other way. Just go on with your own life while mine’s destroyed. How can you be so selfish?”
“I’ll transfer the money into your account in the morning. Have a good trip,” she said, then hung up.
And, rising, she walked to the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of wine.
She needed a drink.
WITH HIS BRAIN NUMB FROM NEARLY TWO HOURS OF TULLE, roses, headdresses, guest lists, and God all—and his system overhyped on coffee and cookies (damn good cookies), Carter walked back to his car. He’d left it parked closer to Mac’s studio than the main house. Because of that geographical choice, he’d been given the assignment of dropping off a package that had been delivered to the main by mistake.
As he carted it under his arm, the first thin flakes of snow began to swirl. He needed to get home, he thought. He had to finish a lesson plan and fine-tune a pop quiz he planned to spring at the end of the week.
He wanted his books, and the quiet. The afternoon of estrogen, sugar, and caffeine had worn him out. Plus his head hurt again.
The snow and the house brought gloom, enough to have the path lights along the walk glow on. Yet, he noted, none glowed in Mackensie’s studio.
She could’ve gone out, he mused, be taking a nap, be walking around half naked again. He considered just propping the package against the front door, but it didn’t seem responsible. Added to that, the package served as the perfect excuse to see her again—and reexplore the secret crush he’d had on her when he’d been seventeen.
So he knocked, shifted the package, waited.
She opened the door, fully dressed, which brought both relief and disappointment. In the dim light she stood, a glass of wine in one hand, her other braced on the door.
“Ah, Parker asked if I’d bring this over on my way out. I just—”
“Good, fine. Come on in.”
“I was just—”
“Have some wine.”
“I’m driving so—” But she was already walking away—that way she did, he noted, that was a kind of gliding, sexy stride.
“I’m having some, as you can plainly see.” She got down another glass, poured generously. “You don’t want me drinking alone, right?”
“Apparently I’m too late for that.”
With a laugh, she pushed the glass into his hand. “So, catch up. I’ve only had two. No, three. I believe I’ve had three.”
“Uh-huh. Well.” Unless he was mistaken, there was anger and upset under the three-glass buzz. Instead of drinking, he reached over to turn on the kitchen light. “Dark in here.”
“I guess. You were nice with your sister today. Some families are nice. I observe and so I note. I recall yours being. Didn’t know you and Sherry all that well, but I recall. Nice family. Mine sucks.”
“Okay.”
“Y’know why? Lemme tell you why. You got a sister, right?”
“I do. In fact, I have two. Maybe we should sit down.”
“Two, yeah, yeah. Older sister, too. I never met her. So two sibs. Me? I’ve got one, comprised of two halves. A half sister, a half brother—from each parent—which could be smooshed together into one sib. This is not to count the number of steps I’ve had throughout. I’ve lost track there. They come and go, go and come, as my parents marry willy-nilly.” She took a glug of wine. “Bet you had a big-ass family Christmas thing, huh?”
“Ah, yes, we—”
“Know what I did?”
Okay, he got it. It wasn’t a conversation. He was a sounding board. “No.”
“As my father is . . . somewhere. It might be Vail,” she considered with a frown, “or possibly Switzerland, with his third wife and their son, he wasn’t a factor. However, he did send me a ridiculously expensive bracelet, which did not come from guilt or particularly paternal devotion, of which he has neither. But from the fact that as a trust fund baby he’s just careless with money.”
She stopped, forehead furrowing, and drank some more. “Where was I?”
“Christmas.”
“Right, right. Family Christmas as applies to me. I paid the courtesy call on my mother and Eloisa—that’s the half sister—on the twenty-third, because none of us were the