“You know it’s the truth,” Max pouted back at her husband. “And Keiley knows it as well. Delia would do anything for a chance to get in Mac’s bed.” She turned to Mac. “Why didn’t you just give her some before you left town fifteen years ago instead of leaving her in suspense?”
Joe lowered his head and shook it, helpless as his shoulders shook in silent laughter.
Mac stared back at her with brooding mockery. “And how would that have helped me?”
“Well.” Max waved her hand blithely. “We all know how inexperienced eighteen-year-old jackasses are. She would have never looked at you twice when you came back.”
“Max,” Joe groaned in protest.
“Joe, you’re lucky someone didn’t steal your wife away before you ever moved back here and rescued the rest of the male population,” Mac laughed.
“I’m lucky someone didn’t kill her,” Joe grunted, though his expression was filled with pride, his eyes alight with love when he looked at her. “Come on, wildcat. Let’s do as Mac suggests and get out of here.”
“You have to be at tomorrow night’s meeting,” Max all but ordered Keiley, rising from her chair and pinning her with an eagle stare. “Other people will end up coming out here to check on you if you don’t. I was just elected as the advanced strike.”
Keiley looked back at her in surprise.
“Honey, you have friends here.” Max shook her head at Keiley’s surprise. “More friends than you know. I’ve had five phone calls since you missed that meeting, and one came from the old dragon lady Victoria Staten herself. And trust me, she doesn’t normally call and check on anyone.”
“I’ll be there,” Keiley promised, rising to her feet as Max moved around the table. “And you take care yourself.”
As their goodbyes were said and Keiley accepted a fierce hug from her friend, she stood back while Mac led the couple to the door and walked to the car with them.
Behind her, she felt Jethro, far enough away for decency’s sake, near enough to remind her of the warmth and strength of his body.
“I’m going to have to go to that damned meeting,” she muttered. “I really don’t want to have put up with Delia Staten this week.”
She was still too raw, too aware of the truth behind the gossip. She would have much preferred to hide in the house and pretend that the world outside had ceased to exist.
“You can’t hide forever.”
Keiley swung around, meeting his dark blue eyes, seeing the fall of his black hair over his brow and the wicked, sensual dip of his thick lashes over his brilliant eyes.
She pushed her hands into the pockets of her shorts before moving around him and heading back to the kitchen. “I’m not in the mood to argue with you. I’ve already been there with Mac and once a day is enough.”
“Keiley, am I hurting you?”
She turned back to him quickly. He stood framed in the doorway, watching her with an assessing gaze, his expression cool, almost forbidding.
“Do you want to hurt me, Jethro?”
“I don’t want to hurt you. If it’s hurting you, I’ll leave.”
“You’re not hurting me.” Confusing her. Making her question herself. But it wasn’t pain. She wondered if the pain would come if he left, though.
“I need to go back to work.” She shook her head as he stepped closer. “I just need to get away from you and Mac. Just for a little while. Just—just for a while.”
16
The next day Keiley sat in the garage, stretched out on the old sofa she and Mac had discarded the year before, and worked on the data program she was still tweaking on Mac’s laptop.
She could have worked more much effectively in her office, but Mac refused to allow her to work there alone, and he and Jethro were busy “sparring.” It looked more like they were busy trying to kill each other.
Wearing only a few pads at elbows and knees and lightly padded headgear, they went at each other with fists, kicks, and heavy male grunts in the center of the thick mat Mac had unrolled across the cement floor.
She winced as Mac landed a hard blow to Jethro’s gut, then closed her eyes as Jethro landed a double-fisted blow to Mac’s back that nearly took him to the floor.
That had been going at it for over an hour, with neither man appearing to get the best of the other. Mac was more muscular. The heavy farmwork he did on a daily basis had given him a solid, thickly muscled physique. Jethro was as tall, but not nearly as broad or physically strong. He made up for it with speed and adaptability. Not to mention striking with carefully aimed blows for the weakest parts of Mac’s body.