Chapter 22 Mac #2
The sharpness in Arro’s tone almost made me smile. She sounded jealous, and while I hadn’t intended to make her jealous, it did mean she still had feelings for me. And I’d take what I could get.
After updating Lachlan, I assured him, despite Arro’s quiet protests, that I would sleep on her couch. There was no way I was just sitting outside her house. I needed her close. No arguments.
We’d barely let ourselves into her bungalow when the patrol car pulled up and parked.
I went to the door and ushered the two constables inside.
They asked us questions about the incident outside the sports center, and I explained there was CCTV at the building entrance that might provide useful footage for their investigation.
“You do know this is more than likely part of a bigger investigation?” I asked.
The female constable, PC Bell, nodded. “We’ve been briefed on the situation.”
They asked a few more questions, but when they repeatedly grilled Arro about if she was sure the car had tried to reverse over me, I broke in, “She said she’s sure. And like I said, there is CCTV at the sports center. Don’t you think that’s where you should focus your time?”
The male constable threw me a look, but nodded.
Minutes later, they departed with promises to update me.
“I don’t think you did us any favors losing your patience. It isn’t like you, Mac,” Arro said behind me.
Turning from the closed front door, I shook my head. “I have no patience for the suggestion you’re not intelligent enough to know what you witnessed.”
She sighed, nodding her head. “Aye, I was seconds away from biting their heads off too.” With a shrug, she gestured to the living room. “Go sit. I’ll make us coffee and grab snacks. You must be hungry.”
As I moved into the living room, however, my ankle throbbed and my ribs hurt from the impact with the car. Limping a little, I stopped to pull up my trouser leg and have a look. My ankle was swollen.
Arro sucked in a breath, and I brought my head up. She watched me from the kitchen doorway. “Are you sure it isn’t broken?”
“I don’t think so. If it is, we’re talking about a minor fracture. Nothing to worry about.”
“Take off your shoe and sock,” she ordered, marching over to the armchair to grab its cushion. Then she piled all the sofa cushions with it at the end of the sofa. “Sit, elevate that foot.” She gestured to the plush stack. “I’ll get ice and paracetamol.”
Not one to be fussed over, I’d usually protest, especially after the mind-numbing recovery after my stabbing last year. Yet, I quite liked Arro fussing over me. I always had.
By the time she returned to the living room carrying a tray with supplies, including our coffees and snacks, I was sitting up on the couch with my legs outstretched, foot elevated on her cushion tower.
Arro tutted as she studied the red, swollen ankle before applying a tea towel filled with ice. The frigid touch to my hot skin made me involuntarily jerk.
“Okay?” She looked at me.
I stared into those stunning, pale-blue eyes and felt relief and peace settle over me. She was here, and she was safe. “It’s good, thanks.”
Something in my voice, or perhaps the way I studied her, caused a telltale flush on the crest of her cheeks, and I tried not to feel too smug about it.
Tearing her gaze from mine, she wrapped the ends of the tea towel around my ankle so the ice pressed up against the swollen area without me having to hold it.
“You’re an angel,” I said as she handed me a coffee and a wee plate of snacks.
Arro straightened and looked down at me in a way I didn’t quite understand, until suddenly, I recognized her expression.
It was a look I thought I’d never see again.
“I’m not the angel, Mackennon. You pushed me out of the way of a car tonight.
If it had hit me, I wouldn’t have been able to land like a bloody ninja like you or get out of its way fast enough when he came back.
I’d probably be dead. You saved my life. Thank you.”
Emotion clogged my throat. “You never need to thank me for that, Arro.”
She chuckled, blinking back tears. “Actually, Mackennon, anytime you save my life, I’m going to thank you. It’s just bloody polite, you know.”
Arro’s eyes lit up at the sound of my laughter, and for a moment, I felt a prickle of hope.
But as if realizing the pull between us was stronger than ever, she abruptly stopped smiling, grabbed her own coffee, and sat primly in her armchair. “I wonder what’s on telly,” she said, her voice a little too high as she reached for the remote.
ARRO
With a groan, I flipped off my duvet, threw my legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. Exhaustion clung to me as I buried my face in my hands and remembered the events of the night before.
I still couldn’t believe Mackennon had pushed me out of the way of a moving vehicle.
And since when was he Mackennon again? I scowled.
Since he saved my life.
That sort of thing softened you toward a person.
Damn the man! I could actually feel him in the house, I was so aware of his presence. It had taken ages to fall asleep because of the adrenaline, and now the morning light pouring through the crack in my curtains had woken me at the break of dawn.
Coffee.
I needed coffee.
And to check on Mac. He couldn’t have had a decent sleep on the couch. I’d told him to take one of the kids’ beds in the guest room, but he said the living room was a better central point for him to keep guard.
Hopefully, soon the whole need for a guard would be moot when they found the arsehole behind this craziness.
Glancing in my mirror to make sure I was decent, I considered changing my sleep shorts into jogging bottoms but decided if my attire made Mac uncomfortable, he’d have to deal with it. It was just a pair of shorts. And my T-shirt was decent, except for the lack of bra.
I should put on a bra.
Pee first, then bra.
That decided, I opened my bedroom door and stepped into the hall, about to cross to the bathroom when its door opened.
Mac froze at the threshold when he saw me and then relaxed. “Morning. Sleep all right?”
Of course, he was awake at the arse crack of dawn.
And he’d showered.
His hair curled by his ears, droplets dripping onto his bare shoulders into a glistening trail down his naked chest, over his hard pecs, past the three scars in his upper torso, zigzagging over his muscular abdominals before disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.
His jeans hung low enough to reveal the defined V-cut of his obliques.
The fucker.
Mac raised his arm, and I noted the towel in his hand before my gaze was drawn to his flexing biceps as he dried his hair.
The bastard.
The man was godlike in his proportions.
“Ugh!” I gestured at his body in frustration before stomping down the hallway toward the kitchen.
“Arro?” I heard him ask in confusion.
“Fucking saving my life, using my shower, walking around half-naked with a body like a cast member of bloody Magic Mike,” I muttered angrily under my breath as I clanged angrily around my kitchen.
“Eh, did I miss something?” Mac asked from the doorway.
“Put on a shirt, Mackennon,” I snapped without looking at him.
He chuckled darkly and replied, “Only if you put on a bra, Arrochar.”
Glancing sharply down at my chest, I noted my nipples poking through my T-shirt and let out a stream of murmured expletives.
Whirling around, I glowered at him and marched across the kitchen, intending to hurry past him.
But when I reached the entry to the hall, he blocked my path, maneuvering me against the wall.
I was fairly tall, but Mac still had a good eight inches over me, and I felt every one of those as he raised an arm above my head and leaned in. I smelled my shower gel on him, my shampoo in his hair. Suddenly, the idea of us sharing toiletries was intimate in a way it never had with anyone before.
My gaze drifted from his hard-earned body, past lips I could draw from memory, and up to his eyes, but I found him staring at my breasts. My nipples tightened into harder points beneath his interest.
Mac let out a grunt of masculine desire as his eyes flew to mine.
Breathing shallow, I tried to unjumble my thoughts and searched for equilibrium and rationality as part of me yelled I should stop whatever this was.
But the throb between my legs was louder, the pounding of my heart fiercer. The need coiling deep inside was very much screaming at me.
“Mackennon?” I whispered, my attention dropping to his mouth.
He raised his other hand to cup my cheek, and I tilted my head into his touch, squeezing my eyes closed at the rasp of calluses against my skin. Goose bumps prickled all over at the thought of those hands on my breasts, on my thighs, his long fingers sliding inside me—
I shook myself, pulling away from his touch. “Mac—”
His head descended for mine, his lips just brushing my mouth, when the doorbell rang through the house. Mac retreated with a muttered curse, his eyes blazing, his expression promising me this wasn’t over.
My lips tingled.
Oh, boy.
Literally saved by the bell.
“I’ll get it,” I squeaked, sliding out from between him and the wall.
But he caught my arm to halt me. “I’ll get it. You … might want to put on a bra.”
Ah, right, of course. I nodded and hurried toward my bedroom.
The sound of male voices filtered toward me as I pulled on a robe. I knew those voices.
My big brothers.
They’d cockblocked Mac without even knowing it.
The thought made me chuckle as I strode out to greet them. Lachlan, Thane, and Arran were all in my living room, up at dawn to check on us.
As I accepted their embraces and listened as they all spoke gruffly over one another about their worry, I attempted to put the confusing incident with Mac in the kitchen behind me and just appreciate all the familial love in this room.
Once we’d all had coffee and the boys were preparing to leave for work (well, Lachlan and Thane were), Mac’s phone rang.
He crossed the room to pick it up, and I noted he was no longer limping. His ankle looked much better today. It was hopefully just a sprain, then. “It’s Lisa,” Mac told us before he answered.
We listened to the one-sided conversation on tenterhooks. Inwardly, I prayed that they’d caught the perpetrator, that it was Lee, and we could put this mess behind us for good.
When Mac hung up, his eyes came to mine as he conveyed, “They caught him. Patrol car caught Lee on the A9 near Blair Atholl. They questioned the sports center receptionist and he hadn’t seen anything, but the CCTV footage corroborated our story.
They’ve got Lee in custody but haven’t questioned him yet.
Lisa says the evidence is pretty cut-and-dried.
And this time, he won’t be released on bail.
” Mac slumped as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
“It looks like this might be over, Arro.”
That stifling feeling that had suffocated me these past weeks melted away, too, and it was like I could breathe properly again. I accepted more hugs from my brothers and agreed to join them for a celebratory dinner later in the week.
I watched Mac as Lachlan hugged me again, and though I was relieved we were more than likely in the clear, I was more confused than ever about Mackennon Galbraith.