Chapter 32
McKenzie drove back to Duke’s with the window down to let in the warm early autumn breeze. She picked up a hint of woodsmoke in the air, which only added to the contentment that she’d found on the island. New friends, new work, new love, a whole new life.
Pulling into Duke’s driveway felt like coming home to the place she’d always been meant to find. She took Jax up to the apartment to change him and put him down for his nap. Even though she had a million things to do for several of her new clients, she stretched out on the bed and passed out.
She came to when she felt Duke snuggle in next to her.
He put his arm around her. “I hope that’s Duke,” she whispered.
“Who else would it be?”
He’d been there two seconds and already had her smiling like a fool in love. “I thought it might be my boyfriend.”
“It is. Now go back to sleep.”
“Let me turn over.”
He raised his arm so she could turn to face him.
“Hi.”
He kissed her. “Hi yourself. Missed you. It was a long two hundred and thirty-five minutes.”
“Yes, it was, especially since I was trying to stay awake the whole time.”
“Same. A wild vixen messed with my sleep last night.”
“Right. Who messed with who?”
“That’s my story. Sticking to it.” He kissed her again and again until they were clinging to each other and straining to get closer. “We’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“But this is way more fun.”
A loud car horn sounded from the yard.
“What the hell?” he muttered as he sat up.
“McKenzie! Come out here!”
“Who’s that?”
“I… I think it could be Eric.” She followed Duke off the bed and out of the bedroom to the window to look out at the yard. “It is.” God, what was he doing there?
“Stay here. I’ll get rid of him.”
“Duke!”
“Stay here. I promise it’ll be fine.”
It felt wrong to let him go out to confront her ex.
“Can I help you with something?” Duke asked as he went down the stairs to the driveway.
“Where’s McKenzie?”
“She’s not here.”
“Yes, she is. I tracked her phone. So go get her.”
McKenzie’s heart stopped when she heard that. He’d tracked her phone? Since when?
“What do you want?”
“That’s between her and me.”
“Not anymore it isn’t. It’s between you and me.”
“Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter. State your business and then get off my property.”
“I want to see McKenzie.”
“That isn’t going to happen. Do I need to call the police to get you to leave?”
“I’m not leaving until I talk to her.”
Duke withdrew his phone and made a call. “This is Duke Sullivan. I have someone on my property who’s refusing to leave.” He paused. “No, I don’t know him. Thank you.” He put the phone back in his pocket. “The police are on their way.”
“McKenzie! Call off your dog and get out here!”
“Shut your mouth. I know exactly who you are and why you’re here, and let me tell you, there’s nothing you can say or do to convince her to drop the case against you. This is a mess of your own making, so go home to your wife and kids, do the right thing by Jax and leave them alone.”
McKenzie stepped out of the apartment. “You should listen to him, Eric. He’s absolutely right.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” He took a step toward the stairs.
Duke stopped him with a hand to his chest that Eric tried and failed to shake off. “Take one more step, and I’ll end you.”
As Eric looked up at her, McKenzie tried to remember what she’d ever seen in him.
“You’re going to ruin my life!” he said. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t care about your life. I care about Jax’s life. You don’t get to lie and deceive and cheat and then walk away like none of it ever happened. It happened. We happened. He happened.”
“I told you I can’t have kids. He’s not mine.”
“And you felt like you had to come all the way out here to tell her that again?” Duke sounded fiercer than she’d ever heard him. “I hear sirens in the distance. If I were you, I’d get gone before they show up, and I’d stay gone. There’s nothing here for you. Not anymore.”
He pushed at Duke’s hand, which was keeping him from getting any closer to her and Jax. “Who is this guy, anyway?”
“He’s the best man I’ve ever known, so you’d be wise to listen to him. You’re trespassing on his property.”
“This is what you moved on to after me?” he asked with a sneer.
“That’s right, and he’s ten million times the man you’ll ever be. Go home to your family, Eric. There’s nothing for you here. That’s how you wanted it, and PS, thank you for that, because what you did led me to where I belong.”
A police car pulled into the driveway, lights flashing.
“This man is refusing to leave my property,” Duke said when a young male officer got out of the car.
“I’m going.” Eric shook off Duke. “But this is not over.”
“If you ever step foot on my property again, I’ll make you regret it. You hear me?”
“McKenzie, come on. Can’t we at least talk about this?”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you. You can talk to me through my lawyer.”
“Are you leaving?” the officer asked Eric.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Be on the next boat back to the mainland,” the officer said.
Eric got into a silver sedan that McKenzie didn’t recognize and made a cloud of dust as he reversed out of the driveway.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sorry for the trouble,” Duke told the officer.
“No problem. I’ll make sure he gets on the boat.”
“Thank you.”
“I’d recommend coming in to file a report so there’s a record of what transpired today, just in case there’s any more trouble.”
“We’ll do that.” Duke shook his hand. “Thanks again.”
After the officer left, Duke came up the stairs to where she stood, frozen with shock over the entire incident. He put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay. He’s gone, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay gone.”
“I… I can’t believe he came here, that he tracked my phone. I didn’t know he’d done that. I’m so sorry, Duke.”
“For what? You didn’t do anything.”
“I brought this mess to your home.”
“That’s not all you’ve brought to my home. Please don’t blame yourself for what he did.”
“I… I didn’t know he was tracking me. I don’t even know how that works.”
“I’ll show you, and we’ll make sure he can’t do that anymore.”
“That’d be good. Thankfully, Jax slept through it.”
“Everything’s okay. Take a deep breath.”
She breathed in deeply and then let it out slowly. “Thank you for what you did. I never could’ve handled him as well on my own. I’d have been too shocked to tell him off.”
“You would’ve kicked him in the balls and sent him on his way.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “I would’ve wanted to. It means everything that you stuck up for me. You didn’t even hesitate to go out there and confront him.”
“Don’t you know by now that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you and Jax?”
“I’m beginning to see that.”
He put his arms around her and drew her into his embrace. “I’m here. I’ve got your back. You’ve got mine.”
“No one’s ever had my back before. Not like you do.”
“Same. Never had someone who had mine. I love you, MK. I’ll always have your back.”
“I love you, too.”
They were the biggest and yet also the simplest words she’d ever said to anyone, and as she stood in the arms of her love, she had no doubt at all that this leap of faith would turn out to be the one that made her life—and her son’s life—complete.
Over the next month, McKenzie’s new life fell into place in every possible way.
She had more work than she could handle, with clients lining up for a meeting with her.
She’d proposed group payroll and health insurance options to lower the cost many businesses were paying currently and had landed the McCarthy family and all their island businesses, which was almost a full-time job on its own.
Her clients had insisted on paying her no less than fifty dollars an hour for her time, and she was amazed at how much money she was making doing something she loved.
She’d enrolled Jax in morning preschool three days a week that wasn’t really preschool quite yet, but it gave him time to be with other kids his age while she got some work done.
Their days had fallen into a lovely routine that included new friends for both of them and lots of time with Duke, their new best friend.
After Kendall heard about what Eric had done, she doubled down with his attorney and threatened to file a criminal complaint if he came anywhere near McKenzie or Jax again.
They’d filed the police report, and Duke had taken care of making sure her phone wasn’t trackable by anyone.
He’d also installed cameras around his property so no one could take them by surprise again.
McKenzie was on her way home from delivering Jax to school on a Wednesday morning in early October when Kendall called.
“Am I getting you at a good time?”
“Yes, I’m driving.”
“Great. I heard from Eric’s attorney, and he’s prepared to offer a one-time payment with the caveat that it’s all he’s willing to pay, and if you want more, you’ll have to take him to court.
Since I doubt he’s told his wife about you and Jax, you do have leverage there.
If you don’t like the offer, we can tell him we’ll see him in court.
I have to believe he’ll want to avoid that at all costs. ”
All it took to trigger the anxiety from that day in Duke’s yard was hearing Eric’s name. Her stomach instantly hurt, and the quiver in her hands made her angry. “What’s the offer?”
“One hundred thousand.”
“Well. That’s not nothing.”
“No, it isn’t, but it’s far less than what you’d get over the next seventeen years if you went to court and demanded regular child support payments. That would also make it a lot more difficult for him to keep you and Jax hidden from his wife.”
“I’m not looking to blow up her life. I’m sure she’ll find out eventually who he really is if she doesn’t know already.
That’s not my goal. I want to make sure I have what I need to raise my son without him having to do without anything and to be able to help him with college later, if that’s what he wants. ”