Read The Accidental Mrs. Mackenzie Online
Authors: Bonnie K. Winn
The Accidental Mrs. Mackenzie (24 page)
Brynn lifted her hands plaintively, then lowered them to her sides as a helpless note crept into her voice. “And then when you all came and took me into your family, I knew it was wrong to keep on deceiving you. But by then I cared so much about all of you. I wanted to give you hope about Gregory. I wanted to be part of your family. I didn’t count on caring so much about you...or falling in love with your other son.” A hitch crept into her voice, breaking up her words. “I’m just so sorry.” Her gaze met Matt’s. “So very sorry.”
Biting down a sob, she ran from the room, not aware of the silence she left in her wake, the sense of disbelief. Or the babble that broke out a few minutes later.
Upstairs in her room, Brynn threw her things into a suitcase, not bothering with clothes, gathering only her work papers, not wanting to be loaded down with more than she could manage. Tears ran unchecked down her face as she snapped leashes on Lancelot and Snookems, then secured Bossy in his cage.
Using the back stairs, she crept down to the employee entrance. Spotting Dustin, one of the employees she knew fairly well, she approached him. “I know it’s Thanksgiving and I know how busy you are, but can you drive me to town, please? Just to Logan. I can get to Salt Lake from there. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency.” A hiccup punctuated her words and tears continued to stream down her face.
In typical male fashion, Dustin looked helpless in the face of female tears. “Sure. I’ll just tell Matt where I’m going—”
“No! I mean, is that necessary?”
“I’m on this shift,” he replied, obviously ill-equipped to handle a near hysterical woman. “I can’t just leave.”
Brynn felt her tears increase, barely able to focus as she trieo to wipe them away. A cool hand clasped her arm.
“I’ll drive her.”
Dimly Brynn recognized Tracy, the girl who’d been so kind since her arrival. “I’d—” Brynn’s voice hitched uncontrollably “—really appreciate it.”
“I just finished my shift,” Tracy told her. “And I’m going to Salt Lake to see my grandmother. She wasn’t well enough to come here for Thanksgiving—she had a hip replacement not long ago. My uncle and his family went to see her, but I’m staying with her tonight and coming back tomorrow afternoon. So, I can take you all the way into Salt Lake.”
Tears swam in Brynn’s eyes as she tried to express her appreciation. Tracy competently picked up Bossy’s cage along with Brynn’s suitcase, leaving her to handle the leashed animals. Within a few minutes, they’d left the resort behind.
Brynn craned her head backward once, looking longingly at the place that had become her home. Finally she stared forward, unable to believe how much it hurt, knowing that Matt would never be hers; and remembering the look on his face when he’d learned the truth—a look she’d never forget.
Tracy glanced over at her, her young face wreathed in concern. “Sometimes things seem worse than they are.”
Brynn continued to stare unseeingly into the road, silent tears still creasing her cheeks. “And sometimes, things are worse than they seem.”
Chapter Twenty
B
rynn erased the last frame of the comic strip, stared at the paper, then sighed as her gaze drifted again to the window. She missed having a mountain right outside. The Wasatch Range had seemed so close before. Now they were unbearably distant. A few birds braved the cold, flitting to the bare branches of the trees. They, too, looked lonely, out of place.
rynn erased the last frame of the comic strip, stared at the paper, then sighed as her gaze drifted again to the window. She missed having a mountain right outside. The Wasatch Range had seemed so close before. Now they were unbearably distant. A few birds braved the cold, flitting to the bare branches of the trees. They, too, looked lonely, out of place.
She’d replaced her drafting table, reconstructed her working files and turned blindly to her work. Gradually, Stephanie had reclaimed herself. Only now, she’d gained a slightly bitter edge—one Brynn disguised with biting humor. Her agent and editor were thrilled. The strip had been picked up by another syndicate and a huge marketing deal for everything from Stephanie pencils to nightshirts was in the works. It simply made Brynn sadder.
There was no thrill in her success; no satisfaction, since she had no one to share it with. Before living with the MacKenzies, she’d escaped to her fantasies, shared her hopes and dreams with imaginary heroes. Now there was no escape. And there were certainly no heroes.
To add to her melancholy, the city rang with Christmas preparations. The streets were hung with lighted garlands, and her neighbors’ homes overflowed with holiday cheer and decorations. Their gaiety was a constant reminder that this would be her loneliest Christmas yet. She knew there was no point in contacting her mother. Charlene Magee had made it clear that she had no interest in a family celebration. The best Brynn could hope for was a postcard from Hawaii or whatever island destination her mother had chosen.
Brynn had hung the stockings she’d collected in previous years for her pets, but she couldn’t bring herself to buy a tree. While she detested self-pity, she also knew there was nothing more depressing than a tree without a single present beneath it. And though a fire now burned steadily in the fireplace, the stockings seemed like a neglected reminder of what she was missing.
Spending most of her time wondering what the MacKenzies thought of her—if any of them had forgiven her yet—Brynn could only hope they had salvaged Gregory’s homecoming. A picture of each shocked face was seared into her memory, but it was the hurt on Matt’s face that haunted nearly every moment.
What had she been thinking, keeping the truth from him? In her mind, she’d played out a thousand alternatives to her behavior, but her daydreams couldn’t change what had happened. Nothing could.
Her doorbell rang suddenly, startling her and sending Lancelot into a frenzy of barking. As the dog dashed to the window to look outside, she opened the door.
Matt filled the doorway, every familiar line of him.
Brynn couldn’t speak. All the words she’d ached to say suddenly locked in her throat.
But Matt spoke. “May I come in?”
Dumbly she stared at him, nearly tripping in her haste to move backward. “Of...of course.”
He stepped inside, this time seeming to fill the room. Although the old apartment was roomy—certainly adequate for her—now it seemed close. Faintly she wondered how one person could make such a difference.
When he looked around as though taking inventory, it struck her that he’d never seen her apartment before. She grasped at the ordinary. “Would you like something to drink? Hot tea or—”
“I’m not thirsty.”
Brynn couldn’t read anything in his words or voice. Like someone parched in a desert, she drank in the sight of him. Impossibly, he looked even better than she’d remembered.
She licked her lips, then struggled for words—words that could somehow set things right. But Lancelot was running across the room, flinging himself at Matt.
At first Brynn feared the dog was attacking him, but then she saw that the only danger Matt faced was being licked to death. Relief made her laugh shakily, easing a fraction of her tension. “I guess he missed you.”
As soon as the words were out, her tension shot back up to the breaking point. As she met Matt’s gaze, she willed him to know how much she, too, had missed him.
Matt patted the dog, his countenance somber. “I have some papers for you to sign.”
Brynn’s heart fractured, along with her hope. The trustee papers. Naturally he wanted her name removed. Erasing her last link with the MacKenzies.
She tried to be brave, ignoring tears that prickled behind her eyelids as she forced her voice to remain steady. “Of course.”
He pulled out a folder she recognized. How could everything be so familiar, yet at the same time so strange? she wondered. Blindly she accepted the pen he offered, then the paper he held out.
“It’s the last line,” he told her.
Barely able to see, she turned to the drafting table, scrawling her name across the bottom of the page. “I guess that’s it.”
Matt’s voice changed slightly. “I guess so.” He patted Lancelot again. “Except for one question. Why didn’t you tell me?
No glib excuses came to mind. Instead, the truth lodged in her conscience and found its way into her words. “I was chasing a fantasy. I didn’t expect to find reality. When I knew...” She clutched at control. “When I knew I’d fallen in love with you, I was convinced I couldn’t tell you the truth. I couldn’t face seeing the recrimination in your eyes—the expression I saw that last night at Eagle Point. So I kept putting it off, logically knowing that would only make it worse. But I didn’t want it to end. And the night it did, I nearly died.”
“Didn’t it occur to you to give me a choice?”
She stared at him. “What kind of choice would that be? To accept me as Gregory’s wife or as an impostor?”
“But it would have been a choice. Instead you shut me out.”
Brynn’s voice rang with regret. “My relationships have all been in my daydreams. And daydreams aren’t very good at teaching you how real people tick.”
“I tick whenever I’m around you,” Matt informed her, moving a step closer.
“You do?” she managed to croak.
“Sometimes you tick me off.”
“Oh?”
“And other times you have my heart ticking like it’s going to bust out of my chest.”
Hope raised a wary head. “Oh?”
“And sometimes I’m so ticked I could just shake you.”
“Oh?” she repeated yet again, unable to utter more than the one-syllable word.
“And sometimes I’m so ticked I could kiss you until I forget why.”
Hope was gaining ground. “
Oh?
”
Oh?
”
“Can’t you say anything else?”
Numbly she shook her head.
He closed the last remaining space between them, his arms snaking around her, pulling her close. As their lips met, it was hard to tell who drank from the other with more desperation.
When they finally broke apart, Brynn’s words were little more than a sob. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“When you walked away from Eagle Point you took the best part of me with you.”
She sagged against him again. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“On one condition.”
She braced herself. “Which is?”
“That you come home with me.”
Relief nearly made her crumple. “But your family... What must they think of me?”
“Who do you think sent me here? Remember, they were the ones who had your address, not me. If I come back without you, they’ll have my hide.”
“I can’t believe they’d still want me.”
“You’re one of their own. That didn’t change when you ran away.”
Gratitude battled with disbelief.
Matt tipped up her chin. “But you’re not a very astute businesswoman, Brynn.”
Distracted she gazed at him. “I’m not?”
“Do you sign everything anyone puts in front of you?”
“I don’t understand.”
Matt withdrew the paper she’d signed. Her eyes followed his as he held up the document. “This, for example.”
“Release of trustee—I understand why you’d want that signed.”
“Are you sure that’s what it is?”
Confusion clouded her eyes. “Of course. What else would it be?”
He brought the paper closer. “Maybe you should read it.”
She was too happy not to humor him. “It says right there: ‘Release...’” Her eyes focused on the words, but her brain refused to accept them. “This is a marriage license!”
“So it is.”
She continued to stare at the suddenly all-important paper. “And it has your name and mine on it.”
“I think that’s the way it works.”
Brynn was beginning to feel like a salt-water factory as more tears threatened. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you think it means I’m asking you to marry me, then it is.”
She threw her arms around him, crushing the paper as their bodies met. Then she drew back, smoothing the paper with something close to reverence.
A thought sprouted and she met his gaze. “What if I’d said no?”
He pushed one hand through his hair as his expression fell just short of abashed. “Then I’d have been pretty embarrassed.” He rocked back slightly on his heels. “The family has a full-tilt ceremony planned for next week at the lodge. They’re just waiting for you to come home.”
Overcome with emotion, she buried her head against his shoulder. “I don’t deserve you... Or them.”
Pulling her face back, he lifted up her chin. “You deserve the world. It’s time someone gave it to you. I hope a wedding at Eagle Point is all right. I thought about Ireland, but Dad couldn’t make the trip and I guessed you’d want to share the day with the whole family.”
“Eagle Point is where I want to start our life together,” she replied. “It’s where it began, and where we belong. Where our family is.”
The promise shining in her eyes made him want to toss aside the niceties, to savor the intimacy they’d both craved for too long, but he had one more surprise for her. “And Edward’s joining that family.”
Brynn’s face lit with delight. “He is?”
Matt smiled at her excitement. “They’re getting married soon. And Eagle Point inherits one of the premier PR men in the country. Edward’s dying to come out of retirement and he wants the resort to be his new project and investment.”
“I’m happy for them. And you.” Her eyes shone. “This means you’re going for it! You’re taking Eagle Point into the next century.”
Matt brought her a bit closer. “And you’ll be along for the ride.”
“To fulfill the promise of the next generation.” she murmured.
“Something that we’d better start on now.”
His meaning hit her, along with a wave of anticipation.
Matt pulled the drape—enough to give them privacy, but not far enough to shut out the few remaining rays of sun that clung to the short winter day.
Moving away from the window, they clung together, sharing their first urgent kisses. Then they slowed the fevered pitch, savoring each touch, each new discovery.
Matt had waited for so long...he knew he could take his time. His hands molded around her shoulders, pushing aside the portrait collar blouse she wore. As he’d imagined, her skin was like alabaster, the stuff of fantasies he could now play out. His fingers lingered over her fragile collarbones, able now to study her beating pulse at will. As it had before, it spoke of her excitement, as did the flush that glowed from her ivory skin.
Matt met her gaze, murmuring endearments as he kissed her eyelids, then caressed the long column of her neck. Her wild curls danced between them, scattering silk over his hands, spreading the scent of captured flowers.
Brynn accepted each touch, strained toward every caress. No daydream had prepared her for the reality, for the waves of sensation his slightest touch ignited. How could there be such sheer joy between two people? How could she have been so blind to this wonder?
Matt gently unfastened the row of tiny buttons that held her cotton shirt together. The flush beneath her skin grew, seeming to glow in the deepening shadows of dusk.
Breasts, covered in satin and lace, rose with the rapid breaths she took. Although no false sense of propriety stood between them, he knew she was unschooled in the ways of love. He wanted this experience to be one of joy—the first of many they would share.
Hesitantly her hands ventured toward him, her fingers reaching for the buttons of his shirt. Each sweet, untrained movement was torture. When all of his buttons were freed, the tails of his shirt loosened, his breathing had deepened along with his need.
Her fingers curled over the muscles of his chest, the silkiness of his skin. Reminded of buttered steel, she continued her exploration, curiosity and desire propelling her motions.
Unable to repress a groan, Matt bent toward her breast, cupping the still-covered mound in his hand. When she responded with a shudder, he gently kissed the breast, letting the smooth fabric abrade her skin as it dampened and moved over her nipple.
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