Protecting What's Mine(101)

Linc’s sisters nodded in annoying agreement.

“Karen?” Harper’s gray eyes widened. “Oh, Linc. I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for you.”

He waved it away. Wished they would all just go. “Can you all please get the hell out of my office and leave me alone?”

“Absolutely not,” Gloria said firmly. “We’re not leaving until you’ve earned this pie back.”

“The point is she didn’t trust me to tell me about any of this. She didn’t tell me she was home. She didn’t need me.”

Everyone started speaking at once. The sympathetic vibe in the room was fading and being replaced with the sharp edges of accusations.

“Hang on, ladies. I’ve got this,” Gloria said. “Linc, let me explain to you what shame feels like.”

“Gloria, you don’t have to—”

“No. I’m talking. You’re listening. I wasted a decade of my life on a man who was little more than a monster. I was ashamed. Ashamed that I stayed. That I thought he would change. I felt like his bad tainted me somehow.”

“We don’t know that Mackenzie has some deep-seated childhood trauma.”

“She broke her fucking leg jumping out of a second-story window, you idiot,” Christa snapped. “Yeah, Samantha told me. And now we know she was removed from her home around the same time. That’s not a normal upbringing.”

“Something had to happen when she went back,” Harper guessed, staring at the whiteboard as if it held the answers to the feminine mystery.

“Something bad enough that she flew back the same day she left and called Dr. Robinson to pick her up instead of Linc,” Sophie mused.

“My money is on some kind of emotional falling out with her mother. Something that shook her up and made her want to shut down. She wouldn’t want Linc to see her like that,” Gloria said.

Linc couldn’t help it. He reached out and laid a hand on Gloria’s shoulder. A sign of support.

She reached up and squeezed his hand back.

“Shouldn’t we be at the point where we can tell each other about having a fight with a parent?” Linc asked, clinging to the hope that he hadn’t just royally fucked up.

“Shouldn’t you be at the point where you ask her to consider not leaving?” Rebecca asked, crossing her arms.

“Why should I put myself out there when she’s clearly not willing to do the same?” he countered. Why should he open himself up for more scars? More hurt?

He’d just keep doing what he’d always done. Focus on the good times. Having fun. No strings. No expectations. No responsibilities or obligations.

But he wanted those things. Every last damn one of them, and he wanted them with Mackenzie.

“What did she say to you about Dr. Dunnigan asking her to stay on here permanently?” Harper asked.

“What?” He was out of his chair so fast it fell over behind him.

“Oops. Guessing she didn’t mention that to you,” Harper said guiltily.

“This. This is why we were never going to work,” Linc said, pointing at Harper. “She can’t even tell me that Dunnigan wanted her to stay.”

“And you couldn’t tell her that you’re in love with her,” Christa announced.

There was a beat of silence in the room.

“Actions speak louder than words,” he said stubbornly. “She wouldn’t even let me in to talk to me this morning.”

“Fear makes people act like dumbasses,” Gloria said. “It’s not an excuse. But it’s a reason.”

“If neither one of you is willing to be brave enough to say what needs to be said, maybe you’re not meant to be,” Jillian said sadly.

Linc glared at the whiteboard, the clinical debriefing of his too-brief love affair.





49





“Open up, doc,” Aldo called through Mackenzie’s front door.

Mack pretended not to hear him and continued to stare at the blank TV screen.

“Maybe she’s not here?” she heard Luke say. “Never mind. She’s in the living room.”

“Benevolence PD. Open up!” Ty said in his most authoritative voice.

“Leave me alone,” Mack muttered under her breath. Why couldn’t she just be left alone here?

“She looks pissed,” Luke reported from the window as she stood up.

She slid the chain free on the door and opened it a crack. “What do you want?” she demanded.

“What happened to your face?” Ty demanded. He pushed his way inside and tilted her chin to catch the light on her very impressive shiner.

“Holy shit, Mack.” Aldo was practically vibrating with rage. Mack knew it was stirring up old feelings. She understood that irrational sense of powerlessness when some shadow rose up from the ashes of the past.

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she insisted.

“Linc didn’t do this to you, right? Because if he did, he’s a dead man,” Luke said.

“Jesus. No! Linc had nothing to do with this. Why are you here?”

“You and Linc broke up. We came to see if you were okay. By the way, if our wives ask you, we were never here,” Aldo explained. “Now, back to that shiner.”