MacKenzie Fire(57)

I turn around and run down the stairs, just as fast as I ran up. Maybe faster. Into the powder room I go, flushing that toilet for all I’m worth. I also turn on the sink faucet just for good measure.

I giggle like an insane person when I hear him roar again. Running into the kitchen, I turn on the faucet there too and then press the buttons to turn on the dishwasher.

I hear a pounding of feet but ignore it. He’s probably jumping around up there like a deranged monkey. Now all I have to do is find their washing machine. Ahoy! Super big load of laundry needing massive amounts of hot water, coming right up!

I’m running around the corner into the hallway when I slam right into something big and hard and wet. It’s breathing heavily.

“Caught ya!” Ian shouts in my face, throwing his arms around me.

“Ack! What are you doing?!” I scream. He’s wet. And naked. Like, really, really naked. I start yelling and laughing at the same time. I can’t help it. The adrenaline has exploded in my heart and I’m completely out of control.

“Just giving you what you asked for!” He picks me up and starts walking towards the front of the house. We make it to the foyer before the doo hits the fan.

Neither of us is prepared for the front door to fly open and for Mack and Andie to be standing there on the doorstep, with Angus and Maeve right behind them.

Ho. Lee. Shit.





Chapter Twenty-Five





“UHHHH…” IAN PUTS ME DOWN in front of him. A freezing cold burst of air hits me in the face.

“Uhhhh, hi.” I say. My face is on fire, despite the sub-zero temperatures.

“Ian Michael Angus MacKenzie … of all the …” Maeve is rendered speechless apparently, because that’s all she has to say.

“I’ll … uhhh … just hop back in the shower.” Ian leaves me standing there in the foyer staring at the entire MacKenzie family in shock. His pounding footsteps fade in the distance. A door upstairs slams shut.

Andie looks up at Mack. “I told you something like this was going to happen.” She shifts her arms, and for the first time I notice there’s a baby there.

“I’ll talk to him,” Mack says, without looking at me.

My face goes even redder as I realize how awful this looks. I try to explain. “I flushed the toilet.”

Maeve comes in and pats me on the arm. “That’s nice sweetie. Maybe you should get in bed. You’ve had a long day.”

Angus breathes out heavily but says nothing. Mack walks around me to the kitchen and his father follows. Andie and Maeve just look at me.

“Yeah. I think I’ll go to bed.” I turn to go up the stairs.

I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life. I used to be a mature, adult woman with a degree in fashion design and a thriving salon business in a metropolitan city. Today I’m a moron in granny jeans with cow loogies and a burrito bean in her hair being chased by a naked maniac in his mother’s house. Good. Lord. Have. Mercy.

“We’ll discuss this in the morning,” Andie says. It sounds like a warning. Somehow she’s shifted from being my BFF to being my mother.

“Okee dokee,” I say, acting like I don’t have a care in the world, even though my insides are back to being a mess and my head feels like it’s about to pop right off my shoulders. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life, even when I accidentally turned my business partner’s hair green. He still hasn’t gotten over that and neither have I, but right now I’d happily trade another one of those incidents for this one.

Going up the stairs is like taking the walk of shame or something. I can feel Andie’s stare boring into my back. I know exactly what she’s thinking too, but tomorrow I’m going to set her straight. There will be plenty of time to do it then. Tonight I can just go to bed and try and forget for a few hours that any of this happened. Hopefully Candy won’t get too hungry in the meantime.

I walk past the bathroom that Ian’s still showering in and go into Mack’s bedroom just across the hall from it. Closing my door, I try not to let my mind wander into that place where it imagines what’s going on inside that bathroom, what Ian might be doing right now, what he might look like.

Oy. I’m in so much trouble. I caught a glimpse of him naked and … hooey! … It was way better than my imagination. Talk about a swinging dick.

Sliding out of my granny jeans is way easier than I thought it would be. Ian was right about that. It makes me wonder if he really did buy these because I’m on the injured list and not because he was trying to make me look insanely ugly.

Deciding that my lacy pajamas are going to be a little harder to get into, I abandon them for the flannel shirt Ian bought me today. I lie down on my back and slide under the covers wearing nothing but the shirt and my underwear. The room is dark but I have no idea what time it is. I can’t hear anything but the sound of water in the bathroom across the hall. It gradually puts me to sleep.





Chapter Twenty-Six





A BRIGHT LIGHT BULB GOING on and shining through my eyelids brings me back to the land of the living and forces me awake. I squeeze my lids shut tighter, trying to block it out.

“What the fudge …,” I say, my voice sleep-rough and barely there.