Shine Not Burn(98)

“Sometimes it’s the fastest, easiest way for them to figure things out.”

“Maybe for Mack, but not Bradley.” His Brooks Brothers shirt was getting destroyed, already covered in ground-in dirt and grass stains. One of his loafers was off his foot and sitting on the outskirts of their fighting ring. I’d never seen him lose his temper, ever. It’s why he was still a part of my lifeplan, or had been before I’d come out here.

She snorted. “Sorry, sweetie, but even I can see that city boy’s a scrapper. He’s had plenty of fights of his own, I can promise you that.”

Once I paid closer attention, I realized she was right. Mack was winning, but Bradley wasn’t going down easy. Every time I thought it was going to be over, Bradley came back at Mack again and caught him unawares. They were almost evenly matched, but in the end, it was Mack who had the stamina and strength to win out.

Angus, Ian, and Boog moved in to separate them when they were doing more hugging than fighting. Both of them were bleeding in the face and across their knuckles, and neither one of them could stand up straight anymore.

Maeve squeezed me once before letting go. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get your men cleaned up.”

“They’re not my men,” I said petulantly, embarrassed she saw them that way.

“They are until you officially let them go.”

I followed behind her reluctantly as the men led the fighters up the front steps and into the house. I’d thought the scene outside in front of everyone was embarrassing, but something told me this one was going to be worse. Now it was just the close MacKenzie family there to witness my shame. There would be no buffers and no running away this time.





Chapter Forty-Five





WHEN I GOT INTO THE kitchen, Bradley and Mack were seated at the dining table. Maeve put together two ice packs and handed them over, letting them do their own dirty work of tending to their bruised faces and egos.

I walked over quietly and stood in front of the table, staring at each of them in turn.

They looked at each other and then at me. No one said a word until Angus sat down at the head of the table and gestured to the seat next to him. “Have a seat, young lady.”

He sounded so much like an imposing father figure, I couldn’t ignore his order. I pulled the chair out and sat down. I looked him right in the eye, waiting to hear my sentence.

He smiled. “Don’t look so glum, little one. You have two good looking, strapping young men willing to fight for you sitting right here at this table.”

A watery smile made it to my lips. “That’s part of the problem, I think.”

His smile didn’t leave. “All you have to do is look them in the eye and tell them how you feel. I’m right here for you.” He reached out and put his giant hand over mine, enveloping my small fingers in his warmth. My heart spasmed painfully in my chest.

I nodded, taking a deep breath and lifting my eyes first to Mack and then Bradley. They were still angry at each other, but when they looked at me, their expressions softened.

My life flashed before my eyes, just like I’d read about it happening to people who were having near-death experiences. As I sat across the table from the two battered and emotionally broken men, I saw myself as a teenager, crying helplessly in my room after suffering a beating with a belt. My mother was cooking in the kitchen and pretending like it hadn’t happened, like I hadn’t just been beaten down like a piece of trash by a man who treated women like possessions. A piece of me knew she was relieved it was me suffering his ire this time and not her. It made me hate her and at the same time drove me into myself, as I realized finally that I was truly alone in the world. My father was long gone, and now I was motherless too. I had to come up with a plan. A good one. Something that would get me out of this pit of a life and back to a place where I could find love and maybe even a haven from the anger that surrounded me everywhere I went.

And so the lifeplan had been born. I picked up a pencil that day and wrote the outline down, and over the course of several months refined it until it was perfect. It got me out of that miserable place with excellent grades that translated into full scholarships to college. I disappeared from my mother’s toxic influence and entered a world of my own making. A carefully crafted script brought me friends and more success in college and then acceptance to law school. Step by step, I followed that plan until I took a couple days off to go to Las Vegas. It was the first time I’d gone off-plan in ten years and look where it had gotten me.

I looked at Bradley, a man I had thought I knew who now I suspected I really didn’t. Where had he learned to fight like that? And he’d mentioned mistakes he’d made, things he’d done that I would probably be asked to forgive him for. He was supposed to be my husband, but he really wasn’t husband material. Not when I suffered from feelings of regret every time I looked at him.

I looked at Mack. A man I didn’t quite know as well as I should but who I wanted to know more of. He had honor, strength, and patience like I could never imagine possessing myself. He shouldered blame when he didn’t need to. He went out of his way not to hurt people. And the light shining out of his eyes told me that he really cared about me. Maybe if I was lucky some day, he could really learn to love me.

Mack’s hand slid out across the table and waited for mine, his palm opened up.