Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2) (30 page)

“No, Doll. I won’t leave. Not yet. Not until you hear me out,” he said softly, demanding his right to be heard.

“Just shut the hell up and get out!” She pointed to the door.

He stepped closer and continued. She needed to know how he felt and this might be his only shot. “I was in love with you when I left, but you deserved better than the man I was then. Hell, you probably deserve better than the man I am now.” He gently traced the beautiful line of her cheek. “And if Brian is who and what you want I’ll concede, but not without a stipulation. Thirty days, Barbara. Give me thirty days. After that, if you still want me to leave and step aside, then I will. I won’t like it, but all I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

Barbara was in shock. She and Brian were getting married in less than a month. If she said no to Mason’s request, then she would never know if she turned him away out of spite and anger, or as a way to hurt him for his actions.

If what Mason said was true, and they were legally married then if she said yes, Brian and she would have to put the wedding on hold indefinitely. They would have to put that wedding on hold anyway, pending a divorce. She and Mason had freely, if unknowingly, consummated the marriage, so an annulment was out of the question.

What had Robert and Mason done to her?

She was very fond of Brian and could have been very content with him. They had lots in common and he was comfortable. Now, in the space of five minutes her life was taking another drastic turn.

“Oh, God! Brian, I swear I didn’t know,” she said turning to Brian. She was crying. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Otherwise, I never would have accepted your proposal.” She took off his ring and held it out to him. “I have no right to this.”

Brian stood there shaking his head. There was no hope for him. She had never given him any indication that what he felt for her was returned on the same level. Barbara loved him and they were comfortable together. However, she had been and probably still was in love with Mason McKinnon. She had always been honest with him; he could give her that much credit. It was the risk he ran. He gambled and may have lost.

Brian kissed the top of her head holding her as she sobbed. “It’s all right, Barbara, really, don’t cry. This is not your fault. It is Mason’s and Robert’s for doing this to us. besides, I knew the risk that I was running trying to compete with Mason’s memory. I’ll call you later, and we can work through this, when we are not so emotional.”

It was all Mason could do not to fight him off her. She was his to comfort and to cherish.

“She is mine!” His inner voice was shouting, and for the first time, Mason acknowledged that voice and embraced the command.

Barbara walked Brian to the door where he turned, offering his parting warning. “Mark my words, McKinnon, this is not over.”

Barbara just watched as a good man walked out of her door.

Mason wondered, as he watched her lean her forehead on the door, what the next move should be for him.

He was wondering if he was hurting her by making her choose. He put his hands on her shoulders hoping to give her some modicum of comfort. She forcefully shrugged them off.

“Are you in love with him?” he asked softly after turning her around to face him, not really wanting to hear the answer. If she said yes, he would walk out right that instant before Brian had opportunity to leave the building and send him back to her. He loved her enough to let her go. That much was painfully clear. Her happiness was all he could think of now that he was home.

She shook her head. “He is a good man, Mason. He is good to me, but no, I’m not in love with him. Something we both knew deep down.”

Mason breathed an audible sigh of relief. She may not take him back, but it would not be because she had given her heart to another man.

She stepped away from him and separated herself from his nearness. She could not think when he was this close.

“Still, he doesn’t deserve what you and I have just done to him.”

Mason slowly began to close the gap between them. She was still closed off to him, and he could feel the barriers around her heart and body. If she would not meet him halfway, he was more than happy to be the one to give in and close the physical and emotional distance between them.

“You said he is good to you. Have you been happy with him since I left?” He had to know.

She shook her head slowly. “No, not really.” Her voice was flat, almost unemotional. He recognized the signs. She was shutting down emotionally.

She had worried about him and for his safety.

“We all worried.” She looked at him and wondered how she could be so calm. “It was a mean and nasty thing to do, leaving and not letting anyone know you were even alive.”

He could not have agreed more.

“You are a selfish bastard, Mason McKinnon.”

Again, he agreed with her. He had no legitimate defense. How could he possibly defend himself when his action spoke so loudly in his damnation? He had already heard the lecture from Robert on the way back from the airport, and it was a lecture he had already given to himself.

It was selfish and childish regardless of how necessary he might have felt it to be at the time. The end result might never justify the means. He hoped it would, but life was not always fair. Fate was not always kind, especially when she gave Mason a gift and that gift was spurned. Barbara was his gift, and he had turned his back on her when she needed him the most.

They all loved him and were worried sick as the days rolled into months without so much as a word. And the guilt Barbara felt was deep. She was an instrumental reason why he felt betrayed, and that betrayal forced him to feel the need to leave. She owed him an apology, too.

“I never played you, Mason, and I’m sorry if you felt betrayed. I hurt your feelings and that makes me not much better than you.” She sat down on the arm of the couch putting her face into her hands. “But it still doesn’t change the fact you left me lying in a hospital bed desperately needing to see you.” She looked up at him. “I needed you!” He did not say a thing in his defense. “I needed you,” she said more softly, a silent tear rolled down her cheek.

Mason could not change the past, and he hoped she could need him again. He saw how she felt betrayed too. He had let her down. She had taken that bullet for him, and he was not there to help her heal, being so wrapped up in his own pain, that at the time, he could not see his way clear. Well, the scales had fallen away from his eyes and his sight was 20/20.

“I’m sorry, as lame as that apology is.” How could he ever tell her how deeply sorry he was?

“If Brian had not been there for me, I’m not sure how I would have kept my sanity through my rehabilitation.”

Barbara sighed heavily at the memories of those early days of his disappearance. “There were days that I wondered if I took that bullet just so you could jump off some cliff somewhere and not have your chute open. And as crazy as it sounds, especially to my own ears, I’d do it again. How dumb is that?” She tossed her hands up in exasperation.

“You should never apologize for bravery.”

“That part, I still don’t understand. I wasn’t brave. Just like with the kids, I just reacted to the situation. Just like you reacted to finding out what you thought was reality wasn’t.”

He could plainly see the hurt on her face. He wanted to kiss all her fears and hurt away. He felt he could safely say he would never behave that way again. He had grown years in the last five months. That growth had shown him the good, the bad, and the ugly of his personality.

Some things he could not change about himself and would probably need a fat line of credit at the jewelry store and florist because of it, but he had changed where it really counted. He was ready to commit. He was ready to settle down, and Barbara was who he wanted and needed to feel whole.

“I behaved badly and I’m deeply sorry, but I’m home now and safe. I swear I’m never leaving like that ever again.” He tried to hold her. She was not receptive.“I swear I never meant to hurt you.”

“But the fact is you did, Mason! You should have thought about that before you took off. You hurt me, Robert, all of us. We were worried sick.” She moved away, stepping out of his embrace, shaking off any attempt of him to touch her. “No!” She held up her hands. She was not ready to go there.

She had already forgiven him months ago. It was too much to hold that grudge, and she needed to let him go in her heart and mind. She discovered as long as she was angry with him that he was always there keeping her torn apart. She let it go so when she thought of him it was to remember the laughter they shared and the way he looked the day in the hotel, wrapped in a towel fresh from the shower.

She had forgiven.

She just was not sure she could forget.

She was not sure she could forget the pain he had caused. But more importantly she was not sure she could forget the feelings of love and sensuality, friendship, and camaraderie she felt when she was with him. She had not shared all those things with Brian. Some, yes, but not all and not to the depth she felt for this man.

She looked at him and felt the emotions surface. “And I missed you desperately. I was in love with you, damn it!” She blurted out.

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know!” He was not totally at fault. “The last time we talked you told me you never corrected my assumptions because you said you were not interested in me. What the hell was I supposed to think?”

Their emotionally charged feelings were their usual behaviors, and for the first time in ages, she began to feel alive again. She felt the frozen part of her heart that she had tucked away and preserved began to defrost. It was pleasure and pain all wrapped into one.

She came out fighting, placing a finger into his chest, slowly backing him up with every word she uttered. “Don’t you dare try to shift the blame back to me. I asked Robert to bring you back. But nooooo,” she said, stretching the word out, her gestures exaggerated. “Instead of acting like the man I know deep down you can be, you just took off like a spoiled child and hid halfway around the world. Your actions alone, Mason, never gave me the opportunity to let you know how I felt for you.”

She was angry. She was hurt. She was relieved that he was safe. And she could not deny that she was still in love with him.

Her silent tears pierced his heart.

He could feel her again for the first time in months. He felt her heat beat, he felt her fears of his leaving her again, and more than that he felt her fear to trust him again.

“What do you feel, Baby Doll?” He waited for her to answer. She looked at him as stony silence hung between them. “I have no delusions, Barbara, as to what I feel for you and how I feel about us.”

He opened his heart. If there was to be any hope, he had to be completely honest. That openness was something he was fully prepared and willing to be with her. She was his soulmate and destiny. Without her there beside him, his life was just not fulfilling. Looking back, it never really was and that was why he kept looking for happiness in all the wrong things.

“Don’t. Don’t even go there, Mason.” She held up her hands as if to stop his confession. He walked right into those hands placing them on his chest and covering hers with his own.

“Feel that?” he asked touching her hand over his heart. “I have not felt it beat in five months.”

He smiled softly. It felt good and right to be here with her. His soul was calm like a lake at dawn. It was soothed and tranquil for the first time in months. “So, can we safely debunk your theory of you being blissfully and totally happy only if I am halfway around the world? I tried that and you know what?”

She shook her head, not trusting her voice as tears streamed down her face. She remembered the conversation that fateful day in Robert's office.

"I’m thinking it really did not work out for either of us.”

He tenderly held her face in his hands, brushing those tears aside with the pads of his thumbs. “I know that I was a bastard and that I did not deserve you. But give me another chance. I promise your faith will not be misguided.”

She put her hands over his. “Mason, I can’t live with a man I can’t trust.”

“I know that. I’ve always known, and you have nothing to fear.” He desperately wanted her to believe he could be faithful.

He did not know that they were actually married until Robert had told him in the car on the ride back from the airport. Even not knowing, he had not once felt the desire to have sex with anyone except her while he had been away. That change alone let him know he was ready for a lifetime commitment, and the woman he wanted to spend that life with was standing here. Yet, she was so totally out of reach, cosmic light years away.

“But I saw you two together.” She closed her eyes against the memory of what she witnessed on that beach.

“I know you did.” He held her and squeezed in mute apology. He felt her withdrawing and gave her breathing room. If he pushed her or cornered her he would lose her for certain.

“I saw you two go into the hotel.”

“I went to her room. I won’t deny that, but I could not go through with it. It felt wrong. It was wrong. I knew I could not do that to us and I left her before I ever touched her. I never touched her or Carmen.”

“What about the first night?” she asked confused. He had been very specific, or had he? Now, she was not so sure.

“I decided that I wasn’t interested in her and had a piece of our wedding reception cake and beer at the bar, nothing more.
Sometimes cake is just cake
.” He quoted from the night they first arrived in Panama.

She looked skeptically at him. This was Mason she was talking to. “Oh, go try and pull the wool over someone else's eyes, Mason. You have never turned sex down in your life.”

“Before I took on that mission you are absolutely right, and oh, I’ve had ample opportunity since leaving. There are still willing women all over the world. I just do not feel the same since I kissed you there in that doorway of Robert’s office.”

He could see that she still did not believe him.