Harlequin Special Edition October 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 (55 page)

Then she turned on her heel and fled the ball like Cinderella at midnight. Except there was no prince coming after her, and no fairy godmother to grant her heart's desire. Just a rotting pumpkin stuffed with realities that she'd waited too long to face.

* * *

Mac stayed at the wedding for another hour, pretending to be social, but his mind lingered on Savannah. He watched his brothers with the women they loved, and jealousy ran through him like a fiery river. They had taken the leap, risked their hearts, changed their lives, and this was where they got—

Blissfully happy.

Whereas he was standing here alone with a mental plan to ride back to Boston tomorrow, back to the work he thought had made him happy. But that was all it was—work, not a life.

He looked around the wedding. Meri was laughing at something Peyton had said, the two women watching the men they loved out of the corner of their eyes. Colton was sitting at a table with several of the cousins, engaged in some deep conversation about something sports related, given the snippets Mac could overhear. His mother, father and Uncle Tank surrounded the punch bowl, laughing and talking as if no time had passed between them. This was his family, for all its warts and imperfections, and he loved them. A part of him didn't want to leave for Boston at all in the morning. He thought again about what he had said to Savannah in the car.

What if I didn't leave?

What if he did stay? Moved his business here, like he'd mentioned. It would be harder to operate from Stone Gap, because they would be so far from the central hubs where most of the corporate world operated, but it wouldn't be impossible.

The bigger problem was this growing sense of dissatisfaction in Mac's chest. He didn't want to go back to Boston, because he didn't want to go back to the status quo. He thought of the businesses he had yet to sell, the few he'd been keeping on the backburner, ostensibly as part of a bigger package to sell when combined with Hillstrand Solar. Maybe there was another option, one that would give him a renewed purpose, a bigger challenge. An idea that had been percolating in his head all week, spurred by something Savannah had said, began to coalesce.

Either way, there was something else, something more important he needed to do than anything work related. Mac crossed to Jack, who was standing by the cake with Luke. “Hey, brother, I'm going to go.”

“What? The reception isn't over yet.”

“I know, but I have—”

“If you say work to do,” Jack said, wagging a finger at him, “I will tie you to a stake and keep you here until the very last grain of rice has been thrown.”

Mac chuckled. “No, not work. I have to go see Savannah.”

Jack glanced around. “Did she leave?”

Even the memory of her running out earlier stung him. He should have handled that better. Hell, he should have handled everything this week better. She was right about him. When it came to work he could do his job with his eyes closed, but when it came to a relationship he was all thumbs. “Yeah.”

“What'd you do this time?” Luke asked.

“Hey, maybe I didn't do anything.” At Luke's raised brow, Mac let out a sigh. “Okay, she said she wanted forever, and I told her all I wanted was something temporary.”

Luke smacked Mac in the head. “How the hell do you function in the world with so few brain cells?”

“Hey!” Mac rubbed at the spot. “That was a little unnecessary, don't you think?”

“Luke is right,” Jack said. “Savannah Hillstrand is a permanent girl. Any fool could see that. And any man who lets her get away doesn't deserve her.”

“You know,” Luke said to Jack in a conspiratorial whisper. “There is a single Barlow brother left. We could give Colton—”

“Don't you dare say it.” Mac glared at his brother.

Jack elbowed Luke. “Told you he was in love with her.”

In love with her? After a few days? That was impossible. No, Mac was merely worried about her. Nothing more. He wanted to make sure she was okay. And that she had everything she needed for running the company. That was all.

Except the memory of her in his arms when they danced lingered. He heard the band shift into another slow song and swore his arms ached without Savannah.

“Too bad Mac didn't get the memo about being in love, Jack.” Luke grinned, then put a hand on Mac's shoulder and turned him toward the exit. “Now, go get her. But don't drive too fast. That car—”

“Already has a baseball-sized dent,” Mac said, then laughed as Luke's face went pale. “I'm joking. I treated it with kid gloves.” He gave his brother a gentle slug, then headed out of the park and back to the Thunderbird. It roared to life, and he put it in gear, then hit the road.

Chapter Thirteen

S
avannah sat on the porch of the beach house in the dress she had worn to the wedding and told herself she was happy, even as tears streamed down her face. One last project, she decided, then she would button up the beach house for the rest of the season, heck, the rest of forever, while she went to work and concentrated solely on the company. That was her life, and where she would pour her energies.

Even if the thought of doing so filled her with a sadness that ran all the way to her toes.

She pulled her hammer and some nails out of the trunk of her car, then got some scrap wood out of the shed. She tucked the hammer into her tool belt, leaving her hands free to get the birdhouse out of its temporary home on the shed and bring it back across the yard to reinstall it where it belonged.

But as she picked up the birdhouse, she realized there was no sound coming from inside the box. Not a chirp, not a flutter. Nothing. Savannah held her breath, then peeked inside. A yawning cavern of darkness and a mounded circle of twigs, but no birds.

The baby birds had moved on. They'd finished learning to fly and had left the nest. For some reason that made her cry all over again.

That was how Mac found her, sitting on the ground beside the broken pole that used to hold the birdhouse, the empty wooden box in her hands, while tears streamed down her face. A complete, blubbering mess over a bunch of baby birds.

He knelt down beside her, his face filled with concern. She was glad he was there and mad at him at the same time. She wanted him to leave, wanted him to stay. Wanted him to quit getting her hopes up, then breaking her heart.

“What's wrong, Savannah?”

“They're gone. They left.” That made her cry again. God, she was a blathering idiot. What was wrong with her? It was just an empty birdhouse.

But no, it was something more. It was the realization that her father was gone, that he would never be back. Never again put an arm around her shoulders and tell her she could do anything she set her mind to. Never again teach her how to swim or ride a bike or surprise her with a gag gift at Christmas. He was gone, and the baby birds were gone, and her life was not at all what she had wanted it to be, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

“I'll never see them again,” she said.

“The birds? Oh, but that's natural. And they'll come back,” he said. “You told me that. Maybe not tomorrow, but next season. And if you put up a bird feeder, they'll come to eat, every day, and you can see them when you are here.”

“I won't be here. I'll be at work.” She shook her head and put the birdhouse on the ground. “I'm closing up the house. I don't know when I'm coming back to it.”

“But I thought you wanted to finish fixing it.”

She spun toward him. God, didn't he understand? Didn't he see? “I can't do both, Mac. I can't run the business and fix the house and save those birds and make everything all right. I can only do one thing, and that's keep Hillstrand Solar running.” Her voice caught and her throat ached. “I can't let him down. I just can't.”

Promise me.

She'd tried so hard to keep that promise. Given that business every bit of herself. And, yes, it was working, but she was so desperately unhappy. The tool belt weighed down her waist, a heavy reminder that what made her happy was closed off to her. She couldn't have both. She had to choose, and the only right choice was the one she had promised she'd make.

Mac settled on the grass beside her. “You aren't letting your father down, Savannah.”

“Yes, I am. I'm not doing any of the things I promised, or at least I'm not doing them well. The business is limping along, yes, and it's getting better but it needs...” She shook her head and choked back a sob. “It needs someone who knows what to do. Someone who has passion for it. Who loves being there every day.”

“And you don't?”

She bit her lip. The tears stung her eyes, even when she swiped them away. The truth was there, waiting for her to admit it. But if she did, then what? What would happen to her father's company? To the promise she had made?

Mac caught a tear on his finger and whisked it away. “What are you so afraid of, Savannah?”

“I'm not afraid.” But she was. Deep in her bones terrified that she was making the wrong choice, but she saw no other alternative.

“Then why won't you let go?”

Let go and what? Sell the business to Mac, so he could scatter the pieces to the four corners of the world? “Because I made a promise. I told him I would keep it running. I wouldn't let the company die like he did.”

“That doesn't mean you have to do it yourself.”

She turned toward Mac. His words settled into her. She
didn't
have to do it herself. All these months, she'd thought the promise she made had meant that she, and she alone, would helm Hillstrand Solar. She would shoulder her father's responsibilities, just as he had. “But if I don't, who will?”

“Me.”

She scoffed and shook her head. “You just want to sell it. And all those people will lose their jobs. And then my father's dream will die.”

“Trust me, Savannah.” He took her hand in both of his. “Trust me.”

She wanted to, so badly. Wanted to let Mac be the answer to the company's problems. Wanted to believe what she felt in his hands, in her heart. “What if you take it over, and you run it for a few weeks, then you get tired of being in one place, running one business, and you sell it?”

“I won't do anything without talking to you first. It's still your company, yours and your mother's, and nothing will happen without you giving it the okay. Plus, I realized today that you were right, the companies I've been holding on to would work well with Hillstrand. As a cohesive unit, not one big package to sell. I could expand Hillstrand's reach, create an entire green building enterprise. Take what your father did and give it wings, essentially.”

She could see the excitement in Mac's face, the anticipation for this new challenge. “I like that. I think he'd like it, too.”

Mac tipped her chin until she was looking at him. With his thumb he brushed away the tears lingering on her cheeks. “Let me do that, and you do what you love instead. Fix up this house. Then fix up another one. I've seen you at work, when we installed the panels, fixed that porch, and I've seen the results of your efforts. That's where your passion is, Savannah. Not in that office.”

He was right, but admitting that scared the pants off her. “I...I don't know.”

He let her go, then put his hands on his knees and looked out at the ocean lapping gently at the sandy shore. Seagulls cried as they dived for their dinner and fought over scraps. A slight breeze danced in the trees and tickled the grass. “You're afraid. And I get that. It can be hard to let go of the tether that's holding you in place.”

“It's not a tether. It's a promise.”

“No, you're wrong.” He let out a long breath. “You never went a hundred percent with your remodeling and reconstruction company. You'd fix a house, then go back and work for your dad for a little while. Fix another, work again at the plant. It wasn't a hobby, exactly, but it wasn't a full-time business, either.”

“I had so many responsibilities and...” Her voice trailed off.
What are you afraid of?
Mac was right. She had been afraid. Terrified even. She'd yo-yoed for years between remodeling and Hillstrand Solar, never fully committing to either. No wonder her father had put the business in her hands. She realized now that he had done it not to make her run the company for him, but to force her to make a choice, make a decision. “You're right. I did use the company like a safety net. I saw how much my father struggled in his early years, the times when he almost lost everything—when our family almost lost our home—and I worried that if I went into business full-time, I could end up that way, too.”

“That's always a possibility. But life is about risk.” He took her hands and raised her until she stood toe to toe with him. “I've made a career out of taking risks. And I've been damned good at it. Until I met you.”

She scoffed. “Running Hillstrand Solar for a week wasn't much of a risk.”

“I'm not talking about the business.” His thumbs ran over the backs of her hands, sending a little spark through Savannah's veins. “I'm talking about falling in love with you.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. “You're... Wait...what?”

“I fell in love with you the second I saw you with that tool belt, ripping up those floorboards like a woman on a mission.” He fingered the tool belt now, slung low on her hips, hanging over her dress. “I don't think there is another woman in the world who can make this look as sexy as you do.”

He was in love with her? “But you said yourself, this was only temporary.”

“Because I'm an idiot. As my brothers lovingly pointed out to me today.” He rubbed at his temple. “You make me want to be more than I've ever been before. Make me want to try harder, and that, in turn, makes me scared as hell that I'm going to screw up.”

“You?” She shook her head. “You're like King Midas. Everything you touch turns to gold.”

“But you know what happened to King Midas, right? He was cursed and when he touched the things he loved, they turned to gold and he lost them.” Mac's ocean-blue eyes met hers. She saw a steadiness in his gaze, an honesty. “Because he was too focused on the money, instead of what was important.”

She wanted to believe him with every ounce of her soul, but still she hesitated, afraid of this, too. Of taking yet another leap into the unknown. “And what was that?”

“That the people in your life matter more than anything you can achieve. You do that, Savannah, with every single person at your father's company.” Mac smiled. “You know their grandkids' names, remember their birthdays, and they, in turn, love you like you're their own daughter. You walk into that building, and it's a family.”

She shrugged. “It's how my father ran things. I guess I learned that from him.”

“And I missed that lesson somewhere along the way.”

“No, you didn't, Mac.” She smiled. “You did it with Charlie and his car lot. With the way you connected with the employees that worked for my father.”

“But not with you.” He brushed the bangs off her forehead, then let his touch linger along her jaw. She leaned into that touch, craving it, craving him. “Every time we got close, I shut the door and retreated to my own safety net. Work.”

She laughed a little. “How is that the two of us do the same thing? Retreat into what we know instead of taking a leap?”

“Because those leaps are scary. You could fall. Get hurt.”

She glanced down at the birdhouse. Three baby birds had been in there, as fragile as twigs, but now they were somewhere else, gathering their own food, taking off under their own power. “Just like the baby birds did. But every year, they take the leap.”

“They do. And they survive and return to start their own families.”

“It's scary.”

“It is. But I watched my brother get married today to the woman he loves, and I realized that I was missing out. That I could accumulate companies and wealth and motorcycles, and none of it mattered at the end of the day when I came home to an empty house. That's why I work so much, because when I'm sitting at the computer, I don't notice that there is no one sitting beside me.” He drew in a breath and clasped her hands tighter. “The only person I want sitting beside me from this day forward, is you.”

She looked into his eyes and saw what she had seen in Jack's face. She saw a love that spilled out of Mac, a love for her. It was the same way she felt when she looked at him. As if her heart was pouring out of her with every breath. “I fell in love with you when you ran out into the storm to rescue the birds. You were so...gentle and worried and sweet. And I ran out after you because I wanted to tell you how I felt, but then I got scared and I didn't say a word.”

“Then I ruined our afternoon together by talking about work.” He cradled her jaw, and traced her lip with his finger. “If you can put up with a reformed workaholic who still might need to read a
Relationships for Dummies
book, then I'd really like to make you a contract offer.”

She laughed. “A contract offer?”

“It's the most important deal I've ever put on the table.” He dropped to one knee and kept hold of her left hand. “Will you marry me, Savannah Hillstrand?”

The fear loomed in her chest again. “Marry you? But we haven't known each other that long and...”

“And it's a risk. A leap into the unknown. But I can't think of anyone else I'd rather make that leap with than you.”

She clasped his hand, and thought how good it felt against hers, how right. “It's going to be scary.”

“Then let's make sure we build a strong foundation. Starting right now.” He picked up the birdhouse and handed it to her. “Those birds are going to need some place to start a family next year.”

“They will.” A smile filled her face, and filled her heart. “They will indeed.”

Together, they fastened the birdhouse on top of the pole. Mac held the new bracing in place while Savannah hammered the nails into the wood. Then they stepped back and assessed their work. The birdhouse sat securely in its perch again, ready for a new chapter.

“It should hold for a good long time,” she said.

“That's what I'm counting on.” He curled his hand around hers, and together they went down to the beach, where the tide washed in and out, starting things fresh over and over again.

There was a sound behind them and Savannah turned at the same time Mac turned, cheek to cheek again, just like they had that first day on the beach. This time she leaned into him, let her cheek touch his. “Look at the birdhouse,” she whispered.