Keep On Loving You

“God, you’re beautiful. More beautiful than ever.”

The words instantly flustered her. “Well...” She rubbed her hands down the legs of her ancient jeans, suddenly aware she was dressed for work in threadbare denim and a sweatshirt with pilled ribbing around her hips and at the bottom of the sleeves.

“You were gorgeous as a girl and took my breath away dressed as a bridesmaid,” he said. “But now, like this...” His hand waved to indicate her figure.

Mac gaped, supremely aware she was dressed like a ragamuffin. “Are you blind or are you making fun of me?”

He blinked again. “Remember that day at the hot springs?”

She barely resisted squirming. “The time I had to come get you and Brett because the both of you had downed too many beers and weren’t sober enough to drive? When Missy Waters puked out the car window on the way home and I threatened to make you clean it up with your tongue?”

He winced. “Not that time. Our time. Your first time.”

“Shh!” She glanced around. “We’re not talking about that.”

“I dream about it sometimes. Do you?”

Gah! The man was making it hard to hold on to her mad. “I never think of it,” she said. Oh, but she did. Wouldn’t every woman remember her first time? Summer again, both of them in bathing suits at the remote hot springs that could only be reached by starting from the Walkers’ private land.

Upon becoming a couple, they hadn’t discussed the day, or if there ever would be a day, when she’d give him her virginity. But the knowledge that she wanted to be with him like that had hovered over her for weeks. Months. Years. Even when he’d seen her only as his best friend’s pesky younger sister.

Maybe she’d not had all the details of that kind of intimacy quite worked out when she was a girl, but anything she’d had then, she’d wanted to be Zan’s.

She’d been so gone for him.

Just as she’d been that lazy afternoon at the hot springs when she was seventeen. They’d had a cooler containing green grapes, a plastic container of chocolate chip cookies she’d baked from scratch and a thermos of iced tea. They’d immersed themselves in a spring, and then, when they were too hot to stay in a second more, they’d stretched out on double-wide-striped beach towels and let the afternoon breeze cool their skin.

Propped on an elbow, she’d fed him grapes, her breast pressing against his bronzed biceps, her nipple pebbled to a tight bead at the contact. He’d let his fingertip drift over the bumps of her spine until it touched the bow of her bikini strap at the middle of her back.

His gaze never left hers as he slowly picked up the end of one damp string and pulled it free. Her breath ragged, she’d sat up and loosened the top bow herself. The scraps of fabric had fallen into her lap.

Second base, as she’d still referred to it then, hadn’t been new to them. But it was the first time he’d played with her breasts when the only other item she wore was a tiny pair of bottoms. Even now, she could remember the brush of his wet hair on her skin as he sucked on her nipples. She’d clutched the heavy bone of his shoulders, her breath shuddering in her lungs.

There didn’t seem to be any air to pull into them right now. Shoving the memory away, she folded her arms across her chest and tried to get a handle on the conversation. “Are you really a documentary filmmaker?” she heard herself ask. “Never mind,” she added hastily. “I want you to know that—”

“I wish I had that moment on film,” he said, his voice low and whisper-rough. “But I can close my eyes and see it in Technicolor. You had a sunburn on your nose and you bit your bottom lip when I—”

“Zan!” She felt her whole body flush. “Please. Stop.”

He smiled. “That’s not what you said then. Well, not the ‘stop’ part, anyway.”

“You’re a beast,” she whispered. “Now quit embarrassing me. I already have a bone to pick with you.”

“Yeah?” He seemed unconcerned as he reached out a hand to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. The gesture was too familiar and even more so when he stroked his fingertips slowly down her cheek.

Chills tumbled across her skin and she batted his hand away, but his fingers tangled with hers and he lifted them toward his face, rubbing her knuckles against the rasp of his whiskered jaw.

She tried tugging free, but he tightened his hold. “Zan Elliott, what are you doing?” she said through her teeth.

There was a feverish light in his eyes. “Remembering how good we were together.”

She tried gathering her mad again. “Well, I’m remembering that you rode out of town, but not before apparently informing the male half of our community that I was still somehow yours.”

The corners of his mouth curled up. “But you were.”

“Zan! You left.”

He stroked the back of her hand against his face once again. He was hot, she realized. His skin burning up.

She frowned. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Better seeing you. Always better around you. It’s been a long ten years.”

Something definitely wasn’t okay with him. Where he’d been pale before, now he had a definite flush and his lips looked too dry. As she watched, a fine tremor racked his body.

“Maybe you should sit down.”

“I—”

“Oh. My. God. Zan Elliott,” someone called.

Mac closed her eyes. Hell.

“And with Mac Walker.” There was glee in the voice of the biggest gossip in the mountains. Missy Waters, she of the puking incident, who had never forgiven Mac for having “stolen” Zan—when the other woman had never had him to begin with.

“Hey, Missy,” Mac said, resigned to be the star of a story for the rest of the week.

“Missy...” Zan said, as if trying to place the name.

Irritation flashed across the woman’s face, then smoothed out. “I’d not heard you’d come back to town,” she said to him, her gaze dropping to their hands, still joined. “Or that you two have picked up right where you left off.”

Crap. “That hasn’t happened. That’s never going to happen,” Mac said, trying to free herself from him.

He had a grip like an octopus. “Missy!” he said, his memory obviously clearing. “Didn’t your hair used to be dark?”

It was platinum now, and Missy’s pride and joy. She fluffed it with her fingers and beamed at him. “Thank you for noticing. I went blond and have never looked back. Unlike Mac, I should say, who everyone knows is stuck in the past.”

“What?” He shifted his glance from Missy to Mac. “What’s that mean?”

“Nothing,” Mac said firmly. Desperately. “Missy, did you hear about Angelica’s new car? Brett gave her the sweetest ride as a wedding gift.”

“Really?” For a moment she was diverted. Then her attention went back to Zan’s fingers, still wrapped around Mac’s. “Zan, you haven’t let go of Mac.”

He followed her gaze, executed one of those odd blinks that seemed to suggest he was having trouble focusing. “No, I haven’t let go of Mac.”

This was getting out of control. At this point, she was willing to give up on the big tell-off she’d had planned for the man if only she could end this odd conversation. “I’ve got to get to work.”

When he didn’t release her, she jiggled their joined hands. “Work, do you hear me? That thing I do that allows me to put gas in my car and food in my belly.”

“I’ll do that,” Zan said. “Go out to dinner with me tonight.”

“I will not.”

Missy was following the exchange with unconcealed curiosity. “You should, Mac. It’s not like you have a steady guy or anything. Nobody thinks you’ll ever stick with anyone because—”

“Do you mind, Missy?” Mac asked, done with politeness. “This is a private conversation.”

“In Oscar’s?” she questioned. “I’m not the only one watching Zan stake his claim.”

“Good God.” Mac felt as if the walls were closing in on her. “That’s not happening. I’ll never be his to claim.”

“Wrong, Mackenzie Marie.” Zan’s cheeks were flushed even redder, and his eyes glittered feverishly. “You’ll always be mine.”

That was it. I’m done with this.

As she lifted her free hand to slap some sense into him, however, he collapsed. Catching him in her arms, she staggered, the two of them crashing into the nearby wall before sliding to the floor.

CHAPTER THREE

MAC HAD LOST the round of rock-paper-scissors. She tried convincing Brett to make it two out of three, but he squeezed his “paper” hand over her “rock” fist and promised to call later to see if she needed him to spell her at the end of his workday. However, she knew he had an evening meeting scheduled with a client who wanted him to design a landscape—something her brother was now finally seriously pursuing after years building up a mowing-and-blowing business. She wouldn’t allow him to put that off, nor did she want to compromise her pride by admitting she was the least bit anxious about being left alone with Zan Elliott.

Which meant Mac was on her own dealing with the one sick puppy that he seemed to be.

At Oscar’s she and her brother had wrestled Zan into her car—with little help from him and with a lot of senseless, feverish mumbling. Brett had followed her to the Elliott estate and fished for the keys from his buddy’s pocket himself. Then they’d propelled him to the master bedroom, where he was obviously staying.

Spotting the bed, Zan had stumbled to it and then fallen on it face-first.

She’d gnawed her bottom lip. “Are you sure we shouldn’t take him to see a doctor?” she said, voicing the same concern she had at Oscar’s before they decided to bring him here.

At that, Zan had roused a little. “Don’t want a doctor,” he’d muttered, turning over to look at them. “Just wanna sleep.”

“Zan...” she’d started.

“Just wanna sleep,” he’d repeated.

At that, Brett had advised a wait-and-see approach, and she’d reluctantly agreed, even though Zan resembled a giant sugar pine felled in the forest. So her brother had gone off to work and she’d reached for her cell phone to rearrange her day.

It took only two calls. One, to ensure it was okay to clean her afternoon house the next day. The second was to her most reliable employee, Tilda Smith, who was happy to up her hours for the week by doing the windows and floors at the home Mac had planned to work at that morning.

Then she phoned her sister Poppy.

“What’s going on?” the younger woman asked, cheery as always.

“Are you alone?” Mac asked in a low voice.

Automatically, Poppy’s went quieter, too. “Yeah. Ryan dropped off Mason at school and then had to go down the hill for a meeting in LA. Is there a problem?”

“I’m in the Elliott mansion.”

Poppy gasped. “We’ve wanted to get inside there for years! How did you do it? Why did you do it? Does this have something to do with your supposed sighting of Zan at the wedding reception?”

“No ‘supposed’ about it,” Mac said. “Guess who showed up at Oscar’s this morning while Brett and I were having coffee?”

Another audible gasp sounded through the phone. “No!”

“Yes.”

“And he brought you home with him?” Poppy’s voice filled with glee. “Mac, have you already gone to bed with Zan Elliott?”

Pulling the phone away from her ear, Mac frowned at it, then put it back. “Of course not. I’m never going to bed with Zan Elliott.”

Her sister snorted.

“I’m serious!”

“I’ll believe you if you tell me he hasn’t aged well. Is there a bald spot? A paunch? Did he turn out to be one of those men who rejects personal hygiene?”

“He looks gorgeous, you ninny, and he seems freshly showered to me...but he’s sick.”

Poppy went quiet. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Did he come home to die?”

Mac rolled her eyes. “My God. You’ve got too active an imagination. No, he didn’t come home to die. He came down with a flu bug or something, and Brett and I had to drive him here. I’m, uh, staying awhile just to make sure he doesn’t need medical attention.”

“Oh. That’s nice of you.” She paused. “Can I come over and snoop around the house?”

“Poppy—”

“Please? You know we’ve always wanted to get in there.”

“Zan never invited us.”

“Which only made it all the more enticing. Say yes.”

Maybe she’d called her sister for just that reason. But it seemed a little sneaky. “What if Zan wakes up, suddenly better, and finds us wandering around his house?”

“Pfft,” Poppy said, dismissing the objection. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. I’ll be there before you know it.”

Mac tiptoed back to the master, pulled a throw over Zan’s unmoving figure and shut the bedroom door. By the time she went back down the stairs, her sister was trucking up the walkway, all big eyes and flushed cheeks.

“Have you seen any ghosts?” Poppy asked. “You know, the kind with knives dripping blood, who hold their severed heads under their arms?”

That had always been rumor when they were kids. That the French château–inspired Elliott manse was peopled with specters and spooks. Mac held open the door and gestured her sister inside. “Have a look.”

Poppy’s shoulders slumped as she ventured into the foyer. “What? No suits of armor?”

“Maybe they were auctioned off by the Mountain Historical Society.” Many items from the house had been bequeathed to the organization and then sold for fund-raising purposes at a black-tie event the summer before. Mac hadn’t attended, but her sister and her fiancé had bought a few antiques.

“No, I didn’t see anything like that,” Poppy said, now moving into the large living area with its slate floors, paneled walls and huge marble-wrapped fireplace. “The views of the lake are spectacular.”

“Your windows open onto the same thing.”

“On the other side of the lake,” Poppy said, running her hand over the moss green velvet of the massive couch. “This place has been here forever, too—I heard it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Mac trailed her sister into the kitchen. “Doesn’t look historic in here.”

“No.” Poppy turned a circle. “It’s completely updated.”

They wandered together from room to room, admiring the details of the massive staircase, the ridgeline or water views from every window, the carefully detailed bathrooms. Even the smallest bedroom had a fireplace.

“Oh, I do love it in here,” Poppy said, peeking into a room with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases that included a ladder that rolled along rails. Her hand trailed along the spines of old books that smelled like leather and lavender. “Maybe there are ghost stories.”

“Pretty different than where we grew up,” Mac said, recalling the ramshackle house where she’d lived with her brother and sisters. Their father had been terrible with money, causing problems in the marriage when Brett, Mac and Poppy were small. Dell Walker had even left for a time, during which his wife had an affair and became pregnant with Shay.

But he’d returned and patched things up with Lorna, which included embracing Shay as his own. From then on, the Walkers had lived rich in family and love for the mountains, despite the meager state of their bank accounts.

Walking back into the hallway with its plush Oriental carpet, Mac’s younger sister made a face. “No headless ghouls. I’m so disappointed,” she said, crossing to another door and reaching for the knob.

Mac lunged for her sister’s hand. “Wait—”

But she was too late. Poppy stood, framed by the jamb. “Oh,” she said. “Maybe not so disappointed, after all.”

Mac peeked around her shoulder and into the master bedroom, then swallowed her groan.

Zan still lay on the mattress of the massive four-poster bed, but sometime since she’d checked on him last, he’d shed his shoes. And his clothes.

All of them.

Facedown once again, he was naked, a pillow clutched in his arms like a lover.

“I’m going all tingly,” Poppy whispered.

“You’re engaged!” Mac said, elbowing her ribs.

“That doesn’t mean I’m blind. And I definitely can’t unsee that.” She pointed. “I don’t want to unsee that.”

Mac didn’t, either. Her gaze meandered over the wealth of skin on display, from the heavy bulges of his biceps, to the intriguing contours of his back on either side of the long furrow of his spine, to the muscled rise of his ass. “Um...”

“He’s aged well,” Poppy offered.

“Really, really well.” Mac’s skin prickled beneath her clothes and even her eyeballs felt hot. “This is bad.” Bad for me.

Poppy nodded. “We should leave.”

They both didn’t move. Then he did, in a restless stretch drawing up one knee to reveal—

Poppy yanked Mac back into the hall and shut the door.

“Hey,” Mac protested.

“If you’re never going to sleep with him again,” her sister said, suddenly all prim and proper, “then ogling’s inappropriate.”

“Fine,” Mac said, hoping it didn’t sound as if she was sulking. She glanced around the hall. “Looks like there’s one more chance to find us something spooky.” Nodding her head, she indicated the final closed door on the second floor.

Poppy didn’t hesitate to throw it open. Then she froze. “Speaking of ghosts...”

It was a young man’s room. Ratty sports equipment on a bookshelf along with tattered copies of mystery novels. A fishing pole propped in a nearby corner. A king-size bed covered with a navy blue duvet. On the bedside table...

Pain ripped through Mac’s chest as her heart gave a vicious twist.

“Didn’t you give him that photo?” Poppy asked.

Speech was beyond Mac. She nodded. It was taken the last summer he’d been in the mountains. They were sunburned and barefoot, her back to his chest. How young they looked. Her neck was twisted so she could smile up at him. His eyes were on her face and alight with...

Whatever feelings he’d had for her that had allowed him to walk away—and leave the keepsake behind.

Swallowing hard, she drew her sister away and shut the bedroom door, dismissing the sharp jab of disappointment. It was silly of her to have even for a second imagined he would have carried it—her, them—with him on his travels. He’d moved on.

And so had she.

Poppy was staring at her, her expression concerned. “Do you want me to take over nursemaid duties?”

Mac moved toward the stairs. “Of course not. I can do this.”

“But—”

She glanced back at her sister. “I’m over him. I have been since the minute he left here and drove down the hill.”

“Um...I remember it differently.”

Squeezing shut her eyes, Mac stopped. The truth was, she’d been a lovelorn mess after he’d gone. For the first weeks she’d wandered around aimlessly like one of the ghosts they’d expected to find at the Elliott estate, causing everyone around her to wring their hands and utter helpless noises. But then she’d realized the sympathy they offered only served to make her softer—powerless and weak.

Not to mention that her family had also been suffering, not only from their own loss of Zan, but also because their dad had died less than two years before. Her unhappiness, she’d realized, was only doubling down their own.

So she’d straightened her spine and elected to stop her wallowing. Tossing out the used tissues cluttering her room, she’d decided to get on with her life—which became the impetus to begin building a business instead of drowning in the misery of lost love.

“But I did get over him eventually,” she said, striding for the stairs again. “You know I did.”

“Okay.” Poppy followed on her heels as she sped down the steps. “Still, it might bother—”

“Nothing bothers me,” Mac declared, wanting the discussion to end. “Now, don’t you have to go home and make Mason an after-school snack or something?”

Poppy sighed. “If you’re sure...”

“I’m sure. Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got it.” Her nod was decisive. “Absolutely.”

Once she heard her sister motor off, she breathed a little easier. Poppy was so damn sentimental, thinking it might hurt Mac to see Zan through this sickness.

She didn’t need to shirk this task she’d taken on—especially when doing so would only underscore her sister’s mistaken idea that she’d never gotten the man out of her heart. Sure, walking away from him now might have proved her indifference, too, but there was more to Zan than the man who’d left her.

Being able to remember that was part of the proof that she was over the guy.

Before that time as her lover, he’d been the boy who’d fixed the chain on her bike innumerable times. The guy who’d helped her with her Spanish homework in middle school—he was aces with languages. The very same person who’d jollied her out of her doldrums when the boy she’d liked between eighth grade and high school had left her for some summer girl.

She could safely perform a favor for someone who was no longer anything more to her than an old family friend, right?

With that still at the forefront of her mind, she made her way back into the master bedroom as evening darkened the sky. Upon a little exploring, she figured out how to start the gas fireplace across from the bed. Then she managed to get Zan under the covers...keeping her gaze trained away from anyplace intimate.

Soup and crackers didn’t interest him, but though he at first batted away her hands she was able to get some water and pain relievers down his throat. His eyes were half-open and dull through the process. If he knew who tended to him, or had an opinion about it, he didn’t comment.

When she tired of watching TV downstairs, she headed back to his room. The gas fireplace was simple enough to turn on and made her spot on the couch beneath the windows even more cozy. She was plenty comfortable with the blanket and pillow she’d spied on a shelf in the closet and wearing a flannel shirt she’d found hanging there as a nightgown.

With light from the flames in the fireplace flickering against the plaster walls, she snuggled into the cushions. Unused to a day without much physical activity, she thought she might have trouble finding sleep, but with Zan’s breathing as her lullaby, she drifted off.

To jerk awake at the sound of his strangled voice.

“No. God, no.” Zan thrashed, fighting with the covers.

Mac jackknifed up and struggled out of the blanket wrapped around her legs. The wool rug was soft against her bare feet as she made for the bed.

“Simone,” he said, stopping Mac’s headlong rush. “Please, baby. Simone.”

Simone? She ignored the new twist of her heart. “Zan,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “You’re having a dream.”

“Don’t leave me,” he begged.

Licking her lips, she crept closer to the bed. “It’s me, Mac,” she said. “You’re at the lake house. In the mountains.”

“Noo,” he moaned again.

In the light from the fireplace, she could see that his eyes were pinched tightly shut. “Zan.” She reached out a tentative hand, brushed his hair from his warm forehead. “It’s all right.”

“Simone.” He sounded urgent, anxious, and his head turned in her direction. His eyes opened, but they stared at Mac, unseeing. “Come back, baby. You’ve got to come back.”

“Shh.” She stroked his hair again. “You’re having a dream.”

“Didn’t happen?” His eyes closed again and his body seemed to relax.

“Didn’t happen,” she whispered.

When he seemed to slip back into slumber, she leaned over the bed to straighten the sheets and duvet around him. In a quick movement, he snatched her off her feet and yanked her into his body.

“Zan—”

“Shh,” he said, echoing her from moments before. Tucking himself around her, he pinned her to him with a heavy arm across her waist. “Sleep now,” he muttered. “Go to sleep.”

Wriggling away was futile. Every time she tried to move, he mumbled into her hair and tightened his grip. Just a few minutes, she told herself, relaxing into his hold, even as she registered the dangerous sense of rightness she felt with his body curled around hers. Once he returned to deep sleep, she’d slide away.

Leave him alone with his memories of Simone.