course she was keeping the baby, she thought indignantly. How could she not? She’d always had a fondness for all creatures smaller than she was. She just wasn’t relishing the notion that her whole life would be replumbed and restructured.
Hormones mounting another rebellion in her system, MacKenzie didn’t like the way he dehumanized what was happening. “It’s a baby, Jeff, not an ‘it.’”
There was another long pause, as if he were choosing his words carefully. “I’m not interested in being a father, Mac.”
Something shut down in her. It wasn’t that she was expecting him suddenly to declare that he’d been blind and could now see and from here on in everything was going to be coming up roses for them, but she didn’t like the guarded way he was approaching this. As if she wanted something from him. As if he were bracing himself for some kind of shakedown.
Her voice grew more formal. “I know that. I just thought you had a right to know that there would be someone walking around with half your gene pool.”
She swore she heard a sigh of relief. When Jeff uttered the next words, he sounded more like his old self. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up papers making arrangements for child-support payments.”
For some reason, that just made her angrier. “I didn’t call you for that.”
“I know. But I want to do this. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up as if afraid that she might still hit him up for something.
She let the receiver drop back into the cradle within the small cubbyhole that was her office. And then left it at that. Left it with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach right beside the seedling that was her baby.
Her baby, not his, not anyone else’s. Hers, she thought with a sudden cloud of tears welling up within her eyes.
Grabbing a tissue, she blocked a wave of exasperation. There they went again, her emotions climbing onto the same roller coaster they’d been riding for the last week. Damn but she was going to have to get a handle on all this emotional stuff before she found herself being utterly derailed.
Somehow, she made it through the remainder of the day, avoiding Dakota’s probing questions and getting everything prepared for the next day’s taping. Instead of staying beyond six, the way she normally did, she made it out the first second she could.
Pausing only long enough to pick up the take-out food she’d ordered earlier, MacKenzie had every intention of going home and locking herself up in her apartment. She wanted to keep the world at bay for as long as she could. Heaven knew, this wasn’t something that she could keep a secret indefinitely, although there had been women who had managed just that because of minimal weight gain and a bevy of very wide, very loose clothing.
She doubted she’d be that lucky.
The same truck was still there when she pulled into the parking lot behind her complex. But this time it wasn’t blocking her space. The vehicle was stretched out over three empty spaces in guest parking. Some of the tenants with visitors weren’t going to be happy tonight.
Not her concern, she thought, guiding her Mustang into her spot.
The take-out bag still felt mildly warm, which meant that the food within the cartons was at least equally so, if not more. The thought of warm food was oddly comforting.
Until it hit her mouth, she thought wryly. After that, all bets were off.
She picked up her purse and shifted the bag to her other side. Approaching her apartment, she saw that the door to the apartment beside hers was wide open. She recognized a piece of furniture from the truck and tensed.
This meant that the guy she’d all but robbed of his manhood was going to be her new neighbor. MacKenzie caught her lower lip between her teeth. Talk about making a bad first impression….
Pausing, she peered inside the apartment but didn’t see him anywhere. She squelched the desire to go inside, not wanting him to add the word trespasser to his list of grievances against her. The living room was in a state of upheaval. There were boxes clustered everywhere. Had he been moving in all day? Of course he had. Most men were domestically challenged. Moving was a major event to them, right up there with wars and famine and flash floods.
MacKenzie knew she should be moving on before her mildly warm dinner became stone cold. But she’d been diagnosed as terminally curious as a child and couldn’t quite get her feet to move away from the doorway.
Was there a Mrs. New Neighbor somewhere? The signs she saw said otherwise. The furniture seemed definitely masculine, but then some women favored clean, unobstructed lines and minimal furnishings.
He was nowhere in sight.
“Hello?” she called out. When there was no answer, she raised her voice and repeated the greeting.
This time, she got a response.
Quade came walking out from the rear of the apartment. The moment he saw her, a note of tension invaded his otherwise impassive expression. She was carrying something in a brown paper bag and her offending purse/weapon was suspended from her wrist. Quade watched it warily, then raised his eyes to her face.
“Should I be grabbing a tray or something to deflect any more blows?”
MacKenzie laughed and flashed him what she felt was her best smile, the one she knew took in her eyes, as well as her lips. “Sorry about this morning.”
“Okay.” He said the word as if it were meant to terminate any further conversation.
By all rights, this was her cue to withdraw. But she didn’t like the idea of having someone living next door who bore a grudge against her. It didn’t take much imagination to see that was what was in the works here. What was needed right now was a little damage control.
MacKenzie thought of the take-out bag tucked against her side.
Because he’d turned his back on her and had begun tearing the tape off a box that was almost as tall as she was, she took a step inside the apartment.
“Hungry?”
He didn’t even spare her a look. “Why, you have some rat poison you want to unload?”
She could feel her back going up, but she forced her voice not to sound hostile as she asked, “Not very friendly, are you?”
This time, he did spare her a look. It was the kind of look that made men with black belts in karate take two giant steps backward. “In general I try to avoid people who try to castrate me.”
She didn’t own a black belt in karate, or any other color belt for that matter, but she had been raised with three brothers and had adopted feistiness as her middle name. “That was an accident.”
“And you apologized.” His tone was cold and gave no indication of what he was thinking, other than the fact that he didn’t want to be bothered right now and was dismissing her.
She dug in. “Yes, I did.”
“Apology accepted.” What did it take to get this woman out of his living room and his apartment? Did he have to physically carry her out? He went back to removing the tape from the box he had no intentions
