after he shut the front door behind him.
Dylan studied the petite, curvy woman walking beside him and he tried to figure out who she was before she had to tell him. He had had a lot of drunken hookups when he was in college and he hoped that she wasn’t one of them.
It seemed to Mackenzie that her heart was pumping way too much blood, too quickly, through her veins. She was light-headed and for a split second, as she was coming down the front steps, it felt as if she might just pass out.
This is happening. After all these years. This is really happening.
“Yes. We’ve met,” Mackenzie said as she walked quickly to her car, unlocked the door and then opened it so she would have something to lean on.
“You were good friends with my brother, Jett, back in middle school.” Mackenzie gripped the frame of the open car door so hard that her fingers started to hurt.
“Jett...?” Dylan shook his head slightly as if he didn’t connect with the name, but then recognition slowly started to dawn as a smile started to move across his face.
“Wait a minute!” Dylan exclaimed. “Big Mac? Is that you?”
Mackenzie blanched. No one had called her that horrible nickname since high school.
“I don’t like to be called that,” she said. When she was growing up, no one called her “Mackenzie.” Jett and her friends always called her “Mac.” Cruel kids at school had added the “Big” to it and the horrible nickname had followed her like a black cloud until she graduated from high school.
“Hey—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He couldn’t stop staring at her face. This was not the Mackenzie he remembered. The thick, old-lady glasses were gone, her hair was darker and longer, and she had slimmed down. She wasn’t skinny; she was curvy, which was a pretty rare occurrence in California. The word voluptuous popped into his head to describe her now.
“Just don’t call me that anymore, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. Never again, I promise,” Dylan promised, his eyes smiling at her. “Man. I can’t believe it...Jett’s little sister! You look great.”
“Thanks,” Mackenzie said.
“Man...” Dylan crossed his arms loosely in front of his body and shook his head. “How long has it been? Five, six years?”
“Ten,” Mackenzie said too quickly and then added more nonchalantly, “Give or take.”
“Ten years.” Dylan nodded as he tried to remember the last time he had seen her. When it hit him, he snapped his fingers. “Jett’s wedding, right? I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you right away—but, in my defense, Mackenzie, you’ve changed.”
“Yeah, well...losing a hundred pounds will do that to a person,” Mackenzie said. She was watching him closely; it still didn’t seem to be registering with him that they had slept together after Jett’s reception.
“A hundred pounds?” he repeated, surprised. “I don’t remember you needing to lose that much.”
“You’d be one of the few.” Mackenzie heard that old defensiveness creep into her tone.
Several seconds of silence slipped by before Dylan asked, “So—how’s Jett doing nowadays? Still married?”
“Uh-uh.” Mackenzie shook her head. “The marriage didn’t work out. But he’s got custody of both kids, so that’s the upside of that situation.”
“Does he live around here, too?”
“No. He owns a hot-rod shop up in Paradise, California. He wanted to be closer to Dad and he thought a small town would be better for the girls.”
“A hot-rod shop, huh? So wait a minute—did Jett do this restoration?” Dylan asked with a nod toward her car.
“Yep.” Mackenzie nodded proudly. Her older brother had managed to build a lucrative career out of a passion he shared with their dad.
“Man—I’m telling you what, he did a fantastic job on this Chevy. I really respect that he kept it true to the original design. I’ve gotta tell you, this’s pretty amazing timing running into you like this because I’ve been looking for someone to restore my Charger. I gotta get her out of storage and back out on the road.”
“You should check out his website—High-Octane Hot Rods.”
“High-Octane Hot Rods. I’ll do that.” Dylan hadn’t stopped smiling at her since he’d realized she was Jett’s little sister. “So, tell me about you, Mackenzie. Are you married? Got any kids?”
Instead of answering his question, Mackenzie slipped behind the wheel of the car. “Listen—I wish I could spend more time catching up, but I’ve really gotta go.”
“No problem,” Dylan said easily, his hands resting on the door frame so he could close the door for her. “We’re bound to run into each other again.”
Mackenzie sent him a fleeting smile while she cranked the engine and shifted into gear. Fate had unexpectedly forced her hand and now she was just going to have to figure out how to deal with it.
Once out of Dylan’s neighborhood, Mackenzie drove to the nearest public parking lot. She pulled into an empty space away from the other cars, fished her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed her best friend’s number with shaky fingers.
“Rayna...?”
“Mackenzie? What’s wrong? Why do you sound like that? Did something happen to Hope?”
“No.” Mackenzie slouched against the door. “She’s fine.”
“Then what’s wrong? You sound like something’s wrong.”
“I just ran into Dylan.” There was a tremor in her voice.
“Dylan who?”
“What do you mean, Dylan who?” Mackenzie asked, irritated. “Dylan Axel.”
“What?” Now she had Rayna’s attention. “You’re kidding!”
“No.” Mackenzie rubbed her temple. She could feel a migraine coming on. “I’m not kidding.”
“Where in the world did you run into him?”
“At his condo. In Mission Beach.”
“He lives in Mission Beach?”
“Apparently so.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Delivering cupcakes to Jordan’s fiancé’s birthday party,” Mackenzie said as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “Dylan is Ian’s best friend.”
Rayna
