“Okay. But if you can’t be positive then I need you to be quiet.” She started to blast him with a retort but he spoke over her. “I’m asking you—on bended knee if I must—to stay and to trust me when I tell you that I know my body. I won’t push myself beyond what I can do.” Here came the compromise. It sucked but he knew he didn’t have a chance of her staying without it. “I won’t do anything behind your back and I will listen, and respect, your opinion. I still need your help, if only to keep my crazy in check.”
Rory stared at the floor, considering his words, and he knew she was wavering.
“You told me about your clinic, how much having your own place means to you. Don’t give up on your dreams for your own practice because I’m a stubborn ass who doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit.”
Rory lifted her head to glare at him. “Low blow, McCaskill, using my dreams to get me to do what you want me to do.”
He shrugged as Rory glared at him. He didn’t want her to leave and he would use any method he could to keep her on this island with him. He was that desperate.
“So, you’ll stay?”
“For now.” She pointed a finger at him. “You dodged a bullet, Mac. Don’t make me shoot you for real next time.”
* * *
On the private jet hired for the trip home, Rory watched as Mac stashed his laptop back in a storage space above his head. Looking at him, no one would realize Mac had gone through major surgery nearly eight weeks ago. She listened to him bantering with the flight attendant and couldn’t help wondering if Mac was doing exercises on the side, working that arm in ways she didn’t approve of.
Maybe. Possibly. His recovery was remarkable.
Rory thought back to their argument, still a little angry that he’d deceived her. Maybe it wasn’t deliberate, maybe he’d just been thoughtless, but it had hurt. On the positive side, the argument had opened her eyes. It had been her wake-up call. From that moment on she’d stopped entertaining, even on the smallest scale, thoughts about a happy-ever-after with Mac.
He’d never be a hundred percent honest with her and she could never fully trust him.
There couldn’t be love or any type of a relationship without trust, and she had to be able to trust a man with everything she had. She couldn’t trust Mac so she couldn’t love him. She’d decided that...hadn’t she?
Okay, it was a work in progress.
The flight attendant moved away and Mac stretched out his legs, looking past Rory out the window by her head. Below them the island of Puerto Rico was a verdant dot in an aqua sea and their magical time together was over.
Back to reality.
Mac sipped his beer and placed his ankle on his knee. “This plane can’t fly fast enough. Kade sounded stressed.”
“He didn’t say why he wanted you back in the city?” Rory asked. Mac had announced at breakfast that Kade needed him in Vancouver and by mid-morning they were on their way home.
Mac shook his head. “No, and that worries me.” A frown pulled his eyebrows together and his eyes were bleak. He looked down at his injured arm and traced the red scar that was a memento of his operation. “What if it doesn’t heal correctly? What will I do?”
She’d never heard that note in his voice before—part fear, part insecurity. “You go to plan B, Mac. There is always another plan to be made, isn’t there?”
Mac picked up her hand and wound his fingers in hers. “But hockey is what I do, who I am. It’s my dream, my destiny, the reason I get up in the morning.”
Is that what he really thought? She stared down at his long, lean body. It was a revelation to realize she wasn’t the only one in this plane with demons. She felt relieved, and sad, at the thought. “Yeah, you’re a great hockey player, supposedly one of the best.”
Mac mock-glared at her and she smiled. “Okay, you are the best...does that satisfy your monstrous ego?”
Mac’s lips twitched but he lowered his face so she couldn’t look into his eyes. That was okay. It would be easier to say this without the distraction of his fabulous eyes. “You aren’t what you do, Mac. You’re so much more than that.”
“I play hockey, Rory, that’s it.”
Rory shook her head in disagreement. “You are an amazing businessperson, someone who has many business interests besides hockey. You are a spokesperson for various charities, you play golf and you do triathlons in the off-season. Hockey is not who you are or all that you do.”
“But it’s what I love best and if I can’t do it...if I can’t save the team by keeping it out of Chenko’s clutches, I will have failed. It would be the biggest failure of my life.” Mac sat up, pulled his hand from hers and gripped the armrests. “I don’t like to fail.”