“Hm.” His attention reverted beyond her to the flowers. “You gonna see who dropped a bag on you?”
Cassidy leaned against the counter and looked down, shaking her head, drawing designs on the countertop. Neither Marge nor Silas would have sent it. They wouldn’t have been insensitive enough to send flowers on her most challenging day. Jason wouldn’t have, either; she didn’t think so, anyway. She couldn’t think of anyone who would want to memorialize these couple of days in flowers. It was macabre.
It didn’t matter; she couldn’t look at the card, read the condolence. Glancing up, she explained, “Not appropriate. Not the gesture I’d want today.”
Mac’s brows drew together, his brooding look replaced with a look of realization. “Want me to…?” He jerked his head to indicate getting rid of them.
Cassidy again shook her head. “No. I’ll have to deal with them at some point, but for now, let them be. They could be from the publisher,” she pointed out, trying to recall if she’d received flowers on the first anniversary. Of course, she’d been in the hospital, and there hadn’t been a book about to be published.
His demeanor thawing, he said quietly, “I’ve got a confession.”
Her expression was guarded. “What?”
With a glance, he indicated the sitting area in her yard. “I found the draft. I took it.”
There was a moment where she was perplexed, not understanding what he meant, and then it dawned on her: Elijah’s manuscript. With a look of disbelief on her face, she demanded, “Why would you take it? Why wouldn’t you tell me? I blamed freaking raccoons!”
He didn’t look the least bit abashed. “You left it outside; I took it. You almost caught me by turning on the lights looking for Fred. I didn’t come over to take it; I’d just been… walking. Stopped to pet Fred. You called him in. I saw it, and curiosity got the better of me.”
“Why not mention it?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “I’m mentioning it.”
She returned her attention to the countertop for a few contemplative seconds, then asked, “Did you read it?”
“Yep.”
Looking up, she asked, “And?”
“I don’t want to disappoint you, but it’s not the same.”
Cassidy bit her bottom lip. She was surprised and touched that Mac had read Elijah’s book—books. He’d had to have read another one to compare. But this was further validation that she was correct that something was missing. “You didn’t even know him, but you could tell that something was missing.”
Mac shrugged. “I didn’t need to know him. Didn’t need to know a thing about him. I know you.”
She frowned in confusion.
He took the few steps to the counter, bracing his hands as he leaned in. “The thing that’s missing? It’s you.”
Mac had floored her.
The moment he’d said it, it had clicked; the ingredient she’d been searching for smacked her in the back of the head. It was so obvious. And he was right. Why she hadn’t recognized it, she didn’t know. She’d stood gaping at him like a guppy fish that had fallen out of its tank as he pointed out that in all of his books, Elijah had written her in, and she was missing from this one. Not a scene-stealer, just a glimpse.
She’d been a woman waiting at a subway stop, a high-powered attorney in a conference room, a hot dog vendor in Central Park, and a newscaster on television, a character for each of his four published books. His protagonist would note a nameless woman, the spark of lust mentioned so casually that the moment was forgotten two paragraphs later. Sometimes it set the tone that the character was heterosexual, a misogynist, or a man who noticed a pretty woman.
But the ghostwriter wouldn’t know Elijah’s wink to his wife and hadn’t picked up on it.
Mac had.
She burst into tears, embarrassing herself. Turning, she tried to escape him, but he wasn’t having it and caught her halfway across the room. He held her as she cried, even as she tried to fight his hold until he cursed and threw her over his shoulder and stalked her back to the bedroom.
Mac was very good at taking her mind off things.
After more hours of diverting her attention, he tossed her back into the shower, washing them both in a no-nonsense manner, and then fed her reheated mac-n-cheese with mayonnaise. He grimaced the entire time he ate it, but he soldiered through, claiming it wasn’t worse than an MRE, even though his expression said otherwise.
He stayed the night. Whether or not he slept in between more moments of heady sensations, delivered by both parties, she wasn’t sure. He was gone in the morning. He’d made coffee for her before he left, a note on the counter instructing her to sleep in her bed going forward, in a way only Mac could demand:No more sofas, Day.
That was it.