being alone with Rory in this house?
She might have her fair share of problems but Mac had his too.
He wasn’t always who she expected him to be, Rory admitted. Sure, he could be overconfident about his abilities and about the effect he had on her, but he was also honest enough to admit that their attraction was a two-way street. She affected him just as badly. She didn’t know Mac well, not yet, and because he was so damn reticent, she probably never would. But she did know he wasn’t the arrogant jerk he’d been ten years ago. He was ambitious and determined, but he wasn’t selfish. He was smart and loyal and, yes, infuriating.
It was a surprise to realize that she liked him. A lot. And that liking had nothing to do with his masculine face and sculpted muscles.
There was a great deal more to Mac McCaskill than his pretty packaging. Dammit.
With every conversation they shared he shattered another of her preconceptions. If they continued these conversations, she’d start to like him a little more than she should, and there was a possibility she would feel more for him than lust and attraction.
She couldn’t let that happen. She would have to try to ignore him, try to avoid him. Because falling in lust with him was one thing, falling in like with him was another.
Falling in love with him would be intolerable.
So she simply wouldn’t.
* * *
A week after landing in San Juan, Rory and Mac watched the sun go down in the small fishing village of Las Croabas. She was full to bursting from demolishing a massive bowl of crab seviche. She was relaxed and a little buzzy. The single glass of wine couldn’t be blamed for that, she thought. No, it was a combination of the spectacular sunset—God was painting the sky with vivid purples and iridescent oranges—and the equally magnificent man who sat opposite her, hair ruffled by the balmy evening breeze.
A lovely sunset, a rustic restaurant, a really hot guy with a girl eating dinner...they could be an advertisement for romance, Rory thought. There would be no truth in that advertisement. Mac hadn’t laid a finger on her since they’d arrived in Puerto Rico and he hadn’t kissed her again. Truthfully, she hadn’t given him any opportunity to do either as she’d made a point of spending as little time with him as she possibly could without shirking her duties.
But a girl had to eat, and over dinner she’d intercepted a couple of intense looks from him, which made her think he’d catch her if she decided to jump him.
Which she wouldn’t. But the will-he-won’t-he anticipation was, admittedly, very hot and incredibly sexy.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Mac said.
That sounded ominous, Rory thought. “What is it?”
“There’s a hurricane on the way.” He lifted his seviche-filled fork to his mouth.
“A big one?” she squawked, half lifting her butt off her seat and whipping around to inspect the horizon. It was still cloud-free. Shouldn’t there be clouds?
Mac shrugged. “Big enough.”
“How big is big enough?” Rory demanded. How could he eat? A natural phenomena was about to smack them in the face. “When will it arrive? Should we evacuate? Are there bunkers?”
Mac sent her a puzzled glance. “It’s a hurricane, not a nuclear bomb, Rorks.”
“You’re not giving me any information!” Rory wailed. She tried to recall what she’d read about preparing for a hurricane and, unfortunately, it wasn’t a lot. Or anything at all. “Don’t we need to put boards up or something?”
“I’ve arranged to have some guys come over tomorrow to put the boards up. Stupid, because I could do them if it wasn’t for this arm!”
“I’m sure I can do it,” Rory bravely suggested. She didn’t know if she could but she thought she should offer.
Mac smiled at her. “No offense, Rorks, but it’ll take them a couple of hours and it would take you two weeks.”
“Why do people always say ‘no offense’ and then go on to offend you?” Rory grumbled.
“How often have you wielded a hammer?”
Rory lifted her nose at his smirk. “I pound in my own hooks to hang pictures.” Well, she had once and had lost a fingernail in the process. Troy then banned her from using tools. He’d fixed her cupboard door, replaced the broken tile in her shower, fixed the leaky pipe under her sink. Troy also changed the tires on her car, made a mean chicken parmesan and removed spiders. He’d be her perfect husband if he only liked girls. And if she was even marginally attracted to him.
“Liar,” Mac said cheerfully.
His ability to see through her annoyed the pants off her. Actually, the way he looked, his deep voice, his laugh—all of it made her want to drop her pants, but that was another story entirely. “Tell me about the hurricane!”
Mac dug his fork into his salad. “I’m not sure what you want to know. There’s a hurricane approaching. It’ll probably hit land around midnight tomorrow night. There will be wind, rain. We’ll be fine.”
Rory scowled at him. “You are so annoying.”
Mac’s lips twitched. “I try.” He dumped some wine into their glasses, picked hers up and handed it to her. “Drink. We might as well enjoy the gorgeous night before we die.”
Rory rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to be a smart-ass, there has to be some smart involved. Otherwise you just sound like an ass.” She took the glass from his hand, looked into his amused eyes and sighed. “I’m overreacting, aren’t I?”
Mac lifted his glass to his lips, sipped and swallowed. “Just a little.” He sent her another quick, quirky smile. “We’ll be fine. If I thought we were in danger, I’d be making arrangements to get you out of here.”
Rory nodded and took a large sip of her wine. Okay, then. Maybe she could cope with the hurricane. She glanced at the sky. “Tomorrow night, huh?”
Mac lifted his hand and rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. He lingered there, pressing the fullness before moving from her lip and drifting up and over her cheekbone. She watched as his eyes deepened, turned a blue-black in the early evening light. Rory tossed a look at the beach and wished she could jump up from the table and walk—run—away.
She’d been doing that for the last week, finding any excuse to avoid him. She left his presence when she felt the spit drying up in her mouth, when she felt the first throb between her legs. Because Mac spent most of his time shirtless, she’d spent a lot of time walking away from him. She’d run to the beach, run on the beach, had started canoeing and snorkeling again. She’d also taken a lot of cold showers.
She was so pathetic.
“You can’t run off in the middle of a meal,” Mac told her, his eyes dancing.
Rory lifted her nose and tried to look puzzled. “Sorry?”
“You’ve been avoiding me, running away every time something sparks between us,” Mac said conversationally, dropping his hand from her face and popping an olive from his salad into his mouth.
“Uh—”
“You’re not alone. Every time you do therapy on me, I have to stop myself from grabbing you and kissing you senseless.”
Rory groaned and dropped her chin to her chest.
Mac twisted his fingers in hers. “Your hands touch me and I inhale your scent—you smell so damn good—and my brain starts to shut down. It’s not just you, Rory.”
Rory picked up her glass and sipped, trying to get some moisture back into her mouth. “Ah... I’m not sure what to say.”
“Avoiding each other makes it worse. It’s driving