Page 30 of Saving Grace

My breath stops.

More texts.

The notifications that Mackinlay saw must be on the lock screen. Fear heats low in my spine and my hands clam up. Mackinlay lifts his head, and his eyes meet mine. His face is unreadable.

“If you need to be somewhere else, Grace, say so.”

All I can do is shake my head.

He pushes to his feet, and for the first time since I have been here, it’s without his crutches. “Go home, wherever that is. I canmanage on my own.” He raises a hand, moving closer. But his hand falls. His chest cycles through deep breaths.

I move closer, glancing him up and down, taking in the fact that he has no crutch. That he’s a solid head taller than me. He tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear, eyes searching mine. I open my mouth to tell him I’m not going anywhere.

He steps back abruptly. “Go home. Leave and have a life. There’s nothing good for you here.”

“I can’t leave until you’ve recovered,” I say breathlessly. The absence of him from my space hits acutely. “You’re not getting rid of me until then.”

His face tilts back a little, his shoulders square, mood changing in an instant. “If you say so.”

He leans down and snatches up the crutch and hobbles away, the toll of standing without it evident. This man is always walking away from me. We are always fighting. Over everything. Maybe he’s right, I should go. But I promised Louisa to help him. To do what she couldn’t.

And deep down, I don’t want to leave until I meet the real Mackinlay. The man his family is so desperate to get back. Because I’m invested now. I need to see for myself the man so incredible that he has each one of their hearts in a stranglehold, on tenterhooks as they patiently wait for him to find his way home.

Chapter Eight

MACK

“With a face like that, little brother, I’d need an escape room, too.” Lawson drops on the sofa beside me. I know Grace getting another room was his idea. Always the good brother, Lawson.

“Fuck off, Laws.”

“Can’t, Ma needs you to stop harassing the help.”

“Whatever, you all just can’t help yourselves, can you.”

I snap the remote toward the TV. Sports bursts to life on the screen. Another reminder of something I can no longer do.

“Get over yourself, Mackie-boy, not everything is about you.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why every single member of this family is bending over backwards for this invalid.”

He sits up, face stone, and twists on his seat to face me. Grace is in the kitchen going over the pain meds and what I assume is the paperwork for the physio routine.

“Mack, you’ve got this backward, buddy. We’re not accommodating you, we love you. This is where we want to be. You’re not an inconvenience, you’re ourpriority.”

I can’t respond. Instead, I shift my focus to Grace. She leans against the counter on one hip, her hands crossed over her chest, hair falling around her shoulders, eyes focused on the papers onthe counter. Her gaze drifts from the counter and finds mine, as if she’s thinking about me or something. She smiles, and my gut flips into my throat.

Fuck.

I snap my eyes to my brother. Whose eyebrow is raised now, a shit-eating grin blooming across his damn face. “Stop with the bad attitude, Mack. The hole you dug is deep enough. Time to claw your way out. Or I’m coming down after you to drag your sorry ass out.”

“Fine, I’ll try. But I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Like I said, not everything is about you, little brother.”

What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

“Whatever,” I grunt.

---