Page 12 of Finding You

“MacKenzie?” he asked, breaking into her…yup, romantic daydream.

“Um…yeah. I slept great. Thanks,” she said a little too quickly. “That was probably the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, so…uh…yeah. It was awesome. I didn’t mean to oversleep, but…I guess everything caught up with me and I crashed hard.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. That’s why I didn’t wake you up before I left.”

Images of ways she would have loved for him to wake her up came to mind, so she quickly pushed them aside. “So…um…have you had a chance to look at my car?”

“I did.”

She waited for him to say more and when he didn’t, she had a feeling the news wasn’t going to be good. “And?”

“The head gasket’s blown, which is what I suspected yesterday. You have a leak in your radiator and most of the hoses in the engine are in sorry shape.”

A nervous laugh came out before she could stop it. “Great. Okay…anything else?”

“Your exhaust system is holding on by a thread. There’s a lot of rust.”

She muttered a curse.

“And all four tires are almost bald.”

Her head hit the wall and all she could think of was how she was completely screwed. There was no way for her to fix all of those things–not with her budget. All the money she had was supposed to get her to Oregon and help her get settled into a new apartment–and that would have only worked if she found a job right away.

“MacKenzie,” he began, as if sensing she was starting to freak out, “I know it all sounds bad, but it’s also all fixable.”

“Yeah,” she replied wearily. “Sure.”

“Let me take care of some things here and I’ll come home and we’ll talk about it–I’ll need to make calls to get some of the parts we need. I don’t stock some of them, and some aren’t common, so I’m going to have to do a little research to find them.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not going to be so bad,” he went on, doing his best to sound upbeat and positive–like he hadn’t just pretty much killed all her plans for going any farther west than Sweetbriar Ridge.

“If you say so.”

Suddenly she was envisioning herself needing to find a place to stay for longer than a couple of days. And she was trying to do the math in her head for what she could afford and how to budget herself to take care of it all.

He repeated her name again.

“I…I just need to wrap my head around all of this, okay?” she said with a bit of snap.

Devin let out a low growl before saying, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

Parked in front of his own house, Devin worried about what was waiting for him inside. He knew MacKenzie was disappointed–hell, he was disappointed for her. The car needed work–extensive work–and that was just to get it running again. If he were to do all the work the car actually needed to be fully restored? Well, it was just a dream because he knew there was no way MacKenzie could afford it–especially not right now–and he wasn’t so sure she would even want to.

Like a man facing the firing squad, he grabbed the bakery box from the passenger seat and climbed out of the car–dragging his feet as he made his way up to the front porch.

He called her name as he walked in, but she didn’t respond. Closing the door behind him, he walked further into the house and called her again. And froze.

MacKenzie walked into the living room wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, a clingy white cami–no bra–and was drying her hair with a towel. Devin’s mouth went dry and for a moment, he completely forgot how to speak. She looked just as surprised as he did, and they simply stood and stared before he finally found his voice.

Holding up the box, he gave her a lopsided grin. “I, um…I picked up some pound cake and muffins and a few other things from Books & Beans. It’s a coffee shop with a bookstore in it,” he rambled on. “I didn’t get coffee because I wasn’t sure if you wanted one of those fancy drinks and remembered that I had a decent variety here you could choose from.”

“Um…”

“But if you want something fancier, we can stop there on the way to the shop and grab one. They make really great coffee there, and their baked goods are amazing. Billie Donovan does all their baking and…” He paused and shook his head. “Sorry. Way too much information, right? Anyway, it’s not much, but I bought a variety that I thought you might like.” He forced himself to move and head toward the kitchen. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”

“No,” she said quietly, following him.

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