Page 7 of Save the Last Dance
“There’s a festival subcommittee meeting tomorrow at three.” He frowned. Paused. “Also I’m supposed to pick up the hay wagons from Spencer Farm.” He glanced at Mack. “I can take care of that one, though.”
Mack remembered the last time he’d been there, the night he’d picked up Nina for the graduation party. How often had he wished he could rewind to that moment? Change any one thing about that day to make the result different.
“No.” Mack wasn’t about to start shirking jobs he’d just volunteered for. “I’m here to handle this stuff. Besides, I don’t think Nina is going to be spending her days in the barn while she’s home. Odds are, I’m not going to run into her again for a while.”
Scott keyed in a few commands and then put his phone back in his pocket. “You forget how small Heartache is.”
Mack hadn’t forgotten. But he was sure Nina wanted to avoid him as much as he planned to avoid her. “All the more reason for you to get out of here for a few days.”
“If Bethany will even go.” Scott shook his head. Staredat the ground. “That’s a bigif.”
“Did you screw up that badly?” He found that tough to imagine and fought the urge to ask for details. Those were up to his brother to share. “You two have been together for what…eighteen years? She must not want to throw that away any more than you do.”
“I’ve been doing the same exact things I’ve been doing for eighteen years. Then one day, that wasn’t good enough.” He shrugged. “Believe me, if I had screwed up, I’d be busting my ass to fix it. But getting bored with your life isn’t an excuse to bail on it. Not in my book.”
Scott’s jaw flexed. His mouth settled in a flat line. Even his tone warned Mack not to argue that point, although Mack seriously doubted Bethany was “just bored.” So for now, he simply nodded.
“Right. So maybe a couple of days alone together will help you figure things out.”
“Thanks.” Scott looked back at the house where they’d grown up. “You sure you don’t mind staying with Mom?”
“I’m going to clean up the apartment that Gramp’s field manager used to live in. Maybe do a little restoration work.” It hadn’t been occupied in years, but it was built above an equipment barn that had been well maintained even after the farm folded. “That ought to keep me out of her way and keep friction to a minimum.”
Scott raised his eyebrows, skepticism obvious. “Good luck with that.”
“I’m going to tell her it’ll raise the property value.” It was a cover story that wouldn’t hurt his mother’s feelings. She’d never admit that it was too much to have Mack in the house with her, but he knew perfectly well it would be. He’d only just convinced her to let a maid come in twice a week to do the heavy cleaning—a local woman who alsokept tabs on her health. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize her routine.
“Mack, I get that this isn’t going to be fun for you. Especially now that Nina’s in the picture, too?—”
“We’re family, bro. This is what we do.” It was a corny saying of their dad’s—one that he’d used to cover the whole town when he’d been mayor. It was practically a town motto.
“Well, this is above and beyond, as far as I’m concerned. You have a whole life in Nashville you put on hold for this. So…thanks.” Scott clapped him on the shoulder once before he grabbed his beer and headed toward his own house just two doors down. He only took a few steps before he turned and lifted his bottle in toast. “And who knows? Maybe having Nina around will help put the past to rest.”
Mack shook his head. “No comment.”
Scott drank to that and kept on walking.
Mack took his time finishing his own beer, needing a minute to get his head on straight before he went in the house to talk to his mother. What did Scott know about putting the past to rest?
He couldn’t deny that Nina stirred him up inside as much as ever. In fact, his ex-wife had accused him of never getting over Nina. Jenny had been wrong about that, though. He’d been furious with Nina Spencer. She hadn’t been able to shake the dust of Tennessee off her shoes fast enough at a time when he’d needed her most.
She’d called him the night after the accident, upset and crying, saying she was leaving that night for New York. Right then. And she begged him to come with her. No warning of her change of plans, she just wanted to go.
But he couldn’t leave his family when they were falling apart, and she’d never forgiven him for it. Then again,things had only gotten worse after she left, and he’d blamed her for not being there with him. For impulsively taking off. Within the month, they were done speaking for good.
So just because Mack’s temperature spiked into the triple digits whenever he saw her didn’t mean he’d ever forget the way she’d bailed on him.
When Nina hadleft Manhattan, she’d taken only her espresso machine and her cat on a red-eye flight.
Now, two days later, the rest of her worldly possessions were being unloaded off the back of a sketchy-looking moving truck and into one of her grandmother’s barns. She hadn’t wanted her things being manhandled by repo men in New York.
“Careful with that!” Nina blurted to one of the movers as he struggled with an antique pie rack that had been a gift from a client. Her apartment furnishings would all remain in the city just in case she could figure out a way to get her life and her career on track again. She was in a holding pattern for now between the business and her grandmother’s health. She was mostly in Tennessee, but she’d left one foot in New York in case things were a total bust here. After all, if her grandmother truly needed to go into assisted living, there wouldn’t be anything tying her to Heartache.
But for now, Nina would stay in Tennessee until the scandal surrounding her business died and she’d liquidated some assets, then she’d figure out where to go next. Her partner had been in charge of the books for their shared bakery venture and she’d drained their account before eloping with a high-profile client on the eve of his wedding.
Big, fatmess.
“I’ve got it,” one of the movers assured her, sweat dripping off his forehead as he struggled to keep the pie rack off the concrete floor. “We can handle this.”
