Page 23 of His Best Friend's Baby

“I wrote her once,” he said, and from Mac’s shocked expression he realized that little note had been a secret between his niece and him.

He could not, for the life of him, figure out why he had written her back and told her the cheerleaders missed out on all the fun during the games anyway.

“I don’t feel guilty, Mac, if that’s what you are trying to do.”

Mac stared at him a long time, that weighted assessment that used to torture Jesse when he was a kid. One of those looks from Mac and he’d confess everything.

But Jesse wasn’t a kid, and all of his confessions were his own.

“Jesse,” Mac said with a slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “you’re carrying so much guilt it’s amazing you can even stand up.”

Jesse studied the play of sunlight through the poplar out front.

“Well, you’ve got plenty of food in those bags,” Mac said, breaking the thick silence between them. “Rachel’s worried about you. Said you looked like a stray dog.”

Mac looked him over and Jesse knew what he saw, the scars and the lopsided collarbone, the ribs that were all too visible, the muscles that were wiry and tough.

“That doesn’t look healed,” he murmured, pointing to Jesse’s damaged collarbone.

“It was a bad set.” Jesse touched the slight bend. “They wanted to rebreak it and try again, but I thought it gave me some character.” He tried to make a joke to ease the unbearable pressure between them. His body was witness to how close he’d come to dying and Mac was taking it all in.

“Does it hurt?”

Jesse shook his head.

“God. We’re just so glad you’re alive, Jess,” Mac whispered and a muscle in his jaw clenched. It seemed as though Mac was going to grab him in one of those bear hugs again and Jesse’s body tensed in fight-or-flight mode. Instead Mac tucked the hand he had raised into his pocket.

Jesse looked away. Too many emotions. Why the hell did you think this would be easy? His plans to come home and sell the house didn’t include encounters with Rachel and Mac. Which was stupid, really, because if there were one thing Jesse knew in this world, it was that he could always count on Mac.

“Well.” Mac heaved a huge breath. “I gotta get back to the farm. We’re harvesting.” Suddenly, Mac threw his head back and laughed his big loud bark that filled the room. In the corner, Wainwright woke up with a start and a growl.

You’re too late, Wain.

“Remember when I hired you for harvest and you were what…sixteen?”

Jesse focused his eyes out the window, watched a cloud inch its way over the sun and fought to find that place in himself that was removed from the past, Mac, his sister. He needed to be far away from all of it, back in the desert.

“I needed you to drive the tractor from—”

“I remember,” Jesse murmured. “Ancient history, Mac. I’m trying—”

“And you couldn’t figure out how to put it in Park—”

“I remember,” he said, his voice louder and colder.

“The thing rolled down Main Street and Sheriff McNeil tried to give you a ticket until I—”

“Damn it, Mac!” he yelled, breathing hard. “I remember.”

The room was silent and Jesse immediately regretted his crack. Things were building in him, pushing against his bones and his skin, clawing through his efforts to remain detached.

“I don’t think you do, Jess.” Mac’s eyes turned solemn, sad. “Rachel and I have written you every week for the past three years, because we remember.” He looked out the window to where his daughter sat in the truck. “My daughter wrote you. She got classmates to write you and, man, if you had seen her four years ago you wouldn’t have thought it was possible for her to care about someone else.”

Jesse saw so much in Mac’s eyes. He saw every late night Mac had bailed him out of jail because Mitch had grabbed some woman’s purse, or he and Mitch had tipped over the pop machines at the high school. Every twenty bucks Mac had loaned him when times got hard. Jesse saw the pride Mac had felt when he’d gone off to basic training. He saw the calm and strong way Mac had constantly stood by him when Rachel had deserted them both.

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