Page 16 of Homecoming Heartbreaker

Molly nodded, feeling awkward. What did one say to a man whom she’d once loved but who was now little more than a stranger? Someone she’d barely spoken to for the past week, despite kissing him like he was her last hit of oxygen? Someone she was still attracted to, a man who still managed to light a fire in her belly, who made her tingle down...well, everywhere. Her body had front-row seats to her heartbreak; how could it betray her like this?

But maybe she was also overreacting. It had been a tough few weeks, she was overwhelmed by work and terrified that Moonlight Ridge would fall apart under her watch. She’d been desperately worried about Jameson, and her family was bugging her for cash again.

Kissing Mack was a way to step out, to avoid reality. And to remind her that she was a normal woman with normal needs. Needs she’d been neglecting for a long, long time. Man, this was all so complicated, and she didn’t have time or the energy for complicated.

Molly sighed, wishing he’d just go and send one of his brothers to deal with Moonlight Ridge. Travis and Grey she could handle. Mack? Not so much.

Or at all.

Molly gestured to the path. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to go.”

Mack placed his hands into the back pockets of his cargo shorts, causing his blue button-down shirt to pull across his broad chest and to bunch around his impressive biceps. Molly resisted the urge to fan her face. “I’ll walk with you for a while and stretch my legs. Then I’ll go back and finalize the arrangements with Giada. Hopefully, she’ll be able to start immediately because I’m a shocking nurse.”

“And Jameson is a shocking patient,” Molly murmured before shaking her head. “You don’t need to walk with me, Mack.”

Mack scrubbed the back of his neck. “It’ll give us a chance to clear the air, Molly, and I think that’s what we need to do, especially since we are going to be working closely together for the next few weeks. We should’ve done this days ago, but taking care of my dad was more time-consuming than I’d thought.”

Molly wrinkled her nose. She was hot, tired and out of sorts and she wasn’t up for a discussion about the past. And Mack, she was sure, was only broaching this subject because it was expedient for him to do so. To oversee Moonlight Ridge, he needed her cooperation. Mack had always been single-minded and stubborn and Molly had no doubt he was ruthless, as well—few men achieved his level of success without that trait—and he’d do what was necessary to get the result he wanted. And if that included smoothing the ruffled feathers of his irritable ex-girlfriend, that was what he’d do.

She had no intention of making life easy for him.

Stepping away from him, Molly crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “A hot kiss and a quick chat after fifteen years won’t change the past, Mack. Are you really that arrogant to think that I would be so grateful that you are back, so happy to be in your arms again, that I would fall into line like a good little soldier?”

She saw surprise flash in his eyes and knew he had been thinking just that.Arrogant much, Holloway?

“We were kids, Molly. It was a long time ago,” Mack said, his tone reflecting a hint of annoyance. “We can move on, surely?”

He wanted her to, that much was obvious. And under that inscrutable face, she caught hints of his frustration. It was in the tiny tick in the muscle running down his jaw, in the tightening of the fine lines next to his eyes. In the flattening of his lips. Oh, most people wouldn’t pick up the subtle changes in his expression but she could look beneath the surface better than most. After all, his had always been her favorite face.

“As I said, I’m not mad because you broke up with me, Mack,” Molly told him, keeping her voice level. Losing her temper would only make her look childish.

“We would be having a completely different conversation if you actuallytoldme you were leaving, if you only left after an explanation and a goodbye. But you didn’t call and when you came back here, you avoided me. Every single time. Not once in fifteen years did you try to talk to me, to check up on me, or attempt to reboot our friendship.

“You’ve been back many times and on any one of those occasions you could’ve tracked me down, had a conversation, made a goddamn effort! Not because we once loved each other but because we were bestfriends, Mack. Friends don’t treat each other like that,” Molly added.

Mack dropped his head to stare at the stone path, his mouth pulled into grim lines. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry, Curls. I never meant to hurt you and I hope you can forgive me.”

Her heart did a triple beat of his old nickname for her, but one she hadn’t heard for a decade and a half. But she couldn’t let that distract her...

She finally had the proper apology she’d been waiting for. She’d been waiting for this moment for fifteen years but now that it was here, she didn’t know what to do with it, how to handle him, what to say, what to do next. All she knew was that she was exhausted and that she didn’t want to argue anymore.

“Thank you and your apology is accepted.” Molly managed a small smile. Ha, look at her, adulting here!

“I’m going to go,” Molly added when he failed to break the uncomfortable silence between them.

“Maybe we should talk about what happened in Jameson’s kitchen,” Mack stated, jamming his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

Oh, God, she didn’t want to talk about the past but neither did she want to discuss her insane reaction to his mouth and hands and his strong, sexy body. “It was akiss, Holloway. Don’t get excited.” Molly smiled to take the sting out of her words. “You’re a good-looking guy and I got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again.”

The tiniest hint of a smile turned his stern face a degree warmer. “Oh, I think it will.”

“You should talk to someone about your delusions, Holloway.” Molly forced herself to hold his intense gaze, to keep smiling. She would rather be pulled through a field covered in barbed wire than give Mack an inch. “It was momentary madness. Don’t read more into it than that.”

“The chemistry between us is still running hot.”

Thanks for pointing that out, Einstein.“We kissed. It was amistake. Let’s forget about it and move on.”

“Easy to say, less easy to do.”

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