Page 4 of Homecoming Heartbreaker

This was, after all, the man she still wanted to run through with a rusty pitchfork.

Chill, Molly. It all happened so very long ago.

Mack stepped out of his car and Molly slammed her teeth together to keep her tongue from falling to the floor. At eighteen, Mack had been gangly, all long limbs and unruly hair, a little awkward and uncoordinated. That wasn’t something Mack needed to worry about now.

Molly tipped her head to the side and considered the man who’d been the center of her world so long ago. The boy she knew was gone and he was now a man, in every way that counted. His once shaggy hair was now expertly cut and styled, as black as a night in the Carolina woods. He’d inherited his Korean father’s looks, his eyes—a deep, dark black-brown—and the shape of his face hadn’t changed, but the light, sexy stubble on his jaw and chin was new.

But it was his body that had undergone the biggest change. He’d hit six foot two in his early teens but he’d always been skinny. He’d bulked up, his shoulders were broader, his thighs bigger, his chest wider. His shirt hinted at huge biceps and the wind slapped his white shirt against a stomach that was flat, hard and, she was convinced, ridged with muscle.

Mack, it was obvious, worked out. Hard and often.

Yum.

Molly felt the heat between her legs, the tingles in her nipples, and swallowed, looking for moisture in her mouth.Yum? Really, Haskell?He was a great-looking guy and,rats, she was still as attracted to Mack today as she’d been when she was a teenager. But unlike that naive, trusting girl she’d been, she now knew that there was a chasm between sex and love, that the two didn’t normally have to walk hand in hand. She could appreciate a good-looking man; it was just conditioning and biology. Molly knew that she, and every other woman in the world, was hardwired to look for the strongest, best-looking mate, the one with excellent genes to give to her children.

She’d grown up, thank God, and it took more than a hot bod and gorgeous face to impress her these days.

Mack took his time acknowledging her and when he finally turned to look at her, his face was as imperturbable as she hoped hers was. “Hello, Molly.”

God, even his voice was deeper, sexier, like well-aged red wine.

Molly inclined her head and didn’t move from her position, annoyed to realize that her knees were now, and suddenly, the consistency of Jell-O. “Mack.”

Mack placed his hands in the pockets of his pants—black, designer—and walked around the hood of his car to stand at the bottom of the steps. He looked up at her, his eyes shuttered. “I’m on my way to see Jameson...anything I should know before I head over there?”

Molly understood his asking; he knew she and Jameson were tight. Molly lifted one shoulder. “He’s irascible and demanding. He fired another nurse this morning.”

Frustration flickered across Mack’s face. “That’s how many now?”

“Nurses? One this week. Two last week.”

Mack pushed a broad hand through his slightly wavy hair. “He needs a nurse, Molly. He can’t be on his own.”

Molly heard the accusation in his voice and bristled. “Hey, I’m trying to run the resort as well as keep an eye on him. There’s only so much I can do but I did persuade his current nurse to stick around until you arrived today. He needs to accept help or, better yet, you find someone to nurse him who won’t buckle when he yells.”

“He doesn’t mean it. He’s just frustrated.”

Molly scowled at him, annoyed that he was lecturing her about the man whom she’d known and adored all her life and worked with since she left college. The man she’d, sadly, betrayed a few months after Mack left Moonlight Ridge and Asheville.

Don’t think about that now, Molly.

Irritated that she’d let him get to her, she forced herself to smile. “Did you have a good trip?” she asked, her tone completely, to her ears at least, false.

“Do you really care?”

Not a whit, she thought, keeping her smile in place. His eyes narrowed as he tipped his head back to look up, taking in the three-story stone building, covered in thick ropes of ivy. Like her, he’d grown up in shadow of this stone-and-wood building. He in Jameson’s house a short distance away, she, until she was thirteen, in the manager’s house situated beyond the orchard at the back of the property.

A picture of a young Mack, maybe eight or nine, looking up at the mansion in the same way—bemused and impressed, as if he was wondering what he was doing here—flashed on her brain’s big screen. She’d often seen it on his face over the years, as if he still couldn’t believe he got to call Moonlight Ridge home.

“Are you moving into Jameson’s house?” she asked Mack.

Mack looked like he swallowed a sour lemon. “Since he doesn’t have a nurse, I suppose I, temporarily, have to.”

Molly narrowed her eyes at him. When they were kids, Mack had hung on Jameson’s every word, and Jameson hadn’t been shy to tell, and show, them how much he loved his sons. He’d been tough but fair. As one of Jameson’s longest employees—she’d worked for him temporarily since she was fourteen years old and permanently since she was twenty-two—she’d seen how the feud among the brothers impacted her boss. Jameson managed to still be the consummate host, the charming innkeeper, but Molly saw him in his unguarded moments, and his sadness had been tangible.

And, okay, she was being a bit fanciful here, but Molly was convinced that Jameson’s moods affected the inn. When Jameson felt upbeat and buoyant the mansion seemed to glow, its windows, always clean, sparkled and the ivy danced. It seemed to shimmer, radiating his vivacity. When Jameson felt despondent or angry, the inn seemed to shrink in on itself, the stones seemed colder and the wooden frames, and doors, appeared dull.

To Molly, the inn was another character, the mad, rich,adoredgeriatric aunt everyone ran circles around. Well, she and Jameson did; the three Holloway boys left them behind a long time ago. Like Jameson, she didn’t want to live anywhere else but here. One day, when Jameson heard what she’d done, she would have to leave, but today wasn’t that day.

---