Kiss the Bride (27 page)

Mac took a shortcut through the hedge of maple trees that
separated the sliver of land her father owned from the Channings' sprawling lakefront property.

Like Coach, the handful of people who lived on Jewel Lake had crafted their houses out of logs and fieldstone in an effort to blend in, rather than compete, with the natural beauty of their surroundings.

Not Monroe and Lilah Channing. They'd built their home like the third little pig in the nursery rhyme. Out of brick. It rose from the shoreline like a miniature fortress, complete with twin turrets and a wall of windows that faced the lake.

Ethan's mother had waged a campaign against the native flora, gradually bending it to her will until the yard resembled a golf course. A large patio—also brick—fanned out toward the water, and an adorable wooden gazebo with gingerbread trim had been built on the hill overlooking the
rose garden. Since no one in the family ventured that far from the house, Mac decided the gazebo was more like an expensive yard ornament, its sole purpose to fill a bare spot on the property.

Well, not its
sole
purpose. Shaded by a hundred-year-old oak tree whose branches stretched over the property line, the gazebo had become Mac's favorite hideaway when she was growing up. How many times had she sneaked inside and stretched out on one of the built-in benches, listening to Hollis and her friends' laughter as they sunbathed by the lake?

She and Hollis might have been next-door neighbors, but contrary to her boss's assumption, they'd never been friends.

Mac traced it back to an unfortunate incident at Hollis's seventh birthday party, when Mac had declared she'd rather eat a minnow than have Betty Sadowski from the Clip and Curl Salon paint her fingernails pink. It was the truth, but in retrospect Mac realized she could have stated her preference a little more . . . tactfully.

That was the trouble with having been raised by a man who'd lost his wife to leukemia a week before their only daughter's third birthday.

Coach spent more time on the field or at the gym than he did at home, and he never dissembled when it came to his players. He was fair but blunt, traits he'd passed on to his only child. It wasn't until Mac was in junior high that she realized she didn't fit in with Hollis and her friends, whose primary method of communication seemed to be giggling and shaking their . . . pom-poms.

Coach had done his best, but by the time Mac was a freshman in high school, she'd attended more sporting events than dances.

Nope. Not going there.

What was it about Red Leaf that resurrected every painful moment from her past? She was no longer an awkward teenage girl, harboring a major crush on the most popular boy in school.

You're a reporter. This is a story. You have to separate feelings from facts.

But that didn't stop Mac from wincing when she swept aside a curtain of wild grapevine and saw the gazebo. Harsh winters, the relentless scrape of the wind, and the summer sun had bleached the color from the cedar posts, leaving them as dry and brittle as bones. A thick crust of moss and decaying leaves coated the shingles on the roof.

Mac felt the strangest urge to apologize for the neglect. Whoever the Channings had hired to tend the grounds had obviously stopped caring at some point. The yard had shrunk to a small patch of green that stopped a few yards short of Lilah's prizewinning rose garden.

Mac took a tentative step inside the gazebo and heard an ominous snap as one of the boards shifted beneath her feet.

Sunlight streamed through the lattice walls, creating an intricate stencil on the floor.

Focus.

Mac raised her camera and the gazebo shrank to one small frame.

And there it was. The tiny heart etched in the corner of the built-in bench. Most girls wanted lip gloss or nail polish
for their thirteenth birthday, but Mac had asked for a Swiss Army knife.

The gift had come in handy the night she'd impulsively carved Ethan's initials in the wood, all the while imagining the story she would tell their adorable green-eyed children.

This is the place where your dad and I fell in love. I was a freshman. He was a senior. He was the star quarterback of the football team. I was the coach's daughter. He was gorgeous, smart, and popular. I was . . .

Totally delusional—Mac ruthlessly shut down the memory—that's what you were.

The step creaked again—a sound that immediately caught Mac's attention because she wasn't the one standing on it this time.

She whirled around and her eyes locked on the man standing less than three feet away in the doorway of the gazebo.

Ethan Channing had just stepped out of her dreams and into her life.

Ethan wrestled down his irritation as the young woman in the
gazebo turned to face him.

His mother had threatened to hire a professional wedding planner even though Hollis insisted that she and Connor wanted to keep things simple.

A word that wasn't in their mother's vocabulary. Neither was the word
no
. Ethan loved the woman dearly, but this was exactly the kind of thing she would do. There was no getting around it. His mother was a steamroller in Ralph Lauren and pearls.

Still, it didn't give Ethan license to shoot the messenger. A very attractive messenger—even if she
was
looking at him the way a character in a cheesy horror flick would look at the ax murderer who'd just stepped out of the shadows.

“Sorry.” Ethan took a step backward, lifted his hands to show her they were ax-free. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

If possible, the woman's big brown eyes got even bigger.

Now she was staring at him as if she knew him . . . and that was when it occurred to Ethan that he knew
her
too.

“Mac?” He tested the name cautiously, still not trusting his eyes. Until she nodded.

“Ethan . . . um . . . hello.”

He couldn't believe it. Mac Davis—the scrawny, freckle-faced girl who'd perched on the bleachers taking stats or handed out water bottles during halftime—had been a fixture at every football game. But the nickname no longer seemed to fit.

Ethan's gaze swept over her, confirming that some mysterious metamorphosis had occurred over the past ten years. Mac's hair, once the color and consistency of copper wire, had deepened to a rich mahogany. It spilled over her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face that Ethan would have, if pressed, once described as cute. He would have been wrong. Mackenzie Davis was . . . beautiful.

The coach's daughter. All grown up. The thought made Ethan smile. Until he realized that Mac wasn't smiling back. She was inching toward the doorway of the gazebo.

“Excuse me. I have to take some photos while the lighting is still good.”

This was probably his cue to let her go with a polite nod. But at the moment Ethan felt more curious than polite. “Photos?”

“For the
Register
.” Mac held up a digital camera as proof.

“You're a photographer?”

“Reporter. I have a lot of competition, though, because everyone in town tries to do my job and they don't ask for compensation.”

It was such an accurate description of Red Leaf's thriving grapevine that Ethan couldn't help but grin. “You moved back here after college?”

“Last summer. Before that I was an intern at the Milwaukee
Heritage
.”

“You didn't like it?”

“It wasn't that.” Mac hesitated. “The . . . timing wasn't quite right, so I came back.”

Ethan suspected there was only one reason why Mac had passed up an opportunity to work for a prestigious newspaper like the
Heritage
and returned to Red Leaf. “Coach? He's doing okay?”

“It depends on which one of us you ask.” The shadow that skimmed through Mac's eyes landed like a punch in the center of Ethan's gut.

Ben Davis had been more than Ethan's high school football coach and mentor; he'd been a friend. A friend Ethan had lost touch with over the years because he'd been consumed with being the best, and it had affected his priorities. Coach had always claimed he was more concerned about producing good men than good football players. In that respect he'd failed the man twice.

“What happened?” Ethan was almost afraid to ask.

“A heart attack, but you know my dad. He acts like all he did was stub a toe. Dr. Heath warned him to slow down a little, but Coach and I can't seem to agree on what that means.”

“I'll talk to him.”

“No offense, Ethan”—the gold sparks in Mac's eyes told
him
she'd
taken offense—“but if Coach won't listen to me, what makes you think he'll listen to you?”

“He won't have a choice.” The words slipped out before Ethan could stop them. “I'm taking over Dr. Heath's practice at the end of the month.”

“Taking over . . .” Mac choked. “Doctor . . .”

“Channing.” Ethan smiled. “But that's strictly off the record for now.”

A doctor.

What perfect timing. Because Mac was pretty sure her heart had stopped beating the moment Ethan Channing stepped inside the gazebo.

“You look a little surprised.” He tipped his head, and the silky swatch of ink-black hair he'd never quite been able to tame dipped over one eye.

Surprised
wasn't quite the word Mac would have chosen.

And his smile . . . Mac hadn't realized it was etched as deeply in her memory as the initials
EC
were etched in the wood less than three feet from where he stood.

Oh. No.

She shifted to the left, blocking the bench from view. At least she hadn't been stupid enough to carve
her
initials next to Ethan's the night of the homecoming dance. Ninety percent of the girls who attended Red Leaf High School had
had a crush on the star quarterback, so any one of them could have been the culprit.

“I didn't know Dr. Heath was leaving.” Or that Ethan had followed in his father's footsteps and pursued a degree in medicine. But then again, not asking questions when she called home from college had been part of Mac's “leave Red Leaf behind” campaign.

“A group of medical missionaries who are opening a clinic in Haiti asked Dr. Heath to partner with them. He contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would consider taking over his practice.” Ethan's smile surfaced again. “That's off the record, too, by the way. He wants to tell his patients before a formal announcement is made.”

After Dr. Heath told his patients, Mac knew a formal announcement wouldn't be necessary. The news would be all over town before the next issue of the
Register
went to press. Ethan's father and Frank Heath had been close friends as well as colleagues, and after Monroe's death, Dr. Heath had kept the clinic going on his own.

Now Ethan planned to take his father's place.

Mac had assumed he'd returned to Red Leaf for Hollis's wedding. The thought of seeing Ethan on a regular basis caused her heart to stall all over again.

“Do you and Coach still live next door?”

“Yes.” The same house. The same room.

The only thing that wasn't the same was that Mac refused to fall victim to Ethan Channing's irresistible charm. Again.

“I really should get going.” She tried to duck past him but Ethan snagged her elbow.

“Careful. That's stinging nettle.” He guided her around an innocent-looking plant sprouting between the steps. “I'm beginning to think a controlled burn might work better than a bottle of weed killer. I can't believe how neglected the place looks.”

That's what happens when you don't come back for ten years, Mac wanted to say.

After Dr. Channing's funeral, it was as if the family had cut all ties with the town. Ethan's mother closed up the house the summer after he graduated, but when no FOR SALE sign appeared in the yard, everyone expected the Channings to divide their time between Chicago and Red Leaf.