Part 51 (1/2)
”I have to go or I'll get fired.”
Her twisting and squirming caused her round rear end to press against his belly, which sent a lurid message straight down to where he lived.
He groaned. ”Do you mind holding still?”
”No one asked you to carry me,” she retorted, apparently misinterpreting his groan.
”Look, I can't just put you down and send you on your way when you're bleeding all over the place. Let's get you patched up, and we'll see what's what.”
”I'll get fired,” she whispered, her eyes flooding with new tears.
”Where do you work? I'll call them and let them know you had an accident.”
”They won't believe you. They're b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”
”I can be very convincing.” He took the steps leading to the Beachcomber two at a time, ignoring the shooting pain from his own injured leg. The porch was full of people having breakfast, and his pa.s.senger turned her face into his chest. At the maitre d' stand, he asked for Libby and was shown to her office off the lobby.
”Mac!” Smiling, Libby jumped up from her desk chair. ”I didn't know you were coming home!” She glanced at the woman in his arms whose shaft of long hair hid her face. ”And bringing a friend. Don't tell me you ran away and got married.”
”Not exactly. We had a little accident on the street.”
Libby glanced at the woman's leg, saw the blood and went into paramedic mode. ”Bring her in here.” She gestured to a sofa in her office.
”I don't want to get blood all over your sofa,” the injured woman said.
Libby grabbed some towels and spread them out.
As Mac put down his pa.s.senger, her breast bounced against his arm, sending another burst of l.u.s.t coursing through him. Her hourgla.s.s figure reminded him of the old pinup girl posters his father had in the garage when Mac was a kid. Betty Boop had nothing on this woman.
With her uninjured hand, she brushed the hair back off her pretty face.
”Maddie!” Libby cried. ”What happened?”
Maddie gestured at Mac. ”Someone wasn't watching where he was going and knocked me off my bike, which is now totaled.”
Libby tied back shoulder-length dark hair and broke out an elaborate first aid kit from under her desk.
Mac hovered in the doorway to the small office. ”Do you want me to call your work to let them know you'll be out today?”
”Just tell them I'll be late. I can't afford to miss a whole s.h.i.+ft.”
No way could she work today, but Mac wasn't going to argue with her-yet. ”Where am I calling?”
”McCarthy's Gansett Inn, housekeeping department.”
Smiling to himself, he reached for his cell phone and dialed the number from memory. Maddie watched him, a startled expression on her face.
Keeping his eyes fixed on her, he asked for the housekeeping department. ”Ethel? Hey, it's Mac McCarthy.”
Maddie gasped from the double shock of hearing his name and having antiseptic applied to her gruesome cuts.
He whispered to Maddie, ”What's your last name?”
”Chester,” she said through gritted teeth.
”Little Mac McCarthy, you devil,” Ethel said. ”How in the h.e.l.l are you?”
”I'm great, how are you?”
”Can't complain.”
”I wasn't on the island five minutes when I knocked one of your housekeepers off her bike.”
”Still causing trouble, I see,” Ethel said with her trademark guffaw. ”Which one?”
”Maddie Chester. She's with me at the Beachcomber, and she's hurt pretty bad. Libby's patching her up, but I don't think she can make it in today.”
Maddie scowled at him.
Ethel released a deep sigh. ”All right, if you say she can't work, I'll cover her s.h.i.+ft.”
”Thanks, Ethel. I'll be over to say h.e.l.lo, but don't tell my mom I'm here. She doesn't know I'm coming.”
”She'll be over the moon, honey. Good to have you home.”
”Thanks.”
”That's not what I told you to say,” Maddie snapped the second he ended the call.
”You really think you can clean today with your hand ripped to shreds? Not to mention your arm and leg?”
”He's right, Maddie,” Libby said as she covered the ugly wound on Maddie's leg with a large gauze pad. ”It'll hurt like heck in an hour.”
”Already does,” Maddie said with a wince.
Her face had lost all color, her mouth was twisted with pain and Mac hated that he had caused her suffering. Despite her killer figure, an aura of fragility surrounded her, with the notable exception of her hands, which were rough and obviously used to hard work.
”You'll need to be real careful with that hand for a week or two,” Libby continued. ”It won't take much to cause a bad infection if you get something in those open cuts.”
Maddie closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the sofa. ”Oh my G.o.d,” she whispered. ”What am I going to do?”
Oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d. The refrain played over and over as Maddie pondered the deep load of c.r.a.p she was in-or rather, the deep load of c.r.a.p Mac McCarthy had pushed her into. From the second she'd looked up to see him leaning over her in the street, he'd seemed familiar to her. But with her injuries demanding her full attention, she'd been unable to put a name to the distinctive face. The nearly twenty years since he'd led Gansett High School to the state baseball champions.h.i.+p had transformed him from a handsome boy into a stunning man.
Jet-black hair that curled over his collar, bright blue eyes, broad shoulders, defined pecs. . . After the way she'd ogled him in school, she couldn't believe she hadn't recognized him instantly. No, she'd had just enough time to call his parents b.a.s.t.a.r.ds before she put two and two together to get Mac McCarthy.
Except for the dark circles under his eyes and the grayish tone to his complexion, the man was utter perfection. She knew from Mrs. McCarthy, who bragged about her five darlings incessantly, that Mac lived in South Florida. You'd never know it to look at him.
Back when he'd been five years ahead of her in school, he'd never even known she was alive. And now, the first time he saw her, really saw her, he got a full view of the bane of her existence-her overly large b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She wanted to die just thinking about it. Maddie wished she could either disappear or find a way to make Mac McCarthy and his big, hulking presence go away.