Messing With Mac Read Online Free PDF Page B

Suzanne, she’d smelled like vanilla, had some sort of food stain on one part of her person oranother and was always in the middle of whipping up something mouthwatering.
    â€œYour unit is coming along,” Taylor assured her. “You’ll be opening Earthly Delights in no time.”
    â€œI’m ready.”
    â€œMe, too.” Hopefully she’d be right next door opening her own store as well. If she could afford to get away without a tenant’s monthly cash flow. She sighed. “I can’t wait to have you around again.”
    The clanging slowed. “I thought you were enjoying your solitude.”
    â€œYeah, well, not as much as I thought I would, it turns out.”
    Now the clanging stopped all together. “Taylor? What’s the matter?”
    Damn it, she’d given herself away. Caring deeply for her friends and opening up to them were two different things entirely, at least for her. She didn’t open up easily.
    Correction: she opened up never.
    But complicating the matter was the simple fact that she didn’t really even know what was wrong, she only knew she felt this unsettling and vague…need. For what exactly, she had no idea. “I just wanted to say hi.”
    â€œYou sound…sad,” Suzanne accused.
    â€œI do not.”
    â€œNever mind. I’m coming over right after I finish up here. I won’t be but another half hour. I’ll bring ice cream, and you can tell me everything.”
    Ice cream happened to be Suzanne’s cure-all for anything and everything. It usually worked, but this seemed bigger than even ice cream. “Chocolate?”
    Taylor asked pathetically. “Double fudge chocolate?”
    â€œChocolate,” Suzanne promised. “Give me thirty minutes, hon, tops.”
    Tempting, oh God, it was so tempting. But no matter how much she loved Suzanne, Taylor had never been able to tell her about her own painful past, about her distant family, about losing Jeff, and some how she knew that what she was feeling now was all tied up with that. And she couldn’t go into it, not now, not after so many years of burying it, because she was afraid that if she did, if she let it out, it would destroy her all over again. “I have a Historical Society meeting this evening.” True enough. “But maybe tomorrow, okay?”
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œPromise. Kiss Ryan for me.”
    â€œI wish you’d come stay with us so you could get away from the renovation, at least at night.”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œI just don’t like you there in the heart of downtown, all by yourself in that big old empty building.”
    â€œNo one is going to bother me because the place is so old and empty. Don’t worry about me, I’m safe.”
    â€œOf course I’ll worry, but that won’t stop you from doing as you please. Talk to you tomorrow?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    Taylor flipped off the cell phone, and had just slipped it back into her pocket when Mac spoke in that low, husky voice of his, nearly causing her to leap right out of her skin. “You didn’t move out.”
    Damn. “Well aren’t you observant.” Slowly, on her own terms, she shifted on the bed to face him.
    Big mistake.
    First, sitting on the bed while he was standing right next to it made her feel a little bit shameless, a little bit…hungry.
    Horrifyingly so.
    And second, there was the way he was looking back at her—eyes heated, glinting with that edgy, unreadable expression that made her thighs tighten.
    Did he wonder how combustive they’d be in this bed, the way she wondered? Not that she intended to follow through on that wondering, but…
    â€œI don’t know who you were just talking to,” he said. “But they were right. It’s not safe here at night, no matter what you think.”
    â€œOf course it is.”
    â€œThe building is deserted, and in obvious