“Ah, nothing. Just wondering if you actually looked for the berry gummies or decided to save time by grabbing whatever was on the nearest rack.”
She frowned. “Give them back.”
“No. You don’t need the sugar. It makes you more angry.”
“Angrier.”
“See what I mean?” They argued on their way to their next stop—a pregnant woman stuck five miles from the hospital and crowning all alone in her back seat.
Thank God he and Shannon were done having kids. And that he’d made it to the hospital with herbeforeshe gave birth.
Chapter Nine
Wednesday morning, Mack put his hands behind his head and stretched, warm and comfortable in bed. He had the day to do whatever he wanted. Well, after he met his brother for lunch. Apparently, Alec had wedding stuff he wanted to talk about, and for some reason he thought Mack would be the best person in the family to bounce ideas off.
Mack loved Alec’s fiancé. He hadn’t liked his brother’s last girlfriend at all. Then Alec had brought home Dean, a man with a sense of humor and a confidence that meshed well with Alec’s ability to charm anything that breathed.
Alec, a bisexual cop and member of SWAT, was so good at his job, so dependable, and such a dead-on shot that he took a lot less flak than anyone might have guessed when entering the elite unit.
And so, for the most part, Alec’s lifestyle became nothing more interesting than his fellow officers’ fixation onHamilton, his sergeant’s obsession with sudoku, or the team commander’s fourth attempt at marriage. Alec’s pending marriage was what it was.
All that made Mack very happy. Having to talk about wedding planning over lunch? Not so much.
He sighed. Life would be bearable if Cassandra Carmichael would put him out of his misery and freakingcall him.
He’d taken a chance by provoking her last night. He’d been vague enough that no one would know anything about them being lovers. But he’d still talked down to a cop among her peers, hoping for a reaction.
And what had he gotten for taking such a risk? Nada.
He groaned and turned onto his stomach, burying his face in his pillow. He should have just asked her out on a date. Gone for the tried and true, keeping it simple. Yet some part of him still insisted he wouldn’t have had a chance if he treated her with gentle teasing and kindness. Bah. She’d eat that up and spit it out.
Hell, he couldn’t go a few minutes without thinking about her. About how she smiled, how angry she seemed to get over little things, how hard she concentrated when competing.
And, of course, how good she’d felt when he’d been buried balls deep inside her.
He turned over and stared at the ceiling. “This sucks.”Stop thinking about her, moron.
He washed up, taking his time since he had nothing planned except lunch with his brother. Other than that, he’d be bumming around for the day, something he hadn’t done in ages.
Once dressed in jeans and a “Chevy Does It Better” sweatshirt, he stared out the front window of his house and sipped hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. The snow kept coming down, and he could only be glad he’d put his snow tires on at the beginning of the month.
The whole family had stopped by Mom and Dad’s to utilize their garage after Halloween. Mack could have changed his tires at home in his own decked-out garage. But he’d subjected himself to a family brunch after helping his mechanically challenged brothers work on their cars. It hadn’t gone as badly as most of their family get-togethers had. They never teased him about his knowledge when it came to cars.
Born with a wrench in hand, his dad liked to say, Mack knew automobiles. He loved everything about them, even the new technology that made it difficult to diagnose problems without system schematics and the right electronic gizmos.
Still, he remained partial to the old muscle cars and trucks that needed no more than simple tools, mechanical know-how, and a paper manual to fix most problems. For a while growing up, he’d wondered if he might become a mechanic, but he loved cars too much to make them a job.
The Air Force had been a great start out of high school. Though it hadn’t been the Army, it had been close enough to eventually satisfy his parents. Especially because he’d become a military cop. Until he’d been done. Needing something more, something else.
To say he’d disappointed his parents would be putting it mildly. Though he knew his family loved him regardless, they just loved their sons who toed the line a little more.
Mack sighed.
He kept feeling anxious about Alec’s wedding and didn’t know why. Or he did but didn’t want to face the truth.
James, the oldest at thirty-six, had married a woman content to be a cop’s wife. Mack liked her a lot. She was sweet and kind and had always treated everyone as real family.
Alec, the second oldest at thirty-four, had finally gotten engaged to be married. Man or woman, his parents didn’t care so long as he started on a family.
