Right from the Start (30 page)

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CHAPTER ONE

I
T
WAS
WET
and dark and cold. At first
she didn’t know where she was, then she realized she was in the car, the
wipers working overtime, the road a shiny black ribbon stretching in front
of her. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, but it felt rubbery and
insubstantial beneath her hands. Panic welled inside her. She knew what was
coming next. What always came next.

Then she saw it, the dark mass of rocks
blocking the middle of the curving mountain road. Her scream was swallowed
by the explosive crash of glass breaking and metal crushing as the car hit,
then there was nothing but pain and the realization that she was going to
die out here on this godforsaken stretch of road....

Mackenzie Williams bolted upright, heart racing, sweat cold and
clammy on her body. The bedclothes were a heavy tangle around her legs and for a
few disoriented seconds she fought to free herself before reality reasserted
itself.

She was alive. She was at the beach house in Flinders. And she
ached. God, how she ached. Her hips, her shoulder, her back...

She scrubbed her face with both hands, then let out her breath
on an exhausted sigh. It had been almost two months since she’d had a nightmare
and she’d hoped they were a thing of the past. No such luck, apparently.

She threw off the covers then swung her legs to the floor. Her
joints and muscles protested the action, as they always did first thing in the
morning or when she’d been sitting in the same position for too long. She
gritted her teeth and pushed herself to her feet anyway. If she waited till the
pain stopped, she’d never get anything done.

It was still dark outside and the floor was cool beneath her
feet. She shuffled forward a few steps until she found her slippers, then
reached for her dressing gown.

She could hear the skitter of Mr. Smith’s claws in the hall
outside her bedroom and she smiled as she opened the door.

“Hello, Smitty. How you doin’?” she asked as he began his
morning happy dance, walking back and forth in front of her with his tail
wagging madly, his body wiggling from side to side.

“I’m going to take that as a ‘very well, thank you very much.’
Shall we go outside?”

Mackenzie made her way to the living room. The bitter morning
chill was like a slap in the face when she opened the French doors, but it
didn’t stop Mr. Smith from slipping past her and out into the gray dawn light.
Mackenzie followed him, stopping at the top of the deck steps, arms wrapped
around her torso as she looked out over the jungle that was her yard.

The air was so frigid it hurt her nose. She inhaled great
lungfuls of the stuff and let the last remnants of the nightmare fall away.

It was just a dream, after all. She wasn’t dying. She was
alive. She’d survived, against all odds. Better yet, she was on the track to a
full recovery and resumption of her former life.

Which reminded her...

She left the door open for Mr. Smith before collecting her iPad
from where it was charging on the kitchen counter. One click told her that
Gordon hadn’t responded to her email. Again.

This was getting ridiculous. Twelve months ago, her boss
wouldn’t have ignored an email from her. Then, she’d been a valuable commodity,
the only producer in ten years who had managed to improve the ratings for the
production company’s longest-running serial drama,
Time and
Again.
Now apparently she was a liability, an employee on long-term
sick leave who didn’t even merit the thirty seconds of his time it would take to
respond to her email.

He doesn’t think I’m coming
back.

The thought made her blood run cold. She had worked hard to
land the job of producer on a network drama. She’d kissed ass and gone beyond
the call of duty and even trampled on a few people in her rush to climb the
ladder. She’d sacrificed her time, her social life, her marriage...and then her
car had hit a landslide at sixty kilometers an hour and flipped down the side of
a mountain. She’d fractured her skull, broken her pelvis, her hip, her leg,
several ribs as well as her arm, torn her liver and lost her spleen.

And it looked as though she was going to lose her job, too,
even though she’d been driving to a location shoot when the accident happened.
Gordon had promised that they’d keep her job open for her, filling the role with
a short-term replacement. He’d given her a year to recover—a year that was
almost up. And yet he wasn’t returning her calls.

Lips pressed into a tight line, she opened a blank email and
typed a quick message to Gordon’s secretary, Linda. Linda owed her, and
Mackenzie knew that if she asked, the other woman would make sure Gordon called
her.

At least, she hoped she still had that much influence.

Mr. Smith pressed against her legs, his small body a welcome
weight. She bent to run a hand over his salt-and-pepper fur.

“I’m not giving up, Smitty. Not in a million freaking
years.”

She wouldn’t let Gordon write her off. She would walk back into
her job, and she would claw her way into her old life. There was no other option
on the table. She refused for there to be.

She had a hot shower, then dressed in her workout clothes.
Together she and Mr. Smith made their way to the large room at the front of the
house she’d converted to hold her Pilates reformer and other gym equipment when
she left the rehab hospital three months ago. She sat on the recumbent bike and
started pedaling. Smitty reacquainted himself with the rawhide bone he’d left
there yesterday and settled in for the duration.

After ten minutes on the bike, she lowered herself to the yoga
mat and began her stretches. As always, her body protested as she attempted to
push it close to a normal range of movement. Her physiotherapist, Alan, had
warned her that she might never get full range in her left shoulder and her
right hip. She’d told him he was wrong and was determined to prove it.

The usual mantra echoed in her mind as she stretched her
bowstring-tight hip flexors.

I want my life back. I want my job back. I
want my apartment and my shoes and my clothes. I want to have cocktails with
my friends and the challenge of juggling too much in too little time. I want
to be
me
again.

Gritting her teeth, she held the stretch. Sweat broke out along
her forehead and upper lip. She started to pant, but she held the stretch. Her
hips were burning, her back starting to protest.

She held the stretch.

Only when pain started shooting up her spine did she ease off
and collapse onto the mat, sweat running down her temple and into her hair.

Better than yesterday. Definitely
better.

The thought was enough to rouse her to another round. Teeth
bared in a grimace, she eased into another pose.

* * *

T
HE
MORNING
SUN
was rising over the
treetops as Oliver turned onto the unmarked gravel road that he hoped like hell
was Seaswept Avenue. He was tired and sleep deprived after a long drive from
Sydney and more than ready for this journey to be over.

Craning forward over the steering wheel, he checked house
numbers as he drove slowly up the rutted road. Not that there were many houses
to check. The lots were large, the houses either old and charming or new and
sharp edged, and there was plenty of space in between. Aunt Marion’s was number
thirty-three, and he drove past half-a-dozen vacant lots thick with bush before
spotting a tired-looking clapboard house sitting cheek by jowl with a much
tidier, smarter whitewashed cottage. As far as he could tell, they were the only
two houses at this end of the street.

He didn’t have enough optimism left to hope the tidy cottage
was number thirty-three, and the rusty numbers on the letterbox of the shabbier
house confirmed his guess.

It seemed like the perfect ending to a road trip that had
featured not one but two flat tires and a motel with fleas in the carpet.

Driving from Sydney to Melbourne had seemed like a great idea
four days ago. Four days ago, he’d been so sick of the burning anger that seemed
to have taken up permanent residence in his gut that he’d been willing to do
almost anything to change the record in his mind.

How could she do this to me? How could I
be so freakin’ stupid? How could she do this to me?

He pulled into the driveway and let his head drop against the
seat for a few seconds. God, he was tired. Strudel made a forlorn sound from the
backseat and Oliver shook himself awake and exited the car to let her out. She
immediately availed herself of the nearest patch of grass. Would that he could
be so lucky, since he’d cleverly tossed the keys to his aunt’s house into the
bottom of his duffel bag. But he wasn’t about to start his stay in what was
surely a close-knit community by exposing himself to his new neighbor.

Stretching his arms over his head, Oliver grabbed his duffel
from the rear. Strudel joined him on the weathered porch as he dug in among his
clothes for the key. Miracle of miracles, his hand closed over it on the second
dip. Moments later he was inside, walking around flicking on lights and opening
windows to relieve the stuffy, musty smell. He passed quickly through the living
room filled with heavy, old-fashioned furniture, and the two bedrooms with their
stripped-bare beds, ending his tour in the kitchen.

Aunt Marion had died over a year ago now, but neither he nor
his brother, Brent, had been in a position to do anything about their joint
inheritance until now. Traveling south to put things in order had seemed like
the perfect excuse to be out of Sydney so he could lick his wounds and get his
head together.

If that was even possible.

Of course it’s possible. Edie was your
wife, not your whole life.

Logically, he knew it was true, but it didn’t feel true at the
moment. Six years of his life had been exposed as a lie. His whole marriage. He
didn’t know how to deal with the anger and grief and humiliation he felt.

Strudel whined, drawing his attention to where she was sniffing
and scratching around the base of the oven. No doubt she’d found a nest of mice
or something equally unpleasant.

“Good girl, Strudel. Good girl.” Strudel came to his side and
lifted her head for a scratch. He obliged, rubbing her behind the ears where she
liked it. Some of the tension left him as he looked into her big, liquid
eyes.

For the next five weeks, he had no one but himself and Strudel
to please. Edie and Nick were a thousand miles away, his job was on hold. This
time was all his and he could use it to rage and be bitter and brood—or he could
start putting himself back together again.

He really hoped it would be the latter.

He walked to the back door and stepped onto a broad porch that
overlooked a yard thick with grass and overgrown garden beds. A shed huddled in
the left-hand corner. He considered it briefly, then decided he would inspect it
later.

His gaze shifted to the cottage next door. It occurred to him
that he should probably go introduce himself to his new neighbor, since they
were more or less isolated at this end of the street. His aunt’s place had been
vacant so long he didn’t want some old dear with three cats and a hearing aid
freaking out because a strange man had moved in.

Then maybe he’d head into town to grab some food and other
supplies.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would get him through the next
few hours.

* * *

M
ACKENZIE
RETURNED
THE
reformer carriage to the starting position and let her hands drop to
her sides. She was officially done for another day, every exercise on her chart
completed and ticked off. Even the ones that made her want to curl into a ball
and cry, they hurt so much.

She reached for her towel and blotted her sweat-dampened face
and chest. The sharp taste of bile burned at the back of her mouth, a sure sign
that she’d overexerted herself again.

Well. A little nausea was a price she was willing to pay if it
meant she made a faster recovery.

She stood, running the towel over her cropped hair. Mr. Smith
stood, too, tail wagging as he looked at her expectantly.

“Yes, little man, it’s time for breakfast.”

If she could stomach it.

She wrapped the towel around her shoulders like a cape and
headed for the kitchen. A sharp noise stopped her in her tracks before she’d
gotten halfway. It had been so long since anyone had come to the door that it
took her a full second to recognize the sound as a knock. She glanced over her
shoulder. A dark form filled the pebbled glass of the door. She frowned. Who on
earth would be visiting her at ten o’clock on a Thursday morning?

Her first thought was that it was Patrick, but she dismissed it
instantly. He was hardly going to drive an hour out of town to visit her—not
when he hadn’t bothered to pick up the phone in more than four months. No, she
had a better chance of finding Elvis on the other side of that door than her
ex-husband, and an even better chance of finding a complete stranger who
probably wanted to sell her something.

The joy. Just what she wanted to deal with when she was shaky
with fatigue and nausea.

She swung open the door, ready to give short shrift to the
cold-calling salesman on her porch.

The man on her porch was definitely not a cold caller. Nothing
about this man was cold, from the deep chestnut of his wavy, almost
shoulder-length hair to his cognac-brown eyes to his full, sensual mouth. Then
there was his body—nothing cold there, either. Broad shoulders, a chest Tarzan
would be proud of, flat belly, lean hips. All wrapped up in faded jeans and a
moss-green sweater that was the perfect foil for his coloring.