From Best Friends to I Do?
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Sue MacKay
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PROLOGUE
MAISIE ROGERS SNIFFED, then blew her nose and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Today her sister would’ve turned eleven. Instead she was stuck at ten—for ever. She’d never grow up and wear high heels or go on a date or become a ballet dancer like she’d wanted to be. All because of an ice cream.
No, Maisie, blame the driver of the car that hit her on the pedestrian crossing she was dancing across.
Scrubbing her face with her knuckles, she felt a change in the air, and stilled.
‘Bad day, eh?’ Zac Lowe sat on the bench beside her outside the classroom block at Queenstown High School.
‘It sucks. It’s the worst time since Cassey died.’ Her heart began thumping weirdly as she looked at Zac. All out of rhythm.
‘It is.’ Zac rubbed his shoulder against hers like he was sharing something more than a bad day with her.
His touch was different to what she was used to. Usually he acted like a second brother. This prickly, exciting sensation spreading out from her shoulder made her lean closer for more. ‘Thanks for being with me.’
‘It’s okay,’ he muttered before shuffling sideways, putting space between them as he glanced around the grassed area in front where others were standing talking or girls strutting in front of guys.
Maisie leaned nearer again, not wanting to lose the feeling he caused. She also needed his support and company. Today was truly awful. And now confusing.
Zac and her brother, Liam, became best mates a year ago when they’d started playing in the same rugby team. Now he was always there for her, and, like Liam, overprotective since her sister’s death. It was bad enough having her brother and father watching over her friendships and what she might be up to without adding Zac to the equation. ‘Everyone says it’ll get easier with time. I don’t believe them.’
He straightened away from her again. ‘I guess no one really knows what to say.’
As usual, he was right. It didn’t lessen her pain any. ‘I wouldn’t mind a hug.’
To be held in your arms and feel what it’s like to press against your chest.
Her cheeks heated.
Zac looked around, fixed his gaze on someone at the far end of the block.
Liam stood yarning with some friends, looking over their way, a frown marring his forehead. What was that about? Since he’d brought Zac home after rugby practise one afternoon Zac had quickly integrated into her family, her parents giving him support where he required it at school and with his sporting activities and in other areas when needed. Zac muttered, ‘We’re at school. Everyone’s out here.’ The gap between them had widened further.
‘You can’t hug me?’ Her hands clenched and her head spun as she fought the need to throw her arms around him, to show him what she felt. He was cool. He didn’t have a girlfriend. She didn’t have a boyfriend. He was seventeen to her fifteen. What was the problem? More likely grief about her sister was screwing with her common sense, and it had nothing to do with Zac. Maybe he was just Johnny-on-the-spot.
The hell he was.
He was fun and strong and gorgeous, and she wanted to get close to him. She’d love to know him as a hot guy who might look at her similarly, and not as her brother’s mate. To feel special as a girl, to have him want to spend time with her. To be the first guy to kiss her.
‘No, Maisie.’ He unfolded his long body from the bench and stepped away from her, leaving her lonely and cold.
‘Why not?’ Her feelings and needs hadn’t been written all over her face, had they? Too bad, because they were real. Zac was amazing.
‘Think about it. Everyone’d be talking about us. That’s not happening. Some girls might get the wrong idea and upset you.’
‘Stop trying to protect me from everything. I’m sick of you all doing that. I’m quite capable of looking out for myself.’ Except she was hurting and it was getting her down. But she needed cheering up, not cosseting. She needed Zac holding her against him, sharing himself with her, rubbing his hands down her back, touching her as she’d never been touched before. Except he’d just shown her he wasn’t interested in her in that way. She’d have to hide her feelings and get over him as soon as possible.
Zac stared at Maisie, his heart in his throat. He wanted nothing more than to hug her, hold her close, feel her warm body pressed into his. He’d wanted that for a long time now. If only it was so straightforward. But. He drew a breath. It was a huge but.
He couldn’t touch her, not even in a friendly way. One day her father had caught him watching Maisie with the hunger in his belly no doubt apparent in his eyes, and said, ‘I’m sure there are plenty of suitable girls at high school for you to take a fancy to. Stay away from Maisie.’
She was too young, and too vulnerable since her sister’s death. Being the quiet, unassertive one of the family, it was everyone else’s role to make sure she was safe.
Given that this family had all but adopted him, given him the love and constancy he’d never had with his own parents, he’d known he had to shut down his feelings for Maisie. Touch her and he’d lose what was so, so important to him. Lose his go-to place and the people who’d enabled him to face the world with confidence when his parents didn’t, and never had. They’d never been there for him, too busy with their seven-day superette and so tied up in themselves as though they couldn’t accept they even had a second son. Their first had died before he was born. Which was why nowadays, if he had a problem, he went straight to one of Maisie’s parents for advice and comfort.
It was so damned hard not to reach for Maisie and hold her as a young woman and not his sort-of-sister. Those big brown eyes with cheeky golden flecks were so hard to ignore, even when filled with sorrow. Especially then. But to tuck her against him now would only lead to more problems for them both.
So he turned away, saying over his shoulder, ‘See you tonight.’ There was going to be a special dinner at the Rogers house in memory of Cassey, and naturally he was expected to be there. This was the first time he’d ever wished he had an excuse not to be. The raw pain in Maisie’s eyes had grown when he’d pulled away from her, making him feel guilty, and unworthy. He needed to toughen up, be the protective friend he was meant to be. Ask one of the girls in his class to go to the football team’s end of season party next weekend if he wanted a bit of passion. That might quieten the hormones for a bit.
Sighing as he strode across to Liam and their mates, he knew there was more than hormones involved in how he felt about Maisie, but her father was right. This wasn’t the time or place, if there ever would be.
