Chapter Fourteen
Chance
The first emotion I registered when I read Mackenzie's message was shock, obviously. I don't know how she had seen me with Tina last night, but somehow, she had. However, she — or whoever she was getting her information from — clearly hadn't been close enough to hear what I'd said to Tina, so she had jumped to the worst possible conclusion, which, I guess, was understandable.
The next emotion that registered was anger – at Tina, mostly. Her stupid behavior and drunken flirting had landed me in trouble, and I hadn't asked for any of it! All I'd done was help out someone who was in need of it, and now this is what had come of it. I really couldn't believe it.
Once the initial raw emotions wore off, I started to wonder. How on earth had Mackenzie seen any of this in the first place? If she’d been the one to see me, what had she been doing at that biker bar so soon after her dad was admitted to the hospital? I couldn't quite wrap my head around all of this. Something strange was going on here.
Well, I knew that my first priority needed to be to clear things up with her. It was a simple misunderstanding, and I had done nothing wrong. Surely Mackenzie would be able to see that. The tone of her message was, of course, real severe, but I guessed that it would just be a momentary flash of intense anger and not a permanent feeling.
At least that's what I hoped.
I dialed her number. We just needed to talk this out, that was all. I'd explain myself, she'd understand, and then we could get back to where we had been.
The phone rang, and rang, and rang, and she didn't pick up. That was not good. Was she still asleep? Was she ignoring me?
I called again. Still no response.
I was starting to get a little mad myself. I didn't do anything wrong! I didn't deserve this! What right did she have to judge me like that?
I sat down and did my best to breathe in calmly and regulate my emotions, and see things from her perspective like my mom would have told me to do had she been there. All right, I could admit, from what she had seen, it must have looked pretty bad. Tina, dressed in that skimpy outfit, hanging all over me and shoving her tongue in my mouth for a second or two – all right, that was bad. And any outsider observing it could make some assumptions based on what they'd seen. Wrong assumptions, sure, but how were they to know that?
I decided to leave it for a while. Maybe she was still asleep, maybe she just needed time to cool off.
I went and woke my lil' Cassie up, and she at least managed to lift my mood.
“Morning, lil' Angel,” I said, “did you sleep well? Did you dream of good things, like bunny rabbits and tweety birds?”
“I dreamed of mommy,” she said. “I don't remember mommy much, but I miss her. In my dream, I saw her face. She was holding me and laughing. But now that I'm awake, I can't remember her face. I want to look at the picture of her face, Daddy, so I can remember.”
I sighed. The pain of Joanna’s passing had subsided in the two and a half years that had gone by since she had passed away, but it had never left completely, and probably never would. The house used to be full of portraits of her, with her beautiful, long, blonde locks and her shy smile, but I'd taken most of them down so that I wouldn't be reminded too often of the wife I'd lost. I had kept one or two of my favorite ones up, though, in places of the house I didn't spend too much time in.
I was, however, always reminded of her whenever I looked at Cassie. She had her mom’s eyes all right. Joanna’s eyes.
“All right, pumpkin, c'mon,” I said as I picked her up. “Let's go look at a picture of Mommy, so you can remember her.”
I carried her over to one of the guest rooms. It was a good place to keep her portrait, as I wasn't in there much, but when I wanted to see her and speak to her, it was a good place to go sit. I set Cassie down in front of the portrait, and she looked up at the face in the photograph and smiled.
“Now I remember, Daddy, now I remember how Mommy looks.”
“She was beautiful,” I said. “Just like you, angel.”
“I miss her,” she replied. “But I know she ain't coming back. She's in heaven now, with God and the angels, and they're all happy up there. But... I do miss having a mommy. Am I gonna get a new mommy someday, Daddy? All the other kids at school have a mommy.”
I sighed. “I... I don't know about that, Cass. You know I don't like to make promises I can't keep. So, I can't promise you that you'll get a new mommy. But I can say that maybe you'll get one. Do you understand?”
“Like... maybe I'll get a pony for Christmas? That kinda maybe?”
I chuckled and ruffled her hair playfully. “That's right, Cassie. That kinda maybe.”
“Good!” she replied. “I like those kinda maybes, Daddy!”
“Come on,” I said. “Let's go get some breakfast into you, huh?”
I took her to the kitchen where I fixed her some breakfast.
“You've got a playdate today, don't you?” I asked.
“I do, I do! I'm going to see Melissa, and we're gonna play with her dollies.”
“That's right. So, once you've had your breakfast, we're gonna take a ride down there.”
“Yay! And we get to go into town too!”
“That's right, coz that's where Melissa lives.”
After Cassie had eaten her breakfast and gotten ready, she and I headed over to the truck, and we drove into Nashville where I dropped her off at her friend's house. I then needed to head over to the station to take care of some business, but before that, I really wanted to clear things up with Mackenzie, or at the very least just get her to agree to talk to me. I called her again, twice, but there was no answer.
I shook my head, feeling frustrated again, and decided to compose a text message explaining my situation. I wrote it up and sent it, and then headed into the station.
As I got in and parked my truck, I bumped into Tina. Instantly, anger shot through my veins, but I did my best to suppress it and be professional.
“Feeling all right after last night?” I asked.
“My head hurts, and I do feel kinda like I got hit by a truck... but aside from that, I guess I'm okay,” she replied sheepishly.
“Hmm, well I guess that's to be expected, considering the state you were in last night.”
“I uh, I don't remember much of what happened from the time you came into the bar,” she added hastily. “My mind's pretty blank from that point on.”
I wasn’t buying it. She was drunk, but she wasn't exactly blasted when I picked her up. This was just a convenient way for her to get out of taking responsibility for what she'd done, for trying to come on to me. While my initial impulse was to argue with her, I understood that it would be futile and counter-productive, so instead I let it go.
“Yeah, well, I ain't surprised. Next time you plan to get into a state like that, make sure you've got a designated driver or someone who can look out for you. I ain't gonna bail you out like that again, Tina.”
“I'm sorry, Chance,” she said, “I wasn’t exactly myself. But I'm grateful that you were such a gentleman last night. You really were my knight in shining armor.”
As she said this, she looked up at me with a flirtatious smile. I was quick to shut it down, though.
“Well, I just did what any decent man would do. But like I said, I ain't a taxi service. If you go out to a place like that again, make sure you make plans beforehand to get yourself home safely. Now, c'mon, your show is on in ten minutes, you'd best get upstairs and get ready.”
She leaned in for a quick hug, which I hadn't expected, and I hugged her back somewhat awkwardly.
“Thanks so much, Chance,” she said. “You're a real hero. I'll talk to you later.”
Then she rushed off, her heeled boots clapping on the stairs as she walked away. I waited until she was out of sight and then went up after her. I settled down in my office and did about two hours of work, all the while glancing over at my phone. I kept hoping to see a reply from Mackenzie.
It never came.
It was really starting to get to me. I hadn't done anything wrong, but because she had seen the whole thing from the wrong angle, she thought I was the douchebag player it seemed my reputation made me out to be. I still couldn't help wondering why she had been at that bar in the first place, but I was already in the dog house and wasn’t about to ask that question at the moment. I thought about trying to call again, but I realized that she likely wouldn't pick up. In fact, I was sure of that.
What I needed was to relax, and to try to clear my head for a while, so I decided to go out for a walk. There were some decent cafes in the area around my radio station and a good strong coffee sounded like just the thing.
I headed down the street a few blocks straight for my favorite little cafe in the area, a place called Jackson's. As my luck would have it, when I walked through the door, I almost bumped into Lilly and Jason who were walking out with some takeout coffees. Before I could even say hello, Jason was in my face. I had to admire his bravery, being half my size.
“Why, you no-good bastard,” he snarled. “I should smack you right in the jaw, right here, right now!”
“Whoa, hold up there, friend,” I said, holding my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I know you two think you know what you saw last night, but believe me, it wasn't what you think.”
“Well, just what the hell was it then, Chance?” Lilly asked. “It looked obvious enough to the rest of the world what was going on with that less than admirable girl hanging all over you like that!”
“That ‘less than admirable girl' is a DJ at my station! I'm her boss and a friend. And that's it!”
“That sure didn't look like your average boss-employee relationship,” countered Jason.
Lilly drew a hard breath and let it out. “Look, Chance, I realize that you technically don’t owe any of us an explanation. But after what you did for Mackenzie last night and the way you came across as wanting to pursue this thing with her, you have to understand why we’d think the worst. Why Mack would think the worst. Hell, we saw you two kissing!”
“No. What you saw was her trying to kiss me. If you'd watched a little longer, you’d have seen that I pushed her away and told her to get off me.”
“That's what you say,” Jason retorted, “but how do you expect us to believe that over what we saw?”
I racked my brain for an answer. He was right – they had seen what they had seen, and it would be real difficult to convince them that I was innocent. Then, however, I remembered something about my truck – it has a dash-cam.
“You know what, I do have proof.”
“How can you have proof?” Lilly asked.
“My truck has a dash-cam that records twenty-four-seven. I had it installed after some issues we were having at the ranch. We can watch the footage, and then you'll see I'm telling the truth.”
“You're serious?” Jason asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Dead serious. We can go to my truck right now. Then you'll see that I'm telling the truth.”
Jason and Lilly looked at each other for a moment, and then they both nodded.
“All right, take us to the truck,” Lilly instructed. “Let's have a look.”
We headed to my truck, and we all piled in. I took the dash-cam off its mount and searched for the right time frame. Once I got close, we reviewed the footage, starting from when I walked out of the bar with Tina. Luckily, as she and I got closer to the truck, our conversation got clear enough to hear. I couldn't help but grin to myself triumphantly as my words came out of the little camera's speakers clear as day, proving my case. We then watched the drive from the bar to her place though I sped it up to move through it more quickly since hardly a word had been said. It was crystal clear that I had rejected her advances.
After we had finished, I put the dash-cam back in its mount.
“What did I tell ya’ll, huh?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
“I feel like a bit of a dick now,” Jason muttered. “Damn, man, I'm sorry. You are innocent.”
“I'm sorry too,” Lilly added. “We really shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that.”
“It's easy to see why you did,” I replied. “But tell me this: what the heck were ya’ll doing at a biker bar right after Mackenzie's dad was hospitalized?”
“We went there to go get Mackenzie's brother,” Jason replied. “He was drunk, as usual, and didn't even know his father was in the hospital.”
“Ah,” I replied, nodding knowingly. “I see. Well, ya’ll know the truth now. But I need to clear up this mess with Mackenzie.”
“Yeah, you do,” Lilly replied. “And she's in quite a state. This thing with you two might be new, but she’s already gun-shy. Her ex cheated on her a lot, in addition to being a total asshat, and seeing what she saw last night with you and that DJ, it reinforced the thought process she’s had about men the last five years.”
“Well hell,” I replied. “This really is a big-ass mess, ain't it?”
“It is,” Lilly agreed.
“Well,” I said, “there's only one thing to do now, and that's clear up the damn mess. Where is Mackenzie now? She won't take my calls or reply to my messages, but I have to get this footage to her so that I can clear my name.”
“I'll take you to her,” replied Lilly. “It's the only way she'll talk to you.”
“Perfect,” I replied. “Let's go. This silent treatment is killing me.”