The Wallabies got their arses handed to them by the All Blacks because they played like the ball was a greased piglet. No wonder they lost, the bunch of muppets. And after ripping the piss with the guys and Holly about the game, Joe waved away Harley’s offer of a lift. Mac had already slipped away without a word sometime during the shove-fest of seven grown men falling onto her hot-from-the-oven scones like a pack of wolves.

He needed to clear the cobwebs and get a bleedin’ grip on things. Though the wind shoved icy fingers down the back of his neck, his cheeks burned hot as he was blown along the foreshore road. More luck finding a four-leaf clover than preventing himself eyeballing the road to Holly’s old place, where MacKenna stayed now, Joe shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat and kept walking.

Keep my big gob shut—you should try it sometime…

Just grand. He’d allowed his irritation with the woman to loosen his tongue and ended up acting like a prize wanker. Again.

Joe slammed into his cottage and swapped his jeans for compression leggings and a ratty hoodie. He shoved on his perfectly broken-in boots, snagged a parka and his prepared daypack, and was back out the door into the oncoming shite weather. Not a runner like some of his mates, he’d burn off his mood with a couple of hours hiking along the Rakiura Track. Better than stewing in his own foul juices, staring at his living room walls, and driving himself doolally.

After two hours of splashing through puddles and being continually slapped in the face with salt spray and sand whipping off the first part of the coastal walk, Joe strode back under the giant anchor sculpture which marked the beginning of the Rakiura Track. Alternately hot from the exertion and chilled from the bitter wind, he was logical enough to know he should haul his arse home into a hot shower. But restlessness still scurried up and down his body in an itch he couldn’t quite reach.

In four years he’d never had any sort of conversation with MacKenna while she’d been in Oban. He’d figured out pretty quickly once he’d realized her connection with Holly that MacKenna had never mentioned that she and he had a history. And by “history” he meant Mac had orchestrated then witnessed the most humiliating moments of Joe’s life. So it got on his wick that in the past twenty-four hours he’d been off his game. He’d tried to play it cool and had failed. Utterly failed.

He dithered at the turn off point to his cottage. Hot shower? Or apologize to MacKenna Jones for being an arsehole? He grimaced and carried on past his cottage. Even though what he’d said to MacKenna was true, Joe had some sense with women. Letting them think they were in the right would get him off the hook.

And by “off the hook” he meant she could return to ignoring him, and he could go back to only occasionally thinking about her big green eyes and the explosively sexy package contained in her small frame.

And by “occasionally” he meant for days after she showed up in Oban. Or if he overheard her name mentioned. Or whenever he was forced to listen to Ford laughingly bemoan his and Holly’s wedding plans.

Shite.

Joe arrived at the two-story house that Holly used to live in and run her hair styling business from before she moved into her new salon. He hesitated at the path that followed the side of the house down to the lower apartment, scrubbing a hand over his head. Sweat-soaked strands stuck up all over the place. He was overdue for a visit to Holly’s new salon, for sure. And look at him, stalling at the thought of seeing MacKenna while he wasn’t at his best. As if she’d even notice.

Music thumped from the direction of the bottom apartment. Joe cocked his head at the synthesized beat, his lips curving against his will into a smile as he recognized the late Whitney Houston singing about wanting to dance with somebody. He glanced at the darkened top apartment, expecting to see Rutna—who was even tinier than MacKenna—shoot out of the front door in a rolling ball of fury at the music volume. But the song continued without neighborly interference, so Joe headed down the path.

All the lights were on inside the lower apartment, the living room drapes wide open. Joe got a perfect view of MacKenna clutching an imaginary mic and dancing around the room. She still had on the leggings from earlier in the day, but she’d lost the baggy sweater and instead wore a skimpy camisole. And Holy Mother of God, she’d ditched her bra. Less than ten seconds of watching her breasts bounce and sway as she moved in time to the music and he was rock hard, his dick being strangled by his compression shorts. MacKenna did some sort of twerking move, her perfect jiggling butt cheeks aimed at the window. He bit back a groan.

Was she trying to kill him?

MacKenna whipped around—still not spotting him gawping at her like a peeping Tom, thankfully—and scooped up a black cat from the armchair.

Oh. She’d been twerking for the cat.

The thought made the reflection of himself in the window grin like a loon.

Diablo, Mrs. Dixon’s chubby fur baby, who couldn’t be accommodated in the nursing home, lived with Holly and Ford part time and stayed part time with Rutna or whoever else would feed him. That Diablo would allow MacKenna to grab his paw and boogie another circuit of the room with him proved the woman must have some kinship with the sly feline creature.

Diablo, deciding he was done being a dancing queen, pulled his paw from her grip and lashed out with his claws. MacKenna swore, dropping the cat like a hot potato and cupping her boob in one hand. She also chose that moment to look up from the retreating cat to see Joe standing outside her window.

The window frame was above crotch level, so at least she couldn’t see the evidence of his lustful spying. He raised a hand in greeting then pointed in the direction of the front door. Her jaw sagged and “how long have you been standing there?” might as well have been stenciled across her face, but she strode out of the living room.

Stretching the hoodie down over one helluva boner, Joe waited for the front door to open. Whitney had given way to U2’s Bono still not finding what he was looking for. Something he had in common with his fellow Dubliner.

MacKenna flung open the door, all five foot and a smidgeon of ’tude with a side of go away, you pervert, wearing a thin white cardigan that she held closed over her chest in a white-knuckled fist. She didn’t speak, just stared at him as U2 continued to blast from the living room. Joe’s gaze dropped to MacKenna’s hand and slightly to the side, where two red spots had soaked through the fabric.

“Why is there always blood spilled when we meet?” he asked in lieu of a less polite greeting, such as, you have the most amazing rack. Yep, he was going to hell for looking at her as a desirable woman. As opposed to a woman he was about to apologize to so he could pry her from under his skin and get back to normality.

“Because you can’t stand to be on the same landmass as me, let alone in the same room?”

Joe dipped his chin. “No, I mean literally. You’re bleeding.”

Her gaze shot down to her chest, and she peeled open one side of the cardigan, revealing an equally blood-soaked camisole…and a perfectly shaped breast and nipple jutting against the thin fabric.

He wasn’t going to hell. He was in hell. Tempted by Lucifer himself to reach out and rub his thumb over the stiffened peak.

She dropped the cardigan edge back into place. “Damn cat. What is wrong with him?”

Joe finally rerolled his tongue off Mrs. Dixon’s doorstep and muttered an answer. “Obviously, he objected to being waltzed around the living room.”

“We weren’t waltzing. I was having a dance off. A private dance off.”

“A dance off?”

“It’s a great stress reliever,” she said.

He knew a better one.

Jaysus, man. Enough, already.

Joe cleared his throat, shifting the light weight of the backpack hung over his shoulder and blurting out the first thing that popped into his brain, since his conversational skills had gone arseways. “You like eighties music?”

“I do. Some of the most incredible artists were big in the eighties. The music’s fun and somehow purer. Of course, back then, there was only the threat of nuclear war and the size of shoulder pads to worry about.”

She slipped a hand under her cardigan, pressing against the spot where she was bleeding. The motion—and perhaps the sting of the scratches—seemed to make her realize they were still standing in her doorway.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Can I come in?” Another wind gust slammed around the corner of the house and buffeted him a step closer to her.

“Why?”

Her tone and the soft crumpling of her forehead told him she was genuinely confused, not antagonistic.

“Why would you want to come in?” she clarified. Her gaze dropped to her chest, and her mouth curved down. “I definitely don’t need a doctor to treat a couple of cat scratches, thanks.”

The thought had crossed his mind; he couldn’t deny it. He showed her his harmless GP smile. “They can get nasty if infection sets in. I should take a look.”

She snorted and folded her arms tighter over her breasts. “In your dreams.”

“Then perhaps you could make me a cup of tea since my arse is near frozen off, and we can have an adult conversation. Without an audience.”

Her pretty green eyes said talking to him was the last thing she wanted, but she dipped her chin in polite resignation and backed up a step.

“There are tea bags in the kitchen,” she said, “but since you invited yourself in, you can make your own while I clean these scratches.”

She whirled around and disappeared into the bathroom.

Familiar with the place from when Mrs. Dixon—or Dixie, as everyone called her—lived there, Joe toed off his boots and strolled into the living room that led to a small kitchen. First, he found MacKenna’s phone and silenced Bono. Then he flicked on the kettle and found the pottery jar marked tea. Sniffing the tea bags inside, he smiled. Rutna and Holly had kept up Dixie’s tradition of only buying top-quality tea, not that vile, cheap stuff that was often nicknamed Gumboot tea.

While he waited for the kettle to boil, he pulled a mug from a shelf in the cabinet, hesitated, then grabbed a second. Possibly he was arming a woman with a weapon that could inflict some degree of agony if the contents were poured onto his groin.

He placed both mugs on the counter, dumping a tea bag in each. He angled his head toward the hallway but was met with silence. Just how good of a first aid kit did that bathroom contain? Grinding out a belly deep sigh, he poured the boiling water into the mugs.

Not his circus, not his monkeys.

Even through a haze of lust and humor while she’d danced, he’d wondered if her toe was better. Because he was a doctor, and he’d become a doctor because he hated seeing people in pain. Like his uncle Liam back in Dublin. At age thirteen, Joe had gone to visit Uncle Liam one last time before bowel cancer finally took him. The painfully thin man who’d once tossed Joe in the air as if he weighed nothing hadn’t recognized his nephew, and kept calling Joe “Albert”—the name of a childhood friend, Joe’s da had explained later. His da had clapped a hand on Joe’s shoulder as they’d left the hospital.

“I’m sorry you had to see him like that,” he’d said. “Feckin’ doctors. If they’d only figured out what was wrong with him sooner.”

And so Joe had determined to be better than those feckin’ doctors and save people like his Uncle Liam.

He caught a sound of scuffed footsteps from the doorway behind him and turned. A furry lump twisted between his ankles, letting out an indignant yowl when Joe’s foot clipped some part of the cat’s body. Diablo streaked out of the kitchen, stopped abruptly at the halfway point in the living room, and proceeded to give his arse a thorough cleaning.

“Tried tangling with you, did he?” MacKenna continued into the living room, crouching to scratch Diablo’s head.

“That cat is the very devil himself,” Joe said. “You heard about him tripping up Dixie?”

MacKenna had changed out of the tiny camisole, and a bra had made a reappearance; he could see a black strap under the wide neck of the cable-knit sweater—the same one she’d had on earlier. Her long hair spilled over her shoulder and spread fan like over her face as she continued to pet the cat. A loud rumbling purr started up, and the contrary animal bumped her thigh with his head then stood on his back legs, front paws on her knee, demanding to be picked up.

“Many times. He just wants to be close to people. Don’t you, baby?” MacKenna scooped him up, planting a kiss on Diablo’s head.

It was a sad, sorry day when a man found himself wanting to be a cat just so MacKenna would call him “baby” in that sexy voice of hers. And kiss him—though maybe not just on the forehead.

Joe snatched the milk carton from the fridge and poured a dash into each cup. Too bad if she didn’t take her tea with it. He scooped out each tea bag and threw them into the trash, then carried the mugs to the coffee table, giving woman and cat a wide berth.

“Isn’t this the same creature that clawed you a few minutes ago?” he said, unable to tear his gaze away from MacKenna practically having a snog-fest with the animal.

“He was acting on instinct, defending himself. There wasn’t any malice in it.”

MacKenna rested her chin on top of Diablo’s head. The cat craned his furry face around to stare at Joe with a slitted and decidedly smug gaze, rumbling like a V8 engine.

“And I don’t hold a grudge,” she added.

Not like you do, her tone implied.

Yeah, well, she might be right about that. He sat on one end of the three-seater couch, and MacKenna surprised him by taking the other end instead of the armchair. Diablo squirmed in her arms, so she put him on the middle cushion, where he resumed grooming his hindquarters.

Just grand. A right fine way to dredge up the past. With a fat, arse-cleaning cat between them, and Joe suffering a brain freeze on what he wanted to say.

Oh, right—the let’s get back to ignoring each other apology.

Except looking at MacKenna now, a dimple popping out on her cheek as she struggled not to laugh at Diablo who was—Jaysus—really enthusiastic about his personal hygiene, Joe found it tough to convince himself that ignoring her was what he wanted.

Take your medicine, Joe. You’re a doctor, aren’t you, ya dope?

“I’m sorry, MacKenna,” he said. Was that his voice melting like syrup on saying her name?

She picked up her mug, crinkled her nose, and set it down again. “You weren’t to know I don’t take milk in my tea. But thanks for the thought.”

“Not what I meant.”

She knew it, too, since apparently the cat—who’d now moved on to washing the area where his bollocks had once been—was way more interesting than making eye contact with Joe.

“I shouldn’t have said anything about you keeping your mouth shut,” he said.

“Big gob, I believe, were your exact words.”

Her gaze switched from the cat to his mouth, and the lingering caress of that heated glance suddenly made him wonder what he was doing, dragging up the past, which couldn’t be changed anyway.

“Big gob comes from the Irish words for ‘very attractive lips.’”

Those green eyes flicked up to his, creasing in the corners as she laughed. “You’re full of it.”

Then some of the humor dancing in her eyes drained away, and the curve of her very attractive lips straightened and thinned.

“You were right then, and you’re right now. I should’ve minded my own business.”

“If it were you,” he said quietly, “would you have wanted to know, wanted someone to tell you what you couldn’t see for yourself?”

She stroked a hand down Diablo’s spine, and the animal leaned into it, the purring ratcheting up a notch.

“Would you want to hear that the person you loved didn’t love you in return?” he asked, leaning forward to still her hand on Diablo’s back. “That they were, in fact, only in love with the idea of your perceived net worth and that of your family?”

She met his gaze straight on then. “Yes,” she said. “I would. But I guess I would’ve preferred to hear it from someone who loved me, not from a stranger.”

And back then, MacKenna had been a stranger—or very nearly one. He remembered walking in the door of her bridal boutique for the first time, seeing the petite and pretty blonde who displayed a natural warmth as she shook his hand. He remembered thinking, as he’d left his fiancée in the shop, that the owner was attractive in a cute, girl-next-door way. Though not stop your heart gorgeous like Sofia, who’d captured his entire focus from the day she started as the receptionist at the Invercargill medical center where he worked.

In hindsight, he could now interpret MacKenna’s body language that day toward Sofia as conveying restrained dislike. During those first turbulent weeks after Sofia left, he’d had the full Sofia-fuelled wrathful support of his family at his back, and a few, “I always suspected” comments from his parents and “What a bloody skank” remarks from his siblings. But would he have listened to them if they’d criticized Sofia before? If, after meeting her for the first time, his mam and da had been brutally honest instead of tactfully suspicious?

“Sometimes strangers can see things more clearly than the people who care about you,” he said. “And if you hadn’t taken action, I would’ve married her and likely been divorced within a year.”

Both thoughts contributed equally to the sinking sensation in his gut. If not for MacKenna, he’d have gone through with the wedding. Maybe he’d have found out Sofia’s true nature in a few months, or maybe it would’ve taken years. Either option would’ve meant a painful and expensive mistake. He’d been blindly in love with her, but in an instant, that love had died.

Love was fickle that way. In love one minute, out of it the next. And he guessed that went both ways. Sofia had walked away from him first, kicked his arse to the curb, as the saying went. They’d avoided the messiness of an extended, painful breakup. For that, he could almost—almost—thank her.

“I’m just sorry you had to find out the shitty way you did,” Mac said. “For the hurt and embarrassment I caused both you and your family.” Her voice softened on the last words.

“I dodged a bullet, as far as my family’s concerned.”

Diablo, deciding in feline subtlety that the absence of stroking and the weight of two human hands on him was too great, turned and nipped Joe’s wrist. Joe yanked his hand away with a muttered curse, keeping his eyes averted from MacKenna while his gut continued to twist and turn. He actually appreciated the timing of Diablo’s bad temper because Joe had no right and no reason to keep his hand on hers. He’d enjoyed the feel of her soft skin under his palm just a little too much.

Joe gulped down his tea—burning the roof of his mouth a little in his haste—and stood.

“And as far as you’re concerned?” MacKenna asked.

As far as he was concerned? More clichéd phrases jumped into his mind.

Plenty more fish in the sea. Better off without her. Time heals all wounds.

That it did—but scar tissue could last a lifetime. He opened his mouth to offer a flippant comment and instead said, “You did me a favor. I should buy you a beer sometime to thank you.” As if she were one of the lads or a mate.

Hell. What was that all about? But it was too late to rephrase the veiled invitation to spend time with him. Too late to deny that a part of him really wanted to spend more time with her.

MacKenna offered him a leashed smile and made a polite noise in the back of her throat.

“No thanks necessary,” she said, also standing. “Like you, I imagine, I’d rather forget the whole thing.”

When he continued to stand looking at her like a big gammy eejit, Mac snatched up her mug—nearly slopping her untouched tea over the side—and scuttled into the kitchen.

“Do you mind taking Diablo outside with you?” she said, safely behind the kitchen counter. “He should get the hint to go home where he’s wanted.”

“Sure.” Because what else could he say when it was obvious that Mac wanted him out of the house just as much as the cat? Both males had outstayed their welcome. “See y’round, then.”

Joe scooped up the black cat, who strained to head butt Joe’s chin in misplaced affection. He carried the cat into the hallway and jammed his feet into his hiking boots, not bothering to tie the laces.

The cat’s sudden change of heart wouldn’t last long once Joe booted Diablo out into the cold. And neither would Joe’s warm fuzzy moments that rose during his interaction with Mac.