SERENA

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I WOKE TO FIND MAC wrapped around me. Strands of my hair caught lightly on the stubble of his jaw as I shifted out of his hold. Once on my feet, I didn’t glance back to see if I’d woken him. I slipped quickly out the door.

Today, I decided to dress more conservatively than usual. I put on a sleeveless black blouse with a white lace Peter Pan collar and a black skirt. I put my hair up in a ponytail.

I was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island trying to down some cereal when Mac appeared.

“You’re going back too soon,” was the first thing out of his mouth. He’d shaved. The stubble my hair had snagged on was gone, leaving a sharp, sexy jawline. He ran his hand through his hair which was still damp from the shower. I thought of the unbelievably hot body hidden by his tailored clothing.

I had a hard time holding his gaze. What had possessed me to strip in front of him? Or to seek comfort from him? “I have no choice. Joy’s been working overtime keeping the shop running.”

He grabbed the coffeepot and arched an eyebrow as he filled his cup. “Shit, you brewed this strong.”

“Sorry, it’s the way I like it.” I brought my bowl to the sink and dumped the cereal down the garbage disposal. “Can you call one of your henchmen to pick me up?”

His mouth ticked up in obvious annoyance. “I’ll drive you. Carl can meet us there.”

“Carl is a giant. There’s no way he’s going to blend in.”

“You’ll have to put up with him for now.”

We rode in uncomfortable silence down the winding road. By the time we’d made it to the freeway I’d worked up the courage to speak.

“Why did Ward Payne seem so nervous around you at the cemetery?”

“What do you know about your father’s business?” He chose to ask a question rather than answering mine.

“They supply protective gear to the military.”

“And that’s it. That’s all you know?” he said, his tone harsh.

“Why? What else is there to know?”

“Nothing, baby. Nothing at all.” He was accusing me of something, but he wasn’t going to tell me what. The hints that my father had been involved in something illegal were getting stronger. Even Ward Payne had suggested something nefarious when he’d scoffed at the idea that my father had been killed by a generic mugger. Is that why my father had hired a shady gun-runner like Mac in the first place?

I could tell by the set of his jaw that there was no point in asking him anymore questions. He was going to stonewall me.

Annoyed, I pulled a paperback from my purse. Thankfully, I didn’t get carsick while reading. The problem was, I couldn’t concentrate. Not a single sentence stuck. I was too busy thinking about my father, and about the man he’d begged to marry me. The man he put in charge of his half of the business.

I sneaked a glance at Mac. His mouth was set in a surly line. He clearly resented this new role as my protector.

We pulled into the nearly empty parking lot. The guys that ran the vape store were already there and I spotted Emma dressing a mannequin in her front window. Emma sold long flowing, hippy-ish garments mostly to older women.

My shop was at the end of the block. Carl was already waiting outside sipping from a coffee cup. The paper cup was nearly engulfed by his big hand. He was dressed in an ill-fitting boxy suit. No one would ever mistake him for a customer.

“Don’t wear that perfume tonight,” Mac said gruffly as he parked crosswise over a couple of parking spots, dropping me literally at the shop’s entrance.

“I wasn’t wearing any,” I said. “I used the soap in your shower.” It had been something plain and white and basically scentless.

He cursed under his breath.

“Are you allergic to scents?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Not sure what he was worried about. I was going to stay firmly planted on the other side of that vast bed tonight.

Carl stepped over to the car door and opened it. I swung my legs out and Carl put out his big mitt to help me up. I didn’t look back as Mac wheeled the car out of the parking lot.

The first calamity was Carl knocking over a rack of gemstone pendulums used for divination. As he tried to right the rack, he managed to knock over a black scrying mirror. Thankfully, the glass didn’t break.

He was a disaster walking, who could basically clear all my shelves in a day with his big body.

He seemed genuinely upset at the damage he was doing, so I took pity on him. I showed him the back room where I kept additional inventory and suggested that if he left the door open he could watch from there.

He took a seat at the desk where I did the books. “I can’t see the entire store.”

“The door chimes. You can stand in the doorway when you hear someone enter.”

He relented with a reluctant nod.

I tidied the counter and then took a quick inventory of the shop. There had been a run on votive candles it seemed. I went into the backroom to get the recent shipment. Carl finally proved useful. I didn’t need to use the stepladder. He just plucked the box off the top shelf.

The candles had an herbal scent and it occurred to me I would have to wash my hands afterward since Mac was allergic to scents.

The door chimed and Beth, a regular customer, came in. She was wearing a new flowing tunic she’d obviously purchased at Emma’s. She actually startled at the sight of Carl hovering in the doorway of the stockroom.

“Hi, Beth,” —I made a motion toward the bodyguard— “this is Carl, my new accountant.”

Beth offered him a tentative smile.

Carl obviously deciding that the woman with the long gray hair and wire-rimmed spectacles didn’t pose a threat, ducked back into the stockroom.

Beth hurried over to me, managing to navigate the aisles without knocking over a single item. “Joy told me about your father,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” I made myself swallow back the tears. I was finding that any display of sympathy made me want to start bawling.

“Did they catch the person responsible?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

I returned to stacking the candles while Beth took her time looking for a beaded chakra bracelet.

She brought two bracelets to the counter along with a smoky quartz stone. “I couldn’t make up my mind between the lava stone beads and the snow quartz beads so I’m getting both,” she said. The lava and snow quartz beads filled up the space on the bracelet string not occupied by the seven chakra colors.

“I’m getting this for you,” she said, pointing at the smoky quartz. She showed me a web page on her smart phone. It had a spell for banishing grief. I thanked her for the stone and slipped it into the pocket of my skirt. Beth swept out of the shop with a wave.

I made it all the way to lunchtime before I broke down. “Carl, can you take me to the cemetery?”

“Straight home. No stops in between,” he said, clearly reciting Mac’s instructions.

“Please, Carl.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll have to call Mr. Sutton.” I heard Carl’s low mumbled tones as he spoke. He was still talking when he gave me a significant look and shook his head no.

“Let me talk to him.”

With obvious reluctance, Carl handed over the phone.

“Mac, please. I just want to lay some flowers.”

“Sorry, Serena. It’s a wide open area. It’s a risk I tried to avoid on the day of your father’s funeral. I won’t bend again.”

I hung up without saying goodbye.

We had one of those old-fashioned signs on the door. I flipped it to the closed side. Mac had been right about one thing. It was too soon to come back to work. I wasn’t fit for dealing with customers. I would create the tiered tarot deck display I’d long intended to set up.

Carl carried the shelving from the back room then stood expectantly as though wanting to help. The poor guy was obviously bored stiff.

“I’ve got it, thanks,” I said. He gave me a nod and returned to his seat. I was very methodical. First shifting the book rack, then unpacking the shelving and thoroughly reading the instructions. But my intense focus soon gave way to sadness. My eyes started leaking again, splashing on the plexiglass.

I had this desperate longing to be where my father was. As if I could find a few minutes of peace beside him. I excused myself and locked myself in the small bathroom. Once, when neither Joy nor I had remembered the keys, I’d managed to wriggle in through the window.

I pressed the button on the loud hand dryer and quietly lifted the window and popped out the screen. I tossed my shoes out onto the cement alleyway then pressed the dryer on again. I climbed onto the toilet tank. My nylons caught on the window latch as I boosted myself over the edge. I landed in a jarring crouch, then scooped up my shoes and took off running. I ran until my lungs felt like they’d explode. I tried to calm my breathing as I ducked inside a grocery store. I phoned for an Uber as I walked the aisles. I felt guilty for ditching Carl, but the impulse had been too great to deny.

It only took the driver a few minutes to arrive, but Mac was already blowing up my phone. I texted back that I was perfectly safe, before turning off the volume.

I dared to check my phone as we sped down the freeway. Mac had not responded to my text. Perhaps he was giving me a break. Right and pigs will fly. There was a teenage girl selling flowers at the base of the off-ramp. I had the driver signal her over. I bought a bundle with a mix of roses, daisies, and carnations.

The man at the gate waved us into the memorial park and I had the driver pull into the office parking lot.

The interior of the office reminded me of a hotel lobby. It held a plush, white circular couch and a small fountain. I walked up to the information desk.

“May I help you?” the woman asked in dulcet tones.

“Could you help me with the location of my father’s plot?” The park was vast and I didn’t want to waste time getting lost. Surely Carl was on my trail.

The woman used a computer to look up my father’s name and then grabbed a piece of paper from the top of a stack. It was a map printed off a copier machine with the plots mapped out. She used a bright yellow felt pen to highlight a number.

I climbed back into the car and handed the map to the driver. I stared out the window as we wound through the cemetery. The rain clouds had rolled away, there was only a pale blue sky today. The front part of the park contained the older mausoleums and gravestones. As the car climbed the hill, the raised marble crosses and stone angels were left behind. The newer markers were flat to the ground.

The car turned the corner and I didn’t need to refer to the map to know we were on the right avenue. Mac’s car sat parked along the curb at the far end.

“Please stop here,” I said.

“According to the map, it’s just before the curve up there,” the driver said.

“This is fine. Let me out here.”

The black car was already heading toward me. I grabbed the bouquet and took a deep breath before popping open the door and climbing out. The Uber driver did a three point turn and headed down the hill. I considered for a moment running after the hired car and jumping back in.

Mac pulled up alongside me and rolled down the window. “Get in the car.” When I didn’t instantly comply he said, “I’ll carry you kicking and screaming if I have to.”

I got in the car.

“Your father charged me with this...this task. To keep you safe and you are making it impossible.”

Task? I hated being this man’s burden. I plucked at a wilting petal on a rose. “You’re making too big a deal of it.”

“Look the hell around you. See that building with the urns or that statuary up there. Even an amateur sniper could pick you off from those spots.” He cursed under his breath. “Christ, and the cotton-candy colored hair. Might as well be wearing a neon sign.”

I flipped my hair back over my shoulder. “It’s sunset pink and I didn’t think a gun-smuggler would be this square.”

He started to drive away and the passenger seatbelt warning started chiming.

“Are you really not going to let me put these on his grave?”

He grabbed the bouquet from my hand, rolled down the window and chucked it onto the lawn.

“You are such a jerk,” I said.

“Thought we’d already established that.” He braked then leaned over and put my seatbelt on. He smelled wonderful. Hey, I thought, allergic my ass, he definitely was wearing some light but masculine scent.

“What was my father involved in?” I asked as we exited through the gates.

He shot me a narrow-eyed look.

Realization struck. “Oh my God, you don’t trust me.” Did he really think I was complicit in some illegal doings?

I glared at him. “May I remind you that you’re the one with the questionable past.”

His lips tilted into a surly smile. “Remind away, baby.”

I gave an annoyed huff. “I don’t want you to blame Carl,” I said, changing the subject.

“You should have thought about that before you climbed out the window.”

“He’s your friend. I can’t believe you fired him for one little mistake.”

“Losing track of you is not a little mistake.”

I could tell by the stubborn set of his jaw there was no way I was going to talk him into giving Carl his job back.

His phone chimed and then stopped. In moments, the ringing started again. I glanced over to see if he was ever going to answer it and found him looking at me. “We need to do something about your hair.”

It was back to the problem of my hair.

“Fine. I’ll need to go to a beauty supply shop.”

“Search for a store nearby.”

Wow, he was really serious about this hair thing. I pulled my phone out of my purse and found a store a few miles from where we were.

The shop was located in a strip mall just off the freeway. He parked near the store, and retrieved his gun from the glove compartment. He got out of the car and discreetly slipped the gun into the back of his waistband beneath his suit jacket. That struck me as a very practiced move.  Mac was clearly used to carrying a gun.

He held the shop door for me then followed me inside. His phone chimed again and this time he answered it. He stuck close behind me, walking the aisles while discussing business on the phone. He appeared unaware of the women staring at him as he passed. I couldn’t blame them for looking. Mac wasn’t mere eye-candy, he was a living breathing masculine god. I still couldn’t believe I’d woken up cuddling with him.

I stopped a saleswoman. “Excuse me, where are your scissors?”

I trailed after her down the shampoo aisle. I glanced back to see if Mac would follow—he did, though he was still multi-tasking, guarding me while conducting business on the phone. The saleswoman motioned toward a glass display case against the back wall.

“I’m getting rid of the pink. Which pair would you recommend?”

“But the pink looks so pretty,” the woman said.

I frowned and tilted my head in Mac’s direction. “Well, my husband doesn’t think so.”

She unlocked the case and handed me a sleek, expensive pair. I suddenly felt sick about the idea of chopping off most of my hair.

“Fuck,” Mac said harshly, startling me.

He shot me a glare as he pocketed his phone. He strode forward and plucked the scissors from my fingers and handed them back to the saleswoman. “We’re looking for dye to match her natural color.”

“I’ll make a mess of it,” I said. “I’ve never dyed my own hair before.”

“Then make an appointment at the salon you use.”

“My friend did this in her kitchen.”

He did not hide his frustration. “Buy everything you need here and have her come up to the house to fix it.”

The pink wasn’t a mistake that needed fixing, I wanted to shout. To hell with all his controlling bullshit. “I’ll just wear a hat when I go out.”

“Phone your friend. Tell her I’ll send a car to pick her up.”

“I haven’t even told her about our little arrangement, yet.”

“Not an arrangement, babe,” he said, his tone clipped. “You have a husband now. That’s all anybody needs to know.”

The saleswoman was having a hard time repressing a smile, clearly she was getting a kick out of our little squabble. Probably figured she had a chance with my hunky husband.

Mac turned back to face the saleswoman and she instantly altered her expression to one of concern. “You’ll want something to gently strip the pink out,” she told him as she grabbed a plastic shopping basket from a stand at the end of an aisle. There was a sassy little swing to her hips as she led us down the dye aisle.

She started plucking products off the shelf, and rattling off her extensive hair-coloring knowledge, all the while offering up sympathetic glances to the poor man who had to deal with such a pain in the ass of a wife. But she wasn’t winning him over; Mac took no pains to hide his impatience. He already had his wallet out.

“Now for the hair color,” she said officiously. She blathered on about warm shades compared with cool.

Max turned his head to look at me. He narrowed his eyes. “What are you, a blonde?” he asked.

I gave him an annoyed look. “Seriously, blonde? With these dark eyebrows?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders in a what-the-hell do I know gesture. His phone rang and he answered it on the first ring, clearly relieved to have an excuse to stop discussing hair dye. Holding the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear, he pulled out his wallet then whipped out a credit card.

He stopped talking on the phone for a moment to ask if there was a rear exit. After the saleswoman assured him that there wasn’t he turned and headed toward the front door.

The saleswoman kept her eyes on him until the glass door swung closed behind him. When she turned back to me, her lips were thin with impatience, making it clear she’d switched off the charm. I quickly grabbed some bottles off the shelf, opting to choose a few different dark shades.

Once in the car, I texted Jenny. She was a little hurt that I wanted to change the pink since she’d worked so hard to get it exactly right. I explained that it wasn’t me, that it was my new husband who insisted on the change. My phone rang immediately after that revelation.

Before answering, I angled my body toward the window, thinking somehow that it would keep Mac from hearing the conversation. “Surprise, I’m married,” I blurted into the phone before she had a chance to say anything,

I cupped my hand around my mouth as I tried to answer her rapid-fire questions. “You know that guy I mentioned who runs my dad’s business.”

“Yes, he has a dodgy past, but people change. Yes, I did say that, but I was wrong. Trust can be earned.” I cringed at my answers, they were filled with “buts” and platitudes. I glanced over at Mac and it was clear by the pissed-off expression on his face that, despite covering my mouth, he was catching the gist of what I was saying.

I tied up the conversation, telling her that a car would be picking her up shortly.

When we pulled into the drive, Tom was standing in the doorway to the house. Relieved to get away from Mac’s bad mood, I fairly bounced out of the car. I heard Mac call my name as I walked up the drive. I heaved a sigh and swiveled around on my heels.

“You’re forgetting this.” He leaned across the passenger seat and thrust the shopping bag through the rolled down window.

I walked back and grabbed it, but he didn’t immediately release it. “Hey, darlin’, how about trying to make this marriage seem a little more convincing. Start by dialing back your obvious hatred for me.”

He released the bag and I hurried away.