Alpha Billionaire Series
Coming Home Chapter 16

HOLDEN

I couldn't get Makenzie out of my head. She had been distant and aloof. I guess that was because she

arried. Or maybe telling her to pretend she didn't know who I was had something to do with it. Either way, it sucked. She hadn't seemed to want to spend any time with me. In all fairness, I didn't blame her. She was a busy business owner, and I was her past. She didn't need me in the way.

Only, I didn't want to be her past. I had always thought she would be my future and I wanted her. I had some half-assed fantasy about sweeping her off her feet and carrying her away from her family. She would forget about her husband and fall back in love with me. It was as much of a fantasy as those dreams I had where I woke up and I was whole, back on duty my dad was back in Connecticut with my mother, alive and well. Neither was going to happen. They were as fantastical as dragons and wizards.

Makenzie seemed to actually like her husband. Somehow that made it worse, plus he seemed like a nice gun. So there went a change in my hypothetical plans of seducing her away from him. Not that Makenzie would ever allow me to do that. She was kind and loyal. All the reasons I had fallen in love with her, were the exact reasons I would ne able to seduce her now that she was a married woman. She wouldn't look twice at me; her affections were focused somewhere else. And to be honest with myself, did I really want a woman who could so easily be lured away from her husband?

I shook my head; my thoughts were crazy-making and stupid. I wouldn't seduce a woman away from her husband. Not even Makenzie, who I wanted more than I wanted oxygen. I wasn't that kind of man. I had to accept that whatever there had been between us had ended.

I needed to clear my head and think. A good hard run followed by a brutal powerlifting session would normally have me thinking straight. But my leg still wasn't strong enough to go out for a run, and my focus was shot. Everything seemed to make me think about Makenzie. I went into the rec room and stared at the weight bench. If I could sweat out all of my concerns and clear my head, I knew I would feel better. Using it was all just wishful thinking, I was too weak to even lift the smallest weight. But I forced myself to try. I could barely be able to curl my hand around the handle of a small weight, forget about holding on pr "Fuck."

I gave up and ran my right hand over my throbbing forearm, cradling it to my stomach. A new-born baby had more muscle tone than I did. I hated being this helpless. I hated the way my bones ached. Maybe today was one of the painkiller days. I could take a pill and drift off to sleep. I wouldn't exactly feel better when I woke up, but the deep ache where I could feel every screw, every pin, and my muscles sliding over the plates in my limbs would be gone. Recovery was taking too damned long.

The house phone rang. I wasn't going to get to it fast enough, so I decided to let it go to voicemail, and then I remembered that my parents didn't do answering machines. If something was important enough, they made sure the person calling would have their cell number. I was honestly surprised the house phone still worked. The phone kept ringing.

With a tired groan, I got to my feet.

"I hear ya, keep ringing." I limped into Dad's old office and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"I can't believe your old phone number works!" There was no mistaking Makenzie's sweet voice.

"Hi, Makenzie. What can I do for you?"

"It's more like what can I do for you. Are you still interested in catching up?"

Hearing her was better than any pain reliever I could take. Tension left my body, and I felt relaxed for the first time in hours.

"Yeah, sure. You want to meet up for coffee?"

I started remembering all the spots we would meet up that could have been totally random had anyone in her family, or mine, seen us. We spent a lot of time deep in tourist areas, knowing our families would avoid those. We didn't need to do that anymore. "Not exactly. I was thinking a little more than that. Would you be interested in dinner?"

"Dinner, sure? When? Where?" I could think of more than a dozen little restaurants where we could meet and sit around for hours talking. Low light, fine dining, a glass of wine, and a beautiful woman.

I shook my head to get rid of that particular image. I didn't need to imagine Makenzie smiling at me across a candle-lit table, a soft smile on her lips, a plunging neckline exposing her sexy cleavage. "My house. You remember where, right?"

Her house. I breathed in. Her house, where she lived with her family, her husband and her child, possibly even her mother-in-law.

"Of course, I remember where you live. I've spent more summers on this island and in that house than I've been away. I mean, I know I got hit on the head, and all but... You know, dinner sounds great." I definitely remembered where she lived. I drove past her house almost every night like some love-sick teenager driving past the house of my crush hoping to see her through the window. And every time I did, I felt like a fool and hoped that her husband didn't notice.

"That's fabulous. I realized it's past due. I should have invited you over as soon as I knew you were back home. But what's a little time between friends? We're still friends, right?"

She hadn't invited me right away because I had shown up and had been a complete dick to her. I hadn't behaved the way a friend would. I acted like a jilted lover. Maybe that's what I was, but I knew I was better than that. Makenzie deserved better than that. "I will always be your friend, Makenzie, as long as you'll have me." I could do that. I could be her friend. She was the kind of person, even if only as a platonic friend, I needed in my life.

After being injured, and with Dad's funeral, the number of people who I thought I could count on as friends radically diminished. My life had become so compartmentalized. I had very few college friends left, but they didn't interact much with me once I joined the Army. I had Army friends that seemed to turn to dust as soon as I was out. Friendship was a scarce commodity that I could use. Makenzie was offering an olive branch, I liked to think that I was smart enough to accept it.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. It was too easy to imagine that she was smiling and blushing. She was probably simply conferring with her husband over something. I had to remember she was married. And that meant off-limits.

Getting to know her again as an adult and getting to know her husband might be exactly what I needed in order to get over her. Maybe I wouldn't be so completely attracted to Makenzie, who is now someone's wife and also a mother. I doubted it, but I needed to try. "We can have a little coming home celebration."

"That sounds nice, Makenzie. I'd like that." I would like that entirely too much.

I leaned back in my father's desk chair and propped my feet on the desk in front of me. I enjoyed listening to her voice.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked.

"How does Monday evening sound?"

I stared up at the ceiling and thought about it. Something about Monday tickled the back of my brain. I didn't have any appointments. As far as I knew my schedule was completely empty. "Monday? I think I can clear my schedule. I'll show up around six?" "Sounds like a plan. I'll see you then." She ended the call.

I swear I heard her giggle as she hung up. It was going to be tough convincing myself that she wasn't attractive. A small intimate family dinner was going to be good for my soul.

I swung out of the chair and limped off to the kitchen. I looked at the calendar hanging on the refrigerator. Dinner with Makenzie and her family on Monday. I was going to need to pick up a bottle of wine.

I kept my finger on the date and ran it back and forth between the box for Sunday and the box for Monday. No wonder Monday was tickling my brain. I closed my eyes and shook my head. If Makenzie entertained the way her mother used to, this wasn't going to be a small family dinner. This was the annual start of the season kick-off party. There would be a house full of people in for the season.

I didn't need to get wine, I needed beer. Monday was Memorial Day.