Page 11 of Mac (Demented Souls #7)

"Not right now." She finished the last of her potato, put her utensils on the plate and pushed it away from the edge of the table.

She'd get up and deal with it in a minute.

"Right now, he's living in Denver with his wife.

Her parents are getting older and need someone to help care for them, so they're up there doing that, and may be for the next ten years. "

"And you take care of your parents?"

Elyse laughed. "No, my parents are getting older but they're not to that stage yet.

Mom's only sixty-three, Dad's sixty-eight.

They've only recently retired and now they're enjoying it.

They bought this huge fifth wheel and truck and they're doing their best to see the country.

Mom says they spent their youth raising kids, now they'll spend their retirement living it up.

" She remembered the way her mom had laughed and waved as they'd pulled out of town a few months earlier. It was one of the few times she’d seen her mom laughing instead of complaining about something.

Elyse had received a couple phone calls but hadn't seen them in almost five months.

They were due back soon, at least for a little while, in the meantime, Elyse hoped they enjoyed their trip.

Though, she had a hard time believing Mom would be happy travelling for too long, Mom was rarely happy with anything for long.

"So, you really don't have any family in the area."

"I guess that's right. I never thought about it that way, technically Mom and Dad still live in town.

I hadn't thought about their not really being here.

It's not like I'm a kid, or even all that young and need their help to figure out how to do things.

" Elyse smiled at him. "I've been on my own for—" she paused and did the math in her head, "—yikes, longer than I want to think about.

or admit." She almost wanted to make him guess, but how would she feel if he guessed that she was forty or worse?

No, best not do that. "Either way. I'm an adult and have been for a while.

I don't mind not having any family too close.

I do talk to Dave fairly frequently.And wish I got to see him at least a little more frequently, but it is what it is.

" Elyse shrugged, thinking maybe it was time to schedule some time off and go up to see her brother.

He didn't like to leave Hannah alone to care for her parents by herself for more than a day, and the trip took at least that long.

No, she could go up and visit him easier than he could come here.

"Let me help you clean up." Mac stood, picking up his plate and hers as he did.

"You don't have to," she said as he carried them to the sink. "There's not much here and I'm just going to put it in the dishwasher when I get ready to clean up."

"Are you sure?" He set the plates in the sink and ran water over them, rinsing off the juice from the meat and the small bits of butter.

"I'm sure. I'll take care of it in a bit." Elyse waved one hand.

The haunting piano notes of a familiar song seemed to come from the air, then the low deep voice that sang the cover of an old song. "I'm so sorry. I need to take this. Do you mind if I step out back?" Mac asked before pulling his phone from his pocket.

She wondered if that was a special tone set for just one person."Go right ahead." She motioned to the door as she stood, gathering things from the table to put away.

He stepped outside and closed the door behind him, effectively cutting her out of the conversation. She didn't mind, whatever it was, was none of her business anyway.

Elyse busied herself by putting things away and loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, cleaning up before he had a chance to insist. She'd just closed the dishwasher, washed her hands and stood drying them on a towel when the back door opened again, and Mac stepped inside.

"I'm sorry about that. That's my president's ring tone. When he calls, it's a good idea to answer, unless I want to be on shit duty until someone else pisses him off."

"I hope it wasn't bad news."

"Not bad news, as such, but he's called a meeting. I hate to eat and run but I need to head over to the clubhouse. Dinner was really good and thank you for inviting me."

"No problem. It was nice to have someone to talk to. I wish I'd invited you over sooner." She smiled at him, wondering what he would say to that.

"I kind of wish you had too. and I'm sorry to have to run like this." He made his way to the front door and turned to talk to her, one hand on the knob.

"No problem. I know where you live. You can't hide from me forever, especially now that I know how nice you are."

"You may change your mind on that. Especially if you catch me after a shitty day at work."

She lifted one brow and watched him a moment, trying to decide if he was being honest or trying to scare her off. She couldn't decide. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now go do what you've got to do. I'm going to grab a book and settle in for the evening."

"That's tempting, especially if I could do it with you, but I'll go be a good boy, at least for now." Mac let himself out.

Elyse followed, stepping out onto the porch and watching him cross first her lawn then his driveway and let himself into his house.

Guess he had to grab something from inside before he took off.

Once he was out of sight, she ducked back into her house, locking the door because she didn't plan to go back out tonight, then heading into the kitchen.

She might as well finish her cleaning so she could relax the rest of the evening.

Though, she would have enjoyed it more if Mac could have stayed even a little while longer.

Already her mind leapt ahead to reasons to invite him over again.

Maybe she could offer to take him out to dinner?

No. Mac wasn't the kind to let a woman pay if they went out.

If she wanted to feed him, she'd have to do it here. She could work with that. A slow smile spread across her face as she started coming up with excuses to invite him over. In the kitchen, she found the cheesecake he’d brought, put it in the fridge and made a mental note to take it back over to share with him, or maybe it would make a good reason to invite him over again.