Page 37 of Protecting What's Mine

“Harper!” Luke barked. “You forget to tell me about an addition to the guest list?” He shot Linc a dirty look.

Harper hurried over beaming. She appeared to be immune to Luke’s scowl. “Linc! I’m so glad you could make it. Don’t mind Luke,” she said to Mack. “He hates Linc.”

“I don’thatehim,” Luke grumbled. “I just don’t like him.”

“Well, that’s definite progress,” Linc said. He held up a platter. “I made a fruit tray. Where do you want it?”

A guy with thighs like that, with a smile like that, showing up with a homemade fruit tray? Mack felt her sexual interest emerge from hibernation.

Harper swooned over the artful display and carried it and Mack’s potato salad and ice cream sandwiches over to the food table.

“Kiss-ass,” Luke muttered to Linc. But he held his hand out.

“Asshole,” Linc said, amicably shaking his hand.

“Ignore them.” Gloria enveloped Mack in another breezy hug. She wore a flowy red top over high-waisted shorts. Her sandals wrapped around her ankle in multicolor threads. “It’s so good to see you, Mackenzie.”

“Hi, Dr. Mack,” Ava shouted from the top of the swing set in the corner of the yard.

“Hiiiiiii!” Sadie sprinted at Mack and threw her body into the doctor’s legs.

Mack leaned down to gingerly hug the kid.

“Up!” Sadie said gleefully, and Mack felt rather heroic as she hefted the girl onto her hip.

Sadie smashed her face against Mack’s cheek. “Muah! Okay, your turn!” She reached for Linc, and Mack gratefully handed her over. She had delivered a baby once and had done a pediatric rotation in med school.

That was the sum total of her kid experience.

Linc, showing off his prowess with small humans, tossed the little girl in the air. She giggled and the sound drew the attention of the rest of the kids.

“Me next!”

“No,me!”

Gloria grinned and tugged Mack in the direction of the grill and her husband. “I love it when Linc is at these things. He’s a built-in babysitter. Kids adore him.”

“I saw him with his nieces and nephew last weekend. He appears to be a natural,” Mack said.

“He certainly taught me a few things.” Gloria grinned.

Aldo ditched the tongs and picked up his beer. “How was your first week on the front lines of small-town health care?”

“Well, I didn’t know pinkeye could spread that quickly,” she joked.

“Dreamy, get you a drink?” Linc called from the cooler.

She gave him a thumbs-up, and he handed one of the kids a beer and directed her toward Mack.

“Dreamy, hmm?” Gloria said. “I heard our handsome fire chief sent you flowers this week.”

“He was being funny,” Mack insisted.

“Nothing says hilarious like a bouquet of wildflowers.”

It clicked then. Gloria managed the floral shop in town. “And you made the arrangement.”

Her smile was quick. “Guilty as charged. Linc swung by to personally sign the card, you know.”