Marry Me, Mackenzie!. Joanna Sims

I can’t believe he’s late for his own party.”

      “I’m still surprised he agreed to this at all,” Dylan said. “You know Ian hates crowds.”

      “No. You’re right. He does. But I’m determined to pull that man out of his shell kicking and screaming if I have to.” Jordan pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her dark-wash skinny jeans. To Mackenzie she said, “Give me a sec, okay? I want to see what’s holding him up. The two of you haven’t even met each other yet.”

      Jordan plugged one ear and held the phone to the other as she headed outside to call her fiancé. Even though there was a large group of people milling around in the great room, using it as a pass-through to the bathrooms or the deck outside, at the moment, Mackenzie and Dylan were the only two people in the kitchen. Dylan sent her a conspiratorial wink as he lifted the box top and snagged one of her giant cupcakes.

      Dylan devoured the devil’s food cupcake in three bites. “These are incredible. Did you make these?”

      Mackenzie nodded. “There’s another cupcake designer who works for me, but these are mine.”

      Dylan grabbed a second cupcake and sent Mackenzie a questioning look. “I can count on you not to tell Jordan, right?”

      “She is my cousin,” Mackenzie said as she scratched her arm under her long-sleeved shirt. Being around Dylan again was making her skin feel itchy and hot.

      “Good call,” Dylan said before he bit into the second cupcake. “You gotta pick family over some random guy you just met. I understand.”

      Before she could respond, a statuesque Cameron Diaz look-alike in a tiny bikini breezed into the kitchen like she owned it.

      “Babe,” Jenna said as she dropped a quick kiss on Dylan’s cheek, “we’re running out of ice out there already.”

      “Okay. I’ll run down to the store and grab some more,” Dylan said before he took another bite.

      Jenna opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of diet cola. She popped the top, took a sip and put the can on the counter.

      “Hi,” she said to Mackenzie and then moved on.

      Dylan gave his girlfriend a “look” and handed her a coaster to put under the can. Jenna rolled her eyes, but put the coaster beneath the can. Then she crossed her arms over her chest, her pretty face registering a combination of disbelief and disgust.

      “Babe—what are you eating?” Jenna frowned at him.

      “Cupcakes.” Dylan took another bite of the giant cupcake and pushed a box toward his girlfriend. “Want one?”

      “Are you insane?” Jenna asked, horrified. “Carbs, Dylan! I’ve got an audition tomorrow in LA—the last thing I want to be is all puffy and bloated. I don’t know how you can put that poison into your body anyway.”

      “Happily.” Dylan winked at Mackenzie.

      “Whatever.” Jenna walked to the door. She paused in the doorway and yelled, “Ice!”

      “Got it.” Dylan didn’t look at Jenna as he wolfed down the final bite of the cupcake.

      Instead of leaving to get ice, Dylan stayed with her in the kitchen. “So—did you grow up in Montana, too?”

      Mackenzie looked up at Dylan—one part of her wanted to exit stage left without saying a word, but the other part wanted to rip off the Band-Aid and get the inevitable out of the way. It wasn’t a matter of if she would confront Dylan about their past—it was a matter of when. She was impatient by nature, so perhaps, when she should bring up their past was right now.

      Gripping the side of the kitchen counter to hold her body steady, Mackenzie asked quietly, “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

      Dylan’s brow dropped and a question mark came into his eyes. He stared at her face hard, and she could almost see the wheels in his brain turning, trying to place her.

      “You’re not going to believe this, you guys.” Jordan threw her hands up into the air as she walked into the kitchen. “He’s stuck at the studio—his editor needs him to do something for the new book. He won’t be here for at least another hour.” Jordan’s shoulders sagged as she asked Mackenzie, “You can hang out that long, can’t you? I’ve been so busy with my gallery show that I’ve hardly spent any time with you—”

      “I really can’t stay.” Mackenzie shook her head. “I have to get back to the bakery.”

      “What a drag.” Jordan sighed. “I know, I know...business first. Ian’s exactly the same way.”

      “I’ll text you,” Mackenzie promised. “We’ll figure out when we can sync our calendars.”

      “Okay. It’s a plan,” Jordan agreed as she hugged her cousin one last time. “Give Hope a kiss for me.”

      “I will.” Mackenzie glanced nervously at Dylan, who hadn’t stopped staring at her. Jordan’s phone rang. She checked the number. “It’s the caterer. Let me grab this first and then I’ll walk you out.”

      “Don’t worry about it.” Dylan, still staring hard at Mackenzie’s face, said to Jordan, “I’ll walk her out.”

      “You’re all right, Dylan—I don’t care what they say about you.” Jordan punched Dylan lightly on the arm, and then gave Mackenzie one last parting hug before she answered the call.

      Mackenzie could feel Dylan’s intent gaze on her as they walked the short distance to the front door. Dylan opened the door for her.

      “You say we’ve met?” Dylan asked curiously after he shut the front door behind him.

      Dylan studied the petite, curvy woman walking beside him and he tried to figure out who she was before she had to tell him. He had had a lot of drunken hookups when he was in college and he hoped that she wasn’t one of them.

      It seemed to Mackenzie that her heart was pumping way too much blood, too quickly, through her veins. She was light-headed and for a split second, as she was coming down the front steps, it felt as if she might just pass out.

       This is happening. After all these years. This is really happening.

      “Yes. We’ve met,” Mackenzie said as she walked quickly to her car, unlocked the door and then opened it so she would have something to lean on.

      “You were good friends with my brother, Jett, back in middle school.” Mackenzie gripped the frame of the open car door so hard that her fingers started to hurt.

      “Jett...?” Dylan shook his head slightly as if he didn’t connect with the name, but then recognition slowly started to dawn as a smile started to move across his face.

      “Wait a minute!” Dylan exclaimed. “Big Mac? Is that you?”

      Mackenzie blanched. No one had called her that horrible nickname since high school.

      “I don’t like to be called that,” she said. When she was growing up, no one called her “Mackenzie.” Jett and her friends always called her “Mac.” Cruel kids at school had added the “Big” to it and the horrible nickname had followed her like a black cloud until she graduated from high school.

      “Hey—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He couldn’t stop staring at her face. This was not the Mackenzie he remembered. The thick, old-lady glasses were gone, her hair was darker and longer, and she had slimmed down. She wasn’t skinny; she was curvy, which was a pretty rare occurrence in California. The word voluptuous popped into his head to describe her now.

      “Just don’t call me that anymore, okay?”

      “Yeah. Sure. Never again, I promise,” Dylan promised, his eyes smiling at her. “Man. I can’t believe it...Jett’s