“Can I ask you something?” Katherine said as he inched out onto Main Street.
“Depends,” he murmured.
“On what?”
“On what you ask. It’s been my experience that when someone says they want to ask something, it’s usually none of their business in the first place.”
There was a soft laugh that added to the warmth in the cab of the truck. “You’re right…ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“So, is this that one percent?” he asked, chancing a quick glance at her. She was sitting with her back partially to the door so she was almost facing him. It made him feel uncomfortable to be under anyone’s scrutiny, and with her, he felt even more uncomfortable. “Or is it in the ninety-nine percent group?”
“That’s a matter of opinion, I think,” she said softly.
If this had been any other situation, he would have thought she was coming on to him. That softness in her voice, that sense of being the full focus of her attention. But that was ludicrous. He had no trappings of money and power out here. And he liked that. He liked the old truck and the rough clothes. Not exactly a turn-on. This wasn’t a game between them, just a conversation. That was the old Mac trying to sneak back, but this Mac knew better. “Everything is in this life.”
“Exactly. So why don’t I just ask, then you can decide if you want to answer it?”
That seemed safe enough. “Okay.”
“Good. But there’s a question I need to ask before I ask the real question.”
It was a game of some sort. “What are you talking about?”
“First, who am I talking to and driving with and being rescued by? That man, Carl, he called you Kenny. So, is it Kenny? I really need to know before I ask the question.”
It wasn’t discomfort he was feeling, it was more like confusion. “First of all, that’s hardly one question,” he muttered, not sure if his name would mean anything anymore to anyone, especially this woman, but he wasn’t going to offer it up to see. “For what it’s worth, Kenny’s fine.”
She hesitated, then, “So, your name’s Kenny or is that a nickname?”
“Where are the rubber hoses and bright lights?” he asked.
“Oh, come on,” she said, her words tinged with soft humor. “I just asked your name. It’s polite if someone introduces himself, which I did a long time back, for that other person to respond with, ‘And my name is—’”
“Miss Manners?”
“What?”
“That’s what your name really is, isn’t it?”
She laughed again, and the sound only added to his confusion. “Sorry, no, I’m just polite, and my last name is Ames, Katherine Ames. And your name is…”
He found himself smiling a bit, an easing of the tension that had been a huge part of his life for the past year or so. “Okay. You shamed me. My name’s Mackenzie, a name my mother used when I was in trouble as a kid. Kenny is what I got saddled with because my father was named Mackenzie, too. That meant I was young Mac, small Mac. My Dad got big Mac most of the time, but he hated old Mac. It was easier to call me Kenny, then he was just Mac. I’ve also been called jerk. That’s pretty self-explanatory. So the choice is yours.”
“Mackenzie,” she said softly. “Kenny, Mac, Jerk.”
“Those are the choices.”
“What’s your middle name?
She never stopped. “Ashton, and before you ask, that was my mother’s maiden name and her name was Ruth.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I guess you wouldn’t go by your initials, then, would you?”
“What?”
“You know how people get called B.J. or J.R.?”
The easing grew in him as he manuvered on the snow-choked road. “No initials.”
“Is your father still alive?”
“No, and what does that have to do with anything?”
“I was just asking, because if he was still around, calling you Mac would be confusing. You said so yourself.”
“He’s dead, but even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be at Joanine’s, so there wouldn’t be any confusion.”
“Good point,” she said. “Okay, Mackenzie Ashton…”
Her voice trailed off and he could feel her gaze on him. No last name. There was no reason for there to be a last name. She’d be out of the truck in ten minutes, and that would be that. “Oh, just call me Mac.”
“Okay, that’s settled,” she murmured.
Why in hell did he feel relieved to have that settled? “Okay, and with you it’s Katherine.”
“Fine by me. Although, Katherine sounds pretty formal and I’ve been called a lot of different things, less formal and maybe you should—”
“Enough,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s Mac and Katherine for the next ten minutes. Then it’s goodbye.”
“Now, can I ask you that question, Mac?”
There had been no women around in the past year or so, besides Natty, and maybe he was out of practice. Or maybe he’d never really talked to any woman just to talk. Katherine was for talk. That was all. “Okay, Katherine, what is it?”
“Were you really going to leave me there at Carl’s?”
Yes, he was way out of practice. “I was leaving, period. If you hadn’t left your phone in the truck, I would be long gone.”
“You would have made your escape?”
“Call it what you will, I’d be someplace else.”
“I’m sorry for inconveniencing you so much.”
Now she was making him feel like a jerk. There was no way she’d know, and no way he’d tell her, that just about anything that kept him away from the ranch since he’d come back to salvage his life felt like an intrusion and an inconvenience. “Forget it. I’m going that way…sort of, so it worked out.”
“And it’s only going to be for the next ten minutes, anyway,” she said, echoing his words from earlier.
He glanced at her and found her staring intently ahead of them now. “Yeah, ten more minutes,” he said.
She sighed softly. “I never expected to get stuck in this place.”
“Next time you’ll bring chains.”
“There won’t be a next time. No snow, no storms, not again.” He sensed her shift, stirring the air and bringing him that scent again. “I’ve got another question.”
“You never stop, do you,” he murmured.
“Sorry, I tend to be the curious sort, too.”
“I’d say you are,” he said, slowing to find the entrance to Joanine’s property. It was around here somewhere, but the snow was drifting so heavily that it was almost obliterating the old landmarks. Add to that the total darkness beyond the headlights, and he wasn’t certain if he’d passed it or even if he was on the right road.
“Sorry,” she said again, but didn’t sound all that sorry. “I just wondering why you’d live around here.”
That