Page 34 of Mack

“Oh, how lovely.” Georgia’s voice was warm with satisfaction. “You should bring him to dinner. Your father wants to meet him.”

“Mom, we just started seeing each other. Don’t have me walking down the aisle before we’ve finished our lunch,” Mallory whispered.

Behind her, Mack chuckled.

She closed her eyes briefly. “I’ll call you later.”

“Of course, honey. Enjoy your lunch. Both of you.”

Mallory hung up and turned around. Mack was eating his burger with a perfectly neutral expression.

“No,” she said.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said.

Mallory shook her head. “My mother just wants me to be happy. After I left Troy, my parents welcomed me back without hesitation. As much as they disliked him, they adore T.J. He’s not missing anything by not having Troy in his life.”

Mack set his burger down and placed his hand over hers on the counter. “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. No pressure. Whenever you’re ready.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “You already know though, don’t you?”

“I have a feeling,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen the signs before.”

“Your sister.”

“Yes.”

The shop moved around them, customers browsing and the music playing softly overhead, and neither of them said anything for a moment. She looked down at his hand over hers and didn’t move away.

“Not today,” she said. “But soon.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said again. “I mean that.”

She nodded, and he gave her hand one gentle squeeze and let go.

The following Saturday, Mallory, T.J., and Mack were going to have dinner with her parents, and she had changed her outfit three times.

She stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom and told herself it was just dinner, the same table she’d sat at her whole life, and there was absolutely no reason to be nervous. Then she thought about her father’s face when he opened the door and found Mack Reinhardt standing there and changed her outfit a fourth time.

She settled on dark jeans and a deep red sweater that Georgia had once told her brought out the color in her cheeks, scooped T.J. up from the living room floor where he was arranging his dinosaurs in order of size and put his coat on him when she heard Mack’s truck pull up.

He came to the door, and she opened it before he could knock.

“Ready?” he said.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said, and meant it.

They drove over together, T.J. in the back seat providing commentary on everything they passed, and when they pulled up to her parents’ place Mallory took a quiet breath before getting out.

She could hear Georgia before she even got through the door. Her mother pulled it open, entirely too pleased with herself, the look that said she’d made up her mind about him the moment she’d met him in the shop.

Her father was in the living room.

Ed Nichols was a broad-shouldered man in his mid-sixties, weathered, as if he spent his life outdoors, with silver hair and dark eyes that didn’t give much away. He’d been a rancher his whole life and he looked it. He looked like a man who had once gripped a phone with shaking hands, only to be talked out of using it, and she knew he’d never fully forgiven himself for that moment. He stood when they came in, looked at Mack with his arms crossed, and had a look on his face that Mallory knew well. He was deciding.

Mack crossed the room and extended his hand. “Mr. Nichols. Mack Reinhardt. It’s good to meet you, sir.”

Ed shook it and said nothing for a moment, just looked at him. Then he nodded once. “Have a seat.”