Believing in Mac

By Skye Taylor

If only Casey and Mac could agree on the best way to start over, the flames of mutual attraction might have a chance.

Malcolm Riggs IV enjoyed his life, showing off his town to tourists from the air and playing the field on the ground. . . until he ended up doing time for a crime he didn’t commit. He took a plea deal to protect a woman he’d helped to escape from her abusive husband. Now he’s out and eager to clear his name so he can get back to the life he loves flying little airplanes.

Casey Cameron has been in the military most of her life, first as an Army brat, then as a career officer. When her mother is crippled in a plane accident, Casey resigns her commission, and accepts a position with the Tide’s Way police department where of her first assignments is mentoring two men who are trying to put their lives back together after doing time.

This wasn’t quite how Casey envisioned her duties as a small-town cop and it doesn’t appear that Mac Riggs is any more pleased with the arrangement. Casey is encouraging him to put the past behind him and move on. He’s focused on clearing his name. Things don’t get any easier when he turns out to be the carpenter Casey’s contractor sends to make alterations to her home. Casey and Mac find themselves fighting the attraction sparking between them when they aren’t arguing about his future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skye Taylor
• Release date: Mar 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781734743135

Skye Taylor

Skye Taylor lives in Florida where she divides her time between writing novels, walking the beach, occasionally dressing up as a 17th century Spanish colonial and participating in historical re-enactments in old St Augustine, and volunteering at the USO. She considers life an adventure and in a world of people who ask why, she has decided to ask "why not?" She spent two years in the South Pacific with the Peace Corps (2002-2004). She's jumped out of perfectly good airplanes and earned a basic sky diving license. She loves to travel and has visited twenty-six states and fourteen countries on four continents and the South Pacific. Her bucket list includes at least that many more places to see. Having been born and lived most of her life in New England where her children grew up, she is now a transplanted Yankee soaking up the sun, warmth and history of St. Augustine. She's a member of Women’s Fiction Writers Association, RWA, Florida Writer’s Association and Sisters in Crime. Her published works to date: Non-fiction: Essays on life in the Peace Corps, Fiction: The Candidate, Falling for Zoe, Loving Meg, Trusting Will, Healing a Hero, Iain’s Plaid, and Keeping His Promise.

Book preview

Chapter One

A plume of dust billowed up behind Casey Cameron’s department-issued Ford Interceptor as she approached the old plantation mansion. Once the home of the privileged, the place was now Leonard’s Place, a second chance house for young men who had gotten bad starts in life. Men who’d managed to find themselves on the wrong side of the law and wanted to get their lives straight again, but who had nowhere to go once released. The project, the brainchild of Tide’s Way’s new mayor, a woman Casey had yet to meet, was run by Lucas Trevlyn, a man with an interesting history who Casey looked forward to getting to know better.

Was the man standing on the wide veranda with his hands on his hips one of the two miscreants she was here to see? Already she didn’t like him. Tall, handsome, confident. And according to one person she’d talked to, way too sure of himself.

Caught in possession of stolen property in excess of the threshold that made it a felony, Malcolm Beauregard Riggs IV still insisted he was innocent, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and the plea deal that had sent him to prison. Admit your mistake and move on, she wanted to tell the guy, but she’d bite her tongue. Her new boss had asked her to play nice.

Somehow, while signing on to be the newest cop on a small coastal police force in North Carolina, it had never occurred to her that her first assignment would be to mentor two of the men who lived in Leonard’s Place, as it was now called.

The man on the veranda removed one hand from his hip to shade his eyes as she pulled to a stop in the wide curving drive. As she climbed out of her unit, he didn’t move. Just watched her. Even from here, his blue eyes lasered in on her from beneath that sheltering hand. A slow smile stretched to leave dimples in his cheeks. Oh, yeah! She really didn’t like him.

She mounted the steps toward him. You Malcolm Riggs?

His gaze traveled leisurely over her, down to her polished shoes and back to her uniform cap. The smile didn’t recede but a slight tic appeared along his jaw.

Just Mac, please. You must be Casey Cameron.

Officer Cameron, she corrected. There was not going to be any sloppy comradery between a sworn officer of the law and an ex-felon.

Officer, he agreed as the smile finally disappeared. He was even taller than he’d appeared standing on the veranda above her. Six feet six, give or take an inch, about one ninety. In great shape. He must have spent his year in prison working out. Dark hair cut short, a fashionable scruff, punctuated by a cleft chin to go along with the dimples. And those piercing blue eyes with a scattering of lines brought on by smiling or squinting into the sun. Not the kind of man you overlooked. Or forgot.

Casey shook herself mentally. It didn’t matter how attractive or how fit he was. He was an assignment, the first in her new role as a small-town cop. His hand stretched out in greeting and she hesitated before putting hers into it.

If the height and bright blue gaze hadn’t been enough to get her radar humming, the jolt of his handshake did the job all too well. She yanked her hand back as the realization struck that she was not immune to the self-assured machismo surrounding Riggs.

You want to talk out here, or inside? It’s cooler inside. And there’s coffee. He waved a hand in the general direction of a pair of Adirondack chairs with orange striped cushions, then toward the solid oak front door that stood ajar.

I could use some coffee. Thanks. She could also use the chill of some air conditioning before her overheated response to his masculinity began to show. She headed for the door, assuming Riggs would follow. Is Treyvon Bixby here? Might has well meet both men and check that off her to-do list.

Trey wanted to be, but his boss called. They had a new obedience class starting and his boss wanted him to observe. Riggs sidled past her when she hesitated, not sure which direction to head in. As he crossed the wide polished floor of the front foyer, he gestured toward a wide arched doorway to the left. We can talk in there. I’ll get your coffee. What do you take in it?

Black, she responded as he strode away from her toward the back of the old plantation house. Even watching him move stirred things in her she’d rather weren’t stirred. She tore her gaze away and turned toward the parlor. Or what had once been the parlor.

Now it was more man-cave than anything else. An enormous flat screen TV, four recliners and two couches that could have seated several men the size of Mac Riggs with room left over. A pool table took up most of the space under a row of tall windows overlooking the drive and, incongruously, a grand piano filled the remaining area on the far side of the room. The only thing missing was a bar, but this was a half-way house. A place designed to help troubled young men put their lives in order. A bar could so easily defeat that goal, so alcohol was off limits. Those were the rules according to her boss.

Casey glanced back at the piano. Must have been here for years and no one knew what to do with it. Even if it was in tune, who would play it?

Here ya go, Riggs had returned on silent feet, startling her with his overwhelming closeness. He held out a heavy, diner-style mug, steam curling off the rim.

Casey accepted the coffee and sank onto the edge of one of the recliners. It was as large and masculine as Mr. Riggs. She squared her shoulders, refusing to feel at a disadvantage.

Chief Canfield asked me to get acquainted. To see if there’s anything you need to help you get your life squared away. That was only half the assignment, but being a watchdog wasn’t something she planned to announce.

I need to clear my name. No hint of a smile on the man’s face now. Just a hard, implacable jawline and equally hard eyes.

But you’ve already paid for the crime. Isn’t it time to move on?

Riggs set his mug down on the table hard enough for coffee to surge up like a mini geyser and slop out. If you’re genuinely here to help me put my life back together, that includes clearing my name. Among other things, I’m a pilot. I want to get back into the air, but I can’t get my old job back with the record against my name. And who knows what else I might want to do down the road that a having a record would kill. Means I have to figure out who set me up and why.

Casey added stubborn to the list of attributes. You need to let the past go. That’s what securing a bed here at Leonard’s Place is all about. Moving on. Starting fresh.

So, my father keeps saying. The ripple that ran along Riggs’ jaw and up to his temple made her uneasy. Pray God that clenched jaw didn’t go along with a temper that lashed out in physical violence. Casey had seen too much of that in her life and wasn’t eager to get involved, even in a mentoring capacity, with a man who dished out undeserved abuse.

Riggs dropped his head into his hands, his eyes directed toward the floor, then shoved his fingers through his hair and looked up at her again, the tension gone as quickly as it had arrived. His beautiful blue eyes offered an apology. Or something.

Sorry. ‘Move on’ is kind of a trigger for me. Can we start over?

Something unexpected blossomed in Casey’s chest at the totally unexpected apology. She squelched the urge to reach out to this man she’d only just met.

Okay. Suppose you explain to me why you feel so compelled to clear your name after making a plea deal with the DA rather than going to trial.

Somebody set me up and I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Casey sat back. What rock? And what hard place?

My father was the hard place. Dad’s a well-known criminal defense attorney who’s very good at what he does, but he refused to represent me. Riggs shrugged. "That alone made me look damned guilty, but the DA had a hard-on for my dad, who’d just gotten an acquittal for some slime ball who deserved to get locked up for the rest his life. The DA was the rock, determined to nail me to get back at my father.

And I was clueless. I just figured things would get sorted out because I knew I was innocent. By the time I realized how naïve that was, it was too late.

Casey considered what that might have been like. Even if Mac were as guilty as sin, to have your own father turn his back on you? Especially when it was clearly a situation where an experienced defense attorney could have made a huge difference. You and your father don’t get along, I take it.

A shadow crossed Mac’s face. Most of the time we aren’t even on the same planet. Mac picked up his mug, tipped it to his mouth, but apparently realizing it was cold, put it back on the table beside his chair.

Tell me about your relationship with your father. If she understood more of his background maybe she’d be better able to help him let go of his unfortunate past and get on with his new life.

It’s a long story.

I don’t have anywhere I need to be. Not right this minute anyway. She sank back into the recliner, crossed her legs and did her best to appear completely relaxed with all the time in the world. All the while acutely aware of his size and feeling dwarfed by the enormous chair she didn’t begin to fill despite of her above-average inches.

Riggs stared at her for a long time, his mouth clamped into a straight line. Then, almost with a smirk, There’s no way you came over here without reading my file first. I’m betting you already know more than I share with people I’ve just met.

I don’t know why your father would refuse to represent you unless he thought representing his son, a man most would assume he had an intimate and loving relationship with, would be inappropriate.

The smirk grew. There’s nothing intimate or loving about our relationship and never has been. At least as far back as I can remember. The high and mighty Malcolm Beauregard Riggs the third wouldn’t take my case because I wouldn’t share every detail of my life with him. Stuff that had no connection to the damned stolen gun.

Casey started to speak but Riggs cut her off.

He said he couldn’t represent me unless I admitted to the truth. The whole truth. The problem is that he believed I was guilty and the truth is, I’m not. I wasn’t. Since I wouldn’t say what he wanted to hear, that was the end of the discussion.

Casey tried again, Why was he so convinced you had voluntarily taken possession of the gun?

Riggs launched himself from the chair and strode toward the window. He trailed an angry finger along the piano keys filling the room with a harsh trill. Then he turned on her, his face without a trace of emotion.

My grandfather owned a gun just like the one that features in this fiasco. It belonged to a long-ago ancestor who fought in the Civil War – on the side of the north. My father... Riggs paused, his jaw clenching. My father would rather die than admit to any connection to that side of the family. He also has no interest in old things, heirlooms or not. When my grandfather left his treasured Colt 1860 revolver to me in his will, it wasn’t like my father had been passed over. He just didn’t care. Unfortunately, Gramps died when I was fourteen. Dad was curator of my inheritance and he sold it. Which is why he was convinced I’d paid to have this similar Colt stolen, or, if not that, that I’d at least arranged to buy the thing from the man who did steal it.

But you didn’t.

Why would I?

To replace the one your father sold. That at least gave Riggs an understandable motive.

No. Riggs shook his head. It might be the same make and model, maybe even from the same regiment or company, but it would never be the one my ancestor carried into battle.

Casey thought about the Hummel figurines her own father had purchased for her mother when they were stationed in Germany. Keepsakes her step-father had smashed against a wall during one of his frequent temper tantrums. Hummels were easy to purchase, but the ones her father had given his young wife could not be replaced. Reluctantly, she realized she and this man had at least one thing in common.

But that didn’t explain the fifteen thousand dollars withdrawn from Mac Riggs’ savings account just the day before he left the state and a few days later returned with the stolen Colt.

Why did you withdraw the value of that revolver from your savings account?

Rigg’s clamped his mouth shut and the telltale tensing of muscles in his temple gave away his anger. That money had nothing to do with the Colt. And that’s all I am going to say about it.

Casey had yet to meet the elder Malcolm Riggs, but she could, perhaps, begin to understand his frustration with his son’s secrecy. Is the money the issue you and your father disagreed on?

He’s ready to disagree every time I open my mouth. Riggs returned to the recliner and threw himself into it. My father is not the man everyone thinks he is, and neither am I. Are we done here?

Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? Casey got to her feet, frustrated that she’d gotten no closer to knowing this man she was assigned to help. It looked like she was destined to hunt down others who could enlighten her about the kind of man Mac Riggs was and how he’d ended up where he was now.

It was nice to meet you, Officer Cameron, Riggs said from so close behind her, it made her jump.

He’d surprised her by bothering to get up at all. Even more disturbing was the electric excitement his proximity caused. What was it about Mac Riggs that threw her so far off her game?

After asking for his work schedule she climbed into her unit and pulled away from the steps of the old plantation. In the rear-view mirror, he stood at the foot of those stairs, with the same confidence he’d exhibited upon her arrival. The same posture, his hands planted on his hips, watching her drive away.

Out of his presence, she began to relax. Then she glanced at the clock on the dash and added pressure to the gas pedal. If she hit even one traffic light or missed a turn, she was going to be late for her next interview. This day was not going as planned.

Mac sank down onto the bottom step of the wide plantation house veranda as Officer Cameron’s patrol vehicle turned onto the main road, leaving only a cloud of dust in the air to attest to her ever having been there.

What was she after?

It clearly wasn’t friendship. But it wasn’t exactly part of her duties as a Tide’s Way officer to chat him up. Was it?

He’d only been out of prison for five days, thirteen hours and twenty minutes. Not enough time to get into trouble. He hadn’t even had a chance to pick up the old truck he’d been promised, so he couldn’t have broken any traffic laws, or parked where he shouldn’t have.

She’d claimed she was here to help him get a new lease on life but, as he’d told her, that included getting his name cleared, which she didn’t appear to have any desire ‘help’ with.

Mac knew Jon Canfield and was fairly certain Jon didn’t believe he was guilty of the crime he’d done time for. So why did the Chief think he needed to assign Mac a minder to keep him out of trouble now that he’d paid for the crime he hadn’t committed?

A minder was the last thing Mac wanted dogging his every step and sticking her nose into things she had no business knowing. She’d sure been digging though. On top of all the stuff she’d surely learned from perusing his file.

What did she really want?

Chapter Two

There were no traffic lights between Leonard’s Place and the Home Care office housed in the Safe Harbor Assisted Living complex, thank God. Casey pulled into the parking lot with enough time to make her appointment without dashing in out of breath. An impression she did not want to leave with her prospective employee.

Officer? The young woman at the information desk in the middle of the spacious and comfortably decorated foyer rose hurriedly to her feet with a startled look on her youthful features. What can I do for you?

Casey stuck out her hand. I’m Casey Cameron. I’m here to see Dawn Hamilton.

Oh? Looking relieved there was no emergency she needed to deal with, the woman took Casey’s hand briefly before sinking back into her chair, picking up the phone’s receiver and punching in three numbers. A moment later she spoke. Dawn? There’s a Casey Cameron here to see you? Officer Casey Cameron?

Casey wondered if the woman ended all her sentences with a question mark. She barely looked old enough to be out of high school, never mind in charge of gate keeping at an assisted living facility.

I’m sorry, the woman said putting the receiver back into its cradle. I’m Karen. Dawn is running a little behind? She hopes you won’t mind waiting and she’ll be along shortly? Karen gestured to a cluster of chairs grouped around a large glass table filled with a half-constructed puzzle.

Thank you, Karen. Not a problem. Casey headed to claim a seat while she waited. All that angst about being on time and making a good impression. She sighed. Not a problem at all. She approached the table and studied the puzzle. That gave her a few extra minutes to collect her thoughts. She picked up the only solitary piece of red from a scattering of pieces and fitted it into the image of a weathered New England barn. Then she settled into a chair and pulled out her notes.

The sound of shoes squeaking across the polished floor caused Casey to glance up. She started to rise, but the approaching woman gestured her back to her seat.

I’m Dawn Hamilton and you must be Miss Cameron. We might as well talk here. It’s a lot more comfortable than the cramped closet they call our office. I’m sorry to keep you waiting. She dropped into an adjacent chair, smoothed her hands over the knees of her khaki slacks. My boss says you need someone to help with your mom while you’re working. I’d love to hear more about your mom and what sort of assistance you’re looking for.

Dawn had a lovely warm personality and a beautiful smile. Casey already liked her. Of course, that was another file she’d already read thoroughly. Until just a week ago Dawn had cared for an elderly gentleman who had been as sharp as a tack, but physically wasting away with pancreatic cancer. The man had succumbed at last, leaving Dawn without a client and free to take on someone new. The timing was sad for the man, but advantageous for Casey.

According to the file, Mrs. Hamilton had been the soul of patience with a crochety old man who should have been in a hospice facility or perhaps even a hospital, but had insisted on dying at home. Hopefully she would have the same patience with Casey’s mom – a woman far too young and active to be so suddenly and permanently crippled for the rest of her life.

Where should she begin? Keep it brief? Or tell Dawn the whole story. She’d need to know most of it eventually.

"From your message, I understand your mother is currently confined to a wheel chair and might always be, but I’m okay with that. Also, that your schedule might include some nights, and I’m okay with that, too. My kids are all grown up, and my husband George is on board with me having to be away