Yesterday's Scandal

He smiled as he guided the red block gripped in Claire’s chubby hand to the top of the tower. “And isn’t that what you’d like to do?”

Emily looked offended. “Of course not. I’m not interested in his personal business. I just think it would be neighborly to have him to dinner.”

“I don’t make a habit of bringing strangers home unless I know my family is safe with them.”

Emily rolled her eyes, as she so often did when she felt Wade was being overprotective. “You like him, Wade. I could tell from the way you spoke of him.”

He did sort of like him, actually—even if he wasn’t quite sure he trusted him. Just because Mac Cordero had bravely jumped into a river to save Sharon Henderson’s life, and just because Wade had learned that Mac was a former police officer from Savannah didn’t mean the guy had no ulterior motive for being in Honoria.

He knew Mac had lied to him at least once that afternoon—when he’d said he’d come here after seeing a photograph of the Garrett house in a real estate ad. The Realtor had told Wade that Mac had approached her, asking what old homes were available in this area. He hadn’t seen the house and then come here, as he’d claimed—it had actually been the other way around. So why the lie?

There was a reason Mac had come to Honoria—and Wade had a hunch he hadn’t yet heard the whole story.

MAC DECIDED to have dinner at Cora’s Café Friday evening. He’d been thinking about her pies ever since Wade had mentioned them the day before. Because it was a nice spring afternoon, still sunny and warm at six o’clock, he decided to walk the half mile from his motel to the café.

Honoria’s downtown section had fallen victim to urban sprawl, leaving abandoned buildings and boarded-up storefronts behind. There had been some effort to revitalize the area, but the new development on the west side of town had taken a heavy toll in this neighborhood. Mac studied the shabby old stone storefronts and thought of the history and traditions that had been abandoned here and in so many other small towns.

A group of teenage boys wearing baggy clothes and fashionably surly expressions loitered on the sidewalk in front of a seedy-looking store-turned-arcade. Mac counted seven boys, none of them over seventeen, four holding cigarettes. Tough guys, he summed up swiftly—at least in front of their buddies. Wanna-be rednecks. Trouble waiting to happen. He’d seen boys this age and younger packing guns and pushing drugs on street corners in Savannah.

The boys completely filled the sidewalk, blocking Mac’s path. He could step into the street to go around them, but there were a couple of cars coming and he wasn’t in the mood to play dodge-the-Ford. “Excuse me,” he said, focusing on the boy who looked least likely to be a jerk.

The boy started to move, but two of his pals closed around him, their expressions challenging. They were bored, Mac thought, and hungry for excitement—even the negative kind. If it were up to him, they’d all be put to work, flipping burgers, pushing brooms, picking up trash, if necessary.

Without speaking, the boys watched for his reaction to their defiance. One of them—the tallest and probably the oldest—took a drag from a cigarette and blew the smoke directly into Mac’s face. Mac didn’t react, his narrowed eyes still locked with those of the first boy he had approached. He kept his voice very soft. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I said excuse me.”

The boy swallowed visibly and shifted his weight backward.

“C’mon, Brad, you chicken,” someone muttered. “We were here first. Make him go around.”

Again, Mac kept his voice very quiet, an intimidating trick he had perfected during his years on the force. “Just step aside, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Don’t let him push you around, Brad,” one boy ordered.

“Shut up, Jimbo,” Brad muttered, glancing up at Mac, who stared steadily back at him.

“Better not start anything you don’t want to finish, boy,” Mac advised, never taking his eyes off the teenager’s tense face. The boy looked familiar, he couldn’t help thinking. Something about his wide, blue-green eyes reminded Mac of Sharon Henderson.

His cheeks burning in resentment and embarrassment, Brad moved out of the way. Mac walked on at the same leisurely pace as before, not bothering to glance over his shoulder at the boys. He heard some of the other kids giving Brad a hard time for backing down, and another make an unflattering comment about Mac’s Latino heritage, but he didn’t react and they made no effort to purse further trouble with him.

They weren’t quite as tough as they pretended to be. Which didn’t mean they couldn’t turn dangerous if someone didn’t get them under control soon, he mused as he pushed open the door of Cora’s Café. He was glad he wouldn’t have to deal with them again.

AN OVERSIZE HARD HAT slipping to one side of her head, Sharon peered through the viewfinder of her camera Saturday afternoon. Ignoring the sound of hammering coming from the second floor above her, she framed a shot of the leaded-glass window in the dining room of the old Garrett house. She snapped the picture, then lowered the camera, wondering if she should try another angle.

From behind her, someone straightened her hat. A ripple of electricity ran through her, and she didn’t have to hear his voice to know it was Mac. “This should fit tighter,” he said.

She wasn’t sure what he would see in her expression, so she fussed with her camera as an excuse to avoid turning around for a moment. “I found it sitting in a box in the entryway. It was the only hard hat I could find.”

“Then I’ll have to get you one of your own. This won’t protect you much if something heavy were to fall.”

Almost as if to illustrate his words, a crash came from upstairs, followed by what might have been a muffled curse. Sharon glanced up at the stained ceiling and smiled. “Point taken.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About an hour. I’ve already taken photos of the kitchen and the parlor. I was just finishing up in here.”

“What else do you need?”

“I was going to take a few pictures in the downstairs bedroom. I don’t suppose I can go upstairs yet?”

He shook his head. “Not today. The crew’s up there testing the floors and patching holes. I’m reasonably sure the structure is safe, but I don’t want you wandering around up there until I’m sure.”

“And when will that be?”

He shrugged. “They’ll be finished later this afternoon. They haven’t found any problems so far.”

Although she understood his caution—after all, he was the owner of the house now and therefore liable in the case of accidents—she was still impatient to get upstairs and explore. “I’d be very careful.”

His smile was pleasant but unyielding. “Next time.”

“Has anyone ever mentioned that you can be awfully bossy?” she asked him a little too sweetly.

He chuckled. “Around here, I am the boss.”

“I’ll just finish up downstairs, then—boss.” She turned to snap one more shot of the window, then moved toward the bedroom.

He fell into step beside her. “Getting any great ideas?”

“A few.” Unfortunately, the only ideas that struck her as she entered the bedroom with Mac had nothing to do with decorating. Never mind that the room closely resembled a shadowy cave filled with dust and cobwebs. Or that one windowpane was broken, letting a warm breeze whistle through it. Or that there wasn’t a stick of furniture. It was still obviously a bedroom, and she and Mac were alone in it.

What was it about this man that he could affect her just by looking at her in that smoldering manner? She hadn’t blushed since high school, but she was dangerously close to it when he put a hand at the small of her back to guide her around a nail sticking up from a floorboard. The heat of his skin penetrated the thin, scoop-neck T-shirt she’d worn with jeans and sneakers for her exploratory visit here.

“The architect recommended taking out this fireplace and replacing it with doors leading out to a garden,” Mac said. But even that strictly-business comment sounded oddly intimate because he had murmured it into her ear.

Grateful for an excuse to move away from him, she crossed over to the stone fireplace in question and made a pretense of studying it. “It would bring more light into the room, of course, and easier access to the outside. But I wouldn’t do it.”

“You’d keep the fireplace?”

She turned to look at the center of the room, picturing a big white-painted iron bed there, covered in eyelet and mounded with pillows. A rocking chair in one corner. Fresh flowers on an old chest. A fire burning in this wonderful stone fireplace. Two people cuddled in the bed—she refused to picture faces. “I would definitely keep the fireplace.”

He nodded. “I had already decided to do that. I’ll convert the small window in the west corner to a glass-paned door leading outside. That should provide enough natural light to brighten the room a little during the day, but I didn’t want to sacrifice the fireplace.”

“I’m glad. It’s really lovely.” She rested a hand on the heavy oak mantelpiece. “I’ve always wanted a fireplace in my bedroom,” she mused almost to herself.

“The romantic type, are you?”

She dropped her hand and squared her shoulders. “Not particularly. I’ve always considered myself the practical type. A fire is a nice way to take away a chill on cold winter evenings.”

“Mmm.” He made it clear he didn’t quite accept her self-description. “Will you have dinner with me this evening?”