Looking up from the block tower he was building with their almost-two-year-old daughter, Claire, Wade lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Now, why would I do that? We don’t even know the guy.”
Watching from the couch where she’d been reading a book, Emily pushed her mop of golden curls out of her face to frown at him. “He’s new to town, Wade. He’s probably lonely.”
“I’m not so sure about that. He seems like the self-contained sort. Probably prefers his solitude. You know he’s turned down most of the invitations he’s received from well-intentioned townsfolk.”
“Most likely because he could tell most of them just want to pump him for personal information,” Emily retorted.
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 s
o 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.”