Yesterday's Scandal (The Wild McBrides 3)

Her nervous chatter hadn’t prevented him from noticing how nice she looked. She’d changed out of the clothes she’d worn earlier, and was now wearing a pastel yellow blouse and light khaki slacks. The pale colors accented her glossy brown hair and creamy-peach complexion. He considered telling her how pretty she looked, but he was afraid that would set her off again. Instead, he glanced around her living room, admiring the bold use of color and texture in her decorating. “Nice place.”

“Thank you. Please, sit down. Can I get you anything to drink before dinner?”

He settled on the boxy, red-print sofa. “No, thank you.”

“I’ll just put the wine away and check on dinner. I’ll be right back.”

True to her word, she wasn’t gone long. Mac was still sitting where she’d left him, studying the comfortable living room. “You decorated this room?” he asked to start the conversation.

Sharon perched on the very edge of a straight-backed armchair upholstered in red, gold and green stripes. “It’s my mother’s house, actually, but she had me do all the decorating. Mother’s on vacation in Europe for the summer, and I’m staying here with my younger brother until she returns. After that, I plan to move into a place of my own—probably an apartment for a while.”

“You said your brother’s on a camping trip?”

“Yes. His baseball team is having a father-son camp-out. Our father died when my brother was just a baby, but they encouraged him to go, anyway. I always feel so sorry for poor Brad when things like this come up—it makes him so much more aware of not having a father, himself. It isn’t easy on him.”

No, it wasn’t easy. Mac clearly remembered father-son camp-outs from his own youth. He’d never had a father to take him, either. He wondered if it had made Sharon’s brother as angry and resentful as it had made him. And he wondered if Brad’s mother and sister had overcompensated for that loss. Mac’s own mother hadn’t allowed him to wallow in self-pity—and he still appreciated her for that. “How old is your brother?”

“Fifteen.” Seeing that he looked surprised by her answer, she added, “He’s almost eleven years younger than I am. My parents had given up on having a second child, and were completely surprised when Brad came along.”

Brad. Remembering the teenager with that name on the street corner last night, Mac wondered if it could possibly be the same boy. If so, Sharon certainly had her hands full. The crowd that boy had been hanging out with looked like trouble with a capital T in Mac’s opinion. “Your brother doesn’t mind having his older sister as a baby-sitter?”

Her grimace was expressive. “We’ve had our differences, but we’re getting along fairly well for the most part. It would be easier, of course, if he was in school, so I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping him entertained during the day.”

“He doesn’t have a summer job?”

“No. He’s involved in several sports and he isn’t old enough to drive yet, so it isn’t really feasible for him to have a job now. I offered to let him work at my shop for the summer, stocking shelves, sweeping up and dusting, that sort of thing, but he was afraid he’d be bored. I don’t want to ruin his summer.”

It was Mac’s opinion that school should be held year-round, with break time built in throughout the year. Since few schools had adopted that schedule, he believed kids who’d reached the teen years should have jobs to keep them out of mischief and teach them a work ethic. After all, school terms had been built originally around farm life, when most of the students had worked in the fields during the summer months. They certainly hadn’t sat around on their butts watching the tube, playing video games or hanging around on street corners looking for trouble with strangers. Mac, himself, had taken his first job when he was twelve.

It wasn’t honest work that caused boredom, as Sharon and her brother seemed to believe, but lack of anything productive to do. Yet Mac had learned long ago that it was best to keep his opinions to himself when it came to other people’s kids—or, in this case, kid brothers.

After a moment of silence, Sharon sprang to her feet. “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable—are you sure I can’t get you anything?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll just wash up—down this hallway?”

“Yes. Second door on the right.”

Mac wandered back into the living room after washing his hands. His attention was drawn to a cluster of framed photographs arranged on an old upright piano in one corner of the room. A quick study confirmed that her brother was the boy Mac had encountered outside the arcade. Great, he thought with a shake of his head. Sharon’s brother already hated him. Not that it mattered, he supposed. It wasn’t as if anything serious was developing.

The photograph he was looking for sat at the back of the grouping. In it a

young, blushing Sharon stood beside a teenager Mac might have mistaken for Trent McBride’s mischievous younger brother, had he not known it was Trent, himself. His handsome face was creased with a big sloppy grin and his arm was around Sharon’s waist. They had been a very attractive young couple.

He returned to the couch so Sharon wouldn’t walk in and catch him snooping through her photographs, but the image of Sharon and Trent was still very clear in his mind. He knew Trent was happily engaged to someone else now, but there was clearly some sort of history between him and Sharon, even if nothing more than an innocent friendship.

She appeared in the doorway, looking little older than the girl in the photograph as she gave him a slightly shy smile. “Dinner is ready.”

He followed her into the dining room, unable to resist admiring the graceful sway of her hips as she led the way. Just because he hoped to pump her for information didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate spending an evening with an attractive woman.

“THIS LOOKS GREAT,” Mac said, sitting at Sharon’s beautifully set table a few minutes later.

“I hope you like Cornish hen. I forgot to ask what you prefer when I offered to cook.”

“When it comes to food, there’s very little I don’t like,” he admitted, reaching for his napkin. “Except sushi. Never developed a taste for that.”

“I’ve never tried it. Sushi bars aren’t exactly common in this area. I love most seafood, though.”

“It tastes pretty much like you’d expect raw fish wrapped in seaweed to taste. I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes guy, myself.”