“So would I.” And he was well aware that it had very little to do with finding out more about the McBrides.
Because it was getting harder with each passing moment to sit so close to her without touching her, he set his coffee cup on the table and stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She rose with him. “You’re leaving?”
He glanced at the staircase. “It seems like the wisest choice.”
Following h
is glance, she nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Where do you want to meet tomorrow?”
“My shop—noon?”
“I’ll be there.”
She followed him to the door. Casting one more quick look at the empty staircase, he reached out and pulled her toward him for one long, thorough kiss. It was all he allowed himself—but he simply couldn’t leave without it. She returned the embrace with an eagerness that suggested she had needed it as badly as he did—or was that only wishful thinking on his part?
As he drove back to his apartment, Mac tried to analyze exactly what was going on between him and Sharon Henderson. He wanted her—he’d be an idiot to deny that. But he also wanted any background she could give him about the McBrides, especially Caleb and his brothers.
And yet somehow, he had the uncomfortable feeling there was even more between them than that. And he wasn’t at all sure what to do about it. His one attempt at commitment had ended in pain and bitterness—he had no intention of going through anything like that again. Especially with a woman who might very well hate him when she found out why he was really here.
CHAPTER NINE
MAC STUDIED the McBride family tree taking shape on the yellow legal pad. Two hours after leaving Sharon’s house, he sat at the small round table in the eat-in kitchen of his temporary apartment, his notes spread in front of him. He’d been trying to concentrate on the few new tidbits he’d learned, rather than the way Sharon’s mouth had felt beneath his. He’d made an attempt to remember the reason he’d come to Honoria in the first place, rather than the look of reciprocal desire he had seen in Sharon’s eyes.
Thinking of Sharon tonight could prove to be far more uncomfortable than brooding on bad memories.
“Caleb and Bobbie McBride,” he had written at the top of a fresh sheet of paper. Beneath the names, he’d noted that they’d been married for nearly seven years before Mac’s conception—which meant Caleb could have been the married man who’d had an affair with Mac’s mother. Although it was possible, Mac was having trouble believing it. There were certain other things that didn’t fit at all. Caleb had long been established as an attorney in town, a job that seemed to require no travel. From what everyone said, he and Bobbie were very happily married, almost perfectly suited. So why would he risk everything to have an affair? Especially since Caleb’s oldest child, Tara, was Mac’s own age, which indicated Caleb and Bobbie had certainly been getting along at least reasonably well thirty-three years ago.
Everything Mac had heard about that branch of the McBride family indicated that they were almost TV-sitcom perfect—a small-town lawyer and a schoolteacher with three attractive, intelligent, popular and successful kids. If scandal really was a McBride legacy, it seemed to have affected that group less dramatically than the others.
Caleb’s children seemed to have grown up in the kind of home Mac had secretly fantasized about when he’d been a lonely boy whose single mother worked too long and too hard, leaving him alone too much to daydream about what his life might have been like if things had been different.
He’d watched other boys with their dads and he had wondered what it would be like to have a father of his own. He’d gone through stages of resentment, anger, even rebellion that his father hadn’t wanted to be a part of his life. Much like Brad Henderson, he realized. Brad definitely needed a strong male influence in his life, rather than two women who seemed to have gotten into the habit of overindulging him.
Mac had been fortunate to have a mother who had been determined to help him make something of himself, and a few good male role models—a couple of favorite teachers, a coach and a police officer neighbor who’d taken Mac under his wing. He knew Brad was involved in sports, so maybe the boy had a few guys who cared enough to keep him in line, show him what being a real man was all about.
He wondered if Sharon’s friend Jerry was one of Brad’s role models.
He’d heard about Jerry, even before Sharon had casually mentioned him. Rumor was that Sharon and Jerry had been dating for a while, though no one seemed to think it had gotten serious yet. There’d been a few who felt the need to mention the guy to Mac—as if obliquely warning him that he could be intruding on posted property. Mac had decided to take his cues from Sharon, herself—and she’d certainly given no indication that any other man had a claim on her.
He didn’t think she’d appreciate the terms in which he was thinking about her, he thought with a frown. She wasn’t property to be claimed by any man, including himself. And yet he was aware that he still didn’t like thinking about Jerry. He was sure he wouldn’t like him—and he’d never even met the guy. Which meant that what he really disliked was the thought of Sharon spending time with any other man.
Slamming his pencil onto the table, he shoved his chair backward and stood. He didn’t want to sit here identifying with Sharon’s fatherless kid brother, or brooding about her other male friends. And there didn’t seem to be any more conclusions he could reach about the McBrides tonight. He still knew almost nothing about Jonah, Josiah Jr. and Caleb’s younger brother. He was the remaining piece of the genetic puzzle Mac was trying to assemble.
Mac needed to figure out a way to somehow include Jonah McBride in his next conversation with Sharon. At the moment, that seemed much easier than trying to figure out a way to entice Sharon into his bed.
SHARON HAD KNOWN when she accepted Mac’s offer to look for a car with her that the friendship growing between them would no longer be private. She might as well have posted a notice in the Honoria Gazette that she was dating him. She knew people would talk. But she didn’t really care. She and Mac were single, unattached adults. There was no reason at all why they shouldn’t spend time together.
She had such a good time that Wednesday afternoon. She enjoyed being with Mac, valued his advice, appreciated the way he stood back and let her do her own talking and make her own decisions. And she savored the way he looked at her, making her feel feminine and desirable and special in a way no other man had ever made her feel. She was aware that she was becoming majorly infatuated with this man, but she told herself she could handle it.
At least, she hoped she could.
She had hardly parked her new car in the garage that evening when the telephone rang. Tossing her purse aside, she grabbed the kitchen extension. “Hello?”
“Hello, Sharon. It’s a pleasant surprise to hear your voice rather than your answering machine.”