Yesterday's Scandal (The Wild McBrides 3)

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

She frowned. “No.”

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“I haven’t, either, and I’m starved. Let’s talk about this over lunch, okay?”

“Well, I…”

He opened the driver’s-side door to his pickup. “Let me help you in.”

Since the vehicle was rather high off the ground, she silently accepted his hand for assistance, climbing into the truck and sliding across the bench seat to the passenger’s side. She was glad she’d worn a functional gray pantsuit today rather than the long, straight black skirt she’d almost put on that morning.

She waited only until Mac was behind the wheel with the engine running. “I hope you don’t really think Brad would do something like that to your truck. Or to anyone else’s, for that matter.”

“Do you like barbecue?”

It was obvious he wasn’t going to discuss his truck or his suspicions. Since she couldn’t actually force him to talk about it, she fastened her seat belt and sat back. “Yes, I like barbecue.”

“Someone told me Bud’s Place makes a great pulled-pork sandwich. Sound good to you?”

“The food is fine, but Bud’s Place is strictly a drive-through. There are no dining facilities.”

“So we’ll take the food to my apartment. It isn’t far, and we can talk in private there.”

His apartment. Sharon moistened her lips and twined her fingers together in her lap. It would be best to discuss this in private, she thought. She certainly wouldn’t want anyone to overhear Mac say he suspected her brother of vandalizing his truck. There was no telling how fast that rumor would get around—or how it might be embellished along the way. “All right. We’ll talk at your place.”

If he was particularly pleased or surprised by her agreement, she certainly couldn’t tell.

BUD’S PLACE WAS popular for take-out lunches, so the line of vehicles at the order window was long, even though the lunch rush had passed. Mac ordered two pulled-pork sandwiches with coleslaw, a large order of seasoned fries, two fried peach pies and two large iced teas. The only choice Sharon was given was whether she wanted mild or spicy sauce on her sandwich. She chose mild. Mac ordered spicy.

His apartment complex was aging but relatively well maintained. It catered to contractors and work crews and others who were in town only temporarily. People who were only passing through—like Mac, she thought with an odd, hollow feeling.

He escorted her into a ground-floor apartment on one end of the main building. The furnishings, she noted, made the place seem more like a motel suite than an apartment, but at least it wasn’t cramped. The decent-size living room held a couch, two armchairs, a coffee table, an end table and a TV on a rolling stand. An efficiently compact eat-in kitchen opened off to one side of the main room, and a bed-and-bath combination off to the other. Set into the back wall of the living room was a door that led out to a tiny brick patio that held two plastic lawn chairs and looked over a neatly groomed grassy compound.

“Not bad,” she said.

Mac shrugged. “It suits my needs for now.”

For now. Again, a reminder that he wasn’t here to stay. Could Sharon see him off with a smile, grateful to have known him even for that brief time, or would she be left brokenhearted when he moved on to the next project?

She decided she wouldn’t think about that right now. One problem at a time, she told herself as she and Mac spread their lunches on his table. She’d noticed that Mac had cleared away a stack of legal papers to give them room; she assumed they were notes about the renovation project.

“About the damage to your truck,” she said as soon as they’d taken their seats.

“Did you do it?” he asked with one of his disconcertingly inscrutable half smiles.

She blinked. “No. Of course not.”

“Then don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

“So you don’t think Brad had anything to do with it?”

He took a bite of his sandwich, neatly avoiding an answer.

“I know Brad has been unfriendly to you, but that’s only because he doesn’t adjust to strangers very quickly. He really isn’t a bad boy. He’s gotten into mischief a time or two, but he’s never vandalized anything before. He wouldn’t do anything that destructive or malicious.”

“Mmm.” Mac bit into a French fry without elaborating.