Yesterday's Scandal (The Wild McBrides 3)

From the snapshot, his ex-wife and infant son gazed up at him. The picture had been taken in a hospital. Karla sat in a wooden rocker with four-week-old Emilio in her arms. Several tubes were attached to the baby, leading to equipment outside the boundaries of the shot. Emilio had never known a day without tubes or needles. Two weeks after this photo had been taken, the child had died, as quietly and unassumingly as he had lived.

Mac was in the photograph, too, kneeling beside Karla’s chair. He hadn’t wanted to have this picture taken, but Karla had insisted, and it had seemed like little enough to do for her during that nightmarish ordeal. It was ironic that she hadn’t wanted to take the photograph with her when she left him.

The doctors had told them that Emilio’s birth defect was genetic, something passed down through generations. Having been adopted as a baby, Karla knew nothing of her own genetic history. Mac, of course, knew only that there had been no history of the disease on his mother’s side. There had been tests available to find out which of them carried the gene that had caused Emilio’s death, but Mac hadn’t bothered to take them. It had been too easy for him to shoulder the blame, himself.

Perhaps Karla had been tested during the past two years. Mac wouldn’t know. He hadn’t talked to her since they’d drifted apart in the weeks after they’d lost their child.

It had been Karla who had filed for divorce, even though Mac had tried to talk her into giving their marriage another try. He’d even offered to go to counseling with her—and he hated that sort of thing. But she hadn’t been interested. Whatever love she’d had for him in the beginning had been lost in grief and anger and bitterness. And his own distance.

Mac accepted his share of the blame for the end of the marriage. He’d lost his mother only six months before Emilio’s birth, and he’d still been reeling from that devastating loss. He and his mother had been very close. They’d had to be. They were all the family each of them had.

Still grieving for his mother and trying to deal with the facts he’d learned after her death about his own parentage, he hadn’t been adequately prepared for the second blow of losing his son. Maybe he hadn’t been supportive enough of Karla during the difficult six weeks that Emilio had lived. Or maybe what they’d had simply wasn’t strong enough to survive that kind of hardship.

He’d thought attraction, passion and affection were enough. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

What he was starting to feel for Sharon was entirely different than what he’d shared with Karla. But how was he to know whether this was any more real? Any more lasting?

The doorbell rang, drawing him out of his painful reverie. He wasn’t expecting anyone, which meant there was a good chance this wasn’t something he wanted to hear. He sighed heavily, took another sip of his bourbon and rose.

A few moments later, he opened the front door to find Sharon Henderson standing on the other side.

“I probably should have called,” she said, eyeing him uncertainly.

Aware that his hair was tousled, his shirt half unbuttoned and his feet bare, he cleared his throat. “No. I was just relaxing. Come in.”

He moved aside to hold the door open for her. After only a momentary hesitation, she entered his apartment.

He closed the door behind her.

SHARON COULDN’T TAKE her eyes off Mac’s face as she stepped inside his living room. As usual, his expression gave away little of his thoughts, but she had become strangely attuned to his emotions. She sensed that he had been feeling sad this evening. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. You just caught me by surprise.”

She really should have called. She had never been the type to act on impulse, but she’d done a lot of things that were out of character for her since Mac had come into her life. “I found myself on my own for the evening and I wondered if you would be interested in keeping me company for a few hours. But if you have other plans…”

“On your own, huh?”

“Yes. Clay and Brad talked me into letting Brad spend the night there. They’ll probably play video games until dawn.”

“And you thought maybe you and I could play a few games of our own?”

She loved the way his mouth quirked when he sort of smiled. “Only if you’re interested, of course.”

He reached out to tug her into his arms. “I am most definitely interested,” he assured her, his mouth close enough to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her face.

“You’ve been drinking,” she murmured, noting the faint scent of alcohol and the slight flush on his cheeks.

“Yeah. Are you worried that I’m a closet drunk?”

She thought about it only a moment before shaking her head. “No. I think you’ve had a drink tonight because you were upset about something.”

“Something like that.”

“Did it help?”

His mouth twisted. “No.”

She raised a hand to his jaw. “Is there something I can do?”