Yesterday's Scandal (The Wild McBrides 3)

She knew now that there was a soft side hidden behind that stern exterior. A side he would allow few people to see. She felt fortunate to be one of them.

She lay there for a moment, just watching him. Fantasizing and hoping…

Her thirst finally pulled her from the bed. She snatched Mac’s denim shirt from the floor where she’d thrown it earlier and slipped her arms into the sleeves. It was long enough on her to serve as a short robe, covering her enough for modesty’s sake. Wrapping it around her, she headed for the kitchen.

Mac had left the light on. The kitchen table was cluttered with papers. An open bottle of bourbon sat next to a half-empty tumbler. The cap lay beside the bottle.

Automatically reaching to replace the cap, she paused when her gaze fell on a photograph lying on top of the scattered papers. In it, a dark-haired woman held a tiny, black-haired, black-eyed baby. The setting was obviously a hospital. In the picture, Mac knelt beside the chair, his right hand resting protectively on the baby’s head, as if to protect the child.

He looked very much like a worried father.

Her fingers shook a little as she reached out to touch the photo. She could picture Mac sitting here alone, sipping his drink and staring at this photograph. Only one explanation occurred to her. Had this child been Mac’s? He had told her he and his wife had no children. Could their baby have died?

No wonder she had sensed such sadness in him when she’d first arrived. Did it still hurt him to talk about it? Was that why he hadn’t told her?

He deserved his privacy. Prepared to step away from the table, she moved her hand from the photograph. It was then that the name McBride caught her attention. It was written in block letters at the top of one of the legal-pad pages. All of the pages, she corrected herself, looking slowly from one sheet to another.

Why was Mac compiling a comprehensive file about the McBride family?

They were all there—parents noted at the tops of the pages and offspring listed beneath. He’d even recorded the ages of each of the cousins.

She had given him much of this information herself, she realized, remembering several conversations in which the McBrides had been discussed fairly extensively. She’d actually been embarrassed by her babbling, worried that Mac had been bored. But now she wondered if she had been manipulated by an expert.

But why?

A pen lay on the pad, as if recently abandoned. Only a few lines had been written on the top page. “Jonah McBride. Wife, Ernestine. Daughter, Savannah, 34. Traveling salesman. Unhappy marriage.”

He’d learned this information only a few hours earlier, she thought, pressing a hand to her stomach.

“Would you like to go through my wallet, too?”

She jumped when he spoke from the doorway behind him. Whirling on him, she scowled. “Don’t you dare go on the offensive with me! Why are you spying on my friends?”

Leaning against the doorjamb, wearing only a pair of unsnapped jeans, he didn’t change his expression. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

That stoic, inscrutable look on his face only made her madder. “And don’t play word games. It’s obvious what you’re doing. You have everything but their shoe sizes written here.”

He only continued to look at her.

“Mac, I want answers.”

“So do I. But we don’t always get what we want.”

Clenching the back of a chair so tightly her knuckles whitened, she glared at him. “Were the McBrides the reason you came to Honoria?”

He didn’t respond.

“Were they the reason you were so friendly to me? Because of my friendship with them? Were you using me to get to them?”

Mac sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “Sharon, calm down. We need to talk.”

“I’m perfectly calm. And the only words I want to hear from you are an explanation of what these pages mean.”

“Can’t you just believe me when I tell you I don’t mean the McBrides any harm?”

“You’re asking me to trust you?”

“Yes.” His eyes bored into hers. “That’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.”