Yesterday's Scandal

by Gina Wilkins

  His only reaction was a brisk nod—as if there had been no real doubt that she would accept, she couldn’t help thinking. “Seven? I’ll pick you up.”

  Sharon thought of the inevitable ramifications if she and Mac were seen sharing a cozy dinner-for-two in town. There would certainly be talk. Speculation. Questions. She wasn’t accustomed to being the center of gossip. She’d always been the quiet and responsible type. Everyone knew her mother was a lovable flake, that her father had died of a heart attack thirteen years ago, and that her little brother tended to hang with the wrong crowd, but they had never attracted the sort of interest that the McBrides or some of the other longtime Honoria residents garnered.

  “I could cook,” she suggested, wondering whether her alternative was actually more or less reckless than dining in public. “You’re probably tired of restaurant food by now,” she added quickly, not wanting him to take it the wrong way. “Maybe you’d enjoy a home-cooked meal?”

  “I would very much enjoy a home-cooked meal. Restaurant food gets a little tiring after a while.” He seemed to take the question at face value. She hoped he wasn’t reading more into the offer than she intended.

  She nodded, hoping she wouldn’t regret the impulsive invitation. She couldn’t quite believe she had invited Mac Cordero into her home.

  One thing she was certain of—this was the only bedroom in which they would be alone together that day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MAC FELT smug as he parked his car in Sharon’s driveway Saturday evening. He would have been satisfied to buy her a meal in a crowded restaurant. Dining in her home, where they could talk privately and without interruption, was even better than he had hoped for.

  He planned to make good use of the evening. He would just have to be careful not to raise her suspicion with the questions he intended to ask.

  He wondered if she was a good cook. It had been months since he’d eaten a meal that hadn’t been prepared in a restaurant kitchen. Although he had to admit the blue plate special at Cora’s Café had been pretty darned close to home cooking—and Wade hadn’t exaggerated the quality of her pies.

  Sharon’s house was a frame-and-brick ranch-style in a middle-class neighborhood. One of the cookie-cutter houses Mac usually disdained, but he assumed it had been chosen more for affordability than taste. Sharon opened the door almost the moment his finger touched the doorbell. Apparently, she had been waiting for him.

  “I wasn’t sure what you’re serving,” he said, holding out a bottle of wine. “I brought white.”

  She took it without meeting his eyes or touching his fingers. “Thank you. This is perfect. We’re having Cornish hen. I hope you’re hungry,” she added brightly as she closed the door behind him. “I’m just putting finishing touches on dinner. It looks like it might rain later this evening, doesn’t it? The weather guy said there’s something like a seventy percent chance. Of course, we need the rain, but I hope it doesn’t ruin my brother’s camp-out with his friends. If you’d like to wash up before dinner, there’s a—”

  “Sharon.” Mac couldn’t help smiling. “Breathe.”

  She went still, then grimaced. “I was babbling, wasn’t I? Sorry.”

  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.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I prepared meat and potatoes tonight, I guess.”

  Swallowing a bite of creamy scalloped potatoes, he murmured, “Oh, yeah.”

  She seemed to relax a little in response to his enjoyment of the meal. “It’s nice to cook for someone who appreciates my efforts. Brad would rather order pizza or pick up burgers than eat home-cooked vegetables.”

  “He’ll get over that.”

  “I hope so. It’s a constant battle to get him to eat well.”

  “Is your mother a good cook?”

  “When she pays attention to what she’s doing, she’s an excellent cook. My mother’s a bit of a daydreamer. An artist. She’s been known to get distracted and put pepper in pudding or sugar on scrambled eggs. She even poured coffee on Brad’s cereal once.”

  “She sounds…interesting.”

  “Brad teases her. He asks her how we’ll be able to tell if she ever gets senile?”

  Mac chuckled and took another bite of fresh asparagus. “You said she’s an artist?”

  “Yes. She teaches art at the junior high school.”

  It seemed like as good an opportunity as any to slip the McBrides into the conversation. “Trent mentioned that both his mother and sister-in-law are teachers. I suppose your mother knows them?”

  “Everyone knows everyone in Honoria. Trent’s mother, Bobbie, has taught at Honoria Elementary for more than thirty years. She seems to have no intention of ever retiring. Trevor’s wife, Jamie, teaches speech and drama at the high school. She graduated from Honoria High, then spent almost ten years acting in New York before coming back to teach.”

  “You never had an urge to teach, yourself?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve always loved decorating. After I finished high school, I took a two-year interior-design course and some business classes at the local college. I worked in a wallpaper store for a couple of years, and when the owner decided to sell, my mother encouraged me to buy it. It was a little scary, making that investment, but Caleb McBride helped me with the paperwork and details, and so far, I’m holding my own.”

  The McBrides again. As interested as he was in Sharon’s own story, Mac knew he should probably start directing the conversation the way he wanted it to go. “Caleb’s the attorney?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

  “Yes. He’s Trent and Trevor’s father. They have a sister, too. Tara lives in Atlanta.”

  “Trent mentioned that his parents are away on vacation.”

  She nodded as she reached for her wineglass. “A cruise. It’s their first vacation in longer than anyone can remember. Caleb’s a dear, but a real workaholic—they practically had to carry him onto that ship. He had a minor heart attack a while back, and his family has been making him take better care of himself since.”

  Mac took a sip of his own wine, then set his glass back on the table, keeping his tone offhand. “I get a little confused about the relationships around here. What exactly is the family connection between the McBrides and the people who built the old house I bought?”

  “Didn’t Trent tell you?”

  “We haven’t talked much about the history of the place, just the plans I have for it.”

  “Well, the Garrett house was built by Trent’s great-great grandfather, I think. His grandmother—Caleb’s mother—was a Garrett and I believe the house was built by her grandfather.”

  “So the McBrides and Garretts are longtime residents of Honoria.”

  “Oh, yes. But there aren’t many Garretts left—a couple of distant cousins in Carrollton. And Caleb’s the only McBride left of his generation, as far as I know.”

  “He was an only son?” Again, it was a question Mac already knew the answer to, but he wanted the conversation to unfold naturally. Casually.

  Sharon seemed comfortable enough with the topic. “No, Caleb had two brothers, Josiah Jr. and Jonah. They’re both dead now.”

  It had infuriated Mac when he’d first arrived in Honoria and learned that two of the older McBride brothers were dead. It had reduced his chances of getting revenge by two-thirds. His original plan had been to make someone suffer the humiliation and disgrace his mother had endured. To make it publicly known that a McBride had fathered and then abandoned a child, leaving a vulnerable woman alone to deal with her shame.

  But it was hard to humiliate a dead man. And unless Caleb McBride was the culprit—which even at this early stage of Mac’s investigation seemed unlikely—it didn’t appear that Mac would find the retribution he’d craved for so long. But at least maybe he could finally find some answers.

  “The McBrides don’t seem to have a particularly long life span.”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know about that. I think Jonah died in an accident when he was only in his early forties, but Josiah Jr., was older. He died of emphysema and lung cancer after years of heavy smoking. Poor Emily had to put her own life on hold for years to take care of him—which wasn’t an easy task. Her father was a…difficult man. I remember being very intimidated by his perpetual scowl back when I was a teenager.”

  Filing that tidbit away, Mac went along with the conversation, looking for other tidbits of information. “Emily is the police chief’s wife?”

  “Yes. Emily Davenport now.”

  “No siblings to help her out with her difficult father?”

  “She has an older half brother, Lucas, but he had a falling-out with his father—and with most of Honoria, for that matter—and he left town after high school. Fifteen years later, he came back to visit his sister. Their father was already dead then.”

  No mention so far of congenital ailments in the McBride family, something Mac needed to know, especially after… “I didn’t realize Mrs. Davenport has an older brother. I don’t think I’ve met him.”

  “No. I’ve only met him a couple of times myself. He’s nine years older than Emily. Lucas and his wife live in California and only come back to visit a couple of times a year. But they’ll be here in August for Trent’s wedding, I’m sure.”

  It was increasingly obvious that she didn’t share her town’s penchant for idle gossip. So far, all Sharon had done was answer his innocuous questions without much embellishment. While Mac admired her discretion, it wasn’t getting him very far. He took a calculated risk with a bolder question. “You weren’t kidding when you said the folks around here like to gossip. Am I mistaken, or do the McBr
ides seem to attract more than their share of talk?”

  Sharon wrinkled her nose. “You aren’t mistaken. It seems as if there’s always one scandal or another involving the McBrides. It’s unfair for the most part, I might add. They’re really a very nice family.”

  “If you say so.”

  That noncommittal comment brought her chin up in defense of her friends. “I do say so. I’ve known them for ages and they’ve all been very nice to me and my family. I certainly hope you aren’t letting a few spiteful locals make you question your decision to hire Trent for your renovation team.”

  “I don’t base my hiring decisions on idle chatter.”

  “Good,” she said with a brisk nod. “Any large family in a small town is going to attract its share of gossip, of course. Every big family has its share of scandals—divorces, unwed pregnancies, that sort of thing—and the McBrides are no different. But most of the accusations leveled at the McBrides have later proven to be completely unfounded. Like when Sam Jennings accused Emily of embezzling from his accounts at the bank—he was just trying to stir things up. Sam’s also the one who led everyone to believe Lucas killed Roger Jennings, when all along it was Sam himself—and Roger wasn’t the first person Sam killed, either.”

  Mac set down his fork. “I don’t think I followed all that.”

  Sharon made a sound of exasperation, and shook her head. “Sorry. It just makes me so mad that people are telling you these stories about the McBrides. They really don’t deserve the treatment they get around here.”

  “No one mentioned anything about murder to me.”

  She pushed a strand of hair out of her face, still looking annoyed. “No, of course not. Everyone knows the truth now. I suppose I should tell you the story so you won’t go away with a misconception about Lucas.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to betray your friends’ trust just to satisfy my curiosity,” Mac murmured, feeling vaguely guilty about the lie.