“Brad?” Mac spoke before the boy closed the door.
“Yeah?”
“This is two strikes against you now. Three strikes and you’re out. Is that clear?”
“There won’t be another one.”
“Make sure of that.”
Showing he wasn’t entirely cowed by the events of the evening, Brad shut the door with somewhat more force than necessary.
Mac backed out of the driveway, then stopped a few yards down the deserted street until he saw Sharon open the front door to her brother. Then he drove off quickly, hoping she hadn’t spotted him. It would be difficult for Brad to explain how he’d ended up riding home in Mac’s truck without telling her exactly where they’d met up.
Maybe he’d done something good tonight, he mused as he headed for his apartment. Maybe he’d put a confused kid on the right path. Or maybe by letting Brad off the hook tonight, he’d only contributed to the development of a juvenile delinquent.
All he knew for certain was that, whatever the results of his actions, he had done it all for Sharon.
He owed her that much, at least.
BY SATURDAY AFTERNOON, Mac had decided to leave town.
Though it wasn’t the way he preferred to do business, he could oversee the renovation project from a distance, leaving a foreman in charge of the day-to-day supervision. Maybe the job wouldn’t be handled with his usual, almost obsessive attention to detail, but it would be adequately completed. He could then put the place up for sale and forget he’d ever started this futile quest.
That would probably be the best move for everyone, he thought with the memory of Sharon’s smile haunting the shadowy back corners of his mind.
He stood in the master bedroom of the Garrett house. The workers had all left for the afternoon and the house was still, th
e silence as heavy as Mac’s mood. Since most of the work to this point had been upstairs and in the kitchen, this room had hardly been touched. It still looked almost exactly the same as it had the first time he’d seen it.
Sharon loved this room. The big fireplace. The high ceiling. The wide, detailed moldings. The wooden floor that would soon gleam with a satiny sheen again. She’d confided to him that she saw this room decorated in lace and antiques. A decorative white-iron bed. Old stained-glass shades on bedside lamps. A thick, handmade rug on the floor.
She wouldn’t actually be choosing the furniture for the house, of course—that would be up to the future owner. But she’d already talked about the wallpaper and lights she would select, as well as the fixtures for the attached bath. She’d made him see it all so clearly.
He could picture it now as he stood there alone in the dust and the shadows. The soft lights. The fire. The big bed, rumpled from lovemaking. The mental image made him yearn for things he couldn’t quite identify—or perhaps he just didn’t have the nerve to try.
A sound from behind him brought him out of his lonely thoughts. Someone was in the house with him. Though he wasn’t expecting anyone in particular, Trent McBride had said he might stop by with a sample cabinet door for his approval.
Yet somehow he knew it wasn’t Trent. He turned very slowly to face the door and wait for her.
Sharon looked a bit uncertain as she stepped into the room, her gaze locking immediately with his. She wore a sleeveless, scoop-neck, pale yellow knit dress. That particular shade of yellow was her favorite color. He knew that small detail about her—along with so many other tidbits he’d filed into his memory. Like the faintly floral scent of her shampoo. The way her pulse fluttered in her throat when he kissed her there. The way her fingers twined in his hair when he made love to her, and twined together in front of her when she was nervous.
They were entwined that way now, her knuckles almost white with the pressure she exerted on them.
“How did you know where to find me?” he asked, realizing she had walked directly to this room.
The question seemed to confuse her a little. “I don’t know.”
It wasn’t important, of course. “Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“What about?”
He watched her take a deep breath, the movement stretching her thin knit dress across the breasts he had kissed until she sighed with pleasure. He raised his gaze from them with an effort.
“Brad told me what you did for him. I don’t quite know how to thank you.”
“Er—what did he tell you?” he asked cautiously, uncertain of what he should say.